They had better be fucking kidding. Books? There were freaking books about all of this? It was like the Bible all over again.
Gabriel paced in his new apartment, trying to figure out what to do. He'd been trying to keep his distance from the Winchesters now that they had angels all over them all the time. Plus, the knowledge that Dean Winchester had broken the first seal had Gabriel wanting to rip any and all thought of Sam out of his head. The boy was doomed, he'd known that from the beginning. But now the seal was broken. Dean was out, and the angels would be pushing for Armageddon like there was no tomorrow. And there wouldn't be a tomorrow if Gabriel didn't do something.
But what could he do? The angels only had to break 66 of the seals, and there were so many, Gabriel wouldn't even know which ones to warn the boys about. He could tell them about the last seal. Except he couldn't. He really couldn't. The angels surrounding the boys would know something tipped them off. And they would know exactly who did it. Other angels didn't have the level of knowledge he had. Most of them weren't even there when Lucifer fell. Only an archangel would know about the last seal, and Gabriel would be the only one to side with humans.
He wanted to do something, but being hauled back to Heaven was definitely not worth a couple billion humans.
Gabriel kept pacing. That wasn't why he'd started watching Sam Winchester again. He wanted to stay away because of angels, because of the possible apocalypse, but he had to make sure Sam was okay. He knew the kid believed in angels even before Dean came back. He knew Sam was going to get his hopes crushed. There were one, maybe two, decent angels in Heaven, and none of them had ever set foot on Earth. None of the angels cared about humans anymore. Hell, Gabriel didn't even care about humans. Well, not all of them. Just...just one. He'd admitted it to himself a while ago, that he had feelings for Sam. Sam had figured it out pretty quick, too. And honestly, it added insult to injury. The first being that Gabriel had feelings for after running from Heaven was going to die or start the apocalypse or something much, much worse.
Right now, the choice wasn't Heaven or Earth, the choice was conceal identity or not. And that...that was an easy choice.
He'd been watching Sam every once and a while. Just to make sure he was okay, not to hear his laugh or see his hazel eyes that made Gabriel feel like the planet was out of orbit. It was just to make sure he was okay. He couldn't risk soothing Sam's nightmares while there were so many angels lurking around them. They'd sense his grace from a mile away. So, he was just checking in. He stayed invisible, kept his awareness up in case of angels, the usual.
The boys were on a hunt, surprise, surprise, and they had been accused of LARPing. Because of the Supernatural books. At first, Gabriel had been close to leaving. Humans had written plenty about hunters in the past. Bram Stoker wrote lovely things about Dr. Van Helsing. Really, it wasn't headline news or anything. Fiction was fiction, nothing to worry about. But then, Dean picked up the first book.
"Supernatural by Carver Edlund. Along a lonely California highway, a mysterious woman in white lures men to their deaths," Dean said, reading the synopsis from the back of the book. The plot summary was too close. The first book just happened to be the same kind of case Sam and Dean had worked when their father had first gone missing? Not a coincidence. This was weird.
"Gimme that," Sam said, snatching the book from Dean.
Gabriel looked at the cover from next to Sam. Well, Sam certainly didn't look like that. Nobody looked like that except for Fabio. Still, the character were Sam and Dean, and they were hunters. Maybe this Carver Edlund guy was a psychic?
Then, Gabriel's eye spotted something truly terrifying. One of the books in the bargain bin said "Supernatural: Mystery Spot." What if his name was in the books? What if this psychic or whatever knew his real fucking name? Gabriel couldn't just grab the book, not with the boys standing there. Fuck. What if some psychic author blew his fucking cover?
"We're gonna need all the copies of Supernatural you got," Sam said to the clerk.
Shit. What if Sam learned Gabriel's real name? Shit. Shit. Shit.
Gabriel ran back to his apartment and started pacing again. He needed to find this Carver Edlund right fucking now. He could tell it was a pseudonym, nobody had a name that pretentious. But somebody had to know this guy's real name. Maybe the editor? Who the fuck was the editor? Why was this happening?
Gabriel flew quickly to Sam and Dean's motel room, keeping invisible all the while. As long as they hadn't looked at the Mystery Spot one, maybe he was okay. The book was strewn haphazardly on the floor. Gabriel wondered if Sam had read it. He wondered if Sam was mad at him for the Mystery Spot again. He really wanted to read Sam's mind and see what had happened, but Sam would feel him in there. He'd know he was around. He couldn't do that.
Gabriel silently flipped the Mystery Spot book open to a page towards the end.
"There's Sam girls and Dean girls," Dean said, looking at Sam's computer, "And...what's a slash fan?"
Gabriel scanned the page he was looking at.
"As in Sam slash Dean," Sam said, disgust present in his voice, "Together."
Gabriel almost dropped the page he was holding. Sam and Dean as a couple? What? He'd really thought that trend had gone out in the late Renaissance.
"Like together, together?" Dean asked.
"Yeah," Sam said quickly.
"They do know we're brothers, right?" Dean asked.
Sam said, "Doesn't seem to matter."
