A/N: Wow...so this got a little out of hand. There's a lot of history/headcannon kind of in the middle, just so you know, and some of it's AUish. Just a few reference notes:

- Set at the end of Season 7. If you know how S7 ends, even if you haven't seen it, then there's no spoilers to warn about.

- There is a major character death right away. The character is already dead, but it's recent, so I feel I should warn people.

- I kind of see this as a middle part to a bigger story that I'm working on, but I'm not sure where it will fit yet.

- TRIGGER WARNING: There are mentions/contemplations of suicide within this piece. They are not incredibly detailed, but they do play a role. Alcoholism and depression are also mentioned. Please be aware of this before reading.

Sam wondered if he should say something. His brother's limp, unconscious body was draped over his shoulders, there was a burning knife wound in his gut that needed to be stitched up as soon as possible, and he knew there were more animals on their way.

He shifted Dean's body a little bit and hunched over even more to both relieve the pain in his shoulders and back and hopefully close the wound in his belly a little bit. Warm blood continued to seep into his shirt and jeans, soaking clear down into his boxers. It wasn't until he felt a couple drops start to run down his leg that Sam spoke up.

"Gabri – Gabe…" Sam's voice was thick, a river of cold molasses working its way around a glacier in his throat. "We've got to go."

Gabriel didn't even look up from where he was kneeling next to his brother's dead body. The archangel waved a hand behind him distractedly and the hairs on the back of Sam's neck stood up. The hair on his arms and legs followed suit, responding immediately to the change in atmosphere – the almost tangible electricity that filled the mostly empty warehouse. With a start, Sam noticed the blood trailing its way down his leg had stopped its downward motion. He could feel the drops and knew that logically, gravity should have continued to make them move south. But they didn't.

The previous ticking of the clock on the wall behind him had disappeared. The faint sounds of nighttime traffic were silent. Not even a cricket broke the oppressive force he felt smothered under. As he tried to count the seconds, Sam realized he couldn't. He just – he couldn't. Because they didn't exist.

Goose bumps erupted up and down his arms as a shiver raced through his spine. Sam had known that archangel wielded enormous amounts of power. He had read stories, hundreds upon thousands of pieces of lore, that depicted the sheer vastness that was the influence of the archangels of heaven, but none of them could have prepared him for the intense feeling of insignificance within the frozen dimension of time.

Gabriel had stopped time. And it wasn't the frozen people and watches that movies showed. Something in Sam's being told him that it was so much more than that. The angel had stopped the motion of the earth, of the moon, of the sun, of the galaxy, and universe with one single flip of his hand. Sam had no words. He had no thoughts. He was at a loss for comprehension. So he watched.

Saw watched as Gabriel dropped his palms to his brother's chest, pressing tightly, his fingers clutched in the thin, white fabric of the dress shirt his vessel wore. Sam saw the shake of Gabriel's shoulders, heard the broken sob that escaped his throat, and watched dark spots litter the ground between Gabe's knees and the other angel's chest. It broke his heart; it sent a viciously sharp hook spiraling down into Sam's gut, where it hooked painfully and twisted tight before being yanked firmly upward.

Sam knew the pain. He knew what it was like to hold a brother's cold body against his own and feel like everything inside of him was on fire. He had felt the ache of hollowness in the pit of his stomach swell with every breath. He knew. Goddamn it, did he know.

What Sam didn't know was how much time passed between Gabriel's breakdown and his sudden rebuilding. He just watched as the archangel pushed himself upward and swiftly removed the blade still jammed into the angel's heart. Gabriel drifted a hand over the area of his brother's body and Sam watched as the vessel, Jimmy's body once-upon-a-time, disintegrated before his eyes. It turned to soot, to ash, which Gabe swept easily into a vial, stuffed with a cork, and then wrapped the ribbon attached around his neck and tucked the glass into his shirt.

He turned to face Sam again with his face composed except for the drying tear tracks down his cheeks, waved his hand once more, and darkness swept over him.

