Alright, back again! This time, shit is going ok! He's learning, we're adapting, it's all good.
ENJOY!
{May, 1909}
"Where did Gabriel go, anyway?" Vance questioned the shorter, stout man with angry eyes and bright red hair.
"Don't ask me." He answered gruffly. "Vincent jus' said to get our asses to the Archive."
"He's probably there, then." Vance huffed. "I'm gonna scrub that goop if he started without us." He grumbled as the pair walked into the room.
"Well, then I'm glad I gave you an extra few minutes." Gabriel was leaned back on a chair, feet on a desk, reading a book on sigils. "C'mon, get in here. We've got work to do."
Papers from Gabriel's last night lay scattered across the floor, books in mysterious languages splayed wide, their secrets spilled for all to see. Slipped between pages, notes and letters of sigils and translations were set, revealing the hidden meanings and double entendres that the text held.
"Well, I don't know how much coffee you had to drink, but-"
"Is that the Enochian book? That Murray brought last month?" Vince pointed at the ground, picking up a thick tome with handwritten notes shoved between chapters and pages. "Pal, De'van couldn't translate more than a few pages."
"There's a reason that you keep me around, y'know." Gabriel stood up, stretching his back with a distinct few pops. "I'm a good little quick-study." He joked, picking up a few of the papers that had dropped onto the floor. "The book is about demons, angels, all sorts of stuff. I haven't gotten that far into it, but I think it's more about angels than demons. And not anything mythological either, we're talkin' the real deal."
"Don't be a nut." Curtis rolled his eyes at the idea of a mythology book that was as though made for hunters.
"'And so it was written, as it was told, the Archangel Gabriel will come on three wings of gold'." Vance read from a note. "This a direct translation? Thought you said they didn't do the whole 'mythology' thing in this one."
"Well, of course it's still got some mythology stuff in it, kinda has to, but the reason that's written is because of the 'three wings' thing." Gabriel pointed to an illustration in the book. "I think that if we're dealing with any of the Archangels, we're dealing with an angel with six wings rather than a Seraph's two."
"Wait, so you're saying that..."
"Archangels are basically the end of anything unholy times three?" Gabriel nodded, mouth skewed to the side as he took the book from Vance. "Yeah, that's what I'm saying. These are the big baddies of Heaven. Michael," He flipped to a page that depicted an angel with flowing hair and massive white wings, holding a flaming sword over his head. "The warrior. There's some shit in there about him training younger angels to fight, but I'll need to go through it more." Then he flipped to another page, an angel with short, brown hair reading from a Bible to other angels. "Raphael. There's some information on him too, but again... I'll need time with it." He then flipped to a final page, a painting of an archangel with graceful, pointed golden wings descending to talk to Mary. "And finally, Gabriel. Who my mother decided to name me after." Gabriel huffed. "Like, look'it this simp." He grumbled.
"Looks like one helluva self-righteous crumb." Vance laughed at him. "You ain't like that though, Gabe. Don't take offence to it."
"Shoulda' changed my name ages ago."
"Are we gonna keep pointin' out the floozy's stupid hairdo or we gonna do some work?" Curtis picked up a folder of notes. "C'mon, let's translate and catalogue somethin' useful about these posh grifters."
"Alright, pass me that book. I'll see what I can get out of the Michael chapter." Gabriel sat at the desk, fully at alert as he picked up his pen and a notepad, already scratching away as he translated line after line of Enochian.
Vance shook his head with a chuckle. Once Gabriel started working, he wouldn't stop until whatever he was doing was complete. He was a little like a gun. Point him, shoot him, he'd keep going until something stopped him.
They were an hour into silence, aside from the shuffle of papers and the scratch of Gabriel's pen when he looked up. "Curtis, can you find me the folder of Enochian spells? I think I might have a few old things to revise."
"Yep." Curtis replied shortly, standing and walking to another section of the Archive before returning with a brown folder of papers, holding it out to Gabriel.
The younger nodded his thanks, turning back to the book as he flipped open the folder, brushing through it with mock urgency as he located a specific paper, laying it on top of his tome and looking at something between the lines.
Then he caught it. 'As far as known information, the Archangel Gabriel dwells on earth, hiding from the chaos of his homeland.'
Gabriel wanted to just skip the whole section. It would be easier, just to pretend like he couldn't read it fully, but that might attract attention to himself, because the language in it was rather easy.
Fine. Gabriel growled internally. I'll translate the entire damn story why I'm a failure. Fuck you too.
His pen scratches became rather angry after that.
{October, 2013}
He managed to snag a kind enough man to take him to the Fort, just across the river, and left him at the Holiday Inn just off Highway 83-slash-1806. Catching that ride alone had taken him nearly an hour, but without his ribs screaming in agony every step, moving and waiting around for stuff to happen became much more manageable.
Gabriel, by his calculations, had figured the ride to Vivian was probably about half an hour to forty-five minutes, if he got lucky. It was pretty much a straight line run from the Fort to Vivian down Highway 83.
It was a good twenty minute walk that made him regret breathing again, but he made it to a gas station called 'Fresh Start' on 'N 1st St', immediately thankful for all the truckers here. Someone had to be heading south.
