Forgiveness or Sin?

“Sammy, loosen up. The vampires are dead. Have a drink.” Sam sighed and took the glass of whiskey from Dean’s gesturing hand. His brother had just come over from the bar. He took a sip and grimaced at the taste. Dean had chosen the strongest whiskey he could find. As usual.

“Yeah, these ones are. What about the next ones? And the next ghost we encounter? What about the next rogue demon we come across, that Crowley hasn’t managed the keep off our backs? And what about the Leviathans? How are we going to keep going Dean? Alive? With no help? Bobby’s going vengeful. And everyone we’ve ever known who helped us is dead. Mum. Dad. Adam. Bobby. Samuel.” Sam sighed and took another cringing sip of his drink. “Gabriel.” Dean looked away, across the bar. “I just think we could do with some help from someone, from anyone, from the God Squad even.” Dean scoffed and took a long sip of his drink.

“Yeah, well Cas is two shakes short of a cocktail. And the others are scared away from us. Every angel who ever came into contact with us is either dead, mental or locked in a cage with the devil. I don’t think we can rely on angels for help anymore.” Dean smiled charmingly past Sam. Sam looked in the direction he was looking at. Then rolled his eyes; he was smiling at the blonde barmaid. He downed the rest of his drink with a cough.

“See you back at the room Dean. Have fun.” Sam left and walked back to the motel.

They were only a few minutes round the corner so they had left the car parked outside. Not the Impala sadly. As much as that car was Dean’s it was Sam’s too and he missed it. He also missed having a stash of easily accessible weapons. And the small green soldiers jammed into the cigarette tray in the back seat. And the pack of John’s cigars that neither him nor Dean had the heart to throw out, or mention, even though it had now been 6 years since his death.

Sam, on reaching the motel, opened the boot of the pale green Camaro and got his gym bag out of the boot. Slamming the boot shut he took his bag inside and set it down gently next to the table. He crossed the small room and fetched a beer from their fridge. He sighed and sat down on the bed he had claimed as his earlier in the week.

Sam sat in silence for some time.

He was thinking.

It had been some time since Dean had stayed out with a girl. Some time since Sam had time to himself with a laptop. He sighed and crossed the room to the round motel table, switching his laptop on and crouching down next to his bag. His large hands pushed past the weapons and bottles of holy water to the bottom of the bag, he picked up one of the knives stashed in the bag and sliced the fabric from the bottom. He slid his hand into the hidden space and pulled out a package wrapped in paper. Sam sat back down and slowly unwrapped the hidden package.

Casa Erotica 13.

He put in the disk and set it playing full screen. Sam watched as Gabriel’s face appeared on the screen and listened to the words he had memorised. He was missing something. He knew it. Something about this disk was wrong. Something about the way he spoke, or looked, or acted.

Sam hated seeing Gabriel’s face. But he made himself watch it occasionally. Just in case he would see something. He, of course, knew he hadn’t missed anything. He had seen this video countless times over the past three years. He knew every millimetre of Gabriel’s face, of that room, of the naked girl.

Sam wasn’t entirely sure why he was so fixated on watching this, but he just couldn’t stop.

Something.

Something was wrong with this video. With their assumptions about the video.

He had brought it up to Dean about a week after they had first watched the tape. Dean had shot him down and thrown the tape out. And Sam fished it out and watched it again. And again. And again.

And this is me lying down. Sam watched sadly as Gabriel moved out of shot and the girl giggled. He pushed the screen down and closed it. He had no desire to watch Gabriel get his rocks off tonight.

He took another drink from his bottle and hung his head slightly.

Then his head shot up. And so did the screen as he pulled it up. The girl gasped in pleasure but Sam’s gaze was on the back of Gabriel’s head.

“It’s because you’re not dead. That’s what wrong. Why I couldn’t let it go." Sam had put his beer back on the table now. Talking directly to the back of Gabriel's on-screen head. "Because if you were dead this disk wouldn't exist. Or at least, you wouldn't be on it. You would have faded away because it would be a projection of yourself. And if you're dead you can't project it. So you're not dead.” A laugh very close to his head caused Sam to swallow and pause the video.

