Sam stood in the Talbots' back yard, staring into a darkness that was profound in its silence.
The power to the town had been cut, plunging the world back a hundred years. No sodium lights flooded the horizon with their orange glow. No porch lights mirrored the starry sky. Moon and starlight cast everything into mixed shadows of dark and darker, so Sam could make out the trees nearby and the house next door but not much else. He had driven through a lot of empty places and slept under big sky country, but this was a different kind of empty. Abandoned, white bread family homes must be haunting, he mused, because of their negative space—lonesome because of their want of being filled. Hollowness could do that sort of thing.
It really was quiet.
Sam sucked in a breath, and it took him a few moments to realize what was actually missing: the animals. Crickets, birds, dogs, cats. Even untouched wilderness, already devoid of human life, was full of the hoots and cries of life being lived. It is never as silent as this. The sound of nothingness almost made Sam's ears ache and it transformed into a tone all its own. He craned his neck around to look at the house, currently lit using angel mojo. The light in the second story window had gone off since he'd last looked. Dean and Castiel had settled in, then. He hoped they had a good night.
Sam hugged himself a little closer. He should've been sleeping, too. He'd tried, but Castiel's idea of a plan had some pretty big what-ifs. And all of them ended the same way—a moderately quick and decidedly painful death. The problem with Asag was the damn aura.
Cas said he could protect them from it for a time. He had worked out a series of symbols—tattoos, really—that could absorb the power. He could paint them on Sam and Dean's bodies, he'd said. They would burn off as they were exposed, and Cas would have to wing them all out of harm's way before the timer was up. It was like wearing your own fuse. Sam grimaced again at the thought, but it was the best the angel could do. Even he wasn't immune to the aura's effects and would eventually succumb.
Castiel had spent the rest of the night flitting off to God knows where to gather ingredients for his holy henna.
Dean had found Erik's stash of Busty Babes discs on the first try, but after a few minutes he'd shut the TV off with a disgruntled sigh. Like watching your parents' porn. And then decided to see what else the Talbots might have had that they would no longer be needing. Sam had left his brother to his grave robbing and tried instead to sleep.
Now, awake despite his best efforts, Sam shifted uneasily. His skin felt alien, crawling and itching. He wanted to scratch all over, shake his limbs out, bounce and shiver or stand under water set to scalding. He didn't know. But lying in the Talbots' living room hadn't been helping, and the walls'd started to feel too close for comfort. He had the urge to bolt, run. Seek, maybe?
Sam sighed out and kicked at the ground. He breathed in the scent of ink.
And while the silence was just as heavy, the space beside him no longer echoed in agonizing silence.
"You shouldn't be here."
Sam gasped quietly, unexpectedly, as the voice touched him. And it did touch him, like it never had before. Brushed like soft fur over his arms and face. Gooseflesh rippled across his body in a sudden chill. An internal lens turned, and the vague sensation he'd been fighting with came into sudden, sharp focus.
Sam turned to the sound of Gabriel's voice, and his world went dizzy.
A quick uncoiling from the floor of his belly shot out shards of heat. Blood rushed to his head, and he flushed. Rushed to his groin, and he was hard, Jesus, that fast. So fast it hurt and left him panting as much in surprise as desire. He blinked, because Gabriel had said something.
"What?" Sam managed to say, fighting against a flood in his veins. Heavy, bubbling, intoxicating emotion had him swaying. Need gathered a hurricane against his senses.
" . . . is tainted and should be cleansed."
The archangel was speaking words, but all Sam could see were his lips, moving. Lips meant for kissing and tasting. His imagination saw them wet and wrapped around his cock, and he made a small sound. Sam's eyes traced the plane of Gabriel's jaw and the cut of his chest under that tight shirt.
His blood pounded, and his heart raced. Spiky, red, need, pulsed. Scorched away doubt and decorum.
Taste him—drinktouchbeatdrive. Fuck, Jesus. . . Sam edged closer, shaking delirious with this burn.
Gabriel turned to look at him, and Sam nearly fell into his eyes, drawn to their darkness. Drugged beyond the border of thinking, he felt, followed, and gave himself over to baser passions that seemed to know exactly what they wanted.
