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midas-or-khaos · 4 years

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Spirit, chapter 2

Ughhhhhhhh...waking up is shit. Ice sat in place for his heart, but waking up to these covers is amazing; so soft, like lamb wool or something and it’s all so WARM, like a 360 blanket draining away the frost in his marrow. Whatever was causing that gentle swaying was a life saver. Nice, gentle, swaying...

...Wait. Beds don’t rock, something’s happened. Ohhhhhhhh shit he fainted yesterday hadn’t he? Who (with the exception of trainee surgeons and Victorian women in novels) faints?

People who meet things that don’t exist apparently, ‘cause last time anyone checked giants don’t fucking exist! SOD IT! Ok, calm down, level head, this isn’t the time to go crazy ‘cause otherwise he’s fucked. Just breathe and think it through, what happened? He fainted for the first time in his life, and is now in the possession of whoever found him. Bright side, he was now warm and healing his busted feet, so if a chance to escape occurred, the odds were more stacked in his favour. His head rattled, was it all against him, or was his head pain something else? Concentrate. Other side, the giants could pull him out of whatever cranny they’d stuffed him into at any point and crush him. One option then, he had to try and escape unnoticed before anything happened.

Ok what was the environment Bill was working with? Through the fuzzy walls, the muttering from before was still going on (just quite a bit louder, though not painfully). The language used wasn’t anything recognisable, even the sounds seemed completely left field with the occasional use of whistling on certain words. No ability to communicate, great. Made sense now why whoever shouted back when he called out just said ‘argh’. Bill couldn’t distract them with bullshitting if he was spotted, so that meant extra stealth. He could do that, but how? They’re awake and aware so they’ll notice him moving around wherever he was. Especially if he was close to the body of whichever giant he was attached to. No knife though, so he couldn’t make a hole and slip out. He’d have to force his way out the top, but take it slow.

Lightly patting around in the dark, the smooth wool came to a dip above his head. There’s the bitch. Trying with a hand first, a few fingers managed to slip through the sphincter. Chattering he hadn’t noticed had been there started up at at a whole new level. Chilly, ok, but not too hard. Trying again, the whole hand pushed through, frost lapping at exposed finger tips. Freedom, but dangerous freedom. If there was no shelter once he got out, he’d be back to square 1, freezing his balls off and potentially dying from exposure. However, there was still no change from anyone on the outside, so coast was clear. Better to take a chance. Taking the second hand, it snugly fit in beside the other; now came the tricky part. The angle wasn’t the best, but with all the might he could muster from string bean muscles (and shot glass worth of excitement induced adrenaline), the clenched entrance came apart, and a blinding spotlight snuck through. It’s just there!

On shaking thighs trying to keep balance, the brunette stuck his upper half out, almost instantly a gush threw Bill around like a daisy hanging on for dear life to its stem; the bittersweet outside. As the whoosh past, the opportunity to look round dame at last. The boy wasn’t sure what was worse: seeing nothing, or seeing reality.

He was nowhere, adrift a sea of swaying spines that rolled and tumbled for an eternity all round, in a boat he had no control of, and had no idea of its intentions or direction. Even if he were to escape, there was nowhere he could hide. No shelter he could find. No experience on how to find food. He was as dead out there (he found with shuddering breaths, unsure if it was the chill, or his own rising panic) as he was in the pockets of his captors. There was no way to find home. Jesus...

...his captors had been awfully quiet...

“Doyo?”

Throwing his head back, the boy’s blue orbs grew wide and doe like as a new face held what little concentration he could get from himself in place. Younger, much younger, around mid 20’s? But he held similar features to the older man, so maybe a relative. Wait was he talking to Bill? A shiver, CRAP, he’d been spotted trying to escape!

“Wwwwwwwha?” Was all that could dribble out of the O of his lips.

Curious buttercup coloured irises were hidden by furrowed brows.

“Doyo...deskja jo?”

“I, errrr, em. I’m sorry, I literally don’t understand a word you’re saying, but pleeeeaaaasssse.” He reasons with bated breath, “Pleeeaaassseee don’t hurt me.”

No reply this time, just an abrupt stop, throwing him forward. Rising up rollercoastered his stomach down. A full-shadowed jaw was coming closer, he was about to get eaten, a gruesome death.

