HEY LOOKIT THAT WE'RE FINALLY HERE! WHOOP WHOOP!
Gabriel gets to be at home, or what he considers it. And I'm really sorry for the excessively short 1909 section, this space doesn't have much plot quite yet. It should speed up next chapter.
The AKA for this chapter is 'Kenopsia.' You might wanna look that word up :)
{May, 1909}
It was close to midnight. Probably past midnight. Gabriel cared exactly nothing.
That evening, he had slipped to the garage and hopped onto his black motorcycle, shooting from the basement as fast as he could.
He needed some fresh air.
Riding on the bike now was about as close as he came to flying. He had agreed with himself, that for the duration of Gabriel Moran's, his human nickname's, life, he would use his grace as little as possible to avoid detection.
His wings were a little harder to ignore.
They were physical to an angel, a demon, anything that needed them physical. Some forms of were-creature could even see an angel's wings when they needed to.
He drove swiftly, closing his eyes and letting the wind through his hair mimic the endless feeling of flying.
Alone now, Gabriel had too much time for his own thoughts.
He was... lonely. Despite being in the closest knit community he had lived in since long before the birth of Christ. Back in Heaven.
That had been a long time ago.
Heaven seemed like a millennia ago now, when Dad was home and when he felt... safe.
When was the last time he felt safe?
He supposed here, as it was technically the only place he had 'belonged' to since Heaven, but he felt out of position with the humans and their short, precious lives.
Gabriel stretched forward and back into eternity. There was little that could kill an Archangel, and fewer still willing to try. Even a Leviathan would fear a pissed off, righteously angered Archangel.
Yet Gabriel chose to spend his time with people.
-{[|]}-
"Gabe?"
Gabriel turned to face Vance, who walked in silently. Vance would've made a good hunter, if he was less bookish and more outgoing.
"Heya Vance. How are you?" Gabriel questioned, head tilted slightly to the side.
"I was wondering the same about you. Gabriel, since that session with the angel you pulled in, you've been..." Vance fell off, searching for words.
"Distracted?" Gabriel inserted. "Off-centre? Confused?"
"All of the above." Vance waved a hand dismissively. "And I wanted to know if you were ok with the... The mission."
"Look, Vance." Gabriel sighed. "Shay's already talked to me about the whole guilt complex thing. I know that... That..." He took a deep breath. "I know that kid wasn't my fault."
{October, 2013}
Gabriel pulled down the road in front of the Bunker's entrance, wincing with uneasy shifts in weight. Over the last hour, his whole right side had begun to throb like it was actually on fire.
Carefully, he eased himself out of the car, trying not to put too much weight on his right side at all.
Towering above him, the old power plant they had set overtop of the Bunker rose in it's great stone glory. Even after Gabriel Moran had 'died'... Gabriel the Archangel had long since stuck close to the Men of Letters, at least until his old Pagan 'friends' caught up with him. He had lost regular contact at around 1953, soon after the computer had been installed.
And yet, he still carried his key. Every day of his life.
Gabriel carefully walked around the front of the car, slipping one hand up to his throat. Sliding one hand into the front of his shirt, he traced a thick leather cord over his collarbones, down to his chest, fingers pressing the heavy iron key against his sternum.
He pulled the key free, looping it off of his head, pressing his hand against the door in a means of connection.
"...Home." Gabriel whispered. Then he slipped his key into the lock and turned it, the door opening with a soft grinding noise, effortless and easy.
Stepping inside was like walking into another universe, one where he finally felt he belonged again. A grin spread lazily over his face as he walked through the threshold, the air somehow easier to breathe in now, despite the agony in his ribs and back.
The Bunker was dark, but he didn't care. Memory of thirty-someodd years lived and another thirty stalked brought him down the steps to the breaker almost without thought, snapping the switch to the 'on' position.
Lights turned on progressively, with loud ga-chunk noises that made Gabriel feel more at home than he had in a long time. Leaning against the wall, he crept deeper into the Bunker, walking through it's main room. The tables were neatly arranged, though some notes and files, as well as several books were splayed open on the one closest to the stairs.
