So, unfortunately the chapters will come slower now, as I'm managing LiFe! That, and I need to rewatch season 9, which means that I need to wait for my family because AAAAAA
Can people not make this difficult for me thx.
Ok, well, the AKA for this chapter is 'I'm Not So Sure Anymore...'
As always, I love reviews and faves! MAKE ME WRITE MORE BECAUSE OF GUILT DAMMIT
This is where this story starts to fold into the main series, lining up with Season 9, Episode 5, Dog Dean Days or whatever.
And the Sabriel is starting yaaaaas
{Summer, Before}
Gabriel sat up on his mass of clouds, briefly arching his back to splay out his six golden wings, arching behind him in a catlike stretch.
Eyes scanning the expanse of Heaven, he noted the relative peace that seemed to pervade every corner of the light, glowing and glimmering with purity and calm.
Then he heard it.
Lucifer screaming at Michael, again.
Turning toward the House of Churches, Gabriel had been just in time to see Lucifer streaking out of the building with wings spread wide, whipping the winds around him into submission as he shot for the corners of Heaven, wherever that may be that day.
With an enormous sigh, Gabriel got up, beating his wings against the currents of Heaven to take to the air, languidly chasing his elder brother who shot across Heaven like a star, blazing a bloody trail across the sky.
Gabriel trailed him to the farthest corner that Lucifer had yet found, tracking him by the red stripe he left in the sky, the messed up clouds, and shots of grace that hit the ground every few minutes. He didn't get too close until Lucifer's anger was spent, until he had destroyed every empty chunk of unused material, until the crater around him was nothing but smote ash.
Then Lucifer sat down right in the centre of his destruction, folding his knees into his chest and crossing his arms over his legs, burying his face in the little shadowed spot created by the movement, wings wrapping quietly around him, alone in his world.
Gabriel landed carefully on one of the half-destroyed white pillars, balancing on one foot, the other hanging down the side. As the Messenger, Gabriel tended to be swifter and more agile than the other Archangels, even moreso than Michael, and because of this, he could easily balance on a slanted piece of smooth, perfect carving, no more than a few inches wide.
He waited for several minutes, watching Lucifer with sharp, silent eyes, right before all the tension in his brother's shoulders came back, and a low, half-muffled sob started from the ball of burgundy-red-orange feathers.
Gabriel unfurled his wings, leaning forward on the pillar to offset his balance, tipping off the edge and falling, gliding smoothly to land beside Lucifer.
"Luci?" He asked, as if he hadn't just watched his brother break down.
Lucifer instantly stiffened, sitting up somewhat and rubbing at his face with a wing. "Oh. Hey, Gabriel." He greeted, voice a forced happiness. Gabriel recognized it for the shitty imitation it was.
Lucifer was the Morningstar. He was unique and beautiful and too brilliant to be real. His wings were gorgeous and flashy, rivalled only by Gabriel's, and a young angel with silver wings. It didn't matter. When Lucifer was happy and relaxed, he laughed softly, a more gentle sound that seemingly couldn't exist, not even on Heaven's plane. If he found something excessively entertaining, he would wheeze silently on air, tears half coming out of his eyes from amusement. Even then, Lucifer's laughter never failed to make Michael smile.
Gabriel huffed unhappily, sitting at Lucifer's side promptly. "...You wanna talk about it?"
"About what?" Lucifer questioned, swiping a hand subtly over his eyes.
"Don't bullshit me." Gabriel ordered, extending his left wings to lay over Lucifer's back. "I saw that fight. What was Michael on about now?"
"...I kinda... Blew a hole. In the Tapestry." Lucifer admitted slowly. "Again."
"Again? Oh, bro..." Gabriel moaned in shared agony, letting Lucifer lean on his shoulder. "...You really shouldn't do that."
"I know, Gabe, I know..." Lucifer mumbled into his wing. "I just... I'm..."
"It's hard."
"Yeah." Lucifer nodded, careful and considerate and controlled. "...Yeah it is."
