He awoke at some strange hour, dark and deep. But he felt better in some ways, even if his head seemed to hurt worse.
Gabriel sat up at a snail's pace, not willing to risk searing pain at doing so too quickly. He blinked in the darkness. Either night had fallen, or his injuries had rendered him blind. Probably nighttime.
The storm whipped and raged outside, but the overall sound had softened; the ferocity had lessened. He didn't know if the lower volume signified whether his head injury or the weather had improved, but he tried to think of it as a good thing.
He stumbled to his feet, pleased to find his legs in good working order… at least so long as he didn't think of Sati and Sam. His entire body shuddered, and a subtle, sickening tremor spread through his limbs. He found he couldn't do anything but worry.
He could walk the house blindfolded, and so he maneuvered around well enough, despite his injuries. He almost tripped over a chunk of concrete from when Sam had thrown one of the bandits down the stairs (or, at least, so Gabriel thought. The darkness made it hard to tell).
Speaking of bodies, where had the two men who'd met their ends in their living room gone? Maybe Cas had tossed them outside into the storm...
He made his way to the door, and pulled away the shade covering the window. Darkness. He couldn't see a thing, not even the tiniest sliver of moonlight. Nothing.
He trudged up the stairs with care, bare fingers sliding along the wall as he shuffled along the well-worn path to his bedroom. Once inside, he fumbled around for a match, hoping to light the oil lamp he kept on a nightstand. Thankfully, it hadn't moved or broken after the day's events, and with a strike of the match, the room revealed itself in the dim light. He turned the tiny dial near the burner, and the wick expanded upwards into the glass globe, brightening the room with more light. It'd eat away at the wick faster, but he had plenty more for replacements.
Gabriel frowned. He had a nasty habit of allowing the lamps to burn too much oil before replenishing the supply, and his own lamp was the worst of the lot. But it had enough for a while.
He suspected there they had no power, and a casual flip of the light switch confirmed his suspicion. They hadn't had time to store up extra power today, much less conserve what they'd had once the storm had struck. The power had drained all day, bled dry.
The storm had probably scoured the solar panels half to death up there. Gabriel hadn't had time to prepare them. When it came time to sweep the dust off, he hoped he didn't find a lot of damage.
Gabriel sank to the floor, folding his legs under him and burying his face in his arms. He'd do anything to distract himself, anything to keep from thinking about how two people he loved and cared for were stuck out in one of the worst, most hellish dust storms he'd ever seen. And if the both of them died, if they choked to death or if the dirt cut them both to shreds…. Gabriel didn't know if he could survive his only child's death.
But Sam's death would kill him, too, because he loved Sam.
In the flickering lamplight, with only the sounds of the storm and his own heavy breathing, Gabriel braced himself for the panic that might follow such an admission. But no surge of panic followed. Only a single thought filled his mind: if he had to fall in love, if he had to go and be stupid and fall for someone, at least it had been Sam. Kind and decent Sam.
But then he felt consumed with all the desire and the longing he'd held back all this time, all the things he tried so hard to hide every time he touched the angel. He recalled all the times he wanted to get closer, but refused, because Sam had remained injured and sick. Just because Sam made for good company didn't give Gabriel the right to creep him while injured, angel or human.
Right now, though, Gabriel needed—needed—to tell Sam how he felt, before it ate him alive. He needed to sit the archangel down and admit all his sins, admit how he'd done him a huge disservice but, but, but he'd make it all okay. He understood Sam had a mate back home and Gabriel would still take great care of him until he could leave.
He needed to make everything okay. He needed everything to work out okay.
For a fraction of a second, he thought about praying it all to Sam in one jumbled, angst-ridden heap of words and emotion. But he thought better of it. With Sam no doubt fighting to survive out there, the last thing Gabriel needed to do was whack him over the head with shocking news. It could wait.
Or maybe Gabriel's own fear got in the way, but regardless, Gabriel didn't argue with the thought.
He opened his eyes, staring down at his hands and arms. They'd dried over with caked blood and dirt, and remembered he should probably wash up. Otherwise, he'd scare the everliving shit out of Sati when he did see her next.
Because he would see her again. He would. Sam would protect her. Gabriel believed it. He had to.
