gabriel big bang : drawing down the ocean
Drawing Down the Ocean
It began when Abaddon, angel of the Pit, raised the Righteous Man from Hell to start the Apocalypse.
#
It began when Gabriel, third-made archangel, became Abaddon and was cast into Perdition to guard his brother’s cage.
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It began with four brothers who once loved each other very much.
Heaven is a wasteland of broken prisms, light draining from the wreckage of (what would be perceived as) wings that have become the landscape between memories. There is no ‘above,’ no visible ‘below’ or ‘beside,’ just between. The living, still glorious and all-encompassing in their radiance, exist between the graceless dead. From where Gabriel stands amid the remains of his brothers, it is impossible to tell the righteous from the fallen. They’re just dead.
Along the edges of his outer wings the voices of the Host echo in exaltation. Michael has triumphed! The adversary is caged! It’s over! It’s over! they cry out and Gabriel’s wings ache with the weight of their words and his wounds. Their brothers are dead. Their brother is caged. And yet there are cries of victory and joy; he shouldn’t begrudge the fledglings their relief, but he does. Do none of them see what this war has cost? Don’t they remember who has died (are still dying)? Doesn’t Michael, drinking up the words of praise from children who had formerly sung only to honor their Father?
Gabriel turns his faces away. He is tired. The cheers of his brothers grate endlessly. And then, there are the screams. It’s over! they sing as the last of the rebels lay down their blades. It’s over! they sing while Dominions wordlessly slaughter the Fallen.
It’s over, indeed.
The song grows louder, each garrison, each choir singing with greater fervor as Michael alights, flying up (what would be perceived as ‘up’) between the ranks of the dead, his great wings glowing bright, brighter, nearly as bright as Lucifer’s were as he fell. Raphael flies in their brother’s shadow, Michael’s echo, even now. They add their voices to the song, crying out their joy in victory and that’s enough. It’s enough; it’s enough; it’s enough. Gabriel’s wings are shaking, light crackling even in the darkness of the voids (his unhealed and gaping wounds) as he draws them close to shut out the sound. How could they? How could they, who should know what was lost? How can they not feel the coldness of silence in the Host - the voices that were lost and will never be raised? This song is discordant, empty and it’s suddenly too much for Gabriel to shelter against. He’s endured the silence of his Father, the endless bickering between his brothers, this whole damned War and he’s done. He won’t endure this, too.
Turning his back on Heaven, Gabriel spreads his wings and lets himself fall.
No angel in Heaven knows Earth like Gabriel does. Lucifer might have, but he’s hardly in Heaven any more and they never saw it through the same eyes. Gabriel doesn’t have his brothers’ pride.
There are places on this world like the voids on his wings. Hollows that an angel’s grace just… skims over; he can live in those. Live anywhere he doesn’t have to watch his own brothers’ kill each other. It all comes down to having a plan.
Gabriel tucks his wings away close, while he shelters beneath the earth for the hours it takes to heal. He has to pull his grace tighter and tighter, barely fitting inside the frail meat and bone he’s claimed. Every twitch and tick of his wings in the space between the electrical firings in synapses raises a scream from the soul trapped inside with him. It’s scattering stray bits of memory and old hopes, already, worn down towards pure energy by the constant brush of an archangel’s grace. A few more days and even its own name will have been ground away into dust and sand.
It helps.
He flicks his wings and smiles at the sound; the soul flares and it blocks the highest notes of the Host. He can work with this.
His plan, perhaps unsurprisingly, doesn’t work. Oh, there are two hundred years of fun and games and pagan orgies before little brother showed up on his doorstep. During the orgy, actually, an entirely unsurprising example of Raphael’s excellent timing. And thank you very much for that, little brother.
Gabriel doesn’t struggle as he’s brought before Michael. Really, what’s the point? There’s only ever been one archangel who could challenge their eldest brother and he’s in Hell. So Gabriel bows his head (there’s no pride left to swallow) and begins to plan his defense. Words and ideas easily slotting into place in preparation for when Michael allows him to speak.
Father’s messenger hasn’t always needed a silver tongue, but Gabriel has one anyway. Both Michael and Lucifer have bent to his voice in the past - though not when it counted, of course, never then.
Gabriel should have remembered that.
Michael never gives him a chance to speak (his memory always being better than his brothers’) but passes judgment swiftly. Gabriel, with his head bent, doesn’t even run. He has no chance to. The arguments and persuasions and glittering, glorious declarations of love and fealty die unheard. His brother (his brother) seizes his innermost wings and the violation turns Gabriel to ice. Michael works quickly, weaving chains out of Gabriel’s own grace to bind four of his great wings, reducing him to so much less.
His sword is taken; Gabriel doesn’t have strength to care. His rank is stripped from him, leaving a broken angel where God’s silver-tongued archangel had bowed his head. Michael’s last act is taking up Gabriel’s sword to carve the sigils in his grace that steal his name, leaving his voice unable to utter the syllables again.
When it’s over, he doesn’t even have the voice to scream.
Hell is cold.
Always it smells of fat burning smoke, but there is never any fire. In his corner, far removed from the play of the damned being whittled into the damning, the quiet writhes, a serpent that presses in on the tight coiled strings of grace, seeping inside. He is ice. Stagnant, his wings have frozen and crystallized, trapping oily slick smears between broken feathers. Time passes as a lie. There is no change, no mercy of decay, just the moment, suspended infinitely.
Alone in the dark, when no angel has ever truly been alone, not even Lucifer (sweeter tongued than Gabrielwhowas, persuading garrisons to fall into him) Gabriel speaks. Over and over to the cage, his brother, Hell and the quiet and the damned. The melody of his own voice drives him mad. But, beneath each word, drunk greedily by the darkness, he is reminded that there’s no one to hear.
The day the silence breaks, Abbadonwhois almost weeps. One of Lucifer’s children has finally devoured the breadcrumbs to find his father. Inside the ice, Abaddon strains to hear the first voice in so many thousand years. The screams are first, only echoes, lingering in the air long after throats have been slit and he savors them gladly. Blood and pain seep down from above, the wives of his Father’s Son cracked open to whisper at the keyhole of the cage and he doesn’t care.
Stirring, enduring the sting of ice as it cuts into his wings, he lifts himself to the pinhole gap between the world above and Hell below. Lucifer and his child, the pyre killed King of Hell, lay their plans and Abaddon ignores them. There are suggestions of sound-new sound-that he strains to catch between their words. He knows this plan, or of it, at least. The crafting of his brother’s vessel as it was written and so it will be and so on and on.
If he squeezes his grace just so (it hurts, oh Father, it hurts) he can slip a fraction of awareness past Azazael’s sniveling and Lucifer’s planning. Something roars, thunders, brushes Gabriel’s senses in a blur of metal. Voices linger in its passing, nonsense words in a language created long after his fall.
It’s glorious. He draws a breath and drives needle sharp points into the gap, shivering with pain as he fights to hold back the oncoming quiet.
Their voices fade; it’s over.
Abaddon gazes up, for the first time since his fall and sees the holes like far flung stars in the endless hush. Soft, ever so, more ghosts than words, the sounds of the world filter down to bathe his starving grace.
Time passes. He learns. The voices of the damned make their way to his quiet corner of Hell; it still isn’t enough.
#
The passing of the Righteous Man’s soul through the Gate of Hell is quiet and unremarkable. His cries, while he’s on the rack, go unheard by the sentinel at the cage. The man’s laughter, while he holds the knife, doesn’t stir the ice from GabrielAbaddon’s wings.
And then, the order comes as a whisper in the dark it’s time. Wings that haven’t fluttered much less flown stretch for the first time in ages. There are only two of them now, where once there were six, and they burn as the light of embers reflected in copper, old and patinaed. There is no joy in Hell, but still, he smiles.
Demons don’t part for him and he hadn’t expected them to. Secrets and lies, such are the machinations of Heaven which hoard information more jealously than any crossroad demon holds a soul. Abaddon, who-was-Gabriel, cuts a straight path through Hell and rejoices in the carnage. Now he hears this soul that would be saved, poor son of a bitch, as the humans have come to say. The soul laughs while another soul bleeds, but this Righteous man is screaming under the quiet chuckles, aching for the knife in his own (non)flesh and his self-loathing is sharper than any blade in the Pit. Abaddon could almost weep, but Gabriel can’t care.
Thirty-nine years as tortured, one as torturer, his soul shouldn’t look like this. It should be dark, ashen and brittle as Gabriel’s wings were a decade after (expulsion-punishment-prison-detail) his fall. But the Right-no, no it’s Dean. Winchester. Dean’s soul that catches Gabriel-in-Abaddon and leaves him voiceless. Such a frail thing, glorious, scarred in deep ridges, bright as grace and the heart of a star. It smells of sweet summer apples, well worked metal and spice, for the first time since Heaven, Gabriel feels warm.
It’s a complication. It shouldn’t be-it can’t be, but it undeniably is. This soul, this Apocalypse, he needs this to work and it’s going to fucking well work. Even now, even with this soul. Gabriel draws his grace close, the ice cold edges of his wings are all the reminder he needs for why.
“And what are you supposed to be? A thing with feathers?” The soul-Dean-sneers and it sits awkwardly in so beautiful a soul, like a moustache on the Mona Lisa.
Clearly, not helping concentration any.
But Gabriel can read under the ill-suited smirk and taunt, sees hope printed inside the confusion. It should have been hope for salvation; that would have been easy. It’s not, of course. Why should Dean Winchester be easy? Gabriel’s seen and heard three decades years worth of souls as they were damned, learned their speeches, their crimes, their essential natures but this one-the Righteous Man was supposed to be special, just not this special.
The demons pound on the doors to the cell. It won’t take long, not here where reality is more construct than constructed. Dean’s waiting for an answer, idly toying with the knife (slicing open his fingers) and Gabriel can’t think. He goes for simple, instead; charges Dean, knocking the knife aside with more force than warranted (it sliced open Dean’s fingers) and seizing the soul, his prize.
