Soldier Boy

Chapter Eighteen

When Gabriel woke up, he woke up with a pit in his stomach, to the smell of alcohol and filth, and a horrible ache in his back. The pit was due to prolonged hunger and the guilt that ate away at his soul over his rendezvous with Sam Winchester.

The smell was due to his aunt and the motel room that he, Lucifer, and their aunt shared. They lived in a bug-infested, wall-stained motel room that only had two beds and a couch. They lived in one of the worse neighborhoods of a city only thirty miles away from his hometown. The ache in his back was due to the horrible couch he slept on.

When he'd run away, he'd called the number that Lucifer had left him when Lucifer himself had run off, and when Lucifer had answered, he'd cried. It had been the first time he'd heard his older brother's voice in three years, and the years of missing him had hit him like a brick wall.

Lucifer had understood, somehow without words, that Gabriel had run away. Lucifer probably could guess why- the same reason Lucifer had been chased off. He'd offered Gabriel a place to stay, and Gabriel had accepted. Lucifer, when he'd been run off, had found their estranged aunt, and had been taken in by her only three years earlier. Lucifer had promised she'd do the same for Gabriel, and Gabriel had gone to their shared motel room.

Now, he slept on the couch, and all three barely scraped by, even with all the money their father sent to both of them. He knew where they lived because one night two years ago, when Gabriel had really missed him, Gabriel had used their hotel phone to call him. Chuck had got it out of him where they were staying, and he'd been sending them money ever since.

It wasn't that Chuck didn't send them plenty of money because he did; it's just that their aunt spent all of it on alcohol. She was an alcoholic and didn't even have a steady source of income- she usually just got shit jobs as a waitress or bartender.

"Get up! Where's your wallet?" Amara, their aunt, shouted, her eye twitching. Her voice was strangely clear, no sign of a slur. Perhaps that's why she sounded so agitated. She was remembering too much.

"Can't you just hold off? You have a shift tonight, and they said if you showed up one more day drunk, they'd fire you," Gabriel grumbled. Lucifer's bed was empty, probably already out at his job at the grocery store nearby. It was luckily within walking distance, and while the showers may be cold at the motel, they still got the job done.

"No! I need a drink, please," Amara almost begged, but it still sounded like a demand.

"No! We'll barely have enough to pay rent at the end of the month!" Gabriel said, his voice raising in anger and frustration. She might've taken Lucifer and Gabriel in when they need a place to stay, but she was throwing their money away. It wasn't her money to spend, but she never seemed to care.

This was their usual weekly argument that she always somehow won. She always managed to find his wallet to go out and buy her liquor, even if he hid it very well.

"I don't care! I'd rather live in a box!" She screamed, throwing their clothes out of the drawers as she looked for his wallet. That was last week's hiding place. She always looked in the last hiding place first, as if Gabriel was dumb enough to not to have moved it since last time.

Gabriel was about to continue yelling at her to stop, that they needed money to eat, when the motel phone rang. No one outside of Lucifer would call at this hour, so Gabriel automatically assumed the worst- Lucifer had lost his job or gotten in an accident and he was in the hospital.

Gabriel scrambled for the phone, a shaky greeting exiting his lips. His hand quivered, holding the phone to his ear as his fingers clutched it tightly. Gabriel could hear Amara rustling in the background, still looking, but ignored it.

"Hello, Gabriel." Chuck's raspy, gentle voice came over the phone, and Gabe's heart twisted painfully. It had been a year since he'd heard that familiar voice that had comforted him after his mother's death, had soothed him and chased away the nightmares. He'd always been so understanding, never showing anger or disapproval. Disappointment, yes, if Gabriel was doing something wrong or wasn't living up to his full potential, but never disapproval. He was always there to comfort and love, even when he was drunk. He hadn't called in a year, and Gabriel was so grateful for this simple call.

"Dad," Gabriel breathed, voice cracking as his throat tightened. That familiar burning started behind his eyes, but he willed it away. He wasn't going to cry just from hearing his dad's voice- he wasn't going to.

"Son, I want you and Lucifer to come home." When Gabriel made a sound of protest, Chuck immediately cut him off. "I know they've done horrible things to both of you, but I promise that it all stops now. They won't hurt you. I just want you both home." The word sounded broken from his father's lips, and perhaps that was because it was broken. Their home hadn't been whole since their mother died.

But, maybe they could piece back together the remaining pieces.

"Dad... We met Aunt Amara," Gabriel said, desperately wanting to reveal this secret to his father, her little brother. The only person that could piece her back together should know they found her.

Aunt Amara. Chuck's breath hitched. It was the first time any of his children had ever muttered those words. Chuck hadn't even known that any of his children knew about her. He'd hidden all the pictures, never spoken a word about her, and had tried not to even think about her in years. She'd run away when he was quite young, and she'd never tried to make contact since, and he hadn't sought her out, despite how much he missed her sometimes.

To know that his two runaways had found his sister and had connected with her was... Either one of the best or worst feelings in the world.

"Bring her home to me... Please. Can you get here? Do you have a car?" Chuck asked desperately, willing to drive any distance if it meant he'd get his babies and sister back. He'd let six years pass without holding Lucifer in his arms, three years without hearing Gabriel's wonderful laugh or suffer one of his pranks. He'd prayed to whatever God was up there that his children would return to him, but they'd stayed away.

Chuck couldn't blame them. He'd been a horrible father. Drunk all the time, working too much, and never knew what to say to them. What do you say to your children when they'd lost one parent already, and you were barely half a parent?

"We'll get there as soon as we can," Gabriel said, voice cracking. They didn't have a car, but luckily they had a bus system that could get them there- that was how he'd managed to get here in the first place.