{June, 1909}
Gabriel woke up in screechingly eerie silence.
He meant that oxymoron in every last sense.
The forest around him was wreathed in absolute quiet, soundless and dark, while his head screamed at him as if someone was grinding a chainsaw against a chalkboard. It didn't help the flow of sentences that ran through his head with howling cadence, overlapping and lacing the others, dipping and twisting around themselves and another.
Gabriel remembered it badly, having missed it for a couple millennia. He wasn't used to being... this, not anymore. Too close to his grace, his human shape.
He had begun to question what he was. Was he a human, with access to grace? Or an angel, too close to earth?
Is this what nephilim feel like? He wondered, but Gabriel wasn't a nephilim. He was just... Gabriel. Archangel. Trickster. Pagan god. Member of the Moran family.
And maybe a 'Gabriel' was a little different than a normal angel.
Realizing he was still in the car, Gabriel sat upright, or at least, he levered himself into a half-upright pose, trapped at a shallow angle, looking at the door near his feet with disdain.
He lashed a foot out at the half-crumpled door, cracking most of the metal and springs, only requiring a second kick before tearing free, allowing Gabriel to crouch down, spin around and crawl free.
Standing, Gabriel turned to look up the hill. He had fallen, through branches and trees, nearly 60 feet. It was a testament to the build of the car that it had kept him as safe as it had, but no longer. He was trapped, at the bottom of the hill, with sev-
Gabriel barely flinched as he raised his blade to cut a black demon out of the air.
Correction. Only six demons now. Gabriel smiled faintly, a slight hint of a sadistic grin smeared across his face.
Closing his eyes, Gabriel spread out his stiff wings, trying to pinpoint the exact location of each demon.
There were still the six, four black demons, the basic kind, and two red ones. Crossroads demons. He could handle six demons with ease, even with half his ribs busted and enough bruising to kill someone. There were ups to being an Archangel.
One of the black ones lunged, forcing Gabriel to call on his old agility, whipping around with inhuman speed, extending his True Form to the tips of his fingers, snagging it out of the air.
Writhing like a wet snake in his grasp, the demon made a few futile attempts to escape, gaseous body scraping across his hand in a bad approximation of an attack. It hissed, compressed steam in his palm, trying to evade the burning grace that surrounded it.
"Oh shut up." Gabriel snarled at it, roughly shaking it a few times to stun it.
Now the other demons gave him a wider berth, nervously circling as they watched him hold their less fortunate compatriot. He knew they couldn't entirely see what he was, and they definitely couldn't tell he was an angel. But they knew he was bad news.
Tightening his grip on the captured demon, he let out his grace just a bit and charred it.
Immediately, the others pulled back farther, gaseous forms turned spiky and sharp with fear and realization. And horror, of course. Even if demons didn't care for each other, seeing another member of your own species reduced to ash was a bad experience.
"Alright, who's next?" Gabriel growled at the remaining few.
The crossroads demon who had poked at him earlier was the first to leave. It raced over the hillside and vanished from his senses, quickly followed by it's partner and their little following, fleeing like Hell was on their heels.
Or an angry Archangel.
Leaning against the car, Gabriel lowered himself to the ground with one arm, brushing the charred remains off his hand with subtle movements that caused him less aggravation. If he pushed himself too hard, he might be forced to use his grace, and that would put him on the spot again.
And that was the last thing he needed.
Gabriel leaned his head against the ruined car, and waited.
{November, 2013}
"Orr."
"Orr?" Sam questioned, and Gabriel nodded in response. "Orr."
"There you go." Gabriel murmured encouragingly, pointing to the next letter on the page of Enochian. "Graph."
"You're kidding." Sam leaned in to stare at the letter suspiciously. "'E' is pronounced 'Graph'?"
"Would I lie to you in the language of angels?" Gabriel made a helpless gesture.
"Gabriel, you aren't speaking Enochian right now."
"I can, if you want me to."
"Go ahead then." Sam sighed, writing out an Enochian 'E' a few times on a scrap piece of paper.
