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“Wake up ya worthless excuse of an archangel. Ya know what time it is,” his cheery tone never fails to send shivers down my spine.
I don't even bother opening my eyes as he roughly grabs my body and throws me horizontally against the stone wall. A sharp stabbing pain erupts from my head, left shoulder and hip as I bounce off and fall to the floor. It takes everything in me to not make a sound. I don't want to give him any more satisfaction than he already has.
I don't get any time to rest before there's a boot to my chest, relentlessly kicking my abdomen until he hears a crack. The piercing pain from the now broken ribs adds on to the rest to the point where it's almost unbearable.
“Aw, come on. You're goin’ easy on me today?” I hear three footsteps then the feeling of hot breath on the left side of my neck close to my ear, “Ya know I love it when ya put up a fight.”
I tense and the next thing I know he's laughing in my ear. Deep and guttural. It fades away almost as quickly as it started. Then I hear more footsteps enter the room. I guess he's had enough foreplay for today. It was shorter than usual.
It's the same thing that happens day after day. He comes in, throws me around, plays with me a bit, then takes what he wants and leaves me alone on the cold floor to fix the damages.
“Thank you, Andrew. That'll be all,” Andrew's footsteps grow quieter as he exits. Without delay, a needle roughly pierces my neck and I bite down on my tongue to keep from screaming, not that it does much anyways. I can feel every last bit of the grace leaving my body as he extracts just enough for his daily dose.
When he's done he always makes sure to remove it slowly so I can feel every last inch of it. Always reminding me that I can never escape this hell.
“Good boy, Gabriel,” one final kick to my stomach sends shooting pain through my entire body as my ribs threaten to puncture my lung, “See ya tomorrow.”
I can hear the door shut and his footsteps dying away. I wait a few minutes to make sure I don't hear any sounds from outside before I open my eyes to survey the damages. He's been known to immediately come back for some more play time on various occasions.
The first thing I do is try and get my vision to not be blurry. I believe that I might have a mild concussion. I've had them enough now to know the signs.
Once I manage to get my vision back to semi normal, I attempt to sit up against the wall, which is proving to be more of a struggle than I thought. I barely make it an inch off of the ground before my broken ribs protest. I lie right back down and roll over onto my back to take some pressure off of them. Looks like I'm going to be laying here for a while.
I bring my hand to my chest and feel two….no three broken ribs. One on my right and two on my left. Great. Those are going to be a bitch to heal with the limited grace I have.
I don't exactly know how long I've been here. The days started to blur together a long time ago. It could be a year, maybe two? Could be more. All I know is that it feels like forever.
The pain has dulled ever so slightly from my grace kicking in, but I can still feel the comforting darkness call my name. My head pounds, my hip and shoulder ache, and my ribs burn. Before I know it the dancing flames on the ceiling turn into inky blackness as I let the darkness take me.
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I don't know how long I've been out for. When I come to, the first thing I notice is that my ribs have healed. There's no intense pain anymore. I cautiously open my eyes and I'm greeted with clear vision, so my concussion must be gone too.
I roll over to my side and let out a throaty groan as the ache in my shoulder has grown into a stabbing pain. Immediately I roll back on to my back and bring my right arm up to feel it. My hand comes up to feel the joint not quite in its socket. Oh joy. A dislocated shoulder. Just what I needed. How did I miss that before?
I bring my hand over to my elbow to support my arm as I sit up and shift so I'm leaned up against the wall. I grab my wrist with my right hand and pull my arm forward. I feel the joint pop back into place and I lower my arms, leaning my head back against the wall.
I hear footsteps getting closer and I tense. I couldn't have been out for a whole day. Right?
The door opens and the asshole in the white suit enters.
“Oh good, you're awake. I thought I might've finally killed ya yesterday. I was this-” his fingers close to till just a sliver of space remains “-close to havin’ Ketch burn your worthless corpse.”
I’m glaring daggers at him and he just smirks.
“I see ya still have some fight left in ya after all. Good.”
He walks closer to me and I shift closer to the wall. Like that's going to help me at all.
