alexa, play candyshop (bass boosted) || 07
pairing: gabriel x reader genre: soulmate au, canon divergent around s13, hurt/comfort, humour, future smut (probs) wc: 6.6k rating: sfw warnings: none really. unless you count reader's lore drop ig notes: a surprise to both of us that I'm back so soon HAHA it hasn't even been 12 months since the last one!! imagine that
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.
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It’s been a week since you washed his hair, and every time you have caught sight of the glossy curls atop Gabriel’s head since, you have been filled with an immense sense of satisfaction. You’re proud of the job you did, but mostly you’re proud of the fact he let you do it.
If someone had told you when you returned to the bunker almost a month ago that the Gabriel you saw then would allow you to help him with his hair, and spend time in the vicinity of others willingly, you’d have told them they were dreaming. It’s pretty astounding the difference between the shaken archangel that had arrived that very day, and the one you glimpse skulking about the bunker now, following the scent of bickering, trouble, and caramel sweets in the air.
Admittedly, he still isn’t speaking all that much —a great shock to anyone who knew him previously, and is fully aware of how hard it was to shut him up back then— but you’ve noted some observable progress in that regard, even if some of the incidents that come to mind have been poorly timed and resulted in a bulging blood vessel on Dean’s forehead. You’re probably not the best person to consult on that though, considering you’re very familiar with that blood vessel and have made it appear on numerous occasions yourself. You’ve considered naming it more than once, but haven’t ever been able to settle on a name that seemed suitable enough.
Back to the topic at hand, Gabriel has made more progress than you expected for this timeframe and how traumatised he had been. Part of that you can probably attribute to the fact he isn’t human, which you seem to forget more than you’d like to admit while he is wandering around low on grace, and therefore heals at a different rate than a human might, even mentally and emotionally. Whatever it is that is responsible for the accelerated recovery, you’re thankful even if you find yourself a bit wary at the same time. The last thing you want is for him to be skipping through the steps and not processing things as much as he should, but with so many variables in the mix it is hard to tell what’s normal in order to compare him against it. Therefore, you have resolved to just go off of what you can observe, and adjust accordingly. Adaptability is one of your strong suits, after all!
What’s kind of embarrassing about it all though, is just how often your thoughts are straying to him these days. It was more understandable earlier when he was in a rougher state, but now that he seems to have stabilised somewhat you might have expected him to take up less residence in your mind. Yet there he is, living rent free and haunting your inner monologue.
Unfortunately you cannot escape the wayward thoughts reaching in his direction, even now as you are out and about on the streets of the closest “city” to the bunker, actively looking for a cafe that doesn’t smell of burnt beans. The quality of coffee, it seems, is something you took for granted all that time ago. You didn’t realise there would be such a difference in taste, let alone overall quality, on the other side of the world. The shock to your system shortly after you were first zapped here back then was a cruel one, and you’ve yet to recover.
Genuinely, if you think about it too much you’ll be too sad to drink coffee for a week. You wish the addiction to caffeine was one you developed after your random relocation, because then you wouldn’t be grieving the taste that you’ve yet to find replicated perfectly here.
You digress, the point was that even while on the hunt for coffee that won’t make you unreasonably sad, you can’t help but spare a thought for the archangel back in the bunker. Like, what is he doing now? Is he still perched in the library behind a bookshelf, listening to Sam and Dean fight about their diets like he was when you left? Has anything happened that may have stalled his progress? Is he getting along with his nephew? Jack had expressed to you quietly the other night that he wished to grow closer with his uncle. You hope he has been able to make some progress on that front.
“Excuse me.”
You jump, lurching out of the way as an older lady with a heavy scowl and an even heavier bag comes marching by you at the speed of light, leaving in her wake only the trailing smell of lavender, soap, and…. protein powder? You watch her nearly take out another pedestrian down the street, flabbergasted; you hadn’t even heard her coming, which is an achievement considering the chunky-heeled clompers that she was stomping across the pavement in. You’d stopped to peer into the window of a shop and then failed to resume your trek after becoming lost in your thoughts, it seems. That lady looks like she’s on a mission, though, and you find yourself thanking the stars she had the mind to announce herself before the imminent collision bowled you over. You swore as she left you could see the muscles bulging beneath her coat.
“Sorry!” you call, incredibly belated. The wind seems to swallow your apology, but it’s probably for the best because the idea of catching her attention once more makes you shudder.
