HEY I TOLD YOU I'D BE BACK!
Ohhhhh... you're gonna hate me for this...
This chapter is dedicated to season 13 of Supernatural. May your feels Rest In Peace.
We also have a playlist. Enjoy Gabriel's Lament!;
playlist?list=PLRND65E8OybM1gdtYn1lXcTEB9tWXqHnn
The AKA for this chapter is 'Prayers Shouldn't be Screams'
{Spring, Before}
Gabriel shot across the skyline, pulling his wings to his sides and spinning before spreading them out again, swirling over backward to head back to where Lucifer glid, watching the skyline.
Gabriel flew under him, flipping onto his back to grin up at his brother. "When do you think Mikey and Raphie are gonna be here?" He called.
"When they get here." Lucifer answered cryptically, rolling to the side away from Gabriel, heading back to the cliff.
Gabriel had called them the Silver Cliffs of Destiny, which seemed to stick. Lucifer had enjoyed the name at least. When Gabriel told (read; demanded) Michael and Raphael to get to the Silver Cliffs, both of them stared at him like he had started talking like a wolf.
God had merely laughed, and agreed with the name.
Which was why, just as Lucifer and Gabriel landed on the edge of the cliff, Raphael and Michael appeared.
Lucifer had no problem with Gabriel helping teach Raphael how to fly. Already, the younger Archangel was faster than he was, and, from the endless practice he came out to get, he was stronger too.
Lucifer preferred to stay with their Father recently, watching the creatures that he created. As a result, Lucifer knew a lot about what they were going to see down on the surface, but he had less time to fly around.
But he was still just as good, chasing his faster, more agile brother around, requiring more trickery to catch him each time. Now, though, it was time to teach their missing siblings to do the same.
"Lucifer, Gabriel!" Michael smiled upon seeing his brothers, then frowned at their closeness to the cliff. "...What are you doing?"
Gabriel shot to his feet in an instant. "Mikey! Raphie! Luci, can I do it this time?" He asked his brother excitedly.
"Go ahead, Goldie. Show 'em what they're gonna learn." Lucifer nodded to the cliff with a wide smile.
Michael and Raphael stared at Gabriel curiously as the youngest Archangel stepped right up to the edge, putting his arms out on either side, spreading his wings simultaneously. He pulled onto his toes...
And jumped.
Behind him, he heard Michael and Raphael's panicked shouts as he dropped, wings on either side as though he was just gliding vertically.
Right before the ground, close enough that his tunic brushed the grass, Gabriel angled his wings and feet, shooting back upright in a perfect reversal. Beating his wings in a wave, Gabriel pushed for the skyline again, determined to surprise even Lucifer with the trick he had been practicing on his own.
He went as high up as he could, face rosy from the chill of the wind, before he twisted, stretching his wings down on either side of his body, spinning upward in an arc, before pushing his grace to the tips of his wings...
And falling.
Spiralling for the ground, golden light trailing off his feathers and heading straight for Michael without opening his wings, Gabriel grinned.
As he approached, he could hear Lucifer calling his name, saying 'slow down! How are you going to stop!?'
Gabriel ignored him completely. He had practiced this for weeks.
At the perfect height, Gabriel opened his wings and swung his legs downward, cupping the feathers to form a brace against the air. Just like each time he did it, the impact jarred him as his wings caught in the wind, cutting his speed quickly, allowing him to land perfectly in front of a semi-cowering Michael, who had obviously been expecting to get hit.
"Ta da!" Gabriel announced with a huge smile.
Michael and Raphael stood in shocked silence for a moment, right before they burst into astonished questions.
"How did you-"
"When did you le-"
"Did Lucifer teach y-"
"Does Dad kno-"
"Mikey, Raphie..." Lucifer interrupted with what would become the universal 'calm the heaven down' signal. "I taught him. After watching Dad's birds." He informed with a chuckle. "That's why we dragged you here. Though, apparently, Gabriel's been practicing without me." He hip-checked the younger.
"You're just mad because I beat you. Again!" Gabriel exclaimed.
"Yeah, well, I'm not nearly as flashy as Goldie there. So, Mikey, c'mere." Lucifer grabbed his older brother's wrist, pulling him closer to the cliff. "Raphie, you stick with Gabriel."
"Ok, come over here, Raphie." Gabriel jumped over to the cliff. The mostly mute Archangel followed, but looked skeptical. "Ok, spread your wings."
Raphael's largest wings were barely longer than Gabriel's, but only on account of age. His wings were broad, massive things, more like Dad's swans and ducks. Gabriel's matched a falcon's, but that made him cut corners like he was taking off chunks of mountains, easy and brilliant.
