Blood drip, drip, dripped down to the pavement. He had just barely escaped his captor before the psychopath was able to finish him off. He was loosing blood fast, as he stumbled along one of the nameless alleyways of this cruel city he was living in. He wasn't sure how he was still standing. Everything was blurring. He needed to reach the end of the alleyway, to get help. He tried to hurry his amble along, because he had a deadline. The person he had been searching for since he awoke, was getting nearer. If he didn't make it to the street withing the next few minutes, he wouldn't see him. He would drive by and leave him behind, if he didn't get to the street.
The dark haired boy saw the black car turn the corner, just as he collapsed onto the sidewalk. An exhausted smile came to his lips as he realised that he had made it in time. The sidewalk was cold on his bare ass, but he didn't pay it any mind, as he heard tires screech to a halt, and a crowd started to gather around. He saw two tall figures approach, and he was picked up by strong hands. He tried to call out to the man that held him, but he couldn't think past the haze that was encroaching in on his mind. Just before he blacked out he was able to lift his bloody hand up to the man's warm cheek.
Safe with Dean.I found him.
0-0-0-0
Sam and Dean blew into town on a Sunny Thurseday afternoon. Detroit was a terrible city to be in. They would never have come if it hadn't been important. Some one had been spraying "Help me Dean" all over the place untill the vandalism became news worthy. They didn't know who had decided that graffiti was the best way to get ahold of them, but they figured that they should find out before some one else got there first. They had some very powerful enemies. They figured they would find a place to stay, first, while they figured this shit out. They turned onto Greenfield Road, and that's when Dean saw a half naked boy collapse on the sidewalk.
He slammed on the breaks, practically throwing Sam into the dashboard. His brother stuttered out an indignant, "what the fuck," before he was out of the car, being honked at by passing cars. He didn't know why he felt the sudden urge to go running to the rescue of some random stranger, he just did.
His first reaction was to pick the kid up off the ground, and cradle him in his arms. Yet, again, he didn't know why he was doing this, he just did it. It looked like the boy was trying to say something, but he lost consciousness before he could get a word out. Dean held the bloody hand that fell from his cheek for several minutes, before he saw his own name underneath the blood.
"Sam, look at this," Dean said, showing his brother the scar on the boy's hand.
"You think he's the one we're here for?"
"Seems like it."
0-0-0-0
When the boy woke up in the hospital hours later, he found some guy sharing his pillow. He felt the psychic pull in his chest that told him that the man was Dean. He gently ran his hands through Dean's hair, and a smile crept its way across the man's lips. A matching one was on the kid's face.
Then the guy jumped up, and was instantly alert. Green eyes stared at his grey, before Dean sat back down in his chair.
"Your awake. How you feeling kid?"
"Like I was fucked bloody, and got slashed with a box cutter a few times. On the bright side, I found the key to my existance."
"What?"
"Okay, here goes. My friends call me Doe, or Kansas. Doe as in John Doe, because I don't know my own name, who I am, where I came from, or anything of my past. Kansas because, like Dorothy it seems as if I just dropped out of the clear blue sky. I woke up in a hospital, and the doctor told me that I was found wandering the streets in a daze. I was dehydrated, starved, and confused. I ran away from the foster care system, and found a home amongst six other teens living in a basement. One of the guys had a drug problem, and he was desperate for cash. He hit me when my back was turned, and gave me to his drug dealer for a big stash of meth. Ever since, I've been taking it up the ass for two small meals a day, and place to sleep. I have only one clue to my past. I remember a name, Dean. Your Dean."
"How do you know my name? I've never meet you before."
"I don't know! I was hoping you would recognize me. There was only one memory left when I awoke, and that was your name."
The boy sighs, and turns onto his back, not thinking about what his backside would feel like after being raped like he had. He stiffens at the pain, and lets out a little whimper. He can't help it.
"Oh man, what happened," Dean asks with concern.
"Help me back to my left side, Dean. I shouldn't have turned onto my back."