Maybe you will choose a different town to do your shopping, next time.
Shaking your head, you turn back to the window. It is an op-shop, or rather a thrift store as they’re better known here. At first glance the pricing isn’t too offensive (you find yourself getting unreasonably upset when you enter a store that gets their stock for free and decides to charge twenty dollars for a glass bowl) and this intrigues you. Before you can think better of it, and most definitely having been lured in by the red set of boots in the window, you make your way inside. It’s cooler in there, and surprisingly not too populated. Though, you suppose, it is a weekday, and you have no idea how much foot traffic this place might get normally. Instead of looking the gift horse in the mouth, you decide to continue on and investigate what is on offer.
A part of you is scared you will look at the boots in the window and the price will enrage you, so you decide to leave them for last and have a good gander while you’re here. It’s neatly arranged, the store, and it seems to be organised in a fashion that makes decent sense to you. You decide to start on the left, where all the knick-knacks, bric-a-brac and other goodies are, and then meander your way through to the other side gradually.
The shelves along the wall don’t house anything that jumps out at you, but the mindful task of scanning and examining each one keeps your thoughts from straying in the direction of the bunker, at least. There are a few interesting glass pieces, many tools and utensils for which you cannot conceive their intended use, and a surprising amount of small jugs shaped like different human heads. The store apparently had inherited someone’s extensive collection of oddities recently.
It makes you wish that your lifestyle wasn’t so… nomadic. You, like anyone else, are burdened with the incredible urge to collect trinkets. Sadly, you’ve never really indulged it simply because of the effort and inability to cart around anything you buy with you.
As you’re nearing the end of the breakables, as you like to think of them, something catches your eye before you can continue on to the clothing area. A bright flash of orange, yellow and teal, something you couldn’t have ignored after noticing if you’d tried. Curious, you give it your attention and examine the item.
It’s a funny looking giraffe statue that reaches your shoulder in height, not at all meant to be realistic in its depiction and embellished with textured patterns that swirl over the body and neck in black, raised paint. The second you realise what it is, you regret it. You’d know that stupid giraffe anywhere, because your mother had been obsessed with collecting them when you were younger. You never understood her fixation with them as a child, and even now as an adult you are struggling to fathom what about them she happened to find so appealing. Perhaps the colours? The patterns? They’re definitely bright, quite quirky, somehow paradoxically aligning with your mother’s personality while being in complete incongruence with it.
She probably still has them in that same spot in the dining room corner, cartoonish eyes peering relentlessly over the table where you ate your meals, did your homework, and got endlessly scolded as a child.
Immediately you try and quash the thought, attempting to force it from your mind before it can do any damage, but you react a little too late. Your heart cinches painfully in your chest, and for a second you struggle to breathe. You blink a few times, trying to tell yourself there was just something in your eye and there isn’t at all a sudden burn behind them.
What a stupid reaction. You don’t even miss her.
You’re not even being dishonest when you think that. In a lot of ways, your mother’s presence in your life tormented you. She raised you in this lifestyle with no chance to exit at any point, and being her firstborn there is no hurdle or hoop she failed to place in front of you. Your siblings learned by example what to do and what not to do, but that’s because you were the one being made an example of. She was relentless, and withholding, and there isn’t a single thing you regret about walking away from her the second you became an adult. It’s not like she reached out to you, either. You only found out her feelings on the matter when the hunting circles you used to interact with started to turn you away, looking down their noses at you and muttering about your ingratitude.
By that point, her sentiments rolled off you like water from a duck’s back. What did hurt, however, was when you reached out to your younger brothers and they answered your hand with vitriol and scorn.
Unfortunately, there was a difference in treatment in your home that was never in your favour.
Blinking once more, you shake your head and try and lock your gaze onto something, anything to distract you from your thoughts. The racks and racks of clothes in front of you answer your unspoken prayer, and you move through them, desperately looking for something interesting enough to hold your attention. Corset, bright pink vest, sequins upon sequins decorating a floor-length skirt with a slit in the side— these are all pretty unusual considering the town you’re in, but ultimately even while looking at them you struggling to keep your thoughts in line.
God, you hate that stupid giraffe. You wish you knew where they were sold from, so you can write a strongly worded email to the owner.
