Chapter Seven

To say that Sam was distracted the next morning was an understatement. Dean was stuck trying his best to find subtle ways to get Sam's attention while they visited the M.E. for cause of death and elbowing him while they conducted interviews with the second round of friends and family. For the most part Sam kept tuning out, his expression telling the people they were with that he was listening, but Dean thought it was fairly clear Sam's brain was elsewhere.

They'd talked about it late into the morning before grabbing a meagre couple hours of sleep. It was fairly evident that they had to go and check it out. If the Archangel was indeed still alive, or had been resurrected, then it would be careless of them to overlook the possibility of him joining their side. Team Free Will could only benefit from having another Angel friendly on staff. Not to mention having him up their sleeve could provide a huge advantage besides just in battle, especially when the rest of Heaven's elite and Lucifer thought him dead.

However, there was still a case here, and neither Winchester felt right abandoning it. They'd never made a habit of doing so, even when all the big games had begun, and they weren't about to start now. So they had to see this through first, and then check out the new Pepsi guy. Sam had already done some digging and gotten an address for his agent. It was a couple states over, but they'd travelled further for a case.

It seemed Gabriel the Archangel went by Samson Chester these days, something a drunken Dean had found endlessly amusing while Sam himself rolled his eyes and refused to rise to the taunts as he hacked sites and found out everything they could about him. Gabriel's cover was fairly new to the acting gig, having seemingly popped up out of the blue at an audition mere days after their face-off with Lucifer, when Sam and Dean had presumed him dead. As far as they could tell, the agent of another actor there had seen his pitch and offered her card, and bam. He'd gotten the spot, and that was that.

They were both exhausted when they met with the M.E. the next morning, Dean fighting a hangover on top of keeping tabs on the daydreaming Agent Cobain. The visit turned up nothing new, confirming only that the girl was missing her heart and had had her head removed with a sharp blade with a smooth edge, possibly a machete or a large skinning blade favoured by big game hunters. All the M.E. could add was that if it weren't for the decapitation, he would have put his money on animal attack, on account of how vicious and messy the chest wound was, telling them it was possible she had bled out into the soil. There were also signs of animal activity around one forearm which could have been done post- or perri-mortem.

To Sam and Dean, it looked like a Werewolf bite, and a neat one at that.

The family hadn't yielded much either, other than being vaguely offended that Agent Cobain kept drifting out of conversation and staring at his shoes. Dean had had to scramble pretty quickly for a cover story, claiming his partner had lost a relative recently and wasn't at his best today. Grieving parents aren't all that keen to find out the Agents assigned to their child's murder can't even pay attention to it, and Dean felt rightfully proud of the level of sweet-talking he had had to accomplish to smooth the waters and ensure they told the brothers everything.

By the time they were back at the motel and debating dinner, he'd had enough.

"This would go a lot quicker if I wasn't doing it all on my own, you know."

Sam lifted his head and turned to look at him, his eyes full of other thoughts.

"Hm?"

Dean rolled his eyes, tugging off his tie.

"See what I mean? You're a million miles away, Sam."

"Sorry." Sam answered, slipping his arms from his suit jacket even as his expression began to tune out again.

"You're still doing it!" Dean complained, looking as though he couldn't decide whether he was amused or annoyed, "Man he's got you good."

He chuckled as he hunted for his duffel, tugging out a T-shirt with a smile that told just how glad he was to see it. He shed his button-up shirt in seconds, pulling the T-shirt over his head with a contented sigh. He looked up at Sam as he sat down to untie his shoes, taking a long look at him.

Sam hadn't moved, standing still in the middle of the room with his jacket in his hand and a thoughtful, faraway expression on his face. Dean reached over for his pillow and tossed it at him, catching him in the leg. Sam blinked awake and turned to look at him, his brow furrowing as he looked down at himself.

"Sorry, what?"

That time Dean did laugh.

"He's got you zoning out like crazy today. You've spent longer checked out than you have in."

Sam rolled his eyes, finally moving to lay his jacket down and set about changing into his civilian clothes too.

"I just wonder how he did it." he answered, his voice taking on a faintly sorrowful tone, "And why he didn't bother to tell us."

Dean watched Sam closely, studying the darkness lurking in his eyes and the weird set of his grim smile.

"Uh huh." he said slowly.

Sam shot him a look.

"I am!"

And Dean grinned then, because he'd raised Sam. He could read that kid inside out. And right now, he saw what Sam was trying and failing to hide as though it was written in hot pink Sharpie across his face.

"Sure." he hummed, turning away deliberately, his eyebrows raised disbelievingly, "I'm sure that's all it is."

Sam opened his mouth, looking scandalised and offended, but there was a faint red crawling up his neck and when Dean just gave him that look again, Sam snapped his mouth shut with a growl.

"Shut up."

Dean only laughed, listening to his little brother grumble as they got ready to head out for food. It didn't matter whether he really believed what he suspected. He was too damn busy being glad Sam wasn't moping the way he had been since that night in that stupid God Hotel. There was something different about him now, like the life had been put back into him. Dean was relieved, his worries easing to see Sam really look alive again.

If he owed that to the infuriating asshole of a douchebag Archangel, then so be it.