It should get easier, but doesn’t. Gabriel takes flight and as Hell passes beneath them, Dean begins to struggle and then fight against Gabriel in earnest; his soul is calling to Hell, believes whole-heartedly that it belongs in Hell and Gabriel can barely keep his grip. Unbelievable, stupid, stubborn, damned son of a bitch has Gabriel clinging tighter than he should, cradling the soul inside his own grace.
And then they’re through, the Gates fading behind them and Dean silent. As they pass into the world again, Gabriel feels through his hold on Dean-quick impressions, fast as the spark of firefly and cutting deeper than marrow: guilt, which turns the slick oil smears on Gabriel’s feathers to dust; resignation and sorrow, clinging tightly to each other; hope, which doesn’t cling at all. They reach the resting place of Dean’s bones and Gabriel has to reach into himself, pulling back his wings, to reach the soul he’s carried. For a moment, he’s caught holding it as emotions pitch and crash with the fury of a storm. Hope fades into something else, jumbled and confused, but Dean reaches out to his grace and, for just a moment, holds Gabriel.
Staring at Dean, Gabriel can barely see the separation between his grace and the soul he he’s saved and, only then, because the soul is brighter.
#
It begins.
“Horsemen,” Dean says flatly. There’s blood on his lip, welling up from where it’s been split and he keeps flicking his tongue over the injury.
The demons, who had attacked him, are gone. Two of them, Dean had stabbed before Gabriel ever appeared in the room, but the last one he’d exorcised while it’d pinned Dean to the ceiling. And if reducing that one to nothing but black cinders and a white haze over taking black smoke had, possibly, been overkill? Dean hadn’t noticed. Gabriel’d dealt with all the bodies while Dean recovered his breath.
That was, Dean had said, the only reason he wasn’t shooting Gabriel on sight, just to see if it’d take this time. It’d still only bought him two minutes before Dean went for a gun or knife or hex bag.
Now, three minutes later, they’re still talking, even if Dean isn’t entirely happy about it.
“Of the Apocalypse,” Gabriel confirms. They’re standing in the cramped space between beds, too close to each other, unable to move without touching, which they’re both careful not to do. Sam is sleeping on his bed, peaceful for the first time in days. Bobby is sleeping on Dean’s bed, sprawled at an awkward angle. Gabriel is responsible for both of them; there’s only so much apologizing he plans to do (none) and his patience for recrimination is all allocated for Dean. And even that’s running dry.
“Uh huh. And I’m believing this because… oh, that’s right, you’ve been so honest and forthcoming up to this point. Abaddon.” Gabriel can hear the rattle in Dean’s breathing. He could do that from a mile away, but up close it’s deafening. This is the body he rebuilt, a work of art in sinew and flesh and it’s broken in places, skin torn, bones crushed, but he’s not allowed to fix it. Gabriel’s fingers itch to try again, but Dean’s already torn his stitches once dancing away from Gabriel’s touch, so he doesn’t push his luck. This is punishment for both of them - Dean for believing in (loving) Abaddon and Gabriel, for earning his trust. Betraying it seems the lesser crime-maybe because Sam had one it, too. The difference is that Gabriel had been a liar from the start. And he’d never been family.
“You’re believing it because you don’t have a choice. Because I’m the only option you’ve got that doesn’t involve being an angel condom.” Gabriel grins and Dean grits his teeth. For a second, just a second, it’s like before, when Dean still thought (tentatively) of Abaddon as his angel, if not his friend.
And after, of course, when Dean had trusted that Abaddon was his and not Heaven’s.
“Fine,” Dean’s voice is sharp, “tell me where I can find them and how I can kill them.” And leave doesn’t really need to be said, at this point. Dean’s shoulders are hunched and it’s as much pain as aggression; he’s getting old to be thrown into walls and through furniture and no human can really walk away easily from fighting with a demon. Gabriel balls his hand into a fist and watches as Dean’s tongue wipes away more blood from his mouth. Gabriel likes that mouth; he has many fond memories of it.
“It’s not the simple.” He barely stops from rolling his eyes when Dean snorts. Yeah, okay, this is going nowhere. “Look, I get it. I screwed you. Over. Repeatedly.” A muscle in Dean’s jaw has developed a tick, tightening like clockwork-Gabriel could set a watch to that. The hunter’s hands are balled, the only reason he’s not swinging is because he’s already broken his knuckles twice tonight on Gabriel’s skin.
It hadn’t made either of them feel better.
“I’m not sorry,” Gabriel’s voice is much softer. He wants to step closer, but short of stepping onto Dean’s toes or into Dean’s skin, that can’t happen. “Everything I did was to go home. Not to my brothers, not for my brothers, just-just home. To be myself again.” Gabriel has to look away, feels Dean’s breath scratch his cheek like a sandstorm. “You have no idea what I’m giving up by doing this. Having done this.” Swallowing uneasily, Gabriel counts the beats of Sam’s heart and almost starts to hate him.
Dean’s forgiveness, like Gabriel’s patience, is finite and enough for only one person; Sam has already laid claim and Gabriel doesn’t beg, not now.
The graze of fingertips takes him by surprise. He snaps his around to look at Dean again, a mistake, because he takes that as a cue to drop his hand. But for the instant Gabriel’d had him-that touch-he’d been warm again.
“All right, so the horsemen.” Everything about Dean screams exhaustion in a voice too hoarse for sound. He rubs his still bloody hands across his face, reopening abrasions and his ribs damn near creak. “Wake up the troops,” he’s speaking half slumped over, another inch and his head will be on Gabriel’s shoulder. “We’ll figure out a plan. Way to kill these sons of bitches. Get the rings. Keep Sam away from the Devil.” Buy eggs, pick up dry cleaning, don’t forget anniversary, Gabriel rolls his eyes.
“Uh huh, good plan,” he murmurs, sliding, not stepping, a half inch closer to Dean, bringing their bodies together. He’s so warm, a summer’s day, hearth fire, blankets and tea when it’s cold outside kind of warmth that he leaves Gabriel aching. Brisk and business like, he brushes his fingers over Dean’s forehead; there’s a bed beneath him before his knees even buckle. Gabriel takes a moment to arrange his (not charge, not lover, not friend) Dean, who’s no longer his, on the silk sheets, which he’ll hate, resting his head on the pillow and pulling the boots off his feet. The abrasions are gone, ribs repaired, breathing easy and split lip mended with only a smear of blood across Dean’s mouth to show there’d been damage.
Gabriel licks that off himself.
The decision to trust Abaddon-also-Gabriel again causes a fight, predictably. It doesn’t help that Dean woke up pissed at being mojoed, as had Sam and Bobby, of course, but Gabriel tunes them out habitually.
It ends up being Sam who objects the most, of course, and the two have been fighting for the last hour and a half while the coffee grew cold on the nightstand. Whatever Bobby might have added to the argument was drowned out by the Winchesters being the Winchesters, which leaves him and Gabriel sitting next to each other, spectators to soap opera made sport. Every so often, Gabriel hands Bobby a chocolate bar. After forty-five minutes, they’d bonded. Sort of.
“He’s done nothing but lie and manipulate us since he showed up!” Sam’s argument, in a nut shell, and repeated at various decibels for the morning. Gabriel figures it’s two parts projection, three parts internalized guilt and wrapped around a nice little kernel of truth. The hypocrisy doesn’t escape anyone in the room-it’s pretty visible from Heaven, Hell and space-but Sam’s got a point.
And Dean’s got a knife to twist.
“Not us, Sam, me. He lied and manipulated me and I’m the one saying we trust him on this.” The parallels also clearly visible in multiple dimensions and while Gabriel’s not sure how he feels about being compared to Sam, it does the trick. Dean switches to his big brother voice, all gruff tenderness and soft tones. Magnanimous in victory, that’s Gabriel’s righteous man. “For better or worse, right now, he’s the best lead we’ve got.”
Gabriel swallows the jealousy he feels when Dean rests his hands on his brother’s shoulders, squeezing once before letting go. It’s as much affection as either of them show in touch, more than he’s seen between them in the whole year.
“Right,” Sam twists the word sourly on his tongue, trying out the flavor and finding he hates it but has to endure. “Okay. So, we go after the Horsemen of the Apocalypse and steal their jewelry.”
“Or Satan wears you like a bad eighties prom dress, basically.” Gabriel’s smiling and he knows it’s a dangerous thing, goading Sam now, but can’t resist baring his teeth. They’re stuck together now, for better or worse as Dean said, both of them traitors, both of them atoners for Dean. Sam glares, his jaw clenches like Dean’s does, and he draws in his breath like its added height he needs to be intimating. Gabriel pops M&M’s in his mouth.
“You all done now?” Bobby sounds irritated, which is basically his default state in Gabriel’s presence. “Because if you three,” he scowls at all of them, probably weighing the world’s chances at being saved and finding them appalling. “Are going to go after the four horsemen, I need to get back and start tracking down omens. Unless you were planning on pointing them out on a map.” There’s enough scorn in the last sentence for an archangel to drown in but Gabriel only raises his eyebrows and does his best impersonation of innocent. It fools no one.
“Would if I could, but I can’t, as I was about to explain to Dean before he fainted.” Gabriel looks over and, as expected, Dean’s irritated. His brow is drawn down in a deep frown, getting deeper the longer Gabriel looks, mouth a thin line, shoulders a hard one. It’s enough to put a real smile on Gabriel’s face, soft and fleeting; he can still affect Dean. “It’s not that simple. I can’t track the Horsemen. Can’t even find ‘em, except by portent and omen,” he fills the words with sarcasm to cover the ones he can’t say: I can’t find them anymore. But Dean only knows Abaddon and not the archangel, never Gabriel.
“So then why are you still sticking around?” Sam has his arms crossed, glaring down at him while Dean simply watches, unreadable.
“Aw, why Sammy, you wound me.” Gabriel clutches his chest and never takes his eyes off Dean. “How could I ever abandon the pleasure of your company?”
