Chapter 18

Then:

Soon, Sam returns with Dean, Castiel, and Bobby in tow. Dean purposely avoids my eyes as Castiel helps me to my feet, but Bobby immediately fixates on the slowly-forming bruises in the shape of Dean's fingers around my neck.

"Boy, what the hell did you do to her?" he demands, turning to face Dean. The older Winchester scowls, but remains silent.

"Perhaps it is better that you come with me for a while," Castiel tells me quietly and I nod almost immediately. If Sam and Dean want space, they can have it.

Sam hesitates before squeezing my shoulder. I try not to flinch, but I can see that he notices my nervousness from the flash of guilt across his face. "Take care, Ariel." Dean doesn't acknowledge me, but Bobby nods gruffly in goodbye. He doesn't seem angry, but he still seems distant. I barely bring myself to nod to Sam before Castiel touches my shoulder and we're gone.

Now:

"I'm sorry," Castiel says quietly when we land in front of a store somewhere in the middle of a city. The people milling around us don't seem to notice the two strangers who had appeared out of thin air.

"No, you were right," I tell him wearily, "I should've told them from the start."

He squeezes my shoulder. "Just give them time. They'll understand."

"Where are we, anyway?" I look around.

"Chicago. We both have questions we want answered, and only one person who doesn't want either of us dead is available to us." Castiel gives me a wry smile, which doesn't really reassure me as he leads me down the street and up a staircase into an open apartment building. Castiel knocks sharply on the door to number 7 three times and a dog barks from inside. The door swings open and surprisingly, it's Gabriel on the other side. "Hello, Gabriel," Castiel says in his usual deadpan. I'm not sure I want to know how Castiel knew where Gabriel lived. The archangel doesn't seem the type who'd give out his address on a whim.

"Castiel." Gabriel raises an eyebrow at both of us. "Ariel. What're you two doing here?"

"We ran into Lucifer in Carthage." If Gabriel's disturbed by that news, it doesn't show on his face. "The encounter raised many questions."

"And you want me to give you answers." Gabriel crosses his arms before his eyes drop to my bruised throat and widen slightly. "What happened there?"

"Nothing," I mumble, but Castiel has other ideas.

"Dean reacted badly when he and Sam found out about her true nature."

"Was that really necessary?" I throw Castiel an exasperated look.

"Keeping secrets never seems to end well for you," he points out.

Gabriel's expression has changed from mild surprise to downright furious. "He's going back to Tuesday."

"Don't." I shake my head rapidly. "It's not his fault, I'm the one who hid it from him and Sam."

"Doesn't give him any right to-"

"Gabriel, please." He glances between Castiel's impassive expression and my own desperate one before sighing wearily.

"You two might as well come in, then." He steps aside, allowing us to enter the apartment. Once the door shuts behind us, the lights flicker on and it's like I've stepped into a large house rather than a tiny apartment in the middle of downtown Chicago. The entrance hall we're in now is decorated in dark greens and off whites, which gives off a warm, homey feeling.

"Nice place," I note and Gabriel smiles at last, the tension in his shoulders easing slightly.

"Thanks. Spent a lot of time on it." I can hear the dog barking again from somewhere further inside and sure enough, when we enter the living room, a small Jack Russell terrier bounds his way over, yipping excitedly.

"Down, Cola." Gabriel waves the dog away even as I kneel down to his height, allowing him to sniff my hand.

"Hey, little guy." Cola barks and leaps up, pressing his paws down on my knees for leverage as he licks my cheek. "Please tell me you didn't name him after soda."

"'Course I did, he's got just as much energy as a fizzy drink does." When I look up at Gabriel, he's grinning at his dog's display of affection while Castiel stands stiffly behind him. Cola goes to investigate the trenchcoat-clad angel, who tenses even more as Cola jumps around him.

"Uhh. What do I do?"

"Oh, just let him get your scent, he'll get bored of you soon," Gabriel dismisses and Castiel awkwardly allows the tiny dog to sniff his fingers. Huffing in approval, Cola runs into the depths of the house once more. "So what kind of questions were so important that you had to hunt little ol' me out to answer?" Gabriel crosses his arms.