He found a basin of water he'd set out the night before and forgotten to dump (thank goodness for small favors), and set about scrubbing his arms down. He set the oil lamp high up on the dresser, and stared at his awful face in the mirror as he scrubbed; layered with dust, matted and clumped where his tears had fallen and blood had gushed. He wiped it all away, ignoring the stings of pain he felt when cleaning around his nose, or around the two blows to his head.
They couldn't do anything about his nose. It'd just have to heal in place. The forehead and the back of his head, however, could do with something cold. If they had power, he'd go for ice, but for the moment, he settled for splashing cold water on his forehead. Cas, as usual, had been right. At least his skull hadn't fractured. Otherwise, he'd have fallen into a coma by now.
He set the old towel on the floor, and stripped of his clothes, forcing his hands to methodically clean himself. If he didn't focus on something, if he didn't force himself to follow some routine, he'd perch by the front door, waiting for the dust to clear just enough for him to see past the porch. And that would be a mistake, because he'd get lost too quickly in the storm. Maybe Sam could protect Sati, but he certainly couldn't help Gabriel if he got lost, too.
When he finished, he dunked his head in the mucky water, scrubbing his hair—and head injuries—clean of dust and blood… or as clean as able.
With clean clothes and two fresh blankets, he returned downstairs with his lamp, the light dimmed as to not bother Cas. He set the lamp upon the table, and examined his brother.
Cas hunched over in his chair awkwardly, dozing. He appeared as filthy from head to toe as Gabriel had, but other than a red, spotted wound on his cheek (probably from the broken tooth he'd mentioned), he didn't see any blood.
Gabriel took one blanket and wrapped it around Cas. He stirred for a moment, blinking up at Gabriel.
"I'm fine," he said. "You need a blanket. It's too cold in here. Go back to sleep."
Cas accepted the extra blanket, and curled up in it, his eyes fluttering shut. Gabriel wrapped the other blanket around himself and blew out the lamp.
As he settled back on the couch, he felt mildly guilty for not offering it to Cas. But it did feel great to rest, to lay his aching head down. He tried not to think too much about Sam and Sati stuck out in the wind, but failed.
Gabriel laid in the quiet, dozing fitfully, his ears struggling to find any change in the storm.
He hadn't meant to fall asleep again, but to stay awake and listen to the storm. His eyes flew open, and at once he knew their dust storm had begun to clear. Hell, maybe the change in the wind itself had awoken him.
The vaguest light, hazy and unclear, cast the room in dark shadows at some point late in the blue hour. The sky hadn't yet turned red and orange with the sunrise, but still, the morning had arrived.
He rolled to his feet and moved to the door, making enough noise for Cas to stir behind him. Gabriel peered out the window, and he could see just the very edge of the front porch. Everything else dissolved into a blue haze.
It took all his willpower not to race outside right then. No, he had to wait.
"It's clearing," Cas muttered, and Gabriel glanced over his shoulder to see him staring out the kitchen window.
Gabriel charged up the steps, probably faster than was strictly advisable, and retrieved an old shirt. Cas' footsteps thundered behind him, presumably following his lead. Gabriel dunked the shirt in a basin of stale water, and tied the soaking wet garment around his nose and mouth. Nearby, he snatched a pair of goggles and a coat, and raced back down the stairs.
"How do you feel, Gabriel?" his brother asked, close on his heels.
"Got a headache the size of Montana," he admitted, "and I can't feel my nose. The light makes my eyes hurt. But more or less, I'm all right."
Again, it took all his willpower not to charge out the door. He had to wait. He had to make sure the clearing hadn't fooled them; that the storm hadn't merely lulled.
But several minutes passed, and the sky continued to clear. He could see further, he… could see the outline of a body on the ground—one of those blasted thieves.
Oh, fuck it. He'd waited long enough.
Apparently, Cas agreed, as he charged out the door just behind Gabriel.
He sucked in a painful lungful of dusty air, even though the shirt.
"Sati!" he shouted as hard as he could, his voice faint against the remaining wind. "Sam!"
Cas moved in an opposite direction, perpendicular to Gabriel's path. "Sati! Samael! Where are you?!"
