Title: Everything Changes
Author: OpheliacAngel
Pairing: Gabriel/Dean
Genre: Romance/Hurt/Comfort
Rating: Teen
Summary: It takes a surprisingly deadly encounter to make Gabriel realize that protecting Dean may not be so easy after all. Then again, losing him is not an option. Title comes from Staind's 'Everything Changes'.
A/N: A different take to 'Hammer of the Gods' and its aftermath, so it's all AU. Just a little something I wrote in a little over a half hour. I've been trying to write some shorter things, ones that I don't feel the need to expand, so this is one of them and I'm putting together a few more. Hope you like.
Kali and Baldur make their presences known abruptly and cruelly. At one moment he and Dean are trudging alongside a lake, looking for any remnants of the Banshee they're searching for and the next Dean is in the water, struggling to breach the surface. Gabriel screams for him, knowing he didn't just fall in before he jumps in himself on pure instinct. He pushes his way through the thick greenish blue water quickly, catches sight of Dean's flailing limbs, unable to pull him back up to the surface so that Gabriel knows something, or rather someone is holding him down. He swims towards him fiercely, unable to think of anything else but reaching his screaming mouth that pours out painful muffled words.
Dean is drowning and Gabriel doesn't have much time left.
The water seems to be holding him back, pushing him further away from Dean with every foot gained, every arm stroke he dares to take. What must be only seconds later but feels infinitely longer, he watches with horrified eyes as Dean's own begin to slip closed. His mouth no longer pours out screams, his arms and legs no longer flail with the fight that is always within the human.
This is when the archangel truly panics.
With every ounce of strength left within him, he pushes his vessel to its near breaking point, screaming Dean's name and with one last burst of energy he pushes the water back, takes hold of Dean firmly and quickly and yanks him back up towards the surface. This isn't a time to be gentle with him so he isn't, his fingers dig into his arm so fiercely that he's sure blood will be oozing soon. The water is fighting to take him back but it won't win. Gabriel is stronger than that and loves Dean too much for that.
Then he's reaching the surface which once seemed so far away and bursting through the water faster and faster until Dean is out of the danger zone. The first thing he does is cough and gasp for air because his vessel demands it, but he doesn't provide himself with relief for very long before he's slapping Dean hard on the back several times as well as he is able. The panic begins to ebb away when he feels Dean come back to life and do the same, his body immediately tensing in his tight grasp, fingers clutching Gabriel's now soaked jacket fiercely.
Gabriel wants to smother Dean with kisses even though he's still out of breath and Dean is far worse off than he is. Instead, the archangel pulls Dean gently and carefully towards the shore, holds him close until his fingers grasp grass and push the two of them up out of the water.
He didn't realize it before, because he was so occupied with saving Dean, but the water is freezing and he now becomes fully aware of it, enough so that his body begins to shake violently and his thoughts turn to the hypothermia that may soon take hold of Dean if he doesn't get him warmed up soon.
Gabriel gently eases Dean out of the water, before removing the strong arm held around his waist and looking up to find Baldur and Kali. For a few minutes the only sounds that can be heard are Dean's coughing and wheezing as he tries to force the water out of his throat and onto the soaked grass, and his excessive shivering as he collapses onto the ground and fights hard to slow his breathing.
If his human weren't in such bad shape right now, he'd be pissed. And if Gabriel wasn't so terrified at what this all meant, he'd have the energy to feel enraged too.
"There's nothing to worry about", he reassures the two standing before him, their eyes dark and turning darker when they find the human. "Dean is not a threat and I'll make sure he stays that way."
"You better stand by your words, Gabriel", Baldur warns, glancing down at Dean with suspicion, maliciousness and worrying intent lying stark in his features.
Gabriel is scared by the look, suddenly wonders if he'll be able to protect Dean after all when faced with both Kali and Baldur. But then he thinks of it no more because if it ever came to that, he would die for the human currently fighting to breathe beneath him.
That is how deep his concern runs. Deep enough to shock even him.
Baldur's words, laced with evil intent, only continue to pour forth from his dreadful mouth, "Or we'll make sure to teach him a lesson that he won't forget."
They're scared… of Dean. And maybe in another moment Gabriel would be laughing. Then again, maybe not because it's Dean, not someone else, who's at stake here.
The archangel looks towards Kali in a rare desperation that he doesn't wish to feel, hopes he will see sympathy but there is nothing, no former emotion remaining from when she was with Gabriel. Kali could care less about Dean and she brings it across to the archangel with one simple look.
If Dean is a threat, she won't hesitate.
Gabriel swallows hard, forces himself to not come across as too terrified or worried. The two of them, Kali whom he's loved for so long and Baldur whom he's loathed for so long, don't need to see more than a flicker of his emotions towards the human. Kali doesn't need to see his probably all too apparent love, and Baldur would destroy that with a smile on his face if he felt like it. Luckily, he doesn't quite feel like it now.
"We'll keep in touch", Kali speaks directly to him before they both disappear.
Gabriel stares at the spot where she once stood for a few moments before focusing back down on Dean. He bends down, not on instinct but as proof of his sympathy and love, and takes Dean into his arms, focuses on his breathing slowing down to normal levels and his heartbeat continuing its furiously terrified thumping in his chest. Gabriel holds him close because he can't afford to lose Dean.
If he lost Dean he'd lose himself, a vital piece of himself that he cannot live without.
This is why he continues to hold Dean as his heartbeat gradually slows, as awareness comes back and brilliant hazel eyes glide effortlessly into his own. His mouth opens to speak but the archangel gently shushes him, glances around at their surroundings one more time to confirm the both of them are safe until Dean's shaking with cold and relief and exhaustion form pulls him back down to the human he loves with every breath left in him.
"You're safe now", he whispers, stroking back Dean's hair and rubbing his arms along his soaked to the bone body, hoping to warm him just that little bit that will pull him back to full consciousness and comfort him. "I'll keep you safe."
It's a promise he'd rather die with than break. And he'll make sure that the forever he promised to Dean is more than just a word.
FIN