tricksandtales

[tricksandtales]

Chapter 17: Fight or Flight

The sympathetic nervous system functions like a gas pedal in a car. It triggers the fight-or-flight response, providing the body with a burst of energy so that it can respond to perceived dangers. – Harvard Health

 ----------------------------

As luck would have it, Castiel had in fact tracked down an angel that was healing people. It was one that was already on Heaven’s radar though, so it was kind of disappointing. Apparently, the angel went by Sister Jo, and she’d had a thing with Lucifer.

Riley that that was a bit freaky. But then, she had to remind herself that Jack was in fact Lucifer’s son, so maybe not that freaky.

 Jo had not been happy to see Cas and had tried to tear him a new one. But neither had come out of the fight with any serious wounds, and Castiel had decided to leave the other angel in relative peace.

 Of course this was all going on while the rest of the team was ingredient gathering. Which was why he wasn’t in the Impala at the moment. The rest of their little rag tag bunch were heading toward California. Well, not all the way. Sam, Dean, Jack, and Riley were going to rendezvous with Claire and Patience who’d gotten the wood from the redwood trees.

 Gabriel hadn’t been answering prayers for a few days. Probably caught up in Heaven. Riley hoped he wasn’t avoiding her… She hadn’t seen him since the movie night. Hadn’t yet had a chance to talk. But at least he wasn’t just not answering her prayers, he hadn’t come for Sam or Dean either.

 So Dean, Sam, Jack, and Riley had piled into the Impala and taken off. Riley had offered to fly them, or at least herself to meet the girls, but Dean had nixed that idea. “No solo missions. Things have been too quiet lately. I don’t like it.”

 Unfortunately he was right.

 It was the second morning of their trip. The motel they were at was the generic kind the boys seemed to like. Riley was getting used to them, though she didn’t love them. She’d crashed on the couch, much to the chagrin of the boys. But she’d insisted, due to be being the shortest.

 Jack was on a rollout, passed out in only the way teenagers could do. He still didn’t need much sleep, but when he did sleep it was deep. Sam and Dean were still asleep too, but Riley had woken super early and couldn’t get back to sleep.

 She’d tried reading for a while, until she found herself feeling hungry. She tried to remind herself she didn’t need to eat, but after so many years eating, she wasn’t going to train her body not to want food overnight. Sighing, she got up and dressed. Glancing at the boys who were completely out, she jotted down a note, grabbed the keys and headed out of the room.

 She knew Dean had said no solo missions, but this was a food run. She did those all the time alone.

 Standing in front of the glorious vehicle, Riley grinned. “Dean is going to kill me.” Sliding into the driver seat, Riley put Baby into drive and headed out. “Totally worth it.” Hitting play on one of the cassettes, music came pouring out of the speakers as she drove down the road. She started to sing along, hair flipping in the wind from the open windows.

 “He’s going to kill you.” Gabriel said from the passenger seat.

 Riley nearly had a heart attack, as his entrance had been muffled by the music. At least she was used to the angels popping up randomly, so she was able to keep the vehicle in her lane. “Damn it, Gabe.” She glanced at him out of the corner of her eye. “Don’t do that.”

 “Nope. I’m gonna do what I want.” He winked.

 “Mm. Asshole.”

 “Ooh. She wounds me.” He threw a hand to his heart.

 “What’s up?” She asked, ignoring his teasing.

 “I heard the prayers but couldn’t get away sooner. So, I came to check in and found my favorite angel stealing the Impala. How could I resist such a sexy act.” He waggled his eyebrow. Though what he didn’t say was that he’d been avoiding the little team of hunters intentionally, hoping that time spend away would dull his desire for her. It hadn’t.

 He’d only come because he’d heard Riley trepidation when she’d left the motel. But here she was, perfectly fine. And she’d presented a great opportunity for pranking.

 “Only you would find theft sexy.” She huffed a laugh.

 “Hello…. Trickster.” He snarked back. “Plus it’s the best prank ever. Stealing Dean’s precious baby? He’s going have a hissy fit. It will be glorious!”

 “Not really a prank. I left a note. And I’ll probably be back before he even wakes up.”

 “Mmmaybe.” His lips turned up.

 “What are you plotting?”

 But the archangel was gone when she glanced at the passenger seat.

 -----------------------------

 Riley didn’t put too much thought into what Gabriel had planned. It’s not like she could stop him. Maybe distract him, but never stop. Dean would probably end up being madder at Gabriel by the end, so it would probably work out for her.

 She was surprised he’d shown up, but she was glad he had. It seemed like things were back to normal. He was his same old flirty trickster self. Her friend, sort of teacher, and sometimes annoyance, was exactly the same.

 Still, Riley wondered if something was wrong. They’d gotten pretty close over the past couple weeks. And there was definitely some things that had happened that they really out to talk about. But anytime it seemed like they were moving toward something….. well, it was like that saying, one step forward and two steps back.

 She didn’t have long to consider, as her destination was only about ten minutes from the motel. She parked at the McDonalds and entered the building to order breakfast for herself and the boys. It was fairly empty, as it was still fairly early. One couple at a table in the back, and an older gentleman over toward the bathroom. There was a young man behind the counter who looked sleepy and bored. But he had her order ready pretty quickly and packaged into to-go bags.

 As she was turning to leave, the door opened, admitted two people. A woman in her 60s, dressed way too nicely for McDonalds at 6 am, and a 14 year old boy. They could be family, but they looked super out of place. Riley didn’t give them much thought, other than an odd look or two, and headed toward the door.

 But her path was blocked by the kid. “Hi sweetie, can I help you?” She decided playing nice was probably her best course of action.

 “Where are the Winchesters?” He was staring at her.

 “What?” She was incredulous.

 “You have their car.” The women stood near the door still, blocking her exit.

 “Listen, I don’t know what you think…..”

 The kid grabbed her arm, drawing her attention back to him. “Where are the Winchesters?” He asked again. This time, when Riley looked at him she saw his eyes turn full black. And she realized his face was not normal - it was skull like.

 Riley did the sensible thing had she been human, and screamed, trying to pull away. The kid pushed her, and instead of stumbling, she flew back into the counter, hitting it hard. The kid was stronger than he looked by a long shot.

 The rest of the occupants in the restaurant started to freak out.  But the creatures weren’t focused on them. Riley lay on the floor, dazed. She watched, terrified, as the kid approached her again. “I will ask you again, girl, where are the Winchesters?”

 “I….I….” She pulled herself to her feet, watching as the kid ate up the distance between them quickly. “I don’t….. I stole the car!” She answered, surprised at herself. While it was technically true….

 The demon paused, “You stole the Winchester’s car?”

 “Yes?” It was a half question. Riley tried to think, tried to figure out what to do. “What are you?” she was afraid she knew the answer.

“Oh you poor child, I will make your death quick.” The kid cackled. “I am a demon.”

 As he approached again, Riley felt her fear drain away. This was exactly the sort of situation everyone had been trying to train her for. And so far she’d been failing spectacularly. ‘Not anymore.’ She thought.

 When the kid got close enough and went to grab her, she dodged and kicked out, connecting with his stomach, throwing him back. He recovered quickly and the other one started toward her.

 “The mouse wants to play.” The woman grinned. “I like playing with my food.”

 Riley reached down and grabbed the holstered weapon from her ankle, aimed, and fired at the demons. She actually hit the women. Though it didn’t seem to faze her in the slightest. “Shit.” She muttered and turned tail and ran toward the other side of restaurant where there was as second set of doors. If a gun wouldn’t take them out, then she needed to draw them away from the civilians and give herself some time to regroup.

 The demons followed her out, not at all bothered by her attempt to flee. In fact, they had a fairly lazy pace.

 When she got to the Impala, Riley turned and faced them. She dropped the gun, still within reach, and she slid into a defense position, hoping she’d learned enough to at least put up a fight. Luckily, when the kid came at her this time she was able to block and counter. But it was clear he was the better fighter. Though he wasn’t able to throw her again. They tussled, with the kid finally pulling back to study to her.

 Riley wiped at her face, finding blood on her hand from a split lip. Her side hurt, where the kid had landed a solid punch, and her back was already aching from where she hit the counter. But none of her injuries were serious. Considering the fact the kid was fighting pretty serious, Riley was kind of impressed with herself. Though she knew she probably wouldn’t be able to keep up much longer.

 The woman watched her, eyebrow raised. “She is not dying?” She…it… asked of the child demon.

 They both considered her. “She has more strength than a human should.”

 “Is she a human?”

 “We have not asked.”

 Riley wiped at the trail of blood that was leaking from a cut on her arm. “I’m right here.”

 “We need to end this and find the Winchesters. They will be close.”

 “Where did you steal the car?” The child asked.

 Riley pressed her lips together. She would definitely not be telling them that.

 “Have it your way.” The woman grinned. “Human or no, she will still die.” She pulled a blade from her sleeve and started to advance.

 Riley was not prepared for a knife fight, especially since her gun seemed to be useless. Riley wondered if she should fly away. But then it would leave civilians at risk. And the car. Dean would actually kill her if she left the car for the demons.

 “Damn it.” Riley sighed, and realized that holding her own was not going to be cutting it anymore. “Gabriel.” She said softly, “A little help.”

 The demons stared at her in confusion, but then the woman screamed as a knife appeared through her chest. The kid turned just in time for the knife to slide into his side. Both demons fell, black smoke erupting from their mouths. Gabriel stood behind them, brow raised. “I leave you alone for ten minutes….”

 Riley sagged back against the car in relief. “I’m really glad to see you.”

 Gabriel’s blade disappeared back to wherever it had come from, and he approached her, pulling her to him. “You okay, Rye?”

 “Yeah. Surprised. Scared. Probably black and blue. But I’ll survive.” She pressed her face against his chest. “So…. That happened.”

 It was a good thing she couldn’t see his face, because if looks could kills, the world would likely burn.  “We’re gonna work on your angelic abilities more. Got to figure out the angel blade situation.” His voice didn’t betray the anger he felt. He was pissed at the demons for ambushing Riley, pissed the Winchesters for not preparing her better….. and pissed at himself, for leaving her alone. If he’d stayed in the car with her, had hung out then this never would have happened.

 “Yeah, that would be good.” Riley was fairly sure she was shaking, the adrenaline no longer pushing her. For a first fight, she hadn’t been bad. But she’d still be afraid. Their faces had been horrifying.

 “Come on sweetheart, let’s get out of here.”

 “The food….” She trailed off as Gabriel snapped his fingers and they appeared back at the bunker, food now sitting on the table.

 Dean had been pacing, but stopped at their sudden appearance, anger on his face. Jack and Sam looked up, concerned, from where they stood. Gabriel gave the three a tight smile, before pushing Riley at Sam. Sam’s arms came around her automatically in surprise.

 “What?” Sam asked at the same time Dean started with “The Hell Gabriel.”

 Gabriel didn’t answer, just grabbed Dean’s arm. “Son of bitch.” Dean said, just before he and Gabriel disappeared.

 Sam stared down at Riley, noticing bruises starting to form and a couple cuts, including the one on her lip. “What happened?”

[tricksandtales]

Chapter 16: It’s Complicated

Oh, I bet you thought that I was soft and sweet / You thought an angel swept you off your feet / Well I'm about to turn up the heat / I'm here for your entertainment - Adam Lambert

 ----------------------------

 A Tuesday in late October found Riley alone in the bunker again. She had run through a routine Dean had set her on. Including running, combat forms, and some knife work. She had just finished and gotten into the shower when she heard the sound of wings.

If she had to guess, it would definitely be Gabriel. Castiel knew Sam and Dean were gone, and he generally didn’t seek her out individually. So it was likely the whiskey eyed archangel.

 Luckily, whomever it was had appeared in the hallway, not the bathroom. Though the sound of the door opening had Riley’s eyebrows climbing. “Gabriel, I will strangle you if you try and peek.” Her voice rose over the water.

 “You always know just what to say, gummy bear.”

 Riley rolled her eyes at his obvious over flirtation. “Uh huh….” She pulled the curtain back slightly, so she could get a look at her guest, but not enough for him to *ahem* get a peek at her. “So, why are you interrupting my shower time?”

He was leaning against the sink, arms crossed. “Maybe I needed a shower too.” His gaze met hers and his eyebrow raised. “I’m dirty.” He said it naughtily.

 “Funny.”

 “You’re more fun when you flirt back.” He pouted at her.

 “I’m generally not naked and wet when….” She trailed off, blushing. “Scratch that.” But knowing he never would.

 “Oh no. That’s permanently etched in my memory.” He was grinning.

 She groaned, “Why are you here, Gabriel?” She could move past it. Yep. Totally.

 “Thought I’d check in. Cas said Samsquatch and that others are out for a while.”

 “Were you worried about me?” She was teasing, but when he met her eyes, she realized that was exactly why he was there. “Oh.” She murmured. “I…um…” She cleared her throat. “Thank you.”

 When she glanced back she realized his gaze was no longer focused on her eyes. “Shhhh. Don’t ruin this for me,” he said, voice only slightly teasing.

 Riley blinked, “What?” Glancing away from him, she realized via her reflection in the mirror that she was showing more than she’d have liked. She made an unhappy sound and pulled the curtain to cover herself again. “I hate you a little,” she muttered. Though in all honestly, it wasn’t like she wasn’t flattered he was looking.

 “Ah… sugar, you’re a spoilsport.”

 “Shut it Gabriel.” Still, she found herself flushing in a good way. If she’d really been upset, she would have kicked him out of the bathroom until she’d finished showering.

 “So, I’m up for a recharge. I get some time off till by grace is back.” He sagged a bit against the counter, sounding tired.

 Riley peaked out again, noticing that he looked tired too. “You’re draining a lot more of your grace than you should, aren’t you?”

 He shrugged, “Probably. But there’s not really any other way.”

 “Can I do anything?”

 “No. Not yet. You’re still growing into your powers. You’re getting there, but it will still take time.”

 “I wish I could help,” she murmured.

 “I know. I wish you could too. I’d really like it if you were in Heaven with me. ”

 Riley wondered if he knew how that sounded. She did. And she really liked it. Her cheeks pinkened again.

 “But it’ll be awhile before you can make to Heaven.” He cleared his throat. “So, anyway, you and me, movie night?”

 “That sounds great. Give me five to dry off and dress?” She asked.

 “Of course.” He didn’t move though.

 “Alone, Whiskey.”

 He laughed, “You’re so cruel, gumdrop.”

 “Why don’t you magic us up some popcorn and candy?”

 “Your wish is my command.” He gave a small bow and disappeared from the bathroom.

 Riley sighed, leaning into the warm water. She gave herself a moment to wonder that her life had come to this. That it didn’t bother her that Gabriel had been hanging around while she showered?

 Normally, she wouldn’t let a guy in like that unless they were in some form of relationship. Something more than friendship.

 Still, she hadn’t had a serious boyfriend in a long while, so in some ways she savored the feeling of attraction and closeness. And it wasn’t like Gabriel was anywhere close to normal.

 So she didn’t try to tamp down the fluttering in her tummy at the idea of curling up on the couch with him and having a quiet night. Though any night with Gabriel was likely not to be quiet…..

 Smirking, Riley reached for her towel, only to realize that there were no longer towels in the bathroom. “Gabriel!” She growled. “Give it back.” Though she found laughter wanted to bubble up from his antics.

 A moment later, a poofy white towel appeared on the towel rack. ‘Well at least he makes up for it by giving me hotel quality.’ She sighed, wrapping the luxurious thing around herself and going to get dressed.

 ------------------------------

 Riley had briefly considered walking out and engaging him in a discussion about…. well, that subject. The dreaded talk. The one where the pinned down a label.

 Because it was about time for them to talk about what exactly they were. It was not going to be a fun talk. It was going to be awkward. But their constant flirting and the symbols on their wrists, and everything.

 Just everything.

 She really needed to know, needed to be able to put whatever they were in a box. Friends? Family? More?

 Yet, she couldn’t bring herself to bring it up. Sure, she had always counted herself as being able to tackle the hard talks, to not walk away from challenges, but she didn’t want to disrupt what they had. It was so nice right now. Being able to just relax with Gabriel. With the world around her having changed so drastically, she need some semblance of sameness in her life.

 If she brought it up, then things would change.

 And she didn’t want that yet.

 Soon, but not yet.

 So when she entered the little man-cave, she pushed all thoughts of labels from her mind. Which wasn’t hard as Gabriel had gone all out on the theater experience. There was soda, popcorn, and candy on the table. Not surprisingly it was a rather large assortment of theater candies. The room had been redone to resemble a theater and a movie screen now dominated the entirety of a wall.

“Hey sugar plum.” Gabriel huffed out a laugh, “I like-y.”

 She had donned her new top, though more because it was on top of her clothing stack, and not because she’d hoped he’d notice. Still, she just enjoyed his pleasure. She let a smile dominate her face as she settled down onto the couch next to him. She leaned back and rested her head against his shoulder. He wrapped one arm around her, and she settled into his embrace.

 Gabriel snapped his fingers and the tv came on and lights dimmed. “So, movie?” He asked. At her nod, the beginning credits of the newest superhero blockbuster started to roll. “Okay?”

 “Good.” She murmured.

 The movie played for a while. She enjoyed it, though she found herself more enthralled with the way the dim lights seemed to make Gabriel’s hair appear more golden than its usual honey brown. And the way the colors caught in his eyes, making it appear like the northern lights were encapsulated in a whiskey colored sky.

 Riley probably would have been blushing on any given day, but she found herself not at all embarrassed or nervous. Instead, she just wished he’d turn toward her and kiss her.

 She was fairly sure he knew by now that she wanted to.

 Yet, he didn’t. And she was okay with that too.

 But it was a bit odd, because it was like his gaze was thoroughly fixed on the screen, and if she didn’t know better, she’d swear he was transfixed by the movie. That was unlike the archangel, who had a habit of bouncing about and adding commentary to even the most serious scene. Not tonight though.

 Plus having spent so much time around him, she noticed the tiny tick in his jaw every time she wet her lips. Or the way his eyes narrowed on the screen when she ran her hand through her hair. Or the way his wings had stretched around her, almost pulling her more thoroughly against him. So he noticed her watching him. And he was doing nothing about it.

 She felt both happy and annoyed. She liked the status quo, yet sometimes she swore he was interested. And even though she didn’t want to have the talk yet, kissing would be okay. Yes kissing would be nice.

 But then again, as an archarngel, for all she knew, his flirting, the cuddling, the mark on her wrist…. also the general all-around sweetness could be how he showed affection to all humans.

Ha. She snorted internally. She knew exactly how he treated Sam and Dean. So she very much doubted she wasn’t some form of something to him. It was still worth considering, but later.  

 Sighing, Riley let her gaze flicker back to the screen and let her mind drift away from the vexing creature next to her.

 This is why they needed to talk. Just not yet.

 ---------------------------

 They’d finished off a couple bowls of candy and most of the popcorn, and the sugar rush had come and gone, leading to a crash. It was toward the end of the movie that Riley finally started to drift off to sleep, and her head lulled back against his shoulder.

 Gabriel shifted slightly, so his nose was pressed into her hair. “You smell really good.” He murmured quietly, taking a deep breath in.

 “Mhmm.” She burrowed her face against his shoulder.

 “Yeah.” He breathed. “My thoughts exactly.” Sighing, he snapped his fingers and the room righted itself to normal. The snacks disappeared. The movie stopped. Biting his lip, he slid her more thoroughly into his arms and stood from the couch, cradling her sleeping form against him.

 Gabriel tried not to think about the fact that she felt like she belonged against him. That her quiet gaze during the movie had made him want to press her against the couch and kiss her.

 But her gaze had also unnerved him.

 The fact was that Riley saw him as a better person than he actually was, and it was maddening. Worse still, every time she’d look at him and smile, he’d want to live up to the person she thought he was.

 This of course was the worst part. He doubted he could ever change. Could ever be who she thought he was. Sure he didn’t plan to run again. But he was a trickster. A runaway angel who had spent most of his long life hiding from his family. He was broken. And she deserved better.

 Yet, he found himself getting closer and closer to the newly made angel. It was like she had been thrown in his path just to drive him insane. Or to drive him to finally acting like the archangel he was supposed to be.

 If he wasn’t sure that his father…. Chuck….. had really and truly abandoned him, he would almost swear that Riley had been set before him on purpose.

 Instead she was temptation incarnate.

 And he was failing. Miserably. He had almost kissed her in the alley. Had wanted to kiss her tonight. But he swore to himself he wouldn’t. She was little more than a fledgling by angel standards. And as a human, well, then she should be given the chance to find a soul mate like all the other humans.

 Still, there was something that kept drawing him back.

 He really should just wash his hands of her, fly off to Heaven and lay low. Let some other angel take over her training. But…. The soft form of her in his arms felt so right.

 Her soul was lovely and she was engaging and sweet and smart. She was cheeky, and snarky. She didn’t roll over; and would often times push back when he either went too far or was truly bothering her.

 He liked her. It was that simple. And that complicated.

 Angels rarely formed long term bonds, but it did happen. And the idea of having someone that would be by his side for eternity….. it was so damn alluring.

 But he couldn’t have her. Her human soul meant she wasn’t for him. She was meant for someone who didn’t run away from their problems. Who didn’t have a crazy complicated homicidal cosmic family. No, she was meant for a person who could give her 2.5 picket fences, a kid, and a… dog. ‘I think I have that wrong.’ He sighed. Either way, she was not meant for him.

 Even though he trained her, couldn’t stop himself from flirting with her, or generally being around her…. Even though he’d marked her and let her mark him…. He hoped he could find a way to remove her grace and make her human. Send her back to a normal life, where she could forget there were monsters. Let her fall in love…. With someone else.

 She deserved that.

 She did not deserve a failure like him.

 He’d known from the moment he’d met her that he’d fail her too. He remembered her fear back in her apartment that first day. She had been so small and scared. He’d wanted to gather her close and promise to protect her. Her pretty little soul calling to him in a way that few human souls had been able to do over the years. He’d known he couldn’t save her.

 Yet she hadn’t died. She survived. And smiled. And joked with him.

 He’d felt pride swell up when she’d looked at him with a form of worship when he’d said he was in fact the archangel Gabriel. Sure, he’d been quick to explain that he wasn’t at all like what she’d expect. But she’d still gazed at him with masked awe. It was something he hadn’t felt in a long time. And even though the awe had given way, she still made him feel like a big deal.

 He’d loved the way she’d used humor to overcome her fear. The way she’d pressed her lips together, rolled her shoulders, and jumped right into figuring the whole thing out. The way she’d nodded and accepted that he was what he said he was.

 And she’d made him pancakes.

 If he’d been what she’d needed, what she wanted, what she deserved….. well, he would be able to erase all of that. To have saved her in the first place. But that wasn’t him.

 Gabriel deposited her sleeping form onto her bed, and before he could stop himself, he leaned down and pressed a kiss to her cheek. Riley sighed in her sleep and cuddled into her pillow.

 Yeah…. She wasn’t for him. But that didn’t stop him from wishing.

[tricksandtales]

Chapter 15: Catching Feelings

So let's make love before the snows fall from the sky / We saw sunrise and both felt the pain / Now let it wash away October rain – Robin Jackson

 -----------------------------------

 The rain was coming down in sheets.

 Of course it was.

 The universe would do nothing less on the one day Riley left the bunker this week. It so happened she’d had to go to Boston for work. So of course there was rain. Just her luck. Also, her stupidly for not checking the weather report before she’d left.

Which was why she hadn’t brought an umbrella, and why she was now getting soaked. Her shirt was already pressed to her skin and her arms were getting numb from the cold. What made it even worse was that it had been a client meeting, and so she’d dressed up. Riley had kitted out in a pencil skirt, blouse, and high heels, then headed to Beacon Hill to the meet the client.

 It hadn’t been raining when she’d arrived. It had been grey and cloudy, sure, but that happened during the fall in New England.

 The meeting had gone well. Then she’d left…. And it was raining. It couldn’t be a nice light sprinkle either. Nope. It was sheets of cold fall rain. She honestly wouldn’t be surprised if it was freezing rain. Her breath fogged the air as she walked, giving credence to this.

 She was also stumbling. On a normal day it was hard navigating the cobbled streets in Beacon Hill, add heels and it was bloody awful. But today, with the hair now pressed down from the water which clung to it and dripped into her eyes it was almost impossible. Thank god for waterproof makeup, at least she didn’t need to worry about looking like a raccoon even if the rest of her was a disaster.

 Riley actually considered ditching her shoes for a second, but the idea of treading about in her nylons on slippery stone did not sound like a solid plan. Actually, she’d tried that once in law school and it had ended up with her almost doing a split in the street and ripping her skirt up the sides. No, better not to repeat that experience. It had been humiliating enough the first time.

 The one saving grace in all of this was that she could go back to the bunker soon. She just needed to find a place where she could disappear from without being seen. With the rain most people were smart enough to stay inside. Yet because Beacon Hill was a closely built up area there really wasn’t many places she could duck into and fly from. Thus she was regulated to walking for a while. She’d considered catching a cab, but Boston was a walking city, so there weren’t really that many to be had.

 She missed a step as one tan heel caught between two stones, and her already wet nylons slid from her shoe. She hopped a couple steps, trying to keep her balance.

 Crying would not help, Riley reminded herself. She took a deep calming breath. ‘God, can today get any worse?’ She wondered.  

 She hopped on the one foot, trying to return to her lost shoe. Then, the rain seemed to stop, well at least directly over her. Riley wondered for a moment if someone had been kind enough to stop and give her some relief from the rain via their umbrella.

 “Well sugar, aren’t you a sight.”

 Riley closed her eyes and sucked in another deep breath. Nope, her day could get worse. Gabriel got to see her looking like a drowned rat, standing on one leg. “Hi Whiskey.” The sigh in her voice was unmistakable. It took a moment for Riley to realize he didn’t have an umbrella. “How?” She murmured looking up and finding…. “Oh.” Gabriel was shielding her with his wings. They were stretched over them like a golden canopy. “Thank you….But how is no one noticing we’re not getting rained on?” She hissed quietly.

 He grinned down at her, “Puh-lease, humans never notice the supernatural unless it’s literally in their face stabbing them. I could snap up a whole parade right now and people would find some way to explain it. It’s human nature to want to be blissfully ignorant. Can you really blame them?” He gestured to the few people wandering down the street near them.

