Guardian Angel II

The longer I stayed, the less I wanted to leave. A worrisome trend with these angels. It had been a subtle difference with Castiel, then an intense, dizzying need with Gabriel, and now, every rational instinct screaming for me to run was just a leaf in the face of a hurricane.

"Now, I think someone has something to say to you," Lucifer hummed, sounding like a school teacher mediating an incident between kindergarteners. "Go on."

I couldn't even look at the demon that had brought me to Lucifer as he apologized, and certainly not as Lucifer made him scream in agony, trapped in his meat suit, before swiftly killing him in a show of blazing light.

I couldn't look but it didn't stop me from leaning into the brilliant feathers like falling stars that made up the wing curled casually around me, didn't stop me from taking comfort from Lucifer even though he was the reason-

"You can call him, you know," he said idly, dropping onto the couch beside me, looking at me languidly, completely at ease. "I'm sure he'd rather get here sooner rather than later."

I swallowed, feeling the brush of feathers across my shoulder as he settled in.

"I…" He was so close to me I couldn't think straight. I felt like I was drowning but instead of air I just wanted him. "You won't hurt him. You promise you won't hurt him. Or – or try to force him to join you or anything like that. You swear on your grace you won't so much as touch him, that he'll be perfectly safe and free to do what he wishes."

"So long as he doesn't oppose me," Lucifer replied easily, "yes."

Gabriel would oppose him, though. He would. He did in the show for humanity, and… and I couldn't risk it. I couldn't risk his safety. I just couldn't.

"But you want to," Lucifer – Satan – supplied 'helpfully.' "You could warn him, if you wanted. That his big, bad brother has you all to himself."

My face heated up at the insinuation in his wording.

I did want to, though. Everything in me wanted desperately to call Gabriel. He wouldn't leave me alone with his brother. I wasn't sure why, but I believed in him. I believed that if I called him he would come, even if it was to save me from Lucifer. I wasn't sure what the devil wanted with me, but he seemed content enough, almost amused, to keep me with him in the building his demons had warded for him. The wards didn't keep angels out, obviously, but it kept it from being found or spied upon. Lucifer had given me the address of the building so that I could call Gabriel. He'd just given it to me, no strings attached.

I trusted him despite every shred of common sense I possessed screaming otherwise. I did, and it disturbed me. But I trusted him to keep his word to the letter and I didn't want to risk Gabriel on the hope that Lucifer hadn't left himself any loopholes that allowed him to-

"What do you want from me?" I asked quietly, feeling distinctly uncomfortable in my own skin, miserable at how I shivered when I felt his wing shift like a caress over my shoulders. "I don't understand why I'm here or what use I could possibly be to you."

I hesitated a moment.

"Or Gabriel." The thought that maybe he mistakenly thought he could use me to get to Gabriel had struck me before, but it didn't seem to fit in with everything he was saying. "Gabriel has been kind to me but it's only because I tried to save his life – a favour he's already repaid."

A sly, playful smirk played over his features; for a brief moment, I was entranced.

"You should ask Gabriel that," he said idly, and it was with a sinking feeling that I realized that no matter what I said or did, he would eventually win and I would call Gabriel and they would have the talk I expected was Lucifer's end game in encouraging me to call.

It didn't take long after that before I was walking stiffly out of the building with Lucifer himself casually strolling behind me, wishing desperately to make a run for it and not daring to.

Gabriel, if you can hear me, wait. Listen first, I prayed – and prayed was the right word for it, because he'd just arrived while I was in the middle of trying to contact him before and I didn't want him arriving unaware. I am not presently in any danger. I don't know if you heard me earlier or not, but I'm with… your brother. Lucifer. I don't know what he wants other than he seemed to want me to call you but he won't let me leave. He promises not to hurt you or anything but I don't know if I believe him. I'm as safe (according to him) as can be here, but I couldn't bear the thought of him hurting you because you choose not to side with him or something. I don't know. That was all. You can do what you will with that…

It took him milliseconds. Probably less than that.

"Luci, I'm home!" He sang sarcastically as he dropped his arm over my shoulders, pulling me in close as a wing followed suit. Despite the easy motion and his nonchalant tone, his expression was schooled into a façade of cold indifference. "You rang?"

"It's good to see you, brother," Lucifer returned just as easily – though I knew their last meeting had not been on friendly terms. "We have a lot to talk about, you and I. We have so much in common now… isn't that right, Mary Anne?"

I glanced back and forth between them helplessly, unsure what the hell I was supposed to say – because I sure as hell didn't know what he was talking about. Gabriel seemed to sense my confusion, taking my hand in his with a reassuring squeeze.

