When Sam finally became conscious again, he had to blink slowly several times to bring the bright room into focus. The bed underneath him was too firm to be the old cot in the Panic Room; there weren't those strange dark corners so more than likely he wasn't dreaming.
The gentle humming of machinery around him, the heavy and slightly stiff white blanket tucked in around his legs, the tell-tale smell of chemicals. The noise of people outside the closed door with its opaque glass window was both familiar and terrifying. He was in a hospital room, and he looked down at himself to see he was dressed in nothing but a typical hospital gown. The strangest part of the whole thing wasn't where he was, but how he was.
Sam felt….almost completely normal. No migraines, no cramps, no pain or aches or even a stuffy noise. The cotton-headedness was mostly gone, and he felt himself again. He felt human again; he felt like Sam was supposed to feel, not this fragile and neurotic mess, a shadow of his former self. The extreme paranoia was gone. The past days felt like he'd been trapped in a half-remembered acid trip, and now that he wasn't high he could finally see things clearly again.
With a sigh of relief, Sam leaned back against the bed and relaxed when the door opened. He didn't bother to crack open his eyes for a moment; he was so relieved to feel normal, clear-headed and sane, he wouldn't have reacted if Lucifer was standing there next to him.
"Good to see you back in the land of the mentally stable, Winchester," a familiar voice said. Sam opened his eyes to see the Trickster standing at the end of the bed, looking intently at a clipboard with a lollipop stick hanging out of his mouth. He had a white lab coat, stethoscope, jacket…a thought passed through Sam's head that made him moan.
"God, please don't tell me this has all been some trippy nightmare," Sam pleaded. "Are you telling me I never left T.V. Land?"
Gabriel looked down at his outfit and shrugged. "Don't get your panties in a bunch, snicker-doodle! I'm just reusing the set because I found it appropriate, considering the current situation," the archangel said.
He jumped onto a counter across the room and sat kicking his legs in the air like a child. Sam closed his eyes again, and simply breathed for a moment.
{Despite everything that had happened, the stupid outfit looked really good on Gabriel, especially the white sneakers and coat. They did something for his amber hair and honey eyes.}
"I feel…a lot better," Sam said slowly, as if by saying so he'd jinx himself and start feeling sickly again.
Gabriel grinned. "Glad to hear it. Had to give you a Grace infusion. Managed to undue a lot of the crap your body put you through over the past few days. Unfortunately, there's a slight side-effect."
"What?" Of course, Sam figured. My good luck usually lasts about thirty seconds.
"I had to reboot your whole system," Gabriel said slowly. "The good news is that you woke up able to talk and breathe; the bad news is that you won't be able to walk for a few days until your lower half figures itself out."
The hunter looked at his legs and tried to move them, but they simply lay there motionless. He poked himself in the thigh (a spot where he was super ticklish and always jerked) but he didn't feel it.
He gave Gabriel a wary glance, but the archangel held up his hands. "A week, tops," the archangel added quickly in case Sam got angry.
"So, what, you've trapped me in Dr. Sexy reruns until I'm supposedly better?" Sam said bitterly.
"I figured the hospital was neutral territory and would help you relax," Gabriel said with a little pout on his lips.
Well, Sam certainly appreciated waking up in a hospital more than waking up in the Panic Room or trapped in Gabriel's bed, considering he wasn't even sure how he felt about Gabriel at the moment. He felt less inclined to kill him, so that was a good sign.
"Any particular reason I'm wearing a hospital gown?" Sam asked.
He heard a little chuckle. "Besides the view?" he tried, but Sam simply glared at him. "Fine, spoilsport. You were sort of reeking to high Heaven. Then again, there is a reason Sasquatches are called Skunk Apes in Florida. Ever heard of the shower? Might want to look into it."
"Shut up, Gabriel," Sam groaned as he crossed his arms over his chest. "You're going to tell me what's going on, aren't you?"
Gabriel ran a hand through his hair. "It's a long story, Sambo."
"Good thing I'm not going anywhere," Sam said with biting sarcasm.
Gabriel nodded. Sarcasm was usually a good sign of a healthy Winchester.
"Alright. I, uh, I guess I'll start from the top," Gabriel said, although he seemed to be speaking to himself more than Sam. He clasped his hands in his lap, and he continued to kick his feet in a way that Sam refused to find strangely cute.