"Medveh, fammedtal." Gabriel announced with a smug smirk.
"What did you just say?" Sam turned to stare at him, as though astonished.
"I just told you ok, Moose. Calm down." Gabriel chuckled.
"'Medveh' is..." Sam looked at his paper, considering. Gabriel had to pause for a half second, because Sam talking in the rough, growling tones of Enochian was damn hot.
"It's like, the Enochian equivalent of 'Alright'." Gabriel explained, writing out the two sigils in the word. "Think of it like 'ok'."
"Medveh..." Sam murmured, letting the syllables roll around in his mouth. "What was the other word?"
"Your nickname in Enochian. It means 'Moose'." Gabriel grinned at Sam's scoff and eyeroll, but he didn't catch any complaining.
"Well then, what is your nickname?"
"You really want to know?" Gabriel tilted his head, taking a moment to brush his fingers through his hair.
"I would, actually." Sam responded.
"Galurmedged." Gabriel wrote out the four sigils. "It basically translates to 'gold', or 'golden'." Sammy, you call me that, I'll come whenever you call.
"Galur...medged." The hunter repeated, sounding it out carefully. "Neat. Hey, what can we call Dean?" His words were innocent enough, but the twinkle in his eyes announced that the nickname had to be something to mock Dean about.
"Hm... Well, there's just his name. Druxungraphgal." Gabriel scribbled the letters down. "But, we could just go with something short and embarrassing."
"Like?"
"I was thinking hm..." Gabriel grinned widely. "'Castiel's'."
"With the possessive? Totally."
"Famunveh." He said emphatically. "Put the accent on the 'veh' when you say it to make it possessive."
"Famunveh." Sam nodded. "He's going to be pissed when he figures it out."
Gabriel shook his head. "If he ever decides to learn it."
"What would that make my name then?" Leaning in, Sam examined the page before him with a critical eye. "Fam..."
"No, remember, Enochian is backward."
"Right, right..." Sam agreed in realization. Gabriel waited while he found the letters again. "Um... Tal...un...fam?"
"Talunfam. Sam." Gabriel's smile grew. "That's the one."
Sam wrote the sigils in their perfection. "Talunfam."
"Talunfam, Druxungraphgal, Galurmedged, and... I guess Cas would be Famunveh." Sam pronounced the 'Fa' with emphasis rather than the 'veh'.
"That's us. Sam, Dean, Gold and Cas." Gabriel laughed.
"What about a prophet?" Sam inquired, leaning back slightly. "A prophet and a hunter?"
"Um..." Gabriel scratched out another few sigils. "That one's galdonmed. It means 'word', and it's what we use for prophets. "And this one..." Another word. "Gisgdruxvanna." He tapped the pencil's eraser under the word. "With the emphasis on 'drux', it means hunter."
"So, Kevin is Galdonmed, and Charlie is Gisgdruxvanna." Sam murmured, copying the words.
"Who?" Gabriel half heartedly demanded, putting his feet up on the table as Sam went back to scribbling the sigils.
"Oh, uh, we made some friends. Kevin, he's a prophet. We had him on the angel tablet for a while." Sam explained. "And Charlie... she's a hacker. She helped with the leviathans. And then she became a hunter."
"Well, that's awesome! Where are they now?" Gabriel smiled happily, glad that Sam and Dean were actually... building a family.
"Well, Kevin's just... not here, because he was going nuts." Laughing slightly at the thought of not going crazy in this job, Sam continued after a second. "And Charlie is currently... Somewhere over the rainbow." Sam smiled sadly, a look that made Gabriel's heart twist oddly.
"Like, literally, or..."
"Literally." There was a short pause. "She went to Oz with Dorothy."
"Heard about that kid. I wasn't around the day that she took a trot down the road, but definitely picked up on it." Gabriel sighed. "Good kid."
"Well, thanks for the introductory Enochian. I'm gonna see what we have for cases." Sam smiled kindly, sweeping all of the scratch paper and pages into the folder that was labeled 'Sam's writing' and pulling his laptop from the floor.
