Echoes of the End
Summary: Pity is taken on Gabriel; he is resurrected but it seems that there is a plan for him. Is it to save the soul of a hunter or to protect a potential vessel from vengeful angels and demons alike? And secondly, who brought him back?
Author's Note: Although Gabe had an important part in Marked I feel that he should get his own fic and be the centre of attention just the way he likes it. This was actually inspired by the Florence and the Machine- Drumming Song, amongst others.
Disclaimer : Unfortunately, I do not own any concepts or characters from Supernatural so please don't sue me.
Chapter One
A soft drop of water hit him just above the left eye. It trickled down, running along his skin and was pulled by gravity into the dip created by the eye socket. It collected itself briefly at the corner where his lids ended. Another drop and then another and then a fourth fell onto his face.
Soon there was a gentle pitter-patter as the water hit his skin and clothes. They bounced lightly before settling and being absorbed into his pale skin or by the cloth or rolling down the many gradients that the body provided. His muscles reacted to the irritation by flinching minutely.
It wasn't long before the man's clothes were desperately wet. His light hair became darker because of the molecules of rain water that collected in it. Water pooled in the dips and cracks that were in the old tarmac he was laying on. Some of the water tried to escape into the soil while some hesitated on the surface.
A single rain drop hit him directly in the eye. His facial muscles tensed and released as the drop wet his lashes before rolling away. It started to bring him around from his comatose state. His breathing became deeper and his chest rose a little more as it tried to lift the heavy clothing resting there. His body settled then as it grew accustomed to the change in weight. His breathing grew shallow again.
Then another landed harshly in the same eye. This time the water seeped through into his eye. His eyelids fluttered manically as his body automatically reacted. His lip twitched and water dripped into his mouth. His jaw tensed.
Slowly, deliberately he opened his eyes.
His hazel eyes took in the fact that he was staring up at a large, grey raincloud. He raised his eyebrows a little then frowned. It didn't make sense. Where was he?
There was a dull ringing in his ear and voices that he couldn't understand hissing and murmuring to each other like a vicious game of Chinese Whispers. He could do naught but listen to them. They seemed to be everywhere around him and their voices riveted around his skull.
He looked to his right and the rough tarmac grazed against his skin. He not only felt it but he also felt the slight, intense pain that came with it. He winced at the unexpected irritation. He turned his head to look left this time being wary of the jagged human building material below him.
He couldn't see much, there had just been more tarmac. And after the tarmac there had been fields. He hadn't been able to see any further which was odd.
The voices faded then. He was able to think without their racket distracting him. He was able to hear the world then. The sound of a truck speeding past made him look skyward again. He pulled himself up into a sitting position.
He then stood tall. He found that he had been laid in the middle of a freeway. In fact, he was in the wide Median separating the two sides of the road. He rubbed his eyes warily and wondered exactly how the hell he had gotten there.
Several cars honked and beeped at him for being where he was.
"Yeah, yeah!" he shouted back, "I don't know why I'm here either..."
He decided to try and figure out that conundrum later. At the moment, he had to get out of the middle of the road before someone decided to call the cops. He stretched skywards and found that his clothes were sticking to him like glue. He wasn't that bothered, pretty soon he would be in a nice penthouse somewhere with some hotties in bikinis.
He raised his hand so it was level with his face. He smiled happily as he closed his eyes and snapped his thumb and middle finger together. What he expected was silence, warm clothes and soft fingers caressing his face.
However, that is definitely not what he got. Cars continued to honk and the rain continued to fall. He opened his eyes and frowned before examining his hand. He tried it again and again to no avail. He was still stuck in the middle of a damn freeway. He lowered his hand and pursed his lips trying to think of what could have happened to him.
He looked skywards and asked, "So what? Am I supposed to be wearing ruby slippers, clicking my heels and saying 'there's no place like home'?"
Of course, the father he had been directing the question at didn't answer. He never answered these days.
He scoffed. "Not that I'm going back there anytime soon..."
So his powers had deserted him and the last thing he remembered was seeing the look of hope on that muttonhead's face as he hid out in the back of that car away from Kali. And he could also feel pain, heck he could feel it before but it hadn't exactly hurt as much. He rubbed the side of his face where a patchwork graze sat and glanced at either side of him. He'd obviously suffered a bit of memory loss. He'd figure everything out later.
So if his powers weren't working then he couldn't just magic himself out of the road without being seriously injured which was quite the possibility at the moment. First he had to decide which side of the road to cross. Was he going to risk the left side or the right side?
He decided on the road to his right. He walked to the edge of the safe zone, or rather the zone where you had a slight chance of not being run over. There were three lanes that he had to try and dodge before he would reach the edge of the road. At least when he got there he wouldn't be so obvious to any passing police car.
The stream of traffic was unreliable. Sometimes there were barely any cars and then there would suddenly be too many for him to risk. For the first time in his eternity of a lifetime he found himself being very vary and careful of what he was doing. The tarmac wasn't something that would be particularly easy to run over. The rain had gotten heavier and there were potholes and puddles scattered everywhere over the road.