Sam would never admit it out loud, but being transported by an angel probably very much felt like Apparating in the Harry Potter books. His lungs collapsed inward while he simultaneously felt pulled molecule from molecule, and less than a blink later, he was somewhere else, feeling just a mild bit queasy. Although, it was possible the nausea came from the blood loss and not the travel method.

Gabriel moved for Sam before he could think, taking Dean from Sam's shoulders and laying him gently onto the bedspread of their motel room. Sam saw both of their faces swirl in his vision before he collapsed.

"Easy tiger," Gabriel murmured.

Sam stopped struggling against the hand on his chest and relaxed, blinking his eyes open. He felt like he'd been steamrollered and then bitch-slapped by Father Time. Thinking about it a little more, he realized maybe he had.

"How're you feeling?"

Sam groaned. His belly was still on fire, but he noticed that Gabriel had stitched it together with dental floss and there was a half-full bottle of vodka on the nightstand. That probably explained the searing in his abdomen. He turned his head to look at Dean who was lying next to him. Dean was still unconscious.

"Is he – " Sam coughed in the middle of the question, sending knives of pain through his body. " – okay?"

Gabriel nodded slowly. "I think so, kiddo. It might be a little while before he wakes up though, and when he does, there will definitely be some things I'll need to cover with him."

Sam frowned in confusion. What was he talking about?

Gabriel's expression mirrored Sam's. "Do you remember what happened?"

The hunter struggled to get his elbows under himself and sit up. Gabriel slid a hand between his shoulder blades and lift the man easily, adding a few extra pillows to prop him upright somewhat. Sam contemplated the question, running through his memory bank.

"What's the last thing you remember?"

Sam's answer was slow in coming, but truthful. "Being here. You brought us here. After – " His stomach lurched.

"Yeah," Gabriel sighed, sinking to the carpet between the hotel beds. He seemed relived that he wouldn't have to deliver the news of Cas' death. "But do you remember what Ca – my bro – uh, he did? Right before he, um…"

Sam never thought he'd see the day that the honey-tongued Gabriel was left stuttering like a twelve-year-old kid asking a girl to a dance. But there he was, speech broken, thoughts scrambled, and as completely exposed as Sam had ever seen him.

The hunter nodded, watching the angel.

There had been a mad scramble, lots of fighting and blood, and too much confusion. So much confusion. Four against thirteen hadn't been good odds – hell, they hadn't even been BAD odds. They were downright atrocious. But that hadn't stopped them from pushing forward with the half-cocked plan; their stupid, idiotic, doomed-to-fail, Hail Mary of a plan. And now Cas was dead. Oh God – Cas was –

Sam leaned over the edge of the bed and vomited. He wasn't sure how the trashcan had made it under his face before he puked all over the carpet, but there it was. The only sounds in the room were the wet, undignified retching sounds that came from his throat and the resounding sloshes as the acidic mess of his stomach contents hit the bottom of the pail. Sam breathed heavily for a moment, allowing his vision to clear, and his head to stop spinning, before attempting to wrap it around the notion that the angel that had fallen from heaven to save their asses had just been wiped from the face of the planet he loved more than his natural home. Sam heaved again before feeling remotely stable.

Gabriel handed Sam a glass of water and a warm washcloth as he returned from disposing of the mess in the can. Sam accepted the water, downed half the glass, and then draped the cloth over his eyes as leaned back into the pillows.

The archangel in the room remained silent as Sam tried to will the throbbing in his skull away. Gabriel didn't try to speak, didn't shift or fidget, and didn't even bother to breathe as he sat waiting. Sam knew, somehow, just like he always did with Gabe, that the angel would wait. He wasn't in any hurry – though when one can stop time, should he ever really be? – and he would take all the time Sam needed before continuing. Gabriel was just that type of…guy? Angel? Trickster? He didn't know anymore. He didn't think even Gabriel knew anymore.

The archangel had spent the past several years avoiding detection, living away from human and supernatural interaction altogether; spending his summers on the rocky, nearly airless crags of Mount Everest; his winters wandering the most arid and uninhabitable parts of the Sahara; his nights sprawled in a crater on the dark side of the moon; his mornings on the edges of active volcanoes composing the Ring of Fire; and all the fluid time in between those points exploring the vastness of both earth and sky. Maybe he'd been on his own subconscious mission to find God. Maybe he'd just wandered. Regardless, after his showdown with Lucifer, Gabriel should have been dead.

