She Talks to Angels
May 23rd, 1982
Balthazar sat at his desk in Heaven, looking at the telegraph. He was acutely aware of the messenger who had delivered it, waiting for his reply, but he could barely form a thought, let alone a sentence. Who in the hell had thought it would be a good idea to make ME someone's guardian angel? The powers that be are constantly up my ass for something. They think I'm responsible enough to take on a living human? He thought to himself. The telegraph, which he thought was quite the quaint way to deliver the news, read simply;
Balthazar,
We write to inform you of the impending birth of a baby girl, Y/N Y/L/N. She will be henceforth placed in your care as her guardian angel. It is imperative that you make sure no harm comes to her. She has an important part to play, as do we all. We trust you will be steadfast and accomplish your task.
-The Management
His eyes still round, he looked up at the waiting messenger.
"What shall I tell them, Brother?" The angel asked him. He, frankly, seemed just as puzzled by their choice in guardian angels as Balthazar was.
Balthazar cleared his throat. "Tell them... I accept." The messenger seemed shocked, but nodded, jotted down a few notes, and left.
That was the day Balthazar started stockpiling Biblical weapons.
Balthazar got tired of Heaven's bullshit soon after, but he decided that he would take his duty as guardian angel seriously. He watched over Y/N, checking in often. He saw her grow from an infant to a small child, to an unruly tween and an arrogant teenager, into a headstrong young woman. Frankly, he was proud of that. She could throw shade like none other, and though she had technically never met him, he felt responsible, as though his presence had taught her a thing or two about being a sassmaster. What he wasn't thrilled about was the day she decided to become a hunter.
Heaven had said she had a part to play, but he'd never given a lot of thought as to what that part may be. People played all kinds of parts, and not many of them had supernatural subtexts. But it was in a dark alley on the eve of her 24th birthday that Balthazar found out that Y/N was singled out for something with less than typical origins.
You were leaving the bar where you worked, walking quickly to your car parked out in the alley behind it, when you heard a noise, followed by footsteps. That's strange, you thought. The alley had a gate, and you had the key. No one should be able to get back there. But as you turned around, you found yourself face to face with two men, both of whom had pitch black eyes. You opened your mouth to scream, when one of them hit you in the face.
You weren't accustomed to being punched in the face, so you naturally fell over. The other man gripped your arm. At this point you did start screaming, and pulled out your pepper spray. You got one square in the face, but it didn't phase him one bit. The two men began to drag you out of the alley, panic rising in your chest.
"Stop fighting. Alistair wants to see you." One of them hissed.
"Who?" You managed to get out, blood trickling from your nose. You were pretty sure it was broken.
"It's not important. Yet." The man continued to drag you.
Suddenly you heard another voice from behind you. "I wouldn't do that if I were you, boys." A smooth, accented male voice called from down the alleyway. The two demons stopped.
One of them turned to the other. "Kill him, Chester. I don't care who this guy is." He turned to the newcomer. "Tonight is not your night, man. Bad time to try to be a hero."
The third man stepped into the dim light from the back porch light of the bar. He was medium height, slimly built, in his late forties. He had blonde hair, and the most superior look on his face you'd ever seen. "Oh, my dear man, I'm definitely not a hero."
"Shit." The man holding your arm dropped it for a split second. "Balthazar."
"The one and only." The blonde man stepped closer, his leather jacket opening to reveal a long silver blade. "Which one of you limp-dicks wants a proper beheading first?"
The one who had punched you began to run, but this Balthazar guy threw the blade at him, and hit him squarely in the back. He glowed orange and dropped dead. You scooted quickly behind your car. Balthazar grabbed the other man by the hair, lifted him up with surprising ease, and grabbed the blade. "You want to tell me what Alistair wants with Y/N?" He asked the man.
The man shook his head. "I don't know. We were just sent to get her. Just a time and a place, that's all! I swear!"
Balthazar smiled, then stabbed the second man. In the flash of orange light, you swore you saw the shadow of wings against the brick building, protruding from Balthazar's back. What the fuck?
