Author's Note: Reading the previous installments in this series is necessary.

Sam ran his hands through his hair for what had to be the hundredth time, reaching for his coffee cup only to find it empty. He could have sworn he refilled it not two minutes earlier. Did that mean he had been researching long enough to legitimize a break?

"Garcia?"

Sam looked up to see Spencer answering his phone, his finger halfway down the page he had been reading. If he's taking a break, so am I. So, that answered that question.

"Woah, woah, what? Calm down, calm down. Start from the beginning."

Sam inclined his head toward Spencer, the conversation quickly growing interesting.

"Uh, no, I didn't check it. I've been researching." Spencer looked at the clock. "Wait, now? Right now?" He looked at Sam. "Where is Sioux Falls Regional Airport?"

Sam blinked, caught off-guard, his hand halfway to the fridge. "Uh, I—I don't know, like, an hour away?"

"Crap." Spencer jumped to his feet, rushing for the door. "I'll be there in an hour, just—just hold on, and stop freaking out, and explain from the beginning." He stopped in the doorway, looking at Sam like he wanted to say something, but the federal techie on the other end of the line was still talking. "I—" he pulled the phone away from his mouth, "I'll explain as soon as I can. Emergency."

Just like that, Spencer was gone, and Sam was alone in the kitchen with their research materials. For the barest moment, he considered being frustrated with Spencer for ditching when they had apocalyptically large problems to sort out—problems Spencer was determined could be fixed in a way that let everybody win—but he quickly cast the notion aside.

If Spencer was dropping everything and running, it had to be important. It had to be family, which Sam was pretty sure Garcia was, and it had to be serious. Spencer didn't just bail.

So, Sam heaved a sigh but accepted the situation for what it was, grabbing a beer and sliding back into his chair to continue the arduous task of looking into everything under the sun.

Not three minutes later, Sam's phone was ringing, Castiel's caller ID peeking up at him from the tabletop. Sam answered, holding the phone between his head and shoulder so he could open his drink.

"Hey, Cas. What's up?"

"You would have to be more specific. 'Up' is a relative term, and seeing as I don't know exactly where you are right now, it's hard to say what would—"

Sam took a swig and sighed. "Just tell me why you called, Cas."

"Oh. Yes. Of course." Castiel cleared his throat. "I'm still looking for Gabriel, but I have a feeling he won't be found until he wants to be. I did run into a couple neutral parties and someone interested in helping."

"Really?" Sam actually perked up at that. It had been two weeks since Spencer showed up on their doorstep, and they hadn't made very much progress. "Who is it?"

"His name is Samandriel. We've never fought side by side—he isn't strictly a warrior by trade—but he's competent and trustworthy." Castiel's voice crackled out for a moment. "I asked him to stay in touch, as I don't yet know what it is we'll need from those willing to help us."

Sam let himself breathe a little, a small smile pulling at the corner of his mouth. "Hey, every little bit helps. We're in a better place than we were two weeks ago."

"Agreed," Castiel bit back, and his words held a far greater deal of anger than he typically let on.

Sam pressed his lips together for a moment. "You, uh… you're going to have to talk to Dean about this sometime."

"I will call you if I find anything new."

"Wait!" Sam paused for a second, but when he didn't hear the telltale click of an ended call, he continued. "Spencer just ran out. It's some kind of emergency, and I don't know what yet, but keep your ears on. Okay?"

"I don't make a habit of removing my ears," Castiel retorted dryly.

Sam smiled, bewildered by his own ability to tell the difference between genuine misunderstanding and celestial sass. "Thanks."

Castiel responded by hanging up.

We're just one big happy family. Sam sighed and took another sip of his drink. Just loving each other and never talking about our feelings or communicating in general because that would make it too easy. You know, the usual.

Sam took another drink and then stopped, his face twisting up before he swallowed. "Why did I get a beer? I wanted coffee." He looked at his bottle. "Is this proof of how tired I am? Or is it some sort of Freudian indication of an alcohol problem?"

He contemplated the bottle for a moment and then shrugged and took another sip.

"You make a habit of talkin' to yourself in an empty kitchen, boy?"

"Shut up, Bobby. It's been a rough twenty-six years." Sam took another drink.

Sam looked up when he heard the front door swing open, two distinct voices floating into the library. He only knew one of them, and the one he didn't know was female, so the smart money was on Spencer returning with the mysterious Garcia from Quantico.

"Well, it's about time," Dean muttered, eyes lingering on the open book in his lap despite both Sam and Bobby knowing there was no way he was still reading it.

Spencer entered the library through the hall, looking much like a drowned rat. "Hey. Sorry about the wait. I didn't want to talk and drive in this weather, and when Garcia wasn't filling me in she was sleeping, so..."

Sam opened his mouth to ask about the still-absent woman of the hour, but she beat him to it by shuffling into the room next to Spencer and giving a tentative wave.

"Hi. Penelope Garcia. I—" She stopped, bright purple lips forming an O as she turned to look at Spencer. "You didn't say they were hot."

Sam didn't have anything to say to that, too wrapped up in the hot pink heels, pink and purple dress, and glitter-adorned purse and suitcase. That's a lot of sparkle.

Spencer frowned slightly. "I, uh… I guess it didn't occur to me?"

Dean snapped his book shut. "Dude, you were telling a lady friend about me, and you didn't say I was hot?"

Sam cleared his throat and awkwardly got to his feet, extending a hand toward the vibrantly-dressed young woman. "Uh, Sam Winchester. Dean is the one trying to hit on you, and you already know Bobby."

Garcia waved to Bobby when Sam mentioned him. "Yup. We video chatted a few times when we were chasing leads." She looked back at Sam and smiled, but the brightness in her eyes was dimmed, and given her flamboyant appearance, Sam guessed 'dim' wasn't her style.

"It's nice to meet you," she said softly.

"Mutual." Sam gave a quick smile and a nod.

Spencer got the attention of the room by giving Garcia a gentle nudge toward the hall. "You can use the shower connected to the guest room. We'll be staying in there, okay?"

Garcia pressed her lips together and nodded slightly, giving the room another smile and a wave before pulling her bags toward the staircase.

Spencer watched her leave, a faint smile that didn't quite reach his eyes lingering on his lips.

Sam said nothing, waiting patiently, and Dean surprisingly did the same.

Bobby, of course, was the epitome of patience. Living with three bone-headed hunters and an equally bone-headed, oblivious angel required it. It was practically his superpower.

Spencer waited until the door closed upstairs, and then he turned to face the room with a heavy sigh. "So, that's Garcia. She's a member of my team—my old team. She, uh, apparently sent me an email last night before catching a flight out here. She's pretty sure she caught wind of a supernatural case connected to an old, not-so-supernatural case we closed years ago."

