#twistedthingsandchocolate

“Do I have a choice?” Gabriel replied bitterly, but his words lacked any real energy.

“Nope.” Sam pushed himself onto the Impala hood next to Gabriel. Dean was probably going to yell at him for clambering on Baby, but that was a problem to deal with later. For now, his attention lay with the despondent archangel. “What are you doing out here?”

“Stargazing.”

The short, blunt answers had become the new normal. Where Gabriel had once been eloquent, capable and quite willing to babble endlessly, he now conserved his words. Used them sparingly, like they were numbered, soon to be ripped away again.

Gabriel kept his expression cold, pointedly ignoring the way Sam’s gaze burnt into the side of his face. His dignity, his value, his sanity had been torn away, but he wasn’t about to let a human see between the cracks of his mask. He couldn’t.

“You know you can talk to me, right?”

“Kid, please. Don’t.”

“Gabriel-”

“Don’t.”

Sam recognised the warning in Gabriel’s sharp retort. The attempt to keep everyone at an arm’s length. Sam let his own gaze drift to the stars. He mused for a moment whether the sky had been naturally cloudless, or if there had been some angelic persuasion involved.

“Are you any good with constellations?” Sam asked, shifting the conversation to a lighter topic. He caught Gabriel’s lips twitch ever so slightly - the scarring about his mouth was less prominent now, but still left an uneasy feeling crawling beneath Sam’s skin. He wasn’t sure he’d ever be able to get the image of Gabriel, bloodied and beaten, lips sewn cruelly together out of his head.

“Not to brag, but I can point out every constellation,” Gabriel replied, his voice reminiscent of the animated manner he used to ramble in. Sam let out an amused huff as faint white lines started to connect stars in the sky. and Gabriel let himself smile. “Here we have Orion - that guy was a bit of a dickhead. Just above that is good old Taurus.”

Sam followed the lines, watching in awe. Gabriel gestured with his hands, pointing Sam towards the next cluster of stars.

“A little further above that is Perseus,” Gabriel said, and stopped. He laughed, but it was tainted with longing and sadness. “I still remember the day Luce and I shaped that one.”

It was easy to forget just what Gabriel was sometimes, between his casual demeanour and non-threatening appearance. Sam caught himself before Gabriel noticed, pushing down the bewilderment and awe he felt. “You… You shaped constellations?”

“Archangel, Sam, remember?”

“I know, I know. Just, give me a moment.”

“Once upon a time, in a Heaven far far away, I did things that would blow your human mind. I held those stars you see now in my hands, and I shaped them, ignited them, and placed them. I built constellations, and I enjoyed it. I was brilliant. Now…” Gabriel sighed, trailing off.

“I get it, believe me,” Sam replied softly, placing his hand on Gabriel’s shoulder. The archangel tensed at the touch, a reflex he loathed for betraying his weakness, and dropped his gaze down to the ground ahead.

“Do you? Really? Archangels are built to be fearless, Sam. To be feared. We-” Gabriel caught himself, clenching his jaw shut. He rubbed his hands over his face, fingers instinctively tracing the curve of his lips. Checking. Reassuring. “I didn’t know how to feel fear, how to process fear. Down there, it became all I was.”

“Coming back from something like this, you feel lost, I get it. You feel like it’s never going to leave you, like there’s no way forward, but it gets better. With time, and support, it will get better.”

Gabriel swallowed, his throat tight, and shook his head. “Even as Loki, I meant something. I was cruel, sure, I enjoyed being worshipped. But I exacted justice, I made sure the guilty paid their price in blood. Loki was an ass, but he meant something.” He paused, letting out a short, bitter laugh. “Now? I can barely control my own grace. I can’t trust my own voice to work. I can’t look at my own face in a fucking mirror.”

“Gabriel, look at me.” Gabriel hesitated for a moment, and felt whatever was left of his resolve drop when he met Sam’s eyes. There was so much warmth, and more understanding than could ever be okay. Gabriel drew in a sharp breath. He didn’t fight when Sam’s arm moved to wrap about his shoulders, tugging him into an embrace. He let his forehead rest against the hunter’s chest, tried to focus on each rise and fall. “It’s okay to not be okay. Nobody expects you to be okay.”

“It’s not,” Gabriel forced out, his words muffled by Sam’s shirt. It was a half-hearted protest, a last ditch attempt to push Sam away. A final effort to hold up his walls and cling to any remaining dignity.

It was the sensation of Sam’s hand running through his hair that finally broke the dam. It was such a simple gesture, yet several hundreds of years of pain and loneliness had left Gabriel desperate for the kindness and safety it represented.