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bumbleberrysky · 4 years ago

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alexa, play candyshop (bass boosted) | 01

pairing: gabriel x reader genre: soulmate au, canon divergent around s13, hurt/comfort, humour, future smut (probs) wc: 3.2k rating: sfw warnings: none except the appearance of battered gabriel fresh out of asmodeus’ hold notes: welcome to my first dive into writing for supernatural! i saw someone say that s13 lit a fire under their ass like nothing else and honestly i don’t think i could have described it better. i binged so much while catching up the past few weeks idk who i am anymore

You knew there was a reason some divine power brought you to the Winchesters all those years ago, but to this day you still have no idea what that reason is. It's something you're destined to find out soon though, especially when you return to the bunker after months away and find not only a new face, but one that belongs to someone who up until that point you'd thought was dead. What does his return have to do with the changes you're suddenly experiencing in yourself? Will you finally find out the reason you'd been brought here in the first place? Maybe...

Chuck works in mysterious ways after all.

next.

“Honeys, I’m home!”

The bunker has the same light aroma of musty air and metal as you let yourself in through the heavy front door, feet carrying you, out of habit more than anything, to the steel landing that marks the entrance to the fortress. It’s been so long since you were last here that the two men you used to hunt with regularly have likely forgotten they gave you a spare key. Well, they hadn’t exactly given it to you so much as you’d made a copy on the down-low and kept it for occasions such as this.

One hand keeps pressure on your arm, an attempt to stem the bleeding, and the other carries your single carry-on bag. You make it about halfway down the stairs before your gaze swings out over the foyer and you freeze, mid-step.

Sam and Dean, the two figures you expected to find here, are standing stock-still with their guns half-poised (not directed at you) and expressions on their faces that are a combination of shocked, pissed, and extremely confused (mostly directed at you). Following the line of their weapons leads you to the other two occupants in the room, most definitely unexpected and completely unfamiliar.

One is in rags, cowering, and whimpering, unrecognisable underneath filthy tangled hair that covers his face, and the other is in a prim suit marred only by blood and a bit of dirt, barely a single strand of dark hair atop his head out of place.

“Twinkletoes? What the hell are you doing here?!”

It’s Dean’s stupid, old nickname for you that breaks you out of your shock, a glare already falling onto your face with the practised ease of muscle memory.

“I’ll answer that when you tell me what the hell I just walked in on—” You come the rest of the way down the stairs, slower and more cautious now, with your gaze trained on the two at the other end of the table. It’s when the man in rags finally looks up from where he had been cowering and you catch a glimpse of his face, bloody and bruised but instantly familiar, that your words swell and catch in your throat.

“… Gabriel?”

The brothers in front of you heave a great, unanimous sigh, a look passed between them telling you that you’re about to be on the receiving end of a very ludicrous and typical Winchester story.

x x x

The first time you met Gabriel was not long after you’d gone through the biggest plot twist of your entire life. You’d gone to sleep in your bed, in your home, and woken up in a completely different part of the world, like some magician had snapped their fingers and you’d been the punchline of their very next trick. Much to your regret and distaste, some minor investigation revealed that where you’d woken up in the backseat of a car on the side of the road was in some state in the US. You’d sworn to yourself that you would never step foot here in your entire life and then, like God or whoever reigned above was laughing straight in your face, you’d just up and woken up in some random car in a place that made you long to be literally anywhere else.

Preferably somewhere where the occupants didn’t have such easy access to guns.

…like the two men who screamed and pointed theirs at you when you popped up from their backseat after they climbed into the cabin, fast food in their arms.

That was the first time you’d met the infamous hunting brothers, the Winchesters, and the first time of many you’d nearly died in their company.

