Reactivity

by consoul

Solving crime isn't an easy task, and it's especially harder for Sam, who doesn't even do it for a living. The Crucifier is still on the loose though, intent on wreaking havoc in ways only he and Gabe, his P.I partner, know. A gang war looms on the horizon, and it's a race against time to stop the balance in Lawrence from being tipped irrevocably. Book 2 of the Chromaticity series.

28. Everything Ends

Chapter 28: Everything Ends

The drive home passed in a blur. Gabe probably shouldn't have been driving with how exhausted he was, but he desperately needed to be alone.

His apartment, normally a reassuring place to retreat to after a hard day's worth of work, festered with unbearable silence. Gabe shed clothes along the way to his room, tossing his keys haphazardly behind him towards the counter.

He paused at the foot of the bed. The unmade sheets reminded him that he'd shared it with a roughened up, but content Sam. Now Sam occupied a different bed miles away, wasting away in an unnatural sleep.

Gabe's vision blurred. His life had always been one thing after another, so it took a lot for him to cry. But when he did, he always had good reason.

Like an animal crawling beneath the porch to lick its wounds, he thought miserably, falling face first into the bed and letting the pillow soak up his tears.

This was the part he hated most about opening up and connecting with others. With the good came the bad, and the bad was always so much worse than the good. It didn't help that he'd chosen someone that rivaled him when it came to a life full of rotten luck.

Gabe had been so fixated on the Sam that smiled and doggedly kept up late hours for the case that he'd forgotten Sam's past was more than dust in the rearview mirror. Yellow Eyes wasn't just the bogeyman in the dark; John wasn't just the estranged father that could be ignored. They were problems that had to be dealt with now, and Sam couldn't do it for himself.

A year ago, Gabe would've run from the mess. No, scratch that—he would've never gotten himself into a situation like this in the first place. A year ago, he would've been aghast at the idea that a single person could bring out the throat-choking, stomach turning emotion in him.

Yet here he was, sick with fear that Sam would never wake up without even an ounce of resentment towards Sam for being the source of his concern. Gabe would never regret pursuing Sam, and he couldn't decide if that made him selfish, stupid, or some mix of both.

Some indeterminable time later (Ten minutes? A half hour?), Gabe's tears ran dry. Temporary catharsis came and went, leaving him adrift and unsure of what to do next. Sleep? Work? Cry some more and try to absorb what remained of Sam's scent? All he wanted was for Sam to wake up, but nothing he could do at the moment would bring that about.

Gabe smashed his head into a pillow, swallowing back a frustrated scream. What should he do?

His phone buzzed. Eager for a distraction or someone presenting him a smaller problem he could solve, Gabe scrambled out of bed to check who it was.

(xxx-xxx-xxxx): You left too quickly for me to ask, but are you alright?

"Damn you, Balthazar," Gabe mumbled, half disappointed as he (knowing full well it'd be abandoned within the week) saved the number.

After the four of them accepted (more or less; the jury was out on Cas) that they were connected by Enochian, Balthazar began to go into more depth about what that entailed. Gabe dozed at the start of this and content to fall asleep to the other's voices—of which they had surprisingly nice ones when he paid close attention, especially Cas—but gradually grew more alert when he realized that Balthazar had given him an extremely amended crash course in Enochian the first time they'd met.

Logically, Gabe knew he only had himself to blame. He'd been the one that had told Balthazar point-blank the first time they met that the less he knew, the better. Back then, burying his head in the sand had far more benefits than being informed.

Gabe fired back a dismissive text before turning his phone off and dragging himself away from the bed. His choices were to either think about the specifics Balthazar had described or continue to wallow in sadness, and one was far easier than the other to do.

He started the saddest playlist he could find and collapsed on the couch, putting himself at eye level with the madman board. With only the city lights illuminating the living room, very little was visible, but Gabe knew exactly where to look for the singular police sketch of Yellow Eyes.

Sleep wouldn't come tonight for him. Yellow Eyes seemed to mock him, and Gabe couldn't bear it.

By the time the sun crested the horizon, Gabe had hammered out some minor details in the timeline and managed to compartmentalize enough that he felt he could go to the station. No doubt the worst shitstorm the LPD had seen since Yellow Eyes was playing out, but time was of the essence.

When he turned his phone on, Gabe found a myriad of messages awaiting them. He fell back onto his couch and lazily scrolled through them, wondering what sort of bad news he should start his day out with first.

"Can't go wrong with a classic," he snorted as he made his first pick, bracing himself for the deluge.

He wasn't disappointed. Jody's voice, dispassionate with exhaustion, went straight for the jugular.

"The shrine got leaked to the press, and they're eating it up like Thanksgiving turkey. We've also got another body on the outskirts of town."

Gabe promptly turned on his TV, resisting the urge to throw the remote at it in rage when he saw the police sketch of Yellow Eyes sharing a split-screen with a picture of Mary Winchester holding an infant Sam (where the hell did they even get that photo?). It'd taken less than 12 hours for the shrine to become public knowledge and the icing on top of the Winchesters' problems.

"What direction are they going with it?" he asked, moderating his tone so Jody didn't try to sideline him on an emotional basis alone. Hunting down a reporter for a quick chat wouldn't end well.

"Surprisingly decent," Jody remarked, tone lightening at the uncharacteristic move by Lawrence media. "Whoever leaked it must have sympathies towards Sam. They're going with a "he's a model student and hasn't he suffered enough because of Yellow Eyes" approach."

"Whoever leaked it shouldn't have leaked it," Gabe grumbled, only mildly placated. If the news had decided to frame it in a more negative light, Sam could've easily been forced out of the city to escape all the attention. It could still happen. The media was fickle, and the Winchester would be in the news for days thanks to the sheer drama of it all. In media circles, that was an eternity.

Gabe would never forgive himself if there was any detrimental impact on Sam's life because of the media hounds. He was already lying in a bed at Bobby's because of him.

"Do we have an ID on the vic?" he asked, trying not to wallow in guilt. He'd met the wallowing quota for the day.

"No confirmation yet. The overkill is, uh…very overkill," Jody replied eloquently. "We'll know soon thanks to what's probably the fastest rush order I've seen filed. Oh, and don't bother coming to the scene."

"Why not?" Gabe asked, already standing in front of his closet and idly wondering if anyone would care if he showed up in a T-shirt. He was running out of clean button-downs.

"There's no note."

"Not even in English?"

"Nothing. The only reason we know it's him is because he signed it with the Death moniker. Think the FBI is going to call that a devolution. I think he's mad he can't get at your sweetheart."

"It's both. I'll meet you at the station," Gabe said grimly, hanging up.

A quick call to Michael confirmed he'd still be giving rides for the eleventh-hour stage of the case. Both were convinced they were inches away from catching the unsub (Michael refused to call him anything else, and the habit was rubbing off on Gabe), and now that Sam had been forcibly sidelined, Michael felt the need to stick close to Gabe.

"It's an Enochian thing, I think," Michael admitted after Gabe dodged yet another well-meaning question about his current mental state. "Or maybe it's because you and Castiel are still fledglings with your skills. It worries me when there's...well, you know."

"I've still got a gun," Gabe pointed out wryly, even though they both knew the weapon wasn't exactly a trump card against the dangers they now faced.

"Not against those people," Michael replied, "He's a little shady, but Balthazar's right about it all."

Michael hadn't meant to, but he'd given Gabe's mind the final push by mentioning Balthazar. When the call ended, Gabe couldn't help but think about the fraught conversation from earlier.

"I believe we've all had at least one instance of performing Enochian as a child, and then having people in suits show up afterward, yes?" Balthazar had asked, waiting until he got confirmation from all three of them before continuing.

"The suits are part of an organization called the Men of Letters," Balthazar said, standing by the mantle and erratically tapping his umbrella. There was no light-hearted glint in his eyes. He looked as close to scared as someone like him could get, and that alone raised Gabe's hackles.

"They belong to the UK branch of the Men of Letters," Balthazar clarified, his brief pause letting the fire crackle in between sentences. "The Men of Letters used to be an international force of relative good, but that is a thing of the past, and we are concerned with the present. In the present, you must know that the Men of Letters now hunts down those that display supernatural predilections indiscriminately and mercilessly. If they find us, they will kill me, you, the Winchester brothers, and I suspect even the little boy slumbering in the kitchen."

Gabe shivered at the recollection. Balthazar certainly knew how to get their attention. Kids were off-limits, and people that didn't abide by that weren't people at all in his (along with everyone else in the house) book.

According to Balthazar, everything supernatural the Men of Letters handled could be broken down into four broad groups: supernatural creatures, humans with special talents, Enochian speakers, and speakers of the nameless, Enochian antithesis he'd mentioned earlier. The latter two groups were supposedly descended from angels and demons, but Balthazar skirted that can of worms before they could crack into it despite Cas's best attempts at pinning him down.

Learning that creatures like werewolves, vampires, and related ilk had somehow been the easiest, if most ludicrous thing, to process. Gabe could fit those things into his worldview with little trouble. It was the events after they were hunted into practical extinction that were more mind-boggling.

"The U.K didn't want to stop there. Without a purpose, they'd be useless, so they turned to the other categories. Practitioners of magic, such as witches and warlocks, were the first to go," Balthazar explained, "The U.S took special offense. Their perspective was that gifted humans and even Enochian speakers were more beneficial than harmful. The original, research-based ideas stuck with the branch in this country, but it did them little good in the civil war."