But he wasn't.

The Trickster had pulled one last trick, effectively stealing the title of master from his teacher, but being unable to flaunt it. He'd faked his own death in such a downright believable manner that he'd been almost unable to undo it. Gabriel had allowed himself to be killed, but he'd willing gone into the blade, spilling his own grace across the universe in such a way that each piece knew where every other piece was. And if each piece could find the others, eventually, slowly, and possibly painfully, but eventually, Gabriel's grace would reassemble itself and he would reappear within the heavenly realm. It was a risky and completely insane idea, but Gabriel hadn't been Heaven's risk-taker for nothing.

Surprisingly, the process had taken the better part of six-months, and when Gabriel had reappeared, he damn near scared an old lady walking her Cocker Spaniel in Central Park. Gabriel wasn't sure whether it was fate or a fortuitous coincidence that he hadn't been spotted at his moment of full reassembly; either way, he didn't care. He had hightailed it away from society as quickly as possible and there he had stayed, unsure of his next move, if he even had a next move, or whether he even cared enough to decide upon answers for the previous two questions. Until Sam had called his name.

Sam, the single-mindedly, reckless bastard that he was, spent the first eight months following Dean and Cas' disappearance into the Great Beyond doggedly pursuing nothing but research in his fervor to get his brother home. He had read the Christian bible, in the original Greek and Hebrew, three times, scoured the Koran in its original Arabic, and even resorted to some lesser known and completely archaic religious texts to track down anything that could be of use.

Sam had read every book in Bobby's library, Samuel's library, and the libraries of three other hunters, including everything Rufus owned and anything he could track down of Ellen's. By the time he'd finished researching what he could get his hands on, Sam was fluent in English, Latin, Hebrew, Arabic, and Greek, with conversational Spanish, French, and German up his sleeve, and mostly intelligible Japanese and mildly passable Chinese, both Mandarin and Cantonese. He was able to read Korean and with the help of an ancient, hair-thin scroll, Sam could even dissect a bit of cuneiform.

By the end of the first year, Sam was on a first-name basis with some of the most renowned historical, religious, philosophical, and sociological professors around the globe. He'd traveled to thirteen different countries, although only eight were recorded legally on his passport, and he'd been privy to some of the most closely guarded and wildly controversial pieces of paper to ever touch the planet. He'd never been so grateful for his disgustingly large brain and his dangerous tunnel vision.

Month fifteen brought Sam to the edge of his sanity. He'd tracked demons, angels, witches, wendigos, skinwalkers, werewolves, vampires, and even reports of aliens in hopes of catching a trickster, with nothing to show for it. His mind was consumed with thoughts of his brother, his guilt and loneliness pushed him further and further into a depression, and without Bobby, without his brother, or his father, or Ellen, or Jo, or even Ash, or Rufus to turn to, Sam was desperate.

His searching had slowed, hindered both by his attempt to accept that he might never be able to rescue Dean and Cas, and his growing alcoholism. Eighteen months after his brother and Cas had disappeared without a trace, Sam found himself drunk, embarrassingly smashed, at the edge of a bridge, gazing down into the rushing water below. Rain had pounded the city – wherever he was – for three days straight, leaving flooded streets and yards, swollen and roaring rivers, and a general anxiety about the end of days. Sam would have laughed at the last one had he been sober enough to appreciate the irony.

As it stood, he had been contemplating his own death, his impending fall into the churning and frothing water below, cursing everything in existence when he'd come to Gabriel. Sam had just finished screaming into the darkness about Chuck and his goddamned gospels, and was getting ready to call for God's utter damnation when something on the sidewalk winked in the light from the streetlamp. A wrapper. A candy wrapper.

