Shine Through the Dark 1/1
Title: Shine Through the Dark
Author: candylovinangel
Rating: PG-13
Characters: Gabriel, Sam, Dean, John, Michael, Mary, Lucifer
Spoilers: Know who Gabriel is? Then you're fine
Warnings: Fictional Characters = Crack from me,
Summary: The United States are at war with the angels of Heaven, many young men were drafted in, as well as demons surprisingly when the states got desperate for recruits. Now all around the country there are many skirmishes with angels, and Sam and Dean are lucky to be in the same unit, their father however is in another unit that was listed as MIA just months before Sam was drafted at 18.
Word Count: 4,235
Fucking angels, was all that went through Dean’s head as he flipped his sword and stabbed one right through the heart.
Fucking Military, He also though as he was in one of the uniforms given to him by the United States of America…And they were fighting fucking angels! Hell, Demons were helping them! This particular band of angels had tried to catch Dean, Sam and their small band off guard and they would have, if Dean hadn’t smelled…Candy?
Apparently the angels loved that shit to death so Dean had warned the others to get ready… They’d all picked up the swords they’d pilfered from angels who’s died in battles before…Dean had two and loved the feel of them in his hands. He loved feeling that much more deadly…
He heard a scream and Dean nearly froze but he instead ducked the angel that hand swung at him and knocked his helmet off. These angels… they were in armor that looked like it should be way too heavy.
Dean was only twenty two and his brother eighteen. He didn’t want to die but if anything he didn’t want his brother to…and that had been his brother screaming.
He stared at the angel that was glaring at him, ignored his hazel eyes and the way they burned with a righteous anger that sent chills down his spine.
He would have turned and gone for Sam, to see if he was okay but this angel had him pinned in a second, sensing Dean’s weakness, his sword to Dean’s neck… Dean swallowed and let his eyes slide over to the angel’s wings, they were white and had gold on the edges and…there were six of them.
Oh fuck. They had an archangel’s group attacking them! Dean whimpered and tried to get away but the angel wouldn’t let him move, even as Dean found himself taking in the angel’s face and armor…His face, if it weren’t contorted in anger would have been handsome to look at…well it still is, and he let his eyes go to light brown hair that gleamed like gold in the light. Dean let go of his swords. He knew he wouldn’t get away. He let his eyes go over the armor which was a gold color that had silver in elaborate imprints on the side.
Oh what cruel irony it was…The widely Christian country fighting angels…Dean didn’t even know how this got started…Maybe the angels had pissed off the president? Or maybe it was the opposite.
“Please…my brother-“ Dean started to say as he tried to look towards the rest of the fighting. He’d only heard his brother’s scream then nothing.
“Please is…is he alive? Oh god I was supposed to keep him safe,” Dean said, shivering under the hold the angel had on him, who eyes him as if expecting some kind of trick even as he looked toward the side.
He then looked back, “Dead,” was the one word that came from the angel, his voice almost musical but it didn’t stop the emotional agony that went through Dean as he shuddered.
“Then kill me too! I-I can’t live without my brother,” Dean said, voice breaking as the angel seemed to consider this before there was the sound of movement…Dean swallowed and tried to control his breathing as he noticed a few angels coming over toward him and Dean squirmed and tried to escape but the archangel kept him pinned effortlessly.
“Sam…Sam…SAM!” He yelled brokenly, desperately as he looked to the side, feeling the blade cut his neck even as he tried to see his brother and did, his brother on the ground dead, a clear stab wound to the chest and Dean cried out for his brother, his desperation and sorrow clear and it had the archangel holding him down shift his wings uncomfortably as the other angels looked to the human trying to talk to his dead brother…
“Kill him,” One with black hair and piercing blue eyes and raven black wings said, “Put him out of his misery.” He said and Dean felt the blade shifted and looked back to the archangel who had hesitated but then there was blackness…
“Why Gabriel? Why did you spare the human?” Came an accusing voice…That was the first thing Dean heard upon regaining consciousness, even as he knew he was chained to a bed…
“I can’t say…I don’t know myself, Michael…” said the one called Gabriel, and Dean barely recognized the voice and it was the voice of the archangel that had pinned him earlier…So he was Gabriel…
Dean guessed if any of the archangels would be compassionate or hesitant or even remotely caring, it would be Gabriel, considering he was the one who everyone knew as the protector of women and children…The guardian , messenger and yet competent soldier.
There was a flutter of several wings, “You never did bring any others in before. You never showed you even cared. Why care now?” The one called Michael said and there was another flutter of wings.
There was silence for a moment before Gabriel spoke again, “He may know something of the human’s next move…brother we were lucky just to find that group…they were so close and well hidden…”
There was silence and then a sigh, “Have fun with your stray human then,” Michael said with clear annoyance and irritation before there were footsteps retreating and a door opened and another pain of footsteps came inside and there was the flutter of wings and the squeak of a chair as what Dean really hoped was Gabriel sat down.
