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Oftentimes, darkness felt safer than the yellowish light that crept underneath Gabriel’s door after he had gone to bed. Ever since arriving at the Men of Letters bunker several months previously, he had taken to blocking the light with blankets if he was feeling particularly vulnerable or jumpy.
As time passed, Gabriel resorted to this strategy less frequently. He told himself that this was because he felt safer, but the truth was that he didn’t like impeding Sam’s access to his bedroom. It was a difficult balancing act: when he was scared, he blocked the light as best he could because it reminded him of the tawny, nauseous glow of Hell; conversely, episodes of fear led him to hope (and not without shame) that Sam could easily get inside.
Gabriel was irritated with himself: irritated by his indecisiveness. Irritated that he needed to feel as though he had protection.
He was a matured creature, as archangels went. He had millennia of knowledge and experience, had moved forward from innumerable mistakes and traumas of one flavor or another. It was challenging enough for a single human lifespan to remain unblemished by certain horrors; one person’s existence, laid bare for vivisection, was pockmarked by violence and death sitting upon its surface like cigarette burns.
Immortality, then, couldn’t be expected to remain clean.
But the problem wasn’t about Gabriel enduring the terrors of Hell. It was that previous traumas had been left behind, or at least used to fuel something in Gabriel - a sense of justice, perhaps, or an appetite for revenge. Bad experiences led to changes in his perspective and character, had brought him (for better or worse) to somewhere new.
His experiences with Asmodeus had done nothing but torment him.
“You’re doing your best,” Sam often reminded him. “Don’t try to do more than that. And besides, you’re getting better. Even if you can’t see it yet, I promise you’re getting better.”
Gabriel knew this to be false.
There was still an enormous amount of information he hadn’t shared with Sam. The very worst of what had taken place in Asmodeus’s care could not be described at all. Indeed, there had been occurrences so grisly that Gabriel couldn’t bear to think about them - such abuses of his dignity that he was sure, no matter how Sam might protest, would make the others see him as foul and unwelcome.
Such were the images that caught up to him late one night.
He jerked awake from another series of nightmares, one bleeding into another as he flitted in and out of sleep. Before his mind could light fully upon the material world around him, he spotted the light coming from the hallway through the crack under the door and choked upon his own fear.
Pictures spidered through his mind and burrowed into his stomach. The air in the bedroom grew smaller and tighter until Gabriel felt as if there were a pair of hands over his mouth and nose.
He coughed, trying to rid himself of the sensation, and then finally remembered that he was in the bunker.
Gabriel shoved himself upright. His pajama top clung to his skin, but he felt ice-cold. He debated getting up and clearing his thoughts with sights, sounds, and odors that signaled the safety of the bunker, then considered taking a shower to wash away the cold sweat, and then finally lay back once more to swallow down as much nausea as his dream-shaken stomach could handle.
But the silence bled into Gabriel’s throat, choking him; into his veins, chilling him; and into his vision, warping the bedroom from a shelter into a prison.
Fifteen minutes later, he leaned against the wall in the corridor. The world swam in front of his eyes as his blood reoriented its route.
If he had made a sound, he didn’t know; but Sam must have either heard or sensed that something was amiss, because his door opened and he hastened to Gabriel’s side.
“What’s wrong?” asked Sam. He reached out one hand to steady Gabriel but didn’t touch him.
Gabriel straightened slightly. “Nothing.”
“Are you sure? Please don’t lie.”
“Nothing, nothing,” Gabriel repeated. “Felt sick, is all.”
“You can wake me up for that, you know. Or someone else.”
“Oh good, because apparently I just did.”
Sam looked uncertain. One hand still hovered in midair, ready to catch Gabriel. “What do you need? Did you throw up?”
“I’m okay,” Gabriel replied, answering neither question. “I had a nightmare. Got dizzy.”
“Well, are you headed back to bed? I can help you get there if you want.”
Gabriel focused his vision to home in on Sam’s expression. He was drowsy and pale, but his eyes were bright with concern.
“Hey, look,” Sam added when Gabriel didn’t respond to him, “You seem real wobbly. Let me just make sure you get back to where you need to be, all right, buddy?”
