Justice Is The One Thing
Title: Justice Is The One Thing (You Should Always Find)
Rating: PG
Pairing: None
Spoilers/Warnings: None
Summary: Gabriel stops in a speck of a town, in the middle of nowhere.
Notes: Written for a class. Also, the longest complete fic I've written for this fandom. :) Thanks to zekkass and mithrel for their help and support. You're awesome, guys!
First part of the Justice verse.
Gabriel stops in a speck of a town, in the middle of nowhere.
He stops dead and looks up. There are buildings around him. They’re wooden - rough but solid. The windows are glass, but hardly anything special. Old, all wavy and half-melted-looking. One of the buildings has a sign, faded letters reading ‘Bank.’ Beside it, another sign declares that building to be the general store. There’s a bakery, a post office and a one pump gas station. Beyond that small clump of buildings are a couple of others, obviously houses, with laundry hung on a line and blowing in the light breeze. Chickens scratch and peck at the ground and a dog lies flat in a sliver of shade.
There’s a man, standing in front of the general store. Gabriel’s not sure he saw him there a moment ago, but that doesn’t surprise him and the man’s there now. Faded leather jacket and faded blue jeans and eyes sharper than a blade. He seems familiar, but in the way that seeing a famous landmark for the first time is familiar, the form and color and size already known from pictures and descriptions.
“You live here?” Gabriel asks and it’s the first time he’s spoken since… He couldn’t quite remember the last time he’d spoken aloud. All his recent conversations had been in his own head.
The man crosses his arms, looks at Gabriel like he’s looking at a heifer ready for sale. “Yeah, reckon I do more days than not.”
Gabriel nods. “Got a room somewhere?” He hadn’t planned on stopping anywhere, but now that he’s here, he might as well, if only for a short time.
“Maybe,” the man says slowly. “You got a decent set of hands on you?”
He looks down at the limbs in question and Gabriel wiggles his fingers, as if to prove he can. “I suppose,” he says. “Why?”
“Can you write? Read? Count? Do basic math?”
Gabriel nods, frowning a bit. “Yeah, I can do all that. Why?” he repeats.
The man shrugs. “I ain’t putting you up for free and you don’t look like you’ve got more’n a couple of bucks to your name. I’ve got some boxes out back need moving.”
Moving boxes. Gabriel’s done that before. Never to pay his rent, but he figures it can’t be much different. “I don’t need to know how to read and write for that,” he points out.
“Boxes aren’t all I need done, boy. You coming or what?” The man turns to go back inside and Gabriel hurries to catch up. It feels odd to be moving towards something rather than away, like he’s been doing for so long, but it sort of feels good, right. “You got a name, boy?”
“Uh, Gabriel, sir.”
“An angel, are you?” The man glances over his shoulder, eyes crinkled. “And don’t bother with that ‘sir’ business. Makes me feel old.”
“Yes, si-Okay.”
“Call me John. Everyone does, anyway.”
Gabriel nods, even though John is no longer looking at him, and follows the older man past shelves stacked with a bit of everything. Gabriel can see foodstuffs, medicines, tools, sacks of grain and seed and even a few old electronics stacked on or next to the shoulder-high shelving units. Everything a town this size would need and then some.
“Is that a carburetor?” Gabriel asks as they pass the last aisle. John glances back again, eyebrows raised.
“Know a bit about cars, do you?”
Gabriel shrugs, suddenly a bit shy. “A bit,” he agrees. “My brother liked to tinker with them and I’d watch and help some.”
“Hmm. Well, Bobby could use some help out at the yard,” John says, opening a door behind the dingy counter. “You should visit him when you get the chance.”
“Okay.” Gabriel follows him into the back room, where he can see the dusty stacks of the promised boxes. John plants his hands on his hips and considers the piles.
“These don’t need to go anywhere, but I want them catalogued and organized according to contents. Think you can handle that?”
Gabriel looks at the stacks, then nods. “Yeah, I can handle it.”
John claps him on the shoulder, solid and heavy. “I’ll leave you to it, then. There’s a pad and pen over there.”
And then he’s gone, leaving Gabriel in the dim room. Gabriel looks around again, nods, picks up the pad and pen and opens the first box.
~*~
Two weeks later, he’s still in the little town in the middle of nowhere.
Well, it turns out that the town’s name is Lawrence and he’s actually in Kansas, which strikes him as funny every time he thinks about it. The town’s actually got a sizeable population, all things considered.
There’s John Winchester, the owner of the general store and father of two sons, Dean and Sam, who Gabriel hears about but has yet to meet. Bobby Singer’s the mechanic, working on old tractors as much as the few cars that are actually still running. The bar, which he hadn’t seen that first day, hidden as it was behind the general store and bank, is run by Ellen Harvelle and her daughter, Jo. Rufus runs the post office and Bela Talbot runs the bank, where Jo works part time while the bar was closed during the day. There are others, but they are mostly just faces and bodies to Gabriel and he doesn’t spend much time trying to distinguish between them.
