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"Don't make me sad, don't make me cry, Sometimes love is not enough and the road gets tough, I don't know why." Born to Die, Lana Del Rey.
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Sam placed a bowl of Kraft Mac and Cheese and a bottle of beer on the ground outside Dean's bedroom door. He straightened up with a sigh. The MOL 1951 Cadillac Coupe, Dean's pet project, gathered dust in the garage. The array of spell work texts that Sam had begun to comb through for leads remained in neat piles on the library table. If Dean had ventured out, there was no immediate evidence.
"Dean?" He knocked.
There was no reaction. Sam swallowed. He did not want to break the door down, but he needed to know that his brother had not vanished.
"Dean?" He rapped his knuckles again. "Dean?"
Feeling like an idiotic slow-mo impression of Sheldon Cooper, Sam leaned his shoulder against the door. "Dean? Dean, I'm back… You in there, Man?"
Chair legs scraped on the floor. Sam expelled a small sigh of relief. He guessed his brother was present, alive and not laying on the bed. He would prefer if Dean took his desire for solitude to target practice, the garage, or at this stage even the dusty crates of whiskey bottles. Shove it all down, deny it, and engage in perpetual motion were Dean's normal ways of dealing; continuous hunts, a spike in pie consumption, snarky remarks of repressed anger, hitting bars hard, crossing the country at his Baby's wheel. Understandably the threat of losing control to the Mark of Cain meant that Dean was consciously avoiding anything that could make him slip.
Sam got it. The sensation of demon blood pulsing through his veins empowering him, making him feel like he was invincible, and wrong, so very very wrong, was etched in his memory. For Sam there had been terrifying exhilaration. With Dean it was plain terrifying. When Sam closed his eyes, late at night slumped in a library chair, projected onto the back of his eyelids was the image of blood splattered and confused Dean surrounded by the men he had slaughtered. He would do anything, any-freaking-thing, to help his brother get through this, but for now, Dean was not letting him in. Coming out for a chick flick talk was not on Dean's agenda.
"There's food outside, when you're ready." Sam bit the fleshy inside of his lip. Should he tell Dean that there was an angel hovering in their kitchen? He shook his head. He would cross that bridge when he came to it. "Right then. Good."
Strain must have played across his face, because when he returned to the kitchen, Gadreel tilted his head and squinted at Sam.
"Where is Dean?"
"He's in his room." Sam tried for his best expressionless face, hoping Gadreel would have mercy and not probe for details.
The angel nodded. He took a step closer to the table, making way for Sam to enter the room properly. Gadreel had not sat down, nor leaned against the counter, or removed his hoodie. He looked as uncomfortable and as awkward as a destitute homeless angel could in the home of the guy whose body he had possessed for months without his consent.
"Dean attacked you here." Sam blinked away the memory of Mark of Cain enraged Dean slashing Gadreel with the first blade.
The angel's hand drifted to his midsection.
"Wrongs were committed." He paused, leaving the acts he had committed under Metatron's direction unsaid. A slight smile played on his lips, eyes softening as if happy for Sam, "Yet, Dean made it. Metatron was neutralized."
Realizing that Gadreel's knowledge ended mid-action of their two pronged attack plan, Winchesters to take out God's Scribe while Castiel smashed the Angel Tablet, Sam nodded. "Metatron didn't die…."
The words caught in Sam's throat.
Metatron lived.
Dean died.
Sam had carried his brother's lifeless body from that place, had brought him home…
Gadreel did not notice that Sam's thoughts had strayed. He tapped his ear to signify angel radio. "I heard. He is imprisoned."
Sam clenched his jaw. He did not want to relive the nightmare of summoning Crowley, or walking into Room 11, finding only that note…
"Sam?"
"I'm good." Sam lied. "Give me a moment."
Marching to the stove, Sam stared down at congealed Mac and Cheese. Its shiny skin mocked him, mocked his ability to take care of his brother, or anyone or anything.
Gadreel stood statue-like, waiting, observing, and almost hesitant to move.
"Dean made it. In a way." A burst of pain issued a bark of self-derisive laughter masked in a mutated single sob. Sam gripped the worktop tight enough to redden his fingertips.
The angel was at his side, inches of space between them, a barrier of air and inapproachability dividing them. Sam did not flinch or move away. Gadreel's hand lifted. Sam watched as it wrapped around his bicep and squeezed just the right amount of silent support. After a few beats whirling desperation stilled to a raw basement wound. The hunter picked up the spoon to stir his meal.
"You want some? It's from a box and sorta burnt."
