A/N: Supernatural and its characters don't belong to me, they never have and they never will. Unfortunately.
I know I said this was a five-chapter arc, but I guess I lied. Now it's a six-chapter arc. But that's fine, right? In the scheme of things that's a pretty small change in a story that'll max out at 101 chapters.
This chapter takes us out of Gabe's PoV for a bit, since I'm no good at writing from a child's perspective. And I thought it might be refreshing to see what everyone else has to think about the situation.
Chapter 11: Little Angels Are Our Future
When he – finally a he again – caught his balance, Gabriel knew immediately that something was wrong, but couldn't quite put his finger on what. The figurative phrase brought his attention to his hand itself. He clenched it with a frown. Tiny fingers and a pudgy palm. Something was wrong about that, but… What?
And then someone big was leaning down and picking him up. The face was unfamiliar; a human with blond hair and blue eyes and a little bit of stubble. But the wicked gleam behind his eyes was anything but alien. Gabriel's face split in a wide grin.
"Luci!"
He squirmed in his big brother's hold, wanting to be released so he could fly into his brother's chest for a proper hug. Lucifer just chuckled fondly, with an odd twist to his mouth like he was about to play a trick.
There was a flutter of wings, and Lucifer looked up and right.
"Lucifer."
Oh.
That was Michael. And he sounded grumpy.
"Hey, Michael," greeted Lucifer, clearly pleased with himself.
"What have you done to Gabriel?"
The blond just smiled and shrugged. Gabriel struggled and twisted in his big brother's grip, until he had turned himself to face Michael. He too was wearing an odd face, a human visage with dark hair. Though his brothers looked weird, Gabriel found that the humans they had chosen to mimic suited them very well.
"Mike-a!" the littlest archangel greeted, drawing Michael's stern gaze away from Lucifer and towards him with an odd jolt.
"Hello, Gabriel…"
Michael shifted uncomfortably, clearly restraining himself from doing… Something. From behind Gabriel, Lucifer looked up at Michael from under his lashes and grinned a little.
"You wanna cuddle him, Michael?" he teased.
Michael shot him a look burning with blue and white fire, but Lucifer just laughed.
"Change him back," the eldest archangel ordered. "It's undignified."
Lucifer scoffed, pitching Gabriel at Michael to free his arms for posturing. Frantically, Michael encircled Gabriel, pulling the small child out of the air and safely into his broad chest.
"If any of us is meant for the undignified, it's Gabriel," said Lucifer, tossing out an arm casually.
"Archangels were not meant for this… Human childhood," Michael protested, even as he shifted his posture to accommodate Gabriel, to encircle and protect him.
"Oh, come on. I just wanna see how my bunk buddy will react."
"Lucifer, no."
Michael was clearly done arguing. Lucifer pulled a teasing little half-frown that clearly said he wasn't done. Gabriel's mouth was twisted down in determination as he pushed his stubby little fingers together, lacking the motor control to snap even though he appeared to know the action would get him whatever he wanted. Lucifer waved his hand and Gabriel's mouth split into a grin as a chocolate bar filled his chubby fist. He munched on it happily, while just above his little head, Michael's eyes narrowed to slits.
"So, Gabe," Lucifer began, and found wide butterscotch eyes on him. "Would you like to play a game with me?"
Gabriel nodded without hesitation.
"Lucifer."
"Oh, don't be such a spoilsport, Michael," the devil said with a grin befitting his title. "You think he's adorable, even though you don't want to. Come on, I'll let you watch."
Michael's face shifted through several vaguely-irate expressions. Lucifer waited patiently. The eldest archangel held Gabriel out and studied him. Big golden eyes, a fluffy halo of unruly hair, fingers and toes so small they made something in Michael's chest tighten with the need to protect—
"Fine," he relented.
Lucifer cheered. Gabriel just looked innocently confused. It would be a first, Michael admitted to himself.
"But!"
Lucifer groaned.
"No fun."