Dean jumped up, to comply, gently turning him over. The kid was trembling all over. Once he was able to grab onto the bedrail, he was able to pull himself right. As soon as he was laying on his left side, he buried his head in the pillow and started to cry. Dean started rubbing slow circles into the kids back, as a small glimmer of hope formed in his mind.
"Cas?"
The kid fell silent, rubbing his face with the corner of the pillowcase. When the kid turned his head to look at Dean, there was no recognition at the name, just curiosity. Dean wasn't sure if the kid had his head tilted out of a Cas expression of confusion, or if it was just because of the way he was laying. There wasn't any indication in his behavior to identify this kid as Castiel, but it was the only thing he could think of. They had already squirted holy water on the kid while he slept, and there was no signs of demonic possession. Dean had never splashed an angel with holy water, but the kid hadn't glowed with heavenly aura, either. Cas was just the only person that Dean could think of as a possibility to this kid's identity.
"You think that my name is Cas," the kid asked.
"No, I don't. I was just wondering if you knew who Castiel is."
"You mean the angel of Thurseday?"
Dean just nodded his head, wondering if the kid thought he was crazy. He seemed to contemplate what he said for a minute, then his body went all tense like it had done before. For a second, Dean worried that he had somehow hurt himself again. The kid closed his eyes, and then when he looked back at Dean, it was with hardened eyes.
"There's something bad coming."
"What?"
"My friends use to always call me psychic boy too, because I have certain super powers. Ever since I sent out your bat signal, these guys started coming to town. They feel wrong, and I can sense them when they are near. There's one walking pass the security desk downstairs, right now! We need to get out of here, or he'll kill us both."
"Can you even walk?"
"I can withstand the pain! Now help me out of this bed, and then go see if you can find where they put my clothes."
Dean did as he was told, dragging Sam out of the waiting room chair he was sitting in on, on his way to the nurses' station. When he hurriedly whispered an explanation to his brother, Sam started asking questions, automatically suspicious. They hadn't survived this long trusting random people they picked up off the street.
"How do you know he didn't lure you to town so that he can hand you over to the laviathin that he could be working for. They have many people puppets under their control you know."
"I know, but if the kid is right, then we'll have laviathin on our asses if we don't move."
The nurse was nice enough to give Dean some scrub pants too, and he quickly headed back to the room the kid waited in. He was just inside the doorway, and he kind of made Dean jump when he spoke up. He hurriedly got dressed, despite the pain that was making him slightly dizzy. He just hoped that his stupid body wouldn't betray him and lose consciousness. There was no time to slow down.
As soon as he was dressed he quickly lead the two Winchesters down so many hallways that they could barely remember which way was north. Last minute, he pushed them into an empty room, and covered their mouths. He had been so focused on tracking the movements of the monster walking behind them, that he had almost made them run into one headed toward them from an opposite direction. The close call made his hands shake, and his breath come a little quicker. When the coast was clear, he grabbed the two men by the hand and lead them down a couple flights of stairs, and into another empty room to hide in.
"Don't leave this room untill I regain consciousness," Doe quickly mumbled before he fell to the floor in a dead feint.
When the kid's eyes opened once more, he started to tremble from head to foot. Dean helped him up into a sitting position and held him close, as a whimper came to his lips. Sam would have mocked Dean as he started petting the kids hair, and shushing his cries, if they weren't in such a dire situation.
"I'm scared of them," the kid whispered as he buried his face in Dean's shirt.
"Don't worry, kid, we'll get out of here. Sam and I have been in bigger messes than this."
"Their at every exit now. I failed to get you out in time. I'm sorry."
"If you can get us down to the first floor maybe we can make it out a window."
Wiping away his tears, the boy nodded his head, and said, "I'll try but I'm not promising anything. I just need a minute. Reaching out to them is like reaching out into cold black space, and feeling like your soul is being sucked out."