Balthazar had suspected the suits were American agents of the organization when he'd first met Gabe, but it was only afterward that he discovered that they were not only British but far worse than simply nosy. He didn't know all the details, but in short, things hadn't gone well for the Americans. The U.S branch had gone defunct over twenty years ago, leaving room for UK agents to roam America in search of anyone that showed the slightest hint of unnatural gifts.

Reminded of Cas through Michael's call, Gabe decided to call him. He'd been suspicious throughout Balthazar's oration, asking hard-line questions and pressing him on points nearly as well as one of the LPD's detectives could. Gabe had left him to it but had no clue about the potential outcome. It'd been much like an unstoppable force meeting an immovable object.

"I was hoping you'd reach out first," Cas said without preamble, "Part of me is glad that Dean is asleep because I don't know how to tell him any of this."

"You don't have to," Gabe said, even as he wished the complete opposite for him and Sam, "I think he'd understand if you sat on it for a bit. He's kept plenty from you."

"Of course I do," Cas replied, equally affronted and confused, "He's...my confidante. How we choose to reveal pertinent information is different now."

"Right."

"I don't need your innuendos right now," Cas huffed, "I just want to hear what you think about the part about the churches."

What little humor Gabe had managed to summon up faded away.

The U.S branch had lost the war, but they'd won a battle. Working in sync with some unknown group, they left babies with the innate ability to understand Enochian in churches. Fearing (and rightfully so) that they had traitors and spies in their ranks, the entire process remained under lock and key. Whatever records were kept of where the babies came from, why they were relocated in the manner they were, and how they'd decided they'd be safer like this were either destroyed or never existed in the first place beyond the minds of the operatives.

Naturally, this drew the most skepticism from them. How had no one noticed all these children being left with similar letters in churches across the country, and why had none of them had missing person reports if they'd been taken from their families? Balthazar had mentioned something about obscuring rituals and a lack of inter-state communication, but then he'd hurriedly shifted gears as if hoping that none of them would think too hard about it.

But it was Gabe's job to think hard about depressing facts, and there were two obvious conclusions. Either the children came from families that had given them up willingly, like Moses in the reeds, or they had no family left to notice their absence.

"You were adopted," Gabe started, "Did that work out for you, in the end?"

"I had a simple, but ultimately fulfilled childhood," Cas replied slowly, measuring his words out. "I've never considered seeking my biological family out, even after my adoptive parents decided they couldn't tolerate my preferences."

"And now?"

"I don't know," Cas admitted, "If what Balthazar said was true, then it would be best for me not to seek them out for their safety. And that's the best-case scenario, isn't it?"

Perhaps he wasn't the only one that thought in bleak terms.

Michael showed up shortly after, the Bureau standard SUV standing out like a sore thumb in the washed-out white light of the morning.

"Ran out of clean clothes?" Michael asked sympathetically, nodding at the old band tee half-hidden by Gabe's jacket.

"It happens in the course of an intense investigation," Gabe bull-shitted, hoping fervently that Michael wouldn't extend the sympathy to try and talk about Enochian, or God forbid, Sam. He was still getting used to being more than acquaintances with the agent. "How many dinosaurs does it take to fill the tank of this behemoth?"

"More than you need to know," a disgruntled voice said from the back, causing Gabe to jump high enough to bang his head on the ceiling.

"Fuck! A little warning next time?" Gabe swore, turning to see Agent Smith sitting up like a revived zombie corpse, a newspaper falling from his gray face.

"Next time keep your voice down. A man needs his sleep," Smith griped, falling back out of sight.

"Sorry. He's getting too old for intense investigations like this," Michael said, pitching his amused voice down.

"Sure seems like it," Gabe muttered darkly, rubbing his sore skull.

Thankfully, Smith's presence meant that they stuck solely to discussing the case, which helped Gabe switch into work mode. By the time they rolled up to the station, they were primed and ready to investigate.

Unfortunately, it appeared Lawrence was ready as well. A small crowd composed of concerned citizens, voracious journalists, and nosy sightseers loitered on the station's steps, waiting for a hapless officer to fall into their clutches. There was even a news van (From Channel 3; what a shocker) in the mix, which prompted Michael to make a U-turn and circle the block to enter via the back.

"Smart choice. Lawrence journalists are a different breed," Gabe quipped, glad at least one of them appeared to be operating at peak function. Agent Smith's snores had only grown louder the longer they drove.

Inside, the building teemed with chaos. Gabe braced himself for the worst in the elevator, fervently praying that the whole floor hadn't imploded on itself or caught fire. He didn't need the task force to find the unsub, but he certainly needed them to lawfully arrest the bastard.

"They're acting like it's the end of the world," Agent Smith muttered, stifling a yawn.

"It is for them," Michael said lightly, "You'd feel embarrassed too if a serial killer slipped in and out of Quantico like it was a convenience store."

Smith scoffed. "Perish the thought."

A commotion gradually grew audible as the elevator inched upward. It was clear it was coming from the bullpen, and Gabe mentally sighed. His old investigative methods looked like they would need to be dusted off. God, did he miss Sam. He would've said something sly to Smith and come out of the elevator innocent as could be.

Well, if Sam's not here to do it…

"Look sharp gentlemen," Gabe interjected before Smith could get high and mighty, "The LPD needs to see the FBI looking ready for anything."

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Smith straighten, trying to go for intimidating and ending up looking pompous. Michael stifled a laugh behind his journal, hurriedly clearing his throat as the elevator doors slid open to dump them in the bullpen.

A cacophony of endlessly ringing phones, shuffling paper, raised voices, and hurried strides greeted them. It was as frenzied as Gabe expected, but surprisingly, panic wasn't palpable in the air. Anxiety was tempered by clear concentration. Orders had been given, and they were being carried out against pressing deadlines.

"Gabe! Love the shirt. I'm sorry about Sam," Garth chattered, materializing out of the stream of activity with a beaming smile. "I'm on the task force now, and they put Jody in charge!"

"Is that so?" Gabe asked, glad that the din was loud enough to cover Garth's remark about Sam. It was an open secret that he'd taken Sam on as a pseudo work partner, but only a few knew about the romantic development. Forget Jody sidelining him; an administrator would gleefully kick him out to finally rid the budget of his financial presence.

Jody's in charge? That explains how everyone's hanging onto sanity.

"Bela fumed about it, but she couldn't do anything. I heard the Chief made Jody the boss," Garth revealed, walking alongside him towards the conference room. "They liked the evidence I gathered, and they want Zeke and me to help organize the patrols! I've heard rumors there's a suspect, but I haven't gotten to that bit in the file—"

"Relax, Garth," Zeke chided, popping up out of nowhere and grasping Garth's shoulder with a nod at Gabe. "Let the man breath."

"No breathing," Jody barked, coming up behind them like a Fury from Hell with blazing eyes, "No breathing for any of us until we catch this fucker!"

"That makes no sense," Garth whispered, cowed into silence as they all filed submissively (even the FBI agents, much to Gabe's delight) into the conference room.

"She's tired. Get used to it," Gabe whispered back, slapping his back in an attempt to fortify the officer for the storm to come. Every inch of Jody oozed leadership, and Gabe respected the hell out of her for it.

The conference room was packed with the finest the LPD had to offer. Outside, loitering personnel crowded the bullpen with craned necks and eager expressions in the hopes of eavesdropping. It'd been bad enough they lost officers in the Hoffman fiasco, but now the killer had struck on home territory. The LPD was in dire straits, and everyone wanted a quick way out of the mess.

It was a lot of pressure on Jody. Gabe watched her sweep the room with cutting eyes and a severe frown. The position wasn't enviable in the slightest.

Except maybe to one person. On his sweep of the room, Gabe noticed that Talbot was one of the only people eyeing Jody with neither sympathy nor an eagerness to listen. Her expression was hard to pinpoint, but Gabe was certain Sam would've taken one look at her aura and pronounced jealousy.

"Alright people. We're in deep shit," Jody started with her hands on her hips, sounding every bit like a weary parent. "We've lost two more of our own. We've got another body on the way to the morgue. Above all, we've got a leak."

The murmuring started when Jody mentioned the losses the department had taken and peaked into astonished outcries. No one had ever confirmed the leak until now, and Jody's bluntness convinced everyone that she wasn't playing around.

"Who is it?" someone asked above the rest.

"We don't know yet, but when I find out, I can assure you that they will be punished so quickly that they won't know up from down when I'm done with them. And that's before I send them to the Chief's office," Jody promised, stabbing her finger down onto the table.

Forget a knife; the room's tension could've been scooped with a spoon. Realizing that this might be his one opportunity to read the crowd and see if he could discern the leak from the faces gathered, Gabe paid close attention. He already suspected it was a member of the task force, and if he could weed them out now…

If only Sam was here, he thought morosely. Reading people's body language only tells me so much.

"The leak is the reason why Sam Winchester's face is now out on the airwaves," Jody said, pitching her voice up loud enough that people in the bullpen could hear too. "We've got students and parents swamping the phone lines, wondering if they're going to be next if a model student is on the cutting board.

"Let me be clear right now. Sam Winchester isn't someone that did anything to incur the unsub's wrath. The unsub found out his mother was killed by Yellow Eyes and decided to pay sick tribute. He's in FBI protective custody because of our leak, and we've got a responsibility to keep him alive."

A hush fell over the room. Yellow Eyes was the department's bogeyman, especially to older members of the force. There was nothing quite like being reminded of the city's biggest failure to light a motivational fire under people's asses.

