Fandom Supernatural
Character(s)/Pairing(s)Dean, Gabriel, John, Mary, Sam; take it as you will, there's no real intended pairing
Genre Deleted Scenes/Drama/Gen/Pre-series/Supposition
Rating PG-13
Word Count 1739
Disclaimer Supernatural c. Kripke, WB, CW
Summary Gabriel was Dean's guardian angel by order, Sam's by proxy. That was why he was in the impala that night in Muncie.
Warning(s) SPOILERS for the whole series, especially season five. If you aren't caught up, you probably shouldn't be reading this.
Notes So I was making single serving lasagna when I realized something. I can't believe it took me this long to make the connection. I'll admit I've touched on a few of these themes in other fics before, but this is the first one where I brought my suppositions into one big cohesive fic.
Angels Are Watching
"Angels are watching over you," was the last thing the mother said to the child on his first day of life outside of the hospital and in his own basinet. Her husband barely concealed a snorted scoff, which did not go unnoticed by his wife or the invisible visitor standing in the corner of the master bedroom. The visitor quietly padded over to the modest basinet and looked at the tiny new born who was content in his swaddling. The child was named Dean Winchester and someday he would be Michael's vessel. Gabriel was charged with watching over the child and the younger brother that would follow in four short years. Like any guardian angel, he was not supposed to directly interfere with events, but merely guide the children down a path that would keep them alive for their coming roles as God's opposing warriors. He reached out and ran a finger gently along the infant's brow, getting a feel for the essence of the child. Instantly the baby started to fuss.
Gabriel soon found out that Dean was embarking on a long pattern of fuss. The infant did not sleep well, suffering from colic and a need for outside comforts. Even as he grew into a toddler, the child woke up crying in the middle of almost every night, plagued by nightmares. Gabriel did not have to watch the child at every turn or check in every night, but he began to pop into the child's room about two in the morning to lay his hand on his child's head to soothe him back to sleep before he woke in tears. It was not always something Gabriel could do since other missions took precedence, but he tried to arrive once each night.
When Sam was born, things started to change. It was not uncommon for Gabriel to hear muffled fighting when he came to check on the children. Mary and John were keen to keep the fights away from the children's eyes but the background noise was increasingly there. One night Gabriel entered the Winchester home to find Dean standing on a small stepstool so he could look down at the four month old sleeping in the crib.
"It's okay, Sammy. Don't worry," the four-year-old assured himself more than the sleeping infant.
The voices rose in the master bedroom and the words became clearer even if one was not trying to listen.
"…clings to me. He caused a scene in preschool last week. I'm not the stay at home mother type, John."
Dean fidgeted on his step stood. This was not the first time he heard them argue about him. They were always arguing about something that had to do with money, jobs, childcare, and what could be afforded. When they were not arguing about that, he heard them arguing about women, work hours, and things that Dean did not quite understand yet. Sam was never brought up in the arguments. Dean reached out and patted his brother's head gently, careful not to wake him. "It's okay, Sammy."
Gabriel shuffled closer to Dean. He took a deep breath and allowed the arguments to muffle enough that Dean could not hear the details. Once the argument died down, Dean yawned widely and then curled up on the floor beside the step stool, too tired to return to his room. The archangel snuck a blanket from a stack nearby and covered Dean up before leaving to attend to his other heavenly duties.
As the children grew, Gabriel filtered in and out of their lives. When one died, he was there in Heaven to guide them back to the living. He watched them interact with all sorts of humans and mythical creatures. As the boys turned into men, the pending apocalypse poked at Gabriel's conscience. He was their guardian angel; Dean's by order, Sam's by proxy, and he was going to have to watch them tear each other apart. He knew Dean could never kill Sam, but perhaps Sam could kill Dean. He knew that was not Heaven's goal, so he began to plan.
The plan was brilliant, using an alter ego to infiltrate the boys' lifestyle and observe them closely. He was not breaking any rules. However, he did reveal himself once before the grand finale to the events at the university. It was the night before Bobby was supposed to arrive and Dean was out walking. Gabriel followed for a while and then on a whim revealed his human visage to the night. "Hey, kid, you dropped something."
Dean turned as though prepared for Gabe to launch a water balloon at his face – which was quite tempting – only to find the keys to the impala dangling from Gabe's hand. Dean patted down his jacket and growled. "Where'd you find them?"
