Well well well... The lazy asshole has her shit together and her life back in order, which means, thank God, new chapter! Sorry it's so late. This one is almost bypassable, if you've got no feelings for some expansion on Sam and Gabe's rel-*COUGH* friendship, and then a LOT of recovery. Plus, it gives some insight to the Colour forms, where they are from and why they were created. And what they're capable of.
This chapter was split into two parts, because it started to get a little long and late, so I decided to keep it around like this. Next chapter should rejoin with cannon, whoops.
Also, I'm going to write up the full version of 'Hell has Come to Pay' from Ch. 16, and record a good version of it that I can get for y'all.
The AKA for this chapter is 'Gripping my Throat, Squeezing.'
{Summer, Before}
When Father created the Archangels, he created a base, then built their personalities around said base. An artist using clay on a wire frame.
The base forms were dangerous, incredibly so. Their only thought was in the good of Heaven, and anything that got in the way of that goal would die.
Father knew at some point, that the Archangel's love, be it for each other or something else, would stop them from doing what they needed to do. So He created a failsafe.
The Colour Form.
The barest, most basic version of the Archangel, now trapped inside it's own body, screaming forward as it's grace shreds all before it.
The first of them to enter the Colour form was Lucifer.
Called to help defeat the Leviathans the first time, while Michael had wound up injured. Lucifer stepped forward as the Leviathans started their attacks on him, and let go. He let go of his emotions, of his brilliance and kindness and smarmy smirk. He let go of his love, his control, his hatred, his balance, and he exchanged it for insanity.
When Archangel Red shot from the fray of slimy, goop-like black creatures that had pinned down Lucifer, Gabriel felt hope. Hope that maybe, maybe Lucifer didn't go Red, didn't let go of everything he had and give it away for unrestrained Archangelic wrath.
But when Red's blank, blood-coloured eyes scanned the battlefield above a crazed, insane grin, Gabriel knew that the Leviathans were going to Purgatory, even if the Aether itself had to crash down for it to happen.
Archangel Red shredded them. His grace, unrestrained and exploding in chilling lashes, was like nothing before seen by any of the Archangels. Not even Michael had ever brought down this much raw destruction, Red cleaving the Leviathans in two and laughing, as if this was a game to him.
He was uncontrollable, simply doing his job as his grace instructed. 'Imprison the Leviathans', his mission, the very reason for Red's presence.
And when it was over, when Red stood before the locked door of Purgatory, splattered in black viscera and his own, blue grace, he cackled. He tipped his head back and he laughed.
Michael, injured though he was, went to him, reaching to the damaged Red and pulling him tight to his chest.
"It's over, Red." Michael hissed into his ear, all while the laughter rang around them like a cacophony of bells. "It's not your time anymore. Come back to me." He whispered, one hand on his brother's head, clutching him against his own body.
It took a long, long time, or what felt like a long time to them, for Red's laughter to slowly crumble, turning instead into horrified, hiccuping sobs. Lucifer's shaking hands rose up to fist into Michael's wing-shoulders, the white feathers his only connection to reality.
After that, Gabriel and Raphael sprinted in, playing guard dogs and comfort as Lucifer knelt on the ground, wings slumped to his sides and shivering while Michael simply stayed, his own, huge white wings resting on Lucifer's, trying to get the bloodied, slime-coated sets to relax, to stop their terrified shaking, but it didn't work until Lucifer finally collapsed, grace utterly drained from being that... thing.
Gabriel looked at him, and prayed to their Father that he'd never need to do that.
Don't let us ever do that again.
Lucifer slept through the next few weeks, with at least one of his brothers by his side at all times. When he woke up, all three of them had been present, discussing quietly their own Colour forms, and making up ideas for how to shut them down.
"...Mikey?"
"Luka!" Michael had shot across the room in a flurry of white feathers, along with Gabriel and Raphael's golden (What does my colour form act like?) and brown trailing him.
"Wha-" Lucifer groaned, slowly pushing upright with one hand to his head. "What happened..?"
"How much do you remember?" Raphael questioned with mock-calmness.
"...Not... much." Lucifer winced with a soft hiss, his hand falling over his eyes. "Just... The Leviathans pouncing on me. Then red. A lot of red." He explained. "And then... I just... I think I woke up for a bit at the end there. Mikey, you were... talking. And Raphael's wing was hurt." He added. "...But other than that, it's all pretty hazy."
The other Archangels glanced between each other. "...Nothing?" Raphael finally asked.
"No, not really. How long was I..." Lucifer didn't finish, fingers splitting and one grey-blue eye straining to focus on the second youngest.
"A day and a half." Gabriel answered instead.
"And I've been sleeping for what... four days?"
"Try three and a half weeks." Michael stated. Lucifer's eyes went wide.
"Holy..." The Morningstar dropped off. "And I still feel like one of those Leviathans chewed me up and spat me out." He ran a hand through his hair. "It's really been that long?"
"And you only spent a day and a bit as Red." Gabriel nodded grimly.
Lucifer slumped back, arm now over his eyes. "...Never again." He swore. "I'm never. Doing that. Again."
The murmurs of assent that rose to greet him were very welcomed.
The second one was Raphael, which none of them expected.
The Fay creatures, created by the magic of the earth that God had left behind to encourage growth, were resisting their imprisonment, by attacking and wounding fledgling angels.
Raphael was not an emotional angel. He relied on his intelligence and skill to win a fight, striking with fine-tuned cuts that filleted flesh had weakened bone for one of his other brother's life-ending impacts.
When they were surrounded though, with Gabriel's wings trapped and Michael being drained, Lucifer barely conscious on the ground, Archangel Silver came out.
Gabriel had wondered why he was called 'Archangel Silver' when his wings were brown, but when Raphael's eyes turned to him, filled with passionate, vengeful silver energy, Gabriel understood.
The strikes were random, followed by explosions of uncontrolled grace. Silver was all passion, all emotion in a single, focused target. And when he struck, Fay died. He was brutally swift, messy like a dog would one day savage a squirrel.
The Fay were quick to retreat, but Silver chased them down. He chased and he killed more. His grace lashed to burn dozens from the air, random whips and strikes.
And when the Fay agreed, finally, to stay in their own dimension for a time, it was Gabriel who shot for Silver.
"Done, Silver!" Gabriel grabbed Silver's shoulders. "It's done. You're done. Mission over!" He ordered, as powerfully as he could. The ferocity of Gabriel impressed Michael and Lucifer, who both blinked at the authority in his voice.
The shock seemed to get to Raphael as well, who stiffened, silver bleeding and draining from his eyes before falling forward, deadweight on a shocked Gabriel.
Raphael had barely spent a day as Silver, and yet he still slept for nearly two weeks. When he woke up, it was Michael with him and the others waiting outside.
Raphael's eyes opened, their steady brown immediately searching the room he was in with a sort of drugging slowness. "...That was strange." He whispered.
Lucifer and Gabriel stepped inside then, with the elder coming close first. "It's not pleasant, is it?"
"The memories... They're..." Raphael began, rubbing his head.
"They come back. Trust me, they come back." Lucifer said darkly. "Not all of them, but enough of them."
Lucifer and Raphael simply talked, while Gabriel and Michael listened in steadily-growing alarm, to everything that Lucifer remembered progressively and what he did wrong.
Then Raphael let out a sigh. "...What did I do?"
"Killed a lot of Fay." Gabriel answered instantly. "But you got them imprisoned." He finished at Raphael's horrified look.
"...And..." He murmured. "...Silver?"
"Wasn't..." Michael took a deep breath. "As destructive as Red."
Raphael pulled in a deep breath, his expression morphing slightly into something that said 'I suppose I can live with that.'
Michael was the second to last one to use his Colour form, as he was honestly terrified of what it could do.
"I can't... I can't risk it, Gabriel!" He explained one day in practically a frenzy, pacing his room with his wings flicking repeatedly, feathers fluffed up furiously.
"Michael, you won't need to." Gabriel murmured. "I'm sure that you won't ever have to."
"But what if I have to! You saw what Lucifer did! Hell, even Raphael!" He snapped. "If I go... Gabriel, it's going to be a disaster."
"Well, I haven't gone yet!" Gabriel jumped to his feet. "And if you don't, I won't either. We can't just... let out the Colour form without first making a choice to. And we won't. Neither of us will."
