low_key_angel | The Angel and the Nurse

The Angel and the Nurse - Moose hunting

The Angel and the Nurse.

Sheltering in Heaven after barely escaping Lucifer was probably one of Gabriel’s more brilliant ideas. No one would think to look for him there – if anyone was even bothering to look. As far as the Host and the world at large knew, every archangel was dead or locked away and he was more than fine with that assumption. It kept him out of the line of fire which is what he preferred to begin with. So when Metatron started moving, Gabriel started acting as well. He’d never trusted the little prick, so as the magic in Heaven began to coalesce, he threw himself into action.

In desperation, Gabriel reached out to every angel he could trust, all of the old guard that had survived the civil wars and purges, bodily shoving them out of Heaven before they were ejected, before their wings were burned away into nothing. The fall would hurt, and he was rewarded with more than a few startled cries as he shoved them out of Heaven, but at least they could heal.

Faster. Faster. He has to warn them and his calls grow increasingly frantic as the power begins to build like a gigantic pressure wave. Not enough time. He won’t have enough time and there’s still one stop Gabriel has to make. One soul he has to rescue and take back to Earth with him.

They land hard, leaving a crater in their wake, but Gabriel shakes it off. The world could do without one more Starbucks. After all, there was one right around the corner anyway, right?

She’s still wearing the blue dress they’d buried her in, her blonde curls in disarray and her shoes lost somewhere in the disaster of coffee filters and overturned syrup bottles. Gabriel slides her hands into hers, helping Jessica to her feet. “I know, I know. A thousand questions, but let’s stick a pin in those for a sec, okay? You and me? We’ve got us a Moose to save.”

Sam was dying and Dean Winchester just sent up the biggest flare since Bethlehem.

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One of Jessica's greatest (though very least attractive) talents is her ability to snore like a chainsaw attached to a lumberjack when she's utterly and completely exhausted, when she's utterly and otherwise completely schockered, and when she's sick. She had learned years ago to sleep on her stomach or her side, and this night had been no exception. Sam will find her with her face mostly buried between his shoulder and the pillow with her hand resting on his chest.

It's his attempt to move that rousts her, and her head (complete with some very exciting sleep-styled hair) pops up as she breathes in her wakefulness, worried that she'd hurt him somehow in the night.

Jess peers at him through blurry sleep-vision. "Sam? You okay?"

At least she's more coherent than he is. Following a rather enlightening chat with Death and springing another soul from Heaven, Gabriel is sacked out hard on the other side of Sam, barely aware of any movement going on around him. His grace is still piecing itself back together and for the next few days he'll have to go in search of more quiet, natural places to recharge.

Then it registers that Jessica said Sam's name. He was shifting against him which meant he was awake. Sam was awake. Gabriel forces his eyes open, thumb brushing along his cheek. "Heya kiddo. I know, I know, took long enough for the cavalry to get here but you know how much I like to make an entrance."

Sam looks from one of them to the other, trying to understand what's happening. Because the only time anything like this has happened?

He closes his eyes, clenching his fists. "I'm not going to fall for it. Not again."

Too many memories of Hell and how Lucifer would use either face to break Sam down further. He's not going to let it get the best of him again.

"...Fall for what, Sam? What do you mean?" Her brow furrows in both confusion and concern, and Jess makes a reasonable attempt to blink the sleep away. Sort of. There's still a healthy amount of squinting and blinking as she props herself up on an elbow to get a better look at both Sam and Gabriel.

To say that Sam felt tense next to her would be a little bit of an understatement. She reaches over to brush a few strands of his mop of hair away from his face. "I was hoping you might have slept better," she murmurs, the idea in mind that he'd had a nightmare or his internal healing had bothered him.

Jessica might be confused, but Gabriel can read the damage done to his soul, damage that could have only been done by another archangel. He rests his hand on Sam's clenched fist.

"It's really us, kiddo. Managed to spring Jessica before the fall, before Metatron locked everyone out of Heaven." His smile softens. "You were dying, so we had to save you."