It doesn't take him long to cross the small cell, grab my freshly relocated arm and throw me to the center of the room. I try to move away, but he grabs my arm again and with his knee on my back he pins me to the floor. He pulls my shoulder further behind my back, threatening to dislocate it again. A small whimper squeaks past my wall and I can feel his body shaking above mine as he laughs. His hand roughly grabs my hair and pulls my head back to meet his.
“I wish I didn't have to silence ya. I bet your screams are even better now than they were all those years ago,” he whispers into my ear, sending chills down my body. The memory of blinding lights and sewing needles is forever burned into my mind.
Without warning he slams my face into the concrete floor. Blood pools around my fractured nose as I keep my head on the floor. I'd rather not have my face repeatedly slammed into the ground, thank you. This is the only way to prevent that. I learned that the hard way.
I can already feel it swelling up and with every second it's getting harder to breathe through it. I try to open my mouth as wide as the stitches allow me in order to get any air into my lungs. It's not easy, but I managed to get a small hole open. I plant my tongue between my teeth and bite down to make sure the hole stays open. The asshole is just laughing on top of me.
Then he just stops and everything goes silent. His body never leaves my back, but he does shift his weight. Then I felt it. The cold metal against the back of my neck. I immediately tensed. This never ends well when he brings out my angel blade.
“I was thinkin’ earlier,” the tip of the blade swipes across my neck and I can feel the warm trickle of blood slowly running down, “If ya managed to survive the night I would reward ya.”
I can feel him trailing the blade down my spine before going back up and settling where my wings would be. Right in the middle of my shoulder blades. I suppress a groan as he digs the blade in on the right side and drags it down the length of my back.
“Do ya like your reward? I remember this one was your favorite,” he laughs as the blade travels to the other side and does the exact same motion.
I begin to feel lightheaded from the blood loss and the severe lack of air I'm getting to my lungs. It's getting harder to keep my eyes open. That doesn't stop him from continuing to take swipes at my back.
I know the asshole's talking, I can feel the vibrations, but I can't make any of the words out. Everything's just so distant and my eyes keep fluttering closed.
One minute I'm staring at the pool of blood next to me and the next everything’s gone dark.
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I woke up in the same position on the floor. Arm behind my back and my nose crooked. The only difference is that there’s no pressure pinning me to the floor. The asshole must've left.
I make sure there's no one in the room with me and I open my eyes. I groan as I move my arm from behind my back. The good news is that it isn't dislocated. The bad news is that the blade added some scars to my ever growing collection. My weak grace wasn't able to heal them like it should have. I bring my hands up to my nose to reset and hold it still while I push all the grace I can muster into healing it. It hurts like hell, but it’s fixed.
I roll on to my back and almost let out a cry as the cold concrete comes in contact with the sensitive skin of my bare back. You'd think by now that I would've gotten used to it seeing as how I don't wear shirts because they'd just get ruined and I'm constantly up against the cold confines of my never ending nightmare.
I barely manage to get myself up against the wall before I hear what sounds like running from behind the door. There’s a gunshot and then a few seconds later another. Has somebody finally come to get me?
Something slams against the door and I push myself back into the wall away from it, hoping that whatever is on the other side doesn’t want to harm me.
After three more slams everything goes quiet. The only sound is my shaky breathing. Then the door flies open and slams into the wall behind it. In steps the one person I never expected to see again. His hair has grown since the last time I’d seen him. I kinda like it. Really enhances the sasquatch look.
My eyes go wide as he scans the room and his eyes meet mine. He immediately is by my side and his arms go around me, pulling me into a rib crushing hug.
“I’m so glad we found you,” He releases me from the hug, with my ribs still intact, and holds my face in his hands, “I’m sorry we couldn't come sooner. When we heard that you were still alive, but were being held by Asmodeus, I just knew we had to get you out of here.”
There’s tears threatening to fall from my eyes. He’s really here. A little bloody, but he’s here. That must mean that Cassie and Dean aren’t too far behind him.
I point to my mouth, hoping that Sam notices and releases me from my forced silence.
His eyes fall to my mouth and he just stands up and holds a hand out, “There’s no time, Gabriel. Dean and Castiel are waiting for us in the throne room. They went to take care of Asmodeus while I went to find you. Come on, let’s go.”