"Ok, watch this." Gabriel said, flapping his wings in their round, hovering formation, lifting off the ground a little. "You see how mine lift in a circle? Try that."
Raphael nodded with a glare of determination, starting to circle his wings in short, quick arcs.
"No, no Raphie... Your wings aren't shaped like mine, see?" Gabriel lined his wing up to his brother's. "Spread them wide. You're gonna have to do it slower than me, because your wings are bigger."
The brown-winged Archangel made a second attempt, this time pulling off the ground with the second wave of strokes and letting out a yelp as he lifted into the air a bit, crashing into his brother in panic.
"Raphie! You can't get scared!" Gabriel laughed, picking himself and his brother out of the tangle of limbs. "Come on, let's try again!"
Within a little while, Raphael could hover a good few feet off the ground, and Gabriel was just teaching him to chase around the other, when Michael shouted in frustration.
"I can't do it!" He growled, hitting his top wing, and immediately wincing. "Why doesn't it work, Luci?"
"Maybe it's because your wings are massive?" Lucifer raised an eyebrow, taking Michael's hands "You have to move more slowly." He encouraged. "You can't always be perfect, Mikey. Just practice it. Watch closely, ok?"
With steady, slow wingbeats, Lucifer pushed downward, drawing his wings close to his body to beat out again, rising steadily until he held a position just a foot off the ground, still holding Michael's hands.
"...Ok..." Michael whispered, watching the movements.
"Now you come up here and join me." Lucifer grinned.
Michael, with intense concentration, forced his wings down and forward, yanking Lucifer hard.
"Who-AHH!" Lucifer shouted as Michael landed on his back, wings flailing as Lucifer went into a glide, barely catching himself and stumbling on landing.
Michael got to his feet and kicked at the grass. "I can't do it!" He announced, flopping onto his side, wrapping himself tightly in his wings.
Gabriel and Raphael shared a look. Whenever Michael didn't 'get' something right off, he tended to be over-dramatic about it.
"Aw, c'mon Mikey..." Lucifer trotted around to his older brother's front, kneeling in front of the wing cocoon. "Get back up. It takes practice."
"Raphael can do it!" Michael lifted the corner of one wing to yell, then clammed back up.
"Uh-huh, and he's smaller and lighter than you. Up. C'mon." Lucifer patted Michael's shoulder, prompting the older to curl into a ball even deeper. Pausing at the tension, Lucifer sighed. "...You can't give up! Then who's gonna be there to make sure I don't fall?"
That made the ball of white feathers pause, Michael's ruffled head poking out from between the wings. "...I won't let you fall." He resolved, standing once more.
"Good. Let's try it again." Purring, the Morningstar took off again, holding Michael's hands.
This time, the slow, careful downward wingbeats brought Michael's weight upward, pulling onto his toes, then lifting off the ground. "Wh-ooo..." Michael gasped, looking at his feet as Lucifer beat his wings a little harder, helping Michael go higher than he had been.
"C'mon, pump harder. Faster on the downbeat. It'll make you go higher."
Michael forced himself upward, climbing to match Lucifer, as the younger brother slowly lowered his hands, flying away slightly. "H-hey!" He exclaimed, caught in the air, suddenly without support.
"Just come over here. It's easy. Just fly over here, you can hold on again." Lucifer smiled, waving him over and holding out a hand.
Michael's eyes narrowed determinedly, leaning forward tentatively to reach for Lucifer, who backbeat away.
"Hey!" Michael exclaimed, chasing him. Lucifer continued to retreat over the cliff, laughing all the while, as Gabriel and Raphael joined the other two. "Come back here!"
"Mikey, look." Lucifer grinned, gesturing around them. "You're flying, big bro!"
Michael glanced down, as if confused to his brother's referencing, before squawking in shock and retreating to the ground quickly.
Lucifer's ringing laughter could be heard across Heaven.
{November, 1909}
Gabriel's wings fluttered behind him as he waited on the car, a silent and deadly predator, shoulders pulled forward and weight spread out over the weak roof.
It was really impressive, the way he held, in one of De'van's combat suits, on the roof of an unmoving car. Nobody would notice him, held still as stone on the moonless night.
The werewolf second-in-command he was hunting walked out of the dirty bar, checking the street before crossing the street to the carriage.
De'van, hidden in the back seat, lay still as death, waiting for the car to start in order to muffle the man's screams.
The second the aged engine started with a rattling creak, De'van took his signal. Gabriel slid easily onto the hood of the car, causing the werewolf to jump with a shriek, only to have De'van bury a syringe full of narcotics and silver shavings in his neck.
After that, Gabriel slid around the engine, opening the door without ever touching the ground, and shoving the werewolf over for De'van to handle, before turning the wheel and driving away, stealing the car, the wolf, and leaving the peace undisturbed.