Sam splutters, angry at being mocked or that Abaddon could still make jokes, Gabriel isn’t quite sure. He also doesn’t care and stands, stretches his wings, which none of them can see, towards Dean, who still close his eyes as feathers whisper across his face. Gabriel hoards the sensation of stubble against his grace.
“Now, breakfast? No one ever saved the world on an empty stomach.” Gabriel has no idea if that’s true or not; it isn’t really a relevant detail for most historians, in Heaven or earth. But it makes Dean smile for just a moment, the corners of his eyes crinkle and his mouth loses its tightness and it’s over, faster than it began. Gabriel doesn’t care; it just matters that Dean smiled.
Sauntering past Sam, Gabriel hooks arms with Dean, who looks annoyed but unsurprised, and leads the way to food.
#
They began in Hell, the penitent angel and his righteous man.
In the weeks since reassembling Dean Winchester into Heaven’s latest bauble, Gabriel had learned that Dean loved his brother, his car and his earthly delights, in more or less that order. And that his response to authority was a delightful mix of fear and fuck you, which was amusing, but unhelpful.
Threatening Sam just guaranteed Dean would start looking for lore on killing angels, same with the car. And while Winchester was all for preventing the Apocalypse, Gabriel rather preferred having a knife to twist, if it came to that. He remembered Hell and he remembered the touch of that soul where it was nestled in his grace, as much as he tried not to.
Heaven was still strictly off limits while atoning and, as Abaddon, Gabriel avoided his siblings as much as possible. Only Michael and Raphael knew who he was, had been, would be again. To the others? The Angel of the Pit and custodian of the Righteous Man was less impressive and more scorn worthy. After all, he’d fallen, in a fashion, done something to deserve guarding Lucifer’s cage and, if they weren’t careful, wrong-doing might be contagious.
Dean was salvation, Gabriel’s one and only ticket back to Heaven. Back to himself. And for that, he’d twist all the beauty of Dean’s soul into the perfect shape for Heaven’s plans.
The only thing left was to find the way in, beyond all the fear and wariness. Just in case-just in case failure wouldn’t be enough to break Dean. Just in case he’d still try, after Heaven laid the broken Seals at his feet and raised Michael as the only possible answer.
So, Gabriel watched his charge. Studied him as an unseen shadow in the waking world and as the memory of feathers in his dreams. The weight of Hell was of no use.
When Dean chased simpler hunts, Gabriel followed him and left the foot soldiers (still his brothers) to fight and die protecting Seals that didn’t matter. Learning the soft shades that desire melted Dean’s soul into was more important.
Gabriel did turn his attention away for the actual fornication-he’d found what he needed and could afford to give Dean whatever privacy he might have wanted, had he known. And all the moans and sweat and throbbing, thrusting, whatevering that happened while Gabriel was otherwise occupied couldn’t have been half so interesting as the sight of Dean, fully clothed, as he left his partner.
Dean needed. Not just pleasure, which was easy enough to take and find; no, he was alone and he needed not to be.
Gabriel could relate. More importantly, he could use it.
#
The human body was a warm and soft and hard thing; skin stretched over bone, perishable meat held together by the frailest filaments. A small, finite thing changed by the continual wear of time. And, yet.
Hell had been vast and cold and composed entirely of sharp edges and ends. Time passed, the clock sped fast to grind souls quicker, but the conversions from topside time to Hell standard were lies. Things changed when time passed up above; Hell was continuous.
Wings bound down, an endless ocean of grace poured into a sack of meat, Gabriel feels less claustrophobic inside his new skin. Human spaces are limited; the spaces that Dean chooses, more so, but they offer more room than metaphysical planes and the supposedly infinite spaces between particles of light.
It’s been six hours and thirty-three minutes and Gabriel has seen fifty-four freeway exits, nineteen billboard ads for strip clubs and a truly terrifying number of McDonald’s arches. Dean hasn’t changed the tape in close to four hours and Sam’s developed an eyebrow twitch in time to the best of Styx. Gabriel’s half tempted to snap up Celine Dion, or the soundtrack to Dr. Sexy, but Dean might actually kill him for fucking with the music.
Gabriel lets himself drift. He’s been doing this for the last six hours and thirty-five minutes, mind wandering as the windows of the Impala catch sunlight and offer it up to him in blistering caresses. Perhaps Dean has come to love this, too? He certainly hasn’t stopped beyond the required rest stop breaks. Everything about the Impala stores warmth, the black leather seats soaking up heat and clinging to skin. Gabriel has stretched out to take advantage of that, cheek against the back rest and palms skimming the tops of the seats. The fine hairs on his vessel’s hands turn golden.
“Hey! Getting anything back there?” Gabriel doesn’t bother to open his eyes; he can hear Sam’s face just fine. It’s the one wear his entire forehead folds in on itself - and that’s a lot of forehead - and his eyes narrow and his mouth turns into the suggestion of a gash drawn by a ruler rather than anything organic.
“Abaddon!”
Gabriel sighs, arms dropping like the wings of a suddenly wounded bird. “What?” He cuts his voice on the word, enjoys the crisp consonant at the end which turns speech into an explosion.
“Are you,” Sam draws out his words, lingering over each sound as though length will add extra meaning, “getting anything>” Either that, or he’s decided to become a kindergarten teacher and is practicing his patient voice. Gabriel rolls his eyes. It’s become a nearly Pavlovian response to Sam speaking.
“No, Sam, I’m not.” Gabriel bites off each word, clipping his cadence into something almost sing-song. The muscle in Sam’s jaw jumps, which seems to be his tick for every time Gabriel speaks.
Dean turns up the music.
“We’ve been driving for hours because you said that you felt something.” Sam’s twisted in his seatbelt and Gabriel’s fingers are just twitching to strangle him with it. But only a little. A smidge, really.
“And I did. And I’m not feeling it right now.”
“Well, that’s just great. So we’ve wasted the day driving around on one of your hunches when we could have been looking for the Horsemen!” Sam starts to turn back in his seat - point made - but Gabriel crooks his finger and Sam freezes, twists towards Gabriel again, a pained expression on his face. Gabriel leans forward, close enough to feel when Sam exhales and parse the colors of his eyes.
“And just how, exactly, were you thinking of looking for the Horsemen? Going to hang around a motel room until Famine decides to stop by with Chinese food?”
“Abaddon-” Dean’s voice drifts in over the music, at another time Gabriel would have listened to the warning but he’s suddenly cold and tired and the bass of the music sets his teeth on edge. There’s rather abruptly silence.
“Take the next exit.” Gabriel strains against the confines of his skin. Sam, released from his hold, untwists with the force of a released rubber band. Whatever he says, Gabriel doesn’t hear over the pounding inside his bones. It’s a steady thrum beating against his marrow, but the pause between the strikes is growing shorter, the percussion growing louder, shorter, staccato beats layered over the older rhythm, new drums bursting in and burning out while the first, the original, spurns them on.
Dean’s taken the exit, turning the Impala sharply onto the off ramp, but his eyes never leave Gabriel’s smile in the visor mirror. His eyes are closed; his teeth are bared with the corners of his mouth turned up and a whisperlaugh pours from his throat.
Gabriel knows these drums; he’s heard them before.
“Turn,” he says and Dean turns the car onto a side street he hadn’t seen. Sam is silent, his hands balled into fists on his knees.
“Turn,” Gabriel says, a dozen miles in and Dean turns the car, grateful for one way streets.
“Stop,” Gabriel says and Dean hits the breaks like the Impala’s tires are already at the edge of a cliff. Both he and Sam are still, not even glancing at each other until the doors click open and Gabriel starts to slide out of the backseat. The car feels larger for a moment, without an angel to contain. Then Dean and Sam are out of the Impala and watching as Abaddon - sometimes Dean’s Abaddon - saunters towards a cherry red Mustang.
“Dean?” Sam’s voice is so small and so very far away. Gabriel doesn’t hear a reply, if there is one; he’s lost, circling the car-shaped thing in a dance of careful proxemics. Never getting close enough to touch, watching, searching, straining to the echo of hoof beats as he stands at the driver’s side window.
The car is empty.
“You in the market?” Dean’s speaks softly and his breath brushes Gabriel’s ear. When did Dean get so close? Either Gabriel’s slipping (bad, worse, worst timing) or Dean’s gotten quieter, slipped into the silences of everything that can’t be said. It doesn’t fit him, the bright soul that snared Gabriel in hell, not one bit.
Dean’s warmth is teasing him; he’s standing just close enough for Gabriel to feel but nothing more than a wisp of soft cotton to touch. Centimeters and miles, it’s getting to hard to remember what’s larger.
“For something tacky? Please. That’s what I have you for.” He turns his head, smiling, and Dean is right there, smiling back. It lasts a second, less, then Dean’s stepping away and barking out orders to get going.
Seconds and centuries, it’s getting hard to remember what’s longer.
Predictably, Dean was pissed that Gabriel insisted on leaving the Impala where they’d parked it. Whatever. He’d done it, which was the miraculous part and was probably grateful about it now, watching as blocks of suburbia tumbled into fire.
Perhaps not.
Gabriel doesn’t need to watch the flames; civilizations burn, it’s what they do. Watching Dean, though, as the town’s pyre paints shadows across his face and inside his eyes is different. He doesn’t seen inevitability, entropy at it’s finest; he still sees tragedy and Gabriel’s grace aches for that, for bringing him here.
War strolls casually between bullets and pipe bombs (so easy, a priest could make it) towards where Gabriel stands, wings extended to protect Dean and Sam from the shrapnel. They’d wanted to fight, leap in and save lives that are already over. Even now, Gabriel’s keeping their feet chained to the ground. He should have sent them back to the Impala, locked them into the car and faced War himself.
But he couldn’t.
