Shattered

Sam stared at the Enochian writing on the wall, clenching his jaw and sighing before dropping his head in his hands. He had learned some Enochian, but not enough to read everything Gabriel had written, and he suspected that there were parts that Castiel had not translated. Maybe there was something that would help him find the errant archangel, presumably one of only two angels on Earth who still had wings and an unfettered ability to just leave.

"Dammit Gabriel," Sam whispered. He could still see the battered, broken man sitting in the center of the bed, dressed in rags and covered in blood he couldn't heal, golden eyes wild with terror as Asmodeus's voice threatened them all through Sam's phone. He would never have considered giving up the archangel, no matter what it cost him, but he had no idea if Gabriel would have known that. Sam did remember—with intense clarity—staring up at the two demons dragging Gabriel away as Asmodeus used his powers to crush him and Cas. He could still see that bright blue grace glowing from the archangel's eyes and the shadow of his wings against the wall as he used his recovered powers to destroy his tormentor.

And then, when they asked him to stay and help, he ran.

Despite Dean's fury, Sam couldn't be upset that he had healed the archangel. The hunter well remembered what it was like to be tortured for years, broken and torn apart by Lucifer. He still suffered debilitating flashbacks, and having Lucifer in the bunker a couple years earlier was almost too much for him to handle. The Princes of Hell had been created and trained by the Devil, so Gabriel had probably gone through many of the same horrors as Sam. How could he blame the angel for running? They were asking him to fight Michael and Lucifer again—not even his Michael, but a more powerful one from another reality—and Michael was always acknowledged as the most powerful of the four archangels.

"I'm sorry, Gabriel," Sam whispered into the empty room. "I know some of what you're going through. Lucifer tortured me for decades in the Cage, and it drove me insane. Cas only just barely saved me, and taking my pain broke him, too. We shouldn't have asked you to fight. And—Chuck help me, Dean is going to kill me for saying this—I know that we did the right thing by giving you your grace back. Getting Jack and Mom back is important, but you are important, too. I just hope you're happy in Monte Carlo with your hookers."

Sam jerked as his surroundings changed from an empty room covered in black runes to a bright diner full of movement and noise, a red checkered tablecloth covering the table in front of him, a golden-eyed man seated in the booth opposite him. "Porn stars."

Sam chuckled, relaxing into his seat and looking around. The signs and menus were in English, the prices had dollar signs, so it looked like the archangel had not transported him out of the country. At least there was that. "You could hear me?"

"How long have you been cavorting with angels, Sam? Don't you know that we can always hear when you pray to us? We just don't always listen."

"Why were you listening?"

Before Gabriel could answer, a young waitress in a dark red apron approached their table, a small pad in one hand and a pen in the other. "What can I get you boys?"

Sam didn't have to even look at the menu; he and Dean had spent his life eating in diners like this. "Water for me, and your house salad with chicken."

"Coke and a bacon cheeseburger," Gabriel replied, "with fries." She nodded and left them alone, the archangel looking down at his hands as he considered how to answer the hunter. "I heard you say that you were sorry. Have to admit, I didn't pay much attention to you two after I pulled my last trick, so I had no idea that my brother tortured you so much." He looked up, golden eyes meeting green hazel, Gabriel's softening somewhat though his expression remained closed. "I am sorry about what he did to you."

Sam reached out and carefully placed his hand over Gabriel's smaller one, ready to pull back if the archangel flinched or resisted the comfort in any way. "Look, I chose to jump into the Cage, Gabriel. I chose to take on Lucifer and Michael to save the world. You didn't choose what happened to you."

"Didn't I?" The words were so soft, so twisted with self-loathing, that Sam hardly recognized the archangel's voice. The hand under his tightened into a fist, but he didn't pull away. Sam just kept holding him, knowing that he would speak if he felt he could, neither one of them noticing when the waitress brought their drinks and silently departed. She probably thought it was a lovers' quarrel, but Sam couldn't find it in himself to care how his simple action was interpreted.

As the silence dragged on, Sam used his free left hand to open a straw and drop it in Gabriel's drink, carefully sliding it over to him so the straw just barely touched his lips. He could still remember the black stitches holding those lips together, forcing an archangel who loved to speak to live in torturous silence. "I bet it's been a long time since you had one of these," he murmured gently, remembering Cas's choo-choo train comment from earlier that day.