Gabriel returned the smile, pulling his chair closer to Sam and resting his hand on his chin as they looked over the news reports for a few towns.
"Hey, that one." Gabriel pointed to a page. "Enid, Oklahoma."
They were scrolling through the report when Dean walked in, placing his hands on a chair with a quick glance to Gabriel.
"Wow." Dean muttered.
"What?" Sam asked, looking away from the computer.
"Kevin." Dean sighed. "Just poured some buffalo milk down his gob. Twice."
Gabriel snorted slightly at the idea.
"Buffalo milk?"
"Yeah the uh..." Dean made a short gesture. "Hangover cure-all. Has everything in it. Except buffalo milk."
Sam leaned back. "How is that kid still recovering from Branson?"
"What can I say, he's an amateur." Dean slapped a hand on the chair again. "The slippery nipple shots at the Dolly Parton Dixie Stampede nearly killed the guy."
Gabriel snorted back a laugh as Sam chuckled. "All right, well, uh, we got something that's gonna get us back on the road." Sam turned back to the computer, Gabriel pausing to watch Dean closely, as the older brother pulled out the chair, sitting down with a quick few glances to the oblivious other hunter.
"A case?"
"Yeah."
"You sure you're ready for that?"
His words made Gabriel pause, staring at Dean with a faint scowl.
"Why would I not be ready for that?" Sam questioned. Yeah, Dean... Gabriel agreed. Why not?
"Aren't you kinda running on empty?"
Now Gabriel was really paying attention, glaring between the brothers uneasily. What does Dean know about Sam... that Sam doesn't know? The niggling feeling of something else wrong occurred to Gabriel, and his eyes flicked down to Sam's chest, where the faint glow had receded into his lungs more.
"Yeah, but the last three nights straight I had eight hours of shut-eye. For a hunter, that's like, twenty." Sam shrugged. "Trust me, Dean. I feel good."
"Well, that's great in all, James Brown, but you're still recovering from the Trials." Dean seemed more... nervous, offset, worried. "I think you ought to pace yourself, y'know? And the sooner you heal..." There was a sharp inhale as Sam glanced over and Dean stopped talking.
Ok, what the hell is going on? Gabriel wondered.
"...Yeah?" Sam egged Dean to continue.
"...I just want you back to your old self." The older looked at his hands, trying to talk calmly.
"I am, Dean! Look, Kevin's back on the Heaven spell, Crowley's locked up, Gabriel's here to keep fort," Sam nodded to the Archangel. "We should be out there doing what we do best!" Starting to sound a little frantic and pissed, Sam glanced between Gabriel and Dean, as if asking for help.
"Well-" Dean began, shifting in his seat.
"You want to listen, at lea-"
"Hey, Deano, feet off the glass!" Gabriel ordered. Dean threw him a glare, but pulled his feet off the glass of the map table and onto the side.
After that, Dean shrugged.
"Ok, great! Taxidermist, named Max Alexander mysteriously crushed to death. Nearly every joint in his body dislocated, every bone broken... poor guy is a human pretzel. You tell me what's got that kind of strength."
"A demonic luchador?"
Gabriel rolled his eyes. Can you ever have a straight talk, Dean?
Sam joined him in the movement, before sighing. "Shop's a couple hours away in Enid, Oklahoma. We should at least check it out." When the older shifted to examine his watch, Sam continued. "Unless there's some reason you think we shouldn't."
Then, Gabriel caught it. The way the light shimmered when Sam shifted, how it moved with him, instead of beside him. He straightened with a sharp gasp, chair scraping back slightly and making both brothers look at him in confusion.
"No, no I uh... Guess not. Go get packed up." Dean picked his feet off the table, standing.
Gabriel stood as well, twisting slightly away from the table. "Hey, Deano, can I talk to ya, for a second?" He waved Dean down one hallway.
"Yeah, sure, Gabriel. Be right there." Pushing the chair back, Dean trotted over to the Archangel, who lead him into the library, waiting for Sam's footsteps to disappear down the hall before whirling on him.
