Angel of Whichever Earth
The angel Gabriel from heaven came,
his wings as drifted snow, his eyes as flame.
He didn't really like the cold.
It was just another odd thing about him – most angels wouldn't care, wouldn't even notice. But Gabriel had spent so many years on Earth that sometimes he felt more Trickster, perhaps even more human than angel. Years of hiding had turned him into something as far from an angel as an angel could get without falling.
These days he didn't really consider himself all that Heavenly anymore.
He had chosen his side, stood with the Winchesters and Castiel against Hell and Heaven. Despite his painful love for both of his brothers. Despite the clenching feeling in his chest that made him want to beg; please, brother, please let us go home – let us go back to the way it was. Let us be brothers once more...
But Michael would never listen to his heart above his duty. And Lucifer had given up on love a long time ago.
So he shouldn't have been surprised. But when that blade slid into his skin – when his once-beloved brother actually went through with it and killed him…
It had hurt far more than anything he believed possible and he wasn't talking about his sword.
Lucifer may have failed to kill him, permanently in any case, but he had definitely murdered that part of him. That part of Gabriel that had desperately wanted to believe that some part of Lucifer was still the brother he had once been.
He had known it was a foolish hope. A far too human hope; undying and hopelessly irrational – a faith beyond Heaven and Hell.
Such a hope was the kind of tenacious, foolish belief that could only be found on Earth. And it had been this human sort of hope that had made him stand up to Lucifer, so that the brothers Winchester could get away. So that Earth might have a chance.
Because as much as he loved his brothers, he also loved Earth. Loved this beautifully ugly, hopelessly hopeful, crazy creation of his Father. He might have come here to run away – to flee his brothers fights. He might have missed Heaven – Father, how he had missed Heaven - but Earth, Earth was something too – something all the more bright for its shadows.
These days, Gabriel considered himself more Earthly than Heavenly.
And on Earth, winter was cold.
So Gabriel was wearing a thick, black coat and a warm, red and white scarf. The matching gloves made it difficult to snap his fingers but he was playing the part of a human – more out of habit than out of necessity – so he supposed that that was ok.
The bag of candy he had popped into existence previously was carefully tucked away in one of the large pockets of his coat. He longed for the sweet taste of a snickers bar or even a lolly, but candy-wrappers were a bit of a challenge without full use of his hands.
A smile crossed his face when he spotted the solution to his problems. A stand selling hot chocolate.
He shamelessly tossed his entire wallet to the sales-girl, leaving her to dig out the money and leaving his hands warmly encased in his gloves. A moment later he was in possession of his wallet again – he could see she hadn't robbed him, not that he would have cared since he could make more money appear if he wanted to, but he might have been tempted to bring about justice on her had she stolen anything – and put it away again.
Then his hands encircled the hot cup of delicious chocolate - with a sinful amount of whipped cream and chocolate sprinkles on top - and he sighed happily.
Yeah, should he ever see them again, he would probably give the Winchesters shit about getting caught up in their little 'Team Free Will' anti-Apocalypse stitch – dying at the hands of his brother hadn't been fun – but all in all, he was rather glad that the world hadn't ended.
Even if he had gotten rather lost in the process.
But hey, Earth was Earth, hot chocolate was hot chocolate and anything was better than watching his two brothers and their armies tear each other to pieces and taking all of humanity with them.
So even if this version of Earth was a bit whacky – well, that just made for an interesting change after centuries of transversing his own.
And this Earth did prove to be interesting.
He gracefully settled himself on a bench. Just for giggles, he had enchanted the small park so that any passer-by with a guilty conscience would get pelted with snow from behind – whichever way they turned. It was amusing to watch the confused and angry people try to find the perpetrator so Gabriel contently settled in to watch, sipping the rest of his lovely beverage.
Until he saw something that genuinely surprised him – one of the victims to his prank started to look a lot more like a cat, and a lot less like a human.
The man didn't actually change into a cat, his size remained the same, but his hands showed claws and his features shifted until his face looked like that of some sort of alley cat.