"I stopped counting the years," Gabriel replied, his voice cracking slightly on the simple words. He leaned forward marginally and took the straw in his mouth, almost moaning in joy as he drank his soda. Sam could feel the sudden increase in the pulse under his fingers, having briefly forgotten that the archangel's vessel had been built to act like a human, including reacting to a sugar rush like one. Some tiny amount of tension drained out of the man, and Sam couldn't help the tears that filled his eyes at that minute action. He couldn't imagine the deprivation that Asmodeus had subjected Gabriel to, nor could he imagine what kind of damage that would do to a man who had been one of the most powerful beings in creation for billions of years.

"It's okay to not be okay, Gabriel. I've been a hunter since I was a child, and I have seen the effects of torture on my friends, on my family. Dean was really messed up when he came back from Hell, and I was worse when Death brought my soul back from The Cage."

"I'm not a human, Sam. I'm an archangel."

"Yeah, and I think that makes it worse." Gabriel looked up from his drink, a dark sadness taking hold of his lovely features. Sam caught himself at that thought—lovely features?—before he let himself continue. "You have always been so proud, so powerful, and so free. When your older brothers fought and your father left, you could just run away. You made yourself a new life as a Norse god and enjoyed meting out justice as the Trickster. And then you were captured by one of the Princes of Hell and tortured for years. He tortured you, stole your grace, effectively raped you, and I saw what that did to Castiel. He's nowhere near as powerful an angel as you, but he fell, hard, when that happened. I can't imagine what that did to you."

"No," Gabriel growled, jerking his hand back. "You can't."

The hunter watched his companion in silence, knowing that he had pushed Gabriel past his comfort zone, but not quite far enough to be dismissed back to the bunker. The waitress brought their food, wisely walking away without breaking the tense silence. Gabriel ate one of his fries, glaring at the table as if he could burn through it with his eyes, which, of course, he technically could. Sam took his fork and carefully sampled a couple bites of his salad, barely tasting it as he waited for the archangel to speak. He knew, in this situation, that he had to stay supportively silent and let his companion sort out his pain and speak first.

"He was the fourth, you know. The last and weakest of the Princes."

Sam frowned sadly, knowing what Gabriel was hinting at. "You know, we met God a couple years ago, and he said that it had taken all four archangels to put The Darkness into her cage back at the beginning of creation. He never hinted that any of them were inferior to the others."

Gabriel waved his words away, taking a bite of his burger and sighed, his eyes closing as he let himself enjoy this simple luxury. He had always loved food and drink, and Sam had never met another angel who cared for them at all. Even Cas had stopped eating once he regained his grace, saying that food tasted like "molecules" to an angel.

"Actually, after being Lucifer's vessel and overcoming him so easily, I would say that he is the weakest of the archangels."

Gabriel's lips twisted as he resisted the urge to grin at the gentle compassion in those words, at the man who wanted nothing more than to make him smile. "He did fall for my trick more easily than I thought."

"He fell for it as quickly as those other pagan gods, and they didn't know anything about angels at all. You would think that Lucifer would have known better." Gabriel smiled, digging into his fries as Sam took a few more bites of his salad. He wasn't even really hungry, but he needed to keep the archangel company. "You know, I never told Dean, but I went back and saw the angel wings burned onto the floor. It was pretty convincing."

Gabriel looked up, a new clarity in his golden eyes as he saw through this tiny crack in Sam's armor. "Did you miss me, Samsquatch?"

The hunter couldn't help but smile at the nickname. He never realized how much he missed being teased about his height until both Gabriel and Crowley were gone. "In that way that you miss a dog that won't stop chewing on your slippers," he teased. "I never told Dean or Cas; I didn't think they would understand. Your brother did tell us about his vision of you during that time he was fighting Metatron to reopen Heaven. He seemed to think that you were alive, that you had helped him of your own free will."

"Mostly," Gabriel replied. "As the Scribe, Metatron knew how to track archangels, and it didn't take him long to find me and offer me a deal. After I was done speaking with Castiel, I was free to go back into hiding." He sighed and took a sip of his drink, jumping as Sam's hand wrapped loosely around his upper arm.

"You were captured not long after, I'm guessing." The archangel nodded jerkily. "Did Metatron give you up? Did he sell you out to Asmodeus?"

"I don't know. Truly I don't, Sam, but I think he may have. It could only have been him or the pagan gods I used to spend time with."

Sam's free hand, resting near his water, clenched into a fist, fury setting the hunter's jaw as he pulled his other hand back. "I never stopped hating him for killing Dean, for raping Cas of his grace; I didn't think I could despise him any more than that, but I do."