“OH FUCK PLEASE DON’T-”

Smush

“-ww...wha?”

The giant pressed Bill to his forehead, holding him there. What the hell was he doing? The heat radiating off was like lava, steaming off his fingertips whilst the wind at his back felt that much worse for it. His holder turned back and called out.

“Sit mayert. Demnot doing great.”

What was that?

The youthful face looked back, the cords of his throat tight and bulging, like he was holding his breath. Did he just switch to English? What he imagining that? HOW WAS THAT POSSIBLE! HOW WAS ANY OF THIS POSSIBLE?!

He was losing his mind, and his body. Limp all round, this unusual unresponsiveness was feeling less like fright, and more like what little heat was being sapped out once more. Bill couldn’t go on, the icy ache was taking over all thought.

A hand like fallen tree descended in like it was nothing, plucking up his upper body and stuffing it back inside his baking prison (which was doing little to warm him truly) and sealed the top shut once more, footsteps becoming thunderous all round. They were moving fast. Fuck, he couldn’t stay awake, the heat was a lullaby, and no matter how much his mind wanted to fight, in the end the body submitted.

...This was getting ridiculous. Where was he this time? Well, at least the supposedly unmoving ice in his body was shifting its way out again, because now he could feel his fingers and toes. Opening his eyes, he was greeted to a pointed roof of what looked like thatch, only it was some ridiculous amount of meters up above to accommodate the gigantic residents. The whole room in fact smelt earthy, walls made of waxed wood and thatching, with something that looked like clay or mud plugging in holes and leaving the air tasting of dust, however non of the elements had any chance of getting in so win some lose some.

Sitting up, a groan threw him back down, a migraine putting him back in his place. Oh the joys of feeling like life’s punching-bag. Something foul smelling and wet suddenly smacked his feet, before trailing over and over his legs. Ew. Shifting to try and pull away, the thing only came back with more vigour, going for the whole body, mo matter how much he tried to pull away. Whatever it was eventually pulled back, and heavy pants came from above. Like that...of a dog. Uncurling, the wide smile, stout snout and wide face was unmistakable. It looked like some kind of Tibetan mastiff, if only some 100x bigger. It seemed friendly though, and that smile was too wonderful to hold a grudge against, it was doing its best to take care of him. Despite being slobbered on thanks to its exuberance, Bill couldn’t help but coo and call it back, wanting to stroke that lion mane ginger hair. Probably felt like silk. The dog was all too happy to oblige, short nose leading in to nuzzle his middle fondly. This was a better way to wake up, lying on a bear-like dog, being snuggled.

“Thanks mate. You’re lovely, aren’t you? I wish I had a dog like you back at Uni, so I would always have someone nice to come home to.” He slurred, draping over the good boy’s snout. A chuff was replied.

How had he become acclimatised to this level of insane so quickly, that he didn’t question or care about lying down with an enormous dog? Had he really given up trying to comprehend, or had his subconscious decided to flood his systems with enough serotonin to not panic himself into oblivion? Because consciously, he still saw this day as maddening. Giants were real, he was tiny, and he was making a bed on a dog. To think, he’d thought leaving his mother to stay on the other side of the country was a big deal. That managed to put a bit of a sour note in his mouth, eyes dulled as he concentrated on his mother. What he wouldn’t do to have her back. Bill’s poor mother must be losing her mind with fright, and in all honesty, he wanted her back more than anything in this world that made less and less sense. Just the sight of familiarity, the smell of floral unconditional love, and the touch of a warm hand.

“Hey.”

...reality made no sense. It sounded like buttercup eyes from before.

“Rooster, you’re not still Ill, are you?”

Rooster?

Not bothering to turn and get up to only let pain drag him down (plus Doge, as the boy decided to coin his new friend, was comfortable), Bill chose to instead groan to the air.

“My name’s not rooster.”

There was a small shift from behind. A new set of breaths, much lighter than the dog’s filtered lightly across his back. He was so close, all that nonchalantly was being replaced by adrenaline. He could grab and control all he wanted. Stay calm.

“Did...you just reply?” Came a stuttered response.

“Surprise. I don’t know either, but I can understand you now.” How very monotone of him, good.

There was a pause on Buttercup’s behalf, so he chose to carry on.

“I think it started when I was pressed to your forehead-” snapped out.

