Source( http://archiveofourown.org/works/4540527)

What am I?
TrickstersLittleHelper

Summary:

When the readers powers accidentally kills some people Sam and Dean hunt her down, but when all hope seems lost an unlikely ally steps in to help her.
Notes:

I haven't written anything serious in years, and I've never read a reader insert before so any and all feedback is more than welcome.
(See the end of the work for more notes.)

Work Text:

You had been running. Running and praying. To God, to his angels, to the pagans, and any other being that might have the slightest interest in helping you. You were currently starting to ask even the less likely candidates for some sort of assistance, and as you ran down the abandoned subway tunnel you could hear heavy footfalls in the distance.

A few days ago two men had tracked down the gang you ran with and started asking questions. Questions about some 'strange deaths', and questions about you. They claimed they were FBI, but no one had believed it. One of the guys had dropped you a message on your phone, warning you to lay low. You had done so, but the men had kept coming, and you'd moved from hiding place to hiding place. And now you were running. You had no idea how long you had been running, but it felt like an eternity.

Despite your fatigue you picked up your pace as a bullet hit the wall just in front of you and showered your face with concrete dust. When you got to a fork in the tunnel you picked the left-hand path solely because it was darker. You hoped the people hunting you would be forced to slow down or risk injuring themselves. Unfortunately it turned out to be too dark even for your light sensitive eyes, and you yelped as your foot caught the edge of the corroded, old track and toppled you over.

Normally you could see just fine in the dark but down here you didn't even have starlight, and the pitch-black tunnel felt like it was half a heartbeat away from suffocating you. You got up on your hands and knees and as you started to fumble through your pockets, looking for your cell-phone. You found it in your right pocket on your pants, and you added that to the list of things you were currently praying for to be okay as you pulled it out.

The screen had completely shattered and you smeared blood and gravel over it with your scraped hands. Adding to your stress and rising panic the battery monitor was politely asking you to plug the phone up to your charger because you were down to a two percent charge. Despite that you thanked your lucky stars that you had a cheap android phone instead of something fancier, because right now that meant you had a couple of minutes worth of light. When you held it up you couldn't help but note that most people still wouldn't be able to see past the end of their nose like this, but for you the faint glow was enough to let you see some sort of door fifty, maybe sixty feet further down the tunnel.

You crawled over to the tunnel wall, and bracing yourself against it you willed the pain shooting up your ankle and leg to the back of your mind. You took a deep breath and cursing quietly stumbled to your feet.

You were about halfway to the door when your phone gave a final death-rattle of a buzz and shut down. Just as the oppressive darkness settled back in around you you picked up the sound of voices echoing in the tunnel. It was faint, and you couldn't make out what they were saying, but since you couldn't see the light from their flashlights you guessed they were still pretty far off. You weren't sure where you found the extra burst of stamina but you managed to limp even faster.

You considered it a small miracle that you made it to the door without throwing up, and it even swung open on the first try. You stumbled inside and for a single, amazing moment it felt like your prayers had been answered, but just as you made to shut the door behind you a beam of light hit your face.

"There!" a deep voice called out, and the sound of running footsteps echoed towards you. You slammed the door behind you shut, rammed the flimsy bolt home, and tried to find somewhere to hide. But even in your panicked, desperate state you knew you were trapped. The room was ten, maybe fifteen feet deep, and seemed completely barren. You sank down against the far wall and backed yourself in to a corner, realizing you had run headfirst in to a dead end. Somehow you had managed to not break down and cry until now, but as you sat in your corner with no way out pain, fatigue, and fear over-took you and the tears flowed freely as you sent a final, panicked, and almost incoherent prayer into the aether.

As the door started rattling the lone light bulb in the room sparked to life. The sudden light forced you to bury your face in your hands, but you could have sworn you heard someone snap their fingers.

You wouldn't have moved from that position for several more minutes if you had it your way, but the explosive sound of the door busting open had you looking up and squinting at the light despite knowing it would feel like staring in to the sun. Except it didn't. Between you and your pursuers stood a man in jeans and a green jacket that looked like it had seen better days. He was also, quite conveniently, blocking most of the light for you.

"Why is it always you two bozos?" he asked the two men that had stopped dead in the door, and while you couldn't see his face you imagined that you could hear the smirk in his voice.

"Gabriel?" one of them asked, sounding very, very confused.

"You're dead." the other one added, it wasn't as much of a question as it was a statement, and by the way the man, Gabriel, tilted his head back you imagined it earned him an eye-roll.

"If that helps you sleep better at night Dean-o." he stuck his hands in his pockets and turned just enough that you could see the other two. One was ridiculously tall, with brown hair almost as long as your own, and he was holding a wicked looking knife. The other was somewhat shorter but bulkier, and as soon as he caught sight of you the ancient looking pistol in his hand was aimed straight at you.

