Summary: While Sam, Bobby, Dean with a cast on his leg, are up in Rufus's Cabin, there's not much to keep the gang occupied aside from Spanish soap operas. There is however a radio and Sam has taken to broadening Dean's taste in music, that is, until a certain song comes on… and only after escaping from a year in purgatory does Dean come to discovery what exactly that song is.

AN: These ideas keep popping up in my head from these YouTube videos. Anywho, yes, Symphony Soldier came out like, five weeks before 7x03 "The Girl Next Door" aired, so I figured it was as perfect a time as any to place it… or at least that was the plan, then it grew like all fics do.

He was an Angel with a Shotgun

"I'm an Angel with a Shotgun"

Much to Sam's surprise, he had managed to talk both Bobby and Dean into listing to a radio station with the current hits on it. This nightmare of a song however wasn't heard on the current hits, no, they heard it on the local classic rock station. Dean was resting, and had been snoring not too long ago on the couch while Bobby read a book. Sam meanwhile was on his computer doing what limited research he could. The radio was comfortable white noise more than anything else, but then the announcers had said they were playing something a bit different next, they explained that the song they were going to play had a bit of a story behind it and why they were playing it on their station. They provided the website and then the song began to play.

Bobby and Sam paused at that, because it was just too fresh in mind, Bobby was near enough that he almost shut it off, or at least change the channel which after "I don't care if heaven won't take me back," was sung, is exactly what he did, until he landed back on the current hits station they'd been listening to.

Sam turned back to his computer, that website and those first words echoing… he shouldn't have gone searching, but he did. In turn he found an interview with one of the writers.

"It's a funny story really, I was at a bar, half drunk at the time, but I remember the trench coat well… that and the backwards tie." Cas,,, what had Cas done here?

"I remember he came in and ordered biggest glass of the strongest stuff they had. I in my half-witted mind decided to try and make small talk, I think my brain thought he was a girl or something, or maybe I'm just going soft."

"I don't remember the conversation too clearly, but there were things that stuck out, words… phrases really… fighting a war for humanity, not knowing what he was getting into when he went to hell. The guy said he pulled a man out of hell, said he didn't know it at the time, but that's when his programming fried, he wasn't supposed to have emotions." Even after everything, Sam still wondered if that was true.

"I assume in hindsight he was likely a vet, a marine probably… and it honestly looked like he was on the edge of jumping off a cliff. I asked him as much and I sobered up fairly well at the look of "oh you stupid idiot, what the heck do ya think" He said it would be pointless to try, it wouldn't do any good, not yet anyway. I backed off then, realizing he wasn't going to go off himself, then the bar tender intervened, and I just listened. It struck me, and I wrote down what he was saying, shorthand of course,"

"Once he left, I was going on my way when the bar tender told me two things, 1. Keep his name out of it and 2. If I was going after the guy, I'd want to keep an eye out as he was apparently on a mission to go drink a liquor store." Sam remembered the aftermath of that night, when they dealt with the Whore of Babylon.

"Anyway, suffice to say that there was a special someone who happens to like classic rock… call me a romantic but playing this on the classic rock stations every once in a wile would be awesome, maybe if they listen, maybe they can find their way back to each other through the whole mess."

Below the interview were the lyrics to the song "Angel with a Shotgun" by "The Cab." By the time he finished going over the lyrics, he could feel the tears that were trying to form, the thoughts he was already pulling a Dean and trying to bury, because it was far too late for anything to be done.

Sam closed the web page tab, and did the best he could to try and forget the betrayal that had them in the mess that the world was currently in. He went back to research, the other two occupants of the cabin, none the wiser.

It would remain a forgotten song for a long while, mercy would have it, that it never played when they were listening to the radio in their stolen cars, never heard any of it again actually. At least not until it was far too late.

Sam was driving aimlessly in the Impala, trying to forget, trying to drown out whose car he was driving, and what had just happened, Dick was gone, the Leviathan slowly falling in his wake; but Dean and Cas were gone too.

Then the song played once more, and he hoped above all hope, that Cas and his brother were at peace… were together at least. That is the thought that was going to keep him sane, and that is the thought echoing in his mind as the last refrain played as the impala hit a dog.

That dog with a few broken bones turned out to be a godsend for him, it was a new start, his blank slate.

That song became a source of refuge in time, he kept it on his iPod, and he would listen to it whenever he missed either his brother or Cas (most of the time, it was both). It was a way to remember that they were at peace, they were together, they were happy.

If only it had been so.

After Dean came back from Oblivion, he'd never played his iPod in the impala ever again, but he still kept it on his person, he just hardly listened to it. Still, he couldn't help but bug his brother about his rather narrow taste in music, if only for something to keep him busy. Somewhere along the line, Dean finally gave up and yanked the iPod out of his brother's bag on his motel bed, shooing his brother in to the shower as he explored that which was full of hundreds of songs.

Sam had left it on shuffle, and he really hadn't taken that long of a shower, but when he came back out, Dean was in his standard light sleep, to which just about anything would wake him from it, anything except Sam's ninja skills really. He checked the iPod,

"Angel with a shotgun" was on repeat, Sam smiled, wondering but knowing he would never ask, if Dean had just found this, or if he had heard it before. Sam grabbed Dean's phone to charge it for the night, but curiosity got the better of him, he checked what he brother had left it on… it was that damn interview that Sam had read what seemed like so long ago.

Sam looked back at his brother, he could see the salt lines down his face now, and for the first time since he heard the song, Sam let his own tears fall for them.

Two days later, Castiel appeared, somehow, someway.

Even after they learned of Naomi and what she did, Sam would always hold the belief that the only reason they could get Cas out, was because of his brother, because of their "profound bond," if he remembered correctly from his time being soulless. Yeah, Naomi could suck it, Cas was a Winchester, and the Winchesters somehow always managed to find a way to get the Winchesters back.