Sam spread his hands slightly. "Okay…?" He shook his head. "How does that warrant a red-eye flight to South Dakota?"

"I think it's personal for her." Spencer seemed to ponder his words even as he said them. "Garcia didn't normally go with us on cases, but we had one involving two sets of teens committing suicide at approximately the same time on two different Friday nights. Because they were teens, we brought Garcia with us to help bridge the gap between us and the internet generation."

Sam blinked, eyes widening slightly. He sometimes forgot that Spencer, while new at hunting supernatural monsters, had been hunting monsters of another variety for over a decade. Sam looked at Spencer, and he saw the book-smart nerd who could shoot his way out of a bad situation if he needed to; he didn't see the seasoned agent accustomed to gruesome crime scenes and twisted motives no sane person could understand.

"I take it there were too many coincidences around these suicides for comfort?" Bobby begged the question from behind his desk, the book he had been studying set aside.

"Exactly." Spencer offered a shrug and a sideways sort of nod. "Not to mention, they were all low-risk victims."

"Low-risk?" Dean echoed.

Sam made his way back to the couch and gestured to the nearby chair, silently welcoming Spencer to take a seat and begin his explanation.

Spencer did exactly that. "We use certain behaviors to determine how likely someone is to be a victim. For example, drug addicts and prostitutes and homeless people are all high-risk, but trust fund kids, model students, and middle class working men and women are all low-risk."

Dean frowned, his expression screwing up as he contemplated what Spencer had said. "Well, what does it matter? It's not like some deserve it more than others."

"Oh, no, no, that's not why we classify it that way." Spencer was quick to wave it off, shaking his head emphatically. "We use it because it tells us more about the killer than the victims, actually. Let's say we have four women, all middle class with no criminal records, as our victims. They are being killed in their homes, and there's no sign of a forced entry, so the unsub has to be talking the women into letting him inside."

Sam watched some of the pieces fall into place, and he started to nod. "Prostitutes would be more likely to let someone into their homes because of the work they do, so he wouldn't have to be that intelligent or charming or attractive to get them to put their guard down."

Spencer gave him a thumbs up. "Exactly. Low-risk victims make the killer work harder. On top of that, high-risk victims generally run in circles of people who aren't comfortable talking to cops, and even if they are, they might not be able to give straight answers without incriminating themselves or the victim."

Dean nodded and waved the conversation along. "Alright, alright, I got it. So, these kids were all low-risk, and they killed themselves around the same time on Friday nights."

"They also used the same method. They were all hanging themselves." Spencer's expression grew slightly thoughtful, his gaze wandering upward as if he were reading the case file somewhere on the ceiling. "With Garcia's help, we got into their computers and found out it was a game. The Choking Game."

Bobby arched a brow, his face twisting up in disgust. "Do I even want to know?"

Sam cleared his throat softly, nodding in Spencer's direction. "It's also called the 'Good Kids' High.' I knew some people who did it back at Stanford." He put a hand to his throat as he spoke. "You choke yourself to get an adrenaline rush and the euphoria that goes with it. There's no drugs involved, and it's not illegal, so if a law student wants to get high without risking any blowback…" Sam trailed off, letting them finish the sentence themselves.

Spencer glanced at Sam and nodded a few times. "That was exactly what these kids were doing. Only they lost control, which always happens with a game like that, and four of them wound up dead instead of high."

Dean let out a low whistle. "Talk about unintended consequences." He shook his head and grabbed his beer from the floor by his foot. "So, what part of that was criminal?"

"Nothing, although it was incredibly stupid." Spencer frowned slightly and shook his head, dismissing the train of thought. "No, what was criminal was an EMT by the name of Wilson Summers orchestrating the games and posing as a high schooler, literally daring kids to use the riskiest methods, all so he could get the rush of saving them. It's called Munchausen by Proxy."

Dean snapped his fingers and pointed at Spencer. "Wait, I think I know that. Isn't that the one where people, like, intentionally poison a friend or family member and then take them to the hospital to look like a hero?"

"More or less," Spencer replied with a shrug. "In this case, Wilson Summers poisoned his wife until it went too far and she actually died. Once she was gone, he moved on to his teenage son, repeatedly choking him to death and resuscitating him; then, when that wasn't enough anymore, he manipulated his son into helping him create and promote the Choking Game website."

Sam pressed his lips together and swallowed, thinking back to their own father. John was no Father of the Year, and it wasn't as if another father's failures made up for his, but John Winchester would have never hurt his boys. Not like that, not ever. The worst Sam ever got was a trip over John's knee that was probably a little longer than it should have been, and Dean's behind had gotten acquainted with a belt twice that Sam knew of. They both got backhanded a few times after puberty hit, never hard enough to leave more than a red mark and risen skin. That was it.

Choking them to death? For some sick pleasure? For kicks and giggles?

Never. Sam still remembered the look on John's face the one time Dean had moved forward just as John was swinging his hand out, resulting in a blow that was more to the nose and cheekbone than the cheek itself.

"Christopher Summers was the boy's name." Spencer pressed his lips together and shook his head. "There have been cattle mutilations, a couple deaths, and seven abductions in Uinta County… so Christopher called Garcia about it. I guess he sounded pretty freaked out, because Garcia thinks he saw something but won't talk about it."

Dean pursed his lips. "If he saw a vampire, that makes sense."

Spencer shrugged his shoulders slightly. "I don't know. I'll be taking a closer look at the reports in the morning. Garcia and Christopher… kind of bonded, I guess. She gave him her business card when we left, and he hung onto it all these years, so…" He shrugged again. "Some cases just… stick with you."

Sam briefly thought of Tobias Hankel; of Spencer having vivid nightmares years after the killer was dead and gone. Sam still didn't know much about what had transpired that night, but he had done a little research on the case, considering how keyed up Spencer had been in recent days. He felt a little guilty about snooping, but Spencer was unwilling to talk, and… honestly, it was just nice to know what the man who wounded Spencer so deeply looked like. He liked having a face to put with the name.

Spencer cleared his throat and rubbed the back of his head. "I, uh, I know we're busy, but it'll take me three days, tops. I'll be quick. I just… need to do this for her." He opened his mouth like he was going to continue, stopped, and then opened his mouth again. "She was close to Morgan, even closer than I was, and if he were still on the team, she would have called him, supernatural elements or not. I think it didn't really hit her until now that… she can't rely on him anymore. Not like she used to."

Sam lowered his gaze to the floor and nodded a few times. He knew quite a bit about not being able to rely on loved ones—knew quite a bit about making loved ones feel like they couldn't rely on him—and it was no picnic.

"Where'd you say it was, again?" Bobby pulled an empty notepad out and grabbed a pen.