He said that long before they had to walk through a voided space that would one day be Hell, filled with the escaped Leviathans from their initial purge of the world.
It started with the group moving in, Lucifer holding up a sphere of his brightly glowing grace, cold pouring off it in comfortably numb waves.
"Are you alright holding the light?" Raphael questioned, hopping forward with his wings spread slightly.
"I'm fine! Totally unable to hold my sword with both hands, but as long as all of you can... I'm good." He shrugged, lifting the grace ball a little higher.
"Michael didn't even bother to bring his sword, he brought his spear." Gabriel nodded toward Michael, who turned to look at him.
"Not a spear." He said, holding the long weapon higher. "Lance."
"Looks like a spear." Gabriel shrugged, one hand on the hilt of his own sword.
"It's not." Michael insisted calmly. "Lance, of Michael."
"Technically," Raphael held up a finger. "a lance is a weapon used by a Calvary soldier. Since you don't ride a horse... Well, it should be the Spear of Michael." He shrugged.
"Admit it," Lucifer glanced over his shoulder with a brilliant smirk. "you just wanted it to be the Lance because lance sounds way cooler."
There was a pause as they all walked about three steps. "...oh shut up!" Michael snapped playfully, turning away from Lucifer.
"Hey, I'm not shitting on your ideas here, the 'Lance of Michael' does sound way cooler than the 'Spear of Michael', but you do have to fess up to- HUP!"
The grace lamp vanished, followed almost immediately by the heavy exhalation of Lucifer hitting the ground chest-first, then his unholy screech that echoed around them.
"LUCIFER!" All of the others shouted in perfect sync, lunging for their brother's location, even as his screams got fainter, something of unbelievable speed spiriting him away.
When Lucifer's scream subsided, the remaining three Archangels with their swords drawn pressed back-to-back, Gabriel's hand shooting up to summon another ball of grace, burning as an omnipresent source of golden glow. "Ok, watch your feet." Gabriel snarled, suddenly glad he could summon his much smaller, dagger-like blade instead of using his full sword. "Bastards trying to-"
Then Michael hit the ground with a yelp, lance slipping from his fingers and onto the ground before Raphael picked it up and held it as dangerously as any other weapon.
The pair stood, back to back, mentally preparing for whatever the darkness beyond had to throw at them.
Then voices in the distance... and an explosion of light turned three shadowed bodies to ash a good length away. The younger two Archangels wasted no time, shooting over for where their eldest brother's grace had erupted.
But when Michael, eyes white and teeth bared under narrowed brows, expression the epitome of rage, turned to them, they both spun around and stayed their distance.
Archangel White was the most destructive at the time. He shredded at least two-thirds of the Leviathans remaining alive, scarring the area with slashing burns of unbelievable power.
White was terrifying, rage and fury and hatred balled up and lashing out, overcontained and overcharged. He was an ocean of untold hatred, cruel and vicious, determined to kill all within his path.
When the Leviathans practically threw themselves into Purgatory to escape White, he didn't calm down.
White screamed incoherently at the door, grace exploding in massive, fiery expulsions, burning up Michael's reserves of energy as if it was nothing.
Until Lucifer, leg bleeding and using the outer edge of his wings as a guard, pushed forward, screaming Michael's name.
"MICHAEL!" He howled over the roaring of energy. "MICHAEL!" He screeched again, the outside of his wing with it's brilliant sunset-red feathers charring progressively. "MICHAEL THAT'S ENOUGH!"
Lucifer reached out, arm blackening in the backlash, grabbing Michael's wing and yanking him down to his level, wrapping both of them in his own.
It was remarkable, how fast White went away.
Within seconds, the energy cooled, the grace retracted, and Michael's arms slowly rose over his brother's wings.
"Hey, there..." He whispered. "It's ok. Ok? It's ok." Lucifer said, his own wings relaxing. "You're safe now. I'm here, Raphael's here, Gabriel's here, we're safe." The Morningstar insisted.
And when Michael's knees finally gave out, the exhaustion finally catching up to him, his brothers were right there.
Hours later, with Michael unconscious in the next room and Lucifer chest-down on the couch with his wing and arm wrapped in bandages, Gabriel walked over.
"You alright?" He asked the older, concern etched in his features.
Lucifer's eyebrows narrowed as he considered that.
"...It's been a long day."
Michael had spent the week after he woke up with debilitating headaches, weakness, and an inability to fly more than forty meters without crashing utterly.
Lucifer had spent the week after White had messed him over in constant pain and unable to fly as his feathers struggled to knit themselves back together.
Normally, there would be some casual banter about their Colour form, some basic name-calling and joking about the crying afterward, because that's how the group of them worked.
But nobody commented on White.
None of them wanted to think about the hours and days that Michael spent whimpering in pain, curling around a pillow or one of his brothers, because he needed some kind, any kind of comfort.
"...That is awful." He whispered raspingly when Lucifer next walked into his little resting space. Gabriel followed him secretly, leaning on the wall outside the room.
"To go into your Colour form?" Lucifer asked for confirmation, gliding almost through his room. "Yeah. It's pretty bad."
"...I'm not doing that again." Michael began, then broke down coughing.
"We might have to." Lucifer murmured, sitting beside the elder and rubbing his back. "Just... we might have to."
Gabriel walked elsewhere, and didn't hear the rest of the conversation.
The day, that hellish day that Gold first moved into the light was a cold one.
Raphael and Lucifer had already done their Colour forms for a second time each, with Gabriel dragging back Raphael and Michael holding Lucifer until he stopped crying, when Gold came out.
Michael didn't want to go Colour again, and Raphael used his when Michael balked.
Lucifer, though... he meant to pull out Red. And Red was just as destructive as they remembered him.
But when the creatures of earthen magic came, before humanity, those failed experiments... Gold was called in.
Fighting the Creatures was difficult, and when the decision came to the Archangels to pull out a Colour form, it was a bad time for all involved. They knew that Red or White would be too destructive, too damaging to earth itself, while Silver was too unpredictable, never mind the fact that Raphael was too weak to actually pull off the Colour form without dying.
In the end, it was decided that White would come out.
Michael brought his sword when the four made their move, probably out of spite to each time they made fun of his 'Lance'.
They strutted into the place of battle, a plain on ancient earth with the Creatures challenging them with huge roars and gaping, claw-toothed maws, their spitting throats and squirming tongues facing them down.
"...You ready, Mikey?" Lucifer growled low.
"As I'll never be, Luka." He whispered in return, stepping forward slowly, sword edge glittering at his side and steely determination in his eyes.
He brandished the sword, glare gleaming with fury and anger as the tip sparked and glowed, red and orange flames lapping their way up his blade, tongues of heat wreathing their way around the silver weapon.
For a moment, with his pure white wings spread and his sword lit with fire looked like the creature of wrath he was meant to be. The other three providing backup, felt a swell of mild intimidation and hope.
Then the ground split open, blue-blood covered tongues tangling over Michael's limbs.
He let out a terrified shriek, swiping at them frantically, even as more pulled free from the dirt to tie Michael down.
"MIKEY!" Lucifer shouted in time with Raphael, just as the earth around them tore with a deafening crack, the blue tongues surrounding them in a cage of darkness and wet, creepy warmth.
Lucifer was half-tied already, struggling against the meaty appendages that held his fighting still. Raphael was nearly too weak to use any of his power against them, almost immediately tied up and yanked back.
Then Gabriel felt it.
The sensation of responsibility for necessity that crept in along with the slippery, squirming limbs wrapping around his arms and legs, crushing his wings and attacking his body with vicious lashes.
I'm listening, Dad. Gabriel thought. I'm ready to try.
He shut his eyes.
And he let go of the world.
For a moment, it was all hazy colours and too-bright lights, flashing abruptly in his mind and exploding across his head like his Father's power at full force. The full tsunami of hate and exhaustion crashed down on his thin shoulders.
Hands were on his wings, the sensation like pins and needles running up his spine, overstimulation and pain lancing up his body, pulling him backward and off balance as he locked up, pushed by another solid wall of power, latched tight to his shoulders.
When he blinked next, it was to his brother's wide, scared blue eyes staring into his, the colour gone from his face, Lucifer's mouth moving but missing the sound to go with the shaped motion. All that remained was the low-pitched ringing of an explosion.
