Chapter 13: Pentacle
Night descended like a gauzy curtain over Charlotte's Diner. Light pollution kept the night from being truly dark, but the red sunset gave way to indigo easily enough in the end. Gabe was used to this half-night after all of his travels, but Cas appeared unnerved by it.
"I still can't get used to how bright it is out here in Lawrence," he remarked, eyes drifting across the sky outside. Gabe noticed that they didn't drift over to Dean at all.
"Didn't grow up here?" he asked, letting himself be drawn in by the attempt at distraction. Cas could be at ease with the situation if he wanted, but Gabe wasn't. He kept his eyes fixed on the arguing brothers outside, and especially on Sam.
He looks bigger. More dangerous.
Sam, for intents and purposes, successfully came off as a gentle giant. He'd fallen for it in the beginning, back when Sam had just been the cute waiter at the Roadhouse, but he knew better now. Sam had facets to his character, each one brought out the longer he got to know him. The tall, dark, and dangerous man looming over his brother outside was just as much a part of him as the college student or the ex-waiter.
"No, I grew up about an hour from here, far from any sort of cities," Cas explained, fingers drumming against the lacquered table slowly, "My childhood friend and I always swore we would never come here."
A little more of Gabe's attention was drawn in by Cas (it helped that things weren't descending into a fistfight as he'd feared), and he turned momentarily to see an uncharacteristically wistful look on his face.
"You two were that close, huh?"
"Yes, we grew up on the same street. She didn't want to come here because she thought it would lead to a dead-end life, and I didn't want to come here because the local church always called Lawrence "The Second City of Sin"," Cas said dryly, a half-smile tugging on his lips, "Quite catchy."
"Quite," Gabe echoed, picking up his cup of coffee and sipping it as he found his curiosity becoming truly peaked. He liked Cas; the man was one of the quirkiest characters he'd ever met, and they both had the same chance-based link to a Winchester. "But here you are anyway. For school?"
"For school," Cas confirmed, splaying his hands on the table, "And a bit for Hannah too, as LU is her dream school. She was…sheltered, like me growing up, and I didn't want things to be as hard for her as they were for me at the start."
"Religious family?" Gabe asked sympathetically, receiving a nod.
"Hmm. I've had my fair share of those kinds of foster families," the P.I said, crinkling his nose as he reminisced on some of those not so fond times. Granted, they hadn't all been bad, but many had been less than pleasant for a moody teen with no direction in life and a grudge against the world.
"Meg ended up coming out here. My childhood friend," he clarified, "At least, that's the last I heard, but I haven't talked to her in years."
The name rang a warning bell in Gabe's mind, but most of his attention was still fixed outside. Sam and Dean appeared to have come to an impasse and were just standing there, braced against the wind and waiting.
Waiting for what, Gabe didn't know. But now that there was a lull outside, Gabe let himself focus on Cas.
"Wait, Meg?" he asked, turning to fully face him.
"Yes. Her name was Meg," Cas said slowly, tilting his head in confusion, "Why?"
Gabe let go of his coffee to raise his hand a bit above his head, his brain churning as he processed the potential connection.
"Medium height, dark hair and eyes, super mouthy?"
Cas' whole face changed in the blink of an eye, going from impassive and slightly nostalgic to an intense focus that caught him off guard.
"You know her. Where is she? Is she alright?" he asked, firing off questions filled with equal parts excitement and concern, brow furrowed as he leaned forward.
Uh oh, Gabe thought, belatedly realizing what he'd stepped into as he scratched his neck and fumbled for a response. All he knew of Meg was that she was the one writing the letters to Sam and that she'd been a waitress at the Roadhouse that joked around with him before dipping from a very horrible relationship with a scummy Dead Eye member. None of that was information he could just drop on Cas without Sam or Dean present; Sam would fill in the blanks better, and Dean would keep Cas from blowing a gasket he didn't know the man even had.
"Er…about that…"
The door swung open behind him, and Gabe glanced back to see the brothers returning with their arms slung around each other. He sighed heavily with relief, slouching down as Sam and Dean seated themselves.
"Cas wants to know about Meg!" he blurted out, gesturing to the practically vibrating man across from him as he looked (not desperately at all) at Sam for assistance.
Sam paused, mind visibly switching track as he realized that events had transpired while he'd been gone. Then he sighed, running a hand through his hair as he focused on Cas.
"Right. That probably would've come up eventually."
"Eventually?"
Cas somehow managed to infuse an ungodly amount of emotion in that single word; eyes blazing as he leaned it.
Sam flinched back, hard. Dean stared, eyes wide, and Gabe found that it was up to him to smooth things over even as his heart pounded because Christ was Cas intimidating looking like that. Who knew the dusty Enochian expert had it in him?
"Meg isn't exactly living it up right now Cas. How about you listen to Sam, so he can tell you exactly how things worked out the way they did?"