“-You remembered that? I’m surprised, I thought the hypothermia had driven you out of your mind.”

“Hypothermia?” Was that what was messing his head round? To think he’d been that vulnerable.

“Yes. Didn’t you notice?”

“I’ve never had it, so I wouldn’t know.”

A light touch, maybe a finger, grazed his spine. Trying not to shiver is harder than it looks.

“You feel warmer to the touch Rooster, so it’s probably gone.”

There it was again. “Why do you keep calling me rooster?” That may have been a bit too forward. Luckily, Butter seemed to take it in stride.

“Sorry, your determination to live when you were faced with arid land was like that of a rooster. Stubborn. Well, that and the hair. You were tenacious enough to outwit death.”

Don’t really think it was tenacity mate. Looks more like it was luck. It also looked like his luck was out.

Multiple rough finger tips touched both sides. That was the last straw. Unable to stay calm and pretend not to be terrified, Bill let out a shout of “no!”, but the hand had already scooped under his squirming body and lifted him again.

“Shhhh shhhhh shhhh. It’s ok, you’re ok Rooster. Where’s all that bravery from before?”

It was never there, it was all a facade crumbling like dust in the wind. He wasn’t brave, never was, always too afraid to speak up. All of his so called bravery was simple survival tactics that had failed him miserably. He was stupid, and impulsive, getting so caught up in one direction of thought that he never saw the consequences. It was all go, and less stop and think. And now, that immediacy to react had made him scared of the same person that had saved him from hypothermia.

“I’m sorry.” Whispered out.

The hand lifted the boy to a scruffy cheek, sweet almond-shaped eyes looking over adoringly as a curtain of thick, onyx locks cascaded around and just let him be in that moment.

“Don’t be. You’re scared, that’s alright. I would be too if I were picked up by strangers. Let’s get you some food and you can tell me your name. Mine’s Ekashiba.”

“I’m Bill.” He could already tell he was going to forget that name quickly.

At last the brunette was pulled away, feeling better. It wasn’t often that Bill enjoyed close contact, hating to be touched by others (even his own family to a point, though it wasn’t personal), but for a reason even he couldn’t comprehend, Ekashiba’s touch wasn’t as pervasive and unwanted as usually all things were. It was...nice.

As the boy was held at waist level to the man, he couldn’t help but notice in fact, all of Ekashi spoke of warmth, literally. He was wearing some sort of monochrome robe, like a Kimono but made of thick wool, with a similar sort of linen version peaking underneath. On top of that, a deep crimson sleeveless robe and finishing it all off, ring earrings and a bead necklace. But no pockets, Bill noticed with a confused head swivel. How was he carried here then?

Trotting through connecting dome-shaped rooms, the heat started to permeate the air and a sweat was building. There in the centre of the room, a wide birthed fire pit made of sand, surrounded by what looked like the whole family sitting on the raised wooden, tatami matted floor, cooking. They were all chatting amongst themselves, not noticing or uncaring that Buttercup had entered. It was a much larger family than his own, with both grandparents all the way to a kid around 12. 9 of them in total, including the familiar bearded man. Here in the light, the resemblance was striking. Same squat button nose, same sunny eyes, hell even the same thin, bowed lips. Just the addition of crows feet and full beard.

“Dad, Rooster’s woken up.”

The man in question looked up.

“Situ mitsku do toyuma?”

What? Why couldn’t he understand them! For god sake, why’d he have to go through this song and dance twice?

“What did he say?”

Buttercup shot a look down, wide eyed.

“You can’t understand him, but you can understand me?”

“I don’t know! This is all new to me too!”

“Nea...wataki mo?”

“Yes Dad, everything’s fine. It’s just for some reason the little one can only understand me-”

“-Oi, dickhead! I’m 18, not 10-“

“-And we don’t know why.”

The Dad seemed to ponder this for a while, catching the attention of the other members that weren’t cooking (grandparents, wife and the other couple). It got quite heated at one point, and Bill was only managing to be ok with all the frighteningly boisterous shouting because he was still steaming about the earlier comment. Ekashi looked like a cat trying to focus in on one target among a flock of birds, barely keeping on track, and throwing the odd comment here and there.

