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Your sister had once told you
we’re born alone and we die alone, but it’s the people we spend the time between with that makes the difference.
Unfortunately, she’d been right about
all
of it.
“You should have told me,” you whispered, staring down at the body in front of you, unable to see anything through your tears other than the grisly shade of red that stained most of the small room.
“You should have
fucking told me, Grace
.”
Your voice rose sharply with emotion before falling back to the quietest murmur, as the reality that your sister was gone swept over you.
“What am I supposed to do without you?”
You never felt the impact of your knees hitting the floor, your breath beginning to hiccup as you tried to clamp down on your grief, and failed.
You grabbed your sister by what was left of her shredded shirt, drawing her tightly against you as you began to sob.
You weren’t sure how long you sat there clutching her corpse.
It could have been only a few moments before the tentative voice broke through the silence surrounding you, or it could have been hours.
The only reason Gabriel’s voice even registered was because never once, in your entire time knowing him, had he ever sounded as uncertain as he did now.
“Sweetheart?”
Your keening grew quieter, but that was the only thing that changed as he placed a hand between your shoulders and knelt down beside you.
“Oh, sugar,” sympathy colored his tone as he began to rub your back .
“It’s ok.
Don’t cry,
please.
I can fix this.
It’ll be ok.
Just let her go.”
You shook your head, your cries intensifying once again.
You knew once you let go that that was it.
There was no going back.
“C’mon, cupcake.
I promise.
I’ll make it better,” he continued.
When you refused to let go of your Grace, he released some of his, filling your system with a sense of peace.
Slowly, you grew quiet, your breath evening out, and the rationale part of your mind finally returned.
“You can’t help us,” you told him, your voice thick and almost detached, as you laid your sister back down on the floor.
“He has her now.”
His brows furrowed as he turned your face toward him, his thumb gently brushing some of the tears from your cheek.
“Who has her?”
“Crowley.”
All the tenderness he regarded you vanished, his countenance hardening.
“Tell me she didn’t.”
If only you could.
Your lip trembled, the devastation shining back in your dark gaze all he needed for an answer.
His face dropped forward, honeyed strands shielding him from sight.
You couldn’t tell if he was disappointed or angry.
Likely
both
by the way he pinched at something on his face.
After a moment his hand swept up, drawing the curtain back.
When he looked at you again, all that remained was the uncertainty and concern you’d heard when he first arrived.
“You didn’t know, did you,” he stated, placing his hand on your back once more.
He didn’t have to guess.
Even
he
knew he was the first person you’d tell if you found out your sister had sold her soul.
You shook your head.
“I wasn’t - I wasn’t even here when it happened.”
Tears sprang back into your eyes.
“She knew.
She made something up so I’d leave, and by the time I returned --”
You began to gasp again, your grief overriding whatever calmness Gabriel had infused beneath your skin and you had to take a moment to catch your breath before continuing.
“He came for her himself.
He waited for me to return, to see her this way, so he could gloat.”
Your throat closed off, shutting down your words, and the rest broadcasted clearly from your mind.
He wouldn’t even let me say goodbye.
You broke down again, and this time you were the one being held as you felt your world come crashing down around you.
…
Your sister had told you a few months back a hunter’s life is dangerous and I won’t always be around.
One day, you’ll be on your own, and you need to be prepared for it.
You wished you’d recognized it for the warning that it was.
All the signs had been there, but Grace had been so good at hiding them beneath the guise of offering her words of wisdom and advice.
She’d spent so much of her life doing that, of being both the parents the two of you had lost, that it didn’t strike you as anything out of the ordinary.
You stared at the burning pyre, watching the flames lick higher and higher around her body until it became fully engulfed, disappearing behind a wall of oranges and reds.
Gabriel was still at your side and you wouldn’t have been able to do any of this without him.
Without him, you’d probably still be on that motel room floor on the verge of a complete breakdown and being discovered by the local authorities.
You leaned against him, the contact more comforting than you could have imagined, and you were grateful that he had somehow known that something was wrong.
“We’ll find a way to save her,” he vowed, speaking for the first time since you’d lit the fire.
It didn’t surprise you that he’d want to fix this.
He wasn’t used to not being able to just snap something away or back into existence.
The dangerous gleam in his eye told you his pride was wounded, and he was less than thrilled with Crowley pulling one over on all of you.
She did it for you, you know.
Traded eternity in Hell so you would wake up in that hospital bed after the nasty little blow you took to your head.
She never said how you got it, but the guilt pouring off her always made me wonder…
You wanted to believe the sonofabitch was lying.
