The room was a deathly silent, only broken by the brothers' short, harsh breathing.
"Brother, don't make me do this." Lucifer stated quietly, inevitably behind his eyes. He already knew the outcome of this story, and Gabriel did too.
"No one makes us do anything." Gabriel said simply, still carrying that futile shred of faith that Lucifer could be redeemed.
Lucifer looked at him, a certain sadness in his eyes. "I know you think you're doing the right thing, Gabriel." His voice was barely a whisper, yet Gabriel heard him loud and clear. "But I know where your heart truly lies."
The real Gabriel, having sneaked up behind Lucifer, raised his blade silently, preparing to strike. When it was angled correctly, Gabriel brought it down hard-
Before he knew what was happening, Gabriel's blade was buried in his own stomach, angled up towards his heart. Gabriel gasped in pain and looked up with wide, unbelieving eyes into his brother's cold, resigned ones.
"Here." Lucy ended with a whisper.
Lucifer looked back for a moment, just long enough to see the fake Gabriel fade away. He raised a hand to support Gabriel's head, almost an affectionate move. Gabriel was choking, suffocating in his own blood, trying to form words, or a scream, anything.
"Amateur hocus pocus. Don't forget," Lucifer sounded truly saddened now, "you learned all your tricks from me, little brother."
Lucifer yanked out the sword and Gabriel screamed, his Grace lighting up the room as it drained out of his body. The world shook- for a single moment.
Then Gabriel's body sank to the floor, no longer held up by the blade. The Devil stepped away from his brother's lifeless vessel, breathing hard in the unnatural calm of the room.
-and Gabriel gasped for air. He was greeted by the stale city air and burned fuel, but Gabriel welcomed it gladly.
He wasn't supposed to wake up. He was supposed to be dead. Lucifer.. Lucifer had really killed him.
Gabriel took calmer breaths, and looked around. It was nighttime and the street was nearly empty, beside the occasional car. Gabriel was lying on the sidewalk in the shadow of a building. There were some trees and a bed of water beside the street.
Good for you, random eco-friendly country.
What did Dad expect him to do here? Gabriel had felt it, the fundamental change in the world. He'd helped create the universe, after all. This wasn't his own universe.
He'd traveled dimensions before, but never for long, and it took a lot of energy. With his Grace feeling like this...
Gabriel checked his Grace, and sighed when he was proven right. His Grace was damaged and depleted, and he wasn't going to be at full power any time soon.
Well. At least there was the fact that other celestial beings here wouldn't detect him.
Gabriel's thoughts drifted to Lucifer and he immediately decided he'd deal with that later. Or, you know, never.
Gabriel moved to sit up carefully, but paused in surprise when he felt no pain. Then he felt like hitting himself because of course dad would take care of the giant hole in his vessel before reviving him.
Wearily and decidedly not thinking about the cause of that particular hole, he got up and dusted himself off. First business was finding out where he was, then came decision making.
Looking around, Gabriel thought the surroundings seemed familiar. Then again, that didn't really tell him anything, because he'd been just about everywhere in the world over the past few centuries alone.
After a while of wandering around and seeing signs like 'Huissen 4' and 'Arnhem-Zuid 3', which told him absolutely nothing, Gabriel decided to just fly wherever the hell he wanted to go. Screw dad, if He wanted Gabriel to do something here he should've made it clear. Where to go, though...
His first instinct was Las Vegas, for the fun, but he'd been there so many times that it was getting old. Gabriel took another look at the newspaper he'd found discarded in a small mall. It was an old one and really not up to date, but he didn't need it to be for travel ideas.
Now that he was actually reading, he recognized the language as Dutch. Right, he knew he recognized it here. Anyway, the newspaper's global news section was pretty small, but one article in particular caught his eye. The Weaponizer, some actor, had been murdered in Los Angeles.
The city of angels, huh? He hadn't been there in a while. Gabriel's grin was sharp as he pondered it. The last time there had been a lot of idiots for him to play with. Ah, why the hell not.
An instant later, Gabriel was on an empty roof in Los Angelos, screaming in pain.
"Fuck!" When he'd caught his breath somewhat Gabriel broke into a stream of multilingual curses, before cutting himself off with a hiss as another bolt of pain shot through his wings. "Okay," He panted, "Bad idea. Very bad idea."
It must be his depleted Grace, he realized with resignation. His wings were infused with his Grace, it's what made them his. Flying right after... Well, he'd asked too much of his Grace.
He did get to LA, it seemed, but that was beside the point.
When the pain had faded to a dull ache, Gabriel looked around at the bustling city. It was late afternoon here, which he could only be thankful for, as the noise of the crowds had drowned out his yell.
He'd originally planned to use the roof as watchtower and find a discreet alley to fly to, but now that seemed like a less good idea. Luckily there was an entrance to the random roof he'd landed on.
It looked like Gabriel had landed on an apartment building, lucky him. Sneaking downstairs was demoted to simply walking halfway through, when Gabriel finally got his mind wrapped around the fact that there were no surveillance cameras at all.
Seriously, he was incredulous at the lack of security. This was Los Angeles, people were being murdered and robbed here non-stop!
Shaking his head in disbelief, Gabriel made his way out of the building and into the chaotic herd of humans.
And if a few hours later the landlord of that particular building happened caught by surprise by a bear breaking into his top-security home, Gabriel wouldn't know.
A/N Never fear, Gabriel is here! Again. I would make this chapter longer, but I feel like this is a good note to end on.