The FBI agents stood against the wall behind Jody, arms crossed and looking for all the world as if they were indeed harboring Sam. Gabe was temporarily confused before he caught on.

A specific lie to see if the leak will feed it to the press, he thought, searching the room a second time with more scrutiny to see if anyone might react to the detail. The news would already assume Sam was in protective custody, but FBI protection was different. They had the power to spirit him away if they wanted to.

He came back to Bela's face. Bela, and not Talbot today because for the first time in the history of knowing her, he saw a very human, non-self-serving emotion on her face: guilt.

It passed so quickly that he doubted anyone else saw it, but Gabe didn't hallucinate it out of sleep deprivation. Her ambition had long swung into dangerous territory; a trait Gabe wouldn't have necessarily begrudged (that would've just made him a hypocrite) if it weren't for the fact she worked in a job that demanded selfless service to the public. Detectives and P.I's had their differences, and that was one of the main ones.

Gabe leaned back in his chair. He'd never given it much thought beyond childish reasoning, but it made sense. He'd have to cue Jody and Donna in and let them decide. Gabe refused to let his personal bias potentially lead them down a false trail and waste time.

"I know it's the weekend and we're way past overtime, but this is critical. There are funerals on the horizon, but there are also people we can keep from an early grave. We bungled it the first time when we knew who the unsub would strike at next, but we won't mess up this time," Jody said fiercely, eyes bright with conviction. "We're not letting the bastard get away. Am I clear?"

A chorus of "yes ma'ams" filled the room. Jody nodded, satisfied.

"It's not all bad news. We've got a hot lead," she said, flipping one of the boards over.

Max Miller looked back from a driver's license picture, printed out large enough for everyone to see. He was a teenager at the time it'd been taken, but his empty eyes must've been evident to others because the outrage that would typically arise at seeing such a young suspect on a board never came. Instead, the room waited with bated breath for the explanation to come.

"Miller is an LU student majoring in computer science. On paper, he checks off all the boxes in the final profile: his home life is less than stellar, he's withdrawn, and all records indicate above-average intelligence. We have confirmation that he knows Enochian, which prompted us to try and reach out to him."

Michael picked up the thread with suave handling. "He hasn't been sighted on campus or at his place of residence for several days. We've obtained a warrant and will investigate accordingly, but for all intents and purposes, it appears he's in the wind."

Figures. Now we'll have to scour the city for him.

"We haven't confirmed anything yet," Smith added unexpectedly, voice rising above the renewed murmurs. "But this is the strongest lead we've gotten yet, so look sharp."

"Tasks will be delegated by Detectives Hanscum and Talbot. If you were on the task force before the events of last night, see Talbot. If you've just been assigned, see Hanscum. Milton, see me," Jody finished.

Gabe obediently slipped through the crowd, coming to a standstill before Jody's critical gaze.

"You need sleep. You're of no use to me in this state," she said flatly.

"Jody—" Gabe whined, only to be cut off by a raised hand.

"Nope. Return once you've gotten a minimum of four hours," Jody ordered, her stern face more than enough incentive for Gabe to shut the hell up. That, and the envelope she handed him.

Gabe arched an eyebrow at the check within. Perhaps the administration didn't hate him as much as rumor claimed. The rest of his back pay had finally made an appearance.

"Do I cash this before or after I sleep—?"

"Milton."

"Leaving the premises!" Gabe exclaimed, jauntily saluting her with the envelope and winking past her at Michael, who nodded back and peeled himself away from the wall to follow.

"Something tells me you're not going to sleep quite yet," Michael remarked as they wove through the bullpen.

"I want to see the body they found for myself," Gabe said, stifling a yawn. "I figured you'd want to tag along."

The morgue, along with much of the forensic science offices, were housed in the building behind the station. However, part of the basement levels was dedicated to what was deemed overflow services. Popular requests such as running fingerprints had in-house personnel, and the old morgue from decades past was still used in extreme cases to house bodies the main building didn't have room for. It'd been in use since the murders of the librarians, and as they approached the double doors that led in, they saw that the "Autopsy in Progress" sign was lit.

"They're busy today," Gabe remarked, eyes tracing over the little placards marking each chamber in the adjoining room. All but one held somebody. "Looks like they're autopsying him now."

"Still no identification?" Michael asked one of the assistants.

"Found his wallet. They must've been thrown off the overkill if they missed it," they replied, gesturing charmingly with a handful of offal to a counter dedicated to holding evidence bags.

"Kenneth Frazier," Michael recited, "Pass me a pair of gloves?"

They gloved up and went through the contents, quickly establishing the point of connection.

"Southview High faculty ID. Bookkeeper. Perhaps shoddy bookkeeping was the reason?"

"Our unsub certainly took offense to that school," Michael replied, peeking into a leather portfolio the victim had been found with, "Hmm. Paperwork, paperwork, and...ah, here we go."

He extracted a page filled with familiar symbols. They looked at each other, then back at the autopsy table. Everyone gathered around it was engrossed with the chest cavity, so in tandem, they hunched over the paper.

Hellhounds may pursue me, but I will not retreat from my prerogative. I may have been foiled in completing my ritual with this cheater and thief, but Death is never-ending. Not even my master's wishes can stop me.

"Is he talking about Yellow Eyes?"

"Probably, but it's too vague to be certain. What is clear is that he's feeling the pressure," Michael replied, carefully sliding the page into a new evidence bag, "He's acknowledged failure, and that we're onto him. Both must be staggering blows."

"He didn't seem very perturbed when he tussled with Dean last night," Gabe pointed out.

"On the contrary. The unsub has a lofty view of himself, keeping himself far from others save for his victims. The fact that he fought Dean in such a manner means that he's in flux. He will either devolve and be much easier to catch, or..."

"Or?"

Michael grimaced, running a hand through his hair. "It's much less likely since he shows signs of devolving, but if this master is there to keep him in line, he might adapt and change to keep on killing. Then we'll have a much harder time catching him."

A noise of surprise from the autopsy table broke the weighty silence that lapsed between him and Michael at the idea of The Crucifier 2.0 running around.

"Did you take photos of this?"

"Of course," one of the assistants replied, wounded, "How could I not?"

"What is it?" Gabe asked curiously.

"Come see for yourself."

On the inside of Frazier's right thigh were two cheap temporary sticker tattoos. One was the simple outline of a snake resting on a coiled tailed. The other was, of all things, the phrase PARTY ANIMAL in obnoxiously bold font.

"That's...weird," Gabe said, tilting his head at the odd tattoos, "What do you make of this, Mikey?"

No immediate response came, which prompted Gabe to glance back.

Michael's distressed face appeared riveted by the tattoos. Startled, Gabe nudged him in an attempt to bring him back to reality.

"Michael?"

"I'm not sure," he lied, his face clearing so effortlessly that if it hadn't been Gabe's job to get to bottom of bullshit, he might've believed him, "We'll let you guys wrap up."

With that, he practically flew out from the morgue, leaving Gabe no choice but to follow.

"Michael? Michael!" he called, growing somewhat irritated and more than a little concerned. The tattoos clearly meant something to the agent, but what?

"Not now," Michael replied through gritted teeth, still one speed level away from flat out sprinting. "Don't ask me right now."

"Michael..."

"It doesn't pertain to the case," Michael continued, not even hearing him as they entered the elevator up back to the surface, "We can't get into it when we're so close to the unsub. I need you to trust me on this."

"Ha! Have you met me?" Gabe asked sarcastically.

The doors slid shut. Quicker than a whip, Michael pressed the emergency stop button and whirled on him, half scared and half angry at his lack of immediate agreement.

"Solpeth."

Gabe's eyes widened at the switch to Enochian. It was one thing to surreptitiously read it in the morgue, but quite another to hear it with such ardency from the mouth of another.

"Just...listen," Michael repeated, this time beseechingly, "Don't look at me like that. Haven't you spoken Enochian with Balthazar?"

"It was just a couple sentences when we first met. To confirm I really knew it," Gabe stammered in English, still reeling from the abrupt mood shift. He swore he could feel ozone crackling in the confined space. "How are you so casual with it?"

"Long story," he replied tiredly, all the fight draining out of him. "The tattoos are...a message from someone I know."

"That's one heck of a way to leave a message," Gabe jested nervously, partly because of speaking in Enochian, but mostly because Michael was starting to unnerve him. It was like discovering the benign rain puddle secretly filled a deep, wheel-busting pothole.

"Just know that this is kind of like what Yellow Eyes is to Sam. An archenemy," Michael said, putting the elevator back in motion, "Please don't ask me more."

Gabe made a noncommittal noise, leaving Michael behind as soon as the doors slid open. Luckily, Michael didn't try to call him back. He didn't think he would've gone for fear of what might happen if they kept speaking Enochian. Gabe's head spun dizzily from the force of it, and yet Michael hadn't been affected at all.

Michael's comfort with Enochian meant he'd spoken it habitually with someone, and that someone hadn't been Balthazar. Balthazar himself said that there was no one else out there doing what he did while avoiding the Men of Letters.

Gabe was worse than a dog with a bone once he sunk his teeth into something. He also tried to learn from his mistakes; one of which was learning to listen to his more specific instincts like the shoulder prickle. It'd started up at the sight of the tattoos, and it hadn't quit since.

The person that left the cryptic tattoos for Michael and the mystery Enochian conversational partner were the same. Of that Gabe was certain.

