Revelations
Weeks 8-9

By Nan00k

Thanks for the reviews, guys! :D

Gabriel becomes a house terror for Bobby, Deborah deals with her past decisions and Dean has an epiphany in the form of a flaming Scotsman.

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Warnings: graphic violence, foul language, brief descriptions of sexual acts, religious overtones, original characters, canon/OC pairing, canon pairings, alternative universe (post season five)
Disclaimer
: Supernatural © Eric Kripke/CW. I only write this mess.


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Sioux Falls, South Dakota

Gabriel was a walking natural disaster. Bobby said that at least. Deborah liked to think of the archangel as "socially impaired," but to the opposite degree of Castiel. The trench coat clad angel just couldn't relate to people. Gabriel related—too well. In fact, he related to the point where he knew every single button to press to really, really piss someone off.

Namely, Bobby. Gabriel bothered Deborah sometimes, no doubt, but never to the extent he teased Bobby. It was never malicious (at least from what Deborah could tell), but the older hunter was always screaming about some kind of trick the angel had pulled on him. As far as Gabriel was concerned, it was harmless fun that got him through the "additional eight months of babysitting."

The room was the next step in the Tormenting Bobby Distraction Plan, as Gabriel liked to call it. Deborah liked her room just fine. It was a bit dusty and the purple striped wallpaper was neither new or fitting for the rustic home, but it didn't bother Deborah at all. In fact, she kind of liked it. Her bed was newer and she had bought new covers for it earlier. The ancient white wardrobe against the furthest wall was cute and she insisted it stayed.

None of that was good enough for Gabriel, apparently. He moaned and groaned about the basic cotton sheets, the creaky wood flooring and the faded "girly" wallpaper. Bobby threatened him with everything the poor human had—spells, wards, the banishing sigil Deborah learned actually did work, but was off-limits. If Gabriel got sent away, Raphael would be sniffing around instantly for the reason why, Gabriel cheekily reminded them.

Whatever happened, Deborah knew, Raphael could not come to the house. That much, all of them knew.

So, Bobby didn't have much say in the matter, even in his own home. Gabriel could poof all he wanted and not much could stop him. For this week, it seemed his attentions were completely focused on home improvement. Deborah prayed the house would survive.

The room she was using was not the only spare bedroom upstairs. There was another, generally saved for Dean and Sam while they were there. Normally, Dean told her, they would have put her there, but Dean might need the room if he stopped by. Plus… well… Deborah had a feeling Sam Winchester was a part of the reason for her being placed in the other unused room. She had only heard bits and pieces about the younger brother's death, but she knew it had been awful for Dean. She respected that and stayed away from their things, the few that remained in Bobby's house.

"Stop touching my things!" Bobby was swearing. Gabriel seemed to have none of that respect for others' property and was almost purposely kicking the furniture around in Deborah's room. "All of this—Goddamnit, GET OUT!"

"It needs more luxury! You're housing a future prince of princes!" Gabriel shot back, impishly.

Bobby was turning a rather unnatural shade of red, even as Deborah skittered past him to grab the last of her own personal belongings. "Last thing I heard, the first one was born in a dirty hovel of a barn," Bobby spat.

"It was actually a rather nice barn," Gabriel sniffed, choosing to ignore the irate human. He flicked a wrist and the whole wall of wallpaper in front of him disappeared. "Hmm, I'm thinking… yellow. You're kind of a yellow lady, aren't you, Deb?"

Deborah pointedly chose to not reply and Gabriel kept on going anyway, not needing her input at all. Bobby proceeded to pitch a fit about the cheery yellow paint that miraculously appeared on the wall. While the human was busy screaming about "idjits ruining his home" and Gabriel was busy contemplating drapery colors, Deborah escaped into the hallway with her last box of possessions. She didn't want her few items of value getting destroyed in the battle of wills going on in the tiny room.

So, she took everything downstairs, which was probably safer than being upstairs at the moment. What was more distressing to Deborah, however, was the fact the effort of taking a few boxes down the stairs had been taxing. She wasn't even that big! She had gotten a few books on pregnancy after she had settled in and Bobby took her into town for some basic shopping, but it still felt surreal.