There's no way that this could be happening. Sam knows he was dying, of course. And some part of him remembers that in between place, where Gabriel and Jess were both begging him to remain with them.

It just...doesn't make any sense, though. And as much is obvious in his face as he looks between them. "I'm...not sure I understand."

Gabriel had laid out the overview. Jess is still trying to piece things here and there, but it all boiled down to just one point.

The backs of her fingers caress Sam's scruffy cheek. It makes her smile to be able to feel that again. "Something happened that ended up closing up Heaven. Angels were booted out--nobody else can get in, but souls are mostly still there." She glances up at the archangel, their angel, mostly still in some disbelief that any of this is actually happening. "Dean sent out a prayer. To save you. The angels heard. Gabriel heard. He..." She smiles gently. "He found me before he fell from heaven.

"We, heh..." Her eyes close as she shakes her head with a small chuckle. "We landed in a Starbucks in Louisiana." Dumb way to end that, Jess, but it's something you'll not soon forget. "And drove all night to save you."

Gabriel's smile is no less fond as he smooths his hand gently through Sam's hair. "I know kiddo. It's a lot to take in. Just breathe. You remember us, you did the first time you woke up." And for a beat, silver glimmers around the base of his neck, a reminder of a life they'd shared ages ago.

"Our souls are bound together. Every lifetime we find one another, Sammy. You get into trouble and here we are, ready to pull you back from the brink, just like always."

It was slowly filtering back. Sam's brain had been prepared for the memories by having all of his memories of Hell returned to him and Castiel taking on the worst of the broken edges. These memories, at least, weren't of pain and torture. These were memories of love and trust and, most of all, a feeling of home that he's never had anywhere other than lives where Jessica and Gabriel (or whatever names they happened to have that lifetime) and Dean were all in his life.

"Not every lifetime." There had been a few where Sam was alone but for Dean. Or where, like this life, he'd only ever had one or the other at a time. But they were few and far between, really.

He reaches up, brushing his fingers against Gabriel's throat again and tilting his head into Jessica's touch. "You get that it's going to be a while until I believe this is real, right?" Because sleep fogged and exhausted even now. "Though, even if you might be a hallucination, if one of you guys could help me to the bathroom, that would be great." Because he absolutely isn't sure he could make it on his own.

The latter bit results in an amused smile, and Jessica takes Sam's hand to help him sit up; a hand resting behind his back helps keep him a little more sturdy. "If you are dreaming... or hallucinating? Having to pee means that you really should pee. Else you'll end up a wee bit damp." Oh, terrible jokester you are, Jessica.

"That said," she says, putting his arm over her shoulders. "Take the time you need to believe it, SammySam. We'll be here." At the last bit, she smiles up at Gabriel.

Gabriel smiles at Jessica and nods, leaning to dip his shoulder beneath Sam’s. “Come on kiddo, let’s get you to the facilities and back into bed. You need rest and I’m going to need some time to recharge before we go another round of putting you back together.”

It’ll take time, for Sam to wrap his head around the idea that they had returned from Heaven simply for his sake. But for now they can take baby steps. Getting Sam to and from the bathroom. Settling him back into bed with a sip of water. Gabriel smooths a hand across his forehead, easing his pain and stress to help him sleep. “It’s all right kiddo. We’re here and we’re not going anywhere.”

Getting from the bathroom and back certainly cements it enough in Sam's mind that, somehow, Gabriel and Jessica are back. Are somehow no longer dead and if he hadn't been so exhausted, Sam might have more to say about it.

As it is, he settles down in bed again, looking from one to the other with an expression still more shock than anything. The only thing he does, though, his reach his hands out to them each, winding his fingers into their clothes. "Just...stay touching me, all right? I'm going to wake up and think this is a dream as it is."

She brushes back the hair away from his face as she gets settled in next to Sam for the long haul. A soft kiss is pressed against his temple, glad that his skin feels far less feverish than it had some hours before. Her fingers find the ones Sam's wound into her shirt and Jessica smiles.