…

Funerals for the fallen officers and assorted victims started that Saturday and extended into much of the following week. Gabe attended several along with everyone else, both to pay respects and to watch the crowd for any sign of the unsub (Miller? Most certainly, but the FBI was insistent they remained open-minded). After all, the suspect returned to the scene of one of his earlier crimes (explaining once again how Sam somehow chased the right hooded figure out of a crowd of them hadn't been fun, but he'd managed), but Gabe doubted he'd show up. Funerals were rites that conflicted with the rituals that brought about the victims' untimely demise.

He ended up being right. Nobody stood out, save for Mitchell's memorial service that afternoon at Southview High. Between holding part of it on the football field, which felt a bit gauche with the bloody high school as the backdrop, and the leaked knowledge that the football coach hadn't been a saint to every student, natural tensions escalated beyond reason. A dark pallor descended over the event, jacking up already stewing levels of anger and resentment. Alumni and teachers got into fistfights; athletes tackled each other and their peers. Gabe took an elbow to the eye trying to break fights up.

"I'm not paid enough for this," he grunted, squirming out of the melee and making a break for his trusty Beetle.

If Sam had been there, Gabe was sure that he would've said someone in the crowd—perhaps multiple people—was the cause. Thanks to dispatch gossip and Lisa, Gabe knew that the cases of demon blood gone wrong were multiplying, mystifying clinics and hospitals throughout the city. Despite Crowley's no doubt persistent machinations, demon blood was working its way into Lawrence, insidiously spreading beneath their noses.

The benefit of the memorial service brawl was that it became juicy news, temporarily shelving Sam's tragic life story for another day. Gabe was the only one pleased as could be by the development since it also managed to make the LPD look incompetent.

"They're so fast," Garth marveled as back at the station, they watched clips of the brawl around the TV hung in the break room. He nursed a magnificent split lip, while behind him, stoic Zeke looked the most ruffled Gabe had seen him yet.

"Scum," Jody muttered with an ice pack pressed to her cheek, turning the TV off with a violent jab at the remote, "Fuck it. I want answers. We're going to the Miller's residence right now."

Max Miller's childhood home turned out to be wonderful fodder for the FBI. His father and uncle weren't pleased to see the police and were incredulous when they were informed Miller was suspect number one in the recent slew of killings. However, it wasn't out of love; surprisingly, they thought he didn't have the constitution for it.

"He's always been weak," the father bemoaned as the task and accompanying forensics trooped through the house. "Never was one for sports."

"I don't know. After that friend of his died, he hasn't been quite right," the uncle offered from the kitchen table, where he nursed what appeared to be his fifth or sixth beer of the day. Considering the overflowing trash can clinking with empty bottles, it said a lot about the family dynamic.

Jody noticed this too. Her already stern face hardened, but the uncle had just dropped important information.

"Tell me about this friend."

"His best friend," the father said derisively, waving his hand at one of the few pictures clinging to the refrigerator that showed Miller in elementary school with his arm thrown around another boy's shoulder. "At first, I thought my son was wasting his time at college, but in hindsight, it was the better path compared to what happened to that poor bastard. Joined a gang straight out of high school, and he was dead within the year. Can't remember the details."

"Some kinda stabbing. Drug deal gone bad," the uncle piped up, "Max was sad about it, but he was also angry."

"Angry?" the father echoed. Clearly, the uncle knew Miller better, if one could call the snippets of insight they had knowledge.

"Angry," the uncle confirmed, taking a swig of beer, "You didn't notice? It was only after the funeral that he started to enjoy our hunting trips."

Upstairs, Miller's room teemed with lab techs. Dust coated what little was left on the shelves and the top of the desk, but the bed looked recently used, and traces of mud were found on the windowsill. Gabe half expected a dark ward to catch him and let Michael step in ahead of him. They were still on awkward terms, but when Michael glanced back questioningly at him, he seemed to see the root of Gabe's hesitation and shook his head. No strange shadowy leftovers waited to leap out at them. The melancholy atmosphere suffusing the room was just that: melancholy.

"You know, I'd ask them if they heard him come in, but I doubt it," Jody remarked, looking out the window to the garbage bins below. With Miller's agility, the climb wouldn't have broken a sweat.

"This whole house is a mess. How could they be so callous to him?" Donna asked plaintively, standing on the threshold.

"The absence of the mother was never rectified," Smith chimed in, tone reminiscent of a college lecturer. "The effect on the collective household is quite clear."

"They must love you at Quantico," Talbot mumbled from her inspection inside the closet, startling a snicker from Gabe. Both were surprised at the unusually lighthearted interaction and turned away from each other quickly to avoid addressing it.

"It's getting crowded in here. I'm out," Gabe declared, making his way to the backyard. A hunch was brewing, and he wanted to see if it would hold water.

He found the manhole in the alley that ran behind Miller's house, partly shielded by a stunted tree doing its best to usher spring in with small green buds.

"Easy access to your bolt hole, wherever it is," he muttered, glaring down at the manhole cover. Someone would have to test it with luminol and dust for prints, but Gabe was sure Miller had gone down this way.

Sore and more than a little disgruntled at the terrible turns Saturday had taken, they spent the rest of the afternoon back at the station. Setting themselves to more menial tasks, they established smaller links, such as discovering exactly why Kenneth Frazier had become the newest victim in a series of them. Zeke employed a previously untapped head for numbers and quickly pointed out what Gabe had suspected in the morgue. Discrepancies in the paperwork pointed to cooked books, and Frazier's phone revealed that several faculty members, including the football coach, had been aware. Charges were on the back burner for those still alive to face them, but how his crime factored into a personal grievance towards the killer eluded all of them.

"Perhaps he suspected as a student, but couldn't step forward," Donna suggested, knee-deep in files and valiantly pressing onward through the stacks of boxes with more in hand. "The profile says he's a loner. No one believes the loner in high school."

"There is a disproportionate number of funds allocated to sports," Zeke said, poring over a spreadsheet, "Perhaps it just reaffirmed his hatred."

Before Gabe could throw his two cents in (or ask if they could move some of the boxes out before they were buried alive), his phone buzzed.

Cas: John is here

"I've got to tap some sources," Gabe said, tucking his phone away and ignoring the habitual dirty look Talbot tossed him. "I'll see you guys bright and early tomorrow!"

Even with his exceptional driving skills, the sunset quickly bled into night as he drove. Bobby lived in a suburb that seemed to be connected to Lawrence by the most congested roads in existence. Despite that, he pushed onward, tires screeching as he rounded the last corner and came to a jolting halt in front of Bobby's house.

"No way," he said, gaping at the scene before him, "Is that...?"

His first instinct was that he was somehow misconstruing what his eyes were seeing, but nothing changed when he blinked (twice for good measure). Cas really was holding a shotgun aimed at a man that could only be John Winchester.

"Looks like he has the situation in hand," Gabe said approvingly, taking a few pictures for purely practical purposes. Then he remembered that self-defense shootings were messy things to legally untangle post-shooting, and decided that he should probably intervene before Cas created more paperwork for an already strained LPD.

"Your timing is atrocious," Cas said flatly as Gabe came up the walk.

"Atrocious for you, but life-saving for senior Winchester," Gabe replied casually, grasping the man's shoulder and turning him around.

Dean had taken after his mother, but it appeared Sam hadn't taken after either. He'd only seen old, hazy photos of John Winchester in the Yellow Eyes case files and didn't have the best mental picture of the man. He looked fairly cleaned up for an alcoholic (Gabe couldn't smell any alcohol on him either), but that didn't stop him from disliking him any less.

"You should take a hike before my friend shoots you," he suggested, hand still digging onto the meat of John's shoulder, "I doubt he'd miss."

"I wouldn't," Cas confirmed, blue eyes ablaze. His expression more than countered the absurdity of his house robe flapping in the evening breeze.

"Hmm. I know who you are," John said, ignoring both of them to jut his chin at Cas. He then looked at Gabe, an air of puzzlement clouding his otherwise surprisingly even expression, "But I don't know you."

"Gabriel Milton. Private investigator, currently attached to an LPD task force and your son."

That got a momentarily raise of John's brows. Then he frowned, looking back at Cas.

"He is holding that shotgun right," he pondered, "Did Dean teach you?"

"My father," Cas corrected stiffly.

John made an approving noise. From inside the house, someone appeared to clue into the fact that something going on because the front door flew open. Dean stepped out wearing nothing but a pair of sleep pants and a sleepy expression that quickly morphed to surprise.

"Cas, what the hell are you doing?"

"Holding your father at gunpoint. If that isn't obvious, you should get your eyes checked," Cas replied, not even looking at Dean.

Meanwhile, Gabe was doing his best to keep his own, unrelated surprise in check. He'd seen Sam's scattered scars, but Dean was covered in them.

"You always attach yourself to spitfires," John said to Dean, partly chiding and partly...impressed? "Got to admit, didn't think you'd go for—"

"Don't even finish that sentence," Dean interjected, quickly recovering to glare at his father. "Milton, step away from him. The only reason he hasn't gutted you is because the mess would make Bobby mad."

"That, and he has a gun on me," John added idly.

Cas and Dean made surprised noises. Gabe grinned, thumb firmly fixed on the safety of the gun he had jammed against John's ribs. He'd pulled it as soon as they'd made contact, their position just on the edge of the radius the porch light covered benefiting his sneaky motion. The hand on John's shoulder only served as a distraction that he now ended since it'd run its course.