Huh. Gabriel thought, reaching over to flip one of the note pages. At the top of the page, a date and label on the notes about demonic torture. 'W. King, 1913' it read. So they're still up and running. Awesome.
Gabriel cautiously maneuvered around the table, humming faintly under his breath as he made a recap of what he had to do. Clean up. Bandage wing. Eat. Drink. Sleep. Sounds good.
First things first though... He decided, circling around to the control panel for the wards in the base. Whoever's here now has no idea how to run this place... He growled darkly, making a note to educate them on how the wards worked. The first level wards were on, meaning that just general creatures were kept out. Gabriel read over the labels to make sure that nothing had changed while he had been out, and turned on the second and third levels. Angel-demon warding, and finally, blanket wards. Perfect. Gabriel hummed happily as he felt the warding kick in, quickly accepting him as a member of the household. After all, once your blood sigil was on the wall, not much was going to get you out of there.
Following old, long remembered footsteps down the hallway, Gabriel took the stairs to the second level. Room 4, level A, showers. Gabriel recalled as he pushed into room 1, level B, into a place that didn't look all that different than how he had left it.
The bed, a pipe-frame loft, was not that changed, just had a desk where a second bed would be, and it looked like the mattress had been replaced too. The old dresser, rickety even when Gabriel had been it's owner, was gone, replaced with something straight out of the 1950's, which was good. He was alright with that.
With the angel warding up, Gabriel felt rather free to strip down to his skin, repairing his clothes and folding them up as he went, allowing his grace out of the cage he had kept it in. Unfortunately, that just made the pain in his arm and spine triple as his grace reconnected with every facet of his vessel.
Taking a long towel from the closet, Gabriel tied a makeshift sling around his neck and chest, resting his semi-corporeal broken wing in the fabric. With the injury reduced to a significantly lower concentration, Gabriel relaxed, sinking a little against the wall as exhaustion washed over him. Slipping into one of the house coats hanging in the closet, Gabriel rested for a moment, wanting to just collapse into the bed and not move for a few hours.
Pushing off the welcomed support, Gabriel turned down the hallway and started for the first level again, accepting the grim humiliation of using the stair railing because his shoulder ached like someone was trying to drive a rusty demon blade through it.
Walking down the hall to the kitchen, he immediately noticed the addition of a cheap, but obviously from the current time period fridge that nestled in the space of a wall and an oven.
"Huh." He murmured to himself, checking its contents for anything he might've needed. Unfortunately, whoever stocked the fridge had remembered lemon juice but not fresh dill. Idiots. Gabriel thought. Who the hell makes poultice without the friggin' dill? He removed the lemon juice and placed it on the metal topped island, as well as a bottle of purified water and a plastic bear full of honey.
After blessing the water to turn it Holy, Gabriel dumped half a cup of lemon juice, a few squeezes of the honey and all of the water into a saucepan, turning it on to high heat, immediately leaving the room in a swirl of his coat.
From there, he went back upstairs to room 28, snatching all manners of seemingly random items from the walls. Pyre ash, dried oak leaves, poppy seeds, holy oil and angel feather, to name a few. The rest I can find in the kitchen. They probably have oregano and oatmeal, at least. I can zap up the oats if I really need to... Mentally listing the ingredients for the grace repairing substance he was creating, Gabriel returned downstairs to combine his materials.
The soupy green substance was still plenty liquidy by the time he was done mixing it, but it smelled good enough. He knew it would sting like Hell the minute he actually put it on anything, but for the time being, it was like a really chunky tea.
Setting his heat low, allowing the mixture to burn off liquid, Gabriel headed for the bathroom where he could finally, finally clean himself off.
It's been too damn long...
After his shower, Gabriel felt significantly more like himself again. While grace would certainly clean his vessel perfectly, nothing was quite as satisfying as scrubbing down, getting his fingers through his hair, generally, interacting with his vessel. And whoever left the shampoo and conditioner, thank Dad for you.
The kitchen was filled with a warm, soft sort of smell that told him his poultice was probably almost done. Wandering to the cupboard, Gabriel removed the sea-salt, placing it beside the oven as he searched the fridge for something to eat.