 Riley bit her lip and watched the people pass, most of their eyes on the ground or directed at their phones. “No, I suppose not.”

 Riley scrunched up her nose as a drop of water slid down her cheek from the hair plastered to her face. Gabriel chuckled softly and slid his hand under her arm. He allowed her to lean on him as she slid her foot back into her shoe. Even once she was able to stand on her own in both of her shoes he didn’t pull away. Instead he brought his other hand up and tugged at a strand of her hair. Riley felt the tingle of his grace wash over her. She exhaled at the lovely warmth that it brought, and the effect it had – her clothes, hair, and skin now completely dry. She leaned in and savored the feeling of it, and of his nearness.

 “You done for the day, gingersnap?” His voice was soft, and his gaze warmer than the brush of his grace.

 “Yes. Yes I am. Take me home please?” Riley pretended that her voice didn’t sound so breathy.

 He nodded and the sound of wings accompanied the rush of them flying away from the wet and cold rainy day in Boston. When Riley was able to focus she found herself standing in her bedroom in the bunker. She was still in Gabriel’s embrace. Riley half smiled but at him but didn’t step away. Instead she titled her face up to gaze at the archangel.

 “I’m guessing you found me though the wrist thing?”

 He chucked, “Yes.”

 “Any specific reason?”

 “I was going to see if you wanted to work on angel radio. But I’m thinking that you’re in need of some hot cocoa and fun time.”

 “Yes please.” Riley said.

 He seemed almost reluctant to step away, but finally he released her and stepped back. One hand rubbed at his neck and he glanced almost nervously back at her from under his lashes. “Kitchen?”

 “Okay.” She nodded, worrying her lip with her teeth. She followed him out of her room.

 The kitchen was already occupied when they got there and they paused in the entryway. “Uncle Gabriel?” Jack’s eyes rose from his laptop. “Riley?” He looked between them, questioningly.

 “Hey kid.” Gabriel said and headed to grab mugs. “Want some cocoa?”

 “I would enjoy that.” The boy replied.

 Riley rolled her eyes, boy was this pair still slightly awkward. She entered the room and ruffled Jack’s hair. “Whatcha doing?”

 He flushed slightly, “I was trying to make friends.”

 “Ah.” Riley murmured, looking at his screen. “You might wanted to try a different website.”

 “Why?” He glanced at the screen nervously, “The people on here seem friendly.”

 “Yeah, but that’s a dating website, hun.” Riley sent a glare as Gabriel chuckled from across the room. He ducked his head at her glare. “Marshmallows?” He asked as he added marshmallows to his own mug.

 “Yes please.” Jack responded, he closed his laptop with a click.

 “Always.” Riley smiled, walking over to grab one of the mugs. She returned to the table with Gabriel close on her heels. Silence slid over the room as they enjoyed the first sips of the hot liquid. Riley almost moaned at the flavor. “You added cinnamon.” Her eyes raised to find Gabriel smirking into his own cup.

 “It’s the way you like it.” He shrugged.

 “I like peppermint.” Jack said.

 “Well, I’ll make sure to remember that for next time.” He winked at the kid.

 Riley watched the two interact and pondered if they’d ever find their footing. They were related after all, and she knew that family actually meant a lot to Gabriel. She sighed into her mug, letting the scents of chocolate and cinnamon sooth her bad morning away. Jack was currently staring into his own mug like he might find a lost treasure in it. Gabriel looked just as tense, leaning back in his chair and gaze staring off into space.

 “So….” Riley began, and found both men’s eyes snapping to her. “How do you both feel about go fish?”

 Jack looked puzzled and Gabriel looked bemused, “The card game?”

 “Yep. Staple of rainy days everywhere.” She sent a beseeching look at Gabriel.

 “Alright. Alright.” A smile twisted on his lips and he snapped up a deck of cards.

 Jack looked between them, “I do not know how to play.”

 “No problem kid, it’s easy. I can teach you.” Gabriel began explaining the rules.

 When the game started, they found Jack to be oddly competitive. He and Gabriel both played to win. Riley relaxed as she found the tension start to leave the room as they got lost in the simple game. She took another sip of her mug and smiled to herself. This was going to be an okay day after all.

 Gabriel poked her side, indicated it was her turn. “Okay, okay. I’m going.” She giggled.

 The only other occupant of the bunker at the moment, Castiel, eventually found the three still engaged in the game. None of them noticed his presence, as he moved like a cat. And Dean still hadn’t talked him into wearing a bell.

 He stopped just before entering the kitchen and observed the three, noting the scene was oddly domestic. They looked like a little family. For a moment, he wondered if he would be intruding.

 Jack was the first to notice him and ask him to join the game. Both Riley and Gabriel welcomed him with open arms.

  ---------------------------

  Later that night, in fact pretty late into the night – as the angels didn’t need to sleep and neither Riley nor Jack slept much – they finally split up.

 It had been after cookies and several more rounds of cocoa. Also after they’d taught Jack several other card games. Gabriel and Castiel returned to Heaven, leaving Jack and Riley to return to their rooms for the night.

 “Good night, hun.” Riley said, once again ruffling his hair as she passed him in the hallway.

 He was standing in his open doorway but paused before entering the room. “Thank you, Riley. I had fun tonight.”

 “Of course, Jack. I had fun too.”

 He nodded to himself, “Do you think we can do that again?”

 “Probably. I think the guys would like that.”

 He smiled to himself, sadly. “I wish my mom was here, I think she would have had fun too.”

 Riley stopped and turned to face him, “I’m sure she would have. You miss you a lot, huh?”

 “I do. Which is odd, because I’ve never met her.”

 “That’s not odd, Jack. It’s very human. We all want to know our family. But I’m sure she’d be very proud of you.” Riley returned to him and slid her arms around him in a hug, “I know I’d be proud if you were my kid.”

 He sagged against her, hugging her back.

 “And you know, even if we’re not related, you, me, Dean and Sam, Cas, Gabriel. We’re all family. Blood may be the family you’re born into, but family doesn’t stop there.”

 He nodded against her shoulder, “I like our family.”

 “Good.” Riley waited until Jack was ready to pull away and then pressed a kiss to his forehead. “Get some sleep, hun. Even if you don’t need much, it’s a great way to clear your mind and relax.”

 He nodded again and smiled up at her. “Okay. Good night Riley.”

 “Good night, Jack.” She ruffed his hair once more and waited until he’d entered his bedroom and shut the door. Finally, she returned to her own room, closing the door with a sigh.

 She leaned against the door, tipping her head back and closing her eyes. She’d loved the majority of the day, but boy had it been a very emotional.

 The problem for her was that it had been almost too perfect - well, after she’d gotten back to the bunker.

 For a moment her mind had drifted and she had imagined Gabriel, Jack, and herself sitting in a different kitchen, in a little house. The sunlight streaming in as they hung out on a lazy Sunday afternoon. In this daydream world, Riley could see them as an actual family. Riley felt a pang of longing for this life she could not have. One where she and Gabriel were something more….

 Riley pushed the image from her head and went about getting ready for bed.

 She needed to get a handle on her feelings for the archangel, needed to stop it now. Even if she lov….liked him quite a lot, she was fairly sure it was unrequited. Even though he flirted and was kind to her, spent days hanging out with her, well…. He was just being nice. Probably.

 Or maybe not. Maybe he felt something? Otherwise why hang out with her at all?

 They really needed to talk.

[tricksandtales]

Chapter 14: No Place Like Home

----------------------------

 Lebanon, Kansas was a small peaceful town, which sat at the crossroads of America. It was home to just over 200 people. Of course this meant that the community was tightknit, and everybody knew everybody.

Or more importantly, everybody knew everybody else’s business – both good and bad.

The bunker had been part of the town for as long as anyone could remember. One said his father had been there when it was built, sometime in the 1930s. It had been abandoned for almost as long. There were a lot of rumors about the bunker and the people who’d originally lived there. But that’s all they were, rumors.

 Until the Winchesters moved in.

 It came as quite the surprise when suddenly there were people living in the bunker again. Two boys who kept to themselves. A third came, who was always in a trench coat no matter the weather. In years they’d lived there, others passed through, though none really came into town or stayed long enough for the town to know them.

 Overall, the inhabitants mostly kept to the themselves, which of course fueled the rumor mill.

 Everyone by now knew the names: Dean, Sam, and Cas.

 Little else was known. Except that they were a tad odd, wore a lot of flannel, liked old cars, and ate junk food. They were friendly enough if you happened upon them, but by no means were they social. To the rest of the town, these newcomers were separate and apart. Never quite becoming part of the community.

 Then a werewolf came to town.

 Like the rumors and legends of the bunker, the residents of Lebanon had their fair share of stories of monsters. Probably more than most towns, because of the past residents of the bunker. Luckily, one of those stories said the people of the bunker hunted the monsters. So the residents held a town meeting and the preacher was requested to go get help. And like that, the werewolf was gone, the Winchesters took care of it.

 Life resumed as normal, except the town started to gather the legends and stories, started to retell them, this time as histories instead of tall tales. And the town welcomed their newcomers as members of the community, even if the Winchesters never knew about the difference. But there was one. People on the street smiled more openly and waved when they saw the Impala pass. The town store started to stock more…. interesting items. And a heck of a lot more salt.  

 More recently, the residents had seen a woman and a teenager. The people of Lebanon liked the two newcomers, as they came into town more regularly and were a bit more open to chatting.

 It had been several months now, and Riley had been into town at least once a week. She’d gotten fairly familiar with a number of residents, and those she didn’t know still treated her kindly.

 It was a quiet Thursday evening that found Riley heading to town once again. The day was grey and cloudy, so it made a decent day for errands.

 She had just gotten to town, and the wind whipped her hair about as she scrabbled to the store. Upon entering Ladow’s Market, the bell gave a jaunty jingle announcing her presence. The two other customers glanced up and offered her smiles. The man behind the counter, Eric, greeted her. “Riley, good to see you. No nephew with you this time?”  

 “Good to see you as well. And no, Jack’s out with his dad.” Riley said as she grabbed a basket.

 She had found that the people in town liked to talk, and Riley had never been one to avoid police conversation. So she hadn’t really been thinking when she’d engaged with the people she’d come to know. Of course this had led to several lies. Sam had agreed they were necessary, because there was no easy way to explain any of their actual relations. Dean had groaned at the complications of it. Not that any of the lies were that far from the truth…. But he didn’t like trying to keep up with them.

 What the town now knew about the inhabitants of the bunker was that Dean, Sam, and Riley were siblings. Cas was Jack’s father, and Gabriel was Cas’ brother. How she was Jack’s aunt…. well, no one had actually asked her that directly. But the town had an inclination that one of her “brothers” had a relationship with Cas. Cough. Dean. Cough.

 Jack was more than happy to claim the lot of them as his family. So he had no issues keeping up the rouse.

 “So, are your brothers off doing the Lord’s work today?” One of the other customers, a 60-year-old woman by the name of Mimi, asked as Riley was pursuing the produce section.

 Riley gave a soft chuckle, “They’re doing what they always do.”

 “Mhm.” Mimi clucked at her, “Make sure they know that my Shep can stitch up anything.” Riley had come to learn that Mimi’s husband was a retired doctor, who ran a small clinic out of their house.

 “Thank you. I’ll remind them.”

 “You should pick up some of this.” She was holding a box of stain remover. “It’s the best for getting blood out of clothing.”

 Riley offered a somewhat strained smile “I’ve got some at home.”

 It was weird. Or should she say, still weird. The first time Riley realized the town was aware of their situation she’d been a bit shocked. She’d run into the local pastor at the gas station. He’d said he prayed for her and the boys, and that if they ever needed help with exorcisms he had some reference books that might be helpful. Riley had thanked him and promptly gone home and confronted Sam about it. Sam had shrugged it off. Apparently, he hadn’t really considered what the town thought about them.

 Riley now did. And she’d learned that the town was aware of their comings and goings. That everyone knew what the Winchester’s did for a living and were thankful for it. Further, they offered advice, even though they all played this cat and mouse game of never directly speaking about it. So Riley did the same, never admitting or denying exactly what she knew.

 It was a bit odd. But she figured it was better than the citizens trying to run them out of town.

“Do you need another pound of salt?” Eric asked. “I got some of the larger grain stuff that’ll withstand a bit of wind.”

 “Thank you, yes.” Riley smiled.

 “I’ll deliver it if you don’t have the car?”

 That was one of the other things the town overlooked – the whole appearing randomly without any sort of vehicle. Sure some of them probably put it down as her being an avid walker, but others just smiled and offered to drop any big things back at the bunker for her. Riley wondered what they’d come up as an explanation for her sudden appearances.

 “That’d be great.”

 The bell jangled again, signaling another customer. “Riley! Just who I wanted to see.” It was Elenore Murtle, a 50ish widow. Riley had learned the sweet lady had the biggest crush on Sam.

 “Mrs. Murtle.” Riley greeted, “How are you today?”

 “Oh, just lovely, dear.” The woman fanned herself, “Though feels unseasonably warm.”

 Riley hummed, not really agreeing, and went back to looking at steaks.

 “Anyway dear, I ran into the preacher and he said that if I saw you, to tell you he’d whipped up a fresh batch of holy oil. Just in case.” Mrs. Murtle made it sound like she was talking about muffins - as if someone needing holy oil was a common occurrence.

 “That’s very nice of him. I’ll pop by later.” Riley said. She chatted amicably with both Mimi and Mrs. Murtle while she finished shopping. Eric offered to drop it all by later, but Riley took it all but the salt. It wasn’t like she couldn’t handle heavy things at this point.

 Eventually she left the store, heading toward home.

 ------------------------

 As the days passed, Riley recovered and found she had more energy then she expected. She’d started sleeping less, like only five or six hours a night. This of course made her days seem much longer. And made her incredibly restless.

 She had cut way back on her hours at work, as she was not in the office and was focused on being – as Sam put it – team captain. In other words, coordinating and keeping track of the ingredient list. Sure, she still did 20-30 hours a week of work, but most of it was done from the bunker.

 She still cooked and took care of the errands. She also cleaned the damn bunker again.

 She also trained. But there were only so many laps, so much target practice, and so many forms she could run through before she got fed up with doing them by herself.

 And there were only so many hours one could waste on the internet.

 All of this equaled a very stir-crazy and lonely Riley. Which was why she basically going to town once a week.

 She’d gotten so used to spending time surrounded by one person or another from their little family that with everyone off looking for the ingredients or on hunts, she found herself lonely. She missed their pseudo-family dinners. Jack underfoot, dogging her heels. Castiel appearing out of nowhere. Dean’s constant begging for pie. Sam appearing with something about what the lore said. Or Gabriel with a trick, a lesson, or if she was lucky, candy and flirty smile.

 Heck, she’d even listen to Dean tell her how he killed Hitler again. Okay… maybe not. There were only so many times she could hear that story. Even if it made Dean puff up with pride.

 Basically, she just missed the guys.

 Even though Sam and Dean weren’t looking for ingredients per se, they were still gone much of the time hunting.

 On very rare occasions she went with them, but neither she nor they were confident in her abilities yet. Which wouldn’t matter if they were facing something fairly straight forward, but they’d been hunting some pretty big bad things - mostly demons.

 With no real leadership in Hell, there had been an increasing number of demons running around on earth, trying to rack up misdeeds. Castiel had mentioned there were around five factions vying for control. And by control, they meant death and destruction. So lots of black eyes about that needed to be sent back to Hell.

 Her powers were growing, which was good, but Castiel said she was still what amounted to a fledging. Consequently she was restricted to basic hunts or trips when they went meet up with other hunters. No demons for her.

 She was not unhappy though, as the fact they had faith for her to go on normal hunts was a pretty big step. Not that Riley had yet to actually see anything. Most of the time she was tasked with interviews and the safer stuff, leaving the actually fighting to the Winchesters. She hadn’t actually seen anything supernatural up close and personal – excluding angels. Though, more often than not she stayed behind, since most of the hunts these days were demons… Hence it was the bunker for her.

 Not that her moves were restricted to the bunker per se. She could still go out shopping and pop back to work once in a while.

 But she missed Gab…. People. She missed people. Her people.

 Still, she wouldn’t complain. Everyone was working hard.

 --------------------

 When the Winchesters were in residence in the bunker, Dean was on Riley’s ass about her training. He did not want her to ever be in a fight and not be able to handle herself.

 Today, Saturday, was one such day. Dean was currently putting her through the paces.

 The thunk sound that resulted from Riley's fist connecting with the pad was satisfying. She smiled viciously as Dean staggered just a step.

 Dean reset his bracing position and motioned for her to go again. Riley shook out her arms, curled her hands into fists and struck at the pads Dean held again. Dean thought she was progressing well and had added some new moves.

 Although neither Dean or Sam were classically trained in any particular fighting style, they knew a decent amount. Thus she was being schooled in various self-defense techniques. Dean and she were currently working on some kick boxing forms.   Riley was finally getting a handle of the amount of force to put into punches. And with her growing angel strength it had been a steep learning curve. She'd actually managed to knock Dean on his ass a couple times.  The thunk of several rapid strikes sounded as she hit the pads in quick succession. Dean grunted as one of the blows made him shift back onto his heels again.   “Hey guys.” Sam appeared in the doorway.  “How's it going?” “Better.” Dean said.  “She'll be able to kick both our asses pretty soon.” “That's me. Kicking asses and taking names.” Riley pulled her arms over her head in stretch.   “You'll be hunter level in no time.” Dean acknowledged. “Ready to take down demons and everything.” Riley wasn't sure how she felt about that. Although she'd come to terms with the angel thing, and she really really wanted to be an advantage.

 Yet……she hadn’t really reconsidered herself as an actual hunter. Sure she’d been out on a couple smaller hunts, and she'd vowed to get stronger and be an asset. But being termed a hunter made her cringe slightly. She'd not wanted to get to that point. 

 But stepping back and looking at her life objectively she was already almost there. And she couldn't find it in herself to be upset.   Things changed.  Priorities changed.  People changed.  She could either run away or roll with the punches.  And she had decided not to run.  

 --------------------------

 After training, Riley hit the showers and washed the sweat away. When finished she threw on a cute top and shorts. She even took the time to apply a bit of lip gloss and do more than finger comb her hair.

 She tried not to consider why she was spending a bit more time primping these days. She certainly didn’t want to consider that she was trying to impress a certain archangel. But she was.

 Even though Gabriel wasn’t around much, Riley made as much as she could out of the time they had. Mostly they trained. Though flirting was a huge part of it too. She figured he really enjoyed that she could tease him as much as he teased her. Their banter had become almost constant. But Riley was slightly surprised that Gabriel never escalated things passed being flirty. Barring, the symbol on her wrist of course. But who counted that? ‘I do.’ She thought, but pushed the thought away quickly.

 If he was as much a womanizer as Dean had said she would have expected Gabriel to jump on it… er, her, by now. Riley wondered if her skills were just that rusty.

 She’d even started using the candy scented shampoo. And of course the bit of gloss and hair care.

 Not that she was trying to entice him into making a move. But…. She wouldn’t be upset if he did. And if he did, it wasn’t like she was hoping he’d just jump her in the middle of the bunker, more like a date at some point.

 Did angels date? Did angels do anything? She knew that Gabriel had been with Kali. So he at least had done some form of date like thing. It had been implied that they did other things too – ie Casa Erotica – even if Gabriel denied it was the real him. So, did anyone have any firsthand knowledge of this? Other than Cas and Gabriel, both of whom Riley would be too mortified to ask.

 She knew Gabriel liked physical affection. Lately when he would sit near her, she’d begun playing with his hair. Running her nails through it. At one point, she’d tugged on it, mostly by accident. But oh he liked that.

 As a new form of teasing she’d resorted to tugging his hair every time she walked by him now. His eyes would always snap to her, a slight darkening in them the only visible sign of reaction.

Well visible to everyone else. Also visible to her were his wings’ reaction.

 That had been a surprise. His wings seemed to reach for her, every time she got near. Or if she was near him, they would curl around her. But he never acknowledged it.

 It was getting super frustrating.

 Because damn it, she liked him. Really liked him.

 Was it so wrong to hope that he might like her too? Even if he was an archangel, way out of her league, well… you couldn’t blame a girl for dreaming.

 Shaking off her thoughts, Riley found Dean and Sam in the war room. They both looked up when she entered and offered their unique versions of grimaces.

 “Do I look that bad?” She asked, trying to survey herself.

 “Not you.” Dean qualified.

 Now that she wasn’t fawning over her own self image she noticed the boys were pouring over a map. “Got a call from another hunter, there’s been a super suspicious death in Topeka, about four hours from here. We’re the closest.”

 Riley hummed as she came around to look at the map. “Any idea what it is?”

 “Supposedly a wraith.” Sam said.

 “We’re going to hit the road here in a second. You wanna come, or okay here?”

 She leaned against the table with her hip, considering.  

 “You can come, you’re getting really good.” Sam said.

 “But if you guys need backup, won’t you want the seats free for Cas or Gabe?” She hadn’t meant to shorten the names, but they’d slipped out.

 “Eh. It’s fine.” Dean shrugged.

 “You guys need a bigger car.” Riley offered, though she was joking. Dean’s reaction was exactly what she’d pictured, he jerked back like she’d physically hurt him. And his face was hilarious, nose all scrunched up and eyes narrowed.

 “Easy there Dean, she was joking.” Sam offered.

 Riley giggled, “Don’t worry, I’d never really suggest you’d trade Baby in.”

 He nodded, but mock glared, “Damn straight.”

 “Let me go change.”

 Eventually the boys packed up and started to head out, Riley with them. She’d just been thinking how stir crazy she was, and so a touch of adventure would be good.

[tricksandtales]

Chapter 13: Silver Lining

When the world surrounds you / I'll make it go away / Paint the sky with silver lining / I will try to save you – Hurts

 ----------------------------------

 The fever had come on quickly.

 Riley had woken up to a slight headache, eyes opening to the darkness of her bedroom in the bunker. The darkness made her miss her apartment sometimes. She’d always enjoyed the feeling of sunlight on her face. But for the most part she wasn’t unhappy in the bunker. Though telling time of day was a bitch.

 She flicked on the lamp near her bed and groaned as the light seemed to burst through her eyes and stab her skull from the inside. Dark is good, she thought as she turned off the lamp, the darkness was honestly welcome as it seemed to make her head hurt slightly less. Another thought occurred to her, ‘could angels get sick?’

After a few more minutes of sitting in the soothing darkness, Riley braved the lamp once more. It still hurt, but she gave her eyes time to adjust and that made it barrable. Next step get out of bed. Riley stood quickly, which caused a wave of dizziness to wash over her. Her hand came to forehead as she sat back down, her fingers massaged her forehead back through her hair, sighing in annoyance.

 It took her a moment but she got up again, slower this time, and stumbled to the door. She rested against the cool surface for a moment, hands pressed flat and hair falling like a curtain around her face. When she finally moved again she was steadier, though still rather slow.

 What she found beyond her door was an empty bunker. Cursing in her head, Riley remembered that the boys had all gone off to take care of some demons that had infested a town two days away. She vaguely recalled Jack’s excitement over going with them, and Dean saying to call if there was an emergency. Well, this wasn’t an emergency. She was just sick.

 Half weaving from the lightheadedness, and half from the heaviness in her limbs, Riley made her way through to he living room. She flopped down onto the couch and sat staring up at the ceiling. She was not going to call and interrupt the hunt, but sick still sucked.

 She changed positions, laying down and curling around a pillow on the couch. But that didn’t seem to help at all, her head still pounding.

 There was no way she could deal doing much today. Not until she figured some way to tame the symptoms. What she needed was water and medication, probably food. But the energy just wasn’t there to get up. Her limbs felt heavy, her head pounded, she was dizzy. Her hand on her forehead proved she was feverish.

 After what seemed like an hour of being stubborn, Riley finally gave up. She was going to need help.

 Who to call was the question. Of course, her first thought had been Gabriel, but she had let her mind glide past that thought quickly, not wanting to bother him – or think about why he’d been her first thought.

 She really didn’t want to bother Sam and Dean. Jack would have no idea what to do. Jody was too far away. Castiel would be okay, but she couldn’t imagine he had any bedside manner. And the boys may need him. She dismissed him as well.

 But she circled back around, sighing, because Gabriel really would know what to do. And despite his penchant for pranking, and flirting, he would probably be the most compassionate. And wasn’t that a sad thought, that he archangel would be her first choice out of the group for help when sick.

 Though, on second thought, Sam would probably be a really good nurse. He had that sweet compassionate personality that spoke of wanting to care for people. The image of Sam dressed as a nurse, complete with little outdated hat, was pretty funny. Actually, Dean was supposed to be the nurse. No, she decided, they could both be nurses. And Cas would wear cowboy boots. She giggled, slightly out of it. But the Dr. Sexy gag really did need to happen.

 Shaking herself to be rid of the chain of thought, she sighed and admitted there was really no else. Riley figured she might as well get the mocking over with. Because Gabriel was likely to tease her for calling him.

 She slid off the couch and onto her knees, not really considering the fact that Gabriel would hear her no matter what position she was in. But years of praying by her bedside on her knees formed a pretty strong habit, and so when her mind said pray, her sick addled body reacted without much thought. Hands folded together, eyes closed, she tried to move past the slight fog and call out to the archangel.

 “Well, if I’d known you’d be on your knees waiting for me, I’d have come quicker.” His voice behind her made Riley jerk slightly, head whipping to gaze over her shoulder. Of course, in her wobbly state the sudden movement caused her to lose her balance and start tipping backward.

 Luckily strong arms caught her, lifting her up. Riley opened her eyes to find herself cradled against Gabriel’s chest, a worried look in his eyes as he studied her. “Riley? You okay?”

 “No.” She mumbled, letting herself lay limply in his arms for a moment. It felt really nice to be held. And in her unguarded state she didn’t think to stop herself from just enjoying his arms under her, or the warmth that was spreading from the multiple points of contact with his form.

 “Hey.” He said, coaxing her attention back to him, her eyes flickering to his face. “Riley, come on, what’s wrong.”

 “Don feel good.” She mumbled. She felt groggy, and the thought about how nice it would be to fall asleep in his arms flittered through her mind.

 “Yeah, I see that.” His voice cut through her fog again. Gabriel moved gracefully over to the couch, setting her down. Riley made a sound of protest at the loss of his warmth. But his hand came to rest on her forehead. “You’re burning up, sugar.”

 “Fever, m’think.”