-{[|]}-
Wayne slashed the holy-oiled Archangel blade through the werewolf's arm, the Blessed Silver of the sword making his skin bubble. The hissing of burning, boiling flesh filled the dungeon as the wolf wailed hoarsely.
"Where is your leader?" Wayne demanded for the upteenth time, shouting over the wolf's broken sobbing. The wolf didn't look like it could do much anymore, and by this point, even Gabriel and Vance - fairly hardened to the screams and blood - started to wince.
Wayne had the glitter in his eyes though, the sharp, deadly edge that promised suffering and unstoppable agony.
"Hey, Wayne..." Gabriel stepped forward. "I think he's done. If he knew where his alpha was, he've told you when we pulled out the angel blade."
Pausing, the oldest King took a move back. "...You're right, Gabriel." He nodded.
Gabriel hummed in satisfaction, glad he wouldn't have to see any more needless suffering.
Then Wayne lunged forward, the tip of his blade landing under the werewolf's jawbone, right beside his throat. "How does your leader give you orders, if you don't know where he is?"
Vance's eyebrows shot up as Gabriel winced, knowing all he'd successfully done was convince Wayne to switch topics.
This time, the wolf's face hardened, leaning slightly away from his tormentor.
"So you do know that..." Wayne purred with a sadistic, crazed grin. "...start talking."
"He'll kill me." The wolf murmured, head lolling on his shoulders.
"I'm," Wayne emphasized, tapping the blade to his chest. "going to kill you. He's the least of your worries. Now tell me, or I'll make it hurt worse than silver through the chest."
Then Gabriel recognized the dulled power that resided in all common werewolves.
"Wait, Wayne," Gabriel darted forward, snatching the blade from Wayne's hand. "he's a bitten, not a born." He held out a hand placatingly in front of Wayne. The older hunter eyed him suspiciously, watching his hand and the sword held in it. After ensuring the massive man would not throw him out of the way and charge for the wolf, Gabriel turned to face the victim. "...You want revenge as much as we do, trust me." Gabriel stated with a small nod. "We know a cure. But we need to know how to get to the one who bit you." He informed in a soft, small tone that was nothing but comforting. "Have you fed yet?"
"N-no... Th-they didn't let me... J-just l-let me st-starve." The wolf panted, looking up at Gabriel desperately. "Pl-please h-he-help..."
"We can help you." Gabriel twisted back to wave to Vance. "Go get the materials together." He ordered, and the mousey-haired man turned to dart from the room with a firm 'hm'. "We can help you." Gabriel reassured. "But first you need to tell us where we can find that leader."
The werewolf, laughing in slightly crazed happiness, nodded vigorously, and immediately began spilling everything he knew, and probably half the things he theorized.
-{[|]}-
Raven, De'van's younger half-sister, was sent to retrieve the big bad wolf.
Gabriel, before seeing the hardy, tall girl, had never heard of her. Upon Marcus' order on De'van to call her, because she'd be the best one to get the pack leader. Gabriel didn't question the way that De'van had flinched at her name.
Not at first.
She didn't enter the house. She knocked on the door, stood at the entrance waiting. Vincent answered, examined her up and down before saying 'come in.'
"I'll stay outside, thanks." She responded easily. Vincent gave her a strange stare, before turning back to shout at De'van.
"Your sister's here!" He yelled, and that brought half of them running to meet the girl.
The instant more people appeared, she took about seven steps away, retreating into the woods a bit, standing with one hand in her pocket, the other on the bag that hung at her hip.
Amos, their base leader who had arrived back from a work trip a few days prior, was an older man who had set Marcus to be his successor in running their Bunker. Old beliefs, no nonsense, gruff voice, and thinning white hair on a moderately sized, thick, powerful man made an intimidating image.
Which was why he scowled at the girl, no older than 20, wearing trousers and carrying a messenger bag.
"Young miss, you're Raven?"
"Born that way, sir." She answered in a firm, steady voice, arms folded behind her back at attention.
"...You're mighty young for a hunter."
"Ask De'van, your witch. I'm certain he's willing to vie for me." She gestured to the other ebon-haired boy in the area, who glanced down and away.
Gabriel could feel something around her, an air of mild superiority, but also of control and power. And the scent of sulphur clung to her like a rabid animal.
Did she fight demons on the way here? He wondered.
When Amos turned back to look at De'van, he nodded. "...She's the best one I know of."
"Better than Isabella was?" Vance blurted, almost immediately glancing anywhere else.
"...I hate to say it... but yes." De'van agreed quietly.
"Well then, miss..." Amos smiled to her gently, though suspiciously. "Come inside, we'll get you your orders."