The back room of the general store is organized and cleaned in less than three days and John sets him to cleaning the main store. Gabriel does it willingly; John is letting him stay in a spare room and feeding him, too, so the least Gabriel can do is help keep the man’s place of business clean.
Cleaning the general store never takes very long, though it is a daily job, and when he’s not out at the auto yard, Gabriel usually just wanders around the town or goes to the Roadhouse to chat with Ellen, Jo and Ash, the odd mullet-haired guy who seems to live on top of the pool table in the back. Throughout the past two weeks, Gabriel’s found that the three of them know John’s mysterious sons the best and with nothing else really happening around town, Gabriel is curious.
“Those Winchester boys,” Ellen says, “They never had to go looking for trouble; it would wait for them at the front door each day. I swear, if I chased them away from harassing the old gander once, I did it a thousand times.”
Which is all good and well, but not really the sort of information Gabriel is curious about. Jo is a bit more helpful.
“They’re tall, like John,” she tells him. Gabriel nods; John’s almost a foot taller than him and he pictures two more Johns standing at his shoulder. Tall, indeed. “Sam’s taller, but not by much. Both of ‘em have got brown hair, though Dean’s is lighter and shorter. Dean’s got really green eyes, like his mom, apparently. She died when they were little and I don’t remember her at all. Sam’s got darker eyes, a sort of brown-green hazel color. And they’re both absolutely gorgeous.” She says this last bit with a faraway look in her eyes and Gabriel wonders which one she’s holding a torch for, tall and dark Sam or tall and fair Dean.
Ash is the one who’s got the real information, though. “Hunting,” he says, with a nod and a movement of his eyebrows that Gabriel’s sure means something significant, but is lost on him. “They’re out hunting. They go every so often, just up and disappear for weeks on end, come back with enough meat to feed the town for the winter. Deer, birds, whatever. If it’s living and breathing out there and it’s not human, they’ll kill it.”
Gabriel digests that for a long minute. “When are they coming back?”
Ash pulls out a smudged chart and peers at it, muttering to himself. “Four days,” he announces. “Should be back in about four days, give or take twelve hours on either side. They’re consistent, but not very accurate.”
Four days. Gabriel can wait that long.
~*~
He goes to see Bobby Singer two days after he'd finished cataloging boxes in the back of the general store. Bobby's a gruff man, with a plaid shirt for every day of the week and an ever-present hat and scowl. Gabriel doesn't feel as small next to Bobby as he does sometimes with John, but the man can still fill a room with his presence. After their initial rough meeting, Bobby lets Gabriel tinker with one of the older cars in the yard. It's fun work, Gabriel finds, if hard and tiring. He spends a few hours each day out at the yard, working alongside Bobby in an easy silence.
Bobby also knows the Winchester boys and after Gabriel's conversations with the Harvelles and with Ash, he's curious to know what Dean and Sam are to Bobby.
"The sons I never had," Bobby tells him, cracking open a beer. Gabriel doesn't drink, not anymore, so he's got a tall glass of water in one hand. "Hung around the yard a lot when they were younger, playing games out there from dawn to dusk. My wife was friends with Mary. That'd be the boys' mama."
Gabriel nods and sips at his water. "Ash says they're out hunting, right now."
Bobby looks at him sideways, considering. "Reckon they are, more times than not." Gabriel looks at him.
"What else would they be doing?" he asks.
Draining the rest of his beer, Bobby shrugs. "Dunno, really. Bit of this and that. Those boys don't really talk to me, anymore."
"Hmm."
They fall silent, then, just sitting on the porch and watching the world go by. It's two more days until Dean and Sam Winchester come back. Gabriel can wait two days.
~*~
In the almost three weeks since he’s been staying in Lawrence, no one’s asked Gabriel where he came from or why he was there. He’s caught some of the townsfolk looking at him, curiosity plain, but no one ever asks.
Gabriel had told John, once, that he and his brothers had been staying with his Uncle Joshua, in Virginia. John just looked at him and nodded once, not saying a word.
Other than that, he’s offered no personal information and no one’s asked him for it-until now.
“Haven’t seen you around here, before. Where’d you blow in from?”
Gabriel looks up-and up-at the man who’d come into the general store. The steady strokes of the broom falter as he realizes who this must be. Tall, dark and handsome, like Jo had described.
“You’re Sam Winchester,” Gabriel says before he can stop himself. The man-Sam-grins, revealing deep dimples.
“Guilty as charged. And who are you?”
“Gabriel.”
“Little angel, huh?” And Gabriel is struck by the similarities between father and son. Same sharp eyes, a similar slope to their shoulders and a common quirk to their smiles. Same sense of humor, too, it seemed.
He huffs and resumes his sweeping. “Hardly an angel,” he mutters.