Frail and human, he still needed them - probably more than they needed him, really. Once, maybe, Gabriel could have smote War and left him broken for a time. Had smote War; had left him broken and bleeding, insomuch as he could, beneath an ocean, far below the carnage of Heaven. But that was long ago and Gabriel. Abaddon didn’t stand a fucking chance alone.
War smiles and it reaches his eyes. Neither blood nor ash stain his suit, the pristine tie is red as the Mustang. Of course he’d color-coordinate.
“Well, well, isn’t this a pleasant surprise. I do love an audience - and a gift!” War looks at Sam, of course, sizes up Lucifer’s vessel and hums quietly in approval. Someone didn’t get the memo about size not mattering. “Won’t your big brother be proud; you finally did something right.”
Gabriel releases his hold on the Winchesters, trusts them not be idiots, which is a dangerous proposition at the best of times. Dean’s tense, but not going for his guns immediately and Sam seems willing to follow suit, finally. Gabriel makes a show of tilting his head, one way, then the other, stretching the neck of his vessel with quiet contentment. War watches. The Winchesters fidget. Around them, people kill.
“It’s sweet of you to take such an interest, really, I’m touched. Repulsed, but you know, touched.” War’s shadow dances in the firelight, twisting into knots on the uneven ground. Gabriel flicks his attention towards the boys; Sam squeezes the hilt of Ruby’s knife - thoughtful of her to leave it with him - while Dean’s hand hovers near his gun. The shadow rubs kittenishly against War’s ankles, tightening.
“Still using the same tricks? I’m disappointed.” He’s faster than Gabriel remembers; lashes out, red in tooth and claw, a blur of sharp that cuts through his wing where it still shielded Dean. They can’t see this, War is just a man to them and Gabriel reduced to his vessel. When he goes down - and he does, crumpling and pulling tight his grace - Dean pulls his gun and puts two bullets in War’s head. It’s sweet, in a very Winchester-way, the absolute fury in Dean’s eyes. Doesn’t work, of course, but the thought counts.
War doesn’t waste time dusting himself off, but backhands Dean and throws him towards the mob. Not part of the plan. From where is curled up in the dirt, Gabriel gives himself a second to glance in Dean’s direction - takes in the sudden storm of bullets in the howling chaos that swallows Sam’s shout before looking back at still-smiling War.
Sam dives after his brother when Gabriel flicks his fingers and War is flung backwards into an abandoned car. The windows shatter, the metal frame crunches inwards with the force but Gabriel barely has time to get back to his feet before War is on him again. This close and the past crashes in. War rakes Gabriel’s wings again, tearing his vessel’s skin and bone like paper in the process. Without his blade, reduced to Abaddon, he can only draw his grace tighter and tighter, battening down against the pain.
“Have you forgotten? Don’t you know?” War’s laughing in the spaces between words, spitting scorn in Gabriel’s face. “You aren’t you anymore. Haven’t been in forever, I hear.” Abaddon twists away, gains distance and the fires before War drives him to the ground. Crushed beneath the weight, he throws his head back and screams in a voice that reduces bricks to dust and flame to smoke. War is laughing, human fingers digging into Abaddon’s human throat as claws tear at the messenger’s voice. “Not so easy beating me when you aren’t an archangel now is it?”
“I don’t know; it’s pretty easy beating you as a human.” Dean. Gabriel’s grinning, he can feel that as War’s attention splits in a second, instinct telling him to look at Dean. And Abaddon grips tight to War’s wrist, holds it at his own throat and follows the motion already begun, turning towards Dean as easily as sunflowers to sunlight. When and how Dean got the knife, Gabriel doesn’t know or care, just freezes as he brings it down on War’s finger (Gabriel’s throat). There’s a second of cold and something whistling against his skin and then War’s scream eats up any other sound. Dean takes hold of the finger; Gabriel keeps hold of War’s wrist.
“Don’t worry; I’ll be sure to say hi to your brothers too.” Balanced easily on the balls of his feet now, Gabriel watches the light fading in War’s eyes. The drums are quieting.
“You do that,” War sneers and speckles his suit with blood. It’s a darker red than the tie. “Once Death’s risen-”
“Wait. Wait.” Gabriel tightens his hold, reaching with his grace to keep War pinned to his host. “Lucifer didn’t bring him up when he rose? He hasn’t done the ritual yet?”
“Oh, what did big brother do to you?” War croons, laughing. “You can’t even sense that? So little left of you. So little left.” The meat slumps over, falling into Gabriel’s shoulder and then the floor. But that doesn’t matter; everything is different.
Gabriel stands, fluid in his skin despite the open wounds in his grace that he doesn’t have the power to heal. Dean is watching him, Sam probably is too, but it’s Dean’s eyes that Gabriel needs to read and can’t.
“C’mon, new plan.” Gabriel stuffs his stolen hands into the pockets of his borrowed jacket and walks back toward the car. Dean and Sam will catch up, just as soon as they realize there’s no one left to save.
Gabriel pauses by the Mustang, resting his hand on the peeling hood. Paint flecks off, drifting with rust to the ground at his feet. Faintly, he can hear the last labored breaths of a dying creature just before the frame gives up and collapses inwards. Smiling, he pats the hood fondly and continues to the Impala.
#
It’s Sam’s turn to fetch dinner. Part of the unspoken agreement that Gabriel stayed close when not hunting for omens of the Horsemen. And as soon as Sam had closed the door on the uneasy silence between the three of them, Gabriel’d begun to fill it.
Now, he is settled on the edge of Dean’s bed and watching him stalk the narrow strip of space between beds. Gabriel looks up when the pacing stops and Dean’s watching him, still frustratingly unreadable. Dropping his gaze again, Gabriel listens as Dean’s steps bring him closer.
“A new plan? What do you mean we need a new plan?” Gabriel just barely keeps from pointing out how completely self-explanatory that statement was. Dean’s too occupied with his rant to notice Gabriel’s self restraint. “We just got the damn ring from the guy and now you’re what? Changing the fucking play book?” Dean stops as his voice grows louder. It ends with him standing between Gabriel’s legs, glaring down at him in the most delicious way. A year ago it would have ended with Dean kneeling between Gabriel’s legs, glaring up at him in the same way.
It makes hard to tell if this is progress.
“Look sunshine, believe it or not, this is a good thing. It means that Lucy still needs to dredge up Death,” Gabriel tried to infuse some sense of earnestness to his words, but they come out clipped.
Dean stares at him, expression twisted into some resigned understanding that his best ally is an angel that lied to him for over a year and has now, finally, lost his goddamned mind. When Gabriel stands, Dean falls back a few steps, eyeing the angel watchfully.
“The spell to wake up Death is big,” Gabriel drawls his words out slowly, raising his eyebrows when Dean glares at him. “We’re not talking round up the coven for a couple hours chanting and then throw a barbeque later. This is… monumental. Time consuming. Draining.” Gabriel’s gaze has turned rather pointed, but understanding finally, finally, lights in Dean’s eyes. “This is the only time we’ll have him vulnerable. And we’ve got to time it exactly right.”
“All right,” Dean sounds onboard with the idea, nodding a little to himself. “All right. Let’s take the fight to him while he’s raising the angel of death.” Okay, onboard have might been overstating a little; he sounds resigned, but Gabriel isn’t sure how to interpret that, in the grander scheme of things he isn’t able to solve.
“Not actually the angel of death, big guy. That’s Azrael’s gig. Pretty nice job, if you can get it, too; mostly kicking back with the fates and the reapers and checking inventory.” Dean is looking at him strangely, so Gabriel simply shrugs. “There’s a difference here. Trust me, good ol’Death can bend over even the Memitim with no problems. He’s so much bigger than all of us,” Gabriel’s still looking at Dean, but not truly seeing him any more.
“So why didn’t we know about all this sooner? I mean, Death not being on the table. Lucifer having to summon him. That’s a pretty big deal, right?” There’s nothing accusing, precisely, in Dean’s voice but Gabriel still bristles.
“I’m not exactly firing on all cylinders right now, all right! Michael didn’t just bitchslap me into Hell this time. He-” Gabriel shakes his head once, sharply, strangling the thought in its infancy. The uneasy quiet returns.
“So, you’re fallen, then,” Dean says the words carefully, watching the ground and Gabriel at once. It’s ridiculous, something torn from romance novels with petite ingénues who can look up at a strapping hero though the soft fan of her lashes.
Doesn’t work so well on a hunter with the height difference going in the opposite direction. It’s sort of sweet, though, that Dean looks a little scared for him.
“Yeah. I mean-yes. I rebelled. And that’s how all the bad, little angels end up.” Wings smashed under the weight of Heaven, broken prisms and slaughter. Gabriel steps around Dean, walking to the window. At least this room doesn’t have a theme beyond drab. The heavy curtains are an indistinct navy; the dust gives them texture, but he still pulls them aside.
“So that’s what War meant at the end? You’re cut off now; no more super spidey sense for the big stuff?” Below Dean’s words, woven into his voice, is the possibility to explain everything. One last chance to come completely clean, expect for the one that Gabriel is unable to say and wants to.
He scrubs his hands over his face, as he’s seen Dean do a hundred times as though he could wash the exhaustion away just by force of will. Gabriel knows better, but he does it anyway.
“Abaddon,” Dean’s still asking, worry voiced and it hurts as badly as all the weight of mistrust that’s fallen between them. It hurts that Dean keeps trying, when that’s all Gabriel wants.
“Yes, okay,” his voice is sharp, slicing. “Just-stop. It is what it is and it’s over, so can we please, just, stop.” The words take on their own rhythm, speeding through the half truth and slowing down to plead.
The silence seeps in, fills up the motel room with cloying molasses weight. Dean clears his throat. “Okay. So, what do we do for now?”
Gabriel watches the parking lot, the pattern of cracks in pavement and fluttering of the motel sign. “We wait. Try and keep under the radar. You can’t exactly miss the omens for Death. Raising him ain’t a subtle spell.”
When Dean turns away from him, walks over to Sam’s bed, the farthest from the window, Gabriel laughs silently at himself.