"Well, as you know, angels don't have physical forms as you understand them. In Heaven, we're basically wavelengths of celestial intent that can span multiple dimensions and times. In layman's terms, we're Grace and wings. So, affection between angels is different than humans. We don't have sex; we share Grace with each other—sharing a piece of ourselves is the most intimate form of affection we have, and with that sharing comes a bond.
"Now, I've been on Earth for millennia, Sam, and I've had my share of relationships and one night stands, but—well—this is new territory, even for me." Gabriel paused, running his hand through his hair as he said as quickly and bluntly as possible "So, during a heated moment of passion I might have let my control slip ever so slightly and offered a bit of my Grace to you, and in an equally steamy moment of passion, you kind of accepted it, creating a itsy-bitsy bond between us."
There were a few moments of silence as Sam digested that piece of information.
"So…what does that mean? How can I hold onto your Grace, I'm not an angel."
"No, but you are a vessel, an Archangel's vessel, to be exact. You were born with the ability to house an Archangel's Grace without exploding or wasting away. Of course, the idea was you would house Lucifer's, but you can hold any Grace."
"Including yours," Sam said, and Gabriel nodded.
"Including mine. You accepted the Grace I gave and a little bond was created. Not one in the most official sense, but enough of one. You can feel what I feel. All the panic-attacks, the sickness, those were…reactions. I was really upset, Sam," Gabriel admitted.
"So, that wasn't all me, that was me feeling what you were feeling?" Now some of the strange sensations and thoughts Sam had were making sense. "So…the power that I felt wasn't from demon blood, but your Grace?"
"Looks like you hit the nail on the head, kiddo. I'm thinking that's how you made the blade that killed Lucifer. You were trained to take the power from demon blood and twist it to suit your own needs. I think that, with Lucifer bearing down on us, you took the power the Grace held and used it—that's how you made a blade, that's how you saw my wings, broke free from Castiel in mid-flight, and basically did a bunch of shit no human's ever done before."
Gabriel sighed heavily. "Sam, I'm…fuck, I'm so sorry, Sam. I didn't mean for any of this to happen! I didn't ever mean for you to get hurt like this," he said quietly, strangely somber for a Trickster.
Sam didn't say anything for several long moments. His mind was reeling from everything that had happened over the past few days. A sudden chuckle escaped Sam, and within a few seconds he was laughing loudly, to the point that he was almost crying.
Gabriel sat on the counter and simply watched him with that stupid tilted-head stare Castiel had mastered. "Sam?"
"God, I'm still clean," Sam said with excitement in his voice. "I thought I was…I thought you'd….hahahaha! Gabriel, you didn't trick me into drinking demon blood!"
Gabriel blinked before scowling. "No, no I didn't. Only someone with a doorknob for a brain would have believed that!" The Archangel looked incredibly miffed at the suggestion.
Sam was smiling so brightly the room was almost blinding. Gabriel couldn't help the smile that spread over his face. Maybe he could patch things up with Sam. Maybe everything would be okay.
"I'm sorry," Sam said immediately, looking sheepish. "It just…it made so much sense at the time."
"The idea that only witches floated in water also made a lot of sense at the time," Gabriel said, though his tone held no bite to it.
Sam grinned and looked around the room. "So, now-Oh, God, I punched Dean," he said, wincing in sudden remembrance. "My brother's going to kill me."
"Hey, wanna hold a bet on whose brothers kill who first?"
"That's not funny, Gabriel."
"I thought it was. Then again, we both know I'm the wit amongst us."
Sam paused. "So, earlier, you said we were…bonded? What does that mean, exactly?"
Gabriel winced slightly. He'd been hoping to save that conversation for another few days. Trust Sam to find the one still raw wound and poke it with a stick. But, since he was a puppy-eyed giant of good intention, the pain was slightly dulled by those wide hazel eyes.
The Archangel held up his left hand and tapped his ring finger a few times.
Sam's jaw almost fell into his lap. "We're…married?" Sam's voice didn't go up a few high-pitched octaves, not at all.
"Ish," Gabriel admitted to a tile on the floor between them. "I guess the best way to describe it is to be engaged, but there's no divorce amongst angels, Sam."