"Yeah Cas, listen to Sammy first before you go ripping a new one into him. We just got back from doing all that," Dean said, laughing nervously as he slung a tentative arm around Cas' shoulders.
Did Dean just back me up?
The brief look they exchanged as Cas slumped into Dean's side said yes, the Winchester was aware of their collaboration, and no, he wasn't very pleased by it. Gabe didn't want to say anything childish Dean to make the tense situation worse, so he left it at that and drank some coffee to end the look.
"Alright," Cas said, the anger draining from his as quickly as it came, "Can you tell me how you know Meg, Sam?"
"Of course," Sam said quietly, before launching into the short but tragic tale that he could tell of Meg Masters.
When he got to the part about working with her at the Roadhouse and the fire there, Cas bowed his head, reaching up a trembling hand to cover his eyes.
"I knew it. I thought I'd seen her in the crowd, but everything was so confusing that night…" Cas murmured, already deep voice thick and rough with what sounded like tears before he suddenly looked up at Dean, revealing dry eyes, "Remember when you said I looked as if I'd seen a ghost?"
Dean nodded, and Gabe was impressed by the appropriately grave and concerned expression he had. His heartstrings were twinging at the horrible irony of it all, and he wouldn't tolerate an insensitive remark from Dean at a time like this.
"She looked so different, I didn't even recognize her," he continued morosely.
"You can't be blamed," Dean said gruffly, "That night was a shitshow."
"At least she's safe," Cas sighed, a bone-deep tired expression crossing his face, "As safe as anyone can be in this damned city."
They lapsed into silence, unable to refute Cas' words or offer any more comfort. Somewhere in the diner, someone coughed, and a light buzzed.
"Wait…when did you guys get coffee?" Dean asked, frowning at the twin cups Gabe and Cas were nursing.
"While you were outside. It tastes awful though," Cas said, glowering into his cup, and Gabe grimaced in agreement.
"Tastes like ass," he added, gesturing to the small mountain of ripped open sugar packets sitting next to the napkins, "Not even the Lord's best creation could save this cup."
Cas snorted as Sam sighed and Dean gaped at the sight of the sugar.
"Told you the Roadhouse was better," Sam remarked as Gabe took a sip of his coffee and gagged dramatically.
"Okay, maybe!" Dean acquiesced, throwing up his hands as Gabe clutched his throat and slumped against Sam, twitching slightly in his fake death throes.
"Somebody call 911," Cas quipped, a small smile crossing his face.
"Or the loony bin. Don't look now, but I think you're scaring the waitress," Dean remarked, gesturing to the ancient lady toddling over to take their orders.
"We'll have to call 911 for her," Sam muttered, and Gabe had to admit that it was a likely possibility. She looked as if she'd been here all her life, her blue and white dress uniform a vintage relic from a bygone era.
"Do I even want to know?" she rasped, smoker's voice even rougher than Cas' baritone.
"No ma'am, he's just an idiot," Dean said, flashing a megawatt smile that Gabe was positive dropped hundred of panties and jaws in the past.
"I may be an idiot, but I'm not stupid," he sniffed, crossing his arms and dispelling his death throes.
"What does that even mean?"
Sam snickered at his brother's flabbergasted expression, and the waitress looked over her horn-rimmed glasses to fix a standard old lady "you boys are foolish" look at the both of them.
"I'll have the double cheeseburger with extra fries," Cas interjected, shutting his menu crisply, "Dean, order."
Gabe didn't think the Winchester would comply, as Dean came off as the sort of guy that didn't like any sort of authority figures (besides his father, but he couldn't make that jibe without upsetting Sam), but Dean surprisingly reined it in and placed the same order as Cas.
"Along with a slice of that fabulous looking cherry pie on the counter," he added with a nearly coquettish smile.
Does he never stop flirting?
Sam's long-suffering sigh affirmed that his brother indeed didn't before he tried to order a salad.
Tried being the operative word, as both Dean and Gabe voiced their opinions against it. It was another moment of unexpected agreement, but really, Sam wasn't looking so good. If Gabe was being honest, Sam had been looking rough around the edges ever since his sleepwalking started.
They persuaded him into some soup, and then Gabe placed a breakfast order featuring waffles, because what else would he order late in the evening in a diner that looked as if it had never left 1983?
While they waited, they discussed smaller details of the complex web that the emergence of The Crucifer had created. Things like the troubling amount of gang activity in specifics thanks to Dean, and people that were more important than they appeared at first glance, like Meg and Kevin. Getting on the same page was rough, as they kept having to backtrack to cover things one of the others may not have known, not to mention Dean and Gabe's propriety to flare up when one provoked the other. However, Gabe managed to keep himself in check for Sam's sake and Dean appeared to attempt to do so too.
By the time their food rolled around, they were all more or less on the same page. Gabe was surprised to learn how complex the gang factions were in Lawrence, and Dean was taken aback by the number of reckless activities Sam had partaken in with him.
"You've been in the LPD basement? What was that like?" he asked, interest peaked.
