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Summary:
Reader panics over ageing. it shouldn't be a big deal, but things are different when you're married to an Archangel.
Notes:
Reader started dating Gabriel at 19, married him at 23 and is 39 when this story takes place.
Y/N - Your name
(See the end of the work for more notes.)
Work Text:
Two strands of grey hair had reduced you to tears. It was so pathetic, it was almost funny, but you weren't laughing. You stared at your reflection in the bathroom mirror, eyes red from your recent crying. Were the lines beside your eyes deeper? You touched them nervously, as you scrutinised your reflection, picking out and mentally magnifying anything you could consider a sign of ageing.
"Stop this." you told yourself sternly as you realised what you were doing. You gave your eyes one final wipe with the tissue you'd used to mop up your tears and threw it into the trash can before exiting the bathroom.
Sitting on the bed, you picked up your wedding photo from the night-stand, staring at it. You'd gained a few pounds and your hairstyle had changed, but you were still easily recognisably as the joyful woman in the photograph, taken almost 16 years ago. At 39, the fact you hadn't found grey hairs before now was almost miraculous. That you were ageing wasn't really the problem. It was your groom that bothered you.
Gabriel smiled out at you from the photograph, his face positively glowing with happiness. Sure he changed his hair sometimes, and occasionally shape-shifted into entirely different people, but the passing years had left him unchanged. Immortality was just one of the many perks of being an Archangel.
When you'd first started dating, people would sometimes stare at the two of you. You were 19; he appeared to be in his thirties: Society didn't approve all that much. Of course, nobody knew the real age gap between you and one of the first beings ever created. Gabriel himself couldn't count it.
But the years had rolled by, and soon people stopped staring. Well, at least they didn't stare because of the age gap. No, now the friends you'd made began to comment on how good Gabriel looked for his age. Gabriel had joked about proper skincare and the benefits of an active sex life, but looking back, that was the first time you'd worried about the differences between you.
A demon attack on your house had provided you with bigger things to worry about. Once Hell got wind of Gabriel's whereabouts, your home was no longer safe. The two of you had moved for the first time, three years after your wedding. Simply disappeared into the night and cut all ties with the life you'd built. There were no longer any friends in your life to point out that Gabriel didn't age. At a new house, thousands of miles from your old one, Gabriel lay with you in his arms, consumed by guilt at endangering you and apologising over and over again. You'd told him what you would go on to tell him the next 7 times you were forced to move: it didn't matter; you could make new friends; he was worth it; you knew what you were in for when you married him.
And you had known, you really had. Standing beside him at the altar, you knew your life wouldn't be normal, and you hadn't cared. You loved him, and he loved you and nothing else mattered; not the children you would never have, or the beautiful houses that were always temporary; the five attacks from the forces of hell, or the three occasions hunters had come tracking what they thought was a trickster. But now...
You felt tears welling up again and you put the photograph back in its place, your heart aching. Once, people had thought you were too young for him. Now, they thought you were the same age. Soon, would they think you were his older sister? His mother? Hisgrandmother?