I don’t take his hand. Something feels….off. I narrow my eyes at Sam trying to pinpoint something and he looks at me confused.
“Come on, Gabriel. Let’s go,” He wiggles his hand, but I shake my head no. His relieved expression turns to frustration in a matter of seconds.
“You don't want me to leave you here, do you?”
I adamantly shake my head no and take Sam's hand. He pulls me up off the floor and his other hand grabs onto my wrist. I look up at Sam confused, but he just gives me a small smile. Then I feel his hand tighten around my wrist to the point where his fingernails are digging painfully into my skin. I frantically look down at my wrist then back up at Sam to see him grinning.
I try to get out of his grip, but he just keeps digging his fingers in deeper and deeper until blood is seeping out from beneath them. Deep little sounds start coming from his throat and before I know it he's full on laughing as I'm pulling my arm away trying to get out of his grasp.
“It's cute how ya think ya had any chance of gettin’ out of here.”
No…no it can't be. He lets go of my wrist and I fall to my knees looking at the ground. My hands fall on either side of me.
“Ya know, I had originally planned to play with ya some more, but I'm feelin’ lenient today,” I feel the prick of the needle on my neck as it goes in and out. There isn't a slow extraction this time. There's no need. He's already accomplished that message.
“See ya tomorrow,” he whispers in my ear. His cheery tone mocking me.
I can hear him leave the room, but I don't move. I can't move.
My eyes tear up and I can feel the last string inside me finally wear to the point of breaking.
They were never here.
Sam was never here.
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I don't know how long it's been since the asshole ripped the very last shred of hope from my body. Days, weeks, months, I don't know and I don't really care. I'm never getting out of here anyways, so there's no point in keeping track anymore. Not that it was ever easy to do in the first place.
Every so often he'd come in as Sam or Cassie or Dean just to mess with me. He called it ‘enhanced play.’ I guess it was his new favorite way to hurt me.
I groan as I roll over onto my side to sit up after passing out on the floor. The bruises are gone and the gashes on my leg from the blade have scarred. My head still hurts from the concussion I got from having my head slammed repeatedly into the wall. My grace fixed most of it, but it couldn't fix it all.
There's a noise outside the door as I move to sit up against the wall. Sounds like shouting. I guess another demon didn't do their job right and the asshole is lashing out at them. Again.
Always makes for a fun time for me.
The noise gets louder as whoever’s outside approaches the door. I close my eyes when I hear the heavy door opening. I don't need to look at the asshole.
“Gabe?”
That voice doesn't belong to the asshole’s.
I open my eyes and see Sam standing there in the doorway, hand still on the door handle. He's not real. It's just the asshole playing with me again. I close my eyes again and wait for the inevitable hand or boot.
A few minutes pass and nothing happens. That's strange. I open my eyes again and find the asshole kneeling right in front of me. His hand reaches out and I turn my head away.
“Gabe,” his voice sounds pained. I'm not falling for it. It's not Sam.
Fingers cautiously touch just below the left side of my face and slowly turn my head to face his. There's tears in the corner of his eyes, but I know that those are fake. He's tried that one on me before. I will not fall for that again.
“What did he do…” his thumb runs along the bumps on my mouth and I flinch in his hand.
He sighs and pulls his hand back, “Come on, Dean and Cas are waiting in the throne room. Let's get you out of here.”
He stands up and reaches a hand out for me to take. I shake my head no and cross my arms. The asshole's arm falls and he kneels down again.
“It's me, Gabe. Come on, let's go,” he reaches his hand out again, but I just shake my head. I'm not taking his hand again. I still don't believe that it's not just the asshole playing with me.
“Why won't you…” there's a flash of something in his eyes and he reaches into his pocket. He pulls out a small knife and raises it. I try to pull away, but he puts his hand on my face to prevent me from doing so. I close my eyes as he slowly brings the knife closer to my face. The feeling of cold metal on my skin causes a whimper to escape from my throat. Then the feeling of strings snapping causes me to open my eyes. He's actually cutting them?