Gabriel nodded, the faintest of smiles ghosting across his face. "Thank you, Sam. I had forgotten what it felt like to have someone else care what happened to me."

"I do care, Gabriel. What I said in the bunker, I meant it."

The archangel snorted as the hunter's words ran through his mind. "I don't care if my family needs me. I don't even know my brother's Nephilim son, and I sure as hell don't care about a world that has never cared about me."

"Gabriel, I need you." Sam's voice was softer than it had been the first time he said those words, but his eyes still held the hint of tears as he hoped to break through to his companion. "Do you care about that?" Gabriel's golden eyes locked with Sam's, the archangel taking the measure of the hunter's soul, but he seemed unable to answer. Sam offered his companion one of his sad but supportive half-smiles, a mere twitch of his cheeks. "Gabriel, I saw you when those demons were dragging you away. You were terrified and you had given up. What broke you free?"

The archangel's eyes widened and he offered the tiniest frightened shake of his head. Sam smiled reassuringly, encouraging him to speak. "I . . . I didn't want him to do to you what he had done to me. And I didn't want you to die. Or Cassie. I just knew that I had to find the power to stop him for good."

Sam smiled, reaching out to rest his hand just above Gabriel's wrist. "Gabriel, I need you. Do you care about that, about me?" This time his words were stronger, confident, and the archangel found it impossible not to answer.

"Yes."

"Then let me help you."

"You just want me as a warrior, my grace for your spells."

"I won't make you do anything you don't want to do, and I would never take your grace without your permission. I wouldn't do that to you, Gabriel."

"Dean would."

Sam shrugged and nodded, taking a gulp of his water before answering. "Yeah, you're right. He would. And, to be fair, he will try the second he sees you again. My brother is desperate, and he can be so single-minded. He forgets that people have feelings and needs apart from his own. He uses people, especially Cas, even though that poor angel loves him with every fiber of his grace. And he would try to use you to get Mom and Jack back."

"Not your best argument to get me to stop running," Gabriel pointed out, polishing off his burger and picking through his fries.

Sam reached out and took Gabriel's left hand in both of his, the right one pausing with a fry halfway to his lips. "Despite all of that, I won't let him. I'm as stubborn as he is, and you don't deserve to be used by anyone ever again."

"And how do you expect to get back to that other world?"

"We'll just have to capture Lucifer and drain his grace. After everything he did to me and Cas, I honestly couldn't care less about his permission."

Gabriel watched the hunter in silence as the waitress returned to refill their drinks, Sam polishing off his salad as the archangel finished his fries. He didn't speak until the plates were cleared away and the check was sitting on the end of the table. "I can't just go back, Sam."

"I know you're good at running and hiding, Gabriel, but Lucifer is still out there somewhere, and there's no telling what will happen when he finds you. And Michael in that other world could come here, and I have the feeling that he doesn't have any brothers left. If he killed his Gabriel, why would he hesitate to kill you? I shouldn't have asked you to fight your brothers, and I'm sorry I did, but we could still use your wisdom and billions of years of knowledge so that we can win our upcoming battles. And it would be nice to have you around again, as long as you don't kill Dean every morning or stick us in TV Land."

The Trickster rose to the forefront in Gabriel's Loki grin and the mischievous light in his golden eyes. "I can't promise not to screw with you at all, Sammich. I am still the Trickster."

"If that makes you happy, then fine. But, when you're ready, you have to promise to talk to me or Cas about what happened to you. PTSD is a terrible burden to bear alone." Sam reached into his wallet for enough cash to cover both meals and a tip, smiling at the archangel. "I'm going to walk out that front door, and if you could send me back to the bunker I would appreciate it. Feel free to follow if you ever feel you're ready." Suiting action to word, he slipped out of the booth and headed out of the diner.

And walked right into the map room.

"Dude! What the hell?!" Dean was on his feet with his gun half-drawn before he recognized the tall intruder. "How?"

Sam shrugged and took a seat at the table. "Gabriel took me away so we could talk."

"You know where he is?"

"Some diner somewhere; I didn't recognize it. We talked for a while and I asked him to send me back. He may follow, or he may keep running. I didn't want to pressure him."

"Why the hell not!?"

"Dean," Cas's deep voice snapped in warning, the angel entering from the library at the sound of the brothers talking. The older hunter sighed and raised his hands in defeat, visibly collecting himself before speaking again.

"Why didn't you ask him to come back?"

"Because that may not be what's best for him. Dean, hear me out! He is in pain, suffering from what Asmodeus did to him. Surely we three, of anyone, understand PTSD?"