"You'll have to excuse me for a moment then, sir." She stated, turning away and walking out of their view to the main road, high above.
"...Your sister is strange, De'van." Amos noted as he watched her until she disappeared.
"Just... Give her a moment, sir. She'll be down soon." De'van reassured.
They went inside and waited, and less than five minutes later, Raven, sans messenger bag but plus a Hunter's backpack, trotted in, crossing the wards without issue.
They sat her at the table downstairs, let her test herself multiple times (Apparently Gabriel wasn't the only one who had smelled the sulphur.) and then Amos sat down in front of her, placing a thick yellow envelope on the table.
"...Your orders, miss. Because I'm not explain'n all of 'em." Amos slid it forward, and Raven peeled it from the glass easily, but silently. Her eyes flicked over the writing, which Gabriel knew was half in Enochian, mouth soundlessly shaping the words.
When she had read the back of the envelope, she opened it up, glancing over the inner letter. "...Understood." She dipped her head, refolded the letter, slid it into her pack, and started for the stairs.
"Good luck to you, miss." Amos called as she trooped for the door.
"Luck," She responded simply. "has nothing to do with it."
The door shut behind her smoothly, and she left nothing in her wake.
-{[|]}-
When she returned, she held a wolf, tied with a silver collar and a leash, making almost everyone wince and laugh. His arms were tied with thick ropes to his collar, choking him whenever he tried to struggle and keeping his arms at an uncomfortable level. The leash was just for humiliation, and the blindfold and muzzle just kind of completed the 'rabid dog' look.
"Here." She held the leash to Gabriel, but he noticed again, suspiciously, she didn't put her arm past the threshold.
He carefully lifted it from her fingers, tugging the wolf inside. He tripped over the salt-painted iron, but she didn't cross it.
"...Mission complete." She purred, turning around the moment Wayne appeared to take away the wolf.
"W-wait, Raven!" Gabriel jogged after her, managing to stop her immediately.
"Yes?" She questioned, staring at him with a measured gaze.
"...you aren't worried about pay?"
"You'll know when I come for that." Then she paused, and rephrased. "Correction; De'van will know when I come for that."
And with those words, she just... marched away.
That was the last Gabriel saw of her for a while.
{December, 2013}
Gabriel's morning had been uneventful.
The last week was spent recovering from that hideous spell. Apparently, Raven and Damian didn't feel like throwing any side effect lists on their spells, which mean Gabriel spent three days alternating between shivering and burning on the couch, unable to use his grace, Loki's magic, not even his wings. It was honestly a little disturbing to have his grace and magic coiling and rippling under his skin, and yet, he was no stronger than a human.
The direct after effect of his brains being totally scrambled only lasted a few hours, though he felt a little shifty for almost the whole day.
He ate and drank whatever Dean or Sam gave him, too exhausted and hungry to care, though flip-flopping grace and magic brought it back up ten minutes later.
Kevin and Sam were very sympathetic, sitting nearby, talking, reading, bringing him water. Sam at one point even brought him a hair elastic, holding the chin-length strands out of his face when he started vomiting.
Dean just rolled his eyes at the fact that he was the only one with a set of balls in the area. Just to be a jackass, Gabriel threw a few of the symptoms his way when he managed to catch a slip or his grace.
After emptying his stomach for half an hour, Dean just shouted 'gABRIEL!' down the hall, leaving the Archangel to chuckle before he threw up himself.
By day four, Gabriel could eat and drink without vomiting up anything, grace slowly returning to his control, though it felt strange. Like a limb, half numbed. He couldn't do much with it, at best he could heal a small cut or call the remote to his hand (within a few feet) but the control back was getting better.
His grace burned lower now, he noticed. Normally, grace was like an orange flame, bright and flickery, hot and a little mean.
Now, his burned in a low blue and white jet, like a Bunsen burner at perfect heat. All coiled power and excessive heat, lying in wait for him to flare out, lash with brutal confidence.
Day seven, a week later, he was back to normal. He could almost feel the frost wreathing his wings now, the lone line of silver on the lowest pair that he hadn't noticed before glimmering in any form of light. It glowed just as bright as the rest of him, Loki's colour shining through like a tattooed statement on his forehead; I'm not your average Archangel.
He had tried flying again on day six. His wings had been stiff, but functional. He practiced flying through the forest behind the Bunker's disguise, tight turns and sharp angles, whirling and diving, dodging branches, trunks and other damaging items. The first shot had gone... poorly, for lack of a better word. He crashed into the first tree he tried to turn around.
He kept going until he was back up to par, diving and weaving between the forest's cover with elegance that a fighter pilot would be jealous of. Sam and Kevin watched below, the latter whooping at his snappish, almost 180 degree turns while Sam simply chuckled, pages spread on the grass as he looked for hunts.