I almost tripped when deft fingers closed mine over something cool to the touch – my ring.

Bewildered, I fought to contain my expression. My ring. He'd brought me my ring. How he'd found it, I had no idea, because the last I had seen it, it had tumbled out of my hand onto the lawn and been lost forever. But he'd found it, had brought it back to me.

(Now all I had to do was work up the will to leave – easier said than done with Gabriel here as another staggering reason to stay.)

"I was surprised," Lucifer said softly when we were seated in the couch, eyeing the way I was sitting next to Gabriel with… with something. "Mary Anne here seemed to think that I was a danger to her when we first met. I thought you might have poisoned her against me… but you just haven't told her, have you?"

A muscle in Gabriel's jaw twitched in tightly reined in displeasure before he grinned, sunny and sardonic and a little too much 'fuck you' and too little 'handling it.'

It was hard to be around his brother. My heart ached for him.

"She's got a lot on her plate," Gabriel answered, shrugging irreverently. "Wasn't going to dump more on it."

Lucifer hummed, eyeing me lazily from where he sat.

"Michael will try to kill her," he said matter-of-factly, making Gabriel and I both stiffen. Gabriel's face was mutinous – like he knew deep down that what Lucifer said was true. A sly smile touched upon Lucifer's face. "Everything in you is screaming to stop him, and together, we can. We have a common cause, brother. Join me."

Gabriel hesitated – he wouldn't have even considered it on the show so to see him considering it now was alarming to say the least.

"You want him to join you in destroying my planet?" I asked incredulously, the fear and anger in my gut churning, spurring me on. "What do I have to do with any of this anyway? Why would Michael want to kill me? And if you're not going to kill me, just-"

I wanted to go home. To get away from the insidious influence of these angels, to go back to my life of reading books and watching television and singing along to my favourite music as loudly and ridiculously as I wanted in my room, in my house. I wanted to be surprised by Crowley coming home, to set down my book and lose myself in him without wanting eyes like sunlight though a glass of whiskey or – or deceptively soft-spoken words of seduction.

"No. If you're not going to let me go, just kill me," I told them, feeling reckless and stupid and desperate. Something was gnawing away at me on the inside and I couldn't take it anymore. I couldn't take – all this mess. "I don't want to be some kind of – of flying monkey chew toy."

Gabriel looked like he had to try hard to choke back bewildered laughter and my cheeks flushed. Crowley had rubbed off on me, it seemed. I was bluffing of course; I was terrified of dying, although…

If I were honest with myself, maybe I was too much of a coward to acknowledge how I really felt, how I had felt since I'd been ripped away from my dysfunctional but sometimes okay family that I genuinely loved, from my best friend and favourite person in the world, who felt like the only person that was ever on my side.

"Wish it wasn't like this, kiddo," Gabriel said, sympathy saturating his voice. For a split second, I wanted to throw myself into his arms and just cry. His wing curled around me just a little bit, as though reacting to the thought. "I really do. There's just a lot you don't understand – hell, I don't even understand. You're kind of impossible, you know. One of a kind doesn't quite, uh, cover it."

I wondered, briefly, if he could hear what I was thinking like Lucifer could. Maybe not everything, maybe just the loudest, most concise and clear thoughts, but it was still discomfiting.

(Not as discomfiting as it should have been, and that realisation made me feel almost sick.)

"You coddle her," Lucifer observed, leaning forward to rest his elbows on his knees where he sat, his eyes dark with some emotion I couldn't name.

"I'm on her side," Gabriel said, throwing his arm around me and pulling me close. "Our girl is… really, really in a league of her own. She needs some time to work through some things before we load her up with a metric tonne of ancient angel baggage, isn't that right, sugar snap?"

He shot me a meaningful look that I took to mean that he knew I had sold my soul to Crowley and that I shouldn't mention it. At all.

Based on what I knew about Lucifer and his feelings towards his demonic children, I considered that a wise decision.

"Anything else can be dealt with," Lucifer dismissed, eliciting a dark chuckle from Gabriel, which made his eyes narrow. "Unless there's something I should know… brother?"

I couldn't take much more of this. It was too much. Gabriel seemed to realise this because he pulled me in a little closer, still casual, still with the ease and irreverence that belonged to the trickster, but in a gesture that was comforting and brought warmth to my chest.

"Annie, honey bunch, why don't you head on upstairs while the grownups have a little chat," he suggested lightly, cheerfully, his hand on the small of my back a gentle guide up and off the couch. "You'll be back in no time. Faster than you can say 'this isn't the bathroom!' Okay?"

