Sam, laying in the back of the Impala nearly passed out with his legs scrunched up because otherwise they won't fit, is drunk.

It was about time, really. It's been five days and he hadn't even looked at alcohol until tonight. He guesses he was still in Well-Adjusted Mode. Or maybe Shock Mode. Then he entered that bar on whim instead of just driving past, and next thing he knew he's being guided to the car and curling up in the back seat with full intentions of passing out.

It almost feels good being back at Dysfunction Junction.

He shifts off his back onto his side, groaning a little as his slowly building headache protests the movement. He tells his head to suck it up because his knees protest louder than his head can.

There's a little more wiggling to do before he finds the perfect comfort spot. He sighs in contentment. Naturally he promptly tilts over and flops on his stomach. He can't be bothered to fix this. His arm falls off and under the seats and his hand brushes against something square.

Sam unwillingly opens his eyes. He has absolutely no idea what this thing can be; Dean always keeps the car OCD clean and Sam makes a point to do the same. Frowning he picks the object up to look at it. His frown deepens.

It's the porno. Not just any old one Dean might've picked up, but The Porno. The one containing Gabriel's last words and instructions and numerous sexual positions that made even Dean gag. That last remnant as far as they knew of the archangel. They don't need it anymore, of course, but neither ever felt right just throwing it away. So it spent all of its time under the seat. Until now of course.

Sam stretches his other arm out into the front seat and feels around until he has his laptop. He drags it back, props it up next to his head (he isn't willing to get up even for this), and pops the DVD in. He feels like he needs to see it again, make sure he preserves the memory of the most obnoxious angel in existence despite the fact that he'll have trouble remembering this entire night in the first place.

"Dear diary. Being a high powered business president is super fun. But sooooo hard."

Sam barely registers the woman lying on the bed in lingerie; she's not the important part. The mustachioed room service man is the only thing that matters here. If only he can keep his eyes open.

"Sam, Dean. You're probably wondering what the hell is going on."

There he is. Sam smiles sleepily. Gabriel may have been a giant dick to them, but it's sort of hard to hate a guy who leaves his last words in the form of bad porn. That whole saving-their-asses-and-trying-to-kill-Lucifer-for-them thing sort of balances out the earlier dick moves, too. Filled with a contentment emphasized by the buzzing beer still in his system, he closes his eyes and let's the sound of Gabriel explaining wash over and carry him to sleep.

Sam wakes up with a blistering headache and a odd weight on his back. He groans (which makes the headache feel worse) and tries to turn over.

"Woah there, cowboy. Take it slow and easy. Looks like you got yourself well and wasted there."

Sam's eyes snap open at the sound of an impossible voice. Couldn't be...He struggles to turn over to see if he's hearing things, but the weight sitting on him pins him down.

"Now, now," tuts the voice as Sam flounders. "If you'll wait one second..." There's a fluttering of wings and the weight disappears. Sam struggles up into a sitting position (oh God his head just exploded) and looks around wildly to find the source of the voice. His eyes lock onto the front seat where the source is smirking at him. His jaw drops.

"Gabriel?"

"The one and only."

Sam gapes openly. "But...how...?"

"The DVD, Sam. Took you long enough to finally pop it in again. I was starting to worry that I was never getting out but I knew I shouldn't've lost faith in you, kiddo."

Sam blinks and rubs the bridge of his nose. The thunking of his head and roiling of his stomach makes it hard to think. "Wait," he says finally. "You were in the DVD the whole time? How is that even possible?"

"Trick of an archangel. Put a little of your grace in an image of yourself and it can become you. After being observed, of course. Then walla! Instant backup you." Gabriel's smirk deepens and Sam gets the impression he's waiting for Sam to sound impressed. Unfortunately he's too busy fighting through brain funk.

"So if you had to be observed to get out, then why not when Dean and I watched it just after you died?"

"After observing, you moron. Not while. You two knuckleheads never stopped looking at the DVD so I never had the chance. You turning it on and passing out gave me just the opportunity."

"That doesn't make any sense."

"Look, I really don't want to get in a debate about quantum locks. It worked. I'm here." He stretches his neck. "A little rest to regain my missing grace and I'll be good as new." Another flutter and he's gone. Sam nearly releases a few choice curses until he catches Gabriel outside the car, looking around. He grumbles and opens the door like a normal person.

A bad idea of course. The soft morning light feels like two heat lamps pressed directly against his sockets, and if he thought he had a headache before the blistering needles in his skull prove otherwise. God he hates hangovers.

"You alright there, Sasquatch?" Gabriel says as he saunters over. He looks up into Sam's face with a cocked head and raised eyebrow (and a goddamn smirk) and Sam feels distinctly uncomfortable about it.

"Just a headache," he mutters. He closes his eyes and pinches his bridge again to will the pain away. He isn't willing to open his eyes and face the sun just yet.

"Ahh, knew I smelled booze," Gabriel says. "Must've been a lot of it to make you pass out. I don't want to seem ungrateful, so here's a little something." He touches Sam's forehead and (thank God) the headache and nausea building in his stomach disappear.