"Imagine a hospital hallway, throw in some water damage, and multiply it by a hundred," Sam replied, "I don't know how you navigate down there Gabe."
"I don't," Gabe admitted.
Sam tilted his head in confusion, and across from him, Cas swallowed the massive bite of cheeseburger he'd taken and asked, "What do you mean?"
"I've got a desk in the proper building, so I don't need to go down there," Gabe said with a shrug, stabbing his fork into one of his waffles, "All I know is how to get to the morgue and Frank's room. Beyond that, I've got no clue what the hell they got down there."
"Fascinating," Cas mumbled, tearing into his burger with relish and chewing before continuing, "My sister knows more about the history of Lawrence than I do, but I do know that multiple buildings downtown also contain sprawling sublevels. I think there's a framed map somewhere in the history department of the old city hall basement."
"Could we get maps for the other places?" Dean asked.
Cas' eyes narrowed as he picked up a fry and shook it in a chastising manner at the eager Winchester.
"Not if you're going to try and break into buildings."
Dean groaned, and Sam rolled his eyes before turning to focus his attention on Gabe.
"How are you doing? Are those waffles any good?" he asked, eyeing his syrup-drenched plate critically.
"Pretty good. But I have to admit, I prefer the Roadhouse," Gabe said with a dramatic sigh, "There was a waiter there that I was fond of."
Sam blushed a cute shade of pink. Dean looked between the two of them before coughing loudly and firmly slapping a hand down on the table.
"What do you know about the Mayhem Arena, Milton?"
Dean's attempt to keep them from getting too cozy with each other at the table (which was hypocritical considering he and Cas were practically in each other's laps; they were that close), was obvious, but Gabe decided to follow up anyway. He was no better than a brainless fish faced with tasty bait when faced with potentially useful information for a case.
"Not much. Just that you fight in it, and that it's pretty well established for an illegal fighting ring," he said casually, ignoring Sam's not so subtle elbow jab to his ribs as he speared a piece of waffle.
Across the table, the only reaction his blunt words got from Dean was an eye twitch. The rest of his face remained impassive and easy, at least until he sighed and began to speak.
"Right. Well, there's one thing I haven't told you guys. Partly because Mayhem Arena isn't keen on outsiders knowing some things, and partly because it's just a rumor. A rumor that holds some merit, but it's still a fresh rumor that I haven't been able to confirm yet."
"Which is?" Sam asked, setting down his spoon with a creased brow.
"My…boss is supposedly thinking of buying a cut of demon blood. He thinks it'd make a good steroid," Dean said, "Besides me and a couple of others, the Mayhem fighters have been losing for the last few months."
"But…wouldn't the side effects deter him?" Cas asked anxiously, and with good reason. The idea of people like Dean (and maybe Dean himself), trained and more than capable of hurting others, on a crazy drug didn't bode well.
"Not much deters the King of Hell when he's set his mind on something," Dean scoffed, "Besides, all the side effect stuff is just rumor at this point. Everything regarding demon blood is."
"The King of Hell?"
Gabe couldn't help but ask, because he'd never heard of such a figure in all his time in Lawrence. It hadn't been a long time, per se, but the tone that Dean spoke of him in suggested someone at the forefront of crime in the city; someone who police would surely talk about during street patrols or over cold department coffee.
"It's one of the nicknames Dean's boss earned," Sam said quietly, in a tone that said to drop it now, "It's best not to know too much about him."
"You really don't want to know man," Dean added in a tired tone.
The undercurrent running between the brothers was quickly rising to the surface. They were both wary of this King of Hell; much more wary than he usually saw them be. Cas shifted uncomfortably, but his eyes betrayed that he knew more about the King of Hell as they cut to Gabe before drifting down to his nearly empty plate.
A brief flare of irritation nearly made Gabe push his luck further because he hated not knowing something that could be relevant to his work.
Sam's hand grasped his thigh beneath the table just as he mentally decided to go for it. The squeeze was brief, gone in the blink of an eye, but Gabe got the message.
Later.
"Alright," he said easily enough, shoving down the impatience, "I'll take a fry as compensation."
He swiped his chosen victim off of Cas' plate and gobbled it up before the poor guy could even react. It worked to get the conversation moving down non-work-related lines, and soon enough, they just looked like another rowdy bunch of men living it up at midnight in a dead-end diner just for the hell of it.
They called it a night just shy of 2 AM; Sam was beginning to doze at the table, and Cas himself was slumped on Dean's shoulder at the end, sleepily chucking at Gabe's antics despite the two or three coffee refills he'd accepted (despite the crappy taste). Dean and Gabe found themselves the wired ones of the group, leading their respective partners out of the diner and into the nippy night air with as much grace as they could.
It wasn't so easy for either of them, as Sam was much taller than Gabe, and Cas had become surprisingly clingy, but they managed.
"Milton."
Gabe glanced up to see Dean leaning against the passenger side of the Impala. His eyes were sharp, but not cutting as they studied him for a moment.