"Why did Ariel fall?" I have to admit, I've wanted to know if Lucifer had been telling the truth, too.

Gabriel's eyebrows shoot up. "You mean you don't know?"

Castiel shakes his head. "All I know for certain is what Michael told us, and that was that Ariel had betrayed the Host."

"That's not really helping my self-esteem," I tell him and he shrugs apologetically at me.

"Nah, you didn't actually commit any crime," Gabriel reassures me. "Now I don't know the full story, either, but from what I heard, you apparently went to Michael and asked him to let you see Lucifer. He said 'no,' of course, but you snuck out of Heaven to find Lucifer, anyway. I guess Mikey took that a little too personally, since he probably thought you'd chosen Lucifer's side when it came to the humans."

"Did I choose Lucifer's side?" I'm starting to feel sick to my stomach at the thought; it's starting to seem more plausible, especially after what Lucifer had said back in Carthage.

"Not as far as I know." Gabriel shakes his head and I'm incredibly relieved. "You and I tended to distance ourselves from the fighting most of the time-"

"-and came to the fledglings' side of Heaven." We both look at Castiel, who actually flushes with embarrassment, his cheeks turning pink. "I was the youngest under Ariel's care, but I remember it well." I'm never going to get over the fact that I'm technically older than Castiel.

"Oh, yeah," Gabriel says, sounding like he's recalling something he had once dismissed as unimportant. "You were a tiny thing back then. All big blue eyes and messy hair." He eyes Castiel critically. "Well, I guess some things never change."

Castiel's expression is a mix between nostalgia and mortification, but he simply continues, "Also, do you know of any omens nearby?"

"Define 'nearby.'" Gabriel sounds amused. "I don't always live in Chicago, you know."

Well, that makes no sense at all. "Huh?" Gabriel grins at my confusion as he goes to the door, tapping the knob once before opening it. We're no longer looking at the streets of downtown Chicago, but a suburban development with large green front yards. Gabriel closes the door again, taps the knob, and opens it to reveal a beach. Shutting it again, he glances over his shoulder at us with a smirk.

"See? Tap the knob, think of the place you wanna go, open the door, and you're there."

"Kind of like Howl's Moving Castle," I note and Gabriel quirks a smile at the reference.

"That's one way to put it." He turns to Castiel. "As for your question, I haven't heard of anything. There's a couple of demon crowds gathering up near Vermont, though. You might want to start there." He taps the doorknob before opening the door to show a nondescript street.

Castiel nods solemnly. "Thank you." He glances at me. "Ariel?" I nod and begin to step towards him when Gabriel shuts the door again.

"Wait a second, you're taking her with you?"

Castiel blinks, looks at me, and then back at Gabriel. "Uhh. Yes?"

"Don't be stupid. She doesn't know how to fight demons."

"I can handle a knife," I protest.

"Do you have a knife?" I falter. "Exactly." Gabriel crosses his arms. "Leave her with me. At least she's safer here than fighting demons with you."

"Seriously?" I throw my hands in the air helplessly. "First I'm shuttled off to the Winchesters, and then to Bobby, and then to Cas, and then back to the Winchesters, and now here?! What am I, a return gift?!"

Gabriel looks torn between amusement and pity. "Ariel, you have to admit that you don't know the first thing about fighting monsters. A couple of weeks of hunter training won't prepare you for that. My place is warded so nothing can get in."

"You are safer here than anywhere else," Castiel agrees and I whirl on him.

"You're taking his side?!"

Castiel blinks, but doesn't change his mind. "I would rather have you safe than risk your life at my side, sister, especially while you're still human." I exhale wearily, pressing the heel of my palm against my eyes.

"And you're sure you want me here?" I ask in Gabriel's general direction.

"Wouldn't have you anywhere else." Surprised at the sincerity in his voice, I look up to see him smiling slightly.

"Oh." I feel like an idiot for such a bland response, but then Castiel is embracing me gently, the material of his trenchcoat pressing around me.

"Be safe, Ariel."

"You, too, Cas," I mumble into his chest. He squeezes my shoulders before nodding once more to Gabriel.