Taking a closer look at the other people around him he could see that this man wasn't the only human who had a little bit 'extra'. There were more of them, most managing to hide their differences underneath a human façade but apparently when they became angry their true nature showed.
As the last drops of cocoa were absentmindedly licked from his cup, a new idea sparked into his head. It was time to 'investigate' this interesting phenomenon a little further.
Humming softly, he wondered if it was just anger that caused these people to shift. Gabriel did like to think of himself as a pro when it came to pissing people off. But maybe confusion, fear or lust could cause a similar change…
Had either of the Winchesters looked at the Gabriel right now, they would have known to steer clear of him. The unholy glint in his eyes had nothing to do with an archangel – no, it was pure Trickster.
Two hours later the amused smirk was abruptly wiped from his face.
His reasons for entering this forest – there was quite a bit of Trickster potential here – were tossed away as easily and carelessly as a candy-wrapper. Every trace of his previous light-hearted fun disappeared in an instant when he noticed the two human-ish occupants of the forest - one of them hunting the other, smaller, one.
There seemed to be two different sides to this chase; two layers superimposed on top of each other. One of them was natural, animalistic; the hunt of predator after prey. The other was far more jarring – it was an all too human cruelty; the desire to inflict pain on someone perceived as lesser; the thrill of hurting another being, revelling in their fear.
It made the archangel feel almost sick.
Winchester one and two would have been surprised to hear that, he was sure. But even as a Trickster, Gabriel hadn't been deliberately cruel just for the sake of it. No, he had always believed that even so far away from Heaven, and everything that he had been, as a Trickster he had still served justice - or perhaps vengeance - but never, never, this cruel and senseless hurting of a child.
There was no justice or vengance here. For this crocodile-like man it was no more than selfish, sadistic pleasure, the kind that Gabriel had seen often enough in the few demons he had 'met'. The fact that this was a human and not a demon made it all the worse – because that meant there was noreason for this evil, just a man's choice.
A part of Gabriel – the hollow part that had been left in him when his brother stuck that sword in his chest - might have despaired of humanity ever learning, ever bettering itself, if not for the innocent young girl this man was chasing.
Because that child, that scared, fleeing fox-child still held hope in her heart. The foolish, human, hope that just wouldn't die despite the fear and pain and 'please, God, no, please' that Gabriel could hear running through the little one's head over and over again.
And even though he could hear a car in the distance, could vaguely tell that it contained some form of authority, police, whatever, it didn't matter.
Because Gabriel couldn't watch this any longer.
It was not a Trickster that extracted his vengeance upon the hunting human.
No it was an archangel that stood there now, between evil and innocence and there was a flame in his eyes that had not been there in a long time. Because Gabriel had made his choice, had chosen Earth and all that that entailed and he would fight for it now, after years of running and hiding. That was what he had signed up for the moment he decided to stand up against Lucifer.
This Skalenzahne never had a chance.
Gabriel had really wanted to kill him. He had really, really wanted to shove the sword he had summoned with his grace into the bastard's heart with all the righteous fury of a pissed off archangel.
But the little fox was still crying, running no longer, but curled up at the foot of a tree in the tiniest little ball possible and staring at him with fear and wonder through her tears.
And he had stopped short of actually murdering the damned man.
Instead he turned away from the gibbering mess of crocodile-man on the forest floor and turned his full attention to a far more important subject.
Gently he knelt and sheltered the child with his wings, instinctively trying to shield her from the man who had wished her harm.
Silently he waited, and as her fear lost to hope and faith he smiled.
For once he did not mind sharing his candy because, before the two detectives managed to find them, the angel had managed to coax forward a genuine smile from her as well.
It should have looked out of place on a child's face still furry and foxy.
Instead it was one of the most adorable things he had ever seen – in Heaven or on Earth.
The two men who had been hunting this hunter came into sight.
One of the detectives stopped to stare at him, and Gabriel could read the awe on the man's face. The man looked as if he would have been content to stand there and stare at him for all eternity. But then his partner called him, snapped him out of it, as the darker-skinned male raced to the unresisting crocodile-man and cuffed him harshly.