 “Yeah. But angels don’t get fevers.” Gabriel moved his hand through her hair, petting her softly. “I’m going to check out what’s wrong, okay?” Riley nodded under his hand. A sudden tingly feeling started in her head and washed through her. Riley giggled at the sensation. It withdrew after a moment and Gabriel made a sound of displeasure.

 “Whs wrong?”

 “Your grace.” He sighed, but didn’t seem freaked out, so there was that. He indicated for Riley to lift her head, then sat down, allowing Riley’s head to rest on his lap. His fingers then returned to running through her hair, gently.

 She had to focus, but he was making it difficult with his ministrations, “What about my grace.”

 “When angels are formed, it starts with our grace and bodies are then built around it. You are kind of the reverse, as you already had a body and your grace was added after. Although the grace actually managed to mesh with you originally, as it grows there will probably be some, shall we say, growing pains. This is one of them. You’ve built up enough grace that it’s burning through your cells, starting to change them.”

 “How?”

“You’ll heal faster. Get hurt less. Your energy levels will rise. You’ll need less sleep.”

 “That doesn’t sound like a bad thing.”

 “It’s not. Just, it’ll probably suck for a day or too as your cells fuse with the grace running through them.”

 “Humanity fighting back?”

 “Something like that.” He’d changed his ministrations and was now massaging her scalp. Riley made a pleased sound, it was almost purr like in its contentment, thinking he had the loveliest hands, and he really knew how to use them. Her eyes closed as she enjoyed the sensation.

 A few minutes later, she dozed off.

 ----------------------------------

 The thing about living in a bunker was that it was certainly hard to tell time, the lightening never changed. Riley blinked into the dimness of the room around her for the second time that day, hand coming up to rub the sleep from her eyes. She blindly groped for the lamp on her table but found no table and no lamp. Her sleep muddled mind took a moment to come to the conclusion she was not in her bedroom. Her eyes finally adjusted to the half-light of the room and she found her cell phone next to her on the couch.

 She was in the living room, on the couch, wrapped snuggly in a blanket. Her phones’ too bright display almost blinded her for a moment, but she was finally able to make out that it was late morning, almost lunchtime. Her tummy made a rumbly sound in agreement.

 Riley shifted into a sitting position and winced when her head pulsed in pain again. It was much less then earlier though. And she wasn’t feeling nearly as dizzy or fuzzy. The heaviness was there, and testing her forehead revealed she still felt warm.

 “Well, looks like the patient is awake.”

 And there was the source of why she was probably feeling better. Gabriel was leaning in the door frame. Her eyes moved to him. Later she would swear it was the just waking up thing, or making the sick thing, but Riley took a moment to appreciate the sheer deliciousness of him. He was wearing a gray button up, the sleeves rolled up above his elbows, and the topmost button undone. His hair was mussed a bit, but it almost always was. He had just the lightest dusting of stubble, which Riley itched to press her hand against and feel if it was as soft as his hair or if it would be course. Her eyes narrowed in on his lips and the now knowing smirk that seemed to reside there. Riley groaned and buried her face in her hands, hiding from that smirk.

 She really needed to get a hold on her thoughts. Though at least she had the excuse of being sick for her unguardedness. “Oh, don’t stop now, cupcake, I love some good ego stroking.” His voice was mirthful. Riley groped for something to throw at his stupid face. All she found was the blanket and her cell phone. Neither would make quiet the projectile she wanted. Defeated, Riley slumped back, glaring. He let the smirk fall, “Aww, Rye. I was teasing. I didn’t mean to make you stop smiling. I like it when you smile.” He had started moving toward her.

 She pressed her lips in an attempt to stop the smile that she knew she’d break into. He always had a way of turning her annoyance into laughter. Though, honestly, the look on his face was very unfiltered and open. It didn’t look like teasing.

 When he reached her, and knelt in front of her, Riley felt her heart stutter. He was still looking at her with such soft eyes. He reached forward and pressed his hand to her forehead, then leaned forward and pressed his own against the other side of his hand. “You’re still warm.” He murmured.

 “It’s no wonder.” She mumbled. As he was so close, kissing distance even, and her face was stained red from blushing.

 He leaned away and stood in one graceful motion. “Can you walk?”

 “Um. Yeah.” Riley’s gaze was downcast, looking at his shoes now. She’d hoped he couldn’t see the blush. He stepped back, allowing her room to get up. She stood slowly but wobbled slightly. Gabriel reached forward, his hands grasping her hips, steadying. Riley flicked her eyes to his once more, “Maybe.” She admitted.

 His smile was gentle, and he leaned forward, sliding one arm to her knees and one on her back, lifting her with no effort. Her arms automatically raised to wrap around his neck, and she tilted her head to gaze up at him. “Thank you.”

 “Of course,

 “Hungry?” He asked.

 “God yes.” She murmured. He started walking, and Riley thought to protest, but he made her feel light as air. And it was nice to be taken care of for once, especially by a certain angel.

 He carried her to the kitchen where he placed her gently down at table. Then, surprisingly he started pulling out pans, pots, supplies. Riley was flabbergasted, was he actually going to cook? He glanced over his shoulder at her and gave his telltale smirk. Riley watched, head resting on her hand, as he did in fact cook. It was only spaghetti, but still, he’d cooked for her. It was really really sexy. And sweet, adorably sweet. Especially as he presented a plateful of pasta with a flourish. Riley giggled at his antics, and Gabriel bowed as if he had accomplished a great feat of strength.

 “Thank you.” She murmured, “You’re kind of amazing.” She took a large forkful of pasta and almost moaned at the taste. It was perfect. And she was starving. Her focus solely on the food, she didn’t notice the contemplatively look that had entered Gabriel’s eyes at her words. Or the small, truly happy smile that accompanied it. “Are you not eating?”

 “Nah. Not really hungry.”

 “Well, don’t just stare.” She murmured, realizing he was sitting at the table, watching her.

 “What should I do?” His voice was light, teasing.

 “Tell me why you can cook.” He laughed out loud, the sound causing tingles down Riley’s spine. “I mean, what makes an archangel, turned Norse god, turned trickster need to learn to cook?”

 “Most curiosity then anything else. I was curious if food tasted better if I snapped it up, or if it was made by hand.”

 “And which is it?” She asked, truly interested. Though, considering her plate was almost empty she kind of figured the answer.

 “Always handmade.” He leaned back in the chair.

 “Did you try a lot of different things?”

 “Yep. I started when I’d first found my way to earth. The Gods were always dining and having feasts. I swear Odin could hold a feast for the stupidest things.” He laughed, caught up in his memories, “I think he once held a feast for his wife’s goat.”

 “Please tell me they didn’t eat the goat.” She blurted.

 “No. That time I think it was cattle of some nature. So, after awhile I figured I’d see if I could make things as good as snapping them. Snapping is certainly faster and easier, but sometimes you can’t beat the taste of something actually cooked fresh. Plus, when blending in, using my grace wasn’t always an option.”

 Riley smiled down at her plate, “I appreciate your help. And this.” She gestured to the food. “Do you have a favorite meal?”

 “Hm…” He sounded thoughtful.

 “Beside dessert.” She qualified and laughed at his pout.

 “Not really. I like food, but there’s no real favorite.” Riley felt a wash of a disappointment. “What?” He asked, sensing it.

 “Oh. I was hoping to cook for you sometime.”

 “Just for me?” He breathed out. His gaze fixing her in place. It was rather intense, and Riley felt another blush begin.

 “Well, yeah.” Riley grinned at him, “Hasn’t anyone ever made a meal just for you.”

 He ducked his head, “Not really. But I’d like it if you did.”

 “I’d like to.” She responded, then took the last delicious forkful of the spaghetti. Her plate and fork were gone as soon as she’d placed the fork back on the table. Gabriel hadn’t even snapped, but he did wink at her surprised expression.

 “So gumdrop, what would you like to do?”

 “I should….”

 He cut her off, “Not what you should do. What would you like to do?”

 A strange idea struck her, one that she wasn’t sure he’d go along with. But it was Gabriel, so who knew….“When I was a kid, whenever I was sick I’d sit in front of the tv and color.”

 The slow grin that spread across his face reminded her of a kid who’d just found out it was Halloween. “Oh. We can do that.” Of course, the trickster would jump at the idea of acting childish.

 “No x-rated coloring books.” She added, realizing the opening she’d given him.

 “No fun.” He winked at her, “But fine. If you insist.” He stood with a slight hop, then before Riley could protest she was in his arms again, a peel of laughter escaping as he swung her around. She was still laughing as he half danced them down the hallway, and when he entered the living area again, and set her gingerly on the floor.

 The laughter turned into a delighted smile as he slid down next to her and with a snap of his fingers produced a stack of coloring books and crayons. Of course there was also a bowl of candy, cheery starburst, and music started to softly play from the record player in the back of the room. Riley’s smile was echoed by Gabriel, who reached forward and snagged a candy.

 “Only cherry?” She teased.

 “They’re the best.” He sounded affronted.

 “I like the pink ones.”

 Sighing, he snapped his fingers and the bowl now contained a mix of pink and red candies. Despite acquiescing, Gabriel took this as a challenge and started listing all of the candy where the red ones tasted the best. And of course, Gabriel had tried a lot of candies. As he went on, Riley sighed and rolled her eyes.

 Finally, after another minute straight of his rambling Riley shoved her hand over his mouth, effectively muffling his words.

 He blinked up at her in surprise. Riley’s hand was feather light on his lips, just enough to indicate that he should shut up, but not enough to set off his huddle in a corner in fear reaction. Riley was quite aware that he didn’t like his mouth covered. Not after his imprisonment.

 After a moment, Gabriel smiled into her hand and laid a soft kiss on her palm. Riley’s whole body went on red alert and the feel of his lips pressed against her palm and she suddenly jerked away, eyes wide and pink once again coloring her cheeks.

 Gabriel’s eyebrow raised in question, but when Riley didn’t flee, he turned to the coloring books and pulled out, of course, a red crayon, and started coloring. It took Riley a moment to shake out of her stupor and realize he was coloring candy shaped lines. Of course the coloring books would be candy themed. “You going to actually color, or just stare at me all day?” He asked lightly.

 Riley took in a great gulp of air, wet her lips, and instead of getting her own book, she shoved his hand playfully and started coloring a different part on the page he was working on. She had purposefully chosen a pink crayon.

 “Going to be like that, is it?” His teasing tone made Riley bump his shoulder with her own.

 “You wouldn’t have it any other way.” She threw back. He laughed, but didn’t push her away.

 They spent a rather enjoyable afternoon coloring in silly pictures and listening to old music. Whenever Riley needed or wanted something, it was quick to appear. Water. Tea. A blanket to wrap up in. He even cooked dinner – okay, heated dinner – as he served her canned chicken noodle soup. The whole day Gabriel dotted on her.

 When Riley eventually drifted off to sleep that night, she felt relaxed and happy. Gabriel watched her doze off, and snapped them back to her bedroom, where he set her lightly on her bed, and draped a soft grey blanket over her form. Riley half asleep, grumbled at being moved but she couldn’t rouse herself enough to care about anything at that point. She really couldn’t remember a day when she’d felt nearly as content or light hearted.

 Especially, as a whispered good night accompanied her into her dreams.

[tricksandtales]

Chapter 12: A Family Affair

Chapter 12: A Family Affair

This is my family. I found it, all on my own. It's little, and broken, but still good. Yeah, still good. -  Lilo & Stitch

----------------------------

 Sam had spent his night cooped up in the library, just as Dean had said. Cas had not reappeared as he was now on the hunt for a potential earth-bound angel, so Riley and Dean had played video games and drank beer for the rest of the night, then headed to their separate beds.

 Riley had slept fairly well until the early hours of the morning when she’d woken, chilled. It had been unseasonably warm until this point. But apparently fall had decided it was finally here, and the bunker was having a hard time catching up. She had dragged what flimsy covers there were on her bed over her, cocooned herself up and tried to sleep for a few more hours.

 When she finally dragged herself out of bed and entered the kitchen in her pjs, pink pants and black tank top with the words ‘angel’ done in rhinestones (Riley thought this pair oddly fitting), she found Sam and Dean, both fully dressed. It was surprisingly early for them to be so put together, but maybe they were cold too. She shivered again, ‘so cold.’

 They’d both muttered good mornings, though Sam’s was much more upbeat. “You found something?” She asked, figuring it had to be the reason he was happy.

 Sam gave her his half jerky smile, “Yes and no. I think there’s a way to communicate with Michael.”

“That’s a last resort.” Dean frowned down at his cereal, voice still gruff from sleep. So they hadn’t been awake long, but got ready quickly. A hunt maybe?

 “But we I found something better. According to the lore, there’s a tracking spell we can try. Much like Dean’s amulet.”

 “Amulet?” Riley asked, voice muffled by the fridge as she rooted around for the milk.

 “Something I’ve had forever, it was a gift from Sammy.” Dean answered, hand touching something through his shirt.

 “I thought it was protective charm.” Sam offered. “But we found out later it was super powerful charm that was supposed to burn hot in God's presence. We still have no idea why it could do that. But it eventually did, once Chuck allowed himself to be found.”

 Dean mumbled something around a bite of his food. It was probably something unpleasant, based on Sam’s glare.

 “So, you can use this amulet to find the prophet?” Riley asked.

 “Not that one.” Sam answered, “But I think something like it can be made. With some assistance. We need ingredients, and then we need a powerful witch.”

 Dean snorted, “Luckily, or unluckily, we know one of those.”  

 Sam went on to inform Riley that they had called a powwow for that afternoon to discuss what they needed, and how to get those things. In the meantime, they were calling in reinforcements. So the morning was meant to research and get ready, while they waited for their friends arrival.  

-------------------------------------

 It was still cold by the time Riley had gotten ready and headed to the main room. Still a few hours left before Sam said the others were scheduled to arrive. It had given her a nice excuse for a long hot shower. At least the water heater in the bunker was large and strong, so she didn’t have to worry about running out. This was especially important considering the amount of time she’d realized it took Sam to get ready in the morning. That boy spent so much time washing his hair. And Riley was envious of the sheer number of products he had.

 Riley ran a hand through her own hair. Unless she was meeting clients or going to court, she spent very little time doing anything with it. Mostly it just air dried into soft waves. It gave her an effortless look. Which was in right now, or so she reasoned. Mostly she didn’t want to take the time to worry about. Preferring to focus more on other things.

 Based on the temperature, Riley had dressed in layers. Dark jeans, a blue flannel shirt with a crimson colored hoody over it, zipped most of the way up. She’d also donned fuzzy socks, with allowed her to pad silently down the halls. Thus the boys didn’t notice her at first when Riley wandered out, laptop under her arm. “Is it just me or is it freezing in here?” Their heads jerked up at her voice, slightly startled.

 Sam and Jack were at the table. Both looking at her for a moment before Sam gathered his wits to respond. “It is an old building, sometimes takes time to warm up.”

 It took her a moment for Riley to realize Sam and Jack weren’t the only ones present, and her gaze landed on Gabriel, who was sitting in a chair against the wall, legs thrown over the side. Their gazes met for a moment and Riley blushed. She hadn’t seen him since her apartment. Her fingers absently rubbed the mark on her wrist. His eyes dropped to her wrist and he gave her lopsided smile.

 “How are you all not wearing anything heavier?” She asked, turning her attention to the others. Gabriel was the only one in a jacket, but he normally wore it, so it probably had nothing to do with the temperature. She glanced again at the angel, wishing she could steal his jacket. She could still remember the feeling of waking up and finding it wrapped around her.

 “I don’t get cold.” Jack said pleasantly. Sam just shrugged.

 “Mm. Well, I’m hoping it warms up soon.” She shivered. “Otherwise I’m gonna need to get a winter coat. And it’s only the beginning of October.” She sat down at the table across of Sam. “Where are Dean and Cas?”

 “Beer run.” Jack supplied.

 “It’s early, even for Dean.”

 Sam smiled, “He’s prepping for Charlie.” At Riley’s odd look his smile grew into a grin, “He and our Charlie used to be really close. He’s hoping alt world Charlie will be enough like ours that they can be friends. Beer is supposed to butter her up.”

 “I liked Charlie.” Jack piped up. “She was a good fighter.”

 “In the other world.” Sam murmured, answering Riley’s unspoken question. Changing gears Sam motion to the books in front of him, “We’ve made good progress with the spell and I think I’ve gotten the ingredient list. With Jack back, we’ve got the whole hunter network working on this. Ketch and Charlie are heading this way to help us. Cas and Gabriel are going to get Jody and her crew. Plus mom’s coming back. Rowena’s on standby for when we get everything together.”

 “Dean thought we would need more beer, and pie.” Jack added. “He likes pie. I like apple pie. I have not tried other flavors.”

 “We can fix that, Jack.” Riley murmured, “Slowly.”

 “Everyone should be here within the next four hours.” Sam said, a half laugh at Jack’s enthusiasm over pie. Which seemed to almost match Dean’s.

 “Ah. So what’s our game plan?”

 “Hang out, read up on the leads on ingredients. Map out travel routes.”

 “Where do you want me?” Riley asked. Gabriel made a sound of amusement from his perch. Riley sighed, knowing that he was thinking something dirty.

 Sam glared at him assuming the same, “You don’t have to be here yet.” Gabriel only shrugged in response. “Riley, if you want to look for articles and things on this.” He slid her a piece of paper with a couple things on it.

 She raised a brow, “These are ingredients….” She trailed off her question.

 “Yeah.” Sam said, offhandedly, no longer paying her any attention as he was engrossed in his own laptop again. Sam had a habit of falling into the lore and forgetting about the world around him. Jack just smiled and turned back to his computer, though from the look of it, the kid was playing some sort of game and not researching.

 “Okay.” She opened her laptop. She pulled up several news sites and google. Because google was a girl’s best friend. Her list was weird. Apparently, water from where a rainbow falls was a thing. And the water of the four rivers – both waters needed to be blessed by a holy man. Riley glanced over at the much longer list in front of Sam: a human baby's first laugh, fire which has been cried by the Earth, wax which has been made from bees that have gathered pollen from the Garden of Eden, a quill made of feathers from five angels (given freely), various herbs and flowers, and a scroll- with papyrus gathered in the Holy land and wood from an ancient tree. No blood at least….. oh wait, blood of a prior prophet made into ink. Ick. Riley turned to her search, wondering how all the ingredients would be put together into a spell. Clearly some form of writing on the scroll, but how did that then turn into an amulet? Not her department, she decided.

 Quiet settled over the room.

 Riley continued to shiver, though it was hardly noticeable. But it was distracting to her. About five minutes into her search she considered getting up to get a blanket. But before she could actually move she felt something warm drape over her shoulders.

 Riley swung her gaze up to find Gabriel settling into the chair next to her, kicking his feet up on the table, leaning back, eyes closed. His obvious movements were a good distraction, because neither Sam or Jack noticed that Gabriel was no longer wearing his jacket, and that it now was settled over Riley’s shoulders. Instead they’d zeroed in on him for a moment before letting their gazes drop back to their respective laptops.

 The jacket was warm and still smelled like him. As the boys were currently not paying her any mind, Riley took a moment to raise her hands and bring the jacket fuller around herself. It also gave her the opportunity to breath in the scent that lingered.

 For some reason, Riley had become oddly attached to the jacket. It was probably because Gabriel seemed to always offer it as a form of comfort. A thoughtful act meant that he was aware of her and was actively interested in seeing to her needs. It was really nice and gave Riley this tummy turning feeling of happiness.

 In her head, Riley sent him a quiet thank you, and turned back to her computer. ‘You’re getting better at that, sugar.’ She startled a bit at the voice in her head. Hoping he hadn’t heard anything she’d been thinking before. No need for him to know her crush was growing.

 ‘So it does work this way.’ She thought back at him. Because she was definitely not going to call it praying. That was just too weird.

 ‘Bet I could make you pray to me. I’d be happy to fly us somewhere and prove it.’ His eyes were still closed, he was still leaning back, not giving any sign of movement except for the smirk on his lips.  

 ‘Stop it. I’m supposed to be working.’ She thought back. ‘And who’s to say you wouldn’t be praying my name.’ This was getting dangerously close to flirting.

 Who was she kidding, this was definitely flirting.

 ‘I’m willing to take that bet.’

 ‘Not tonight fly-boy.’

 ‘Does that mean some other night?’

 “Oh shut up.” She replied, out loud. Both Jack and Sam turned to stare at her. “Sorry. Internal monologue.” They gave her odd looks but turned back to their computers.

 ‘Very believable, tootsie pop.’

 ‘Those names are getting worse and worse. Can’t you just settle on one?’

 ‘I find myself with a fondness for Rye. Especially when you call me Whiskey.’ She glanced up and found his eyes half lidded, watching her. There was something in his gaze she couldn’t name, but it caused her toes to curl. Riley dropped her gaze and blushed, eyes staring straight down at her keyboard, refusing to engage further. She might say something she’d regret. Scratch that, no she’d probably not regret it. But it was way to soon to be admitting feelings.

 ‘Come on sugar, not going to say anything?’ There was amusement behind the thought. ‘Trickster got your tongue?’

 ‘Trying to decide how serious you are.’ She sent back. Then she closed her eyes and thought of what it would be like to kiss him. She pictured it clearly in her mind, painting the taste of his lips and the feel of her fingers tracing the smoothness of his cheek. She may not want to put words to her feelings yet, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t hint at it.

 Though she wondered if visuals were actual able to transfer through this form of link. Maybe not, as she found silence when she finally let the vision of them fade away.

 It took him a full minute to reply, ‘Oh Rye, you are playing a dangerous game.’ His thoughts were no longer amused, there was something deliciously dangerous and heated now.

 Riley jerked at the sound of the door. Almost guilty. Though she had nothing to feel guilty for.

 Still, it appeared that their little game was over, as the arrival of Dean and Castiel with the beer stopped further thought of flirting. “Aren’t you a sad looking bunch?” Dean said descending the stairs. “Let’s drink.” He hoisted a six pack.

 Gabriel’s eyes were still on her, though they were once again crinkled with amusement. But he made no move to reengage.

 ----------------------

 Despite Dean’s declaration, they did not turn away from their research.

 Instead they kept going, with Dean grabbing a chair and a book. And it was sooner than later that the Bunker began to fill with people Riley had only heard about.

 First came Ketch and Charlie. Ketch was exactly what Riley expected. Charlie was…. Not. Riley knew this was not the same Charlie from the brother’s stories, but it was hard not to compare the two. She thought it must be like meeting identical twins. Then Mary Winchester arrived. Surprisingly Mary threw her arms around Riley in a hug. “Hi.” Riley said, voice muffled against Mary’s shoulder. Mary pulled back, and farmed Riley’s face with her hands. “You’re a cute thing. Dean’s told me all about you.” Mary was more affectionate that Riley had thought her to be. But then, Mary was a mother.

 “I hope good things?” Riley chuckled. Mary just smiled and went on to hug her boys, though Riley thought it strange that Sam seemed to somewhat avoid contact with Mary. And only hugged her long enough not to appear odd. Riley wondered what the full story was. She hadn’t gotten that yet.

 There was general chitchat all around, as both Castiel and Gabriel left, returning with Jody, another woman, and three younger girls. The other woman smiled widely, and hugged Riley. “Donna.” She introduced herself, “Sherriff Donna Hanscum.” The other girls were introduced as Alex, Claire, and Patience. They were not the huggy type.

 Jody hugged her though, and this hug Riley was expecting, and looking forward too. Jody was a friend, and Riley’s first real lifeline in this world. “I’m so glad to see you.” Jody said warmly.

 Eventually Sam cleared his throat and drew everyone’s attention. He motioned the table and everyone took seat, turning to him. “Okay, so think we can find the new prophet with a spell. But the ingredients are not exactly run of the mill.”

 “When are they ever?” Ketch murmured, his accent strong with his derision.

 Sam continued like he hadn’t heard Ketch, “We’re spitting the list up by area. And we’ll split off into groups, go get what we can, come back, and if we need to regroup, we’ll regroup.” Sam started handing out list he’d been making. “Let’s talk about two of these first. Hawaii.” Everyone perked up at that. Usually the team went to small towns and dark alleys, not tropical islands. “So the water from where rainbows fall is actually a misnomer, it’s literally rainbow falls. A waterfall in Hilo, Hawaii called Waiānuenue, which translates to rainbow falls. It falls into a small pool that flows over a natural lava cave.” He nodded to Riley as the information had come from her, “According to the lore,” he added, “the lava cave is the mythological home to Hina, an ancient Hawaiian goddess. So, whoever goes, be careful. We’ve met pagan gods before, not all of them nice.”

 Dean sent a pointed glare at Gabriel, who waved his hand dismissively.

 Sam continued, “As to the tears of the earth, the lore actually says this refers to Volcanos. In ancient times, Volcanos were thought to be caused by the earth crying. And in fact, in Hawaii there are small bits of molten lava that cool quickly and solidify into glass particles shaped like tear drops. They’re referred to as Pele’s tears, who is the goddess of volcanos.”

 “So whoever goes to Hawaii might have to face off with two pagan goddesses.” Charlie said thoughtfully. “Could be fun.”

 “Some of the others are simple. A baby’s first laugh.”

 “I can get that.” Alex said, “From the hospital.”

 “The feathers.” Sam said.

 Dean looked over at Castiel. “Cas, can you get several of the angels to give them?”

 “Angel’s feathers are very precious. It is not a simple as it sounds.” Castiel said. “But I will ask.”

 “Rowena’s probably got access to most of the herbs.” Sam added, “But we ought to get fresh, just in case.”

 “That sounds like a job for us.” Jody offered, indicating herself and Donna. “So we don’t have to go too far afield.”

 “The scroll is harder.” Sam said, “We need to make papyrus. It’s time consuming, but we need the reeds first.”

 “Cas?” Dean asked.

 “I will get them.”

 “If you do, I can work on making the scroll.” Mary offered.

 “The ancient tree refers to redwoods.”

 “Oooh. Cali.” Claire said. “I’ll volunteer for that.”

 “The blood.” Sam sighed, “Won’t be hard to get, just unpleasant.”

 “I will do it.” Ketch offered. Not surprisingly, no one else volunteered.

 “Now the other water. It’s a biblical reference. In Genesis, the Bible talks about four rivers flowing out of the garden. The first two are the Tigris and the Euphrates. No one can agree on the other two.”