On top of that, he moment he could march a straight line, he went to the training room of the basement. The Men of Letters always had a hunter's training ground, complete with anything one could possibly train with. The best witch they could find, De'van's mother, helped get it set up so it ran, at least partway, on spells.
The training room was huge, one massive room under the Bunker. Only two small, adjacent changing rooms reduced it's size, all concrete and ferocity.
Equipment lined the walls, including a magic-spring based pool along the largest wall. A boxing ring, all sorts of gymnastic equipment in an area with a raised roof, and a half dozen other areas with sandbags, karate equipment, wooden knives...
He trotted down the stairs, flicking the light switch on, revealing the massive room to the four of them.
"Holy fuck." Dean breathed as Gabriel smirked, half limping to the sandbags.
"As much fun as that would be, Deano..." Gabriel began as he pulled on a pair of aged gloves, preserved by magic. "I think it's better if we just got to work."
Whenever he was sparring with any of them, he toned down his strength and speed, working instead on the finesse of the movement. He found, training with all of them, Dean was technically his fighter's match. They both had a rather similar style of fighting, a straightforward deadliness with little flourish or flexibility of pattern, though they could shift to become unpredictable, difficult to pin down and dangerous.
Sam though... Gabriel decided he liked how Sam's fighting style looked.
Sam moved similarly to Dean, but with less of the relaxed tension that experience, confidence and repetition brought. Sam fought with flow. He moved with his opponent, rather than against them. He didn't force them, and didn't let them force him. He glid between strikes, lashing out and taking time to reset before doing it again, weaving and dipping his opponent into a box.
Gabriel thought it, when he was fighting Dean, was like a dance.
When he fought Sam, he realized its effectiveness and decided to start incorporating it into his own style.
If he wanted to get back into fighting, back to kicking ass with Sam, Dean and Cas, he had to get better. Faster. Stronger.
He started sparring by himself, working with mental constructs of Michael, Raphael, hell, even Lucifer made an appearance every once in a while. The new technique taken from Sam worked better than he had expected, particularly on Michael, with his unrelenting, consistent form and unbelievable power.
Gabriel much preferred the wolf's style, strike, retreat, strike again. Keep the opponent off balance and confused.
Which was why, one day, he dipped past false-Michael's left wing, half tripping him with a slide of his heel, causing the imitation to stagger, right before Gabriel spun around, pulled his feet out from under him, and then pinned the false-Michael with his own knife.
For a long few heartbeats, both of them, the ethereal fake and the real, just stared in shock. Like not even Gabriel's subconscious, controlling the Michael-doll, could believe it.
"Ha-HAH!" Gabriel crowed, throwing up his arms in a show of victory.
"What, what?" Sam's head snapped up from his book, turning to Gabriel.
"I just- uh..." He glanced down, watching the fake-Michael dissipate. "...You wouldn't get it. Archangel thing." Gabriel chuckled, rubbing the back of his neck.
Gabriel stared at Sam briefly, the bright spot of angelic light just below his sternum, wondering why Dean seemed stressed after his ride out with Sam in the days previous. They had gone out to an angelic crime scene in the middle of nowhere, where apparently, some 10-15 angels had been killed by other angels at some odd bar.
Bartholomew.
The name had sat oddly in his his chest, along with distrust, hatred, anger and spite. He felt guarded, on edge, and if the constant desire to train had anything to do with anything, he was sharpening his own blade.
Archangels were indeed absolute, total, and complete. They were the head and heart of all things. Archangels had instinct given unto them by God. And Gabriel's instinct said 'it's time for war'.
He didn't like it, but he also didn't resist it. That was why he was sitting at the War room table, reading his Enochian book on demons, while Sam tapped around on his laptop.
"Any word from Cas?" Sam asked, as Dean walked in.
"Uh, nothing yet." Dean responded, glancing up.
"And we're not... Worried, that he just took off like that again? I mean, it's not like he does this kind of stuff alone." Sam stated with concern.
Dean masked his guilt quite well, self-hatred and horror for what he'd done to his best friend rearing it's ugly head. "...It's the way he wanted it, honestly."
Gabriel scoffed at him, though he pretended it was about his reading.
Sam glanced to Gabriel, then to Dean, who continued. "Look, man, he's been all over the map since he got his wings clipped. What do you got?" Dean pushed his rolling chair back, sliding over to Sam's side. "Obituaries? That one of the bikers?"
"Yeah." Sam replied, and Gabriel slid over too. "His name was 'Red Dawg'."
Dean chuckled. "Of course it was."
"It's not what you think." Sam shoved him slightly. "He's a family guy. Bug in the PTA, he played Santa at Christmas parties." The younger hunter explained.