It had taken a while for them to trust you, but after you inviting yourself onto a few of their cases and saving their asses a handful of times (ignoring the amount of times they saved yours because you forgot that almost every American slept with a gun beneath their pillow) they’d eventually taken you under their proverbial wing. It helped that you had literally nowhere else to go and nothing but the clothes on your back and a bare handful of belongings to your name. Once they figured out you weren’t hiding anything up your sleeve and that you’re just naturally annoying and a little dumb, they’d happily invited you to become an official-unofficial part of their little hunting gang. This means you’re also familiar with the hilarious angel they have in their back pocket. Castiel is a riot and one of the things you miss most when you go off to hunt on your own.

Having been around during the whole ordeal of Lucifer and Michael going through the motions of continuing their family spat on an apocalyptic scale, you too grew to be familiar with their youngest brother, the archangel Gabriel. Of course, while you’d been there for a fair amount of the angel-turned-trickster’s shenanigans, you weren’t there for the final appearance he made at a hotel in the middle of butt-fuck nowhere. In complete juxtaposition to the fact that you could count on one hand the amount of times you’d interacted properly with Gabriel, the sensations you experienced at the news of his sacrifice, his death, were unlike anything you’d ever felt before. You like to consider yourself much more emotionally healthy and with an emotional range far larger than that of a teaspoon and the Winchesters’, but that… that news was something that it had taken you months to recover from fully.

And even then, apparently your recovery wasn’t as complete as you’d thought, because hearing what the boys have told you now has made your eyes burn and your stomach turn into a nest of manic bees, your insides lined with flowers and pollen. You think, for a moment, that you just might be sick.

You’re sitting in the library, Gabriel having been taken to a room of his own by one Winchester while the other fills you in before they’re both reunited before you, and you’re in the kind of mood where you sort of want to just sit there and dissociate for a few hours, truthfully. You can tell you’re not going to get that opportunity though, so in the wake of the bombshell they’d just dropped on you about all you’d missed in the past few months—that they had apparently forgotten to tell you over the phone when you checked in occasionally— you do the next best thing you can think of for the moment.

Put it on the backburner, baby.

You massage your temple with your fingers as you lean your head into your hand, a sigh escaping through your nose. “See, this is why it feels like I have been brought on as a babysitter—I leave for a few months and you old men manage to dig up another almost-apocalypse and find and raise Lucifer’s kid?”

“Alright, first of all,” Dean whips out a finger to point at you, filling you with glee. You’ve barely been back a few hours and already you’re stepping back into your favourite “stir-the absolute-shit-out-of-Dean” pants. As always, he is almost pitifully quick to rise to the bait. “Old? Who are you calling old? Alright so maybe we have a few years on you but that’s just because you’re a toddler and w—”

“Dean,” Sam places a placating hand on his brother’s shoulder, a look that seems to be a mixture of amusement and exasperation crossing his features. “You’re making it too easy for her.”

The older Winchester pauses, turning to pin you with an accusing look. You smile, not even attempting to appear innocent. After staring at you for several long moments, Dean makes the ‘eyes-on-you’ gesture with his fingers before turning away, rolling the tension from his shoulders as he takes a seat across from you.

“You were gone for almost a year this time, did you have any luck, well, leaving?” Sam brings your attention back to him, the question dragging out a sigh that feels like it’s been dredged from the very depths of your being.

“No,” you answer, sounding somewhat petulant even to your own ears. “Why is it so hard to leave this god-forsaken country! I hate it here. I’m sick of trying to make a run for it and being zapped back into a swamp, or—or a pool at the top of a penthouse suite in the middle of some random city! It sucks balls.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Dean waves his hand, enjoying the dirty look you give him. “So you still haven’t found whatever purpose you’re meant to fulfil while here?”

You huff, shaking your head. “No. It’s been years and I still have no idea why I woke up here that day. Or why I can’t leave.”

Over the time you’ve spent with the Winchesters, a few things became apparent to the three of you about your stay here. One, it was indefinite. You’d discovered quickly that you are, quite literally, unable to leave. Every time you get close to escaping this country you black out and wake up back inside. Sometimes in a helpful place, sometimes…. Not.