He couldn’t help the tears that leaked out from his closed eyelids. Why him? Why couldn’t Sam be the one alive…His brother had barely turned eighteen…They’d both done things they didn’t like…They’d hated this probably more so than the angels…Had hated killing these creatures with the most breath-taking wings to be seen on earth…
“You think too loud,” Gabriel said even as Dean opened his eyes and squinted at the light in the room even as tears escaped some more as Dean opened his eyes. His eyes adjusted to the lighting which was too bright at first and when he’d finally adjusted he noticed that Gabriel wasn’t in armor anymore, he was in rather nice jeans, a flannel shirt, blue and silver with strands of hold and then a tan jacket over that.
He remembered from texts that the angel liked the colors gold, light blue silver and purple and it didn’t disappoint Dean that he had all those colors except the purple on.
“well then don’t go prying into my head!” He snapped, shifting and trying to move his hands and he let out a snort.
“Why?” He asked after a long silence in which he had studied the room, it was a rather large room, like something you’d expect at a castle…it had the gold, silver, purple and blue that Dean had expected, and he also noticed the white lilies in a vase on a table. He noticed he was on the bed which was covered in silver colored blankets.
“I don’t know,” The archangel said, shifting his wings, “Just…something about you…we were supposed to kill your whole platoon…” He muttered.
Dean looked away at that, remembering his brother’s scream and then shuddering.
“Why did you guys even come…why attack us? Why force the government to start a fucking draft?” He asked desperately. He wanted to know why. WHY he and his brother had been forced into a mess that they’d been hoping to avoid for years…
“Because…we have to…We need to find someone…” Gabriel said after a long moment of hesitation and there was something sad in his eyes, Dean noticed.
“Why attack us though…what did we do to you angels before this mess started?” He asked in a whisper and Gabriel shifted.
“You didn’t do anything. We had to attack, our person we’re looking for…He forced us to do it…We’ve been fighting to get to him ever since…” Gabriel fell silent.
“Lucifer,” Dean said at last and Gabriel looked to him silently.
“You’re trying to get to Lucifer…he’s trying to start the apocalypse isn’t he?” Dean asked and Gabriel scoffed.
“Trying isn’t the word. He already started it. Brought it on earlier than it’s supposed to have come. Why else would you humans be fighting against us?”
Dean looked away and shuddered violently in the bonds, “Not all of us willingly fight…You have to know that…” He said brokenly, remembering Sam…remembering how much the whole platoon had hated this fighting, “And yet…you…you ass monkeys keep killing us all! We have no choice but to try and defend ourselves! You don’t understand what it’s like! We get killed if we go up against you guys or we get killed by the military for not fighting. There’s death either way! God…I miss Sammy…” He said as he started shuddering again,
“He…he was always so sweet…The angels we had to kill…he...He would give them last rites and respect and bury them…I could see how this was tearing him apart, it was against his whole nature…Me? I killed a bit easier than he did…Though it still hurt…” He wasn’t looking at Gabriel but the angel scoffed.
“Hmpf, a sob story, how predictable of you.” He got up and started to leave when Dean curled up in a ball a bit.
“Believe what you want…I’m not gonna force you to, wouldn’t be right…” Dean muttered as he put his head on the pillows and more tears came from his eyes as he shuddered with silent sobs on the pillows. Gabriel left him there, closing the door behind him and went down the hall, leaving Dean there.
Dean couldn’t help it…He missed his brother so much…why couldn’t he have been the one to die instead…Poor Sammy…Sammy had always been the smarter one, the kinder one…
A few minutes or maybe it was hours later? Gabriel came back with food and put it within Dean’s reach and the cuffs clicked off around his hands so he could move them to eat.
He didn’t eat. He just laid there and stared at the wall. Gabriel bit his lip and felt bad for the young man on the bed, he…understood the feeling actually…wanting to die due to a lost brother…
Gabriel watched the man quietly. He saw how dull his soul was. It had been much brighter earlier on the battlefield, when his brother had been alive. He’d noticed the man’s soul become much duller when he saw his brother dead… Gabriel swallowed and got up and left again. He had listened to the young man talking about his brother…
He didn’t know why he was doing this though…going back to the very spot that he’d captured Dean and he went and looked at the human’s dead brother, kneeling down next to the eighteen year old, who had long shaggy hair and was pretty tall… He put a hand to Samuel Winchester’s chest and healed the wound and then restored his soul, brought it to the young man…
He lifted him up and with a flutter of all six wings he vanished and reappeared in his room and he gave Dean Winchester his brother back, and Dean looked at Sam with wide eyes, opening up the uniform to see no wound on Sam’s chest and he could see his brother breathing even as Dean looked up and Gabriel snapped his fingers, the boys in different clothes now, in plain white T-shirts and jeans but at least those weren’t as hot as those uniforms.
Dean looked up to Gabriel, eyes watery as he held his brother close to him.
“Thank you,” He whispered and Gabriel knew he meant it, he could see Dean’s soul brighten considerably as Sam stirred and opened his eyes.
“Wh..where?” He asked quietly as Gabriel sat down on his couch and spread out there, his wings shifting so he could do it comfortably.
“Wait…isn’t that the angel that was attacking you?” Sam’s voice was tense.
“Yeah…but he didn’t kill me…he won’t say why…but he brought you back Sammy…” Dean said softly, “So I…guess I…owe him a lot…” He said softly as Sam looked to Gabriel, who was eating a candy bar.
“He’s the archangel Gabriel, Sammy,” He said softly as Sam’s feet were chained to the bed as well and Gabriel made toilets appear on either side of the bed, knowing Humans needed to pee sometime...