“But no devil, either,” Sam says, sliding in closer. “How long you been here?”
Gabriel stretches to catch a stray dust bunny and sweeps it into the pile he’s gradually moving to the front door. “Three weeks on Thursday,” he tells Sam.
Sam nods and is quiet for a few minutes while Gabriel works. “You’re not from this part of the country. Where’d you come from?”
“Virginia,” Gabriel says shortly.
“Family there or just you?”
“Family.”
“Who?”
Gabriel clenches his hands tight around the broom shaft. “Uncle. Brothers. Cousins. You done prying into my life, yet?” He’d been curious about the Winchester brothers, but he didn’t think he’d have been so eager to meet them if he’d known they’d be as curious about him.
Sam holds his hands up, eyes wide. “Whoa, calm down. Just being friendly. No need to bite my head off.”
Hunching his shoulders, Gabriel mutters, “Sorry.”
The taller man grins easily. “S’alright. You almost done here? Wanna grab a drink at the Roadhouse after?”
Gabriel pauses and glances at him, takes in the open grin and the wide, eager eyes. He shrugs. “I don’t drink, but I’ll go with you,” he says, resuming his sweeping.
“Great,” Sam replies, beaming. He stays until Gabriel is done, mercifully staying quiet.
~*~
The Roadhouse is nearly empty when Sam and Gabriel arrive. Just Ellen behind the counter and Ash on top of the billiards table.
“Sam!” Ellen says when she looks up. “You’re home!”
Sam grins at her, broad and easy, the same grin he’d given Gabriel. “Hey, Ellen, good to see you. How’s Jo?”
The bar owner shrugs. “Well enough. I see you’ve met Gabriel.”
The tall man turns to include Gabriel in the grin. “Sure have. Says he doesn’t drink. How come you let him stay?”
Ellen grins. “Figured he was easy on the eyes enough to stay. Was thinking of hanging him up as decoration.”
Gabriel rolls his eyes. It’s a familiar line from over the past three weeks and he lets the ensuing chatter fade into background noise. Ash turns out to be fast asleep, snoring lightly and Gabriel snorts before pouring himself a glass of water.
He’s sipping at it when the door opens and another tall man comes in. Sam looks up and grins at him over Ellen’s shoulder. “Dean, great. You get the supplies?”
The man, Dean Winchester, nods. “Yeah, I got ‘em. Hey, Ellen. I see the bar’s still standing.”
She grins and smacks at his shoulder as he passes by. “Only because you two weren’t around to wreck it.” He grins, the same easy curve that Sam has.
“You love us. Hey, who’s this?”
“This is Gabriel,” Sam says before Gabriel can introduce himself, striding over to throw an arm over his shoulders. “He’s been in town for, what was it, three weeks?” Gabriel nods. “Yeah, three weeks. He’s from Virginia.”
“Yeah?” Dean looks Gabriel over, expression casually curious. “You got a reason for being Lawrence, Gabriel?”
Gabriel shrugs. “It’s where I stopped.”
Dean nods. “As good a reason as any. You play poker?”
“A bit,” Gabriel says, downing the rest of his water. “My brother taught me to play. I’m not very good.”
Sam laughs. “But is that the truth?” He pulls a deck out of his pocket and motions them over to a table. Ellen shakes her head and goes back to cleaning the counter. Shuffling the cards, Sam rapidly deals out five cards to each of them.
“What’ve you got for the pot?” Dean asks. Gabriel digs into his pockets.
“Three nickels, four pennies, a bottle cap and a piece of string,” he says, dumping the items on the table.
Dean and Sam do the same. “I’ve got a shoe lace,” Sam says, “and two dimes, three nickels, seven pennies and a couple of copper wire bits.”
“Five bottle caps, eleven, twelve, thirteen pennies, four nickels, a ticket stub and a bullet casing,” Dean announces. Gabriel eyes the bullet casing, but doesn’t say anything. Ash had said that they hunted, after all.
“Coins are face value, everything else counts as one,” Sam says. “Sorry, Gabe.”
Gabriel blinks at him for a moment, thrown by the nickname, then shrugs. “It’s fine. We going to play?”
“Keep your breeches on, angel,” Dean mutters, picking up his cards. Gabriel does the same, thinking that the Winchesters are all most definitely related.
Three games later, Gabriel has five more pennies, the shoe lace and Dean’s ticket stub. Sam’s got the bullet casing and the piece of string and Dean’s managed to acquire nearly all of the nickels.
“Ash says you go hunting,” Gabriel says as Dean deals the fourth game. Sam looks up from tidying his items.
“Did he? He say anything else?”
Gabriel shakes his head. “No, but Bobby said that’s not all you do.”
“Bobby should know when not to go blabbing about other people,” Dean grumbles. Sam sends him a look that Gabriel can’t interpret.
