Chapter One
Sam didn't worry, not initially.
Despite Gabriel's usual flippancy when it came to rules and commitments, he'd always had an exception for Sam.
But Physics was his least favourite subject, and despite somehow having wrangled their teacher into letting the two best friends work together on this new project, Sam wasn't too surprised that Gabriel had blown off their agreed study date. It wasn't a frequent occurrence, despite what impression Gabriel's reputation might give, but still.
He frowned when his call got put through to Gabriel's voicemail as he was gathering up his stuff to leave the library, but he still wasn't worried. He rolled his eyes and listened to the teasing, childish recording before leaving his own amused, put-out message at being ditched. He promised Gabriel would have to owe him an extra study session off-schedule.
He wasn't worried, not then.
When he still couldn't get Gabriel on the phone after dinner, he was a little further annoyed, sure that Gabriel's procrastinating had run its course for long enough. He called the Novak household, got Cas on the other end. Castiel listened, the sound of confusion something Sam somehow heard. Castiel was puzzled. Gabriel hadn't come home for dinner. They had all assumed he'd headed home with Sam after their library session.
Sam hung up with a promise to find him and cuff him upside the head, chuckled weakly when Castiel's voice took on a scolding edge that promised to chastise Gabriel, little brother or not. He tried Gabriel's cell again, didn't bother with a message that time. He swallowed the growing irritation at his best friend, as used to Gabriel's disappearing as he was.
When nine pm came and Castiel phoned, asking if Gabriel had turned up, Sam began to grow concerned. He was still a little pissed too, knowing Gabriel would be well aware that he was making everybody worry a bit. Sometimes Gabriel disappeared until after dawn, spent the night out walking or God knows what, but that was only ever when he'd had a really bad argument with someone. Usually one of his brothers, though mostly when that happened he came to Sam after he'd cooled off. When he and Sam fought - shockingly rare, but it happened - he ran off and sulked somewhere unknown.
But he always came back.
And Sam knew Gabriel hadn't argued with anyone that day, not any more than usual, anyway.
It was at eleven that his concern began to curl into worry.
There were no snippy, bitchy texts, no melodramatic emoji-tales. No flagrantly profane status updates online. Sam had promised Castiel he'd call, but when Midnight struck and Castiel sent a short, questioning text, Sam knew someone was wrong.
I'm going out to find him. he sent back, Dean will text if he turns up here while I'm gone.
Okay. came the reply, Thank you, Samuel.
Sam flicked the lock button as he stepped into his other boot, a grim sort of smile on his face. Castiel had never been one for improper grammar, not since they were all little. But he did normally conform to the accepted version of Sam's name. Using his full one was a sign he was worried, or utterly serious, even more so than his usual stoic countenance.
Sam shucked his jacket on over his hoody, not bothering with the zip as he slipped out of the house, his keys almost forgotten, shoved into his jeans pocket at the last minute. He stepped into the late summer night, grateful at least that Gabriel wouldn't be sulking around in the snow this time. He tried Gabriel's phone again, cursing the voicemail.
He tried the first few places he could think of. He tried the all-night diner downtown, the one that did the fried banana that Gabriel liked. The hadn't seen him, the older guy behind the counter looking at Sam with concerned eyes when he realised Sam was looking for him because he might be missing. Sam smiled his thanks at the wishes of luck that followed him back outside. He tried the park, where he and Gabriel liked to walk Loki, the labrador cross that Sam talked Dean into when their Dad basically abandoned them last year, under the exaggeration that he'd be a good guard dog.
Gabriel picked the name, of course. Sam liked it. The dog was crazy, like a second Gabriel, only the dog slept on Sam's bed at night.
He tried the rocks by the length of river Gabriel often frequented. He tried the racetrack where he liked to run and Gabriel liked to sprawl on the grass, where they'd learned to ride their bikes she they were kids.
He was getting desperate by the time he was finished searching there, his eyes drawn across the field towards the dark hulking shape of the High school. Dean's answering text was instant.
No sign of him yet.
Sam glanced up the road towards the lights and muted sound of the main road, dismissing the tiny thought that maybe Gabriel had gone somewhere up the highway. He wouldn't, not when he knew how pissed Sam would be at him. Sam's gaze drifted down the lonely road towards the school again.
What the hell, he'd tried everywhere else.
