Title: Summertime Blood

Author: OpheliacAngel

Pairing: Dean/Gabriel

Genres: Romance/Horror

Rating: Teen

Summary: He should have known better. When Gabriel shows up he realizes Gabriel should have known better too.

A/N: Written for SPN Rare OTP Fic-a-Month Challenge for August's prompt summer/heat. So sorry it's late.

Series: Part 2 of Special Things

Dean wakes up in the dew-damp grass and starts walking, not sure if he's still running away or running back home, but a hand shoved in his jacket pocket reveals something that wasn't there before. If he had taken the jacket off he would never have found it, not while this heat persisted, but Gabriel must know something about Dean for him to trust in this. The letter's nothing much really, just five words, not even signed. It's obvious though.

If you care

Follow me.

Dean doesn't. He's smart enough to know that he's way in over his head on this, on Gabriel, on everything lately. So he goes home, or at least tries to, at least walks in the general direction of the latest crap motel his dad was staying in when he left him and followed Gabriel across half the country.

His feet lead him down a different path about halfway there. Maybe he inherently knows where Gabriel is and that's simply where he has to go, no rebelling against it, no trying to forget the boy he fell in love with the first time he saw him: honey blond hair and distinct amber eyes that have a tendency to glow gold for a second or two, as if in a dream.

Dean runs into a hunt in Wichita, it's his responsibility to follow through it and he does, but his mistake is rushing it, wanting to get the hell out in record time and go wherever the hell he needs to go next. He should have known better.

When Gabriel shows up he realizes Gabriel should have known better too.

Dean could gank his ass right here and right now for scaring the shit out of him barely four days ago. Could kill him even though he doesn't even know what Gabriel is and he has to know, even though the not knowing hasn't bothered him before. When Dean's feeling really low he chucks up that last night as some nightmare of his own conjuring, but when he's slightly up again he knows better. Gabriel is dangerous, there is something in him that needs to be extinguished. It's Dean's job to do that, even when he runs away from the life it always rears its ugly head again to snap at him.

There's something that stays his hand though, prevents him from reaching backward into his jacket pocket to grasp his only source of protection.

Maybe it was Gabriel holding his head up while Dean puked all over himself, or the fact that when he blinked none of it had happened and all his shirt was spotted with was his own blood. Or maybe it was Gabriel petting his hair while he sucked on something that reeked distinctly of cinnamon.

Or maybe, what the hell, it's just fucking Gabriel.

Gabriel's wings are an outline now, not a shadow. If Dean tilts his head just the right way he can see the outline of each feather sparkle in the late afternoon heat. The sun has already drenched his neck and face, his labored breathing loud in the silence of the winding down day in a way that only being in the middle of nowhere can provide, while Gabriel doesn't make a sound.

He never does, or did. Dean realizes that now.

If he closes his eyes he can remember the shadow of Gabriel's wings on the wall as he sat up, the first night Gabriel let him sleep in his tiny twin-sized bed, under the roof of his parents' motor-home. Dean would wait all day for him to get out of school, which he shouldn't have had to since it was the summer and since Gabriel was supposed to be a genius. Gabriel had always come in the past when Dean had called though, so he figured he owed the guy something after years of one-nights, both sneaking away from their families so they could just sit together and talk and stare at the sky, as if they had the right to wish for anything better.

The shadow of the wings caused every problem since then. If Dean remembered right it had looked like they were crushing him, wrapping around his neck, strangling him when Dean was awake to watch it. Funny, but he had felt numb during that, numb every night after too.

As if Gabriel had somehow sucked the life out of him.

He snarls when he can talk again, "What the hell are you, Gabriel?"

Gabriel's words are a sharp bite in Dean's mind. "I'm not something for you to hunt, Dean-o." Dean turns away from him and Gabriel's hand continues to pet his hair, which once Dean had found soothing but now felt grating. Gabriel pointedly ignores Dean's glare by turning away and taking back his hand. There's every reason in the world why Dean should be angry. "You're the one who followed me."

"Yeah, but I…," Dean trails off. He was sort of following Gabriel, but he didn't completely know it at the time, however much that makes sense. Then he realizes that Gabriel could just as well have been following him. Trying to make Dean look like the culprit here. He pulls himself up into a sitting position and then pushes himself away from Gabriel and towards a wall, so at least he can lean against something while he figures out what the hell he should be doing.