"So, what? Just one day, he up and joined a biker gang?"
"No, he did that years ago." Sam stuck a finger in the air at a proclamation. "Get this. This is weird. Look," Sam loaded a picture. "These are all the victims, right?" Gabriel leaned in closer to look at them. "They were all baptized together."
A pause.
"Baptized." Dean repeated, as though he didn't quite believe it.
"Yeah. They were a... born-again biker gang."
Gabriel almost snorted his water all over Sam's laptop, instead turning away with masked giggles, shoulders shaking.
"Well, that is not something you hear every day." Dean remarked.
"No, it's not."
"Wait..." Dean's eyes narrowed as he peered closer. "Make that bigger." After a quick point, he read off the writing. "'Boyle's Boys'? Boyle, as in Reverend Buddy Boyle?"
Sam stared for a second, then yanked the laptop a little closer and started searching. "Listen to this. Red Dawg's widow said he was always religious, but a week before he died, he came home from a prayer meeting and was a changed man filled with divine glory."
"So Boyle's at it again." Dean's mouth was a hard line, set to an annoyed flat grimace. "Selling folks on being meat suits for angels."
"Just what - talking to smaller groups now?" Sam questioned.
"I don't know. Maybe softening up thousands at a time he wasn't able to control what angels got let in." Dean deduced. "This way, Bartholomew's followers can jump in just as soon as Boyle does his thing." Dean waved at the screen with his explanation.
"So, Red Dawg and his guys were Bartholomew's people?"
"Yeah, and they got slaughtered." Dean noted. "Which means that this new group, is even worse."
"...Give me half a week..." Gabriel mumbled. "I'll start headin' out on hunts with you boys."
"Haven't I always said angels are dicks?" Dean finished.
Gabriel slapped his book shut with a helplessly, sarcastically frustrated grunt. "I am right here!"
-{[|]}-
After he beat his fake-Michael for the fourth time. He almost felt... guilty about it.
Ghost-Michael hadn't spoken with him in nearly two months. Not to belittle him for fighting a mental replication of him, not to remind him of some random detail, not even to remind him of something stupid with Sam, or the other angels. Nothing.
So, with a small white rose in his hand, he walked through the War room toward the exit. "Dean, there may be nothing here." He heard Kevin say. "Crowley said that the spell that cast down the angels was irreversible."
"Yeah, well, screw Crowley." Dean responded. "Why would you think that anything he says is true?"
"This part... is nearly indecipherable." Kevin murmured, trying to translate the tablet through Gabriel's proto-Elamite notes. "Almost like, when Metatron wrote it down, he wanted to keep the words hidden. Even from prophets."
Gabriel, with one foot on the stairs, stopped, stepped down, and backtracked over to the others.
Sam walked in, making Dean look up. "Hey, check this out." He called. "Another angel attack."
While the two of them went over the attack, Gabriel rested his arms on the table beside Kevin, staring at the translations. "Odd." Gabriel pointed to the tablet section, where it was jumbled. "You're right. That's all run-over itself."
"Uh...huh..." Kevin mumbled, staring at the tablet.
"Kevin." Dean called, apparently done with his conversation to Sam. The prophet glanced up. "...Clock's ticking."
-{[|]}-
Stull Cemetery.
Quiet, cold, snow-covered Stull Cemetery.
The weeds and overgrowth were brown with cold and death, the empty trees, bare of leaves, like skeletons above old, weathered gravestones and windblasted wooden crosses.
The sky was grey and cloudy, overcast hanging a low ceiling, mimicking his emotions to a point. Everything inside him felt empty, drained, devoid of life, like returning to the place where his brothers were lost was actively sucking away his will.
But Gabriel needed to stop thinking about them.
He needed to stop feeling guilty.
By sending Sam and Dean that... video, about how to get rid of Lucifer, he had doomed his brother.
"H-hey... Hey Michael. Hey Luci."
He had never doubted Sam or Dean's tenacity, knowing that they'd do whatever it took to stop the Apocalypse, and if that meant throwing Gabriel's big brothers into a caged pit, along with whoever had to drag them down there, they were willing.
It didn't mean he didn't feel guilty.
"I uh... Cam here to... To do something. Something that... Angels don't really do."
Voice-Michael had mentioned that the once. He noted that Gabriel felt guilty for lying to Sam, but that wasn't why he felt it so strongly.
Gabriel had carried the weight of his abandonment, leaving a set of fledglings - who looked up to him - behind, for the sake of himself. He was selfish, prideful, arrogant, greedy, spiteful... everything an angel shouldn't be.