Once I feel the very last string snap, I open my mouth wide and take a mouthful of air. My jaw is stiff and painful from keeping it closed for so long.
“There. Now will you come with me?” his eyes are pleading. If this is the asshole he should get an Oscar.
“No,” my voice comes out strained and gravelly and it doesn't come out louder than a whisper. I can hardly recognize it as my own. It's been so long.
He looks at me in confusion, “Why not?”
“You're just the asshole. You're not Sam.”
“It's really me, Gabe.”
I still don't believe him. The asshole had gotten more creative with Sam after the second time. By what felt like the fifteenth time, I had stopped trying.
“No you're not,” my voice isn't doing any better than before. After what's probably years of no use I'd expect no less.
“How can I get you to believe that it's really me?” He looks around the room before turning back to me and closing his eyes, taking a deep breath.
“We first met at Crawford Hall eleven years ago. You were posing as an innocent janitor when Dean and I came to investigate the death of that professor. You had us stumped for a while. Can you believe we originally thought it was a haunting? It wasn't until we had called Bobby that we even got anywhere in the case thanks to you,” there's a ghost of a smile on his face.
“When I entered that gym auditorium to kill you, you winked at me. Then Dean plunged the stake into your chest and everything stopped. A year later, you got your kicks by making me relive the same Tuesday over and over again. You must've killed Dean over a hundred times before I caught you. Strawberry syrup.”
My eyes widened. Nobody but the real Sam and I know about the strawberry syrup. The asshole must've just got lucky with that detail.
“Then you disappeared for two years until you trapped Dean and I in TV land. I'm still annoyed at you for giving me genital herpes and turning me into the Impala. You don't know how weird it is for your brother to be rummaging around in your trunk when you're a car. And then you begrudgingly confessed that your name was Gabriel in the ring of holy fire we trapped you in and I just couldn't help myself. I had thought that even though you lied to us, you were still you. You're quirky, dorky, candy loving, annoying self.”
The asshole never goes this far. He has never told stories before. He always stuck to trying to get me to trust him enough to leave the room. He couldn't tell these kinds of stories. He was never there. The asshole doesn't have Sam's memories…unless he has Sam.
The man's eyes open and look directly into mine, “Elysian Fields. I still hate you for that, you know. You shouldn't have sacrificed yourself for us, Gabe. We could've figured out how to get out of there without Lucifer knowing. I…I never meant for you to die. I came back after Lucifer left and buried your body by the willow tree out behind the hotel. Dean tried to get me to leave, but watching Lucifer stab you and then seeing your wings scorched into the ground…I just couldn't leave you. I just couldn't do it, Gabe.”
I had felt my copy being buried, but I wasn't sure who was doing it. All I felt coming off the person was heartbreak, anger and sadness.
“‘It's gonna be the death of you, Sam. Sometimes you just gotta let people go.’ That's what you told me in Broward County, Gabe. Turns out you were right. It would've been much easier if I just let people go. Let you go…” he chuckles, “but if that was the case I wouldn't be kneeling here trying to get you to believe that it's really me, now would I?”
Those were my exact words I told Sam when I told him I was done with the loop. I'm beginning to think that this isn't the asshole. That it might actually be Sam.
“Sam?” His eyes widen and his arms come around to hug me. I struggle at first but once I realize that this hug isn't cold and distant like the hugs from the asshole always were, but was instead warm and smelled like fruit I sank into it.
“Sam,” I bury my face in his neck as his arms tighten around me. It's really Sam. He's really here. I'm getting out of this hell.
He unwraps his arms from around me and brings his lips to mine and I melt into it. They're soft compared to my rough ones, but neither of us care.
He pulls back and holds out a hand, “What do you say we get out of here and go find Dean and Cas?”
Without hesitation I grab Sam's hand and he pulls me up, “I say it's about damn time. Let's blow this popsicle stand.”
Sam lightly chuckles and leads us out of my cell. I stop walking just outside the doorway and look back at the small room I've had the unfortunate chance to call home for the last few years. Good riddance.
“Gabe? You okay?”
I look away from the cell and to a worried Sam. I flash Sam a grin.
“For the first time in a very long time Samshine, I’m okay.”