Gabriel came to a stop over the body of the thief. The storm had torn his skin ragged. Jesus. Must have been some heavy, sharp particles saltating around down there. Not good. He pulled Sam's blade free, tucking it in his belt before continuing.
"Sam!" he screamed at the top of his lungs. "Sati! Where are you two?! Call back to us!"
The edge of the sky had turned rosy, just the slightest dusting of color in the hazy sky. Gabriel stumbled through row after row of corn, but when he moved into a clearing beyond, he could see the reddish haze. Good, good. It signaled the clearing of the storm.
He drew in the biggest breath of air he could, and at the top of his lungs, he screamed his daughter's name. Then Sam's.
Nothing but the wind called back.
The sky progressively grew more and more red, now tinged with early shades of orange. Finally, finally, the storm blew past, and the dusty remnants thinned. The haze would last a week, and the dust had buried so much, but the worst of it would settle out quickly.
So far, the only other noise Gabriel heard, aside from the whistling wind, was Cas' shouting in a not-so-distant part of the field. Gabriel had to strain to hear his brother's deep and not-so-distant voice, and so Gabriel told himself the wind made it too hard to hear anything yet. It did nothing to keep him from getting frantic. Every torturous moment he didn't hear either Sam or Sati calling back threatened to make him physically ill.
After an eternity spent searching, on the verge of sunrise, he thought he heard something shrill and high-pitched on top of the too-cold wind.
He froze.
And again, faintly: "Dad! Dad!"
His heart leapt up into his throat. "Sati!" he screamed. "Sati, where are you?!"
"We're over here! Over here!"
"Keep shouting to me!" he called back. "Keep screaming, Sati!"
"Over here!" she called again. "Dad! Hurry!"
"Cas!" he screamed, "they're over here!"
Stumbling through dirt and corn and too much dust, he breached row after row of corn, his heart thundering in his chest.
"Over here!" she shouted again, this time much, much closer.
"Sati!" He burst through several more rows of the freakishly-tall corn, and almost fell over them.
Sati stood on her feet, her hands cupped around her mouth, a moment away from shouting for him again. Sam sat hunched over, conscious and upright, but he looked like ten kinds of hell.
Gabriel dropped to his knees and folded Sati into his arms. After a moment, he pulled her away, desperately searching her body for injury, but she didn't have a scratch on her. Hell, she didn't even look dirty.
"I'm okay, dad," she told him.
Gabriel ripped away the mask from his face and kissed her cheeks over and over, touched her hair to make certain she was real. She hadn't sustained a single injury. She had clear and unblemished skin, and despite the cold November morning, she didn't even shiver.
He turned his head in Sam's direction, and saw the exhausted archangel staring back at him through heavily lidded eyes, half out of breath and bleeding. His one wing laid haphazardly across his shoulder, limp and caked with dusty blood.
"Sam protected me," she murmured into the wind, but she sounded frightened. Fuck, Gabriel had just laid eyes on him, and even he felt no small amount of fear.
Cas came bursting through the corn a few paces down, and raced towards them from Sam's side. His eyes momentarily washed over Sam's ragged form, but he dropped to his knees beside Sati.
"We were so worried," he told her, hugging her, tearing away his own mask to kiss her hair.
Gabriel disentangled himself from Sati, letting Cas comfort her. He crawled over to Sam's side, examining his exhausted, trembling form. Mindless of the blood and dirt, he reached out and touched the angel's bloody, torn face. Tears streaking down Gabriel's own. How could words ever be enough?
"Thank you, Sam," he half whimpered. "Thank you, thank you..."
"I would die before I allowed harm to befall her," he answered, his voice was thin and wheezing.
The answer made new tears form in his eyes, and he believed the angel didn't exaggerate.
"You might want to put your wing away," he said, voice soft. "I'll have a time dragging you back to the farmhouse with it out."
He meant it to sound light, to add a touch of levity to a nasty situation. But when Gabriel got a closer look, he realized the storm had torn at his wing viciously, making it worse than he'd ever seen.
Sam shook his head. "I cannot."
Gabriel's initially thought they'd work with that. They'd figure it out and get him back to safety. He rounded the angel to get a better glimpse at the damaged limb...
