Disclaimer: Supernatural and all of its hot boys and adorable angels are not mine
"Egg dyeing?" Lucifer cocked an eyebrow at his elder brother, who nodded, arms overflowing with empty eggshells and bowls to hold the dye.
"Yes. I observed it among the humans. They do it to celebrate the coming of spring and new life," Michael replied, his statement making the Morningstar's eyes narrow.
"First you bow to them, now you pick up their traditions?" spat the younger indignantly. "You have completely lost your-"
"That's enough!" The general looked Lucifer in the eye. "I'm not doing this for you or for me, but for the fledglings. They deserve a treat for how hard they work AND a break; we will not fight today. Understand?" Lucifer opened his mouth to argue, but the frigid look in Michael's eyes silenced his retort.
"Fine…" he sighed. Honestly, a break from the constant activity of Heaven sounded like...well, Heaven.
"Egg dyeing?"
"Yes Raphael, egg dyeing. Apparently it's some human tradition or whatever." Raphael smirked at his brother.
"You, Lucifer, are the absolute last angel I would have thought would adopt hairless-ape culture." The Morningstar glared, white wings flaring out behind him.
"I'm not. Michael said it'll be something fun for the young ones." The smile fell from Raphael's face.
"Michael's in on this too?" His dark brown eyes cast back to the medical text he had been reading. "I'm quite busy, brother. Perhaps another time."
"Aw, don't sweat it Raph. I heard Michael say they're not gonna fight today." The healer looked sharply up from his book.
"Gabriel! I told you to STAY OUT OF MY LIBRARY!" The sound of the youngest archangel's laughter carried throughout the wide expanse of the room.
"But I'm not in the library." Following the sound of his voice skyward, the two brothers saw the golden-winged angel hovering above an open panel in the glass ceiling. His wings beat slowly as he flipped a small oval-shaped white object in his hand. "Hehe! C'mon Raph, it'll be fun! And don't worry, you won't get any egg on you. They're using just eggshells. Completely fledgling-proof." The real question is; is it Gabriel-proof? thought Lucifer with a smirk. Raphael shook his head.
"Fighting or not, I will not abandon my work for the pleasure of low-grade minions."
Gabriel sighed and rubbed his forehead. "We may be their superiors but they're still our family and we should at least try to be nice to them. Pretty pretty please?" He pouted, putting on his best puppy dog eyes which had a reputation for making any remotely living thing within 100 foot radius melt instantly.
Raphael shook his head in disdain and set aside the scroll. "Alright, I will join you mongrels." The messenger clapped happily, then abruptly stopped, a rather shocked look crossing his soft features as a soupy, yellow and clear liquid dripped from between his hands and onto Raphael's face.
"…Oops?" he murmured softly. The older angel seethed, breathing heavily.
"GABRIEL! I'M GONNA KILL YOU!"
Lucifer held Raphael by the collar of his shirt as they flew to the hill where Michael had said he would assemble the rest of the angels. The brown-skinned healer looked almost rabid as he glared daggers at Gabriel, who flew on the other side of the Morningstar.
"I said I was sorry, Raph," the younger angel pleaded.
"Oh, I'm sure. Just like you were sorry you put all my white shirts in the wash with Luci's red coat? Like you were sorry you completely trashed my library last month?" Missing the sarcasm, the messenger nodded.
"Yep! Just like that!"
"Shut up you two, we're here," growled Lucifer swooping down to land.
"Nice of you to join us," Michael said from where he was seated cross-legged on the hill, little Castiel, still too young to really take part, curled up in his lap. The other fledglings crowded around him, awaiting instruction. Raphael brushed himself off and glared at the bowls of brightly colored liquid.
"I still don't see what the point of all this is," he grumbled. Michael shrugged.
"You don't have to. It's just a bit of fun."
"You know how to have fun?" Gabriel giggled, hugging his brother from behind. Michael twisted around and cuffed the younger's ear gently. Castiel stirred from his nap in the archangel's lap and cuddled closer to his stomach.
"Alright," Michael said, repositioning the toddler. "One at a time, carefully grab an egg and hold on to it until everyone has one." The angels followed his command to the letter, staring at him expectantly when the task had been completed. Lucifer watched, un-amused, at the blind obedience. "That means you too, Luci and Raph." The archangels reluctantly each grabbed an egg.
"Oh boy oh boy! This'll be fun!" cheered Gabriel, jumping up and down, eggshell clutched tightly in his hand.
"Stop it, you'll break your shell! Then you won't get to participate."
"He sounds like a mom, doesn't he?" Lucifer muttered to Raphael, who snickered, nodded. Michael threw an egg in their direction, which Lucifer dodged, cackling, before continuing.
"No put your eggs in the dye and wait a few minutes for the color to change. You can use multiple colors." The fledgling stared blankly, confused. The general smiled patiently and demonstrated.
"Uriel look at my egg!" cried Anna, who had dyed hers pink on one end and yellow on the other.
"Mine's better!" yelled Balthazar, whose egg had green and blue sides with a band of white separating the two colors. He crawled over next to Michael and held up his egg for Castiel. "Here you go Cas, this is for you," he said cheerfully. The toddler stared at the egg, unsure what to make of it, before reaching out and cautiously taking it. Michael ruffled Balthazar's hair, impressed with his generosity, and gave him one of the extras eggshells to go and dye for himself.
Lucifer sat next to Michael and stared at his egg, dyed purple. "Mike, the color's rubbing off!"