Sam slipped into the archangel's space like he belonged there and put a hand on his chest. So simple. So good. He caressed hard muscle in a widening circle, honeyed blood leaping at the electricity of contact.
In a flash of unexpected violence, Gabriel snatched Sam's wrist in one hand and held it away, forcing space between them. "What are you doing?" he asked, voice hard, eyes narrowed.
Startled, Sam glanced at his trapped hand and back. His body screamed for more. The inside of his skin throbbed, and even the place where Gabriel's harsh hand gripped was a delicious relief. Doing? He licked his lower lip and leaned in, pressing a kiss to Gabriel's mouth. New flavor burst across his tongue. Always the angel had tasted of air and earth, purity of being. Now, it was blackberry wine. Sam laved at Gabriel's lips begging with his tongue for entry, and there he tasted tangy copper, igniting a ravenous craving.
The angel jerked back, just out of reach. "I didn't come here for that." He sounded angry, masculine and growling in a way that Sam's fevered mind perceived as a challenge to be conquered. They were still so close that Sam could feel his breath on his face, almost feel his body heat. And yesyesheat. Heat and copper. Words were words and thought and thinking and he wanted, begged please, touching.
"I need you," Sam muttered words that might bring victory, and tried for another kiss.
Gabriel leaned away and held Sam's wrist out farther, twisting him. "Are you all right?" he said, irritatingly calm, gaze roving up and down.
"I'm fine." He couldn't feel his feet.
"I don't believe you."
And that cut sharply through the fog. Anger flaring to equal passion, Sam recoiled back a step and tugged against Gabriel's hold. It was iron, and he struggled pointlessly. Sam's voice was bitter crystal. "I've been getting that a lot lately." Well fuck him, and fuck Dean! Assaulted by emotion, Sam yanked hard on his arm and then glared, chest rising and falling quickly.
But angels are nothing if not patient. And Gabriel just kept looking at him like he expected some miraculous transformation. At first, Sam met his gaze with defiant anger, childish petulance. But the angel kept looking, and Sam's body felt the quality of it shift from cold assault to intimate invasion. His heart stuttered in lust, and the momentary clarity that his anger provided folded under. He moved back into the gap between them, drawn inexplicably, pushed as though a hand pressed against his back. The angel's look of scrutiny softened to concern. Wary, Gabriel lowered Sam's imprisoned hand back down and placed it on his chest.
Sam stared at the point of contact, feeling the heat rush from his palm to his straining dick with an intensity that opened his throat to a moan. He flexed his fingers. Watched carefully as Gabriel kept his hand right where it was, not yet letting him have his way. The archangel's eyes traced Sam's face with that same cautious concern that had him lightly stroking the thin skin of Sam's hand and wrist, sending unbearable want straight to his core.
It took Sam's addled mind a moment to realize what Gabriel was doing. He was trying to understand the strange human creature twining in need before him. And that opened a pathway.
Fighting the urge pounding in his blood, Sam licked his lower lip and let his gaze fall.
"We saw the hospital earlier," he whispered unsteadily. "People were stacked. Sprawled." He looked up and into Gabriel's dark gaze. "Kids." Sam let the word out with barely breath behind it.
The angel pressed his eyes shut, and Sam felt his chest rise and fall with a sigh.
"Everything's dead," Sam added and drew in a little closer, like maybe he was seeking protection.
"I know," Gabriel whispered back, and opened his eyes, full of sadness.
So close. A small whimper of frustration cracked in Sam's throat, and his whole body blazed with the urge to lick and suck and feel, and these words just, just---
"It's not fair," he ground out, and grabbed the back of Gabriel's neck in a harsh, quick motion, pulling him closer.
"You're angry," the angel observed, taking in Sam's rapid breathing, strange, unpredictable emotions.
"Damn right I'm angry," Sam growled, inching closer to Gabriel's lips. It might even have been true. He didn't care. Not about that or the dark, bleakly resolute narrowing of Gabriel's eyes that marked a decision. What mattered was that Gabriel let his hand go and pressed forward into him.
Yes! God, yes. That he surrendered.