"Thank you." Wordlessly, the archangel nods back and opens the door for Castiel. With one last glance at me, Castiel leaves and Gabriel shuts the door behind him.

"I feel like I've just signed up for something really horrible," I tell him and he grins over his shoulder at me.

"Obviously. Pick a number between one and four." I stare at him. "Oh, just do it."

"Um...two."

He snaps his fingers and looks up at the ceiling. "Upstairs, second room on the right. Mine's the first on the left, if you need me."

"Oh." He must have made up a room for me. "Thanks." He nods, still not looking at me, and I take that as my cue to leave. Cola meets me at the foot of the stairs, barking happily, and I can't help but grin at his excitement. "Yeah, yeah, I guess I'm here for a little while." He follows me up, his tiny tail wagging as he darts to the second room on the right before I even reach the top of the stairs.

When I push open the door, I'm rooted to the floor. The room isn't large, by any means - it's probably about the same size as the room I had had in my house back in the other universe - but it's absolutely breathtaking. The ceiling is black with dotted stars that seem to glow in the dark, and when I switch on the light, I can see that the side walls are sky blue with fluffy white clouds scattered across them. The bed has light blue sheets and a thick dark blue comforter, with two pillows wearing matching pillowcases.

Cola runs past me and hops up on the bed, looking at me reproachfully as if to ask why I haven't joined him yet.

"Relax, I'm coming." I shut the door behind me and sit down on the bed. Damn, if it isn't the softest mattress I've ever been on. I lie down on the bed and Cola takes the opportunity to flop onto my stomach. "Ow. Jeez, for such a tiny dog, you sure are heavy." Cola whines almost in apology and licks my nose, earning a laugh from me. "Okay, okay, you're forgiven." I scratch behind his floppy ears. "You're a smart boy, aren't you? Yeah, smart and handsome." Cola whines again, this time contentedly, as he rolls over, allowing me to rub his belly. "Don't let it go to your ego, though," I scold lightly.

Cola's tongue lolls out of his mouth lazily, probably signalling that it's too late.

I settle into my new life pretty fast, and within a few days, we've established a tentative routine. While Gabriel doesn't need to eat, I do, so I'm usually the one making breakfast in the morning - which he teases me for endlessly before demanding chocolate chip pancakes - while he snaps up lunch and dinner for me at the appropriate times while creating some sort of cake or candy for himself.

Damn his angelic lack of cavities.

In between meals, Gabriel gives me freedom to do anything I want within the house, so on the first day, I find the library on the first floor and raid his book collection. I find a book on angels nestled between The Modern Cookbook - I don't even want to know - and A Study of Paleontology and find myself skimming through it to find myself.

The Archangel Ariel. I pause on the page and read through it. It's the same information the Internet had provided me, but this time, there's a picture. A pretty young woman with bright hazel eyes and shoulder-length curly blonde hair looks back at me, her expression serene in the way all angels seem to be portrayed. She's wearing a white dress and seems to shine with a pinkish light, her grayish-white wings stretched out almost lazily behind her.

"Guess I couldn't hide that book from you forever," I hear Gabriel say quietly and turn as he sits down on the floor next to me.

"Is that what I looked like before?" I ask and he shrugs.

"Sometimes. You usually preferred the vessel you're wearing now, though."

"What was her name?" I vaguely wonder if my vessel's soul had still been attached to my body when I had fallen, or if she had vanished as Jimmy Novak had.

"Angelina. Means 'little messenger.'" I raise an eyebrow, knowing that Gabriel's supposed to be the Messenger of God, and he grins. "I know, irony abounds. 'Specially since she was my own vessel's younger sister." He glances at the book then, suddenly unwilling to meet my eyes. "We were twins, y'know."

"We were?"

"Yep. We had that whole twin-bond and everything." I feel a sudden overwhelming sense of sorrow for Gabriel as he fiddles with the edge of a page before flipping it over quickly, changing the subject. "Hey, look, there's me!"

"Dude, you look like a girl," I tell him, grinning at the picture in the book.

"Technically, angels are genderless." He makes a face at me.

"I ought to show that picture to the Winchesters."