Alone for the first time that day, Deborah stood in the living room, contemplating what she could do, while Bobby and Gabriel were waging war upstairs, the sounds of their bickering fading into the background.

A strange inkling of an idea had occurred to her earlier, mostly because of another stray thought she had had a week or two ago. Dean called often or Bobby called him when he didn't, just to check up on things. Deborah liked the younger hunter, even if he was a little intimidating; he seemed to care about what happened to her in the long run. Even still, whenever he called or she had the opportunity to tell him about her day, part of her wished his traveling companion was the one on the other end of the line.

Castiel. She wanted to talk to Castiel. Why… she wasn't quite sure. She hadn't spoken more than five words to the angel since… well… the night they first met. Thinking about him gave Deborah's stomach a strange kind of twisting feeling—not a good, nor a bad one.

Maybe they needed to talk about this, she reasoned, though it wasn't a strong argument to her own mind. What if he didn't want to stick around with the baby, if they did indeed make this work and Raphael was defeated? What if he did want to stick around? What would that mean?

Without thinking about it, Deborah walked to the kitchen, where the row of phones—all different lines for different hunter purposes, she had learned—hung. There was one normal phone line and, standing there looking at it, she was overcome wit the urge to pick it up.

Deborah knew she didn't have the will power to actually call the angel. Not because of the doubts about the future.

She just couldn't face what either of them had done. Not yet.

Reaching over, she picked the phone up from its cradle. She didn't have Castiel or Dean's numbers memorized completely yet (though she knew she ought to). She did know one number by heart and with trembling fingers, she managed to punch the digits in.

By the first ring, she regretted going through with this. By the second, there was a click and Deborah knew it was too late.

"Hello?"

Deborah inhaled shakily, reeling at the sound of the familiar, older voice. "Hi, mama," she began, forcing a steady voice.

There was a startled gasp on the other end of the line. "Deborah!" her mother exclaimed. Her words were jumbled, as if she was trying to say a bunch of things all at once. The panic and the worry in her tone were unmistakable. "What—for the love of God, Deborah! Why haven't you called? !"

The accusation stung Deborah something awful, but inwardly, she had been prepared for this reaction. She hadn't called her parents once since she had left home and she knew that must have been terrible for them. She just couldn't muster the strength before. Now, she was already feeling ready to hang up just from nerves.

"I, I've been busy settling in, mama. I'm sorry," Deborah began again, knowing it was useless to say anything.

"You're sorry? !" her mother blurted, voice shrill, angry. There were no sounds in the background, so her father must have been at work. "I've been worried sick! I thought about calling the police five times this month! Not a word or reason or call—!"

Deborah curled against the side of the wall, fighting her own anxiety. "I'm sorry!" she exclaimed, hoping to cut the angry tirade off before both of them broke down. "I-I've been busy, honest! Time just got away from me, is all. I'm sorry, mama, I really am." There were no words to describe how sorry she was for all of this.

The tense silence that followed was agonizing. She could hear her mother breathing heavily. "…Are you alright?" the older mother asked finally, voice sharp.

"Of course, mama," Deborah replied, closing her eyes, exhausted. "I would have called if I had a big problem. Everything's… calm here, really. Nothing big to speak of." Other than domestic-terrorist angels, of course. That wasn't something she could complain about, of course.

"Why?" Mrs. Garrison demanded, cutting to the chase far quicker than Deborah had feared. "Why… did you have to leave?"

Sliding down the wall, Deborah brought her legs up to her chest, feeling pathetically helpless. "I told you. I wanted to move in with—with Cas." She stumbled over the nickname, still unsure of what to formally call him in front of ordinary people.

The angry scoff made Deborah wince, as if her mother was right in front of her instead of miles back home in Ohio. She could just imagine the scowl and glare on her mother's face. "We never even met him!" the older woman barked.

"I know!" Deborah said, guilty. "He's terribly shy, mama. And—and I know how much this upset you and dad. I didn't want…"

She stopped herself, unsure of how—or why—she wanted to phrase it. Her mother waited in impatient silence and Deborah forced the words to come to her lips.

