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Apologies for long gaps between chapter postings. Real life has been very busy, and I also was writing two stories at once. Then I had the fantastic experience of being at Asylum14. Interesting for this story was when Jared was asked a question about playing Gadreel. He spoke about how Gadreel had lived an eternity of shame and regret, and how he understood him and liked him, also liked how everything every emotion was portrayed subtly with him, and that in the end Gadreel did the right thing.

P.S. As the SPN family, I'm sure we all have Jared in our thoughts at the moment and are wishing him well. J

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"Forsaken, almost human, He sank beneath your wisdom like a stone.
And you want to travel with him. And you want to travel blind. And you think maybe you'll trust him. For he's touched your perfect body with his mind."
Leonard Cohen – Suzanne

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Insistent rapping on his door prompted Sam to lift his heavy head from his hands.

"Go away." It was a whisper, hoarse and broken, too soft to pass through barriers.

The knocking crescendo segued from the intro of Paranoid to the beat of the Black Sabbath song.

Sam sighed lengthily. Before Dean could move on to his favorite Zep numbers, the younger Winchester cleared his throat, "Come in, Dean."

"You eat?" Dean stuck his head round the door, using his query as a greeting, then wrinkling his nose, "Or shower? Or change?"

"I don't need a nursemaid," Sam huffed.

"Yeah? Coz you look like crap."

"Dean, listen," Sam began to plead for some space, some time to get his head together.

"Nuh huh, Sammy. You get on your oversized feet and come up to the library." Dean scratched the back of his neck. "I'm not entertaining your moping morose angel any longer."

"Dean…"

"And I caught a case."

Sam's breath shuddered, "I'm not. Dean. I…"

"Nothing like jumping back on the horse, hey Sammy?"

Dean was trying to help. This is what Dean did. It was what Sam had done in the past. You dusted yourself down and marched on. Work through it. Hunting. Saving people. Making a difference.

"I don't know…" Sam swallowed hard, looking at his hands, "I don't know if I'm safe."

Dean snorted. "You don't know if you're safe? Geez, Sam. Seriously? Come on, if I can stow my crap…" He wiggled his shirt sleeve covered Mark of Cain arm at his brother. "Nothing monumental, Man. Possessed pickup truck, over in Spenser, Iowa. Kasem College Student says it had a mind of its own."

"I'm not…" Sam paused. "I need a pass on this one. You could take Cas?"

Dean huffed a laugh. "Have you seen Cas's FBI technique?"

Sam's lips twitched of their own accord. "He's direct."

"You sure?" Dean peered at him. "You'll come out of this room though? It reeks in here."

"Does not." Sam shook his head. It felt lighter with a slight grin on his face. "I'll shower and eat, if you take Cas with you as back-up. You could be counselors or reporters, y'know? Doesn't have to be agents."

Dean hummed. "Yeah, I'll thinka something awesome. You gotta deal."

Sam waited for Dean to turn tail, but his brother kept standing inside his door.

"Yeah?" Sam raised his brows.

"Shower's down the hall."

"Give me a break." Sam huffed but he eased up from the hollow in his mattress, making for his drawers to root out some clean threads.

"Good," Dean gave simple approval as he closed the door behind him.

Sam stilled completely as another voice drifted from immediately outside. He cocked his ear to pick up muffled concerned words. Gadreel was asking if Sam was well and if he was going on the hunt.

"Dunno," Dean replied. "You try."

Sam rolled his eyes. Dean and Cas were perfectly capable of dealing with a ghost truck. What if Sam got angry or cornered or desperate? Now that he had tapped the hidden remnant of Lucifer's grace, would it be released again? Would his eyes glow blue with celestial power? Would others hunt him like the monster he long ago feared he would become? Did this change him? Could he trust himself?

Gadreel's knock was singular. "May I come in?"

The door eased open.

Entering tentatively, as if Sam would deny him. Gadreel's hand lingered along the edge of the door.

Sam couldn't look him in the eye. He looked at Gadreel's worn Converse, the trailing threadbare hem of his jeans. He chanced glances at the angel's hands, his brown tee, the toggle of his hoodie string.

