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blue_bells» Title: Stranger, you've followed me so far
» Fandom: Supernatural
» Pairing(s)/Character(s): Dean/Gabriel, Sam, Castiel
» Warnings: None
» Spoilers: Season 5
» Summary: Today, Gabriel’s apparition pushes off the wall and he’s looking out the window, eyes aglow with the sun, the next time Dean steals a glance at the mirror.
» Author's Notes: Originally written for![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
morganoconner as a twitfic request to the soundtrack of 'Stranger' by Katie Costello from where this ficlet gets its name.
The house is three weeks old and Dean can still smell the paint, even if Sam says he’s imagining it. Paint doesn’t have the acrid scent it used to, his brother tells him, the industry advanced. It moved on.
Good for the industry. If only it was that easy for the rest of them.
Dean looks from the low bed with its wrangled sheets to the short mirror over the bureau.
There’s already dust on the glass. It catches the early morning sun like a glittered smear and the visible side of Dean’s reflection turns its mouth in a scowl. He pulls his sleeve cuffs lower around his wrists.
He ignores the other figure reflected in that mirror.
Gabriel leans in the furthest corner of the bedroom, yellow walls at his back, with his hands in his pockets. The line of his mouth is a patient, amused smile. Dean has seen that smile every morning going on a year in store windows, the still surface of the lake some mornings when he camped by the roadside (too far or low on plastic for a motel), and the mirrors where he least expected it.
The memory of Gabriel has been lingering like a sad touch on his shoulder and, every once in a while, when nobody else was around to see, Dean could collect his nerve and shove aside the rational voice. He would turn and surprise himself that he still had disappointment to swallow when he found nobody there.
It was right what they said about him: he was a hard student and he refused to learn in spite of how many times his mind played this trick on him.
At first he thought they were waking dreams, and then he thought he was sick, but Castiel had pulled his hands back from Dean’s temples, hesitant apology in his face, and told Dean there was nothing wrong with him. Sam had clapped a hand around his shoulder, squeezed him tight, like he knew Dean didn’t need his words, and it had steadied him for a while.
Today, Gabriel’s apparition pushes off the wall and he’s looking out the window, eyes aglow with the sun, the next time Dean steals a glance at the mirror.
Dean doesn’t like that this clench in his chest has become familiar, it’s low and guilty and it makes it hard to breathe. It hasn’t numbed with time and he doesn’t know why this has to keep happening.
He swipes the Impala’s keys off the bureau.
There’s nobody in the back seat when Dean starts the engine, garage door rolling up behind him, but then he feels the arm sling across his shoulders and he shuts his eyes, gritting his teeth.
“Make up your mind,” he growls because he’s so worn, he’s had enough, “are you here or aren’t you?”
“I’ve always been here, Dean-o.”
He stiffens in shock. In the twelve months he’s suffered through this, he’s never had a response. The voice that murmurs those words is light as though it wants to remind him how to laugh and he doesn’t trust himself to open his eyes, but he feels skin, textured, warm and real, when he reaches for the hand curled around his shoulder.
“Look at me.” The words brush his ear with gentle heat and Dean shivers, clutching the hand tight, his eyes resolutely shut because he’s not giving up on this so easily. “Dean. Look at me.”
“Are you here or not?” He asks, and his voice is rough.
“Look at me.”
Gold eyes and a curious smile meet him when he lets his vision slit open. The angel has crowded close enough from the back seat to wrap both his arms over Dean’s shoulders and, when he exhales, Dean startles at the very real brush of air on his mouth. The light from the open garage catches the blonde highlights in Gabriel’s hair and he searches Dean’s face, amused and patient, with the same smile Dean’s woken up to for three hundred days and counting. It’s familiar and new because this is the first time Dean has seen it without the mirror, and the sting behind his eyes hits him sharply, flushing heat in his face.
What the hell was going on?
He doesn’t realise he’s staring until Gabriel’s fingers sink through the short hair at his nape, squeezing the tense muscles of his neck. Gabriel’s forehead leans to his, solid and smooth, and Dean feels a sudden swing of vertigo at the sensation.
/He’s real. God, he’s… he’s—/
Gabriel’s kiss crushes the thought from his mind, grinds the doubt between them with slow, heavy relief, and Dean doesn’t know how he manages to hold in his sound because he feels as though he could groan, whine or, damn it, sob for how good it feels like a thousand weights have suddenly lifted from his chest and he can breathe for the first time in months.
/You’re real,/ Dean thinks, and Gabriel’s kiss seems to answer, smug like the rest of him, but precious, too, /Of course I am./
“You just had to let me in,” Gabriel says, after he pulls back, and Dean finds he can’t stop himself from smiling back.
» Fandom: Supernatural
» Pairing(s)/Character(s): Dean/Gabriel, Sam, Castiel
» Warnings: None
» Spoilers: Season 5
» Summary: Today, Gabriel’s apparition pushes off the wall and he’s looking out the window, eyes aglow with the sun, the next time Dean steals a glance at the mirror.