"Uinta County, Wyoming." Spencer took a few more seconds to process the question he had just answered, and then he shook his head. "Bobby, you don't—"

"'Course I do." Bobby scrawled down the name Spencer had given him. "Family don't end with blood. I know I've told you that, boy."

Spencer wet his lips and uttered a quiet laugh, something vulnerable and bitter creeping into his voice. "Don't you think you've got bigger problems to worry about?"

Dean looked across the room, lifting a brow. "We're still gonna worry about them. We're just going to worry about them in the background while we help you out with this. You said it'll take, what, three days? With all of us, we can probably cut it down to two. We'll be back to the books in no time." He gave the tome sitting on his lap a weary look. "Right back to the books."

Sam smiled weakly at Dean's despair, but he was quick to put his attention on Spencer. "We can leave first thing in the morning." Then, after a soft smile and a pause. "Let us help, Spencer. We want to."

Spencer looked at him for a moment, and Sam could see a question clearly blazing in his eyes, but it went unasked. Instead, Spencer offered a slight nod and directed his blank stare downward. "Thanks, guys."

"Sure thing." Dean grabbed his beer and turned his attention back to his book.

"You should get some sleep. You look as wore out as your friend." Bobby gestured toward the guest room. "If she's still usin' the shower, you can—"

"I just gotta let her know I'll be in there so she grabs a towel before she comes out." Spencer dragged himself to his feet, shrugging and rubbing the back of his head. "It wouldn't be the first time we had to bunk together."

Dean grinned to himself. "Yeah, get some, pretty boy."

"Don't call me that." Spencer snapped but immediately backtracked, letting out a weary, defeated sigh. "Sorry, Dean, I didn't mean… Morgan used to… it's just been a long day. Um, I… I'll tell Garcia you said that. She'll think it's really funny." He opened his mouth to say something else, but in the end, he just shook his head and started for the stairs. "Goodnight, guys."

"Night."

"Night, Spencer."

"Goodnight."

Sam and Dean exchanged a look, the latter looking equal portions concerned and hurt. Dean already thought Spencer was mad at him for the whole Whore of Babylon incident—and he was probably right—so it didn't take much for Spencer to effectively shut him out.

"He's not okay, Sammy."

"Yeah, I know. Maybe…" Sam inhaled slowly and let it all out in a burst. "I don't know. I'll figure something out. I'll talk to him or… something."

Bobby grunted his agreement but said nothing else, scrawling notes on his tablet.

Sam leaned his head back and stared at the ceiling, wondering if he could find whatever it was Spencer had been reading.

Wouldn't that be nice? All the answers just appearing on a wall or ceiling? Everything Sam needed to know floating down from the heavens in a handy-dandy manual?

But it didn't work that way, so Sam sank into the couch cushions and tried to make himself go get another book to read.

He was asleep in minutes.

"Christopher, look at me."

Sam looked up at the sound of Spencer's voice, a vampire corpse dangling from the fistful of shirtfront he had grabbed. He blew his bangs out of his eyes and saw Spencer slowly stepping toward a young man who looked like he had jumped out of a My Chemical Romance meets Fallout Boy meets Twilight parody.

"Christopher, I need you to listen to me very carefully." Spencer was still holding his machete, but it was angled down and to the side in the most non-threatening—and non-useful—way it could be. "Did you drink any human blood after the vampires fed you their blood?"

Christopher panted, wild-eyed and frantic, hands grappling at the wall behind him. He pressed himself back against the busted plaster, shaking his head. "I don't—don't think so, I can't—I can't remember. Did I—that m-mark on your face, did I do that? Oh my—"

"No, you did not." Spencer said it evenly and without a fraction of a second of hesitation, but Sam had very clearly seen Christopher take a swipe at Spencer's jawline in the scuffle.

"I rem—remember you. You were with—with the black guy and Miss P." Christopher wiped his brow, but the result was blood being smeared across his forehead, and that only frightened him more. "I—what happened?" He looked from his hand to Spencer and then back down again. "What did I do?"

"Christopher." Spencer whistled sharply when it looked like the young man wasn't paying attention. "Christopher, you didn't do anything, but you might. I want to help you, but in order to do that, I need you to let me restrain you so you can come with me. Will you do that?"

Christopher looked at Sam, then over at Dean, both of whom were keeping their distance, and then he looked back at Spencer. He swallowed hard and nodded a few times, sniffing and blinking rapidly, looking down at himself in confusion and fear. "Y-yeah, I can… I can do that."

"Put your hands on your head and face the wall, Christopher. It's gonna be okay." Spencer reached behind himself and grabbed a pair of handcuffs from his belt, slowly approaching. "Everything is going to be fine. This is to keep everybody safe, including you. Okay?"

"Yeah." Christopher nodded rapidly and turned around, hands moving disjointedly as he struggled to maintain control over his limbs. "Yeah." He flexed his hands and then put them to the back of his head. "You won't—you won't kill me, right?"

"Do you plan to kill me, Christopher?" Spencer asked calmly, keeping his machete drawn as he cautiously approached from behind.

Christopher shook his head frantically, hair growing steadily messier as it rubbed against his bloody hands. "No."

"Then I don't plan to kill you. I don't think anybody needs to get killed tonight." Spencer dropped one cuff and held onto the other, and Sam realized he was going to try and restrain Christopher without putting his weapon down.

It was smart, but difficult, so Sam left the body on the floor and slowly made his way toward them. "Hey, Christopher." Sam displayed a kind smile and a wave when Christopher startled and looked at him. "I'm a friend of Spencer and Garcia—uh, Miss P? I'm sorry if we scared you. We were worried you might have been hurt, so… we got pretty intense."

"Y-yeah, no kidding." Christopher looked Sam up and down as if the blood Sam had shed was different than the blood the vampires had been spilling. "Um, you said you're—you're friends with Miss P?"

Sam smiled tightly and nodded, keeping his weapon down and relaxed but close enough that Spencer could lay his aside. "We are. We all sort of work together… not at the FBI. She stays at the FBI, but she helps us with supernatural cases. We're, uh… we're monster hunters."

"I'm not a monster." Christopher spoke so quickly, so frantically, it physically hurt.

"No, no, of course not." Sam held his hand out in a placating gesture just as Spencer sheathed his blade. "But the ones who were hurting you definitely were. They had to be stopped, and you can't arrest a monster."

Spencer carefully brought Christopher's arms down and cuffed them, turning him around and squeezing his shoulder with a smile. "We'll get you fixed up, okay?"

Christopher nodded shakily and wet his lips. "Yeah. Yeah, okay."

"Hey, kid." Dean spoke up from where he still stood over the leader's headless body, gesturing to the corpse with his machete. "Is this the guy that turned you?"