"Ok, what the hell, Deano?" Gabriel snapped in a barely contained hiss. "There is an angel inside of Sam." Resisting the urge to pin the hunter to the bookcase and beat him silly, Gabriel kept his fists at his sides. "And if I didn't know better, I'd say he has no fucking clue!"
Dean's eyes flicked to meet the Archangel's, but could only hold it for a half second before glancing at his left foot.
"Oh my God." Gabriel's jaw dropped, all the anger temporarily rushing out. "He has no idea, does he?" Dean remained stubbornly silent. "Does he, Winchester?!" Gabriel snarled, voice high and filled with disbelief.
"I don't have to explain to you." Dean insisted furiously, but it was a weak argument.
"Bull. Shit." Gabriel growled in return. "Contrary to popular belief, I have the misfortune of caring for both you idiots, so, Dean Winchester, tell me now," His eyes glowed slightly with his wrath. "What. Did. You. Do."
And Dean told him. From the end of the Trials, to the fires, to the angels falling, everything. Everything from Gabriel's crash to then. And Gabriel only interrupted him once.
"Wait, he said his name was Ezekiel?" Gabriel cut off Dean's next sentence.
"Yeah, that's his name." Dean nodded slowly, as if suspicious of himself.
"No it isn't." Gabriel responded instantly. "I don't know who that is, but it isn't Ezekiel."
"Didn't you know other angels?" Dean questioned, skeptical.
"Yes, but remember, I haven't been in Heaven for a few millennia." Gabriel whispered furtively. "I don't recognize his wavelength, and trust me, I'd recognize Ezekiel."
"And why should I trust you?"
Rolling his eyes with a soft scoff, Gabriel listened in case Sam was approaching. "Because, at the moment, I'm the only angel who is actually fully, completely and truly on your side."
"...Don't fuck this up, Gabriel." Dean warned carefully.
"If I fuck this up, Dean, I swear on my grace you can be the one to carve my heart out with my own blade. I have no intention of harming any of your family. Ever again."
"...I'll see that day, then."
Gabriel stood at the door, waving to them as the Impala took off down the road, grinning loosely, as though he was going to do nothing but sit around and read, leaving them to the hunt.
Instead, the instant they turned the corner, Gabriel's smile fell to a dead-set glare and he whipped around, just about slamming the door as he stalked for the dungeon, pulling open the bookshelves to glare at Crowley.
"...Hello, Gabriel." Crowley sounded confident and casual, but Gabriel could detect the slight nervousness and fear that he was tied up and semipowerless before an Archangel.
"Heya, Crowley." Gabriel greeted with a half-smirk, pulling a second chair around to rest his elbows on, pointedly examining his nails. "So, you've been around these two lately..." Using his grace, Gabriel repaired them to a more healthy appearance, and summoned himself a bottle of faint gold nail polish, that would only show up in the right light. "You wanna tell me what's up with Sammy's hitchhiker?"
"Feeling protective, are we?" Crowley tilted his head. "Why do you care?"
"Mostly, I have one angel to worry about already." Gabriel raised his pointer finger without looking up. "The asshole up in Heaven who kicked everyone out. At the moment, he's the only other person with wings. So, I don't want to worry about whoever's in Sammy."
"So you do have a heart..."
"More of one than you." Gabriel's snap-back made Crowley twitch in shock. "Now, if I remember correctly, I asked a question."
"I didn't say I would answer i-"
Gabriel slammed both his hands on the table, standing so sharply that he knocked his chair, leaning imposingly over Crowley, who crouched down slightly in his chair, remembering why demons were scared of angels. The food chain was a rather delicate balance, and unfortunately for Crowley, he was on the lower end of it.
"Here's how this is going to work." Gabriel snarled, all pretense of being the clever, smart-mouthed Trickster abandoning him. His eyes were dark and glowed slightly with a light golden colour that glittered behind his vessel's iris' brilliantly. "You, are going to tell me what I want to know. And what I want, is everything you know about Sam's little backpacker. In exchange, I won't break your wings. Am I clear?"