What..? Gabriel's body shook for a moment as he tried to focus, a tremor running through his spine as sound started to come back, words starting to pierce through the fog that seemed to surround him.
"...riel! Wake up, Gabriel please, wake up!" Lucifer's voice got progressively louder, Gabriel's brain struggling to contend with the new rush of sensation and information.
Michael was practically wrapped around his largest two wings, trying to stop him from moving away. Raphael had a tight grip on his centre pair, helping Michael keep him back.
Lucifer stood in front, hands on Gabriel's shoulders and practically screaming to get his attention, braced for an attack, ready to be thrown away from his brother like nothing.
Gabriel's eyebrows pinched, confusion radiating off him in waves. He glanced down, away from Lucifer, trying to process what was happening, why he felt something leaving and retreating, why he felt so... strange.
Then he looked back up to Lucifer, eyes glazing over with exhaustion as the sharp golden light finally faded away. The youngest's legs, finally hit with the full force of the energy used in his former state, trembled with exertion.
Lucifer's eyes widened further, but not in fear. "Raphael, Michael, drop him." He ordered, voice a little higher pitched than strictly needed.
The two immediately obeyed, watching as Gabriel fell forward into Lucifer without a second thought, eyes shuttering closed and body going lax as his sword slipped to the dust through gripless fingers. The Morningstar caught him, immediately pulling the smaller, limp angel against his chest.
"...L...Luci..?" Gabriel murmured dizzily, eyes opening to slits to try and focus on his brother's faces.
"Y-yeah, Gabe." Lucifer stammered, crystal tears finally starting to fall from his face and onto the smaller angel's. "Y-yeah, 'm here, 'm here..."
Gabriel's eyes slid shut as Lucifer hugged him tight, the head of the youngest nestled in the crook of his neck and shoulder. Raphael nosed into the pile, trembling wings wrapping around his brother's for comfort as the lax golden feathers simply lay across the ground.
Michael joined the group quickly, wiping his own tears on Lucifer's wing before taking a glance up with clear eyes, taking in the destruction wrought by the youngest.
Oh Father... Michael prayed silently, wrapping tighter around his brothers with wide white feathers. ...What did you do, when you made Gabriel?
Gabriel had destroyed the Creatures.
Their bodies lay in scattered shreds, tantamount of the hand of God Himself falling to the earth in a vengeful command to burn. As if Gabriel was wielding the single greatest power, the ability, like nothing any of them had seen.
Gold did not cause collateral damage. He did not scorch the earth, or burn any plants.
But he tore into the Creatures without mercy, ignoring their cries of pain. He bathed the sky in their blood and did it without expression, without emotion. His face was a blank mask as he cut them to pieces, blade barely rising out of the flesh it had bit into before slashing once more.
The scariest part, had been seeing Gabriel as 'empty'.
With his face cold and dead, shadowed only by a terrifying, calculating glare, Gabriel looks truly separate from himself.
Unlike the other Colours, which could be distracted in their wrath, Gold was singleminded. Focused in a way the others just weren't. It wasn't that they didn't concentrate, it just wasn't to the same level of horror.
It had taken all three Archangels to hold back Gold long enough for Lucifer to worm under his skin, to talk to Gabriel, and it still didn't go well.
So Michael didn't ask questions. He didn't demand to know why Gabriel was forced to have that as his Colour form. None of them liked their Colour forms, but that didn't mean that they weren't alright with them, to a degree.
But Gold...
He knew that the only way any of the other Archangels would let him come out again, was by their own dooms.
And God help whatever was the target of Gold.
Sleep was a blessed gift that came rarely, infrequently, and - in Gabriel's current state - painfully.
He spent the first day in fugue, utterly disconnected to the world around him. Sitting up with his knees to his chest and staring at the wall through blank eyes, Gabriel didn't speak. He didn't move, gaze wide and focusless, barely even tracking movement that occurred in his periphery.
Raphael was often up on the bed beside him for the initial few days, reading whatever book their Father had recently given him aloud, pointedly ignoring the fact that Gabriel made no joking comments on any of the reading.
Lucifer spent his time with Gabriel wrapped in his wing, talking quietly about anything he could think of, anything he could say, anything to distract his brother from whatever his head was running through.
Michael just sat across from Gabriel, staring back at him with equal intensity, speaking in low, quiet words that bordered pleading, begging for Gabriel to relax or even show interest in him beyond the fact that the constant, dead terror in his eyes vanished when one of his brothers was there.
The other three had slept after returning to themselves. Each time, they had fallen into sleep and remained that way for nearly a week, but Gabriel was blank. A container, emptied of everything and refilled with horror.
He didn't exactly sleep, and he only did so when someone was playing guard, as the Archangels figured out quickly. When he did sleep, it was fitfully and restlessly, curling and uncurling repeatedly, wings always pressed to his sides and shivering, whether he was warm or cold. It didn't matter.
Gabriel came back progressively, with encouragement from his brothers to do so. Over time, he tentatively edged back into his own grace, jokes coming back and his smile returning.
It took him nearly a month to become 'Gabriel' again, the playful, trickster brother. They all had seen it though, for almost a year after, the little glances, the little flicker of cold, dead expression when Gabriel seemed to be remembering Gold.
None of them commented on it.
And they never did.
{March, 1911}
The journey from the Northern Bunker back wasn't quite as difficult as the journey there. Daniel took them down the mountain, got them their horses, and then let them off with a simple instruction;
"Tell anyone about anything you've heard here, and the Familiars will have your head."
It was no idle threat.
Ancient Familiars, like those two, were known for their deadliness in combat and deep loyalty to their witch and their home. To have one of those chasing their ass would be both unpleasant and probably deadly. And Familiars had a nasty tendency to know what you didn't want them to know.
Which was probably why Gabriel and Vance nodded frantically and made their escape within the next few minutes.
They rode hard and fast, only stopping when they strictly needed to. Without the burden of extra books and other travellers, neither wanted to be far from the enshrouding protection of their Bunker, Gabriel especially so.
For the first few days of journey, he was still affected by... whatever Daniel had given him, effectively preventing his nonhuman side from functioning.
Which, to him, extremely unsettling. He felt disconnected from the planet itself, missing utterly the link he could possess to know any threats that surrounded him. Even his Trickster side was shut off.
He always felt like something was watching him. Constantly. That twitch at the back of his neck that sent shivers down his spine and made him keep checking his over shoulders.
Sleep didn't come for the first three nights, and he began to wonder how humans could even do it.
Admitted, he nearly passed out day four, and Vance ordered him to get some rest, steering the pair into a town off their path.
"...Sorry." Gabriel mumbled, slightly guilty that he had set them back with something so stupid as nerves.
"You sleep more than anyone, why in the name of all that's holy," Vance half-ranted, making Gabriel wince with his word choice. "did you just stop?"
"...It's been a bad week." Gabriel shrugged pointlessly, remembering words said long ago by someone who cared so, so deeply, and lost so... so much.
They had found decent lodging, and first thing that Vance did was nod to the bed. "Get. I don't want to see you up until tomorrow." He ordered, letting Gabriel lay down, take his time flipping and turning and twisting, until at least a spark of his grace showed itself again. Even with that barely extended worldview, Gabriel instantly relaxed, slipping into sleep without hesitation.
When they finally reached the Bunker, they were careful to what they told the others, having to state and restate several times the threat hanging over their heads for a Familiar to come crashing down on them.
De'van considered the information about the Familiars oddly, as if both interested and turned off. "It'd be nice though..." Was often his statement about the concept.
But one night, while studying his demon book, Vance walked in. "Gabe, can I talk to ya'?" He asked, leaning on the doorframe.
"Yeah, of course. What do you need?" Gabriel replied, shutting the thick red tome.
"...What happened up there? At North? When you collapsed."
Gabriel froze, hands tightening briefly on his book. "...I'm not really sure. One second I'm fine, the next, it feels like something's trying to eat my internals."
"You sure, Gabriel?" He questioned, slightly louder.
"I'm sure, Vance." Gabriel growled out, staring into Vance's eyes. "Besides, vicious intentions?"
"...I suppose." The Man of Letters sat back, focused on Gabriel with a harsh expression.