Go to part two.
It began when Abaddon, angel of the Pit, raised the Righteous Man from Hell to start the Apocalypse.
#
It began when Gabriel, third-made archangel, became Abaddon and was cast into Perdition to guard his brother’s cage.
#
It began with four brothers who once loved each other very much.
Heaven is a wasteland of broken prisms, light draining from the wreckage of (what would be perceived as) wings that have become the landscape between memories. There is no ‘above,’ no visible ‘below’ or ‘beside,’ just between. The living, still glorious and all-encompassing in their radiance, exist between the graceless dead. From where Gabriel stands amid the remains of his brothers, it is impossible to tell the righteous from the fallen. They’re just dead.
Along the edges of his outer wings the voices of the Host echo in exaltation. Michael has triumphed! The adversary is caged! It’s over! It’s over! they cry out and Gabriel’s wings ache with the weight of their words and his wounds. Their brothers are dead. Their brother is caged. And yet there are cries of victory and joy; he shouldn’t begrudge the fledglings their relief, but he does. Do none of them see what this war has cost? Don’t they remember who has died (are still dying)? Doesn’t Michael, drinking up the words of praise from children who had formerly sung only to honor their Father?
Gabriel turns his faces away. He is tired. The cheers of his brothers grate endlessly. And then, there are the screams. It’s over! they sing as the last of the rebels lay down their blades. It’s over! they sing while Dominions wordlessly slaughter the Fallen.
It’s over, indeed.
The song grows louder, each garrison, each choir singing with greater fervor as Michael alights, flying up (what would be perceived as ‘up’) between the ranks of the dead, his great wings glowing bright, brighter, nearly as bright as Lucifer’s were as he fell. Raphael flies in their brother’s shadow, Michael’s echo, even now. They add their voices to the song, crying out their joy in victory and that’s enough. It’s enough; it’s enough; it’s enough. Gabriel’s wings are shaking, light crackling even in the darkness of the voids (his unhealed and gaping wounds) as he draws them close to shut out the sound. How could they? How could they, who should know what was lost? How can they not feel the coldness of silence in the Host - the voices that were lost and will never be raised? This song is discordant, empty and it’s suddenly too much for Gabriel to shelter against. He’s endured the silence of his Father, the endless bickering between his brothers, this whole damned War and he’s done. He won’t endure this, too.
Turning his back on Heaven, Gabriel spreads his wings and lets himself fall.
No angel in Heaven knows Earth like Gabriel does. Lucifer might have, but he’s hardly in Heaven any more and they never saw it through the same eyes. Gabriel doesn’t have his brothers’ pride.
There are places on this world like the voids on his wings. Hollows that an angel’s grace just… skims over; he can live in those. Live anywhere he doesn’t have to watch his own brothers’ kill each other. It all comes down to having a plan.
Gabriel tucks his wings away close, while he shelters beneath the earth for the hours it takes to heal. He has to pull his grace tighter and tighter, barely fitting inside the frail meat and bone he’s claimed. Every twitch and tick of his wings in the space between the electrical firings in synapses raises a scream from the soul trapped inside with him. It’s scattering stray bits of memory and old hopes, already, worn down towards pure energy by the constant brush of an archangel’s grace. A few more days and even its own name will have been ground away into dust and sand.
It helps.
He flicks his wings and smiles at the sound; the soul flares and it blocks the highest notes of the Host. He can work with this.
His plan, perhaps unsurprisingly, doesn’t work. Oh, there are two hundred years of fun and games and pagan orgies before little brother showed up on his doorstep. During the orgy, actually, an entirely unsurprising example of Raphael’s excellent timing. And thank you very much for that, little brother.
Gabriel doesn’t struggle as he’s brought before Michael. Really, what’s the point? There’s only ever been one archangel who could challenge their eldest brother and he’s in Hell. So Gabriel bows his head (there’s no pride left to swallow) and begins to plan his defense. Words and ideas easily slotting into place in preparation for when Michael allows him to speak.
Father’s messenger hasn’t always needed a silver tongue, but Gabriel has one anyway. Both Michael and Lucifer have bent to his voice in the past - though not when it counted, of course, never then.
Gabriel should have remembered that.
Michael never gives him a chance to speak (his memory always being better than his brothers’) but passes judgment swiftly. Gabriel, with his head bent, doesn’t even run. He has no chance to. The arguments and persuasions and glittering, glorious declarations of love and fealty die unheard. His brother (his brother) seizes his innermost wings and the violation turns Gabriel to ice. Michael works quickly, weaving chains out of Gabriel’s own grace to bind four of his great wings, reducing him to so much less.
His sword is taken; Gabriel doesn’t have strength to care. His rank is stripped from him, leaving a broken angel where God’s silver-tongued archangel had bowed his head. Michael’s last act is taking up Gabriel’s sword to carve the sigils in his grace that steal his name, leaving his voice unable to utter the syllables again.
When it’s over, he doesn’t even have the voice to scream.
Hell is cold.
Always it smells of fat burning smoke, but there is never any fire. In his corner, far removed from the play of the damned being whittled into the damning, the quiet writhes, a serpent that presses in on the tight coiled strings of grace, seeping inside. He is ice. Stagnant, his wings have frozen and crystallized, trapping oily slick smears between broken feathers. Time passes as a lie. There is no change, no mercy of decay, just the moment, suspended infinitely.
Alone in the dark, when no angel has ever truly been alone, not even Lucifer (sweeter tongued than Gabrielwhowas, persuading garrisons to fall into him) Gabriel speaks. Over and over to the cage, his brother, Hell and the quiet and the damned. The melody of his own voice drives him mad. But, beneath each word, drunk greedily by the darkness, he is reminded that there’s no one to hear.
The day the silence breaks, Abbadonwhois almost weeps. One of Lucifer’s children has finally devoured the breadcrumbs to find his father. Inside the ice, Abaddon strains to hear the first voice in so many thousand years. The screams are first, only echoes, lingering in the air long after throats have been slit and he savors them gladly. Blood and pain seep down from above, the wives of his Father’s Son cracked open to whisper at the keyhole of the cage and he doesn’t care.
Stirring, enduring the sting of ice as it cuts into his wings, he lifts himself to the pinhole gap between the world above and Hell below. Lucifer and his child, the pyre killed King of Hell, lay their plans and Abaddon ignores them. There are suggestions of sound-new sound-that he strains to catch between their words. He knows this plan, or of it, at least. The crafting of his brother’s vessel as it was written and so it will be and so on and on.
If he squeezes his grace just so (it hurts, oh Father, it hurts) he can slip a fraction of awareness past Azazael’s sniveling and Lucifer’s planning. Something roars, thunders, brushes Gabriel’s senses in a blur of metal. Voices linger in its passing, nonsense words in a language created long after his fall.
It’s glorious. He draws a breath and drives needle sharp points into the gap, shivering with pain as he fights to hold back the oncoming quiet.
Their voices fade; it’s over.
Abaddon gazes up, for the first time since his fall and sees the holes like far flung stars in the endless hush. Soft, ever so, more ghosts than words, the sounds of the world filter down to bathe his starving grace.
Time passes. He learns. The voices of the damned make their way to his quiet corner of Hell; it still isn’t enough.
#
The passing of the Righteous Man’s soul through the Gate of Hell is quiet and unremarkable. His cries, while he’s on the rack, go unheard by the sentinel at the cage. The man’s laughter, while he holds the knife, doesn’t stir the ice from GabrielAbaddon’s wings.
And then, the order comes as a whisper in the dark it’s time. Wings that haven’t fluttered much less flown stretch for the first time in ages. There are only two of them now, where once there were six, and they burn as the light of embers reflected in copper, old and patinaed. There is no joy in Hell, but still, he smiles.
Demons don’t part for him and he hadn’t expected them to. Secrets and lies, such are the machinations of Heaven which hoard information more jealously than any crossroad demon holds a soul. Abaddon, who-was-Gabriel, cuts a straight path through Hell and rejoices in the carnage. Now he hears this soul that would be saved, poor son of a bitch, as the humans have come to say. The soul laughs while another soul bleeds, but this Righteous man is screaming under the quiet chuckles, aching for the knife in his own (non)flesh and his self-loathing is sharper than any blade in the Pit. Abaddon could almost weep, but Gabriel can’t care.
Thirty-nine years as tortured, one as torturer, his soul shouldn’t look like this. It should be dark, ashen and brittle as Gabriel’s wings were a decade after (expulsion-punishment-prison-detail) his fall. But the Right-no, no it’s Dean. Winchester. Dean’s soul that catches Gabriel-in-Abaddon and leaves him voiceless. Such a frail thing, glorious, scarred in deep ridges, bright as grace and the heart of a star. It smells of sweet summer apples, well worked metal and spice, for the first time since Heaven, Gabriel feels warm.
It’s a complication. It shouldn’t be-it can’t be, but it undeniably is. This soul, this Apocalypse, he needs this to work and it’s going to fucking well work. Even now, even with this soul. Gabriel draws his grace close, the ice cold edges of his wings are all the reminder he needs for why.
“And what are you supposed to be? A thing with feathers?” The soul-Dean-sneers and it sits awkwardly in so beautiful a soul, like a moustache on the Mona Lisa.
Clearly, not helping concentration any.
But Gabriel can read under the ill-suited smirk and taunt, sees hope printed inside the confusion. It should have been hope for salvation; that would have been easy. It’s not, of course. Why should Dean Winchester be easy? Gabriel’s seen and heard three decades years worth of souls as they were damned, learned their speeches, their crimes, their essential natures but this one-the Righteous Man was supposed to be special, just not this special.
The demons pound on the doors to the cell. It won’t take long, not here where reality is more construct than constructed. Dean’s waiting for an answer, idly toying with the knife (slicing open his fingers) and Gabriel can’t think. He goes for simple, instead; charges Dean, knocking the knife aside with more force than warranted (it sliced open Dean’s fingers) and seizing the soul, his prize.