As you walk down the aisles, the pressure in your chest lessens and you feel a bit less like you’re about to weep unprompted. What replaces the sensation in your chest, however, is an odd kind of hollowness. As though a distant kind of sadness has taken up residence on the backburner and is now providing a score for everything you do.
The op-shop doesn’t particularly offer you anything further, and the only moment of temptation you experienced was when you found a 2XL baby tee that said “daddy’s little angel” with a halo (and a pair of horns?) and wings underneath, and you thought about how funny it could be to give it to one of the bonafide winged soldiers currently in the bunker. Ultimately, you decide against it though. It would have been in poor taste considering the entire population of the bunker is stricken with daddy issues— well, most of the population; you’re unsure where Mary stands on that matter, and the absence of a father figure in your life wasn’t anything that ever truly gave you any grief. You were too busy handling all the trauma your mother loaded you up with.
You have to forcefully change the topic of your thoughts to stop them going down the rabbit hole, and decide it’s time to leave this cursed store.
(You catch sight of the price tag on those red boots on the way out, and immediately have to beat back the urge to shake someone by the shoulders.)
Half an hour later finds you irritable, experiencing minor caffeine withdrawals, and somewhat listless. You’ve plonked your behind down on a bench in front of a small shopping mall. There’s a small, sad excuse for a department store in there, and eventually you will have to go in for some new underwear and toiletries, because you have made an unfortunate habit of leaving hotels and motels in a rush in recent months and unwittingly leaving behind those valuable possessions when you do so. You’d think it would teach you to pack up your things sooner, but apparently not. That’s a habit you’re going to start when you’re back on the road, you’ve decided.
When the breeze shifts and the sky begins to spit on you with light rain, your mood worsens and you haul yourself off the bench to finally go inside. It baffles you how quickly this day went from relatively okay, to actively circling the drain. Unfortunately, it only seems to get worse from here. Inside the building is bright, densely populated, and much more overstimulating than you think any store should be.
With single-minded determination, you make a beeline to the section you need and grab the toiletries on the list, before wandering at a hasty pace over to the underwear. You grab a pack of simple bamboo-cotton boyshorts, and falter as your eyes catch a pack on clearance. Three of the four-pack are a very nice sleek material with lace trim, in light and neutral colours. You suspect the reason it’s on clearance lies in the fourth pair though, which is also trimmed in thin lace but also white with poorly rendered gummy bears in varying bold, flaming bright colours smattered across it. Upon further inspection, the back of that last pair says “ZESTY” in bold, blocky font, and the only way it could have been funnier is if they had bedazzled it.
The set you found is exactly in your size, and you can’t see where they came from, so you decide to take it as a sign from the heavens and take it with you to the counter along with your other set. Maybe finding it and remembering it exists will help uplift your mood later.
You’re walking like you’re now the one on a mission, reminding yourself to an uncomfortable degree of that old lady from earlier, and truthfully you are because you feel as though the lights in this store are about to trigger a migraine or something. Despite this, you come skidding to a halt as you catch sight of a rack of mens clothing.
They’re simple, linen-looking button-ups in neutral colours, but they appear to be on special. The reason the sight had stopped you in your tracks is because the one that is facing the aisle actually reminds you of a cleaner, less destroyed version of what Gabriel is currently sporting.
… Which also happens to be filthy and unreasonably ratty, and next on your list for fixing in the Archangel Recovery Project.
You step closer, extending a hand to feel the fabric. You’re unsure whether he will experience it the same way you do, what with differing senses and all that, but while he is low on grace he is closer to human than ever, and you consider that something soft and gentle on the skin would be of great comfort to you if you were to be attempting recovery after such a difficult experience. The shirt is not as stiff as you feared, merely having the appearance of rougher linen but sporting much softer fibres than anticipated. A cotton blend, most likely. You inspect further, finding it to be oversized and of decent length. The price is appealing, and you decide on a whim to throw two over your arm. When you allow your gaze to wonder a bit before proceeding to the registers, you are delighted to find a matching set of pants, completing the loungewear set. You inspect the fabric and style once more before chucking them over your arm. On another whim, you grab a pair of brown fluffy socks from a nearby rack and take them with you, recalling a certain archangel’s barefoot pacing around the bunker. Can’t hurt to have them, just in case.
When you exit the store a few minutes later, wallet lighter than anticipated, you make quick work of returning to your car. Right now you want nothing more than to be back in your room, free to dissociate as you please, and you dedicate all your effort to making that happen as soon as possible.
