I blame a bottle of cider, not much sleep last night, and the stupid neighbour who kept playing that song over and over and over...
DISCLAIMER: They're not mine. If they were, I'd smite the ones who behaved like flying dicks.
TITLE: Pure Research.
RATING: K.
SUMMARY: It could be exacerbated by his habit of hanging around with humans so much, but Gabriel always did have a sense of curiosity. So, with some help from his siblings, he wants to answer a question that has bugged him for a very long time...
Pure Research
"This is ridiculous," humphed Michael.
"For once, I agree with you completely, brother," nodded Lucifer, "This is of no useful value whatsoever."
"Oh, come on, guys," wheedled Gabriel, "Where's your spirit of intellectual enquiry?"
"When Aquinas posed that question, he was actually making a point about the stupidity of wasting time pondering pointless questions," frowned Raphael.
"Just because it seems pointless doesn't mean it isn't interesting!" exclaimed Gabriel. "Just because it seems pointless now doesn't mean that it won't be incredibly important sometime in the future! That's the whole point of pure research! Look, it will be answering a question, adding to the overall cosmic body of knowledge!"
"Gabriel," frowned Uriel, "That was exactly the reason you gave when you sought our help to answer the question 'What would happen if you dropped a bag of sugar the size of the planet Mercury into a black hole?'."
"And we got an answer!" declared Gabriel. "The densest toffee in the universe! That there is an original research finding!"
"I seem to recall that you used a remarkably similar justification for soliciting aid in determining the effects of bringing our existence to the notice of large therapods, and endowing some of them with higher thought processes," Aniel reminded him sternly. "What was that about bringing Good News To Dinosaurs?"
"I just thought it might be nice for Father to hear some prayers from some of His creations," Gabriel defended himself. "After they had the run of the planet for a couple of hundred millions of years, it would've been nice to get a dinosaur to say 'thank you' to Him."
"Gabriel," sighed Zachariah, "What we actually got was a T. rex that said grace before it tried to eat you – we did warn you not to take a Triceratops as your vessel..."
"And need we remind you, Gabe," grinned Balthazar, "Of the strange and wonderful consequences of some of your more outlandish attempts to explore the limits of Father's creation? I'm thinking of the time we spent trying to cross multicellular animals with plants, in the pursuit of your Grand Unified Theory of Cuisine..."
"And what was the only resultant viable organism?" huffed Hester in exasperation. "A cross between a sea sponge, and an Idaho potato! And it tasted terrible!"
"But it sure held a lot of gravy, huh?" Gabriel pointed out brightly. "Come on, where's your sense of intellectual curiosity? Where's your sense of enquiry?"
Castiel cocked his head. "I believe that I may have lost mine after the last time you said 'Hey, hold my drink and watch this'."
"I think, brother," Michael tried again, "That what we are trying to say is that we do not necessarily share your burning desire to know the answer to such... useless questions."
"Please?" begged Gabriel, eyes large and pleading, "Please? Please? Pleeeeeeeease?"
"Oh, I hate it when he does that," grumbled Lucifer.
They acquiesced in the end, in the face of Gabriel's plaintive entreaties, and they managed to extract a promise that, in exchange for their help in satisfying his curiosity, he wouldn't play his trumpet in the throne room for at least another century.
"Very well, then," Joshua humphed in stifled amusement, "Show us what you want us to do."
"All right!" chirped Gabriel, snapping his fingers to make a small portable stereo appear. "Okay, brothers and sisters, that is our target area", he pointed, "So, let's all bunch up a bit... hmmmm, we got room for more... guys, we need more here! Hey, are there any cherubs hanging around?"
"What exactly do we do?" asked Inias, as more angels joined the jostling throng.
"Just follow me!" Gabriel answered breezily, "Okay, let me just start this... okay, there's the music, here we go!"
Raphael had been right; when Thomas Aquinas and other mediaeval scholastics had posed the question Gabriel was trying to answer, they were ridiculing theologians who spent time on arguing highly theoretical points with no practical value to the pastoral care of the Church's flock.
But just in case anybody ever really wanted to know, Gabriel, with the help of his siblings, worked it out by experimentation.
If they do the Macarena, the number of angels that can dance of the head of a pin is forty-seven.
I'll go back to Grumpy Old Men now, I promise.