Finally there was only one car that was speeding down the freeway and he took his chance, thinking that he could make it to the other side before the driver in the car even knew what was going on. He almost jumped over the barrier that separated the median from this side of the road and ran. He cleared two out of three lanes without any problems although the last lane proved to be more of an issue than he would have liked. He saw the green blur in his peripheral vision speeding towards him just as he entered that lane.
The driver hit the brake and the car came to a halt no further than a few inches from his body. He stopped and looked gingerly at the female driver. He gave her a quick smile and a wave before taking off again. The woman was left staring blankly out at him as two young children in the back of the Volvo began to cry.
When he came to the wayside with nothing more than a scare he was thankful. He took a deep breath and rubbed the back of his neck. The rain had fully soaked him now. His hair clung to the nape of his neck and his forehead. He swept his hair back in one quick motion only to shake free a few drops that rolled down his neck and his back.
"Okay, this isn't funny anymore," he huffed to no one in particular.
Of course, no one answered him. The rain continued to pour down upon him. He stood still at the side of the road for a few moments, looking up and down the length of the road. In the end he decided to walk the way that the cars were travelling. He had to come across a town or a village or something at some point, this damn highway couldn't just go on forever, could it?
He stuffed his hands into his pockets and with his head down he started to walk. He put one foot in front of the other for who knows how long. He wandered along the small strip of tarmac that was reserved for cars that had broken down or for drivers who needed a break.
Eventually, this strip of tarmac ran out and he either had to risk the slow lane or walk in the soil next to the road that had actually turned into mud. He chose the slow lane. The road wasn't all that busy and he could always dodge into the mud if he thought a car was going to knock him over.
-EOTE-
He wasn't sure how long he had been walking. His mind had just emptied itself of all of its usual thoughts and settled on the walk ahead. He looked up when he passed under a sign saying 'Muncie, 26 miles'. He had another twenty six miles to go before he hit a town? Now that was just taking the biscuit.
He came to a halt just after the sign and realised that he could really do with having a biscuit. One covered in chocolate with a nice, steaming cup of cocoa. The pleasant image he had in his mind of him sat somewhere nice and warm and dry with some biscuits and cocoa was disturbed when a truck hit a nearby pothole full of water and covered him with the contents. This included not only water but also mud.
He wiped his face and scowled. He was going to have to deal out some serious karma when he figured out what was going on and got his powers back.
"Okay," he sighed angrily, "that's it. I want to go somewhere nice, I don't want to be stuck on this freakin' highway in the rain and covered in mud. Do you think you can sort all of that out for me?"
Even a mentally impaired banana could have sensed the sarcasm coming off of the question. He continued to walk, this time deciding to trudge along in the mud.
"Hey!" a voice shouted behind him, "you need a ride?"
He turned around bemused and found another trucker leaning out of his passenger window a few feet back. The man was old and close to retirement age. He regarded him suspiciously.
"Where you headin'?" the trucker asked him.
"I, ugh..." He didn't have an answer then he recalled the name of a town on the sound he had passed only a couple of moments ago, "Muncie."
"You're lucky!" The man laughed and beckoned him closer.
Lucky was the last thing that he was at the moment. Amnesia, no powers and being stuck on an unknown highway soaking wet was not his idea of lucky.
He looked around then approached the truck with narrowed eyes, "Why am I?"
"I'm headin' that way." The grizzly man grinned at him and kicked the passenger door open. After a few seconds he asked, "You gettin' in or walkin' all that way?"
He decided that he didn't have anything to lose and he hauled himself up into the truck. He slammed the door shut behind him. It was warm inside the compartment and there was no longer any rain falling onto him. He couldn't help but wonder if someone had heard his plea after all.
"Thanks," he told the human sitting next to him.
"Oh, no problem." The man smiled over at him as he pulled out of what little there was of the lay side and back into the lane.
He pulled down the visor in the hopes that there was a mirror was there. It was and he looked intently at his reflection. He noticed that the graze on the side of his face still hadn't healed. He was in deep trouble now. Something big was very, very wrong.
He sighed snapping the visor back into place and sitting back. The padded seat was like an old lover, knowing all the right places to support and caress. He folded his arms and began chewing his lower lip. He was still having cravings. The inside of the compartment was cosy and little stuffed animals were scattered everywhere. Most of them were some breed of dog. He could spot several Dalmatians, spaniels and sheepdogs as well as many others.
Okay, that's a little creepy, he thought.
"They're my granddaughters," the old man told him as he saw him examining the cuddly toys with his eyes, "they're going through a dog phase at the moment."
He nodded warily. "Oh, right."
A song came on the radio. It was one that he hadn't heard before. It was going on about something to do with dirty pictures and taking them. He rolled his eyes and glanced out of the window. The rain was starting to get lighter and the clouds above them had started to clear.
"What's your name, stranger?" the man asked, grabbing his attention.
He considered whether to give his real name or not but he couldn't think of a decent, false one, "Gabriel..."
There was a sharp intake of breath. "Was your Mom religious or somethin'?"
"Never had a Mom." He told the truth.