"Don't be ridiculous, Sam. Angels don't suffer from human mental conditions or disorders. He'll bounce back."

Sam glared at his brother, furious that Dean refused to listen, taking a moment to glance up at Cas standing just behind Dean's chair. He could see that profound, crippling despondency still swirling deep in the angel's eyes as he stared at the human he had pulled out of Hell. "Really, angels just 'bounce back', huh? Cas, how long did it take you to forgive yourself for opening Purgatory and releasing the Leviathans?"

"Leave Cas out of this."

"Years," the angel breathed, speaking at the same time as Dean. The hunter looked up at him sharply, as if seeing him for the first time.

"Yeah, and why did you believe Metatron when he said that you were special and you could help him close the gates of Heaven?"

"I had let everyone down so often, I had brought the Leviathans to this world, and I broke your mind, Sam. I was hoping that I could atone for my sins in purgatory, once Dean was safe, but Naomi denied me my absolution and took me as her puppet."

"What did she make you do?"

"Sammy, I swear to God—"

"She trained me to kill Dean."

The hunter stared at Cas in shock at that, glancing back at his brother and seeing a sad knowing in his hazel eyes. "Cas? Sam, you knew?"

"How many copies of Dean did you have to kill before you didn't cry anymore? Before you went numb inside?"

Cas visibly swallowed, blue eyes darkening as he stared at the surface of the table. "I refused to kill the first hundred or so, and another angel had to hold my hand as I stabbed each of them with my blade. The first ones didn't fight back, didn't move or look at me or speak. After that, I found that I could fight the copies and kill them as long as we never made eye contact. But I would cry every time they did, even if I won, for the next three hundred. I didn't go numb inside until I passed six hundred, though in total she made me kill one thousand, seven hundred, and forty-three before I was sent to kill Dean himself. Even when they cried and begged, even when they said that we were brothers, I was able to kill them."

"But there was one type of copy you couldn't kill, even though Naomi tried multiple times."

Cas nodded, lost in his memories. Dean could see his right hand clenching into a loose fist, as if holding an angel blade. "She made a copy that would look up at me with tears in his eyes and tell me that he loved me. I couldn't kill that one. A thousand copies in, and I couldn't kill that one. She eventually gave up, telling me that Dean would never say something like that for real, so I didn't have to worry about it."

Sam saw the moment that those words struck his brother, Dean collapsing down on himself and shaking his head in disbelief. "And what broke you out of her control at last?" Sam couldn't relent with his questioning until he knew that Dean understood.

"Dean didn't beg for his life; he begged for mine. He said that he needed me. It was the closest I ever came to understanding love in the human sense. In that moment, I loved him too much to kill him, and I shattered thousands of years of angelic conditioning to refuse Naomi and break free of Heaven. She told me that I had to choose Heaven or Dean, and I picked him. They haven't had control of me since, because I could just remember that moment whenever they tried. It's my shield."

Sam's eyes were hard and unyielding when Dean turned to him, silently begging him to stop asking questions, to stop probing the angel, but the younger brother had to continue. "And how long did it take you to forgive yourself for coming so close to killing Dean for real?" Castiel shook his head as Dean turned back toward him, a single tear dripping from his eye to the floor. He never had. "And do you still see that room full of Dean's corpses?"

"Yes."

"Sam, why are you doing this to him?"

"Cas still suffers from the angel equivalent of PTSD just from what Naomi did to him for a few months. That doesn't count what Metatron did, or what he had to go through as a human, or what Lucifer may have done to him when he was using him as a vessel. Don't you see, even angels can carry these scars."

Dean rose to his feet and carefully reached out to Cas, treating the angel as gently as he knew how. He slowly wrapped his arms around the shorter man, guiding the raven head to rest on his shoulder as Cas's arms hesitantly slipped around his waist. "I'm sorry, Cas. I should have asked if you were alright once in a while. After what Metatron did to you, I'm guessing that you would get pretty upset if someone wanted to cut part of your grace out?" Cas shuddered and pulled himself deeper into Dean's arms, the hunter closing his eyes as the last of his anger and single-minded determination faded away. He still wanted his mother back, and he still wanted to find Jack, but he knew they couldn't force Gabriel to give up his grace or fight Michael for them.

"You're right, Sam," Dean murmured. "We'll just have to find a better way. We'll, I don't know, find Lucifer and get some of his grace."