"But," Michael repeated, voice lower. "You cannot take him to the real Sam and Dean Winchester."
"What? Come on, Michael—"
"He is… A handful, but he's still our brother, Lucifer."
"What if I wipe their memories afterward?" the blond offered.
Michael looked conflicted. He avoided Lucifer's eager gaze for a long moment.
"Fine. But do it properly. So they won't remember. Ever."
"Yeah, yeah, whatever."
Lucifer waved his hand like he was brushing away Michael's concerns, and with a flit of powerful archangel wings the Men of Letters Bunker materialized around them. Michael set Gabriel down on the ground, and the little archangel's chubby cheeks were covered in chocolate. For the first time, the two elder archangels noticed Gabriel's wings, which had manifested in physical form due to the toddler's lack of control over his residual power. The gold feathers drooped to the floor haphazardly; Gabriel's wings, while small indeed to accommodate his childish form, were much too big for him. Lucifer smiled, nudged his big brother.
"Cute, isn't he?"
Michael's expression trembled, and he furrowed his brow.
"It… Reminds me of when our Father was around."
A shudder ripped up Lucifer's spine, but he managed a smile that was only slightly painful.
"I bet Dad would get a kick out of this," the blond said.
The two of them vanished, before Gabriel could latch onto them.
With the disappearance of his brothers, Gabriel's lower lip trembled. A whimper dribbled out of his mouth, followed quickly by an ear-shattering shriek. Distantly, there was a loud crash, a thud, and a muffled "son of a bitch!"
Despite Dean's rather vocal response to the disturbance, it was Castiel who reached the wailing archangel first. He stood there for a few seconds with a confused frown.
"Gabriel?" he asked.
The archangel looked up at Castiel and quieted a little, recognizing something warm and familiar about the other angel's grace, but nothing else. When Castiel crouched down to pick him up, Gabriel screamed again.
"Luci!" he cried, fat little tears streaking down his cheeks. "Mike-a!"
Dean practically tripped into the room, clutching his aching head.
"Jesus, Cas, what the hell—"
Castiel blinked.
"It's Gabriel," he told Dean, as if that explained everything.
Dean looked down at the screaming toddler and grimaced. Oh yeah, he was gonna have flashbacks to taking care of that little shifter baby for sure. The two of them were just standing there helplessly when Sam ran in.
"Dude, what the hell is going on out… Here?"
He blinked, looking down at the tiny Gabriel on the bunker floor. He opened his mouth to say something, but as he did, Gabriel's teary little butterscotch eyes locked on him.
The crying stopped.
But far from being terrified into silence by Sam's ridiculous stature, Gabriel looked mesmerized. As if Sam was the most interesting, beautiful thing he had ever seen. Like he was made of stardust and diamonds. Like he was something pure. The brunette shifted under the stare. No one had ever looked at him like that. Especially a kid.
"Sam!"
And with a little flutter of his too-large gold wings, the tiny archangel slammed into Sam's chest. Instinctively, he wrapped his arms around the kid to prevent him from falling. Dean grinned as if he were about to make a comment, and Sam's eyes narrowed.
"What do we do with him?" he asked Castiel, turning away from his brother. "How did he even get here? I thought he was dead."
The angel's brow furrowed.
"I'm not sure what we are meant to do with him," he admitted gruffly, tilting his head. "But Gabriel has been with Michael and Lucifer in Heaven, working to restore and restructure it. He faked his death when fighting Lucifer in 2009. However, the other archangels are the only beings who could put him in this state."
Dean rolled his eyes.
"Heavyweight douchenozzles, round two. Even if they were fucking with him, why'd they dump him on us?" he demanded.
"Dean!" Sam hissed, covering Gabriel's little ears by pressing one to his chest and cupping one of his large hands around the other.
"What?" the elder Winchester protested testily. "He's an archangel, not a real kid!"
Frustration and embarrassment warred on Sam's face, before his expression settled into a protective scowl. Something leapt in his chest when Gabriel nuzzled into his shirt, and he shifted his hold on the tiny angel, making sure to steer clear of his gold wings, for fear of ruffling the feathers.
