AN: Un-betaed, or I'd never get anything out.
Post-ep13x17
Nothing much, just Sam keeping busy and Gabe having soup
Soup for the soul
His lips stung and Gabriel relished the sensation. It had been so long since anything he felt had been anything other than torture. And now he was eating soup, while Sam Winchester was making him hot chocolate and shooting him worried glances each time silence settled in the wake of his spoon dipping into the bowl.
It had been around ten hours since Ketch had turned against his master and stole him away to use as collateral to buy his way into the Winchesters' good graces. It hadn't been a rescue. It had been a spur of the moment decision made by a kicked dog who wanted to bite back and Gabriel was the handy chew-toy. It had been panic and the certainty that he'd end up on the wrong end of his own blade from the moment Ketch had broken him out of his cage.
It had been a long car ride spent in deafening silence and uncertainty.
He was still working through the shock of realizing where he had been taken to. Piecing together the surprise and worry and hope and anger Sam and Dean had displayed since seeing him again. He was too tired to work out what they meant, not in the long run, but for now, they meant he was out of Asmodeus's grasp and they were all in some sort of debt to Ketch.
They needed his Grace - he wasn't even surprised at this point, since archangel Grace was all the rage it seemed – but lucky them, Asmodeus had drained it fresh and they could use it without guilt. They could have it – he'd paid more dearly the last time he helped them.
The bitterness of that thought weighed heavy on his tongue and he chased it down with more soup.
Sam turned back to the stove with a tentative smile.
The smell of chocolate pulled Gabriel out of his thoughts.
He swallowed and his lips thinned into a tight line. The skin around them itched and pulled, scars still tender and healing, though it had been almost four hours since Sam had cut the stitches holding his mouth shut.
Almost four hours since Dean left to face dangers untold in another world without his brother.
Sam was rummaging through a cupboard, content that Gabriel had taken another spoonful of soup.
He wasn't sure about his freedom – he had the feeling he was stuck in this place and at the Winchesters' disposal until he recovered enough of his Grace to help or make himself scarce – but something told him he was as safe as a broken archangel could be in this day and age.
Sam sat down next to him with two mugs of hot chocolate.
"This needs to cool first," Sam warned quietly.
He sat there next to Gabriel, quiet, until the soup was finished and Gabriel wondered when he had eaten all of it. He smiled encouragingly when Gabriel took his first sip of chocolate and started drinking his own.
The liquid warmed his lips, but the scars no longer stung and Gabriel returned the smile, thin and tired, but sincere.