"That's because you left it in the dye too long. The shell's degrading." Lucifer blinked.
"How's that?"
"The shell's degrading from one of the chemicals in that." He pointed to a bottle filled with clear liquid that they had used to dissolve the dye tablets. Lucifer nodded quickly.
"Right, of course. I knew that." Michael chuckled in response.
"Hey don't get that on your clothes!" he called to Uriel who had begun fiddling with the bottle. "It'll bleach them." The boy quickly obeyed.
Raphael held up his egg, which had been colored a bright red with a yellow top, to show Lucifer.
"Mine is so much better than yours, Luci."
"Is not!"
"Is too!" Lucifer pounced on Raphael, knocking him backward.
"They're worse than the rest of your siblings," Michael whispered to Cas as he watch the two tousle. The toddler, undisturbed by his brothers' antics, remained fast asleep in Michael arms, his egg cradled carefully in his hands. Suddenly, a light bulb flickered on in Michael's mind.
"Guys! Quit it!" he yelled at the archangels. The two stopped in an instant, staring at Michael.
"What is it?" asked Lucifer, who still held Raphael in a choke hold.
"…Where's Gabriel?" In that same moment, Anna piped up,
"Hey! Where'd the pink and teal go?"
"And the bottle of clear stuff?" added Uriel. The three archangels stared at each other, an unspoken oh no passing between them before a sudden cold wetness spread over their wings. Michael craned his neck to look over his shoulder in time to see patches of bright pink dye settling in the silver feathers of his wings. Above him hovered Gabriel, empty bowls in hand, cackling madly.
The general stood, careful not to disturb Cas, and handed the toddler to Balthazar. Stretching his wings nonchalantly, he acted for a moment as if he didn't care before suddenly shooting up at Gabriel.
"GABRIEL! I'M GONNA KILL YOU!" The trickster high-tailed it out of there as fast as his wings could carry him, laughter still wracking his body. Lucifer and Raphael, whose wings bore teal and bleached splotches respectively, followed close on Michael's heels, each wielding a bowl of dye. The group of fledglings on the ground stared up silently at their warring brothers. A single drop of green dye landed on Castiel's face. That was all it took.
"Now what happen to y'all again?" questioned Joshua as the entire Heavenly Host stood in his garden, fledglings in a tub, archangels in a line, all brightly colored.
"Gabriel," three of the archangels stated flatly. Joshua smiled.
"Aww now how could that be? He's the brightest outa all of you." The fledglings giggled, water swishing around as the dye was soaked off their skin. Michael, who was bent over a rock, wings spread out as Joshua scrubbed them, glared over at the youngest archangel.
"Oh yes, it was -ow- Gabriel -ow- who started this," he grumbled, annoyed. Joshua laughed softly. "It is not funny!"
"Oh you're quite right, Michael, it isn't funny. It's positively hilarious." Another round of giggles sounded from the tub again.
"Oh hush!" Raphael snapped at them, wings pressed tightly against his back. "What am I supposed to do about mine, Joshua?" The gardener remained silent for a moment, considering.
"Well," he said finally, lifting up another of Michael's feathers. "You got three options: first off, you can dye the spots back to their original color. It won't be perfect, but it won't be as noticeable. Second, you can pull out the bleached feathers and wait for them to grow back in the right color." Raphael shivered at the thought. "Or third you can be the only angel in Heaven to have spotted wings!" The healer glared at Gabriel and made a slashing motion across his throat.
To Michael, Joshua said, "Alright, that's the best I can do. Leave 'em out to air dry. They're still a little pink, but just fly through some rain clouds and it'll fade." The general nodded and went over to start scrubbing the fledglings. "Next!" Lucifer grudgingly bent over the rock and Joshua started on his wings.
"Hey! That tickles!" laughed Anna as the oldest archangel washed the yellow off her back.
"Now don't you worry, boys. I doubt this'll ever be repeated. He who laughs last doesn't always laugh best." He nodded in the direction of the trickster, who sat alone in a tub filled to the brim with jet black water. Gabriel's face was completely tie-dyed, his beautiful golden wings the ugliest shade of brown ever seen before in Heaven, Purgatory or on Earth. He shrunk down lower in the cold water.
"Did you guys really have to douse me in that stuff? I mean I only got a little bit on your wings."
"A little bit?" shouted Michael. "My wings are pink!"
"Well that fits you Mike, but mine are teal! I hate teal!" yelled Lucifer.
"And mine are spotted!" added Raphael, sounding on the verge of tears. Michael glared for a moment at Lucifer before going back to washing the green off of Castiel's face.
"Hey Mike?" Lucifer asked softly.
"Yeah?"
"Next time you want to have some 'family fun' or whatever, let's all just kill Gabriel in advance."
"Hey!" yelled the trickster. "You guys are the ones who overreacted!"
Joshua watched dye from the angels' wings drip onto the colorless petals of his flowers as they argued back and forth. Beautiful, the thought to himself with a smile as the blooms shimmered, reflecting the bright colors of the angels antics straight back down to Earth where this mess had started in the first place.
As it is in Heaven, so it shall be on Earth.
A/N: Random story I came up with while dying eggs this weekend. This….is more than double the length I meant to keep it in. Oops…I guess I'm thorough. Anyways, have a happy Easter/Passover/any other holiday being celebrated at this time! If you don't fit in any of those categories, have a good day!