...and saw it hanging on only by one tiny patch of fleshy sinew.
"Jesus Christ," he cursed, without even thinking, before he could think to clasp a hand over his mouth and stop the words.
"What's wrong?" Sati asked, staring back. "What's wrong, Dad?"
The sense of panic in her voice told Gabriel she knew a lot. She knew Sam had gotten hurt, and enough to encourage panic among the adults. She probably thought it was all her fault. For a seven-year-old who just wanted to be liked and make friends, that was an awful, awful thing.
"Nothing, Sati," Sam answered for him, his voice remarkably calm... though Gabriel could hear the edge of gritted teeth. "Your father is unused to seeing an angel in distress."
"But..."
"Do you remember what I told you?" he interrupted. "That I might frighten you with my appearance when the storm passed?"
She frowned. "Yeah, but—."
"And I told you not to worry, for I would be fine. I told you I would appear far more worse than I am."
She nodded, but Gabriel could see tears in her eyes.
"Castiel," Sam said, "would you take her back home? I must speak to Gabriel before I... return."
"What're you gonna do?" she immediately piped up, and Gabriel grimaced. Perceptive kid. Too damn perceptive.
Cas swept her up from behind, hoisting her up and over his shoulder and disappearing into the tall corn stalks.
"No, no! Uncle Cas, no! Put me down! What're they gonna do? Nooo!"
The sounds of her screaming and protesting slowly faded, and Gabriel grimaced at Sam.
"Sam, your wing…."
"I know," he said.
"I'm really gonna have a time getting you back like this—."
"It is pointless to 'get me back' like this. Neither you nor I can undo the damage. You must cleave the dead limb from my back. It bleeds away Grace as we speak."
Gabriel blinked. And blinked again. "What?"
"Do you have my archangel blade?"
"I... yeah?"
"Good. You shall need it to cut through my True Self."
Gabriel stared, his jaw dropping as the reality of the situation set in. "But it won't grow back!"
Sam's head drooped. "I am aware. It matters not. It cannot be saved. Cut it off."
"But—."
"Cut it off!" Sam shouted, interrupting him. He met Gabriel's eyes, and the expression of utter exhaustion horrified him. "Please, just do it..."
Somehow, against his will, Gabriel felt his hand closing over the hilt of the blade.
"Is there nothing else we can do?" he asked, voice thin and dry. "Anything we can try?"
Sam shook his head. "Nothing. If you do not cut it away, I shall continue to bleed Grace through the open wound. With it gone, the cut will stem itself and Grace will cease flowing."
Gabriel stared at the wing, and at Sam's hunched form. "There has to be something else we can do!"
Sam shook his head, tired and trembling in pain. "I've knew what would become of it when I exposed it to the storm. It kept both Sati and I safe." He paused, and met Gabriel's worried eyes. "It was my choice, Gabriel. Do not agonize yourself over it. I chose harm to myself for her sake. If I had been stronger, I would have returned to your home, but I could only burrow down here and wait out the storm."
Gabriel felt his own eyes stinging, and his throat thick with both gratitude and regret. How could someone be so giving? So kind? And if he'd been a better father, if he'd paid heed to the terrible feeling he'd been nursing before the storm, he might have prevented this all together.
A hand closed around his wrist, the same which held the archangel blade. Gabriel realized his eyes had gone distant and he'd begun to tremble.
"Gabriel," Sam told him, gentle and soft and completely at odds with how scraped up and awful he looked. "It's all right."
"I'm sure there's no universe in which this is actually all right," he blurted out, unsure of how else to respond.
"It is when I ask it of you," he said. "I would trust no other to do this."
Gabriel's eyes stung, and thought he might choke on a sob. "I'm so sorry," he breathed, vision going blurry.
"I made my choice," Sam told him. "Now I need your help to finish it. The longer we wait, the more Grace bleeds from the wound."
Right. Right, Gabriel reminded himself. He couldn't let that happen for a lot of reasons, ones that had nothing to do with the angel leaving their universe to go get help, or going home. Gabriel had to help him live. He had to.
"How should I...?"
"Just... grip the base of the scapular patch—where the scapular patch once existed—and cut. It should slide through without resistance."
