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Gabriel stared in horror at his best friend, now lying in a pool of blood in front of the otter exhibit. This was not how this outing was supposed to go. He was already useless enough, he didn’t need to go getting his friends injured. Castiel had insisted on taking Gabriel out to do something instead of wallowing in his uselessness, and now look. Castiel was going to bleed out, Sam was trying his best to prevent that, Dean was on the phone with 911, Jo was keeping bystanders away, and Gabriel… was standing around staring and being completely, utterly, totally useless.
Of course, it meant he noticed the man watching from the shadows. He was staying far enough back not to get Jo’s attention away from the Karen demanding that Castiel have his medical emergency somewhere else, please, her children came here to see the otters and how dare anyone prevent her babies from getting what they want – but he was watching them clearly. The anticipation on his face was particularly galling. After one last look at Castiel and Sam, Gabriel headed over there. “Is my friend’s imminent death that amazing?”
“Oh, relax, he’s not going to die,” the man said, giving Gabriel a big hug. “I promise! In fact, you should get over there and tell him that. It’ll save everyone a great deal of irritation, and him an even greater deal of suffering. Just go hold his hand and tell him you won’t let him die.”
That had to be the stupidest thing Gabriel had ever heard. There was no way in hell Gabriel was going to go over there and interrupt Sam’s healing to feed Castiel some stupid line. “What are you, some kind of woo-woo psychic healer? How the hell can you know he’s not going to die?”
“Eh… a lot harder to explain than it is to just show you. Go tell your buddy he’s not going to die, and then you can come back here for the explanations if you really feel like you need them.” The guy waved his hands in a shooing motion. “Go on!”
Gabriel went over, and as he crouched beside Castiel, he noticed something odd. Despite all the blood he’d lost, Castiel’s face was still its normal color; there was no trace of pallor anywhere. His clothes didn’t appear to be staining. The pool of blood was obviously there, but weird shit was happening. Gabriel reached for Castiel’s hand, shrugging at Sam’s bewildered look. No, he didn’t know what he was doing either, so he couldn’t explain it. He just reached for Castiel’s hand. “This dude in the crowd says you’re not going to die. Normally I’d be all about spiting him, but that would mean you die, so just this once I’m gonna argue for doing what you’re told and staying alive, huh?”
“But I’m not a ladies’ man,” Castiel protested, causing Sam to roll his eyes. Gabriel let out a short cackle. Castiel joking was a rare event, one Gabriel wanted to become far less so. “Very well. I will stay alive.”
Just like that, the blood disappeared, and Gabriel could now see the golden arrow as it fell from Castiel’s chest. He picked it up, looking between Sam and Castiel and the arrow. “Is this…”
“It sure looks like it,” Sam had to admit, reaching out to take it from Gabriel for a closer look. “Dean? Tell 911 never mind.”
Dean came over and put a hand on Sam’s shoulder, staring at Castiel. “The hell? The magically appearing wound just magically fixed itself?”
Sam held the arrow up. “It didn’t just magically appear.”
“Yes it did,” Dean snapped. “Wounds don’t just appear out of nowhere, Sam!”
“No, arrows cause them.” Sam tried once again to show Dean the arrow, once again failing to get Dean to see anything.
Gabriel took the arrow back from Sam. “Dean, you can’t see this?”
“See what? Your hand? No, I don’t see anything at all there.”
“Wow.” The memory of the lecture from college flooded through Gabriel’s mind. Specifically, the tales of Cupid’s arrows. Cupids were messengers of Heaven who created soulmates, or revealed soulmates, or something. Scholars couldn’t agree. Some even argued that the whole thing was metaphorical. Castiel’s wound wasn’t metaphorical, of that Gabriel was certain. There wouldn’t be any lasting damage, but the pain and the fear were real. The only way to stop the pain and the fear was reassurance from the person’s soulmate, who ought to be standing by. Once the victim was out of danger, their soulmate would be able to see the arrow that had caused it, while no one else around could.
Sam was staring between Castiel, Gabriel, and the arrow. “Cupid…?”
“Think so.” Gabriel got to his feet, pausing only to help Castiel up before marching back over to the smirking asshole who had sent him over. “You think you’re clever, don’t you.”
“Hey, I just go where I’m sent,” the guy said. “Congratulations on your new soulmates, by the way, you’re so lucky.”
“Why us? Why now?” Castiel asked, glaring at the guy.
He just shrugged and threw his arms around Castiel. “Why you? Because you three need to be together for some reason. They don’t tell us the reason, they just tell us who to shoot, who to make sure is around, and when to do it. As for why now…” Another shrug between letting go of Castiel and hugging Sam. “I can’t say for sure, but it kind of seems like your boy here needed something to lift his spirits, and finding out that his best friend and another close friend are his soulmates would do the trick. Take good care of him, would you? I’d hate to see him still feeling down and out when whatever it is you three need to be together for comes around.”
“Trust me, no one wants to see him happy more than me and Cas.” Sam reached out and put an arm around Gabriel. “Come on, Gabe, let’s get out of here before Karen over there has us thrown out for causing a disturbance. I’ve heard some things about a potential use for you that I would love to find out if there’s any truth to, hmm?”
“What things?” If Gabriel had used that line on Sam, he’d be setting up a joke to get Sam to help him clean off the top shelf of his closet or something. Castiel, it would be figuring out a way to reorganize the closet.
Sam shot him a wink and let his eyes travel down Gabriel’s body. Oh. Those things. Soulmate things. He was indeed quite useful for those things, but… “You aren’t even interested in men.”
“Just because I’ve never had a boyfriend doesn’t mean I would never. If we weren’t soulmates, I’d never say anything because I know Cas is into you that way and I wouldn’t want to hurt him like that, but the two of us together and sharing you? That, I can do easily.” Sam reached for Castiel’s hand. “Same thing for you, I know Gabe’s into you.”
“And you weren’t going to say anything to either of us about the other being into them because…” Castiel prodded.
“Because on the off chance that Dean and I were both wrong, I didn’t want to go messing up your friendship and having both of you hate me over it too.” Sam pointed to the security guard heading their way. “And now, we really do need to get going.”