Sati had showered first, followed by Emma. Afterwards, the pair of them hurried upstairs to play in Sati's room. While Sam kept a watchful eye on the children, Dean and Cas sauntered into shower—together. Gabriel didn't even want to think about what the pair were doing in there.

While they showered, he heard Sam climbing the stairs to the third floor, presumably setting the room up for Dean and Emma. Gabriel felt a pang of guilt again, and knew they had to talk about it. They had to. Maybe not tonight, maybe not even tomorrow, but soon. And if Sam decided to leave, well, Gabriel had no one to blame but himself. He'd have to live with it.

Before he had much time to think it through, his legs carried him up the stairs, and he found himself knocking on Sam's door.

When the angel answered, he stared down at Gabriel and seemed terribly confused.

"Are they ready for the room yet?"

Gabriel shook his head. "Still in the shower."

They stood in silence a moment, staring at each other. With each passing second, Sam seemed more and more upset, which was sort of not what Gabriel had in mind.

Sam broke the silence first.

"Are you… Are you going to ask me to leave?"

Gabriel blinked. That was not what he'd been expecting.

"Uh… no. That's not… no. I wouldn't do that." He shook his head, shaking away the confusion. "This is your home as long as you want to stay, Sam. I promised you that." Gabriel paused, awkwardly scratching at his hair. "Though I could see why you'd want to leave, what with me being such an ass."

Sam huffed, and turned his head aside. "Why must you persist in speaking so poorly of yourself?" More statement than question, and more exhausted than irritated.

"That's just how I am, kiddo," Gabriel told him. "I'm an ass to everyone, especially myself."

Sam turned back towards him, his gaze forlorn. "Can you truly not see your value to those around you?"

Nope. This conversation had already gone places he didn't want to visit.

"Look, I…. Can we not? At least, not right now? I'm tired. You're tired. It's not the best time."

Sam sighed, but relented. "As you wish. What do you require of me, then?"

"Well, I'm doing some work down in the lab, and I wondered if you wanted to come down and help me." He shrugged. "Since you'll be sleeping down there anyway, I also sort of wanted to make sure you didn't mind if I worked for a while."

Sam lowered his eyes, his jaw dropping. If it had been any other situation, the expression of shock on the angel's face might have been hilarious. Right now, it made his stomach churn, anxiety skittering across his skin.

Gabriel stuck his hands in his pockets, and knew he'd descended into rambling at this point, but didn't care. "But if you don't want me around, I won't hang around. I'll work on my stuff tomorrow." He turned his head away, unable to meet Sam's intense gaze.

The angel remained silent a long moment. "I thought you did not wish to see me," Sam murmured, his voice careful, "much less speak with me."

Gabriel sighed. "Look, you don't have to. I just thought… you know, maybe you wouldn't want to stay cooped up in there all night all alone." He shrugged, trying to look uncaring and casual, and failing by a mile. "Or you could come down and watch me work, and you wouldn't have to do anything. 'Couse, I could see why you wouldn't want me around either. I haven't exactly been nice to you today, especially after you kept an eye on me when I got smashed last night."

The faintest hint of a smile curved the corner of Sam's lips. "You wish to accompany me downstairs?"

"Yeah. Why not? I mean, unless the thought bores you. If so, I totally understand. You don't have—."

"No," Sam interrupted, his voice rushed. He cleared his throat. "That is, I would enjoy that, but you owe me nothing, Gabriel." He paused, and those sad, worried eyes met his own. "You should only do so if it's what you wish."

Gabriel kind of felt like he owed Sam a lot, but it probably wasn't the time to say so just yet. Sure, it all felt awkward, and they couldn't avoid having the talk forever, but maybe they could just sit and chat comfortably for a while. They could act like they always had, before Gabriel had gone and gotten so drunk he'd ruined everything.

Gabriel smiled, warm, but guarded. "Yeah, I really do."

Dean and Cas didn't stay in the shower long. The hot water ran out, apparently, and he heard too much noise and laughter for the late hour. They emerged a few minutes later, wet hair and all.

Laughter. Joy. Gabriel envied them both, more than a little. He felt so tired.

Cas wore his own clothing, while Dean wore an ill-fitting outfit of Sam's. He swam in extra fabric.

