Chapter Four

Sam pushed his key into the lock, but the door opened before he had the chance to turn in. Dean stood on the threshold, a frown on his face he'd probably never admit was worried. His eyes found Sam first and then flicked to Gabriel before meeting Sam's again. He stepped back without a word, closing and locking the door behind them.

Sam waited, watching Gabriel walk off towards the stairs without so much as a glance over his shoulder. Sam's stomach turned. Gabriel was understandably silent. It wasn't as if it wasn't warranted. It was nearly three am and he'd been tied to a tree for God knows how many hours. Silent was a reasonable reaction. But part of Sam was freaking out inside, because Gabriel was never quiet.

He'd been in fights before. He'd lost fights before, and he was always one of two ways. He either raged and ranted and spat and snarled, or he shrugged it off in a forced sort of good-naturedness, telling Sam he probably deserved it. Sam wasn't sure he'd ever seen this reaction before, at least not to pranks gone wrong or bullying or fights or school.

The only time he could ever remember Gabriel being like that was when Sam was in hospital for a week when they were fourteen. They didn't talk about that, because Sam had nearly died and it made everyone uncomfortable to think about.

It hadn't been anything noteworthy. He wasn't mugged or hit by a car or anything shocking and ridiculous. He'd had a sore stomach for a couple days, thrown up for two nights. The pain had shifted around a lot and they hadn't been as worried as they should have, Sam included. A kidney infection had taken proper hold and had him down in less than a week, hospitalised and hallucinating from dehydration and not eating.

He'd gotten sick. Everybody got sick. But Sam had always had a pretty solid immune system, so when he'd insisted he didn't need to see a doctor, that he'd be right as rain by the end of the week, they'd stopped pushing. Gabriel had sat beside Sam's hospital week almost the whole week, his father leaving for work too early in the morning to make sure he went to school and his older brother unable to sit outside all day making sure he stayed in the building. Gabriel had been quiet and worried and ashamed, angry at himself for not making Sam see a doctor.

Sam hadn't been able to convince him otherwise, however much he tried. And he tried. Dean got like that all the time when something bad happened to Sam, like it was his fault for not preventing it. Sam had just ridden it out with reassurances and by moving on, andGabriel had come out of it on his own. Sam was hoping that would be the case this time too.

"Did you text Cas?"

Sam turned to look at his brother. He shook his head, running a hand down over his face and stifling a yawn. Now that he'd found Gabriel, the tiredness he'd been missing was kicking in.

"Not yet. Wanted to get him here and cleaned up and stuff before I did." he answered quietly, turning and listening to the silence from upstairs.

Somewhere through the back there was a TV on low. Dean had been sitting in the kitchen, then. Waiting. Sam tried to smile, but he could feel it fall flat. Dean nodded, following Sam's gaze towards the staircase.

"I'll phone him. He won't settle till he knows."

Sam nodded. The pause hung between them, Dean waiting and Sam trying to ready himself. It was a long minute.

"Dunno who it was, yet." he said softy, the sound almost swallowed by the space between them.

Dean said nothing, his footing shifting almost unnoticeably. Sam sighed.

"They duct-taped him to a fucking tree." he said, and he couldn't look at Dean.

He knew if he did something would happen. He didn't know whether it would be that sharp sting in his eyes or the thickness in his throat or the too-hot of the injustice in his gut, but something would get the better of him. And he couldn't let it, not just yet. He had Gabriel to check over, to make okay. He had to talk to him and let him talk it out, and make him take a bath or a shower and try to push as much of him back towards okay as he could. Gabriel couldn't let Sam just click his fingers and make it fine, but Sam could give him the pieces to do it himself.

The shower. The medical kit under the sink, if he needed it. Fresh clothes. Hot chocolate. Silence. Space. Cas, on the phone. Whatever it took to make it manageable, to make it better.

"Shit." Dean breathed back, and Sam could hear everything else that he wasn't saying.

Gabriel had had his share of fights over the years. He was brazen and unafraid to speak his mind, and he'd been paying for it as long as Sam could remember. Most of the time it was scraps behind the school, scrapes, paint squeezed into his locker, his schoolbag knocked from his shoulder when they were walking. Pranks, from the mildly irritating stink bomb in the corridor to the humiliating, like the letters forged in his handwriting that Alistair had slipped into the lockers of half the girls in homeroom.