 “They don’t exist on any maps.” Gabriel said. “But you get water from the riverhead in Eden.”

 “Which goes along with the wax.” Sam added.

 “I can go.” Gabriel offered.

 “Modern day Syria.” Castiel said. “I obtained fruit from there recently. There are djinn.”

 “Eh.” Gabriel said, “No problem.”

 “Then we need that water and the other blessed.” Sam said.

 “Father Luca might be willing.” Dean said.

 “A quick trip to Malta.” Sam said sarcastically. “But yes, he’d probably bless it for us.”

 “What did you guys do before angels?” Claire said half sarcastically.

 “We drove.” Dean muttered.

 With the lists split up, the team started to discuss routes and travel plans. Dean broke out the beer and snacks.

 The angels took off after the list had been divided up. Riley had felt a moment’s sadness as Gabriel departed, but knew they all had things they needed to do. Still, she wished they could talk. They hadn’t had a chance to spend any time together since Boston. And she hoped she hadn’t taken the whole mental flirting thing too far.

Everyone else had stayed at the bunker overnight, and in the morning they’d all headed out to start collecting the ingredients.

Castiel had popped back in the morning to grab and then drop off Mary and Charlie in Hawaii, Jody, Donna and Alex at their homes. Then he headed to heaven to ask about the feathers and on to get the papyrus. Claire and Patience headed to California by car. Ketch had headed to get the blood.

Sam and Dean were going to hold down the fort.

----------------------------

Finding herself useless at this point, Riley went shopping with Jack. The kid kind of loved shopping. There were lots of distracting things. And families. He really liked to watch the families. So she’d taken him to the mall.

He needed clothes anyway. He didn’t quite fit in Sam or Dean’s hand-me-downs. And the boys didn’t know much about fashion other than suits and flannel, so she didn’t trust them to take Jack shopping. She giggled, ‘okay, have to retract that. I should give them more credit. Sam and Dean can dress up pretty damn well when they want to. And Dean could probably make a paper bag look good….. but not the point.’  

While Jack was trying on a few pairs of pants and shirt, she was looking through the beauty section. Sighing, Riley popped the top on allegedly coconut scented shampoo and sniffed. She’d been running low on some of her toiletries and took the opportunity to try something new. The department store she was in had a decent variety of things.

The coconut stuff was placed back on the shelf as she moved on. She grabbed one that didn’t have a scent name but seemed to be a salon shampoo with a green label. She opened it and sniffed, grinning. It smelled like skittles. Gabriel would love it. “Not that I’m shopping with him in mind or anything.” She muttered to herself. Yet she found herself putting the skittled shampoo into her basket.

After checking on the kid and changing out one size shirt for another for him, she wandered through the women’s clothing. Spying a rack of tank tops, Riley began perusing. She laughed when she came across a cute black one. It read ‘sweet as sugar’ in gold lettering, with lollipops on either side. Grabbing her size, she shoved in into her basket before she could think about it too hard.

‘I’m going a bit overboard.’ She sighed. But she didn’t put it back.

Jack finished by the time she wandered back the men’s section. He added two pairs of pants and a couple of the shirts to the basket. “Can we look at video games.” He sounded so excited that Riley caved.

“I’ll meet you at the game store.” She said with a smile. He hugged her quick, then turned and hurried off toward the mall entrance. Riley felt a wave of affection, Jack was like a little brother. She had come to care for him. And seeing him acting like a normal kid made her heart happy. Sometimes, secretly, she’d wish he and the Winchesters could just be happy for once. She’d come to care for them all so much and for the rest of the team.

Standing in the middle of the store, she thought of the speech from Lilo & Stitch: ‘This is my family. I found it, all on my own. It's little, and broken, but still good. Yeah, still good.’

 It took her a moment to shake the feels away. But she did and paid for her basket worth of things, and then headed to meet Jack.

[tricksandtales]

Chapter 11: Of Prophets

I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their brothers. And I will put my words in his mouth, and he shall speak to them all that I command him. - Deuteronomy 18:18 

 -------------------------

True to his word, Gabriel hadn’t been gone too long. But his appearance back in Riley’s apartment had not been very long. He’d been ducking his duty too long that day, and he needed to get back to Heaven.

So, Riley was left alone in her apartment with her thoughts.

She stayed the night, went back to her work the following morning. And went out of her mind with worry. Gabriel hadn’t had told her what had happened, shrugging it off as a normal mission.

Even though she knew the boys were fine without her, had survived before her and would likely survive without her, she still hated the idea of being gone for long.

So she left. She went home.

Because that was what the bunker had become: home.

-----------------------------

The guys returned that evening. They found Riley in the kitchen, surrounded by several dozen chocolate chip cookies. Jack was delighted and started chowing down on them. Castiel wasn’t fazed. Sam was a bit surprised but shrugged it off.

Dean was the only one to discerned something was wrong, though he waited till the others left the kitchen before saying anything.

“You okay, Rye?”

“Yeah. Fine. I was just worried. Gabriel took off cause he said you guys ran into issues.”

Dean smiled back, “Nothing huge. Some werewolves. Sam got a tad messed up and Castiel was busy with Jack, so we called your Whiskey.” He walked to the fridge and pulled out two beers – one he handed to her. “We tend to worry lots of people though. Welcome to the club.”

“Shut up, dork. I’m growing attached to the lot of you. Teasing aside.” She mock glared, “So I’d rather you don’t die out there.”

Dean sat down at the table and patted the chair next to him, “No promises, but we try to survive. We’ve survived a lot.”

“I know.”

“But you’re still worried?”

“I’m not sure I’ll stop being worried.”

“Yeah, it doesn’t really stop in this line of work.”

Riley took a long drink of her beer. “Is it strange I wish I’d been able to be there to help? Even though I’d probably end up being a detriment. It bothers me that I can’t help. I don’t want to be a hunter. But at the same time, I don’t want to be useless.” She leaned over and rested her head on Dean’s shoulder.

“No. It’s not weird.” He wrapped one arm around her shoulders. “I’m worried about everyone that I’m not able to see. Like Mom. I want to protect everyone. Even though I can’t most of the time. Family’s weird that way. They get to you.”

“Family, huh?”

“Yeah. Family. You’re stuck with us at this point.”

Riley sighed, “Good.” The two sat for a few minutes, drinking their beer. “It feels like I’ve been here a long time, but it’s been a little over a month.”

“Time’s relative. Hunters decide quickly who they want to be around. Never know when you’re not going to see someone again. And this life…. Well it sort of drags you in. Hunters try to retire, but we’re not cut out for the whole white picket fence thing.”

Riley let a breathy laugh. “Yeah, this life sucks.”

“Sometimes. But it’s go the best people.”

Sam wandered back in at that point, laptop tucked under his arm. “You two okay?” He asked, eyeing his brother and Riley.

“Yep.” Riley answered. She pulled away from Dean and reached for another cookie as well.

 Sam frowned, then walked over to her and patted her head.

 “Are you petting me?” Riley asked, amused.

 “Comforting.” Sam said, “I’m comforting.”

 “Hugs work better.”

 Sam looked slightly taken aback, as he tried to figure out how to hug her while she was sitting and juggle his laptop.

 She grinned, “For future reference.” His shoulders sagged in relief.

 Sam set up at one of the remaining chairs, grabbing a cookie, and flashed her a smile. “So, get this.” he started, “I found an article about a strange faith healer in Minnesota. Maybe another angel? Might be something else….”

 “Might be worth looking into.” Dean looked thoughtful

 “We can head out in the morning.” Sam said.

 “Castiel might want to just go and see.”

 “True.” Sam said.

 “So, any luck on the prophet?” Riley asked.

 “Not yet.” Sam answered.

“Will a prophet really be able to help save Heaven?”

“We need them to read the angel tablet.” Sam said. “None of the remaining angels actually know how to create new angels. But when Michael came over from the alternate world he brought the angel tablet with him. We need a prophet to read it.” He explained. “We’re hoping it will say something about the creation of angels.”

“So, is that what prophets normally do then? Translate?”

“Partially. But not really. Normally they speak of events to come, on instruction from Heaven.”

 “You know… prophecy.” Dean replied cheekily.  

 “That doesn’t make any sense. You guys can talk to all the remaining angels.”

 Sam pursed his lips, “Now. There were a heck of a lot more before the fall.”  

 “Yeah, lot of help the remaining ones are.” Dean muttered.

 “What he means is that all angels are supposed to know the names of all prophets, past and future. Their names were written down by Metatron. But after Kevin, uh… Kevin Tran, one of the last prophets. When he died Metatron allegedly ended the prophet line, ensuring no new prophet would be called upon.”

 “Except it didn’t end.” Dean added.

 “We think Chuck did something around the time his sister showed up.” Sam said.

 “Or, you know, Amara killed Metatron.”

 “Either way,” Sam continued, “a new prophet awakened. So, since the rules for prophets are kind of thrown out the window at this point, well….. we’re looking for anything at this point.”

 “And the angels are no help. Since the names are no longer known.” Dean added.

 “We’d hoped Gabriel would know.” Sam added. “Since the prophets are tied to archangels, with the archangels acting as their protectors when the need arises. Each prophet has an archangel.”

 Riley did not like the emotion that she was feeling, “So with Gabriel being the only archangel left?” ‘Tad over reaction there, girl.’

 “He’d be tied to the prophet, but Gabriel hasn’t exactly ever been the sharing type when it comes to Heavenly things. But still, he’s said he hasn’t felt the tether that would come from being tied to a prophet.” Sam sighed.

 “Could any of the other archangels be alive?” Riley asked.

 “No.” Sam answered.

 Dean though looked thoughtful. “Michael.” He muttered. “Last we saw, our Michael was in the cage. Technically he could still be alive.”

 Sam looked nonplused.

 “Do we like Michael?” Riley asked.

 “No.” Dean answered.

 “Michael was in charge after Chuck left. He commanded the Heavenly Host,  issued the orders, spoke to the prophets.” Sam started to explain.

 “He wanted to use me as a meat suit.” Dean added.

 “He took over our half-brother, Adam, and tried to fight Lucifer. Wanted the biblical show down.”

 “The whole apocalypses thing.” Dean offered. “Lucifer was wearing Sam at the time. But Sammy was able to break through, grab Michael and drag them both into the cage.”

 “You got out though.” Riley said, studying Sam.

 “Cas pulled my body out, and Death pulled my soul out.” Sam looked rather uncomfortable.

 “Woah.” She frowned, “There as a lot packed into that sentence. Death?”

 “Yeah. Long store.” Dean grinned.

 “How long were you there?” Riley asked, afraid of the answer. “And I’ll want the rest of the other story at some point.”

 “Earth time, over a year. But that’s more than 120 years in Hell time.” Dean answered for his brother.

 “That sucks.” Riley replied. She’d known it wouldn’t be good when she asked. She offered her beer to Sam, but he shook his head.

 “So, Michael was in the cage. Heaven lost stability and it resulted in a civil war. Surprisingly between  Raphael and Castiel, among others.” Dean finished. At Riley’s questioning look, he mouthed ‘later’.

 “Michael could still be in there.” Sam looked thoughtful. “Though he’d have to be mad by now. It’s been a really really long time.”

 “What about Adam?” Riley asked.

 “I tried to get him out.” Dean replied, “When I bargained with Death. But he’d only save Sam.” This of course was only half true, as Death had offered to save one, but had not specified which. Dean just didn’t think either of the others needed to know that part.

 “Lucifer escaped.” Sam was still thinking, but now out loud. “The cage was damaged when Amara was released. And Lucifer got out on his own, after he was imprisoned the… third time.”

 “What happened with the second?” Riley whispered to Dean.

 “He tricked Cas into acting as his vessel and escaped.”

 “Oh.” There was still an awful lot she didn’t know.

 “He wasn’t in the actual cage the third time though. The spell was recreated with his vessel. He never did go back.” Sam muttered. “So it’s possible Michael is still in the Cage, which is damaged. So like how Lucifer was sending me visions, maybe Michael was able to form a bond with the new prophet. Helping that person to hide, or….” He trailed off. “I need to check the lore.”

 Dean and Riley sat, watching as Sam ran off toward the library. “We won’t see him for a while.” Dean offered.

 “Yeah. I figured that. Have you met a prophet before?”

 “More than we probably should have.” Dean supplied.

 “Oh, what happened to the last one?”

Dean visibly winced. “Amara ate his soul, Asmodeus brain washed him, Castiel gave him a lobotomy. We left him here while we went to the other reality with Rowena. She forgot about him. He died because he couldn’t take care of himself anymore.” Dean at least told the truth, even if it wasn’t a pretty truth. “We buried him two states over.”

“Any others?”

“The one before that was murdered - Kevin. And the one before that was Chuck.”

“Ah.” Riley sighed, “Not a great gig then.”

“Nope.”

Riley watched Dean take another swig of his beer. She wondered how much blood the boys had spilled. How much death and destruction they’d caused. They had saved the world, but half their stories suggested they might be the reason it got fucked up in the first place.

Her first thought about them, that they were rough around the edges, needed to be updated. It was more they were jagged around the edges. Sharp and painful, destroying much of what they touched. It was an unfortunate metaphor, but Riley was fairly sure it was accurate.

She really did like them. And as Dean had said, they were basically family. But the brothers were fear inducing sometimes. She wondered if they were the monsters the actual monsters told their children about. ‘Don’t eat too many humans or the Winchesters might lob off your head.’ It was a sobering thought. But she couldn’t find even a drop of fear herself toward them. Especially with Dean making a stupid face at her, drawing her attention.  

“So the tablet will tell how to make more angels?” She asked.

 “We think so. Plus it should tell the angels how to restore their wings. When the angels fell, they lost most of their abilities.” Dean replied. “Cas would like that.”

 “I wondered about Castiel’s wings, I didn’t want to ask though.”

 “Yeah, all the angels that fell have broken wings. You can see it when they pull them as a show of power.”

 “They’re like that all the time.” She murmured.

 “What?” Dean was staring at her.

 “Oh. That’s right. I’ve just become kinda used to it now. I can see their wings. Mine too.”

 “Your what?”

 “Wings.” Dean looked unnerved at her response. “You remember I’m technically an angel right?” She stretched them out to their full span behind her – not that he could see them. “So I have wings. Thus the flying lessons”

 “Huh. I mean it makes sense.” Dean said. “You never said anything.”

 “I said I was learning to fly.”

 “True.” He nodded, taking a bite of another cookie. “So you can see all the other’s wings, just like, hanging around.”

 “Yep. Though they’re like shadows, translucent.”

 “Hey Cas.” Dean called. Castiel appeared at his shoulder, almost touching.

 “Hello, Dean.” His voice was gravelly.

 “Dude. Personal space.” Dean sighed. “Can you see other angel’s wings?”

 “Yes. At least partially. Our wings to do not fully exist on this plane of existence, only a portion of them. Angel’s can bring their wings through to this plane, but it takes a lot of power. Which is why I only do it partially. It also tends to burn out mortal’s eyes.”

 Dean started at him. “So you can see Riley’s wings?”

 “Yes. And Jack’s.”

 “Jack has wings?”

 “Yes. Of course.” Castiel answered.

 “Huh.”

 “Does this help?” Castiel asked.

 “Yeah. Thanks Cas.” Dean responded.

 Castiel looked miffed. “You realize I am actually very busy Dean.”

 “I think there was something else he wanted to mention.” Riley added, though Dean sent her a perplexed look. “About a possible angel sighting?”

 “Oh yeah. Though Sam has actual information.” Castiel nodded, then he disappeared again. Most likely to find Sam.

 Riley laughed, “You realize you summoned him and he came. He’s like your own personal angel. Like ask Jeeves, angel edition.”

 Dean groaned, “Stop. I really don’t want to go there.” He leaned back in his chair, “I’m thinking beer and hanging on the couch. We can “research”. No reason we have to coop ourselves in the library tonight. Like Sam.” He stood, grabbed another couple beers from the fridge.

 Riley got up to follow him, “I can help research if you need.”

 “If by that, you mean I can kick your ass at Mortal Kombat, then yes you can help research.”

 Riley laughed.

 “C’mom kid-sister, bring the cookies.” He requested. Riley rolled her eyes as she followed him out.

[tricksandtales]

Chapter 10: Songs Unsung

Do you remember when we used to dance? / And incident arose from circumstance / One thing lead to another, we were young / And we would scream together songs unsung - Asia

 -----------------------------------

 Dean and Sam thought they had a line on the new prophet. They had packed up the Impala and were about to head out when Riley mentioned she might pop back to Boston for a couple days. Castiel and Jack were planning on tagging along with the brothers, so it seemed like the perfect time.

 Seeing as how she could literally get there in seconds, it wasn’t like it was far. Dean had looked disconcerted for a second, then nodded. “Before you leave again, we ought to ink you.”

 “What?”

 “You haven’t left for any extended period of time without one of us or pretty boy.” He was right, every time she’d gone to Boston had been for an hour or so – boy was it convenient to fly in for a meeting. This was her first overnight trip by herself.

“Would that even work?” Sam asked. “It didn’t with Jack.”

 “Don’t know. Worth trying.”

 Which was how Riley found herself in the Impala, riding up until the first major city they came across. There, the boys dragged her into a tattoo parlor. Riley made a panicked sound, as she was no fan of needles, and cursed in her head.

 At which point Gabriel had walked through door, grinning. “Think that’ll work?”

 Everyone stared at him in surprise, but they were getting used to Gabriel’s random appearances at this point. Dean had shrugged, “Hopefully. Why are you here?” He was still not Gabriel’s biggest fan.

 “Thought I’d lend a hand.” Gabriel had smiled and wiggled his eye brows. He came to stand next to Riley as the artist started to press the needle to her back. Gabriel’s voice, soft and warm, slid into Riley’s mind as he took her hand. ‘I’m going suppress your healing abilities. Otherwise it’ll vanish the ink within seconds. It’ll hurt like you’re human, but if you want it to stick, then hold on.’ Riley nodded and cursed internally as the pain increased. Not a ton, but enough for it to sting.

 Apparently her new healing thingy was better than she realized, as she hadn’t really felt it before. And apparently it was a passive ability, as she hadn’t exactly been doing it on purpose. By the end Riley had a tattoo matching the ones Sam and Dean had. Though hers had a ring of writing around in a language the tattoo artist had copied line by line from a piece of paper Castiel had provided.

 When finished, Sam asked, “It didn’t work on Jack. Why did it work on Riley?”

 “I didn’t help with Jack’s.” Gabriel said smugly.

 The Winchesters stared at the archangel. “Will it stick?”

 “Yep.”

 “Can you do that for Jack?” Sam asked.

 “If he wants. Sure.” Gabriel had winked at the boy.

 Jack nodded, “I would like that.”

 “It doesn’t hurt that much.” Riley supplied, touching the boy’s shoulder for a moment.

 Thus, Jack found himself in the chair next, with Gabriel’s hand replacing Riley’s on his shoulder. The tattoo artist thought they were all crazy, but heck if he cared as long as they paid and didn’t interfere with his work.

 Jack’s tattoo was on his chest, matching the brother’s.

 Once finished, they all left the shop. Dean, Sam, Jack, and Castiel packed into the Impala.

 Dean still wasn’t happy about Riley going off alone for any extended time, but she was a big girl and had been taking care of herself until this point. Castiel was actually more apprehensive, saying that her powers were not fully formed yet, so she should be extra diligent. But neither of them had deterred her from going back to Boston for the night.

 Though, glancing at Gabriel who was still hanging around, she wondered if Castiel had called him.

 Riley watched as the Impala pulled away. She smiled as Jack waved out the window to her. Once the vehicle was out of sight, Riley wandered down the nearest alleyway. Gabriel trailed behind her.

 “Thanks for the assist.” She murmured. “Though I’m surprised you’re here.”

 “Eh. You know, nothing better to do.”

 She snorted in response.

 “Okay, yeah. Heaven isn’t super. But they can spare me for a day, if not any hour.”

 “Well, I appreciate you’re help.”

 “Meh. You know, your friendly neighborhood archangel, here to serve.”

 “Probably helps that Castiel called you to babysit me.” She said it as a statement, and caught his surprise look out of the corner of her eye. She laughed.

 “Yeah.” His smiled grew again, “Caught me.”

 “I don’t need to be watched.” She even heard the pout in her voice.

 “But I like watching you go.” His eyes had very opening moved to her ass.

 Under her breath, she muttered: “Funny, and here I thought you’d like watching me come better.” ‘Oh god, I did not just say that.’ Riley felt herself blush, hoping he hadn’t actually heard.

 No such luck. “Oooh……. is that the game we’re playing?” Riley was both apprehensive and relieved. He at least hadn’t taken her seriously, but she did not like his expression one bit. It spoke of mischief that was about to be aimed her way.

 Gabriel reached out and took her hand, then pulled her somewhere…. Else. It hadn’t felt like flying, but they were no longer in the alley. Instead they were in bar. A dark place with loud music and lots of people. Riley looked around but Gabriel had disappeared into the crowd.  

 “What the heck Gabriel?” She muttered, wandering toward the bar. “Not like I had plans today or anything.”

 All of sudden, a hand slid against her back and spun her to face the archangel in question. He had a drink in hand. He had also changed. Gone was the normal laid-back slacks and shirt. Instead he now wore tight fitted jeans and black t-shirt. His hair was slicked back. His whole vibe spoke of a city scene, like a boy she’d have met at a club in Boston.

 She was also in different clothes – a clingy black dress and wedge heels. Her hair was loose and falling in soft blonde curls over her shoulders. Shrugging, she figured it was easier to see where his little deviation led, then fight him.  

 So she gave him a smile and raised a brow.

He gave her a slow slime, “Hi gorgeous, I’d like to study the nature of your heavenly body.”

 “What?” She was dumbfounded, she hadn’t been expecting a cheesy pick up line out of anything he could say. At his annoyed looked, she realized she had not responded like he’d wanted.

 And again he disappeared.

 Then he was behind her again, spinning her around. “Hershey’s makes millions of kisses a day. All I’m asking for is one from you.” He waggled his eyebrows as he said it.

 Riley giggled. “Oh god. That’s bad.”

 He disappeared again. Riley slowly progressed toward the bar.

 Again he appeared, “Can I check the back of your shirt?”

 “Why?” She played along.

 “Because your tag should say made in heaven.”

 “Wow.” She laughed this time.

 He was gone again. She took another couple steps.

 Then he was in front of her, “Are you a magician? Because every time I look at you, everyone else disappears!”

 “These are horrible.”

 He grinned at her but he disappeared again. “I’m missing something.” Still, she found herself enjoying his silly lines. Especially since it seemed the rest of the bar patrons were either ignoring them or couldn’t see them at all. None had even glanced her way, and she hadn’t even had a drink spilled on her. Nice change of pace from a regular club.

 He appeared again, “Is it hot in here, or is it just you?”

 Riley had heard this one before and actually knew a response, “Actually, it’s you. Because you just crashed and burned.”

 “Ouch.” He muttered, but didn’t disappear this time. Instead he took a step closer, “Are you from Tennessee? Because you’re the only ten I see.”

 She grinned, realizing now what he wanted. “Yeah baby, but I'd only give you one... out of ten.”

 He laughed at her response and slid a hand around her waist, “I just Googled “sexy” and a picture of you came up.”

 “You’ll get the same result if you search for “not interested.””

 “Do you have a map? I’m getting lost in your eyes.” His hands her on her waist, pulling her close so his lines were delivered close to her ear now.

 “I’m hoping you’ll just get lost.”

 “Damn! You with those curves and me without brakes.”

 “Oh, I like that one.” She murmured.

 He stepped back, “Riley. That’s not what you’re supposed to say.” His voice sounded pouty.

 “Sorry, I don’t know a response to that one.”

 “Fine.” He huffed. But winked at her as he pulled her through space again.

 They were back in the alley. “Where was that?” She asked.

 “Pocket dimension. Like tv land.”

 “So nothing there was real?”

 “As real as you want it to be. But no actual people.”

 “It was cool.”

 He grinned, “Right?”

 She step closer to him again, so she could lean in and place a chaste kiss on his cheek. “Thank you. That was fun.”

 “Yeah.” He stared down at her, eyes wide. “Any time.” She blinked and his open expression disappeared back to his normal cocky smile. “So, where to?”

 “Boston. Need to stop by my place. Water the plants. Check in at the office. Going to stay for a day or two, maybe catch up with a couple friends.” She started walking down the alley again.

 “Not family?”

 “Nope. Been a long time since I’ve been on my own.”

 “So, just you.”

 “Yep, just me.” Her smile was tinged with sadness for a brief moment. “But it doesn’t generally bother me. Especially recently.”

 “Well, the Winchesters have sort of adopted you. Castiel thinks you’re helpful, which is a compliment for him. And I’m pretty sure Jack adores you.”

 “And you?” Riley asked spinning back to him, brow raised. “I’ve got you too, right?”

 Gabriel tried to keep his neutral smile, “Of course. Us oddball angels gotta stick together. Speaking of, mind if I tag along?”

 “If you want. Though….” Riley stepped closer. The alley, though not pleasant, did provide some privacy. “I’m sure one of the other angels could teach me, could babysit me in Boston, why do you hang around?”

 “They could.” He agreed, not losing his normal smile. “But I’m the best.”

 “Aren’t you needed in Heaven?”

 “You really want to have this discussion in an alley, jelly bean?”

 She sighed, “No. But yes.”

 “Like I said, we’re friends. And I prefer spending my time with you then those stuck ups in suits.”

 Riley felt a flutter in tummy, and bright smile curve her lips upward. She knew she could push, she was damn sure that wasn’t the whole truth. But he was right, an alley was not the right place for this discussion.  “For the record, I’m happy that you hang around.”

 Gabriel’s neutral smile slipped into a happier one, glad she was letting his answer stand.  “Ready?” He asked.

 Riley shrugged her shoulder, irritated by the bandage the artist had placed over the tattoo. It felt weird with her wings. “Yeah. Shoulder is stiff though. Think it’ll cause any issues with flying?

 “Nah. Shouldn’t. But I’ll be with you, so no worries. I’d never let you fall, except for me.” He winked.

 Ignoring the comment, she sighed, “This is my first tattoo. I hope it came out okay. Though apparently it isn’t just a tattoo.”

 “It’s part protection, part invisibility spell.”

 “So I’m told. Does it actually work?”

 “Pretty well. Though it’s not completely fool proof.”

 “Could you find me?”