"Yeah, we'll do that. Who knows, maybe Ketch will find Jack and he'll remember how to open the rift on his own? We can always have hope that things will work out."

"Hope is all we've had for most of our lives, Sammy," Dean replied, pulling away from the angel and taking his hand. "If you speak to Gabriel again, I'm sure you'll let him know that he is welcome here, and we will keep him safe like we would anyone in our family."

"Yeah, I'll let him know."

Dean nodded toward the bedroom wing of the bunker, pulling Cas after him as he walked away. "Cas and I need to talk."

"I won't wait up."

As soon as the two vanished from the map room, Sam looked up to find the youngest archangel watching him from under the stairs leading to the bunker door. There had been no tell-tale flutter of wings, but then Castiel had been able to watch them invisibly in the past without them hearing him arrive. "How long have you been watching?"

"Long enough. I didn't know that Naomi had done that to Cassie. She was always a piece of work, but I didn't know she dabbled in mind control."

Sam shrugged. "It seems that angels were programmed to obey and Naomi was able to tap into that programming. As far as I know, only Castiel was ever able to break away from her."

Gabriel nodded, dropping his eyes to the floor. "Sammy, every instinct inside me is telling me to run. I'm still debating whether I should."

"If you need to run, you can, but it took a lot of courage for you to come back. That was a good first step. Do you want to stay and talk?" Sam stood from his chair and held his hand out to the archangel, not taking a step forward but just waiting patiently.

Dean settled the angel on the edge of his bed, carefully taking a seat beside him. Cas had not looked up once, his eyes shining with tears but none had fallen. Dean placed his hand on Cas's back, rubbing in gentle, soothing circles, feeling the raven-haired man relax, if only minutely. "Cas, I'm so sorry."

"You didn't know," Cas replied heavily.

"I should have asked. God, Cas, you must think I don't give a damn about you. I've used you and yelled at you and blamed you for everything over the past nine years. I don't know why you have put up with me for so long and returned to me no matter what."

"Because you are my home," the angel replied simply. "And you're my family."

Dean nodded and wrapped his arms around the angel, closing his eyes as he felt tears drip on his neck. "We are, Cas. I can't undo what happened to you, but I hope that I can help you heal going forward. Just tell me what to do."

"Sam talks to me about it all the time," Cas whispered softly, his head safely resting on Dean's shoulder despite their awkward position. "I think it helps. But sometimes I just want someone to hold me. I just want you to hold me, so that I know for sure that I didn't kill you."

"Whenever you need, Cas. I swear. I can't promise that I'll never treat you badly again, but I will always find a way to make it up to you." He held the angel as Cas just sat in his arms, his silent sobs soaking Dean's flannel shirt, for what seemed like hours. As the angel finally ran out of tears, he just folded, collapsing in the hunter's strong arms in exhaustion.

"I think I just need to sleep right now," Cas whispered. "I don't usually need to, but I think it will help me." He carefully pulled away from Dean, blue eyes pale in the aftermath of so much uncontrolled emotion. "Can I stay here tonight? Sam said that I shouldn't be alone when I'm feeling like this."

"Okay, Cas." Dean helped the angel slip out of his trench coat and jacket, rising from the bed to help remove Cas's shoes and slip him out of his pants. The angel watched in silence as he reached up to remove his tie and dress shirt, sitting on Dean's bed in his boxers as he watched the hunter shrug out of his own layers of clothes. "Come on, slip under the covers."

Cas nodded, pulling back Dean's layers of blankets and sliding underneath, curled on his side and facing the wall. Dean joined him, facing the angel as he rested one hand on his exposed shoulder. "Do you want me to hold you?"

"Father, yes," Cas breathed, turning over and curling into Dean's warm embrace, his knees and arms pulled tightly to his chest in a fetal position. Dean reached down and slowly, carefully unlocked Cas's arms, helping him wrap one over his own side as he slipped his right arm under Cas's neck and the left around his lower back.

"Relax, Cas. I'll watch over you, okay?"

Cas nodded, whining as Dean shifted their positions slightly, rolling onto his back and forcing the angel to follow. The change in position required him to stretch his legs out, carefully resting one knee on Dean's thigh and his head on the hunter's chest, closing his eyes at the contented sigh he heard from his bed mate. Dean wouldn't let him curl in on himself, and Cas had never been more grateful. It was earlier than the Winchesters would normally go to bed, but Dean found that the warm breath on his chest lulled him to sleep.

Dean didn't know how he was going to heal his angel, but he swore to himself that he would never, ever hurt him again.