"Then leave it." Gabriel snarled. In all honesty, that might've been the worst way to say, 'I'm an inhuman creature', but he was too tired to care.
So he just let it go, as it were.
Gabriel Moran would die one day, along with his secret and his life. And one day, Gabriel Moran would be forgotten.
But for now, he was totally willing to just let the feeling of hope, hope for a future and a 'family', be all that he had.
{April, 2014}
Breathe in, breathe out.
The roof above him briefly illuminated, the moving light source flashing repeating lines of yellow-white light, rectangular reflections through the glass at his feet that glowed over his head before fading in the distance, almost immediately another starting it's arc across the roof as the previous disappeared.
Breathe in, breathe out.
The rumbling of an engine under his ear was both comforting and unnerving, eyes barely focused on anything as he struggled to comprehend where he was, what was wrong, and if he needed to defend himself. Not that he'd be able to.
Brea- hitch, cough. Breathe out.
His cycle of inhale-exhale was interrupted by his vessel, no, his lungs spasming, a weak cough erupting from his chest in the same motion, filling the too-quiet air with a few low wheezes.
"Hey, I need you to keep breathing, alright?" A voice rose up from his right diagonal, from some space in the seat ahead, left side. "Cas said your grace was drained. I've got no idea how angel biology works, so you have to keep breathing." It ordered.
Breathe in, breathe out.
"There you go..." The voice sighed, one arm sliding over the seat to reach a disturbingly long distance, fingertips brushing at his forehead. "You don't have a fever, really. You're a little cold though." It noted, pulling it's arm back to the front. "We're going to stop at a motel. Or a hotel. Whatever I find first."
Breathe in, breathe out.
"Yeah, we should be there soon." It restated, a shadowed head turning to glance out the window. "Stay breathing until then, at least, ok? Because I can deal with that when I'm not trying to drive."
Focus seemed a struggling concept, the ability to concentrate on one thing at a time, other than inhaling smoothly and cleanly, and exhaling evenly and slowly, just in an effort to keep calm.
Breathe in, breat- choke, cough. Out.
"Damnit- I jinxed it. You ok?" The figure glanced back at him, hazel eyes wide with worry.
He tried to fixate specifically on the figure, it's voice and it's eyes, even the smallest comfort he could ask for - to know he wasn't alone - a trying ability.
Breathe in, breathe out.
"Ok, still breathing. Keep doing that." The figure stated, not exactly an order but not just words, either. "Sleep, too, if you can. Or just close your eyes. You might pass out again."
That was smart. That was a good suggestion. He couldn't sleep, but he also didn't need to stay entirely awake.
So, turning back to staring up at the roof, he unfocused his gaze, the lights swimming into hazy lines and streaks, before any connection to the world seemed to break, and he drifted away.
"Gabriel? Gabe, hey, wake up."
He blinked, taking an aborted breath and trying to clear his vision on the person above him.
Long brown hair hung around the man's face, the hazel in his eyes the only colour that he could actually focus on. Everything else was backlit with an odd red and blue glow, with some warm white from the side. "Hi." The man smiled as Gabriel's eyes sharpened slightly, not that they actually were looking at him. Gabriel was instead just... focusing, at nothing. "C'mon. We're at the motel." He explained, reaching into the car to wrap an arm around Gabriel's chest, slowly bringing him out of the car.
Gabriel's leg hit the ground, pain flaring through his form from his injuries, flailing slightly as he tried to curl back up, but his body was too weak to support his own weight, resulting simply in a shaky forced stand, leaning heavily on the man. Sam. He remembered, pressing into the other's side in an attempt to hide. As it stood though, with his light shivering and exhaustion, Gabriel couldn't do much more, barely even able to turn his head halfway into Sam's chest, attempting to shield sensitive eyes from the harsh, oddly coloured light.
"It's ok, I got us a room already. Just... can you even stand?" Sam tried to ask, but Gabriel didn't even respond, no noise coming out of his throat.
Though, as the pair limped toward the door, old wood with a weathered, copper-coloured plaque that read '14', it was clear to Sam that Gabriel couldn't. And not for lack of trying. The Archangel was struggling to even keep his head upright and face hidden against Sam's chest, eyes pinched shut as the neon lights from the motel sign flickered across his face.
"Got it." Sam mumbled, other hand grabbing Gabriel against his ribs, hiking him higher up, making it easier for both of them to stay standing. It jarred the scrapes and rips in his skin, thinly wound in gauze that rubbed in a sort of comforting way against his body, but it was a distant sensation. Even the pain was dulled, as though feeling it from far away.
It was a good few minutes of struggle, but Sam managed to get them both inside and safe, setting Gabriel on the far bed before turning on a single lamp, hoping it wouldn't be too painful.
The Archangel immediately scrambled onto the bed, knees pressed into his chest and back touching the headboard of the ancient bed, which protested his activity with an angry squeak.
"Ok then..." Sam mumbled, head turning slightly to observe Gabriel, as he stared through the hunter to some indeterminate spot on the wall opposite. Gabriel's eyes stayed wide and blank, utterly empty of all things, which was both relieving and terrifying.
Sam came over to the bed farthest from the door, sitting sideways to examine Gabriel. The Archangel detected the movement peripherally, not paying attention to him, instead keeping his eyes on the wall in an attempt to sort through the muddied mess his memory was of the last several days. Weeks?
"Hey, can you hear me?" Sam questioned from beside Gabriel, raising one hand to slowly swipe in front of his face. "...not focusing." He murmured to himself, lowering his arm. "Do you know where you are, even?"
Gabriel couldn't summon the strength for a reply of any kind, not even to change where his gaze was fixated.
"...Ok, then." Sam sighed, gently patting Gabriel's shoulder. He pulled up the side of Gabriel's shirt, checking on the bandages around his body, then pressing a hand to his forehead. "Jeez, you're cold. Here."
Sam pushed Gabriel back slightly, pulling down the oddly stained cream-brown blanket and sheet from their tight laid position around the bed. Then he yanked them all the way off, before turning around and wrapping them about the smaller man, curled into almost a fetal position on the bed, staring out at nothing.
"...That's all I can do for now, until you talk. So you've gotta work with me here." Sam smiled, moving directly in front of Gabriel so the Archangel would see him. His face fell though, when he noticed the blankness of the Trickster's gaze. "...I'm going to go to bed. I'll sew you up tomorrow, ok?" He mumbled, standing and turning off the lamp.
He went to the side, unzipping the duffel he had taken in and pulling out a few folded items of cloths, heading to the bathroom with a final glance Gabriel's direction. Once he was ready for bed, he flipped away from Gabriel with a low sigh, as if both relieved and exhausted.
The room was silent after that.
The person beside him (Who?) next moved, it was several hours later.
Gabriel couldn't exactly remember what time had passed before the action nearby had pulled him even slightly out of his stupor, but it was still dark out, though the first few glimmers of red light were peaking at irritating brightness from the one small, square foot mirror by the door.
The angry rays seemed to centre their wrath on the Archangel, who curled his head deeper between his shoulder and elbow, under the blanket, trying to hide from the excessive brightness.
There was a yawn, a few pops that signalled his... roommate, was stretching, getting ready and active for the day. Footsteps came closer and a hand slowly came into the side of his sight range.
"Hey." Someone was talking to him. He didn't really bother looking over, when a face appeared in his vision. Sam held up a single finger, that Gabriel was quick to focus on as it carefully moved side to side, following. "Ok, so you can track today... That's good..." Sam sighed, settling onto the bed. "Can you talk?" He asked. "Or, at least let me know that you can even hear me?"
Gabriel didn't move.
"Guess not." Sam huffed, turning away, then snapping back to Gabriel. "Ok, look, Gabe, this is so far out of my realm of capability, so I get that you're probably in pain, and confused and going through grace reset or whatever, but I need you to tell me, or at least give me direction of how to fix this!" He exclaimed, hitting one hand to the bedspread slightly less hard than he might've with Dean.
Gabriel's reaction was absent.
"Yeah..." Sam murmured with a low sigh. "...I wouldn't listen to that craziness either."
He stood up, turning away and heading for the duffel bag in the corner, preparing to repack the few items he had removed.
"...Water."
