Title: We're all victims of the Crossroads

Author: OpheliacAngel

Category: Justified/SPN Crossover

Characters: Jed (Gabriel)/Dean

Genre: Angst/Romance

Rating: Teen

Summary: A first glance at him and you'd think Jed's always been just that; a back country hick that doesn't know anything but how to sell weed and shoot people. But in another life, he was nothing like that at all. In another life, he loved and lost. This is set pre-series Justified, making reference to when Dickie mentioned Jed working with Boyd a while back, which was in Season 2. In Supernatural verse, I guess I would say anywhere from the end of Season 5 to Season 7, but it doesn't really matter since there's no spoilers.

A/N: Well, every time I see the amazing Richard Speight Jr. in something other than SPN I have serious problems not trying to relate it to SPN and not staring at him with two huge, unwavering eyes on the screen waiting for him to do something Gabriel/trickster-ish. So of course I couldn't stop myself from getting into the position of writing this and a Jericho one will hopefully come soon as well, when I get the time that is. Anyway, enjoy this while it lasts, I certainly am.

He's been changing, dying a little bit more each day since Dean left him.

Jed can still feel the blood on his fingers, how sticky and sickly cold it felt, how he had wanted to throw up when it dried and it took him forever to wash it off. He shivers every time he remembers Dean's beautiful hazel eyes, fading fast and he had known what it meant back then.

Knew what it meant now too. How much he had loved him, how he knew he would never forget him no matter how hard he dared to try. Just like he couldn't forget his brothers or heaven or even Sam. Dean had taken such a vital piece of him and there was no question of whether he would get it back.

He wouldn't get it back.

It wasn't so hard to move on, to another town and uselessly empty year when he convinced himself that it was the only thing he could do, the only possible way that he could survive without Dean. After endless days of laying in bed, unable to get up let alone do anything else, thinking of what Dean was doing at the moment and if he was happy, probably not, probably just as miserable as Jed was, he one day found the strength to pull himself away from the sheets he had so fully sunken into, took a shower and worked on clearing his head so he could think straight. None of these things were easy tasks but he did them because he would imagine Dean scolding him, screaming at him to get his ass up out of bed and go live again.

Well, he had done one of those things, now all he had to do was worry about the other.

Jed couldn't stay in the same motel room he had shared with Dean before he died. It was more than just haunting, it was downright depressing and exhausting and ripped his heart into a million little shreds of desperation and longing. He couldn't look at a single thing anywhere without thinking of his smile and the size of his heart that he had given to Jed for protection.

He had packed up what was left of the hunter's belongings, not much really, just some guns and knives and unopened bottles of whiskey, clothes that smelled so good and so much like him that Jed wanted to drown in them, and he left. He ended up driving to Kentucky, where he still is now, don't ask him why cause he really doesn't know, because the Impala was Dean's most prized possession and Jed wanted to drive it, even if it was for one last time.

Would die if he couldn't at least feel her in his grip again.

He wasted the extra time he had by listening, actually totally rocking out to Dean's leftover cassette tapes. Metallica, Led Zeppelin, Def Leppard, he didn't even read the labels, just grabbed one and popped it in and sung along just like he and Dean would when they headed off on their next hunt. It was almost like old times, almost…

Jed doesn't stop driving until he reaches the border for Kentucky, he books himself into a shitty motel room and gives himself the name change off of something he glanced at. He works on growing his hair and his beard out, the former had been shorter than he'd ever had it when he was with Dean, and he also works on developing his back story, his country twang, his motives and personality and all that other shit down to the particulars because if he's going to do it then he's going to do it right. Just like Dean would have done.

Just like Dean.

It goes smooth for the most part. Jed can't complain because he starts making connections pretty easily but still manages to keep his head under the radar enough for him to get somewhere. He moves deeper into the jungle so to speak, buries himself under lies and false pretenses and hopes Dean won't be able to see him from wherever he is.

People in this town, hell, in this world look at him like he doesn't know anything, like he's just this worthless lowlife that will never be able to stay out of trouble, never know what true love means and what life would be like just chilling on the sunny side. He wants to give them their just desserts but then remembers that he doesn't do that anymore, not because Dean made him give it up, which he kinda did but also kinda didn't, but because he lost Dean and no longer can find happiness in that or anything else. So he'll just dream up dreams of them suffering and it'll be enough to satisfy.

Thing is though, he has sunk pretty far down and he's not ashamed because this is what he needs now. A major lifestyle and personality change. Throwing himself into this hellish back country and hiding from the world, hanging out with such pathetic sons of bitches, as Dean would call them, that he comes to loathe rather quickly but still has to admit that they make him forget about everything else sometimes. And sometimes he needs that gesture, those unsavory intentions.

Then again, some days he just needs to be left alone in his hole in the wall, barely holding together trailer and just sip on a beer and think of Dean. Dean who gave him the simple little pleasures in life and so much more and asked for nothing in return but Gabriel's love.

Well, look where it got him.

xxx

The first time Dean popped up out of nowhere he actually laughed at him. Gabriel honestly couldn't decide what would be better, that or Dean slamming him up against the nearest wall and demanding him to tell him where the real Gabriel went. Maybe it would be a little less painful than Dean laughing at him and saying, "You're joking, right?"