After a little while, the kid tensed in Dean's arms. With Sam and Dean's help, he stood up, and opened the door with a look of grim determination on his face. The three of them continued to travel down random, out of the way corridors, and a few more flights of stairs. They hid in a few more rooms. Surprisingly enough, when they were hiding in a room they never went into an occupied room, unless you count a comatose lady. This kid really was intuitive. He was just glad that the psychic kid, or whatever he was, was on their side.
Once they jumped down from a second story window, they made a mad dash for the car. A block from the hospital, Kansas started to fall apart. He slid down in the seat until he was laying across the back seat, drawing his knees up towards his chest, and crossed his arms around himself. He started to shake uncontrollably, and he hid his face in the leather to hide the tears and quiet the sobs.
Dean looked in his rearview mirror, and with concern asked, "Kid?"
There was no response except for continued cries of fear, and pain. The brothers exchanged worried looks, before Sam reached back to try and comfort the teen. He touched the boys arm, but the kid jerked back, trying to get away from him.
"Okay, I understand. No touching, but you have to calm down kid. You'll bust a stitch. Try and take a few deep breaths. Your amongst friends, promise. We'll protect you with our lives, if we have to."
"No," he shouted, shocked out of his crying, "I'm suppose to protect you."
"Your just a kid," Dean pointed out, "so there's no question about who is going to protect who. We're the adults, and not to mention, experienced hunters. We know how to take care of ourselves, and we know how to deal with these laviathin. So, don't worry yourself, Kansas, we'll take care of you."
"No," the kid said, stubbornly sticking to his words, "I am the one who is suppose to protect you. Protect the righteous man. Protect the vessel of Micheal. I have my orders."
Dean's foot slipped off the excellerator in his surprise. He quickly put his foot back into place, and picked it back up to seventy-five. Nobody spoke. It was as if everybody was suddenly holding their breathe. Dean held onto the steering wheel with white knuckles, as he fought to control his feelings. All they knew for now was that the kid had probably been an angel once upon a time. He tried not to jump to the conclusion that the kid was Cas, but his heart speed up in the hope that he was.
"I don't know where those words came from," the kid whispered, a little frightened that he didn't even know what those words meant. He just knew that he was referring to Dean. It all came back to Dean. The kid was a little worried and frightened with the fact that he might be remembering who he was. He didn't want to be mixed up in this mess, dealing with scary monsters.
"Its okay," Dean said, as he looked back at him again through the mirror, "we'll figure it out together. Your not alone. But first, we need to choose a name, because Doe, and Kansas are just dumb names."
"How about Gabriel," the kid suggested.
The Winchester boys exchanged another look. Sam was looking contemplative, and Dean's eyebrows shot up in surprise of the kid's name choice. There was no response to his suggestion at first, so he worried that he had said something wrong.
"I'm sorry, is Gabe a bad name choice?"
"No, no, its cool," Dean quickly responded.
"Yeah, Gabriel is a nice name," Sam added.
"Do you like classic rock, Gabe," Dean asked.
"Sure, whatever. I don't really have any real musical preferances."
The rest of the car ride back to an apartment they were renting in Ohio, was only slightly awkward. Dean filled some of the silence with tapes of some of his favorite songs. Of course the kid was a little curious as to what hunting was. Dean and Sam explained, but when ever he asked about what the "righteous man," was, they decided that it was a topic best saved for later. Dean didn't want to freak the kid out by talking about theories of him being an angel. There would be time enough for that shit later.
They drove all through the night, with the fear that the laviathin might find them. They changed liscense plates at the first available oppurtunity. Gabe barely slept the entire time. Every time he began to doze off he started to have dreams about drowning in black goo. When Dean switched off with Sam again, in the wee hours of the morning, he hopped in back with the kid.
"Come here kid," he said, holding out his arms so that Gabe could cuddle close to him.
