fic: Being Human - sabriel holidays exchange fic
Title: Being Human
Author: wolfish_willow
Recipient: Lonelyphoenix85
Pairing: Sam/Gabriel
Genre: Angst, Hurt/Comfort, First-Time
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Jeez, um. Eve is kind of creepy and touchy feely in this.
Spoilers: Up to/through Season 6, specifically "…And Then There Were None"
Word Count: ~5,470
Summary: When Sam's caught in a trap set by Eve and told he's one of her children, he's hurt and tired and doesn't know what to believe. Thankfully, he's also got a certain Trickster angel looking out for him.
Notes: Um, so. I started at least 5 different fics since I got my assignment and none of them were working, no matter how badly I wanted them to. So hopefully you don't mind that I didn't completely write from one of your prompts. But, there is some threatened/hurt!Sam with protective!BAMF!Gabriel. Kind of. I tried to make sure to take your likes and dislikes into account (And I really, really hope this isn't too AU for you and that Sam doesn't come out as whiny, because he doesn't feel whiny to me, but I'm so nervous).
Notes 2: Beta'd by the ever amazing insertcode11 who helped so much talking me through writing this and then was even more awesome and agreed to read it over for me. Thanks so much! Of course I've tweaked it a bit since, so any remaining mistakes are my own. ;D
Written for sabrielholidays.
---
The room is spacious and comfortable, more comfortable than the majority of the motels they've used in his life. It's a little dark, with only a dim lamp in the corner and some candles on the dark wooden dresser across from the large four-poster bed he's in casting light throughout. Sam appreciates the dark, though. His head is throbbing and it hurts to blink, even without too much light around to stab at his retinas. He doesn't want to imagine what it would be like if the curtains hadn’t been drawn when he woke up, letting in the morning sun's rays to turn the throbbing into a white-hot, burning pain.
His relief is short lived when he squints through half-lidded, tired eyes and he sluggishly comes to the conclusion that he doesn't recognize where he is. The last thing he remembers is going to pick up something to eat from the diner down the street from their motel. Bobby had finally kicked them out for a hunt; what looked like a potential vampire nest. Something straight forward after two years of insanity. Sam was reluctant to leave Bobby alone after what happened to Rufus. Experience has proven that trying to deal with the death of a loved one - though Sam knows Bobby would smack him in the head with his trucker's cap if he ever suggested he call anyone a loved one, let alone Rufus - doesn't usually end well for anyone involved. But people were dying and Dean was getting restless after the slug's message from the Mother of All.
Sam wraps his jacket tighter around himself, shoulders slouched forward against the chill in the air while he walks. It's not quite cold enough to see his breath cloud out in front of him, but he's found he doesn't deal well with cold recently. He thinks it has to do with the cage, but he's trying to do what he promised and keep from scratching at the wall in his head even as it itches and itches and itches in the back of his mind, begging him to peek, just once.
The street is mostly empty, only a couple cars parked along the sidewalk and he hasn't seen another person walking since he left the motel. It makes the struggling breaths he hears panting out, fast and hard, sound as loud as a car alarm, makes his ears twitch and his back stiffen when he slows his steps and looks to the dark space between the buildings beside him. He's still alone on the street with no one else around to hear what he's hearing or to try to step in or even to call 9-1-1.
Squinting in the darkness, Sam eases into the almost-alleyway. He unsheathes his knife slowly. The tip is dark red and murky with the coagulating dead man's blood Sam dipped it in when they made it to town. If there's anything the past six years have taught him, it's to be as prepared as he can be going into hunts, even if he's just going out to pick up his brother some pie or dinner for the night from the local diner in town.
Flexing his fingers around the handle, he continues to creep further into the darkness, the panting becoming louder and more distressed with each step and making it harder to keep his cool instead of rushing in. But he doesn't know for sure what he's walking into and he needs to keep his mind clear - even when it's still itching, itching, itching.
Light peeks out from somewhere behind the building on his right, a dull yellow beam just bright enough to illuminate the pair of them when he rounds the corner. The woman panting has dark hair that's fanning out like a halo that's been shattered, frizzed and messy against the wall she's being pinned to by a man at least a head taller than her and twice as broad in the shoulders.
She whimpers against the hand pressed to her face, springing Sam into action just as the man - vampire - turns her head to the side and aims directly for her throat, razor sharp teeth extended.
He's caught off guard by the creature's next, quick move, pushing off the wall and leaving the woman breathing hard and staring with wide, dark eyes. The vampire grabs his wrist and squeezes hard enough to grind bone until Sam loses his grip on the knife with a hiss of pain that morphs into a surprised, pained yelp when teeth sink into his bicep. They rip away, tearing at his flesh and he sways, his vision swimming sickeningly. A hand grips his other arm tight, holding him upright and Sam blinks in confusion. It's alarmingly difficult to blink his eyes back open but when he does the dark eyes of the woman he'd been trying to save are smiling up at him, straight white teeth flashing at him from behind full lips. Her cheeks are dry, her eyes clear, as though she'd never been crying. She reaches a delicate hand up to his face and he flinches, something in the gesture triggering a reaction he hadn't realized was ingrained, almost as bad as the way he still jumps or twitches when he hears a familiar snap, no matter how long it's been since it's meant anything worse than a minor prank. Fingertips brush feather light over his temple and the side of his head, pushing his hair back behind his ear.
Her other hand is holding the vampire - what he thought was a vampire - at the nape of his neck. The grip looks soft, as gentle as the hand alternately cupping his cheek and brushing the backs of fingers against it while he struggles to get his mind together long enough to pull away.
"It's okay," she soothes, her voice as soft as her touch. "It took some beta testing but my child's venom will wear off after some rest. How long has it been since you last slept, Sam?"
"Eve," he slurs. It makes sense. She created that slug out of nowhere and she's called the Mother of All. Tweaking a vampire into something with the ability to weaken its prey like this can't be much of a stretch for someone who created the Alphas.
"Shhh, we have a lot to talk about Sammy." The way she says his name, full of almost-warmth and so much like what he remembers from the illusion of Mary in the panic room, motherly and affectionate and heartbreaking, has his eyes welling up without his permission. "But first, we'll get you somewhere comfortable so you can get some well deserved rest. See if we can do anything about those circles under your eyes." She runs a thumb just above his cheek and he closes his eyes against it.