"You're…not so bad a guy," he said, grimacing at his admittance, "I can see why Sam likes you."
If he hadn't been leaning against his car door, Gabe probably would've fallen to the ground in shock.
"Are you feeling ok?" he asked, suspiciously. He wasn't sure when the clone of Dean could've been switched out for the real one, but what other explanation was there for what was probably the nicest thing the Winchester had ever said to him?
Dean barked out a laugh before shaking his head with a rueful smile.
"I haven't done good by Sam lately. But you have," he said, looking at him peculiarly, "And I can't let a random guy do better by Sam than me. I've always taken care of my brother. I can't go as far as to say thank you, but..."
Gabe turned the words over in his mind, trying to align them with what he knew of Dean Winchester before deciding that maybe this wasn't a clone. The one thing that he was 100% sure of was that Dean cared about Sam, even if he went about it in some odd ways. If his presence spurred Dean to reach out to Sam in a healthier manner and potentially bridge the divide that had opened up between them, then so be it.
He'd never had a good sibling figure growing up, but he wouldn't deny Sam his brother just because Dean was an asshole to him. For one, that was just wrong, and two, he didn't think he was (or would ever be) at a level where Sam would pick him over Dean.
The more Gabe understood the Winchester dynamic, the more it just made sense that they would always stick together one way or another. So, it didn't sting as much as it initially did when thinking about a "pick-me" scenario.
Keywords being as much. It was like picking at a scab that was mostly healed, but sometimes if you picked at it too much it'd reopen, and right now he was picking too much at it.
"I get it," he said, putting the Winchester out of his boot toeing, arm crossed misery, "Don't blow a vein out trying to find the words man. Lord knows Sam's looked constipated enough doing so."
Dean jerked his head up from where'd he'd been studiously studying the gravelly asphalt, and Gabe shrugged.
"You two are pretty similar. Get Cassie home safe, yeah?" he said, popping open his car door.
"Yeah…yeah, I will."
"What was that all about?" Sam asked as they left Charlotte's Diner behind. His voice was soft with approaching sleep, his head tucked into the crook of his shoulder as he spoke with his eyes closed.
"Just your brother being your brother," Gabe said with a vague hand gesture, "So, are you going to tell me about the King of Hell, or is that going to be pushed off to tomorrow?"
He didn't want to pressure Sam to tell him, especially when he seemed to be on the verge of sleep, but Gabe had to know. His instincts were telling him something was down this path of inquiry, if only because it could be no coincidence that yet another religious motif had popped up. If this nickname for Dean's "boss" was as common as they were making it out to be, there was no doubt The Crucifier had taken note.
Sam said nothing for a long minute, long enough that Gabe was beginning to think he'd fallen asleep. He was just starting to debate whether or not he should wake him when Sam spoke, sitting up with a sigh
"No one knows his real name," he stated, "At least, I don't think Crowley is his real name. But that's what he's called."
Gabe filed the name away for later as Sam continued.
"He's…well, he's something else," he said dryly, "Crafty, clever, ruthless…there's just about nothing he wouldn't do to get the edge over someone or to claw his way up the ladder. Mayhem Arena's been his for a while now, but he fought a mob family for it. Ran them out of Lawrence and has been ruling over the world of underground fights ever since."
"How did Dean get involved with him?"
"Dean was too good at fighting," Sam said with a half-smile, "Started at school. Dean never could focus, and I got picked on when I was young. He made a name for himself by beating up my bullies, and if he wasn't doing that he was at a boxing ring to blow off steam after school. That's where Crowley found him.
"At first, Dean turned him down. But you don't just turn down The King of Hell. He started watching Dean at the boxing ring and started adding to his offer. More money, a guarantee that he could walk away free and clean when he won enough fights."
Something in Sam's voice told Gabe that there was something that he was leaving out, and he had a feeling that he knew what. After all, Sam was no pushover, and he'd learned alongside Dean for much of his life from their father.
"He tried to drag you into it, didn't he?"
"Yeah. There were other things, like Dean being on the verge of dropping out, but I went to the boxing ring one day to help Dean out. There aren't many people that can hold their own against my brother, and Crowley somehow found out. He said that if Dean didn't make a deal with him, that he'd try to make a deal with me."
Gabe's stomach turned. Sam couldn't have been more than thirteen or fourteen at the time if Dean was still in high school at this point. Just who did this Crowley person think he was?
"Where was your father in all this?" he asked, trying to wrap his mind around it all. Sam had skimmed over this heavily when he'd spilled the beans on his childhood; all he knew was that Dean had started fighting in high school.
"He didn't know until Crowley came to the house," Sam said, tugging on his hair, "And then he tried to take Dean's place."
That brought Gabe to a screeching mental halt. He had to admit, he hadn't expected that from the Winchester patriarch.