"You're the worst little sister ever." I stick my tongue out at him, which turns out to be a mistake as he grabs me and digs his fingers into my sides, tickling me until I'm half-screaming for mercy through my laughter. Cola runs into the library at the commotion, barking wildly and trying to get in on the action by licking both our faces whenever he gets an opening.

I wonder if this is what having an older brother is like. I could get used to it.

By the end of the week, I'm itching to leave the house, but as easygoing as Gabriel is on whatever I do within the house, he's adamant that I don't leave.

"You bypass the wards, you'll be an open target," he warns me the instant I even mention going outside. Cola barks in agreement from beside him.

Traitorous mutt. See if I ever give you belly rubs again.

"Who'd go after me?" I demand plaintively and Gabriel raises his eyebrow at me.

"The douchebags we unfortunately call family?"

Okay, I have to hand that point to him.

Later that night, Gabriel comes into my room and shoves an old wooden box unceremoniously at me. I frown at him, confused.

"Just take it," he grumbles. I open the box and see a polished silver blade inside, shorter than a sword, but longer than any regular knife I'd practiced with. "It's an archangel's blade," Gabriel says reluctantly, looking uncomfortable, "Yours, actually." I flip it over and see beautiful runes engraved into the hilt of the blade.

"Is this Enochian?" He nods. "What does it say?"

"Your name."

"And you kept it all this time?" I run my finger over the flat of the blade, feeling the contrast between the smooth metal and bumpy grooves of the Enochian letters.

"Yeah, well." He coughs slightly, even though I know that as an archangel, he doesn't even need to cough. "It's not like I could just trash something like that. It kills almost everything. Demons, most monsters, angels-"

"It kills angels?" I look up, surprised.

"Archangels, specifically. But regular ones, too." He points a finger warningly at me almost immediately. "Don't even think about it."

"What?"

"You're thinking about using it on Lucifer, and I'm telling you not to bother. For one, he'd see it coming a mile away. He wasn't born yesterday." I wrinkle my nose, realizing he's caught me. "Anyway, only an archangel can use it to kill another archangel, and I hate to remind you, but you're out of go-juice."

"So then why are you giving it to me?"

He shrugs. "Just 'cause you can't kill Lucifer with it, doesn't mean you shouldn't keep it to protect yourself against anything else."

"Thought you said I wasn't supposed to leave the house," I remind him.

He smiles a little sadly then, and I'm briefly reminded of the first few times I had seen him in my dreams. "It's not like you'll be here forever." I look back down at the archangel blade in my lap before placing it back in the box and closing it. I set the box aside before impulsively wrapping my arms around Gabriel. He freezes, startled, as his arms hover awkwardly over my back.

"Oh, just hug me back, I know you want to," I snap half-heartedly into his shoulder, grinning.

Finally, Gabriel's arms encircle me as I feel his chin rest on top of my head. "I'm an awful brother, aren't I?" he murmurs against my hair with a wry chuckle.

"You're doing okay so far." His arms tighten around me, confirming that I had said the right thing.

My phone rings another week later, distracting me from a book on the Enochian alphabet (hey, might as well learn something useful). I pull it out of my pocket, hesitating when I see the caller ID: Sam W.

"You don't have to answer," Gabriel points out, looking up from his Weekly World News magazine and frowning when he sees the name on the screen.

Finally, I accept the call anyway and get up from my chair, leaving the library to talk in the hallway. "Sam?"

"Hey, Air." He sounds relieved to hear my voice. "How're you doing?"

"I'm okay. I'm with Gabriel."

"With Gabriel?" he echoes, confused, "I thought you were with Cas."

"No, Cas dropped me here about two weeks ago."

"He didn't hurt you, did he?" Sam asks skeptically.

"No, not at all," I answer, a little annoyed at the assumption.

"Okay, I believe you, I just...you know, we've only ever known him as the Trickster. Kind of hard to remember he's a good guy," Sam admits.

"Is there a reason you called?" I ask, trying not to sound as impatient as I feel.

"No, just...I wanted to make sure you were okay." Sam's voice sounds crestfallen, and I can already see the hurt puppy-eyes on his face. "The way things ended between us, I just-"

"No, I get it. It's okay," I interrupt him, "How are Dean and Bobby?"