Gabriel felt himself relax. “Yeah. Sure. If you want to.”
Sam smiled. “Can you walk?”
“Yeah.” Gingerly, Gabriel pushed himself from the security of the wall. He felt steadier. “Guess I stood up too quick or something.”
“You’re exhausted,” Sam pointed out as they began to shuffle down the hall. “Gabe, you’re so pale I can almost see right through you. Why didn’t you let me know?”
“No, you're right; I almost forgot how easy it is to shake you awake in the middle of the night and tell mommy I had a nightmare.” It sounded angrier than Gabriel had intended, but even with Sam’s transparent desire to be of help, he felt humiliated for accepting it.
“Gabriel,” Sam said, “You know you can wake me up if you have a bad dream.”
“I - ” Gabriel stopped walking, shut his eyes, and took a deep breath. “Yes. I do. I did want to. I always want to, but it’s hard.”
Sam laid a hand on his shoulder. “No, of course. I get it. Just keep in mind that I’m here. And that I understand what it’s like.”
Gabriel nodded. The two of them were silent until reaching Gabriel’s bedroom. With the knowledge that Gabriel had not tried to jerk away when Sam touched his shoulder, he grasped Gabriel gently by the arm and ushered him toward the bed. Had Gabriel wished to escape, he could have. Instead, he found himself leaning nearer to Sam out of a sudden fear of premature release.
“Thanks,” said Gabriel as Sam lowered him to the bed and let go. “Are you going to hurt me later?”
“No,” said Sam, but then the bluntness of Gabriel’s question slammed into him with all the force of a spear hurled across an arena. “No, Gabriel! What made you think that?”
“It’s not a what, it’s a who.”
“Yeah - Asmodeus - but geez - ”
“I’m sorry.” Gabriel’s stomach twisted with embarrassment. “I’m sorry, Sam; I had to check.”
Sam sighed. “Right. Okay, well, no, Gabriel. Everything’s good.”
Concerned that he had offended Sam, Gabriel added: “You were helping me. And - he gave me reason to think twice about taking someone at their word. Also, if you did something for me, then maybe I gotta do something for you.”
Sam quickly schooled his face into stillness. “No. No, it’s not - you don’t owe me a favor or anything.”
“Okay.”
“Do you believe me?”
“Yes. Well. Not really.” Gabriel's heartbeat had sped up. He was sorry to have asked what he did. Clearly this had upset Sam, and Gabriel could understand why.
Even so, he had needed to ask.
“Gabriel.” Sam’s voice was softer now. “You didn’t do anything wrong. I was just surprised; I wasn’t expecting it, that’s all. Also, it sucks that you thought you might be in danger. But I know you think that sometimes. I know it goes through your head. That’s okay. I just want you to feel safe.”
Gabriel attempted to speak but found that he was feeling nauseated again, so he simply nodded. From the corner of his eye he could see Sam watching him closely, surveying him as if seeking signs of injury for which to account before making a next move.
Finally, Sam asked: “Want to tell me what’s bothering you?”
Gabriel shook his head.
“All right.” Sam squeezed Gabriel’s shoulder before putting enough distance between them that Gabriel would feel at ease.
Gabriel fidgeted, longing for the warmth of Sam’s hand but hesitant to ask for it.
“Look,” Gabriel said at last, “Every time this happens, I just - I feel like I owe it to you. To be honest, to tell you about everything. If anyone deserves transparency, it’s you, Sam. But - I can’t. I can’t. There are some things that just can’t be talked about.”
“Sure.” Sam had heard this before, Gabriel knew.
“At the same time,” Gabriel continued pleadingly, “I hate keeping anything from you. For all sorts of reasons, I don’t want to keep anything from you.”
“What reasons?” Sam asked.
“For one, I couldn’t lie to him. To Asmodeus. He could tell when I wasn’t giving him the truth. What that meant was that I - that he - that there was a sense of not being allowed to hold anything back.” Gabriel swallowed. “Even if I knew I’d done something bad, something that would definitely make him punish me, I always felt like I had to come clean. Saying nothing felt like a - like a sin. If you’ve ever seen Catholic confession, maybe, or listened to someone talk about needing to atone … it was like that.”