"Very mature." Gabriel rolls his eyes but lets Dean scoot further back, eying him carefully. Dean has never seen Gabriel like this before, so watchful of Dean, so completely focused on Dean and on nothing else. It's too bad it had to come to this. "You have no idea what it's come to, Dean."

Dean jumps and ends up hitting his head back against the wall in the process. "Great," he mutters, knowing that it'll only serve the concussion he probably has, the one that came from someone knocking him out and waking up to Gabriel hovering over him like some sort of ghost.

A ghost following Dean around. A ghost that Dean followed all the way to Gabriel's summer school, searching for him.

"I don't get it," Dean grits out around a weak resolve and an even weaker throat. "Why let me sleep in your bed? Why let me follow you? Why show me those things, after all these years?" A look of remorse crosses Gabriel's face before he flexes those things, though Dean can still only see their outline. It's a lot better than those shadows that still haunt Dean's waking dreams, but wings shouldn't exist. And Dean isn't finished yet. "And why aren't you sweating? It must be a hundred degrees out and you dragged me all the way from that forest to this…," he glances around the large space, "barn."

Gabriel stares at the blood running down Dean's forehead and dripping carelessly onto the wood floor. "I didn't have to. Traveling would have aggravated your concussion though. I always forget how weak you humans are, I've taken far worse blows to the head than that."

Traveling?

"As in time travel, kiddo. I'm an angel. Not your guardian, by the way, though you could probably figure that out all by yourself. Just an archangel actually."

Dean doesn't bother telling him angels don't exist. For him to claim to be one is just too damn funny, Gabriel coming from a family of bible thumpers. Still, the wings don't make a whole lot of sense to Dean if he starts thinking up alternatives. "Was there anything about you that was real?"

Gabriel flexes his wings again and Dean flinches. There's sweat pouring down his face and running into his burning eyes, and if that isn't uncomfortable than not knowing what the hell Gabriel will do next is. "Is real, Dean. My name. Figured that'd be something nice for you to hold onto."

Dean pants, hands slippery on the wood beneath him. He won't look down though, doesn't want to take his eyes off Gabriel for a second and doesn't want to know whether his hands are bloody or sweaty or both. "After you what? Killed me? Why the hell did you show me your wings, Gabriel?"

"You're sorta special to me, kiddo. You're the only one who ever followed me."

Dean is sick to death of this who followed who business. He wishes he never met Gabriel in the first place. "I didn't follow you. You drew me out there, somehow. And I will prove it."

"No need." Gabriel snaps his fingers and the heat is tenfold. No summer should ever feel this brutal, yet Dean knows Gabriel's doing it somehow. Dean can feel the back of his neck blistering even though its protected from exposure, and he doesn't even want to think about his throat, how it feels like hands are wrapped around it, strangling the life out of him, his stomach expanding and contracting with every harsh breath. The sheer fury that Dean has to bite back just to be able to somewhat breathe.

Dean's always loved the summer. Comfortable heat on the back of his neck especially, warming him up starting at the very core of him and then working its way outward.

Now he will never love the summer again.

It stops long before Dean can actually see anything again. He can see, but it's not the same as registering what's in front of him. He thinks he breathes, must breathe, but he can't remember opening his mouth or blinking and can't explain the wetness on his cheeks that he knows isn't just sweat.

There's a hand touching the back of his neck, another patting his sweat-damp belly.

Dean tries to move, tries to get away from him, but he can feel his eyes start to roll back up inside of his head and Gabriel slaps his cheek, and Dean knows there is no way in hell he is getting away from Gabriel now.

"I'll stay with you until you feel better, okay? Then I gotta go finish my paper. You're damn lucky they gave me an extension on it."

Jesus, Dean thinks. The only thing that's preventing him from slipping to the floor completely is Gabriel holding him up, letting Dean - making Dean lie across his lap.

"Jesus has got nothing to do with me and you, Dean."

There's Dean's blood still dripping onto the floor, his head pounding to the beat of a hammer.

And if Dean tilts his head just the right way, he can swear the blood sizzles as it makes impact.

FIN