"He's not too shabby in a fight if he'd quit the damn bottle," Sam mumbled before getting himself back on track, "Crowley wouldn't accept though. Dean…well, he's good at what he does. He wanted Dean at the very least if he couldn't get the complete Winchester brother package."
Gabe could only imagine how tense that conversation must've been. The Winchesters fought crime in their free time for Christ's sake, and suddenly they were forced to dance with the devil.
"So…Dean made a deal?"
"Dean made a deal," Sam confirmed grimly, "Neither of us wanted him to, but what choice did we have? Even if we'd killed Crowley, the power vacuum it would've left behind would've been catastrophic. He's an asshole and sadistic, but he's also a businessman at the core. He keeps things ordered and fairly restrained, and that's a hell of a lot better than some maniac running things."
Gabe didn't like how casually Sam talked about killing Crowley (had they really considered it?), but the Winchester was already moving on.
"The deal is that Dean has to fight for 7 years. Win, lose, it doesn't matter: Dean's a Mayhem Arena fighter for that time, and he's only free once all 7 years are up."
"When did he make the deal? When he was 18?"
Sam nodded, and Gabe whistled as he did the mental math.
"Jesus. That's awful, kiddo," he said sympathetically, because what else could he say? Dean was good at fighting, and clearly took some enjoyment from it, but the anvil looming over his head couldn't be easy to bear.
"He did it for me," Sam said bitterly, looking out the window, "I didn't want him to, but he did. And I hate that it happened."
"It's not your fault, Sam."
"I could've just fought for Crowley. Both of us would've only had to do a few years, and all of it would've been done with by now."
Gabe didn't mean to take the exit so harshly, but it was their exit, and he needed to pull over into a side street so that he could properly talk some sense into Sam.
Stupid Winchester, he thought, whipping the Beetle nearly almost into a curb as he pulled over. Stupid Winchesters and their stupid self-sacrificing natures!
"Jeez Gabe, what is with you and pulling over at random?" Sam asked, clutching the seat belt as Gabe threw the gear into park.
"What's with you and saying stupid stuff that forces me to pull over?"
Sam's responding bitch face was fairly low grade all things considered. Gabe forged on, turning in his seat so Sam knew he meant business.
"Do you hear yourself right now? You were fresh out of middle school at the time," he said, knowing his words were having an impact when Sam's chin dipped down, "There's no way you would've survived in that sort of environment. Not the soft side of you at least."
"I'm not soft," Sam mumbled, and Gabe snorted before hooking his finger under his chin, forcing him to look up. In the streetlights, his eyes gleamed almost green.
"Not all of you, but this version of you that I know is. I'd have never gotten to know you if you'd fallen into that world. Get it?"
Sam sighed before leaning forward to momentarily rest his forehead on his shoulder.
"I'm tired."
"I know," Gabe said, daring to card his fingers through the hair that curled up along the nape of Sam's neck, "But do you get it?"
A long pause, and then a barely audible, "Yeah."
Gabe didn't push him any further. He could tell that Sam got it, even if he still harbored some guilt over the whole situation, but they'd work on that later. Right now, he had to get Sam home.
It wasn't until they were about a block from Sam's apartment building that the Winchester spoke again.
"Do you remember when I told you why I got the tattoo on my back?"
"Yeah?" Gabe replied, frowning in confusion. It was a random question he hadn't been expecting, and he was beginning to believe he'd have to lug Sam up to his apartment. He sounded just about asleep.
Sam may have sounded asleep, but his eyes were clearer than he expected when he opened them.
"I never told you the story about this one," he said, tugging down his shirt collar to flash part of his collar bone and the black pentacle just beneath it, "Dean got his when Crowley first started hounding him. He got the grand idea that he'd get a tattoo for protection against demons and asked me to look up something that'd do the trick. It was like a big fat fuck you to the biggest devil in the city."
"Something tells me you didn't get that one legally," Gabe said dryly, and Sam shrugged.
"I knew of someone in high school that had access to a tattoo gun, and it's not that hard of a design. After Crowley sunk his claws into my brother, I wanted to do something. Dean was pissed when he found out," Sam said, smiling, "But it made me feel a little better about everything."
"I suppose I can't fault you for it," Gabe said. He understood Sam's reasoning at the time, even if it ran along the lines of a foolhardy teenage act, "Let's hope it keeps doing its job."
The black pentacle remained on his mind as he dropped Sam off (he didn't have to walk him in, but he still waited until Sam got inside before pulling off) and made his way back home. Gabe had always wondered but had never asked Sam why he had it. After he'd explained the words on his back and not the pentacle, he'd understood that the story behind it was much deeper.
It was another layer of Sam Winchester pulled back, one that proved Gabe's initial hypothesis was correct. Sam was a person of many secrets, and they weren't made of sunshine and rainbows. They were dark and upsetting, and more than a little steeped in illegal activity.
But none of that mattered to him. Gabe had committed himself to fully knowing Sam somewhere along the line, and he wouldn't back away now.
…
The next morning, the Beetle wouldn't start.