"How are you, Sam?"

Opening his mouth to gloss over everything, or maybe reverse the question, or apologize for infecting Gadreel with the serpent's essence, instead what came out was, "I can feel it. It's crawling through my veins, inside me."

Suddenly Gadreel was there, inside his personal space, taking Sam's wrists in his strong hands, holding him steady, holding him upright, heads level, breathed air between them.

"You cannot feel it."

"I can," Sam pleaded, "I can feel it now. I want to rip it out with my nails."

Tightening his grip, Gadreel insisted, "I will not permit you inflict injury upon yourself."

Sam blinked.

Gadreel's punishing hold eased to running his hands up and down Sam's forearms. "Sam?"

He nodded shakily, prepared to answer.

"Did you feel it previously? Did you feel my grace previously?"

A slight shake for negative.

"It is an illusion. It's not real."

Sam sniffled. "I'm hallucinating again? Frigging super." He puffed and pulled away, stepping back so his legs hit the edge of his bed. "Sorry, Gadreel. Sarcasm is the refuge of the desperate. I know it's there, in me. He's still in me."

Gadreel nodded solemnly. "It is not a hallucination. It is an afterimage. The sun seared on a retina. The shadow of our wings in death."

Sam sucked a breath. Barely audible he whispered, "Glad didn't see that."

"I am too," Gadreel confessed. He pressed his hand to his own sternum. "And now his grace is in here. If it was not, then I would not be. You shared this for me. I am nothing but grateful, Sam."

"So now we're both corrupted." Sam ground out, unable to parse thanks for contaminating Gadreel.

"Sam," Gadreel smiled gently, "Although shame fills me at how it occurred, it remains fact that you have held me inside, been my vessel. Whatever is in you, I have seen. You are not corrupted."

Sam opened his mouth to object, to speak of demon blood and bad decisions.

"To others, who do not know us, we may seem so." A cloud of ancient pain darkened green eyes, "I am the betrayer of humanity."

"And I am the boy with the demon blood," Sam choked, "The bringer of the apocalypse."

"We are not those things, those labels. You saved the world, Sam Winchester."

"And you sacrificed yourself for Heaven, Gadreel." Sam reached out.

His hand was taken.

"We are whole." Gadreel affirmed.

"We're alive." Sam chuffed, "That's always a plus."

"And I believe we are about to shower." Gadreel's face eased into a tentative smile.

"We? We are? Are we?" Sam grinned, dimples forming.

"I have read of something called watersports."

Sam cracked up. "No, no, Gadreel. We're not. I don't think you understand what that means."

"I want you to teach me." The angel replied earnestly.

Stemming his laughter, Sam pulled the other towards the bunker's huge tiled shower. Thoughts of soaping up Gadreel's toned body with his bare hands temporarily shelved Sam's worries.

"We have not gone so far with each other," Gadreel posed statue-like, only his socks and watch hiding those final areas of skin.

"We don't have to," Sam tilted his head from below, where he was seated on a marble bench peeling off his own footwear. "If you're not ready. I get it. We can take it slow."

"No. I desire this, desire you." Gadreel swallowed, opening his body language, displaying his upturned palms, "I want to replace all remnant of him."

Sam quirked a wry upturned smile. Then he stood, closing the divide, pressing his lips to Gadreel's. The angel opened slowly, tentatively tasting what Sam offered.

"Make me forget." Sam asked, "Just for now, for here."

"Gladly."

Sam's hand trailed back as he moved to adjust the shower dials. From the corner of his eye he caught Gadreel bending to add his watch and socks neatly to his pile of clothing. He was wet and anticipating, breath shortening, when Gadreel placed his feet each side of his.

"Sam," came as expelled air. A hand rose to card fingers through his hair.

Sam knocked his forehead against Gadreel's, letting the water fall over them, spray washing away, purifying by touch.