 “Only if you wanted to be found, or if I knew where to look.”

 “Like, if you knew I was in the bunker, then you’d be able to sense me in the bunker.”

 “Something like that.”

 “So, if I ran off to parts unknown you wouldn’t be able to track me?”

 “Yep. Speaking of which.” Gabriel reached out and grabbed her hand, pulling her in close to him. If he took the time to consider what he was doing, Gabriel might have stopped or at least waited. But Gabriel was not always known for thinking before acting. “I need to be able to find you, even with that. Just in case.” He gently pulled her hand up between them, slowly so she could have pulled away if she’d wanted to. When she didn’t, he placed his fingers on her wrist and murmured something in a language Riley had only heard once or twice. When he was done, he leaned forward and pressed a soft but chaste kiss to her wrist. He pulled back as a symbol appeared on the inside of her wrist, not a tattoo per se, more like a birthmark. “Now I’ll be able to find you.” He winked, “Even if no one else can.”

 Riley felt a grin sliding onto her lips, and she fought hard against a blush. “Shouldn’t I be able to find you too?”

 Gabriel’s gaze snapped up to hers, and he blushed, actually blushed. He paused, staring at her. “Yeah. Yeah. We can do that.”

 “Is this strange?” she murmured.

 “No, it’s just personal. I probably should have explained that first before marking you.”

 “Do you not want…”

 “No, no. It’s fine. Just….” She was fairly sure he was blushing to his ears now. This was probably the most off kilter she’d seen him. “It’s um…. intimate.” His eyes were serious, and he seemed kind of nervous. “Usually doing it one way can be a sign of family, or of a commander to his troops, someone marking an angel they need to protect. But doing it together is, um….” Oh, he was embarrassed, “An indication of a much closer relationship.”

 Riley lost the battle against her own blush. “Oh.” That wasn’t what she was expected.

 Gabriel groaned, “You really shouldn’t look at me like that.”

 “Like what?”

 “Like you want me to kiss you.”

 Riley was pretty sure she was flushed everywhere now, “Um…” Well, she kind of did want him to kiss her. She bit her lip.

 Gabriel’s eyes darted down to lips.

 Yeah, this was more intimate then friends. But he appeared to still be willing to do it. Maybe he felt something slightly more than friendship too?

 “Gabriel?”

 He ducked his gaze, “Yeah….” He cleared his throat. “Any way. I’ll say what you need to say, you repeat after me.”

 “What language is it?”

 “Enochian. It’s the angelic language. We’ll work on that soon enough.”

 “Okay.”

 “You sure you want to do this Riley?” His gaze had found hers again. And he’d used her actual name again.

 “Just tell me what to say.” She reached for his wrist, copying the movements he’d made moments before. Slowly, Gabriel spoke the words and Riley repeated them. When finished she leaned in a pressed a kiss to his wrist. She lingered for a moment, and Gabriel though it was most sensual damn thing he’d ever felt. When she pulled away, a symbol appeared. She turned her hand to compare the symbols, and realized hers had changed slightly. They now matched.

 They both stood in the alleyway, slightly breathless, not sure what to say. The cheesy pick up lines had been one thing. That she could write off as his mere trickster antics. But this was definitely more….. Her gaze flickered back up to his, one hand still holding his wrist. There was a moment, as their gazes held that Riley was sure they were both leaning in.

 The sound of a loud spoiler on a car made them both start.

 Moment ruined.

 And Riley took a step back, trying to shrug off the awkwardness. “So….” She trailed off. “You still coming to Boston with me?”

 He nodded, for the first time in a long time, at a loss for words.

 Riley reached out and grasped his hand, tugging slightly, “Let’s go.” And so they did, flying off with the soft sound of wings.

 --------------------

 They didn’t really talk when they got to her apartment.

 So she’d fled. Riley would be the first to admit this was the cowardly thing to do. And completely contrary to her whole new outlook on life thing.

 She could have flown. Been gone and back quickly. But instead, she rode the subway. All the way downtown to her office. She spent most of the t ride staring at her wrist. It felt like something special. Something permanent. Something they maybe should have talked about more before doing.

 They really ought to have a serious conversation about what they were…. If they were something, because it certainly felt like they were something.

 Though she’d probably need to tie him down if she wanted Gabriel to have a serious conversation. She’d come to realize he had two main modes: joking silly trickster and serious terrifying messenger of God. There wasn’t really any in between.

 Shaking herself, she tried to rid her mind of the pesky archangel. She really needed to get her thoughts on something else, anything else, beside Gabriel. Especially since she still didn’t have a complete handle on prayer versus internal thought. Who knew when he could be listening.

 So instead, Riley spent the rest of her ride trying to get her mind on work and what she had to do in the limited amount of time she planned to spend in the city.

 ------------------

Riley stopped just inside her apartment, kicking off her high heels, and pulled the hair band from her hair. She stood, watching her houseguest. She honestly hadn’t expected him to still be there.

It had felt like forever since she’d seen her office, but in reality, it had only been two months since she’d moved into the bunker. Her coworkers had been thrilled to see her. They gotten a good portion of the things she’d wanted to work on done. But eventually they’d called it quits and headed home.

Without work to distract her, Riley’s turned her thoughts back to her current predicament. She’d figured out one thing, she needed to get a bit more hands on with the angel thing. Maybe she could visit heaven and work with some of the angels there.

However, any thought of anything else flew from her mind when she entered her apartment. He was still there, on her couch, watching tv. It reminded her of that first day, coming out of the shower to find him there, waiting for her.

Just like then her eyes were drawn to him. And no matter how much time she spent watching them, Riley was still fascinated by Gabriel’s wings. Her own were part awesome part annoyance at this point. But Gabriel’s were something else entirely. They were so large, and so damn powerful looking. And the way they ruffled when he was amused was adorable.

Now that she’d seen them in all their glory, she couldn’t unsee them. Even if they were transparent now, if she slightly unfocused her eyes she could see the golden colors.

She found herself once again staring at them, watching the way they moved, curling around Gabriel as he sat on the couch. She wondered what they’d feel like if she touched them.  

Riley was unsure why he stayed. Why he’d come in the first place.

It wasn’t like she thought herself unlikeable. She knew she deserved to be appreciated and loved. And at some point she had actually planned to date and eventually settle down. But Gabriel was so much bigger and stunning than any human being she might have ended up with. He was an archangel, an ancient and powerful being contained in a gorgeous, if not small body. So the idea he could have some form of romantic feelings, even if just the littlest bit, that was something amazing. And slightly unbelievable.

Though, from everything Sam and Dean had said, Gabriel was not a typical angel. His prior MO had been to run off and galivant around the world with lots of booze, gambling, and women. Riley couldn’t quite believe them, not completely convinced that was what he did in his free time; even if Dean had slipped her a video named Casa Erotica that had had Riley turning all sorts of red. Ever since she’d met him, he was a stable and good…. Friend. Still a trickster, but not the wild child the Winchester’s described.

The more time she spent around him, the more she found herself drawn to him. He was magnetic. And she couldn’t resist. Which was why, even here in her apartment her eyes were drawn to him. Her gaze focused on his wings. And she found herself unconsciously running her fingers over the symbol on her wrist.

He should have been out of place, a larger than life being sitting on her couch. Instead, it seemed he belonged there.

“What’s up sugar pop?” His voice intruded on her thoughts.  Riley moved her eyes, guilty at being caught staring, and met his gaze, which had shifted from the tv to her.

“Um…. Just, thinking.” ‘Find a topic, quick!’ She thought to herself. “Did you really date a goddess?” She blurted out, though it was an embarrassing enough line of question, it was better than, ‘staring dreamily at you and your wings again’. Though she could have smacked herself. With all the little moments between the two, especially the more… er… intimate ones, that line of questioning was likely to make him think she was sizing up the competition or something.

“You sure come out swinging.” He chuckled, “Eh, sorta. We had a brief fling, but Kali was never one for settling and I wasn’t really one for relationships. Especially with pagan goddesses”

“Have you had many relationships, I mean……” He was staring at her now, studying her face, looking for…. something.

But he still answered. “Not really. Especially not considering the time I’ve been alive and wandering the earth. Though I am quite the lady’s man, or so I’m sure Dean’s told you.” He waggled his eye brow in a way that was supposed to make her laugh, but instead made her blush thinking about the dirty video. “Huh, anyway, I tend to embellish, a tad. You know, playing the trickster and god of lies means I had to play up some sordid details which are not technically true. Old habits die hard, so they say, and thus I tend to still embellish my stories. Especially since it bothers the flannel patrol so much.” He grinned wickedly.

“So, no porn stars?”

He grinned, “Not recently. Not saying they weren’t there during that little escapade, just saying I didn’t partake. Though I can’t say I’ve been celibate.”

“Which would explain the video.” ‘Damn it.’ She cursed internally.

Gabriel raised a brow, “That’s called illusion, sweet cheeks. No porn stars were used in the making of the film. Nor technically was I. I whipped up a copy of myself. Easy peasy.”

“Ah. Should have known no one could have boobs like that.”

He made a breathless sound of shock. “Watched that, did you?”

“Um…. Dean might have tricked me into watching it.” Riley flushed, and slid down the other side of the couch. She wondered why her tongue seemed to have a mind of its own, or when she’d become so curious about the angel’s relationship status and sex life. In fact, she realized he was probably wondering the same thing. Especially since he was staring at her again. “I haven’t had a boyfriend since undergrad.” She supplied. ‘And could smack myself.’  “So, um….. what are you watching?” ‘Good going girl’, she thought, ‘real subtle’.

Gabriel let it slide though and turned back to the tv. “Japanese game show.” There was another moment of awkward silence. It was like neither of them knew how to recover from the earlier intensity.

Riley tried to think of something to say, anything to say, that would lighten the mood. But she came up with nothing. Mostly because what she really wanted to talk about was the thing least wanted to talk about. It was infuriating.

After another beat of silence, Gabriel turned back grinning, “Have I told you about the time Dean and Sam were in a game show?”

Riley perked up and shook her head, “I know the broad version of tv land, but I don’t think I’ve heard that one.”

“Oh, this will be good.” He leaned back away from the seat and slid down, letting his head come to rest on her lap.  She tensed for a moment but made herself relax. “So, this was during their first foray into the apocalypse. Mikey and Luci were trying to use them as meat suits, and I was getting super tired of all the crazy, so I devised a plan to get them to play their roles…..” And so told her about the tv shows he’d made the boys go through, as he did Riley began to run her nails through his hair. He liked that, a lot.

He told her about making Sam say he had a rather embarrassing disease. And Dean’s apparent secret obsession with Dr. Sexy and his cowboy boots.

“We should convince Cas to dress up as that for Halloween.” Riley murmured.

Gabriel grinned up at her. “That is by far the best idea ever. And I can magic Dean into a nurse’s costume.”

She laughed back, amused at the idea, “I’ll be waiting with the camera.”

“Aw…. Can’t you dress up as a nurse too?” He gave her a wicked grin from his position nestled in her lap.

They talked for awhile about all the ways they could make the idea a reality when Gabriel froze. “I’ve got to go.”

“Everything okay?”

“Cas is calling. They hit a snag. No need to worry, they just need a hand.” He sat up, rolled his shoulders, and smiled down at her. “Shouldn’t take too long.” And with that, he disappeared.

“You could take me with you.” She murmured into the empty apartment, suddenly at a loss.

[tricksandtales]

Chapter 9: Carry On

If you're lost and alone / Or you're sinking like a stone / Carry on / May your past be the sound of your feet upon the ground��/ Carry on - Fun

------------------------

 Riley woke to pounding on her door.

 “Rye, you alive in there?” It was Dean, his voice muffled by the door.

 “I’m up.” Riley groggily replied. Glancing around her room, Riley realized she was alone. And the sneak had taken his jacket with him. She ran a hand through her wild hair and tried to tame it marginally. She felt like she should feel shame for having a break down. But she didn’t. Nor did she feel embarrassed. Though she probably should feel that too, considering she’d cuddled up to the archangel all night and probably said some stupid things.

 But she didn’t feel bad in any way. She actually felt better, almost relieved. It as a new day. And she was going to be better, do better, train harder. She’d found some determination, and now she just had to put her money where her mouth was.

 Smiling, Riley opened the door to see both the Winchesters on the other side.

 “Rise and shine, sleeping beauty.” Dean was grinning. “You’ve slept forever.”

Sam was more somber, “You okay?”

 “Yep, just tired from a lot of flying. My body isn’t quite used to it yet. Adjustment period.” She smiled at Sam’s concerned gaze. “I’m fine.”

 “Cas did mention you’re basically like a fledgling – and will need time to get up to speed.” Sam said.

 “Fledgling? So I’m like a baby bird?” She snorted.

 Dean smirked back, “If by that he meant tiny and fluffy.” He reached out and tugged on her wild hair.

 Sam couldn’t help but smile, “Leave the poor girl alone.”  

“All right.” He sighed dramatically, then bounced back. “I’m thinking breakfast.” Dean leaned on the door frame, giving her puppy dog eyes.

 “Did you come wake me up just to cook for you?” She scrunched up her nose in mock annoyance. “How rude.”

 “No.” Dean said at the same time Sam said “Yes.”

 “We’re heading out soon. Cas is pretty sure he’s gotten a line on Jack.”

 Riley grinned, “Give me five minutes and I’ll meet you guys in the kitchen.” The guys wandered away, leaving her to get ready in peace.

 She glanced at the bed again. She needed to get a handle on the strange mix of feelings for the archangel. It was weird, she’d been seeing a whole bunch of different sides to him lately. Some of them scary, some of worrying, and some…. Sweet. But none of them scared her off or made her crush any less. In fact, most of them made it worse. Especially considering how nice it had felt to sink against him and sleep cuddled in his arms.

 Yeah, the crush was getting worse.

 At some point she’d have to deal with it. But not now. ‘At least I can run from that.’ Shaking her head, Riley grabbed a new set of clothing and headed to the bathroom to shower and change. If she had to deal with the boys and even a single one of the angels, she wanted to be clean and fully awake. So, shower and coffee.

 ---------------------

 Breakfast had been quick, and it was surprisingly Dean who’d cooked it. When Riley had made it into the kitchen, dressed in jeans and black t-shirt, hair pulled back into a single braid, she’d found Dean dishing out scrambled eggs and sausage onto three plates.

 Sam was at the table, laptop open, sipping a cup of coffee. Riley wandered over and poured herself a cup as well.

 “Can you do the dishes?” Dean asked, “We’re going to head out in a few.”

 “Yes, but I was thinking I might go with you.” Both Sam and Dean turned to stare at her with curious looks.

 Sam had paused, coffee cup halfway to his mouth. “You… um…. Sure?” He asked.

 “Yeah. I though it would be good to get out. Is that okay?” Riley felt unsure at their responses.

 “We’ll hold off going for a few.” Dean said, “Eat your food. Sam will clean up. You and I are going to the range. Even if this is just a wild goose chase you should be armed.”

 Ten minutes later, Riley found herself, gun in hand, sighting a target. She missed. It took her twenty more minutes of Dean’s patient (and he was patient) teaching before Riley finally connected with the target. Ten more minutes and she’d managed to hit the target twice in a row.

 “Well, you’re not terrible anymore.” Dean had said. High praise, that. Still they needed to the hit the road and Dean signed off on her carrying a weapon, “Just don’t use it unless it’s last resort.” She nodded solemnly, strapping the ankle holster on.

 “Ready” Sam asked when the two reappeared in the main room.

 “As much as she can be for today.”

 Riley shrugged in response.

 “Let’s go.” Dean waved his hand toward the door and they headed out.

 -----------------------------------

 They were headed to Nashville. Castiel had texted before they’d left with the destination. He had gone on ahead to try and pinpoint a more precise location.

 Sitting in the back of the Impala, Riley wondered what had possessed her to jump head first into the deep end. She wanted to be more useful, sure, but her confidence had wavered after the first hour on the road. They were about half way through the drive now.

 Glancing at her reflection in the window, Riley frowned. She had figured this would be some good real-world experience without the possibility of stabbing or shooting things. At least she’d hoped. But then Dean and the gun lessons happened, and now she wasn’t so sure there wouldn’t be any stabby or shooty happening on this little field trip.

 Riley tried not to focus on anything, her gaze drifting over the landscape. The background music Dean was singing along to helped her keep her rising fear at bay.

 Then things got interesting when Castiel popped into the back seat, Riley catching his form in the reflection of the window. This caused her to shriek in surprise. Dean slammed on the brakes, more in response to Riley’s scream than to Cas’s sudden appearance – he was used to that by now.

 “So, now that you’ve given Rye a heartache, what’s up Cas?” Dean muttered, getting back on the road.

 “The next large population is St. Louis, correct?”

 “Yeah, we’re about two hours away.”

 “Jack is there.”

 “Seriously?” Sam asked.

 “Yes. He was gone from Nashville by the time I arrived, but as I was heading back I felt him. He is close.”

 “Well go. Get to St. Louis. We’ll be there asap.” Dean said, applying for pressure to the gas.

 “Bring Riley.” Sam said.

 “What?” the other three echoed in surprise.

 Sam sighed, “Jack has been running from us, but he might stop if he sees Riley. He won’t expect her. Plus she’s another set of eyes.”

 “That’s actually not a horrible idea.” Dean added.

 “Fine.” Without another word, Castiel had grabbed Riley’s arm and they disappeared from the backseat.

 -----------------------

 After a moment of disorientation that she associated with someone else flying her somewhere, Riley found herself standing under the Gateway Arch with Castiel. They had appeared in a shadowed spot, and surprisingly, no one noticed them. It helped that there wasn’t really a crowd. She sighed, still not completely used to being dragged about from one place to another at the drop of a hat. Not that she had a ton of stamina to drag her self anywhere. She was getting better, but it was still hard to fly somewhere she hadn’t been. That part was tricky.

 “Come.” Castiel said, walking toward the water. He led her down the large steps to where a few groups of people sat, enjoying the day. Off to one side, a single figure sat, looking out at the water. Even if Riley hadn’t met him been, it was not hard to pick out that he was the one they were looking for, as he had a wide set of wings spread out from his shoulders in their shadowy state.

 “Jack.” Castiel said, upon arriving behind the boy.

 “Hello Castiel.” Jack replied not looking their way.

 “We need to talk. Dean and Sam are on their way.”

 “I won’t be staying. I’m dangerous to them. If I stay in one place I hurt people. So I need to keep moving.” His shoulders sagged, “I tried to help, make more angels. I didn’t succeed.”

 “People died.”

 “I didn’t know that at first. I stopped when I found out. I didn’t mean to hurt them.”

 Castiel stood awkwardly next to the boy, “I understand.”

 Riley wanted to bang her head into the nearest wall. ‘Hug the poor kid. Hand on shoulder at least. Come on Cas!’

 Riley wasn’t sure it was her place to step in, but Castiel wasn’t doing much comforting. After a few minutes of silence, which seemed neither of the others was going to break…. Riley rolled her eyes. ‘So, here goes nothing.’ “Hey Jack.” His head snapped up and he stared at her.

 “I know you.”

 “Yes, we met in Boston.”

 “I tried to turn you into an angel.”

 “Yep.” She said. “Mind if I sit?” He nodded slowly in response. She slid down next to him on the steps. Close enough to reach out. “Castiel, can you go get us some coffee?”

 “How will coffee help?” Castiel looked baffled.

 “Caffeine helps with lots of things. Also, it will give Jack and I moment to talk.”

“Oh. You wish me to leave?”

 “Just for a few minutes.”

 He disappeared without a response.

 “I could just go.” Jack said.

 “You could.” She replied lightly, “But I think you’re probably too curious to leave right away.” At his nod she smiled. ‘Here goes nothing.’ “So, kid, what’s up?”

 “I don’t understand.”

 “Why are you running? You should be going to school, playing video games, trying to sneak a beer from Dean’s fridge. Flirting with pretty girls or boys, or whatever.”

 “Dean has given me beer.”

 “That’s…. That sounds like Dean.”

 “He also shot me.”

 Riley rolled her eyes skyward again. “Also sounds like him.”

 “I’m not a human teenager.” He turned back to the water.

 “Last I heard you were half human.”

 “It doesn’t matter.” He murmured in reply.

 “Your mother was human. Does she not matter?”

 Jack whipped his head around and stared, “My mother…..” There was anger there.

 “Tell me about her.” She said before he could say anything more.

 “I don’t know a lot. She didn’t know my father was, my father. But she tried to protect me. She made a video. I wish I’d met her.”

 “Do you have a picture?”

 “At the bunker.” He looked sad.

 “You could come back and get it.”

 “I shouldn’t go back.”

 “Why not? Why’d you leave?”

 “I hurt people.”

 “How does running stop that?”

 “I don’t know.” He looked so confused.

 “So wouldn’t it be better to stay where people care about you and can help. Dean and Sam are worried about you. Castiel has been spending so much time looking for you. Gabriel is worried too.”

 “I don’t know why they care.”

 “They love you. You’re family.”

 “We’re not related”

 “Who cares about related, kid. Family is more than blood.” Riley sighed, “They’re your family. You should come home.”

 “Why do you care?”

 “Because you dragged me into this world kid, and if I can’t run, neither can you.” She gave him a wide smile, “Plus I care about those two big lugs and the winged boys that follow them around. They need you. You need them.” She sighed, head tilting back. “Plus, I understand. I’ve been running too. Running from whatever I am now. And it’s not doing anything but hurting myself and those around me.” She had his full attention now, “See, running lets you pretend in the short term, but in the long run it ends up doing more harm then good. I should know…. It’s hard, but it’s worth it to stop running.”  This was beginning to feel vaguely familiar, like she had just had this conversation… Riley frowned, recounting her lecture by Gabriel. ‘I’m echoing him.’ She thought.

 “Why are you with them still? What are you? It feels like they didn’t drain the grace from you.”

 “Yeah, about that.” She sighed. “You really shouldn’t do something like trying to change a person into something else without their permission. It’s not nice. As to what I am, well seems your little whammy worked on me…. Do not take that as encouragement to keep trying though. One out of however many you tried is not a success rate.”

 “So, you’re an angel.”

 “Apparently.”

 “You’re not happy. I’m sorry.”

 “So’k kid. You thought you were helping. But again, don’t do it anymore. Now, you think you could at least try to come home for a while? Stop running?”  

 “I guess. Do they really want me back?”

 Jack looked lost, alone, scared. Riley leaned over and pulled him into a hug. “Of course they do. You’re their family. Dean is just a big angry bear, he doesn’t show affection easy. But he’s worried for you. And you should see Sam. He’s a big goofy puppy. Waiting for his family to come home.” Riley held her breath, thinking Jack might pull away, but instead he leaned in and hugged her back.

 “I’m scared.”

 “That’s okay. Everyone gets scared.” She smiled and held him. He seemed touch starved, like he’d received very few hugs in his short life.

 Which was how Castiel found them when he returned with two cups of coffee. “I brought the caffeine.”

 Riley snorted a laugh, “Thanks Cas. You did good.”

 ---------------------------------

 Now that neither Riley nor Jack was running, mentally or physically, respectively, the bunker was getting full. For such a big space it still felt like everyone was everywhere all at the same time.

 Jack settled back into his room, though remained slightly distant. Sam and Dean had sat down with him and they’d had a long heart to heart. Or at least as much of a heart to heart as Sam and Dean were capable of. Riley imaged it involved beer and long silences as they stared off into the distance…. Or Sam talking about emotions. So yeah, Sam talking and Dean staring.

 After several days of staying in his room by himself Riley had finally barged in and dragged Jack out. “Dinner.” She insisted. Luckily, he didn’t protest and allowed himself to be pulled to the table where Dean and Sam were starting to pass around the lasagna. They paused and started for a minute. Riley muttered, “Sit.” And Jack did. “Where’s Castiel?” She asked Dean.

 Castiel stuck around. He wanted to stay near Jack, to make sure he didn’t disappear again. And to help with the continued hunt for the prophet now that they could shift their focus to that.

 “I am here.” He was standing right behind her.

 “You need a bell.” She growled, holding her hand to her heart.

 “Dean has said the same thing.”

 “Still stand by it.” Dean muttered around a mouthful of pasta.

 “Manners.” Sam said, glaring at his brother.

 Riley snorted and took her place at the table. “Pass the salad, Captain America.”

 “Why is there rabbit food on the table?” Dean grumbled.

 “It’s good for you. And for growing boys.”

 “If it is rabbit food why is good for him?” Castiel queried.

 Sam grinned, “Expression Cas.”

 “Ah.”

 “I have heard many strange expressions.” Jack added.

 The discussion turned to the strangest ones they’d heard, which in turn allowed everyone to relax and enjoy the meal. Riley smiled to herself, it was the most normal thing that had happened in a long time. If you called diner with two hunters, an angel, a Nephilim, and her human-angel self, normal.

 -----------------------------------

 A new routine started after that. Very similar to her old routine, and yet completely different.

 She did her work and cooked. Though Dean tended to lend a hand more often. And Jack was actually interested in how to cook, so he hung around in the kitchen helping where he could.

 Dean continued her hand to hand training. She was getting better. He was making her do laps too. Which super sucked. Riley was not a fan of running.

 Riley felt herself getting stronger. And each day she woke with a little more stamina. Castiel said her angel abilities were increasing. When she asked him he explained that although Jacks’ initial stunt had turned her to an angel and given her grace, it would take time to mesh completely with her human soul and for her to grow into everything. So the powers would be slow. But the more she used them, the more she’d be able to use them.

 Dean also added shooting training. For which he’d presented her with her very own firearm. She still wasn’t a very good shot, but Dean assured her she’d improve. It just took time.

 Sam worked with her on the lore. Showed her runes. How to recognize different spells. He also started hanging around as she worked on her actual job things, engaging with her on legal issues. Riley was surprised to learn he had a background in it. “In another life.” He had murmured sadly.

 When Jack wasn’t hiding in his room, he split his time between following Sam, following Castiel, and/or following her. He was like a puppy, tagging at their heels. So Riley started giving him assignments. Books to read, movies to watch, things to try. It was like human training for the kid.

 He was in love with the x-box and wii she’d convinced Castiel to obtain from her apartment. Actually, so was Dean. So occasionally they all found themselves around a tv, taking turns at some multi player games. Castiel actually had a fondness for Mario Cart.