“Bobby’s a good guy, Dean,” Sam says slowly. He looks at his cards, then up at Gabriel. “We do hunt, Gabe. Most of what we do is hunt. But we also...well, we do a few other things, too.”
They play for a few moments, quiet except for calling and raising. Gabriel pushes in a couple of pennies to match what Dean had put in and glances at the brothers. “What sort of things?”
“Nothing you need to worry about, angel,” Dean says, eyes on his cards. Sam looks at them both, but doesn’t say anything. Gabriel frowns.
“Why do you Winchesters keep calling me angel?” he asks. Dean looks up at that, smirking, eyes dark.
“Guess we’ve just got good taste,” he says and Gabriel knows that look. He’s seen it before, directed at him and at others. His eyes narrow.
“Don’t try anything,” he warns. Dean laughs.
“Wasn’t gonna, angel. Relax. You’re safe.”
Sam nods, eyes gentle and Gabriel looks away, studies his cards. He’s not used to this, this easy camaraderie, the light banter back and forth. He thinks he can maybe remember something like this from long ago, but nothing more. Safe hasn’t been in his vocabulary for a long time.
It’s quiet again after that and when Dean wins the round, Sam gathers up the cards. “C’mon,” he says. “Let’s get out of here, take a walk.”
Gabriel follows the Winchesters out, feeling unusually small next to their height, but he doesn’t feel threatened, like he sometimes has with larger men. Sam’s huge, sure, but his eyes are kind and the one time he touched Gabriel, his hand was gentle. Dean’s the same way, but with more energy, eyes and face always changing and hands in near constant motion.
Safe, they said. Gabriel’s starting to wonder if it might be the truth.
Sam leads them through town, past Bobby’s yard and down to a small creek that widens into a shallow pool before going on its way. Trees grow along the water’s edge, taller and greener than their town counterparts are. Dean pulls off his shirt and kicks off his shoes, wading in without hesitation, but Sam just stands at the side of the pool, smiling at Gabriel.
“We used to come here all the time as kids,” he says. “Haven’t had much chance to come lately, though.”
“It’s nice,” Gabriel offers, hands pushed into his pockets. He’s not uncomfortable, quite, but it’s odd, being alone with the Winchester brothers.
Sam nods. “It is.” He’s quiet for a moment, watching Dean playing in the water. “Dad says you’ve been asking around about us.”
Gabriel shrugs, feeling oddly like he’s been caught with his hand in the cookie jar. “I was curious,” he says.
The tall man blinks at him. “Oh, no, it’s not a problem,” he assures Gabriel. “Was just wondering what you heard about us.”
“Oh. Not much,” Gabriel says, shrugging again. “Ellen thought you were hellions when you were little, Jo thinks you’re both gorgeous, Ash is the one that told me you hunt and Bobby...well, you know what Bobby said.”
“And pretty much it’s all true,” Dean says, striding out of the water. He grins and flicks wet fingers at Sam, who makes a face at the water droplets hitting him. “We’re good people, angel. The best, sometimes. You thinking of sticking around longer?”
Frowning slightly, Gabriel gives the matter some thought. He hadn’t planned on staying in Lawrence as long as he had, in the first place. Hadn’t figured on staying anywhere ever again. Staying meant getting to know the people, caring about them and inevitably getting hurt. It’s a moot point now that he’d been here this long, though. Too late to change the fact that he likes these people. Finally, he shrugs. “Might leave some day, but for now, yeah, sure.”
Sam raises his eyebrows, looking from Dean to Gabriel and back again. Dean shrugs. “If you’re gonna be around, you could come with us next time we go out. If you want.”
“To hunt?”
“Mostly,” Dean says, unknowingly echoing Bobby’s words. “We might dabble a bit in a few other things.”
“Like what?” Gabriel asks again, thinking he might get an answer this time.
“Like a bit of divine justice. Bit of righting the world’s wrongs. Someone’s gotta draw a hard line,” Sam says, stepping closer to his brother, their shoulders brushing. They face Gabriel and he wonders if it’s a defense or just showing an united front.
“You kill anyone?” he asks. It’s something that’s bothered at him since his talk with Bobby. The older man hadn’t seemed so approving of whatever it was the Winchester brothers did besides hunt and Gabriel had wondered.
“Not if we can help it,” Dean tells him, which isn’t really an answer, but it’s about the clearest one Gabriel’s gotten thus far. “So, wanna come along with?”
Gabriel looks at him, at Sam, seeing the kind eyes, the easy smiles, the way they stood shoulder to shoulder. “My brothers weren’t near so good,” he says after a moment.
Dean’s eyes narrow. “You said you came from Virginia, yeah? Who are your brothers?”
And for the first time since he’d left home four months ago, Gabriel smiles. “They’re no one, now, along with my uncle.”
It takes a moment, but then Dean grins. “You’ll fit in fine, angel. You’ll fit in fine.”
Sam’s smiling, too and Gabriel thinks, yeah, maybe he will.