-------
When you are finally at the point of carefully climbing down the bunker’s front stairwell an ungodly amount of time later, your mood has truly reached record lows. Between unreasonable traffic, an inconceivable amount of red lights, the air-conditioning in your shitbox car almost throwing in the towel, and the fact you are still without caffeine now approximately twelve hours after waking – the only possible solution you can conceive for how to remedy the way you feel right now is a fat nap and absolutely zero human interaction until that nap has been achieved.
Unfortunately, despite your efforts to sneak inside unnoticed, your prayers go unanswered for what has to be the twentieth time today since spotting that stupid giraffe. As you move past the kitchen, your name is called out with such resonance that not only does it make you jump, but you have no chance of pretending you couldn’t hear it.
“There you are, twinkletoes! Was wondering where you got off too. Just about nearly sent out a search party for ya.”
You’re glad Dean seems to be in a good mood, but you desperately wish he wasn’t choosing to engage you now of all times while you’re in one of your rare spells of the morbs.
You turn, attempting to make the smile on your face as natural as possible. “Didn’t Sam tell you? I went to check out the new topless bar a few towns over. Such a shame, I thought you just didn’t want to go. They had a midday happy hour and everything.”
Sam, who also happens to be in the kitchen fixing something to eat, freezes like a deer in headlights so completely that you almost believe your own lie. When he says nothing in defence of himself, likely too baffled to know how to respond to your blatant lie, Dean turns to him, head swinging as though on a hinge and eyes filled to the brim with disbelief and accusation.
“No way,” he says to you, though he doesn’t turn away from his brother. “Sammy wouldn’t do that to me. There’s no way he would stab me in the back like that. My own brother. He wouldn’t do that.”
Your arms begin to ache from the position you are holding your bags in, and you shift on your feet to try and alleviate some of the strain. You can hardly muster up anywhere near your usual amount of glee at yet another successful bait-and-stir operation. It just comes naturally to you at this point, truly.
Sam sends you a look that confuses you, as though you’d outed him on a secret he was trying to keep, and lifts his hands in surrender. “Okay, look. I found a flyer and I was honestly going to tell you about it, but I was already in town and—“
No way. There’s no way there is actually a new topless bar that opened somewhere “nearby”— you were totally full of shit when you said that. You even came home with bags in your hands, you’ve clearly been shopping! You can only blink, confounded, as Dean slaps his sandwich down onto his plate with an appalled yell.
“Sam!”
This is actually a blessing in disguise and the perfect time for you to exit. Huffing a laugh, you quickly flee the scene and continue your trek down the halls. On the way you pass a figure lingering in a doorway, and nearly jump out of your skin when you register it as Gabriel. Not wanting to subject the poor angel to your even poorer mood, you offer him a somewhat strained smile and continue bolting down the hallway to your room.
Only when you are safely in your room with the metal door shut securely behind you, do you stop feeling the sensation of eyes boring into you. You must have been a sight, if the archangel’s curious gaze followed you the whole way down the hall. The thought disconcerts you, somewhat, that he might have noticed you’re not exactly at a hundred percent right now.
To distract yourself, you begin putting away your purchases, toiletries and underwear first. You reach for the remaining items a short time later, folding up the mens clothes neatly and leaving the socks on top. For a moment, you simply stand there, looking at the pile. Should you write a note?
The idea flusters you slightly, purely for the fact that it would mean putting your name to the deed, but before you can spiral too far you recall the fact you have free will and don’t actually have to sign your name on it at all. Appeased by the notion of remaining somewhat anonymous (to avoid Sam and Dean’s nosiness, if nothing else), you reach for a sticky note from your desk and begin attempting to pen a neat note. It’s a struggle, mostly because you haven’t handwritten much in a while, and you go through a few pages before you’re satisfied with the quality.
“Not to be touched by any Winchesters. Sorry Jack, that includes you. If I see anyone above 5’8” wearing this, I’m going to personally haunt them while living and then beyond. Thanks.”
… Simply by process of elimination they’re going to know it’s from you, but if you don’t sign your name then you at the very least have plausible deniability.
You leave the note atop the pile of clothes, electing to give it to him one way or another later in the day. For now, with the immediate tasks complete, you are free to flop onto the bed face-down and scream into the pillow.