He stared at the bloody, flayed mess of Sam's back and the remnants of both wings. A long, ugly patch of mottled scar tissue rippled down the length of his rear torso on the right side, from shoulder blade to the small of his back. Once, a mighty, proud wing had existed there, before fate and bad luck had ripped it from his back in one awful burst.
It had all scarred over well enough, and the raised shape had receded into his back, as though he'd never had the wing at all. It looked as though some awful accident had carved deep into his back. It had slowly healed over time, the wounds turing from angry and red to softer pinks and whites. But now, the storm had sliced the old scars open, bleeding along with the rest of his skin. At least no Grace bled from the old wounds.
But the remaining wing did, bloody and sticky and trembling as it laid across Sam's body, the swell of a limp wing joint curved over his left shoulder. Gabriel could see the tiniest pinprick of soft, violet light from underneath the dead wing.
For a morbid moment, he tried to imagine feathers, bright and colorful and all shades of the sky. Blue-gray like the early hours of gloaming; like the blue hour. Or golden, like the first and last rays of the sun. Or even white, like the fluffiest, beautiful clouds of the bluest skies. Pure and lovely—just like Sam.
"Gabriel," Sam said, his voice halting his thoughts.
"I can't," Gabriel offered miserably. "I… I can't. You… you won't go home if I do."
"At this point, I shall not return home even if you do not," he answered, hand tightening around Gabriel's wrist with a warm, encouraging squeeze. "But I will die if you do not. I will sit here and bleed all my Grace away, and all the efforts you've made to keep me alive will be for naught."
Said as if all their efforts hadn't had some sort of selfish end goal to their benefit. Gabriel almost wept.
"I can't. I can't cut off an angel's wing," he half sobbed, but creeping at a snail's pace, his hands did as Sam had instructed. He closed shaking fingers around the top of the wing, where it had already separated from the body.
"I can't cut of an archangel's wing. It's… it's unholy."
Things like holiness and divinity had never concerned Gabriel much. He never used to believe in God or angels or demons, or any of the spooky things his little brother hunted (unbeknownst to him). He believed in the things he could see and touch and perceive, not the myths and stories.
But the wing he held was no myth. It bled and shook, and… oh god, it would kill Sam. The violet glow had strengthened, just at the base where the wing still hung on to the rest of him by threads.
"A holy thing does not exist all on its own," Sam told him, voice soft. "I am not holy only because I am an archangel. The things I do, the choices I make, those determine whether I am wicked or not." One hand reached back, touching Gabriel's shoulder. "To save my life by doing as I request constitutes nothing unholy, and would I could but reach it, I would do it myself and spare you the agony of having to do it for me."
The idea of Sam taking his own blade and having to saw off his own wing made Gabriel cringe. Tears filled his eyes and his fingers twitched.
Yeah, okay, he could do this. He had to.
"What about once it's off?" he breathed. "What do I do then?"
"It should close up on its own," Sam said.
"Should?"
"You may place pressure to the wound if it does not close up within a few moments. If you truly desire to keep me alive, your soul will push back upon my Grace and trap it inside my form. Such will aid in keeping my Grace inside."
"I can affect you like that?"
"With my permission, you may. And you have both my permission and my trust."
Trust. So much trust over things so gruesome.
Fuck this. Fuck all of it. Gabriel would figure out a way to change everything. He would spend his life trying to make those wings grow back if he could. But he wouldn't let this gentle, beautiful angel walk around wingless forever. He vowed it, silently. He would restore them. Somehow. He would.
His hands shook as he positioned the blade, carefully maneuvering into the torn folds of skin and bone. He tried to avoid raw skin and glowing Grace, but in such a tiny chasm he found it impossible.
Sam curled over on himself, his fingers digging into the soft dust beneath them. Gabriel couldn't imagine the agony he must have felt, and to see him bracing for worse cracked open his heart.
Gabriel's own vision clouded with tears. "I'm so sorry, Sam," he breathed. "So sorry." And he slid the blade through.
It felt easy, too goddamn easy, like the blade could cut through archangels as though they had no substance at all. Jesus. He'd known these blades could kill them, but were they truly so fragile against them?