"Ah, I'm sorry I-"
"Doesn't matter." He waved his hand, not really paying attention to what he was saying. After a few moments silence he realised that he had nothing to do apart from talk to the man. "What's your name?"
"Iain," he said, keeping his eyes fixed on the road ahead, "Iain Cook."
Gabriel nodded.
He asked, "What possessed ya to walk the length of the highway anyway?"
"I didn't have a choice," he answered and noticed that they had just passed a sign dictating that Muncie was roughly fifteen miles away now, "I just woke up."
"You woke up at the side of the highway?" Iain turned to him, aghast.
"Try in the middle of it."
"How'd you get there?"
He shrugged, "I probably pissed off the wrong person."
"Jeez, I hate to think what you did to them."
That made him think if he had done something to the Gods or maybe the Winchesters had knocked him out and dumped him there so they didn't have to deal with him?
What did it matter anyway, those two douche bags wouldn't be able to take his powers away. Not even Kali had the power to do that. Even the whole host of Heaven would have issues trying to take them away from him and he wouldn't just lie down and let them do it.
What had the Gods been talking about when Kali had decided to try and gank him with that fake sword of his? Oh yeah, they had been planning on killing Lucifer.
"Shit," he mumbled, when he realised what would have happened.
"What?" Iain asked him.
"I just remembered something," he whined. Chances are the Gods were dead, extinct, finger-paint.
"Something bad by the sound of it."
"Yeah, as bad as you can get."
The song on the radio slowly faded away so there was silence and a local radio DJ's voice blasted out of the speakers.
"Hello there!" the male voice started, "Thanks for joining us here at Muncie Q Radio. Just a reminder for all of you suffering from a hangover from yesterday, it's Saturday the fifth of March two zero eleven."
"Two zero eleven?" Gabe mouthed silently, "it's two thousand and eleven?"
"That's right, it's two thousand and eleven." The voice appeared to answer him with a chuckle, "Shortly we'll be going over to Sarah for the national and international news at twelve!"
There was a short introductory tune to the news part of the show.
A woman chuckled. "Thanks, Gareth, your enthusiasm always manages to brighten my day."
"Speak for yourself," Iain shook his head in distain.
"This is the News at Twelve with Sarah Bolger. The mayor of New York has opened a new elementary school just outside of the city. Internationally there have been two peace treaties signed, one in Libya and the other in Egypt between the government and rebel parties ensuring that they will work together to make their countries a better place. Locally, there have been no traffic incidents reported or any incidents at all apart from the usual drunken antics in the centre of town."
That didn't sound like the apocalypse, Gabriel thought.
"Elsewhere there has been an astonishing event where over two thousand dollars have been raised for charity. And we've just received news that an elderly woman from the southern area of Muncie has just fought off two muggers who attempted to steal her purse."
"That is definitely not the apocalypse," he pouted.
Iain cast him a worried look. "Excuse me?"
"Huh." He shook his head. "An in joke I have with some friends of mine."
The man nodded as music began to pump through the compartment again. The walkie talkie radio attached to the roof of the compartment began to crackle and whizz before a voice came through.
"Iain, you gotta make a stop for gas before you reach Cleveland?"
The man sat next to him yanked the black piece of equipment out of its holder and held it close to his mouth, "nah, I've got enough gas to make it there, why?"
"On a tight schedule, half the shipments haven't made it in yet. We're doing the rounds," he was told.
"Ten-four, I'll get there as soon as I can"
"Appreciate it" the voice crackled.
He rammed the box home and carried on driving. "These friends a yours...they nearby?"
Gabriel glanced at him. "Doubtful. Those muttonheads would have packed up months ago."
"Months, huh?"
"That's if they're not dead," he started.
The man looked at him blankly then laughed, "Oh it's a joke. I get it! Ha! Ha!"
He looked away. "Yeah, a joke."
They passed another sign. It was only another two miles till he would be in the middle of a town he didn't know. Apparently the apocalypse wasn't happening anymore. That meant that maybe dumb and dumber had managed it all by themselves or his Dad had stepped in at the final moment. At least his clothes and hair were starting to dry in the heat of the compartment. That was the only good thing he could think of at the moment.
He looked out of the window to his right as they passed a rundown motel. It looked deserted and was crumbling at the foundations. Faulty neon lights proclaimed the place to be called the Elysian Fields Hotel.
Gabe whistled, "I don't believe it."
"What?"
"You wouldn't believe me if I told you," he answered him turning away. A twinkle appeared in his eye. "Got any candy?"
"Check the glove compartment," the man with the bushy beard and hazel eyes told him.
He did as he was told and reached in. He found an opened fun-size packet of peanut M&Ms. It wasn't exactly what he had been wanting but he ate them nonetheless. He finished the rest of the packet in the matter of minutes.
"Damn, you eat fast," Iain said.
Gabriel nodded, "That's right, my bushy bro!"
Now that he had eaten, he felt more like himself. A troubled smile still sat on his face, however, as he tried to go through all the possible scenarios for what could have happened to send him months into the future and to stop the apocalypse. His eyebrow raised a little as he wondered who could have possibly stripped him bare and dumped him in the middle of the highway. There were only four beings that could possibly have the power to do that.