It's too hard to open them back up again, though, and the last thing he feels is being lifted straight up off of his feet, her fingers once again rubbing over his temple and back into his hair.
Sam reaches for the top of his arm where the teeth had left his skin feeling shredded the night before - what he assumes was the night before, he can't tell how long he's been out but his mouth feels dry and tacky, tongue too large so it's been a few hours at least. His over-shirt is gone and he feels the rough texture of bandages wrapped around the wound just under the short sleeve of his tee. It hurts, but not as bad as the pounding in his head - and not nearly as bad as it should have considering how carelessly the vampire, vampire hybrid, had torn at him.
"I healed the worst of it."
He jumps, wincing at the way his head protests the sudden movement, when the fuzzily familiar voice comes from across the room.
She's leaning back against the dresser - he knows it had been empty, the whole room had been empty a minute ago - with a small smile on her face, her arms crossed in front of her.
Blinking gritty eyes at her, he leans his weight on his right arm in an attempt to stand, to feel less vulnerable than he does just sitting in front of her in this large bed, but hisses when it shoots sparks of pain up his shoulder.
She rushes forward and he presses back against the headboard as much as he can, tongue still too swollen and thick in his mouth with sleep and something more - an effect of the venom, he thinks blearily - to tell her to stay back. Suddenly she's touching him again, just as gentle as he half-remembers it being before. "I said I healed the worst of it. It's still got a ways to go before it's a hundred percent again."
He swallows thickly and tries clearing his throat to speak. Her dark eyes sweep across his face and even though she appears so much younger than him, he can feel how much older she is, how powerful and dangerous and yet for some reason she's doing nothing but watching him with understanding and something almost like concern in her eyes, petting a hand sympathetically over his shoulder. His muscles start to relax under her ministrations without his permission until he's no longer pushing himself back into the headboard.
"What do you want?" he finally croaks out, throat dry and scratchy. She winces sympathetically and reaches out - he doesn't even have the energy to try and lean away - to a night stand beside the bed he hadn't even noticed. There's a glass of water there and she holds it up to him. When he tries to take it from her with his good hand, she pulls back and shakes her head.
"Uh-uh, let me take care of you right now."
His head is still throbbing and his throat burns when he tries to swallow again and he figures he can't even attempt to fight her when he's feeling like this. But he still doesn't understand.
"Why?" he asks. He can't remember the last time his voice has been that small and cracked.
He doesn't get an answer right away. Instead, she presses the cool glass to his dry, cracking lips and tips it up, only allowing him to take small sips at a time. The water is cool and soothes his burning throat, makes his tongue feel normal again and he has to fight not to relax further into one of the most comfortable mattresses he's been cradled by in years.
When half of the water is gone, and his head is finally starting to clear, her voice breaks the silence. He jumps a little again, something about being in her presence keeping him off-kilter and almost-skittish.
"A mother always takes care of her children."
Her words are punctuated with the back of her hand smoothing over his forehead when he tilts it in confusion, squinting at her again in the dimly lit room. The hand on his face feels so much like the memory he has of Mary, the only hallucination in his withdrawal who'd been on his side, his mind trying too hard to hold it together under the strain of being without Ruby and what he'd needed for so long. She'd been the only one to try and take care of him, to acknowledge what he was and not hate him for it and even though he knows it wasn't real, just like he knows it wasn't Dean calling him a monster - not until later, a voice message saved on his phone even after all this time that he keeps as a reminder he's been listening to less and less - and there never was a teen version of himself sneering down at him while he was tied and defenseless, he still clung to her soft spoken words and motherly embrace like a life line when he'd had no other.
"What?"
Eve smiles at him again. "You've always been mine, Sam. Since the night Azazel snuck into your nursery, you've been one of mine."
She shushes him when he starts to deny it and holds his head steady when he starts to shake it 'no'. "I know how hard life has been to you," she continues and the words are so familiar, so similar to what Lucifer had said so many times, but something about them is still different. The tone of her voice maybe, without any underlying belief that the one she's speaking to is somehow beneath her, less than her even with all of the power and knowledge she can wield over him. "And if I'd been here, Lucifer would never have had the chance to get his hands on you. You'd never have had to go through everything alone."
One of her fingertips taps lightly against his temple. "You would never have been trapped down there."
Sam wishes he could move away, but his muscles don't want to cooperate, still shaky from whatever he'd been dosed with. Weak. No different than he's always been. He can feel every failure weighing him down, holding him in place, can feel how bad his body is straining into her touch and wants to listen to her and maybe even believe her but he can't. Dean is out there, probably scared out of his mind that something's happened to Sam, something's taken Sam again. Or worse, worried about the wall, about his little brother seizing out of nowhere after accidentally scratching at the incessant itching, itching, itching that screams at him every minute.
Eve pushes his hair out of his face again, cups the back of his head in the flat of her palm and the itch eases away, dulls until he can barely feel it. He hadn't realized just how bad it had been until now and his entire body sags with the relief he feels in his mind, his head suddenly too heavy to hold up. It would have lolled back, he's sure, had her hand not been there to support him.
"I can make it better, Sam. All you have to do is stay with me, stop killing my children; your family."
"Dean and Bobby are my family," he protests. It's the strongest he's sounded since he woke up and Sam knows it's because no matter what they've faced, no matter what message is still lying saved in his phone, no matter how hard it's been to see the wary look in both of their eyes since even before he'd been to Hell and come back soulless, they're still his family. They'll always be his family.
"They aren't, Sam. Not since the night your mother died trying to protect you, not since the night you became one of mine."
He forces his head up and away from her hand, still can't get his body to cooperate well enough to get off the bed and pace, to get away.
"You know it's the truth, Sam. Lucifer told you, you were his but he needed something from you. I have no reason to lie, Sam. If you refuse, I'll lose one of my children before I've had the chance to see his true potential, but it won't do anything to hurt my plans. If you agree to stop killing your brothers and sisters and to stay with me, I gain another son. A loyal son who needs someone to take care of him the way he's deserved since he was little."
The room's silence is deafening when she stops speaking. His mind is spinning and he just barely stops himself from pressing into the hand once again soothing over his forehead and down his cheek. God, her touch feels so much like every time he'd imagined what it would be like to have a mother who loved him unconditionally, who could comfort him without being afraid of chick flick moments the way Dean was.