"Y'see, I just... I don't... I've partnered up with the Winchesters." He announced to the empty yard. "And I just... I learned that human loss, is not that different than angel loss. And we all feel it." Gabriel chuckled. "And I've uh... learned a lot, in the last little while. One of the things I learned is that... it never stops hurting."
The rose he had cleverly hidden with his wings slipped from the area of non-corporeality, back into his hand.
"I suppose that's why people attend funerals." Gabriel said as he walked slowly through the snow and brown-yellow, frost burnt grass. "Closure."
Gabriel moved elegantly and silently, keeping his eyes on the ground and skirting graves where he could. He had enough respect.
The whole place seemed out of time, separated, distant. As though, once he crossed the gateway, the rest of the world fell away, and allowed him and only him in the solitude and peace of the silent graveyard.
He walked through the snow, to the centre of deep-rolling power under the grass. He could feel it, the hidden gateway that held his older siblings. He knelt, looking at the space where he knew Sam had pulled his brother in, staring at the rose held lightly between his fingers.
"I just... I want to stop feeling guilty about it. I have to go fight. On the side of people. And I can't keep thinking about what I did to you, or the angels I abandoned. I have to move forward. So I can't keep slowing down to look back."
He rubbed a thumb over the elegant white petal, the softness of the flower like silk against his skin. "I'm going to go fight now. I'm going to face off the other angels. I'm going to fight Metatron, Malachi, Bartholomew, all of them. I'm going to stop them all. The fighting has to start somewhere, but the war has to end. And it's not going to without some blood spilled." He resolved. "I'll try my damnedest not to kill anyone. Not even Malachi, or Bartholomew. I make no promises about Metatron, or that bitch angel in Sammy," He laughed sadly, the sound like an echo of something long-forgotten. "but... I'll try, ok? But to do that, I have to keep moving forward."
Gabriel shuffled forward on his knees, reaching out his hand to set the white flower over the centre, where Sam had thrown the rings, the entrance where his brothers were trapped.
"...And... And that's why I came out here. For closure. To keep moving forward. So... Until you two come back on up because you've changed... I guess this is-"
GABRIEL!
It had been a long time since Gabriel had been prayed to. But that wasn't quite a prayer.
That was a desperate scream for help.
Gabriel snapped his wings open and shot for the location of the cry, locking onto it's sender, shooting for the spot because he recognized the caller, he knew the shout, and if that person was screaming for help from Gabriel, he was honestly scared.
In the middle of his flight, a wave of energy rushed through him, making his wings tense up, his heart shatter, and his mind set up an endless mantra of no, no no no... but the world contradicted him as he knew every angel on Earth froze, feeling the death of... of...
Gabriel appeared in the Bunker just as Sam, or more accurately, that thing, turned from a pinned-to-the-wall-by-invisible-forces Dean with no emotion, a strange expression on Sam, kneel beside Kevin's smoking corpse, and lay a yellow card with his name on it, on Kevin's chest.
And suddenly, Gabriel recognized him.
Gadreel.
Gadreel the tricked.
Imprisoned wrongly for Lucifer's deceit. Gabriel had thought him innocent.
Thought him innocent every day until then.
With a roar that shook the Bunker's walls, Gabriel's sword was in his palm, wings spreading to their full size, half hooded and bristled behind him, Gabriel shot for Gadreel, who snapped back with a small grunt, fear making an appearance on his face.
Uncaring about the nick the tip of his sword put in the wall, Gabriel continued forward, Gadreel unable to defend with the backpack in his hand. When Gadreel once again dodged a cut, Gabriel whirled around with a scream of rage, slamming the upper corner of his largest wing into the other angel, heedless of the human between. He'd heal Sam. He'd heal Sam, Sam will understand, he'll forgive me for this sin against his body.
Gadreel flew back almost ten feet, slamming into the floor and bouncing slightly against the hardwood. Eyes wide, he scrambled to his feet as Gabriel stalked forward, teeth bared and eyes glowing with barely-restrained power.
Dean had been released from his hold as Gabriel vaulted the War-room table, his blade leaving a slash in the ground where Gadreel had barely managed to avoid his wrath. The older hunter simply sat there, staring brokenly at Kevin's body with tears in his eyes, whispering his name a few times, hoping for a reply.
None came.
Gabriel cut a thin, even line of flesh in Gadreel's arm. The angel howled in pain from being sliced by an Archangel's blade, pressing to the wound as he sprinted for the door. Gabriel, with wings intact and Archangelic anger fuelling him, tackled him, pinning him to the ground with righteous fury and unholy hatred.
Gabriel raised his sword above his head, already knowing the point to strike at to kill the angel, not the person, he could save Sam, I can save Sam, I can-
Gabriel's sword met hardwood.
The dull thunk of a metal point digging itself into wood sounded like the tolling of a death bell to both Dean and Gabriel.