Christopher gave a shaky nod. "Yeah, he—him and his girlfriend. Um…" He looked around the room at the bodies, growing slightly more frantic with every passing second. "I can't—I can't tell. There's too much blood."

"Hey, that's okay." Sam soothed, flashing him an encouraging smile. "Can you tell me what the hair color was?"

"Blonde. Freakishly straight and kinda medium length, like yours." Christopher nodded toward Sam. "Maybe a little longer."

Sam glared across the room at Dean, silently cutting off any potential jibes. "I remember her. Her body is upstairs." Sam started to walk, giving Christopher one last smile in an attempt to ease the panic. "I'll get some of her blood, just in case, and we'll be able to cure you in no time."

Christopher gave another shaky nod, panting softly, trying not to look at the carnage.

"Come on, Christopher." Spencer gently pulled on his arm, leading him to the front door.

Sam let out a sigh and climbed the stairs, going halfway down the hall to where he knew the body in question to be. He crouched down and pulled a syringe from his jacket, sticking a vein and sucking out as much blood as the lack of a heartbeat would allow.

Dean was waiting at the bottom of the stairs when Sam came back down, a somber expression on his face.

"He's good."

Sam nodded faintly, looking down at the blood in his hand. "Yeah. He might not have the hand-to-hand combat skills that we do, but he's not weak… and he's great at sneaking around. Half the vamps he dropped didn't even see him coming."

Dean snorted, and the two of them started walking toward the front door. "Yeah. I guess you don't need to know how to fight when it's a one-hit kill almost every time."

Sam pursed his lips and nodded a few times, but he could already sense where Dean was going to take the conversation next.

"But he isn't always going to be able to sneak up on them, and his combat skills aren't great. I mean, sure, they aren't bad, but… 'not bad' doesn't cut it in this line of work." Dean stepped through the door and waited for Sam to pull it shut behind them. "I was thinking maybe—"

"You should teach him some things? I think that's a great idea." Sam grinned, fully aware Dean had intended to put that responsibility on Sam's shoulders. Sam ignored the flabbergasted expression on Dean's face and kept going. "I think it could help ease some of the tension between you two, and with how he's been talking about Agent Morgan, it sounds like he could use a big brother figure in his life again. What a good idea, Dean."

"Now, wait just a—"

Sam slapped Dean on the shoulder and jogged the rest of the way to the Impala, giving another smile to the shaken young man in the backseat. "Let's get back to the motel. You look like you could use a shower."

"I could use a fifth of vodka," Christpher mumbled.

Dean got in on the driver's side, still grumbling, just as Sam sat shotgun and closed his door.

So could I, kid. So could I.

Sam came to a stop next to Spencer, both of them looking down into the trunk of the Impala. "You need any help out here?"

Spencer shook his head slowly, his vacant stare fixed on a collection of silver knives, his eyes half-lidded and unblinking.

"You sure? 'Cause, you know, we said we were gonna talk, but we never did." Sam looked at Spencer for a moment, pressing his lips together. "You don't seem like you're doing all that well." He put a hand on the popped lid and slowly started to lower it, a silent message for Spencer to stop pretending he needed to get something from the car.

Spencer took the hint and backed away, letting Sam close the trunk. "Yeah, I did say that." He cleared his throat, trying to keep the emotion from his voice. "Didn't I?'

Sam shrugged with a wry smile. "You're the one with the eidetic memory. You tell me."

Spencer crinkled his nose, still staring at the trunk despite its lack of interesting items on display. "Eidetic memory has more to do with visuals than audio." But they both knew Spencer had a fantastic memory regardless. "I… haven't been doing well, you're right. I know I should do something about it, it just… keeps getting pushed aside."

Sam listened intently, keeping his eyes on Spencer and dedicating all his focus.

"I thought I would be over it by now, but…" Spencer shoved his hands into his pockets and shook his head, moisture gathering in the corners of his eyes. "But it just keeps… clawing at me. I get so miserable, and then…" shame darkened his features, "…then the cravings start."

Sam leaned back against the Impala and gestured to the space between them, a silent invitation for Spencer to take the floor.

Spencer sighed and rubbed his face. "I don't want to talk about it. It'll sound stupid if I say it out loud."

Sam shrugged dismissively. "Who cares? Say it anyway."

Spencer looked at Sam for a long moment, hazel eyes swimming with uncertainty and turmoil. Assuming Spencer started dealing with… whatever it was he was dealing with… right before meeting up with Sam at the bar, Spencer had been mulling the problem over for roughly six months. Sam couldn't even begin to imagine how many trails Spencer's fantastic brain had not-so-fantastically dragged him down in that time period.

"I… I know it's stupid, and I know it's childish, but…" Spencer rubbed his face again but let his hand linger, shielding his eyes as he mumbled, "…no one chooses me first."

Sam was slightly confused and surprised by the words, but he didn't let himself react. The last thing he needed was Spencer feeling Sam wasn't willing to hear him out and sympathize.

"I don't… blame anyone, and it's not—everything is how it should be, you know? Hotch chose his family, Morgan chose his family, you and Dean will always choose each other, Bobby and Castiel will always choose you, and that's… that's not bad, that's how it should be, but I…" Spencer rubbed his face a few more times and tilted his head back, looking at the sky with a heavy sigh. "Maybe it's because I didn't have any family, or maybe it's because I was obsessed with the job, but… I always chose my team first, and I guess… I guess I always thought…"

You thought the team meant more to your teammates than it actually did. Sam looked at Spencer with an open, accepting expression, waiting for him to finish the thought.

Spencer shook his head, sniffing quietly as his head tilted back down. "My point is, a lot of people tell me I'm family, but at the end of the day… they all have someone or something they would prioritize over me." He tried to shrug it off, eyes glued to the ground, floppy hair hanging in his face but doing little to hide his tearstained cheeks. "My only real family was—" He stopped, clenching his jaw and sucking a staggering breath between his teeth. "My only real family was my—my mom, and she—she's g—" He screwed his eyes shut and choked back a sob, unable to finish the sentence.

Sam's eyes widened slightly. "Spencer… I had no idea." He briefly considered approaching, but he wasn't sure how Spencer would take it, so he stayed leaning against the Impala. "When?"

"279 days." Spencer shook his head and leaned against the building, running a hand through his hair. "It was always the two of us, from the time I was little, and I thought… I thought for sure that…" He wet his lips and swallowed hard, struggling with his words and lungs. "If anyone would hang onto me as long as I hung onto them, it would be my mom. But she didn't—" gasp, "—she didn't—"

Spencer broke off into another cry and stopped, pressing a fist to his lips and struggling to contain any further sounds of distress.

"Spencer…" Sam kept his voice soft and steady, spreading his arms slightly. "It's just us out here. You don't have to be brave."