He wants to pretend like none of this is affecting him, but he remembers how he'd been a part of Yellow Eye's special children no matter how hard he fought to deny it. Remembers how he killed Jake in cold blood. Remembers how he'd gone against Dean's wishes that he not explore his powers and how Ruby was the only one who'd understood. Remembers how he'd finally said yes to Lucifer and let the angel kill so many people, kill Bobby and Castiel and beat Dean to a pulp, before he'd managed to gain any sort of control. And remembers clearly how he'd killed his own grandfather not two weeks ago in that cold warehouse.
He's never been normal. All of his attempts to do so ended in blood, everything he touched seemed to end in blood. Even Gabriel, an Archangel he'd met only briefly - though he still has hazy memories of Tuesdays and Heat of the Moment and six months of loneliness that feels like it's been softened at the edges, less heart wrenching and more like a dream than something he'd experienced - listened to him and joined their fight only to meet the end of his own blade.
Without the constant itching in his head, Sam feels like he's thinking clearly. Like he's finally realizing all over again just how dangerous he is to anyone on good's side. Dean and Bobby and Castiel and a newly resurrected Gabriel. All the people he's yet to meet, to try to save and fail without the aide of those less tainted than he is.
There's no one he loves more than his brother, but the way Dean looks at him, like he's a bomb just waiting to go off… Sam can no longer deny that it hurts, especially under the dark eyes full of concern and understanding and an acceptance that even Dean had never fully been able to give him. Sitting, tired and free from the pressure of the Great Wall of Sam weighing him down, under her gentle strokes so easy and natural that he has a hard time picturing her as the enemy she is, Sam doesn't know what to do.
"It's a lot to process, but you've always been incredibly smart. You have a beautiful mind Sam. It isn't right for it to be burdened with this wall, these memories. Just accept me and I can heal you."
It's tempting. It's more tempting than anything Lucifer had offered him. He can't imagine going back to how it felt just minutes before she'd dulled the wall's presence in his mind and he wants to take something for himself. To be selfish, the way he's always been, but he doesn't think he can do it.
Before his still-addled mind can make a final decision, the air in the room changes, becomes electric and charged. Eve's touch disappears in the next moment, eyes sparking with swirls of orange and red, dangerous, a second before she flickers right before his eyes. Sam blinks rapidly against the vision and feels himself wince at the familiar snap that sounds, longer and louder than he's heard it before, through the room just as Eve goes flying into the dresser he'd woken up to see her leaning against.
"Time to go, Sammy."
There's a blur of movement beside him and Eve finally flickers completely out. A hand on his arm draws another hiss out of him and he tries to pull away even though he knows, he knows, that he doesn't have to be afraid of that touch, or the sound of a snap, anymore.
"What the hell did that bitch do to you?" Gabriel sounds angry, barely concealed power lacing his words and shaking the very air around them but Sam doesn't get the chance to answer before they're flying away and his vision goes fuzzy and grey and finally black, his eyes too heavy and mind too overwhelmed to stay awake any longer.
---
The first thing Sam notices when consciousness creeps in is the itchy, itchy, itchy pressure at the back of his mind, so much more insistent than it had been when he'd originally left the motel. There's a hand on him, fingers curled around his right arm and when he exhales a breath it comes out as a soft sob he can't hold back.
"Shhhh, Sammikins," he hears coming from his right, quiet words that are uncharacteristically soft for that voice.
His eyelids feel less heavy than they'd been when he woke up in that room and his head isn't throbbing, only the wall screaming at him to scratch, scratch, scratch.
"Gabriel?"
Even his throat feels better, nothing more than the usual scratchiness of having been asleep - or unconscious. The angel lets go of his arm and Sam opens his eyes fully when a hot hand presses against the side of his face. He flinches away, remembering how Eve hadn't stopped touching him, but Gabriel doesn't look hurt or remotely surprised by Sam's reaction. Only smiles sadly down at him and removes his hand, tapping two fingers against Sam's temple so light that he can only feel them because of the heat emanating off of the angel.
That warmth wraps around him, soothing still tense muscles and suddenly that itching isn't as urgent and Sam can breathe again.
"Wha - why?" He wants to ask why Gabriel hasn't done this before, why Castiel hasn't tried now that his powers are back and functioning. The archangel has been tagging along with them since just after they took on those dragons - after Castiel explained to Sam how he'd been running around soulless for over a year. But he can't get the words out past the lump in his throat the memory of everything Castiel told him he'd done in that time causes.
"It's only a temporary fix. If someone as old and infinite as Death can't put more than that wall up, there's not much hope I could do anything better like this. But I can help dull it some, keep you from scratching. Just didn't think you'd let anyone else near that head of yours again after everything you've been through."
Gabriel pulls back and Sam closes his eyes for a moment, breathing out a small sigh, unsure whether it's relief or disappointment at the loss of contact. He sits up, hesitantly leaning some of his weight on his right hand to shuffle into a more upright position but there's none of the expected pain, only a slight shake of muscle fatigue he's familiar with from other times he's been laid up for days with a busted leg. In his surprise, he almost doesn't think about how weird that is, how it couldn't have been more than a day between the night before and waking up in that room and waking up here now.
"Eve," Sam winces at her name but Gabriel continues without pause, "dosed you up good. Haven't seen venom like that in anything before but it seemed pretty short term, wasn't hard to zap the rest of it outta ya."
"That vampire. Or whatever. She said something about beta testing." He's talking mostly to himself and doesn't slur once and Sam realizes all over again how much better he feels. Eve had said the venom would wear off after some rest but he isn't surprised to find out that she'd been lying. And it almost makes him feel better about how he'd reacted to her when she'd been touching him, talking to him. But it's just one more time that he's fallen for a monster's lies. Hell, he'd fallen for his own more than once and that's the only part of his time with Eve that he believes.
He hasn't been human since the night he turned six months old and his mother burned on the ceiling in his nursery.
Gabriel's hands are suddenly cupping his face, warm against cheeks Sam hadn't realized were colder than they should have been. He stares wide eyed at the archangel who's staring unwaveringly back at him, amber eyes brighter than usual, glowing almost-golden and determined.
"Whatever she said to you, it wasn't true."
A bit of grace bleeds out with each word, enough that Sam's head is dizzy with it.
"I know."