"Wait, wait, wait…" Sam said, making a T-shape with his hands, a feat considering how much they were shaking. "You've gotta…fuck, this…you've gotta be kidding me!"
"For once, I'm not," Gabriel said, and that was even more frightening because Sam could see the truth in his golden eyes. "You and me, that's it, until you die, then I follow you to Heaven and we spend eternity together."
A roller coaster of emotion didn't really do Sam's mental state any justice at that second. He didn't have to be in Sam's head to know what the human was experiencing; the faces he made told the story plainly enough. Overwhelming fear and nervousness, slight betrayal, heart-pounding panic—the angel decided he didn't want to see anymore, and looked away.
"…What if I went to Hell?" Sam blurted out. Gabriel saw the Winchester honestly believed that was where his stupid, shining soul would go. Idiot.
"If Castiel can do it, so can I. I'll drag your soul from the Pit to all the way to the pearly gates," Gabriel promised. There was a hint of power in that promise, one that made Sam feel pity for any demon that got in the Archangel's way if it came down to that.
"You know how bad this week felt, Sam? It wouldn't even compare if something happened to me. I'm a selfish dick of a pagan God, but I would never ask anyone to go through that for me."
"You didn't ask," Sam said sharply. "You just did it, and then ran away when you realized you'd gotten yourself stuck with me."
"It was an accident! And the second I realized what happened, yes, I got as far away from you as possible. The bond wasn't very strong yet, I figured time apart would lessen it, to the point where we could just go on with our lives."
"Wait, so that dream were you were being the biggest dick in existence wasn't some fucked up fever dream of mine? That was real?" Sam demanded.
Gabriel buried his head in his hands. "Look, trust me when I say no one should never ever make grown-up decisions while on their umpteenth pint of Asgardian mead."
"You tried to break up with me while drunk on Norse mead?" Sam scoffed incredulously. The conversations he found himself having were downright surreal sometimes. He wasn't even sure how to react to that news.
Gabriel motioned wildly with his hands. "I was trying to protect you! I thought if I pissed you off badly enough you'd never want to see me again. I was keeping you out of the line of fire in case Mikey does get a bug up his ass about finding me."
"How very noble of you," Sam snapped, eyes flashing in hurt. "Is the idea of being bonded to me so bad that you'd rather me be sick and miserable for the rest of my life than see how to make this work?"
"This had nothing to do with you! If Michael found us, there wouldn't be a 'rest of your life,' unless you're counting the seconds," Gabriel retorted. "Of coursenow I realize in retrospect that that was a terrible plan because I forgot you don't get mad, you get even, don't cha Saminator?"
Sam couldn't even respond for several long moments as realization struck. "Wait…so when Michael showed up and you didn't help…and the dream…all that happened because you were drunk?"
Gabriel opened his mouth to answer; instead, he had to lean a little to the left as a plastic bedpan smacked into the wall where his head had been, hard enough to leave a dent in the wall. "Well, that was rude."
"You son of a bitch!" Sam snarled. He looked around frantically but luckily there was nothing close enough or small enough for him to toss. "If my legs worked I would come over there and strangle you!"
"Then it's a good thing we're in a hospital, you'd only end up breaking your hands," Gabriel said with a shrug.
"Dead died!" Sam snapped. "I had to watch my brother die. You could've stopped it!"
"Remember at Carthage how Lucifer was kicking my ass? Michael is the eldest of us all, I wouldn't stand a chance against him. And in case you've forgotten, you're not the only one who watched his brother get killed in front of him!" Gabriel retorted angrily.
Sam froze at that, unable to look the angel in the eyes.
"Everyone only knew him from the doom and gloom stuff, but Luci had a decent streak to him, too. He was the only brother I was close to, and I had to watch him die."
"Gabriel, he was going to use me to destroy the world. Whatever decency he had was long gone."
"I knew that, if it ever came down to it, he would kill me," Gabriel said matter-of-factly. "He was older, smarter, more ruthless. I knew that's what would happen. I never, ever thought I'd outlive him. So, excuse me for needing some time to gather myself."