“Are you sure?” “Doesn’t seem likely.” “I think we need to-“

This was like GCSE French all over again. Tidbits of understanding and the rest a sea of bollocks. Was this good news or bad?

“Buttercup, please, I just want to know what’s going on.”

“Buttrvrup?”

Crap. The brunette forgot only he called him that behind his back.

“That’s not the important bit, what’s going on?”

“They’re trying to decide what you are and if you’re safe to have round.”

“...but I’m like the size of a mouse, why would I be unsafe to have around?”

“They fear you may be a Monster.”

Of course. Why didn’t Bill see that coming.

“...fair enough.” What kind of an answer was that?! He should’ve made more of an effort to try and change the family’s mind through Ekashi.

The conversation just kept going on and on in circles, but one member of the debate was starting to take notice in the boy’s mind. The grandmother, hunched, skin like cracked earth and silvery. She hadn’t said a thing the whole time, just stared at him and watched his hawkish lay with beady eyes. Like she was debating his worth just through observation. Was he doing alright? Was he making a good impression.

“Boy, lift up your shirt.”

Holy shit. “Y-you speak English?” Why didn’t she say anything this entire time!

“Please, do as I ask.”

Everything fell silent, save for the bubbling wok of oil, and everyone came round to see what she was talking about. So silent, the anticipation was cutting.

“...ok.” Taking both hands to the edge of the roughed up t-shirt, the boy himself was reluctant to see what was there, but it had to be done. Putting up resistance as much as he could, shaking hands lifted the edge with nervous twitched rising. There was a black strip. No way. Lifting more the strip became strips, till he got the lip of the edge into his mouth. It was a symbol, like a kanji. A perhaps dreadful realisation, she’d seen this before.

“As I thought. The sign of the heavens. Oki, you can’t harm the child.”

“Kamita odo?”

She didn’t break eye contact once.

“...because that, is your son’s new spirit.”

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gabrielxreader · 6 years

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Hellish Angel

Request: Hi! I love your blog! Would you be able to a demon!reader one? Where she and Gabe flirt but she thinks she's not good enough for him because she's a demon

A/N: I don’t think this is exactly what the requester had in mind, but I think I still followed the request pretty well so I hope it’s still liked. :)

Author: Holly

Warnings: Some mild language, a little bit of canon-typical violence

Characters: Y/N, Gabriel, Sam, Dean

Word Count: 4,095

Y/N = Your Name

You weren’t really the “typical” demon. Sometimes it was okay, sometimes it was annoying. Most of the time, the hunters you helped out pissed you off, but at least you liked that they felt empathy. The Winchesters in particularly were the least upsetting, since they’d learned not to stab you in the chest whenever you happened to come to them. The first few meetings had been kind of rough.

“Maybe it was a ghoul,” Sam suggested while you lazed around, crashed on Dean’s bed just to piss off the older one. You tossed some popcorn up and snapped your jaw around it when it came back down to your mouth, delighting in the soft crunch.

“Not a ghoul,” Dean denied, giving one of your feet (which were hanging off the side of the bed) a rough shove to the side. The popcorn missed your mouth that time and you just let it lay in his sheets. Served him right. “No signs of them anywhere. Tell you what, though, that place was soaked with sulfur.”

“Yeah, yeah, blame the demons just because we’re warped and evil.” You complained and sat up. “Couldn’t’ve been demons. I couldn’t even get in.” Sam and Dean had gotten to investigate the crime scene without you, despite having asked for your backup, because there was a barrier keeping you from even getting inside.

A rush of power made you shudder. Demons were attuned to angels because they were everything that you weren’t, but you’d never felt like this before. Castiel wasn’t that strong, and he certainly didn’t intimidate you with his tree-hugging, human-friendly attitudes.

“Anti-demon warding, sugarplum. Keeps the naughty ones from having too much fun where they shouldn’t be going.”

You stood up from the bed and turned around to look towards the hotel door. Without it opening, an angel had found its way in. You narrowed your eyes – green canvas jacket, dirty-cuffed jeans, soft-looking blond hair and amber eyes. You didn’t let the vessel trick you, though. You looked pretty good yourself, when you were just counting the humanoid body you used to get around in. The sense of grace pouring out of the angel wasn’t painful, but it was alarming. That much grace had the ability to smite you into the floor in less than a second, and your survival sense told you to get the hell out.