“Uh-huh,” Sam answered. “Listen, as much as you might not have said to me, I really doubt that you did anything wrong or bad enough to ‘make’ him punish you.”
“I don’t know. Maybe not. Anyway, the other thing about holding back from you - man, you do a lot. Give me more than you should. Even if you don’t think so, I know I need to even the score.”
“You really don’t, Gabriel.”
“Yeah, fine, whatever, all right. I don’t like not giving you what you want.”
“What I actually want is for you to try and stop seeing me and Asmodeus as the same person.”
Although Sam’s tone was gentle, Gabriel’s throat tightened. “I don’t.”
“Sometimes you do, I think. Not your fault. But I’m not keeping score about the amount of information you give me.”
“I know, but - ”
“I only want you to feel like you’re able to talk if you want to. That’s all. I don’t need a lab report. But I do think that - ” Here Sam paused, carefully considering his next words. “I think that keeping those thoughts to yourself can give them power over you. And I think it might help to start making space for some of them. A little at a time, maybe.” He shook his head. “The way you talk about Asmodeus, and then the way you try to explain what you’re thinking - it sounds like even if you believe that I’m not Asmodeus - and I’m not, Gabriel, I’m Sam - you might be holding the two of us to the same standard.”
Gabriel said nothing.
“It’s a safety thing; I get it,” Sam added. “You’re trying to protect yourself. And I’m not blaming you at all, even a little. But it’s something to think about. When you’re calculating exactly what to say to me, or how to phrase it, or trying to come to any sort of conclusion day to day, you’re not working with the same variables you’re used to.”
“But - ” Somehow Gabriel longed to put up a fight about this. Wanted to explain that this may not be possible for him - to outline why his position was reasonable. That he was right.
I want control, Gabriel thought suddenly. Sam is the one in control right now.
He cleared his throat, but his voice was still raspy when he spoke. “I was having bad dreams. They were about a lot of different things. Most of which are so repulsive that I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to tell you about them. And that isn’t because you remind me of Asmodeus. It’s because I know if I start talking about them, I won’t be able to stay calm. And also because - ”
Gabriel halted, and Sam waited.
Gabriel tried to focus on his breathing - slow, cautious, deliberate. “Because,” he went on, “I don’t want you to see me the same way he did.”
There were a few moments of silence, during which Gabriel refused to meet Sam’s eyes. But then Sam answered, “That seems unlikely.”
“But not impossible,” Gabriel amended.
“I mean, ‘impossible’ doesn’t seem like a stretch to me.”
“Yeah, well.”
“Yeah. Well.”
“You deserve better,” Gabriel reminded him. “Better than what I’m willing to say or do or be - ”
“So do you.” Sam moved closer to him. “You didn’t deserve any of what happened to you, and maybe sometime you can be a little more patient with yourself. The one to hold responsible for these nightmares is Asmodeus, Gabe - not you.”
“I can’t do anything to him, though. Not now that he’s gone.” Gabriel gave a rueful smile. “But I’m here, and who else is there to bully?”
“Come on, does anyone have to get bullied?”
“I don’t know what dynamic you’ve been following, but yes. As far as I’ve been taught - yes.”
“Gabriel … man …”
“I know you don’t like to hear it, but - ”
“I get it.” Sam’s voice was weary now. Gabriel had kept him out of bed for too long. “Asmodeus really messed with your head. That’s not your fault. You need a lot of time to get better, I think.”
“Maybe I’d get better if you just agreed with me. Sure would make things a hell of a lot less complicated.”
“But I can’t do that. I don’t agree with you.”
“Listen, I’m probably wrong about most everything, and stupid, but somehow I’m right about this.”
Sam looked pained. “Was that supposed to be a joke?”
“No, it was philosophy. I’m contemplating the paradox of my own mind.”
“Don’t drive yourself crazy.”
“Imagine that. I met a crazy person once. He had a lot of bad dreams, woke up crying, sometimes couldn’t remember where he was, thought the guy who looked out for his best interests might actually be an awful lot like the sadist who locked him in a cell in the underworld - wait, hold on - ”
“Gabriel, stop.”