"People would've talked a lot," she said.

As expected, her mother shot back, snarling, "Deborah Lynn, that is no reason—."

"Dad is the pastor, mama," Deborah interrupted sharply. "I won't let my m-mistakes ruin your lives." She knew how judgmental some people got about certain things, like pre-martial pregnancies. Her father's reputation gave him the respect he got as pastor. Deborah wasn't about to ruin his life along with her own.

Also, there was the whole angels-watching-my-every-move concern, too. Deborah was not about to drag her parents into this. The further away they were from each other, the better.

"Forget the church!" her mother exclaimed, expectedly dismissive of the worries. "Deborah, I'm terrified for you, baby! I want you home."

Deborah stared out across the kitchen, the faint sounds of men arguing upstairs the only thing disturbing the silent house. "I can't go home, mama," she replied quietly. "Not now."

"Why not?" her mother begged, sounding desperate. Deborah brought her legs up to her chest tighter, clenching her eyes shut in pain.

"Because I…" she began, voice wavering. She clenched her free hand into a fist, bracing herself. "I need to do this on my own. I mean, not with… parents. This was my mistake, my responsibility. I'm gonna tackle it as an adult."

Her mother made a distressed sighing sound. "But why move so far away? South Dakota? Really?"

"It's where Cas' family and work is, mama. It's a really nice place, honest. The house is adorable." Deborah opened her eyes and laughed awkwardly, trying to make it less serious. "I-I'm not alone or anything either. Cas is a-around and Bobby, Cas's uncle, is a great help, too. His brother Gabriel is around a lot. They're very nice."

"So many men," her mother said scornfully.

Deborah sighed, agreeing. "Yeah, but they're sympathetic and are really respectful people." Well, Bobby was nice. Gabriel probably couldn't even pretend to be respectful. "Cas is a nice man, mama. He'll… support me and the baby." If not financially, at least physically. As in, they had protection from demonic attacks.

Oh, Lord, her life was such a mess.

"What's his name again?" her mother demanded. "Cas? Cas what?"

"Cas…tiel Novak," Deborah stuttered, barely remembering his vessel's last name. "His mother was, um, European. Not sure where from exactly." Since when did she lie so much to her mother?

"Castiel?" her mother repeated, waspish.

Deborah cleared her throat. "Yeah…" They had thought about using the name 'Jimmy' (Castiel's host's name) but that had disturbed both Deborah and Castiel too much, so they just decided to use his own name. It was strange, but a name was an easy thing to explain away.

Her mother made a tsking sound. "Is he religious?"

"Oh, very, mama. Nondenominational, though," Deborah replied, fighting a weak chuckle at that. Of course he was religious. "He works as an advertisement salesman and makes more than enough to support us. He's a great man, I promise."

Then, the question she was dreading popped up. "Why are you living with his family but not ours?"

Deborah tried to think, but she didn't really have an answer. "Because—"

"Did he ask you to?" her mother demanded, impatiently.

"Yeah, mama, he did. And I agreed," Deborah replied, trying to be firm. She didn't want this to turn into some horrible question-and-answer thing that she couldn't be honest with her mother about. "I-I wanted to move."

She wanted this to have never have happened. She wanted to be home. But she didn't want her family in danger, so… yes. She wanted to move. That wasn't a lie.

"I don't understand," her mother said, tearful. "I miss you."

Deborah closed her eyes again. "I miss you and dad, too," she said. "Once the baby's born, I'll get them to fly you both over here to meet them and the baby."

"I should be there now, Deborah," her mother continued, insistent. "You're my baby girl. I should be there helping."

"I'll be just fine, mama," Deborah replied, her throat far too thick. Oh, this was why she didn't want to call. "M-maybe I can get dad to show you how to do Skype and we can all see each other even from this distance."

Her mother sniffed. "You're hiding something from me."

"No, mama, I'm not," Deborah said, too quickly. She paused, her heart hurting something awful.