"You great big bag of dicks!" Gabe exclaimed, kicking one of the tires.
His car said nothing in return, most likely too ashamed by its failure to start. Gabe loved his car; he truly did, but lately, it had started acting up, and he was not pleased with it.
"Dammit," he muttered. He'd been hoping to drop by the station to see how things were going under the guise of seeking out other cases to work on, but now his plans were shot to hell. That was a long way to go on the subway, and Gabe hadn't traversed the underground well enough to bother trying to figure out what route would get him there.
But he did know how to take the train to East Center.
"Ah, fuck it," he grumbled, throwing his hands into the air, "Might as well."
He grabbed his bag from inside his car, shooting one final glare at his beloved Beetle before turning crisply on his heel. Maybe a day in parking garage timeout would teach it to behave better.
Gabe's phone sat like a stone in his pocket, just about dead. In an uncharacteristic move, he'd fallen asleep without plugging it in, and now he regretted forgetting. While he didn't think Sam would be too mad at him for dropping by out of the blue (he'd already done it!), he would've liked to warn that he was coming anyway. For all he knew, Sam wouldn't even be there.
Yeah, if LU was in session and the Roadhouse still existed.
Buoyed by the more than depressing thought that Sam's life had been reduced drastically enough that he couldn't be anywhere else but home, Gabe entered the subway.
When he arrived at Sam's front door, he could hear activity inside; more than enough for two people. An unmarked letter envelope was tucked into the door jam, fluttering a bit in the drafty hall. Gabe frowned at it before tugging it out. Sam's apartment complex wasn't the best, but he was sure that this wasn't how mail got delivered around here.
He knocked on the door. There was a scuffled sound inside, like someone dragging something against the ground, before the door opened.
"Oh. Hey Gabe," Sam said, rubbing one eye with a yawn. His other hand gripped a baseball bat that trailed behind him, but that wasn't really what Gabe was focusing on.
"Made a new habit of answering the door shirtless?" he asked, trying not to make it obvious that he was staring at the abs that Sam really had no business possessing so many of.
Jesus, they're so defined that they'd give washboard abs a run for their money!
Sam blinked owlishly before looking down at himself and scratching his head.
"Whoops."
"You'll have to forgive his indecency, Mr. Milton," Kevin remarked, head peeking around the corner of the kitchen behind Sam, "He's all sorts of a mess when he gets too much sleep. Sam, step back to let the poor dude in. If this was a house, you'd be letting the wind in."
Sam grunted, pulling the door open wider, and Gabe stepped in with a frown.
"Too much sleep?"
"I know it sounds crazy," Kevin said, screwing the top of a thermos shut tight. He was dressed to go out, and he gestured for Sam to leave the door open as he tucked the thermos into the pocket of a backpack, "Sam here isn't used to getting more 6 or 7 hours of sleep, so when he gets more he's all out of whack. Have fun sorting him out!"
Kevin smiled cheerily, shooting him an encouraging thumbs-up as he shrugged his backpack on.
"Get some coffee, big guy," he said to Sam, slapping his back on the way out, "And put that baseball bat away! We both remember what happened the last time you swung that thing around."
He shut the door behind him, leaving them standing awkwardly in the entrance hall.
"Uhhh…hi," Sam said before frowning adorably, "I said that already, didn't I?"
Gabe couldn't help but smile. A confused Sam was a pretty cute one, even if it was disconcerting to see the normally articulate guy reduced to a state of being that so far resembled something about one step above caveman.
"You did, but that's alright," he said, doing the deadbolt for Sam, who didn't look as if he was going to remember things such as locks, "You have mail."
He handed the letter over to Sam, who took it and frowned down at the envelope.
"Huh. I wasn't expecting…oh!" he said as he opened it up and peeked inside, "I'll read this later. Is there still coffee left?"
As it turned out, Kevin had been considerate enough to leave some coffee in the pot. Gabe fixed up the cup for Sam (black, with just a dash of creamer), as the man himself sat on the couch, appearing to be at a loss for what to do.
"Sleep well?" Gabe asked, amused as he brought the cup over. Really, this was becoming almost ridiculous now.
"Yeah. No sleepwalking," Sam said with a satisfied smile, taking the cup from him with a grunt of thanks.
Gabe plopped down next to him and let him drink some of the coffee first before continuing. Sam needed a dose of caffeine, and maybe a shirt.
Ok, he doesn't need a shirt, but it'd make my brain function a lot better if he did have one on.
"I miss the Roadhouse. And the night shift," Sam said as his brain cells started to wake up, "I got used to the schedule."
Gabe hummed sympathetically. Switching around sleep schedules sucked, especially when going from night shifts to something more normal.
"I worked the night shift at a gas station when I was 18," he said, "I spent like 6 months living completely nocturnally. I'd wake up at noon, attend some classes, and then go in at six. I'd get off around 5 or 6, and then I slept through the whole morning."
"Really? What was that like?" Sam asked, perking up.