That she hadn’t done this for you, but you knew better.
You knew
her
, and had always known you were never meant to walk out of that farmhouse.
You felt it on a level you couldn’t explain, and it had been one of the few certainties you’d encountered in your life.
Yet, somehow you had and now you knew why.
If only you had met Gabriel ten years and one day ago.
It was a complete coincidence you even crossed paths with him.
You had stopped into a bakery, lured in by the tempting baked goods staring at you through the large display window.
Apparently, you weren’t the only one with a hankering for frosted pumpkin scones that day.
As luck would have it, you ordered the last one, prompting him to saunter up, flashing that handsome smile of his, with an offer to barter something in return for half your apparent treasure.
You had melted beneath all the charm and golden warmth that radiated from his being, and you had ended up simply splitting it with him in exchange for him buying you a hot chocolate.
He stuck around, spending the next hour chatting with you in a corner of the shop.
You couldn’t believe your luck, though it turned out the reason he lingered had nothing to do with you and everything to do with the unusual energy surrounding your presence.
He had picked up on it right away, and it was only later when he found out you were a hunter and came clean about what
he
was that he also explained what it was that had originally drawn him to you.
He was intrigued by whatever it was, unable to tease out the cause of what made you so different from everyone else.
He spent countless hours annoying you and Grace trying to figure it out, and somewhere along the way you’d become friends.
By now you knew him well enough to recognize that beneath his ego lurked far more dangerous sentiments, ones he often did his best to avoid, ones that spilled over in every look and every touch he’d given you since he’d arrived.
He cared about you and your sister, and the fact that he was helpless to save her had to be absolutely killing him right now.
“I’ll fix this.
I promise,” he continued.
“How?”
You demanded, knowing that he meant well, but still unable to keep the edge from your voice.
“Are you going to storm the gates of Hell and pull her out?”
You didn’t mean to sound so cynical.
It wasn’t that you didn’t believe he would try to make this right.
The problem was he
would
, and it was your own fear of what might happen should he decide to do something stupid or crazy like
storm the gates of Hell and pull her out.
“If I have to, though I’d prefer something a little more tactful and stealthy,” he admitted, confirming your suspicions.
“No.” You gave a firm shake of your head.
“Metatron shut you all out.
Your wings are clipped.
Even you don’t have the power to escape if you’re caught and Crowley throws everything he has at you.”
“He has to catch me before he can do that,” he pointed out.
“Gabriel,
no
,” you insisted.
“You can’t pull this off.
Just let it go.”
“Why are you being like this?”
He asked, confused, his pride burning so bright within gold that his eyes became illuminated against the dark.
“Because
everyone
I love
does something stupid for me and dies!”
You shouted.
The moment you caught the look of sheer shock on his face, you realized your mistake.
You clamped your hand over your mouth, but it was already too late.
Your confession was out there, hanging heavily in the air between you.
“You love me?” He blurted, dumbfounded.
Your cheeks flared as hot as the flames in front of you, and you resisted the urge to hide your face in your hands.
“Can we please forget I said anything?”
You asked, your embarrassment causing your voice to come out as chaotic mixture of uncertainty and desperation.
“Y/n,” he began, and you could tell exactly what was coming by how gentle his voice was.
You couldn’t hear his rejection, however, or face how badly you had just fucked things up with him.
Not right now.
Not with your sister’s pyre still in the midst of burning.
“Just please be my best friend right now, not the guy I just confessed my love to,”
you pleaded.
It was too much already, and the thought of losing the only good thing left in your life right now was absolutely crushing.
You dropped your head, hoping if you squeezed your eyes shut tight enough it would cut off the emotions already saturating your eyelashes, and if that didn’t work, your hair would at least hide everything, saving you further humiliation.
He guided you against his chest, wrapping his arms tightly around you.
“Sweetheart, I’ll be whatever you want me to be, right now.
Best friend.
Boyfriend?
Resident snot rag.”
You hiccuped an almost manic giggle, sniffling self-consciously as you realized your nose was, in fact, dripping all over him again.
“But I can certainly continue being a complete, and utterly blind blockhead, too, if that’s what you prefer,” he assured. “You just tell me what you need.”
You didn’t even need to think about what your answer would be.
“I need you.
Here.
Alive
.”
“I’m here.
I’m not going anywhere, cupcake,” he promised.
“And we don’t need to talk about anything until you’re ready, but you should know... I love you, too.”
Your sister had once told you
when one door closes, another one opens
.
You just need to be brave enough to find it.
Fortunately, she happened to be right about this as well.