One of Gabriel's eyebrows rises, quirked in a silent question and Sam shrugs, a little awkwardly with the angel's hands still on his face.
"She told me the venom'd wear off by the time I woke up. Obviously, it didn't."
"And that's what you spent all your time together talking about, right Sasquatch? Mother of all things that go bump in the night didn't have anything more interesting to discuss with you but some new monster's ven -"
Gabriel stops abruptly and stares at Sam with narrowed eyes when Sam is unable to hold back his flinch.
"Oh Sam," the angel breathes, voice low and soft and sad and Sam can't take that. Can't take pity he doesn't deserve from someone who should be smiting him where they sit. Pressure is back, but it's not from the wall. It builds right behind his eyes, threatening to humiliate him further with tears he's determined to hold back at all costs.
When one of Gabriel's hands slides back from his cheek into his hair, the gesture soothing and gentle, Sam squeezes his eyes shut tight and tries to pull back. It doesn't work because the angel doesn't let go, but the heavy knot in Sam's chest loosens just a little knowing he tried and there's nothing he can do if the archangel doesn't want him to move yet.
"You can't pretend like it isn't true," Sam whispers, the words fighting to clog in his throat, refusing to come out louder through clenched teeth like if he doesn't say it, he'll still be human.
"No one's pretending." Gabriel's voice is still quiet, but as firm as when he'd released some of his tightly restrained power. "You're not a monster, Sam."
"How can you say that?"
Sam opens his eyes to glare at Gabriel but the angel only stares back at him with a steady, unyielding gaze. How can he sit there, touching Sam, like Sam's anything less than the monster he is? Doesn't he realize that everything Sam touches gets hurt? Dies?
"You've made some mistakes," Sam scoffs because that's an understatement if he's ever heard one and he almost rolls his eyes but he can't seem to look away from Gabriel, "But that doesn't make you a monster." Gabriel's thumb starts rubbing small circles just under his eye, the motion almost as soothing as the hand that the angel curled into his hair and Sam feels himself sagging, muscles he hadn't realized had tensed up all over again starting to relax minutely under the touch.
"Yeah, and the demon blood is just, what?"
"Beyond your control." Sam scoffs again, but Gabriel tightens his hold on Sam's face and brings them closer. "You were a baby the first time you were fed demon blood. What the hell is a baby going to do against a demon?"
"It wasn't just -"
"Yeah, yeah. You weren't a baby with Ruby. But you weren't yourself either. If she hadn't swooped in when she did, you'd be dead right now. And she manipulated you, Sam. When you were too blinded and broken with grief over your brother, she got her hooks in you, but that doesn't make you a monster either."
Sam tries to shake his head because that doesn't matter, none of it matters.
"You know why I faced off against Lucifer?"
Caught off guard by the abrupt question, Sam blinks dumbly and shakes his head as much as he can with Gabriel still holding him. They'd watched Gabriel's DVD. He remembers Gabriel telling Dean he had been too afraid to stand up to his family but that he wasn't anymore and Sam had never understood exactly what had changed the archangel's mind. It hadn't stopped him feeling guilty over the angel's death, though.
"You humans. You're flawed, you know? And you don't usually get things right on the first try. But you keep trying. I know you never gave up faith. Even when Dean was empty inside and Castiel was falling and God had abandoned you, you kept fighting. And if you could do that? Could still have faith after all the crap that Fate bitch has thrown at you? Then maybe you stood a chance after all."
The room around them is still. Sam is too surprised to move, shocked silent.
"My brother is a monster. Hell, I'm a monster. But you, Sam? You're not even close. It's your flaws that make you human, and it's your heart and unwillingness to give up when everything was stacked against you, with a bit of help from Dean's little speech back in that warehouse, that forced me to stand up."
Sam doesn't realize he's holding his breath until Gabriel lets him go and he releases it in a stunned sigh.
"It was my fault you got -" he starts weakly, but Gabriel cuts him off.
"Lucifer gets all the blame for what happened to me, kiddo. And me, maybe, for not realizing he'd wised up to some of my tricks. But none of it is your fault, you hear me?"
And Gabriel sounds so sincere, voice steady and unwilling to accept any argument that Sam nods. An invisible weight he hadn't realized was there seems to lift off of his shoulders and breathing seems easier. It's one less death on his head and Sam almost doesn't know what to do in his relief that it isn't his fault.
Almost.
It takes no effort at all to lean forward and wrap his arms around Gabriel in a tight hug, burying his head in the angel's neck and rubbing his cheek on the warm, solid shoulder under him.
"Thank you," he breathes, because he doesn't know what else to say. Has no words that can truly express just how much he needed everything that just happened.
Gabriel's arms wrap easily around him in return. "No thanks necessary, kid. Just doin' my good deed of the day," the angel teases and Sam huffs a small laugh against his neck.
"You're gonna be okay, kiddo."
"Yeah," Sam sighs, feeling for the first time since he found out about what his body had done while he'd been stuck in the pit - since before that, even, that he will be.
Sam knows he should let go, pull away from Gabriel and have the angel snap them out of whatever room he'd brought them to so he can let Dean fuss over him and bitch at him for getting himself kidnapped again. But Gabriel is rubbing his back, slow circles that trail leisurely up and down his spine and he's warm and comfortable and he doesn't want it to end just yet.
His hold on the angel tightens without his permission when Gabriel moves to pull away - like they should - but Gabriel only smiles at him when Sam reluctantly lets go and lifts his head from where it had been resting against the angel's shoulder. It's a real smile, small but genuine and warm and Sam feels a matching one stretching across his face before it's wiped away by Gabriel's lips pressing against his in a kiss completely different than he'd ever imagined of the Trickster Archangel. But it's exactly what he needs right now, soft where Ruby was rough, slow and sweet where Ruby was fast and dirty.
When they pull apart, they're both smiling again, wide grins that split their faces and Sam feels lighter than he has in years. They haven't fixed everything - haven't fixed anything, really. Eve is still out there to create chaos, there's still only a flimsy wall holding back memories of Hell in Sam's head. Castiel is still distant and Dean will probably still treat Sam like he's a bomb ready to go off at any minute.
But when Gabriel kisses him again, Sam's stomach flutters and he thinks, Maybe, just maybe, things will be okay.
Because each time they kiss, Sam feels a little more hope.