 They also did dinner every night that everyone was in the bunker. Sometimes the boys were on a hunt, or Castiel was in Heaven. Still though, they all made an effort to eat together around the table. It was a new thing for all of them. But it was…. Nice.

 Occasionally Gabriel would pop in to work on angel training. He tried to show up once a week, but Heaven was getting worse and so he ended up spending most of his time there. Riley wondered if she would see Heaven at some point. The thought kind of terrified her.  

 The first time Gabriel had shown up, Riley felt slightly awkward. Especially given the last time she’d seen him he’d been snuggled up with her on a bed. And the time before that he’d been torturing her with his flying lessons. And the time before that he’d been yelling at her for ignoring her new state of being.

 So she’d gotten one of her awkward questions out of the way, “Do you hear my thoughts?”

 He’d looked baffled back at her, “Nope, not a mind reader.”

 “Then how’d you know I was thinking about you the other day?” Her voice was quiet.

 He gave her a shit eater grin, “You aren’t always thinking of me?”

 She glared at his antics.

 “Spoil sport.” He sighed, “Prayer. Prayer is different than thought. It’s well…. let’s make that our first lesson.” He grinned. “You can think about me all day long and I wouldn’t know unless you reach out. Which is a really vague line, and really easy to cross.”

 “How do I reach out?”

 “Thinking of it like having a conversation. Normally your internal voice is pretty passive. But sometimes you push it outward, like you’re having an internal debate or a conversation with someone – like God. When you do that, it becomes a prayer.”

 “Do you hear every prayer?” That was an uneasy thought.

“Only those that mention me specifically or those that aren’t directed at anyone specifically. Though normal angels only hear those directed at them. The general ones are an archangel thing.”

 “So if I prayed to, say Castiel, you wouldn’t hear it?”

 “Nope.”

 “Could I hear it if people prayed to me?”

 “Hm…” Gabriel considered this, “Probably. But won’t know until we try. We’ll save that for a different day though. Today, I want you to switch back and forth between prayer and internal monologue.”

 “Okay.”

 “And then, next time we can tackle the hearing and responding to prayers thing. Or maybe angel radio.”

 “What’s angel radio?”

 “Dean’s word for it. It’s like group messenger for all the angels in the area. Or person to person occasionally.”

 “That’s….. complicated.”

 “You haven’t heard anything with Castiel and Jack around?”

 “Oh! I thought I heard someone talking the other day, but no one was anywhere nearby.”

 “Could be you heard one of them. We’ll need to work the difference between that and prayer. But, we’ll get to that. Today, just pray to me.” He waggled his brow suggestively, “Whatever you want, lollipop. Trust me, I can take it. And it totally helps if you’re on your knees.”

 “Seriously?” Riley groaned, ‘I want you to go jump out a window.’

 “Ha.” Gabriel grinned, “Starburst, you wound me.” He pulled his hands to his chest and gave her a goofy grin. “But yeah, exactly like that, but maybe a bit more fun. And no, the knees are necessary. Just more fun.”

 And the lessons continued, becoming as much part of Riley’s routine as the rest of her training.

And so life went on.

[tricksandtales]

Chapter 8: Strengthen the Hands that are Weak

Riley slept for a full 12 hours, before groggily wandering into the kitchen to shovel whatever food she could easily obtain into her system. Sam and Dean were both there, though Dean was engrossed in bowl of cereal – pie flavored apparently. Who knew they made that?

 Sam sent her a sympathetic look. “I heard you had some training. Feel more like an angel?”

 “Not really.”

 “You okay?”

 “Peachy.” She popped out sarcastically.

“There’s coffee.”

 “Thank God.”

 Sam snorted, “Thank Dean.”

 “Hm… maybe.” Riley sent him a halfhearted smile.

 Dean mumbled something vaguely insulting around a mouthful of cereal.

 “Castiel said Gabriel’s been pushing you. If it’s too much, we can trap him in a ring of holy fire, so you can take a break.” Sam offered. Dean had a slightly vicious look in his eyes at the offer. Riley was pretty she he’d take any excuse to hate on Gabriel. Dean seemed to still have a slight grudge.

 “It’s okay. I need to learn.” She murmured.

 “Yeah, well. You could always ask him to take your grace.” Sam suggested.

 “What?” Riley whipped her head in his direction.

 “He didn’t tell you?” Sam asked. At her head shake he sighed, “An angel’s grace can be removed which turns them human.”

 Riley felt a flicker of both hope and disappointment. Her mind started racing. She could go back, be normal. Stay in her own home, go to work every day. Not have to face monsters. But then, she wouldn’t be able to help Heaven, be able to hang out with the Winchesters, or fly with Gabriel. She was finally dealing with being an angel….. could it end as simple as that? And why hadn’t anyone said anything sooner? Why hadn’t Gabriel said anything?

 Dean saw multiple emotions flit over Riley’s face, “Cas, get your winged behind down here.”

 Castiel appeared, and the three other people turned their gazes to him, and Dean filled him in quickly. Frowning, Castiel murmured, “You should not misinform Riley.”

 A thrill of surprise ran though her, “What?”

 “Sam said you would turn back into a human if the grace was drained. This is not true. You would be basically human.”

 “What does basically human mean, Cas?” Sam asked, “Because what we’ve seen has been a need for food, sleep…..are human.”

 Castiel said more words than Riley thought she’d ever heard him say before: “Just because an angel loses its grace does not mean they are not an angel. It is why absorbing grace will return them to their powers. Humans cannot absorb grace and become angels.” He glanced at Riley, “Certain exceptions excluded.”

 “Oh.” Riley said, surprised. “So, even if the grace is drained….”

 “You would still be an angel. Only Father can completely make you human again.”

 “Okay.” Sam said, “That’s actually new information. I need to update the lore.”

 Riley smiled, Sam really liked keeping the lore up to date. She turned to Castiel, “So, I could go back to being as close to human as possible, but I couldn’t escape completely?”

 “That is accurate.”

 “She’d still be hunted.” Dean added.

 “Yes. Demons and others would still likely try to kill you.” Castiel responded.

 “So not a great option.” Riley sighed, “Better to have the powers to defend myself.”

 Sam put a comforting hand on her shoulder, “Sorry Riley.”

 “At least I learned how to fly.”

 “That is important.” Castiel nodded solemnly.

 Dean snorted, “Sounds fun.”

 “Not really.” She sighed, “I mean probably. But right now I’m tired and sore. And it’s only the first thing I’ve learned. There’s a lot more to cover. Things I need to figure out if I can do. And make sure I can do whatever I can well.”

 Dean smiled, “Sounds about right.” He raised a coffee cup in mock salute. “At least with you, we’ll have one more non-jerk angel on our side.”  

 “Thanks.” She mock glared back.

 Sam rolled his eyes, “Castiel, how goes the search?”

 “It is unproductive.”

 “Hm…..” Sam sighed. “Do you think Gabriel would help?”

 “He is very busy.”

 “What, being a pint-sized battery is hard work?” Dean smirked.

 “He is invaluable to keeping the lights on in Heaven. Naomi and the other angels are assisting, but they cannot measure up power wise to an archangel. In addition, he spends his free time here resting and/or training Riley.” Castiel tilted his head, “He is being very helpful.”

 “You sound surprised.” Riley half asked it as a question.

 “He doesn’t have a record of being very helpful.” Sam offered, “You’ve heard some of the stories.”

 “Yeah, but in the long run he always came back to help. Not always the help you wanted….” She trailed off and shrugged.

 Dean gave her what could only be described as bitch face, “Not. Helpful.”

 “Anyway.” Sam said, “So, maybe we call in the rest of the hunter network?”

“We’ve already got them looking for signs.” Dean replied.

 The two began debating new ways they could possibly go about using their friends and colleagues to assist in their hunt for Jack and the prophet.

 Riley sighed, and turned to Castiel. “So where is Gabriel now? Please tell me my torturer has made himself scares for the day. I don’t think I can take anymore training.” She yawned. The caffeine did not seem to be helping.  

 Castiel tilted his head, “He is in Heaven.”

 “Oh.”

 “He returned right after he dropped you off.”

 “Not before turning all our beer into sparking water.” Dean added, having been half listening to them. He glared at the ceiling for a moment.

 “He said he’d pop by a couple times a week to work on whatever you two need to work on.” Sam added, before dragging Dean’s attention back to their discussion.

 She groaned in response. “Fabulous.” She took a sip of a second cup of strong coffee she’d poured for herself.

 “You shouldn’t really joke about torture.” At her blank look, Castiel sighed. “Gabriel has not said anything?” At her head shake, Castiel frowned. “I believe you were informed of how Gabriel had not died and was instead being held by a demon prince?”

 Riley nodded, “Yes. The short version.”

 “I will tell you the longer version.” Castiel then proceeded to explain how Ketch had found Gabriel was alive, and exactly where he’d been and what had been happening to him. About the state he’d been in when he’d been returned to them. How it had taken months for his power to return to normal.  

 Riley grew paler and paler, and at the end made a small sound. “I, I need to go.” She bolted out of the kitchen, down the hall, and into her little room. Sam glanced up, but for his part, didn’t try to follow her. Dean almost tried, but Castiel gripped his arm.

 “She needs to understand the dangers of this. You have been shielding her.”

 Dean and Sam exchanged sad looks but couldn’t disagree with Cas. Sure they’d told her stories, but she had yet to see anything that would make them real.

 They all had sympathy for the girl, this was a hard life to get used to and they had been shielding her. Even when every other story involved death, torture, or at least some form of pain…. they’d only hit the cliff notes, sparing many of the worst details. Plus, there was still a lot of stories she hadn’t heard.

 -------------------------------------

 Riley stopped once on the way to her room, opening the door next to her own and staring at the symbols on the walls. She couldn’t make herself go any further into the room, hovering in the doorway.

 She’d been training, hearing stories. She knew the boys went out hunting. But it wasn’t real. Not really real. Not to her.

 Every time the boys told her a story they had spared details. Given the short version. Glossed over the pain. So in the retelling, they evoked sympathy, but not fear. The stories never sunk in. The good guys won. The day was saved.  The Winchesters always survived in the end. But the stories were not happy ones. And now, staring at the room which hadn’t been touched since Gabriel had been recovering after hundreds of years’ worth of torture, drained of his grace, and unable to fight back……

 Castiel didn’t gloss over any detail.

 Apparently, she needed to ask him to retell all the stories. They’d probably make her never want to leave her room, but at least she’d know….

 Turning away, Riley had closed the door with a soft sound and walked to her room. The false air of calm had stayed until her own door had closed behind her.

 In her room Riley flung herself on her bed, face planting in her pillow. She felt lost.

 The bunker had been a shelter, it kept the real world out. And the boys had been keeping her away from everything. Protecting her. Keeping her in the dark, intentionally or otherwise.

 Especially since the only supernatural creates she’d seen with her own eyes were angels. And none of the ones she’d met had been the least bit threatening. Sure, Gabriel had been slightly terrifying when he’d gone all supernova, and yes he was a freaking tyrant when he was teaching, but she actually cared about the man…. Er…. Angel. And she knew he wouldn’t hurt her.

 Knowing that such powerful being was on their side was enough to banish most of her fears.

 Yet, to think he had been hurt, been turned into a demon’s punching bag. His sweet voice silenced. His humor taken. Riley wanted to hug him. Wanted to bake him all the cookies.

 And she wanted to run. Wanted to hide. Wanted to put the blindfold back over her eyes.

 If there were things out there capable of hurting an archangel, what would they do to her? Death would be simple compared to the torture Castiel had described.

 Riley rolled over and flung her arms out to her sides, eyes on the ceiling.

 One of her hands came in contact with a material different from her bedding, and she found herself holding Gabriel’s jacket. She’d half forgotten about the thing, having been so busy training in the last few days. Though, now thinking about it, Gabriel had been without it when she’d last seen him. But here it was, in her room.

 Sighing, Riley dragged herself to a sitting position, back against the wall. She clutched the angel’s jacket to her chest and did something she hadn’t done in a long time.

 She started to pray to God.

 It had seemed like a fool’s errand. But sometimes it’s the only thing you can do. Not that Chuck was listening, but at this point, the act of praying was at least something she could do.

 So, she put her hands together, bowed her head, and she prayed. That she be forgiven for the joke. That he please protect Gabriel. Protect the boys.

 These people were fighting for every human on the planet to live normal lives. She’d taken hers for granted. Her eyes were open now, and instead of joining Team Free Will to help protect everyone she’d been running. Even when she’d been training with Gabriel…. The whole time she had been feeling sorry for herself, and still hoping she could go back to being human.

 These wonderful people were so much stronger than her. Yet here she was, and she vowed to get stronger. If these people could suffer how they had, and still smile, then she needed to do more. Train harder. Work faster.  

 She hadn’t wanted to be a hunter. She hadn’t wanted to deal with being an angel. She wanted to hide from this new reality. But she really really couldn’t. She couldn’t go back to being human. She couldn’t run. She needed to do something.

 It was terrifying.

 Especially because she couldn’t do much…. Yet.

 So, she prayed.

 Eventually her prayer seemed to morph to tears. At first it was only a couple, but she couldn’t seem to stop. Riley had always been a crier, tears a cathartic release of emotion.

 Though Riley realized she wasn’t crying for herself. Riley hurt, for him. For Gabriel. For the writing on the wall in the next room and what it stood for.  

 Eventually she’d be able to fight for him and with him. Eventually she’d be able to do more than pray and cry.

 ‘Way to sound like a weak ass bitch.’ She gave a quiet half laugh half sob.

 --------------------------

 The archangel in question had arrived in Riley’s bedroom at the first mention of his name in her prayer, but he stayed quiet, standing in the corner until she finished. He wasn’t sure if he should go before she noticed him or try to offer some comfort. He doubted she’d be happy he had heard her. Especially with how conflicted she seemed to be about the concept of praying at this point. But her resolve was sweet. And he liked her determination to get better.

 He was going to leave, he really was. But when tears started to fall from her eyes he froze. Then he’d found himself moving before he could stop himself. Quicker then he meant, he scooped her up in his arms and held her as she started to sob.

 For him.

 In her head, a mantra, a prayer, she repeated the words ‘I’m sorry, I’m so sorry’ over and over.

 “Easy now sweetheart, I’m here and fine. I survived. You don’t need to cry for me.” He began to whisper soft words in Enochian, and pressed her against his chest until she as cradled in his lap, face buried in his shoulder.

 When the tears finally stopped, Riley mumbled into his neck. “How are you, so you, all the time?” Her voice was hoarse.

 Gabriel wanted to make a joke, to make light of it, but he couldn’t bring himself to. “It’s hard sometimes. But I can push it from my mind for the most part. It helps that I don’t dream.”

 “You sleep?”

 “More of learned habit than anything else. I don’t need to. Most angels don’t. Unless they’re super low on grace.”

 “I do.”

 “Habit. Same with food. You don’t technically need them anymore, but your body is so used to having them that it craves them.”

 “Oh.”

 “But to answer your question, I’ve faced a lot of things. I’m an immortal archangel. I’ve been around since this world began. It wasn’t the first time I’ve been hurt, won’t be the last. Despite what it looks like, I’m a warrior. I’ve fought wars. The trick is to make sure that those who have hurt you, well, you make sure they hurt more than they ever hurt you.”

 “The demon died?”

 “You bet your sweet cheeks he did.” His smile was vicious.

 “Good.” She frowned, “I don’t like being the girl that runs away and cries. I don’t want to be that girl. I don’t like that girl. I’ve never been that girl. I worked my way through law school. I built my career from the ground up. I want to be the girl who helps save the day. That’s who I am.”

 “And you didn’t know how to be a lawyer from day one either. Like now, we’re working on getting you to a place where you can help save the world. Don’t worry, hunnybun.” She let out a small half laugh at the more and more ridiculous nicknames, “You should sleep more, sugar.”

 “Okay.” A yawn. “Why am I so tired if I don’t need sleep? This isn’t habit. I just had coffee. I want to be awake.”

 “You burned out a lot of your power practicing. Your grace needs to recharge.”

 “Ah.”

 “Get some more sleep, we’ll work more later. We’ll put it into your routine. You need to continue your little sessions with Samsquatch and Deano.”

 He started to disentangle himself from her, but Riley wrapped her arms around him tighter. “Stay.”

 Gabriel froze, not sure how to react. “You sure, Riley?” He only used her actual name when he was being serious. Like when he’d dragged her to the hilltop. Riley met his eyes and nodded. And slowly, slowly he relaxed and pulled them down on the bed more. Cuddling them both into her pillow.

 Riley nestled into him, closing her eyes. “Thank you.”

 “For what?”

 “For finding me.”

 He raised a brow, “You called me.”

 “You didn’t need to come.”

 “Of course I did. It was you.”

 Riley blushed, face hidden by her hair. So she didn’t see the slight look of stupor that Gabriel had, surprised at his own words.

 Instead, she had let the happy feeling his words induced to relax her, and she started to drift off. “Night Whiskey.” She murmured.

 He laughed, started out of his momentary panic. “Whiskey?”

 “Your eyes.” She murmured, now half asleep. “I told Jody your eyes were like whiskey. Your own special, ridicules food themed name.”

 “I believe you mean it’s because I’m delicious and addicting.”

 She snorted. “No, it’s cause you have pretty eyes. Like they’ll burn you if you drink them in too long.”

 Gabriel raised a brow at her half-asleep confession. “Uh huh…. Wait, is that why Deano was calling you Rye?”

 “From the song. American Pie. He was drunk. I was probably drunk. It stuck.” She mumbled. “I like it.”

 “So we’re Whiskey and Rye?”

 “Uh huh.” She smiled into his shoulder.

 Gabriel felt an odd warmth, some growing attachment. The more time he spent around Riley, the more he wanted to spend with her. It might become a problem how much she was getting to him. Sighing, he ran his rand his hand through her hair. “Do I ever get my jacket back by the way.”

 “No. S’mine now.” She was drifting off.

 Gabriel pulled a blanket from thin air and used his grace to settle it over them. “You’re driving me crazy pretty girl.” He pressed his lips to her head. “Good thing I like crazy.” Riley smiled in her sleep.

[tricksandtales]

Chapter 7: Psalm 91:11

For he will command his angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways - Psalm 91:11

 ------------------------------

Lately, whenever Gabriel stopped by he had been bugging Riley more and more about testing her powers. At first it was a gentle prodding, but he’d been getting insistent as of late.

Sometimes this came in the form of pranks. Like when he filled her room with feathers. It had been an explosion of them when she’d opened the door. Unfortunately, it had just been after her shower, so the feathers had stuck to the still damp parts of her body. It also made the worst of messes. She was still finding feathers in odd places all over the bunker.

Or there was the time he’d changed all of her clothes into toga like creations…. Yeah, that had not gone over well with her. Especially since he hadn’t left any undergarments.

Her favorite, secretly, was when he’d changed all the food in the bunker to angel food cake. Dean had been pissed!

It had been three weeks since she’d moved into the bunker. Three weeks without doing anything angel like. Sam and Dean hadn’t exactly been pushing her. So she hadn’t felt any sort of urgency. Especially since she’d been still trying to ignore it.

Castiel had come and gone a few times since she’d seen him in the hallway. Each time he’d give his look, like he was disappointed. Riley wasn’t sure why, but she felt kind of terrible for not living up the angel’s expectations. She was the wunderkind who’d survived, so shouldn’t she be able to angel by now? Whatever that entailed. Shouldn’t she be able to go help Heaven, like Jack had wanted when he’d changed her? Well, it wasn’t like she’d tried much of anything. Actually, she was kind of doing the opposite and hiding in a literal bunker.

 Today, she was sitting in the library eating breakfast with the boys. Castiel had actually hung around for a bit, and was sitting next to Dean, discussing his ongoing search for Jack. After the last lead on the prophet had turned up nothing, they’d switched most of their focus to Jack. It was becoming increasingly difficult trying to split their time between the two goals. Plus Jack had stopped trying to turn people. So they’d hoped he’d finally realized he wasn’t actually succeeding and would be willing to come home.

 It was a pretty quiet morning. A bit lazy. The boys were going to be hitting the road again that night.

 But Riley’s day changed when Gabriel popped into the bunker, sent a wink at the guys, grabbed her arm and transported them to middle of nowhere.

 She was still in her pajamas.

 At first, she stood stock still taking in her surroundings. They were on a hill in the middle of a range of rolling hills. These were surrounded by mountains and wide stretch of blue sky. There appeared to be no civilization around. Slowly, Riley turned to stare at the archangel.

 He was smiling at her, same old Gabriel. “Hi, kitkat. Ready for some angel training.”

 Riley sighed, overall she still had mixed feeling about the archangel, torn between crush and annoyance most of the time.

 Today though, today annoyance was winning. “Good morning Gabriel. Nice day for a walk.”

 Gabriel’s smile seemed to fall.

 Riley crossed her arms in annoyance, “I hadn’t finished my breakfast yet. And I have a super busy day of legal writing. Plus I promised Sam I’d make up some chicken and biscuits for dinner. I was also thinking I’d catch up on this lore book I’ve been reading, it’s super interesting by the way. So I don’t really have time for this today.” She wasn’t sure why Gabriel had dragged her to the middle of a mountain range, and her frustration was leaking through.

 “Make time.”

 “I really….” She met his gaze and stopped talking.

 By the look in his eyes, Gabriel was no longer in his normal joking mood. Nor the sweet one he sometimes treated her to, like when they’d first met, or sometimes when the Winchesters weren’t around. Nor the flirty one he used when she swore he could read her mind.

 No, this look was terrifying.

 “Riley.” It surprised her when he spoke, his voice different. There was power there, ancient and terrifying. And all he’d said was her name. He was almost like a different person.

 As she watched, he seemed to unravel before her, becoming more. It was the first time Riley saw him as something more than the trickster or goofy angel that popped in from time to time. No, this was the Archangel Gabriel in all his terrifying beauty.

 It was like she was staring at the sun, and she couldn’t look away. His eyes were molten, liquid sunshine. His wings were no longer just translucent phantom things, but were there, a physical presence. Feathers in an array of golden hues – amber, caramel, bronze, like shifting sunlight. And he was bright, so bright, it almost hurt her eyes. All in all, he was breathtaking and petrifying. It was the first time Riley felt even a drop of fear from the man she considered a…. friend. This was not her friend, this was a creature ripped from the pages of the bible, come to smite the wicked.

 Even when he’d first appeared in her apartment, even when she’d seen his wings the following morning, he’d still be the sweet as candy Gabriel she knew and…. Liked. This wasn’t him.

 “Riley, I need you to stop running from this.”

 She wanted to respond, but her voice failed her. She knew exactly what he meant – hell, she’d been thinking as much earlier. For three weeks she hadn’t even tried to understand the changes. Which was what she was supposed to be doing. Why he had taken her to Dean and Sam in the first place.

 All she could do was stare as he took a step closer, intruding on her personal space. She wanted to move, to run, but it was like she was stuck. Despite not make a move to physically harm her, she was fairly sure her ears would bleed from the sheer magnitude of his voice. Or her skin would burn from coming too close to him.

 “You were, are, a surprise. A strange twist of fate. As Castiel put it, a miracle, that could actually help with whole saving heaven thing. Considering how few angels we have. And Father damn you for denying it. You may have started out human, but now, now you are much more, much bigger, than human. You are an angel of the Lord. You need to get a handle on your powers.”

 Riley felt her knees go weak half from fear and half from something she couldn’t name. She probably would have sunk down to her knees if Gabriel’s arm hadn’t snaked out and caught her around the waist holding her up.

 The aura of power seemed to dim, and his voice was softer when he spoke again. “Don’t be like me. I ran when things got hard. I kept running. But I’ve stopped now. And I need you to stay with me. Don’t run away. Don’t hide from this.” He leaned in and rested his forehead against hers. “Heaven needs all the angels it can get. Even with me spending a ton of time there, the lights are still going out.”

 Of all the reactions Gabriel had expected from his display of power, the single tear that ran down Riley’s cheek was not it. Gabriel pulled her to him, letting her sink against his chest. “Easy now, cupcake. I didn’t mean to scare you.”

 “It’s not, I mean. Yes, you did. But that’s not……..” Riley stopped, sighed, and started again. “You’re terrifying.” He flinched, “But you’re right, I’ve been hiding from this.” She made a vague gesture. “But it’s not because I don’t want to help. Gabriel, I’m afraid.”

 He looked perplexed, “Of what?”

 “You. This. That there are actual demons running around. That Heaven might be dying. That God is running around the other end of the Universe, has a sister, and is calling himself Chuck.” She pulled away from him and turned to look out at the landscape. “I’ve been going to Church my whole life. Praying to God. Praying to you.” She turned to stare at him. “You want to know why I’ve been running? It’s so I can pretend, because apparently what I believe is meaningless. I run so I don’t have to deal with the reality of this really messed up thing where no one is actually listening to my prayers, or the prayers of the millions of people out there who believe.” Although no more tears escaped her, there was such sadness voice that he wanted to her pulled back into his arms. “It’s easier to pretend then to deal with the heartbreak.” Riley let her eyelids flutter closed and she sighed.

 “It wasn’t all a lie.” He frowned back at her. “My Father, he was there for a long time. And after him, the Angels protected humans, listened and answered prayers. You haven’t been alone. No one has been alone.” He took the step that bridged the gap between them, hands coming up to lightly touch her shoulders. “Until the apocalypse, things were pretty damn close to biblical. But in the last few years we’ve lost so many angels. And, if we turn back to my speech, is why we need you. You can help answer prayers. You even have the power to answer some of your own, whatever they may be.”

 Riley opened her eyes and gazed up into his, giving him a half-hearted smile. “Okay.” Her voice had a waiver to it, but at least she was able to speak. “Okay. I’ll try”

 “We are going to rebuild heaven. You and me.” This time his voice was cheery, normal. “So strap in, grow a pair, and get on board. You’re an angel. Be a Father damned Angel.” He gave her a cheeky grin.

 Riley smiled back, “I said okay, didn’t I.”

 “Right then, let’s begin.”

 ----------------------

 Gabriel at least magicked her some clothes. Though she was honestly surprised he didn’t make her do that. When queried, he responded: “Creating things from thin air is an archangel thing.” He winked as he snapped his fingers and magicked up a bag of M&Ms.

 Even though he was still the same old trickster with his teasing, he was a surprisingly hard taskmaster. She had to give him respect for that, though what she felt mostly was not respect considering he made her practice flying, and practice flying, and practice flying.

