Chapter Text
It started with a prayer.
Sam isn't sure how things got this bad, but now he's lightheaded and running out of time. There’s a vampire fixed to his neck, and he’s too weak from blood loss to try and fight the thing off again. The other vampires look at him hungrily, ready to take their turn.
There was only meant to be one bloodsucker in this damn town, but once Sam had chopped his head off and given the all-clear, Dean left to check the surrounding buildings, knowing Sam would be fine. Well, Sam was fine, until he was grabbed from behind, the blade slapped out of his hand and held down by three vampires so their leader could bore Sam to death, monologing about how smart they were, before actually killing him.
Sam's vision starts to dim at the edges; he doesn't have enough time, dammit. No time for Dean to burst in, a machete in one hand and dead man’s blood in the other, taking down vamps one after another. Sam feels hopeless, weak, desperate.
He doesn't pray to God, who knew if he was still around to listen? He doesn't even pray to Cas, cry out for Dean, or beg for his life. A new instinct is born in that moment that Sam can't explain.
Gabriel, if you can hear me, this is an SOS. I'm about to die because of a nest of vamps. If you wanted to help me out, I'm in Idaho.
He gives the address just in time for the blackness to consume his vision and time to slip away.
Slowly, Sam begins to wake up. Feeling returns to his body - at first just an echo of it, but eventually, he can feel his limbs and the cold ground beneath him. When he figures out how his eyelids work, they flutter open slowly. He's alone in a dim room, and he stands up, rubbing at his neck absentmindedly where it itches.
The place is a mess. It’s like a bomb went off exactly where Sam stands, all furniture blown out in a circle around him. When Sam focuses in the dim light, he can see corpses, maybe six of them. That's when the fog clears and Sam remembers. He touches his neck again and pulls his hand away, but it's clean. No pain, no blood, no trace of the bite.
Something out of place on the ground catches his eye. A chocolate bar, with green paper attached.
Was bored and feeling generous. Don't make a habit of it
G
Sam smiles despite himself, tucking the note carefully into his pocket and saving the snack for later. Dean picks this moment to come in, his eyes wide when he takes in the massacre, and he yells, "What the hell happened in here?!"
Sam answers, "We were wrong about it being a solo vamp, Dean. Turns out it was a whole nest. They didn't take too kindly to me killing one of them. Then," He pauses for a fraction of a second. Not sure why he does it, he lies, "I took them out."
Dean whistles, "On your own? Damn, you really did toughen up while I was in hell, didn't you?"
Sam ignores the praise and the two begin cleaning up, the weight in his pockets the only betrayal of what really happened.
Sam Winchester can't catch a break.
He feels like he's suffocating, being buried alive. Not, for once, by the weight of destiny, the burden of reality, the intensity of the pending apocalypse. No, Sam is literally being buried alive, one shovel full of dirt at a time. He's long past banging on the lid of the coffin and yelling threats, now trying to conserve oxygen until Dean turns up. The chances of that happening before he’s toast seem as dim as his future.
Sam gives the lid one final shove and when it's clear it won’t move in a million years, a thought strikes him. Gabriel. Too panicked to even consider if the angel would take kindly to being called yet again, Sam prays.
Hey Gabriel. It's Sam Winchester. Got myself a little stuck and I could really use your help. I'm about 6ft underground and probably only a few minutes from suffocating. So, if you have the time and fancied helping me out, I'd appreciate it. Amen.
Sam waits for something to happen. He tries not to let the panic steal all the oxygen, but as time crawls on, he thinks maybe Gabriel's help really was a one-time thing. Maybe this was it. All the monsters he's fought, an apocalypse looming in the horizon, and he was going to suffocate. How ridiculous.
Frustrated, he gives the lid one final push, and it slams open.
Nothing happens for a moment. Sam doesn’t understand how the lid could have opened suddenly, where the pile of dirt went, and it takes him a minute to actually stand up and look around. He's alone in the field, his coffin back on level ground, a hole dug next to it. A yellow note catches his eye, attached to a chocolate bar.
