Angel Warrior

Hunter took a deep breath and shook her head a bit as she stood in front of the screen door, schooling her expression into one of indifference, falling back into her usual self - the news of her segregate brothers' death hit too hard for her because she wasn't there to help them, to save them. The last time she saw them was that Boston case back in '09, the one that made them come back from Ireland and out of hiding to take care of.

She briefly wondered how Romeo was doing before shaking her head roughly - she would not go down that road again so soon. For all she knew, he was gone, too, and she just had to accept it - just like she has to accept everything else that happens. That part of her life was over - the killings, the secrecy, the deceit - it was over when the world ended and this new world called for Gunny O'Brien. Hunter was going to use 'Winchester' when she enlisted but seeing her brothers on the FBI Most Wanted sign in the Marines' office, well, she figured she'd stick with her adopted name to avoid questions.

Taking another deep breath, she rolled her shoulders back and flung open the door, walking in with as much self-confidence as she could with strangers who could either throw her out or decide to kill her. Hunter just didn't expect to see the living room empty, save for her brothers and their angels; she could hear low murmuring coming from the adjoining door that separated the dining and living room.

"What's going on?" She asked, moving to sit on the floor by Gabriel's feet - she was still streaked with dirt and blood from being in the woods all day - not that the other's weren't as dirty as she was, just a bit less. Besides, she sorta felt like she deserved to be on the floor at the moment.

"Meeting," Dean grunted, knocking back towards the door, "On what they're gonna do with us," Hunter pursed her lips and bit the inside of her cheek.

“You mean me, right? On what they’re gonna do with me,” She corrected him, raising her voice a bit to cut off everyone’s protest, “Y’all and I both know that after what happened earlier, they’re gonna question everything about me - out of all of them, at least one person had read the series and know my past without even asking,” She shot a glare at the two angels like it was their fault she had a ten-book series about her life without her permission.

“What did you do anyways? With the Boston twins,” Sam asked, still the curious puppy he’s always been; Hunter had to swallow thickly before replying, masking her emotions like she was taught to.

“I was the researcher. Since I had access to the government files, I sorta...liberated a few of them, the ones that never get caught because of too much power and all that. I didn’t get involved in the killings unless I was absolutely needed - the ones that require a long-distance kill, which only happened once or twice. The boys were good at their job,” She explained, voice faded to a wispy tone at the talk of her boys, eyes glossing over as she went revisited those memories.

“You had access to government files?” Dean demanded, eyebrows furrowed in silent rage - here she was with access to everything for years while they had the FBI on their ass.

“Shove a butt-plug in, just because I had access to those files, doesn’t mean I can just wipe out anyone I want,” Hunter snapped, “I chose the lower-level case files, the ones that no one cared about anymore. I couldn’t do anything about y’all’s files, they were at the top of every agents’ casework. If I had removed them, I would’ve been in deep shit, so shut the fuck up, you survived,” Dean, at least, had the decency to look sheepish after her reprimand; the others just chuckled.

“The worst thing was,” Hunter continued after a somewhat tense silence, “was when they found out I was adopted, that I was actually a Winchester and that I was with them, in ground zero - I actually found out through them. My adoptive parents told me but they never got a last name, so I couldn’t go out searching for y’all. But when they brought me in for questioning, things about our home life, what dad was like, if I followed the whole satanic cult,” She laughed bitterly, “but they forgot that I was only two at the time and I don’t really remember much, just fire and people yelling,” Swallowing thickly, she looked down at the floor so her brother’s don’t see the semi-lie she just told.

She remembered everything that night - she had woken up an hour before Mary did, having felt an unwelcome presence in her home and went to investigate it. When she found a strange man in little Sammy’s room, she went to go get her parents, only for an unseen force to drag her further into the room and hid her in the corner, where it was dark enough for no one to see her but for her to see everything. She watched her mother burn that night, smelt the sickly smell of burnt human flesh, watched at the stranger drop it’s blood into her brother’s mouth, felt the fire lick at her skin. She didn’t remember how she ended up outside but she had burns on her arms afterword.

