"Nice to see the rumours aren't true." Gabriel was surprised he didn't snap his neck turning his head to look at the blonde woman who sat down beside him, choosing instead to continue staring straight ahead. "Jonathan, now, huh?"
"Seemed like a better choice that Isaac at the time," he replied conversationally. "Besides, names travel fast." Gabriel watched the woman outside of the corner of his eye. "You gonna tell me how you got that name?"
She shrugged nonchalantly. "A little birdie named Anna offered it up to me after a long talk during which I promised not to kill her, a charming Brit named Balthazar, or someone else she referred to as 'The Trickster'. You wouldn't happen to have any idea as to who they are, would you?"
Now Gabriel was really surprised he didn't snap his neck with the speed he turned his head to look at the woman beside him. "You've got some nerve, throwing around those names like that, especially so close to Novak territory."
"You've got some nerve staying so close to Novak territory, especially since they think you're dead." The woman didn't look back at Gabriel, who was now gawking at her. "Besides, you're lucky I decided to drop by. Your tails have decided to report back to their boss."
"Shit," Gabriel breathed, taking a moment to confirm what she had just told him. "Hope you've got a plan to get us out of here."
She shrugged again. "Got a few, the first of which I'm pretty sure you'd enjoy and would have me cleaning out my mouth for weeks. You know another way out beside the front door?"
"All the entrances around the building will probably be covered by now. Our best bet's probably to make a run for it. We'll need a distraction first though." He met her eye when she turned her head. "How'd you feel about starting a bar fight?"
The woman grinned. "Great, actually. It's been too long since it last happened."
Okay, so maybe starting a bar fight as their distraction wasn't the best idea. But it seemed like one at the time so they just kinda rolled with it.
"Remind me to never ask you to start a bar fight ever again," Gabriel yelled to his companion as they ran down the street, away from the bar where they were being chased by gang members and angry bar patrons.
She laughed. "You were the one who came up with an idea for a distraction!"
"You didn't have to punch the guy! And really? You had to punch the only guy in there who could actually do either of us serious harm?!" The woman laughed again, and the two of them continued running.
They only stopped running when they reached a cheap motel across town. "Dammit, this means I can't go back and get my stuff later," Gabriel groaned, leaning against the wall of the motel.
"We could actually go to where you're staying if they don't know where it is."
Gabriel straightened himself out at the thought. "Actually, yeah, we could. They don'tknow where my place is in this town." He glanced over at the woman. "You need to stop by some place to pick up your stuff?"
She shook her head. "Nope. These days I travel kinda lightly." She held up the bag in her hand that Gabriel hadn't noticed earlier."
He nodded, mostly to himself. "Alright, let's get going then." They began walking in the direction they had just come from, albeit using a slightly alternate route than they had previously taken. "So, what's your name?" She let out a short laugh, causing Gabriel to look at her. "What? You know my name. I figured it'd only be fair if I knew yours."
The woman nodded. "Alright, I'll buy that reasoning. It's Mary. I stopped going by first name aliases years ago because Mary's such a common name. Yours, on the other hand…"
Gabriel waved a hand, rolling his eyes as he did. "Yeah, I know." They walked in silence for a relatively long time before the pieces clicked together in Gabriel's head. "So, do you prefer Campbell or Winchester?" Thatnearly made Mary stop and punch him in the face, though for what reason she wasn't quite sure.
"What the hell do you think you're doing, bringing those names up like that?"
If Gabriel hadn't been fearing for his life before, he certainly was now. "Whoa, hey, I didn't mean anything by it, I was just asking a question." He held his hands up placatingly.
Content for the time being, if only because she realized she was acting irrationally, Mary turned her attention back to the sidewalk in front of them, continuing to walk forwards. "Neither. I try to stick to more common last names," she replied, not looking at him.
Gabriel let Mary take her time in the silence between them before speaking up again. "My little brother made a file on you. Wasn't long after he met your eldest. I guess he wanted to do something to help him even if it involved his own death."
Obviously Mary thought Gabriel needed a shot of his own medicine because she continued with, "I know about Castiel's file on me. How do you think he found out that my death was faked?"