Unfortunately, her mother's silence did not indicate she believed her. Maybe this is why Deborah never lied to her mother before—it just didn't work.

"I don't know what's going on with your life that you have to move thousands of miles away from your own mother, or what kind of secrets you have to protect," Mrs. Garrison began, emotional, "but you're still my child and I love you."

Deborah choked. "I love you too, mama," she said, voice wobbling.

The conversation mechanically drew to a close a few minutes later. Her father was well and everything at home was fine, minus people asking where Deborah had run off too so early into her vacation home. Deborah didn't mention school and neither did her mother. The semester had begun and continued without her, so there was no need to mention it now.

After what seemed like forever, Deborah told her mother goodbye and hung up the phone. She promised to call more often and she hoped she would too, even if hearing her mother was worse than not seeing her all the time.

The yelling upstairs stopped completely and Deborah sat alone in the kitchen, listening to the quiet of the nearly-empty house.

Her hands laced over her belly, which was just starting to show the telltale bump. She couldn't feel anything else beneath her skin—no holy sensation, no feelings of glory, not even a kick.

The urge to run overwhelmed her. Deborah swallowed hard, trying to force the fight-or-flight sensation away. Where would she even go?

There was no other choice, but to stay and hope for the best.

The yelling and arguing finally stopped. Gabriel had turned her bedroom into a partial finished work. The walls were yellow and the bed was far softer than it had been, though there was no telling what would be changed tomorrow at the whim and fancy of a bored archangel. Deborah pretended to care about patterns and made the two men a warm dinner, even though her chest felt cold.

She kept hoping for the best… but she stopped praying. It didn't seem right to do so.

That night, Deborah heard Gabriel throwing a rubber ball continually against her bedroom wall and, gritting her teeth, she forced herself to ignore it and get some sleep.

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Eastern California

There wasn't anything happening on the West coast, Dean decided, so they had to move east.

Castiel was handling the global scale of the Jesse-hunt, for obvious reasons. Dean in turn took to the more standard traveling-by-car searching of his own skill level. He kept an eye out in newspapers and on the Internet for any signs of demonic activity that would match the level of what they needed to find. It was almost eerie how lacking in demonic activity things seemed to be, but Dean kept looking. They had to.

Separated yet again by separate duties, Dean was left driving alone while Castiel was off doing, well, angel things. Things back at Bobby's were apparently colorful thanks to Gabriel, but there weren't any real problems to speak up. Raphael was quiet for now. Things were almost too quiet for Dean's paranoia.

Why hadn't they found another hoard of Jesse supporters? Part of Dean was suspicious of the whole thing being true by this point. What if Raphael had been making it up, about Jesse? Castiel seemed pretty sure of it, though… so maybe there was some truth behind the whole conspiracy theory. Dean wanted proof though, but they had to find Jesse first.

That was worse than trying to find God, honestly. At least back then, they had had the amulet. It had turned out to be worthless, but at least they had something to guide them if they had run into him. Jesse could have been anywhere and they had almost no real clue outside of the demons amassing to help them hone in on the kid.

They were out of options, Dean realized, other than searching the old fashioned way. There weren't going to be any amulets or cheat sheets or—

And then… driving along a nondescript highway, Dean thought of a single name.

Crowley.

…Holy mother of GOD, Crowley.

"Shit," Dean whispered to himself, mind soaring. Chuck had disappeared, probably for his own good, but Crowley? The dude was the King of Hell essentially. If anyone had connections to what was going on with demons, it was him.

Part of Dean wanted to be wary about seeking help from the demon. He was a demon and if dealing with demons had taught Dean anything, it was not to deal with them.

But Crowley had been, in the end, a huge help in their fight against Lucifer. For his own gains, maybe, but the demon had thrown himself under the bus essentially to get what the Winchesters needed and he had given Bobby his legs back. Bobby said they had un-did the deal, too, after the fight was over, so he got his soul back. Crowley had given the hunter a short goodbye and vanished, without doing anything underhanded or evil.