Sam howled in agony, his eyes going bright violet for an instant—an instant long enough to make Gabriel's heart thump in alarm. But no, the flash of light had been a cry of pain, pure and simple and awful.
The wound beneath him glowed purple and white, and Gabriel dropped the blade and pressed both hands to it, willing the Grace to stay inside and not leak away. He didn't know how to command his soul into doing the thing Sam said, but he certainly desired Sam to live. So he kept the thought dear to his heart.
It must have worked, because while the wound still glowed, he saw no more light seeping away. The violet hue retreated, and despite the fresh flow of blood, the skin knitted together at an agonizingly slow pace. But it did seal up, leaving behind angry, red scratches and streaks and a horrible, jagged wound that looked as though it might tear open if Sam so much as moved.
Sam trembled in the dirt, sobbing, Gabriel's hands still pressed against his back. Slowly, he pulled them away, and pulled the angel upright, He folded Sam into his arms, and held him while he wept in unimaginable pain. Now, he would never go home. He'd never leave this godforsaken place. Gabriel had just cut off the one thing that would have allowed him to leave.
The wing slowly smoldered, glowing bright red, and burning to ash before their eyes.
Sam wrenched away from the sight, and once it had all turned to ashes, he trembled.
Gabriel murmured soft encouragements in his ear, and held him while he cried.
Getting back to the farmhouse presented quite a challenge.
Gabriel had worried at various stages about Sati, about how she might come running back for the both of them. But even though he thought he heard her voice on the wind every now and then, she didn't come bounding through the stalks of corn. He felt so glad, because she couldn't help them, and would only slow them down.
Despite his many injuries, both old and new, Sam seemed to have his feet underneath him. Gabriel took up residence on his left side and tried to carry the oversized vessel as much as he could, all the while scolding Sam about putting weight on his left leg.
The first time Gabriel grabbed Sam's left wrist, he realized the angel had re-broken his forearm, and possibly gained a few new breaks. Sam grimaced when Gabriel touched it, and he immediately retracted his hand and apologized. He settled for lugging at a spot further up his arm. It made his job more difficult, but the bone hadn't broken there.
The arm alone presented difficulty enough, but the further they made it, the more Sam limped on his left leg (and the more Gabriel ordered him to keep off of it, or else). Before long, even in the near-freezing weather, the angel sweated with effort, his vessel plainly overheated, even for him. He struggled to make each step without contorting his expression. His breath became an awful, rattling wheeze, the likes of which Gabriel had not heard since the angel first arrived. He wondered if the angel might shout with the pain of it all.
But Sam bit his tongue, and rebuffed Gabriel's offers to go get Cas to help. The pain caused him agony, he said, but retrieving Cas would mean Sati would return to watch them, and the angel swore he did not wish for her to become more frightened than she already felt.
Gabriel shook his head. Sam had fast become the father Gabriel could never be: more patient, more gentle, and a thousand times more thoughtful. Better in every regard. If Gabriel had ever shipped Sam off on his way to his universe, he knew he could have trusted the angel with his daughter. He would have trusted him to take her to safety, far away from their dusty world.
But that didn't matter now, not with Sam wingless and struggling to breathe. He wouldn't fly to far-away universes anymore. He'd be lucky if they could even get him into bed.
But even as the farmhouse finally appeared, as they emerged from the endless rows of corn, he worried Sam might be beyond that. If his arm, with whatever small amount of weight it had borne, had re-broken, undoubtedly his leg had become a state of disaster once more.
Would they watch him 'die' again? Would he spiral downwards into the awful cycle of death and resurrection he'd seen before, unable to truly break free, but also unable to die because of the chaotic Grace within him?
No. Gabriel wouldn't allow it to happen.
Sati burst through the door, crying, Cas on her heels, only just catching her before she collided with them.
"I am all right, little one," Sam breathed, though he had to strain to even speak. "I am fine. Do not worry."
"You don't look fine," she cried, and Cas picked her up.
"You can't run and crash into him the way you do us, Sati," Cas told her. "His leg is broken. Remember?"
She'd turned red in the face, tears streaming down her cheeks, and nodded. "Uh-huh..."
