Author's note: Thanks so much to Larkafree, Maknatuna, Maddy Love Castiel, RachelPhobia, CherylB1964, FireChildSlytherin5, kb18142, Pizzapig, PercyJfan1802, Improbabile, eiahlaie, Dark Knight Warrior, random yet loveable, Silver-Streaked Wings, Fallen's child, Riceball-1989, thornybrose, Chichi-10018, XxZessxX, Sophia Griffin, Treeni and baileylovesyou0400 for last chapter's reviews!
Special thanks to Treeni for beta-reading!
My friend's cat mauled my right hand to the point where I can hardly bend my middle finger and typing too much hurts... but fear not, according to the doctor, chances that the hand will fall off are pretty slim. ;-)
1
Like all other angels in existence, Gabriel had been unable to locate the Winchesters by himself, but unlike most angels in existence, the archangel had Castiel's cell phone number and contacted his brother to find out what the hunters were up to.
It was just like the Winchesters to get themselves committed to a mental institution just when Gabriel was ready to join their little team of misfits. Not that the archangel was denying that the guys had issues, but they had chosen an inconvenient time to acknowledge it. Then again, it looked like the two hunters were there for business and not some tender loving care. The institution gave Gabriel the creeps and not in the way that it might have with normal people. Sure, mental hospitals never were nice places to be, but there was something going on here that just reeked of the work of a monster.
The archangel was going to take care of the monster problem later, though. First and foremost, Gabriel wanted to find the Winchesters, Sam Winchester, to be precise. It seemed like a safe guess that the younger brother would be more open to what the archangel had to say and Gabriel had never liked to make things more complicated for himself than they had to be.
"Gabriel!" Sam exclaimed happily when the archangel appeared in his room. The joyful tone combined with the way the younger Winchester's eyes were dilated and unfocused gave away, that the human had been drugged. Gabriel took a mental note to ask what Sam had done to deserve that later on. Before the archangel could say anything, the younger Winchester decided to share an observation he had just made with the class. "You look so small. I remember you being much taller."
"Hey kiddo," Gabriel replied, chuckling. Of course, the archangel had looked much taller from the perspective of an eight year old kid. Sam voicing his thoughts on the topic was amusing, anyway.
The younger Winchester was lying curled up on his side, looking up at the archangel with a goofy smile on his face. When it looked like Sam was trying to get up, Gabriel quickly stood next to the bed to keep the younger Winchester from doing anything that would end with the human flat on his face. The archangel helped the drugged man to get into an upright position, propped against the headboard for stability. To Gabriel's great surprise, Sam used the opportunity to wrap an arm around the archangel's middle to keep him close.
"Larger than life Gabriel," the younger Winchester mumbled, leaning his head against Gabriel's chest with a sigh, "My personal guardian angel."
Sam hadn't told Dean, or anybody else, but after they had been turned back into adults, the younger Winchester had missed the archangel's presence for quite some time. He had missed the easy camaraderie, the smiles, the little touches and the hugs. Sometimes, Sam thought that Dean had actually noticed, but wasn't comfortable bringing the topic up. The younger Winchester hadn't wanted to talk about it, anyway. Those feelings had felt stupid and crazy to Sam, but in that very moment, they somehow didn't. The hunter was vaguely aware of the fact that it had something to do with the drugs he had been given, but they also did a bang up job with making him not care.
"Whatever they gave you, I want some," Gabriel stated, petting Sam's hair a little awkwardly. Cuddling with the eight year old had been one thing, cuddling with the adult was another entirely. Not that the archangel didn't like the contact, it just felt different. What really made it awkward was knowing that as soon as the drugs wore off, Sam was going to push Gabriel away. No doubt about it.
"Are we going to spend a week with you again?" the younger Winchester asked in a hopeful tone, looking up at the archangel, "Can we have a nice Christmas this time?"
