This slots into Turn Back the Clock somwhere around the chapter 9-10 mark. Sam is back from Hell (which occurs in Chapter 6 of TBTC), and Cas and Gabriel are waiting to see what Raphael will do about the apocalypse.
The only thing that has been missed between TBTC and here is a conversation between Dean and Gabriel that is kind of fun, and totally written, but hasn't made its way into an actual chapter yet.
There is an MA/NC-17 version of this fic available on AO3, should you feel that way inclined.
Ellie had a house. That in itself shouldn't have been so surprising: Dean knew plenty of hunters with permanent homes. In fact, John had been unusual in not having a home base.
But Ellie had a nice house; big and old and with a library and a training room and more bedrooms than Dean would know what to do with.
"Hey, I didn't leave my boy with nothing, you know," Gabriel said, her arms crossing as she leaned against the doorjamb. Dean couldn't quite tell whether she was amused or irritated at his incredulousness.
Dean felt a bit cornered, trapped in this bedroom, with its solid oak furniture and an archangel blocking the only exit. Or the only one that wouldn't hurt a lot: the window was big enough to jump from if it came down to it. Maybe that was overly dramatic, but it paid to be wary with Gabriel around.
"I..." Dean didn't know what to say that wasn't going to sound really horribly insulting. Because the fact was that Ellie was clearly loaded, and maybe having a house wasn't unusual for a hunter, but having money was. "I just didn't expect this."
Gabriel shrugged. "Juri had an image to uphold when he came over here," she said. "He was a scholar, officially; researched local legends, the truth behind the myth kind of thing. Wrote a lot of books, came from a good family. The nice pile went with the image."
Dean snorted at Gabriel's description of what her son had done for a living. "How many of those things were you?"
Gabriel gave him a smile that was almost shy. "Then? None. Most of them were witches or monsters. And it meant he could justify having a library full of the supernatural. And this place?" Gabriel knocked an elbow against the doorjamb meaningfully. "Thick walls. Angel-proofed delicate things. Think of the fun you can have."
"Who needs angel-proofing?" Dean asked with a smirk.
Gabriel rolled her eyes. "Cas? Oh, sweetie, wait until you see what happens when he comes."
Dean just stared, his eyebrows raised. He was desperate to wind Gabriel up, but he sensed it would be more fun to let her work it out for herself.
"No! No way! How…"
Something changed in Gabriel's face, and one of these days, Dean was going to have to get around to defining the subtle difference between Gabriel and Ellie. Something in the eyes, because Gabriel looked a lot older there, like her millions of years showed. Cas' eyes showed his age too, but Dean was damned if he knew how that worked. He was even more surprised that other people couldn't see it; that he hadn't even seen it the first time he had laid eyes on the damn Trickster, because it was so obvious now.
"Hey, Munchkin."
"Hi, Dean. Sorry about Gabriel: she's got no respect for boundaries."
Dean shrugged. "Was kind of fun, winding her up like that."
Ellie blushed, just a little bit. "This is the most heavily protected room in the house, though," she admitted. "It was my great-grandparents'."
Dean knew enough about Ellie's family by now that he could work out the significance behind that one: Ellie's great-grandparents had both been guys, and the Van Helsing one, Gabriel's son, had been the last one in their family to have any mojo until her. The similarities between them and him and Cas didn't escape him. He also knew they had lived until she was ten, so she had some decent memories of them. It probably took a lot for her to give their room away.
He smiled and kissed the top of her head, which he knew she hated a lot less than she made out. "Thanks. So, Cas still in the library?"
She nodded, her eyes shining with laughter. Dean knew exactly why: Sam had had a complete nerdgasm when he saw the library, and had insisted on going through everything. Only he had discovered pretty quickly that most of the volumes were not exactly in English. The Latin ones he was fine with, but the majority were either German or Dutch, neither of which were languages Sam had bothered to learn. Cas had stayed with Sam while Ellie had assigned rooms and got them ready with Gabriel's help.