"I don't have any qualms about being sneaky," he shrugged, "Especially towards someone I know is dangerous."

"So Sam's been running his mouth."

Gabe thumbed the safety off. The click seemed to echo in the yard.

"I don't need to know a thousand ways to kill a man like you do," he said lightly, still smiling as he looked John in the eye, "My specialty lies in knowing a thousand effective ways to get rid of a corpse. I've seen so many creative criminals in my line of work."

For a few fraught seconds, the only sound was the buzz of the porch light. John didn't look surprised, but Gabe thought he was pretty damn close to the emotion.

"What? Thought I was more like a police lackey?" Gabe asked innocently before letting the smile drop off his face. "Think again, John."

"Huh. Not bad, Milton," Dean quipped, what little concern he'd shown for Gabe evaporating into one of his trademark asshole smirks. "How's it feel, sir?"

"Annoying," John replied dryly, "I just want to check on Sam. I've seen the news."

"So has everyone else in this godforsaken city," Dean sighed, rubbing one eye balefully. Now he looked bored and irritated. "Sam wouldn't want you here, and neither does anyone else. Get gone."

"There are things you don't know—"

"We'll figure it out later," Dean snapped, his body one long line of tension, "Dammit! Why do you choose now to start sharing secrets? I did what you asked of me, and I'm still doing what you asked of me. I'm just doing it my way now, without you breathing down my shoulder."

The words, hurt filled and sharp, spilled out into the night. Dean immediately looked as if he regretted admitting so much, but with a glance from Cas, he didn't back down. He recomposed himself, drawing himself up to his full height with an expression that promised a world of misery if John didn't listen.

"Leave. Now. I don't want to fight you. We both know how it'd end, sir."

There was no arguing against that. John grunted and lifted his hands in surrender. Dean gestured to Gabe, who reluctantly stepped away and holstered his gun. He didn't like doing so when he was still so near to the man that had taught the Winchester brothers all they knew, but the gesture was necessary.

John left without another word. He didn't look particularly angry, or as if he was going to drive straight to the nearest bar. The lighting made it hard to tell, but Gabe liked to think the man was reeling from the round of punches his reality had taken.

Cas sighed in relief as soon as John's taillights winked out of sight, passing the shotgun off to Dean to handle.

"Finally. I thought he'd never leave! I didn't want to shoot him."

"Me either," Gabe confessed, mounting the stairs of the porch, "I've only been carrying mine around because of the case."

"Last time I fired a shotgun was back home when I was fifteen, and I missed. I've never been good with them."

Gabe grinned at a now sheepish Cas. "You bluffer! Remind me not to play poker with you."

Dean shook his head, smiling ruefully. Up close, his scars were even worse, but he didn't seem to be self-conscious about it. If anything, he look comfortable in his skin, as textured and battered as it was.

"Jeez, you two really had him convinced. And me too, for a bit," he admitted, "Figures he'd show up while I was napping."

Inside, Bobby sat in a recliner, with a steaming mug by his side and a hefty book propped in his lap. He barely stirred as they tramped in, and only grunted in approval when Dean rehung the shotgun in a space above the mantle.

"Why the hell didn't you tell me what was going on?" Dean complained.

"Your boy had it under control," Bobby drawled, not even looking up from his book. "Best John didn't see me right now. Lord knows I don't want to deal with it."

'It' was supremely vague, but Gabe could take a few guesses. Sam had told him Bobby and John went way back, and Bobby was also the one that took them in when needed. Complicated probably didn't even begin to cover it, and Bobby wasn't going to spill anytime soon.

"Do you think he'll come back?" Cas asked, resettling himself on the couch.

Bobby shrugged, frowning down at his book. "You guys gave him a good tongue lashing. It'll be a couple of days before he tries something else."

That didn't sound reassuring to Gabe at all, and neither was Sam's appearance when he went upstairs to check on him before leaving. Pale and troubled, he slept with a frown marring his brow that Gabe couldn't smooth away at all with his thumb.

"You better hang in there, Sam," he whispered, unsure if he was wishing it into existence or trying to extract a promise.

Sam's only reply was a sharp exhale, and Gabe decided it was both. Sam would make him a promise like that, and when all else failed, what was the harm of making a wish?

…

"Milton. Milton!"

"I'm listening," Gabe drawled, forcing his eyes to focus on the map before him without turning to look at Jody.

"You're dozing," she retorted. A slight whoosh of air indicated she'd jabbed an unseen pen in his direction.

"I'm studying this very easy to read map," he yawned, setting the subway transit system down on the already cluttered table. Sunday had passed in a stream of maps and search parties, all failing to procure the mythical connection that would lead them to their elusive quarry. The only good thing to come of Sunday was Gabe managing to persuade Dean to bring one of the armchairs upstairs to Sam's room—a feat that had required all his persuasive powers. "Is there really nowhere to hide out in that tunnel?"

"Nothing," Donna confirmed for the fifteenth time, phone wedged between her ear so she could hold a pastry and coffee. "What connections there are have long caved in. That tunnel is a straight shot from the station to the history building, intercepted by a few exits to topside."

"And the manhole cover in Miller's neighborhood just leads to the sewage system. I've got patrols combing the tunnels there, but zip so far," Talbot added, collapsing into a chair with a jaw cracking yawn.

"Ugh," Gabe groaned, pinching the bridge of his nose in frustration, "We need an expert, but not an architect or a maintenance worker. These tunnels are old. We need someone that knows the history of the city."

They all paused, wondering who they could call. The conclusion came to them in delayed, partly embarrassed tandem.

"I'll call Novak," Jody said gruffly, reaching for her phone.

Cas didn't sound pleased (they'd realized too late that Sunday had slipped away into very early Monday morning ) but he listened to their questions and half-formed thoughts intently. Roughly an hour later, he walked into the conference room like a member of the bomb squad sent in for a tricky diffusion, clutching his coffee like a lifeline. He'd had to be smuggled in to avoid the journalists camped outside, and he didn't look keen to repeat the experience.

"There is a program the history department has that can overlay maps. It's used for timeline references, and it's not my forte, but I believe I can work up something," he said, frowning at the various blueprints they set before him. "It would be better to ask Frank Deveraux though. He's the closest Lawrence has to an expert in this."

Donna nearly tripped over a chair at the name, and her reaction wasn't even the most dramatic in the room at the name.

"Frank Devereaux?" Jody demanded.

Cas nodded, still studying the maps and oblivious to the reaction he'd garnered. "Yes, Devereaux. I believe he works in some capacity for the LPD? He came in a few times for research."

"He's dead," Jody informed bluntly, "He was one of the victims from...from the other night."

Cas looked up sharply, mouth slightly parted in surprise.

"Oh. Then…perhaps I have unwittingly given you the motive. Hannah interacted with him more, but I know the legends about tunnels were a hobby of his. He was paranoid enough to believe they were a security risk, and I suppose he was right."

Cas called Hannah at their request. She sounded even less eager to be disturbed than her brother, but quickly gave them the information they needed.

"Yes, he used the program. Since he wasn't a student, I was the one who arranged the usage. This was…hmm, a few months ago? Definitely before winter break. He let the department have a copy of the file since his array was so impressive."

It was the best piece of news they'd had the whole weekend. Hunting through the remains of Frank's office for the file would've taken precious time and undoubtedly triggered a few nasty computer systems traps he left behind, and they needed what Frank had drawn up immediately.

"Poor Frank. Do you think that's why he was killed?" Garth asked, wide-eyed as they waited for Cas to come back with the file. There was no one at the history building to play middleman due to the early hour, requiring the grumpy Enochian expert to go in person.

"Perhaps," Gabe murmured. Hannah had said Miller frequented the history building, and it wasn't a stretch to think that the paths of the two men could've intersected. It was flimsy, but if Frank had recognized Miller, he couldn't have been left alive.

Deveraux's map ended up being exactly what they needed. Using an old projector wheeled up from mysterious depths, the task force displayed the images onto the wall, studying the intricate maze before them. Using the topside locations they had at hand that they knew Miller frequented, they managed to narrow down the options.

"Some of these places don't have entrances marked, and some are just hypothetical. Like this one," Cas said, running his finger over a dotted path that led from some point on the Kingsford Parallel to downtown. "You'll spend as much time looking for entrances as you do the suspect."

"It's the best we got," Jody replied, turning to Talbot, who sat in a corner. "Talbot, arrange more foot patrols. We need all the manpower we can spare on this."

Gabe watched as Talbot obeyed without any snark. He'd told Jody of his suspicions, but it'd been clear she thought it was just his bias speaking. After all, despite her attitude, Talbot was one of the best detectives on the force. Her record spoke for itself, and she'd never been anything but professional when dealing with the media.

But it nagged at him, and Gabe decided to just question her himself. If he did it gently enough, she might not even blow up at him.

He slipped out the room after Talbot, but to his surprise, she was already waiting. Resignation stooped her shoulders, but her face revealed nothing more than careful impassivity as they stood before each other.

"I've seen the way you've been looking at me. Hurry up and get it over with," she sneered, crossing her arms.

So no beating around the bush. At least she's not exploding yet.

"Are you the leak?"

A muscle in Talbot's temple twitched. Her eyes could've burned holes in steel, but Gabe had turned into something stronger than any metal when he'd gotten the call about Sam.