“Well, there’s your extra backup, boys.” You put the popcorn down on the nightstand between the twin-sized beds. “There’s no need for me here any longer.”

You were just about to teleport yourself away before the angel snapped his fingers. Dean put up a hand quickly, flinching on impulse. “We don’t need any of the theatrics this time, short stack,” he warned.

“It’s no biggie. C’mon, boys!” The angel grinned at them, wide and confident, and sly enough to remind you of a serpent. “You know me.”

“That’s why we don’t want the theatrics,” Sam muttered.

He sauntered closer. You tried again to teleport, but found your feet still in the same place they’d been seconds ago. It didn’t take a genius to figure out that the angel could identify you as a demon just by looking at you – the real you, the one living inside the vessel of a long-gone human girl.

“And who’s this naughty little thing?” He just about purred.

“Gabriel, stop it,” Sam objected, closing his laptop and scowling at you both. “Y/N, that’s Gabriel, the archangel.” You tensed at the title and the archangel definitely noticed – his smirk widened and he tilted his head cockily.

Dean rebelliously glared at the angel, the entity that embodied the polar opposite of you. “Arch-douche, more like.”

“So we have another demon pal now?” Gabriel crossed his arms, feigning amusement to cover up what you suspected was suspicion. “I say, why not? It went great the first time, didn’t it, Sambo?”

You recoiled at the mere reference to Ruby. “Oh, please,” you spat, disgusted. “I’m not that insane mega-bitch. Letting out an archangel to play? Teaching a hunter a better way to kill us? I may be a demon, but at least I’m sane.” To bother Dean and try not to seem so intimidated, you looked at the older brother and winked. “Relatively speaking, at least.”

Gabriel observed you critically for a second, then announced, “Anyone who Dean-o fantasizes about stabbing is a pal of mine. Until they try to take my strawberry syrup, in which case, they die.” The glint in his eyes was handsome and attractive in the way that you liked shiny jewelry, but you knew better than to take it at face value.

So you didn’t. “I wouldn’t want to cross an archangel. Like I said.” You tapped your head. “Sane.”

So… about your sanity? You clearly didn’t have it, because a few months later, your best friends were a hunter who used to kill demons (like you) and drink their blood and an archangel who could literally smite you into complete and utter nothingness without breaking a sweat. You reviewed your priorities a few times over the year and this was the time when you realized that you, like everyone else in the crazily messed up world of fighting the supernatural, must’ve lost your mind at some point. It just didn’t matter very much, though, because it didn’t stop you from hanging out with who you liked.

Gabriel had become someone whom you shared popcorn with. And candy, when he snapped it up, but usually you had popcorn with extra melted butter on top. You had a little saucer cup of melted butter, like seafood restaurants served with lobster platters, and you kept dipping your popcorn into it. It was a lot of butter, and you probably would’ve stopped by now if it didn’t bother Sam so much. He looked disgusted.

“What about a witch?” Sam suggested. Dean sent him a dirty glower for even suggesting his least favorite opponents.

“Nah,” you answered before putting another piece of popcorn in your mouth. “I’d have sensed if there were another demon around to power witchcraft.”

Gabriel took the bowl of popcorn away from between the two of you and put it on the other side of his lap. “But I would’ve sensed it first,” he established, taking a piece of popcorn and aiming for Dean’s head.

“How could you sense anything when you’re so busy being smothered in your own ego?” You retorted, teleporting swiftly to his other side to steal the popcorn back. If he really wanted you not to have it, you knew you wouldn’t, but you still felt like your victory had a little bit of meaning to it.

“Shtriga, then. Something that doesn’t rely on a demon to get its magic power?” Dean chucked a TV remote at Gabriel, who just caught it before it hit his head and handed it to you. You flipped the channel to something more interesting than that stupid, stupid hospital drama Dean liked. The hunter turned the TV off with the controls at the bottom and continued his thought. “Is there a record of this happening before in this state?”

“Not that I’ve found in the public records or on the Internet,” Sam reported, “Except for something seventy miles away, forty years ago, that doesn’t even match the MO.” He sulked.

“Ugh, you two are slow.” Gabriel complained, wrinkling his nose. “How long have you been in this fleabag roach trap? Three days? Four?”

“Four,” you confirmed, sticking your tongue out at Dean.