The archangel's jacket sloughed to the grass. And Sam would have ripped his shirt off him if any power of Earth could have done so. He pulled them both toward a slope in the lawn, sucking hard on Gabriel's pouty lower lip. Still uncannily sweet, metallic. He had the urge to bite and then broke away before he could do so. Sam shoved against Gabriel's chest, but a wall would no more crumble from the blow than the archangel be sprawled by a lack of balance.
"Sit," Sam said, hoarse, language nearly lost to the beast inside. And when Gabriel sat, Sam pulled the rest of his clothes from him, groaning at the sight of so much luscious flesh. He flung off everything he was wearing and fell to his knees. The angel summoned his wings while they kissed, Sam forcing Gabriel's head against the grass as he delved. Winter sweet wine, bloody mead, so close to power. Not enough. He crushed in until Gabriel protested. Panting, separating. Sam clapped a hand against Gabriel's thigh to urge him over, and compliant, the angel rolled.
Sam's hands gripped to bruising. Things like care, caution, and teasing lay outside. He wanted in, sheathed, fuck, and drove straight for what he wanted. "Sam!" in alarm, but inconsequential to his goal. Each stroke almost but not quite deep enough to satisfy.
Skin slapped together obscenely in the dark, each of Gabriel's cries marking him a victim. Dirt gathered under his nails, though he was wrought too much of steel to break.
Hot, fuck, wrenching, Sam came hard, shuddering and not knowing if his partner had come.
Not caring.
The red sharp need inside cracked apart, dissolving as he emptied himself. In its absence, an unnatural lethargy, a thick haze that left him ignorant of the cold, of the world.
Cloying, he sank his weight down, uncareful if he was too heavy on the body beneath him, unable to string together a coherent thought. In leaden drowsiness, Sam dozed.
He awoke to the sound of labored breathing.
The first instinct that shocked Sam's heart into action had him scrambling to lift himself off so he wouldn't crush his partner. He couldn't-- Was he outside? Vague, ghostly memories and his own nakedness suggested what he'd been doing. And then he saw that the body was Gabriel, large wings trembling-spread and gray under the moonlight. Reason argued that there was no way he could've hurt him. And yet . . .
The angel's shoulders gathered with tension, and he heaved for air.
"Gabriel?" Sam said tentatively and touched the exposed back of his neck.
Gabriel erupted into a plumed fervor, great wings throwing Sam back and flapping with animalistic terror. The wings twitched and fell lifeless to the ground, Gabriel's energy spent in a single outburst.
Sam recovered, panting, and crawled back to his partner's side.
"Hey. It's me, can you hear me?" he said. Dread drew a bony finger down Sam's spine.
The angel sucked long and hard for a breath, wheezing, and then coughed without answering. He shifted his arms weakly, trying to push himself up but failing to find the strength. Sam moved to get himself in a better position.
"Gabriel," he said, more strongly than before. "I'm gonna turn you over. All right? It's okay," he said, stroking one of the wings gently. "It's okay."
It wasn't okay. Sam struggled with the camp-tent origami of Gabriel's wings as he rolled him over, trying to be both quick and careful.
"Gabriel . . ." Sam leaned in close so they were face to face, and the angel's hooded eyes turned his way. The lids lifted and dropped slightly with each audible breath, but he could maintain focus, and Sam took this as a good sign. "Look at me." Sam touched Gabriel's cheek with his fingertips and fought against rising panic to maintain steadiness in his voice. "I need you . . . to put your wings away. Okay? Can you do that?" He didn't mean to sound like he was talking to a child, but perhaps that was the only form his care knew how to take.
The archangel nodded slightly and screwed his face up in concentration. Between blinks, his body dropped from beneath Sam's hand as his back made solid connection with the ground. He pressed one hand against the grass and brought the other to his chest, then his throat, frowning as he drew in a rattling breath.
"Thanks," Sam said, breathless. He moved Gabriel's hand from his throat. "I know." But the angel grasped there again, gasping, and Sam took the angel's hand in both of his when he moved it a second time. "I know. You just . . ." Oh God, oh God. "Just wait, okay? Just gimme—"
He set the archangel's hand down before he could notice Sam's own shaking. This was wrong. Wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong. . .