So… Dean decided to press his luck. He picked up his phone and called Castiel. The angel had told him he'd be busy for a while, so Dean wasn't surprised he got the awkwardly amusing voicemail message. Smiling to himself, Dean hoped Castiel never changed it, just because it was so funny and so… well, Castiel.

Some things really shouldn't change, he thought.

"Hey, Cas? I know you're in Heaven right now, but I wanted to run this by you first, so when you get this message, or figure out how to answer it, call me back." Dean cleared his throat. "Ah, I'm thinking maybe we should find Crowley. I know he's a demon and all, but he might have more leads on where Jesse or his demon groupies are, you know? I don't know how to find him myself, outside of summoning a crossroads demon, but I don't want to risk calling up a demon who might be working with Jesse, you know? Lemme know what you think of this. Uh, bye."

Whenever Castiel got back, they could decide what to do. Dean was actually feeling mildly pleased with his idea. It was all they had, honestly. Raphael's people seemed to be either just as clueless as them, or were deliberately withholding the facts. Either way, Dean knew his team had to figure this stuff out solo.

He got another ratty motel for the night. The endless cycle of driving and motels was an easy pattern to get back into. Dean sort of missed Castiel popping in randomly during the day whenever he went back to play politician in Heaven, but he was glad the angel stay away at night.

For various reasons.

Dean rested his head on the motel pillow and closed his eyes . The idea of contacting Crowley, using his intel to find Jesse or at least the next hoard—it would work.

It was a good plan, wasn't it?

"I dunno. Crowley's a demon, man. Just look at Ruby… at Meg… at all of them," Sam said, shaking his head.

"Those were your problems, though," Dean shot back.

Sam laughed, almost sheepish. "Yeah, yeah. Still. Don't just dive headfirst into this."

Dean looked at his hands, which, like everything else between them except egos and age, were smaller than his brother's. "Cas might go for it though," he said, frowning.

"I'd trust his judgment," Sam said, nodding. "Just… don't forget you can think too, Dean. Not that well without me, of course—," Dean snorted, "—but don't have too much doubt in your own plans."

"I know," Dean said, looking away again.

He felt Sam lean closer. He could almost imagine the deep frown on his face, eyebrows furrowing in disapproval. "No, you don't. You never have." Dean did look up and Sam said, "Try believing in yourself now and again."

Dean stared back at him, heart strangely numb, even though he knew it should have been hurting. "Last time I did, you died," he pointed out, as if that was a validation of something.

Sam's eyes shone, brightened by the small smile on his face. "Yeah. But that was part of the plan, wasn't it?"

Part of the plan? Dean knew there had been a plan, that Sam was going to die, and the world would be okay after that.

But never anywhere in those plans did Dean expect to walk away okay too. Being okay was for everyone else. Not him.

"I never wanted that plan," he replied finally. Since when did he speak so quietly?

Sam leaned back, suddenly seeming horribly far away. "But you got it," he said. "We all did."

Dean felt part of him slip downwards, through the bench they were seated in. "I don't know what to do, Sammy," he said, abruptly feeling out of control of what was happening. The pond was no longer a quiet trickle in the back of his mind. All he heard was deafening silence and his own doubts.

"Wake up."

"What?" Dean turned around, but no one was there. A heavy hand landed on his shoulder, regardless.

Sam's eyes broke up the darkness. "Wake up and do what you have to. That's what."

Gasping, Dean jerked upward. He flailed for a few seconds before realizing he wasn't at the pond. He was in the motel, in his bed, where he had fallen asleep. It was a dream. A dream.

Again.

Breathing heavily, Dean tried to lay back down, but his heart was racing. The freeway nearby filled in the background noise and he had the chance to reflect over what he had dreamed. All the details were still there. They never did seem to go away, so he was left with all the facts to get worked up over that he hadn't seemed to do in the dreams themselves.

His shoulder burned where Sam's hand had grasped him.

Eyes stinging, Dean glared at the ceiling, fighting the urge to stand up and punch the wall.

That was dream number eight. They were getting worse.

He didn't sleep for the rest of the night.

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Next: Bobby Singer's home proves to be less of a haven than Dean and Deborah were hoping for... and not in the way anyone was expecting.


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