Trouble With The Trickster || Gabriel - Supernatural

-6-

Sam seemed to get more comfortable around me after about half an hour but Dean still jumped a foot every time I breathed, making Gabe laugh so hard he couldn't stand straight. Bobby liked me from the start so I was sat on his desk, legs swinging over the edge, reading through a huge book about demons. There didn't seem to be anything helpful in it but I kept searching regardless until we heard a crash in the kitchen, looking up to find Dad sprawled out on the floor.

Gabe and I were the first to reach him, me checking his pulse before helping Gabe carry him over to the couch. The sight of the cuts on his face and the bruises littering his skin filled me with anger but I held it back - there was no use getting angry when he was injured so badly. "How bad is it?"

"I reckon he only just made it here. If I hadn't told him where we were, who knows what could have happened to him... he's too weak to heal himself so I'll try my best," Gabe placed a hand on Balthazar's forehead and his body glowed as I turned to Sam and Dean.

"You see what your 'friend' has done?" I gestured towards Dad who was just about coming around as Gabe tried his best to heal him quickly.

"Castiel did this? He can't have done..." Dean said, disbelievingly, interrupted by Balthazar's groans.

"You... bet he did... the bastard..." he breathes, painfully, beginning to heal himself too.

"Son of a bitch..." Dean cursed and Dad laughed breathily, taking my hand in his as he opened his eyes.

"The house isn't safe anymore. I thought it was but Cas managed to summon me and figured out where you were being hidden," he turned to Gabe, "They also took all of the weapons back... I can't thank you enough for getting her out of there and for lying again for us..."

"She means as much to me as she does to you, Balt. I'd have been betraying everything I stand for if I'd left her there..."

"Dad, are you okay? Why did he hurt you so badly?" I asked, stroking the back of his hand with my thumb as the skin on his arms heals.

He tried to sit up but Gabe gently pushed him back down, signalling he wasn't done yet, "They wanted me to tell them where you'd gone. I refused and they beat me until I got away when their backs were turned," he turned again to Gabe, "They suspect that you lied to them because they can't find you now. Angel proofing?"

"Yeah. I thought they might turn on me next, Castiel has never trusted me, especially since I hid from him when he went on that godly rampage..." Gabe sighed, finally removing his hand from Balthazar's head, "Better?" Dad nodded in reply.

"That wasn't Cas who went on the rampage... it was the leviathan..." Dean tried to defend the other angel.

"Believe me, Dean," Gabe replied honestly, looking straight into his eyes, "There was more of Castiel in there than you thought... I could read his thoughts... he was... righteous, prideful, everything an angel shouldn't be. I'm an archangel and even I was scared of him, the leviathan only revealed his darker side..."

"Well," Bobby butted in, "this is a nice chat and all but I've found something..." We all turned our attention to him, "Oh, now you all remember me. Hi, I'm Bobby Singer, the crazy bastard that lets you all into his house on a daily basis for some darned reason..."

"Sorry Bobby," I apologised, going back to perch on the edge of his desk, "What is it?"

He pointed to a certain paragraph on the page the book has been opened to, under the heading 'Demon and Angel Reproduction', "It's quite unbelievable, really. Says here that the offspring of a demon and an angel would spontaneously combust at the point of conception and that if they did manage to survive until birth, they would perish within a week as the holiness of their blood would burn the demon characteristics and cause the child to explode..."

"So how is Elizabeth even alive?" Sam asked as I remembered he was still there.

Bobby shrugged, "Beats me."

"So by some freaking miracle, this kid hasn't exploded yet. How do we know there isn't still a chance?" Dean put in, apparently asking the same question Sam was going to ask next.

"Oh, don't worry," Dad replied, sitting up and looking at Dean who seemed unnerved by him for some reason, "She's promised not to blow up."

"Oh, well that makes everything fine and dandy, doesn't it? At least we have her word..."

"I'm not going to explode, Dean. Besides, I'm fully grown now in both angel and demon standards, it's unlikely anything new is going to happen," I explained.

"Do you have wings?" Sam asked suddenly. Clearly, he asks all the important questions.

"Yes, she does. No, she can't show you," Dad butted in before I could reply. I looked at him in annoyance, "Honey, the majority of this place is made of wood... I'm not conjuring a fire extinguisher if you set it all ablaze with those bloody wings."

"Fire wings?" Bobby asked and I nodded, "I read something about that here... 'The child of Darkness and Light will rise like a phoenix and be reborn from the ashes of the apocalypse'-"

"Wait, what was that last bit? About the apocalypse?" I turned to see Gabriel looking distressed. It did sound different from what he'd said before.

"'and be reborn from the ashes of the apocalypse', why?"

"Damn."

"What is it, Gabe?" I asked as Dad read his thoughts and let out a reluctant groan, cursing under his breath in Enochian.

"It makes sense now... when the apocalypse comes, it will be a great war between Heaven and Hell. The only thing that could possibly stop it is a living child of both. It shows that they can live together in peace... About two millennia ago, Michael was intent on creating such a child but every attempt perished... That's why Heaven wants you so bad, why Castiel is hunting you down... they want to use you as a weapon, a bargaining chip, to stop the apocalypse in its tracks... it's why you mean so much to them alive - you're living proof of peace between us and the demons..." Gabe looked up at me sorrowfully.

"Could that even work?" I asked.

"No one knows, but they're willing to try anything nowadays... Heaven is corrupt... Half of them want the apocalypse, the others want you... you are what is left of Heaven's hope..." Gabe sighed, looking as though he pitied his brothers. Dad's expression was the complete opposite; he thought they were ridiculous and it clearly showed on his face.

He stamped his foot down, breaking us all from our thoughts, "I won't let them use you as a weapon, Elizabeth. Heaven can't have you, they only want you for the powers you can hardly harness yourself..."

"I agree. You're more than a weapon, you deserve an open life of happiness not the narrow life of a warrior. Believe me, I would know..." I nodded, knowing what Gabe went through in the last apocalypse from one of Bobby's books. I felt terrible for him - nothing can erase that sort of past from your memory...

"I guess we're with you, too," Sam added and Dean smiled at me for the first time as Bobby nodded, "I just can't believe Cas could be like that..."

I sighed, "A lot of people are not as they seem..."