I did everything I could to keep my thoughts under control, instead focusing on what they were talking about, what I had to do with anything and why I was there in the first place as I mechanically made my way out of the room and headed for the stairs.

The place wasn't warded against demons. Why should it be? You don't keep your own minions out. Of course demons could come and go as they pleased. And Gabriel - he had returned my ring to me. If the allusion to how I had run from him at our first meeting by pretending to go to the bathroom didn't clue me in, nothing could. With my engagement ring, I would be hidden from angels and, combined with my wedding ring, I would be able to summon Crowley.

He wouldn't be happy, of course, not at all, and I knew he would have questions that I wouldn't be able to answer, but he would come.

I slipped the ring onto my finger with a prayer – ironic, I know.

Crowley, I scarcely dared to think, scarcely dared to breathe. Crowley, please get me the fuck out of here. I want to go home.

A beat passed. Then another.

Then someone's hand was on the crook of my arm, gripping me tightly, and we were gone.

"Crowley-" My breath came in greedy, desperate gulps of air as I clung to him, my knees weak in relief. "Oh my god."

"Not exactly, Annie," he returned, falsely pleasant. "Quite the opposite, I'm afraid."

The way the fury stole over him took my breath away.

"I have to find out from the Hardy Boys that you've been kidnapped only to find you hamming around with bloody Satan?" He demanded, and I did the only thing I could even begin to think of doing in the face of his wrath – I kissed him.

I kissed him with all the desperation of a starving person, with my hands on both sides of his face, with a kind of voracious, hungering lust I'd never known the like of in my life. Was this what it was like to want? I'd never really initiated anything – but I needed him now or I was sure beyond a shadow of doubt that I would go mad.

He took over quickly, which was all for the best because I didn't actually know where to go from there, and then it was him working his frustrations out against me in the most delicious way as I tried hard to forget everything except for his touch like hellfire on my skin.

By the time his ire had cooled, he had so thoroughly succeeded in granting my unspoken wish to forget that once or twice it had been touch and go trying to recall my own name.

"He wanted me to get to the other angel," I told him before he could ask, because I would tell him everything because this concerned both of us. "I think. Some demon came across me in town – he's dead now, Lucifer killed him – and kidnapped me. Then Lucifer seemed to change his mind about me and decided to, I don't know, keep me or something."

I closed my eyes to the familiar, comforting sound of a drink being poured.

"Why?" Crowley asked, simply, calmly, almost an afterthought to the clink of glass that followed the preparation of his Craig.

"I don't know." I felt lost. "I haven't the foggiest. He just – kept me there. Killed the demon that kidnapped me and healed me and just kept me. The only thing he seemed to want from me was for me to call my angel, but also made it seem like he couldn't care less. I called him and they talked about stuff I didn't understand and then my angel gave me back my ring and gave me a chance to escape."

I shrugged a little helplessly to myself.

"I hope he's alright." I'd run without sparing a thought to Gabriel and that guilt would gnaw at me until I saw him again, alive and well before my own eyes. "I didn't think twice. I just called you. What if Lucifer hurt him?"

Crowley didn't scoff, per se, under his breath but it was something heading in that direction.

"Will they be looking for me?" I asked him quietly, sudden realisation and mixed regret striking hard and fast. "Will they come after you, Crowley? I don't-"

I didn't think I could bear the knowledge that I had painted a giant target on his back – because of course Lucifer would find out. Of course he would.

"I think I can handle myself, darling," he dismissed flatly, tossing back the remnants of his drink with a bit more bite than was strictly necessary. "But you, Annie… what am I going to do with you?"

The answer, as it would turn out to be, was to return me to the keeping of the Winchesters – because where better to put me than beside someone Lucifer had ordered none interfere with? (Alright so maybe any good done by placing me with Sam was negated by placing me with Dean on that front, but we really were scarce on options, my foreknowledge really only gave me an edge while I was with them, since it all focused on them, and, well…

"Annie," He reprimanded sharply, the attempt unfortunately doing nothing to quell the growing hint of a grin touching upon my features. "Don't you dare."

"I'm not sure, Crowley," I allowed cheerfully, without even a hint of false contrition. "But I know what I'd do with Dean Winchester~"

I kept laughing even when he snapped his fingers to yank the sheet out from under me and sent me tumbling off the bed onto the floor.

It was the first time in a long time that things felt normal between us. Unfortunately, it was also the last time things would feel that way, so innocent, so free. Well, insofar as anything could be 'innocent' around Crowley, anyway.