Gabriel was quiet as he let himself slip into a quiet trancelike state.
“Dude…is an archangel actually sleeping?” Sam asked in a mutter as Dean shrugged and both looked to the ‘sleeping’ angel and they settled after a moment.
“I miss dad…” Dean admitted after a long moment and Sam nodded quietly.
They were silent for a while after that and when their stomachs growled Gabriel sat up and stretched, his wings stretching out with him as he snapped his fingers and food appeared in front of both boys and he sighed as he felt the human soul of his vessel squirm a bit and Gabriel let his eyes look down at the ground as the soul of the vessel he inhabited seemed for some reason to be awakening…after a thousand years of slumber…now the human soul was awakening?
“Hey…Gabriel right?” Sam watches as Gabriel looked up to him.
“Yes?” He asked, his voice softer than he intended it to be…but damn, Sam was barely an adult..He was still a kid…
“Why did you bring me back? You could have just left me dead…and why did you keep Dean alive?” sam asked and Gabriel shrugged.
“I don’t know, guess I just…like you two,” He shrugs as he shifts his wings.
“Do you usually look like that…Like um…is it your true form?” Sam asked nervously, as if afraid he’d piss off the archangel.
“No, it’s a vessel…Every one of us…We have human vessels…It’s harder to get people to say yes nowadays.” Gabriel said, though he didn’t mention his vessel was from years ago, before this all started…Before he’d been dragged back to Heaven and re-educated. He shuddered remembering how Michael and Raphael had punished him…retaught him…
“I don’t blame them for not saying yes,” Dean says bitterly, Gabriel looking to him, his eyes narrowed. He knew the venom behind the 22 year old’s voice but he couldn’t help but be a bit amused. Gabriel knew that in another reality that he’d once been in…these boys were hunters…
After all Gabriel loved to flit through alternate realities and see how events played out with each universe, and even with his own actions.
He felt his gut twist in a knot as the human soul that was his vessel’s was finally awake…and yet quiet, the man seeming curious, a sleepy kind of curious before he seemed to go into a deep slumber again, realizing he was still a vessel, still a tool for an angel…
“Something wrong?” sam said with a frown, startling Gabriel out of his thoughts and he saw Sam fidget.
“Sorry you just…you look like you have a lot on your mind,” He says quietly as Dean rolls his eyes and settles back on the bed.
“Now as much as what I once had,” Gabriel says quietly, he knew the younger Winchester, in almost every reality was attuned to feelings of others, even his. He’d brought back the Winchester not only for Dean….but for himself, he couldn’t just leave him dead, not after what the mook had done for him in another reality. Sam had saved his life, as had Dean, while risking their own…
So a few days later he had broken himself down and he wasn’t all that surprised that he had chosen night time to do it. He went up to the boys who were fast asleep and took the restraints off of them and they started and started to say something when Gabriel put a finger to his lips.
“Look…I owe you mooks a lot…and I know you won’t understand that…but…You guys reminded me of who I was…before they did a bit of reprogramming…” Both boys blinked as Gabriel pulled them both close in a hug and his wings stretched out and they all flapped at once and Gabriel was gone with the boys.
There was a woman’s scream and the crash of a plate as Gabriel unfurled his wings from around the boys and he looked to Mary Winchester, who had a hand over her mouth in a gasp even as Gabriel took in a deep breath and forced his wings to be insubstantial…it had been years since he’d done that, as he shifted the huge wings so they were relaxed behind him.
He saw Mary hugging her sons and crying as she did and Gabriel smiled and Gabriel stretched he awareness out and he found John Winchester and dragged his ass to the house where he blinked, bloody and tired and he looked like he’d been in the middle of fighting Gabriel’s kin. John looked to Gabriel and let out a growl, holding a sword in his hand.
“You! You slaughtered nearly all of my platoon! If you want to kill me now, then fine, try it you undersized angel!” He growled and Gabriel flinched.
“Look at where you are John before you try insulting me even more,” Gabriel said in a huff and John blinked, seeing that Gabriel didn’t seem ready to attack him just yet. John looked at him, confused as he looked around and saw his wife and kids even as Gabriel snapped his fingers and John’s wounds were healed and he was in casual clothes, but Gabriel let him have the sword…
“Dad…” Dean breathed in shock even as Sam ran up to and hugged their dad to death, Dean came up and took the sword from his dad’s hands and Gabriel tensed up as Dean looked to him, Dean seemed to sense the angel’s discomfort as he threw the blade into another room and John was looking down at him.
“I don’t want you killing him Dad…He spared me and brought back Sam…brought you back here, brought all of us back here, together. He’s good in my books.”
“Which one is he?” John asked and Gabriel remembered how he’d been forced to reveal his name in the other dimension…
“Gabriel. They call me Gabriel,” He said in a calm and clear voice as John then started chuckling.
“I should have known…You have quite the reputation of being the compassionate one…”
“What are you going to do now Gabriel?” Dean asked and Gabriel smiled faintly, “Have a talk with the president about the war is unnecessary.” Gabriel says with a faint smile even as he turns on the tv and flips through the channel til he gets to one with the President on it, addressing people.