"Absolutely insane," Gabe said with a chuckle, "I'm glad I had the summer to switch back to something more regular when I left that job because holy cow did it fuck me up. But I did have a lot of interesting stuff happen to me while I was there."
"You weren't ever robbed, were you?"
Gabe shook his head, "It was in the middle of nowhere, so we didn't get many people. I just saw some strange folks."
Sam nodded, going back to his coffee. His hair made a bird's nest look tame, and Gabe longed to run his hands through it to smooth it down. Damn it if he didn't have a slight obsession with long hair.
Hands to yourself Milton! Now is not the time.
"What state was that in?" Sam asked.
It took Gabe a moment to connect the question to his gas station job, and he hummed in thought. Even though it hadn't been that long since he'd been 18, his constant travels had made some things turn into one long blur.
"Michigan," he replied, snapping his fingers as it came to him, "Yeah, it was definitely Michigan, cause the station sold Great Lakes merch. You know, I've been to every state except Hawaii."
Sam's face brightened, eyes lighting up as he turned to face him.
"Really? That's so cool! Even Alaska?" he asked, genuinely astounded and impressed.
Gabe's chest puffed up. He couldn't help it; he liked it when Sam looked at him as if he'd hung the stars in the sky.
"Even Alaska," he confirmed, "But only once for a really weird case that I was recommended for in a really weird chain of events. I've either been fostered in a state or worked a case in one."
"We always stayed on the west side of the Mississippi," Sam said with what almost looked like a pout, "But at least I can say I'm a Midwest road expert!"
"That's more than some people can say," Gabe pointed out, "Besides, there's one state we both have in common that we've never been to."
Sam tilted his head in confusion, visibly buffering before it clicked.
"Hawaii! We should go to Hawaii together. It can be a bucket list thing," he said excitedly.
"I didn't know you had a bucket list kiddo," Gabe said, his traitorous heart doing jumping jacks in his chest. Sam wanted to go to Hawaii with him?
His brain joined in on the treachery, conjuring up images of relaxing by the beach and glistening skin. Gabe pinched his arm hard twice, finally managing to curb his impulses and catching the end of Sam's answer.
"…the main thing I want to do is visit a beach. Not necessarily Hawaii, but any beach. I've never been to one."
"You've never been to a beach? Well, we'll have to fix that," Gabe said, filing away the information for later.
He was prone to hyperbole (just about everyone he'd ever met had pointed it out to him), but Gabe was sure that Sam's responding smile was the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen.
"That'd be nice. You couldn't fuss at me for being shirtless at the beach."
Gabe harrumphed, turning his nose up to hide his blush as Sam laughed into his coffee.
"I need to charge my phone," he said, nearly forgetting about the poor thing in his pocket, "You got a spare outlet…?"
"We have plenty a spare outlet, you Puritan," Sam said, pointing at one beneath the window.
"Did you just call me a Puritan?"
"Because you have issues with me being shirtless! Get it?" Sam laughed, pleased as punch at his cleverness.
Gabe grumbled nonsensically under his breath as he plugged in his phone. At least he now knew that Sam was waking up.
"I don't have negative issues with your shirtless state. In fact, my issues are very positive!" he exclaimed before he could stop himself.
Sam waggled his eyebrows, grinning far too smugly for his own good as he set his cup down on the coffee table.
"Good to know," he said huskily, abs shifting as he sat back up against the couch with splayed arms and slouched back.
You smug bastard, Gabe thought as he gaped at the blatant flex show. He'd done that on purpose!
He busied himself with turning his phone on because there was no way he could dignify that with a response that wouldn't land him smack dab in no-no territory with Sam. He was trying to do this the right way, not pounce on Sam and drag him back to his bed before they could say serial killer three times fast!
Calm thoughts Milton. Calm, non-sexual thoughts. Think of paperwork. Lots of paperwork.
Ah paperwork, his greatest enemy. Gabe sighed, feeling himself beginning to calm down at about the same time his phone began to start buzzing wildly.
"What the heck?" he muttered, scrolling through the text messages he'd gotten while his phone had been out of commission.
Det. Jodinator: Milton, the FBI is starting to take over the task force. All hell's broken loose over here. Good news is that no one's learned you talked to H yet if that counts for anything.
Det. Jodinator: Also Donna says that you shouldn't be cheesy but "actually romantic" when you ask your partner out. Her words, not mine.
Gabe snorted at that. It did sound like something Donna would say, and she did have a point. His pick-up lines were purposefully corny, and that was about all the solid material he had in the romance department. He didn't need much beyond them before he'd come to Lawrence.
The next few texts weren't nearly as amusing.
Det. Jodinator: Bela's pissed off. She's called all of us in for one last-ditch effort at…something. Will keep you informed.
Det. Jodinator: She's going after Sam now with the FBI to question him. Warn him!
Gabe's insides froze over, but he forced himself to continue down to the last text.
Det. Jodinator: We're on the way. Hopefully we can curb her. Where are you?