"So, to recap our current situation: you accidentally gave me a piece of your Grace; after I killed Lucifer you realized what you did, ran away and got so hammered you didn't even notice Michael try to kill me, Dean and Cas; then you got the brilliant idea to break up with me in the most assholish, obnoxious way possible, and to top it all off you barely noticed when I almost went crazy and died from an illness caused by your emotional state. Well, I hope the gathering was worth it," Sam said quietly, arms crossed over his chest and not even looking at the Trickster anymore.
A cold stillness came over the room, and when Sam looked over at the counter, the angel was gone.
"Fuck," Sam said, running a hand over his face. "You're gone. Again. Why am I surprised?"
"Fuck, that didn't go as well as I'd hoped." Gabriel was pacing in the hallway just outside Sam's room. The hospital scene continued around the Trickster, people walking and talking as if it were the real thing. Gabriel thought the scene might help Sam stay calm, but after that blow up he was finding it really hard not to tuck his tail and run again. At least now Sam was healed. Balanced again—well, as much as a Winchester could be considered balanced.
"Sam is even more powerful than I thought, seeing as he has the ability to make an Archangel run away," said a gravelly voice behind him. Gabriel whipped around to see Castiel looking around the scene with vague interest, before he shot a glower at the older angel.
"I'm not running; it's called a tactical retreat. The best thing to do is leave him alone 'til he cools off."
Castiel shook his head. "Leaving Sam alone with nothing but his thoughts is almost as dangerous as angering Michael."
Gabriel ran his hands over his face and groaned. "Yeah, I know. He honestly thought I was trying to feed him demon blood so I could rule Hell in Lucifer's place because I wanted the hellhounds!"
The other angel's eyes grew wide in surprise. "His anger was certainly justifiable if that's what he thought was happening. Did you tell him the truth?"
"Yeah, I did. Didn't make much different, though, I got a bedpan to the head for my troubles."
"A small price to pay," Castiel said. He noticed Gabriel wince slightly and shift so his left arm was slightly hidden behind himself. Castiel's eyes grew wide in surprise. Through the long-sleeved doctor's coat, he could see the scarred flesh over Gabriel's arm.
"What-?"
"Holy fire," Gabriel said with surprising nonchalance. "Trust me when I say this, you don't want to cross it."
Castiel opened his mouth to say something, but Gabriel cut him off with a stare. "A small price to pay," Gabriel repeated somberly.
The blue-eyed angel shook his head, before he glanced at Sam's door. "I don't know very much about human culture, but I've noticed its commonplace to send a gift as a token of sincere apology." When he caught Gabriel arch an eyebrow at him, he shrugged. "Simply something I've noticed."
Gabriel chuckled. "You're about as subtle as a train wreck, you know that? How in the world has Dean not figured out your end game?"
"Dean is my charge, nothing more," Castiel said stoically.
"I wasn't born last century, bro. I spy with my little eye: a newly-promoted Archangel who has goo goo has for a certain human hun~ter," Gabriel said in a sing-song voice and a triumphant smirk on his lips.
Castiel shot him a glare before he disappeared. He sighed in slight relief. Now that he was bereft of his brother, Gabriel was left to figure out what would be an appropriate gift to an angry Winchester.
Sam fidgeted in the bed for a moment, but as his legs were like dead weights so he couldn't move too much. It was too much, too soon, and Sam didn't have the luxury of teleporting away from his problems like Gabriel could. Jackass, Sam thought to himself. He looked around the hospital room again, and it felt more like a prison now that the angel was gone.
Does Dean even know where I am? Sam thought. He imagined Dean looking for him frantically, and that only made him feel guiltier.
It would be so easy to walk away right now. It would be so easy to walk away from the Trickster right now, but he was finding that a difficult idea to wrap his mind around. (He wasn't even going to start worrying about this bonding thing yet…too much, too soon).
The particular point Sam was having a problem digesting was the fact that Gabriel apologized. Profusely. Multiple times. That was weird.
Gabriel might have had millennia to be a pagan god, but he was still an angel. And like all angels, once he chose a course of action nothing made him stray from it. This was the same being who thought teaching Sam to accept Dean's hellbound fate was to force him to watch Dean die over a hundred days in a row. He never apologized for that. He never apologized for making them try to 'accept their roles.' Gabriel stuck to his plan, no matter what.
So, for Gabriel to apologize multiple times must've meant he was sincere; he truly abhorred what had happened to Sam, and he wanted to fix it.