"I have a girlfriend that works for Channel 3. Or at least, I thought she was my girlfriend," she muttered, slumping against the wall. "I get too chatty when I'm drunk, and on top of that, I forget what I do when I'm drunk. Guess how much bar-hopping she insisted we go on for dates."

"How convenient," Gabe drawled, but he couldn't help feeling a small bit of sympathy through the anger and shock that he'd been right.

"Well, it's the truth," Talbot snapped, pushing off from the wall. "Look, I know I fucked up. I had my suspicions, but it wasn't until a couple of days ago—it doesn't matter anymore anyway. I called it off Thursday, and that's the end of it."

"Thursday?"

"Yeah, Thursday," Talbot snapped, "Why?"

"If that's the case, then you're saying you're not the one that leaked Sam's story to the press, since that happened after," Gabe pointed out dubiously, "You expect me to believe that after your little witch hunt against him?"

"I worked through that," Talbot muttered.

Gabe's disbelief must've grown stronger on his face because Talbot scoffed and threw her hands up.

"I swear I didn't leak that stuff about Sam! Do you think I want that out there after the departmental disasters we're being handed? How am I supposed to be a detective people take seriously if I work out of a station that's a laughingstock?"

"Good point, Detective Talbot. Why don't we take your concerns to the Chief?"

Gabe and Talbot whipped around to see Jody standing in the doorway of the conference room, disappointment written all over her face.

"My office," she said, leaving no room for argument.

Gabe winced as Talbot trailed after Jody like she was being dragged off to her doom, and in a way, she was. He doubted that she'd be fired—for all her personality, she was a damn good detective in a place that sorely needed them—but the Chief (or rather, Billy) would have to be informed, and everyone knew that Billy liked to run a tight ship. To have the leak be one of the hotshot detectives...

What if she wasn't lying about Sam? he thought. Talbot seemed earnest, and not in an "I'm trying to salvage my career" way.

The possibility of two leaks in the department seemed unlikely. For all the issues the LPD had, no one would leak information about a serial killer case. Yellow Eyes had taught them that. So, that meant that someone else out there was starting to stick their nose into things, but who?

Michael's mystery message writer?

He snagged a copy of Devereaux's array from the printer before making for the nearest exit. By lunch, the station would be alight with the news, and Gabe did not want to be around for the fallout.

…

"Do you really have to do this?" Gabe asked Monday evening, watching Lisa prep an IV stand she'd procured from the hospital. Among the childhood knick-knacks still littering the room, it felt like an intrusion.

"He's taking in some fluids, but he's not getting any better. I would've started this drip yesterday if I'd had my way," Lisa said, sending a side-long glance over her shoulder to her ex, who brooded in the corner.

"I don't like any of this," Dean muttered, pushing away from the wall and striding out the room.

Gabe dithered awkwardly in the corner. He'd arrived in time to catch the tail end of an emergency ice bath they'd submerged Sam in to bring down a sudden return of the fever, and Dean was handling it poorly.

Lisa sighed as she made the final adjustments. Downstairs, the TV was turned on, and they could hear Dean swear at what was undoubtedly another news broadcast.

"Dean always feels guilty when Sam gets hurt. He thinks he should be the one always getting hurt. He's such an idiot," she said, attempting a smile and failing miserably when Sam let out a kicked-dog whine and jerked his head to the side.

He'd been getting more restless lately, and it troubled Gabe. The worst times were when he sleepwalked. If he was touched, he'd lash out, which meant that they had to cajole him back into bed with words alone. However, once he was in bed, he was complacent enough to take liquids, but he didn't rise far enough out of his strange coma frequently enough for them to rely on those instances to keep him healthy.

"Thank you for this. Without you, we might've had to take him to the hospital by now, and that would've been a mess," Gabe said, watching to make sure Sam's motions didn't grow any more violent.

"He's like a brother to me," Lisa replied, fiercely, "I just wish I could do more. Whatever is going to help him is something beyond medicine."

Sam murmured a stream of nonsense, his eyes rolling frantically beneath shut lids. Gabe combed his damp hair back from his brow and tried to soothe him as best as he could, feeling strained at seams he didn't even know he possessed.

Not for the first time, Gabe wished he could trade places with Sam. Out of the two of them, he suspected Sam was much better at keeping bedside vigil. As it was, Gabe had never felt so guilty sitting by Sam's side, listening to him occasionally relive memories intercepted by random phrases.

Tonight, he didn't call out Gabe's name. Gabe didn't know how to feel about it and chose not to think about it at all as he trudged downstairs, exhausted and disheartened by all his apparent failures.

Directionless, he sank into a recliner and watched as Ben showed Dean and Cas something from a cookbook of all things. Nobody looked at him, which he appreciated. He didn't think he could take any conversation right now.

His phone buzzed for the thousandth time. Gabe fished it out, sighing at the message.

Jody: Talbot has been reprimanded but is still on the task force due to necessity.

He hadn't expected anything different. Gabe had spent most of the day avoiding the station by checking locations around town marked on Devereaux's map. However, when he did trudge in to deliver his negative findings, the gist of the gossip was that they simply didn't have the manpower to replace Talbot if a suspension went through. Until The Crucifier case reached a conclusion, investigating her would be put on hold.

Not that it mattered much in the end. Even if she hadn't been the one to leak information about Sam, the damage was done. When Yellow Eyes inevitably reared his ugly head, the press would be on the Winchesters ten times faster thanks to their memories being so helpfully refreshed.

Maybe we should leave.

The idea had its appeal, but Gabe knew the likelihood of Sam agreeing to leave Lawrence for any period was almost nil. He'd see it as cowardice, and Gabe knew that Sam was sick of running away from things.

Gabe imagined leaving regardless, if only for a few days. He and Sam could just drive, putting miles between them and the wretched city. All their problems would lessen as the miles piled on. Sam would understand why Gabe never stayed in one place, and—

Ben giggled, and the fantasy shattered beyond repair. The already present guilt engulfed Gabe like a dunk in cold water. Sam had a life here that he enjoyed; people he loved and an education he wanted to pursue. He'd never leave it behind, and he was a fool to think otherwise.

"Leaving already?" Dean asked accusatorily as he made his way toward the door.

Knowing Dean was simply lashing out from his hurt over Sam and (at least probably) not criticizing him, Gabe only turned to stare wordlessly. Whatever Dean saw in his face made him back down, and he left without further interruption in a maelstrom of self-loathing.

That night, sleeping proved to be nearly impossible. Sam's face haunted him, smiling in one instance and then wretched in the next. Gabe just couldn't compartmentalize like he typically did when cases got intense, and it was beginning to catch up to him. His body might forcibly sideline him, and the thought of that horror spurred Gabe into a few uneasy hours of rest.

Balthazar's call at dawn came as a relief. The man had disappeared into the ether shortly after arriving in Lawrence, and if it wasn't for some of his possessions still scattered about Bobby's house and cryptic texts, Gabe would've thought he'd left completely.

"I told you I was waiting for several useful items to arrive," Balthazar sniffed, peeved by Gabe's assumptions. "That, and I've been doing some research. You have the crimes of the present occupying your attention, while I have the sins of the past on my plate."

"The point, Shakespeare?"

Balthazar made an aggrieved noise. Gabe smirked, crawling out of bed and towards the coffee machine. He was so easy to wind up, and Gabe needed to take his amusement where he could these days.

"Your beau's family history is of interesting note. I thought his surname sounded familiar, so I went back to my notes. I found mention of a Henry Winchester associated with the Men of Letters. Is Winchester a common surname?"

Gabe pondered it for a second. "I guess not?"

"There's also the Campbells, who are even more interesting," Balthazar continued, sounding perturbed, "An odd family, but rather legendary in the circles I run in for being talented if you know what I mean. The only problem is they all dropped off the face of the earth some fifteen or so years ago."

Gabe absorbed this information perfunctorily; it was interesting, but not useful to his current burning desire to get his hands on Max Miller.

"Why are you telling me all this?"

"Because you're feeling guilty about Sam," Balthazar replied dispassionately. "It's affecting your work and health. You cannot blame yourself for a consequence that came about by a choice he made on his own, and you certainly can't blame yourself for introducing him to this dangerous world of ours. I daresay he would've walked down this particular path eventually without you hastening it."

"Maybe he wouldn't have," Gabe protested weakly, irritated at Balthazar for speaking so plainly.

"No, he would have," Balthazar insisted. Papers rustled in the background. "The protections laid in place on the Winchesters were at their prime when they were children and essentially stunted their talents. Brutal, but effective in concealing them. As soon as they reached adulthood, the protections weakened. Dean's have held up longer than Sam's because his talents are different from his brother's, but they're both practically nonexistent at this point. I'm surprised Sam didn't burn through them sooner."

"So what does that mean? Can't you renew the protections or something?"

"This isn't a car warranty, Gabriel," Balthazar huffed, "These are intricate spells with time limits, and the best ones have already been used on them. Whatever talents they already display will only become stronger."

"Have you told Dean this?"

"I've told Castiel, which is essentially the same thing."

Gabe smiled at Balthazar's flippant tone, pouring himself a cup of coffee.

"As for the other topic, I'm awaiting the arrival of something that should help Sam," Balthazar continued. "I expect it in the afternoon but setting up the spell will require a bit more time. However, everything should be in place before midnight."

"Why didn't you start with that first?" Gabe demanded, nearly spilling half of the pot over the counter in his outrage.

"Your unfounded feelings of guilt needed to be addressed first," Balthazar replied lightly. "Really, do try and keep up here."