He replaced the blade in his jacket, dusted off his hands on his jeans, and came searching around the car for you. "Y/N? You can come out. It's safe now."
You weren't entirely sure about that. "How do you know who I am?"
"Well... this sounds insane, so I may as well just come out with it. I'm your Guardian Angel."
You peered around the car at him, eyes wide.
"That was my first reaction, too." He replied flippantly. It became obvious that you didn't believe him. He sighed. "Okay, fine, I'll bring out the theatrics." In a flash of light, his eyes glowed bright blue, and huge wings actually did spring from his back. In an instant, it was all gone. "Now will you come out from behind the car? We have a lot to talk about. Technically you were supposed to go your whole life and never knew I existed, but obviously that's out the window now."
After that night, after Y/N had found out that demons, and angels, and werewolves, and leprechauns, and vampires, and everything existed, she became obsessed with hunting them down. Her rational was that if demons were hunting her, she may as well take as many of them out as she could. And Balthazar couldn't really argue with that, though it did make his job harder. And it made his job immensely harder when she inevitably ran into those most famous and reckless of hunters, the Winchesters, eight years later.
It was late in the evening when Balthazar got the call on his cell. He answered. It was Gabriel.
"Gabriel. To what do I owe the pleasure?" He rolled his eyes, sighing into the phone.
"Listen, Amigo, I can't talk long. I just thought you'd like to know what your little rugrat is doing." Gabriel was practically shouting, and in the background Balthazar could hear Mariachi music playing.
"Where the hell are you, Gabriel?"
"At the most epic Quincenera ever, man. And this girl's aunt is giving me the eye. But I have info for you."
"And that would be?" Balthazar wasn't in the mood for the Trickster's bullshit tonight.
"Oh, did I say what your rugrat was doing? I meant who your rugrat is doing."
"That's really none of my business, Gabriel. I'm not a pervert." Balthazar took a long drink of scotch, and was about to find the remote to turn on the TV when Gabriel's next words caught him completely off guard. He sat up straight as a board, ready to kill someone as Gabriel told him the next bit of information.
"It's your business when it's Dean Winchester." Gabriel stated bluntly. "Or, I'd make it your business, if I were you. But whatever. Gotta go, amigo! Gabriel out." The phone clicked off.
"Motherfucker." Balthazar's eyes flashed blue and he immediately went to work tracking Dean Winchester.
You laughed and rolled to get out of bed, but Dean grabbed you around the waist and pulled you back. "Dean, I have to get up. I have places to be."
"It's still so early. That demon can wait. The only place you need to be is here in bed, with me." Dean pulled you close to him, wrapping his strong arms around you and burying his face in your hair. "Come on, ten minutes. I can totally make it worth your while."
You giggled, turning yourself around in the tangled up sheets and facing Dean. Mornings were good to him. The day hadn't added stress to his face yet. You knew it would- the second he got out of bed, the world would weigh on him, and fast. But in the early morning, the sunlight streaming through the hotel curtains, he looked years younger. "Okay. Ten minutes. You'd better work your magic quick." You found his lips and kissed him, and he rolled over on top of you. Things were just getting heavy when there was a knock at the hotel door.
"Come back later, Sam!" Dean called out, preparing to kiss you again.
"Not Sam." A familiar voice called back through the door. "I'd have this door knocked down already if it wouldn't make me want to smite myself afterwards."
"Balthazar?" You sat up quickly, smacking your head into Dean's nose.
"Fuck!" Dean swore, grabbing his nose which was now gushing blood. You leapt out of bed.
"Just a minute!" You began throwing on clothes, tossing jeans and a shirt at Dean. He was looking around for a towel to stop his bleeding nose, walking naked into the bathroom. "Jesus Christ, Dean, put some fucking clothes on. Balthazar is here!"
"Why do I care if he's here? He can wait in the hallway. That guy's an ass hat." Dean came back out, stark naked, with a washcloth stuck to his face.
"He's my guardian angel."