Spencer barely got his eyes up, looking at Sam for a split second before contemplating the cement again. He shook his head, the tears fading in an eerily sudden silence that sounded an awful lot like stonewalling.

"Spencer—"

"Did you hear that?"

Sam sighed softly. "Spencer—"

"No, seriously." Spencer pushed off the building and leaned forward slightly, as if he were actually listening for something. "Something like… breaking glass?"

Sam stopped to listen, too, and a few seconds later, he was rewarded by a crash from somewhere nearby. "Crap."

They both took off running, Sam taking the lead and dashing up the stairs to the second-level balcony. He sprinted four doors down and grabbed the handle, giving it a hard twist and letting himself in only to stop three steps into the room.

"Dean!"

It was a mess.

Dean looked up from his spot on the floor, one hand clutching a bloody machete while the other pressed down on his even bloodier neck. Christopher was on the floor nearby, his head a good foot and a half from his body, just as bloody as Dean, a broken lamp scattered around the two of them while the pieces of a broken chair lay a few feet away.

"He must've had blood." Dean panted heavily, still clutching the wound on his neck. "I'm sorry, Spencer." He shook his head again. "I tried to knock him out with the chair, but he got me with the lamp, and then—"

Spencer rushed forward before Dean could finish his sentence, dropping to his knees and pulling Dean's hand away from the wound just long enough to look at it. "I don't think you need to be hospitalized, but we need to stop the bleeding and get it stitched up ASAP." He pressed Dean's hand down again and applied some pressure of his own. "It's fine, Dean. You did what you had to do." But there was a tightness to his voice. "Sam, can you help Dean while I scrub down the motel? I might not be an agent anymore, but I don't want my prints all over a murder scene."

Sam looked at him for a few seconds, and then he nodded dumbly, shutting and locking the door to the room. He quickly moved to close the blinds as well, figuring it was best to take no chances. "Spencer, are you… sure you're okay?"

Spencer looked over his shoulder at Sam, defeated and weary, and he heaved a sigh. "What do you want me to say, Sam? We were too late. Christopher was a vampire. Dean protected himself." He shrugged. "It wasn't like Christopher and I were close."

But you cared, and he's dead, and you feel like you're failing Garcia. Sam only nodded, though, pressing his lips together in a tight line. "Got it. I'll grab the first aid kit."

Well, this just made everything ten times worse.

"She didn't remember me."

Sam glanced in the rearview mirror at Spencer, and then he looked over at at Dean, who gave him a helpless shrug from the passenger seat. Spencer was speaking up after nearly two hours of silence, and even after considering their last conversation, Sam wasn't entirely sure what he was talking about.

His mother, I'm guessing. Sam kept both eyes on the road and both hands on the wheel, trying to figure out how to show Spencer he was listening without breaking whatever fragile spell had fallen over the vehicle and prompted Spencer to talk.

"Your, uh…" Sam cleared his throat. "Your mom?"

Spencer's clothing rustled, and then his voice came again, a little tighter than before. "I was ten when Dad left. He had a cushy office job to get to, and I had a paranoid schizophrenic mother to take care of, so we went our separate ways." He inhaled slowly, shakily. "She would forget me sometimes. There were nights I wouldn't get home until two or three in the morning, but she rarely noticed."

Sam tried to keep his wince inward, but the thought Spencer had put in his head was physically painful. It was too poignant, too familiar.

"But Mom always—she always remembered eventually." Spencer sniffed, his clothing rustled, and something rubbed against the window. "Not this time. It was Alzheimer's. They didn't catch it until she was almost gone because of her preexisting mental conditions, and the last—"

Sam glanced at Dean when Spencer let out a rough sob, the noise raking up his throat in a way that said he was trying as hard as he could not to break down. Dean gave Sam a worried, helpless look in return.

Spencer took a deep breath. "The last thing she said to me was, 'I don't want a strange man in my room when the game is on. Come back later.'"

Sam closed his eyes briefly—it would have been longer, if not for the road—and he didn't bother suppressing the pain in his chest.

Spencer snorted out a defeated laugh. "She wasn't even watching TV. She hated sports."

She was the only person who never abandoned him, who was his family no matter what, and in the end… she didn't even know who he was.

"And I know—I know it's not fair. I know it's stupid and selfish, and I know how the world works, and I know that's just life, but—but the fact is, I… I pour everything I have into the people I care about, and I always wind up… forgotten." He sniffed again, his voice growing more congested as words began to fall faster from his lips. "I'm everyone's family until their real family needs them more, and I… I'm jealous, and I guess… I guess talking to Garcia, knowing she wouldn't have come to me if she had Morgan… just reminded me that… I don't know what to do without them, but they all know exactly what to do without me. They're fine, and I'm not." He sighed heavily and his clothing rustled again. "Everyone leaves in the end, and for a long time, I was okay with it… and then I just… wasn't. And I'm sorry, because I know I've been a jerk, but I—"

"You haven't been a jerk," Dean interjected, shifting slightly in his seat. "If you really think you have, then I need to teach you a thing or two about how to be a jerk, 'cause you suck at it."

Spencer let out an airy chuckle, weak but not entirely mirthless. "I'll consider that a good thing, I think."

Sam glanced in the rearview again, resting one hand on the gearshift. "I should have called you, Spencer. Not just because of the problems we're having. I knew you weren't doing well, and you helped me work through my issues, and… I got that call from Dean, and it was like my brain flipped a switch…" and I chose Dean over you, like you knew I would. You knew I would bail, and you helped me anyway, because that's how much you care. "It doesn't matter. I should have called you, and I'm sorry."

Spencer didn't seem all that perturbed. "I told you. My intention was to get you to focus on your problems." His clothing rustled—Sam realized he was probably shrugging—and his voice was a little quieter when he spoke again. "I was more concerned with getting you stable than talking about my issues."

That's exactly the problem here. That's what's hurting you so badly. "I still could have done more. I could have called, texted, woke you before I left… something." Sam wet his lips, wondering exactly how far from a healthy sense of self Spencer had fallen. "I'm still sorry."

"It really is okay, Sam. But… thank you." Spencer had the faintest of smiles in his voice when he spoke. "If I really needed help, I could have been the one to reach out. I don't blame you or anything. That isn't… that isn't what I meant. It's no one's fault, it just sucks."

"I know." And really, he did, because Spencer was right. Sam hadn't done anything wrong, per se, it had just been a lack of consideration and foresight. "But that's not the point."

Spencer had been feeling forgotten and abandoned by everyone he put his time and energy into, and Sam had added to that feeling. Unknowingly? Yes. Unintentionally? Of course. But it had still happened, and it wasn't about Sam pointing the finger at himself, it was about…

Oh, Dean would never let him live it down.

