summary: Guardian Angels have been largely relegated to the past. But after reconnecting with his angel radio, a call comes through that changes Gabriel's priorities.
pairing: Gabriel x Win-sister!Reader genre: hurt/comfort
notes/warnings: trust issues, brief mentions of violence, feelings of inadequacy, & fears of abandonment
Another job well done. Well, kind of.
Sure, the Shtriga you and your brothers had been hunting was dead, everyone had made it out alive, and in your mind that was all that mattered. But to your silent observer, something else was frighteningly apparent.
You have always been independent. At least that was what you called having deep-seeded trust issues that made it difficult to truly put your faith in anything but your own abilities. It was less about being let down and more a fear of letting others down who depended on you. The love you have for your family runs deep, but deeper still is the dread you feel at the thought of not being strong enough to keep up with your big brothers who, from the time you knew how to hold your first shotgun, were your heroes. They seemed to do the impossible on an almost daily basis, all the while making sure to spend time with you, teaching you how to survive in a world full of darkness lurking around every corner.
For most of your life, they were the only people in the world that you truly trusted. Until it all went wrong. It began with small things. A little white lie here, a half-truth there. Building and building until it became too monstrous to ignore and finally tore your family apart.
Sam had chosen a demon and the power she could provide over your family, a choice he is now trying to make amends for, and Dean can’t seem to find it within himself to forgive him, instead resorting to bottling up his pain and drinking copious amounts of alcohol to try to numb his regret.
Despite your brothers being physically by your side, they might as well be miles away in opposite directions, leaving you somewhere in the middle, not knowing what to think and who to trust. Unbeknownst to you, someone has been with you through it all. You just couldn’t see him.
Being assigned a guardian angel is rare these days. Heaven is rather busy so the tradition has since fallen by the wayside, but it does still happen. Even less common is the invocation of archangels in the tradition of guardianship. Especially the one who tends to let Heaven’s calls go to voicemail.
Gabriel could not remember the last time he felt the pull. It must have been centuries. Only recently, with all of the ‘Apocalypse’ noise, had he tuned back in to angel radio, so he was surprised to even receive an assignment at all. Everything in him told him to ignore it, to just pretend he hadn’t heard a thing and move on playing the part of the happy-go-lucky trickster, but when he heard your name he froze. ‘ Y/n Winchester? No. There’s… There’s no way that was right.’ he thought to himself in disbelief.
The name Winchester was enough to stop most supernatural creatures in their tracks, but Gabriel was anything but frightened by it. The Winchester boys were some of his favorite toys to play with when he needed some entertainment, but the girl was a different story. Ever since your first meeting on that college campus all those years ago when you looked him dead in the eyes while driving a stake through his chest (‘well, the illusion of my chest, but still’, he thought) there was something about you he just couldn’t shake. You were fierce and feminine, lethal and graceful, and overall unforgettable. In the years since, he has wondered how you were doing. Whether or not you kept that same spark that made you so electric, so incandescent in his eyes.
He supposes it is possible that his selective hearing has struck again, making him hear what he wanted to instead of what he should. The one thing he could not blame on his hearing, though, was the pull. Like an invisible string being reeled ever tighter, he felt this irresistible urge to be near you. As if everything in his being were responding to some innate primal directive to protect and defend. It was the most human feeling he has ever experienced. This is not the first time he has felt this pull, but it is definitely the strongest, and if he is being honest, that thought terrifies him. One thing he knew for certain, he couldn’t tell you.
‘This is not gonna end well.’ he thought with a roll of his eyes, taking stock of his situation as he attempted to pinpoint the location of your soul. His guardian status allowed him to sense your presence even with the warding carved into your ribs. ‘She’s either going to try to kill me or…no she’ll probably just try to kill me,’ he said to himself with a little chuckle. ‘Well, let’s see what she’s up to.’
Finding you, he made the decision that it would be best to remain invisible to you and your friends. This way he could both insure your safety, and avoid having to actually explain what the hell he was doing there until he could come up with a plausible excuse that wouldn’t make him seem like a total creep. One that you would actually believe because knowing your current hatred for all things halo that wasn’t exactly undeserved, he imagined you would not be too trusting of your Heaven-appointed bodyguard if you knew the truth.
Being careful to mask the sound of his wings, he landed in what appeared to have once been the living room of a house in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. Scanning the room, he noticed the piles and piles of old books, torn and peeling wallpaper, a small crackling fire in a soot-covered fireplace, the smell of dripping candle wax flooded his senses, but more than anything else, he noticed you. As beautiful as the day he met you, he found you curled up on a couch by the bay window with your nose in a book, apparently reading up on some new monster that needed putting down. There was a definite relief in being in your presence and feeling the loosening of the pull, like when a bungee cord returns to its normal state after being stretched. The pleasant sensation was supposed to compel the angel feeling it to be near their ward. ‘Like I needed any further convincing’ he thought to himself.
An older man he did not recognize was talking to your brothers while leafing through one of the many, many books on his desk, explaining a bit of lore he had uncovered in what sounded like an obscure translation of Revelations. The telltale flap of wings pulled him from his thoughts, Gabriel turned his head, his amber eyes meeting a pair of sapphires that he hadn’t expected to see. Castiel’s eyes widened in surprise, obviously not expecting to find an archangel casually observing his friends. Quickly, Gabriel brought a finger to his lips in an attempt to garner the seraph’s silence and keep him from announcing Gabriel’s presence to the whole group. Instead, Castiel walked swiftly toward his brother, lifted his hand to grasp Gabriel’s shoulder, and in a flutter of wings they were gone.
𖤍: Hello everyone! This is the first fic I have posted, so hopefully the formatting is to your satisfaction. Please kindly let me know if there is something amiss. As a Gabriel fan, I thought it only right to start by giving him some love with my first post. I plan to make this a 3-ish part series, depending on where the mood takes me. If you like what you read, please consider liking, sharing, & sending in a request for something you'd like me to write in the future.
˚₊‧꒰ა 𓂋 ໒꒱ ‧₊˚ Thank you to @saradika-graphics for the dividers used! ˚₊‧꒰ა 𓂋 ໒꒱ ‧₊˚
Since Skullectors have never been official MH characters as such, and are always homages to franchises, I’ve decided to give each of my Skullectors their own biography. In this case, we present to you Adelaide & Red!! And this is their diary. I hope you enjoy it.
