CAN WE JUST TALK ABOUT HOW EVEN IN THIS (BEAUTIFUL) PHOTOSET, THE CRUX OF EVERY SINGLE ONE’S MESSAGE IS “WE’RE GOING TO ROB YOU OF YOUR AGENCY AND TAKE WHATEVER IT IS WE WANT FOR OUR OWN BENEFIT,” EXCEPT GABRIEL, WHO CONTRARIWISE SAYS “I WANT EVERYONE TO STOP FIGHTING”.
I JUST!
GABE, GOD BROKE THE MOLD WHEN HE MADE YOU AND IT WAS GOOD.
As a fanfiction writer, I often find that the stuff I write that I absolutely love and am most proud of is often overlooked, while the stuff that I force out and think is absolute garbage gets praise… does this happen to everyone else or just me??
Summary: Gabriel finds themself the victim of discrimination while at Pride but a man he doesn’t know stands up for them and calls out his friend’s toxic behavior. Turns out that’s the just start of it all.
Pairing: Sabriel (cisgender Sam x nonbinary Gabriel)
Rating: teen and up
Warnings: blatant transphobia/nonbinaryphobia and discrimination, some curse words, hurt/comfort, angsty start with a happy middle and ending, explicit mentions of sex but no mentions/depictions of explicit sex (if you don’t want to read that, stop before the time jump)
Word Count: 1239
A/N: This is my entry for the June @gabriel-monthly-challenge. I loosely used both aesthetic prompts for inspiration. I also didn’t go straight for one of the Pride story prompts but took inspiration from the spirit of them, writing a fic set at Pride. I was also inspired by two short text posts I saw floating around on tumblr – a couple people reblogged them – that I could just hear Gabriel saying as I read them. I was supposed to be packing for a trip and, instead, I wrote this. Gabriel agrees that packing is terrible.
One final note: I am not trans or nonbinary however I based a lot of Gabriel’s story on the real story of a friend of mine who is (with their permission).
They/Them –
Gabriel put their head down and kept walking. Growing up knowing they were different in a small town in the deep south meant that they had heard every slur in the book – and even some that weren’t in there – hurled at them. They had a thick skin by now but this time it hurt worse. This time, the abuse was coming from within the walls, or fences really, of Pride. Gabriel had moved to the city almost a year ago, leaving their small minded town behind. They had found a great group of friends and had assumed the positivity and support they had experienced would extend to the rest of the revelers they would meet during Pride but that was, apparently, not the case.
He struggled to open his heavy eyelids. He was warm and comfortable, and he didn’t want to move from where he was, but something in that voice made it clear that he had to.
Gabriel sat up, opening his eyes and taking in what was around him.
A vast nothingness of space.
‘Ah,” he thought to himself, his own voice sounding like a booming loud speaker in his head. ‘So this is the Empty.’
He’d heard the other angels talk in whispers about it, the place where even their father’s power couldn’t disturb, but he had been sure it was simply a bedtime story, used to scare the younger angels into behaving themselves. His older brothers only rarely mentioned it, and only in hushed tones to each other, never to him. But here he was, awake.
Castiel had told him what had happened after he’d died, that he’d woken up in the Empty, called back from nothingness by the longing of his brother’s nephilim offspring. But Gabriel very much doubted Jack would waste his grace trying to save a fuck-up uncle he barely knew.
Gabriel hung his head, this was truly the end then. He figured that one day he’d go out in a blaze of glory, particularly given the crowd he normally hung out with, but he hadn’t expected to go out putting his bacon on the line for the Winchesters of all people.
The Winchesters had been a thorn in his side since the moment he’d met them. First they didn’t want to play their roles, then they expected him to give up everything, throw caution to the wind and join their team of ragtag misfits with little more than a how-do-you-do. They took and took and took from him, and somewhere along the way, Sam Winchester had taken his heart.
He hated that he’d allowed one mere human to break through his defenses with relative ease, hated that one smile from Sam was all it took for him to forsake everything he had held dear, everything that had kept him alive all this time, and fling himself directly into harm’s way.
But he couldn’t help it, Sam’s soul was so bright, tempered by what he’d gone through like a sword in a flame. It was burnished in a way he’d never seen before, and he was powerless to resist it.