Feeling a hand on her shoulder, she looked up and smiled gently at Gabriel, who was staring at her in concern - he knows what happened that night, knows what she’s seen and how it haunts her every night. Giving his hand a gently squeeze of reassurance, she shook the memories from her mind, forcefully forgetting about it for now - she had enough death and sadness for one night.

“What I want to know,” She continued and turned to Sam, “is how the hell you managed to keep your hair looking like a majestic piece of shit during the apocalypse,” He let out a loud, incredulous bark of laughter before biting his lip, trying to keep his giggles in as his shoulders shook with mirth.

Taking a calming breath, he explained, “Bobby still has working showers at his place,” Sam wasn’t the only one who winced at Hunter’s answered yelp of “What?!”, the deep timber of her voice vibrating within their chests. She rounded on Gabriel, who shrunk in his seat and tried to hide behind Sam when he noticed the look in her eyes.

“You mean to tell me that I’ve been bathing in hot ass creek water for months when Bobby still has working showers. What the hell, Gabe?!” hissed Hunter, remembering to keep her voice down so the others in the kitchen won’t hear her.

“I’m sorry,” The archangel breathed, still shrinking away from her, “It’s just, I know how you feel about me zapping you places. Besides, you once said you preferred the river water, said it felt like home, a sense of peace. I didn’t want to take that away from you while you had it,” Gabriel admitted, a slight pleading tone to make her understand his reasons but he shared a secretive glance with Castiel when he mentioned the river water. Hunter narrowed her eyes, catching that meaningful glance and almost growled - they were keeping something from her, most likely what Gabriel had slipped and mentioned earlier about angel business that involved her, which both angels knew she hated being left in the dark when something huge concerns her.

Hunter went to retort when the dining room door opened, her head snapping around to watch as the others piled out, some picking a piece of furniture to sit while some choose to stand, trying to elicit some authority over the others. The two that stood at the back of the group made her tense in her spot on the floor, body ready to bolt if they made the slightest move - she recognized one when she focused on their faces instead of their body language; Rick, the one with the injured child, wore his emotions on his face - though he made a good show of not letting most of them know.

The other one, however, gave her a horrible vibe, one that told her to watch her back with him. If the way his sturdy build just screamed ‘intimidating’ might’ve done it for her if it weren’t for the look in his eyes - it was a look she’s seen one too many times in Iraq, from both the terrorists and her own comrades after they went home; it was a look of complete psychosis, someone who lost everything and snapped, only having the most redeemable thing in their mind was to inflict pain on anything and everything.

Hunter mentally snorted - if they were talking about booting her because she had a moment of weakness, they obviously don’t know what’s going on in the mind of one of their leaders.

“We’ve come to a decision,” Rick started, keeping his voice calm and firm, his gaze jumping between the five guests. “You’re all welcome to stay if y’all up to answering a few of our questions, a background check of sorts, if you will,” He motioned to his group with a small gesture of his hand and took a seat next to who Hunter assumed was his wife, leaving the floor open to anyone who wanted to start.

“How old are you all?” An old man standing by the fire place asked, twirling his boating hat between his fingers anxiously. Hunter shared a look with the others to see who was going to answer, making Sam roll his eyes in exasperation when her and Dean got caught in a stare down.

“These two,” He said, gesturing to his older siblings in a staring match, “are twins, they’re thirty-two. This one,” he rested his hand on Gabriel’s head, ignoring the archangel’s glare, “is forty-one, his brother is thirty-seven,” he gestured to Castiel before pointing to himself, “and I’m twenty-eight.” Sam had guessed around the age of the angel’s vessels to tell the others. The group nodded to themselves, once again falling into an awkward silence as they tried to think of questions.