You do just that.
It doesn’t make you feel any better.
------
Atop the roof of the bunker, the air is cool and refreshing, and best of all, it’s quiet.
If you focus your ears you can hear the occasional car or truck on a distant road before it fades out of range. Sometimes you think you can hear the sound of a faraway passenger plane. Mostly, you can hear the crickets, the cicadas, or whatever damn bug it is that makes that noise this time of year. You don’t care to know the details of what insects call this stretch of land home. When they get too loud, you try and focus on the sound of rustling leaves and branches dancing in the breeze. This has mixed results, and truly just depends on how busy your brain is at the time of practice.
Currently, it’s somewhat successful. Focusing on the star-speckled sky above is probably more responsible for the current peaceful moment you’ve managed to achieve though.
The brothers know that you come up here sometimes, but you don’t do it often enough that they would think to seek you out here. Just in case, though, you’d waited until a reasonable “bed-time” and then snuck your way up here. You just needed some time and space to yourself. You think this will pass if only you can get a moment to breathe and process.
That stupid giraffe really caught you off-guard today.
Not for the reasons someone might expect. You’ve had a lot of time to grieve your lost family relationships, especially considering you’re unable to leave the continent. You’ve had many nights like this, with different thoughts filling the space between moments spent watching the sky. There is only so much in this life that you control, and the thoughts, actions, and desires of other people aren’t any of them. You’ve long since accepted that, and it has afforded you a modicum of peace.
However, tonights proverbial can of worms is of a different kind. Put simply, you suspect you have fallen victim to a particularly potent wave of homesickness.
You miss a number of things on the day-to-day of it all, but rarely do you allow yourself to sit with it. To let it well up and overflow. The fact you’d been taken by surprise today probably didn’t help. The reminder of your childhood home, a place that truthfully had more painful memories than good ones, seems to have sent you into an introspective tailspin.
You rub your eyes with a sigh before allowing your arm to flop back down onto the cement of the roof. Currently you are laying in a loosely spread eagle position, limbs slack, having abandoned your previous curled up position when your butt became numb. It’s fine, this one is better for stargazing anyway. You’ve been out here for about an hour at this point though, and are in the process of resigning yourself to the fact you will have to head back in soon.
You’re just warming up to it, when the decision is unceremoniously made for you by the heavens opening up once more to begin dispensing rain on your approximate location.
“You’re fucking kidding me,” you mutter, closing your eyes and allowing the rain to begin pattering across your face for the few moments it takes you to reign in your sudden irritation. What on earth is with today? You’re just about at your wit’s end.
Annoyed and now right back where you started mood-wise, you rise from your position and trudge over to the bunker entrance. You’re grumbling to yourself the whole way inside, so distracted by your pitiful luck today and all of the above that when you finally notice the figure lurking by the entrance, you jump about a foot in the air and yelp in fright.
“Holy fuck!” you sputter, feeling your heart skip several beats in your chest. You remembered to keep your voice to an alarmed whisper, but Gabriel flinches and holds up his hands slightly anyway, almost in apology. His brows scrunch together slightly as he surveys your form where it is leaning haggardly against the railing, no doubt a sight to see. “Shit, sorry Gabriel. I can confirm I was not expecting to see anyone when I came in.”
He tilts his head slightly, funnily enough reminding you of a bird, and waits for you to catch your breath. His patient stance and neutral features catch your attention, and then it is your turn to tilt your head in question.
“Were you waiting for me?”
It’s almost imperceptible, the jolt that travels through his vessel. The archangel averts his eyes suddenly and shrugs, nonchalant. You almost expect him to start inspecting his nails to bolster the act. You snort, straightening from your hunched position and allowing yourself the brief stretch you didn’t get upstairs due to the rain. You don’t blame him for not wanting to leave the safety of the bunker.
“Apologies for making you wait,” you say, smiling when he still refuses to meet your gaze. “Did you need something, though?”
At that, his warm eyes return to you for the briefest moment. Then, they flit away, deeper into the bunker in the direction of the… kitchen? Then, back to you. Then again, in the direction of the kitchen. You blink, considering for a moment. Surely he didn’t notice your lack of evening meal?
“I had something to eat,” you say, somewhat defensively. At the angel’s responding slightly arched brow, you huff. “It might have been a while ago, but still.”