"If this is a dream? You're so stuck with us. Not going any damn where."

"You got it kiddo," his lips brush his forehead gently. A benediction as his hand settles on Sam's chest, warming him with another wash of grace. Sooner or later he would have to find a river to recharge, but for now he could afford a little extra healing and offset it with a long nap. Baby steps.

"Sleep for now. This isn't a dream and I promise you, we'll be here when you wake up," he vows.

Healing Sam was going to take some time - a few weeks by his estimation - but they'd manage. Sam was going to live and he finally had his soulmates to make damn sure that this time he stayed that way. No more grand sacrifices because there was nothing worth fighting for. If they were going to fight, it was for a future together.

It's understandable that Sam doesn't look entirely convinced, even as he falls asleep again. Nothing good ever lasts for him, after all.

Except this one does. When he wakes up again later, Gabriel and Jessica are still there. And when he wakes up the time after that. And after that. And, slowly, Sam begins to understand that this is real.

While it doesn't translate to him relaxing much, it does mean that he sleeps a bit deeper and doesn't look as desperate each time he wakes up.

It takes time, but eventually Sam's better able to move about on his own. Though, sitting up in bed and looking between them, Sam still frowns. "Okay, wait. So...it's not just you guys back?"

So he might have run into Jo in the hallway and it had been...interesting.

Okay, so that's a question Jessica doesn't expect to hear out of Sam. While it means that maybe he finally realizes that this all was real, and neither she nor Gabriel were going anywhere, she feels as though there's something that she's missed.

Jess sits up in confusion. "What do you mean 'not just you guys back'?"

"Hm?" Gabriel looks up and it dawns on him what Sam's referring to as he settles in beside him. Another day and he'll have to slip away to find a river and recharge. "Oh. You mean Jo."

He gives what he thinks is at least a shortened up version of his conversation with Death, and the explanation that they were bound together as soulmates and found each other lifetimes ago. Dean however, Dean hadn't been so lucky. His angel had been locked away until the fall and the other part of their little threesome was still cooling her heels in the Roadhouse in Heaven. So he'd ninja'ed in his way in to bring her back for Dean's sake.

.. not that he'll ever admit it. Ever.

It's a hell of a lot to take in, but Sam sits there and listens. And...honestly, it makes sense. The fact that he feels more settled than he has in years, the fact that losing Gabriel put him in such a deep spiral? It all makes sense now.

But his heart aches for his brother, for the knowledge of what he was missing for all of their lifetimes. "Okay. That actually makes a lot of sense. Though...I can't imagine how things went with Dean when he found out he had another male soulmate."

Not that Sam counts. Not in that way, at least.

"Well, we weren't woken up by slamming doors or worse." Jessica allows her fingers to rake quietly through Sam's hair. "That's a good sign. Right?"

She'd met Dean exactly once before any of this had transpired. And the little that they interacted in the hospital triage made Jess consider that maybe Dean needed a lot of rest, and maybe something that resembled good in his life. Especially after he'd called out for any and all help for his dying brother.

If Dean feels half as complete as Jessica does right now, having the soulmates he'd needed for so long, she knows that he's really okay with that male soulmate and would strike down anyone who tried to take him away.

She sighs and looks over at Gabriel. "Are you okay?"

"I’m okay,” a reassurance as he smooths a lock of hair from her shoulder. “Tomorrow morning though, I’m going to have to step out for a little refresher.” Healing Sam was taxing work, but it was a small price to pay to keep him alive and in their arms.

When Sam told Dean that he liked both men and women it took a whopping five seconds for Dean to get his head around it. (That and tell Sam that if he ever mentions his sex life again he was going to take him to clown college and leave him there.) But getting his own head around the idea that he could feel this comfortable around another man, to sleep with him close and watch the way that Gadreel melted into every small touch? He’ll get there. Eventually.

“I think after another round we might even be able to take you out for some genuine fresh air and sunshine,” A fond smile at Sam. "Call it a field trip."