It should get easier, but doesn’t. Gabriel takes flight and as Hell passes beneath them, Dean begins to struggle and then fight against Gabriel in earnest; his soul is calling to Hell, believes whole-heartedly that it belongs in Hell and Gabriel can barely keep his grip. Unbelievable, stupid, stubborn, damned son of a bitch has Gabriel clinging tighter than he should, cradling the soul inside his own grace.
And then they’re through, the Gates fading behind them and Dean silent. As they pass into the world again, Gabriel feels through his hold on Dean-quick impressions, fast as the spark of firefly and cutting deeper than marrow: guilt, which turns the slick oil smears on Gabriel’s feathers to dust; resignation and sorrow, clinging tightly to each other; hope, which doesn’t cling at all. They reach the resting place of Dean’s bones and Gabriel has to reach into himself, pulling back his wings, to reach the soul he’s carried. For a moment, he’s caught holding it as emotions pitch and crash with the fury of a storm. Hope fades into something else, jumbled and confused, but Dean reaches out to his grace and, for just a moment, holds Gabriel.
Staring at Dean, Gabriel can barely see the separation between his grace and the soul he he’s saved and, only then, because the soul is brighter.
#
It begins.
“Horsemen,” Dean says flatly. There’s blood on his lip, welling up from where it’s been split and he keeps flicking his tongue over the injury.
The demons, who had attacked him, are gone. Two of them, Dean had stabbed before Gabriel ever appeared in the room, but the last one he’d exorcised while it’d pinned Dean to the ceiling. And if reducing that one to nothing but black cinders and a white haze over taking black smoke had, possibly, been overkill? Dean hadn’t noticed. Gabriel’d dealt with all the bodies while Dean recovered his breath.
That was, Dean had said, the only reason he wasn’t shooting Gabriel on sight, just to see if it’d take this time. It’d still only bought him two minutes before Dean went for a gun or knife or hex bag.
Now, three minutes later, they’re still talking, even if Dean isn’t entirely happy about it.
“Of the Apocalypse,” Gabriel confirms. They’re standing in the cramped space between beds, too close to each other, unable to move without touching, which they’re both careful not to do. Sam is sleeping on his bed, peaceful for the first time in days. Bobby is sleeping on Dean’s bed, sprawled at an awkward angle. Gabriel is responsible for both of them; there’s only so much apologizing he plans to do (none) and his patience for recrimination is all allocated for Dean. And even that’s running dry.
“Uh huh. And I’m believing this because… oh, that’s right, you’ve been so honest and forthcoming up to this point. Abaddon.” Gabriel can hear the rattle in Dean’s breathing. He could do that from a mile away, but up close it’s deafening. This is the body he rebuilt, a work of art in sinew and flesh and it’s broken in places, skin torn, bones crushed, but he’s not allowed to fix it. Gabriel’s fingers itch to try again, but Dean’s already torn his stitches once dancing away from Gabriel’s touch, so he doesn’t push his luck. This is punishment for both of them - Dean for believing in (loving) Abaddon and Gabriel, for earning his trust. Betraying it seems the lesser crime-maybe because Sam had one it, too. The difference is that Gabriel had been a liar from the start. And he’d never been family.
“You’re believing it because you don’t have a choice. Because I’m the only option you’ve got that doesn’t involve being an angel condom.” Gabriel grins and Dean grits his teeth. For a second, just a second, it’s like before, when Dean still thought (tentatively) of Abaddon as his angel, if not his friend.
And after, of course, when Dean had trusted that Abaddon was his and not Heaven’s.
“Fine,” Dean’s voice is sharp, “tell me where I can find them and how I can kill them.” And leave doesn’t really need to be said, at this point. Dean’s shoulders are hunched and it’s as much pain as aggression; he’s getting old to be thrown into walls and through furniture and no human can really walk away easily from fighting with a demon. Gabriel balls his hand into a fist and watches as Dean’s tongue wipes away more blood from his mouth. Gabriel likes that mouth; he has many fond memories of it.
“It’s not the simple.” He barely stops from rolling his eyes when Dean snorts. Yeah, okay, this is going nowhere. “Look, I get it. I screwed you. Over. Repeatedly.” A muscle in Dean’s jaw has developed a tick, tightening like clockwork-Gabriel could set a watch to that. The hunter’s hands are balled, the only reason he’s not swinging is because he’s already broken his knuckles twice tonight on Gabriel’s skin.
It hadn’t made either of them feel better.
“I’m not sorry,” Gabriel’s voice is much softer. He wants to step closer, but short of stepping onto Dean’s toes or into Dean’s skin, that can’t happen. “Everything I did was to go home. Not to my brothers, not for my brothers, just-just home. To be myself again.” Gabriel has to look away, feels Dean’s breath scratch his cheek like a sandstorm. “You have no idea what I’m giving up by doing this. Having done this.” Swallowing uneasily, Gabriel counts the beats of Sam’s heart and almost starts to hate him.
Dean’s forgiveness, like Gabriel’s patience, is finite and enough for only one person; Sam has already laid claim and Gabriel doesn’t beg, not now.
The graze of fingertips takes him by surprise. He snaps his around to look at Dean again, a mistake, because he takes that as a cue to drop his hand. But for the instant Gabriel’d had him-that touch-he’d been warm again.
“All right, so the horsemen.” Everything about Dean screams exhaustion in a voice too hoarse for sound. He rubs his still bloody hands across his face, reopening abrasions and his ribs damn near creak. “Wake up the troops,” he’s speaking half slumped over, another inch and his head will be on Gabriel’s shoulder. “We’ll figure out a plan. Way to kill these sons of bitches. Get the rings. Keep Sam away from the Devil.” Buy eggs, pick up dry cleaning, don’t forget anniversary, Gabriel rolls his eyes.
“Uh huh, good plan,” he murmurs, sliding, not stepping, a half inch closer to Dean, bringing their bodies together. He’s so warm, a summer’s day, hearth fire, blankets and tea when it’s cold outside kind of warmth that he leaves Gabriel aching. Brisk and business like, he brushes his fingers over Dean’s forehead; there’s a bed beneath him before his knees even buckle. Gabriel takes a moment to arrange his (not charge, not lover, not friend) Dean, who’s no longer his, on the silk sheets, which he’ll hate, resting his head on the pillow and pulling the boots off his feet. The abrasions are gone, ribs repaired, breathing easy and split lip mended with only a smear of blood across Dean’s mouth to show there’d been damage.
Gabriel licks that off himself.
The decision to trust Abaddon-also-Gabriel again causes a fight, predictably. It doesn’t help that Dean woke up pissed at being mojoed, as had Sam and Bobby, of course, but Gabriel tunes them out habitually.
It ends up being Sam who objects the most, of course, and the two have been fighting for the last hour and a half while the coffee grew cold on the nightstand. Whatever Bobby might have added to the argument was drowned out by the Winchesters being the Winchesters, which leaves him and Gabriel sitting next to each other, spectators to soap opera made sport. Every so often, Gabriel hands Bobby a chocolate bar. After forty-five minutes, they’d bonded. Sort of.
“He’s done nothing but lie and manipulate us since he showed up!” Sam’s argument, in a nut shell, and repeated at various decibels for the morning. Gabriel figures it’s two parts projection, three parts internalized guilt and wrapped around a nice little kernel of truth. The hypocrisy doesn’t escape anyone in the room-it’s pretty visible from Heaven, Hell and space-but Sam’s got a point.
And Dean’s got a knife to twist.
“Not us, Sam, me. He lied and manipulated me and I’m the one saying we trust him on this.” The parallels also clearly visible in multiple dimensions and while Gabriel’s not sure how he feels about being compared to Sam, it does the trick. Dean switches to his big brother voice, all gruff tenderness and soft tones. Magnanimous in victory, that’s Gabriel’s righteous man. “For better or worse, right now, he’s the best lead we’ve got.”
Gabriel swallows the jealousy he feels when Dean rests his hands on his brother’s shoulders, squeezing once before letting go. It’s as much affection as either of them show in touch, more than he’s seen between them in the whole year.
“Right,” Sam twists the word sourly on his tongue, trying out the flavor and finding he hates it but has to endure. “Okay. So, we go after the Horsemen of the Apocalypse and steal their jewelry.”
“Or Satan wears you like a bad eighties prom dress, basically.” Gabriel’s smiling and he knows it’s a dangerous thing, goading Sam now, but can’t resist baring his teeth. They’re stuck together now, for better or worse as Dean said, both of them traitors, both of them atoners for Dean. Sam glares, his jaw clenches like Dean’s does, and he draws in his breath like its added height he needs to be intimating. Gabriel pops M&M’s in his mouth.
“You all done now?” Bobby sounds irritated, which is basically his default state in Gabriel’s presence. “Because if you three,” he scowls at all of them, probably weighing the world’s chances at being saved and finding them appalling. “Are going to go after the four horsemen, I need to get back and start tracking down omens. Unless you were planning on pointing them out on a map.” There’s enough scorn in the last sentence for an archangel to drown in but Gabriel only raises his eyebrows and does his best impersonation of innocent. It fools no one.
“Would if I could, but I can’t, as I was about to explain to Dean before he fainted.” Gabriel looks over and, as expected, Dean’s irritated. His brow is drawn down in a deep frown, getting deeper the longer Gabriel looks, mouth a thin line, shoulders a hard one. It’s enough to put a real smile on Gabriel’s face, soft and fleeting; he can still affect Dean. “It’s not that simple. I can’t track the Horsemen. Can’t even find ‘em, except by portent and omen,” he fills the words with sarcasm to cover the ones he can’t say: I can’t find them anymore. But Dean only knows Abaddon and not the archangel, never Gabriel.
“So then why are you still sticking around?” Sam has his arms crossed, glaring down at him while Dean simply watches, unreadable.
“Aw, why Sammy, you wound me.” Gabriel clutches his chest and never takes his eyes off Dean. “How could I ever abandon the pleasure of your company?”