Cas stood back, Sati still secure in his arms, and pulled open the screen door. Gabriel huffed as he maneuvered Sam though, luckily without too much trouble. He cast a stray glance at the stairs before guiding Sam over to the couch. The confused angel stared up at him as Gabriel pushed him down on the couch.
"Stay still," he ordered, out of breath. "Get comfortable as you can and just... stay put." He grabbed the blanket he'd thrown over the back of the couch, the one he'd slept with earlier, and spread it over the archangel's shaking form.
Sam stared down at the linen, and Gabriel prepared to counter whatever Sam might say about the blood or dust or mess he made. But the angel seemed to think better of it, and his mouth snapped shut. And he nodded. Thank goodness.
Cas regarded his brother with questioning eyes, and Gabriel waved him off. No, he had to think. He had to consider everything. Sam wouldn't do well, not like this. Gabriel had to... he had to think. Even if his head had taken a few whacks in the last twenty-four hours.
He couldn't let his emotions take over right now. Sam needed his brain, not his nerves.
"Sam," he rasped, "what're the chances of another septic infection starting down there in your leg?"
The angel stared back, a frown settling upon his lips. "Likely."
"Do you have enough Grace to...?" he asked, and didn't finish. Insinuating he would die, even in some impermanent sense of the word, would terrify Sati.
"I did before."
"I don't care about before!" Gabriel snapped, and cringed, trying to reel in his overwhelmed reaction. His voice softened. "I want to know about now."
"I... without my wing, I do not think so." He paused, and seemed so small, sitting down there all uncertain. "I may be wrong, but…."
Gabriel clasped his hands over the back of his head, which still ached from getting the shit kicked out of it the day before. He had to think through the haze. He had to plan. He had to consider. Sam had looked rotten out there, but in the light Gabriel could see how badly he'd overtaxed himself. Ridiculously so. Gabriel knew if he didn't want to see a repeat of Sam's near-death experience (and probably a far worse iteration of it), he needed to do something, and quick.
But what?
The answer had floated in his mind for some time, hovering just beyond what he wanted to consider: Saint Louis. The trip was a bitch even in the best of health, and in Sam's condition he hadn't wanted to subject the angel to more torture than necessary. The roads between Lebanon, Kansas and Saint Louis, Missouri had weathered a decade of disrepair and abandonment.
They'd have to deal with his Grace, and extract it before they made it into town. Sure, now Gabriel knew how to do it, and he had a vial to hold it, but the hospitals didn't take everyone anymore, so he'd heard. They took patients only on good days, and often only the best cases. What if they drove five hundred miles to Saint Louis, only to have the hospital turn them away?
But they did take children… and their parents.
Gabriel frowned, glancing over at Sati.
The hospital at Saint Louis, so he'd heard, took children and their parents. Couldn't have a new generation of farmers if all the parents died, after all.
"Sati," he breathed, and knelt down. "Come here. Cas, put her down."
Cas hesitated, but set the little girl on her feet. She bolted over to Gabriel, and he folded her up in a huge hug. God, he loved her.
"Do you know how much I love you? How brave you are?"
" 'm not brave," she cried.
"Yes, you are," he told her. "So brave. My brave little scientist, right? I need you to be brave again. I need you to help me help Sam."
She stared over at Sam, who seemed to observe the scene in confusion. "I can help?"
"Oh, yes," Gabriel told her. "I have to take Sam to a hospital, far away in Saint Louis. They don't take everyone, but they take parents who have children."
Confusion creased her forehead. "But Sam's not my dad."
"But I need you to pretend he is."
She glanced at Sam, then back at Gabriel, but said nothing for a long moment.
"Can you do that, sweetheart?" he asked, stroking her hair. "Will you go with us and help Sam?"
She peered back over at Sam, who stared on with something between alarm and confusion. Her head snapped back to Gabriel, and she nodded vigorously. "I can do that."
"I know it's a lie," Gabriel told her, "and I'm so sorry to ask you to lie. I taught you lying is bad. But right now, it's the only way we can be sure they'll see him."
She nodded again, and some of the weight seemed to evaporate from her shoulders. "He's... kind of like a dad."
Gabriel grinned, and touched her cheek; booped her nose. "Go get some clothes packed. Empty out your backpack and take only what you can fit in there, okay? We won't have a lot of room."