"I do not require sustenance, Sam." The angel released his hold and took a pace to the side.
"I'm not hungry." Sam caught the pot, shoving it under the faucet and tipping the chunky mix into the basin. "How about a whiskey?"
Gadreel raised his brows.
"In the library?" Sam suggested, walking that direction, leaving Gadreel to follow on his heels. Digging out the good stuff and two heavy lead crystal glasses, Sam poured two fingers into each.
Without any protest about angelic immunity to alcohol, Gadreel took the proffered glass and copied Sam in downing the burning liquor.
"Why did you take me?"
"What?" Sam puffed.
"Why did you return with me to here? To hold me here?"
"No. No, I don't know why? I just… I couldn't leave you there. You needed somewhere." Sam floundered to explain it any better.
"It was a kindness." Gadreel's head tilted in query and an effort at comprehension. "Why are you being kind to me?"
Sam's lips parted, taken aback. He had no prepared answer. Because no one got left behind? Because it went against Sam's nature to be unnecessarily cruel? Because Gadreel had proved his bona fides? Because there was so much water under the bridge that it seemed churlish to hold grudges? Because Sam was a fool who was willing to give out second chances like candy? Knowing Winchester Luck the last option was the jackpot.
"Because I'm a wuss," Sam laughed in self-mockery, "A woman once kidnapped me, tied me to her bed, drugged me, forced me to marry her, dealt with a demon, and when we parted, do you know what I said to her?"
"You forgave her." Gadreel stated as if he was certain that was truth.
"I wouldn't quite say that." Sam ran a hand through his hair. "I told her she was a good person."
With a gentle smile Gadreel quoted, "To err is human, to forgive, divine."
Sam chuffed, "I don't know whether to be surprised by your poetry knowledge, to be baffled by our return to the myth of heavenly forgiveness, or to be muddled by my placement in the divine category."
"Perhaps all three are acceptable." Gadreel commented, taking control of the whiskey and pouring precisely the same volume into each glass. "Perhaps it is evidence of your good soul."
"My soul?" Sam scoffed. "That chewtoy?"
"Yes, that strong enduring compassionate one." Gadreel lifted his glass.
Sam stared as the angel raised his whiskey to eye level, toasting Sam's soul. Unsure if he was meant to reciprocate by toasting Gadreel's resurrected grace, Sam settled for wetting his lips. "Y'know, people say they have been through the wringer?"
The angel nodded, easing back into his library chair to listen.
"I feel that Dean and I, we have been pulled and strung through endless… does it ever stop?"
"I understand." Gadreel intoned solemnly.
Sam huffed. He lifted his head, seeing absolute sincerity in the green eyes meeting his. "Y'know, I think that you do."
The air seemed taffy like, as if something had shifted between them. Sam would have said they had cleared the air, but that did not express the curious atmospheric shift. It wasn't like when old foes bury the hatchet and part with a handshake, or when friends make up and go out for a beer to mend fences. This was weird and unfamiliar, a settling of comfortable companionable silence that Sam was almost nervous to pick at for fear it would shatter. He recognized it as similar to down times with Dean, to rare times when he had allowed pause to relax, to chill. Was he chilling with Gadreel? It seemed preposterous, yet Sam was loath to relinquish this moment of calm.
"Where'd'you want to sleep?" Sam eventually asked.
"I don't sleep."
"You can't wander the halls all night. Not happening." Sam referred to Gadreel's habits while he had occupied Sam.
Gadreel's brow shot up, "How do you remember this?"
"I caught glimpses. Thought I was dreaming or sleepwalking. Put two and two together after…"
"I will not wander."
Sam twisted his lip. He believed the promise, but there was the possibility that Dean would wander, even if only to take another hour long shower or to filch Bing Bongs from the freezer.
"What room do you want?" Sam persisted.
"I would like to spend the night in the gallery?" Gadreel's pitch rose beseeching permission. His gaze flitted upwards to the telescope.
"All night?" Sam blurted, his brain spewing forth the question rather than the assent he had intended. "It's cool. No problem. It's kinda neat up there."
"I would take a chair…"
"That's fine, and there are some soft…"
"… rugs and throws in the linen storage."
"Take one." Sam gestured towards the distant room in compliance.
"Cold does not affect me, but I will do so. Thank you, Sam."
"Good night, Gadreel." Sam eased his body out of his chair.
"Good night. Sleep well, Sam."
For the first time, in a long time, defying his own expectation of restless unease, Sam did sleep long, sound and deep.
He woke to his brother's loud screeching. "What the ever living fuck? Sam!"