“Well done Sammy. Was wondering when you’d figure it out. My my! You’ve watched my tape enough.” Sam turned his head to find Gabriel sat across him, across the table. Less than a metre away. He looked exactly the same.

“Where have you been?” Gabriel shrugged, avoiding Sam’s gaze.

“Oh, you know. This and that. Tailing people. Helping people.” He locked his hazel eyes on Sam’s. “I took a leaf out of a book of some great guys I met. Brothers.” Gabriel took a drink of a beer that hadn’t been there a second earlier, his eyes not leaving Sam’s. “Really cool. They had faults of course. One went to hell and kick-started the apocalypse. The other let Lucifer free from age-old binds. But then they did everything they could to save the planet. Save the world. Save little humanity from absolute devastation.” He smiled and cocked his head at Sam. “You would’ve liked the tall one. Nice guy. Bit too dashing for my liking. Makes me look short.”

“You are short.” Gabriel pointed at him, accusingly.

“My vessel is short. My true form is taller than the building you refer to as the Burj Kalifah.” Sam blinked.

“That’s the tallest building in the world.”

“Is it?” Gabriel said, smirking. He licked his lips and Sam grinned. “I feel I owe you an apology.”

Sam frowned. “You don’t owe me anything Gabriel.”

“I owe you a lot of things Sam. But some of those things cannot be given with your brother so close by.” He smirked. “It would be… sinful.” Sam’s breath caught in his throat. “I should have been close. When your madness took hold. I knew of it of course, but I assumed you could handle it until I returned.” His eyes saddened. “You would have died if not for Castiel. If not for my dearest mad brother.” Gabriel stood suddenly and moved his chair right next to Sam. Sat down once more and looked into Sam’s eyes. “I am sorry. More so than you can ever know. When Mike and Luci were thrown into the tank, you were unreachable. I wanted to come to you so much. But I couldn’t. I wasn’t powerful enough. Your soul would have been left there. So I left. Then when I returned and discovered Castiel’s foolish ploy, I tried to help. Talked to Death, weeks before Dean tried, but he had no desire to help the brother of the being who tethered him.”

“Gabriel.” Sam interrupted, his voice cracking a little.

“Sam. Don’t stop me I need to do this.”

“Gabriel I don’t care. I forgive you. A thousand times over.”

“Sam. I-“

“Gabriel.” Sam took the initiative and leant over. Putting his hand on Gabriel’s shoulder. “You did nothing wrong. You couldn’t have known what was going to happen.” Gabriel looked at Sam’s hand then looked back at Sam himself.

“I-“ The youngest arch-angel suddenly found himself cut off. Sam had leant over the space between them and stopped his mouth with a kiss. Gabriel’s brain, as large as it was, froze for a second. Before being overwhelmed with everything Sam. Gabriel kissed back.

Sam smiled into the kiss. Wondering why neither of them had ever done this when Gabriel was alive.

“What the hell?” Came Dean’s voice from the door. Sam turned to look at Dean in shock. That was not a good time for his brother to come in. “Gabriel?!” Gabriel grinned and did a half-wave in Dean’s direction, but he didn’t take his eyes off Sam.

“Hello Dean.”

“You’re dead.”

“I’m a pretty piss-poor example of dead Dean.” Sam grinned and looked down.

“You’re gay now? Both of you.” Sam and Gabriel shrugged at the same time, then grinned.

“I think it’s more just him.” Sam said, a little sheepish, but not embarrassed. Odd. He thought he would be embarrassed.

“Huh.” Dean said. There was a moments silence, then Dean bit the inside of his lip. “See you tomorrow morning Sammy. Have fun.” Sam’s brother backed quickly out of the motel room door and closed it behind him with his foot.

Sam processed the conversation for a moment. When he turned back to Gabriel he found the arch-angel millimetres from his lips, with his breath tingling on his cheek.

“Hi Sam.” Gabriel whispered with a grin. Sam grinned back and grabbed Gabriel’s jacket collar.

“Hi Gabe.”