Sam and Gabriel talked long into the Kansas night, the archangel sitting across the wide table and drinking beers that the hunter had provided. Sam promised to go to the store for soda the next morning if the blonde wanted it, and Gabriel nodded gratefully at the offer. He told Sam about how he had been found by Asmodeus, how he had fought and killed hundreds of demons, and how he had lost in the end.

He was quiet for a long while after that, just drinking his beer and staring at the table, his hands clenching into fists every now and then. Sam slipped out of his chair and moved to stand beside the archangel, resting a gentle hand on his shoulder. "I don't know about you, but I'm pretty tired. Cas never seems to sleep, but if you want somewhere to rest, we have plenty of rooms. You can have the room you were in before, or a different one if you want."

Gabriel nodded, slowly rising to his feet. "I don't want to see those runes again and I really hate to be alone, Sammoose. I don't suppose you have a busty little brunette who could keep me company." Gabriel smirked at the hunter, Sam remembering the multitude of times the Trickster had flirted with him and his brother. He smiled and reached out his hand.

"You might have to settle for me, half-pint, though I promise I'm a great cuddler."

Gabriel grinned, a promising amount of his former self shining from behind his eyes. Sam dared to hope that the archangel might be alright, after all. "Well, lead on, Samshine."

The hunter took Gabriel's hand and led him down the hallway to his bedroom, resisting the urge to pause at Dean's door and listen for any sound coming from his brother and their resident seraph. He felt bad for forcing Cas to recount his suffering in front of Dean, but the older hunter needed to understand what the angel had gone through, was still going through. He hoped they could work everything out.

"They'll be alright," Gabriel murmured, walking just behind the tall hunter.

"Yeah, I think so." Sam entered his bedroom and pushed the button for the lights. He glanced down and behind him, smiling at Gabriel's delighted expression. Dean used to complain that his brother's room was bare, little better than one of their cheap motels, so he had finally gotten a new mattress and blankets, hung some art on the walls, and collected various small knickknacks to decorate his dresser. There were pictures of him, Dean, Cas, and their friends on his desk and bedside table; the pile of ancient books on his desk contrasted with the modernity of the laptop and tablet charging nearby. "This is it."

"Looks comfy." Gabriel glanced down at his clothes; his shirt, jacket, and jeans were not really suitable for sleeping. He raised his fingers to snap himself into something more comfortable, but the hunter covered his hand with his own.

"Don't waste your grace on that. I can find you something." Sam closed the door and headed for his dresser, digging out a soft grey pajama top that he sometimes used, raising his eyebrows at the matching bottoms.

"I can offer you a shirt, Gabe, but my pants are going to be like a foot too long on you."

"The shirt alone will be fine. I can't remember a time I went to bed wearing any clothes at all, to be fair." He grinned at Sam's blush, stripping out of his shirt, jacket, and pants, slipping the pajama top over his head and grinning as it almost reached the bottom of his boxers. "It's like a dress on me, Samsquatch!"

The hunter snorted, slipping out of his own clothes and finding a matching dark blue pajama set for himself. "Well, you've been female a few times, so it should feel familiar."

"It has been thousands of years since I last wore a female form! And that time I think it was a horse. I doubt you want to see that in here."

Sam chuckled and moved to the bed, pulling the covers back and slipping in as Gabriel watched. "No, I think you look perfectly fine in this form." He blushed as he realized how his words could be taken, but it was too late to recant them. "Come to bed, Gabe."

The blonde slipped under the blankets with the hunter, curling in close to his chest as Sam turned off the lights. He felt Sam's arm tighten around his slender form, and it comforted him more than he thought it would. As he realized that he could truly relax for the first time in years, that he was actually safe, tears filled his golden eyes. "Sam?"

"Yes, Gabe?"

"He did break me. I tried to stay sane, but he tore me apart. For years."

The arm around his waist tightened, and a second arm reached out to slip under his back. "I know. I know what it's like to be broken."

"I don't think I can ever be whole again."

"Yes you can. I will help you, and so will Dean, and so will Cas."

"I shouldn't have yelled at him."

"You were angry, and so was he. Cas doesn't feel like he deserves God's love, but he wants it for you. He knows that you once had a good relationship with your Father, and he wants that for you again. I think he feels bad that he got to spend time with Chuck a couple years ago and you didn't. I know that he wants to help you heal."

Gabriel nodded against his chest, slowly letting his eyes close. "I'll talk to him in the morning."

"Good. I'm glad you came back, Gabe."

"So am I."