Balthazar liked to believe he was justified in every action he made. Not just killing, not just betraying the ones he secretly cared most for, but everything. If he allowed himself to doubt, to feel, it would all crumble back down on him like the damned avalanche that it actually was. The solution was easy, so very very easy, yet somehow he managed to get himself dragged right smack into the center of it.

To say the least, it was fun. There was definitely an appeal to playing with fire, to being so close to the two hunters that had led- well, that didn't matter. That was the rule. It couldn't matter. It just had to be. If he thought about the prospective image that could step into his life any given day, the bright light that he had fallen for every damned time, the results would be disastrous.

Those emotions were too complex, too ancient for him to begin to accept as real. Even when Castiel drug him into the fray, it was on his own accord, it was to enjoy the battle.

Not to mention doing some subtle revenge against the brothers that had led to that.

So, yeah. He was enjoying himself.

Right up until the point when he found himself in a familiar position, and no. It was never on the same level as what it was for him.

But it was definitely there, and it was definitely a problem. It made knowing what he knew, the potential fallout from his involvement so much more obvious.

Which was what led him to do the one thing he swore he would never do. It was why he stepped forward, warned the damned brothers of the situation, of what their dear best friend was involved in.

When he was stabbed in the back, there was a moment of contemplation. A single moment where he simply wondered if that was how he had felt in that moment with Kali, the knowledge that- no, he wouldn't die.

But Kali had believed it in that moment, and so had Castiel.

Castiel had stabbed him in the heart, in every literal sense of the word, all because he had tried to protect him. It was either fate, or some sort of sick cosmic joke that shoved him into loving not just one, but two off the rails angels.

Angels that, with a bit of bitter irony, ultimately got themselves killed for the damned Winchesters.

Gabriel.

It was a name he had sworn from speaking again, a breakable promise that he was willing to shatter in the aftermath of a death- for two separate reasons.

"It's Balthazar, right?" The archangel asked casually, appearing on the library aisle with him and thumbing through books absently. "Balthazar." The archangel repeated the name, almost distracted. "One of the only survivors from the first cluster, yet I can't remember you. Why is that?"

"I-"

"What did my life cost? Kali told me it was a portion of your grace and fifty human sacrifices but that couldn't be it."

"I- don't make me tell you that, Gabriel." This was not at all what he had summoned the archangel for, it was the last conversation he wanted to have. What he wanted to talk to the archangel about was his other problem- his other mistake.

"Let's do it like this," Then the archangel was close, too damned close, hand in the front of his shirt to pull him down so they were eye-level. His breath was warm and Balthazar wanted to collapse in, give into the first damned person on the planet he had been stupid enough to love.

"You're in love with me." The hand in his shirt disappeared, moving to grab his shoulder and shove him into the bookshelf behind him in a sudden movement that jarred him so bad he nearly flew away.

The words though, that knowledge being in the open. It made his whole form tense, eyes widening in panic and shock as he was left paralyzed.

"We can never say it there." We are in love, and no one can know.

There, the difference, the broken connection. No one can know, no one but him, because it was important. The very foundation of the end of the world rested on the deal.

There was no harm in telling him, because it was the foundation of the spell. Gabriel's lack of love, his grief, it was the price. The only thing that Gabriel knowing could do was break him more.

"Tell me the price. What did my resurrection cost?"
"Bring him back." Balthazar blurted, heart pounding in his ears as he squirmed against the archangel, "Bring- bring Castiel back and I'll explain." Because he couldn't- he couldn't leave Castiel dead. Not now, even after being stabbed in the heart. Glutton for punishment.

"Done. Now talk." Just like that? Not even a movement? Was it really that easy for an archangel to bring an angel back or was he lying? "I don't lie. Not when it matters. I want an answer. What was the cost for my life?"

"It- we were mated, for a long time."

"The gaps." Gabriel responded, unphased, eyes narrowed into slits, "Ever since I came back there's been so much missing. Kali told me she didn't know but she did. You both do."

Balthazar closed his eyes.

"You love me. How? How could you… when?"

"Always." Balthazar breathed, unable to say it, incapable of saying when it started because he didn't know. It just was. "From the moment I saw you."

"I'm an asshole," The grip on his shoulder loosened but the archangel didn't let go, golden gaze burning into him like a fire. "Even then, I was second to Lucifer."

"And first to me." Balthazar responded, words choking slightly as vulnerability crackled through him. "en ror."

"My sun." The archangel parroted in the English, "I don't feel it, I don't hear it. What did it cost? What was the exact cost?"

"Your love," Balthazar responded, slow, feeling sick to his stomach.

"The other part." Gabriel pressed, but it was getting harder to concentrate, the space between their bodies that had been slim before becoming almost suffocating as the archangel probably subconsciously moved closer to him.