» Author's Notes: Originally written for
morganoconner as a twitfic request to the soundtrack of 'Stranger' by Katie Costello from where this ficlet gets its name.The house is three weeks old and Dean can still smell the paint, even if Sam says he’s imagining it. Paint doesn’t have the acrid scent it used to, his brother tells him, the industry advanced. It moved on.
Good for the industry. If only it was that easy for the rest of them.
Dean looks from the low bed with its wrangled sheets to the short mirror over the bureau.
There’s already dust on the glass. It catches the early morning sun like a glittered smear and the visible side of Dean’s reflection turns its mouth in a scowl. He pulls his sleeve cuffs lower around his wrists.
He ignores the other figure reflected in that mirror.
Gabriel leans in the furthest corner of the bedroom, yellow walls at his back, with his hands in his pockets. The line of his mouth is a patient, amused smile. Dean has seen that smile every morning going on a year in store windows, the still surface of the lake some mornings when he camped by the roadside (too far or low on plastic for a motel), and the mirrors where he least expected it.
The memory of Gabriel has been lingering like a sad touch on his shoulder and, every once in a while, when nobody else was around to see, Dean could collect his nerve and shove aside the rational voice. He would turn and surprise himself that he still had disappointment to swallow when he found nobody there.
It was right what they said about him: he was a hard student and he refused to learn in spite of how many times his mind played this trick on him.
At first he thought they were waking dreams, and then he thought he was sick, but Castiel had pulled his hands back from Dean’s temples, hesitant apology in his face, and told Dean there was nothing wrong with him. Sam had clapped a hand around his shoulder, squeezed him tight, like he knew Dean didn’t need his words, and it had steadied him for a while.
Today, Gabriel’s apparition pushes off the wall and he’s looking out the window, eyes aglow with the sun, the next time Dean steals a glance at the mirror.
Dean doesn’t like that this clench in his chest has become familiar, it’s low and guilty and it makes it hard to breathe. It hasn’t numbed with time and he doesn’t know why this has to keep happening.
He swipes the Impala’s keys off the bureau.
There’s nobody in the back seat when Dean starts the engine, garage door rolling up behind him, but then he feels the arm sling across his shoulders and he shuts his eyes, gritting his teeth.
“Make up your mind,” he growls because he’s so worn, he’s had enough, “are you here or aren’t you?”
“I’ve always been here, Dean-o.”
He stiffens in shock. In the twelve months he’s suffered through this, he’s never had a response. The voice that murmurs those words is light as though it wants to remind him how to laugh and he doesn’t trust himself to open his eyes, but he feels skin, textured, warm and real, when he reaches for the hand curled around his shoulder.
“Look at me.” The words brush his ear with gentle heat and Dean shivers, clutching the hand tight, his eyes resolutely shut because he’s not giving up on this so easily. “Dean. Look at me.”
“Are you here or not?” He asks, and his voice is rough.
“Look at me.”
Gold eyes and a curious smile meet him when he lets his vision slit open. The angel has crowded close enough from the back seat to wrap both his arms over Dean’s shoulders and, when he exhales, Dean startles at the very real brush of air on his mouth. The light from the open garage catches the blonde highlights in Gabriel’s hair and he searches Dean’s face, amused and patient, with the same smile Dean’s woken up to for three hundred days and counting. It’s familiar and new because this is the first time Dean has seen it without the mirror, and the sting behind his eyes hits him sharply, flushing heat in his face.
What the hell was going on?
He doesn’t realise he’s staring until Gabriel’s fingers sink through the short hair at his nape, squeezing the tense muscles of his neck. Gabriel’s forehead leans to his, solid and smooth, and Dean feels a sudden swing of vertigo at the sensation.
/He’s real. God, he’s… he’s—/
Gabriel’s kiss crushes the thought from his mind, grinds the doubt between them with slow, heavy relief, and Dean doesn’t know how he manages to hold in his sound because he feels as though he could groan, whine or, damn it, sob for how good it feels like a thousand weights have suddenly lifted from his chest and he can breathe for the first time in months.
/You’re real,/ Dean thinks, and Gabriel’s kiss seems to answer, smug like the rest of him, but precious, too, /Of course I am./
“You just had to let me in,” Gabriel says, after he pulls back, and Dean finds he can’t stop himself from smiling back.
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no subject
Date: 2011-09-13 11:19 am (UTC)Loved this <3
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Date: 2011-09-17 09:15 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-09-13 12:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-09-17 09:15 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-09-13 02:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-09-17 09:16 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-09-13 07:01 pm (UTC)♥ ♥ ♥
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Date: 2011-09-17 09:18 am (UTC)♥!
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Date: 2011-09-17 01:38 pm (UTC)Maybe I can get the follow-up in a couple weeks when I inevitably have the same dilemma with packing for Toronto... *halo*no subject
Date: 2011-09-13 07:48 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-09-17 09:18 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-09-14 03:08 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-09-17 09:19 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-09-14 09:10 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-09-17 09:20 am (UTC)