Sam threw on his clothes, some of them inside out. His hands shook worse, and he clenched them once hard to make them stop. This was not good. This could not ever, ever, be good. When Dean got sick it was pathetic and bad and took days of nursing and bitching to fix. Angels couldn't get sick. So if they did get sick, then it had to be epically bad. Like ebola bad. Like . . . Asag's disease bad.
Horror crept on spider's legs over Sam's scalp.
Gabriel kept heaving and gasping like an asthma attack. As Sam turned, he saw him trying to push himself up, strong arms quaking violently with the effort.
"No! Nonono!" Sam slid down onto his knees and caught an arm around Gabriel's back before he fell. "I got it, okay?" He tucked him closer. "I got it. Just relax and try to breathe. All right?" Gabriel took him at his word and slumped, boneless. Sam almost left his heart in the dirt at the feel of him. Fear and worry lodged hot in his throat.
Gabriel was big. Sam's height and almost his weight. If he spent two second thinking about it, Sam might've decided there was no way he'd be able to lift him, much less carry him. But all reasonable thoughts died when Gabriel convulsed in a fit of hacking coughs that ended with a wet and phlegmy gasp. Tears clung to his eyelashes as he fought for air.
Sam moved without thinking. He slung one of Gabriel's arms around his neck, hooked his own arm under the angel's bare legs, and heaved them both up. It wasn't that far to the house. And honest to God, he couldn't feel anything but adrenaline rushing into every muscle anyway. That, and Gabriel's head lolling against his neck, warmer than it should be.
Sam hurried. Hurried across the yard and up the steps of the porch towards the very closed back door. Shit. He felt Gabriel's head shift, and the door swung in as they neared. A smile briefly flashed over Sam's face, and then he was squeezing them through into the kitchen, into the living room. He set Gabriel gently on the sofa bed and for the first time really registered that the angel was completely naked. A blush of embarrassment colored Sam's face.
He grabbed a sheet and blanket and tossed them across Gabriel's midsection. His eyes briefly scanned the angel's body. His face was flushed pink with fever. The rest of him looked pale, save a spot on his arm that looked like a bruise. Sam gave it an uneasy frown.
"Dean!" Sam turned, bellowed, and headed for the stairs. He took them in bounding leaps. "Dean!"
"Sam?" Dean flung open the bedroom door as Sam arrived, panting.
"Castiel!" Sam called over his brother's shoulder and into the darkened room. And then he was gone, thundering back down the stairs.
"What the— Sammy!" Dean darted after him, wearing nothing more than boxer briefs and an Evil Dead T-shirt.
Sam was already back at the foot of the bed when his brother caught up with him. Castiel followed a moment later, no tie and dress shirt unbuttoned. He slowed as he entered the living room and stared in horror at his brother's prone form.
"Sam," Dean ventured. "What—"
"It's my fault," Sam said back, his voice disbelieving. Worry creased his features, and his dark eyes ran over Gabriel a hundred times. Each painful breath made him more sure. He watched Castiel step to the bedside and stare down.
Gabriel sucked in a wet breath and hacked, worse than before. He coughed like bones snapping, the force lifting him slightly off the bed. And then he coughed up blood. It colored his lips and flecked across the white pillow by his head. Sam felt a surge of desire and quickly smothered it with sickened horror. As they watched, a spot like spilled ink formed on his cheek. The bruise on his arm reddened.
Sam had seen spots like that before. His insides hollowed out, and he shifted away from the bed.
"Sam?" Dean's tone was harder.
"I'm the vector," he answered and felt the bite of failure in his words.
"The what?"
"The vector! The infection vector!" Sam flung a hand in Gabriel's direction and dug his fingers into his hair, resisting the urge to sob in frustration. He thought he'd found the limit of guilt a person could hold. He'd been wrong.
Dean glanced at the archangel and then Castiel. "I thought he was immune."
Sam stared as Gabriel groaned and shifted on the bed. He looked so human. So vulnerable. So . . . naked.
In a rush, Sam's breath left him, and he hung his head. Lunatic laughter tickled his lips, but he swallowed it down. "No," he said, tonelessly. "Not immune." He shook his head and forced himself to look at his latest victim. "He was protected. By the Legatus, which I—"
"Helpfully removed?" Dean offered, heavy with accusation.