"Jerk," muttered Sam, trying to ignore the way his heart stuttered when one of Gabriel's little hands closed around the plaid of his shirt.
It was just that Gabriel was so small. And helpless. And even though Dean was the only one who'd truly ever had a shot at an apple pie life, Sam had seen that kind of future for himself, once. With Jess. The white picket fence, the two kids, hell even the minivans and stupid animated movies. He'd wanted all of that once, even though after ten years of hell and heartbreak he knew it wasn't in the cards for someone like him.
"Bitch," Dean answered thickly, eyes cornering away from the utterly tender look his brother was bestowing on the miniaturized archangel in his arms.
None of them had any idea what they're supposed to do, so they just stood there. And then Gabriel pulled back from Sam just enough to look him in the eye and tugged on the bit of the brunette's shirt still clutched between his little fingers.
"Sam?"
Sam choked something painful down and tried to smile.
"Yeah, Gabriel?"
The archangel looked down, brow furrowed in intense concentration. Then he met Sam's eyes again, earnestly.
"Hungry," he insisted.
And no one argued with the little tyke, even though there were still streaks of dried chocolate on his mouth, because there were tear tracks and snot too. Sam walked into the bunker's kitchen with Gabriel in tow and Dean wondered how his overly-cleanly kid brother was not freaking out over the archangel snot smeared onto the front of one of his favorite shirts.
Castiel just came along for the ride, curious but unconcerned.
"What do little kids eat?" Sam muttered, rifling through the cupboards with one hand while his other arm encircled Gabriel, large fingers hooking under the angel's knees to keep him sitting upright.
Dean shrugged.
"Applesauce?" he suggested.
Sam threw him a flat look.
"We don't have applesauce, Dean."
"Hey, you were the one asking for suggestions!"
Sam sighed loudly. Meanwhile, Gabriel had tangled his pudgy fingers into the hunter's longish hair.
"Candy," he suggested with a sly little grin.
"You are not getting candy," protested Sam.
"Saaaaaaaaaaaam," Gabriel whined, tugging almost-painfully on the locks of Sam's hair he had managed to capture. "Candy!"
"Jesus," Dean muttered. "Just get the brat some candy. He can handle it, he's an archangel."
Gabriel stuck his tongue out at Dean and cuddled closer to Sam. Dean threw up his hands in frustration. Castiel tilted his head.
"Cas?" Sam asked.
"I don't believe any harm would come to him if you chose to feed him candy, no," Castiel answered without any further need for elaboration on Sam's part.
And so, even though it went against his better judgment, Sam dug into the candy stash Charlie had left in their kitchen, and pulled out a little package of M&Ms. Gabriel's eyes lit up, and he released Sam's hair in favor of grabbing eagerly for the chocolate.
However, once he had it in hand, he didn't quite have the dexterity to open it. Gabriel looked down at the bag of M&Ms, then at Sam's one free hand. Finally, his eyes settled on Castiel. With determined insistence, he held out the packet. Tilting his head, Castiel accepted the M&Ms. Then he just stood there, holding them. Gabriel frowned.
"Open!" he ordered, wings flaring a bit.
Castiel ripped an edge off the bag of candies, then handed them back to Gabriel. Watching with eager golden eyes, Gabriel poured a few M&Ms into his palm.
"What do you say?" prompted Sam.
Gabriel thought about that for a moment, looking up at the kitchen's white ceiling. Deciding he needed a little brain food, the toddler popped a green M&M into his mouth and chewed slowly.
"Thank you," he remembered, looking a little too proud of himself.
Castiel found himself smiling just a little.
"You're welcome, Gabriel."