“Please don’t tell me you’ve been staying here, too.” Gabriel gave you a look and shifted over as if staying in the hotel had transferred its filth to you.

“Oh, please, I’d rather spend the night in a Chicago bus station.”

Gabriel snickered. Dean crossed his arms. “Hey, Thing One and Thing Two, can you stop being so high-and-mighty? We can’t teleport, jerkfaces.”

You and Gabriel shared a look with each other and shook your heads. “We can’t stop,” you answered, and Gabriel elaborated with plenty of snark that your feet were glued to your figurative pedestals… kind of like his and Sam’s had been in the Japanese gameshow. Both of you snickered and exchanged a fist-bump.

Fight scenes always look so much cooler on TV than they actually are in person. In reality, they move too quickly to follow along with what everyone’s doing. In TV, the audience sees a shot of one character throwing a punch, and the other dodging a kick, and it’s assumed that they’re happening at the same time. In the real world, things don’t move that slowly, and you can’t figure out, Sam’s over here and he needs help, but also I need to be right here and move my arm in this way to avoid being stabbed in the face.

Being a demon definitely had some advantages, though, and in a big fight like the one you were in, you enjoyed using them. A nest of vampires had started terrorizing a small, rural town that didn’t have enough police to figure out what to do, much less actually take them on, so that was where you, the Winchesters, and Gabriel came in. The angel said he was just bored, but you weren’t sure he wasn’t trying to make sure Dean and Sam didn’t die. He’d promised Castiel they’d be fine, and although Gabriel could easily resurrect them or heal any serious injuries, he’d have to deal with his brother’s disapproving stares if anything got that far.

You turned around on your heel, slammed the toe of your boot into a vamp’s shin, and grabbed his wrist over your head to push his arm away from you. The knife went to the side and the vampire twisted, turning and falling, and you lifted your knee up to slam him in the chest on his way down. You barely turned around before you raised a hand furiously, and another vampire went flying telekinetically into a wall, crashed through the sheetrock, and fell into the room on the other side.

The one you’d kicked and kneed was already getting up again. You rolled your sleeves up and flipped around the big hunting knife you had gracefully confiscated.

The fight was only a couple of more minutes, and you ended up taking out twice as many vampires as the human hunters had. It may have helped that you were able to use your powers to keep them held in one place while you picked them off. After you stopped hearing growling from the overgrown mutts, you dropped the knife and wiped your hands off on your jeans.

“Sammy!” Dean yelled from somewhere else in the house. It was a very old property, and in some places the floor was caving, but it was also a large property and the vampires had managed to split your group up.

Sam’s response let Dean relax. “I’m good!”

Neither of them asked about you or Gabriel. You turned back to the archangel, who had been idly standing by the doorway and watching with boredom. The first several times he had done this, you’d been irritated. Then you’d realized that he was an archangel, and if he joined the fight, then everyone else would be a moot point. Sam and Dean felt useful when they killed the monsters, so Gabriel let them, just like a parent would let their kids do something so they’d feel accomplished, even though an adult could’ve done it much faster.

You raised an arm to point before you said anything. “Behind-!”

The vampire lunging for the blond’s throat was halted when Gabriel gave you a knowing smirk. He snapped his fingers and the vampire seized. Its eyes glowed golden and orange, like it was burning from the inside out, and the remains crumbled to dust on the floor.

Not even you could do something like that. You’d known he was powerful, but… damn. This was the first time you’d seen him exercise that, and the destruction he’d caused without so much as blinking had you vanishing from the hunting party before anyone saw the shiver that went up your back. Now you fully understood what it meant when you called him an archangel.

Knowing what Gabriel was had always been on the back of your mind, but having it shoved in your face the way Gabe had once shoved a banana cream pie in Dean’s was like getting doused in very, very cold holy water. Every time you saw the Winchesters and Gabriel after that became more stressful.

One day, you were touching up your vessel’s lipstick (there’s no harm in enjoying looking pretty) but then Gabriel teased you about how you were already plenty noticeable already. You knew he hadn’t been trying to make a mean comment because Gabriel was many things but subtle wasn’t one of them. That didn’t stop you from suddenly, uncomfortably realizing that Gabriel didn’t just see your vessel – he saw the real you, too. The one inhabiting the vessel, the twisted, demonic “soul” inside.