Sam glanced over at him and turned a deep shade of red as he pictured Gabriel's clothes, his armor scattered around the yard. He glanced at Cas, too, but the angel was kneeling at his brother's side and touching his hair.
Dean sauntered closer. "Are you tellin' me that you have an angel STD?"
Sam opened his mouth to reply, but the mortification kept any sound from coming out. He shrank and hunched helplessly.
"You have got to be fucking kidding me." Dean shook his head and scrubbed a hand through his hair. "And what the fuck, Sam?"
Sam winced.
"You're boning Gabriel? Seriously?"
"I—"
"He's a dude, dude!" Dean's hands flew through the air. "You don't like guys!"
"What do you want me to say!" Sam burst back.
"How the hell should I know? Just . . . what the fuck!" Dean got right up his brother's face, forcing Sam to look at him. Sam's terrified gaze kept flicking between Dean and the angel on the bed. "Look man," Dean said, his worry overtaking his shock. He gave his brother a hair's breadth more space. "You know I don't judge, but Jesus Christ, you don't just wake up gay one day."
Sam hugged one of his arms in a little tighter, not sure how to reply. "Isn't that what you did?" he said, because it seemed like an easy answer.
Dean's eyes narrowed at him. "No. And you know that, so quit it."
Suddenly admitting you're bi and suddenly becoming bi were different things, blah blah. Sam'd read around on the subject. Sliding scales of sexuality and all that perfectly legitimate theory that didn't seem to make one bit of difference now that they were standing in it.
He flushed a shameful red a second time and had to force out his words. "I don't know, Dean. Okay? I don't. We just . . . we just did things, and it felt good, and . . ." By the time he was on the verge of tears, Dean held up his hands to make him stop.
"All right, enough. I don't need the frickin' details." He turned away, shaking his head.
For a moment, the both of them watched Gabriel jerk and groan in pain, Sam lunging automatically at the sharp sound of a cough.
"How did he even know?" Dean asked without looking away. "How would Asag know something like that? I didn't know!" Sam flinched.
"Because Sam bears Gabriel's mark," Castiel said quietly, not looking at either of them.
"Excuse me?" Dean stared.
"I what?" But now that he'd heard the idea put to words, he could feel that it was true. A shape pressed against his skin, a circumscribed triangle and some symbols he had never seen. And yet he could feel them, wrapping around his being. They had color and texture, and he had the strangest sensation that if he opened his mouth they would somehow make a sound, though he knew no words for their shape. His hand went unconsciously to his chest as he tried to understand how his memory could taste their form.
"It's a symbol of protection," Castiel went on. "Very minor magic. More of a warning than anything."
Dean smirked. "Attention other angels, hands off my bitch?"
"Dean!" Sam barked.
Cas's shoulders lifted slightly, still not looking at anyone but his brother. "More or less."
Gabriel shifted and rolled his head so Castiel was looking him in the eye. Cas had been having many lessons in terror since coming to Earth and taking a vessel. None had quite prepared him for this, for seeing his brother helpless and dying—decaying of a disease that used thaumaturgy to twist itself into his soul. Gabriel, the fire and fury of Heaven, shivering and pale from fever. Castiel was too stunned to think and instead touched the archangel's face, a face that was his and not his.
"Esiasch . . ." Gabriel murmured, his voice paper-thin.
"I am here," Cas answered, and watched with pain in his chest as his brother fought to breathe and make speech.
Gabriel's words came out in their language, the angels' own tongue spoken without mouths to speak. It was all he could manage just to rasp, and Castiel leaned closer into the sound.
Ialpon, he heard, and a torrent of other madness that had him shaking his head. He recoiled, shocked and disgusted, but Gabriel had taken hold of the fabric of his shirt and held him near. The whispers filled his head, filled the room. Thief-silent, resonant harmonies slipped into the archangel's voice. He sounded more radiant, more fully himself, and Castiel could feel the reassuring heat of his presence in the essence of the sound. He could not conscience the words, but his brother's true voice had been so sorely missed.