He got the location and he let his wings come out and his clothes were replaced with a crisp suit and it had gold and silver embroidered along the sides .
Before anyone can say anything he disappears and they see him appear behind the president and there’s screams from the tv as Gabriel rolls his eyes at that.
“Mr. President?” He says as the president, blonde haired Nick Anderson turns around and they see Gabriel smile, “Or should I be calling you, brother?” He smirks and lunges forward and presses a palm to Nick’s forehead.
A blast of blue light and every one of the guards is holding a sword to Gabriel’s back as he holds a sword to nick’s chest, as six huge wings are shown. Blacker than night wings, and they looked tattered and they had blood red on the outline.
Everyone holding a sword to Gabriel stood in shock as Gabriel said louder, so that the microphone would catch it, “Hello, Lucifer! Have fun fooling everyone?”
“Gabriel…I thought I had the impression that the host was too cowardly to launch a direct attack on me?” Lucifer asked as everyone was silent and staring, this was all on national live television as Gabriel smirked.
“You know Michael doesn’t have the guts to do this. Me and him? We knew who you were all along, after all, Michael just thought I wouldn’t actually do this.” And at that, he plunges his sword into Lucifer’s chest and his fallen brother looks at him with wide eyes and then grace explodes from him but something doesn’t feel right-
“BEHIND YOU!” People from the crowd yell as Gabriel pulls his sword out and spins around and stabs at the real Lucifer’s chest right as he does the same with him, but Lucifer’s sword didn’t go far enough it the amount of time he had to attack.
The REAL Lucifer lets out an anguished yell that shatters glass and his wings spread out and there’s a blinding flash of light as the one Morningstar falls to the ground, his wings burning into the ground, feathers flying everywhere. He almost forgets about the sword in his chest while watching this. He realizes a bit too late that…he was falling…falling…
“NO!” There were several million screaming it but the voices that cut clearly through to Gabriel was the voices of Sam and Dean Winchester as angels surrounded the podium and started banishing the demons that were supposed to have been guarding Lucifer.
Castiel and Michael was there, running to Gabriel as the Winchesters had been brought with them and it was Sam who caught Gabriel, and Dean who pulled the sword out.
“It…it’s over…he’s d-dead…I did my job…” Gabriel muttered as blackness surrounded him and Sam shook him.
“Nuh uh, you didn’t do your job Gabriel, you’re supposed to stay with us, that’s your job…We can’t let you die…” Sam’s voice was sad and Gabriel gave a weak chuckle even as he succumbed to the darkness, grace exploding from him, forcing him to scream…
--
Whiteness, the kind of white he hadn’t seen in a millennia. Gabriel was home…Home…how was he home? He opened his eyes and squinted and got up, realizing his vessel’s soul was gone and he pined for it but when he saw his vessel’s soul a ways away and being admitted into Heaven…
He smiled even as there was a stirring of air that had Gabriel looking behind him and he saw well, a man he hadn’t seen before, but he radiated everything about his father and Gabriel realized it was just his father taking some human’s look to speak to him.
“Well done, Gabriel,” His father said with a warm smile and Gabriel took the compliment with a smile, “I’m surprised thought, that you found…yourself before Lucifer had left the public eye. An interesting choice of time to kill him,” He says with a faint smile and Gabriel smiled faintly.
“Well I couldn’t kill him out of the public eye, where they wouldn’t know what he was, how he’d been fooling them…” Gabriel said as he shrugged his vessel’s shoulders .
“I know, and that is why I did not allow you to stay dead. You may have been cowardly in the past and then put through re-education at the hands of Michael and Raphael, but in the end your true nature broke through all of that. I’m proud of you, Gabriel.”
Gabriel blinks at first and then he finds himself pulling his Father’s current avatar into a hug, his very being humming with happiness, love joy and peace.
He feels his father’s hand push his vessel’s hair back and Gabriel didn’t realize he was crying with happiness until his father is wiping his tears away.
“Go,” He says gently as he pulls away from Gabriel, “The Winchesters already miss you, go and do your thing my son,” He says softly and Gabriel smiles and does just that.
--
There’s an explosion of sound and light in the front room of the Winchester’s home, in front of the tv, multicolored sparks and the sparks forming into a human figure and a shower of white and blue lights form massive wings as John is yelling and Dean and Sam and frozen to their spots as Mary’s staring at the spot, angel knife in hand as with a flash of color the figure is Gabriel, who has his wings stretched out and he’s beaming at them.
“So, I was told you guys missed me?” He says in a cheery chuckle, in clothes that were casual like the ones he’d been wearing before he dressed up to kill the presidential angel that was Lucifer...
Gabriel saw them smile and sat down next to them.
“The host is going back to heaven, though there’s a small army behind that’s banishing demons back to Hell,” He says as he folds up his wings and makes them invisible and out of sight. “And when they’re done with that they’ll be brought back.
“What about you though?” Sam asked and Gabriel smiled warmly.
“I figured I would stick around, after all I loved hanging around on earth before all of this,” He smiles and wraps his arms around both boys, “And you two are going to need to be taught the ways of well proper pranksters,”
John and Mary both groan and that has Gabriel, Sam and Dean laughing, Gabriel’s laughter clear and untainted which had them all warm with happiness. Okay so the angel might prove to be awesome to have around.