The other detective came forward, oh-so-slowly, looking at Gabriel with a wariness that would have amused him once-upon-a-time, but he was not in the mood for games any longer so he released the fox-child and stepped away carefully while the man closed the distance.
And then the detective was there, lifting the girl in his arms, sheltering the hurt, cold, scared child as best he could. And his partner was there as well, still keeping an eye out on the cause of this all who was still in a heap on the ground - what could he say? Gabriel was good – but lending the little one his jacket. And they were whispering reassurance and the angel could read relief on both of them, could read comfort, care and safeguard in their protective stances and gentle smiles.
This was humanity.
Cruelty and love. Harm and protection.
This was the beauty of humans: for all the terrible human beings out there, there were also the few who may just be better than any angel. Because they had the freedom to choose and didn't all take the easy way out. Because there were those who would always choose kindness over hate and protection over domination. Not because Father had told them too, but because they wanted to or because they believed, wanted to believe, that it was the right thing to do. Because humans cared. About wrong and right, but also about feelings; about love and pain and death and life.
And they had what he had never found in any other creature: the desire to do better.
When the dark-skinned detective turned to him with his questions, Gabriel just smiled – not his usual grin, but a true smile that he generally reserved just for children, for the most pure and innocent of all of Creation.
He smiled with love and grace shining out of his soul and with the rustle of feathery wings, he was gone.
"So, was he, you know, one of them?" Hank asked him, later, after the paramedics and back-up had left with the little girl and perpetrator - leaving them alone in this forest.
"I – no, I don't know." Nick stammered as his mind raced to come to terms with the truth he had seen.
"But you saw something, right? I recognize that look on your face by now. So what did he look like?"
Nick was silent for a long moment. When he finally spoke his voice was little more than a whisper – as if he were afraid to say it out loud. "He looked… like an angel, Hank."
Hank blinked, by now too used to being surprised by this shit to actually be surprised anymore; "You mean, like halo and wings and stuff?"
"Yeah… something like that." Nick breathed. He allowed the silence to stretch between them as he tried to find the words to describe what he had seen.
"Wings… not actual wings, but a shadow of wings, but not a shadow – they were light. He was light, bright. Beautiful." The Grimm sighed, dissatisfied with his words but giving up on the task of describing the indescribable.
It didn't matter anyway. No matter what he said, he could never manage to explain to Hank just what he had seen, what he had felt, when he laid eyes on the angel. To Hank, that man must have looked short, human, uninteresting. To Nick that same person had looked grander than anything he had seen. There hadn't been anything human about the man; the light sufficing him, the wings surrounding him – even that unfathomable gentleness in his eyes. All of it was too much, too pure to be human in anyway.
Nick had never once heard of angels being real - had never found any reference to them in his aunt's trailer. After all of the horrible things and creatures he had seen he should be doubting this, doubting angels and their intrinsic goodness. But somehow he knew - that for one moment, they had been in the presence of something beyond anything he had seen, beyond the Grimm and the Wesen and beyond Earth. Something greater, more powerful and more pure than all of that.
"Huh," was all his partner could say and Nick decided not to comment any further - there was really nothing more to say.
But it was nice to know that there was more out there than the Wesen described in his books – it was wonderful to see that not all of the beings from stories and myths wished to bring harm to humans.
That some of them were actually watching out for them.
So Nick allowed himself one more moment to stare at the spot where the angel had been. And he allowed himself to think, to wonder, to believe.
Then he sighed, nodded to Hank and together they left, to return to the station - because he was a detective, and a Grimm, and he had a job to do.
Because, divine intervention or not, there were plenty of children, plenty of humans, Wesen or otherwise, who still needed saving.
A.N. I had so much fun writing a Halloween crossover last time, that I decided on a Christmas-y story as well! Since I've been into Grimm lately, I wanted to do another crossover for that fandom... and Supernatural seemed like the way to go.
Still, it's been a while since I've seen it and my Gabriel is probably way out of character, but whatever. I'm re-watching Supernatural now, though, starting from season one so maybe I'll take another look at this after I've seen the parts with Gabriel again...
Merry Christmas everyone!