The hunter pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed loudly. Forgiving the angel should've been so hard. So why was Sam finding it suddenly so easy?
Well it was a lot easier to deal with a situation when he wasn't in constant, chronic agony. Sam could deal with plenty of pain—his level of pain tolerance had saved his ass plenty of times in the past—but pain coupled with the feeling that the very ground was crumbling out from under you, that everyone you believed was a lie? That had been more difficult than just a stab wound or cracked rib.
When he thought about it more, Sam realized he completely understood what Gabriel was going through. When Sam was forced to watch Dean go from his brother to a lifeless, mutilated corpse, Sam didn't take his brother's death well. He drank, he acted violently, he hid from Bobby. Tried to make a dozen separate demon deals but no demons would take. He understood what losing an older brother did to you—it made you crazy, mad, suicidal, guilt-ridden, numb.
A crinkle of plastic wrap next to him dragged a pair of hazel eyes to the small bedside table. He reached over and grabbed a plastic bag of candy. Candy? Sam looked at the bag curiously for a moment, and realization made the corners of his lips curl up in an unconscious grin.
Sam didn't have much of a sweet tooth (much to Gabriel's dismay). Sam had always prided himself on his healthier eating habits than Dean. When he was younger, it was a badge of distinction; while Dean might have embraced the dollar-menu burgers and typical diner fare that came with living on the road, Sam always made it a point to pay three times the price for an apple at the gas station rather than a candy bar. This carried true most of the time, but Sam had a weakness that he didn't tell anyone about.
Sam flipped over the package and a single post-it note was on the back:
Hope these help you to feel better. I'm really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, REALLY sorry for everything that happened to you, Samikins.
Sam looked at the bag, then at the note, and sighed. He was finding it harder and harder to hold onto the anger, the guilt, the fear. He ripped open the bag and smiled at the multi-colored candies in the bag.
Gummi worms. Gummi bears sometimes worked in a pinch when the craving hit, but he preferred the worms.
They were just kids—he about 8, Dean was 12. They were spending a weekend alone and it was starting to snow outside the dingy motel John had dropped them off at, somewhere in the ass end of Oklahoma. When Dean got back from the gas station he had dinner (consisting of ravioli in a can, chips, and other essentials) and from his back pocket he pulled a bag of gummi worms, successfully stolen (the first of many treats for Sam that weren't procured legally).
They watched old action movies on the T.V. well into the midnight hours, the snow falling gently outside, the boys play-fighting over the last worm in the bag. Sam triumphantly slurped it up when Dean wasn't looking.
It was a good memory, one of the few from his childhood. When they got older, no matter how long the day had been or how stressful the hunt, Dean always managed to crack a smile if he caught Sam intently reading a book or surfing the internet with a gummi worm hanging from between his lips.
Sam frowned. He couldn't even remember the last time he'd even had gummi worms. And look at that, it was the same brand from all those years ago. Every once in a while he'd gotten up the craving for them, but no matter where he looked he hadn't been able to find the same brand. They must've been discontinued for some reason.
It tasted just as good as he remembered, and as Sam methodically nibbled the end of the sweet candy, he couldn't help a small smirk creep across his face. Really? Sam thought to himself. I'm letting myself get won over by gummi worms?
Suddenly there was movement coming from the end of the bed, and Sam looked up curiously to see a familiar pair of brown eyes and a wiggling body.
"Rascal!"
The Jack Russell Terrier nuzzled and burrowed his way up Sam's body and chest and laid a barrage of kisses on his face that he couldn't have escaped even with working legs.
"It's so good to see you again! I'm sorry I haven't been by, your Dad is a jackass," Sam said.
Rascal barked once in supposed agreement, making Sam laugh. The hunter scratched, stroked, and nuzzled the dog for several minutes—he managed to momentarily forget the anger and fear making a knot in his stomach. Racal soaked up the affection like a sponge and he made himself a comfortable spot on Sam's numb lap. The hair was short and coarse and tickled his fingertips. The warmth of the little body and quick heat beat of his furry companion started to lull the big hunter into a peacefulness he would've thought impossible.
His favorite candy and a dog was a one-two punch even Sam Winchester couldn't fight. "Trust a Trickster to not fight fair," Sam managed to mutter just before falling asleep.