"Thanks," he sighs in relief, opening his eyes in time to see Gabriel lower his arm.

"It's the least I can do. What's with the bender, anyway? Things seem pretty Apocalypse free. Congratulations, by the way."

Sam face falters, and he looks down at his shoes.

"It's-"

"Where's Dean?"

He stares at the archangel. So many things can be said about Gabriel, but slow on the uptake is apparently not one of them. "You picked up on that fast," he says finally.

"Not too hard to figure out. You two are always connected to the hip. Only major period of time I've seen you two apart is that Tuesday"-Sam's jaw twitches at the mention of that particular prank and Gabriel speeds past it-"and when he went to Hell." He pauses and frowns in thought. "He's not in Hell again, is he?"

"No," he snaps, not even wanting to consider the possibility. He takes a breath and forces his voice into a more level tone. "I don't know. It's possible, I guess, but I don't think so. He's missing though. Six days ago I woke up in D.C and looked over at his bed and he just...wasn't there. His stuff was there, the keys were still on the table, no note. He hadn't gone out for a second, or gone to get a bite to eat. He was just...gone. No sulfur, no EMF, hex bags, nothing." The memory of that day and the next, rushing around town looking for Dean, tearing apart their room, trying to find anything that could tell him where his brother was while not panicking like he wanted to, plays in the back of his mind. He tries to push the memory panic down; he can't deal with it here. Not with Gabriel.

All remaining traces of mockery finally fall off of Gabriel's face. "No traces of anything?" he says.

"Well, for the most part. When I was looking through the room I found some of this on the floor next to the door." He opens the passenger door to reach in the glove compartment and grab a plastic bag. He hands it to Gabriel who holds it up to eye level and studies it.

"That's just rock and dirt," he declares. He switches his gaze from the gravel in his hands to Sam's face. "Doesn't look special. You sure it wasn't just stuck in your boots?"

Sam shrugs helplessly. "It's the only lead I got. I was driving out to a university to use one of their labs when, well..."

There's that smirk again. "You found a bar and decided to wallow a little," he snorts. "Well, luckily you got me."

Sam's eyebrows shoot up. "You're offering to help?" he laughs. Gabriel puts on a face of mock-offense.

"Hey, I'm a nice guy! Stand up citizen," he grins. "Besides, I got nothing better to do. I don't feel like going to Heaven just yet, ya know? Family reunions are always awkward. "

He snorts. "That's probably for the best. Heaven just went through a hell of a time and they're probably rebuilding as we speak."

"What happened?"

Sam's half smile falters. Right. Gabriel hasn't been around for awhile. "A civil war happened," he says, not knowing how to break the news in any other way but bluntly. "You've missed a lot."

"What? You can't be serious. Angels don't fight each other. We aren't programmed like that."

"Micheal and Lucifer were."

"That's different. How-" Gabriel falters and wavers. His face turns pale and he seems to have difficulty even standing. If Sam doesn't know he's an archangel he would think he's going to /faint./

"Hey hey, are you okay?" he says, taking a step forward just in case the guy collapses.

Gabriel puts a hand against the car to stabilize himself and shakes his head. "I'm fine," he says. "Just got a little..." He shakes his head again. "I'm not running on full steam and healing your hangover took more out of me than I thought. I couldn't exactly put a lot of grace in my image. I just need to snooze for awhile. A couple hundred years sounds pretty...good." His knees buckle with the last words and he would've fallen to the ground if Sam didn't grab him first.

"Woah man. I got you." Sam eases the almost passed out angel into the already open door and shuts it carefully. He slides into the driver's seat and starts up the car. "Let's get you on a bed."

"Make it out of chocolate and you're my hero," Gabriel mutters. Sam can't tell if he's being serious or not but he doesn't have the chance to ask; the angel's already out for the count.

It's weird, he decides, two miles down the road. He can probably count the number of times he's seen an angel sleep on one hand, and all of them were Castiel after getting severely injured. He supposes getting killed counts as severely injured. Gabriel doesn't seem too worse for wear, though, other then the whole fainting thing. As long as he was joking about sleeping for a few centuries.

Sam sighs. A comatose archangel, a missing brother, and a very dubious lead. Oh yeah, and Leviathans still out there doing whatever it is they're planning.

"Don't forget about me, Sam. You wouldn't count out your old friend Lucifer, would you?"

Simple problems are overrated, anyway.

Lookie here. I'm back from the fanficwriting dead and I have been resurrected into the Supernatural fandom. Awesome.

Hopefully this'll get beta'd by someone else other than me soon. Until then feel free to point out any spelling/grammar errors you see.

A note: this is not a Sabriel fic, technically. In that I didn't really intend for it to be one.

It sort of ended up sounding like pre-slash, though.

Whatevies.

EDIT: Hardcore edit-time is going to happen as Felix-bot is not happy with this and also the plot-processors have finally loaded a plan for the story.

This chapter's safe because Felix-bot is pretty happy with this and it doesn't conflict with the new algorithms. Read the next two at your own risk, though.