"Let us piss from the vine, let us claw in the mud!
Let us swing with both fists as we writhe in the blood!
Let us walk on stained glass, sinners one, sinners all!
It's always prettiest after the fall."
(After the Fall—Terrance Zdunich)
Gabriel had been resolutely staying in hiding ever since Lucifer had tried to gank him in Elysian Fields.
Yeah, he had learned all his tricks from his big brother, and the 'look out, he's behind you' was almost the oldest one in the book (the oldest being 'pull my finger'), and one that Lucifer had never not fallen for, even when they were still young and all one big happy celestial family. But tricking Lucifer wasn't exactly easy to do, nor was it something that he could get away with lightly—if the Fallen archangel ever found out, Gabriel would have his wings chopped off and mounted as a trophy in the Cage. Which meant that he was underground. Like, as far underground as it was possible to get without accidentally scraping the roof of Hell, keeping one ear to the ground and listening to every little bit of gossip concerning the Winchesters, Metatron, anything. Even when Metatron—that slimy, nasty bastard, never liked him—kicked everybody out of Heaven and slammed the gates, he hadn't come out from underground, even though his Grace screamed in agony. Lucky him, though, archangels could only Fall through the direct action of the Big Man himself, and Dad was still AWOL. His power suffered, as all angels' Grace fed upon and powered each other to an extent, like one big holy organism, but he was still a full angel. Right now was full-blown incognito time, Cold-War level incognito. Those two muttonheads had managed to break the world and fix it a time or two, they could figure this out, surely.
But the rumours that had been going around lately were making him seriously antsy. Dean Winchester taking the Mark of Cain, turning full Dark Side of the Force, taking over Hell, coaxing the Moose over with him, and now they had Castiel with them, too? He didn't even want to think about what might happen to his little brother in those hands. The squirrel did enough damage to Castiel when he was just a human, but as a demon? Excuse him for being just a wee bit nervous on that count.
But colour him even more surprised when he came back to his little hidey hole to find a message waiting for him from none other than the demonic maestro himself:
I think it's time we talked, Gabriel. See you in Hell.
— Dean
Just walking into Hell without RSVP-ing first probably wasn't his brightest idea because the moment he set foot on unholy ground, two demons in neatly pressed suits appeared in front of him, eyes flashing black. He flicked his wrist, angel blade in hand, and hoped that he could kill these two jokers and high-tail it out before they called in reinforcements and managed to get him on sheer numbers. Suddenly, a voice echoed through the hallways like a PA system had just clicked on, the Deanster's voice ringing through loud and clear: "Nobody hurt him. Let Featherbrain through. We've got business to discuss."
The demons stared at him for several long moments, and Gabriel raised his eyebrows, still holding his blade ready. Finally, they relaxed their battle stances and assumed an almost formal posture, hands clasped together in front of them. "Do you know the way to the throne room, or would you like for one of us to show you the way, sir?" the taller of the two asked in an amazingly cordial voice.
"Lead the way, Jeeves," Gabriel replied, tucking his blade back up his sleeve, following behind the two demons as they led him through the corridors to a set of large double-doors that opened into the throne room. He stepped inside, and they pulled the doors shut behind him.
Dean-o was sitting on the throne, which had been changed to look like the Iron Throne—good taste—and the Samsquatch was leaning up against the side of the throne, one hip propped against the side of the iron chair. And sure enough, there was Castiel, sitting cross-legged on the floor playing a game of Sorry with Crowley; the former king looked like he'd rather have a hot poker shoved through his brain than be there at the moment, but from nervous glances he kept flicking towards the Deanster, he wasn't about to protest.
"Rapunzel. Eugene. Good to see you both. Back in black, too," Gabriel said, pulling a lollipop out of his jacket and sticking it in his mouth. He avoided looking directly at Castiel, even though his little brother had looked up from the board game excitedly.
"What's up, Sparky?" Dean-o replied, then snapped his fingers Castiel's direction. "Beat it."