Sam can't help but smile at that. "I'd like that. Not that I don't love having you guys in my bed...which, by the way, I know you had to have done something to." Because Sam's bed was big, but it wasn't big enough for three to sleep comfortably. And while Sam's not entirely been 'sleeping' so much as 'being unconscious for long periods of time', it never felt uncomfortable when he came back around.

He tilts his head into Jessica's touch. "We are kinda out in the boonies out here, at least. Not sure if that's much help to you at the moments."

Oh, but that's what being out in the boonies is for, Sam. Reconnecting with nature. Staying away from the masses for a while. Soak up the nature, Gabriel, for it is all around you. And it is good.

Days pass. Jessica had finally ventured into town for groceries of some sort, managing to talk Dean out of the Impala for the run by promising that she'd make pie. Good thing she can cook (she sometimes thinks that's what kept Sam upright when they were at Stanford). The trip went off without a hitch save one broham insisting she might have been 'that chick who walked out of a bombed-out Starbucks'. "SERIOUSLY! I saw her on T.V.!" Cue a bewildered expression as Jessica shook her head with a smile and a bag of apples going into the cart next to two six packs.

"Ich spreche nur Deutsch."

Which was the only German she actually knew, and her bar go-to line at Stanford when unwanted attention appeared. It usually never failed. Didn't this time, blissfully, and the guy seemed more baffled at her other language setting. He grumbled. "Speak fucking English."

Laden with groceries as she took the stairs down into the bunker, Jessica loudly announces her arrival. "Someone please go get the rest of the food out of the car? Please?"

Dean, still trying to wrap his head around his own soulmates, is in his room and wrapped in the arms of his own angel. Sorry, he's not getting up even with the promise of pie. This is something he's been missing for far too long. The cry of "Not it!" comes from down the hall, followed by Gadreel's quiet chuckle.

But not everyone is so reluctant to help. Gabriel had been in the library, reading over the lore with a handful of brightly colored markers at his side. (What? Sometimes the Men of Letters got things just plain wrong.) He smiles across the table at Sam. "I'm on it."

A beat later he's beside Jessica, scooping the bags out of her arms and delivering a very loud smack of a kiss to her cheek. It's silly and domestic, but fetching groceries and then lurking in the kitchen or library while Jess cooks and Sam reads? Gabriel can't imagine a better way to spend a Tuesday.

Sam's still not quite up to where he was before the trials, but he's doing much better than he had been when Gabriel and Jess first returned. He's able to move about on his own, though he gets tired more easily. Still, he's at the point where the rest of the healing will happen just about as well on its own as it would with Gabriel's help. He mostly needs to regain his stamina.

Which is why he abandons his books when Jessica returns, grinning as he follows Gabriel to her and laughing at his brother's shout. "She said the car, Gabe." He reaches out, poking his lover in the ribs. Right where he knows the archangel is ticklish. "I'll grab a couple of bags. I can handle that much."

And there's a bit of a warning to them both that he can handle this much, at least. He's not going to build his strength up again by taking it easy all the time.

There's a roll of her eyes as Dean declares himself out of the running for actual food, though she can neither confirm nor deny that she'd heard what sounded like his arm getting smacked by who Jessica can only assume is Jo, based on Gadreel's chuckle.

But the lip-smack on her cheek is met with a brilliant smile, and Jessica allows Gabriel to take the bags nestled in her arms (the ones hanging from her wrists will go gently to the floor). Hey. You don't survive living on the fourth floor of an old apartment building without an elevator without figuring out some hacks, right? "Thank you, amica mea."

She eyeballs Sam and nods, taking his word for it. "Okay," she concedes. "Just be careful climbing stairs." Jess knows that he's still working his way back up to him, and that the healing is going about as smoothly as it can go. But stairs could be such a drain while recovering. She recalls a bout of the flu knocking her flat for a week and how the stairs up to the apartment felt like Kilimanjaro.

Edited (Good lord. ) 2015-10-12 21:05 (UTC)

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