“Nothing is ever easy with me, Sam. I’m a disaster and I know it. You don’t mind, blah blah, but I can’t help feeling like I’m doing something terrible. Like I am something terrible. And part of the reason why is all this extra horrific stuff that can’t be spoken about. Not stuff that I choose to keep my trap shut about - I mean there things I really can’t say, not without enough shame and embarrassment to kill me. But still, sometimes it wants out. Sometimes I really want to tell you. Maybe it’d feel good to talk about it; I don’t know. But when I think about being specific and telling you exactly what happened to me in Hell, it’s like the words lodge themselves halfway and I can’t even begin to consider actually telling you. Actually saying it. Even if I wanted to.”
“Hmm.” Sam looked thoughtful. “If you ever wanted to talk about something like that, maybe you could just … bring up one part of it. If you can’t be totally open, I mean, what else would be good for you? What do you think would make you feel better when that stuff is on your mind?”
Gabriel hugged his midsection. “I just need it to not have taken place.”
“But that’s not one of your options,” Sam said softly. “What else can we do so you don’t have to just sit and suffer?”
Gabriel shrugged, feeling cornered. “I guess I don’t see anything in between having never had it happen at all and letting it just rot inside of me. Like sepsis.”
“Oh, Gabriel …”
“Don’t.” Gabriel’s voice cracked and he cleared his throat. “Please don’t.”
“Okay. I’m sorry.”
“No, you - for the love of - you’ve got nothing to be sorry about!”
Visions flooded Gabriel’s mind: Asmodeus seizing him, stripping him, and forcing such unspeakable behaviors that, then and there in the warm safety of Sam’s company, Gabriel felt electrically aware of the depravity of his human vessel. Wracked by echoes of his own feral pleas for help, Gabriel felt every bit the greedy animal Asmodeus had declared him to be.
Gabriel's shame was so great even at what he saw in the private theater of his own mind that it seemed criminal of Sam to withhold open disgust.
He was overtaken by an urge to begin sobbing, or to vomit, or to hit something - but not to speak. The prospect of confessing what felt like stains upon his existence registered as nearly impossible, almost as another sin in its own regard.
“You won’t touch me anymore if you ever find out what he did,” Gabriel muttered. “Imagine someone tells you they’ve got a contagious bug. You stay away. Imagine if - if even though it’s not going to infect you, it’s necrotic, and you’re touching something that’s started to putrefy. Doesn’t matter how much you love the person; it’s still a gross dead thing.”
Sam’s response was immediate: “But it’s not contagious, and you’re not gross, and you’re alive. And,” he added after a moment’s consideration, “I’m a hunter and can handle all of that stuff.”
“But you don’t - ” Gabriel felt his stomach seize, and he swallowed against the surge of nausea. “You don’t know. I haven’t told you; you didn’t see.”
“That - ”
“I have so many nightmares.” Gabriel’s fingers twitched, and he squeezed handfuls of the sweat-moistened bed sheets. “The dreams don’t always make sense. Sometimes I think - I think - that I’m seeing things I don’t even remember. These things, these faces - stuff comes up that feels familiar but I also just don’t really know what I’m seeing or why it feels almost like a memory. Demons especially; they - I can see their faces, maybe recognize them, sort of - I know them, I think, but it’s so damn cloudy and - and some of what happened was so long ago that - ” Gabriel paused to breathe deeply. “Sorry, I sound like I’m chewing on broken glass - can’t hold a thought in one piece. Anyway, no matter what, there’s this deep feeling of sickness and terror, the feeling I’m always trying to tell you about. You know, everything’s discolored and sinister. It’s part of why I get sick so much: I can taste that feeling, and I have to get it out.”
Sam released a breath. "But you can't talk about any of it."
“Definitely not.” Gabriel’s voice trembled. “Even thinking about it now, I feel like I’m gonna throw up again.”
Sam, opting not to comment on the “again,” held out his hand in a familiar gesture of comfort. Reluctantly, almost begrudgingly, Gabriel took it. “Ugh. Thanks.”