Two, the three of you had thrown around and entertained the idea that maybe you’d been brought here for a reason, that like them maybe you’d been divinely allocated a role to play. But you’ve been through a lot with the Winchesters, whether in person or by association, and still…

You’re no closer to being able to leave and return from whence you came.

You have no idea why you’re here!

This is something that has really contributed to your temporary career as a hunter here. That isn’t to say that this profession isn’t something you were involved in before you came here, but you’ve really… you really dove into it, whether as a distraction or as an ongoing investigation as to what on earth was going to set you free of your tie to this place. A part of you thinks that each case you take on, each person or family you save and creature you slay might be the one reason that brought you here, and the one task that with its completion will grant you freedom. You’ve never been a fan of being caged; just because this one spans a grand total of 9.834 million square kilometres doesn’t make it any less of one.

This most recent expedition that led you to part from the Winchesters for such a long time was another of your failed attempts to leave. You think you’ve tried escaping at every possible point along the coastline and border by now, with a definite lack of success.

“Well, if it really is some divine intervention keeping you here, then it’s better if you just sit back and settle down, twinkletoes.” Dean huffs a laugh, leaning back in his chair with an accompanying creak from the wood. “Those divine types have proven to be… kind of assholes.”

You frown, but he isn’t saying anything you haven’t already thought. It’s part of why you’d settled so easily into hunting here, actually. ‘When in Rome…’, as they say. You’re familiar with the hunting grind and there is comfort in familiarity.

“Are you going to stay a while?” Sam asks, opening the first-aid box he’d first brought over when you’d settled down. Ah, right—you’d almost forgotten about the injury on your arm, despite the fact that you are still pressing a palm to it. You listen as he speaks, almost swearing you can detect a hint of hopefulness in his voice. “You still have a room here for you, of course. We haven’t touched anything inside.”

“Yeah, mostly because we didn’t wanna deal with the mess and the booby-trapped doors—” Dean’s under-the-breath mutter is cut off by your coo, a wide smile pulling your lips.

“Oh, you two missed me, didn’t you?” Instantly, you are successful in ruffling Dean’s feathers— Sam might take a bit more work, though. “I know I really light this dark, dingy place up but I didn’t know it was that bad without me! Ah, perhaps I will stay a while. You know, out of charity.”

“Sammy,” Dean says, beseeching. “It’s not too late—you hold her back and I’ll find her key. It’s not too cold, she’ll be alright outside.”

An appalled and affronted look slips onto your face and Sam has to clear his throat so that he doesn’t laugh and add to his brother’s torment.

“I’m not a misbehaving puppy,” you say, holding your arm out for Sam as he comes over and finally freeing your bloody hand. “Wait, unless you want me to be. Been broadening your horizons beyond animated tentacle porn have you, Deanie-bo-beenie?”

On cue, Dean’s face flushes light red, whether from anger or a brief spritz of embarrassment, only God knows. You can see Sam’s face grow tense from the effort of holding back noise in your peripheral as he tends to your arm.

“You know what? I’m better than this. I’m gonna let it go.” Dean rises from his chair, making a show of dusting off your metaphorical drama. His light eyes flick to you, squinting. “I’m tired; I have a date with my memory foam pillow and nice, warm, feather duvet and a good night’s rest, so goodnight. I hope your bed has bed bugs, twinkletoes, and I hope they bite.”

“I hope you sleep well too, Dean!” you call after him, deciding you’ll have to give him a break from the bullying tomorrow or else he’ll explode before you can have much fun. “Do you want me to come tuck you in?”

“No! Goodnight!”

His yell and disappearance down the hall is followed a few moments later by the familiar sound of a door slamming shut,

“That’s not very fair of you,” Sam announces, sounding strained and very much like he’s trying not to laugh lest Dean has an ear pressed to his door. “He’s too tired to fight back right now.”

“I know,” you answer, wincing as he wipes down the laceration on your bicep and cleans the blood away with an alcohol wipe. It burns, but it’s definitely not the most painful thing you have ever experienced. “I hadn’t seen you guys in so long, though. I couldn’t help myself.”