"Hey, uh..." Gabriel began uneasily as he edged his way up to the till. The tired-looking 30-something glanced up from his phone, looking him over. In all honesty, Gabriel probably looked like ass. He felt like ass, to be completely truthful. Ribs hurt, arm hurt, and his True Form ached under his vessel. That, though, he could stubbornly ignore by hiding behind his human body until he got to the Bunker. Resetting his wing was going to hurt like a bitch. "Y'think y'could help a brotha' out?" He let his voice slip into a more southern tone, a little Cajun, a little Texan. It was kinder and less suspicious than his more formal tone. "If un'of those guys comes in here headin' for Vivian, couldya' ask him to throw me a bone?"
30-something nodded. "Sure, mate, I can do that for ya'." The guy had some form of an Australian accent. "Just wait outside. We get 'hikers all the time down this road."
Flashing a small grin, Gabriel picked an 'Oh Henry' from the small cubby under the register. "Ring tha' up for me, pal. Thanks for that."
"Anytime, stranger." Aussie answered, scanning the chocolate bar. "What's yah' name?"
"Gabriel." He replied without thought or pause. "Gabriel Moran."
-{[|]}-
Gabriel knew that money didn't buy happiness, but it sure bought chocolate, and that was good enough. Twenty minutes of him leaned against the building, playing away on an old harmonica that he had kept around since God-knew-when, had brought a tall man over.
Black hair, leather jacket, sharp cheekbones and blazing blue eyes. "You Gabriel Moran?" He demanded in a faint English accent.
"That's me." Gabriel smiled, giving a small wave as he lowered the harmonica from his lips.
"Goin' to Vivian?"
"Yep."
"I'm your ride. C'mon." He said impatiently, leaving Gabriel to scramble to his feet as the stranger's much longer legs ate up the distance to a sleek black car.
"Whoa, nice car." Gabriel gasped as he trotted up to it.
Emo dude hummed a response, getting into the driver's side. Gabriel hopped in the passenger's seat.
"And your name is..?" Gabriel egged, hoping that his new friend would actually converse with him.
The stranger remained silent for a few moments anyway, before opening his mouth. "Dan."
"Nice to meet you, Dan." Gabriel smiled. Dan didn't answer, focusing on the road. "...what'cha heading to Vivian for?"
"Family." Dan stated.
"Cool." The Archangel leaned against the armrest, observing the world in passing instead of trying to keep a conversation with one word Dan. He could handle the outside world better than him and his difficulty.
The Fort Pierre National Grassland was a wide expanse of green during the summer, but now it was just mostly yellow and faded tan as the grass dried out in preparation for winter's arrival. The lakes that dotted the landscape were small and beautiful, sapphires and turquoise stones peeking from the sandy desert. If he had been flying, he was willing to bet it would be brilliant, a patchwork of farms. For now, he was grounded, and the quickly-passing grassland was nothing more than a fading, dusty plane, slowly turning to dust even as he watched. If it wasn't a metaphor for his life, he didn't know what was.
It was mid afternoon before they reached Vivian, Dan practically throwing Gabriel, alone, onto the roadside, driving deeper into the town so as to escape the nobody who he had helped.
Dan didn't know, but he too got a prayer from an Archangel.
After consulting his map, Gabriel had at least figured out that getting to Presho by State Highway 16 would be faster. It wasn't a long trip by any stretch of the imagination. Hell, if he was feeling better, he'd just walk it. From there though, he had to hit the 183 for a while, and reach Winner.
As it turned out, getting a ride from Vivian to Presho was difficult. Vivian was a tiny town that didn't even have a real gas station, so he was pretty much screwed. Nobody actually stopped in Vivian, and as a result, any attempt to get out of Vivian was basically asking for a great big bottle of 'fuck you'.
So Gabriel started walking.
By his calculations, he was over four hours from Presho on foot.
He was going to hate this evening.
-{[|]}-
When he hit Presho, the first thing he did was storm into the nearest gas station covered in dust, ignore the loud college age kids, buy water and the heaviest-duty painkillers he could find, and march out with murder in his eyes. If he wasn't going to be connected to his grace, then by God almighty, he was going to enjoy human drugs.
After downing about three times the recommended dosage and half the water, he felt a little better, Archangel metabolism kicking in to speed up the activation, but then slowing to extend the drug's effect.
Exhaustion's a bitch. He decided, sitting on the curb with the bottle of water loosely held in his fingers. It was cool and soothing, but almost reminded him of the river. A whisper of wind washed over his head, ruffling his sweaty, slick hair. He needed a bath, a shower. He promised, silently, the day he made it back to the Bunker, he was going to sleep for a week before doing anything with the angels scattered across the planet. Maybe I should finally call the Winchesters. The thought drifted past, but made him hesitate with it's strangeness.
He hadn't even considered the Winchesters since the Elysian Fields thing, when his brother proved that he couldn't see a bloody illusion when it almost stabbed him.
Gabriel had hoped he would be able to reason with his brother, but apparently not. So he made the biggest prank on his big brother ever done.