He did eventually find a homemade burger in the back of the fridge, setting it and a bottle of holy water on the counter while he removed the thick, gravy-like green substance from the burner and stirred in a generous portion of salt.
He had also found bandages during his last search around the Bunker, setting three rolls of gauze wrap and medical tape on the island, followed by a large spoon and the pot full of poultice.
Removing his wing from the sling, Gabriel lay it flat on the aluminum top, wincing as he strained the already torn muscles. Drawing the saucepan of evil toward himself, Gabriel scooped up a good portion on the spoon, held it over the wound and stopped.
"C'mon..." He mumbled to himself. "It's just gonna sting for a half second..."
So he dumped it on.
"Mmmmmother fUCKER!" Gabriel shouted, forcing his breathing to measure through clenched teeth, or he was going to bite his tongue off. When the sizzling pain finally subsided enough for Gabriel to shakily press more green death-juice into the cut and inflamed grace surrounding it, he wanted to just tear his wing off. It hurt less earlier, when it was just in the sling! That weird Michael-voice crowed at him, as though mocking.
Yeah, shut up. Gabriel thought furiously, pulling the wing to fold properly, before shoving down, bringing the bone pieces together with a grinding click, then bandaging the whole area. Layered in white gauze, it looked a little like a gigantic wasp's nest had lain on his wing, but he really, really didn't care. After it was bandaged and folded, Gabriel reset it in the sling, slumping back and struggling to take a full breath.
He cleaned the items he had used, packaging the rest of the poultice into a container he summoned, labelling it and throwing it into the fridge. After that, he heated the burger and ate, marvelling over the taste. The burger was clearly homemade, and Gabriel resolved to compliment the chef when he got around to meeting whoever else lived there now.
Sitting in the chair, Gabriel was briefly stricken with the thought of how empty the Bunker was. Normally, there would at least be one person there, cleaning out the drawers or rearranging the files, or maybe Shay, cooking an early supper.
Gabriel missed the people, the activity, the life of the place. Now, the Bunker just felt like...
A skeleton.
With a sigh, Gabriel stood up, stretching out his back with a series of long popping noises. Cleaned up, wing fixed, food eaten, water drank... He placed the empty bottle on the counter. Sleep. Then find out who's here still, who's left, and if anyone knows about me.
Gabriel hummed happily as he hopped back up the stairs, climbing into the loft bed and wrapping himself in a cocoon of soft, warm blankets. Feeling a lot like a metamorphasizing caterpillar, Gabriel half-curled into his stomach, letting his right wings splay on the rest of the bed while his left sets fell over the railing of the pipe frame.
Happy, safe, relaxed and content, Gabriel only held on to consciousness for a few seconds longer, warm and sleepy, before accepting that he was going to be fine here, that he was going to be ok.
And Gabriel fell asleep, fully and completely, for the first time in a few decades.
Gabriel headed down the hall, humming faintly to the tune of 'Can I Get A Witness' before pushing into a room labeled '7B'.
Flicking on the light, Gabriel walked past the shelves, noting how much else had been filled. Records that went back from 1958 back were shelved neatly, prompting Gabriel to walk back to about 1910, mouthing the words of the chorus as he combed through files of the year. Maybe not here... Where's the familial records? He questioned, crouching down to a filing box, sliding it free and onto the floor as he removed the lid and placed it to the side, searching through the names.
"Well, I must say, whoever you are, I don't recognize your footsteps."
The voice was Scottish, a little gritty, and so slick Gabriel wondered if he'd slip and slide onto his ass, and the owner of the smooth voice would wish he was the floor.
And it was coming from the dungeon.
Standing smoothly, Gabriel silenced his humming and slowly, carefully crept toward the bookshelves that hid the dungeon from view.
"Well, c'mon lovely. I'd love to get to know whoever owns that voice." The person, a demon, Gabriel figured, called again. The Archangel could just about hear the smug smirk in his voice.
Gabriel turned around to check the doorway of the Archive, before placing his hands on the moveable shelves and pushing them open.