Sam splutters, angry at being mocked or that Abaddon could still make jokes, Gabriel isn’t quite sure. He also doesn’t care and stands, stretches his wings, which none of them can see, towards Dean, who still close his eyes as feathers whisper across his face. Gabriel hoards the sensation of stubble against his grace.
“Now, breakfast? No one ever saved the world on an empty stomach.” Gabriel has no idea if that’s true or not; it isn’t really a relevant detail for most historians, in Heaven or earth. But it makes Dean smile for just a moment, the corners of his eyes crinkle and his mouth loses its tightness and it’s over, faster than it began. Gabriel doesn’t care; it just matters that Dean smiled.
Sauntering past Sam, Gabriel hooks arms with Dean, who looks annoyed but unsurprised, and leads the way to food.
#
They began in Hell, the penitent angel and his righteous man.
In the weeks since reassembling Dean Winchester into Heaven’s latest bauble, Gabriel had learned that Dean loved his brother, his car and his earthly delights, in more or less that order. And that his response to authority was a delightful mix of fear and fuck you, which was amusing, but unhelpful.
Threatening Sam just guaranteed Dean would start looking for lore on killing angels, same with the car. And while Winchester was all for preventing the Apocalypse, Gabriel rather preferred having a knife to twist, if it came to that. He remembered Hell and he remembered the touch of that soul where it was nestled in his grace, as much as he tried not to.
Heaven was still strictly off limits while atoning and, as Abaddon, Gabriel avoided his siblings as much as possible. Only Michael and Raphael knew who he was, had been, would be again. To the others? The Angel of the Pit and custodian of the Righteous Man was less impressive and more scorn worthy. After all, he’d fallen, in a fashion, done something to deserve guarding Lucifer’s cage and, if they weren’t careful, wrong-doing might be contagious.
Dean was salvation, Gabriel’s one and only ticket back to Heaven. Back to himself. And for that, he’d twist all the beauty of Dean’s soul into the perfect shape for Heaven’s plans.
The only thing left was to find the way in, beyond all the fear and wariness. Just in case-just in case failure wouldn’t be enough to break Dean. Just in case he’d still try, after Heaven laid the broken Seals at his feet and raised Michael as the only possible answer.
So, Gabriel watched his charge. Studied him as an unseen shadow in the waking world and as the memory of feathers in his dreams. The weight of Hell was of no use.
When Dean chased simpler hunts, Gabriel followed him and left the foot soldiers (still his brothers) to fight and die protecting Seals that didn’t matter. Learning the soft shades that desire melted Dean’s soul into was more important.
Gabriel did turn his attention away for the actual fornication-he’d found what he needed and could afford to give Dean whatever privacy he might have wanted, had he known. And all the moans and sweat and throbbing, thrusting, whatevering that happened while Gabriel was otherwise occupied couldn’t have been half so interesting as the sight of Dean, fully clothed, as he left his partner.
Dean needed. Not just pleasure, which was easy enough to take and find; no, he was alone and he needed not to be.
Gabriel could relate. More importantly, he could use it.
#
The human body was a warm and soft and hard thing; skin stretched over bone, perishable meat held together by the frailest filaments. A small, finite thing changed by the continual wear of time. And, yet.
Hell had been vast and cold and composed entirely of sharp edges and ends. Time passed, the clock sped fast to grind souls quicker, but the conversions from topside time to Hell standard were lies. Things changed when time passed up above; Hell was continuous.
Wings bound down, an endless ocean of grace poured into a sack of meat, Gabriel feels less claustrophobic inside his new skin. Human spaces are limited; the spaces that Dean chooses, more so, but they offer more room than metaphysical planes and the supposedly infinite spaces between particles of light.
It’s been six hours and thirty-three minutes and Gabriel has seen fifty-four freeway exits, nineteen billboard ads for strip clubs and a truly terrifying number of McDonald’s arches. Dean hasn’t changed the tape in close to four hours and Sam’s developed an eyebrow twitch in time to the best of Styx. Gabriel’s half tempted to snap up Celine Dion, or the soundtrack to Dr. Sexy, but Dean might actually kill him for fucking with the music.
Gabriel lets himself drift. He’s been doing this for the last six hours and thirty-five minutes, mind wandering as the windows of the Impala catch sunlight and offer it up to him in blistering caresses. Perhaps Dean has come to love this, too? He certainly hasn’t stopped beyond the required rest stop breaks. Everything about the Impala stores warmth, the black leather seats soaking up heat and clinging to skin. Gabriel has stretched out to take advantage of that, cheek against the back rest and palms skimming the tops of the seats. The fine hairs on his vessel’s hands turn golden.
“Hey! Getting anything back there?” Gabriel doesn’t bother to open his eyes; he can hear Sam’s face just fine. It’s the one wear his entire forehead folds in on itself - and that’s a lot of forehead - and his eyes narrow and his mouth turns into the suggestion of a gash drawn by a ruler rather than anything organic.
“Abaddon!”
Gabriel sighs, arms dropping like the wings of a suddenly wounded bird. “What?” He cuts his voice on the word, enjoys the crisp consonant at the end which turns speech into an explosion.
“Are you,” Sam draws out his words, lingering over each sound as though length will add extra meaning, “getting anything>” Either that, or he’s decided to become a kindergarten teacher and is practicing his patient voice. Gabriel rolls his eyes. It’s become a nearly Pavlovian response to Sam speaking.
“No, Sam, I’m not.” Gabriel bites off each word, clipping his cadence into something almost sing-song. The muscle in Sam’s jaw jumps, which seems to be his tick for every time Gabriel speaks.
Dean turns up the music.
“We’ve been driving for hours because you said that you felt something.” Sam’s twisted in his seatbelt and Gabriel’s fingers are just twitching to strangle him with it. But only a little. A smidge, really.
“And I did. And I’m not feeling it right now.”
“Well, that’s just great. So we’ve wasted the day driving around on one of your hunches when we could have been looking for the Horsemen!” Sam starts to turn back in his seat - point made - but Gabriel crooks his finger and Sam freezes, twists towards Gabriel again, a pained expression on his face. Gabriel leans forward, close enough to feel when Sam exhales and parse the colors of his eyes.
“And just how, exactly, were you thinking of looking for the Horsemen? Going to hang around a motel room until Famine decides to stop by with Chinese food?”
“Abaddon-” Dean’s voice drifts in over the music, at another time Gabriel would have listened to the warning but he’s suddenly cold and tired and the bass of the music sets his teeth on edge. There’s rather abruptly silence.
“Take the next exit.” Gabriel strains against the confines of his skin. Sam, released from his hold, untwists with the force of a released rubber band. Whatever he says, Gabriel doesn’t hear over the pounding inside his bones. It’s a steady thrum beating against his marrow, but the pause between the strikes is growing shorter, the percussion growing louder, shorter, staccato beats layered over the older rhythm, new drums bursting in and burning out while the first, the original, spurns them on.
Dean’s taken the exit, turning the Impala sharply onto the off ramp, but his eyes never leave Gabriel’s smile in the visor mirror. His eyes are closed; his teeth are bared with the corners of his mouth turned up and a whisperlaugh pours from his throat.
Gabriel knows these drums; he’s heard them before.
“Turn,” he says and Dean turns the car onto a side street he hadn’t seen. Sam is silent, his hands balled into fists on his knees.
“Turn,” Gabriel says, a dozen miles in and Dean turns the car, grateful for one way streets.
“Stop,” Gabriel says and Dean hits the breaks like the Impala’s tires are already at the edge of a cliff. Both he and Sam are still, not even glancing at each other until the doors click open and Gabriel starts to slide out of the backseat. The car feels larger for a moment, without an angel to contain. Then Dean and Sam are out of the Impala and watching as Abaddon - sometimes Dean’s Abaddon - saunters towards a cherry red Mustang.
“Dean?” Sam’s voice is so small and so very far away. Gabriel doesn’t hear a reply, if there is one; he’s lost, circling the car-shaped thing in a dance of careful proxemics. Never getting close enough to touch, watching, searching, straining to the echo of hoof beats as he stands at the driver’s side window.
The car is empty.
“You in the market?” Dean’s speaks softly and his breath brushes Gabriel’s ear. When did Dean get so close? Either Gabriel’s slipping (bad, worse, worst timing) or Dean’s gotten quieter, slipped into the silences of everything that can’t be said. It doesn’t fit him, the bright soul that snared Gabriel in hell, not one bit.
Dean’s warmth is teasing him; he’s standing just close enough for Gabriel to feel but nothing more than a wisp of soft cotton to touch. Centimeters and miles, it’s getting to hard to remember what’s larger.
“For something tacky? Please. That’s what I have you for.” He turns his head, smiling, and Dean is right there, smiling back. It lasts a second, less, then Dean’s stepping away and barking out orders to get going.
Seconds and centuries, it’s getting hard to remember what’s longer.
Predictably, Dean was pissed that Gabriel insisted on leaving the Impala where they’d parked it. Whatever. He’d done it, which was the miraculous part and was probably grateful about it now, watching as blocks of suburbia tumbled into fire.
Perhaps not.
Gabriel doesn’t need to watch the flames; civilizations burn, it’s what they do. Watching Dean, though, as the town’s pyre paints shadows across his face and inside his eyes is different. He doesn’t seen inevitability, entropy at it’s finest; he still sees tragedy and Gabriel’s grace aches for that, for bringing him here.
War strolls casually between bullets and pipe bombs (so easy, a priest could make it) towards where Gabriel stands, wings extended to protect Dean and Sam from the shrapnel. They’d wanted to fight, leap in and save lives that are already over. Even now, Gabriel’s keeping their feet chained to the ground. He should have sent them back to the Impala, locked them into the car and faced War himself.
But he couldn’t.