The look on Lucifer's face the day he figured out that the Gabriel he had stabbed was the illusion would be priceless. Still, a little jarring to know that his elder brother, his best friend, would and did stab him in the gut.
Which was just one reason in a laundry list of reasons why he was sitting outside of a shitty trucker's gas station called 'Cenex', on a dirty curb, waiting to see if there was anyone so kind as to take him to Winner.
Ballsack.
Letting out a few coughs that he muffled on the back of his wrist, Gabriel stood up again. Three semi-trucks and an honest to God Volkswagen Transporter black van were parked either at the pumps or nearby, their occupants having a smoke or... Gabriel had no idea where the people driving that dingy old van from Hell knew when were. The thing should've been a light blue, but it was actually a dusty vomit brown, so covered in dust as it was.
That was when the loud college kids burst out, cheering together about something. Three boys and three girls, all headed to the van.
Gabriel decided to play it risky.
Using his grace to tone his age down to about their age and clean himself up a bit, he trotted on over, a happy-go-lucky grin smeared across his cheeks. "Heya, guys!"
The kids slowed down, glancing between one another and Gabriel suspiciously. He just kept up his casual, cocky grin and waited it out.
"Who're you?" Demanded a moderately tall, brown-skinned dude who sounded pretty Mexican.
"Wanderer, just like you." Gabriel shrugged. "Was wonderin' where you were headed."
A tanned boy, with long blond hair and high cheekbones stepped forward. "Why are y' wonderin' that?"
"Mostly? I got stuck with a few jackasses. My former pals dumped me about three towns back, and I've got no way to head home." Gabriel sighed, kicking at the dirt.
"Where you callin' home, stranger?" One of the girls, a thick black woman with busts to match her hips, swayed forward, in front of the boys.
"Depends on where you're headed." Gabriel shrugged. "If I've got somewhere on your path, I'd love to join ya, if that's cool."
They considered it for a few minutes, eyes flicking to eachother, before the third guy, a tall, pale dude with soft black hair, high cheekbones and eyes like charcoal, nodded. "We're on our way to Ord." His voice was sophisticated, low and cool, a little smokey and a little dark. "The farthest south we could put you is Sargent."
"Well, if it isn't my lucky day. That isn't far from my drop point at all." Gabriel smiled genuinely, not quite believing his timing. "Westerville is my hailing ground."
"Can't take you that far, but Sargent sounds good. We stop there anyway." Mexican kid nodded. "What do y'say, Jake?" He turned to face Cheekbones, who apparently had a name.
"Eh, sure. If you can pay for your own food, you can hitch a ride." He dipped his head, then the whole troupe, Gabriel included, started back for the car.
"So, gold-eyes," The second girl, a sharp-eyed brunette, began with a surprisingly deep voice. "you got a name?" She interrogated, retying her flowing, wavy hair into a ponytail.
"Gabriel." He purred immediately. "Gabriel Moran."
"Good to meet'cha." She dipped her head to the side in a half-agreement. "I'm Anastia, but these guys call me Ti. Gangster," She looked to the Mexican kid. "is Jamie." Jamie waved in response to his name being called. "Surfer is Max," She jabbed a thumb at the tanned blonde. "Tall, dark and handsome is Scott," She gestured to the pale guy, who simply nodded in response. "Hot-like-fire is Kayala," She flashed a grin at the curvy girl who looked like she could hold her own in a fight. "And that one," She pointed to the thin, extremely white girl who had yet to speak, her short-cut red hair in a curly fringe that just hooded her hot-ice eyes. "is mine."
The last part caught Gabriel off-guard and he blinked in her direction, quirking an eyebrow.
"Heh, kidding. Sorta." Ti laughed loudly. "Her name's Alex. And she's super, mega freaking taken. So no peeking, buddy."
"Point made." Gabriel chuckled, holding up his hands in surrender. "Anyone else I can't hit on?"
"Max and Kayala." She answered, then lowered her voice. "Scott is free and totally, 100% in desperate need of getting laid though, so..." She made a short few gestures, most of which were obscene.
"Ti, if you're trying to set me up with the dude we just picked up, you can walk." Scott said over his shoulder.
"Fuck you, Scott." She called forward as they all piled into the plush seats of the van, which started when Scott turned it over, rumbling to life beautifully with the cadence of Justin Cross in the background. Kayala got into the passenger seat, pulling a map up from the glove compartment.
"Alright, well, welcome to the Biosphere, Gabriel." Max grinned hugely. "All we need is food and fuel, and we'll keep goin' forever."
"You rehearse that?" Gabriel fired back loosely.
Jamie made a laugh that sounded a lot like 'ohohoho' before turning on Max. "Roasted by the new guy, dude! Just bad mojo."
"Oh, fuck you." Max growled good-naturedly, crossing his arms and looking away as the others laughed. "I'll have you know I'm very happy with that speech."
"Yeah, quoted out of 'Paper Towns'. Kayala half-shouted from the front. "Glad we got the new guy here to roast out your ass!"
"Flame broiled, motherfuckers!" Ti let out a loud whoop following her statement.
Maybe I was wrong. Gabriel thought with a smile. Maybe my prospects are looking up.