Sam, Sam, Sam. The scrapes you get yourself into, I'm surprised you've survived this long. Try to stop pissing people off.
G
Sam pockets the note and chocolate, getting out of the coffin and heading back to the car, already coming up with a lie in his head.
The dance happens more than Sam would like to admit.
It's not that he was relying on an archangel for help with every hunt. He navigated most of them easily; he's an experienced hunter for crying out loud, he can look after himself. But breaks between cases felt non-existent these days, with demons emboldened by Lucifer’s rising and monsters seemingly in overdrive. Sam’s finding more and more dire situations falling into his lap, and he’s so damn tired.
In the back of the impala, Sam opens the notebook he keeps hidden from Dean. It acted as a diary, a journal, a place to draw and scribble, and recently, where he hid all of his notes.
I feel like I'm looking after a toddler who’s determined to stick it's finger in all the sockets. Stop. Almost. Dying.
A rugaru? Really Sam? You know how long it takes to reconstruct an arm?
Wow, a whole two weeks without almost dying! Bring out the confetti and strippers!
What surprised Sam the most was that Gabriel just kept showing up. Sure, his notes gave the tone of someone exasperated beyond belief, but Sam had called for help five times, and Gabriel had actually shown up five times. Not that Sam ever saw the angel, hadn’t seen him since they'd left him in a circle of holy fire, but Sam thought this was just his style. Snarky notes, acting like he barely lifted a finger and didn't care. Maybe he didn't care, but Sam was beyond grateful for each rescue.
The next hunt goes a little differently to the others. Sam is tied to a chair in a basement somewhere in Nebraska, the restraints unyielding, as a particularly feisty demon has the time of his life. The room is basic – a bare lightbulb swinging overhead, plain grey walls, one chair in the centre where Sam had been lovingly placed, and a table with all kinds of tools for a fun afternoon. He's already down two fingers and his abdomen has seen better days, so many wounds he stopped keeping track hours ago. He's covered in sweat, dyed pink by blood, blue bruises the only thing breaking up the slices along his torso. He can’t work out how long he's been captured, the demon never stopping and pain making Sam unfocused.
Sam hated torture.
Of course, most people would agree with that sentiment, but as someone who’d been through it more than a handful of times, it really got under his skin (no pun intended). He just never knew how far the supernatural element would be pushed to keep him alive. Ever since the time he was tortured for two weeks straight, by witches that kept him alive without any skin, Sam really just tried to avoid the whole ordeal altogether.
"Just say it and the pain stops."
Sam raises his head to look at the demon, dressed in a long black robe and wearing a red, horned mask. He says in a voice much calmer than he feels, "I'm not saying yes to that son of a bitch."
The demon sighs, flipping the knife over in his hand, and says, "So stubborn. Lucifer likes that. But I'm getting bored of waiting, little human. I want him to burn the world down and he needs you to do it."
"Go to hell." Sam spits back, barely supressing a shout when the demon stabs him in the side. He coughs and, not for the first time, feels the wetness of blood in his throat.
Sam knows he's running out of time. The demon was losing its cool, manic glee turning into rage. After a couple more punches and a matching stab wound on the other side, Sam knows he has to make the call. Long since past the fear it'll go unanswered, Sam prays.
Gabriel-
"I'm not your personal bodyguard you know?" Sam blinks in disbelief as the angel he was calling out to appears behind the demon. Gabriel, wearing all black, leans against the wall casually, lollipop in his mouth, his body relaxed and expression bemused.
The demon spins around and hisses, "Angel."
Gabriel grins, taking the sweet out of his mouth to point it at the demon, "Bingo! And they say demons are stupid," He looks at Sam, eyebrow raised, "Where'd you find this guy? Spirit Halloween?"
Sam barks a laugh, which turns into a nasty, wet cough. He manages to say, in a voice he barely recognises, "Guess he thought the outfit was intimidating."