Each time they kiss, Sam feels a little more human.
END
Author: wolfish_willow
Recipient: Lonelyphoenix85
Pairing: Sam/Gabriel
Genre: Angst, Hurt/Comfort, First-Time
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Jeez, um. Eve is kind of creepy and touchy feely in this.
Spoilers: Up to/through Season 6, specifically "…And Then There Were None"
Word Count: ~5,470
Summary: When Sam's caught in a trap set by Eve and told he's one of her children, he's hurt and tired and doesn't know what to believe. Thankfully, he's also got a certain Trickster angel looking out for him.
Notes: Um, so. I started at least 5 different fics since I got my assignment and none of them were working, no matter how badly I wanted them to. So hopefully you don't mind that I didn't completely write from one of your prompts. But, there is some threatened/hurt!Sam with protective!BAMF!Gabriel. Kind of. I tried to make sure to take your likes and dislikes into account (And I really, really hope this isn't too AU for you and that Sam doesn't come out as whiny, because he doesn't feel whiny to me, but I'm so nervous).
Notes 2: Beta'd by the ever amazing insertcode11 who helped so much talking me through writing this and then was even more awesome and agreed to read it over for me. Thanks so much! Of course I've tweaked it a bit since, so any remaining mistakes are my own. ;D
Written for sabrielholidays.
---
The room is spacious and comfortable, more comfortable than the majority of the motels they've used in his life. It's a little dark, with only a dim lamp in the corner and some candles on the dark wooden dresser across from the large four-poster bed he's in casting light throughout. Sam appreciates the dark, though. His head is throbbing and it hurts to blink, even without too much light around to stab at his retinas. He doesn't want to imagine what it would be like if the curtains hadn’t been drawn when he woke up, letting in the morning sun's rays to turn the throbbing into a white-hot, burning pain.
His relief is short lived when he squints through half-lidded, tired eyes and he sluggishly comes to the conclusion that he doesn't recognize where he is. The last thing he remembers is going to pick up something to eat from the diner down the street from their motel. Bobby had finally kicked them out for a hunt; what looked like a potential vampire nest. Something straight forward after two years of insanity. Sam was reluctant to leave Bobby alone after what happened to Rufus. Experience has proven that trying to deal with the death of a loved one - though Sam knows Bobby would smack him in the head with his trucker's cap if he ever suggested he call anyone a loved one, let alone Rufus - doesn't usually end well for anyone involved. But people were dying and Dean was getting restless after the slug's message from the Mother of All.
Sam wraps his jacket tighter around himself, shoulders slouched forward against the chill in the air while he walks. It's not quite cold enough to see his breath cloud out in front of him, but he's found he doesn't deal well with cold recently. He thinks it has to do with the cage, but he's trying to do what he promised and keep from scratching at the wall in his head even as it itches and itches and itches in the back of his mind, begging him to peek, just once.
The street is mostly empty, only a couple cars parked along the sidewalk and he hasn't seen another person walking since he left the motel. It makes the struggling breaths he hears panting out, fast and hard, sound as loud as a car alarm, makes his ears twitch and his back stiffen when he slows his steps and looks to the dark space between the buildings beside him. He's still alone on the street with no one else around to hear what he's hearing or to try to step in or even to call 9-1-1.
Squinting in the darkness, Sam eases into the almost-alleyway. He unsheathes his knife slowly. The tip is dark red and murky with the coagulating dead man's blood Sam dipped it in when they made it to town. If there's anything the past six years have taught him, it's to be as prepared as he can be going into hunts, even if he's just going out to pick up his brother some pie or dinner for the night from the local diner in town.
Flexing his fingers around the handle, he continues to creep further into the darkness, the panting becoming louder and more distressed with each step and making it harder to keep his cool instead of rushing in. But he doesn't know for sure what he's walking into and he needs to keep his mind clear - even when it's still itching, itching, itching.
Light peeks out from somewhere behind the building on his right, a dull yellow beam just bright enough to illuminate the pair of them when he rounds the corner. The woman panting has dark hair that's fanning out like a halo that's been shattered, frizzed and messy against the wall she's being pinned to by a man at least a head taller than her and twice as broad in the shoulders.
She whimpers against the hand pressed to her face, springing Sam into action just as the man - vampire - turns her head to the side and aims directly for her throat, razor sharp teeth extended.
He's caught off guard by the creature's next, quick move, pushing off the wall and leaving the woman breathing hard and staring with wide, dark eyes. The vampire grabs his wrist and squeezes hard enough to grind bone until Sam loses his grip on the knife with a hiss of pain that morphs into a surprised, pained yelp when teeth sink into his bicep. They rip away, tearing at his flesh and he sways, his vision swimming sickeningly. A hand grips his other arm tight, holding him upright and Sam blinks in confusion. It's alarmingly difficult to blink his eyes back open but when he does the dark eyes of the woman he'd been trying to save are smiling up at him, straight white teeth flashing at him from behind full lips. Her cheeks are dry, her eyes clear, as though she'd never been crying. She reaches a delicate hand up to his face and he flinches, something in the gesture triggering a reaction he hadn't realized was ingrained, almost as bad as the way he still jumps or twitches when he hears a familiar snap, no matter how long it's been since it's meant anything worse than a minor prank. Fingertips brush feather light over his temple and the side of his head, pushing his hair back behind his ear.
Her other hand is holding the vampire - what he thought was a vampire - at the nape of his neck. The grip looks soft, as gentle as the hand alternately cupping his cheek and brushing the backs of fingers against it while he struggles to get his mind together long enough to pull away.
"It's okay," she soothes, her voice as soft as her touch. "It took some beta testing but my child's venom will wear off after some rest. How long has it been since you last slept, Sam?"
"Eve," he slurs. It makes sense. She created that slug out of nowhere and she's called the Mother of All. Tweaking a vampire into something with the ability to weaken its prey like this can't be much of a stretch for someone who created the Alphas.
"Shhh, we have a lot to talk about Sammy." The way she says his name, full of almost-warmth and so much like what he remembers from the illusion of Mary in the panic room, motherly and affectionate and heartbreaking, has his eyes welling up without his permission. "But first, we'll get you somewhere comfortable so you can get some well deserved rest. See if we can do anything about those circles under your eyes." She runs a thumb just above his cheek and he closes his eyes against it.