Author: candylovinangel
Rating: PG-13
Characters: Gabriel, Sam, Dean, John, Michael, Mary, Lucifer
Spoilers: Know who Gabriel is? Then you're fine
Warnings: Fictional Characters = Crack from me,
Summary: The United States are at war with the angels of Heaven, many young men were drafted in, as well as demons surprisingly when the states got desperate for recruits. Now all around the country there are many skirmishes with angels, and Sam and Dean are lucky to be in the same unit, their father however is in another unit that was listed as MIA just months before Sam was drafted at 18.
Word Count: 4,235
Fucking angels, was all that went through Dean’s head as he flipped his sword and stabbed one right through the heart.
Fucking Military, He also though as he was in one of the uniforms given to him by the United States of America…And they were fighting fucking angels! Hell, Demons were helping them! This particular band of angels had tried to catch Dean, Sam and their small band off guard and they would have, if Dean hadn’t smelled…Candy?
Apparently the angels loved that shit to death so Dean had warned the others to get ready… They’d all picked up the swords they’d pilfered from angels who’s died in battles before…Dean had two and loved the feel of them in his hands. He loved feeling that much more deadly…
He heard a scream and Dean nearly froze but he instead ducked the angel that hand swung at him and knocked his helmet off. These angels… they were in armor that looked like it should be way too heavy.
Dean was only twenty two and his brother eighteen. He didn’t want to die but if anything he didn’t want his brother to…and that had been his brother screaming.
He stared at the angel that was glaring at him, ignored his hazel eyes and the way they burned with a righteous anger that sent chills down his spine.
He would have turned and gone for Sam, to see if he was okay but this angel had him pinned in a second, sensing Dean’s weakness, his sword to Dean’s neck… Dean swallowed and let his eyes slide over to the angel’s wings, they were white and had gold on the edges and…there were six of them.
Oh fuck. They had an archangel’s group attacking them! Dean whimpered and tried to get away but the angel wouldn’t let him move, even as Dean found himself taking in the angel’s face and armor…His face, if it weren’t contorted in anger would have been handsome to look at…well it still is, and he let his eyes go to light brown hair that gleamed like gold in the light. Dean let go of his swords. He knew he wouldn’t get away. He let his eyes go over the armor which was a gold color that had silver in elaborate imprints on the side.
Oh what cruel irony it was…The widely Christian country fighting angels…Dean didn’t even know how this got started…Maybe the angels had pissed off the president? Or maybe it was the opposite.
“Please…my brother-“ Dean started to say as he tried to look towards the rest of the fighting. He’d only heard his brother’s scream then nothing.
“Please is…is he alive? Oh god I was supposed to keep him safe,” Dean said, shivering under the hold the angel had on him, who eyes him as if expecting some kind of trick even as he looked toward the side.
He then looked back, “Dead,” was the one word that came from the angel, his voice almost musical but it didn’t stop the emotional agony that went through Dean as he shuddered.
“Then kill me too! I-I can’t live without my brother,” Dean said, voice breaking as the angel seemed to consider this before there was the sound of movement…Dean swallowed and tried to control his breathing as he noticed a few angels coming over toward him and Dean squirmed and tried to escape but the archangel kept him pinned effortlessly.
“Sam…Sam…SAM!” He yelled brokenly, desperately as he looked to the side, feeling the blade cut his neck even as he tried to see his brother and did, his brother on the ground dead, a clear stab wound to the chest and Dean cried out for his brother, his desperation and sorrow clear and it had the archangel holding him down shift his wings uncomfortably as the other angels looked to the human trying to talk to his dead brother…
“Kill him,” One with black hair and piercing blue eyes and raven black wings said, “Put him out of his misery.” He said and Dean felt the blade shifted and looked back to the archangel who had hesitated but then there was blackness…
“Why Gabriel? Why did you spare the human?” Came an accusing voice…That was the first thing Dean heard upon regaining consciousness, even as he knew he was chained to a bed…
“I can’t say…I don’t know myself, Michael…” said the one called Gabriel, and Dean barely recognized the voice and it was the voice of the archangel that had pinned him earlier…So he was Gabriel…
Dean guessed if any of the archangels would be compassionate or hesitant or even remotely caring, it would be Gabriel, considering he was the one who everyone knew as the protector of women and children…The guardian , messenger and yet competent soldier.
There was a flutter of several wings, “You never did bring any others in before. You never showed you even cared. Why care now?” The one called Michael said and there was another flutter of wings.
There was silence for a moment before Gabriel spoke again, “He may know something of the human’s next move…brother we were lucky just to find that group…they were so close and well hidden…”
There was silence and then a sigh, “Have fun with your stray human then,” Michael said with clear annoyance and irritation before there were footsteps retreating and a door opened and another pain of footsteps came inside and there was the flutter of wings and the squeak of a chair as what Dean really hoped was Gabriel sat down.
He couldn’t help the tears that leaked out from his closed eyelids. Why him? Why couldn’t Sam be the one alive…His brother had barely turned eighteen…They’d both done things they didn’t like…They’d hated this probably more so than the angels…Had hated killing these creatures with the most breath-taking wings to be seen on earth…
“You think too loud,” Gabriel said even as Dean opened his eyes and squinted at the light in the room even as tears escaped some more as Dean opened his eyes. His eyes adjusted to the lighting which was too bright at first and when he’d finally adjusted he noticed that Gabriel wasn’t in armor anymore, he was in rather nice jeans, a flannel shirt, blue and silver with strands of hold and then a tan jacket over that.