As much as it freaked him out when he looked up to see Dean standing there like that was his rightful place, Gabriel fought to keep his calm and composure and instead ripped off the top cap of a beer and chugged it down as he collapsed on the sofa.

"Since when did you start drinking beer?" Gabriel then remembered how vile the drink really was and chucked it up to just keeping a piece of Dean locked up tight within him. Unreachable by any force out there.

He didn't look up at him, or rather, couldn't look up at him, "Since you decided to check out on me without warning."

The hunter chose that moment to not utter a single word and instead continued to annoy Gabriel with his presence, glancing around the trailer as if deciding whether or not he should burn the place down. Maybe if Gabriel was stuck inside he could die and then be reunited by a Dean that was actually touchable.

What he actually fails to remember most of the time now is that he's still an archangel, but as day by day went by with Dean he realized that he was becoming human much more faster than he wanted to. It wasn't a huge loss, not really, but it was still a loss and now without the hunter to get him through it, all he is… is human and vulnerable and stupid and pathetic.

"How long you keeping the act up?"

"Forever," he glanced up into gray eyes, not hazel anymore. "Or until all these people die off and take their feuding and misery with them."

Dean was quiet again for the next few minutes, walked around in his apparent restlessness and eyed the beers in the fridge even though he knew he couldn't have one anymore. That was the point of dying, losing everything you love, and another point was not coming back. Gabriel dared to shut his eyes for just a few moments, not really expecting Dean to be gone when he opened them back up again but wondering all the same.

True enough, he was staring at him like a total idiot when he saw him again.

"You can't just will me away, Gabe."

"Then how can I get rid of you?" He asked wryly, not intending for it to sound so serious but it did. He wanted to be left alone with memories of Dean, that was all. Not some half-assed version that he couldn't smell or taste or touch. And the hunter didn't seem to get that.

"You know," Dean shook his head in astonishment, "you really are that same cocky, selfish, son of a bitch I fell in love with. I came here to see you but I can see now that I'm not exactly wanted."

He spat out, "You didn't come here to see me, Dean. I'm just dreaming you up, that's all this is." And all it'll ever be.

"Really?" He stared at him hard.

"Really."

And he didn't know what to say after that, only wished Dean could know how fucked up and roiling with emotions he was inside. How he couldn't make his mind up about anything anymore and how he didn't even want to make decisions because the love of his life wasn't there to make them with him. Everything was so pointless, Dean being there was so important and nice and beautiful yet so pointless.

"It wasn't my intention to die, Gabriel. Okay? You act like I did it to torture you…"

"You are torturing me!" He got up off the couch and screamed, started reaching for Dean before he abruptly realized that he wasn't really there. He was dead and gone and haunting him even though he salted and burned his body per request.

"You can't decide to come back here whenever you want to, Dean. I have my own life to live now."

He wasn't able to take back those words before there was a knock at the door and he pulled blinds away from the measly window to see Bo and several of his friends. When he turned back, he found that Dean vanished like he had never there in the first place.

Gabriel just wished Dean knew how damn hard it was all the time.

xxx

"Don't, Gabe," he pleads. "Don't get yourself killed."

"This is what you left me, Dean." He gestures around his piece of shit trailer, "All that you left me."

"Damn it. I love you, you son of a bitch. Don't do this, make something more out of your life!"

Gabriel gets up and heads to the bathroom, slams the door in Dean's face in the hopes that it'll make him leave. It doesn't and Gabriel knows that he could simply drift through the door if he wanted too but he doesn't, he merely continues his incessant talking that Gabriel so loves and so hates right at this very moment.

He scrubs his face with cold water, brushes back his thick hair and eyes his beard with dislike, not for the first time either. This is his plan though, to change himself so completely that he won't even be able to recognize himself sometimes. It's working too, though clearly not for the deceased hunter standing at the other side of the door.

Gabriel knows he's not a ghost but he feels like one right now, almost wants to ask him if he's gonna have to shoot him full of rock salt so he won't terrorize him or the world anymore. He just looks back in the mirror at the strange person he sees though, is slightly disturbed but also slightly happy when realizing that because Dean is a hallucination it means that he can never get rid of him, not even if he really wants to.

"You could hunt you know. It'd be better than this, laying down your life for a bunch of psychotic drug dealers and murderers. You can't seriously think about staying here, Gabriel. This isn't an option."

Oh, but it's my only option.

"Gabe, please…"

"Just go away, Dean." He opens the door to find Dean gone, "And don't come back."

He hates himself for being this but what choice does he have?

Where else would he even go?

xxx

"I've got a proposition for you, Jed."

This is it. His life has been changing but now he's finally reached the crossroads. He can run and sulk for the rest of his life or he can do this, make something out of himself, prove that he can change, leave the painful past behind his heavy footsteps.

He thinks of Dean one last beautiful time before shutting him away for safe-keeping in his head, fingers his amulet, the one thing he didn't end up burning, in his back pocket before stepping forward and listening to none other than Boyd Crowder himself.

His one last chance.

No matter what Boyd says, he'll take it like it's the only thing he's ever wanted. Damn the consequences.

FIN