It's too hard to open them back up again, though, and the last thing he feels is being lifted straight up off of his feet, her fingers once again rubbing over his temple and back into his hair.
Sam reaches for the top of his arm where the teeth had left his skin feeling shredded the night before - what he assumes was the night before, he can't tell how long he's been out but his mouth feels dry and tacky, tongue too large so it's been a few hours at least. His over-shirt is gone and he feels the rough texture of bandages wrapped around the wound just under the short sleeve of his tee. It hurts, but not as bad as the pounding in his head - and not nearly as bad as it should have considering how carelessly the vampire, vampire hybrid, had torn at him.
"I healed the worst of it."
He jumps, wincing at the way his head protests the sudden movement, when the fuzzily familiar voice comes from across the room.
She's leaning back against the dresser - he knows it had been empty, the whole room had been empty a minute ago - with a small smile on her face, her arms crossed in front of her.
Blinking gritty eyes at her, he leans his weight on his right arm in an attempt to stand, to feel less vulnerable than he does just sitting in front of her in this large bed, but hisses when it shoots sparks of pain up his shoulder.
She rushes forward and he presses back against the headboard as much as he can, tongue still too swollen and thick in his mouth with sleep and something more - an effect of the venom, he thinks blearily - to tell her to stay back. Suddenly she's touching him again, just as gentle as he half-remembers it being before. "I said I healed the worst of it. It's still got a ways to go before it's a hundred percent again."
He swallows thickly and tries clearing his throat to speak. Her dark eyes sweep across his face and even though she appears so much younger than him, he can feel how much older she is, how powerful and dangerous and yet for some reason she's doing nothing but watching him with understanding and something almost like concern in her eyes, petting a hand sympathetically over his shoulder. His muscles start to relax under her ministrations without his permission until he's no longer pushing himself back into the headboard.
"What do you want?" he finally croaks out, throat dry and scratchy. She winces sympathetically and reaches out - he doesn't even have the energy to try and lean away - to a night stand beside the bed he hadn't even noticed. There's a glass of water there and she holds it up to him. When he tries to take it from her with his good hand, she pulls back and shakes her head.
"Uh-uh, let me take care of you right now."
His head is still throbbing and his throat burns when he tries to swallow again and he figures he can't even attempt to fight her when he's feeling like this. But he still doesn't understand.
"Why?" he asks. He can't remember the last time his voice has been that small and cracked.
He doesn't get an answer right away. Instead, she presses the cool glass to his dry, cracking lips and tips it up, only allowing him to take small sips at a time. The water is cool and soothes his burning throat, makes his tongue feel normal again and he has to fight not to relax further into one of the most comfortable mattresses he's been cradled by in years.
When half of the water is gone, and his head is finally starting to clear, her voice breaks the silence. He jumps a little again, something about being in her presence keeping him off-kilter and almost-skittish.
"A mother always takes care of her children."
Her words are punctuated with the back of her hand smoothing over his forehead when he tilts it in confusion, squinting at her again in the dimly lit room. The hand on his face feels so much like the memory he has of Mary, the only hallucination in his withdrawal who'd been on his side, his mind trying too hard to hold it together under the strain of being without Ruby and what he'd needed for so long. She'd been the only one to try and take care of him, to acknowledge what he was and not hate him for it and even though he knows it wasn't real, just like he knows it wasn't Dean calling him a monster - not until later, a voice message saved on his phone even after all this time that he keeps as a reminder he's been listening to less and less - and there never was a teen version of himself sneering down at him while he was tied and defenseless, he still clung to her soft spoken words and motherly embrace like a life line when he'd had no other.
"What?"
Eve smiles at him again. "You've always been mine, Sam. Since the night Azazel snuck into your nursery, you've been one of mine."
She shushes him when he starts to deny it and holds his head steady when he starts to shake it 'no'. "I know how hard life has been to you," she continues and the words are so familiar, so similar to what Lucifer had said so many times, but something about them is still different. The tone of her voice maybe, without any underlying belief that the one she's speaking to is somehow beneath her, less than her even with all of the power and knowledge she can wield over him. "And if I'd been here, Lucifer would never have had the chance to get his hands on you. You'd never have had to go through everything alone."
One of her fingertips taps lightly against his temple. "You would never have been trapped down there."
Sam wishes he could move away, but his muscles don't want to cooperate, still shaky from whatever he'd been dosed with. Weak. No different than he's always been. He can feel every failure weighing him down, holding him in place, can feel how bad his body is straining into her touch and wants to listen to her and maybe even believe her but he can't. Dean is out there, probably scared out of his mind that something's happened to Sam, something's taken Sam again. Or worse, worried about the wall, about his little brother seizing out of nowhere after accidentally scratching at the incessant itching, itching, itching that screams at him every minute.
Eve pushes his hair out of his face again, cups the back of his head in the flat of her palm and the itch eases away, dulls until he can barely feel it. He hadn't realized just how bad it had been until now and his entire body sags with the relief he feels in his mind, his head suddenly too heavy to hold up. It would have lolled back, he's sure, had her hand not been there to support him.
"I can make it better, Sam. All you have to do is stay with me, stop killing my children; your family."
"Dean and Bobby are my family," he protests. It's the strongest he's sounded since he woke up and Sam knows it's because no matter what they've faced, no matter what message is still lying saved in his phone, no matter how hard it's been to see the wary look in both of their eyes since even before he'd been to Hell and come back soulless, they're still his family. They'll always be his family.
"They aren't, Sam. Not since the night your mother died trying to protect you, not since the night you became one of mine."
He forces his head up and away from her hand, still can't get his body to cooperate well enough to get off the bed and pace, to get away.
"You know it's the truth, Sam. Lucifer told you, you were his but he needed something from you. I have no reason to lie, Sam. If you refuse, I'll lose one of my children before I've had the chance to see his true potential, but it won't do anything to hurt my plans. If you agree to stop killing your brothers and sisters and to stay with me, I gain another son. A loyal son who needs someone to take care of him the way he's deserved since he was little."
The room's silence is deafening when she stops speaking. His mind is spinning and he just barely stops himself from pressing into the hand once again soothing over his forehead and down his cheek. God, her touch feels so much like every time he'd imagined what it would be like to have a mother who loved him unconditionally, who could comfort him without being afraid of chick flick moments the way Dean was.
