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Crowley popped in and out of the house multiple times over the rest of the day and the next, mostly just to irritate the household, but a few times he actually asked about Gabriel, and made small gestures that showed in his own way he was trying to help. No one really knew why he wanted to help, but they certainly weren't stopping him.
Gabriel was pretty much back to his normal self, besides not having any extra powers. That meant he was tired of sitting on the couch, and was bouncing around the house looking for things to do 24/7.
"Quit it Gabe!" Dean groaned, he wasn't doing anything particularly important, but the archangel was pacing around the kitchen, opening and closing cupboards as he went, and it was very annoying.
"I'm bored" he shrugged "where'd Sammy go?"
"I don't know, I think he said something about a shower." Dean flicked his eyes up and then back down at the laptop screen. Gabe grimaced.
"And Cas flew off to wherever... Even that demon is gone!"
"Why don't you go bother Bobby?"
"No!" Bobby's yell was muffled by the wall between them. Gabriel decided he'd just take a walk... you know an indoor walk around the house because it was snowing up a blizzard outside. He headed over to the stairs that led to the second floor, he hadn't been up there very much, mostly because all that was up there were two bedrooms and a bathroom, nothing special.
The sound of water running from behind a closed-door confirmed Dean's theory that Sam was in the shower. Gabe pushed open the door to the room that Sam and Dean had been sharing and looked around, it was utterly boring, just two twin beds and their bags sitting on the floor. The angel wandered over to one of the beds and sat down, not feeling motivated to go back downstairs just yet. "Gabe?" He looked up to find Sam standing in the doorway, hair sopping wet, and a towel wrapped around his waist.
'Oh hey kiddo" Gabriel smirked, trying not to stare at the half-naked hunter.
"What are you doing in here?" He asked as he headed into the room, towards his bag.
"It was boring downstairs, I think I pissed off Dean-o too."
Sam nodded in understandment as he leaned over to pick up his duffel. Gabriel swallowed involuntarily as he watched that muscular fool search for his clothes. Dang, had he always been that muscular? You couldn't really tell under those plaid shirts. And the way his wet hair was dripping down his back... Gabe stopped himself mid thought, what the hell, this boredom must've been leaving a serious effect on him, making him think that Sam was even a little attractive. Well actually more than a little bit attractive, more like a lot attractive.
"I'm going to go back downstairs" he decided, his face flushing ever so slightly.
Castiel came back about an hour later, when Dean asked where he had been, the angel responded with saying he had been in Greece looking for some sort of ancient script. When asked why he just shrugged.
"Have you come up with any possible theories about your bondmate?" Cas asked, directed towards Gabriel.
"Pssh no. If I did I would've told you."
"This is really getting to the point of we're never going to figure this out" Sam sighed.
"Yeah... Sorry."
"Maybe we should try to find out who that vampire was" Dean suggested "might be able to find friends and family of hers, I mean she must've had a life before she was bit right?"
"Good idea" Castiel nodded in agreement "we can go back to the warehouse and investigate."
"What exactly do you expect to find at the warehouse?" Sam raised a brow.
"Well we didn't bury the bodies so maybe they'll still be there."
"I guess it's worth a shot."
Dean parked the impala in front of the building, and everyone promptly swung open the car doors and headed over to the heavy metal door that marked the entrance. Cas pulled it open and ushered everyone else inside.
The building reeked, the stench of blood causing Sam to scrunch up his nose. The group wandered towards the back of the building where Gabe had been cornered. As they approached the area the archangel visibly tensed, as if the area was cursed and he was going to be hurt again.
"Well Cas, it looks like you were right." Dean murmured, looking down on one of the male vampires' heads.
"I wonder why no other vamps came to clean up" Sam bit his lip, noticing a headless body a few feet away.
"Who knows, I don't really care though." Dean had walked ahead a few yards and was looking down "I think I found our girl."
Sam and Castiel hurried over to the body, while Gabe approached slowly, staying back a few feet. The girl's body was small and her head, which was only about a foot away, had dirty blonde hair, the ends matted with blood. Her eyes were still open, they were probably once bright green, but being dead had caused a murky lense to cover
them. Her fangs were still barred, and she had a vicious look on her face.