Sequel: Whiskey For My Men
Rating: PG
Pairing: None
Spoilers/Warnings: None
Summary: Gabriel stops in a speck of a town, in the middle of nowhere.
Notes: Written for a class. Also, the longest complete fic I've written for this fandom. :) Thanks to zekkass and mithrel for their help and support. You're awesome, guys!
First part of the Justice verse.
Gabriel stops in a speck of a town, in the middle of nowhere.
He stops dead and looks up. There are buildings around him. They’re wooden - rough but solid. The windows are glass, but hardly anything special. Old, all wavy and half-melted-looking. One of the buildings has a sign, faded letters reading ‘Bank.’ Beside it, another sign declares that building to be the general store. There’s a bakery, a post office and a one pump gas station. Beyond that small clump of buildings are a couple of others, obviously houses, with laundry hung on a line and blowing in the light breeze. Chickens scratch and peck at the ground and a dog lies flat in a sliver of shade.
There’s a man, standing in front of the general store. Gabriel’s not sure he saw him there a moment ago, but that doesn’t surprise him and the man’s there now. Faded leather jacket and faded blue jeans and eyes sharper than a blade. He seems familiar, but in the way that seeing a famous landmark for the first time is familiar, the form and color and size already known from pictures and descriptions.
“You live here?” Gabriel asks and it’s the first time he’s spoken since… He couldn’t quite remember the last time he’d spoken aloud. All his recent conversations had been in his own head.
The man crosses his arms, looks at Gabriel like he’s looking at a heifer ready for sale. “Yeah, reckon I do more days than not.”
Gabriel nods. “Got a room somewhere?” He hadn’t planned on stopping anywhere, but now that he’s here, he might as well, if only for a short time.
“Maybe,” the man says slowly. “You got a decent set of hands on you?”
He looks down at the limbs in question and Gabriel wiggles his fingers, as if to prove he can. “I suppose,” he says. “Why?”
“Can you write? Read? Count? Do basic math?”
Gabriel nods, frowning a bit. “Yeah, I can do all that. Why?” he repeats.
The man shrugs. “I ain’t putting you up for free and you don’t look like you’ve got more’n a couple of bucks to your name. I’ve got some boxes out back need moving.”
Moving boxes. Gabriel’s done that before. Never to pay his rent, but he figures it can’t be much different. “I don’t need to know how to read and write for that,” he points out.
“Boxes aren’t all I need done, boy. You coming or what?” The man turns to go back inside and Gabriel hurries to catch up. It feels odd to be moving towards something rather than away, like he’s been doing for so long, but it sort of feels good, right. “You got a name, boy?”
“Uh, Gabriel, sir.”
“An angel, are you?” The man glances over his shoulder, eyes crinkled. “And don’t bother with that ‘sir’ business. Makes me feel old.”
“Yes, si-Okay.”
“Call me John. Everyone does, anyway.”
Gabriel nods, even though John is no longer looking at him, and follows the older man past shelves stacked with a bit of everything. Gabriel can see foodstuffs, medicines, tools, sacks of grain and seed and even a few old electronics stacked on or next to the shoulder-high shelving units. Everything a town this size would need and then some.
“Is that a carburetor?” Gabriel asks as they pass the last aisle. John glances back again, eyebrows raised.
“Know a bit about cars, do you?”
Gabriel shrugs, suddenly a bit shy. “A bit,” he agrees. “My brother liked to tinker with them and I’d watch and help some.”
“Hmm. Well, Bobby could use some help out at the yard,” John says, opening a door behind the dingy counter. “You should visit him when you get the chance.”
“Okay.” Gabriel follows him into the back room, where he can see the dusty stacks of the promised boxes. John plants his hands on his hips and considers the piles.
“These don’t need to go anywhere, but I want them catalogued and organized according to contents. Think you can handle that?”
Gabriel looks at the stacks, then nods. “Yeah, I can handle it.”
John claps him on the shoulder, solid and heavy. “I’ll leave you to it, then. There’s a pad and pen over there.”
And then he’s gone, leaving Gabriel in the dim room. Gabriel looks around again, nods, picks up the pad and pen and opens the first box.
~*~
Two weeks later, he’s still in the little town in the middle of nowhere.
Well, it turns out that the town’s name is Lawrence and he’s actually in Kansas, which strikes him as funny every time he thinks about it. The town’s actually got a sizeable population, all things considered.
There’s John Winchester, the owner of the general store and father of two sons, Dean and Sam, who Gabriel hears about but has yet to meet. Bobby Singer’s the mechanic, working on old tractors as much as the few cars that are actually still running. The bar, which he hadn’t seen that first day, hidden as it was behind the general store and bank, is run by Ellen Harvelle and her daughter, Jo. Rufus runs the post office and Bela Talbot runs the bank, where Jo works part time while the bar was closed during the day. There are others, but they are mostly just faces and bodies to Gabriel and he doesn’t spend much time trying to distinguish between them.