With a swift side-step Gabriel was back between you and the hunters. "Sorry, can't let you do that." he said with a tone that sounded more suited for a game of Monopoly, and not the crazy life-and-death stand-off in this stinky, moldy, maintenance room in the heart of an abandoned subway that you currently found yourself in.

"Gabriel, we just want to talk to her, that's all." Something must have changed about Gabriel's expression cause the taller hunter sounded nervous now. When you peeked out from behind Gabriel you could see him holding his hands up in a defensive position, and you had conned enough people in your short life to recognize the small twitch of his lips as a nervous tell, if you had to guess you'd say he was about ready to drop the knife and turn tail.

"Talk huh? What's up with the hardware then?" the tone was still friendly, but you could have sworn that the room was getting warmer, and either your fatigue was making you see things, or there was a faint heat-shimmer rising from Gabriel's back and fanning out to either side of him.

"Cause she's killed half a dozen people, that's why!" the shorter one, Dean, snapped, and waved his gun in your general direction.

It felt like something inside of you snapped then. Sure you had killed a grand total of five people, but it had been in self defense. They had cornered you and as soon as the first one had grabbed your arm you had known that they wanted more from you that just your wallet. You had been terrified, and furious, and when you had tried to wrench your arm away you had felt something like liquid fire burning it's way up from the pit of your stomach and out to your hands. The guy who had his hand around your arm had burst into flames like something out of a bad horror movie, and when his buddy had tried to help him it had spread. The other three had pulled their guns at you and started to shout, and you had gone from burning fury to ice-cold fear in a heartbeat. Perhaps that was why the two guys with guns had frozen to solid blocks of ice when you pushed past them. You had no idea what had happened to the blonde bimbo with the switchblade that had been with them, but you assumed she hadn't made it.

"I didn't mean to!" you shrieked at them. And it was true, you hadn't meant to do it, you didn't even know how you had done it, it had just happened on it's own, and it had terrified you.

You tried to get on your feet to face them properly but your ankle refused to support your weight and you let out a small yelp as it gave out and you sank back to the floor. You glared at everyone in the room, daring them to say anything as you pulled yourself into a small, defensive, ball in your corner.

"I was just so scared, and it just... happened." your voice shook as you continued, and when you looked up you found yourself looking into Gabriel's eyes. There was something utterly inhuman about them. They were the color of molten gold reflecting fire, and seemed to be made of barely contained rage and fury. The way he seemed to look straight to the core of you before turning his attention back to the hunters made you flinch and forcefully wipe away your tears.

"Sam. Dean." he looked at each of them in turn as he pulled himself to his full height and tensed up, hands now hanging freely by his sides. "Did you two chase a kid all the way down here over a misunderstanding?" the playful tone from moments ago had been replaced with an edge that sounded like it could cut through steel if need be.
You weren't quite sure if Gabriel seemed infinitely larger now, or the other two had deflated, but somehow Gabriel seemed to tower over all of you as his presence dominated the room.

Dean shoot a dark look at the tall one, Sam, who tightened his grip on that ugly knife again. Really, just looking at it made you feel slightly sick, and you couldn't tell if it was just the jagged design, the fact that they wanted to use it on you, or something else entirely. You swallowed hard and forced yourself to focus on Gabriel instead.

"Honestly, we really just wanted to talk to her, but she took of running before we even got a chance-"

"Nobody likes a liar Sam." Gabriel interrupted.
The strange heat-shimmer emanating from Gabriel's back was getting more intense by the minute, and when you traced it's contour with your eyes your breath caught in your throat. Gabriel had wings. Six immense wings, flaring out from his back and shimmering angrily.

"She's a monster Gabriel!" Dean interjected.
You assumed Sam and Dean couldn't see Gabriel's wings. You didn't think that anyone who could see them would sound that confident.

It quickly devolved in to a three way argument from there, but you could pick out bits and pieces such as "monster", "dangerous", and "freak" in increasingly loud voices, but when someone, possibly Dean, all but roared "she just needs to die!" the shouting match came to a screeching halt.

"No." It wasn't a statement. It was a rejection of a reality where that was even a possibility.

The temperature in the room was up by several degrees now and the air practically reeked of ozone. Heat seemed to roll of of Gabriel as he took a step closer to Sam and Dean.
"You want to kill her? Fine. But you're going through me to do it." a small puddle started to bubble and steam when Gabriel stepped in it, but no one but you seemed to notice.

"Yhea? I'm okay with that." Dean sounded tough as ever as he leveled the old gun at Gabriel, but Sam was slowly backing up.

"Dean, are you sure? This is Gabriel we're talking about." you caught a glimpse of Sam's face as he maneuvered to get out of both Dean's and Gabriel's way, and the expression on it was nothing if not pained.

"You may want to listen to your baby bro Dean, he's got the right idea."

"Listen here you douchebag. I never liked you, and if I have to shoot you full of holes to get to that thing behind you I'm more than okay with that." Dean growled.