“You know, it’s weird,” Sam remarked. “You don’t feel gross or dead or anything. I guess maybe that’s just me, but it’s kind of hard not to notice.”
Gabriel tried to scoff, but felt on the precipice of retching and so remained silent.
Sam continued, “You don’t gotta tell anyone anything. But maybe, if you think you can try a little at a time - ”
“Maybe.”
“Are you sick? You sound like you don’t feel good.”
“No.”
“Are you just saying that because you think I’m mad?”
“No.” Then: “Trying to convince myself I’m all right, maybe. Yeah, I don’t know. I feel weird. I’m tired. But going back to sleep is just letting the rip current take me out.”
“Don’t they say you’re not supposed to swim against a rip tide?”
“Sorry, I didn’t realize this was the oceanography final. But I’m not laying back and trusting Poseidon with my safe return. And for the record, a rip current and a rip tide aren’t the same thing.”
“So am I the one who failed the oceanography exam?”
“Sorry, paisano. You can have participation points.”
After that, they sat in silence for some time, Gabriel using the one hand to grasp Sam's and wringing the sheets between the fingers of the other, trying to decide what to say next. Words fought for liberty between each heartbeat - words that embodied the truth behind the nightmares that had shaken him awake and led him to fear the light scuttling like a meek insect over the threshold of his bedroom door.
“Sam,” Gabriel said, and leaned against him. “I’m really sorry to have woken you up for this. I promise I didn’t mean to. I wasn’t, you know, lingering in the hall hoping for you to eventually hear something and come help. These bad dreams just don’t stop. I thought they would’ve by now. It’s been months since I came here. Months. And the nightmares haven’t gotten easier or less frequent. I know you say this is what happens when you come out of Hell, but none of it makes sense to me. I’m not being held prisoner anymore. What gives me the right to act like I still need somebody to break me out? I already got what I wanted. I’ve escaped. I didn’t even do any of the dirty work; someone threw me a bone and I got lucky. And still, all I do is complain as if none of that ever happened. As if I even deserved that luck in the first place. I know it’s human to be traumatized, to need time, but - I’m not human, Sam. Shouldn’t I be letting you sleep? Shouldn’t I have been on my merry way by now? Why am I still so - so tormented?” He released the sheets to rub at his eyes. “I don’t understand. No matter how many times you try to tell me, I still don’t understand.”
“Gabriel, listen - ”
“I really am trying. I swear I’m trying.”
“I know. I think - ”
“Do you honestly believe it’d be better for me to tell you more about what happened? About some of the darkest, most horrible events? I don’t know if I can. I just don’t - I don’t think I can do it.”
Sam shifted his weight so that their eyes met. With the one hand he held onto Gabriel’s, and the other he laid upon Gabriel’s shoulder. “Yes, actually - I do think it might help. You don’t have to; of course you don’t have to, but - you don’t think it might be good for you to see that I don’t react to this stuff the same way he did? Because in your mind, you’ve got things set up like as long as you keep some of this stuff back, then I might still respect you. I might still care. But until that’s been put to the test, you just can’t be sure. What if you gave me the truth about what’s on your mind - about these awful memories - and I didn’t hurt you? It might bring you here, Gabriel. Into the present. It might make a difference.”
Gabriel shook his head. “I can’t know if you’d be telling the truth.”
“About what?”
“About not feeling different towards me.”
“Yeah, Gabriel.” Sam gave a sad smile. “That’s called ‘trust.’ You’d have to take my word for it. I know it’s hard to believe anyone wouldn’t think about you differently. Really, I get that. When something like that’s happened to you, it messes with everything. I’ve been there. Don’t forget: I was in Hell too. For a long time. I know what it’s like to carry this kind of thing around and not want to speak a word about it, okay? For whatever it’s worth, you’re not alone in hoping to keep those memories locked away from the people you want to be able to take them to.”
“He told me - ” Angry with himself, Gabriel practically slapped at the tears on his face. “He told me not to keep anything from him. That it counted as some type of betrayal if I tried to hold anything back. Except when I needed help - when I was in pain - he was angry, Sam. So angry. I couldn’t choose. Do I say something or not? Do I change what I’m feeling so it better fits what he wants? If I can’t, then do I tell him I failed? Is it better if I start the punishment myself by berating my own idiocy and letting him finish the job instead of running the show from beginning to end?”