I'm keeping up, Gabe grumbled to himself after the call ended, doing his best to keep his hands from shaking. He'd forgotten how much of an asshole Balthazar could be when he wasn't being mysteriously informative and helpful.

…

As a child, Gabe had never been able to control his ability to find lost items. To someone growing up in more normal circumstances, the spontaneity of it might've felt magical, but Gabe had already developed a practical outlook on life. Worth was based on reliability, not on specialness. So, Gabe chose the acceptable ways of standing out, like being the class clown, over letting anyone in on the fact he spoke a strange language without having ever consciously learned it. Finding lost things fell into the latter category, and sometimes, Gabe forget it had ever been a thing.

It was only after he fled from his last foster home and the suits in his new Beetle that Gabe realized he could make something of it. People hired others to find lost things for them, and more often than not, they didn't care how they did it, just that they did.

Gabe unwrapped a watermelon Jolly Rancher with care. Before him, the madman's board stood like a challenge, displaying all the little facts that taunted him and refused to paint the picture that would lead him to the unsub.

But it was all there. Gabe could feel it in the itch in his shoulders and the way something danced at the edge of his mind.

Miller's life uncomfortably paralleled Sam's up until high school. Miller's mother died when he was an infant, leaving him with a disinterested father and uncle whose sole purposes in life seemed to be drinking and hunting. They left Lawrence for a while but drifted back, and Miller grew up to attend Southview High as a bright, but under the radar student. They'd confirmed his best friend died in a shooting but was officially labeled a bystander, as according to the (admittedly slim) report, there was no evidence he'd been in either of the gangs involved. After that, Miller gained a sudden interest in religion to go alongside the hunting the uncle mentioned, and his descent into murder accelerated from there.

The ring Sam and others had spotted was his mother's high school class ring; a possession that Miller prized greatly. He used to work as a warehouse worker but quit shortly before the killings started. A few weeks before that event, a truck designed to carry frozen goods had been reported missing from the same warehouse, and the footage from the scene was corrupted in the exact way that all the crime scene footage had been so far. Others were plowing through hundreds of hours of surviving footage from areas around the various crime scenes to see if they could spot the truck, with varying degrees of success.

Miller and The Crucifier were synonymous. Charlie's work had been enough for Gabe, but here was the evidence. Now what he needed was Miller's bolt hole.

"Where is it?" Gabe mumbled around the Jolly Rancher, eyes darting across the board.

Other detectives tended to lean towards caffeine, or alcohol if they went that far. Meanwhile, Gabe had always used sugar. Something about candy helped him focus, especially when he was running on little to no sleep and fighting against burnout.

Deveraux's map dominated the center, color-coded so thoroughly that it looked like a rainbow disaster. Gabe forced himself to look at it again in the hopes the lines would reveal something new.

How would Sam look at it? he thought tiredly, focus momentarily drifting from the map to the sunlight warming the nape of his neck.

There was a picture of him at the very bottom of the board. It was recent, taken sometime last summer at the Roadhouse. Sam stood behind the bar with a pencil behind his ear and a sheepish smile, caught in the middle of trying to tuck a book out of sight.

It was a popular one being circulated by the news outlets, and Gabe couldn't blame them. Sam, all dimples and floppy hair, looked like the furthest thing from a killer's target in it. Who could want to hurt him?

Far too many people, Gabe thought, sadly tracing his finger over the image.

They didn't have a picture together. It'd never occurred to Gabe—everything had moved so quickly between them—but now he regretted it a little. He'd never seen the point in them until now.

Pictures.

The thought struck him like lightning. Gabe knocked a mug over in an attempt to reach a specific file, spilling coffee all over paperwork scattered on the counter. He barely noticed through his frantic attempts to confirm his hypothesis.

Someone had been assigned the duty of digging in Miller's childhood, which included photos. Gabe remembered looking over them and noticing that the background of the pictures of Miller with his best friend (the happiest Miller had probably ever been) was the same in nearly all of them.

"Comic books," he said, quickly finding the notation in the report. Ironically, Talbot had been the one to compile the file, and she'd picked up on the background too.

"Comic book business. Now gone defunct; no potential follow up."

"Address, address," he muttered, scanning down. If Talbot hadn't listed one and he was forced to call her now, Gabe was never going to get over it.

"Shit!"

He said far worse things as he fumbled for his phone. Gabe nearly dislocated his knee slipping through the growing coffee puddle on the floor, but he managed to land hard on the couch and save himself that time delay.

"Gabe?"

"Donna, find me Talbot, stat."

Donna didn't argue. She recognized his tone of voice, and Gabe knew he'd been right to reach out through her when she managed to get Talbot on the other end in less than a minute.

"What?" she asked grumpily.

"The address of the comic book place. From the pictures," Gabe said, listing the file number, "Talbot, where is it?"

"Why does it matter?"

Gabe nearly exploded right then and there, but then he caught sight of Sam on the board and managed to restrain himself. He took a breath, reminding himself that he was currently three steps ahead, and managed to reply with what he thought was a pretty civil tone.

"If I'm right, then we've got a break in the case. The address?"

Talbot paused. Then he heard a pen click, and her voice mutter something unintelligible to someone.

"I neglected to add it to the file. That was an oversight on my part," she said, astonishingly civil herself as she flipped through papers.

Seconds stretched past. Gabe leaped off the couch and paced, stopping only to take the photo of Sam off the board. Finally, Talbot came up with an address, her little noise of triumph nearly lost over the sound of Gabe's rapidly beating heart.

"1039 Kingsford Street. Right on the Parallel."

…

A clear-headed P.I with a healthy sense of self-preservation would've waited for backup or left it to higher authorities altogether, but Gabe had neither after the past few days. He'd been honest with Talbot when she asked why he needed the address but had hung up right after in his haste to leave. Whether or not she came with backup in time didn't matter when he knew what he had to do.

There was no longer a comic book store at 1039 Kingsford Street. It'd gone out of business, and then the property had quickly gone derelict despite the real estate sign. An iron railing started at the front and wrapped around the side to mark the half-basement level.

Gabe walked around into the alley and noticed a fresh layer of paint on the wall. He'd bet money that Enochian graffiti had been there at one point, but he didn't have to when the real prize sat at the bottom of the concrete steps.

The water-damaged door at the bottom had runes painted over the top third. Gabe recognized it as ritual work and parceled through the symbols for a moment, snorting when he comprehended the desired effect.

"Hidden to everyone else maybe, but not to me," he murmured, using his key to scratch through a few of the runes before opening the door.

Inside, little remained beyond a few bare shelves, a few inches of standing water, and the skeleton of a front counter set up. Weak sunlight filtered in through the dirty windows, revealing a hallway that led further back into the building.

Instinct led him towards a closet that contained a water heater that had seen better days. Momentarily confused, Gabriel stepped further inside, only to scramble when he felt the floor give beneath him.

The culprit was an improperly placed grate. Gabriel wrenched it off, revealing a rusted ladder descending into cold darkness alive with the sound of rushing water and...

Something. For a tense second, Gabriel stared into the abyss, certain that eyes looked back.

Move.

He jerked back, falling back onto his haunches just as a bullet tore through the ceiling.

"Son of a—"

Over the sound of water and his ringing ears, he caught running footsteps. Gabriel lunged for the ladder, tearing up his palms on the corroded edges as he essentially plummeted to the bottom in an attempt to catch up.

Sheer luck kept him from falling into the rush of water sweeping parallel to the narrow walkway he landed on. Gabriel pinwheeled his arms and yelped, jerking back just as Miller decided firing in near total darkness was the way to go.

Gabriel hissed with displeasure, dropping into a crouch as the curved tunnel reverberated with shots. A bullet struck stone above his head, raining dust and sharp chips across his forehead he shook off as best he could.

He didn't like firing his gun in the best of conditions, and these were the worst he'd ever been in. Either Miller was panicking or was so far gone in his mind that he didn't realize the danger.

If he couldn't use his gun, he'd just have to get creative.

"Olprit."

Gabriel wasn't entirely sure what he expected the result to be. A corny 'let there be light' moment where a white glow showed the way? His flashlight turning on? He'd had no solid mental image, but luckily, Enochian seemed to have more common sense than him.

Ancient sodium lights contained by metal cages flickered to life alongside the wall. Miller stood at the mouth of a junction that dissipated in darkness, unhooded and frozen in temporary surprise.

Gabe stood upright, wasting precious seconds by reaching for his holster.

"Miller!"

In response, Miller tugged up his hood, tossed the gun into the water, and ran.

The lab is going to have a field day looking for that thing, Gabe thought, hot on his heels.

Light flickered on ahead of him as he pursued. Some of them popped with the effort, scattering red sparks that sizzled and hissed when they landed on Miller's billowing cloak.

With no warning, Miller ducked into a smaller service tunnel. Not wanting to lose him, Gabe lunged, grabbing a fistful of his cloak, but before he could get a better grip, an arc of silver sliced across his chest before clattering against the wall.

Gabe stumbled back on instinct (stupid of him to forget the fucking sword) and so did Miller, who yanked his sword back with an angry hiss at his lack of reach and retreated into a room at the end of the tunnel.

Anyone with sense would've been screaming at Gabe to not follow the serial killer into his home territory, but anger and pain clouded his judgment. So, despite being atrocious at close contact fighting, Gabe went for it.