He set off across the empty grass, cursing Gabriel for making him worry like this just because he was in a shit mood. He hoped Gabriel hadn't done anything stupid, like break in through an unlocked window to mess around in the school, or worse. Through a locked one.
A quick skirt of the school gave him nothing, making Sam bite back frustration as a release for the true, deep-seated worry that had taken proper hold of his breathing. What if Gabriel had done something stupid near the highway like Sam had tried not to think? What if he'd gone hitchhiking in a fit of temper and he was stuck somewhere, unable to get home? Or worse, locked in a truck cab with some serial killer, some cannibal with a penchant for dicing up teenagers he found on the side of the road?
Sam shook his head and tried to make himself laugh, for fear he'd start really believing something like that had happened.
"Gabriel, you dick. Where the fuck are you?" he muttered to himself, finishing his second circuit of the outside of the school and running a hand through his hair as he stared up at firmly closed, darkened windows.
The whole building was locked tight. Sam kicked a loose pebble lying near the rear steps, watching it bounce off the whitewashed stone and through the dirt, coming to a halt by some shrubbery. Sam's eyes continued the arc, catching on the branches of the corpse a few hundred feet away.
The trees.
He wasted no time in striding off, hands clenching as he thought about all the things he was going to have to say to his idiot best friend to impress upon him how utter ridiculously reckless and unfair it was when he disappeared on them for hours on end and how Sam was going to kill him if he ever did it ag-
Sam rounded past a tree a little way into the mini-forest and ground to a halt so fast he nearly fell over himself. An instant, tearing nausea hurtled from his gut and up through his chest, sending him faltering back a few steps and reaching for the tree beside him as he got himself under control from the shock. He could taste bile, spitting unhelpfully as he tried to drag in a breath without taking his eyes from the sight before him.
Not ten feet from where he stood, someone was… slumped against one of the trunks, head hanging down over a pale chest. It was difficult to see in the gathered night, with the trees blocking the moonlight, but it was definitely a person. And a horrid, clawing knowing screamed in Sam's head, because he just knew.
"Oh fuck." he managed to whisper, a fear trying to hold him back.
It was irrational, and Sam shook himself hard and forced him legs to move, a trembling in his gut. The air felt suddenly cold around him, icy. He was sure he was in shock. His eyes were burning, staring at the form by the tree as he cross the tiny distance that seemed so large. When he was a couple metres away, his heart clenched because the figure looked an awful lot like who he feared it was.
"Gabe?" he tried, heart in his throat because the body wasn't moving, "Gabe? Can you hear me?"
He stopped in front of him, gasping fearful air before he could coerce his locking muscles into crouching. One hand trembled as it reached for that mop of hair, so dark in the shadows but usually so shiny and warm like honeyed maple.
The head jerked under his fingers and he let out the breath he'd been holding, his heart beginning to beat again even though he hadn't noticed it stop. It rushed hard and loud in his chest. He was careful, pushing the hair - sticky with something - back from the hidden face.
"Gabe?" he whispered brokenly, for that's who it was, "Gabriel? It's me, it's Sam, what- are you- Gabe? Are you hurt?"
Gabriel whined, his head moving groggily out of Sam's touch. But Sam followed the movement, dropping to his knees in the mossy ground and reaching for Gabriel's face with both hands.
"Gabriel?" he murmured, trying his best to sound soothing while all sorts of fears raced in his head.
That time, when his palm brushed over Gabriel's cheek, the other boy leaned into the touch, marred eyelids fluttering to reveal half-moons.
"Sam?"
Sam moved closer, running his fingers lightly across a darker patch on Gabriel's cheekbone, his stomach lurching as Gabriel winced. His fingers came away tacky. He felt sick all over again.
"Yeah, Gabe. It's me."
Gabriel's head lifted a little, giving Sam a better look at his pale skin in the darkness, at the many smaller dark patches all over his face, patches Sam was suddenly sure were bruises, and blood. He felt an anger simmer roughly under his skin and slid an arm around Gabriel's shoulders, trying not to jerk away when he realised his friend's shoulders were bare, chilled beneath his fingers. He didn't have time to really notice, though, because when he tried to draw Gabriel closer to him, the boy wouldn't budge.
And that was when Sam was suddenly, truly, blindingly angry.
Because Gabriel wasn't slumped against the tree trunk, he was bound to it. Some dick had tied him up, with-
Sam had to swallow hard to stop himself from releasing the angry, vicious sound that was birthed in his chest.