You stopped and put your lipstick away slowly. You didn’t like the idea that Gabriel saw what you really were. It was easier with humans. Sam and Dean couldn’t see how ugly and warped you had become at Hell’s hands. They just saw the body you had picked up for a ride. No matter how you manipulated that body, with clothes or bright red lipstick or heels you could literally kill with, Gabriel was always going to see the twisted blackness within you.

It was hard to feel confident, knowing what you knew and feeling about yourself the way that you did. You couldn’t respond to his teasing. You couldn’t reply seriously, because that would give way too much information, and you couldn’t reply in jest, because it wasn’t something you could take lightly.

You’d been flirting with the archangel regularly, but now you were speechless; not because he’d won, but because you finally realized you had no business doing it, and you threw in the towel.

The Winchesters were aggravating, especially Dean. Where Sam could accept being wrong, Dean would scarcely admit to fault, or to blame, or to being incorrect – and he still had yet to apologize for stabbing you (twice). The last thing you ever wanted to do was play into Dean’s insufferable ego. You would never live it down. And you didn’t want to validate his poor manners – even Crowley had better manners than Dean, for Hell’s sake. You were ninety percent sure Lucifer had had better manners than Dean (when he wasn’t snapping his fingers and making people explode, at least).

The point was that you were never going to tell Dean that he had been just a little bit right when he’d said that going in alone was a bad idea, and that maybe you should’ve sat this one out. You’d thought he was just being his normal cocky self and liked the idea of getting rid of you for a while, but he had a point, you reflected, while you were pinned to the wall by your vessel’s throat and what felt like a brick wall of angelic Grace. Angels would hesitate to kill the Winchesters, but they would love the chance to kill a demon and they wouldn’t think twice.

It was kind of pathetic. You could survive Team Free Will for months on end, but not this stupid little cherub with a baby face and a literal child’s body. Even you thought that was skeevy. If it were a demon, fine. Demons are awful, blah, blah, blah. Angels, though, get consent first, and manipulating a kid into throwing their life away went against everything angels wanted humans to think about them, and that was a particular kind of disgusting.

The little Hispanic girl (twelve at most) raised the hand that wasn’t trying to crush your larynx. “It’s been a long time since I got to do this,” she rasped, and maybe some of Dean’s gallows humor was actually rubbing off on you, because such a grave sentence coming from such a non-imposing little brat almost made you laugh.

The force of Grace that had been holding you in place was suddenly lifted. You cherished the look of shock and sudden fear on the angel’s face in the split second it took you to disappear from under their hand and transport yourself halfway across the room, well out of throat-grabbing distance. The powerless angel looked up as the lights flickered and blew, sparks raining down on both of you.

While the angel looked terrified by the much stronger power flooding the building, you were somewhat comforted. You recognized it, and you knew you were safe with it. The other angel being so horribly undermined suggested something different where she was concerned.

The little angel’s eyes widened as she looked back at you, and then over your shoulder. You stepped aside to make a clear path between her and Gabriel, and the archangel stepped forward like a lion on the prowl. You were kind of smug.

“What did you do?” He demanded, sounding contemptuous and furious in that calm, quiet way that could make even a god shake in their boots. “Heal her mother if she gave her consent? Feed into the protective angel bullcrap?” Gabriel sneered and flicked his hand. The angel opened her mouth and raised a hand to her chest, struggling to breathe. You watched with interest, knowing that an archangel’s rage was something very few beings would ever live to tell about.

The angel fell to her knees and the hem of the girl’s cutesy sundress got dirty. Her eyes glowed a bright, bright, pale blue that made you flinch and move further back. You hadn’t known angels could be exorcised out of their vessels, but that was what seemed to be happening. To protect yourself from the Grace, you shielded your eyes, but despite the bright flash that followed as the angel was banished up to Heaven, you never felt an explosion of heat or holy power. Gabriel protecting you, you figured.

“What about the kid?” You asked when the light had faded and the child laid limply on the ground. Crossing your arms, you tried not to acknowledge that you’d developed what seemed to be a moral compass since you started running with the Winchesters. “Did it kill her?”

Gabriel stared down at the girl for a second, then shook his head. “She’ll be fine. I’ll take her home.”