The back room of the general store is organized and cleaned in less than three days and John sets him to cleaning the main store. Gabriel does it willingly; John is letting him stay in a spare room and feeding him, too, so the least Gabriel can do is help keep the man’s place of business clean.
Cleaning the general store never takes very long, though it is a daily job, and when he’s not out at the auto yard, Gabriel usually just wanders around the town or goes to the Roadhouse to chat with Ellen, Jo and Ash, the odd mullet-haired guy who seems to live on top of the pool table in the back. Throughout the past two weeks, Gabriel’s found that the three of them know John’s mysterious sons the best and with nothing else really happening around town, Gabriel is curious.
“Those Winchester boys,” Ellen says, “They never had to go looking for trouble; it would wait for them at the front door each day. I swear, if I chased them away from harassing the old gander once, I did it a thousand times.”
Which is all good and well, but not really the sort of information Gabriel is curious about. Jo is a bit more helpful.
“They’re tall, like John,” she tells him. Gabriel nods; John’s almost a foot taller than him and he pictures two more Johns standing at his shoulder. Tall, indeed. “Sam’s taller, but not by much. Both of ‘em have got brown hair, though Dean’s is lighter and shorter. Dean’s got really green eyes, like his mom, apparently. She died when they were little and I don’t remember her at all. Sam’s got darker eyes, a sort of brown-green hazel color. And they’re both absolutely gorgeous.” She says this last bit with a faraway look in her eyes and Gabriel wonders which one she’s holding a torch for, tall and dark Sam or tall and fair Dean.
Ash is the one who’s got the real information, though. “Hunting,” he says, with a nod and a movement of his eyebrows that Gabriel’s sure means something significant, but is lost on him. “They’re out hunting. They go every so often, just up and disappear for weeks on end, come back with enough meat to feed the town for the winter. Deer, birds, whatever. If it’s living and breathing out there and it’s not human, they’ll kill it.”
Gabriel digests that for a long minute. “When are they coming back?”
Ash pulls out a smudged chart and peers at it, muttering to himself. “Four days,” he announces. “Should be back in about four days, give or take twelve hours on either side. They’re consistent, but not very accurate.”
Four days. Gabriel can wait that long.
~*~
He goes to see Bobby Singer two days after he'd finished cataloging boxes in the back of the general store. Bobby's a gruff man, with a plaid shirt for every day of the week and an ever-present hat and scowl. Gabriel doesn't feel as small next to Bobby as he does sometimes with John, but the man can still fill a room with his presence. After their initial rough meeting, Bobby lets Gabriel tinker with one of the older cars in the yard. It's fun work, Gabriel finds, if hard and tiring. He spends a few hours each day out at the yard, working alongside Bobby in an easy silence.
Bobby also knows the Winchester boys and after Gabriel's conversations with the Harvelles and with Ash, he's curious to know what Dean and Sam are to Bobby.
"The sons I never had," Bobby tells him, cracking open a beer. Gabriel doesn't drink, not anymore, so he's got a tall glass of water in one hand. "Hung around the yard a lot when they were younger, playing games out there from dawn to dusk. My wife was friends with Mary. That'd be the boys' mama."
Gabriel nods and sips at his water. "Ash says they're out hunting, right now."
Bobby looks at him sideways, considering. "Reckon they are, more times than not." Gabriel looks at him.
"What else would they be doing?" he asks.
Draining the rest of his beer, Bobby shrugs. "Dunno, really. Bit of this and that. Those boys don't really talk to me, anymore."
"Hmm."
They fall silent, then, just sitting on the porch and watching the world go by. It's two more days until Dean and Sam Winchester come back. Gabriel can wait two days.
~*~
In the almost three weeks since he’s been staying in Lawrence, no one’s asked Gabriel where he came from or why he was there. He’s caught some of the townsfolk looking at him, curiosity plain, but no one ever asks.
Gabriel had told John, once, that he and his brothers had been staying with his Uncle Joshua, in Virginia. John just looked at him and nodded once, not saying a word.
Other than that, he’s offered no personal information and no one’s asked him for it-until now.
“Haven’t seen you around here, before. Where’d you blow in from?”
Gabriel looks up-and up-at the man who’d come into the general store. The steady strokes of the broom falter as he realizes who this must be. Tall, dark and handsome, like Jo had described.
“You’re Sam Winchester,” Gabriel says before he can stop himself. The man-Sam-grins, revealing deep dimples.
“Guilty as charged. And who are you?”
“Gabriel.”
“Little angel, huh?” And Gabriel is struck by the similarities between father and son. Same sharp eyes, a similar slope to their shoulders and a common quirk to their smiles. Same sense of humor, too, it seemed.
He huffs and resumes his sweeping. “Hardly an angel,” he mutters.
“But no devil, either,” Sam says, sliding in closer. “How long you been here?”