As they made their way down to the basement lab, Dean and Cas made their way up.

"Tuck Sati in for me, will you?" he asked Cas.

"We'll even sing her a lullaby," Dean drawled.

Gabriel rolled his eyes. "I said 'tuck her in.' Not terrify her."

He chuckled, and so did Gabriel, and for once, everything felt somewhat easier.

"Don't worry," Cas told him, and it seemed like he knew something… but Gabriel would have to deliver the awful news later. "We'll take care of her."

"Thank you, Sam," Dean said, all sweetness and polite to him. "It's so nice of you to let us stay in your bed."

The angel smiled, warm and bright. "Think nothing of it. Rest well with your little one. The window will rattle during the storm, but do not let it worry you. Gabriel and I've sealed it from the dust."

They all squeezed by one another in the stairway, and Gabriel paused only long enough to heat up the last of the atole Sam had made earlier (Sati and Emma had drank most of it). Sam declined, and so Gabriel ended up with a giant cup all to himself. All the better, because the night had grown cold, and he needed something to warm him.

As they descended into the basement lab, Sam set about covering the couch with the sheets he'd obtained upstairs. The old linens had long lost their beauty, speckled with stains and loose threads. The angel topped his makeshift bed off with a single blanket crocheted from old, acrylic yarn. Warm, but itchy.

Gabriel tried not to stare; tried not to notice Sam at all as he unpacked his equipment from the cabinet. He wanted to take a quick glance at the blighted leaves and see if they would cross-contaminate a sample of spring corn.

If it did, well, they were all in serious trouble. But these strains usually took time to leap from plant to plant, and even if one plant became contaminated, it didn't mean they'd lose the whole crop.

Besides, they had immense food stores, enough to last the four of them a year or more. And if Sam choose to eat less, which he could occasionally do, they could stretch the supplies further. And they might find more food hidden back in the ghost town, whenever they had a chance to go back.

Sam had finished making the couch into a makeshift bed by the time Gabriel had unpacked his microscope. The angel sat quietly atop the folded blanket, staring at him as he always did during these nights down in the lab.

Just, you know, further away.

Gabriel carefully sliced a section of the blighted winter corn stem, and spread it on a slide. One tiny squeeze of dye, and he pushed the slide underneath his microscope, turning the light beneath and above the glass up. He hadn't made the slice thin enough, or maybe he'd used too much dye, but he had a hard time getting a clear glimpse of the plant's structure.

But even though his view could've been better, he saw enough. Tiny spores swarmed everywhere, eating up the blighted plant around them. They multiplied and spread through the plant at an alarming rate. Even already destroyed, the spores would not stop until they had ruined every cell within the plant. It was a brilliant plague to curse humanity with: slow, but deadly. After all the drama of the Apocalypse and the broken promises and the fifty million other ways they could have all died, it would be this persistent, troublesome blight which would ruin them in the end.

Now, he just had to compare the samples to the ones he had in storage. He'd start with the early spring corn preserved in paraffin wax, and move on from there. Since they'd grow the early spring corn in the next planting season, it seemed necessary to examine it next.

"Hey, Sam," he said, not glancing up. "Would you bring me one of the unblighted samples of spring corn?"

He heard the couch creak behind him, and Sam's barely-there footsteps as he crossed the room to the far corner, where the specimen cabinet stood. The doors creaked open, and Gabriel forced himself not to turn around and stare as he listened to Sam sorting through the tablets of paraffin.

He stared down at his microscope, but his eyes went blank, unable to focus on anything. He had something else growing on his mind, and he had to get it out before he burst with it.

"I'm sorry about this morning," Gabriel said, refusing to glance up.

The noise of Sam's hands stuttered, but after a moment, continued. "You've nothing to apologize for."

"I'm pretty sure I do," Gabriel argued, daring to lift his eyes and face Sam. "I freaked out and ran away. I shouldn't have done that."

Sam did not turn to face him, but Gabriel noted the tilt of his head. The angel listened intently, his hands pausing over the samples.

"You were overwhelmed," he replied, lowering his head to stare at the numerous samples.

Gabriel blinked. "Why are you trying to defend me?" he asked, stunned.