But it was about acknowledging Spencer's pain. It was about saying, 'That sucks, and I wish I hadn't been one of the people adding to it.'

"I can still apologize for something I did unintentionally. If I didn't, I would be the one acting like a jerk." Sam smiled softly and cast another glance into the rearview mirror. "Unlike Dean, I generally try not to be a jerk when I can help it."

"Screw you, Sam." Dean snorted and turned in his seat to look at Spencer. "Look. Fact is, there's always gonna be crap that needs fixing. If you try and wait until we've got an opening in our schedule, you're never gonna deal with anything, and you're gonna end up… well, like us."

Spencer let out a bitter chuckle, and it sounded like he leaned against the window. "Sounds like a perfect plan to me. I can be a real Winchester then."

Sam offered a weak smile. "You made a deal with a demon and drove all the way to Sioux Falls just to yell at us. I'm pretty sure you're already a Winchester."

"You're at least a Singer," Dean commented, a light smirk curling his lips.

Spencer huffed a quiet laugh. "Good to know I make the cut."

Sam smiled to himself as he drove, but he didn't say anything else, and Spencer and Dean seemed to be out of things to say, as well. Honestly, Sam wasn't sure exactly what to say. It was obvious Spencer still had some things he was dealing with, but he had talked about some of it. It was a start, and maybe that was enough.

"Well," Dean heaved a sigh and leaned his seat back, eyes closing, "informally inducting Spencer as a Singer-Winchester is about as much emotional investment as I can handle for one night. I'm out."

Sam rolled his eyes with a smirk. "Spencer, you should try and get some sleep, too."

Spencer didn't respond verbally, but from the shifting in the backseat, it sounded like he was laying down. He heaved a sigh, shifted some more, and then his voice floated up to the front seat.

"You guys are really lucky to have each other, you know."

Sam's smirk melted into more of a smile. "Yeah, I know."

"I don't think you do." There was no malice or bitterness in Spencer's voice, but there was no uncertainty, either. "Don't ever walk away from each other. No matter how it looks at the time, it won't be worth it in the end."

Sam didn't know what to say to that.

Spencer didn't say anything else.

If Dean was awake, he made no comment.

It was silent.

Sam put the Impala in park and pulled the keys from the ignition, slouching in his seat with a sigh. It was time to deliver the bad news, and Sam had promised himself that if Spencer would allow, Sam would take that task upon himself.

Spencer was asleep in the backseat, so Sam considered all permissions granted.

"You gonna bring him in?" Sam asked, already opening his door.

Dean nodded, rubbing the sleep from his eyes and trying to stretch without moving his neck too much. "Yeah. I plan to do all I can to avoid the waterworks."

Sam pressed his lips together, nodded, and got out of the car. He wasted no time in walking the short distance to the front door and letting himself in, though his voice came out a little more hesitant than he wanted,

"Uh… Garcia?"

Sam walked into the kitchen just as she jumped to her feet, and she stopped as soon as she saw him. Yellow was the color of the day, and Sam couldn't help but wonder if she hadn't done that in part to cheer herself up.

I hope so. She's going to need it.

Garcia covered her mouth and blinked rapidly, glancing to the side. "I know that look," she whispered, her voice cracking.

Sam didn't know what to say to that, so he took a few steps forward and held his arms out. She seemed like the type to hug, and Sam certainly didn't mind, and if it would help…

Garcia hesitated at first, but then she walked up to him and wrapped her arms around his torso, holding on for dear life and sobbing quietly into his chest. "I was—I was afraid he might—" She shook her head. "Is Reid okay?"

"I think he will be." Sam rubbed her back a few times, feeling somewhat awkward but also feeling he was doing an alright job. "He just needs some time."

Garcia looked up at him, lashes clumped together with tears, mascara smudging around her eyes. "He's had a really crappy year and a half, you know?"

Sam pressed his lips together and nodded. "Yeah… I think I'm starting to get that."

Garcia dropped her arms, prompting Sam to do the same, and she pulled a yellow kerchief from her white cardigan. "It's just been one thing after the other." She dabbed at her eyes and shook her head. "First, he fell in love with this geneticist, and she got killed by her stalker right in front of him, and then it was this—this case with a dirty police department, and he got shot in the neck right before one of our teammates left."

Sam blinked. He was shot in the neck? That was a story he had to hear more about, but somehow, he got the idea it wasn't the time to ask.

"Then, like, eight months later, we found out his old mentor was killed, and that—that was a whole thing, because Gideon was, like, Spencer's entire support system, and he just left a note in his cabin and fell off the map, and then, after years of nothing, bam, he's been murdered so gruesomely none of us could even look at him." Garcia was rambling, her breath coming in quick gasps between portions of run-on sentences she didn't appear to have much control over. "And then I had this team of hitmen coming after me, and Reid—ugh, Reid is just an angel, you know? Reid goes toe-to-toe with this Miss .45, super-evil, super-unbeatable hitwoman, and he totally kicked butt and took names, but, like, the stress, and it was all right around the time he found out his mom had Alzheimer's, and then someone connected to the hitmen attacked Derek and his pregnant wife, and that was a huge stressor, and then Morgan left because of it, and then Hotch had to go into witness protection, and we didn't even get to say goodbye, and then Reid's mom got worse, and then she died, and I just—" She ran her hands through her hair and looked out the window, chewing on a yellow lip and blinking yellow-shadowed eyes. "He just can't catch a break, and I don't know how to help him."

Sam didn't even pretend not to be floored by the sudden rush of information—seriously, hitmen—but in the end, he just nodded. He didn't know what to say to make her feel better. He didn't know if there was anything he could say, especially given his relationship with Spencer.

What was he going to say? 'Don't forget the part where he's now trying to stop the Apocalypse. You know, the one I started? Yeah, that one.'

"He's got you," was what came out eventually. "I know it makes him feel a lot better… still being in touch with his team. He misses Morgan and Hotch and… everyone, really, but he can talk to you, and it helps." Sam laughed softly. "Keeping the supernatural secret is… painfully isolating, but you were open and accepting… and you don't know how important that is. Someone he can be honest with who isn't a practical stranger he's known less than a year."

Garcia bit her lip again and smiled weakly at him. "Thank you." She dabbed her eyes again, thought for a moment, and sniffed. "Um, did… did Christopher… I mean, did the monsters kill him or… did you have to?"

Sam looked down at his boots. "Uh, it was—it was Dean." He cleared his throat. "We thought we got there in time, but… Christopher turned on Dean, tore his neck up pretty bad… we're s—"

"Oh my gosh, is Dean okay? He's not—I mean, it's only if you drink the vampire blood, right?" Garcia seemed genuinely concerned, and Sam was both touched and confused. "I mean, he's not gonna turn, right? Nobody else is turning or dying or… anything?"