Gabriel merely laughed. "Please, that thing is as much of a threat as a nerf gun and we both know it." with a snap of Gabriel's fingers the gun turned red-hot, and cursing loudly Dean instantly dropped it.

"And Sam, that little pig-sticker of yours was made for demons, not angels. So what exactly were you planning on doing with it?" you heard another snap, quickly followed by metal clattering against concrete.

With the two hunters disarmed Gabriel started to pace as he continued, "So what exactly was your plan here Dean? Have Sam run back to that death-trap you call a car," Dean looked like he was going to launch himself at Gabriel when he insulted the car, but Sam held him back, "and get what? Holy oil? Or maybe another stake? Cause they're both about as effective."

"Oh something will kill you you bastard, we just have to figure out what." Dean ground out, while Sam's eyes kept flicking between you, Dean, and Gabriel.

"Thick as always Dean. Fine, I'll give you a hint." Gabriel stopped his pacing right in front of Sam and Dean. "An archangel blade has the potential to kill me. But all of those are currently accounted for, so good luck on that." before the hunters got another word in edgewise Gabriel reached out and touched their foreheads, and with a comical popping noise the two were gone.

The whole ordeal had you both mentally and physically exhausted so when Gabriel came over and knelt down in front of you you flinched and shied away from him.

"Hey, it's gonna be okay." he said softly and reached out to you. You had expected him to go for your face, and had braced yourself for that, so the gentle touch of his hand on your ankle, and the soothing warmth spreading throughout it came as a surprise, but a welcome one.

"Thank you," you said, and when you looked up all the fury and anger from before had been replaced by a caring smile and warm honey colored eyes that seemed to promise you safety and protection.
You had to physically shake yourself to resist the urge to curl up in Gabriel's arms and forget the world, and reminding yourself that you knew nothing about this man you forced out the next few words, "but why did you help me?"

He got up and stepped back from you, and as soon as he did you felt the cold and damp of the room creep back in to your bones, and you felt awful for ever questioning him.
"Because you prayed." he replied and offered you a hand up. "And while plenty of people pray to Gabriel whenever they miss a memo you gotta be pretty desperate before you pray to Loki. And I figured someone who prayed that hard to both probably could use a hand." he grinned at you, and you got the distinct feeling that that was a common expression for this man.

You were still wary when you accepted his hand and got pulled to your feet, but it took conscious effort to actually keep it up. "So who are you?" you wrapped your arms around yourself and eyed him. Now that you were on your feet he did seem so imposing anymore, he was maybe half a head taller than you and had a kind of rumpled appearance to him. "Heck, what are you?"

"A bit slow aren't you?"

You glared at him.

"Ehh, I guess that's to be expected. You've had a kind of rough day and all." you opened your mouth to object but before you got a word out he held up a hand to stop you. "Seriously kiddo, it's okay." he paused to see if you were actually going to be quiet, and when you nodded your head he let his hand fall back to his side. "The name's Gabriel, or Loki if you prefer," he shrugged, seeming genuinely indifferent about what name you called him by, "and while I've dabbled in many things I am, in fact, an angel."

You felt your eyes widen at the statement. Sure, you weren't religious, but that didn't mean your grandma hadn't dragged you to church often enough to make sure you knew the basics. "So unless there's more than one angel named Gabriel..." you hesitated, just thinking it felt preposterous.

"Nope, just me." he chirped.

"You're the archangel Gabriel?" yep, you felt completely stupid for saying that out loud.

"The one and only." he gave a mock, theatrical bow and grinned at you.

"You're the archangel Gabriel, Messenger of God, and Loki, Norse god fire, tricks, and general assholery?" the skeptical look you sent his way caused Gabriel to sigh and his grin to falter.

"What? Yes. Look it's a long story." he rubbed at his face, and in a weary tone added, "How about we get you somewhere safe first, and then we can play twenty questions, all right?"

Fearing that the angels patience was running out you nodded in agreement and he came over and put his hand on your shoulder. But before he could do anything else you spoke up again. "Can I ask you one more question?" the false bravado you had managed to maintain for most of this conversation was starting to peel and crack and your voice sounded as unsteady as you felt.

"What?" Gabriel's tone was one of weary and strained patience.

You winced but continued. "Gabriel, what am I?" your voice was barely a whisper, and you could feel the sting in your eyes of tears that threatened to fall any second now.

"Oh, sweetheart." Gabriel's voice sounded just as broken as you felt as he grabbed you by the shoulders and turned you so you faced him. "You're magic," he brought a hand up and gently wiped at your eyes. "And never let anyone tell you differently." he offered you an infinitely kind smile, and when he pulled you in to a protective embrace you allowed yourself to melt in to it.

It felt like you were being hugged by a bonfire, warm, comforting, and all encompassing. "Can we go now?" you murmured as you leaned in to Gabriel's chest. His only reply was a soft chuckle, and the strange, rustling sound of invisible wings beating the air.