"You wouldn't do anything with Dean Winchester," he'd scoffed, gazing down at me almost thoughtfully, a wicked smirk creeping over his mouth.

"No," I agreed wistfully, and then met his gaze with a sly look of invitation. "There's not much I wouldn't do with my husband, though…"

By the time he was done with me, I felt whole again. Or something like it, anyway, with thoughts of angels well, if not far, behind me.

And then I was with the Winchesters again.

"Bobby was really worried about you," Dean greeted me gruffly, keeping me at arm's length for a moment as though to assess the damage. (Damage I knew he wouldn't find because Lucifer had – had taken care of it for me).

"What happened, Annie?" Sam asked softly, his face full of empathy.

I wished Crowley hadn't just left me here with them again. I understood why he had – it made the most sense at any rate – but right now I just wanted to be with him again, at home. Or at some approximation of home.

"I got picked up by a demon," I offered after a moment, a delicate tremor running down my spine at the memory. "He took me before him. The devil."

Sam looked horrified.

"He didn't-" I began, and then wondered why on earth I was defending him, to Sam and Dean of all people. "He claimed not to want anything from me and he didn't hurt me. Just killed the demon that clubbed me over the head, but that was it. Then I prayed and Gabriel showed up to save the day and helped me escape."

I bit my lip.

"I hope he's okay. I just – left him there."

The guilt ate away at me like a kaleidoscopic array of ever-changing teeth, relentlessly and in new and inventive ways with each fresh intake of breath.

Gabriel, Gabriel, Gabriel. I wanted to call him but I was too much of a coward to.

"Hey, hey, it's okay, Annie…" Sam tried to soothe, looking a little bit bewildered by the level of concern I had for Gabriel. Fair, I supposed, considering their history and his lack of knowledge of ours.

I changed the subject. I asked about Bobby because I loved that old grouch (and because the thought of getting into any kind of discussion over Gabriel or Lucifer was profane, almost sickening). I asked about how the hunt for the horsemen's rings was going – and didn't that get a shred, considering look from Dean, because how did I know about that?

I knew about a lot of things, including the name of the pizzeria Dean would find Death at, though I pretended not to know the name of the city it was located in so that they wouldn't blame me for withholding information that would have spared Bobby from selling his soul.

"If Sam says yes," Dean asked abruptly, drawing insistent protest from the man in question, "does he make it?"

I hesitated.

"Dean, you can't just ask her something like that," Sam censured, sounding tired and hassled all at once. "It's not fair."

I knew the answer. I did.

"It's just a question," Dean defended roughly – though his eyes never left mine.

"I don't know," I tried, my voice cracking. I knew full well but I didn't want to be the one to deliver the news. "I don't know."

Dean was aggravated and Sam's arguing wasn't making it easier. They weren't listening.

"I don't know," I repeated, more insistently this time.

"-It's the only plan we've got, Dean!"

"Well if we know it's going to tank then we're better off starting from square one-"

"She doesn't know, Dean-"

"What am I supposed to do, Sam? Just cross my heart and hope for the best?"

"I don't know!" When I was done, I wouldn't even remember standing up. "I don't have foreknowledge of events that I'm present at!"

Silence reigned. My chest heaved with every breath, both brothers looked – taken aback to say the least. I myself was shocked. If there was anywhere on the face of the planet that I should not be, it should be in the vicinity of Satan and Michael before their big prize fight. Lucifer because – well. And Michael because he apparently would smite me as soon as look at me if what Lucifer had told Gabriel was correct.

But I had just placed myself there regardless.

"You're – you're there?" Sam uttered, taken aback. Join the club, buddy, I thought, still reeling from my stupidity myself. "You're there when I-"

"Technically, she doesn't know," Dean answered for me, sounding frustrated, like he had too much on his plate and none of it was a bacon cheeseburger or pie. "Maybe she just doesn't know anything. She could be catching some shut-eye at Bobby's when it goes down. Or something."

I was struck with a sudden, aching affection for Dean, who was so clearly grasping for straws it almost hurt. He didn't want me around Lucifer any more than I wanted to be around him.

(I did, though, I wanted to be with Lucifer very much, a feeling rivalled only barely by the need to not feel that stomach turning hunger for his presence-)

"Chuck would know," Sam said suddenly, his gaze catching Dean's with renewed energy. "Think about it, Dean. I mean, he probably knows what Annie is."

The apocalypse was on us, and they still…

They still made time to figure something out for me.

The stupefied look on Chuck's face when the Winchesters showed up on his doorstep again with me in tow was… really quite something.