He gaped for a moment, an impressive feat apparently only able to be pulled off by Mary. "Cassie didn't know for sure that it had been faked. How do you - what?" Gabriel shook his head and looked back at the path in front of them. "We need to have a sit-down talk about this because this apparently can't be discussed while we're walking on the street." He began leading Mary into a relatively nice apartment building. "Can't live in the dumps all of the time," Gabriel reasoned, walking inside.
"So, I think this is the part where we sit down and talk," Mary said, once they were inside Gabriel's apartment.
He winced. "You'll probably be able to sit down for this. I kinda have to pack."
Mary rolled her eyes. "I'll help, dumbass. I can multi-task, you know."
"Good, because apparently I can't," Gabriel replied cheekily.
As the two of them began to pack up Gabriel's clothes and few personal possessions, Mary elaborated on how she knew that Castiel had a file on her. "I try to stay in the loop as much as I can these days, given how powerful the Novak gang has become. I've got a few contacts in there, but none of them know who I actually am. Castiel's interactions with Dean didn't go unnoticed in the gang so one of my contacts told me about it, just in case I was interested in that sort of thing. Of course, after that, I did manage to hear about Castiel's file and even got to see it. I heard that he thought my smile is similar to Dean's." She sighed, pausing her packing. "It's too bad that I can't see my boys."
Gabriel looked over at Mary. "Why won't you? It's pretty much safe enough now that you could go see them, tell them that you're alive and all."
She half-grinned at him. "Why won't you tell Castiel that you're still alive?"
"To keep him safe," Gabriel replied automatically.
Mary nodded. "That's why I do it. Dean's doing reasonably well with his P.I. business, and Sam's happy as a lawyer. I'm not just gonna appear and drag out of their lives and into this. I won't interfere in their lives until I know they're safe." She smirked suddenly. "Unless one of them decides to get married. If that happens, I'm throwing caution into the wind and just appearing one day in time for the wedding."
Gabriel grinned. "If Cassie and Dean had kept up their little contact for much longer, they'd probably have eloped to Europe by now or something." Mary snorted in response.
"So where do we go from here?"
Mary and Gabriel sat in the sparsely furnished apartment, their respective bag/s laying on the ground at their feet. "Well," Gabriel replied. "We could travel together."
She hummed a noncommittal response. "I don't think two officially dead people should be traveling together. Wouldn't necessarily be a good idea."
"You've got a good point there." Gabriel let his head drop on to the back of the couch. "Whatever we decided to do, we should probably get the hell out of town before they catch up to us."
"Yeah, we probably should." Neither of them got up from the couch. "D'you think they'd just shoot us here if they found us?"
Gabriel shrugged. "They might. Doesn't mean they wouldn't move our bodies after we were dead though. Actually, they might kill us elsewhere. Somewhere that's easier to clean up, probably. From there, they'd probably be able to dump our bodies a lot easier if we were already somewhere else."
Mary sighed. "You gonna leave something for Castiel?"
He nodded. "Yeah. You leaving something for Dean?"
"Yup." She looked at him. "Message with the owner of the building?"
Gabriel sighed this time. "Shit. We really have been doing this for too long, haven't we?" Mary nodded, patting Gabriel's knee comfortingly.
"Fuck, fuck, fuck!" Mary didn't turn around to see what Gabriel was cursing about. "Lots of gang members on our tail." He met her eye when she turned around the look at him. "Time to split up?"
Mary nodded in agreement. "Nice meeting you, Gabriel." She paused long enough to hold out her hand to him.
Gabriel shook it, the two of them managing to keep running as they did. "Same back to you, Mary."
A few seconds later, they split into two separate directions when they hit the end of the next block.
"Carry on my wayward son?"
"What is supernatural?"
A/N: So, Mary and Gabe's meeting. Wasn't as exciting as I'd hoped it'd turn out to be but still fun...ish. And hey! Only a minor gap between chapters, which isn't as much as I can say about this one and the next chapter. ANYWHO, reviews? Critiques? Anything? Please?
UPDATE 8/7/14: "Adventure of Two Officially Dead People" (as much as I LOVE that title) chapter title changed to "Heat Of The Moment" by Asia. (But "Adventure of Two Officially Dead People" will always hold a special place in my heart. I will use it again someday.)