They were only planning on staying a day or so, just so that Ellie could get stuff in order before heading back to the States. True, Gabriel could yank her back every time she wanted to hang out, but they had discussed it between them, and it just made more sense for her to be right there with Sam and Dean. Plus, Dean was convinced that she and Sam had a thing. Something of a thing, anyway, and it certainly wouldn't hurt if Sam got laid. So she was planning on moving Stateside while whatever was going to go down in Heaven went down, and needed to do practical things back home. Dean had no idea what, but had fancied the trip to England even if it did mean flying Angel Airways: it was a hell of a lot better than flying any other way, like he had last time he had been to the UK.
Maybe he had entertained thoughts of actually seeing a bit of the country before, but now all he could think of was taking advantage of the room that had been handed to him on a platter; seeing what interesting noises and light shows he could wring out of Cas when they didn't have to worry about levelling Bobby's place. And maybe afterwards, they could get a good look at the warding and apply it to his room back home.
.oOo.
Dean had only just flicked on the TV out of some vague interest (expecting Doctor Who, because what the fuck else was on British TV) when the news article caught everyone's attention:
"Another couple have disappeared from the Cardigan Bay area. Twenty-three year old Ffion Jones and twenty-two year old Siân Williams, both post-graduate students at Aberystwyth University, were last seen by housemates on Friday. This brings the total that have gone missing along the sixty mile stretch of coastline between Barmouth and Cardigan to fourteen over the last month: most from the Aberystwyth area. Dyfed-Powys Police and the coastguard are urging people to keep away from the water."
"Wales, anyone?" Ellie asked, somewhat redundantly.
"I hate water monsters," Dean grumbled even as he reached for Ellie's laptop. "They're cold and slimy and have far too many fucking tentacles to be real."
"Tentacles aren't for porn, dude," Sam said, almost as a reflex. This was not a new complaint, and it had put him off tentacle porn for a good few weeks after their last encounter. Unfortunately, this time they had an audience, and that snigger had Gabriel written all over it.
.oOo.
The angels' quick scout of the bay yielded nothing, which was worrying in its own right: one couple might be an unfortunate accident (and Ellie had in fact written the first couple's disappearance off as such when it was reported just before she had been yanked out of her normal life); two might be coincidence over such a large area, but seven definitely spelled 'supernatural disturbance'. That the angels couldn't get a sense of what was causing it was definitely something Dean thought he should be concerned by.
Ellie opened up a secret doorway in the library to uncover what might have been called a study, but to the gathered hunters looked more like a war room. One whole wall was a pin-board, to which Ellie quickly attached a map of the Welsh coastline and, with Sam reading the information from the BBC News website, they quickly identified where the seven couples had vanished from, establishing a timeline of sorts.
It wasn't much to go on. As the news reporter had said, five of the disappearances were from around a much smaller (and much more touristy) area, but it was still a big area. Not unfeasible for a sea creature, mind: Cas and Gabriel both commented on how far sea creatures roamed, simply because of the sheer vastness of the ocean. They didn't have the same limits as land animals, and their territories were correspondingly larger.
Good old research seemed the best way to go: find out what they were up against before heading over to the other side of the country. Dean hit up the internet, Sam pulled out some possibilities from the few books he could read while Cas and Ellie browsed the ones he couldn't. Gabriel interjected some useful info occasionally, either adding to some sparse details or correcting so-called facts that were completely wrong. She crossed out and re-wrote things as she came across them, and encouraged Sam and Cas to do the same. Dean found it amusing to watch as sometimes, Ellie would be in charge and, with a sigh, switch the pencil from her right to her left hand as Gabriel told her to correct something.
Ellie's local Indian takeaway delivered some deliciousness late into the evening. Indian was something unusual for Sam and Dean, and something Ellie had bemoaned not being readily available in South Dakota. Sam scowled a bit at the sheer volume of carbs on offer rather than a nice, healthy salad, but Dean tucked in enthusiastically and forced Cas to try out the spicy sauces. As it turned out, Cas seemed to like the heat from the spice, and Dean managed to catch Gabriel's eye, the two of them in complete understanding, silently plotting Cas' downfall. Dean only hoped that Ellie didn't feel the need to tell Cas at any point.
Dean's research-brain slipped into a coma at around two in the morning, and he headed upstairs to crash, regretfully alone. He hoped the angels would get the message and make Sammy sleep too, otherwise he would be cranky and bitchier than usual in the morning.