90. Chapter 90

Gabriel made his way further into the shop, listening to the quiet sound of Dean and Castiel speaking to each other behind him. He was confident that Dean would find something for Bobby here, but that wasn’t the only reason that Gabriel had wanted to come here. Castiel would’ve called it an ulterior motive; Gabriel considered it having the smarts to kill two birds with one stone.

He pushed aside the curtain at the very back of the shop, and the proprietress looked up with a slow smile. She looked exactly the same every time that Gabriel came to the shop: she always wore the same black dress, had her hair pulled back in a half-ponytail, had her make-up and nails done in the same way, and always smiled that same smile. It had bugged him, once. Now, Gabriel took comfort in it.

“I need a ring imbued with a bit of magic. Can you do that?” he asked, leaning his hip against the doorframe.

“For the right price,” she said in lightly accented English.

“It’s always about the price with you people,” Gabriel grumbled.

She laughed at him. “I am the owner of a shop. What did you expect, Loki?”

The use of his old name made Gabriel’s shoulders tense slightly. “I’m not Loki anymore,” he reminded her, just as he always did.

And just like always, she rolled her eyes and responded, “Yet the chaotic energy you exude makes me doubt what you say. Now, what is this ring?”

Gabriel reached into his pocket and drew out a simple, silver man’s ring and moved closer to drop it into her palm, then stood in silence while she examined it. At a glance there wasn’t much to look at, but he had already figured out a long time ago that she could see levels of the world that many humans didn’t even know existed.

Finally, she lifted her head to look at him thoughtfully. “You’re an archangel. Surely anything you do would far outweigh what I can do.”

“Obviously,” Gabriel said, shrugging one shoulder. “That’s the problem.”

“I’m not following,” she said, rolling the ring around her palm.

“If I use my grace on that, it’s going to be like a homing beacon,” he explained. “It’s pretty hard to disguise grace and make it stick at the level of strength I want to use. The boy that the ring is for is already a target. I don’t want to paint an even bigger target on him by openly marking him with an archangel’s grace.” Anymore than he already had, anyway. Little bits of grace here and there around Sam wouldn’t be noticed, but a ring that was glowing with the strength of an archangel? He might as well paint a red circle on Sam’s back.

She hummed in acknowledgement. “You think a witch’s magic will go over better?”

“I think it’s much less conspicuous,” Gabriel corrected. Crowley had promised to keep the demons away from Sam and Dean, but Gabriel didn’t really trust him. Plus, there were tons of other supernatural creatures out there. Most of them would gloss over the feel of a witch’s magic, or better yet avoid Sam entirely if they thought he was or was close to a witch.

“You’re not wrong,” she said. “Alright, tell me what you want.”

He gave her the basic rundown: protection runes and various spells that he thought would be helpful, including one to make Sam difficult to locate for anyone who didn’t know precisely where he was (which precluded Castiel and Gabriel, who had touched Sam’s soul and thus could find him anywhere) and another one that would make supernatural creatures want to avoid Sam.

“Plus anything you think is useful,” he concluded.

“I can do that. You can come back tomorrow to pick it up.” She closed her palm around the ring. “Are your friends buying anything?”

“Yeah, they are,” Gabriel said with a nod.

“I’ll be out in a moment.”

That was a pretty clear dismissal. Gabriel nodded at her and left, wondering when humanity as a whole had ceased to show any reverence towards angels. Most of the time he was okay with that, but every once in a while it would be nice if someone would bow to him or at least act like he was important.

He walked out into the main part of the shop and saw that Dean and Castiel were standing in front of the rather large selection of crystals. Both of them looked absolutely awestruck by the play of lights and colors. In that moment, they looked so much like each other that Gabriel had to hold back a laugh. Angel and hatchling indeed. Suddenly, he didn’t care whether anyone ever showed him another ounce of reverence. He got enough of that in heaven, and that’s why he was here.

Here, with his baby brother and his precious nephew.

“Did you find something you liked, Dean-o?” Gabriel asked, walking over with a wide smile. He would forever be grateful that Castiel was letting him be a part of this. Considering their history, it would’ve been easy for Castiel to not feel comfortable with having Gabriel around. Gabriel hadn’t exactly been the best big brother for a while there.

Catching Gabriel’s thoughts, Castiel straightened up and rolled his eyes at Gabriel. He reached out with his grace, letting Gabriel know in no uncertain terms just how stupid Castiel thought that was. As far as Castiel was concerned, and as far as Dean and Sam were concerned, Gabriel had more than atoned for whatever mistakes he had made – and they were the only ones that mattered.

“Corny,” Gabriel mouthed at him, trying to hide how touched that made him feel, and Castiel rolled his eyes again.

Dean didn’t notice this exchange, instead beaming excitedly at Gabriel. “I found a jacket for Bobby!” he exclaimed, green eyes shining. “And a knife too!”

“A jacket and a knife. Bobby’s a lucky guy,” Gabriel said. “Which knife?”

“Right here!” Dean lurched forward and grabbed Gabriel’s hand, dragging him towards the other side of the shop. Gabriel went willingly and soon found himself looking at a knife that was made from a combination of iron and silver. The handle was carved wood with etched protective symbols. Gabriel picked the knife up, realizing that it was a solid weight. Not too heavy, but not light either.