“That sounds confusing."
“And then what about those times when I really needed help and he was there cradling me and telling me everything was going to be all right? What does it say that I could never figure out what made him want to do that one second, and then change his mind half an hour later? Was it me? What did I do?” Gabriel pulled his hand free of Sam’s and covered his face. “I don’t understand what I did.”
“Nothing,” Sam answered at once. “Gabriel, how could you calculate what he expected of you from one moment to the next? It sounds like he wasn’t making sense. It sounds like he wanted you to need him and had fun with the mess he could make of that.”
“And I can’t say it; I still can’t say it - ” Gabriel was frantic now, dropping his hands from his face to claw at his knees. “I still can’t - if I try to tell you - if I try to - not just one thing, though; there’s so much, and - and even if you want me to talk, even if I want to talk, I still can’t - can’t think about saying it. I’ll vomit, I’ll pass out, I’ll scream. I can’t - can’t even - ”
“Okay.” Sam’s voice dropped to a near-whisper. “Okay.” He placed a steadying hand on Gabriel’s back. “There’s no need to talk about it. Not now. Not yet. Breathe, buddy.”
Gabriel squeezed his eyes shut, tasting tears on the corners of his lips. He was shaking. “They’re in my head. The nightmares. The demons.”
“That’s okay. They’re not here. It’s all right, Gabriel.”
“And it’s in me, in my body, inside of me - them, the things they said and the things he did to me. I can’t get it out; I need help, please.”
“I know. Hell is a scary place. I’m glad you’re not there anymore.” Sam sounded almost frustratingly level-headed. “Deep breaths, okay? You’re fine, Gabriel. You’re just scared. I’m here.”
Then and there, in the throes of terror that wracked his body with spasms and sickness, Gabriel had a fleeting urge to tell Sam everything: every memory of what Asmodeus had done to him, of the most nauseating atrocities that had befallen him as punishment or for play - an impulse to blurt out the worst encounters, the most vile; worse than having been force-fed his own intestines, worse than being locked in a coffin pressed close to his captor, worse than screaming and sobbing for a modicum of comfort from a floor painted in his own blood and the dirt from demons’ feet.
Yet there were some experiences that were truly unspeakable.
Gabriel said nothing, only sobbed and, even in the wake of every effort at self-control, finally retched hard enough to injure himself and vomited bile onto the bedroom floor.
If Sam was upset about this, he didn’t show it. His hand remained steady upon Gabriel’s back as he spoke quietly, rhythmically, to try and remind Gabriel that nothing of those bad dreams or ugly memories could touch him.
Gabriel coughed. His chest and throat ached from throwing up too forcefully. Hazily, he felt foolish: what else ought he to have expected? He was panicked and exhausted. He had not tried to calm himself down; instead, he was scraping in shallow breaths and ruminating on terrible dreams.
“Sorry,” he rasped, “I’m sorry.”
“No, hey.”
“I should just talk; I should just tell you.”
“Gabriel, that’s not what I said.”
“There’s so much - ”
“Gabe - ”
“And I’m disgusting - ”
“Gabriel.”
“I want you to know; I have to tell you, but never, never, no, I can’t - ”
“Easy. Come on, come here.” Sam pulled Gabriel close, at first with caution and then, when Gabriel did not resist, more firmly. “You’re gonna drive yourself insane. You’re overthinking things. You don’t have to say anything, and there will be time later if you decide you want to talk more about stuff that happened. It’s not like tonight is the one night for you to choose. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it now too: there’s no one right way for you to handle everything you’re dealing with. You have got to cut yourself some slack, Gabriel.”
“But if you knew, if you knew - ”
“But I don’t know, and it’s up to you if you want me to know anything more than what you’ve given me already. But all those thoughts about me not wanting to be around you, not wanting to touch you or whatever - I mean, based on what I have to work with, it sounds like Asmodeus gave you good reason to be careful about being honest with anyone, even me. But - I mean, look, you know this - ”
“You’re not him,” Gabriel whimpered. “You’re not him.” Gabriel trembled, breathing jaggedly, terrified by the remnants of nightmares still swimming in his veins. “That’s the worst part, Sam. That you’re not him. What if I lose you?”