Sam smiled softly and shook his head. "He just needs some rest. Me, Dean, and Spencer are all fine. No turning, no dying, no anything else."

Garcia sagged with relief. "Oh, good." She looked out the window another moment or two, and then she looked at Sam again. "So, um, I was working obsessively while you were gone because it's one of my coping mechanisms, and I found something that might be a thing."

Sam thought about resisting the change in topic, but Garcia seemed to be the most emotionally open of the group. If she needed to talk some more, Sam was pretty sure she would go to someone about it instead of getting broody and making faces.

"Yeah, sure. Show me what you got."

Garcia walked back to the kitchen table and sat down behind her laptop—significantly more bedazzled than Sam's—hot pink nails flying from key to key. "Okay, so, Spencer and I were working together and located the guy Lucifer is possessing. I've been running a program in the background to notify me every time he's picked up on camera. If he's in the background of someone's snapchat, if he goes into a store and his face is on camera, if he updates his satanic MySpace page, I know all about it, okay? So, our friend, the Devil, has been very busy. But there are a few places across the States he seems to be actively avoiding."

Sam blinked, watching the various windows opening on the screen, recognizing Lucifer on a few, fuzzy surveillance shots. "Wow. That's… impressive."

"Oh, honey." Garcia gave the screen a sultry smirk, still typing. "If you think this is impressive, you should get me in bed sometime."

Sam blinked again, stammering for a moment, briefly overwhelmed with vivid flashbacks of Becky. "I, uh—"

"Oh, geeze, I'm sorry!" Garcia laughed, pulling up a new window with a map of the United States. "I talk like that with everyone all the time. I, um… I actually once answered the phone, thinking Derek would be on the other end, but it was actually our Section Chief, and…"

Sam raised his eyebrows, silently encouraging her to continue. She couldn't leave him hanging after a build-up like that.

Garcia barely managed not to laugh through the words, but she looked at Sam and slowly arched a brow. "I said, 'talk dirty to me.'"

"You didn't." Sam laughed—and wow, he couldn't remember the last time he had done that; wasn't that depressing?—and shook his head. "That's awesome."

"It wasn't at the time. I was mortified!" Garcia shook her head, but there was a smile lingering on her lips, and her tears had all but dried. "Okay, so, here is the map of places Lucifer has been seen over the past six months. Understandably, he doesn't hit up a lot of convenience stores—probably because he has no bodily functions, thus, no need for pit stops—but just walking through New York City, your picture can be taken up to a million times in one day. Invasion of privacy? I think so. Incredibly useful? Heck to the yeah. This is the map we've got."

Sam leaned over her shoulder, looking at the screen, and he was surprised by how many red dots were scattered across the U.S. "Wow. He's been… busier than I thought."

Garcia nodded a few times. "This is just the United States, too. I don't have access to international surveillance, but the social media I do have access to shows him popping over to Israel at least twice since the incident with the Colt and resurrecting Death and all that." She stopped and looked up at him, a crease in her brow. "Do you ever feel completely insane talking about this stuff?"

"It fades with time, I promise." Sam smiled lightly and leaned down a little closer, squinting at the screen. "Is it just me, or is he avoiding Detroit?"

"Yeah, that's one of the locations he dodges. You can't tell from this map, but I have access to all the timestamps, and when I make them show up in the order they were created, there are two specific times when he's moving in a straight line from point A to point B and then he takes a curve to avoid Detroit." Garcia's fingers never stopped moving, and by the time she was done speaking, the red dots were almost gone, steadily appearing one at a time across the map. "I've been working on it for at least a week, but I still haven't completely pinned down his movements. There are weeks where he just drops off the map, and I will not rest until I know where he spends those weeks, but as of right now…" She heaved a sigh and shrugged her shoulders. "I got nothing."

"I'll try and find some more information on the seals. I don't know why Satan would be traveling in a straight line. I mean, I'm pretty sure he can fly anywhere in the world at will, just like angels, but I definitely see patterns in the way he's moving." Sam sighed and moved toward the fridge, considering a beer before thinking better of it and going for the coffee. "I can start doing some research on Detroit. We've been told it's pretty significant." Sam briefly thought back to Spencer's lecture about believing everything they heard. "People keep saying it's where I'll…" he suddenly realized he didn't know if Spencer had told Garcia about Sam and Dean's specific roles in the Apocalypse. "Uh…"

"It's where you'll say yes?" Garcia provided gently, looking up from the computer with nothing but sympathy in her eyes.

Sam nodded slightly. "Uh, yeah. Dean even, um, even went to a future where everything that went wrong, went wrong in Detroit. But if Lucifer is specifically avoiding it, maybe it's another one of those timeline things, you know? He doesn't want to risk being in Detroit at the wrong time because something can go wrong if it's not on his terms. Maybe?" Of course, it was also possible Lucifer wanted them to think exactly that so they would go to Detroit as soon as possible.

"I have no idea, because this is not my forte, but I can totally dig into everything Detroit. You give me names and faces of demon or angel vessels that you know of, and I can start running scans for all of them. I won't be able to scan the whole country for them all at once—there is no way I have the bandwidth for that—but give me a localized area like Detroit, and I will find all the creepy crawlies, figure out who they're talking to, who they're manipulating—everything." Garcia grabbed a fuzzy, pink, flamingo pen and prepared to write on the purple tablet she had next to her. "Give me the deets, Sam."

Sam couldn't help but smile, and he briefly wondered if Garcia's cheerful disposition was as helpful on psychotic, serial killer cases as it was on apocalyptic cases. "I, uh, sure. I can give you all the… deets."

"Most awesome."

Maybe Sam should have taken better care of himself. Maybe he should have gone to bed after driving for fourteen hours and researching for five. But he was running on coffee, Excedrin, and an intense desire not to risk the nightmares that came with sleep, so he was still in the kitchen when the sun was beginning to creep up on the horizon.

"Wow. He wasn't kidding."

Sam jumped half a foot in the air and whirled on the spot, gripping a beer in one hand and the fridge door in the other. "What the—?" He blinked a few times, struggling to make out the owner of the somewhat familiar voice in the dim light of early dawn. "Wait." He squinted at the man leaning against the wall. "Gabriel?"

Gabriel pulled a sucker from his mouth with an exaggerated 'pop!' and smirked. "Speak of the Devil and he shall appear. Nag his brother, and the same thing will probably happen." He shrugged his shoulders and pushed off the wall, looking down at Sam's collection of books. "I ignored Cassie's attempts to contact me, and I stopped screwing around with people so you wouldn't have a trail to follow, but when you sent a demon after me…" He heaved a sigh and clicked his tongue. "I figured you must be all kinds of desperate."