It has to be pretty urgent for Jody to use punctuation like that, he thought. Her texts were usually straight to the point and dry.
He checked the time the last text was sent (just over twenty minutes ago) and cursed. It only took half an hour tops, even with rush hour traffic, to get to East Center from the LPD.
"What's wrong?"
Gabe turned to look at Sam, who'd gotten up from the couch. He'd somehow sensed that something wasn't right, and already looked more alert.
"Bela's coming with the FBI. They want to question you. Casually, I think!" he said hurriedly as Sam stiffened.
"As casually as the LPD can question someone in their home," he muttered, running a hand through his hair and yanking, "When are they coming?"
"Soon. Minutes," Gabe replied, firing back "Got it, but?" at Jody, "I can't be here when they do."
"Yeah, that wouldn't exactly be good," Sam said, already scooping up the jacket Gabe had shed on his way in, "If you leave now, then we should be alright…"
He trailed off, looking out the window, and Gabe followed his gaze.
Two dark sedans had pulled up, one the navy blue of standard LPD issued detective cars, and the other blacker than sin.
FBI, he thought as the doors began to open.
"Shit," Sam swore. All traces of the goofy caveman he'd been greeted by were gone, replaced by regular Sam. "Ok, Plan B. I hope you're not claustrophobic."
He grabbed his elbow and steered him towards the door. Gabe looked up at him in confusion as they stopped in front of the small coat closet that stood across from the kitchen entryway.
"You want me to hide in there?" he asked incredulously as Sam yanked the door open. It wasn't the strongest hiding spot he'd have chosen in the apartment.
"Not the closet, the storage space in it," the Winchester explained, sweeping back a few boxes on the top shelf to reveal a small square door set in the back, "Kevin could fit into it, so you should be fine."
"I don't want to know how why you two decided that'd be a good idea to test out," Gabe said, eyeing the door with displeasure, "But fine! How am I going to-"?
Sam reached up one long arm to open the door, revealing a disconcertingly dark space, before grabbing him by the hips and hoisting him up like it was nothing.
Gabe yelped, automatically reaching out to crawl in even as he hissed, "Give me a little warning next time!"
"Sorry, no time!" Sam replied, "How is it?"
"It smells moldy, but I fit," he said, wrinkling his nose as his hand brushed against what felt like a cobweb. It was a good thing he didn't have an issue with spiders, "I feel like Harry Potter."
"That was a cupboard beneath the stairs," Sam said with a huff of laughter, and Gabe clucked his tongue as he pulled his knees up to his chin and turned slightly so he could rest his back in a corner.
"Same difference. I suppose this is payback for the janitor's cart, huh?"
"Shut up! You aren't supposed to make me laugh at a time like this!"
"I'm stalling so you won't shut the door on me," Gabe admitted, "It's pretty cramped up here."
He could only see the top half of Sam's face from his position, but the empathy was clear in his eyes.
"Hopefully it won't be long," he said, snaking a hand up to fumble for his own. Their fingers interlocked, and Gabe held on as best as he could, "Like, let's be honest; it's not like they'll arrest me-"
A brisk knock on the door cut him off, and Sam cursed before pulling his hand back, taking the small, warm comfort away.
"I'll be back. Don't let the dark stop you from reading that letter," he said, words pouring out in a rush as he shut the door. The last thing Gabe was were his eyes, fully alert and ready for what would no doubt be a dicey conversation with the authorities.
The cupboard door shutting wasn't quite the final hit for Gabe, but rather the heavier thud of the closet door closing. Then he truly felt like he was in the dark, and while he wasn't scared of it (he hadn't been scared of the dark since he was 4), it certainly made him uneasy. It didn't help that spider webs always left him feeling itchy.
He recalled Sam's hurried words about the letter, but how was he supposed to read something he didn't have? He'd given it to him early on, unless…
Gabe felt along the bottom of the cupboard, grinning at nobody when his fingers slipped across paper.
Sneaky Sam, he thought, tugging out his cellphone to use as a meager light source as the Winchester opened the front door. Very sneaky.
With a near-silent sigh of contentedness at the task he now had, Gabe settled back and began to read.
I'm sorry about how late this was posted guys. I'm currently dealing with some medical issues in the family ever since the year started, and balancing that with school hasn't been fun. Anyway, excuses aside, I do have some important news story-wise!
While I do have a clear end for this particular segment on the Chromaticity Series in mind, the plot stuff between Chapter 15 (which is what I've gotten up to) and the end is...vague at best. So, once I post Chapter 15, I'll take a break from this story to regroup, flesh plot out, and come back with a stronger game. Between my lack of an outline and the current life issues I'm tackling right now, I'm afraid Reactivity is going to go on the back burner for a bit.
I want to clarify that I'm not discontinuing this series, or even going on an extended hiatus. Just getting my writing together. If anyone has any concerns, hit me up in the reviews, or on Tumblr crossroads-consoul.