He remembered from texts that the angel liked the colors gold, light blue silver and purple and it didn’t disappoint Dean that he had all those colors except the purple on.
“well then don’t go prying into my head!” He snapped, shifting and trying to move his hands and he let out a snort.
“Why?” He asked after a long silence in which he had studied the room, it was a rather large room, like something you’d expect at a castle…it had the gold, silver, purple and blue that Dean had expected, and he also noticed the white lilies in a vase on a table. He noticed he was on the bed which was covered in silver colored blankets.
“I don’t know,” The archangel said, shifting his wings, “Just…something about you…we were supposed to kill your whole platoon…” He muttered.
Dean looked away at that, remembering his brother’s scream and then shuddering.
“Why did you guys even come…why attack us? Why force the government to start a fucking draft?” He asked desperately. He wanted to know why. WHY he and his brother had been forced into a mess that they’d been hoping to avoid for years…
“Because…we have to…We need to find someone…” Gabriel said after a long moment of hesitation and there was something sad in his eyes, Dean noticed.
“Why attack us though…what did we do to you angels before this mess started?” He asked in a whisper and Gabriel shifted.
“You didn’t do anything. We had to attack, our person we’re looking for…He forced us to do it…We’ve been fighting to get to him ever since…” Gabriel fell silent.
“Lucifer,” Dean said at last and Gabriel looked to him silently.
“You’re trying to get to Lucifer…he’s trying to start the apocalypse isn’t he?” Dean asked and Gabriel scoffed.
“Trying isn’t the word. He already started it. Brought it on earlier than it’s supposed to have come. Why else would you humans be fighting against us?”
Dean looked away and shuddered violently in the bonds, “Not all of us willingly fight…You have to know that…” He said brokenly, remembering Sam…remembering how much the whole platoon had hated this fighting, “And yet…you…you ass monkeys keep killing us all! We have no choice but to try and defend ourselves! You don’t understand what it’s like! We get killed if we go up against you guys or we get killed by the military for not fighting. There’s death either way! God…I miss Sammy…” He said as he started shuddering again,
“He…he was always so sweet…The angels we had to kill…he...He would give them last rites and respect and bury them…I could see how this was tearing him apart, it was against his whole nature…Me? I killed a bit easier than he did…Though it still hurt…” He wasn’t looking at Gabriel but the angel scoffed.
“Hmpf, a sob story, how predictable of you.” He got up and started to leave when Dean curled up in a ball a bit.
“Believe what you want…I’m not gonna force you to, wouldn’t be right…” Dean muttered as he put his head on the pillows and more tears came from his eyes as he shuddered with silent sobs on the pillows. Gabriel left him there, closing the door behind him and went down the hall, leaving Dean there.
Dean couldn’t help it…He missed his brother so much…why couldn’t he have been the one to die instead…Poor Sammy…Sammy had always been the smarter one, the kinder one…
A few minutes or maybe it was hours later? Gabriel came back with food and put it within Dean’s reach and the cuffs clicked off around his hands so he could move them to eat.
He didn’t eat. He just laid there and stared at the wall. Gabriel bit his lip and felt bad for the young man on the bed, he…understood the feeling actually…wanting to die due to a lost brother…
Gabriel watched the man quietly. He saw how dull his soul was. It had been much brighter earlier on the battlefield, when his brother had been alive. He’d noticed the man’s soul become much duller when he saw his brother dead… Gabriel swallowed and got up and left again. He had listened to the young man talking about his brother…
He didn’t know why he was doing this though…going back to the very spot that he’d captured Dean and he went and looked at the human’s dead brother, kneeling down next to the eighteen year old, who had long shaggy hair and was pretty tall… He put a hand to Samuel Winchester’s chest and healed the wound and then restored his soul, brought it to the young man…
He lifted him up and with a flutter of all six wings he vanished and reappeared in his room and he gave Dean Winchester his brother back, and Dean looked at Sam with wide eyes, opening up the uniform to see no wound on Sam’s chest and he could see his brother breathing even as Dean looked up and Gabriel snapped his fingers, the boys in different clothes now, in plain white T-shirts and jeans but at least those weren’t as hot as those uniforms.
Dean looked up to Gabriel, eyes watery as he held his brother close to him.
“Thank you,” He whispered and Gabriel knew he meant it, he could see Dean’s soul brighten considerably as Sam stirred and opened his eyes.
“Wh..where?” He asked quietly as Gabriel sat down on his couch and spread out there, his wings shifting so he could do it comfortably.
“Wait…isn’t that the angel that was attacking you?” Sam’s voice was tense.
“Yeah…but he didn’t kill me…he won’t say why…but he brought you back Sammy…” Dean said softly, “So I…guess I…owe him a lot…” He said softly as Sam looked to Gabriel, who was eating a candy bar.
“He’s the archangel Gabriel, Sammy,” He said softly as Sam’s feet were chained to the bed as well and Gabriel made toilets appear on either side of the bed, knowing Humans needed to pee sometime...