When it was bad, Sam stuck by him. When it was necessary, Sam stuck up for him. He was bigger than Crowley now. Bigger than Alistair, bigger than Art and Mark and Dick and Brady. It usually didn't come to it, most often because Gabriel wouldn't let him, but when it did Sam could hold his own. And he was never the only one walking away with bruises or a bloody nose.

But this…

This was something on a completely different plane. It wasn't a fight, it wasn't a prank and it wasn't bullying like Sam had seen before. This had been torture, plain and simple. And Sam didn't recognise the coldness it had brought into his abdomen, not beyond the knowledge that it was tearing him in two with anger and something achy and broken. There was that hysterical urge again, to scoop Gabriel up and hold him close and for it to be okay. For it not to have happened.

He swallowed and turned his face a little, unable to meet Dean's eye and not really knowing what he could say. He couldn't even begin to make light of it, to pretend he wasn't feeling sick and a little disbelieving, like he'd wake up in a moment and find out it was a fever dream.

"I… Dean, it was… It was bad." he managed, his mouth dry, "They- they-"

He stopped, closed his mouth against the words, his eyes prickling with a wet heat.

"We'll sort it." Dean answered.

His voice was gruff and almost stand-offish, telling that Dean was uncomfortable and probably feeling much like Sam himself was. He nodded, brushed his eyes with the cuff of one sleeve.

"Yeah."

Dean moved, walking stiffly towards the kitchen. Sam wondered what he'd say to Cas, whether he'd give the full truth. Or as much of it as he had, anyway. He knew he'd likely lie a little, lighten it. Sam doubted he'd mention duct-tape. That would be Gabriel tale to tell, if he wanted to. Sam made his way slowly towards the stairs, each step closer bringing a mixture of anticipation and dread. He clutched at calm, knowing that the last thing his friend needed when he was vulnerable like that was Sam to lose his cool. Being angry right now wouldn't help Gabriel. It might even make things worse for him, or make him angry too.

Sam knew he'd be angry if somebody jumped him and taped him to a tree. He'd be furious. But he'd be humiliated too, even if the only people who saw him like that ere the bullies and Gabriel. He'd feel stung and sick and angry and probably a little lost, the way he had when Crowley and Brady had cornered him one summer when Gabriel was on holiday and stolen his shoes and his jeans. He'd had to walk home with his jumper tied around his waist, and when he'd gotten home and Dean had seen him and gotten angry on his behalf, he'd snapped and snarled and given Dean hell because his own pride and security had been damaged.

Gabriel didn't need Sam's righteous anger and he didn't need him to sit and spout how awful and unbelievable it was. He needed Sam to sit and listen and offer what he could in comfort. He needed Sam to sit and take his anger, listen to his snarling and hum in understanding and help him decide whether the bruises were only bruises or something more.

He stopped outside the bathroom door, staring at the thin rectangle of light where it was ajar and trying to draw a breath solid enough to steady himself. His chest was trembling, his hands unsteady, and there was an embarrassed uncertainty perching in his ribcage because he was going to be seeing something intimate, something private about Gabriel. Something raw and fragile and he wasn't ready for it. Gabriel was the strong one, the steely one, the one with no fear. But when he was hurting, he was different and it frightened Sam just as much as it upset him, because is the great and mighty Gabriel had been made hurt or afraid, then what hope did Sam have of fixing it, when all he was was Sam?

He swallowed, hard. He clenched and unclenched his hands, and he closed his eyes tight until he saw black spots. And then he slowly pushed open the door, the knuckles of one hand tapping gently on the wood.

Gabriel was sitting on the closed lid of the toilet seat, his head tipped to one side and his eyes open. He was staring down at the empty bath top beside him, his expression something undefinable but sad, his eyes betraying that his thoughts were evidently far away. Sam's stomach clenched, and he slipped into the room, closing the door quietly behind him. He stayed there, back against the chipping paint, as he looked at Gabriel.