"Sorry the place is, uh… a mess," he excused, scratching the back of his neck as he led me further into his home – abruptly scurrying over to the couch and swiping two no doubt questionable magazines and hurriedly moving them elsewhere.

I barely heard him because the blood was rushing to my ears as I wondered how on earth I was supposed to broach the whole 'I know you're God' topic without getting smote to fuck.

"I'm surprised," he said, clearing his throat awkwardly. "That Sam and Dean decided to bring you… here. They think you're a prophet, huh?"

I flushed, horrible and splotchy red.

"No, no," I denied immediately, "not a prophet. I don't see things like you do. I just know things. But – you know that."

I regretted it the instant it had slipped from my mouth-

"Huh?" Chuck asked, sounding confused. "Oh – I don't see you, Mary. You're like a wild card. Anything you touch is like – the butterfly effect. I don't see them again until you're in a different part of the picture."

I swallowed. Honestly, for a moment, I almost believed he wasn't… you know. Him. There was something familiar about him that set me at ease despite knowing how dangerous he was, something that made me want to stroke his hair back and hum some broken lullaby until whatever had him so on edge had passed – but he wasn't a child anymore, was he?

I blinked. Where had that thought come from?

"Oh, Mary," Chuck murmured, sounding so full of pity and love and concern that my heart leapt for joy that I didn't understand. "You were raised Catholic, right?"

I didn't-

"Yes," I found myself saying. "Why?"

His fingers brushed over my cheek, confident now where they would have been tentative before, affectionate and sure.

"You're a bit behind schedule, you know. I thought your demon would have figured it out by now and had you quietly dropped off. Of course I also didn't think you'd, uh, marry him. Anyway." He snapped his fingers and suddenly I wasn't in his house anymore, I was at the foot of a path leading up to a nondescript house…

"Go on, Mary," Chuck urged, his voice kind and patient beyond what I imagined I deserved. "Pop in and say hello. Don't worry, you'll knock his socks off. And then I'll bring you home. Uh, eventually."

When I turned around, I was alone.

Hail Mary, full of grace, I murmured to myself, taking one step up the path, then another, then another. The Lord is with thee…

It was a funny thought but it gave me strength like it always did, so I made my way up the path one step at a time, until I was close enough to hear loud voices engaged in heated discussion-

The Lord is with thee, I repeated, letting my fingers brush against the doorknob before I grasped and turned it, cringing at the clicking sound it made, and opened it just enough to slip inside. It hadn't even been locked, I thought, although if my hunch was right, what use did angels have for locks?

"I will seek Revelation," a vaguely familiar voice announced, quieting the others briefly.

"A trick, Commander. You must not let this distract you now, at so crucial a time. Surely this new prophet is a falsehood. Look at its assigned guardian!"

Wings. Brown wings, grey wings, white wings, every type of wings in between. And there, in the centre of the room, were the greatest, grandest wings of them all, dwarfing the others present. Wings of pure, untainted white, imperious, towering wings that looked like they were formed out of wisps of cloud and the all the delights of the air.

I let loose a short scream when someone grabbed my arm and hauled me forward.

"A spy, Michael," someone intoned flatly, shoving me forward.

I stumbled, my heart stuttering against my chest, as I raised my face to meet the gaze of-

He was staring at me, looking utterly, completely shocked.

"You're not Michael," I said stupidly, even though I knew full well it was. I wanted to reach out and touch his wings – the strongest urge I'd had in all my limited wing experience. Come to think of it, I hadn't even been able to see Castiel's wings before, but now I could see the wings of every angel in the room – focus, I told myself.

His wings drew back, making that asshole Zachariah duck out of the way.

"What?"

I laughed it off like a crazy person, which I was beginning to feel like.

(I wanted to bury my face into those feathers and see if it was like what I'd imagined using a cloud as a pillow would be like when I was a little girl.)

"Michael is totally played by Matt Cohen. You know, black hair, blue eyes, yea tall?" Actually I didn't know how tall he was but I was bursting with some kind of giggly emotion that was threatening to strangle my common sense. "Young John Winchester, whatever. You're Adam, his son. Which makes you, what, a Nephilim? Michael junior?"

Someone let loose a horrified noise at the accusation-

"Anyway, it's been great – really great – meeting you, not Michael, um, Adam, whatever your name is…" I was going to throw up all over the wings I wanted to snuggle into; fucking kill me now. "But wow, look at the time, I really, really need to-"

I blinked and was met with curious blue eyes in a face full of wonder.

To be continued in Full of Grace.