Now he was dead because of it.
He looked around again, wondering if all of his siblings had ended up here, with darkness and silence and nothing covering them like a blanket.
‘Gabriel,” he heard again, and he turned to look but there was no one there. The voice was different than it had been at first, deeper and more hesitant.
“I don’t… I don’t know if you can hear me,” Sam Winchester’s voice came in loud and clear, surrounding him from all sides. “Jack said he didn’t know if this would work… but… I had to… we had to try,” he paused. “The other Michael is here, he killed Lucifer, he possessed Dean…”
Gabriel could hear the sob in his voice, and felt his own catch in his throat. Lucifer…. Lucifer was dead? It hurt to even entertain the thought. He and his brothers may have had their differences but he still couldn’t wish them dead.
“Lucifer…. He took Jack’s grace,” Sam said. “Please Gabriel, if you can hear this. I know we’ve asked a lot of you, but we need you now. I need you.”
“How touching.”
Gabriel flipped around as quick as a blink only to find himself staring into his own eyes. Castiel may have mentioned that the thing that lived in the Empty had taken his face, but there was something infinitely unsettling about seeing it in person, and this was coming from an angel who had worn the face of someone else for centuries. There was something just… off about it, and it shook him to the core.
“I hate to break up this rom-com moment,” The Empty told him, with a smirk. “But you’re not going anywhere. You’re going to be a good boy and go back to sleep.”
Gabriel raised his eyebrow. “What makes you think I’m going to listen to you?”
“Aren’t you tired?” the thing coaxed. “Just think, no more fighting, no more hunters asking for help, no more running. You can just sleep. It’s not like you have much waiting for you back there. Why not let it be over?”
Gabriel had to admit the thing had a point. Most of his life was spent running away from one thing or another: his family, his brothers, hunters. Something inside him wanted to give in, just wanted it to stop, but he couldn’t.
Not when Sam Winchester believed in him.
Sam was his anchor, the only person who actually believed in Gabriel, who cared about him regardless of how he could benefit from Gabriel, and he wasn’t about to let him down.
“Yeah,” Gabriel quipped at him, crossing his arms over his chest. “I’ll have to pass.”
The Empty rolled his eyes. “Great. Another annoying angel who doesn’t know how to follow directions.”
“Archangel, thank you very much,” Gabriel sniffed. “And you thought Castiel was annoying? Wait ‘til you get a load of me.”
He did not deign to answer. Instead he gave Gabriel a smirk, one that Gabriel knew so well. Normally it meant trouble for whoever he was aiming it, but Gabriel invented trouble, and this freak didn’t know who he was messing with.
“Say, you ever heard of Sam Winchester?”
The Empty exhaled hard and crossed his arms over his chest. Gabriel mirrored his troublesome grin. “Do I care?”
“Well then, let me introduce you,” Gabriel said, sticking his hand into his pockets. “Sam Winchester is the perfect specimen of a man. Widest shoulders you’ve ever seen, legs for days, abs that would make Michelangelo’s David jealous…And trust me, I’ve met him”. His fingers closed around something hard and tubular in his pocket…. His horn…. His horn was in his pocket…
“He’s got these eyes… and this hair…. And you should see his c-”
The Empty yawned. “You’re gunna have to do better than that.”
As much as he hated to admit it, the thing was right. He didn’t have the time to go it alone, not if the other Michael was wearing Dean Winchester like a cheap suit. It was time to resort to something truly desperate, something truly crazy.
Luckily for him, that was kind of his specialty.
It was time to wake the angels. There was nothing more annoying than his siblings bickering, Hell even Dad had only been able to take it so long before he split.
He doubted the Empty would last much longer.
Gabriel smirked as he pulled the golden kazoo from his pocket. He had never been one to shy away from challenge. He was getting the hell out of here, getting back to Sam. He was taking all his siblings with him. With a glint in his eye, he pressed the kazoo to his lips.
Loki had once said that Gabriel stood for nothing, and would die for it too, but the demi-god had never been more wrong. Gabriel had fought and died for something alright.
I Aim To Misbehave 