“Hunter!” Glenn called out, bringing her out of her staring contest with Dean with a sharp twist of her head, only to look back at her twin with a heated glare when he cheered loudly for “winning”. Turning back to Glenn, she answered him with a bright smile, already thinking of the young Asian man as her friend. Smiling back, he asked, “What was it like growing up in Ireland?” The ones who weren’t on the highway earlier raised their eyebrows at this tiny fact, turning to watch Hunter in interest.

She hummed, playing with a stiff chuck of her hair as she tried to think of a response, “It was alright, was raised on a farm, tending to the sheep and horses, that sort of thing. My adoptive parents were alright, very strict but good people,” She missed the glance exchanged between the angels but her brothers didn’t, furrowing their eyebrows at each other and vowed to ask them what that look meant later. “I was home schooled with two of my friends, we lived way out in the countryside for any proper schooling but there was a small town near by that we’d always sneak off to and pocket whatever goodies we got our hands on,” Hunter smiled fondly as she gazed off into space, lost in the some of her best childhood memories.

“What about you guys?” Rick’s wife asked, nodding towards the four men opposite of her. Sam and Dean both went to answer her before they stopped and shared a look, communicating through facial gestures; Sam, finally, turned back to the lady with a huff towards Dean.

“Our dad was a traveling salesman, so we moved around a lot. I had gotten tired of the constant moving and left for college, I wanted to be a lawyer,” He let out a bitter laugh, “turns out being a lawyer wasn’t meant for me, turned out to be a researcher instead. Dean, here, followed dad a bit before he broke off and went to be a mechanic,” Sam smiled a bit as he clapped Dean on the shoulder, making his brother glare at him a bit. The others were quick to realize that either Dean was uncomfortable talking to them or that Sam was just the one with better people pleasing skills then his brother.

Lori turned to the other set of brothers across from her and with one glance, she knew that only one would be talking for both - like Sam and Dean, Castiel seemed to be the most closed off and wary of them then Gabriel.

When the lady’s eyes turned to him, Gabriel chimed, “Well! Our ol’ daddy-o was the owner of a church, head priest and all that, so Cassie here and I practically grew up there, didn’t really know much else besides that. He was very strict, ya know?” He stage-whispered the others, covering his mouth and leaning away from Castiel. “Cassie was very loyal to the church and to dad, followed his footsteps and became a preacher. Me? Well, I wanted something else, something more fun.

“I became a pornstar,” He finished with a smug smirk and a shameless shrug as he fell back into his seat, the lady gaping at him like Gabriel just revealed he was an archangel.

“I knew that was you!” A sudden cry got everyone’s attention, staring at Hunter as she grinned manically at Gabriel. “I knew it! The guys in my squad tried to convince me it was just a look-a-like but I knew it once I saw the birthmark shaped like a horn on your ass,” She just laughed triumphantly at Gabriel’s mortified expression.

“Why were you watching porn?” Castiel asked her, head tilting to the side, genuinely confused as to why she would watch something like that, let alone broadcast for others to know. Wasn’t the act of indulging in pornography suppose to be private?

Hunter shrugged, “Who doesn’t watch porn? - and don’t say yourself because I know you have!” She interrupted him when he opened his mouth to retort. “Besides, it was a gay porno and a few guys in my squad were interested,” Gabriel’s expression just soured, more for the fact that his Hunter knew he did porn and had watched it with a bunch of guys then the fact that she blabbed about his birthmark.

Rick was grinning to himself as he watched the five strangers interact - they all acted like siblings, one bicker after another, all in good-nature. They could use some of that humor around, especially now with the way things are, everyone’s been feeling down in the dumps lately. His mind wandered to Carl and Rick knew, that once his son was better and on his feet again, he would make fast friends with these five - especially Hunter, from what Glenn told him earlier about her arm tattoo.

If you ask Rick later in the coming months if he made the right decision in letting these five people into his group, he wouldn’t hesitate to say yes.