Gabe scooted in close, and lay his head down on Dean's chest as the hunter wrapped his arms protectively around him. After months of living on the streets as a hooker he had a hard time relaxing into the embrace. Sometimes his clients liked to treat him as if he they were old friends, hanging out, but as soon as he got comfortable, he would get a finger up the ass. But then he remembered that this was Dean, and even if he didn't really know the guy, he felt that he could trust him.
As soon as he felt the kid finally relax, Dean spoke in a whisper, "I know that it's a little weird, since you're a little too old to be molly coddled, but I use to hold Sam like this after he was attacked by a monster when we were little. He couldn't sleep because of nightmares. Just know that nothing will harm you while I have you."
Dean almost half expected for the kid to go on about it was his job to do the protecting, but he just said thank you, and fell asleep in the next moment. He must have been too tired to argue, or to put on a brave face. Dean dozed in and out of consciousness, for a few hours before the sun came up. Every time he woke, he would stroke the kid's hair, or arm. If he was struggling in nightmares, the touch calmed him almost instantly.
Once they arrived at their temporary home the Winchesters unpacked the car, and Sam went to dump the old Camero while Dean showed the kid their living arrangements. It wasn't much. At least the place had come with a few furnishings that were abandoned by the previous owner, or they would have to have slept on the floor. For the kid, that would be terribly uncomfortable, with all his stitches. There was plenty of space in the closet for more clothes which they would have to go and buy for Gabe later.
Looking around at the sparsness of the place, and the clothes the boys had hanging in the closet, Gabe said, "So, you guys move around a lot."
"Yeah, we're kind of use to it. Our Dad was a hunter. Sam use to bitch when we were kids because the constant moving made it hard for him to keep his straight A's, the nerd."
Gabe smiled at the name calling, but then he became grim at the realization that they at least had each other for family. Dean saw the kid's sad eyes, and missinterpreted the cause, and said, "Maybe you would like to stay put, you know. Maybe you want to live in a place that's more permanent? If you want, we can call some friends that you can stay with."
"No, this is cool. I'm a street kid, so any roof over my head is cool with me. At least this place isn't likely to explode while I'm in it. I was just thinking about something else."
"What's that?"
"If you went missing, your brother would look for you, right? I've been walking around with this amnesia for near on ten months. I've been wondering for a while why no one has coming looking for me. I'm just hoping that there is a missing persons report that's been overlooked, somewhere."
Gabe went to sit down next to Dean. Dean wrapped his arm around the kid's shoulder, wondering if the time had come to tell him about the angel theory. It must suck to think that your family has not even bothered to look for you, or that maybe you never had anybody in the first place.
"Gabe, when you called me the 'righteous man,' you gave me a small clue as to your possible identity. We'll discuss it when Sam gets back."
Even though he was impatient to hear what Dean had to say, he waited patiently for the other Winchester to return. As they waited, Gabriel sat perched on the side of the bed and went still as a statue. Worried that he was sensing nearby laviathin again, Dean gave his shoulder a small shake.
"You okay, man?"
"Yeah, sorry I was just thinking. Sometimes I go into these little trances when I think too hard. My friends use to make fun of me for it."
"huh," Dean said, thinking that it was the first Cas-like behavior he had shown since they had picked him up. Then again Cas wasn't the only angel who had weird habits. Anne also had that thousand mile stare.
"You know, if I didn't know any better, I would think that you guys were just professional criminals. Sam went to dump the car, didn't he? Where'd you guys learn all this stuff?"
"Well, Sam and I were raised to do this shit. My dad got into the business of hunting things when my mother was killed by a demon. I was four at the time, and Sammy was six months. This job doesn't pay. We go in, kill the monsters, save people, get our thank yous, and then leave town. In order to survive while doing this shit, every hunter finds they're own way to make cash. So, yeah, we break tons of laws, and technically we are criminals, but we do it so that we can save hundreds, maybe even thousands. Dumping cars is sort of a recent development for us. We use to drive around in a black '67 Chevy Impala, but then we ran into the laviathin who have a personal interest in seeing us Winchesters dead. These new monsters are more intelligent, and more connected than any other monster we have ever faced, so we followed a friend's advice to change our habits. One of his suggestions was to change cars. Now my baby sits at home collecting dust."