Sam's head pulled up so fast his neck popped, meeting Gabriel's golden gaze. The Archangel's head was lifted, eyes focused on Sam, the most notable movement he had done in the past day and a half. The hunter stared for a moment, slowly processing.
His voice had been scratchy, as if not used recently, and it had hurt to try, throat almost too dry to even bother.
"...Ok." He said, a soft smile lighting up his face. "...Water. I can do that." Sam nodded, turning away to walk into the bathroom, to fulfill the request.
He came back a few minutes later, holding a opaque plastic cup with the shadow of water sloshing minutely as he trotted over, smiling brightly to him. "Here. You gonna be good with the..." He held it out, but Gabriel had returned to staring at the wall. "...Hey."
The Archangel's gaze flicked over to Sam at the quiet, yet insistent word, head moving slightly to accommodate the movement.
"Yeah. Water?" He asked, offering the glass.
Gabriel blinked, as if having forgotten what he asked for, then slowly unfurled his arms from their crunched in, hunched forward position, grabbing to the cup shakily. Sam kept one hand nearby, as if guarding so that the cup didn't fall and splatter on the weakened Archangel's lap.
After a few small sips, he handed back the glass, shivering softly.
"There." Sam said, as if satisfied, setting it on the worn, scratched bedside table. "Take five. I'm going to have a shower, then patch you up."
With another kind pat to the shoulder, Sam stood up and took his clean clothes, stepping into the overly small bathroom with a small hum.
Gabriel turned his eyes back to the wall and waited, listening to the endless drone of water spraying weakly and then splashing down, as if being vigorously wiped from something.
When Sam next emerged, in three layers of cotton and flannel and of course, jeans, Gabriel had to blink in astonishment, despite his weak, not-himself state.
On his head, Sam had a towel hat. White and plain, but a towel hat never the less.
Gabriel made a choking noise low in his throat, chest spasming and breathing suddenly freezing up, unable to work anymore.
"Whoa, whoa..." Sam called, darting over far faster than anything his size normally moved, one hand on Gabriel's front to keep him from falling forward onto the bed and patting his back as the Archangel coughed violently. "There you go, breathe..." He encouraged, until Gabriel sucked in a long breath and continued panting, leaning weakly into Sam's arm with both hands resting on his wrist with a too-soft grip, fingers flexing and tightening minutely on his skin with each wheeze.
When Gabriel finally had the strength to straighten back up and curl into his ball again, Sam gave a moment to examine him, let him get his breath back and relax before turning away. "I'm going to get the first aid kit." He stated, sliding the bolt on the door before slipping outside.
Gabriel's eyes unlocked from their endless fixation with the wall, to glance along the walls.
And to spot a small, copper feather resting in the corner.
His brow furrowing in confusion, the Trickster unfolded his legs as best as he could, as though hypnotized by the glimmering feather lying to the side. His hands wound over his shoulders to grip absentmindedly at the blanket over his back and arms, hanging limply after that.
One shaking foot pressed against the floor, eyes focused entirely on the confusing feather, that he was sure didn't have a partner three seconds ago, Gabriel tried to push into standing.
And immediately hit the ground.
Gabriel fell at about the same time that Sam popped back in the room, carrying a large duffle with a small, fading and peeling red cross painted on it, evidently the work of some younger Winchester determined to remember which bag was which.
"Gabriel, what the-" Sam placed the bag on the other bed before running over to the fallen one, gently placing one hand on his good shoulder. "Why did you get off the bed?" He questioned as he moved closer to Gabriel, trying to discover what had happened.
"F...Feather." Gabriel hissed out, breaths turned shallow and panting. With one hand, he gestured to the corner where he had seen the copper items.
Sam glanced quizzically between Gabriel and the wall. "...Gabriel, there's nothing there."
The Archangel turned his face up to Sam, staring at him confusedly, an unspoken question in his expression.
"Yeah, ok..." Sam sighed, heaving him upright. Gabriel made a small choked noise as the movement stressed his injured ribs again, Sam wincing in sympathy.
After that, there were no words spoken from either. Sam pulled off the coat and shirt that Gabriel was wearing, laying them carefully by the side. The outfit was rather iconic to the Archangel, between the camo-green jacket and burgundy-red shirt, and when he was better, hopefully he'd be able to fix them, stained and destroyed though they were.
Gabriel returned to staring at the wall for a bit, until Sam took a hissing inhale between his teeth, flinching back. Then he glanced down.
His chest was a mess, as were his upper arms. A mottled collection of blue-red marks, shaped and styled like burns but no breaks in the skin, like bruises. Under those, swelling and purple-coloured bruises on both sides of his ribs that indicated broken bones. Cuts and scrapes littered the surface, painting it's dyed canvas with red splatters and shapes.
His arms, on top of the red-blue damage, contained deeper cuts, though not nearly as bad as the slash across his lower ribs or the chunk missing from his shoulder, wounds he received from... From...
"Jesus..." Sam breathed, interrupting Gabriel's train of thought. "What is this..?" He wondered, running light fingers over the red-blue marks, moving around to check on the rest of Gabriel's upper body.
Gabriel momentarily forgot that he could reply, but his voice still came out as a squeak. "Sigil burn."
"'Sigil burn'?" Sam repeated, shifting back to make eye contact with the Archangel. With his weak nod, Sam continued. "As in, burns made by a sigil? When what, you broke out of it?"
Gabriel nodded again.
"...Then your wings must be a mess too." He muttered low, brow furrowing as he drew connections. "And your back's hurt. Not much, it looks like the vertebrae twisted, or shifted." Sam listed. "I'm going to put you back to straight, then lay down, and I can sew you up."
There was a pause as Gabriel nodded once more, knowing that he was just going to help, even if he had to hurt a bit to do so.
"And I want to see your wings."
Gabriel's head snapped up to stare at Sam, shaking his head jerkily.
"Yes, Gabriel." Sam insisted. "I want to make sure they aren't broken, or too cut up. Your wings just got healed a few months ago, and I'm not about to let you spend another few weeks unable to fly."
The Trickster gave Sam a look, fear and nervousness and pain. Sam didn't even want to think about how wrong it felt on Gabriel's normally so joyful face, now marred by deep circles of black under his dull, honey brown eyes. They weren't gold, not while he was this frightened and hurt.
"It's ok." Sam promised him, as if he was a frightened dog. "I'm not going to hurt you."
Gabriel continued to stare at him, worried, but eventually nodded twitchily.
"Ok." He said, then immediately chuckled nervously. "I know I just said I wouldn't hurt you, but this is going to hurt, ok?"
Glancing back, Gabriel met the hunter's eyes as the other readied himself to slide the offset vertebrae back into place.
"On three. One... Two!"
The shock and pain shot up Gabriel's spine, an aborted scream choking it's way out Gabriel's throat as he slumped back, breathing heavily. Every so often, his breath hitched, a sign that his ribs were catching.
"Sorry, sorry..." Sam mumbled, laying him down. "Hurts less if you're relaxed." He explained, going through the duffle until he pulled out a curved needle and a spool of surgical suture thread. The thin black wire glimmered slightly as Sam started to unwind it, threading it skillfully onto the needle and pulling out a bottle of disinfectant (What, Gabriel couldn't tell) a larger bottle of holy water, and a small, orange-brown blotched cloth.
Standing, Sam took that cloth and one other, similarly marked one, trotting off to the bathroom and returning after seconds of running water, holding both the washcloths, now damp, and several of the motel's too-small bleach white bath towels.
"Sit up for a second." Sam said, taking Gabriel's good shoulder to assist him in the simple act of pulling upright. Humiliating, if he hadn't been... so tired.
After Sam laid down several of the towels on the bedspread, yanking a pillow down to support Gabriel's head, before grabbing the nightstand, taking things off it with far less care than he pretended to have, and tugged it close to the pair of them. With careful fingers, Sam disinfected the needle and his fingers, rubbing the chemical across his entire hands and a good portion of his wrist too. After that, he handed Gabriel three large, white pills, and waited until he swallowed them.
Sam said nothing, just gave the Archangel a slight nod and unscrewed the cap of holy water, pouring it on one of the cloths, followed by some disinfectant, and then, at last, over the slice on Gabriel's arm.