“Lose me? What, because of how I might react to the truth? No. I get it Gabriel, but no.” Sam sighed. “I wish I knew how to get you to believe me. I think the only way to change your mind about this is if you open up when something is torturing you and see for yourself that I wouldn’t give you the same kind of treatment he did. Empirical evidence, you know?”
Gabriel shuddered against Sam, who held him more tightly. “Yeah. I don’t - yes. I’m sorry. I’m tired. I’m confused.”
“Of course. Anyone would be.”
“I’m ashamed of myself all the time, Sam.”
“Sure. He wanted that, I think. That was part of his game.”
“I don’t - I never used to be like this. Feeling dirty and diseased. But now …”
“Yeah. That’s on him too. He’s the gross one, Gabriel, not you.”
“How are you so sure? He could be right.”
“Who do you think knows better: me, or Asmodeus?”
Gabriel closed his eyes. “You, I guess. I’m not sure. Sometimes I just can’t figure that out. I’m sorry. I know that’s stupid. I’m psychotic.”
“No, Gabriel. You got hurt and it makes sense for you to be afraid of it happening again.”
Gabriel laid his face against Sam’s shoulder.
“We might need to think about a solution, though,” Sam added. “Something to do for when you can’t decide if you want to tell me about something. What do you say about bringing up a little at a time?”
“How?” Exhausted, aching, ashamed, trembling, Gabriel wrapped his arms around Sam. “How do I do that? I don’t know how to do that.”
“Play it by ear. And if you can’t do it, that’s okay too.”
“How are you so damn patient, Sam? All I do is run into walls that I built myself.”
“You didn’t build them. Asmodeus did.”
Gabriel pushed himself off of Sam, too worn out by now to care whether there were tears streaking his face. “But I’m the jackass who keeps running into them!”
“And we care about you not getting hurt when that happens. Me especially, Gabriel. I want you not to get hurt anymore.”
“But how can you know that when you haven’t heard the grossest things that happened down there, Sam? What if - ”
“There.” Sam placed a hand on either of Gabriel’s shoulders and met his eyes. “Yeah. See, that. if you keep asking ‘what if’ then everything is going to look a whole lot worse than it is. You’ve got to allow for some room around the possibility that I wouldn’t think the same way as Asmodeus. If you keep fighting the alternative way to look at this, you’re depriving yourself of what you need. I know it’s hard to stop, but it does have to stop.”
“Okay,” Gabriel rasped, wondering if he was just looking for an excuse now, “And what if it freaks you out because it reminds you of your time there?”
“I guess that could happen. But right now you can’t worry about me. I’ll be fine.”
“But what if you’re - ”
“And you can talk to the others too. If that’s what you want. You have options, Gabriel.”
“I - what if - ”
Sam raised his eyebrows.
Gabriel looked away. “Sorry, sorry.”
“It’s okay, Gabriel.” Sam pulled him in for a hug again, and Gabriel was relieved at the reminder that Sam hadn’t yet begun to grow sick of him or taken him at his word that there were some things that simply shouldn’t be touched. “When you want to talk to me, you can talk to me. But it’s up to you. Just remember that anything holding you back from being honest when you want to be honest isn’t coming from a reliable source.”
Gabriel nodded against the fabric of Sam’s pajama top. Then, grateful that he didn’t have to make eye contact: “Now would be an opportune moment for me to spill the beans and break through my own damn prison. You know - for dramatic effect. For narrative harmony. For a satisfying climax.” Then: “Hah. Satisfying climax.”
“Right,” said Sam, “But that’s not necessary if you can’t do it yet.”
“Okay. Good. Because I’m not ready.”
Outside of the bunker, dawn would have been breaking. To Gabriel, it did not feel like morning.
Nevertheless, even as the grotesque echoes of what he had seen in those nightmares chilled his bones and soured any sense of reality, whatever light might be creeping in from beyond his bedroom felt a little friendlier.