 For the rest of the day all she did was fly. Gabriel would take her somewhere and tell her to fly back to the place she just was. And so it went. They flew and flew and flew. For not wanting her to run way, Gabriel sure spent a lot of time teaching her how.

 At one point she stopped and didn’t follow him when he deposited her in a wheat field. She let her self slide down to her butt in the dirt and lean back, enjoying the sunshine for a moment.

 Gabriel wasn’t pleased when he reappeared. He had a very trickster like smile on his face when he grabbed her and pulled her through space to the middle of a glacier, where he promptly pushed her off into the freezing water below. He then disappeared. It took her over an hour to work out to get out of water. Apparently taking off while submerged was not an easy feat. Wet wings were not fun. But she finally managed. Though it was nice to know she wouldn’t freeze to death or apparently drown thanks to the new angel mojo.

 She found Gabriel hanging out in the field, laying on a picnic blanket with a large piece of cake and a cream soda. He raised a brow at the state of her, her clothes sticking to her sopping wet body and hair still dripping.

 He took pity and snapped her dry. He didn’t apologize and neither did she strangle him. Though both thought for a moment about doing those things. Instead they started again. Now though, she kept up an inner monologue of curses.

 At points he’d send her the oddest looks, and Riley wondered if he could hear her cursing. So she upped the ante and though some really creative curses involving him and things that weren’t physically possible. After one particularly good one involving some inspiration from Norse myths and banana, Gabriel had openly gaped at her and growled. “We’re going to deal with prayer pretty damn soon, sweetheart.”

 She grinned back and thought about throwing every piece of candy she could find into the nearest volcano. He laughed.

 It was moments like those that made Riley think they were still going to be okay. He wasn’t just the scary archangel that demanded she be better, nor the angel who threw her into the ocean, or shoved her off a cliff (that was terrifying) and made her fly back up; he was still the guy who’d appeared in her apartment to hold her while she struggled through the pain, the same guy who teased her and the brothers, who flirted shamelessly. He was just now more. And damned if she didn’t still like him. For all his stupid ass faults. She just had to hang onto to that when he did things like pulling her into the middle of rodeo right in front of a charging bull.

 Plus, the training was effective. Riley could fly herself a decent distance after the second day, though she got tired easily. And her shoulders and wings ached from the workout. At night, he’d allow them a short reprieve, grabbing her and transporting her to her room in the bunker. The dizzying feeling associated with being pulled through the sky by someone else’s wings was still weird. But it was nice for the reprieve of not having to fly herself.

 She’d sleep for about six hours, then the moment her eyes opened, he’d be back and grabbing her. They’d take quick breaks for food. Breaks for stretching. But that was really it.

 They covered most of the U.S., covering a lot of ground. Though it wasn’t like she had time to see anything.  Which was too bad because she’d always wanted to laze on a beach in Hawaii. Instead she had time to register the sandy beach under her feet before she felt Gabriel disappear and had to chase him.

 At least he didn’t go full on archangel or make her do anything else. Riley was fairly sure she’d go into a cardiac arrest if he expected more than flying at the moment. She was bone tired and even the sleep she was getting didn’t seem to be enough.

After the third full day, Gabriel finally dragged her back to the bunker where she collapsed into a deep sleep. She didn’t even change, just collapsed onto her bed.

[tricksandtales]

Chapter 6: Mini Adventures in Bunker Life

Part 1: A New Kind of Normal

Several days passed. Sam and Dean carried on with their life. As Riley had her own room, she tried to stay out of their way. It wasn’t so much awkward, but it was an adjustment.

Riley was not exactly like most of the people that had taken up residence in the bunker for any extended period. She was more like Jody. Dragged into the world kicking and screaming. At least Riley’s introduction hadn’t been violent…..

Castiel had not reappeared since the quick visit at the diner. He’d been off trying to track Jack. So far he’d been able to find all of the kid’s other ‘victims’. The grace had been drained out of them early enough. So there were no more deaths, and no more…..whatever Riley was now.

Dean and Sam were hard at work, splitting their time between trying to find a way to find Jack, trying to find the new prophet, and trying to figure out what to do about Riley. No luck so far as to the first two. As to the third, thus far other than the wings, Riley remained pretty close to human. So they had very little to go on with what she was / could do.

Eventually they’d have to start testing her potential for angelic powers, but no one was quite ready for that.

Thus life settled into a strange form of normalcy. Riley would work. The boys would research. They’d eat. Rinse repeat.

The fourth day, Sam dragged her from her self-imposed seclusion and started to teach her some basic wards. Riley was able to draw them fine, but there was no real way to test them unless they wanted to call some things Riley didn’t really want to meet yet. And Sam didn’t really want to try her on the angelic ones, given they weren’t sure what would happen to Riley herself. So he worked on helping her memorize the symbols, what they meant, and having her draw them over and over until she could do it almost automatically. “You’ll never know when you’ll need to be able to do in blood, quickly.”

The fifth day, Dean offered some hand to hand training. That Riley refused at first. She said she might eventually want to learn, but not yet. Dean was insistent though that she at least know some basics so she could defend herself. Which was why Riley found herself in gym clothing at least once a day after that learning some basics of fighting. Hoping to avoid the situations which Sam had described.

Dean mentioned they’d get to shooting pretty soon too. Riley was not overly enthused by this idea.

Food was obtained, mainly by Sam. Dean cooked occasionally, but it became clear he didn’t like grocery shopping. So it didn’t tend to happen often.

After the sixth day in a row of takeout meals, Riley had insisted on grocery shopping. Dean was not happy, but had driven her in his car, “baby”, as he called it. He followed her around the store, pushing the cart as she placed items into the cart. “You sure we can afford all this?” Dean murmured.

Riley glanced at him, “It’s fine, Dean. I’m still working. I got it.” Dean frowned, but it wasn’t like he and Sam made money hunting. Riley smiled, “You guys are helping me. Giving me a place to stay. Letting me figure out what’s going on. Least I can do. Plus I owe you for the training.”

The girl next door charm had a way of disarming Dean. He was used to women either trying to kill him, sleep with him, or mother him. Except for Charlie. In fact, Riley reminded him of Charlie, and he considered that it might be worth introducing the two. They would probably get along like thieves.

So that put Riley and Charlie into the singular category of…… what?

Dean shrugged, thoughts for another time. Instead he spotted a case of beer that he wanted and snagged it as Riley continued to drag him around the store.

Which was how the Winchesters found themselves having normal sit down homecooked meals that involved things they couldn’t eat with their hands. Sam and Dean didn’t have the heart to say no. Nor did they want to.

Thus, Riley settled into her life at the bunker, and found a new normal.

------------------------

Part 2: Sweet Dreams

Riley had fallen asleep, curled in one of the chairs in library.

The Winchesters had found a local occurrence they believed to be supernatural related. They’d prepared arguments on why she should stay at the bunker, but those had died on their tongues when she stated she’d rather stay behind.

Dean had hesitated for a moment, considering all the ways leaving their new…. Comrade? Friend? Weird supernatural being they kind of adopted? Pseudo sibling?.....alone in the bunker. But considering not long ago they’d had a whole score of people from an alternate reality in the bunker; eh, there was no real danger. At least no more than normal. Plus they’d only be gone for a day, two at most. And heck, they’d been planning to convince her to stay anyway Dean had scrawled down their mother’s number for her. “Just in case.” He muttered.

They’d taken off around noon, and Riley spend the rest of the afternoon working. She started by drafting some legal documents she need to file with the court. Made a couple phone calls. It was surprising how easy it was to work her legal practice remote with some adjustments. Court appearances… well she’d fielded those to an associate who had a solo practice as well. The girl had been a classmate, and Riley respected her. Riley had proposed combining their practices and the girl, Tammy, had been thrilled with the idea. Which took that concern off her plate.

She made dinner then settled into the library with a stack of books Sam had suggested she read. The fact was, even if she didn’t want to be hunter, she did need to get handle on the world she was now part of. Which was why she’d agreed to hand to hand training and other fun new extracurriculars.

The bunker was super quiet when by oneself. Riley put music on her phone, and let it play in the background as she read. An hour dragged by, then another, until eventually the words started to blur on the page and Riley fell asleep, head lolling against the back of the chair.

What should have probably been a fitful sleep, considering her position, was actually fairly deep. She didn’t wake at the footsteps as someone entered the library. Nor when the book was removed from her lap. Nor when hands pressed a jacket over her form, tucking her in. Instead, she sank deeper into sleep, snuggling into the warm piece of clothing.

She thus missed the soft smile and hand that stroked her hair briefly. Or the sound of wings as the figure left the bunker.

Several hours later, Riley woke up realizing she’d fallen asleep on the chair. The bunker was still quiet, and glancing at her phone she realized it was late. Late enough her playlist had finished.

A text from Sam confirmed they’d be gone for the rest of night, and probably most of the next day. They’d found signs of a ghost they needed to salt and burn. Simple enough, but could still take time. Riley sighed, frowning at her phone, disconcerted that those terms actually made sense to her now.

There was also the disconcerting fact that if the boys were still gone, then someone else had been there.

The jacket that was lain over her like a blanket was testament to that. It was dark green and well worn. It also smelled nice, like sugar and a hint of something spicy. It reminded her of when she mixed cayenne and cinnamon into her hot chocolate.  A blush tinged Riley’s cheeks; even though she didn’t 100% know it was his jacket, she hadn’t met a single other being who smelled like sugar.

Plus…. She couldn’t imagine Castiel doing it. Not that he wouldn’t cover someone, but that he wouldn’t part with any of his pieces of clothing. She’d thus far not seen him outside of his trench coat. Not that she’d seen him a whole lot.  

Getting up, Riley shivered at the chilled air in the bunker. Shrugging, she slid the jacket on. It was big, but warm. And if he left it, well, she might as well use it till he stopped by again. She smiled.

Wandering toward her room she sent a quick prayer of thanks to the candy crazed archangel, wondering if he actually listened to prayers. If not, well…. She could always make cookies as thanks.

------------------------

Part 3: Church

The second Sunday Riley was in the bunker, she realized it had been several weeks since she’d been to Church. Despite that fact that this new situation was strange, she still felt the urge to go. She had grown up in the Catholic Church, and it had been engrained in her to go.

Plus, it had always made her feel lighter. Had let her share her thoughts with God.

But, now knowing God, Chuck, wasn’t actually anywhere near Earth was disheartening. How did one pray when you truly knew God wasn’t there? Which was why she hadn’t been praying by the bed at night anymore. For years she’d pray before bed. But now….

What did one do when you in her situation?

Riley struggled with this, but for the most part put it in the back of her mind. She had enough to do that it was easy to pretend that there were burning questions she had about life and the universe, and her new place in it.

------------------------

Part 4: Wings

Riley was wandering down the hall, running a brush through her wet hair as she did. The bathrooms were not exactly her favorite part of the bunker, due to the mirrors. Every time she caught sight of her own reflection she startled, her wings floating behind her.

Like her issues with Church, she also tried to forget her new appendages. Most of the time she could almost forget they were there. They didn’t interact with anything on this plane of existence…. Apparently.

Sometimes they’d move of their own accord, curling around her when she was feeling scared or sad. Sometimes they’d flutter out, especially when she relaxed into the couch after a long day. Sometimes they unfurl to their full length, especially when she was putting her foot down, or when she laughed. Oh, and occasionally they hurt. It was like she was using a whole new set of muscles she’d let lie dormant for too long. Still, she could pretend they weren’t there much of the time. And it wasn’t like Sam or Dean could see them.

 Riley was a bit disappointed in herself. As a child the superpower she’d most wanted had been to fly. But reality was….. unexpected. Her wings came along with a whole set of complications: powers, potential immorality, the ability to help protect the planet. None of which sounded particularly bad, but then you added in the stories the Winchesters had told her and it wasn’t the prettiest of pictures. She really hoped she could avoid meeting any demons…. Like for forever.

So, Riley was happy to try to pretend she was normal. Which equaled pretending her new appendages were not there either. Even if it meant pretending that the possibility to fly wasn’t within her finger…. Er…. Wingtips.

 Lost in thought, Riley almost ran smack into Castiel. “Ah. Sorry!” She mumbled stepping backward.

 “Riley.” The angel had a deep and gruff voice.

 “Hi Castiel. Did you just arrive or did you sleep here?”

 “I don’t sleep.”

 Riley forced a smile, and charged on, “Okay. Well, you sticking around for a while?”

 “No. I came to talk to Dean about a lead.”

 “Jack?”

 “No. The prophet.”

 “Cool. Cool.” They stood in awkward silence for a moment. “I’m going to go make breakfast. Do you want some?”

 “I don’t need to eat.”

 “Sure, but food tastes good.”

 “Not all food tastes good.”

 “Well then, I’ll just be in the kitchen if you change your mind. Dean was in his mancave last time I saw him.”

 He nodded solemnly. “I appreciate your assistance.”

 “Sure thing.”

He passed her and wandered off to find Dean. Riley watched him go, still baffled by him. He was very….odd. Not unkind. Not unlikeable. Just… odd. Yeah, odd was really the only way to describe him. Though, she thought he’d kind of grow on her if he ever spent any length of time around.

She also needed to remind herself to ask Sam about his wings. They were damaged looking. She wondered how he flew with them. Maybe Gabriel would know. Though he might not tell her the actual truth if she asked. He sometimes seemed to embellish his explanations and stories.  Yeah, Sam would probably be the best bet.

‘Sigh, and now I’m thinking about wings again.’ Behind her, Riley’s wings furled around her, almost in sympathy for the painful looking damage to Cas’s.

------------------------ 

Part 5: Miss American Pie

Dean was smiling at her. Like a really real smile. It was a little freaky. That boy did not generally smile.

Apparently all it took was a sing along to classic rock, beer, and the offer of homemade pie.

Riley was slightly tipsy, being on her third beer. Dean had just broken out a bottle of something stronger and was crooning along to the music on the radio as he sat at the small kitchen table. Riley had a smudge of flour on the face, her hands buried in dough as she kneaded it before the process of rolling it out into crust.

It was a random week night. Sam had gone out to get some supplies, of the hunting variety. Apparently you could not have enough salt.  

So Riley found herself alone with Dean, and with nothing much else to do, they opened a couple beers and put on the radio. After her first, his second, the idea of pie had come up, and so they’d found themselves drinking it the kitchen, singing along as Riley made pie.

Singing Bye Bye Miss American Pie

Drove My Chevy to the Levy but the Levy was Dry

Them Good Old Boys were Drinking Whiskey and Rye

Dean broke off as Riley carried on, just slightly off key. He chuckled, bemused. “You’re like the song.” Riley sent him a confused glance. “Rye.”

“Uh huh.”

“Like short for Riley. Rye.” He grinned, please with this deduction. “And what was you called that a-hole angel again?”

Riley’s gaze whipped up, surprised. “What? How? That was in confidence!” Riley flushed while Dean grinned again. “I was talking to Jody! How’d you even hear?”

Dean didn’t answer that but said, “Oh whiskey eyed angel.” He mimed a higher pitched voice and dreamy eyed stare.

Riley growled in indignation. “See if I finish this pie!”

“Rye….” He whined back.

Riley sighed, “I was telling Jody about the experience in my apartment.”

Dean raised a brow, “It was an experience, huh?”

Riley groaned, “Not what I meant!” But she laughed anyway.

“Yeah yeah. Just kidding around kid. Though we really should talk about your taste in men.”

Riley snorted. “Do we really want to talk about my taste? Cause we can compare notes?” Smiling smartly, “So, how do you feel about Cas?”

Dean made a choking sound and almost spit out his liquor, “Nope. Not going there.”

“Sam was telling me some interesting things the other day. Like, I heard he only comes when you call.”

“Cas comes when he wants.”

“Do you want him to come?” She grinned wickedly.

Dean sputtered, “That’s not what I meant!”  

“Then no teasing about you know who.”

“Whiskey?”

Riley sighed, and threw a piece of dough at Dean’s face, hitting him smack dab in the forehead. “Singing this will be the day that I die.”

“From the top!” Dean shouted, taking another swig from his glass.

And the two started again, laughing through the lyrics.

Singing Bye Bye Miss American Pie

Drove My Chevy to the Levy but the Levy was Dry

Them Good Old Boys were Drinking Whiskey and Rye

Sam found them later, a half empty pie tin between them, and several more drinks down, giggling about…. Something to do whether angels were born smelling like sex…… He wasn’t quite sure what he’d walked in on, but he really didn’t want to know.  

------------------------

Part 6: Theology

Gabriel had started showing up at the bunker after her second full week there.

Dean and Sam were not thrilled, but they had no real reason to kick him out. He still popped back to Heaven often, but he kept appearing at the bunker. It had started out really nice for Riley. But sometimes it seemed he made it mission to drive her crazy. Like now. While she was trying to work.

Apparently, Gabriel was a trickster through and through. She hadn’t experienced it before, but once he started spending so much time hanging around, it definitely came out. Like when he’d turned all the beer in the bridge to sugar water. Dean had not been happy. Heck, she hadn’t been happy. Though it had been amusing to see Dean do a literal spit take.

At the moment Gabriel was annoying just her though. He was sitting on the table, staring at her, arms resting on his legs, head cradled in his hands, giving her sweet eyes. “Pleasssssssssssse.”  

‘Is it a sin to want to strangle an angel?’ Riley thought.

She was trying to write a brief but he just kept staring, and occasion would reach out and tug at her hair begging for her to pay attention to him. “Play a game with me.”

She didn’t respond at first. But apparently ignoring him made things worse, as he inched closer and leaned over so he was blocking the screen of her computer. She glanced at him, frowning, “Later.”

“Come on, pixie stick, can’t you take a break? I’ll make it worth your while.” This time, the look he gave her was far from innocent.

Riley arched a brow, but internally she felt flustered. On occasion he’d get this look that made you melt and get warm in all the right places. Like whatever was on the receiving end of that look would end up pressed up against the nearest wall being thoroughly ravished. ‘Forget strangle, is it a sin to want to a jump an angel?’ She wondered if he knew what that look did to a person.

A slow smile spread across Gabriel’s face, one that Riley swore had to do with what she’d been thinking. Yeah, he knew what that looked did. Also, could he hear thoughts? She groaned, hoping he couldn’t.

“Go bug the boys for a while. Didn’t you want to test out that new color changing shampoo on Sam?” Gabriel had a habit of playing a trick or two on Sam and Dean whenever possible. Her favorite thus far had been when all of Sam and Dean’s clothes had gone missing except for a single pair of boxers each. Sam’s had mooses and Dean’s had squirrels. It was both hilarious and provided Riley some great eye candy. Even if she had no romantic inclinations toward the boys she could still appreciate their fine physique. The clothes were eventually located in the Impala, folded into intricate origami creations.

Gabriel slid off the table with a sigh, “Good thing you’re so cute, sweat tart. I’ll go play with the boys. But poker later.” There was that look again, the one that had her knees going weak. “Strip poker”. With that he disappeared.

Riley groaned, she had the sudden urge to go to church and have a theological discussion with her priest about angels and whether it would be a sin to strangle one. But then, he’d probably have her committed if she confessed everything. Especially if she mentioned her desires ranged from wanting to either kill an archangel or screw him silly.

‘Nope, strangle. Definitely want to strangle.’

Gabriel’s laughter echoed from someone off in the bunker.

[tricksandtales]

Chapter 5: Home Sweet Bunker

It had been a long drive, though she had to give it up to the boys, they’d made good time. They had stopped only once, staying in a motel very much like the one she’d met them in. This one was cleaner.

Riley had curled up on one of the two little beds while Dean took the other, and Sam the couch. She’d been surprised by the arrangement, given Sam’s obscene height, but he’d fallen right to sleep. So had Dean.

She’d lain awake long into the night, her mind whirling through everything she’d learned, and her new situation. She’d finally dozed off and slept deep until the early morning hours when Sam pressed a hand to her shoulder and told her it was her turn in the shower.

Riley wished Gabriel hadn’t absconded with her bags. She had little in the way of toiletries in her backpack, but she made due – finger combing her hair and glazing her lips with lip gloss.

The morning was quick. Diner breakfast and the road again. Today’s conversation centered around the angels. “They’re a bunch of dicks.” Dean told her. “Except Cas.”

“Gabriel didn’t seem….”

Sam groaned, “He killed Dean.”

“Over and over and over again.” Dean added helpfully.

“You don’t remember.” Sam muttered, “I do.”

Riley frowned, “I like him.” Dean made a sound between a curse and disbelieve. “Not like that.” Riley amended. “I meant, he helped me. He brought me to you two, didn’t he? Though whether that’s help is still up in the air.”

“Easy sweetheart.” Dean said, eyes sweeping to her and then back to the road. “Don’t get your panties in a bunch.”

Sam made an unhappy sound. “Dean….”

“She’s not offended.” Dean responded.

“I’m not.” Riley assured. She sighed, “I’ll take your opinions under advisement, but I think I’ll form my own opinions. Especially since I’m one of those ‘dicks’ you mentioned.”

Dean gave a half laugh, “See, she’s good.” He sent a look to Sam.

Sam turn the subject to the other angel’s they knew were left, and stories about those that he’d met previously. Riley was enraptured, and was torn between laughter and terror through most of it.

-------------------------

Kansas was actually prettier than Riley had imagined it. Which would have been a bright spot if her new abode hadn’t been underground and with no windows.

The entrance led to a balcony and a staircase down to an open area that looked like it belonged in a government building. The room almost ornate, with a large table and illuminated map. It led right into a library, where the walls were lined with bookcases and filing cabinets. The furniture was old and didn’t look very comfortable, but it was nice-looking. There was even a telescope.

 “Welcome to the batcave. Go on kid, wander around. Not much off limits.” Dean said, heading down the stairs.

“Gabriel probably dropped your stuff in one of the empty rooms, but feel free to grab a different one if you want. Not that there’s much difference.” Sam smiled. “I’m going to go grab a shower, then do some reading.

 “Okay.”

Riley watched the two walk away and began to wander. Beyond the library there was a room with old computers and machines. She found a hall of bedrooms, including one with her stuff just inside. Sam was right, the rooms were almost identical. So this was hers, room number 33. Right next to a second bathroom. And next to a room with a lot of strange symbols on the wall.

She’d wandered past one bathroom which had to be the one Sam used, because the sound of water running could be heard from within. It was near Room 21. “That’s Sammy’s room.” Dean said, voice carrying down the hall. He was standing in the doorway of room number 11. “15 is Mom’s. 22 is Jack’s.  Kitchen is down that way…” He pointed.

Riley nodded her thanks and continued to wander, finding a garage, a shoot range, an electrical room, an archive which connected to a…. dungeon (that was a little freaky), a medical looking room, and a nice kitchen. There was also a sweet room with tv and couches, the most modern looking room of the bunch. It was surprisingly comfy looking.

“You hungry, kid?” Dean was behind her again.

“Yeah, I could eat.”

“Follow me.” He led back to the kitchen. “You can be my sous-chef.”

“Sure.” Riley grinned. “What are we making?”

“Don’t have much, so mac and cheese.” He dug into the fridge pulling out several cheeses and placed them before her. He obtained a shredder from one of the drawers. “You good?”

“No problem.” And she set to work shredding the cheese while Dean started the pasta cooking.

Sam found them, twenty minutes later, drinking beers and watching the timer as the mac & cheese baked in the oven. “Special occasion?” He asked.

Dean grumbled something under his breath.

“He doesn’t cook that often.” Sam supplied. “Though he’s surprisingly good at it.” He wandered over to the fridge and pulled out a beer for himself. “So, we ought to talk about the elephant, or angel, in the room.”

Riley scoffed at the lame joke. “Uh huh.”

“We need to do some research on if something like this has ever happened before. And what sort of things we can expect from your potential powers.”

“I really want don’t want to think about powers.” She sighed.

“Eh. Not tonight Sammy. Relax, we’ve been on the road for days. We’ll probably be back on the road again soon. Still need to find our rouge boy wonder.” He tipped his beer, “So let’s just eat, drink, and play some poker.”

Which was exactly what they did.

[tricksandtales]

Chapter 4: Welcome to Team Free Will

“These are some good pancakes, cupcake.” Gabriel murmured dousing them with more maple syrup.

“Thanks, honey bun.” The angel’s head jerked up and stared at her. “What?” She blushed slightly. “You’ve been calling me all sorts of food related things, thought I’d return the favor.” She grinned.

“Okay then, gum drop. Game on.” He grinned back.

“I’m surprised you can taste the pancakes over all the syrup.”

He grinned back around a mouthful of food, “I like sweets.”

“Me too.” She smiled, shifting her hips to lean on the counter. “But apparently not as much as you.”

Over breakfast, Gabriel had started telling her about his story: his family, the apocalypse, how he’d met the Winchesters, about Jack, and what had happened to make Heaven loose so many angels. It was complicated, and there were a lot of holes, but he explained the Winchesters would be able to fill in most of missing pieces.

Riley was fascinated. Still a bit anxious and unsure, and she kept pinching herself to make sure she wasn’t sleeping. She wasn’t, sadly.

Gabriel was as helpful as he could be. He didn’t spare any details from his answers. He even offered to do the dishes while she packed. Apparently, this involved snapping his fingers, which made Riley frown, and wonder if she could do dishes that way too now…. There was going to be some great application to this angel mojo if it could be used to make her apartment clean. Sighing, Riley headed to her room and began pulling out clothes and items she need for a week, or two.

If it went longer…. Then she’d have to consider what to do long term. But that was a decision for future Riley.

Once packed, Riley made her way to the bathroom and grabbed a quick shower. She wasn’t quite sure what to do about her wings, because although they didn’t seem to get wet, she could feel them on her back and had a very strong urge to clean them. Especially since she could reach out and touch them, the feathers soft in her fingers. Her wing span was pretty large, though nothing compared to Gabriel’s. His wings were massive. Would his feather have the same feeling? Could wings be hurt?

She spent a longer time in the shower than she intended, musing on things as the water massaged her aching body.

-----------

For his part, Gabriel waited pretty patiently. He snapped the kitchen clean. Raided the candy bowl he found on the dining room table and settled in to watch some tv. He did send a quick mental note to Castiel that he might want to rendezvous with the Winchesters, as there was going to need to be a discussion asap on what happened next.