Sam had swayed dangerously close to the edge, prompting a concerned citizen to step forward and reach for him, but Sam had ineffectually swatted him away, the man's retreat more a response to the furious emotional waves radiating off Sam's massive body than the hunter's attempt to hit him. Blue and red flashed in the edges of his vision, but Sam's eyes were glued to the wrapper on the ground in front of him. As the edges of shiny, black cop shoes entered his line of sight, a breeze swept by, lifting Sam's shaggy, unkempt hair from his neck and coaxing the wrapper almost over the edge of the bridge. Sam damn near went over trying to get it. A cop's firm hand on his arm stopped him.

"Lemme go," Sam had slurred, tugging away. "I jus' wanna, I jus' –"

The wind changed direction, the piece of plastic whipped around, and caught against his jeans. Sam's fingers had felt larger and clumsier than normal as he struggled to pick the bit of trash up. He'd studied it close, but his intoxicated vision and alcohol soaked brain couldn't make out what it said.

"Read it," he demanded of the officer holding his arm, suddenly a bit more enunciated than before.

"Come on, sir. We're going to – "

"For fuck's sake! Read the goddamn wrapper!"

Maybe it was the sudden swell in emotion coupled with Sam's overgrown body and his exceedingly inebriated state that prompted the officer to comply for fear of violence, or maybe he just figured Sam would go quieter if agreed. Regardless, the officer squinted at the piece of wrapper in Sam's fingers.

"Kit-Kat," he read. "It's a Kit-Kat wrapper."

Gabriel hated Kit-Kats. Sam knew that. He knew that the obnoxious jingle made Gabriel unreasonably angry and that he found the chocolate to be subpar. And suddenly, with that frighteningly sober realization amongst a haze of half-completed thoughts, Sam wretched away from the officer holding him, stumbled down the bridge a couple steps, and then looked upward at where no stars were visible because the clouds from the rain were still lingering just out of sight. Sam sounded frighteningly angry and incredibly broken as he screamed Gabriel's name at the heavens. Looking back, Sam still wasn't sure what he was expecting, but it certainly wasn't the scruffy-faced, blond angel appearing in front of him, grabbing the front of his shirt, and whisking them both away to a hotel the next town over.

It had taken two days and an unhealthy amount of aspirin for Sam to finally sober up completely. It took another two before he was eating solid foods again and not losing the contents of his stomach fifteen minutes later. And finally, three days later, Gabriel spoke for the first time, apologizing first and berating Sam for his stupidity second. Sam didn't respond to either, just accepted both with a bowed head and soft air, understanding that he deserved whatever Gabriel felt fit to deliver.

By the end of the next week, the two had formed an odd, unspoken agreement. Sam wouldn't ask about Gabriel's time away and Gabriel wouldn't ask Sam about his time without his brother. As time passed, and sometimes with nothing to do for a couple days, small talk would slip into something deeper. Sam found himself confessing his failures to Gabriel, spilling his fears and regrets, and choking over his worry about Dean, while the archangel sat across from him at the wobbly table and listened, his body still except for the blink of his eyes and the expansion and contraction of his chest as he breathed. Gabriel wouldn't provide comfort or advice, only answer with confessions of his own, of prayers he ignored, or people he'd hurt, of the fear that gripped him so tight occasionally that he felt like he might never survive. And so it went.

Neither one believed himself to be in any position to offer advice, and both understood that that wasn't what was needed. Sam and Gabriel had been alone in the world for extended periods of time, with nobody to confide in, nobody to listen, nobody to simply sit with, and so that's what they did. It created an awkward, but incredibly solid bond between the two, which gave them both a brief feeling that maybe everything wasn't headed to hell in a hand basket.

In the meantime, they began to work together, towards finding a way to retrieve Dean and Cas. Gabriel had contacts through channels that involved beings more powerful than himself and with every bit of information that Gabriel brought back, Sam began to get his rusty mind back into shape.

It was a puzzle and Sam thrived on puzzles. That's why he had loved law so much back in the day, and that was why he continued to willingly take on the lion's share of the research with his brother during their previous hunting trips and why he worked so diligently on his brother's and Gabriel's brother's rescue. It had taken another three months, but eventually they had done it.