Sam simply snorts, reaching for the needle and thread to being stitching the skin back together, and you breathe harshly through your nose as you reach for another topic to distract yourself.

“Are the two—sorry, the three of you actually dads now? To… to Lucifer’s half-angel kid? I thought angels getting frisky with humans was, uh… illegal up in heaven.”

You feel rather than see Sam roll his eyes, your own pointedly directed away from your arm where he has begun to get to work. “It’s Lucifer, y/n, I don’t think he cares about what’s illegal up in heaven.”

You purse your lips—he makes a fair point. Honestly, you feel a little silly for questioning it. “Right, and he’s… trapped in some other dimension? An alternate world where the apocalypse really happened.”

“Yep,” Sam says, hitting a particularly painful spot with his needle. You hiss, giving him a glare.

“I wasn’t even gone a year! Just hearing all this shit is stressing me out so much, dude.” You sigh, attempting to adjust your position in the wooden chair without jostling your arm too much. Thankfully, practice has made Sam quick at his job and already he is almost done piecing you back together. He finishes up with a knot, snipping the thread and then placing a large bandage carefully over the wound. He dusts his hands once done, standing from where he was leaning against the table and proceeding to loom over you like a T-Rex.

“You’re blocking my light, bro,” you inform him, narrowly avoiding a subsequent good-natured smack to your good arm. “Damn, what the hell! Didn’t you take an oath or some shit? I’m your patient!”

“I was studying law, not medicine,” Sam retorts dryly. He turns to leave and put the first aid supplies away, his back facing you but not before you see how his lips twitch. “So your annoying ass is free game.”

“Maybe so,” you acquiesce, rising from your seat with a light grunt as you jostle your arm. You consider asking Sam where Castiel is, to see if you can get a hit of the good stuff and skip the healing process, but think better of it. You always feel a bit bad asking him to heal you, though you barely ever have to since he’s like a rabid mother hen the second he sees blood on any of you. “God, I’m beat. I didn’t think I could get any more tired than I was before, but as always catching up with you two has aged me a few years and now I’m just about as tired as you two are all the time.”

Sam doesn’t rise to the ‘old man’ bait you dangle in front of him—never really does, if you’re being honest; that’s mostly Dean’s vice— but he does offer you a smile that is unexpectedly sincere and fond.

“Go to bed, toddler,” he retorts, before continuing in a softer tone, “… It’s good to see you again, y/n. I’m glad you’re here. Dean and Mom are going out on a hunt in the next few days and I think you can really help with, uh… the whole Gabriel thing.”

For a moment, you don’t say anything. You’d sort of been trying to avoid thinking about the elephant in your mind, for the very same reason that makes your eyes burn once more. It hurts, a lot, thinking and imagining what he must have gone through at the hands of Asmodeus. It feels like your heart is going to tear itself to pieces in your chest from the sheer extent of your empathy and how terrible you feel for him. The Gabriel you saw cowering before you earlier is nothing like the confident feathery asshole you used to know.

Even having only seen him once, it’s enough to make you fearful of the possibility that… he might be too far gone to ever return to that last echo of his previous self.

“I’m not sure what I’ll even be able to do to help,” you respond, approaching the doorway to the hall with your bag in tow. You pause to finish what you’re saying, meeting Sam’s puppy-like gaze from across the room. “But I’ll try. It hurts to see him like that, so… I’ll stay a while, to do whatever I can.”

Sam’s answering thankful smile and nod is all you can ask for in response as you turn and head further into the bunker, dragging your bags back to the room you’d come to call your own over the years. Your gaze strays on the way to one of the doors that has a little note taped on saying, ‘please do not open suddenly or loudly’, undoubtedly the room that they have allocated to Gabriel for the time being. Heart heavy in your chest, you continue on down the hall and tear your gaze away.

You’re not sure how much you can do for him, but you hope you can do something.

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