Castiel didn't move from his seat on the floor; instead, Crowley stood up, the board game vanishing with a flick of the angel's fingers, and the crossroads demon made himself scarce. Gabriel felt his lips curl a little. Oh, how the mighty have fallen. Wonder how badly Deany-boy kicked his ass for him to be so whipped? The smile faded slightly as Castiel stood up. He was still wearing that silly-ass trench coat of his, over a set of hospital whites this time, wearing shoes that were a little too big for him and a vague, pleasant expression. "Gabriel," he said with a smile. Then, in an instant, he was across the room and hugging one of the archangel's arms like an excited child. "Guess what, Gabriel? Today I went to the Botanical Gardens in DC and followed a honeybee through the trail of flowers and saw the entire plan, the path of the flowers, all laid out there perfectly, nothing to add or change, and it was amazing, have you ever done it?" All of that was said in a single breath.
The first thing that sprang into Gabriel's mind sprang out of his mouth. "Aw, Dad-dammit, you broke him," he exclaimed.
What he definitely didn't expect was for the Deanmon to growl low in his throat, eyes filling with darkness as he snarled, "I didn't break him, I think that I fixed him." The scowl faded, and leveling a look at Gabriel, he asked, "Who the fuck is Naomi?"
Castiel whimpered softly, hiding his face against the jacket sleeve.
Naomi? Gabriel tensed involuntarily at the mention of the most infamous Persuader in all the garrisons. She never left Heaven as far as he knew, and it seemed to him that her only purpose for existing was to cause others as much pain as was possible. It was her job to 'eliminate' any rebellious or willful behaviour in wayward angels by any means necessary. "How do you know that name?" he asked warily.
Dean pointed at Castiel, still huddled down against Gabriel's side like a child clinging to an older sibling. "She practically signed her fucking name on the inside of his goddamned skull, that's how. She's fucked him up about two dirt roads and a piece past crazy. I didn't even know that you could do half of the shit that she's done to him. I got nearly all of it out, but some of that stuff…" He shook his head wordlessly. "Now tell me who she is and where I can find her so I can nail her fucking wings to the wall."
Castiel released his grip on Gabriel's arm and straightened up, walking over to sit on the floor in front of the throne, resting his head against Dean's leg. "I'm okay now, Dean. You and Sam got her out. I'm okay," he insisted.
"Sure you are, Clarence," Dean muttered back, then nudged him with one foot, the gesture surprisingly gentle coming from the King of Hell. "Move it."
Smiling, Castiel scooted so he was sitting next to the throne, looking up at Gabriel with a smile on his face. The expression made Gabriel ache; the last time he'd seen his little brother smile like that, he'd been a fledgling that couldn't even fly yet. What had Naomi done to him?
"Now, Gabe," said the Deanmon, bringing the archangel's attention back to him. "I didn't bring you here for a family reunion. I wanted to talk business with you."
"Business?"
"Metatron."
"Ah, yes, the rotten little shit of our family. Never liked him," Gabriel replied, and Castiel let out a burbling laugh. "What about him? He has the Angel Tablet, I don't know what exactly you think you can accomplish against him." Even a demon bearing the Mark of Cain and the First Blade couldn't go toe-to-toe with an angel using the Tablet as a battery pack.
Dean-o shook his head. "Not me. We."
Gabriel's eyebrows shot up. "We? You really think I'm going to work with you two muttonheads now that you've gone full Dark Side of the Force?" he asked sceptically. "Why in the hell would I do that?"
"Heaven is corrupt," Samsquatch snapped, interjecting into the conversation for the first time. "All of it. It needs to be torn down and started over again. Metatron's already done the first part with the Fall. And unless something is done, he is going to be the one to build it up again. Do you really think that anybody's going to come out on top if Metatron rebuilds Heaven the way he wants it built?"
The moose had a point. Metatron was a little shit, and even if the Fall was a traumatizing horror that no angel should ever have to experience, it did essentially shatter the rotten foundation that Heaven had been built on and presented the opportunity to start anew. But if that ferrety bitch turned Heaven into Meta-Land, they were all fucked. Gabriel pushed his hands into his pockets. "Okay. I'll bite. What are you thinking?" he asked.
"We work together. None of us could take on Metatron alone so long as the bitch has the Angel Tablet, but if all four of us—"
"Four?" Gabriel interrupted.