After another moment of silence, you rubbed your neck and realized you owed him some gratitude. You’d been bacon for a few minutes there. You were a strong demon, but angels were just stronger. There was a reason they were fearsome. “Thank you.”

“Ah, well.” Gabriel held up a hand and gamely snapped his fingers. The body of the child disappeared and you guessed that when she woke up, she’d be in her bed at home, or maybe in a hospital with memory loss if he didn’t feel like tampering with the parents’ heads. “Next time someone tries to exorcise my girlfriend, they won’t get so lucky.”

Girlfriend? You took a quick, startled look around, but you were still the only one there. An archangel had just called you his girlfriend. That had to be wrong, on so many levels. Even at Gabriel’s worst, he was still an archangel, delivering justice with the full might of heavenly wrath. You were just a demon. A sick, twisted soul, who died in the Great War and let yourself be corrupted by monsters in the hundred years since.

You couldn’t be the girlfriend of an archangel. You were hardly a suitable girlfriend for anyone. Your feelings hurt and your head spinning, you were out of there before you even made the choice to leave. It was always primal with demons, or so Dean said – everything about fight or flight, personal gain, bloodlust. Well, for you, your best option was flight.

You should’ve known that there wasn’t really anywhere for you to hide, not if he really wanted to find you. It seemed like he did. He gave you about an hour to yourself and then, bam, he was up in your space, invading the quiet privacy of a peaceful cabin you’d found in the Colorado mountains. It was just so… unlike Hell. Regardless of where demons came from, Hell was hell, and there’s a reason demons are always trying to escape.

Gabriel stood behind your reclining chair while you stared at the fire burning in the hearth. The flames crackled and it reminded you of the kind of violent power that demons had. That you had. Angels were more like water. They could be incredibly destructive, but water also allowed for life in a way that fire didn’t. Just like fire and water, you were very, very aware that getting too close to the angel could hurt you, and maybe even extinguish you completely. Just because your soul was a repulsive husk of a human’s didn’t mean that you didn’t want to protect yourself. You shrank back at the idea of losing everything.

“I take it that was a breakup,” he eventually said, his voice cool and composed. “Suppose it’s better than getting a drink thrown in my face.”

“We weren’t together,” you mumbled, looking down at your hands. You liked your vessel’s hands. They were a good way of avoiding looking at people when you didn’t want to.

“I thought we had something. Was I wrong?”

You almost wanted to nod, but you had felt it. You had felt the potential. There was potential to have something, to become something good, but it was scary, and it was wrong, and things that were scary didn’t usually last very long. Especially not in the world of monsters and hunters.

“We couldn’t,” you responsibly tried to reason. The voice that came out of your mouth was quiet and soft-spoken, barely recognizable to you as your own. “We would never last. We’re not even the same species.” You snorted. If you were baring all, then hey, go big or go home. “Nowhere near the same league.”

Gabriel moved forward and stood beside your chair. He looked down at you. “This is because you’re a demon?” His tone was indignant and exasperated, and that was the last thing you had expected. You looked up quickly to his irritated face. “I’d kinda noticed. The fact that you’re hellspawn doesn’t matter to me, obviously, you stupid idiot.”

Huffily, you narrowed your eyes. “Oh, thanks. I feel so much better now that I’ve been insulted.” Your sarcasm dripped from your words thickly.

“What’s the point in judging by angel or demon, anyway?” He continued, starting to rant impatiently. “Half the angels have forgotten that we’re supposed to be the good guys and just kill whenever they feel like. There are demons now who are more trustworthy than angels. You’re a better person than hundreds of my brothers and sisters! Times change, people change, the status quo always changes, even in Heaven, and you want to act like everything is still in black and white? Haven’t you learned anything from this apocalypse?”

Interrupting him took courage when he was this upset, but you did it anyway and trusted that if he actually cared about you, you would be safe. “I’m better than angels?” You asked skeptically, snorting. You found that extremely difficult to believe, what with how horrific you knew you must look beneath your vessel.

Gabriel’s spiel was broken. He put one of his hands over yours on the arm of the couch and got on his knees, looking up to you intensely. “You’re not any lesser because of what you are. You didn’t do this to yourself. It was done to you. You don’t let it define you. You may be hellish, but you’re a hellish angel to me, and I mean that in the way the humans use it, not in the way that we know it to be.”

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