He wants to pretend like none of this is affecting him, but he remembers how he'd been a part of Yellow Eye's special children no matter how hard he fought to deny it. Remembers how he killed Jake in cold blood. Remembers how he'd gone against Dean's wishes that he not explore his powers and how Ruby was the only one who'd understood. Remembers how he'd finally said yes to Lucifer and let the angel kill so many people, kill Bobby and Castiel and beat Dean to a pulp, before he'd managed to gain any sort of control. And remembers clearly how he'd killed his own grandfather not two weeks ago in that cold warehouse.
He's never been normal. All of his attempts to do so ended in blood, everything he touched seemed to end in blood. Even Gabriel, an Archangel he'd met only briefly - though he still has hazy memories of Tuesdays and Heat of the Moment and six months of loneliness that feels like it's been softened at the edges, less heart wrenching and more like a dream than something he'd experienced - listened to him and joined their fight only to meet the end of his own blade.
Without the constant itching in his head, Sam feels like he's thinking clearly. Like he's finally realizing all over again just how dangerous he is to anyone on good's side. Dean and Bobby and Castiel and a newly resurrected Gabriel. All the people he's yet to meet, to try to save and fail without the aide of those less tainted than he is.
There's no one he loves more than his brother, but the way Dean looks at him, like he's a bomb just waiting to go off… Sam can no longer deny that it hurts, especially under the dark eyes full of concern and understanding and an acceptance that even Dean had never fully been able to give him. Sitting, tired and free from the pressure of the Great Wall of Sam weighing him down, under her gentle strokes so easy and natural that he has a hard time picturing her as the enemy she is, Sam doesn't know what to do.
"It's a lot to process, but you've always been incredibly smart. You have a beautiful mind Sam. It isn't right for it to be burdened with this wall, these memories. Just accept me and I can heal you."
It's tempting. It's more tempting than anything Lucifer had offered him. He can't imagine going back to how it felt just minutes before she'd dulled the wall's presence in his mind and he wants to take something for himself. To be selfish, the way he's always been, but he doesn't think he can do it.
Before his still-addled mind can make a final decision, the air in the room changes, becomes electric and charged. Eve's touch disappears in the next moment, eyes sparking with swirls of orange and red, dangerous, a second before she flickers right before his eyes. Sam blinks rapidly against the vision and feels himself wince at the familiar snap that sounds, longer and louder than he's heard it before, through the room just as Eve goes flying into the dresser he'd woken up to see her leaning against.
"Time to go, Sammy."
There's a blur of movement beside him and Eve finally flickers completely out. A hand on his arm draws another hiss out of him and he tries to pull away even though he knows, he knows, that he doesn't have to be afraid of that touch, or the sound of a snap, anymore.
"What the hell did that bitch do to you?" Gabriel sounds angry, barely concealed power lacing his words and shaking the very air around them but Sam doesn't get the chance to answer before they're flying away and his vision goes fuzzy and grey and finally black, his eyes too heavy and mind too overwhelmed to stay awake any longer.
---
The first thing Sam notices when consciousness creeps in is the itchy, itchy, itchy pressure at the back of his mind, so much more insistent than it had been when he'd originally left the motel. There's a hand on him, fingers curled around his right arm and when he exhales a breath it comes out as a soft sob he can't hold back.
"Shhhh, Sammikins," he hears coming from his right, quiet words that are uncharacteristically soft for that voice.
His eyelids feel less heavy than they'd been when he woke up in that room and his head isn't throbbing, only the wall screaming at him to scratch, scratch, scratch.
"Gabriel?"
Even his throat feels better, nothing more than the usual scratchiness of having been asleep - or unconscious. The angel lets go of his arm and Sam opens his eyes fully when a hot hand presses against the side of his face. He flinches away, remembering how Eve hadn't stopped touching him, but Gabriel doesn't look hurt or remotely surprised by Sam's reaction. Only smiles sadly down at him and removes his hand, tapping two fingers against Sam's temple so light that he can only feel them because of the heat emanating off of the angel.
That warmth wraps around him, soothing still tense muscles and suddenly that itching isn't as urgent and Sam can breathe again.
"Wha - why?" He wants to ask why Gabriel hasn't done this before, why Castiel hasn't tried now that his powers are back and functioning. The archangel has been tagging along with them since just after they took on those dragons - after Castiel explained to Sam how he'd been running around soulless for over a year. But he can't get the words out past the lump in his throat the memory of everything Castiel told him he'd done in that time causes.
"It's only a temporary fix. If someone as old and infinite as Death can't put more than that wall up, there's not much hope I could do anything better like this. But I can help dull it some, keep you from scratching. Just didn't think you'd let anyone else near that head of yours again after everything you've been through."
Gabriel pulls back and Sam closes his eyes for a moment, breathing out a small sigh, unsure whether it's relief or disappointment at the loss of contact. He sits up, hesitantly leaning some of his weight on his right hand to shuffle into a more upright position but there's none of the expected pain, only a slight shake of muscle fatigue he's familiar with from other times he's been laid up for days with a busted leg. In his surprise, he almost doesn't think about how weird that is, how it couldn't have been more than a day between the night before and waking up in that room and waking up here now.
"Eve," Sam winces at her name but Gabriel continues without pause, "dosed you up good. Haven't seen venom like that in anything before but it seemed pretty short term, wasn't hard to zap the rest of it outta ya."
"That vampire. Or whatever. She said something about beta testing." He's talking mostly to himself and doesn't slur once and Sam realizes all over again how much better he feels. Eve had said the venom would wear off after some rest but he isn't surprised to find out that she'd been lying. And it almost makes him feel better about how he'd reacted to her when she'd been touching him, talking to him. But it's just one more time that he's fallen for a monster's lies. Hell, he'd fallen for his own more than once and that's the only part of his time with Eve that he believes.
He hasn't been human since the night he turned six months old and his mother burned on the ceiling in his nursery.
Gabriel's hands are suddenly cupping his face, warm against cheeks Sam hadn't realized were colder than they should have been. He stares wide eyed at the archangel who's staring unwaveringly back at him, amber eyes brighter than usual, glowing almost-golden and determined.
"Whatever she said to you, it wasn't true."
A bit of grace bleeds out with each word, enough that Sam's head is dizzy with it.
"I know."