Castiel floated, unthinking, on the sound until a sharp pain erupted on his leg. Knocked from his reverie, he looked and saw Dean writhing on the floor, his foot not far from Castiel's own leg. Sam was curled onto himself, holding his ears, and they were both screaming.
"Stop!" Cas shouted, panicked, and clamped a hand over his brother's mouth. "Gabriel, you must stop."
Confused, indignant, the archangel tried to pull away, his lips moving against the inside of Castiel's hand as if to continue.
No! Cas pressed his hand harder and sent his thoughts out, mind to mind. You cannot speak. Gabriel, you cannot speak!
The Winchesters both groaned and started to gather themselves. Cas gave them a glance and then looked back at his brother, whose anger and confusion simmered in the darkness of his eyes. He didn't understand, only knew that a lesser angel was keeping him restrained, and only because it was Castiel was he not doing something about it.
"Sam," Cas said over his shoulder, then looked to watch Sam stagger to his feet. "Show him your hands."
Sam frowned, still shaking. "Wh—" But he held his palms up anyway, displaying smears of bright red blood.
Gabriel's eyes widened at the sight, and his questioning gaze flicked to his brother.
"You are hurting them," Castiel said slowly in confirmation, and he lessened the pressure keeping Gabriel's mouth closed. You must not speak, he insisted, his words an echo in the archangel's knowing.
Gabriel nodded, and Castiel uneasily let him go.
Dean rubbed the blood from his hands onto his shirt, trying to cover his body's trembling. "What was he saying?"
After a long look at his brother, Cas pushed himself up and moved toward Dean. There was a grim set to his face.
"Cas?" Dean asked when the angel said nothing.
Castiel glanced back at Gabriel, disturbed at the things he had been told, the request that had been made. It was madness spoken with desperation. Gabriel could feel he was dying, and Castiel had no clue what to do with such information. He met Dean's questing eyes. "He wishes to be scourged," he said quietly and with such dread that Dean moved closer.
The word resonated through Sam's mind, calling up images of spiked whips and bleeding backs. It meant pain, to drive away your . . . sins. As Sam hung his head, a wave of sorrow rose bitterly in his chest. Tears gathered behind his closed eyelids. He sniffed them away and slipped around into the place beside the bed where Castiel had been. Guiltily, unsure if he even had the right, he brushed his fingers through Gabriel's sweat-soaked hair and then took the archangel's hand in his. He was a sin, almost as black and as demonic as they come. Gabriel should be rid of him. They all should, everyone should.
"I wouldn't advise that," Castiel said sharply, and Sam shot him a hurt look. "He is still stronger than you imagine." There was a hard, cold look in his blue eyes, like glacier ice. Cas hadn't said anything, not one whisper of accusation, which Sam thought had to be his grace at work. But that look, driving a cold bolt right through Sam's chest, said more than enough.
Sam swallowed, chastised, and shifted his grip so he held Gabriel's forearm instead. He rubbed his fingertips lightly over the back of Gabriel's hand, and it garnered him the angel's unsteady focus and a look he must be misreading as affection. You couldn't do this to someone and have them look at you with affection.
"What does he mean scourged," Dean said. Sam could hear him grimacing, even if he wasn't looking.
Castiel heaved a sigh. "He . . . believes that his grace has been corrupted." His voice hardened. "He is wrong." And by the shift in the sound and the look in Gabriel's eye, Cas had turned around pointedly to tell him so.
"And you're sure of that?" Dean went on.
"Asag's disease kills, it doesn't corrupt. Scourging will do him no good."
Gabriel tensed, shooting daggers from his eyes, and Sam gave Dean a look. Dean crossed his arms over his chest, glowering at basically everyone.
"Tell me what it does," he said. And Castiel went into as much details as he believed Dean would understand.
Sam tuned them out. Heart aching, he leaned in close. "I'm so sorry. I didn't— This is my fault," he said into Gabriel's ear, careful not to cross into presumptuous intimacy, not after this, not after killing— He should be in a corner somewhere, chained, unfit to live among civilized people. "You should never have gotten mixed up in this. With me. I don't know why you did. I'm so sorry."