Watching carefully, Gabriel noted Sam's utter focus, his eyes tracking exactly how the 3/8 curved needle went in and dipped under his cut, before rising on the other side. It was agonizing, but disconnected as he was, he barely noticed it.
Sam cut the thread, tying probably about four too many throws, but he was worried. Gabriel could see it, and had an idea of what he was thinking; An Archangel should not need to be sewn up by a human.
Sam continued on though, making an effort not to dwell on that thought too much, judging by the focused narrowing of his brow.
Mindlessly, Gabriel followed the needle with his eyes, watching quietly as Sam went with his work.
Some eighteen stitches later, he sighed and tied off the nineteenth, wiping off his hands with the second towel and some disinfectant before rummaging in the duffel again for a few moments, pulling out a few sterile gauze pads and a roll of medical tape.
After patching Gabriel's arm, he moved onto the shoulder.
"Jeez, what'd you even get hit with?" He mumbled, slightly irritably as he examined the wound.
He didn't reply, just gave Sam a plaintive look. "...Ok then..." The taller cleaned off the needle, picking up the holy water again as the Archangel tensed slightly. "You're making me do mattress stitches. I hate mattress stitches." Sam unscrewed the cap, poured some water into the lid and dipped the needle, then re-disinfected the thin, crescent shaped tool. "Kinda sad that I have a least favourite type of stitch. Jesus."
Gabriel's eyes slid shut as Sam poured the holy water, letting it wash over the wound, but then winced as it started hissing furiously.
It was like the floodgate had opened on everything Gold had been holding back.
"Whoa, wait, what the-" Sam's eyes went wide as Gabriel's back arched, pain lancing through his body with simultaneous blazes of heat and chill. A strangled, choked-off scream made it out of his mouth, hands straining and clawing into the sheets with pain, squirming away from the agony that was soaked into his body.
Blood bubbled up with the spitting white water, the half-formed scab over the damaged flesh ripping and disintegrating with evidently sigil-made poison clashing against holy water.
Sam shot off the bed when Gabriel's mouth opened again with another ripping screech, body stiff and sweat breaking across suddenly shock-pale skin. The icy flames bit into his body, through his vessel and sinking into his true form like the fangs of a snake, pumping vile venom through his system and purging every aspect of itself.
Then a splash of cool, perfectly, blessedly normal water over the wound, and the feeling evaporated.
Gabriel sucked in a heaving gasp, going limp against the pillows and panting heavily into the bed, the only sound he could hear the endless roar of his own blood flow, the steady drumbeat of his own heart. My own heartbeat...
"...riel... Gabriel! Gabe?" Sam called to him, leaning overtop of his head with wide, slightly scared eyes. "What the Hell was that?!"
Gabriel blinked slowly, sluggish, fried brain struggling to keep the words together with Sam's face, to put a sound to a person, before he could even consider answering. "...s'g'l..." He mumbled out, eyes fluttering slightly more closed.
"No, no." Sam growled out, tapping harshly at his cheek. "Stay awake. Will it kill you?"
"...b'rn... out..." Gabriel managed, already dazed from both the pain still throbbing through his shoulder and the effort of talking.
"I've got to use the holy water to burn it out of you?" Sam filled in, expression both concerned and determined. With a stunted nod, Gabriel's eyes flickered more shut, trying to pass out fully but the low pain not enough to yet put him over.
Sam took a deep inhale, skewing his jaw as he picked up the bottle of holy water.
"Really sorry about this." He whispered quietly to Gabriel, then poured the holy water.
Everything went white with pain, then finally, blessedly, black.
Gabriel blinked awake not fifteen minutes later with a startled hitch in his breathing. Sam flinched, making the slash in his shoulder throb brutally as one of the stitches pulled roughly.
"Jesus..." Sam swore as he placed a hand on his chest, breathing out slowly. "Scared me." He said quietly, patting Gabriel's chest for a moment before going back to his work. "The one on your rib burns like that too, by the way. No idea what you got hit with, but whatever it is doesn't like holy water."
Gabriel made a quizzical expression, trying to talk, but only a small squeak coming out.
"Yeah, hang on. Let me tie off this..." He sat back with a sigh, reaching to the side table and picking up a bottle of water. "I don't know how much holy water affects you if you drink it, but-"
He was interrupted when Gabriel tried to take the bottle with shaking hands, fingers too weak to grip.
"Ok, then." Sam laughed slightly, but helped hold the bottle of water as Gabriel tried lazily to take it from him.
When he was done, Sam returned to stitching up a few other wounds while the Archangel enjoyed the slightly relaxant effects of a good dose of holy water, simply lying in a half-asleep state while Sam sewed him up.
The rib cut burned with a splash of holy water, but some cold tap water cleaned it off quickly. After that, Sam leaned down and picked up an old pottery container, dipping his fingers into it before wiping the wound with a particularly syrupy, staticky-feeling substance.
"Holy oil neutralized it." Sam explained, without any question needed from Gabriel's end. "It going to harm you?"
"...Should help." Gabriel got out, voice slightly quieter, but smoother.
"Got it." Sam nodded, then moved on to the scraping on his right shoulder, where there definitely wasn't the damaging cut, but scrapes and raw skin mottled the area. "This looks like you got thrown into something. You know where you got it?"
"...Cr...rash land." He mumbled, then blinked.
Alaska.
It was in Alaska.
Why was I in Alaska?
"That's good, sorta." Sam responded, rubbing some antibiotic cream gently into the scrapes. "Remember why?"
Gabriel shook his head, and Sam's mouth tightened into a thin line.
"When you can talk again, we're having a chat about a few things." He stated, patting the gauze pad now on Gabriel's shoulder.
He nodded in agreement, starting to let his eyes focus on the wall again.
"Time to sit up." Sam said, slowly pulling the Archangel upright. Gabriel tried to help, but it probably was just flailing, even to himself. After a moment of examining his chest with careful fingers, Sam shook his head. "Three cracked, one bruised, and one broken. Best I can do is wrap them up, but I'll wait until we have this taken care of." The hunter poked softly at the red-blue marks on his chest. "Holy water didn't have an effect, and neither did holy oil. You got any suggestions?"
"...Cream?" Gabriel questioned, a slightly hopeful tone in his voice.
"Really? Sigil wounds, and burn cream?" Sam chuckled, shaking his head.
Gabriel shrugged slightly, wincing at the tug it gave to the wound on his shoulder. Could work.
"Ok then..." Sam agreed with a sigh, picking up a small container of some kind of evidently stolen burn cream, smearing the thick white substance over the marks on Gabriel's chest and upper arms, then noticing his damaged, red-marked wrist. He rubbed the cream into the burn there as well.
After that, it was tightly wound bandages about his ribs, where they had been snapped by some kind of brutal impact.
"There." He finally sighed, sitting back with a tired but satisfied grin. "I'll look at your wings later, but you need a rest and so do I." He tried to run a hand through his hair, but instead hit the towel hat that both of them suddenly realized he was still wearing.
"What the-" Sam looked up, grabbing at his head with one hand, yanking off the towel.
His hair, half-dried, unbrushed, and mostly a tangled mess that curled up at weird angles.
"So that's why it wasn't in my face..." He mumbled under his breath, standing up and placing unused or still usable items back into the duffel bag for some other Team Free Will injury, zipping it shut. After that, he went back to the washroom, this time probably to fix his hair.
When Sam returned, hair brushed as straight as it ever got, he immediately picked up the car keys, watching as Gabriel squirmed back, spine against the headboard again.
"You know, if you lay down, it won't hurt as much." Sam said, one hand on the door.
Gabriel had already gone back to staring at the wall, meds making him a little sleepy, but still forcing himself awake.
"I'll be back soon." Sam reassured, to what might as well have been an empty room.
And then Gabriel was alone.
He didn't jump hard enough to fall off the bed when Sam returned. Gabriel, when he was well, would deny that to the end of his days.
"Hey- whoa!" Sam lunged forward, significantly too far a distance to actually make across in a second, before Gabriel hit the floor.
The Archangel let out a pained moan, the wounds on his vessel screaming at him angrily and his wings, that he finally noticed, were flopped weakly behind him.
For the past day and a half, he had been at least partially aware of his vessel, because he could see it fully. His wings, though, had been farther disconnected, like his grace. And suddenly, there they were, spread out across one bed and pinned under his shoulder like a gigantic, broken kite, all pinions and blood and broken struts.