Gabriel couldn't help laughing at that. It was such an innocent request and it reminded the archangel a lot of little Sammy. It was good to know that the tiny kid that had gotten along so well with Gabriel was still somewhere inside the giant of a man, even if that part of Sam was probably a part that the younger Winchester wouldn't show normally.
"That what you want, Sambo?" the archangel replied in a soft tone, still petting the taller man's hair.
"I don't like Christmas, but I don't like Halloween either and you made that good," Sam answered, before he scrunched up his face remembering how their Halloween experience ended for them, "Kinda."
The picture of a Christmas tree with tacky decorations and fairy lights was on Gabriel's mind before he could keep it from forming. There weren't many things the archangel could have liked better than to give his boys one more good holiday, but the circumstances had changed dramatically since the last time they had spent time together.
"You're cute when you're drugged off your feet," Gabriel commented once he had managed to drag himself out of his thoughts, "Too bad I need you sober."
The archangel put two fingers against Sam's forehead, chasing every last trace of the drugs the younger Winchester had been given, out of the human's system. Gabriel knew that the younger Winchester was back to his usual self the moment the human let go of the archangel and scrambled to get off from the opposite side of the bed to bring some distance between them.
Sam opened his mouth to speak, but no words came out. Somehow, every time they met Gabriel it ended with the younger Winchester being embarrassed and speechless.
"What did they give you all those happy pills for, anyway?" the archangel asked to end the awkward silence between them. They would have to work out where they stood in relation to each other eventually, but there were other matters to be dealt with first.
"We are hunting a wraith and Dean was sure that he knew who…" Sam started to explain, before his face paled noticeably, "I need to talk to him, apologize."
"Calm down, Sambo, we're going to go find your brother in a minute," Gabriel replied in a soothing tone, automatically reaching out to the taller man before he pulled his hand back again. The archangel hadn't thought that it would be this hard to not fall back into the pattern he had established when it came to comforting a distraught eight year old Sam.
"Not Dean. I need to talk to that doctor. I… I tried to kill him," Sam swallowed hard. Sure, Dean had seen Dr. Fuller's distorted face in the mirror and it would have made sense that the wraith, that had been killing patients of the facility, was somebody who could move around freely whenever he pleased, without anybody batting an eye about it. That didn't make it any better that Sam had attacked the man with the intent to kill him, when it had turned out that Dr. Fuller was an ordinary human being.
"I'm sure it was an honest mistake," Gabriel tried to reassure the younger Winchester. In the business the Winchesters were in, mistakes were bound to happen. It was regrettable, but unavoidable, even for the legendary Winchester brothers hunting team. Apparently, Sam wasn't willing to let the archangel make excuses for him, though.
"How does that make it better?" the younger Winchester shot back. It wouldn't have helped the doctor or his relatives any that it had been an honest mistake that had led to him getting killed. It didn't help the world any that it had been an honest mistake that had started the Apocalypse. Then again, Sam didn't think that he deserved to claim an honest mistake on the end of the world. It had been his fault and he had to own up to it.
"Okay, fine," Gabriel groaned, throwing his arms in the air exasperatedly. There was no comforting somebody who didn't want to be comforted. "You want me to disappear or make myself invisible?"
Sam nodded and waited for the archangel to be gone before he knocked on the door to get someone's attention. The younger Winchester had the strong feeling that he needed to apologize as quickly as possible and not only because he needed to be allowed to leave the room, if he wanted to be any help to Dean. Actually, with Gabriel around Sam wouldn't need anybody's permission to leave the room, but he still wanted to apologize.
What the younger Winchester didn't know was that the archangel had never left the room. Gabriel had given the human two options and Sam hadn't chosen one, so the archangel had made the choice for him. Making himself invisible had been the preferable option to Gabriel, because he could see and hear everything that was going on that way.