At that last, the angel rolled his head away, and Sam couldn't tell if it was agreement or denial. He wasn't sure which he wanted it to be either, but he did Gabriel the courtesy of not asking.
As Dean and Cas discussed the merits of passing an angel's soul through fire, Sam's attention focused on Gabriel's condition: the pale color of his skin, the blossoming sore on his face, his hooded eyes, and difficult breathing. Slowly, Gabriel's face started to twist in pain. His brow knotted, and he pressed his blood-spotted lips together tightly. Sam felt his own heart rate jump as the angel started hyperventilating, snuffing in air through his nostrils too impossibly fast to be breathing. He shuddered, kicked, clenched his hands into fists, and convulsed off the bed in sharp pulses of agony, then collapsed back, sweating. Tears crept out of the corners of his eyes.
"Gabriel!" Sam's voice trembled in alarm, and he took the angel's face in his hands. Gabriel's lips quivered, straining to remain shut. His knuckles were white, and he sucked in as much air as he could. It stuttered in and out.
He hadn't made a sound; Castiel had told him not to.
Sam could've kissed him.
Instead, he brushed his fingers in soothing gestures over the angel's cheeks and forehead and settled back on his heels. The room had gone silent. And Sam turned to see Dean and Cas watching.
"We have to do something," Sam said unsteadily. He looked at Cas. "I mean, there has to be something! How do angels heal? Is-is there a spell? Pendant? Amulet? Another archangel? What?"
Castiel frowned in thought. After following orders and receiving revelation for so long, plans of his own making still came slowly. He turned to Dean, who offered silent support.
Sam adjusted so he held Gabriel's arm again. He could still feel tremors in the angel's body, and it made him sick.
Suddenly, Cas whirled and stared his brother in the eyes. They exchanged something beyond mortal hearing. Whatever it was, it left Cas looking angry. "I will not."
Gabriel shifted in agitation and dropped a fist against the bed sheets. Haughty authority shone in his glare, but Castiel returned it with bright defiance.
"No."
The archangel's gaze shifted to Sam and back, and Sam got the distinct impression that he was the center of an argument he couldn't hear.
"What?" He looked at Castiel.
"Nothing."
Gabriel jerked, and Sam pressed him back down onto the bed.
"I don't think it's nothing," Sam ground out.
The angel's look softened, and he instinctively glanced at Dean, who was cataloguing everything with an eagle's eye. Then back to Gabriel. "It won't be necessary."
"What's he saying, Cas." Indignation flared in Sam's chest. Castiel looked between them and said nothing. Sam made to rise, ready to argue if necessary even though that was stupid but Gabriel hooked a finger into his shirt sleeve.
After an awkward and tense silence, Cas turned to Dean, and Dean lifted his eyebrows in reply.
"I think I have an idea," Castiel said, although for such good news he didn't seem happy about it.
"We're all ears."
Castiel hesitated, searching for a way to begin. Then, "In your mythology, you call it the Fountain of Youth—"
"Whoa, the Fountain of Youth is real?" Dean cut in, still maintaining his adorable ability to be shocked by, well, anything.
Cas grinned indulgently. "Yes and no. It is the last pool of primordial water from which all life was formed. If anything would be strong enough to flush out the disease, it would have to be that."
"But you're not sure?" Dean hedged.
Castiel averted his eyes. "It's difficult to be sure of much anymore." He glanced up when Dean's hand rubbed across his shoulders and tried to appear reassured.
"So what are we waiting for?" Sam got to his feet.
Castiel gave him a troubled look. "Angels can't fly there. Even if I knew where it—" He stopped abruptly and focused on his brother. Cas's lips twitched into a slight grin. "Even though I know where it is, I can't bring you there."
"Why not?" Dean this time.
Cas slanted a look over. "Didn't your father have places he wouldn't let you go?"
"Sure, but, what's so dangerous about a pool?"
"It's the source of life, Dean. The power of creation."
"He didn't trust you with it," Sam said softly.
Dean snorted a humorless laugh. "Psh. Given the bang-up job they've done with the Apocalypse, can you blame him?" The only acknowledgment he gave to possibly offending the more powerful half of the room was the courtesy of not looking at them while he said it.
Sam crossed his arms thoughtfully and regarded Cas with narrowed eyes. "What about humans?"