Gabriel was quiet as he let himself slip into a quiet trancelike state.
“Dude…is an archangel actually sleeping?” Sam asked in a mutter as Dean shrugged and both looked to the ‘sleeping’ angel and they settled after a moment.
“I miss dad…” Dean admitted after a long moment and Sam nodded quietly.
They were silent for a while after that and when their stomachs growled Gabriel sat up and stretched, his wings stretching out with him as he snapped his fingers and food appeared in front of both boys and he sighed as he felt the human soul of his vessel squirm a bit and Gabriel let his eyes look down at the ground as the soul of the vessel he inhabited seemed for some reason to be awakening…after a thousand years of slumber…now the human soul was awakening?
“Hey…Gabriel right?” Sam watches as Gabriel looked up to him.
“Yes?” He asked, his voice softer than he intended it to be…but damn, Sam was barely an adult..He was still a kid…
“Why did you bring me back? You could have just left me dead…and why did you keep Dean alive?” sam asked and Gabriel shrugged.
“I don’t know, guess I just…like you two,” He shrugs as he shifts his wings.
“Do you usually look like that…Like um…is it your true form?” Sam asked nervously, as if afraid he’d piss off the archangel.
“No, it’s a vessel…Every one of us…We have human vessels…It’s harder to get people to say yes nowadays.” Gabriel said, though he didn’t mention his vessel was from years ago, before this all started…Before he’d been dragged back to Heaven and re-educated. He shuddered remembering how Michael and Raphael had punished him…retaught him…
“I don’t blame them for not saying yes,” Dean says bitterly, Gabriel looking to him, his eyes narrowed. He knew the venom behind the 22 year old’s voice but he couldn’t help but be a bit amused. Gabriel knew that in another reality that he’d once been in…these boys were hunters…
After all Gabriel loved to flit through alternate realities and see how events played out with each universe, and even with his own actions.
He felt his gut twist in a knot as the human soul that was his vessel’s was finally awake…and yet quiet, the man seeming curious, a sleepy kind of curious before he seemed to go into a deep slumber again, realizing he was still a vessel, still a tool for an angel…
“Something wrong?” sam said with a frown, startling Gabriel out of his thoughts and he saw Sam fidget.
“Sorry you just…you look like you have a lot on your mind,” He says quietly as Dean rolls his eyes and settles back on the bed.
“Now as much as what I once had,” Gabriel says quietly, he knew the younger Winchester, in almost every reality was attuned to feelings of others, even his. He’d brought back the Winchester not only for Dean….but for himself, he couldn’t just leave him dead, not after what the mook had done for him in another reality. Sam had saved his life, as had Dean, while risking their own…
So a few days later he had broken himself down and he wasn’t all that surprised that he had chosen night time to do it. He went up to the boys who were fast asleep and took the restraints off of them and they started and started to say something when Gabriel put a finger to his lips.
“Look…I owe you mooks a lot…and I know you won’t understand that…but…You guys reminded me of who I was…before they did a bit of reprogramming…” Both boys blinked as Gabriel pulled them both close in a hug and his wings stretched out and they all flapped at once and Gabriel was gone with the boys.
There was a woman’s scream and the crash of a plate as Gabriel unfurled his wings from around the boys and he looked to Mary Winchester, who had a hand over her mouth in a gasp even as Gabriel took in a deep breath and forced his wings to be insubstantial…it had been years since he’d done that, as he shifted the huge wings so they were relaxed behind him.
He saw Mary hugging her sons and crying as she did and Gabriel smiled and Gabriel stretched he awareness out and he found John Winchester and dragged his ass to the house where he blinked, bloody and tired and he looked like he’d been in the middle of fighting Gabriel’s kin. John looked to Gabriel and let out a growl, holding a sword in his hand.
“You! You slaughtered nearly all of my platoon! If you want to kill me now, then fine, try it you undersized angel!” He growled and Gabriel flinched.
“Look at where you are John before you try insulting me even more,” Gabriel said in a huff and John blinked, seeing that Gabriel didn’t seem ready to attack him just yet. John looked at him, confused as he looked around and saw his wife and kids even as Gabriel snapped his fingers and John’s wounds were healed and he was in casual clothes, but Gabriel let him have the sword…
“Dad…” Dean breathed in shock even as Sam ran up to and hugged their dad to death, Dean came up and took the sword from his dad’s hands and Gabriel tensed up as Dean looked to him, Dean seemed to sense the angel’s discomfort as he threw the blade into another room and John was looking down at him.
“I don’t want you killing him Dad…He spared me and brought back Sam…brought you back here, brought all of us back here, together. He’s good in my books.”
“Which one is he?” John asked and Gabriel remembered how he’d been forced to reveal his name in the other dimension…
“Gabriel. They call me Gabriel,” He said in a calm and clear voice as John then started chuckling.
“I should have known…You have quite the reputation of being the compassionate one…”
“What are you going to do now Gabriel?” Dean asked and Gabriel smiled faintly, “Have a talk with the president about the war is unnecessary.” Gabriel says with a faint smile even as he turns on the tv and flips through the channel til he gets to one with the President on it, addressing people.