"They're doing fine. Bobby's pretty much forgiven you and Dean's still pretty pissed, but he's mellowing out. At least he doesn't glare anymore when I mention your name," Sam chuckles.

"Mention me a lot, do you?" I can't help but tease and for a moment, it's almost like nothing's changed between us.

"Oh, yeah, I can't get you off my mind," Sam deadpans in return and I can imagine him rolling his eyes goodnaturedly. "Just give Dean a little more time, he'll come around."

"Yeah, I know." Wanting to change the topic, I ask, "So have you two been on any cases?"

That launches Sam into an anecdote about their most recent undercover case in a mental hospital, and I find myself laughing as he describes Dean's attempt at craziness by pulling down his own pants and yelling "PUDDING!", as well as Sam's own experience when the hospital staff drugged him to the point of delusion. It's the most normal I've felt in the past two weeks, and by the time Sam and I say goodbye to each other and hang up, I'm grinning like an idiot.

It's not Sam's fault, of course.

But it can't possibly be a coincidence that the night after he calls, I dream of Carthage for the first time since it happened. I see the carnage of the mass grave, the horrified look on Castiel's face when Lucifer transports me away from him, Lucifer's cold smile as he greets me as if we've never been apart a day in our lives-

"Ariel!"

I feel Dean's fingers, unyielding and calloused, squeezing my neck in a vice grip while Sam does nothing to stop him, glaring accusingly at me over his brother's shoulder, and I can't breathe, I can't breathe-

"Ariel, wake up!" I jolt upright and my forehead collides with Gabriel's as he leans over me. He quickly draws back as I hiss in pain, grabbing my soon-to-be-bruised head, and he heals the injury with a brush of his fingers against my forehead before feigning unconcern as he says, "You, uh...you were screaming."

"Sorry," I rasp - wow, I'd screamed myself hoarse without even realizing - and drop my gaze back to my hands clasped in my lap. "I didn't mean to bother you."

"Hey, I didn't mean-" Gabriel sighs wearily, pinching the bridge of his nose. "I'm really bad at this." At any other time, I would have smiled, but I can feel myself shaking with the attempt to hold back tears, and I can tell he's sensed my inner turmoil. "Oh, to hell with it, get over here." Before I can protest, he scoops me up and places me firmly in his lap. Short as the archangel is (then again, Sam's raised my expectations of people's heights), I'm even smaller, and I curl up against him almost instinctively. I can feel his fingers carding through my hair, and the gesture calms me down a little, but not nearly enough to keep me from burying my face into his shoulder and giving in to my tears.

He doesn't say anything, which I'm thankful for, but simply holds me until I've cried myself out, pressing a kiss into my hair when my trembling ceases.

"You good?" he asks quietly and I feel like an idiot for crying on him as I nod.

"Sorry," I mumble again and he rolls his eyes as he grasps my shoulders, pulling me back so that I would look at him.

"Stop saying that."

"Oh, sorry." My cheeks turn pink when I realize I've done exactly what he told me not to. "Last one, I promise." He grins, his smile bright in the darkness of the room as he tugs me into another embrace. I melt into it readily. Gabriel's warm and smells oddly like a mix between burnt sugar and ozone. It's soothing, and my eyes slip closed again, too heavy to stay open anymore.

"You want me to stay?" I barely register the question, already half-asleep again, but finally manage to nod. He shifts me around until I'm horizontal again and I cling to him even as I sink back into oblivion once more.

I don't dream again.

I swear I just get more insecure with each new chapter. But here's a little break from the Season 5 recap. I've wanted to write some sibling fluff for a while now, and my Gabriel-muse literally jumped me and demanded that I write him into this chapter or he'd stick me in an eternal Tuesday, forever writing the same sentence.

A truly terrible fate, indeed.

Also, Gabriel's dog is from Tall Tales, for those who'd forgotten. Poor little guy was never mentioned again after that episode, so I decided to write him into this chapter. And the name of "Cola" only stemmed from the fact that I was drinking Pepsi at the time.

Leave reviews (and also chocolate, chocolate would be nice).