It’s not like his face changes much, moreso the aura of a frown that seems to emanate from him at your words. It makes you smile despite yourself.
“If one were to ask, I could probably go for something extra. Even though I ate.” You promptly ignore the soft noise your stomach makes. Gabriel delivers a deadpan look in your direction. “Fine, I’m going.”
You don’t need to check if he’s following you as you move to the kitchen (which is thankfully devoid of Winchesters at this hour) because, as per usual, you can almost feel it as he trails after you. He’s like a ghost in the halls by this point. He’s had enough time to practice stealth, even without his usual preternatural angelic grace and mobility.
With an audience of one, you begin the task of putting something together. Now that you’re in here, you find yourself craving meat and decide to pull out the leftover Chinese food from previous night. If this cashew chicken doesn’t hit the spot, you’re truly going to spiral.
Neither of you speak, which is more uncharacteristic for yourself than him as of late. He simply perches on one of the stools in the kitchen and observes, like a teacher watching a child do a chore they got caught avoiding previously.
You’re impatient with taking the container out of the microwave when the timer goes off, well and truly back on speaking terms with your hunger signals by this point, and end up burning your index finger a little trying to pull it out. Cursing, you begrudgingly grab an oven mitt and use it to extract your dinner. The entire motion is performed with probably more attitude than necessary, but by this point after the day you’ve had you can’t be bothered to check it anymore.
With your meal deposited on the metal bench, you proceed to run your finger under the tap while grumbling about stupid cheap plastic that inevitably ends up in the ocean.
When you turn back after turning off the tap and catch Gabriels inquiring look, you flick the water off your hand and return to the bench, sniffing. “Fear not, loyal customer. ‘Tis but a scratch.”
He leans back, bringing his leg up to hug it more comfortably while bracing his foot on the seat, and sends a somewhat dubious glance your way but otherwise doesn’t question it when you reach for utensils with your burnt finger.
Perhaps the angel was on to something by enforcing your mealtime, because after a few bites you already feel some of the day’s evil beginning to leave your body.
“I won’t say you were right,” you announce after a few minutes of silence spent stuffing your face. “But the suggestion you made seems to have had some merit to it.”
Gabriel huffs, a single dark brow raised, and shakes his head slightly before turning his gaze to survey the kitchen. He doesn’t need to speak, because you can vividly imagine him saying “I told you so”.
With his attention elsewhere, you return to your meal, resting your hip against the bench. The speed with which you devour the rest of the food borders on shameful, but you actually feel a lot better and therefore decide not to dwell on it much. You throw the container in the trash, glad to be rid of it, and wash your utensils straight away because otherwise Jack will give you a disappointed look.
You’ve just turned the tap off and welcomed the silence that follows when a low, rasping tone breaks it.
“You alright?”
Your lips purse, expression caught in surprise. You turn to the angel, and his gaze has regained its weight and is drilling into you like it tends to do sometimes.
Briefly, you ponder whether to brush it off and tell a fib, but immediately scrap the idea not long after it forms. The way he is sitting there, simply looking at you with a neutral, unguarded expression, would have made the lie seize in your throat anyway.
“Hmm, good catch,” you say, mustering a playful smile. “I’ve definitely been better.”
He continues sitting quietly, patiently waiting for you to elaborate. You sigh, leaning back against the bench and crossing your arms loosely as you deliberate over how to word what has got you down today.
“I miss my home,” you say, having settled on simplicity. “I haven’t been back since… well, probably about seven years or so at this point, if I think about it.”
You don’t like thinking about it, let alone putting a number to the time that’s passed since you were last home.
The angel blinks at you, honey-hued eyes appearing to hold the expected question: Why haven’t you gone back?
You speak as though he actually voiced the question, figuring he was probably wondering it anyway. “I can’t go back. I mean, like, physically. I’ve tried. I always end up zapped back in some random place the same way I woke up here one day in 2010. No method, magic or mundane, has managed to get me out of this…” you close your eyes and breathe deeply, summoning a serene smile onto your face. “… wonderful country.”
When you open your eyes again, there is a somewhat perplexed scrunch to the archangel’s brow, a sentiment you agree with. You offer him a shrug, attempting to appear less bothered by it than you really are.
“I’ve kind of accepted it at this point. I’ll probably never know why, or how, and one day I might even simply wake up back home out of nowhere. But until then…. I sometimes miss it.”