"Must have been tough, growing up like that. Its kind of a wonder how you two turned out so great."
"How do you know that we're good people? We could be robbing old ladies to get by or something like that. We could be depraved lunatics in our spare time, for all you know. Or I could have just lied to you, about being a hero."
"I know you're a good person, because I know you Dean. Don't ask me how. I don't even remember who I am, but I do know you."
Gabe was in his space, but not because he forgot about social etiquette the way Cas did. Dean looked down at the hand on his knee, and knew that the kid was trying to hit on him. Suddenly Dean knew that this kid couldn't possibly be Cas. Even if they were in some fucked up alternate dimension, where everything was ass backwards, Dean knew that his angel brother would never hit on him.
"Kid, I have personal space issues."
Gabe watched Dean close himself off. He knew that it was probably because he was a straight man who didn't appreciate being hit on by a boy. Its either that or he was offended by his age. Even though he had no idea of his actual age, doctors had estimated that he had to be around thirteen or fourteen. If that were the case, though, why wasn't Dean yelling? He thought that most men in Dean's situation would be angry. The hunter seemed more sad. It was almost as if he were dissapointed…
"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to dis you or nothin'"
"Its alright," Dean mumbled, as he stood and moved away from the kid, showing him his back.
There were tears of dissapointment in Dean's eyes. He didn't realize how high he had let his hopes rise untill it all came tumbling down, and he was left feeling as if he had been punched in the gut. He knew that he was probably freaking the kid out a little bit. Normally he would have responded to some guy hitting on him with a little bit of anger, rather than the sad vibe he was putting out now. He knew the kid probably expected him to lash out in anger too. He wanted to stuff this shit back inside, rather than fall apart, but he couldn't. He had been doing a lot better. He had even found his sense of humor again within the last several months. Its just his stupid hope brought all the pain from Cas, and Bobby's deaths back to the surface.
"I wish I knew how to make it up to you, but I don't. All I can do right now is promise you that it will never happen again."
Dean didn't have a response to that. He didn't trust his voice to not shake. Gabe tried to inch his way around to talk to Dean. Not wanting to let the kid see his weakness, the hunter turned towards the door and left. Right when he got to the exit, Sam came walking in. Dean brushed by his brother, repeating the lame excuse about fresh air, and made his escape.
Letting the door swing close behind him, Sam looked at the kid, wondering what could have possibly transpired between the two while he was gone. It took him only a minute to decide that where he needed to be was outside, talking to his brother. More than likely, their little street urchin had no idea what he had done wrong.
"With hunting we watch a lot of people die, people we didn't get to in time, fellow hunters, and such. I think Dean has been going through a rough patch after all we've been through. Its probably nothing to even do with you. I'm going to step out to talk to him. Just stay in here, and watch t.v. or something. Okay?"
Outside, Dean was leaning against the car in their parking space. Sam went to take a position right next to him, and said, "you don't think he's Cas anymore, do you?"
"I'm pretty sure that he's not," Dean said, as his eyes began to water, and a few tears spilled over.
"Can I inquire as to what happened," Sam asked quietly.
"He hit on me. There is no way that Cas would hit on me. He didn't even want to go get a lap dance from Chastity."
"Well, Dean.. He did spend a couple of months as a street whore. He doesn't even remember who he is. So, since he doesn't have the same memories, it would be perfectly understandable if he didn't act the same."
"Yeah, well it doesn't matter who he was once upon a time. It could be Cas, or Gabriel, or any number of angels who lost their lives during the war in heaven. All I know is that right now, this kid isn't Cas. He doesn't act like Cas, and except for the dark hair, he doesn't look like Cas either. I just have to come to terms with the fact that Cas is gone."