This time, Sam said nothing, instead continuing to sort through the samples. He retrieved one, holding the whitish block between his thumb and forefinger. He turned to face Gabriel for the first time in the conversation, and he seemed like he wanted to bolt from the room… and also like he feared Gabriel might do the same.

No. Gabriel wouldn't turn tail and hide this time. He had to face it.

Sam approached, holding out the carefully-labeled sample out to Gabriel.

He didn't take it. "I asked a question," he repeated. When Sam didn't answer, when he cast his eyes to the ground, Gabriel pushed just a little harder. "Please?"

The angel lifted his eyes to meet Gabriel's, and he felt so guilty. He opened his mouth, just about to tell him he didn't have to answer anything he didn't want to—.

"Because," Sam began, waving his free hand in an awkward motion. "Because these are painful, touchy subjects. It's too easy to give into a desire to flee from them." He paused, setting the sample on the table when Gabriel wouldn't take it himself. "Besides, I have done similar things in my own time. I have… kept secrets."

"Secrets aren't a good thing, though," Gabriel told him.

Sam tilted his head, considering. "I am not certain I agree, not in totality," he countered, and that surprised Gabriel.

"How so?"

Sam did something approximating a shrug, turning to stalk back to the cabinet. As he secured it shut, he sighed. "Secrets protect us, sometimes."

Gabriel took the paraffin in hand, eyeing the green sample within. "But it's a false sense of security. It's not real."

"Yes, I suppose so," the angel agreed. "Sometimes."

The words comforted Gabriel more than he cared to admit, and before he even realized it, he felt an exhale of relief passing his lips—and he didn't even know why. Before Sam could turn around and peer at him, or stare in the way he did, or ask after him, Gabriel set about working on a new slide, cutting into a section of the preserved spring corn from last year. Even sealed in the wax, the stem remained a dark, rich green under the light as he sliced a tiny portion free.

As he made the slide, and set it underneath the microscope, Sam began to speak again.

"This morning," he said, "I asked you to wait. I said you did not understand."

Gabriel flinched, but he kept his gaze firmly upon the eyepiece of the microscope, adjusting until the cell walls of the plant came into focus.

"Would you hear me out now?" Sam inquired.

Gabriel's hands shook on the knobs, the word 'yes' on his lips, and his heart beating quickly. But just then, something caught his eye, and...

"Sam," he breathed, his stomach flipping with an altogether different anxiety. Because the preserved corn, the healthy corn he'd sealed away for future study was blighted.

He all but flung the slide from the microscope, and it cracked on the lab table. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Sam flinch, but Gabriel didn't have time to pay him much mind. He grasped the paraffin sample again, thrusting the entire thing underneath the microscope and focusing all the light he could on the sample.

He couldn't see much, but what he could see scared the hell out of him. Blighted. All of it. It still appeared green and healthy, but somehow the exact same spores which had infected the winter corn had found their way underneath the paraffin, lying dormant. In wait.

Sam approached him, discerning something entirely unrelated to their conversation had happened. "What is it?"

Gabriel stared up at him, eyes wide. "Get me more samples."

The angel's brow furrowed, but he nodded. "Which—."

"Bring me a handful," Gabriel interrupted. Bring me any of them, I don't care! Just do it!"

Sam rushed back to the cabinet with purpose, pulling it open and bringing a handful of different samples. Even in his hurry, he'd set them down in somewhat of an order. The early spring corn sat on one side, the late summer corn beside it, and the last samples of old crops of winter corn on the far side.

Gabriel grabbed one at random and thrust it underneath the microscope, hoping he did not see what he had seen before. And of course he did, and when he pulled the sample away to see the label, he noted it was a seven-year-old sample of late summer corn.

"Oh, god," he breathed, and grabbed another sample. He paused a moment to stare at the label first—spring corn—and pushed the whole sample under his microscope lens. More blight, impossibly sealed below the impenetrable layers of paraffin.

He had to hand it to Lucifer. His method of making everything go bad all at once was a goddamn accomplishment. They fought against a fucking magical blight.

No, not magical. Angelic. Archangelic. A creature with all the might and power of the universe had cursed them, and maybe this curse had taken its final swing.

He took sample after sample and examined it—Sam still organized them, quickly arranging them according to date and type—but Gabriel only witnessed the same thing over and over again. In every sample of every type swarmed the newest strain of blight, dormant and waiting beneath layers of paraffin.