If they were in a ratty motel, the water would have run cold, but there was some sort of Men of Letters magic in the bunker's plumbing. Gadreel seemed content to stay as two apostrophes in the mist. Finally, with a strange welcome peace in his heart, Sam extended his wrinkled fingertips for shower gel. He turned Gadreel, who was willing to cede to Sam's wishes, and used the heel of his palms to massage spicy shower gel. Slow circles, fascinated by the yielding firm muscles under his touch. A stray thought of doing this with Amelia, with Jess, was pushed away. He'd never with Ruby, that had been crazy wanton hungry sex. But Sam was no supreme expert, not versed in wiles, ways, positions, like Dean probably was. At least nothing consensual…

"Let me," Gadreel swiveled round to return the favor.

His motion must have slowed.

Gadreel's fingers swept across Sam's cheekbone, "Forget about Hell, about sorrows and pain."

"Did you read my mind?" The question was guileless, not accusatory.

"No, Sam. I did not. I would not. You are tense."

"Okay," Sam plastered on a grin. He turned and pressed back for contact against Gadreel's chest. "Your turn, Wing-boy."

Gadreel hummed at the challenge, arms wrapping round, then travelling down. His massage technique began at Sam's butt, swiping suds round hips and down Sam's happy trail. Trills of arousal flickered deep in Sam's groin. He let go, allowed his angel to take care of him. Once satisfied that massage standards were met, Gadreel turned Sam pulling him in for a deep lingering oxygen stealing kiss. With one hand Sam tugged him closer, with the other he drove his fingers through the short hairs at the back of Gadreel's neck. Released, Sam moved down to nip at Gadreel's hardened nipples. He traced each with his lips, scraping across with teeth. Gadreel liked that. Sam filed it for future reference as the angel panted into steamy air. Dipping down blindly, Sam discovered just how nipple sensitive Gadreel was. Straining with precome beading, Sam took him in hand, squeezing the underside of his length, trying to create a twisting peaking friction.

"Sam, so good, oh I did not know, so good."

"I hear ya," Sam affirmed, looking into dilated pupils, before caressing his lightly stubbled jaw. More soap suds, a single rolling play of Gadreel's sack, a knuckle stimulating his perineum, and the angel was done.

"I… Sam," Gadreel pleaded before words of Enochian broke from his throat. "IN. OLANI GIL OL OECRIMI OL, DLVGAR OL TOFGLO, OLANI VNIG OL EMNA. HOATH OL, Sam."

Intensity made the essential meaning transparent. It impregnated the air with deep abiding praising love. Sam felt English too normal, too everyday. Words of Latin spilled forth, a quote from Seneca long ago seen, "'Si vis amari, ama.' Te Amo."

"I wish to be loved, I love in return." Gadreel modified the phrase in translation, his eye crinkles perking with a beaming smile.

Sam leaned in for a tender gentle pressing of lips. "You make me feel…"

He couldn't put it into words in any language, maybe cherished or special or worthy, but none of those fitted perfectly.

Never dimming his affectionate smile, Gadreel dropped to his knees.

"Gad, you don't need to…"

"OLANI GIL OL… I want to." Huge liquid eyes gazed upwards, as if Sam had hung the moon.

Warm wet heat enveloped Sam's neglected hard on. He threw his head back, skull hitting tiles, permitting Gadreel to take control. Long calloused hands worked his length, twisting in fabulous replication of his own actions. The slip slide of fingers, lips, suction of tongue and cheeks, drove Sam over the edge. He reached forward sinking nails and holding on to the meat of Gadreel's shoulders.

With a much less elegant grunting grinding moan, Sam's hips shuddered, climaxing. "I'm coming," he warned.

Gadreel took him deeper, longer, held him, as Sam trembled and cried out.

Shower spray rolled down the angel's face, removing all evidence. Before they had to re-enter the world outside, Sam pulled Gadreel as close as he could, skin sliding against skin. Without fear of rejection or derision, Sam opened his inner self, admitting "I want this."

"I want to give you this." Gadreel vowed, embracing Sam in speech and act.

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Note - Translations:

IN. OLANI GIL OL OECRIMI OL, DLVGAR OL TOFGLO, OLANI VNIG OL EMNA. HOATH OL, Sam.
Mine. I want to praise you, give you everything, I need you here, love you, Sam.

Si vis amari, ama.
If you wish to be loved, love.

Te Amo
I love you