Sam put a comforting hand on his brother's shoulder, and said, "Okay, well I'm going back in, and order a pizza for dinner. You can come in when your ready. Maybe its best that we just let his memories come back by themselves, so we don't stress him out with who he's suppose to be. He's just our pet orphan for now, okay?"
"Yeah, good idea, I guess," Dean said, still looking down at the pavement with his arms crossed.
0-0-0-0
Later on that night Dean was poked awake. He looked up at the boy they had named Gabriel, and grumbled, "What's wrong?"
"I had a terrible nightmare," the kid whispered, "and I'm too scared to go back to sleep. Will you stay up with me, just for a little while?"
"Yeah, okay. If you want we can go get hot chocolate at the gas station."
The kid sniffled, as if he had been crying, but agreed readily enough. Once he was dressed, Dean gathered the kid in a hug, before heading out the door. The ride to get hot chocolate was short and quiet. Dean inquired wether the nightmare had been about laviathin to which the kid said it was. Gabe didn't want to talk about it, and Dean respected that. He wasn't one to push for a talk, so they just listened to the sound of the engine. This car was a bit too quiet in Dean's opinion, he was missing his precious Impala for the hundreth time this year.
After they purchased their hot chocolates, Dean drove out to a park, and the two of them sat sipping in the car. Gabe felt a little awkward after his attempts to seduce the older man. He hadn't really thought about possible consequences of his actions at the time. Flirtation was just second nature to him now. He had a slight crush on Dean. He always was able to tell good people from bad people just by looking at them. As a hooker, you see a lot of bad. He had just been wondering what it would be like to be made love to by a good man. Dean's soul seemed to be so good and pure, it just glowed, reaching out to all the people around him, and pulling them into his warmth. He had felt so safe in Dean's arms when he had picked him up off the sidewalk yesterday, and again when he fell asleep that morning. He knew that Dean wasn't holding a grudge against him but he could sense that the hunter didn't know how to address the situation, or if he should even bother.
"I'm sorry about earlier-" Gabe began, but Dean interrupted.
"We don't have to talk about it. We can forget it ever happened."
"No, I think that I want to take this oppurtunity to explain why I did that.. When I woke up in the hospital several months ago, with amnesia… I was scared shitless. Since I didn't have any memories what-so-ever on which to draw from, I didn't know how to interact with the world. I stayed quiet for a long time, not because I didn't know how to talk. I could form words, and sentences, but I had a hard time determining what sort of behavior was expected of me. I didn't know how teenagers talked, or what they talked about. Sometimes I feel as if I've lived an entire lifetime, and yet I am only fourteen. Foster care sucked for me. Other kids made fun of me. They called me a freak because I kept mostly to myself and didn't talk.
"I figured out that I was different from everybody else, that I was more of a freak than anyone could have possibly suspected. I guess I'm kind of a psychic or something. When I ran away, and found friends amongst those run aways, I knew that Eddie the methhead wasn't a good guy, but there really wasn't much that I could do about it. I'm a helpless kid. Then when I was forced into prostitution I had to learn how to deal. I was taught how to flirt by the other hookers, and it just became second nature.
"I do have a crush on you Dean, my first ever, I guess. I know that you hugged, and held me before out of concern for my well-being, and not because your attracted to me. I understand that. I just got carried away. I wasn't thinking. I'm able to read people pretty well now, and I know that you were dissapointed in me for some reason. I don't know why you were dissapointed, but I'm sorry for it."
After a moment of thought, Dean decided that it was his turn to explain things. "I guess its my turn for share time. I was going to tell you this after dinner with Sam in the room, because its pretty unbelievable, and he's better at explaining things than I am but I was distracted by my own thoughts. I am the righteos man, and I was suppose to be the vessel of Micheal. Now, that probably doesn't make any sense to you, because you don't have the memories to understand what that means."
Dean continued on, trying to explain to this kid all about angels, demons, vessels, Lucifer, Micheal, the apocolypse, and how Sam had saved the world with his help of course. He talked a little bit about Cas, and mentioned Gabriel the archangel. It took a long time to get it all out, especially since Dean tried to choose his words carefully so he didn't make a mess of telling the story and by the end of it, Dean thought that the kid would call him crazy or something. He did seemed shocked at first, but then he just listened.