Gabriel stretches to catch a stray dust bunny and sweeps it into the pile he’s gradually moving to the front door. “Three weeks on Thursday,” he tells Sam.
Sam nods and is quiet for a few minutes while Gabriel works. “You’re not from this part of the country. Where’d you come from?”
“Virginia,” Gabriel says shortly.
“Family there or just you?”
“Family.”
“Who?”
Gabriel clenches his hands tight around the broom shaft. “Uncle. Brothers. Cousins. You done prying into my life, yet?” He’d been curious about the Winchester brothers, but he didn’t think he’d have been so eager to meet them if he’d known they’d be as curious about him.
Sam holds his hands up, eyes wide. “Whoa, calm down. Just being friendly. No need to bite my head off.”
Hunching his shoulders, Gabriel mutters, “Sorry.”
The taller man grins easily. “S’alright. You almost done here? Wanna grab a drink at the Roadhouse after?”
Gabriel pauses and glances at him, takes in the open grin and the wide, eager eyes. He shrugs. “I don’t drink, but I’ll go with you,” he says, resuming his sweeping.
“Great,” Sam replies, beaming. He stays until Gabriel is done, mercifully staying quiet.
~*~
The Roadhouse is nearly empty when Sam and Gabriel arrive. Just Ellen behind the counter and Ash on top of the billiards table.
“Sam!” Ellen says when she looks up. “You’re home!”
Sam grins at her, broad and easy, the same grin he’d given Gabriel. “Hey, Ellen, good to see you. How’s Jo?”
The bar owner shrugs. “Well enough. I see you’ve met Gabriel.”
The tall man turns to include Gabriel in the grin. “Sure have. Says he doesn’t drink. How come you let him stay?”
Ellen grins. “Figured he was easy on the eyes enough to stay. Was thinking of hanging him up as decoration.”
Gabriel rolls his eyes. It’s a familiar line from over the past three weeks and he lets the ensuing chatter fade into background noise. Ash turns out to be fast asleep, snoring lightly and Gabriel snorts before pouring himself a glass of water.
He’s sipping at it when the door opens and another tall man comes in. Sam looks up and grins at him over Ellen’s shoulder. “Dean, great. You get the supplies?”
The man, Dean Winchester, nods. “Yeah, I got ‘em. Hey, Ellen. I see the bar’s still standing.”
She grins and smacks at his shoulder as he passes by. “Only because you two weren’t around to wreck it.” He grins, the same easy curve that Sam has.
“You love us. Hey, who’s this?”
“This is Gabriel,” Sam says before Gabriel can introduce himself, striding over to throw an arm over his shoulders. “He’s been in town for, what was it, three weeks?” Gabriel nods. “Yeah, three weeks. He’s from Virginia.”
“Yeah?” Dean looks Gabriel over, expression casually curious. “You got a reason for being Lawrence, Gabriel?”
Gabriel shrugs. “It’s where I stopped.”
Dean nods. “As good a reason as any. You play poker?”
“A bit,” Gabriel says, downing the rest of his water. “My brother taught me to play. I’m not very good.”
Sam laughs. “But is that the truth?” He pulls a deck out of his pocket and motions them over to a table. Ellen shakes her head and goes back to cleaning the counter. Shuffling the cards, Sam rapidly deals out five cards to each of them.
“What’ve you got for the pot?” Dean asks. Gabriel digs into his pockets.
“Three nickels, four pennies, a bottle cap and a piece of string,” he says, dumping the items on the table.
Dean and Sam do the same. “I’ve got a shoe lace,” Sam says, “and two dimes, three nickels, seven pennies and a couple of copper wire bits.”
“Five bottle caps, eleven, twelve, thirteen pennies, four nickels, a ticket stub and a bullet casing,” Dean announces. Gabriel eyes the bullet casing, but doesn’t say anything. Ash had said that they hunted, after all.
“Coins are face value, everything else counts as one,” Sam says. “Sorry, Gabe.”
Gabriel blinks at him for a moment, thrown by the nickname, then shrugs. “It’s fine. We going to play?”
“Keep your breeches on, angel,” Dean mutters, picking up his cards. Gabriel does the same, thinking that the Winchesters are all most definitely related.
Three games later, Gabriel has five more pennies, the shoe lace and Dean’s ticket stub. Sam’s got the bullet casing and the piece of string and Dean’s managed to acquire nearly all of the nickels.
“Ash says you go hunting,” Gabriel says as Dean deals the fourth game. Sam looks up from tidying his items.
“Did he? He say anything else?”
Gabriel shakes his head. “No, but Bobby said that’s not all you do.”
“Bobby should know when not to go blabbing about other people,” Dean grumbles. Sam sends him a look that Gabriel can’t interpret.
“Bobby’s a good guy, Dean,” Sam says slowly. He looks at his cards, then up at Gabriel. “We do hunt, Gabe. Most of what we do is hunt. But we also...well, we do a few other things, too.”