"You don't have to be so grumpy," Gabe chided. When Dean made a move for the keys, Gabe pulled the keys just out of reach. "If you want them, you have to thank me."
"Look, Pal, I don't swing that way," Dean rose to his full height, towering over Gabriel.
"What are you a puffer fish?" Gabriel made note to put a fish in Dean's glove box later. He handed the keys over. It was not time to wrap up his stay in Springfield, Ohio yet. Gabriel watched Dean storm off without even a thanks. Gabriel shook his head. Dean was always the psi-blind brother, although Gabriel had thought that at least one of the brothers would have realized his familiarity by now.
Gabriel was not there when Dean made his fateful deal with the demon. He had a war with Hell to plan and other things to consider. As the days to invasion grew closer, Gabriel knew one thing he had to do not as Dean's guardian angel, but as Sam's guardian angel. He had to kill Dean for tricks. One day about half way into the process, Gabe allowed his alter ego to walk up to Sam as Dean lay on the road with a BB gun bullet wound oozing from his head.
"Something wrong, kid?" the different body gave Gabriel a different timbre to his voice.
Sam was trembling, but he managed to nod after a moment. "Everything's wrong."
Gabriel nodded, then he spoke in Enochian, careful not to let the sentences imprint upon Sam's conscious memories. "Remember these trials, Sam. The future isn't easy."
Sam blinked and then looked at Gabriel just in time for his nightmare of a mystery spot to begin a fifty-third time.
Of course, when Gabriel said that he meant the moment Dean eventually became a hellhound or three's chew toy. Yet, the epic war with Hell came and went with Castiel being the angel from the troops to get to Dean first and drag him up to the mortal world. Gabriel laid low for many months, checking on the brothers periodically but leaving when they started arguing. The closer the apocalypse came, the more Dean sounded like Michael and Sam like Lucifer. Even if it was over a cheeseburger or a hunt, Gabriel could almost hear the ancient arguments when humans were barely upright apes in Africa. Therefore, he tried to make both Sam and Dean say yes and get the whole mess over with so he could go back to living his quiet life. It was not what Gabriel wanted completely, but he was growing tired of the increasingly hostile bickering between them. Of course, it ended in angel fire and what sounded like a pole up a certain moral's ass, but Gabriel realized what he could do to stop this whole mess from becoming the worst disaster.
Gabriel bided his time once he made his plan. The right moment presented itself as a torrential downpour that landed the Winchesters in a hotel taken over by Gods. All he had to do was have a moment with the impala without being invisible. Yet, when the chance arose, Gabriel found himself in the car still invisible. If he completed what he set out to do, he knew there was only one way for this night to end. When Dean got into the car, Gabriel found his resolve strengthening. Only he could face Lucifer and if he was going to do that, he was going to die. Gabriel was not going to die without doing one last thing. He listened to Dean berate him for things that were true, but in the end, Gabriel left the car with something extra that would survive long after his sacrifice to set the spell in motion.
Gabriel was not there when the trigger for his spell sent things into motion. As he suspected, Sam was Lucifer and Dean drove the impala right into the middle of the final battle. When Lucifer slammed Dean into the impala and prepared for the final blow, he set the first trigger in motion. When Lucifer's eye caught a glint of sunlight off the impala's windshield, it set about the second trigger.
Images flooded Sam's mind. A piano falling on Dean, the multiple ways Dean had been electrocuted, the BB bullets to the head, the rogue cobra bite, the time the diner chef sent a pan of scalding oil at Dean, and many other morbid scenarios. That gateway of memories he had been asked to hold onto in Enochian morphed into other memories. He remembered Dean using his second and third grade reading assignments as Sam's bedtime stories. He remembered Dean ironing the clothes because Sam was too little and John was on a job. He remembered being a freshman in high school and Dean shoving him towards a group of freshmen girls, telling him to just "dive right in" as if it was going to be that easy. He remembered Dean right after Jess was killed and how all he did was pull off where they stared at the stars with a case of beer between them. The memory got fuzzy after about Sam's fourth beer while Dean was still on his first.
Sam blinked and saw Dean near death in front of the impala and Sam's whole being rebelled against the creature within him urging him to finish the kill. Dean watched as things began to unfold beyond his control and though he would never understand it, not even years later, this was the last thing Gabriel was able to do for Dean as his guardian angel.
The End