It's a slow, painful process, not helped by the fact that oh god there are stairs. Sam looks at them in mildly perplexed defeat. This is going to suck so much.

He jumps when someone speaks up right behind him.

At least Sam's reflexes haven't suffered too much, because he spins around immediately and nearly overbalances and catches himself on the wall and he barely stays on his feet and god he looks like shit and he swipes the hair from his eyes and he stares at the guy facing him and the momentum of his thoughts abruptly slows.

Gabe's dead. They saw it, the charred outline of wings burned into the rug of a ratty hotel not unlike the one Sam's found himself just now.

He grasps for any kind of adequate response, but comes up short and simply stares at him, vague and dazed.

"What the hell," he rasps.