“Good choice,” Gabriel said, nodding. The silver and iron would make the knife useful if Bobby ever found himself on a hunt.

Dean lit up at the praise. “Do you think Bobby will like it?”

“I think he’ll love it,” Gabriel said with a warm smile. “Let’s get the jacket that you want too.”

“I’ll get it,” Castiel said, walking past them. He returned a moment carrying a jacket, which Gabriel realized would definitely suit Bobby Singer. Dean may have doubted his ability to pick out presents, but he was actually very skilled at figuring out what people would want.

It made Gabriel wonder what Dean had picked out for him and Castiel. If Anael had been helping him, then it could have been anything. Dean didn’t seem to think much of the gifts based on his reaction when he talked about them, which wasn’t really surprising – but it was also intriguing. Were the gifts personal in some way? Dean was usually the hardest on himself…

“Stop it,” Castiel hissed, shooting Gabriel a warning look.

“Stop what?” Gabriel asked, pasting on an innocent look that didn’t fool Castiel for a moment.

“Stop trying to figure out what Dean got us for Christmas. He wants it to be a surprise,” Castiel said. “I’m as curious as you are, but you can wait for a few days. It won’t kill you.”

Gabriel sighed dramatically. “Not that you know of,” he muttered back, grabbing the jacket. He went and paid – the witch was no where to be seen, so Gabriel just left the appropriate amount of money on her desk – and then returned to Dean and Castiel.

“I think that’s everyone on your list, right?” Castiel said to Dean. Dean’s cute little face scrunched up for a moment before he slowly nodded.

“I think so too. No one else comes to mind,” he said. “Thanks Daddy. Thanks Uncle Gabe.”

Gabriel’s heart melted into a gooey pile of mush. “You’re welcome, Kiddo. What do you say we go home and decorate?”

Both Castiel and Dean gave him identical looks of confusion.

“We already decorated,” Castiel said, sounding puzzled.

“Yeah. We put the tree up and everything. Don’t you remember?” said Dean.

“Oh, I remember decorating the inside of the house. I don’t remember decorating the outside,” Gabriel said.

“I didn’t even think of that!” Dean exclaimed. “Let’s do that!”

Castiel still seemed a bit baffled, but that was alright. Gabriel set a hand on both of them and quickly flew them back to the nest. He deposited Bobby’s gift upstairs with the rest of the stuff they had bought before joining Dean and Castiel back outside. Dean had his hands on his hips and was staring at the nest with a very critical look on his face, probably trying to envision what they were going to do.

“You and Cassie can put lights on the trees,” Gabriel told him, snapping up several strands of outdoor lights. Because he was a nice uncle, he made sure they were untangled.

“Okay!” Dean said enthusiastically. He grabbed a strand and started winding it around one of the bushes. Castiel shrugged and picked up another strand, moving over to another bush.

Gabriel looked up at the house itself and snapped his fingers. Instantly, there were beautiful lights along the edge of the roof and around the shutters. Snowflake-shaped lights were plastered all over the front of the house. He cocked his head, eyeing the decorations critically, and then snapped his fingers again. This time strings of lights appeared on the front porch and, although they couldn’t see it, the back porch.

“That’s cheating!” Castiel called out.

“Sorry, I assumed you wouldn’t want Dean climbing on the roof to put the lights up here,” Gabriel said pointedly. He enjoyed decorating because it made Dean so happy, but only to a certain point.

“Right, that’s why you did it,” Castiel said, rolling his eyes. He finished the bush he’d been working on and moved on to another one.

Gabriel decided to ignore the attitude and walked a little further away so that he could see the nest from a distance. The cabin itself looked good, but the snowman that Dean had made looked lonely on the lawn. So for the third time, he snapped his fingers. A plastic Santa in his sleigh, pulled by nine reindeer, appeared, all decorated with lights. It looked, if Gabriel did say so himself, pretty real.

“Wow!” Dean cried, dashing over to the head reindeer. He gently touched the reindeer’s nose, which was lit by a bright red bulb.

“Rudolph always was my favorite,” Gabriel said.

Castiel looked faintly confused by this. “Who is Rudolph?”

“You don’t know who Rudolph is?” Dean said, blinking at his daddy in surprise.

Gabriel thought for a moment and realized that all of their lessons about Christmas may have overlooked a few basic things. The only Christmas that Castiel had spent on Earth thus far had been with the Winchesters during the Apocalypse, and at the time Sam and Dean hadn’t been very interested in things like Santa and reindeer. Castiel had probably seen pictures of the reindeer before, but their significance probably wasn’t clear.

“No… should I?” Castiel said.

“I think tonight we need to read some Christmas stories,” Gabriel said. Or maybe watch some Christmas movies. Or even sing some Christmas songs, if Dean could be persuaded to sing. He considered that for a moment before realizing that probably wasn’t going to happen. Hatchling or not, Dean Winchester’s interest in music would always be rock.

“Yeah!” Dean said, running back to grab another strand of lights. He moved on to the next bush and started draping them around the branches.

“I feel like I’ve missed something,” Castiel said, eyebrows furrowed.

Gabriel clapped a hand on his shoulder. “No worries, baby bro. Dean-o will have you all caught up in no time.”