"I get to help," Castiel piped up from where he was sitting on the floor.
"The hell you will. You can't seriously think about taking him, his brain is a bag of cats. I can almost smell the crazy on him from here!" the archangel protested, gesturing to his little brother and staring at Dean-o, hoping that one of them was just having him on for a laugh at his expense. They couldn't honestly be considering taking an angel with a scrambled noggin into battle against Metatron. Even if they were demons, that was a bit low.
"Cas is coming with," Dean confirmed. "He's got his Grace back, he's the only other full angel we got, other than you."
Has his Grace back? The hell? Gabriel looked down at Castiel and extended tentative feelers of Grace, expecting to feel the shredded, burnt ragged remnants that every Fallen angel possessed. Instead, he felt only a full, buzzing warmth that made his own Grace vibrate with new energy. Castiel's Grace had been put through the wringer a time or two, and more evidence of Naomi's persuasion was evident in scars scribed into the divine energy itself, but it was still intact and complete, singing with power and light. "Colour me impressed. How did you manage that?" Gabriel asked even as he felt a tiny measure of his own power return to him, coming in contact with another angel.
"Metatron stole his Grace, used it to trigger the Fall, then hid what was left here on Earth. I found it," Deanster replied with a casual shrug. "Once I Windexed Cas' brain, I gave it back to him."
Gabriel almost asked how they'd found Castiel's Grace at all as Metatron wouldn't exactly make it something easy to find, but considering that the older Winchester had once been Alistair's star pupil, it was probably best that he didn't ask. "Okay, fine, but he's still nuts."
"I can help," Castiel protested in a voice reminiscent of a stubborn five-year-old saying he was too old enough to play with the big kids.
"Cas is coming with. That's not debatable." Dean shifted his weight on the throne. Though it looked like a casual motion, Gabriel noticed that one of the demon king's arms hung over the arm of the throne, and the very tips of his fingers brushed the top of Castiel's head, sifting through his hair. Castiel eyes drifted closed as he straightened his back, leaning up into the touch.
Well, that's vaguely disturbing.
"Anyways," the moose interrupted. "Metatron has the Angel Tablet, so we can't take him on solo, but all four of us together could do some damage. Or at the very least distract him enough to take the Tablet from him, cut off his power source. You're an archangel, Gabriel, and you haven't Fallen. You and Cas have a shot against him."
"How do you know that I'm not Fallen?"
"I told them," Castiel replied, eyes still closed. "Archangels can only Fall by the Father's will."
"Traitor," Gabriel mumbled under his breath, but the corner of Castiel's mouth curved up in a smile, knowing he didn't mean it. "Alright. Say that this actually works. What then?"
"We tear Metatron to pieces, salt and burn what's left, the angels will be allowed back into Heaven, and we all go for a round afterwards," Dean-o answered.
"Alright. Let's say that this crazy idea of yours works—which I don't think it will, by the way—and the angels are allowed back in Heaven and get their Grace back. What then? What stops some power-hungry lunatic from taking over and turning everything to shit again?" Gabriel asked. "I've been around angels a lot longer than you guys have, and I can tell you straight. Cassie is an outlier. A malfunction. Other angels don't adapt to the idea of free will as easily. They were made to follow orders. They need a leader."
Castiel opened one eye to look at him, smiling again, and now Sammich and Dean-o were grinning too. The pieces clicked.
"No. No, no, no, no, and no. No. Ix-nay. Nein. Non. Nay. Negatory. I am not Michael," Gabriel protested, taking a step backwards. "I am not leading anything. Are you guys crazy? Don't answer that, Cassie. I can't lead the angels."
"Then don't," Moose said. "You said you've been around the angels longest. Find the ones that you know can be trusted, put them in charge. Figure it out, but something has to be done."
A trustworthy angel? That was a laugh. But then again…. Gabriel spared a thought for Ambriel, the shepherd angel that had been in charge of raising fledglings since Creation. Penemue and Kushiel. Namaah and Leliel. They were some of the oldest angels, almost as old as the archangels, and they were his friends. They could keep things on the green, provided they were still alive. Dammit, maybe the muttonheads had a point. "Okay. Okay. On the miniscule chance that this all works out to plan," he said at last, pinching the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger, "what exactly is the end scenario? I mean, are we just all going to go get a round in? Teach karate at the local Y?"