"Gabriel?" Sam was back close, grabbing Gabriel's shoulders and pulling him upright, helping him back onto the bed. "You ok?"
This time, Gabriel shook his head. The pain from being moved, even that little bit, had made the room spin and a strange feeling well up in his stomach. Sam's hands were still on his shoulders, behind his back, a heavy and warm comfort as the hunter rested beside him.
Then Gabriel threw up on the floor between the beds.
"Jesus-" Sam jumped slightly, feet snapping to he side as Gabriel heaved up watery brown and almost black substance, too thick and goopy to be normal. When the violent nausea passed, briefly, Sam patted his back. "Let's get you to the bathroom. Bobby always said, 'better out than in.'"
Sam chuckled at the words, walking Gabriel to the tile floor, throwing the blanket neatly over his body as the Archangel's fingers curled over the lip of the toilet. It was probably a sad, sad sight, a being that powerful, weak and shaking, hunched over a stained porcelain bowl.
Patting his back for a moment, Sam waited with him, letting Gabriel get his bearings back and pull semi-upright, before taking a few of the towels and soaking them with water, apparently to wash the black stuff from the stained carpet.
When he returned, to dump the soiled towels in the bathtub, Gabriel had just started puking again, body clenching up as it attempted to expel what he didn't have. His focus shrunk down, to nothing but the shadowed pipe at the bottom of the toilet.
When the attack of dry-heaving passed, Gabriel remained between the toilet and the bathtub, breathing heavily and eyes shut. "Still alive, Gabe?" Sam questioned, one hand landing on his shoulder.
The Archangel made a low moan, trying to blink away the black spots in his vision.
"Going to take that as yes." Sam sighed, kneeling beside the sick Trickster. "You should get some sleep. Then we can fix up your wings."
With that, Sam helped Gabriel to his feet, staggered over to the bed with him, and handed him the trashcan, obviously an impromptu barf bucket. After that, some water and several pills. Gabriel raised an eyebrow with a suspicious expression.
"Don't look at me like that." Sam said, sounding almost motherly with the tone he uses. "You haven't slept in the days we've been here, and I do know. You've only passed out, and that's about it. So take the pills, we'll watch some TV, and you'll take a nap."
Gabriel shook his head, sitting against the headboard with a small, soft sigh.
"Gabe, please..." Sam huffed, picking up the TV remote even as he sat beside the Trickster. "Just take the damn pills?"
With another wordless 'no', Gabriel focused on the wall and ignored everything.
Until Sam slid over, slung an arm carefully over his shoulders, and held the pills in front of his nose again. "C'mon. Watch some TV, not the wall." Sam said with a dull smile, somehow producing a bottle of water as well.
With a heavy, borderline painful sigh, Gabriel took the pills, unscrewing the cap off the water and taking a few sips before leaning on the warm body next to him and moving his eyes from the wall to the crappy television, loosely tracking the Simpsons on the screen.
Some half an hour later, he began to physically feel his body relax, against his own will, too.
With a small gasp and a slight struggle, Gabriel tried to free himself from the blankets, needing to stay awake. He couldn't know if he had to go back, back to being... that, if he was asleep.
"Hey, you ok?" Sam asked, and Gabriel immediately shook his head, though the movement felt sluggish. "Drugs kicking in?" He hypothesized, using the arm behind Gabriel's back to pull the blanket back up.
With a jerky, hesitant nod, Gabriel tried to force his eyes open, frightened.
"Relax." Sam said, pulling him closer and pinning he struggles. "Stop fighting them. You don't need to stay awake."
But I do! It's all scary in the-
"How about I guard, ok?" With a smile, the hunter interrupted his thoughts. "You get some rest, I've got this watch."
The words sounded almost rehearsed, as if they had been repeated before. Gabriel yawned, trying to hold it in and failing, before giving Sam a questioning look.
"I mean it, Gabriel. You'll be fine. I've got this watch." Sam's hand slid into his hair for a moment, a gesture of comfort, before tugging Gabriel's head onto his shoulder in a practiced sort of movement.
Pinned with his fears more-or-less sated, Gabriel nodded slowly in considerate agreement, feeling his spine relax and uncoil, at the same time that he took a proper deep breath, and turned his eyes back to the television.
Warm and safe, and recognizing it, Gabriel breathed out, tension draining away, and finally, finally, he allowed himself to drop off into unconsciousness.
When Gabriel came to, it was to a dark room, pressed against something warm and soft. Nuzzling his face into it, Gabriel squished his eyes closed tighter, and tried to go back to sleep. The blanketing, fuzzy feeling of drugs still weighed on him, calling him to return to darkness and a good, long nap, when a dull rumble came from under his chest.
"Jeez, you and Dean are so alike it's weird." Sam mumbled absentmindedly.
Me and Dean? Really? What the hell are you on, Sam?
"Stubborn, self-sacrificing, idiotic, protective, and, when drugged or injured..." Sam chuckled. "You're both cuddly."
There was a half second pause to consider that, then Sam laughed a bit more. "Really. When Dean was younger, he'd cuddle or hide when hurt. It was pretty ridiculous. He'd either be curled so tight around this hot water bottle dad got him, or he'd have somehow jammed himself under the sink in the bathroom."
Gabriel made a few quiet hums of amusement with that mental image. Dean, teenage or otherwise, squishing into an impossibly tight space, was a hilarious concept.
"And instead of either of those, you're using me as a heating pad."
Golden eyes flicked open, turned, and focused on Sam's face.
He was lying on Sam's chest, half-hugging him and in a position that suggested Gabriel had, at some point, tried to bury himself inside Sam's ribs. Which was ok. Surprisingly.
Rather than bother to wake up more, Gabriel groaned, turned his head back into the dark spot a good three inches from his face, and tried to pass out again.
Sam chuckled, one arm moving up to gently rub at Gabriel's neck and the base of his skull. "Yeah, I get the point. Go back to sleep, Gabriel."
The Archangel did just that, the whole situation reminding him of another time, with orange-red-pink wings wrapped around him, warm and heavy, the presence of another person promising safety.
And he slept.
Gabriel woke up when a beam of light fell across particularly sensitive eyes, letting out a low groan at the intrusion. He didn't want to be conscious yet.
"Hey, wake up." Sam's voice came from somewhere nearby as Gabriel pulled upright, into his knees up curled pose, face on his legs. "That's better than nothing, I suppose." The weight on the bed shifted, signifying someone standing from it.
Gabriel took a deep breath, opening his eyes slightly to watch Sam before letting them slip closed.
"Still not really talking to me?" He asked quietly. Gabriel didn't reply.
"Gold." Sam stated abruptly. Silence. "You told me to call you that. Said it was nice. Can I help you with that name?" He questioned, turning around.
Gabriel was crying. Tears streamed down his face silently, only the smallest hitch in his breath signifying that he was actually barely keeping in sobs, sounding more like muffled hiccups than the wracking screams they looked like.
Sam stood, dumbstruck for a moment, before Gabriel let out the smallest, wordless whimper a grown man or Archangel could make. "Ok, ok, not Gold, you're not Gold!" Sam shot across the room in a second, pulling Gabriel into a tight hug and rubbing his back. "Not that. You're not Gold."
There was a few minutes of Gabriel clutching to Sam's back with hooked fingers and shaking, shaking like he was going to rip himself apart.
"...Is that what you were called? When you were hunting angels?" Sam asked, voice overly calm and yet, still shaken. "...Gold?"
Gabriel nodded jerkily into Sam's shoulder, hands fisting into the flannel over his back.
"You're not him anymore. I don't know that... thing." Sam stated. "And you're not going to be him. Ever again."
They sounded like words said before. Maybe even from Sam, to himself. A convincing speech about who and what they were determined to become.
"...Sorry." Sam whispered after a long few minutes of silence.
It's ok. Gabriel wanted to say. It's going to be ok.
He just hugged Sam tighter.
By the time they let each other go, neither of them had really wanted to move. Gabriel knew that moving would mean pain again, and Sam knew that moving meant releasing some form of grounding.
"We should fix up your wings." Sam said, sitting back.
Gabriel skewed his jaw, sighed, and nodded. "...'t's going to hurt." He coughed, cleared his throat, and shook his head.