She nodded, and trotted up the stairs, hopping over chunks of concrete and broken wood.
"Cas, I need..." Gabriel's voice trailed off, his mind racing. "I need all the antibiotics. I need the last of the tylenol and the antibacterial salves. Can you pack them up for me while I dig out the truck and get Sam into the backseat?"
Cas hesitated. "Are you in the shape to make this trip, brother?"
"Shut up and pack. I'm fine." He rubbed at the back of his head. "It hurts. it doesn't disable me."
Cas sighed, and nodded, and he made his way up the stairs, avoiding the shattered bits of wood.
"Gabriel," Sam breathed, and it sounded strained and painful. His lungs had gotten in terrible shape out there, and he didn't need a stethoscope to know that.
"Sit tight," he told him, his hand gentle upon his shoulder. "I need to go dig the truck out from the dust."
He didn't give the oversized archangel a chance to protest, and stood, making his way over to the door. As an afterthought, he backed up to the staircase.
"Cas! Pack the respirators and the epinephrine, too!"
"Already done!" his voice came from upstairs. "Shall I pack the dexamethasone, as well?"
"Yeah," he breathed, mostly to himself. Cassie had had a brilliant idea. "Yes!"
"I'll get the spare oxygen tank, too," his head appeared over the side of the railing on the second floor. "Go dig out the truck. I'll pack things you might need."
"You're the bestest little brother ever, Cas," he told him.
He smiled, and his head disappeared from view. Gabriel glanced over his shoulder at Sam, who laid still as he'd been ordered, eyes closed, but undoubtedly listening to everything.
Gabriel snatched the old straw broom and marched back outside. A thick layer of dust buried part of the truck, with all the windows covered over. He took to sweeping away the dense layer of sediment, holding his breath as it puffed up into the air around him. He swept away the dirt caked around the tires, and hopped up into the truck bed to sweep out the extra dirt from there. They'd need to keep a few things back here, such as a tank of water to hold them over for a few days. He'd have to retrieve one of those from his basement lab. It might get dusty on the outside, but on the inside the water would stay fresh and clean.
He had chains and other small tools in the bed of the truck. He thought about keeping them for the trip, but tossed the tools out into the dirt to collect in a few minutes. Sure, they'd provide some utility, but in Saint Louis they'd also get stolen. The chains, however, he could use to lock down all their stuff.
He hopped out of the bed, and moved around the truck to pull open the rear door. He had to collect all his accumulated crap and other trash. He needed the space. They'd have Sam splayed out back here, and Sati would sit in the front seat, and...
Jesus. Was he really taking Sati to Saint Louis?
Was he taking Sam, for that matter?
But of course he was. Now that he stood out here, alone and cleaning up trash and sweeping away dirt, his mind wandered back to the night before, when he'd felt miserable and alone and nearly in tears on his bedroom floor. He'd scrubbed blood and dirt from his face, and wondered how in god's name he'd managed to go and fall in love with an archangel.
He couldn't think of anything inherently bad about it, because Sam wasn't a bad person to fall in love with. Well, he wasn't even a person, but that didn't matter, did it? Sam was just Sam. And Gabriel still couldn't have him.
But if Sam's injuries had him trapped here now, and unable to leave...
A feeling of powerful revulsion ripped through him, and he physically cringed. He had to stop for a moment. How selfish of a thought could one person have? He'd just had to hack off Sam's wing, his only hope of leaving this world, just so he wouldn't die. Now he couldn't leave, and couldn't go find the mate he'd been pining for, and Gabriel had the audacity to stand there, on the verge of wondering if he had half a chance with the angel now.
Of course he didn't. If Sam had waited billions of years for his mate and never once strayed from his path, he wouldn't do so now. And Gabriel felt like a horrible human being for even thinking he might, not even an hour after he'd crushed Sam's last hope.
As he finished cleaning out the back seat, a tiny part of his mind told him he hadn't quite meant it like that. He hadn't tried to command Sam's time and attention over his soulmate or whatever. It had just been a random thought, and people think selfish things all the time and hate themselves afterwards, so he should just give himself a break.
In the end, he pushed the thought away, and tried to think only of the mission at hand.