Deanmon leant back in his throne, slinging one leg over the opposite arm of the chair. "Well, you and the God Squad fix up the Magic Kingdom, me and Sammy kick it down here, and the world just keeps on spinning," he replied. "I mean, things weren't bad the way they were before, huh? Before all the apocalypse. Y'know, the first one, the one we started. Demons cheat people out of souls, angels do…I dunno, whatever you guys do for kicks. I see no reason that we couldn't continue that trend."
He wasn't wrong. Before the apocalypse had started the first time around, things had been on a pretty even keel, insofar as the balance went. People died, got sent up and down depending on the case, the creepy-crawlies went to Purgatory, and the humans stayed stupid. Sure, it lacked that spice of a global catastrophe and the occasional knockdown-dragout between gods, but it was fairly peaceable. And, maybe he'd been huffing incense with Ganesh too long, but Gabriel could actually see these two sticking to the routine. They'd had enough crazy in the past ten years to last a dozen lifetimes. "And what about the Tablets?" he asked.
"Break them. Both of them. They're useless unless they're whole. We get half of each one, you get the other halves," Sammoose replied.
That sounded...fairly reasonable.
"So…we knock Humpty-Dumpty off the wall, break up the Tablets, and call it a truce? Earth is the new Switzerland?" Gabriel surmised, hands in his pockets.
"Yeah, that's about it. One condition." Deanster held up a finger. "Cas stays with me. None of this sequestered-in-the-ivory-tower bullshit."
"No."
"Gabriel—" Castiel started to say.
"No, Cassie. Sorry, baby bro, but you're out of your mind if you think I'll let you stay down here with Thing One and Two."
Castiel gave him that special 'you-dummy' look that he usually only reserved for the Deanster when he was being particularly slow. "I am out of my mind. I want to stay with Dean. I know that he's a demon, but he really isn't that bad, I mean, as far as demons go, I really kind of like him like this."
"You could always take me to Heaven with you," Sammich cut in with a suggestion, casting Gabriel—damn, was that a flirtatious smile these old angelic peepers saw? "Call it a trade?" The moose actually winked at him. Son of a bitch.
Dean-o rolled his eyes. "Whatever. But Cas stays with me. Non-negotiable." He placed his arm over the side of the throne again, resting his hand atop Castiel's hair.
Gabriel almost said no on principle, then paused. Dad always said to never play favourites (hypocrite), but Castiel had always been his favourite brother, the oddball little fledgling that liked to pull out other angels' feathers and collect them, liked to count insects and join in on pranks. But…to give up one angel in return for taking down Metatron? For restoring the Heavenly Host and returning all the angels to their home? What's that geek saying? The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few or the one. Dammit, Cassie. Casting one more look down at the angel of Thursday, sitting on the floor next to the throne of Hell and having his hair pet by the demon king, he heaved a long, slow breath. He raised his eyes to the elder Winchester. "If you hurt him, if you make him suffer any more than he already has…I'll smite the ever-loving shit out of you. No tricks, no do-overs," Gabriel warned, pointing one finger at him. And he meant it. He didn't usually do the whole wrath-of-God crap, that was Michael's gig, but Cassie was still his favourite. The oddball had been put through more than anyone deserved thanks to these two muttonheads, and he would definitely pull some flaming sword shit on Dean Winchester if it meant stopping that suffering.
"Agreed. Now…do we have a deal?" Dean asked, his eyes filling with darkness.
"I'd say we do. Do you mind if we just shake on it instead of kissing? 'Fraid I don't like you that way, Deanster."
"What about me?" Sammoose asked, flashing him black eyes and a pearly smile.
Gabriel smirked. "Y'know, I'm starting to agree with you, Cassie. They're a lot more fun this way, aren't they?"
Castiel grinned smugly, having scooted around so he could rest his head against Dean's leg. "Told you so."