He slammed into Miller, sending them down to the concrete ground in a tumble of musty black cloth and metal. Gabe's gun spiraled off beneath a table, and Miller's sword spun out of reach, rendering them both weaponless.

High pitched Enochian cracked from Miller's throat, but Gabe couldn't make out any legible words. He was too busy trying to keep Miller from overpowering him with his wiry strength.

"You're under arrest," Gabe growled, his fist catching the side of Miller's head, "Stay still-oof!"

An elbow to the eye sent stars exploding across Gabe's vision. Between his head and his chest, Gabe's already overtaxed body was telling him to throw in the towel, but he knew it'd be a bad idea to let Miller keep talking, much less wiggle free.

With a frustrated yell, he shoved Miller into what felt like a chair (the light hadn't followed them this far), and their combined weight splintered the furniture into bits beneath them. He thought he could hear footsteps, but he couldn't be sure.

"I'm going to kill him," Miller gasped, this time in English, "I'm going to. I don't care what Azazel says."

After that, Gabe saw red.

"…we've got him! Milton, get off of him!"

"He's got a death grip on him, shit. Michael, help me out here!"

Someone was prying at his arms. Gabe opened his eyes, squinted through blood, and saw Jody's face swimming before him, her lips moving but the words not syncing up until she started pulling at his arm again.

"Oh. Right," he said uselessly. It was all over now. He could let go.

"He's bleeding. I need paramedics!" Jody yelled, voice cracking from the sheer volume. "Hell, Gabriel, he got you with the sword."

"It's not bad," he protested, swaying back against someone's legs. He wasn't sure whose but judging by the way Jody looked up at the owner of said legs, it might've been Donna.

Miller remained pinned to the floor by others, hacking up a storm. With the cloak covering him like a blanket and the lights on, he looked less intimidating and more like a kid playing dress-up.

After that, everything turned hazy. Gabe's head troubled him more than his chest, but for whatever reason, his chest wound drew more concern. Paramedics arrived, and there was lots of talk about stitches and scarring that Gabe tuned out. At some point, he ended up splayed on the floor, looking up at a ceiling covered in pictures.

"Sam," he said, quickly spotting his boyfriend in the field of madness. "Sam."

"He's alright. You're alright," someone said, mistaking his outburst for panic.

Gabe tried to shake his head but winced as he only succeeded in making the room spin.

"My gun. I dropped it...he dropped his into the water."

"I've got it," Jody said. Her hand gripped his shoulder, steady as always. "Just relax. We've got to get you to the hospital."

Gabe wanted to argue against that. Lisa could patch him up as she did for the Winchesters, but Sam's face overhead fed a nagging thought in his head. Something—no, someone—he was forgetting. The thought clicked with the aid of a painted symbol nearby.

"Yellow Eyes. He's not here."

"He was never here," Michael said quietly, close to his ear. Gabe was on a stretcher now. "We'll talk about it later. You did well, even if you went about it in the stupidest way possible."

Gabe laughed at Michael's exasperation and kept laughing even as someone strapped a completely unnecessary oxygen mask over his face and carried him out from the serial killer's lair.

...

At the hospital, the word "lucky" was frequently tossed around his head. Gabe was lucky he hadn't fractured some bone in his face; lucky that the sword hadn't cut any deeper, and lucky that he knew how to throw a proper punch. Gabe let them examine him in the E.R behind a curtain but put his foot down when they suggested moving him to a room to recover.

"It's not necessary!" he finally snapped, yelling above the nurses and Jody, who'd accompanied him on her insistence. "Just stitch me up and let me out of here."

One of the nurses looked as if she dearly wanted to inject in with a sedative and strap him to a bed for the rest of the week, but luckily, Jody knew when Gabe was being utterly serious. With a sigh, she convinced them to relent. She sat with him through twenty-something stitches (Gabe was too busy trying to ignore the pain of them to remember the exact number) that sat just below his collarbone, phoned someone to drop off a new shirt for him, and drank through enough shitty hospital coffee that a nurse pulled her aside and asked if her taste buds were alright.

"Not. A. Word," Jody growled, whipping the curtain back to find Gabe snickering.

"Yes, ma'am," he coughed, falling back as his chest burned, "This sucks."

"No shit. You should've waited for backup," she continued in the same tone, downing her thousandth cup of the day and crushing it in her hand.

"No time," Gabe lied, tentatively touching his face and wincing at the swelling. He'd be lopsided for the next couple of days.

"There's stupid, and then there's you," Jody insulted, her scowl dark enough to melt steel. "Are you happy with yourself?"

"Actually, yes I am," Gabe replied smugly. "I caught him, got my punches in, and didn't get strung up on a cross and drained of my blood for my efforts."

Jody sighed, pressing a hand to her temple. "You worry me sometimes, Milton. Truly, you do. If you were an officer under my command, I'd be lecturing you six ways to Sunday on how completely out of protocol your little stunt was, but since you're not, all I can say is…don't do it again."

His phone rang from where it sat on the nurse's counter. Jody grabbed it and answered before Gabe could even think of getting up, rolling her eyes when he pouted at her.

"Jody Mills speaking for a currently incapacitated Gabriel Milton, who's this?"

She listened for a moment, her eyebrows gradually rising until Gabe feared they'd hit her hairline.

"Some European guy wants to talk to you," she said right before Gabe was about to ask if she was alright, practically throwing the phone at him.

"Gabriel! I think congratulations are due."

"How do you even...oh, right. The news," Gabe said distastefully. In different circumstances, he might've milked the spotlight, but after Sam, he'd rearranged his priorities.

"Your name hasn't popped up yet; just that The Crucifier has been caught. I just rightfully guessed you were the one that caught him," Balthazar explained proudly.

"Congrats," Gabe couldn't resist saying dryly, "Did you call just to brag?"

Balthazar scoffed. "Of course not. It's ready."

"It?"

"It," Balthazar stressed.

"It...oh!"

"I'll begin the necessary preparations. Michael told me you've landed yourself in the hospital, so he'll be the one to get you," Balthazar replied, "Say goodbye to that lovely boss of yours for me!"

The curtain swished open, revealing Michael on the other side with impeccable timing and the untidiest Gabe had seen the agent to date. He had no suit jacket in sight and blood splattered on the side of his white button-down. Whose was unclear, but Gabe hoped it wasn't his.

"I'll take him from here, Detective Mills."

Gabe tried (and probably failed) to keep his surging enthusiasm in check as Jody exchanged words with Michael. A part of him felt like he was stuck in a custody battle, but before he could delve too deep into that loaded idea, Jody relented with a sigh and gestured for him to get out.

"Pull another stunt like that and I'll kick you out of the station myself," she warned. Gabe couldn't tell if she was threatening him out of tough love or seriousness. In all honesty, he wasn't sure how he'd top getting sliced with a sword and told her so cheekily on his way out.

"I sure hope Balthazar knows what he's doing," Gabe said, exhaling nervously as they exited the hospital. A vivid sunset bathed the street red, signaling along with the mild chill in the air that night was approaching. He'd lost the day to being underground and stuck in the hospital.

"He does. What he's attempting is fairly tame for Enochian," Michael explained, "But then, I was never very good at formalized rituals, which is why I can't do this for Sam myself."

"What are you good at?"

"Oh, this and that," Michael replied evasively. "Now, get in, before one of the nurses realizes you're gone."

It turned out, Michael hadn't signed him out, which delighted Gabe to no end and almost made up for the irritation of the seat belt against his bandaged chest. He tipped his head back and set himself up for a long ride to the city's outskirts, half-listening to the ensuing drama as Jody uncovered the deception and promptly called to unleash her fury.

His fingers brushed against the outlines of Sam's photo tucked away in his jacket pocket. Gabe pulled it out and was relieved to find that the immense guilt he'd been carrying had eased with his success. It wasn't totally gone—that wouldn't happen until he saw Sam wake up for himself—but Gabe no longer felt overwhelmed by it all.

They hadn't caught The Crucifier together, but Gabe couldn't have done it without Sam. Nobody, not even Sam (and he'd certainly try) could convince him otherwise.

"Hey Michael," he started after the agent semi-recovered from being chewed out, "Miller said something down there."

"He said quite a few things down there," Michael replied, "Quite chatty until we reached topside. Now we can't get a word out of him."

"I'm pretty sure he was talking about Yellow Eyes, except he referred to him as Azazel."

The name hung between them, suspended by some strange weight that Michael banished with a single shake of his head.

"That…is not a good name. I'll run it through my databases," he promised, a faint frown clinging to his face.

Gabe didn't speak much after that. His mind wandered back to Sam, but deep down, a small part of him was hung up on the name Azazel. What was it about the name that gave him such a strange feeling of wrongness?

He'd figure it out later. Gabe settled back in his seat and resolved to focus on Sam. After the last few days, he deserved it.

---

AUTHOR'S NOTE

So…when I said shortly I swear I didn't mean like 2ish months, but here we are! In my defense, being an English major is really effective at keeping me from writing the fun stuff.

Good news is that the chapter is up! Last chapter from Gabe's POV, super long, and filled with revealing information as his POV tends to be. Bad news is that the remaining ones are only outlined, so I have work ahead of me. I'm planning on using November to tackle them, because to finish this story before the year ends would be chef's kiss. However, since my life is hectic I'll label that a tentative deadline.

Also, I finally programmed the em-dash key as a Word shortcut and seeing it in my work after abusing the regular dash for so long is actually hilarious. Going back to make edits once this series is done is going to be a spiritual journey just on the grammar front.