"Humans," the angel replied, "can't make use of the magic. There was no reason to keep them out." They weren't worth being afraid of was loudly implied. Cas gave Dean a look that said they'd just evened up.
Dean couldn't help but smirk. He let his arms drop to his sides. "So 'zat mean you can send us? We pop in, grab a cup of water, you haul us back out?"
The angel slumped, and Dean waited to hear the catch. "The water cannot leave the cave. You would have to bring Gabriel to it."
"Fine." Sam turned towards the bed and started to gather one of the sheets around Gabriel like a toga. "Send me."
"Sam," Dean said in warning.
Sam dropped what he was doing and spun around. Emotion sprung quickly to his eyes. "I did this, Dean. Me. You have no idea what he—" Sam cut himself off and gathered his composure. "I did it. And I'm gonna fix it." He went back to swaddling Gabriel in the thin cloth.
Dean stared hard but couldn't decide exactly why he thought this was a terrible idea, except that sending Sam off to do anything by himself seemed like a terrible idea. He broke a frickin' archangel for christsakes. "We'll both go."
Sam let out an exasperated sigh. "We can't both go." He straightened and looked his brother in the eye.
Dean made a face and then wiped his expression clean with a swipe of his hand. "Big ass demon," he muttered, coming back around to the realization that they had two catastrophes on their hands. "Our battle plan was iffy when both of us were going." He shook his head and studied the floor. "This is really gonna suck."
Sam looked down at Gabriel and then up at Dean, an idea bright as lightning flashing through his brain. "Use his armor," he said.
Dean looked up, squinted, and pointed at Gabriel. "His armor."
"Sure, why not? You wear his shirt, Cas can wear his jacket. I mean, that's what it does, right? Protect him from demonic forces?" Sam looked to Castiel for confirmation. The angel looked, frankly, astonished.
"Cas?" Dean prodded.
"I . . . It should work," the angel responded carefully.
"But?"
Castiel turned to Dean and slid up close and conspiratorial. "It's Gabriel's," he whispered harshly, scandalized.
Dean placed a hand on Cas's cheek. He looked extra cute when he was looking scandalized. "In this case, I don't think he'll mind." But Castiel didn't seem convinced. Dean gave him a gentle pat before turning his attention to the archangel. He thought for a moment, and a pleased little smile touched his lips. He gave Cas a wink and then moved toward the sofa bed.
"Hey, Gabriel?" Dean asked, sitting on the side opposite Sam. He offered his brother a pacifying look. "Hey." Dean touched the archangel's shoulder timidly, barely making contact 'cause he was still basically naked and apparently basically Sam's, which might take a little getting used to from his straight as an arrow little brother. Gabriel's head rolled his way, and Dean grinned at him. "Hey, so, you remember that really badass sword of yours?" Dean smiled and without really meaning to poured on a little extra charm. "Any chance I could borrow that? Cause I would really like to kick this demon's ass, but rock salt and holy water ain't gonna cut it."
Gabriel slowly blinked back him, looking for all the world like he hadn't understood a word, and then he stretched out his right arm with effort, hand falling haphazardly against Dean's bare knees. Dean scooted out of the way, aware and trying not to be affected. The archangel's breath wheezed, and his eyes fell shut, but the sword coalesced into being in his hand, flaming onto the bed with a blue righteousness that Dean couldn't help but compare to Cas's eyes. Blue, he decided, was the color of Heaven. Gabriel sagged and blinked drunkenly at Dean.
Dean nudged Gabriel's fingers aside as he took the sword's pommel in his hand. He shook it at him for emphasis, making sure their gazes met. "I promise I will give this back to you."
The archangel returned a wan smile as Sam gathered him into his arms.
"Sam," Castiel said in a voice of genuine concern. "I don't know what you're going to find. I've never been where you're going."
"Doesn't matter."
The angel opened his mouth like he was going to say more, but he didn't. He came close to tenderly touching his brother's face, and Sam didn't have to be a Cas-expert to see the fierce love there. Then Cas tapped two fingers against Sam's forehead, tossing him from warp to weft, shuttling him across time to the fading sound of Dean's voice.