They play for a few moments, quiet except for calling and raising. Gabriel pushes in a couple of pennies to match what Dean had put in and glances at the brothers. “What sort of things?”
“Nothing you need to worry about, angel,” Dean says, eyes on his cards. Sam looks at them both, but doesn’t say anything. Gabriel frowns.
“Why do you Winchesters keep calling me angel?” he asks. Dean looks up at that, smirking, eyes dark.
“Guess we’ve just got good taste,” he says and Gabriel knows that look. He’s seen it before, directed at him and at others. His eyes narrow.
“Don’t try anything,” he warns. Dean laughs.
“Wasn’t gonna, angel. Relax. You’re safe.”
Sam nods, eyes gentle and Gabriel looks away, studies his cards. He’s not used to this, this easy camaraderie, the light banter back and forth. He thinks he can maybe remember something like this from long ago, but nothing more. Safe hasn’t been in his vocabulary for a long time.
It’s quiet again after that and when Dean wins the round, Sam gathers up the cards. “C’mon,” he says. “Let’s get out of here, take a walk.”
Gabriel follows the Winchesters out, feeling unusually small next to their height, but he doesn’t feel threatened, like he sometimes has with larger men. Sam’s huge, sure, but his eyes are kind and the one time he touched Gabriel, his hand was gentle. Dean’s the same way, but with more energy, eyes and face always changing and hands in near constant motion.
Safe, they said. Gabriel’s starting to wonder if it might be the truth.
Sam leads them through town, past Bobby’s yard and down to a small creek that widens into a shallow pool before going on its way. Trees grow along the water’s edge, taller and greener than their town counterparts are. Dean pulls off his shirt and kicks off his shoes, wading in without hesitation, but Sam just stands at the side of the pool, smiling at Gabriel.
“We used to come here all the time as kids,” he says. “Haven’t had much chance to come lately, though.”
“It’s nice,” Gabriel offers, hands pushed into his pockets. He’s not uncomfortable, quite, but it’s odd, being alone with the Winchester brothers.
Sam nods. “It is.” He’s quiet for a moment, watching Dean playing in the water. “Dad says you’ve been asking around about us.”
Gabriel shrugs, feeling oddly like he’s been caught with his hand in the cookie jar. “I was curious,” he says.
The tall man blinks at him. “Oh, no, it’s not a problem,” he assures Gabriel. “Was just wondering what you heard about us.”
“Oh. Not much,” Gabriel says, shrugging again. “Ellen thought you were hellions when you were little, Jo thinks you’re both gorgeous, Ash is the one that told me you hunt and Bobby...well, you know what Bobby said.”
“And pretty much it’s all true,” Dean says, striding out of the water. He grins and flicks wet fingers at Sam, who makes a face at the water droplets hitting him. “We’re good people, angel. The best, sometimes. You thinking of sticking around longer?”
Frowning slightly, Gabriel gives the matter some thought. He hadn’t planned on staying in Lawrence as long as he had, in the first place. Hadn’t figured on staying anywhere ever again. Staying meant getting to know the people, caring about them and inevitably getting hurt. It’s a moot point now that he’d been here this long, though. Too late to change the fact that he likes these people. Finally, he shrugs. “Might leave some day, but for now, yeah, sure.”
Sam raises his eyebrows, looking from Dean to Gabriel and back again. Dean shrugs. “If you’re gonna be around, you could come with us next time we go out. If you want.”
“To hunt?”
“Mostly,” Dean says, unknowingly echoing Bobby’s words. “We might dabble a bit in a few other things.”
“Like what?” Gabriel asks again, thinking he might get an answer this time.
“Like a bit of divine justice. Bit of righting the world’s wrongs. Someone’s gotta draw a hard line,” Sam says, stepping closer to his brother, their shoulders brushing. They face Gabriel and he wonders if it’s a defense or just showing an united front.
“You kill anyone?” he asks. It’s something that’s bothered at him since his talk with Bobby. The older man hadn’t seemed so approving of whatever it was the Winchester brothers did besides hunt and Gabriel had wondered.
“Not if we can help it,” Dean tells him, which isn’t really an answer, but it’s about the clearest one Gabriel’s gotten thus far. “So, wanna come along with?”
Gabriel looks at him, at Sam, seeing the kind eyes, the easy smiles, the way they stood shoulder to shoulder. “My brothers weren’t near so good,” he says after a moment.
Dean’s eyes narrow. “You said you came from Virginia, yeah? Who are your brothers?”
And for the first time since he’d left home four months ago, Gabriel smiles. “They’re no one, now, along with my uncle.”
It takes a moment, but then Dean grins. “You’ll fit in fine, angel. You’ll fit in fine.”
Sam’s smiling, too and Gabriel thinks, yeah, maybe he will.
Sequel: Whiskey For My Men