He slowly lowered himself down into his chair, a numb shock settling over him. Sam still moved with alarm, arranging the samples in a frenzy, but Gabriel reached out and laid a hand over his, stilling his motions.

"Stop," he breathed, and the angel froze, the lines of his face twisted with worry. "We're done here."

The angel stared at him, his mouth opening and shutting, worried and confused. Gabriel didn't know what to tell him. He'd meant to check the corn to see if it could be contaminated. He didn't expect to find out the blight had taken its final, deadly swing.

"We're done," he repeated. "It's all over."

"Gabriel...?"

But he had no answers for him, no sense to make of this, and no words of comfort. The end of the world had come about for real, now. No one would survive. If their food stores held out, they'd make it a few years, but with nothing new to grow, the future looked bleak indeed.

"What is it?" Sam repeated. "What do you see?"

Gabriel stared up at him and tried to answer; tried to make his voice work. Instead, his voice made a vague croak, and he began to weep.

Sam's eyes widened, and a heavy hand rested on his shoulder, his face a mask of concern. But Gabriel couldn't stand to see such sympathy, and folded over his chair, arms crossed and face hidden behind them. He felt exhausted in every way as tears snaked out of his eyes. He felt so tired, and... and... here stood Sam, who stared at their work as though the world hadn't just met its end.

His warm, huge hand squeezed his shoulder, and Gabriel didn't glance up. Couldn't. Not if he didn't want to bawl like a child. All of it was blighted. All of it. They had no hope.

When he didn't reply to Sam, or even move, the angel sighed. "I shall put away the materials."

Gabriel remained frozen in place, slumped over and arms folded over his head, while Sam meticulously put away everything, even the cracked slide. Gabriel didn't watch, but he could hear the sound of tinkling glass, soft and careful and precise, probably because the angel knew how much care Gabriel paid to his lab materials. And because he valued it so much, Sam had made it of great importance to himself, too.

And Gabriel had nearly left him to die, almost a year ago, in a mix of anger and hysteria and fear. And now, and now... he loved him, and... Oh god, what if he'd actually left him there to die, all that time ago?

And at the thought, he sobbed, loud and uncontained. The stress of the day, of worrying over what he'd said the night before, the strained conversation between him and Sam, and everything else just became too much.

All movement in the room stopped. An overwarm body materialized at his side, and the comforting hand returned to his shoulder. Sam kneeled, his eye level lower than Gabriel, but he could not meet the angel's eyes. Couldn't.

Sam wouldn't have any of that, and threaded his arms right through Gabriel's, tugging gently for him to lift his head. Still giving him the chance to hide. Always leaving the door open so he could run away.

But asking, just maybe, for him not to.

But Gabriel tensed, and thought about fleeing again; about running away as he'd done earlier in the morning. But the angel lifted his chin, his eyes full of concern.

"You want to flee from me again," he breathed, a statement.

Gabriel wanted to laugh, to smile, to joke, to do anything other than admit the truth. But he had no laughter left in him. It had all dried up, lost in the wind, turned to ash and blown away with the dust.

"Yes," he croaked between tears.

The kneeling angel stared back at him, his face somewhere between apprehension and fear and wonder.

"Stay," Sam breathed, leaning forward, pressing his forehead against Gabriel's.

He felt so much terror, his heart beating rabbit-fast. He didn't feel like a conversation anymore, but he knew one loomed overhead.

"Stay," Sam repeated, his voice barely a whisper. "Please."

He stared back at the angel, whose eyes pleaded with him, and whose hands shook. Frightened because he thought Gabriel would run away again.

"Okay," he managed to choke out. "Okay."

The angel breathed a sigh of relief, and reached out to brush Gabriel's hair from his eyes.

"Gabriel," he murmured, searching his face for answers, never once breaking his intense gaze. Maybe he searched for answers for what had happened last night, or all the running Gabriel had done today.

But he probably wondered why he sat there, sobbing at his lab desk.

"It's all blighted," he croaked. "All of it. The samples which couldn't possibly be blighted, they're all…" He shook his head, unable to finish.

"But," Sam breathed, "they're sealed in paraffin—."

"This blight takes everything at once," Gabriel croaked. "It takes all the seeds, the plants, the banks, takes them all at the same time. It's a curse, not a real blight."