"Well, I must say, I didn't know that the boys had more friends tha-"
Crowley, the King of Hell, sat at a table, tied up with chains and Enochian shackles, looking away as he began talking, then turning forward, the words dying on his lips as he and Gabriel made eye contact.
The pair stood there, staring openly as neither made a move to talk, breathe or shift, shock weighing down the room like a physical thing, imposing itself between them.
"Y-you're..." Crowley began, and Gabriel immediately spun around and slammed the shelves shut, whirling to press his back against them.
"What the hell..." Gabriel gasped in astonishment, backing away from the shelves. "Ok, keep it together, I'm ok, there's just..." He paused, taking a shaky breath. "Crowley... As in, the King of Hell, trapped, in my Archive." He whispered.
Archangels may be absolute, but Gabriel had lived on earth long enough to know that they were truly emotional creatures. And the fact that Crowley was in the Archive made him very, very confused. Shouldn't Crowley be ruling Hell? Not trapped in the Bunker... I should've disguised my grace. The thought occurred way late, even as Gabriel calmed himself down. "You, uh, stay put." He told Crowley through the shelves.
"I umm..." Crowley paused. Gabriel could tell that Crowley was having more problem processing this than he was. "I uh... Alright..."
Gabriel speed-walked away from the dungeon, snatching up the Archive member box and exiting, snapping off the lights as he went away from Crowley. He could come back and get information from the idiot later.
Slapping the box down with far more care than he pretended to have, Gabriel yanked back a chair and sat down, pulling out a listing file, one of the papers that would have all the last names of the members to live in this Bunker over the last few decades.
He read through them, examining each name and trying to remember the forefather that he might've known. The name Blanch King-Price sounded familiar, and he realized that one of her parents was Sol Price, a hunter who he had known, along with his sister. The girl's mother was Emil King, who had never married Sol, and while that would've been taboo way back in the day, Blanch had apparently grown up in the Bunker, learning how to be a dissection expert and hunting.
All of them, they got... lives, on top of this. Gabriel realized with a smile. Awesome.
He had just gotten to the last names after 'U', when he heard a dull thump of the door closing behind him.
'Heard', is used loosely in that case. Gabriel certainly heard the noise, but it didn't register, because he knew he had locked the door.
So the concept of it unlocking peacefully and opening was not one that occurred to him quickly.
Gabriel, focused on his reading, didn't even realize that another person was behind him until they spoke.
"...Gabriel?" A voice that was definitely familiar asked, filled with shock, disbelief and astonishment.
Gabriel whipped around, just about falling off his chair with the speed of the movement. "Sam?" He jumped to his feet, meeting the younger hunter's eyes. Sam was still shell shocked, eyes wide and jaw slightly parted. "...Winchester?" Astonishment filled Gabriel's tone. "...How the hell did you get in he-"
Vance.
Vance Winchester.
Gabriel's head snapped to look down at the pages of names, quickly catching a 'V. Winchester, succeeded by his son Henry, and by his grandson John.' Gabriel looked back up, making eye-contact with Sam again. Of course. He thought with dark sarcasm.
Gabriel and Sam stood, unblinkingly staring each other down. Gabriel could swear he had could see something inside Sam, something not quite the same as the bright soul he knew. Gabriel had always enjoyed Sam, one of the many reasons he tried to help out the younger Winchester, but looking back on it, he could've been less of an ass about it. But for now, he focused on the strange light that seemed to be contained underneath his soul, covered and barely noticeable. Why's it... there? What is it?
"Sammy?" Dean called from the stairs, appearing around the corner with the Colt held at his hip. Then he saw Gabriel, and immediately aimed at his head.
"Great..." Gabriel muttered under his breath, slowly raising his hands in a gesture of surrender, moving them to sit behind his head. So, so not how I wanted today to go... Gabriel thought as Dean crept forward, holding the Colt in one hand and an angel's blade in another.
"Not another word outta you, bitch." Dean hissed, teeth gritted.
Gabriel opened his mouth to retaliate with something snarky and preferably long, but he really didn't feel like getting shanked or kicked out.
So he shut his trap and accepted the Winchester's treatment in silence.