Crowley swallowed. Demon's and angel's wings were their pride, their source of happiness in some ways. To have his broken would be agonizing, and he couldn't escape with broken wings anyway.
"All I know is that after Squirrel convinced Moose to not finish the trials, he wound up in a coma. When I saw him after that, that dirty little half-fallen scum was attached to him. That's all I know." Crowley relented with a growl.
"Did you recognize the angel?"
"...Not as Ezekiel." Crowley answered slowly.
They stayed, poised for a moment, while Gabriel made his decision.
"Thank you, Crowley." Gabriel stepped back, picking up his chair, placing it by the side and exiting, closing the bookshelves and flicking the light off.
"That's it? Just a 'thank you'?" Crowley demanded furiously.
"Do you want a broken wing instead?" Came the returning call, right before the flutter of wings announced that Gabriel was no longer around.
Leaning back and letting out the breath he didn't realize he was holding, Crowley sighed. "...Bollocks."
Sitting on the roof of the old power plant, Gabriel lay back, eyes loosely tracking the clouds overhead, flicking between the different wispy shapes and blue sky of the background.
Hands under the back of his head, cushioned comfortably, he remained in silence, utterly bored. His broken wing splayed on the gravel, prompting him to breathe slowly and steadily, trying to relax enough to allow the break to slip back in place without too much pain, and without help.
He could've been healed in nearly a week, but now, his wing ached and the bone kept grinding. He felt like dirt and it wasn't helping that he was moving around more now, helping the Winchesters find things in the filing that they would've messed up when he should've been resting. He preferred pretending that he could manage on his own, without the idiots around him, without his siblings or his pagan 'friends'.
He didn't know who he could trust anymore.
So he went back inside.
The door to the Bunker shifted open at about three in the morning, Gabriel's head snapping up from the Enochian book of demons he had out to meet Sam's sheepish smile. "Hey, Gabriel."
"Heya kids." Gabriel waved. "How are ya' doing?"
"Oh, pretty good. Dean acted like a dog for most of the day, hilariously."
"So, no change then?" Gabriel joked, glancing back to his book. A laugh met his words as Sam sat on the couch beside him, barely giving Gabriel time to yank his knees up.
Gabriel lifted his eyes from the words on the page. "...What are you reading?" Sam asked.
Gabriel sat very still for a moment, before speaking. It was a long line of Enochian, with exactly as much meaning to Sam as if he had spoken in Arabic. To the angel inhabiting him though... 'Understand this, angel... I do not trust you. Harm him, you will face my wrath.'
"What did you say?" Sam's head tilted, leaning in to see the book.
"Oh, sorry. It's just a passage from the book. Means, 'To the demons of Heaven and the angels of Hell, the crossed bridge of power and the eternal well,' and then it goes into a lot of mythological shit, but it sounds cool." Gabriel knew that the angel had heard. Understand, you won't get the chance to hurt him. I'll put you down before that. I'm trying to make good on my mistakes, and you aren't getting in my way.
"Yeah, that is cool." Sam nodded agreeably, before they fell into a period of wait. "...Hey Gabriel?"
"Yeah, Sammoose?"
"...This is really random, but other than the damage the Trials did to me, is there anything... off? Like, with me?"
Gabriel's mouth opened as he flicked his eyes up and down Sam, briefly lingering on the light in his chest.
Glancing over Sam's shoulder, Gabriel caught Dean's eyes, who had just entered. The fear, the mild horror, the uncertainty and terror in his face. Not at Sam learning, but of Sam dying.
His eyes snapped back to Sam. "...Nothing I've noticed." Gabriel shrugged casually. Behind Sam, Dean visibly relaxed. "Why, somethin' happen?"
"Yeah, it's probably just... I don't know. Something ridiculous." Sam sighed, looking down at his hands.
For the first time in years, Gabriel felt something about lying. Guilt.
Guilt. The Michael voice repeated.
Gabriel swallowed it and returned to his book.