Gabriel swallows, and a few moments pass before he manages to utter, “Your family?”
You grin. “Don’t you know a broken family is a requirement for entry into this place?”
He huffs, a little tickled, but clearly still expects a serious answer from you, and so you let out a breath and turn your focus elsewhere— it lingers on the ratty cloth of his shirt he is fiddling with in between his fingers before you tear your eyes away for your own sanity.
“No, I don’t particularly miss them,” you say, and for the most part you’re being honest. You suppose you just miss what you could have had with them. “I’m not on good terms with my mother for… reasons. And my younger brothers didn’t think very highly of me after I left. Oh, I guess there’s also my step-dad—he’s kind of an ass and I don’t really count him as family though, so there’s no love lost there. Kind of forget he exists most of the time, if I’m being honest.”
Gabriel blinks, and understanding seems to swim in the depths of his gaze. You shrug, words continuing to tumble out of your mouth and fill the silence despite your best efforts to hold them back. “I guess it’s not really anything big I miss. Normally just the little things. Like coffee—God, I would kill for a decent coffee that tastes anything like what the baristas make back home. Chocolate, too. It tastes different here, if you believe it. No one ever believes me when I say Hershey’s tastes like vomit to me, but I take my confectionery very seriously and I would never lie about that.”
You place your hand on your chest to emphasise your honour, and continue to talk the poor angel’s ears off. You can’t seem to stop yourself now that you’ve started. “Also, the access to guns here has nearly gotten me killed a few times because I forget the laws aren’t anywhere near as strict as back home. That was a culture shock, for sure. That, and the food and drink portion sizes at fast food restaurants. Oh, and I am so sick of having to convert the metric system into feet and inches, and celsius into fahrenheit.”
You stop to catch your breath, and take a few moments to regulate yourself. Your audience continues to wait, patient as ever. Conversationally, you continue and decide to air your main grievance, “Yet, despite these differences, I saw that same god-awful, ugly giraffe statue, from whatever hellish home décor store, that my mother used to collect, in an op-shop today. Can you believe it? If it didn’t require looking at it again, I’d try and track down the origin so I could write them a scathing letter. I hate those stupid things.”
You decide to take a break there for now, already feeling a lot better. There is a somewhat amused curve to Gabriel’s eyes, but you get the sense he isn’t laughing at you, but rather the manner of your delivery. After a few beats of silence where he waits to see if you have anything more you’d like to get off your chest, you offer him a sly smile.
“Have you considered abandoning your double life as a trickster and taking up therapeutic practices? Surprisingly, you’re a natural.”
Gabriel flat-out rolls his eyes, and you almost guffaw at the shock of the sight.
“I jest,” you say, trying and failing desperately to quash your grin. “But I do feel a lot better. Thank you for that. And for noticing, I guess. What gave me away?”
His eyebrows raise infinitesimally, as though he can’t believe you have to ask, and you respond with a huff. “On second though, don’t answer that. I have enough haters in this bunker.”
He snorts so softly you almost miss it, and you decide not to bring too much attention to it lest he never do it again. You’re saved from further pondering by the greedy, yearning rumble of your stomach. You pat it idly, considering your options for a moment before turning to face Gabriel again.
“Want some ice-cream? Dean ate all the dairy stuff but I know where Sam stashes his guilt-free tubs.”
Asking was merely a courtesy; you already knew the answer before you pushed off and retrieved said dessert from the freezer. As expected, when you return Gabriel is sitting with a spoon already in his hand, posture eager.
You’re not sure where he got that spoon from when the utensils draw is a good distance away, but you don’t care enough to examine it further. You flick off the lid and place the tub between the two of you, diving in without any further foreplay.
It’s a miracle there was any remaining by the time you were done.
-----
Later, after you had retired to your room with a full belly and a lighter heart, you stumble upon the waiting pile of clothes you’d gotten for the archangel you’d just dined with.
“Ah,” you say simply. Without further ado, you grab the pile and a handful of chocolate eclairs from the bag next to your bed, and make your way down the halls as quietly as possible. You can’t believe you nearly forgot to give these to him.
The pile is places silently in front of his door, with the note and a few wrapped sweets sitting neatly atop the fabric. Then, just as sneakily as you’d attempted to get there, you return to your room.
The last thought you have before passing out is whether he will like the fabric and wear it after all.
let me know what you think! please? i beg.