When Dean fell silent, it looked like the kid was thinking, then he asked, "I think I understand why you told me this story, but I need you to spell it out for me. Who do you think I am?"
"I died, and came back to life many times. Cas was brought back to life once too. What I'm trying to say is, that for whatever reason, probably just because it was God's will, an angel was brought back to life. That angel is you. Somehow you have lost your grace which is why your human now. I don't know why your memory was blocked, but hey. Only angels call me the righteous man, and only angels cared about protecting me, the vessel of Micheal. The reason why I was dissapointed earlier was because I had somehow convinced myself that you were Cas come back to life once more. Then I realized, after you had hit on me, that you can't possibly be Cas. Maybe your Gabriel. You did choose the name, and he's far more likely to do something like hit on a guy, but he would do it as a joke. Since you weren't joking maybe not, and so you can be any of a number of Angels who died during the war of heaven which happened after we had stopped the apocalypse, and the final battle."
"You think that I'm an angel of heaven without my angel powers or wings," Gabe asked as he tried to wrap his head around this crazy theory.
Gabe could tell wether people were lieing or telling the truth. He could also tell if people were crazy just by looking at them. It was all part of his weird "psychic boy" powers. He could tell that every part of that story rang with truth, and that Dean wasn't crazy. Suddenly, Gabe kind of wished he was. Ever since he woke up with amnesia he wanted to know about his past. Now that he had finally gotten a few answers, he almost wished that he hadn't. If he had been something as powerful as an angel, that meant that he could have had some very powerful enemies. Now that he was human, he was vulnerable, and that kind of scared the crap out of him. He drank a little more out of his half empty cup, and stayed silent, struggling not to show his fear.
"Say something kid."
"I don't think your crazy."
"Okay, well that's good. What else? I know your claming up for some reason."
"I'm scared," Gabe admitted in a whisper. He tried to act brave in the face of his fear, but with that little admittance tears came to his eyes. The hand that Dean placed on his shoulder was a small comfort in the face of the enormity of the situation. What he really wanted was for Dean to hold him, like he had done before, but he would settle for this.
"You don't have to be involved with this if you don't want to. Anne lead a pretty normal life for a little while when she pulled her grace out. Your vulnerable right now as a human, and its alright to be scared."
"I have to stay with you Dean. I can't explain it to you, but I know that I was suppose to find you for a reason. Maybe I'm suppose to still protect you, or something. Maybe its God's will, and if I'm suppose to be an Angel of the Lord, then I'm suppose to obey God."
When Gabe started to talk about obeying God, he no longer looked liked a starved, fourteen-year-old street kid. His eyes took on that cold, hard as stone quality of unquestioning loyalty. He had seen Cas like that many times.
"I guess that obedience thing is hardwired. Its in your DNA or something."
"Angels don't have DNA," Gabe answered automatically.
"It's a figure of speech."
"Oh, right," Gabe said, blushing.
Dean started the car then, and they drove back to the apartment in silence. Gabe thought back upon his foster care days, and all the theories he had had on his possible identity. Once he had thought that maybe he had been a preacher's lost kid. He realized that from the very beginning, even when things were looking dire, he had prayed. God had never showed any signs that he had been listening, but he had faith anyway. Now he figured that he knew why. Who could possibly have more faith in God than one of his angels?
Before he went to bed, Gabe stood outside the apartment building and stared up at the stars. He sent up a silent prayer. He really had no idea how to put any of his thoughts to words. He just hoped that God could feel the love, relief, and hope that he carried in his heart at that very moment. Even though he was still scared shitless, he had an undeniable faith that everything would turn out alright.
"Thank you," Gabe whispered up to the heavens, "for making Dean Winchester. I was lost but now am found, and you provided the tool to help me see."