Gabriel didn't move for a precious few seconds, staring uncomprehendingly at the empty air underneath him. At the lack of struggling weight, at the lack of burned wings, at the lack of... Sam.
Eyes wide and breathing hard and heavy, Gabriel just... sat, in a sort of half-kneeling position, slumped overtop of his sword, as his hands loosened their grip, sliding down the hilt of his blade and leaving it, arms slumping to the floor as the blade stayed straight upright. A flag of his failure.
They remained silent for a very, very long time.
-{[|]}-
Time afterward was spent carefully constructing a pyre, a Hunter's pyre.
Gabriel didn't know why Dean let him help, but he did. Dean may have been the one to lay Kevin's cloth-wrapped body on the mass of sticks, but Gabriel was the one who lit the fire. He flicked a golden lighter, engraved with a 'K', and then tossed it onto the wood. Dean didn't complain.
They stood in silence, watching Kevin go up in smoke.
His notes still lay on the table as they walked back inside, a finished sandwich and an inch of milk beside the pens and pencils.
Gabriel sat on the stairs that descended to the War room, back to Dean, as he stared at the papers with too much emotion to express.
The crack of a phone hitting the brick wall came first. Then the thumping and fluttering of papers scattered to the ground. Then the crash of a lamp. Then the chair. Then just breathing. Too hard, too deep breathing.
Dean drank too much over the next little while, and all the hard stuff too. Whiskey. Vodka. He drank as he packed. Weapons after weapons.
They remained in silence for a long, long time, not meeting each other's eyes, not speaking. Gabriel barely breathed.
"...Where were you?" Dean finally asked, in a voice so quiet and ruined Gabriel scarcely recognized it.
"...Getting closure." Gabriel whispered back.
"For what!?" Dean whirled on him, voice crackling with underuse and overdrinking. "B-because, if you had been here, you could've protected them! You could've saved. Kevin." He half shouted.
Gabriel didn't reply, just watched him rant with sad, empty eyes.
"I-I didn't like you from the start, and now, they're all gone and I couldn't protect them and you couldn't stop him!" Dean picked up the bottle of Jack Daniel's on the table, staring at it briefly as he shook with emotion, tears falling onto the label. "Now, Sam's in the wind, Kevin's..." Dean didn't say it, couldn't say it. "And you're STILL HERE!"
Dean threw the bottle across the room, into the wall, the remaining third of amber liquid splattering onto the bricks. Gabriel couldn't bring himself to care about the damage to his home.
They went back to not making eye contact and breathing.
"...If it is me you wish to blame, go ahead." Gabriel finally said, voice unwavering from it's hollow, broken whisper. "You're right." He shrugged. "I should've been here."
"No." Dean growled out, slumping into the seat across from Gabriel with his head in his hands. "No, no. I'm wrong. Kevin's on me." He whimpered, a sound Gabriel never expected to hear from the elder Winchester. "No. You didn't do anything. You came when... when I called for ya'. I f-forg-..." He sucked in a shuddering breath. "I just r-reacted. Called t-to the one I k-knew who..."
Dean wasn't good at emotion. Gabriel knew that much. They were very similar like that.
"To the one who'd actually come." Gabriel finished quietly.
"...I was wrong about you." Dean sniffed. Now Gabriel wondered if it was alcohol making him that open. "I-I... I said yo-you would... F-fuck th-this up." Dean chuckled mirthlessly, and now Gabriel was certain that it was alcohol making him so weepy. "...An', you were right. Y'said y' would n-never harm u-us again... an-an'... An' ya' haven't."
"...I'm going to go hunt the other angels." Gabriel announced. That shut Dean up.
"...Do it." Dean ordered, voice suddenly stern and commanding, solid and steady.
Gabriel nodded.
Just like that, he left to pack.
They didn't speak for the rest of the time he was there.
-{[|]}-
The door of the Bunker slid open without a noise. The gravel of the road crunched beneath his sneaker, the Archangel sword on his hip tapping at his thigh. The lone warrior, heading to battle. Gabriel thought, tipping his head back to the sky. He felt cold, and not just because of the rain sprinkling on his head.
Shutting the Bunker up, locking it, Gabriel turned down the road.
Not for the first time, Gabriel felt like he was leaving something behind. Like he was turning a page, and rewriting his own novel. He was supposed to protect Sam, protect Kevin, protect Cas, even protect Dean.
Now, he was here. In the middle of a road, with nothing to his name but a few sets of wings and a blade, hair gradually soaking with the cold water from the dull grey sky above.
Gabriel turned down the road slowly, walking for a few steps before spreading his wings out fully and taking flight.
He didn't look back.
Just like last time he left the Bunker...
Gabriel didn't look back.