When Riley emerged from her bedroom, dressed in jean shorts, a bright yellow tank top and green flannel shirt, she found him sprawled across the couch, mouth around a lollipop, watching Dr. Sexy reruns. His eyes raked over her form as she approached, and he gave her bemused smile, “Flannel?”

Riley blinked at him, “It’s the weekend, I tend to dress down.” Her hand reached up a tugged the braid she’d wound her wet hair into. “Is it bad?”

He gave a bemused chuckle, “No. It’s just that you’ll fit right in with the Hardy twins.”

“Um….”

“Winchesters. They wear a lot of flannel.”

“I like flannel.” She sounded slightly offended. “What’s the issue with it?”

“Nothing. Nothing.” He soothed, “It’s cute on you.”

A blush tinged her cheeks as she turned back to kitchen. “I’ve got my stuff. I made arrangements for next week, work wise. So I’m ready whenever you are.”

“Righty-o.” Gabriel stood, tv blinking off behind him. He grabbed one of her bags and then took her hand with the other. “So, first time flyer – I’ll take us this time. Then we’ll need to work on you being able to do it yourself. But later.” He winked. “Ready, set, here we go!”

And like that, Riley’s apartment no longer held the two angels.

-------------

The hotel room Gabriel transported them to was cheap, and made Riley’s skin crawl ever so slightly. It wasn’t that she was judgey about the quality, more so the state of cleanliness. She hoped it wasn’t their final destination, but figured she’d roll with the punches at this point. The day could honestly not get much weirder.

Then she met Sam and Dean. The two men who inhabited the room were not what she’d expected. Gabriel, for all his humor and weirdness, was very well dressed and smooth talking. The Winchesters were….. not.

Rough around the edges would be a good way to describe them.

When they arrived, with the sound of wings no less, the boys had rolled off their respective beds and drawn weapons on them. Riley screamed.

Sam towered, literally towered over her and Gabriel. “Easy there Samsquatch, Deano.” Gabriel said. The boys slowly put their weapons down, though Dean did not put his completely away.

It had been an interesting meeting.

After they’d all calmed down and Riley was no longer hyperventilating, she got to actually meet the boys. Sam and Dean were nice, a bit freaked out, but still nice.

They had no idea what to make of her. Neither considered the possibility that she would have survived, or been turned into…. Whatever she was now. Angel? Half angel? Random thingy.

Sam was polite and Dean was gruff. He had a smolder to him that would have been charming if they’d been in a bar and not standing around a motel room. On first impression, Riley honestly liked Sam better, he made her feel more at ease….. and less like he’d shove a knife through her heart at any moment.

Neither tried to kill her though, which was a welcome thing. Instead they’d gone to a diner to grab some breakfast. Or for Gabriel and Riley, second breakfast.

Riley wasn’t particularly hungry, but she figured this wasn’t fully about food. They were in Massachusetts still, but pretty far outside Boston. Sam told her that Jody had called last night, and they’d driven up until Gabriel had told them to stay put. So they found themselves in a small town, waiting to hear.

Which was why the two men had stared in shock at Gabriel and Riley when they’d shown up at their hotel room, waking them up. Thus, Dean declared they needed food, and so to the diner they went.

There, as Dean stuffed his face with greasy food, and Riley sipped at a cup of tea, Sam started to tell their story. It was long, and complicated, and at points Riley really didn’t want to believe it. The life of the two men before her was terrible in its brutality and cruelty. They were brave, and crazy in the amount of fortitude they had. She didn’t believe she could have survived the things the universe, or apparently… Chuck….. had thrown at them. Not that they always survived. They just apparently came back to life.

Overall, it was also a condensed version, and Riley was worried what a full telling would reveal. The cliff notes were bad enough.

And then Sam started to talk about Jack, and Riley’s heart broke. How young. How alone. How unfair his life was. And Riley really wanted to find the poor kid and give him a hug. Even if he was the reason she was now having her eyes opened to the world of things that went bump in the night, she still felt a heart wrenching in sympathy for the kid. She was still a tad peeved at him, she had been happy in her life in Boston, but she still couldn’t help feel bad for the kid.

The other thing she knew, just knew, was that she did not want to be a hunter. The lore was interesting, all those supernatural creatures. But damn if she was going to go out hunting them. Especially since it seemed to spawn only heartache, misery, and death. Who knew that death could die, btw, that was just some messed up shit. And it sounded awfully lonely.

Which was probably why all three of the men at the table with her had haunted looks in their eyes.

Even if not a hunter, Riley was sort of stuck. It wasn’t like she could just walk away at this point. This was apparent by the ever-present translucent wings now on her back. She still had mixed feelings about those.

Also, Riley found herself drawn the brothers. Not romantically, definitely not sexually (though neither was hard on the eyes). She just, wanted to hug them.

As for Gabriel…. Riley wasn’t sure exactly where her feelings lied. He had staid with her through the night, joked with her in the morning, and brought her to the boys. Everything he’d done had been to help her. Plus he made her heart flutter, just a tad. A crush maybe? Riley shrugged it off. No time to deal with it now. So many other things to deal with.

Breakfast was a slow affair, and Gabriel sat there drinking his sugar with coffee in it and Riley sipping her third cup of tea. Dean ate a lot. Sam ate some. And by the time they were all done, and the most of breakfast crowd had filtered out, that was about the time that Castiel walked in.

Meeting Castiel was……… weird. He was not what she expected. So serious. The straight man to Gabriel’s trickster. Which was surprising because she’d imaged the other angels would be like Gabriel. But Castiel was the anthesis was the sugar loving archangel.

Plus he’d stared at her in such an unnerving way that Riley had excused herself to make a phone call.

While the four boys talked, Riley escaped outside to call Jody. Jody was shocked and happy. She didn’t expect that win, and it was a win. She said they were going to drink the moment Riley felt good enough to get out of the bunker. Riley really wanted to ask what the bunker was, but figured she’d find out soon enough.

They chatted for a while, catching up. Jody gave her more pieces of the puzzle, explaining how she’d met the boys and how she’d actually found herself with her charges.

As they were signing off, the boys exited the diner. Castiel disappeared quickly.

“You can hitch a ride with me.” Gabriel offered, “I’ll drop your bags and you off at the bunker?”

“Um…”

Dean scoffed, “And leave the girl alone in a strange bunker. We’ll take her.”  

Gabriel shrugged, and grabbing her bags, disappeared too.  

Riley found herself following the Winchesters to a black impala. Riley stopped and stared at the car for a few minutes. She loved it. It was so classic and beautiful, and told Dean so. Which is how she found herself riding shotgun and Dean now grinning at her. “Music?”

“Obviously.” She responded. Dean hit the dial and AC/DC filled the car. Sam sighed, cramped in the backseat. “I could have gone with Gabriel.” She offered, still could.

“Nope, gotta get the full experience.” Dean said. “Plus you can tell us about yourself now.”

“Ah. Sure.” Riley sent Sam a sympathetic look as he shifted again, stuck in the back. “I’m from Massachusetts, but the rural area originally. I went to undergrad and studied pre-law. Went to law school in the city. Took the bar. Got a job. And here I am.”

Dean chuckled, “That can’t be all.”

“Honestly, I’m kind of boring compared to you guys.”

“How’d you meet Jody?” Sam asked.

“I attended a seminar on small town law and its conjunction with law enforcement. I met Jody there. She was giving a talk sheriff life. We staid in touch. I helped her with a custody thing.” She shrugged, “We have girls days when ever we’re in the same part of the country.”

“Boyfriend?” Dean asked. Sam snorted in response.

“Nope. Too busy with school.” She smiled, “And you?”

Sam burst out laughing, “No serious relationships. Dean likes the ladies though.”

“The ladies like me.” Dean grinned.

Riley was nothing like them she realized. Other than music apparently, she had had little to offer the Winchesters. This was going to be an interesting experience. Heck, if it ever stopped. Riley glanced out the window, ‘for all I know, this is my life now. Or whatever comes next.’

“Do you like pie? Or beer?” Dean asked.

Riley’s eyes slid back to him, “Both. I make a good apple pie.”

“Make?” Sam asked.

“Yeah, I like to bake.”

“I think I’m in love.” Dean flashed her joking smile. “You’ll fit right in.”

Riley laughed, wondering how they could think that. She relaxed though and allowed herself to be drawn into some inane conversation about the best pies Dean had ever had on their hunting trips.

[tricksandtales]

Chapter 3:  Angels Among Us

Have you ever stared at the sun so long that it leaves imprints on the back of your eye lids? So even when you close your eyes there is still brilliant light. 

Riley could only describe what she was seeing, and she was pretty sure she wasn’t dead, so she was actually seeing, as something akin to that.  It was like the remnant of light, an imprint on her eyes of something indescribable.

Which is the eloquent way of saying Riley was staring at wings. In fact, Riley was staring up at the man who was holding her, and apparently he had wings. They were translucent, but brilliant. Phantom things made of light.

It was morning. 

Well almost. If she could take her eyes away from the wings she could have seen the sky was just tinged with pink and violet. The sun not yet gracing the sky, but it would in moments.

Riley was still in pain, but it had dulled to a muscle ache. Like she’d run to long or exercised too hard. But the pain was no distraction from the guy’s wings. 

The tiredness was, but only a little. She felt bone tired even though she’d dozed off at some point. 

She’d woken in a flash of light. Once her brain caught up, she noticed the light was coming from her. Her whole body had been soaked through with pure sunlight, the glow intensifying until it had filled the room and seemed to burst out until she was blinded. Then, it had disappeared, and Riley was left sitting on her floor, back to normal, with the man still holding her. Except now he had wings.

She hadn’t spoken, hadn’t been able to form coherent words to adequately ask what she wanted to ask. And her new friend was staring at her like she was some sort of foreign creature. Which, maybe to him, she was.

Now, in the silence, which seemed to stretch, Riley took in the man, or angel.... Even in the pre-dawn grey world, she could appriciate his looks. He was not how she could have imaged an angel. Though he was quite handsome. He had honey colored hair, soft and wavy. Dark whiskey eyes, though she remembered those, even through her pain tinted memories. He looked charming, and mischievous. 

It seemed like forever, but was probably only a few minutes when the the man finally moved, withdrawing his arms and pulling away until he was sitting back several feet. He studied her still, eyes seemingly drawn to something just over her shoulder.

Finally drawing her eyes away from him and his wings…. Jeez, he had wings! Riley followed his gaze to find, oh! Oh holy shit, she had....

“What the fuck?”

“That’s one way to react.” He muttered in response.

She’d gone from mesmerized to terrified in quick succession. The phantom wings that he had were not nearly as distracting as the fact she found herself with pair. Riley razed a hand to her back, and squeaked when felt the feathers. “Did I do something? Did you do something?” There was a slight edge of panic to her voice.

“Jack did something.”

“Who?”

“The kid you met. My nephew.”

“Ah…..”

“It’s a really long story.” Gabriel sighed and leaned back on his arms, “The short version is Jack is a Nephilim who is trying to save Heaven by making more angels. Except he’s gone off on his own and is going about it wrong. He’s choosing humans to turn into angels. But that is not supposed to happen, human souls and grace do not mix in the same person. I mean, there’s vessels, but the two don’t to interact.”

“Hold on, there’s a lot packed into that sentence. And I have a lot of questions.” 

“Yeah, and I’ll get more detail later. For now, just understand that Jack tried to turn you into an angel. It shouldn’t have worked. Humans tend to die. I tried to get here in time to stop it and save you. But was too late.”

“I’m not dead.” Riley stated. “I mean, I don’t feel dead.” This time it came out more a question. 

“You’re not.” Gabriel said, eye brow quirking up, “Somehow, it worked.”

“Well, that’s…..”

“Yeah.”

Riley shifted, “So I’m an angel?”

“Appears so.”

“And you’re an angel.”

“That’s a yes.”

“Huh.” Still slight panic. Riley really wanted to crawl into bed and hide. Pull the covers over head like a child and pray the scary monster under her bed away. Except.... except in this case the monster was her, or well, the situation. “So what now?’

“That’s a great question.” 

Well, he was no help. “Is it reversible?” 

“This is new territory, sugar snap, but I doubt it.” 

“Can other people see the wings?”

“Nope.” He popped the word, “Though the explanation is a bit more complicated.” Gabriel gave her a half smile. “Angel wings don’t exist on this plane of existence completely. What you’re seeing is a shadow of them. They work to allow us to fly here, but to truly have them in this realm would melt most people’s eyes.”

“Ah. We don’t want that.”

“No. We can pull them through in levels, sometimes enough for humans to see the shadow version. Sometimes enough to interact with the world. Such that other angels could see what they really look like, color wise, and feel them. But for the most part they’re shadows of our wings, and don’t tend to create any issues. Otherwise we’d be knowing things off shelves all the time.” His voice had a slight tinge of humor.

This calmed Riley down more than anything else. An angel with a sense of humor was, surprising. But it was nice. She joked back, “Does that make you my fairy godmother? Or Hagrid?”

“What?” He seemed baffled. 

“Well, in stories whenever some kid gets the ‘you’re special’ talk or ‘you were chosen’ or ‘you’re a wizard, Harry’, there’s always a character that shows up to make that pronouncement and explain the new rules. Thus….” Riley trailed off.

“You’re making a joke.” Gabriel grinned at her. “Humor in the face of fear.”

“Well,” she smiled back. “It’s better than jumping out the window.

“I would not recommend that until you learn to use those.” He pointed at her wings.

“Can I?” Her eyes widened, “Fly I mean?”

“Probably. You’re the first new angel in millennia. An angel with a human soul. Made by a Nephilim.” He chuckled, “Yeah, I wouldn’t want to be chosen for that role.”

She frowned, “I’m not sure I do either.” Riley rolled her aching shoulders, which she now realized ached from the weight of the phantom wings. “Now what?”

“Well, I would just leave you to go about your normal day, but….”

“Probably not.” Riley stood and offered the man a hand up. He took it with a raised brow and nod of thanks. 

“Nope. I’m going to take you to meet some friends. Maybe spend some time at their place, getting adjusted to make sure you don’t suddenly combust or that you don’t start turning blue or whatever. Just until you get handle on this situation.”

Riley frowned. “It’s the weekend. But I’m supposed to meet with clients on Monday. Will I be back?”

“Um… I wouldn’t count on it.”

She sighed and started heading to the kitchen, thinking about the list of appointments she’d have to reschedule, the coverage she’d need for a couple hearings, and what she’d need to bring with her to get everything worked out.

“What are you doing?” the man was following her.

“I can’t face the day without caffeine. Or sugar. So I’m going to make chocolate chip pancakes. Might as well bring out the big guns. Want some?”

“Oh Father, you are my new favorite person.”

Riley cocked an eyebrow at him, glancing over her shoulder. “What’s your name anyway?”

The man, angel, whatever, gave her chuckle, “Gabriel. They call me Gabriel.”

[tricksandtales]

Chapter 2:  Waiting is the Hard Part

Riley West was hard working. A good Catholic girl who’d put herself through undergrad and then law school. At 30 years old, she’d became pillar of her community working as a lawyer in Boston who championed for small businesses, people who were taken advantage of by the system, and volunteered for domestic violence clinics.

She was bright, witty, a tad sarcastic. And she had a sweet tooth. Which was why she spend much of her time off (ha!) at a gym trying to make sure the sugar did not stick to her already curvy frame.

She was disarming, and thus very good at having her opponents underestimate her. 5’3, with an easy smile that usually reached into her grey-blue eyes. Curly blonde hair, which although seemed attempted to be contained, had a few wisps escaping to frame her face and give her impish look.

Riley was attractive, in the girl next store way. But her tongue was a weapon. One she used to decimate opposing counsel in the court room.

--------------                                                                                                                

It was a Friday. There was nothing particularly special about it. At least not yet…

Riley was on her way out of a hard-won hearing. She’d finally succeeded on getting a restraining order for a woman that had been stalked by her ex.

Riley’s plans were to entrench herself in her small office for the evening, then go home and enjoy a nice glass of wine and dinner. It was a quiet life, but a good one.

What Riley hadn’t been expecting was a young man to stop her just outside the courthouse. He was looking at her with an odd light in his eyes.

“Can I help you?” She smiled, hoping he was just lost.

“Yes, I hope so.” He smiled back. “You’re a good person.” He held out his hand, “It’s nice to meet you.”

“Ah…” Riley stared at his hand. It was impolite not to take it, but she was also a no nonsense New England girl. And weird kid on the street sent all sorts of red flags. Good manners won out, and she took his hand anyway.

A spark, like an electric snap of energy had her pulling her hand back quickly. “Um… nice to meet you, kid, but I’m on my way back to him office. What can I do for you?” She asked, rubbing her hand.

The boy didn’t seem offended by her sudden pulling away. “A lady came out, said you saved her.”

“Oh.” Her client. “Well, I helped her get a restraining order. Do you need legal help?”

“No.” He frowned, “Not that kind of help. I need you to help save Heaven.”

Riley blinked back, flabbergasted. “What?”

“That women, she said you were on the side of angels. That you saved her.”

Riley blushed at the compliment, but a frown marred her lips. “I’m just a lawyer kid. I’m not an angel. If you need legal help, that I can do. I’ll pray for you though.”

The kids seemed satisfied with this, and turned around, disappearing down the street.

Sighing, Riley shouldered her bag and headed to her office, thinking she might that glass of wine a bit sooner than dinner.

------------

A t-ride later, back at her office, Riley was reading over some documents. She’d told her secretary and paralegal to go home, to enjoy their weekend. As the late afternoon sunlight draped her office golden light, Riley felt a strange pang of pain. It was an alien feeling, not a pain he could name.

She tried to ignore it, but it got progressively worse, and it started spreading. She managed through the evening, the train ride home. Through people gave her strange looks at the occasional sounds of pain she made.

That night, she tossed and turned. Then, she started glowing. “Huh.” It was 3 am.

Riley was not unfamiliar with the strange, though she’d never directly come in contact with it. An acquaintance, Jody Mills, had once told her some interesting stories after they’d done some catching up and drinking… okay, more than a little drinking. Jody had called Riley a couple years back, looking for some legal advice on adoption. Apparently, Jody had taken in some kids that needed some help. Riley had been happy to offer her assistance. They’d had a good time celebrating the legal victory when the paperwork went through.

Riley liked Jody, respected her; but she had never really believed any of Jody’s stories.

Still, sitting in her office glowing a weird soft gold, Jody was the first person Riley thought of. She pulled up the number on her cell and after a brief hesitation, called Jody.

“Sheriff Mills.” It was an efficient greeting, but the voice was warm.

“Jody, it’s Riley West. Sorry to wake you.”

“Riley! Is everything okay?”

“It’s good. Er…….” A wave of pain hit her at that moment, “Okay, maybe not good.”

“What’s going on?”

“You remember those stories you told me, about the weird stuff, that night we were drinking.”

Jody sighed, “I remember.”

“I’m glowing and in serious pain.”

“Glowing?” Disbelief colored Jody’s voice. “Like?”

“Like a fricken light bright.” Riley’s retort was biting. “Sorry.” She murmured after a moment.

Jody sighed into the phone, “Did you meet a young man, looks like a teenager. Probably wearing flannel. Light brown hair?”

“On the street. Shook my hand.” Riley sighed, “What is he?”

“That’s a really long story. Where are you? How long ago did you see him. I need to get someone to you right away.”

“You owe me that story. In my apartment in Southie. Earlier today.”

“Shit.” Jody said under her breath. “Stay on the line, I’m going to call a friend.” The line went silent as Jody pulled up Sam’s number and dialed.

Dean and Sam had hunkered down in a hotel room in Rhode Island for the night. There hadn’t been sign of Jack for several days, so Castiel had taken off to continue the search for the prophet while the Winchesters continued the search for Jack.

“Hello?” Sam’s groggy voice came across the line after several rings.

“Sam. It’s Jody Mills, I have a friend. She met Jack today.” Sam sat bolt upright in bed.

“And?”

“And she she’s showing signs, it’s been hours Sam. You might not make it in time.”

“Where?”

“Boston.”

Sam cursed and jostled Dean, “Dude, we gotta go. Jack sighting, Boston. Jody’s friend is showing signs.”

“I’ll text you her address. ETA?”

“We’re a couple hours out.” Sam frowned.

“You won’t make it.”

“No. We won’t.” Came his sad reply.

Jody hung up with him and switched back over to Riley, “Hey, Riley, you still there?”

“Yep.”

“I’ve got friends heading your way. They’ll be there as soon as they can.”

“Thanks Jody.”

“Of course. Want me to stay on the line?” Jody hoped her fear didn’t leak through the line.

“No. No. Go back to bed. I’ll be here.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah.” Riley sighed, “Thanks again. Night.”

“Night…” Jody let the word drag, and stared at her phone as the line went dead.

-----------

Sam and Dean were in the Impala within in minutes, but they already knew they wouldn’t make it. Dean called out to Cas, but got no reply.

Finally, Sam broke down and called for Gabriel.

They had a very complicated relationship with the former trickster, but still, he would help with this. Gabriel showed up for a minute but disappeared the moment the request left Sam’s lips. Dean just frowned in the rearview and stepped on the gas.

---------

The apartment was homey. It smelled like sugar cookies and cinnamon. There were green plants by the windows and dishes in the sink. A blanket was thrown haphazardly on the couch. A glass of wine sat half empty on the coffee table. Books were stacked on the floor, with various tabs sticking out at every angle.

Gabriel took it all in in an instant, as he surveyed the home of Jack’s latest victim.  He liked it, he decided. It was warm.

Gabriel had a tendency to move faster than the other angels. This had to do with his not-vessel. When he’d left heaven and gone into his pseudo witness protection, he’d managed to strike a deal with the demi-gods for a spell that had allowed him to move about the earthly plane in his own body. He’d channeled his grace into a form. Thus, it was his body, at least, a representation of it anyway. It gave him more freedom, and having spent centuries in it, he knew his own capabilities quite well. Which included a bit faster flight than most of his siblings. Helped with the running away….

He found the girl in the bedroom, curled up on the floor in a ball, glowing like starlight in the darkness. “Hi.” He softened his voice. She jumped slightly, throwing a panicked look in his direction. “Easy sugar, I’m here to help. You called, your friend asked me to come.”

She frowned at him, “How’d you get in?”

“I flew.”

She snorted out a laugh. An endearing sound that had Gabriel’s lips quirking up into a smile.

“It’s a long story, I’ll explain later.” He walked toward her slowly, and knelt down by her side. “Okay sugar, I’m just going to touch your forehead, okay?”

Trickster, former Norse god, archangel. Gabriel was powerful and could border on cruel, but he was always the most human like of his siblings. He understood them, having spent so much time earth side. So the sympathy, the kindness, it was not fake. Which was why Riley gave him a small nod, acquiescing to his touch.

Riley was scared. She’d hoped that Jody would laugh at her off the phone, tell her she was dreaming. Instead Jody was sending help. That was scary. It meant this was real. Riley did not want to deal with it.

But here help was. A man, whom she would say was on the shorter side of tall, his features obscured in the darkness of her room. But kneeling by her side, she could see his whiskey colored eyes. His touch was warm, as his hand slid onto her forehead. He felt, maybe not safe, but something close to it.

He made a sound of displeasure, “Father damn it.” He murmured.

That could not be good. “Am I dying?” She murmured.  

“I want to lie.” He said, honestly. He already knew it was to late. The grace had already worked its way into her system, was already changing her body on a molecular level. She was likely dying, and there wasn’t anything he could do about it at this point. Just wait.

“Oh.” Riley didn’t cry. Though the sound she made was bordering a whimper.

This sound was how Gabriel found himself sliding next to the women on the floor, back pressing against the wall next to her, and arms dragging her soft form against him.

Riley thought, briefly, about resisting, but felt too weak to do much more than be dragged into the man’s arms. For his part, Gabriel did take away as much of the pain as he could, sending what healing he could. This at least allowed her to soften into his embrace, head falling against his shoulder with a sigh.

They sat in the room, waiting for the end.

[tricksandtales]

Chapter 1: The Troubles with Heaven

Now that alternative-Michael had been stopped, Lucifer was dead, and the realities had righted themselves, Sam and Dean Winchester had to focus on the next emergency. Castiel had finally told them that Heaven was failing. With not enough angels to keep the lights on, there were about to be millions of souls let loose upon the earth.

Gabriel had showed up, which was not terribly surprising at this point. He had hitched a ride between the realms when Michael had opened the portal, unbeknownst to the two other archangels. 

He’d been to too weak to teleport, too weak to help. But he’d appeared after teh big battle and had been trying to help, staying in Heaven as much as possible. But Heaven was meant to be supported by hundreds of angels plus the four archangels. And with so few angels, the lights were still going out. 

So the Winchesters turned themselves to the task of trying to find a new prophet, and trying to figure out how to make new angels.

Jack, who now understood war, did not do well with sitting still doing research and driving the task of looking for the prophet. He did not understand patience.

Castiel tried to teach him about being an angel, and Winchesters tried to show him how to be human, but even through the three men were good men, they were not good role models nor teachers. Despite their efforts, Jack was getting frustrated.

After three months and no luck, Jack disappeared. Castiel tried to find him. Heck even Gabriel tried, but Jack had made himself well and truly gone.

Sam worried about Jack’s safety, Dean worried about the safety of the world.

Although Dean had grown to like Jack well enough, he still didn’t fully trust the kid. The sad thing was, Dean was more right than Sam.

Jack had good intentions, he truly did. He tried to fix Heaven. He knew that Heaven needed more angels, and if they couldn’t figure out to make new ones, why not make humans into angels.

There was problem with this logic; human bodies were not meant to hold an angel’s full grace. It could work in theory, but it was a million to one change. Mostly it would overwhelm the human’s soul and kill them.

Sam, Dean, and Castiel were in Indiana, tracking a lead on the prophet, when they heard about the first death. A priest, a man who had devoted his whole life to God and doing good for his community. He’d been found dead in his Church, an imprint of deformed wings around him.

It was tragedy.

It was not the last.

A teacher and a small-town mayor died next. Both in Pennsylvania.

At this point, the Winchesters started hunting Jack. They were reluctant, but they didn’t have much of choice. Problem was, they were never in time to stop him from starting the change, but they were in time to save the next several people. They drained the grace and people survived. It had to be done quick, it had to be done with an angel blade. It was not a good experience for anyone.

They followed Jack’s trail through New York, Connecticut, and Rhode Island.

The hunter community was on red alert. The angels were on call. Everyone was trying to find Jack.

He was in the wind.