"He's... friggin what?" Dean looked at you, wide eyed.
"He's my guardian angel. I told you this, like, a few months ago."
"I thought you meant figuratively, since he saved you in that alley." Dean began to dress himself, still holding the washcloth to his nose. "I didn't know you meant literally. People have those?"
"I guess so. I do."
"I'm still out here. Y/N, dear, could you please get properly situated and let me in? I feel like a jackass standing in the hallway of this dodgy hotel." You heard Balthazar giving you crap from the other side of the door. "I really should have stepped into your life sooner... I'd have taught you about nicer hotels. This is a disgrace."
Seeing that Dean had finally gotten dressed, you opened the door.
"Balthazar... what a surprise." You smiled wanly at him and went for a hug.
He gingerly hugged you, but stepped back quickly. "Sorry dear, great to see you too, but you positively reek of Dean, and that makes this a little odd."
You made an awkward face and nodded. "So, uh, what brings you here?" As if you hadn't figured it out. You'd been pretty sure Balthazar wouldn't be thrilled about your goings-on with Dean, so you hadn't told him. How you'd ever thought your guardian angel wouldn't ever figure it out was beyond you. You hadn't thought this through very well. Angel's gossiped worse than high school girls.
"I'm actually here to speak to Dean." Balthazar looked steadily at the older Winchester. "I think we need a man to man talk. I brought some scotch. I left my gun at home. How about it?"
Y/N had left on a supply run with Sam, and Dean and Balthazar were now sitting at the small motel table, the bottle of scotch between them.
"You know why I'm here, I assume." Balthazar began.
"I can wager a guess." Dean nodded. "You really didn't catch us at the best time."
"No, I did not." Balthazar was stone faced. "You realize she's like a daughter to me. I was there when she was born."
Dean shook his head. "No, man, I didn't know." He ran a hand through his hair, took a drink of the liquor in front of him, and looked Balthazar right in the eye. "I thought 'Guardian Angel' was a figure of speech."
"Would you have stayed away from her if you'd known?"
Dean stared at him, harshly. "No." He took another drink. "Absolutely not."
Balthazar sighed. "Of fucking course. Because Dean Winchester gets what he wants. And Ol' Balthazar gets to pick up the pieces when he leaves Y/N in the dust for some other bar floozy in the next town."
"Is that what you think this is?"
"Isn't that what it always is?"
"Touche." Dean drained his glass, noticing the angel hadn't touched his. "But not this time. Do you know how long this has been going on? When was the last time you talked to Y/N?"
"I talk to her all the time. But please, inform me of how long this has been going on. Three, four days? A week perhaps? Oh, has it made it a fortnight?" Balthazar feigned surprise.
"Months." Dean leaned back in his chair. "We've been hunting together. We've been seeing each other. Months."
The angel seemed surprised at this. "How many months are we talking about?"
"Six."
"I see."
"Yup."
"You do realize that if-"
"Yeah yeah, if I hurt her, you'll kill me. Or try to. Again. You and all your angel family." Dean stood up. "Are we done?"
"I guess... I guess so." Balthazar remained seated. "So... I'm to believe you actually care about her?"
"I don't care what you decide to believe, but yeah, I do." Dean sighed and sat back down. He'd never liked Balthazar, but he had to admit, he'd done a pretty good job protecting Y/N. She'd turned out good, so he wasn't all bad. "And you know what, she's happy. Isn't that what you want?"
"It would seem so." Balthazar picked up his glass and drained it. "I'm having a difficult time processing these feelings. I came here wanting to kill you. More-so than I've previously wanted to kill you."
"Comforting."
"But... you make my little girl happy. So... now it's aggravatingly hard to hate you." He frowned. "I don't like this one bit."
"Trust me, I wasn't all that thrilled to find out my girl's guardian angel is Balthazar the Sass Queen."
"I guess we're at an impasse then."
"I guess we are."
"Til next time."
"Til next time."
"Don't hurt her. I really will kill you. And you know I have good weapons."
Part 2 coming soon