Sam and Gabriel stood silently staring at the ingredients on the table and the spell scribbled on the back of hotel stationary from their stay in Baltimore three weeks prior for several minutes. Finally, Gabriel took a step back and sat heavily on the edge of the hotel bed.

"Get some sleep, Sam. Tomorrow's going to be a long day."

Indeed it was. The next day, through a series of intricately performed spells, the advice of a guru from the deserts of Pakistan, and the last vestiges of hope both men possessed, they succeeded in rescuing their siblings from the simultaneously murky and iridescent depths of Purgatory.

Now, barely six weeks from their implausible rescue, and the group had already lost one. If this was destined to be their lives… Sam groaned. He couldn't let his thoughts stray that way. He had to think about something else.

"Tell me," he rasped finally, the bitter taste of his own bile still stuck to his tongue. "Whatever you were going to explain, tell me. I'm listening now."

Gabriel spoke, his voice measured, his words slow, as if reading a script. "Right before Cas died, you saw what he did?"

Sam's mind flashed back to that moment. He'd seen the blade slide into Cas' chest. He'd watched a brilliant light begin to pour from Cas' eyes, nose, ears, and mouth, but something odd had happened. Castiel had reached up and grabbed Dean's jacket. Dean had dropped to the ground beside him when the angel had been stabbed, and Cas' fingers twisted in the leather, tugging Dean closer to him. For a brief moment, Sam thought Cas was going to kiss Dean. And he was right.

Castiel dragged Dean down until his lips reached the hunter's forehead. He pressed his lips against Dean's skin, and Dean jerked, eyes wide. Cas held onto Dean's jacket and brought his other hand up, pushing it hard into Dean's chest. It was almost the same thing Cas had done to Sam to check for his soul. Dean cried out in pain, but Cas' grip was firm, holding him still enough to keep his hand in Dean's chest and his lips on Dean's forehead.

A brilliant flash of white caused Sam to shut his eyes and turn away, but there was a sweep of strong, whistling wind and then the warehouse was silent. Sam opened his eyes to find his brother unconscious on the ground next to Castiel.

"So what was that?"

"I'm not entirely sure," Gabriel answered, "because I haven't seen it done since…well, Enoch."

Sam's brow furrowed under the rag. "Like, Old Testament, Christian bible, didn't die Enoch?"

"Yeah."

Gabriel gave Sam a moment to absorb the information, which Sam appreciated.

"Okay, so what'd Cas do?"

"I believe my idiot, love-struck brother passed his Grace to Dean."

Sam sat up, earning him a brief moment of vertigo and a searing in his stomach. "What? Wouldn't that – I don't know – make Dean explode or something?"

Gabriel shook his head slowly. "Explosion would be the nicest of the options available to his body had Castiel transferred all of his Grace, but I think he only gave Dean a small piece. Think of it as a celestial kidney."

Sam's face betrayed his skepticism and confusion.

"Sometimes," Gabriel murmured, his voice suddenly softer, more affectionate, "an angel may pass a piece of his or her grace to a human upon death. But, it has to be done moments before the angel's death and it has to be a very small portion and the one receiving the piece must be a righteous man. Or woman. The transfer is so specific, so finely tuned, and so exacting, that it's nearly impossible to do correctly or even at all."

"But you think Castiel succeeded? And this Enoch guy did too?"

"The Christian bible has been sanitized many times over. Had the original manuscripts been preserved somewhere other than the Heavenly Records room, it would have mentioned an angel during Enoch's lifetime. It would have described exactly the same situation between Enoch and his angel as occurred between my brother and yours."

"You mean that weird soul-touching thing?"

Gabriel rubbed at his face with his hands, suddenly appearing several years older. Occasionally Sam looked at Gabe and could see the archangel that he was. Tonight, all Sam saw was a weary soldier. He leveled his gaze at the human above him.

"What Castiel did to Dean was… for lack of a more direct translation, a 'soul kiss.' It usually occurs between angels; in our true forms, it's less of an odd corporeal gesture and more of a spiritual connection, so to speak. Vessels are convenient for conversing with the lower life forms – " Gabriel's quirk of his mouth told Sam he was teasing about the life-form comment, "but they are very inhibiting in other ways. In heaven, as celestial beings, a 'soul kiss' is essentially what it sounds like. It's a brief meeting of two angels' cores, their very essences, their Graces."