Sam looked on, his gaze turned dark, his lips parted. "All of it is blighted?"

Gabriel nodded pitifully. "We're all gonna die here, Sam," he said, and the tears flowed again, and the trembling came with it. "We're... we're gonna starve. And I got you stuck here, and—."

"No," Sam interrupted, leaning forward to press his forehead against Gabriel's. "We will fix this. And you did not strand me here."

His forehead, and the arms around his shoulders, felt solid and warm, and he couldn't help but lean back against him. He could allow himself a moment of weakness while considering the ultimate end of the world, right?

Sam's warm hand swiped over his cheek, fingertips wiping at his tears, and to Gabriel's great surprise, Sam's lips replaced his fingers. They felt dry and soft against his cheek, and Gabriel had no desire to pull away, no matter Sam's reasons. Even pity. He'd take pity right now.

"Gabriel Novak. Look upon me," he said, voice soft and firm. "Now."

He did as commanded, and found bright, hazel eyes close to his own, bright and warm and full of life. So full of life.

"You saved not only my life, but my very spirit," he breathed, hands ghosting across Gabriel's cheeks. "I had no hope. I had no future. My life had become naught but misery, and I had become a lost nomad with no home. You've given it all back to me, Gabriel, and you've asked for nothing in return."

He felt tears streaming down his face, his vision of Sam blurring from behind the wetness.

"Let me give it back to you, now," he said, his thumbs stroking his cheeks. "Let me return hope to your heart." One hand slid down, lower, pressing open-palmed against his chest. Jesus.

"We shall fix this. No one else shall die by this blight." The angel never broke eye contact, his gaze soft, but determined. "You've asked me to have faith in you before. Now I ask you to place your faith in me. Together, we shall find a way. We shall."

Gabriel sobbed. So youthful. A creature older than this universe, sounding young and new as it kneeled before him. Him! An archangel kneeling upon a dusty, dirty floor, when he should instead stand somewhere inconceivably far away, bathed in light and beauty. He had day-old stubble, dust in his lungs, and a limp in his left leg that still gave him pain, all when he should stand in none other than the glory of God Himself. Not the deadbeat God of this universe, but something higher. Something holier and brighter and more worthy of a servant like Sam.

He understood now, perhaps for the first time in his entire life, what 'holy' truly meant. And it was dusty and unkempt, and kneeling in front of him, as though Gabriel could ever be worthy of such a presence; as though anything that touched Sam, even the air, could aspire to brush against such divinity.

"Holy," he said, spoken with reverence, trembling. A statement. His fingers reached out to touch the lips of the creature who spoke such impossible things. "Archangel of the Lord."

Sam froze, his eyebrows knitting together in surprise. Or confusion. Probably that. "Gabriel?" he murmured, breath hot and moist against Gabriel's fingers.

Nonsense flowed through his head. In his misery, some old Bible verse he'd read long ago somehow found its way out of his head.

"For the Lord Himself shall descend from Heaven," he breathed, leaning closer to Sam, "with the voice of the archangel."

Sam remained frozen in place, silently staring back.

"Voice of the archangel," Gabriel repeated, half-drunk on the feeling of Sam's breath against his fingers. "Sam... Samael." He didn't even know what he babbled anymore, tears snaking down his face. "Holy archangel. The holy archangel."

His free hand trembled, and moved to touch Sam's cheek. The lightest, most ghostly touch he could manage, but entirely reverent; as though his other hand didn't still obscenely press against Sam's lips.

Sam's hand closed around his wrist, slowly pulling away his fingers, and even through his sobbing he whined in protest. But then Sam's lips were on his face; his cheeks, his jawline, trailing across the hollow of his throat. And Gabriel was lost, clinging to him and half mad with the need for him. For any of him. For any scraps he'd throw to the floor for him.

"Do you not already know," Sam murmured, breath hot against his throat, "how desperately in love with you I've fallen?"

Gabriel made a noise, somewhere between a choke and a sob, and his fingers threaded in Sam's hair, pulling him closer. The angel reached up and pulled him down, down from his chair to his knees, tugging him up to his lap until no space existed between them at all.

"I wanted to tell you this morning," he breathed, holding Gabriel close to him. "I only wished to tell you I felt the same."