Gabriel shakes his head, sticking the candy back in his mouth, not an ounce of urgency as he says, "Demons and their soap operas. They get it from Luci, he always did have a flare for the dramatic."
"Lucifer's the dramatic one? Coming from you?"
Gabriel winks and says, "Takes a drama queen to know one."
The demon lets out a bloodcurdling scream and shouts, "Stop it! I'll kill you, angel!"
The demon lunges with his knife but Gabriel snaps his fingers, disappearing and reappearing next to Sam. The demon looks down as an angel blade appears in his hand. Gabriel says with a grin, "Thought this should be a fair fight, Marbas."
Marbas charges at Gabriel and the angel lets his own, much more impressive blade appear in his hands. The two clash over and over again, the demon's moves growing more frantic as the fight goes on.
Sam knows Gabriel could obliterate the demon with a snap of his fingers. Gabriel knows Sam knows that. Sam watches as Gabriel twirls around, slicing the demon's arm clean off, which draws a shriek from Marbas. He winks at Sam before clashing blades with the demon again.
Gabriel is showing off.
The fight goes on until the demon is in pieces. A bright, golden light fills the room, and Sam closes his eyes against it, though it does little to help. When the light dims, he opens his eyes again, blinking away the afterimage, and Gabriel is crouched down surveying the damage, removing the angel blade and putting it in a pocket that should be too shallow to hold it. He stands up and approaches Sam.
"You came."
Gabriel chuckles as he snaps, the rope and cuffs disappearing so Sam can move again. He winces as he flexes his stiff muscles, even more blood pouring from his wounds. Gabriel says with a bemused expression, "You sound surprised."
"I-" Sam hisses as he feels his wounds start to heal over, missing digits regrowing, heat like a thousand suns coursing through his body. After a few painful moments, he looks down at what was a black, blue and red canvas but was now smooth, healed skin. Sam clears his throat and tries again, "I didn't even finish the prayer."
Gabriel waves a hand dismissively, "You never reach out for any other reason, I just saved you the trouble."
Is that guilt Sam feels creeping over him? He pushes it away and instead says, "Well I usually don't actually see you either. What gives?"
"Oh, so I saved your life, again, and I'm getting the third degree?"
Shit. Sam definitely does feel guilty this time. He apologises quickly, "Sorry, yeah, you're right. Thanks Gabe."
Gabriel raises an eyebrow at him and it's silent between them for a moment, until Gabriel snaps and hands Sam a candy bar, "Here. You look like you need some sugar."
Sam takes the snack and opens it, taking a bite and making an ungodly noise as the taste hits his tongue. He feels like he hasn't eaten in days. Maybe he hasn't. Finishing it, he says, "So-"
The door bursts open and Dean enters the room, demon blade in one hand, torch in the other. When he sees Sam he runs over, grabbing his shoulders and checking him over. Sam knows he doesn't have a scratch on him, hell his shirt even reappeared at some point and fixed itself to his body. Dean says, "Sammy! You okay? What the hell happened?"
They’re alone in the room, no trace of the angel, just a pile of demonic body parts. Sam says, "You missed the show. Marbas is taking a long nap."
"I've been looking for you for two days, and you look like you've been to a damn spa!" Dean all but shouts, taking in Sam's lack of injuries.
Sam looks at his brother's face and tries hard to come up with a convincing lie. Tries and fails. He’s in too deep to start telling the truth now. He says, "I'm beat, can we just go?"
Dean searches his face for a little longer before he nods and the two walk out into the car. Sam gets in the back to catch some z's, and as he lies down, something pokes at his side. Taking it out of his pocket, it's a yellow piece of paper with familiar script, and Sam smiles as he reads it.
We really do need to stop meeting like this, people will talk! Don't be a stranger, but do stop almost getting killed, I can't hold your hand every time you get a splinter. Hope you enjoyed the show ;)
G
P.S. - My number, for non-emergencies.