Dean looked over at his brother to find that Sam had a really weird expression on his face, one Dean couldn't read. "You ok man?"
"Huh? Oh yeah!' He snapped out of his daze and flashed a grin.
"Um yeah anyways" Dean looked back to the dead vampire "I guess we can take some pictures, go back to Bobby's, and then we can look through the local missing persons records."
"Sounds good" Gabe decided, he was still a few feet back from the others.
As everyone began to start walking back to the door, Sam looked back down at the body and frowned deeply. Gabriel had noticed that he wasn't with the rest of the group and fell back to stand next to him. "You ok kiddo? "
"Yeah uh" Sam shook his head "it's just..."
"Just what?"
"She looks a lot like a girl I used to know that's all." Sam shrugged. Gabriel's eyes widened a bit at the statement.
"But I mean I'm sure it's not her, she lived in-" Sam caught his breath.
"What? Where'd she live?" Gabriel turned around to find that Dean and Cas were already almost to the door. "Come on Sammy we better get going before they leave without us!" He pulled at Sam's arm and began to skip towards the door.
Back at Bobby's, Gabriel got distracted by an old Disney flick on the TV. Dean and Cas had went upstairs to do who knows what, and Bobby was in the library. Sam flipped open his laptop and opened up the internet. He sucked in a deep breath before typing "Autumn Hegerfield" in the search bar.
Sam met Autumn when he was just merely a teenager. Dean and him had been staying with Bobby while dad was on a hunt. There was a park not too far from Bobby's, it wasn't very big, and was usually empty, Sam and Dean used to go there when they had nothing else to do.
That's where Sam met her, she had just moved in and had brought her little sister to the park while the movers were unloading the truck. Dean had stayed at Bobby's, so he spent the whole day with Autumn and her sister. They talked and got to know each other and had a good time in general, Sam remembered wishing he could've stayed at Bobby's so he could remain being friends with her.
Sam met Autumn again a few years later in surprisingly the same circumstances. It was another day of talking and laughing and both of them had been sad to say goodbye again. Sam hadn't seen Autumn since then.
Sam pressed the enter button on his keyboard and held his breath as he waited for the page to load, He felt a frown take over his face as he read the first link on the page.
22 Year Old Autumn Hegerfield reported missing
He pressed the blue text and scanned through the page it led to. The case had been filed over ten years ago, and she had never been found.
"Helo moose." Sam snapped the lid of his laptop down and quickly spun around in his chair.
"What do you want Crowley?"
"I just wanted to say hello" he shrugged "whatever were you looking at that was so secretive?"
"It wasn't secretive!"
"Then why'd you shut it so fast?"
"'Cuz- Cuz I don't like people watching me work!"
Crowley smirked and reached over to open the laptop himself "missing person report? Autumn Hegerfield... That was 13 years ago."
"Yeah I know that" Sam grumbled.
"Why are you looking her up then?"
Sam looked down at the table "Well" he groaned "don't tell anyone this".
"Who would I tell anyways?" Crowley sat down in the chair across from Sam.
'Ok... I'm trusting you ok?"
"Just get on with it!"
"So we went back to check out the dead vamp that sucked away Gabriel's powers, and I could've sworn I knew her. So I was just looking her up to see if I could find anything on her."
"And why exactly is that such a big secret?"
"Well I mean" Sam's face reddened substantially and Crowley raised a brow. "It's just Cas said that the bondmate thing-"
"You think he bonded with you!" Sam didn't think it was possible for his face to grow any redder.
"Yo!" Sam covered his face when Gabriel entered the kitchen loudly. "Oh you're here" Gabriel glared at Crowley slightly before heading over to the pantry "I'm gonna make some popcorn, do you want some Sammy? We can watch the rest of the movie together!"
it was one of those very rare moments when it looked like he was about to burst out laughing any second. Sam inhaled deeply then flashed his best smile "Sure Gabe, I'd love to!"