He got the location and he let his wings come out and his clothes were replaced with a crisp suit and it had gold and silver embroidered along the sides .
Before anyone can say anything he disappears and they see him appear behind the president and there’s screams from the tv as Gabriel rolls his eyes at that.
“Mr. President?” He says as the president, blonde haired Nick Anderson turns around and they see Gabriel smile, “Or should I be calling you, brother?” He smirks and lunges forward and presses a palm to Nick’s forehead.
A blast of blue light and every one of the guards is holding a sword to Gabriel’s back as he holds a sword to nick’s chest, as six huge wings are shown. Blacker than night wings, and they looked tattered and they had blood red on the outline.
Everyone holding a sword to Gabriel stood in shock as Gabriel said louder, so that the microphone would catch it, “Hello, Lucifer! Have fun fooling everyone?”
“Gabriel…I thought I had the impression that the host was too cowardly to launch a direct attack on me?” Lucifer asked as everyone was silent and staring, this was all on national live television as Gabriel smirked.
“You know Michael doesn’t have the guts to do this. Me and him? We knew who you were all along, after all, Michael just thought I wouldn’t actually do this.” And at that, he plunges his sword into Lucifer’s chest and his fallen brother looks at him with wide eyes and then grace explodes from him but something doesn’t feel right-
“BEHIND YOU!” People from the crowd yell as Gabriel pulls his sword out and spins around and stabs at the real Lucifer’s chest right as he does the same with him, but Lucifer’s sword didn’t go far enough it the amount of time he had to attack.
The REAL Lucifer lets out an anguished yell that shatters glass and his wings spread out and there’s a blinding flash of light as the one Morningstar falls to the ground, his wings burning into the ground, feathers flying everywhere. He almost forgets about the sword in his chest while watching this. He realizes a bit too late that…he was falling…falling…
“NO!” There were several million screaming it but the voices that cut clearly through to Gabriel was the voices of Sam and Dean Winchester as angels surrounded the podium and started banishing the demons that were supposed to have been guarding Lucifer.
Castiel and Michael was there, running to Gabriel as the Winchesters had been brought with them and it was Sam who caught Gabriel, and Dean who pulled the sword out.
“It…it’s over…he’s d-dead…I did my job…” Gabriel muttered as blackness surrounded him and Sam shook him.
“Nuh uh, you didn’t do your job Gabriel, you’re supposed to stay with us, that’s your job…We can’t let you die…” Sam’s voice was sad and Gabriel gave a weak chuckle even as he succumbed to the darkness, grace exploding from him, forcing him to scream…
--
Whiteness, the kind of white he hadn’t seen in a millennia. Gabriel was home…Home…how was he home? He opened his eyes and squinted and got up, realizing his vessel’s soul was gone and he pined for it but when he saw his vessel’s soul a ways away and being admitted into Heaven…
He smiled even as there was a stirring of air that had Gabriel looking behind him and he saw well, a man he hadn’t seen before, but he radiated everything about his father and Gabriel realized it was just his father taking some human’s look to speak to him.
“Well done, Gabriel,” His father said with a warm smile and Gabriel took the compliment with a smile, “I’m surprised thought, that you found…yourself before Lucifer had left the public eye. An interesting choice of time to kill him,” He says with a faint smile and Gabriel smiled faintly.
“Well I couldn’t kill him out of the public eye, where they wouldn’t know what he was, how he’d been fooling them…” Gabriel said as he shrugged his vessel’s shoulders .
“I know, and that is why I did not allow you to stay dead. You may have been cowardly in the past and then put through re-education at the hands of Michael and Raphael, but in the end your true nature broke through all of that. I’m proud of you, Gabriel.”
Gabriel blinks at first and then he finds himself pulling his Father’s current avatar into a hug, his very being humming with happiness, love joy and peace.
He feels his father’s hand push his vessel’s hair back and Gabriel didn’t realize he was crying with happiness until his father is wiping his tears away.
“Go,” He says gently as he pulls away from Gabriel, “The Winchesters already miss you, go and do your thing my son,” He says softly and Gabriel smiles and does just that.
--
There’s an explosion of sound and light in the front room of the Winchester’s home, in front of the tv, multicolored sparks and the sparks forming into a human figure and a shower of white and blue lights form massive wings as John is yelling and Dean and Sam and frozen to their spots as Mary’s staring at the spot, angel knife in hand as with a flash of color the figure is Gabriel, who has his wings stretched out and he’s beaming at them.
“So, I was told you guys missed me?” He says in a cheery chuckle, in clothes that were casual like the ones he’d been wearing before he dressed up to kill the presidential angel that was Lucifer...
Gabriel saw them smile and sat down next to them.
“The host is going back to heaven, though there’s a small army behind that’s banishing demons back to Hell,” He says as he folds up his wings and makes them invisible and out of sight. “And when they’re done with that they’ll be brought back.
“What about you though?” Sam asked and Gabriel smiled warmly.
“I figured I would stick around, after all I loved hanging around on earth before all of this,” He smiles and wraps his arms around both boys, “And you two are going to need to be taught the ways of well proper pranksters,”
John and Mary both groan and that has Gabriel, Sam and Dean laughing, Gabriel’s laughter clear and untainted which had them all warm with happiness. Okay so the angel might prove to be awesome to have around.