Gabriel's little wings fluttered a bit at that, and he held out an M&M to Castiel. It was blue. Castiel accepted the gift from his formerly-elder brother, and placed it on his tongue to eat, even though it was difficult to enjoy the taste of the chocolate itself with each individual molecule vying for his attention. Gabriel seemed to have no problem with that. In fact, the cherubic archangel had stuffed another three of the candies into his mouth in the time it took Castiel to eat his one.
Then, he held out a red M&M in front of Sam's nose. The brunette went to take the little chocolate with his free hand, but as he did, Gabriel tugged his chubby little palm away, closing his fingers over the candy.
"No," he insisted firmly.
Sam lowered his hand, confused.
"Isn't that one for me?" he questioned.
"Yes."
Gabriel brought his little hand up to Sam's mouth insistently. It took a few seconds, but the hunter finally realized that, for whatever reason, Gabriel wanted him to accept the candy directly from his hand. For the very first time, though if Michael and Lucifer left Gabriel with them for much longer he was sure it wouldn't be the last, Sam wished he'd had more experience dealing with children.
As dexterously as he could, Sam grabbed the M&M with his lips and pushed it back into his mouth. Gabriel grinned like he had accomplished something amazing and flapped his wings excitedly with a tiny whoosh-whoosh. Whether it was the burst of chocolate on his tongue or the clear glee of his new little charge, Sam felt a little surge of happiness skip through his veins.
And then Dean scoffed and the illusion was broken.
"You look like a stay-at-home dad, Sammy."
The barest hint of a smirk flashed across Sam's face before he stifled it.
"And you look like you're jealous that Cas and I got M&Ms and you didn't."
Dean made a face that anyone but him would have labeled a pout.
"Can get my own damn M&Ms," the green-eyed hunter grumbled.
He actually proceeded to do so once Gabriel passed around another set of M&Ms and didn't offer him one. Not that he even had a particular fondness for M&Ms, really, but it was the principle of the thing. No kid was gonna get the better of Dean Winchester.
Then a green M&M plonked him on the head. Dean's eyes narrowed.
Gabriel waved at him, grinning like an idiot. Pushing up his sleeves, Dean stalked up to the tiny archangel in his brother's arms, prepared to rip his fluffy wings off, but ran chest-first into Castiel.
"What the hell, Cas?"
"He is only a child, Dean. We must be patient with him."
"Patient!" parroted Gabriel, sticking a chubby little thumb in his mouth.
"Wh- But he just-!" Dean spluttered, gesticulating wildly as if that would help make his point.
Sam pulled a guilty little smirk that reminded Dean of Lucifer, and exactly whose fault the entire fiasco he found himself in was. In fact, Dean was about to shout for the older two archangels to get their feathery asses within punching distance when Gabriel interrupted with a shout.
"Sam! Play now!"
"Play?" Sam questioned, rolling the idea over in his head. "Alright. What do you want to play?"
Dean folded his hands and prayed silently, and Castiel just looked at him, not understanding the request or why anyone would be so averse to water fowl.
"Duck, Duck, Goose!" answered Gabriel, and Dean's half-pleading expression crumbled into flat disappointment.
"No. No way. I'm not playing that," the elder Winchester insisted, crossing his arms over his chest.
"You have to," Sam told him. "You can't play Duck, Duck, Goose with just three people, Dean."
"Nope! No way! Not gonna—"
But Dean's protests lurched to a stop when a tiny wail hit his ears. Dean whipped his head around, and saw Gabriel's lips trembling and his big golden eyes filling with tears. There was a long moment of silence, and Dean could almost physically feel the buildup for an earth-shaking scream. He held out for as long as he could, but eventually the fear for his eardrums was too much.
"Fine!" he relented. "I'll play!"
Gabriel clapped his hands together happily, and Dean had the distinct feeling he had been played.
Soon, the two hunters and two angels were seated in a small circle in the bunker foyer. Sam and Dean had tag-teamed an explanation of the game for Castiel, and Gabriel had declared that he was the "chooser" first. No one bothered to argue about it, even Dean.
"Duck, duck, duck, duck…" Gabriel repeated, stretching up on his toes to tap the grown men on the head.