"Aw, c'mon," Dean said, "That...that's just sick."
Gabriel kept reading. It was all from Sam's perspective. He tried to pretend that Sam's notice of the "fire in his amber eyes" didn't send his heart racing. He was going to steal this book and read it cover to cover. If there was one for the interaction at Crawford Hall, he'd read that one, too. Any and all mentions of Gabriel were written as "The Trickster," so that was a blessing in and of itself. He could relax and let the hilarity of the boys finding these books ensue.
He had one loose end that he had to take care of, though. If these books were so incredibly accurate, there was a good chance that the author did know Gabriel's identity even if he didn't use it. It was a risk that he couldn't take. He needed to find Carver Edlund.
"We gotta find Carver Edlund," Dean said.
"Yeah, that might not be so easy," Sam said.
"Why not?" Dean asked.
"No tax records, no known address," Sam said, "Looks like Carver Edlund is a pen name."
Gabriel rolled his eyes. He was more than willing to hitch along for the ride of finding the guy, but the boys had just figured out that Carver Edlund was a fake name? The name sounded fake. How on Earth-
Gabriel stuck around long enough for Sam and Dean to decide to take a visit to the publisher, and he took off. He appeared in the publisher's office, causing the woman at the desk to gasp.
"Where did you come from?" she asked, clearly in shock, "What are you? What are you doing here?"
Gabriel didn't bother answering. He needed information. He took a step towards her and she scooted back in her desk chair, scared.
She cleared her throat and tucked the dyed blonde section of her hair behind her ear. She sat up straighter and said, "You can't possess me. I have a tattoo."
Gabriel laughed and said, "I'm not a demon, lady." He touched her forehead and got all the information that he needed to know.
Carver Edlund was really Chuck Shurley. That set off several thousand alarm bells in his head. Chuck Shurley was a prophet. Fuck.
Gabriel quickly erased all memory of himself from the publisher's mind and disappeared.
He needed to find out how much the prophet knew, but one of his brothers was protecting the prophet. It was probably Raphael since Michael was all too busy running things these days. He couldn't risk a visit without being discovered. But if Chuck knew his true name, he could be discovered anyway. Shit. Maybe if he just slipped by without being a threat or anything. Who was he kidding, he was an archangel. Raphael would know him the minute he touched ground near the prophet. If Sam wasn't so damn sensitive, he could probably tag along in Sam's subconscious. Crap. There was no way to find out if his cover was compromised without compromising his cover.
He went back to his new apartment and paced. He paced for what seemed like hours. Wearing a rut in the floor would be the least of his worries. Slowly, he started to feel an overwhelming sadness. Not sadness, really, but helplessness. It was Sam. He knew it was Sam that felt so strongly. Something was wrong. But he couldn't go to him. It was too dangerous, it was an unacceptable risk.
Gabriel showed up in Sam's motel room, invisible, scanning for angels. Sam was pacing and looking around rapidly the way that he did when he was upset but trying very hard not to be. Gabriel really didn't like the way he was looking. He wanted very badly to reach into Sam's mind and see what was troubling him so badly.
A knock came at the door. Gabriel jumped. He was supposed to be scanning for angels and hadn't noticed someone walking up to the door. Sam opened the door.
"You wanted to see me?" the guy said.
"Yeah," Sam said. He opened the door further and gestured for the visitor to step in.
Gabriel stepped behind a divider in the room with some purple stained glass with a bull on it. Who was this guy?
"Thank for coming," Sam said.
The guy shrugged and said, "Yeah, sure."
Something was intensely familiar about this guy. Gabriel's curiosity was piqued. There was something about this guy. Something.
"Umm...I was just wondering how much you know...about me," Sam said.
This was Chuck. This was the prophet. Of course he seemed familiar, he was connected to Heaven. To his brothers.
Gabriel ran. He flew as fast and as hard as he could. He stopped in Nicaragua and quickly began flying again. He wanted to fly until his wings gave out, till he couldn't find himself any more than his brothers could.
He finally stopped running when he reached the South Pole. It wasn't the beaches that he normally preferred, but the waves were still calming.
A penguin blinked at him. Gabriel stared back at the penguin. He still wanted to find out if Chuck knew his name.
The penguin waddled over to Gabriel with its wings outstretched for balance. Maybe he was worrying over nothing. Clearly, if Chuck knew, Raphael would've figured it out by now. Chuck had been writing since 2005. Raphael would've had years to pick the prophet's brain if the thought had occurred to him. Maybe he didn't have to worry. At least not about his cover being blown.
Gabriel sat down in the snow as the penguin stumbled over with a squawk and landed in the archangel's lap. What was this penguin doing away from his family? Penguins never did well on their own.
Gabriel smiled down at the penguin and snapped his fingers, returning the little guy to the rest of its colony. Sometimes he wished he could do the same. Sometimes he dreamt of snapping his fingers and going home to Heaven. But Heaven wasn't home anymore. Nowhere was. And the empty antarctic tundra was a good a place as any to sit and wish for a new home. A new home with hazel eyes and a warm smile. A new home that was just as doomed as his old one.