Or was it? The grip on his shoulder had moved, when, he didn't have a damned clue, but he could feel the arm around him, probably holding the bookcase behind him, and he was more than boxed in against the same thing. Gabriel's breathing was faster than it had been, huffing out against his face and ah hell.

"Gabe." Balthazar breathed, discarding any and all logical reservations as he threw his arms up to tangle his fingers in the archangel's hair, crashing their mouths together and almost crying with relief when the archangel yielded to the onslaught.

On some level, he recognized the level of stupid it was. Just how drastically bad of an idea this could be, but there, then, it didn't matter. All that he cared about was the wonderful glorious friction as the youngest archangel ground their hips together.

Then all at once their surroundings changed, the archangel having flown them off to God only knew where to pin him to a lush mattress, wrists caught above his head in an invisible binding and the smaller man over him, trapping him and forcing him into the exact position they both wanted, and didn't.

Because beneath the lustful gaze was a completely different kind of intent that Balthazar was not ready to deal with. His mind was logged on account of all the damned blood being far too south and damn.

"You're such an arse! Get off!" He managed, struggling against the hold and unable to stop the whimper, the rutting of his hips, as Gabriel pointedly moved back a bit to grind down against his still completely clothed erection.

"We'll get off after you answer the question." The archangel breathed out heavily, "You took my memories, the both of you ripped apart my life. You can't begin to fathom the things I've lost and there's no way in Heaven or Hell I'm letting you take off again without an answer."

"Grief." Balthazar forced out, swallowing heavily as he tried hard to ignore the burning guilt in his gut, the resurfaced shame that would've killed the mood if it wasn't for the heavy presence on him. If it wasn't for who it was. "Gabriel…" Please. I love you. Don't make me do this.

"How long for?"

"A hundred years. I have to suffer through knowing you don't love me, that you can't for a hundred years."

There was a long, fractured, moment of dead silence where there was no sound at all except his ragged breathing.

He wanted to crawl in a hole and die.

"I want to do this again." I have never been so close to you. I love you.

"As often as you want." As long as it's our secret, my love.

"You selfish asshole." Then they were kissing again, Gabriel grinding his hips down and causing Balthazar's eyes to roll back at the sudden intense contact. His grace lit up as the man he loved willed their clothes away with no preamble.

"You selfish asshole." The archangel repeated, tugging away from the kiss to bite down hard on his shoulder as their graces pressed against each other beneath their skin.

"I did what I had to!" Balthazar yelped out, jerking against the bindings as it registered with him that he had drawn blood.

"You stole half my life and didn't consider for a moment the repercussions." Gabriel bit out as he began to move south, biting at the skin of his chest and stomach, "Because you are a fucking idiot. And you've destroyed me."

"I'm sorry!" He gasped out as the archangel finally, finally, reached where he had wanted so bad for the archangel to be for years now.

And yet again he stopped. The archangel lifted his head and Balthazar stared down at him.

"I hate you." A violent gasp ripped from his throat as the archangel pulled away all together, dropping back and staring at him from the foot of the bed. "You are so damned stupid. You're not getting it are you?"

"Getting what?" Balthazar huffed a breath, all semblance of the mood dying as he realized the bitter reality of the situation.

"You love to torture me, don't you?"

"If I let you have me easy it would ruin the fun."

"Every moment since my resurrection, I have been trying to figure out what the hell I was missing. I started to wonder though. Kali isn't normally evasive, and she's a shit liar."

"You knew."

"You took yourself from me, and fuck if I don't know it. You're the only damned thing I don't remember! So fuck off you little arrogant-"

Balthazar couldn't bear to hear anything more, couldn't stand the idea of the words that were inevitably coming.

So he launched. Without a thought, he threw himself forward and crushed his mouth against the archangel's, a low moan tearing from his throat when the archangel reciprocated.

"You're being a pain."

"Would you have me any other way?"

"Not really. Now kiss me."

"Make me."

"Let me in your head." Gabriel hissed out and Balthazar didn't hesitate, exposing his grace to the man he loved more than anything else as he pinned the archangel's body beneath him.

Gabriel was in his mind, poking and prodding at his grace as they kissed damn near violently and all the while.

"There's so much." Gabriel sounded angry, bitter and angry, none of the emotion that Balthazar wanted, and just as quick as he'd gained control of the situation he was back on his back. "You took it from me."

"I know."

"A lifetime, and all the shit I put you through, and still. Still," Pause, a distant expression, "Still, you love me."

"Always." Balthazar breathed out as Gabriel leaned forward, kissing him again- but soft.

Balthazar melted into it, tugging at his invisible restraints on his wrists and wrapping his arms around the man he loved when he was released from them.