"You got out a full sentence." The hunter smiled, getting out the first aid kit again. Gabriel made a scoff-hum noise, rolling his eyes slightly before standing.
With a quick 'Turn around' gesture to Sam, he leaned on the bed for a moment with both hands, arching his back and spreading out his wings. Their incorporeal form slowly filled with light before solidifying, a new heaviness and a sense of real weighing them down.
Then the pain hit.
Gabriel's wings slumped to the floor with an agonized hiss, the feathers flaring and folding quickly as his hands tightened on the bedsheet in pain.
"Those look... ok, hang on." Sam nudged Gabriel carefully off the bed, onto the floor where he could lay until Sam was done yanking the beds end to end, with Gabriel flopping in the centre. "You want to move those?" He asked, tapping one hand against an intact wing. Or, what could be called intact. His wings were missing feathers, scraped and cut, and one was broken.
Maybe two were.
"No." Gabriel growled, lifting his right wings onto the bed, having to use his lowest one to help the centre. A dull hiss escaped his lips, a verbal form of the complaint the bruised joint was flaring off.
Then came the left.
He shuffled his smaller two under the broken largest, practically straining the muscles to lift the shattered wing off the ground and deposit it on the bed, sliding the lower set out from their trapped support position and folding against his back.
"That's the broken one... What's wrong with the middle one on the right?" Sam questioned, running his knuckles over the feathers of the broken wing, being extremely gentle to the swollen spot of hot, irritated muscle.
"Sprained." Gabriel explained softly, folding his arms under his chest to try and look over his shoulder.
"So if we wrap it, shouldn't be that bad?" He asked, sitting beside the left wings, some of the scrapes and cuts along it's thin, powerful bones having reopened.
"No." Gabriel repeated, shaking his head. After a cursory examination of all six wings, Sam let out a contemplative hum.
"Doesn't look like you're going to need stitches, for most of this. Just some butterflies." He commented, patting Gabriel's wing-shoulder. "But, that wing's got to be..."
"Reset." The Archangel finished with a sigh. "...Yeah."
If he was to be completely honest, Gabriel didn't really remember anything after Sam put his hands on the broken wing and pressed the shattered pieces back together.
"Hey, Gabriel."
The Trickster moaned at the rude awakening, blinking blearily in the mid-morning light.
"Good morning." Sam greeted, kneeling beside his bed with a small smile. "Time for us to get out of here, whenever you're good to stand. We have a few stops to make."
Gabriel pushed himself upright with a grunt, shaking his head. "'m good." He gritted out, shifting to set his feet on the ground as Sam straightened as well, walking away to the door to pull on his shoes.
Following after a moment's more rest, Gabriel tugged on his sneakers and tried to use shaking hands to tie them, but in the end just jammed the ends of the left shoelace beside his foot and left the sloppily tied right side alone. Popping the collar of his half-torn, but usable coat, he reached to take one of the bags from Sam, determined not to be completely useless.
"No." The hunter pulled the bags away with a small glare, but lead him toward the Impala regardless. "You look like you're dying."
"That bad?" Gabriel croaked out with a half-grin.
"Save the snark until you can walk a straight line." Sam insisted, pushing Gabriel into a slightly better standing position.
"Sammy-" Gabriel coughed slightly. "Nothin' about me is straight."
"Talk less." Sam ordered, unfazed.
"And do what more?" The Archangel asked.
"Shut up more. Sleep more. Both." With a soft shove, Gabriel was pressed into the passenger seat, with enough leg room to curl into the footwell and nap there comfortably, but it was probably for Winchester sized movement.
Hopping into the driver's side, Sam stretched back an arm and placed the duffel bag and grocery bag in the back, before scrambling through the old canvas bag in search of something.
Then Sam pulled it forward, and slapped what felt like a bag full of cold gel onto his lap.
It made a rather satisfying smack as it hit his thighs, but still brought forth a hoarse, pained yelp.
"Ow! Not into that, Sam-m." Gabriel coughed harshly.
"If you can do full sentences, you're fine for now. If you can make jokes, you're on the mend." Sam stated, but patted the weird blue-gel thing. "Heat pack. Give it a shot."
Gabriel had half a mind to reply with something snarky, anything to shove down the pain and maybe make some kind of mental anaesthetic for the memories and the stupid copper feather in the back seat (He could see it in the mirror.) but he didn't know how much longer his throat would work for.
Instead, he shrugged and picked up the end of the pack, the gel sloshing about minimally. "How..."
"The metal piece." Sam nodded to the gel pack. "Press it, it should work."
"Where'd you even find this thing?" Gabriel questioned, the metal button making a small 'snap' noise as he pushed it in, the gel turning cloudy white and solidifying from the action, warming in his hands.
Sam chuckled, shaking his head. "That thing's older than some of our guns. Blame Dean, apparently 13-year-old him wanted it when Dad had to hunt a spirit at a convention of some kind."
With a mild hum in response, Gabriel curled in on the heat pack, wide enough to be pressed against his chest in a way that was extremely comforting.
"Seatbelt, then sleep." The Winchester cast him a glare, sitting back in the seat in a way that indicated he was not driving until Gabriel obeyed.
With a muffled grunt, the wounded Archangel pulled the seatbelt over his body, clipping it into the lock, and tightening back up. "L've me 'lone." He growled at Sam.
"Functionality, temporary." Sam noted aloud, smiling slightly as he pulled out of the parking space. "Take a rest. We'll be at the Bunker soon."
Gabriel sighed lightly, wrapping closer to the heat pack contained on his abdomen. The warmth definitely was helping uncoil some of the tension that had locked up his shoulders and grace, and as a result, when he rested his head on the leather seat... he blinked once, and fell.
"SAM!"
The car swerved slightly as Sam flinched and swore, turning to stare at the Archangel. "What?! What's wrong?"
"I'm not warded!" Gabriel burst out, holding his hands to his temples as if he wanted to crush his skull in.
"You-" Sam cut off. "You burst awake screaming and that's your concern?"
"It's a big one, Sam." He said with a hoarse growl, lunging into the glove compartment, hoping to find a pencil or pen. Locating the former and a pad of paper, Gabriel started scribbling out sigils aggressively, showing Sam when they were complete.
"...complex." The hunter commented quietly, skimming them before turning back to the road. "How big to they need to be?"
"Well, the anti-possession," He paused, took a breath, continued. "Can go centre of my chest."
Neither of them said why the anti-possession was necessary, particularly because neither wanted to think of the implications of one.
"The sight and scrying preventer needs to be big." Gabriel coughed a few times into his elbow. "Back. Should probably take up the whole thing."
Most of it's body resembled an arrowhead, with flared off extra lines and droplets flowing off it. Within the arrowhead, a long, thin, kite-shape flowed. In the centre, the widest part of the inner diamond, a single, slitted eye stared out.
"Jeez, that big?" Sam mumbled incredulously.
"Needs to be." The Archangel nodded. "The eye prevents sight spells and location searching." He flipped to the next page of the note. "Like, your ribs but stronger."
"Ah." Sam agreed. "Sounds good."
"This, too."
Gabriel held up a hiding sigil overlaid with an angelic name, and then a ring of Enochian surrounding it.
"A little more wordy..." Sam noted, checking the road before squinting at the words. "K, C, U... oh." His eyebrows shot up, before he glared at Gabriel. "Does that have a point, or-"
"Nope." Gabriel smiled cheekily.
"So uh... you're just going to walk around with a giant angel 'fuck off Metatron' on what... your hip?"
"Good position." He gritted out with a soft nod. "Good choice."
"I didn't mean... whatever. It'll work, right?"
"Keep my grace hidden." Gabriel murmured, drawing up a third and final sigil.
Long, thin and loopy, like half a figure eight on a stick, sideways, with lettering under the tail of it, as if a strikethrough, and the whole thing circled in a broken oval, points curling off it periodically.
"Got it." Sam nodded. "Sounds fair. I think we can get that done, the next time we're in a town with a decent tattoo parlour, we're going to get you done up."
"It'll have to be-" Gabriel coughed. "In Lebanon. We have to get back to the Bunker. We'll... both be safer there." He murmured quietly, head bobbing back down until he rested against the back of the leather seat again.
"Got it." Sam agreed, turning to the road once more.