The orderly who first noticed Sam's knocking seemed astonished to see the man back on his feet a couple hours earlier than they had anticipated. In the end, the nurse put the fact that the medication had lost its effect so quickly on the sheer size of the patient and the fact that they hadn't had to medicate him before and thus hadn't known how his body was going to react. The nurse went to alert Dr. Fuller as quickly as possible.
"Thank you for talking to me after…" Sam hurried to say when the doctor came into the room, "I am very sorry for what I did. I thought you were… a monster. But I know better now. After what happened, I had a...moment of clarity. I realized...there's no such thing as monsters."
Of course, the younger Winchester had lied, but to be taken seriously with his apology he had to make the doctor believe that he was somewhat sane that moment. Insisting that monsters really did exist, but that Sam understood that Dr. Fuller wasn't one of them wasn't the way to go to accomplish that.
"Well, I'm glad to hear you say that, but, honestly? Monsters are the least of your problems. People can learn to live with delusions, but the anger I saw in you...You hurt those two men, and you were going to kill me. The look in your eyes when you came after me, I...It was like you were barely even human...like a man possessed," the doctor replied, not unkindly, but the words hit Sam like a slap to the face, anyway.
"I am so sorry," the younger Winchester whispered, "I just want… a second chance, please."
Dr. Fuller agreeing to allow Sam to go to the day room was the one thing that kept Gabriel from giving the man an uncomfortable rash on places he couldn't scratch in public. The archangel realized that the man hadn't done anything to deserve his wrath, but Gabriel had the strong impulse to make somebody pay for the helpless and forlorn expression on the younger Winchester's face. Apparently, the instinct to protect the kid hadn't gone away just because he was an overgrown moose of a man again.
"You don't believe that, do you?" Gabriel asked, making himself visible once more. The question was a little redundant, because the look on the younger Winchester's face showed very clearly that he believed every word the doctor had said.
"Were you here this entire time?" Sam sighed, rubbing his forehead to ward off the oncoming migraine. Hearing someone analyze his character like Dr. Fuller had, was bad enough without the archangel being present to hear every single word!
"I asked you if I should disappear or make myself invisible, you let me choose which one," Gabriel shrugged, failing to make the gesture look completely casual. Of course, the archangel realized that he had abused a loophole, but what had Sam expected from a trickster?
"Sam, you know that what he said was a lot of bullshit, right?" Gabriel asked again in a softer tone. That doctor didn't know enough about the Winchester's real lives to make that kind of observation for starters. Besides, the archangel had started to feel a strong urge to protect Sam during the time they had spent together around Halloween and it hadn't just gone away afterward.
"What? The part about me barely being human? About my anger at everyone and everything getting two innocents hurt and nearly getting another killed?" Sam retorted in a surprisingly emotionless tone. It wasn't really a question, anyway. Those things were true as far as the younger Winchester was concerned. That he didn't like those truths about himself, didn't make them any less accurate.
"You had reasons to believe…" Gabriel tried once more, only to be rudely interrupted before he could even finish his statement. The archangel made a mental note about the younger Winchester disliking people trying to defend his actions. Gabriel had a feeling that piece of information was something that'd be very useful to remember in the future.
"Excuses," Sam huffed, crossing his arms in front of his chest.
"You realize that some excuses are valid," the archangel shot back, mimicking the younger Winchester's stance.
"Whatever you say, Trickster," Sam stated, turning toward the door to go to the day room. Of course, the younger Winchester would be under supervision of a bunch of people who thought he was insane, violent and dangerous there, but that seemed better than staying in the room with the archangel that very moment. Besides, they still had a case to work on.
"What's that supposed to mean?" Gabriel asked, raising his eyebrows and walking after the taller man. If Sam wanted to throw something at the archangel, he'd better make sure that Gabriel understood what he was talking about.
The younger Winchester turned around to look directly into the archangel's eyes as he said, "Whoever said Dean was the dysfunctional one, has never seen me with a sharp object in my hands."
Sam turned around and left the room while Gabriel stared after him flabbergasted and feeling thoroughly chastised.