"This is a bad idea." Gabriel muttered as Balthazar abandoned his mouth to kiss down the side of his neck.

"We always have been."

"I- I can't love you. It's not possible. Not with what you did."

"I don't bloody care. It was never about the love, Gabriel. It was about us and I don't care if we never see each other again. I just have to know you don't hate me."

"I want to hate you." Gabriel responded and Balthazar let a deep breath out as the archangel pried them apart carefully, ghosting his hands across him as he moved them so they were sitting across from each other. "I'm all for powerplay, but with you it feels wrong. I do care but- not a lot." The archangel frowned, expression a bit distant as he clearly tried to find words for what he was thinking and feeling. Balthazar waited, because every moment he was sitting there, staring at the man he loved, was a moment he wasn't forcing himself not to feel anything.

A moment not spent thinking of the other elephant.

"I think it's a bad idea. I'm all for bad ideas, but this one would make me feel like shit. It's not gonna happen."

"Deal." Balthazar agreed, not really caring either way. The sex had always been a piece of it, but it was just a piece and he could survive lifetimes without that piece. He had survived without either.

"I want to ask you about Castiel."

"What about him?" Balthazar felt defensive and it bled into his words, but he didn't like that they'd flipped from the conversation he was barely comfortable with to the one he hated in less than two seconds.

"You told me to bring him back, and I know for a fact he killed you. You broke almost two years of silence to demand I bring the angel that killed you back."

"Is he alive?" Balthazar asked, feeling sick to his stomach.

"Yes. I promise, Balthazar. Now answer the question."

"You know the answer."

"I need to hear it." And there, it was subtle, but still there. Balthazar blinked, stared for a moment.

"Are you jealous?"

"No." Gabriel answered with a far too casual roll of his eyes, leaning back on his arms and slinking his head back to stare at the ceiling.

"I was stupid," Balthazar surrendered with a sigh. "I swore I wouldn't feel, and it backfired. I knew you could save him, though. I knew you could. I've seen you do it before. I couldn't let him die."

"Even after he killed you."

"I was already dead, Gabriel. I have been for a long time. I'm a moron, but I love him. Not nearly to the extent as I love you, but it remains."

"How did you know I brought him back after Raphael killed him?"

"You've always played favorites, and I know your signature better than anyone else." Balthazar responded, smiling slightly, "Why did you bring him back with no sex drive? Of all the things you could have done, you made him bloody asexual."

"I was livid. The little seraph was so close to doing the right thing then he went and screwed it up." Gabriel responded after a moment of silence, "So, I made sure there wouldn't be any distractions. Didn't expect him to catch me when I trapped the dumbasses in TV Land."

"I heard about that. What was your plan there?"

"How do you stop someone as stubborn as them from doing something?"

"You did what you did to Sam. That Mystery Spot thing."

"Bingo!" Gabriel grinned at him before blinking and frowning again. "Why did you help them?"

"I thought they could stop him from crossing that line."

"And in response he killed you. Bitter how that works, huh?"

"Kali killed you."

"Kali killed a construct, but yeah. I guess you could say it's the same basic concept. Big difference was that Castiel will never love you, his head's too far up the Winchesters' asses."

"Thanks for that reminder." Balthazar responded bitterly and the archangel shrugged a bit.

"Better the bitter truth than living with a false reality."

"I don't know about that, Gabriel. I was pretty happy pretending you could potentially love me somewhere deep down."

"No, you were off channeling the world's worst impression of someone that didn't give a shit. You care, you have a very large heart and every moment you deny it you're punishing yourself which is exactly the price that is supposed to be paid. Except my memories should be enough, the grief shouldn't be a part of it."

"Yeah well, they were, it was, and I'm done here."

"Kali lied to you." Gabriel continued and he jerked away. "And so did I."

"Gabriel-"

"I told you I don't love you, but it's a lie. Every moment since my resurrection I've known, and it is a bullshit nightmare. I had you, and I could have you, but I can't do that because I'm so angry with you. What you did to me was wrong, and you had no right to take my memories."

"What- That isn't what I meant! I just wanted to-"

"Ease your own guilt of abandonment. Twice, you abandoned me, and twice, you broke my heart. It won't happen a third time. I'm not some two-dollar whore you can call up out of the blue just because your new boyfriend's out of town. You don't get to ask shit of me, but I did it, and I want to go rip the little seraph apart at his core for it."

"Gabriel, I'm-" Then he was alone, staring at the empty space in front of him with his heart aching and broken more than it had ever been. Everything had spiraled, blowing up and crashing down in a sudden moment. Everything that he'd been trying to achieve… whatever it was. It was gone, over, and now he knew the worst truth of all.

Gabriel loved him, but never wanted to see him again.

"I'm sorry, en ror." I love you. Please forgive me.