Sam let the refrigerator door swing shut, eyes slowly scanning the archangel in front of him. "Demon?"

"Yuh-huh. Snarky little punk, purple tats, way too short to be on Team Winchester; any of this a-ringing a bell?" Gabriel put his lollipop in his mouth again and gave a half-goofy, half-mocking smile.

"Oh, uh, Xal. He's Spencer's. They made some kinda deal, but I didn't know what he was up to." Sam twisted the lid off his beer and leaned on the counter, taking a drink and trying to appear nonchalant. "How did he find you?"

Gabriel was quiet for a moment, his expression turning almost pouty. "Well, apparently, the kid can bake. He made an entire bakery full of sweets and got word out that it was for Loki only. I, having no idea he was working for you, showed up to claim the food—which I did, and every last bite was, ironically enough, heavenly—and that was when he told me all about you and your renewed attempt to fight fate."

Sam wet his lips and took another drink, trying to think of how best to approach the situation. Something he could do that didn't get him thrown into another nightmarish timeloop. "So, after hearing that, you came here?"

Gabriel shrugged again, picking up one of Sam's books and idly leafing through the pages. "It looked and sounded like you were up to some new stuff. If nothing else, I'm here to sate my curiosity."

Sam worried his lip and nodded. "Right." He took another drink and gestured to the table. "We're still researching right now." He cleared his throat. "Uh, you might not be happy to hear this, but… Dean was ready to say yes. It was close."

Gabriel looked up from the book, brow arched. "Really?" He crunched what was left of his lollipop and the stick dissipated into mist. "What changed his mind?"

"We were intercepted by… an old friend, I guess. Not that old, but…" Sam sighed and rubbed the back of his neck. "He had some ideas, and I was grasping at straws for a reason to talk Dean down off the ledge, so… between our friend, me, Bobby, and Castiel all yelling at him… he's back on Team Free Will for the time being."

Gabriel snorted. "Team Free Will." He said it like it was a joke, and given what Sam knew about the so-called trickster, he probably thought it was. "So, if I smite Mystery Friend, do you stop dragging this out?"

Sam's eyes narrowed. "We would refuse to cooperate on principal if you hurt Spencer. Or anyone, for that matter." He set his beer aside, drawing himself up to his full height and taking a few steps toward Gabriel. "We are sick and tired—I am sick and tired—of angels and demons and everything in between forcing us into either-or situations."

Gabriel drew himself up to his full height, and while it wasn't as much as Sam had, his presence was far more intimidating. Possibly because of the whole archangel thing, but that was just a guess.

"You mean like you're forcing your brother?"

Sam glared, refusing to acknowledge the chill that ran down his spine. "That's different. Dean wouldn't even consider saying 'yes' to Michael unless someone made him believe he had no choice."

"You can't make anyone believe anything. People live in denial all the time—you happen to be one of those people—and people choose to believe things they can't see." Gabriel took a step forward, and it took everything Sam had in him not to back away. "Your brother decided to say 'yes,' to Michael, and you—"

"If Dean were wasted and decided it was a good idea to jump off a bridge, I wouldn't let him do it, because I knew sober Dean wouldn't dream of it. Don't presume to know my brother—"

"Don't presume to know mine." Gabriel hissed the words, and when he moved into Sam's space, Sam faltered and moved back. "You can't do this, Sam."

"According to your own words, you can't make me believe that." Sam wet his lips and swallowed hard, resisting the urge to take another step back.

Gabriel just radiated power. He didn't hold back now that they knew he was an archangel, didn't suppress his power under the Trickster guise. He let his strength broadcast, and he was terrifying.

"Sam, you—" Gabriel stopped, working his jaw in silent words before clenching it shut. He pressed his lips together and shook his head, disapproval swimming in the whiskey hues of his eyes. "You are going to make everything so much worse."

"How do you know?" Sam wet his lips again, thinking of the way Spencer had confronted them and applying the simple yet powerful questions to the conversation at hand.

Gabriel stared back, eyes blazing. "Because that's what always happens. Lucifer and Michael always get what they want, and fighting them makes everyone else suffer."

Sam lowered his voice slightly and met Gabriel's eyes, taking the accusatory edge out of his tone. "What if you're wrong?"

"I'm not."

"But what if you are?" Sam shook his head. "Is that something you're okay with? Letting Lucifer and Michael turn this whole planet into an ashtray, knowing you didn't do everything you could to try and stop it?"

Gabriel looked away for a fraction of a second, setting his jaw.

"Can you live with not knowing what would have happened if you had held out just a little longer?" Sam spread his arms slightly, gesturing to the space around them. "You've spent more time here than any of the angels. You aren't just hiding, Gabriel, you love something about this planet."

Gabriel broke eye contact again, but it was brief, and there was a renewed fire in his eyes when he looked back.

"You have a skewed sense of justice, but that justice still comes from a moral compass. You play deadly tricks on perverts and wifebeaters and animal abusers, not whoever stumbles into your path." Sam was surprised to find an almost pleading tone slipping into his voice, hazel searching hazel for any sign that he was getting through. "Gabriel, please. Help us. Just for a little, set—set a deadline, if you want. If we don't get the job done in a month, then you're gonna unleash your, I don't know, heavenly wrath on us until we do what you want. But give us a chance. Give us a chance and help us." He searched Gabriel's eyes again, shaking his head slightly in a show of helplessness. "Please."

Gabriel looked caught somewhere between dead and cold, his lips moving against each other for a moment as he started to form the first word of his reply.

"Don't. Don't make that face." Sam shook his head. "I know that face. I wore that face when I tuned my dad out because I didn't want to hear what he had to say." More accurately, he used that face when he was hurt and didn't want his father to know how much the words were affecting him.

Gabriel stood toe-to-toe with Sam, unperturbed by the height difference, and there was something burning in his eyes, though Sam couldn't quite identify it. Anger? Passion? Jealousy?

"Gabriel—"

"Go to sleep, Sam."

Sam barely had time to open his mouth before he found himself lying on the couch, draped in a blanket with the late afternoon sun shining through the window. Crap.

"Well, it's about time, Sleeping Beauty." Dean looked up from the chair where he sat eating a sub, his neck wrapped in fresh gauze. "Get your full nine hours?"

Sam slowly sat up, rubbing his face and heaving a sigh. "We better get everyone together…"

Dean gave him a questioning look, slowly arching a brow.

Sam only sighed again. "We gotta talk."

"Play, play the game tonight.
Can you tell me if it's wrong or right?
Is it worth the time, is it worth the price?
Do you see yourself in the white spotlight?
Then play the game tonight."
- Play The Game Tonight, Kansas