"But Dean doesn't have Grace."

"He didn't. But I suspect there's some flowing through his cholesterol caked platelet freeways now. I think Cas left a bit behind before he died; to keep Dean safe."

Sam slowly lowered himself back to the pillows. "So," he continued, unsure of exactly what the importance was, "do all angels do this 'soul kiss' thing, or what?"

"No." Gabriel was sure in his answer.

Sam remained silent to allow Gabriel to gather his thoughts.

"It's rare. Usually it's reserved for special ambassadors or family members. But, on a rare occasion – "

"Enoch, rare?"

"Dean and Enoch rare," Gabe corrected gently, "an angel will attempt one with a human. It not common among angels because it is used as a sign of complete acceptance to a foreign angel or as a sign of love."

"Love?"

"Not just romantic love. There's a lot missing from the bible, but there still some truth to it. It mentions the type of love that is ascribed to God as an unflappable, all-encompassing, unconditional love."

"Agape," Sam said. "The ability to see the divine within others."

"Yes," Gabriel answered. "And that is the kind of love that Enoch's angel had for him and…"

Gabriel trailed off to allow Sam to finish the thought. "That's what Cas had for Dean. That's why he did what he did. So…" Sam's brain was whirling in his skull, considering all the new possibilities and consequences of such an event. "Will Dean live forever? Or…"

Gabriel shrugged. "Not enough is known about Enoch. I'm sure I could do some digging if I were still welcome around the Heavenly Hosts, but as it stands right now, I'm a pariah. Until Dad gets back and opens His arms, I'm destined to remain in the 'prodigal' part of the Prodigal Son story. But if I had to guess, Dean is welcome to return to heaven upon his decision. But no take-backs. Once he goes up, he doesn't get to come back down."

Sam sighed heavily. "Wow."

A beat of silence passed before Sam looked down at Gabriel sitting on the floor.

"Do you think your Father is ever going to return?"

The angel and the human gazed at one another for several moments. Neither could say for sure and both knew they didn't want to guess for fear or getting hurt.

Finally, Gabriel stood up and stretched, his back popping in several places, and then nodded towards Dean's still unconscious body. "So how do you think he's going to take finding out he's got angel mojo floating in his bones?"

Sam's mouth quirked in a sad smile. "If it didn't come at the death of a friend, he might have found it pretty cool."

"And brother."

Sam almost missed Gabriel's added qualifier. He stood up, unintentionally towering over Gabriel, but laying a comforting hand on his shoulder as the angel continued to watch Dean. Sam squeezed gently. "I'm sorry."

It was a platitude, and Sam knew that normally Gabriel wouldn't accept it, but this time, just for the moment, Same felt him put his pride aside and accept the words with their underlying meaning: I understand.

"Thanks, Sammy."

One side of Sam's mouth tipped up. It had been way too long since Gabe had called him Sammy. He was the only one other than Dean that got away with it and Sam hadn't realized how much he missed it until it was gone. Gabriel shrugged Sam's hand away and nodded towards Dean.

"Keep an eye on your bro? I'm going to see if there's any new hits."

"I will. Be careful."

A faint twinkle in Gabriel's eyes gave Sam hope. "You too, Sasquatch. If you need me, you've got my number."

The angel winked and then vanished from the room. Sam settled into a wooden chair at the table.

Gabriel was still hurting, Sam knew that, but he also knew that it had been a long time since he'd seen Gabriel even half as playful as he was when he left. Sam had been bone-dry sober since the day he'd inadvertently summoned Gabe from his hidey-hole and although he was fighting the constant pull of depression, he continued to win; all he had to do was take it one step at a time. And Dean…Sam didn't know. Dean might stumble over Cas' death and get back up, or he might let it send him into a self-destructive spiral. Either way, Sam knew he – and Gabriel – were going to be there to help pick Dean back up from whichever route he landed on.