Even then, Sam still had to slouch when it was his turn to be 'ducked'. Since there were so few of them Gabriel went around the circle three or four times before making his decision. With an especially loud thwap, he bopped Castiel on the head.
"Goose!"
Castiel sprung up, and Gabriel ran as fast as his little legs would carry him, letting out high-pitched, breathless squeals of excitement and fear. He had almost made it to Castiel's empty spot in the circle, and Sam was cheering him on, when suddenly the archangel found himself airborne.
In truth, Castiel had snagged him with both hands around the middle, and raised him up into the air. Giggling, Gabriel kicked his feet and fluttered his wings.
"Cassie! Cassie!"
Dean cracked a smile at that, leaning back on his hands and studying Castiel's eyes which were swirling with a mix of confused fondness.
"I have never had a younger brother before," the angel admitted.
"Well, you're doing a pretty awesome job," Dean replied.
Gently, Gabriel patted Castiel's hands.
"Leggo now. Sam."
All three of the grown men hid smiles. Why Gabriel was so insistent that Sam was his favorite, none of them could really say. But there was something about the childish favoritism that felt nostalgic. Castiel set the tiny archangel down. He stumbled across the floor, almost tripping when one of his wings drooped too low and drug on the tile, but eventually hopped safely into Sam's lap.
"Hi Sam."
"Hi Gabriel."
Castiel sat back down in the makeshift circle silently. Dean let the quiet stretch out, content to not have to play Duck, Duck Goose. Everything was peaceful for three minutes.
And then there was the fluttering of wings.
"Mike-a! Luci!" Gabriel cried, unable to hold back his excitement.
The tyke was halfway out of Sam's lap before he remembered that it had been his brothers who had left him alone in the first place. A surly pout formed on his face and Gabriel tipped up his nose. He settled back onto Sam's lap.
"Gabriel, come here," Michael ordered.
"No!"
Lucifer laughed. Michael shot him a sparking glare.
"We have to go now," the dark-haired archangel insisted.
"No! Sam," said Gabriel, turning slightly to press his chubby cheek into Sam's chest.
"You heard the kid," said Dean, deciding it was more fun to razz Gabriel's douche brothers than the bitty Messenger of God himself.
Michael clenched his hands into fists, half-tempted to come to blows with his True Vessel. Lucifer, meanwhile, was suddenly looking very put out. His ice-cold gaze zeroed in on the way Gabriel clutched at Sam's plaid shirt. Even as a toddler Gabriel seemed to notice, and stuck out his little tongue.
"Mine," he said playfully.
Lucifer's eyes narrowed to slits. It only took him two long strides to cross the makeshift circle and snatch Gabriel away. Something primal in Sam's gut twisted. He was on his feet before he realized what he was doing.
There was a loud crunch, and everything stopped.
Dean and Michael broke off their glaring contest, Castiel stopped mid-stride on his way to stand in front of Dean like a barrier, Gabriel's cry cut off harshly. Sam, fist still raised, stared down at his hand. It was dripping blood.
Lucifer, brow furrowed, lifted the hand of the arm not holding Gabriel to his nose. When he held the hand out, palm up, to get a look at it, his fingers were slick with blood.
"You punched me," the devil realized slowly.
Sam looked from his brother to Castiel, unsure whether to apologize or not. The broken nose was already healing, and Lucifer quite honestly deserved a punch in the face after everything he'd put Sam through…
But that hadn't been why he'd hit him, and that was what made Sam uncomfortable.
Lucifer rubbed the blood between his fingers, then looked back up into Sam's eyes. The hunter had the queasy feeling that Lucifer could see everything about him.
"Be thorough," Michael ordered softly. "It might be best to wipe Gabriel's memory too. You had your fun."
Lucifer sneered, tempted to remind his brother that he had seemed to find it fun too. But after being physically attacked by his True Vessel, he didn't quite have the capability for smart remarks.
Then the blond archangel waved his hand, and everything changed.