One of Gabriel's eyebrows rises, quirked in a silent question and Sam shrugs, a little awkwardly with the angel's hands still on his face.
"She told me the venom'd wear off by the time I woke up. Obviously, it didn't."
"And that's what you spent all your time together talking about, right Sasquatch? Mother of all things that go bump in the night didn't have anything more interesting to discuss with you but some new monster's ven -"
Gabriel stops abruptly and stares at Sam with narrowed eyes when Sam is unable to hold back his flinch.
"Oh Sam," the angel breathes, voice low and soft and sad and Sam can't take that. Can't take pity he doesn't deserve from someone who should be smiting him where they sit. Pressure is back, but it's not from the wall. It builds right behind his eyes, threatening to humiliate him further with tears he's determined to hold back at all costs.
When one of Gabriel's hands slides back from his cheek into his hair, the gesture soothing and gentle, Sam squeezes his eyes shut tight and tries to pull back. It doesn't work because the angel doesn't let go, but the heavy knot in Sam's chest loosens just a little knowing he tried and there's nothing he can do if the archangel doesn't want him to move yet.
"You can't pretend like it isn't true," Sam whispers, the words fighting to clog in his throat, refusing to come out louder through clenched teeth like if he doesn't say it, he'll still be human.
"No one's pretending." Gabriel's voice is still quiet, but as firm as when he'd released some of his tightly restrained power. "You're not a monster, Sam."
"How can you say that?"
Sam opens his eyes to glare at Gabriel but the angel only stares back at him with a steady, unyielding gaze. How can he sit there, touching Sam, like Sam's anything less than the monster he is? Doesn't he realize that everything Sam touches gets hurt? Dies?
"You've made some mistakes," Sam scoffs because that's an understatement if he's ever heard one and he almost rolls his eyes but he can't seem to look away from Gabriel, "But that doesn't make you a monster." Gabriel's thumb starts rubbing small circles just under his eye, the motion almost as soothing as the hand that the angel curled into his hair and Sam feels himself sagging, muscles he hadn't realized had tensed up all over again starting to relax minutely under the touch.
"Yeah, and the demon blood is just, what?"
"Beyond your control." Sam scoffs again, but Gabriel tightens his hold on Sam's face and brings them closer. "You were a baby the first time you were fed demon blood. What the hell is a baby going to do against a demon?"
"It wasn't just -"
"Yeah, yeah. You weren't a baby with Ruby. But you weren't yourself either. If she hadn't swooped in when she did, you'd be dead right now. And she manipulated you, Sam. When you were too blinded and broken with grief over your brother, she got her hooks in you, but that doesn't make you a monster either."
Sam tries to shake his head because that doesn't matter, none of it matters.
"You know why I faced off against Lucifer?"
Caught off guard by the abrupt question, Sam blinks dumbly and shakes his head as much as he can with Gabriel still holding him. They'd watched Gabriel's DVD. He remembers Gabriel telling Dean he had been too afraid to stand up to his family but that he wasn't anymore and Sam had never understood exactly what had changed the archangel's mind. It hadn't stopped him feeling guilty over the angel's death, though.
"You humans. You're flawed, you know? And you don't usually get things right on the first try. But you keep trying. I know you never gave up faith. Even when Dean was empty inside and Castiel was falling and God had abandoned you, you kept fighting. And if you could do that? Could still have faith after all the crap that Fate bitch has thrown at you? Then maybe you stood a chance after all."
The room around them is still. Sam is too surprised to move, shocked silent.
"My brother is a monster. Hell, I'm a monster. But you, Sam? You're not even close. It's your flaws that make you human, and it's your heart and unwillingness to give up when everything was stacked against you, with a bit of help from Dean's little speech back in that warehouse, that forced me to stand up."
Sam doesn't realize he's holding his breath until Gabriel lets him go and he releases it in a stunned sigh.
"It was my fault you got -" he starts weakly, but Gabriel cuts him off.
"Lucifer gets all the blame for what happened to me, kiddo. And me, maybe, for not realizing he'd wised up to some of my tricks. But none of it is your fault, you hear me?"
And Gabriel sounds so sincere, voice steady and unwilling to accept any argument that Sam nods. An invisible weight he hadn't realized was there seems to lift off of his shoulders and breathing seems easier. It's one less death on his head and Sam almost doesn't know what to do in his relief that it isn't his fault.
Almost.
It takes no effort at all to lean forward and wrap his arms around Gabriel in a tight hug, burying his head in the angel's neck and rubbing his cheek on the warm, solid shoulder under him.
"Thank you," he breathes, because he doesn't know what else to say. Has no words that can truly express just how much he needed everything that just happened.
Gabriel's arms wrap easily around him in return. "No thanks necessary, kid. Just doin' my good deed of the day," the angel teases and Sam huffs a small laugh against his neck.
"You're gonna be okay, kiddo."
"Yeah," Sam sighs, feeling for the first time since he found out about what his body had done while he'd been stuck in the pit - since before that, even, that he will be.
Sam knows he should let go, pull away from Gabriel and have the angel snap them out of whatever room he'd brought them to so he can let Dean fuss over him and bitch at him for getting himself kidnapped again. But Gabriel is rubbing his back, slow circles that trail leisurely up and down his spine and he's warm and comfortable and he doesn't want it to end just yet.
His hold on the angel tightens without his permission when Gabriel moves to pull away - like they should - but Gabriel only smiles at him when Sam reluctantly lets go and lifts his head from where it had been resting against the angel's shoulder. It's a real smile, small but genuine and warm and Sam feels a matching one stretching across his face before it's wiped away by Gabriel's lips pressing against his in a kiss completely different than he'd ever imagined of the Trickster Archangel. But it's exactly what he needs right now, soft where Ruby was rough, slow and sweet where Ruby was fast and dirty.
When they pull apart, they're both smiling again, wide grins that split their faces and Sam feels lighter than he has in years. They haven't fixed everything - haven't fixed anything, really. Eve is still out there to create chaos, there's still only a flimsy wall holding back memories of Hell in Sam's head. Castiel is still distant and Dean will probably still treat Sam like he's a bomb ready to go off at any minute.
But when Gabriel kisses him again, Sam's stomach flutters and he thinks, Maybe, just maybe, things will be okay.
Because each time they kiss, Sam feels a little more hope.
Each time they kiss, Sam feels a little more human.
END