Frail and human, he still needed them - probably more than they needed him, really. Once, maybe, Gabriel could have smote War and left him broken for a time. Had smote War; had left him broken and bleeding, insomuch as he could, beneath an ocean, far below the carnage of Heaven. But that was long ago and Gabriel. Abaddon didn’t stand a fucking chance alone.
War smiles and it reaches his eyes. Neither blood nor ash stain his suit, the pristine tie is red as the Mustang. Of course he’d color-coordinate.
“Well, well, isn’t this a pleasant surprise. I do love an audience - and a gift!” War looks at Sam, of course, sizes up Lucifer’s vessel and hums quietly in approval. Someone didn’t get the memo about size not mattering. “Won’t your big brother be proud; you finally did something right.”
Gabriel releases his hold on the Winchesters, trusts them not be idiots, which is a dangerous proposition at the best of times. Dean’s tense, but not going for his guns immediately and Sam seems willing to follow suit, finally. Gabriel makes a show of tilting his head, one way, then the other, stretching the neck of his vessel with quiet contentment. War watches. The Winchesters fidget. Around them, people kill.
“It’s sweet of you to take such an interest, really, I’m touched. Repulsed, but you know, touched.” War’s shadow dances in the firelight, twisting into knots on the uneven ground. Gabriel flicks his attention towards the boys; Sam squeezes the hilt of Ruby’s knife - thoughtful of her to leave it with him - while Dean’s hand hovers near his gun. The shadow rubs kittenishly against War’s ankles, tightening.
“Still using the same tricks? I’m disappointed.” He’s faster than Gabriel remembers; lashes out, red in tooth and claw, a blur of sharp that cuts through his wing where it still shielded Dean. They can’t see this, War is just a man to them and Gabriel reduced to his vessel. When he goes down - and he does, crumpling and pulling tight his grace - Dean pulls his gun and puts two bullets in War’s head. It’s sweet, in a very Winchester-way, the absolute fury in Dean’s eyes. Doesn’t work, of course, but the thought counts.
War doesn’t waste time dusting himself off, but backhands Dean and throws him towards the mob. Not part of the plan. From where is curled up in the dirt, Gabriel gives himself a second to glance in Dean’s direction - takes in the sudden storm of bullets in the howling chaos that swallows Sam’s shout before looking back at still-smiling War.
Sam dives after his brother when Gabriel flicks his fingers and War is flung backwards into an abandoned car. The windows shatter, the metal frame crunches inwards with the force but Gabriel barely has time to get back to his feet before War is on him again. This close and the past crashes in. War rakes Gabriel’s wings again, tearing his vessel’s skin and bone like paper in the process. Without his blade, reduced to Abaddon, he can only draw his grace tighter and tighter, battening down against the pain.
“Have you forgotten? Don’t you know?” War’s laughing in the spaces between words, spitting scorn in Gabriel’s face. “You aren’t you anymore. Haven’t been in forever, I hear.” Abaddon twists away, gains distance and the fires before War drives him to the ground. Crushed beneath the weight, he throws his head back and screams in a voice that reduces bricks to dust and flame to smoke. War is laughing, human fingers digging into Abaddon’s human throat as claws tear at the messenger’s voice. “Not so easy beating me when you aren’t an archangel now is it?”
“I don’t know; it’s pretty easy beating you as a human.” Dean. Gabriel’s grinning, he can feel that as War’s attention splits in a second, instinct telling him to look at Dean. And Abaddon grips tight to War’s wrist, holds it at his own throat and follows the motion already begun, turning towards Dean as easily as sunflowers to sunlight. When and how Dean got the knife, Gabriel doesn’t know or care, just freezes as he brings it down on War’s finger (Gabriel’s throat). There’s a second of cold and something whistling against his skin and then War’s scream eats up any other sound. Dean takes hold of the finger; Gabriel keeps hold of War’s wrist.
“Don’t worry; I’ll be sure to say hi to your brothers too.” Balanced easily on the balls of his feet now, Gabriel watches the light fading in War’s eyes. The drums are quieting.
“You do that,” War sneers and speckles his suit with blood. It’s a darker red than the tie. “Once Death’s risen-”
“Wait. Wait.” Gabriel tightens his hold, reaching with his grace to keep War pinned to his host. “Lucifer didn’t bring him up when he rose? He hasn’t done the ritual yet?”
“Oh, what did big brother do to you?” War croons, laughing. “You can’t even sense that? So little left of you. So little left.” The meat slumps over, falling into Gabriel’s shoulder and then the floor. But that doesn’t matter; everything is different.
Gabriel stands, fluid in his skin despite the open wounds in his grace that he doesn’t have the power to heal. Dean is watching him, Sam probably is too, but it’s Dean’s eyes that Gabriel needs to read and can’t.
“C’mon, new plan.” Gabriel stuffs his stolen hands into the pockets of his borrowed jacket and walks back toward the car. Dean and Sam will catch up, just as soon as they realize there’s no one left to save.
Gabriel pauses by the Mustang, resting his hand on the peeling hood. Paint flecks off, drifting with rust to the ground at his feet. Faintly, he can hear the last labored breaths of a dying creature just before the frame gives up and collapses inwards. Smiling, he pats the hood fondly and continues to the Impala.
#
It’s Sam’s turn to fetch dinner. Part of the unspoken agreement that Gabriel stayed close when not hunting for omens of the Horsemen. And as soon as Sam had closed the door on the uneasy silence between the three of them, Gabriel’d begun to fill it.
Now, he is settled on the edge of Dean’s bed and watching him stalk the narrow strip of space between beds. Gabriel looks up when the pacing stops and Dean’s watching him, still frustratingly unreadable. Dropping his gaze again, Gabriel listens as Dean’s steps bring him closer.
“A new plan? What do you mean we need a new plan?” Gabriel just barely keeps from pointing out how completely self-explanatory that statement was. Dean’s too occupied with his rant to notice Gabriel’s self restraint. “We just got the damn ring from the guy and now you’re what? Changing the fucking play book?” Dean stops as his voice grows louder. It ends with him standing between Gabriel’s legs, glaring down at him in the most delicious way. A year ago it would have ended with Dean kneeling between Gabriel’s legs, glaring up at him in the same way.
It makes hard to tell if this is progress.
“Look sunshine, believe it or not, this is a good thing. It means that Lucy still needs to dredge up Death,” Gabriel tried to infuse some sense of earnestness to his words, but they come out clipped.
Dean stares at him, expression twisted into some resigned understanding that his best ally is an angel that lied to him for over a year and has now, finally, lost his goddamned mind. When Gabriel stands, Dean falls back a few steps, eyeing the angel watchfully.
“The spell to wake up Death is big,” Gabriel drawls his words out slowly, raising his eyebrows when Dean glares at him. “We’re not talking round up the coven for a couple hours chanting and then throw a barbeque later. This is… monumental. Time consuming. Draining.” Gabriel’s gaze has turned rather pointed, but understanding finally, finally, lights in Dean’s eyes. “This is the only time we’ll have him vulnerable. And we’ve got to time it exactly right.”
“All right,” Dean sounds onboard with the idea, nodding a little to himself. “All right. Let’s take the fight to him while he’s raising the angel of death.” Okay, onboard have might been overstating a little; he sounds resigned, but Gabriel isn’t sure how to interpret that, in the grander scheme of things he isn’t able to solve.
“Not actually the angel of death, big guy. That’s Azrael’s gig. Pretty nice job, if you can get it, too; mostly kicking back with the fates and the reapers and checking inventory.” Dean is looking at him strangely, so Gabriel simply shrugs. “There’s a difference here. Trust me, good ol’Death can bend over even the Memitim with no problems. He’s so much bigger than all of us,” Gabriel’s still looking at Dean, but not truly seeing him any more.
“So why didn’t we know about all this sooner? I mean, Death not being on the table. Lucifer having to summon him. That’s a pretty big deal, right?” There’s nothing accusing, precisely, in Dean’s voice but Gabriel still bristles.
“I’m not exactly firing on all cylinders right now, all right! Michael didn’t just bitchslap me into Hell this time. He-” Gabriel shakes his head once, sharply, strangling the thought in its infancy. The uneasy quiet returns.
“So, you’re fallen, then,” Dean says the words carefully, watching the ground and Gabriel at once. It’s ridiculous, something torn from romance novels with petite ingénues who can look up at a strapping hero though the soft fan of her lashes.
Doesn’t work so well on a hunter with the height difference going in the opposite direction. It’s sort of sweet, though, that Dean looks a little scared for him.
“Yeah. I mean-yes. I rebelled. And that’s how all the bad, little angels end up.” Wings smashed under the weight of Heaven, broken prisms and slaughter. Gabriel steps around Dean, walking to the window. At least this room doesn’t have a theme beyond drab. The heavy curtains are an indistinct navy; the dust gives them texture, but he still pulls them aside.
“So that’s what War meant at the end? You’re cut off now; no more super spidey sense for the big stuff?” Below Dean’s words, woven into his voice, is the possibility to explain everything. One last chance to come completely clean, expect for the one that Gabriel is unable to say and wants to.
He scrubs his hands over his face, as he’s seen Dean do a hundred times as though he could wash the exhaustion away just by force of will. Gabriel knows better, but he does it anyway.
“Abaddon,” Dean’s still asking, worry voiced and it hurts as badly as all the weight of mistrust that’s fallen between them. It hurts that Dean keeps trying, when that’s all Gabriel wants.
“Yes, okay,” his voice is sharp, slicing. “Just-stop. It is what it is and it’s over, so can we please, just, stop.” The words take on their own rhythm, speeding through the half truth and slowing down to plead.
The silence seeps in, fills up the motel room with cloying molasses weight. Dean clears his throat. “Okay. So, what do we do for now?”
Gabriel watches the parking lot, the pattern of cracks in pavement and fluttering of the motel sign. “We wait. Try and keep under the radar. You can’t exactly miss the omens for Death. Raising him ain’t a subtle spell.”
When Dean turns away from him, walks over to Sam’s bed, the farthest from the window, Gabriel laughs silently at himself.
Go to part two.