A/N: I originally wrote this last year and it has previously been published elsewhere. I'm popping it here too, at long last. Enjoy!
"Now…where were we?"
The blow catches Gabriel on the left cheek once more.
He can't see for a second - even feeling is momentarily stunned. His ears ring. There's a voice, he doesn't care to listen. Silence will be his response in any case. To endure, that is the plan. Endure, buy Michael some time. His brother has already been ratted out once - betrayed once - no several times, this Gabriel knows - so, not again, no, not again. Noma and the cur Alex Lannon were supposed to be looking for the amphora - but they wouldn't be, Noma would not let him, she was smarter than that. They'd be after Michael. And Julian knows that. That's why that 8-Ball lackey of his was tailing them - but Noma could dispatch him, surely - and that mutinous Alex Lannon could get to Michael, get him out…
He's foolish to dwell on these thoughts. He can't do anything from here.
And as for his own fate, well, death by dyad hadn't been on any agenda. There is much to be done yet.
Avenge Uriel and get revenge for Michael - destroying Claire Riesen would kill two birds with one stone.
Get the markings - the bearer, dead or alive, doesn't matter.
Decipher that troublemaking message - bring Father back.
No, this is not the time to die. And not in such disgrace. A dyad is hardly fit for the slaying of an Archangel.
A distant voice rises out of the strange darkness. "Tell us where to find Michael."
Gabriel coughs until he finds his voice. "What for? You've got your dogs after him." A bit of sight returns. The room swims into focus. Dark. Dank. As stale and mildewy and full of false light as the rest of New Delphi.
"I'm patient," returns the voice. "But then I've already waited six thousand years."
"What's a few thousand more?" Gabriel works his jaw - a slight agony, but - no, the cheekbone's still intact. Maybe the next one will snap it? Hopefully it wo-
Ah, there it is. He feels the bone shatter under the next blow. Curses. Spits out a tooth and a mouthful of blood. Little shards of bone are poking all around inside the left side of his face. Is his eye swelling up? Maybe. Either way, he can't see just now. Hysterical blindness? Or just haze from the pain? He breathes heavily. It would be easier if he didn't have two heavy nails stabbed into his back, pinning his wings.
There's a lapse in the violence. As his vision returns in full - blocked in by red and black - he glares every iota of hatred he can muster at his assailant, and the chain in his hand. Somehow he manages a garbled curse. Empyrean steel was once their ally. Now it is his greatest enemy.
Julian - or Lyrae, he never quite knows which one he is being beaten by - steps back to observe his good work.
"Feels a bit different, being on the receiving end of a bit of Empyrean steel, hey Gabriel?" A smile flashes across his face. If Gabriel looks close enough, he can see the angel squirming with delight in the whites of the human's eyes.
Would it be worth it? To rile him up some more? Gabriel musters up a smirk. Defiance. "Is the universe so mundane that you held a grudge for six thousand years? That's just a bit pathetic."
Julian slings the chain over his shoulders. "Still up on your high, high horse, Gabriel. Let's not think like we're ancients. Not that you can help yourself, I suppose. That self righteousness runs in the family, doesn't it?" His eyes are laughing. "Too bad for you, I'm holding the reins this time."
In a fluid movement he slips behind Gabriel's chains and twists the nails pinning his wings. The room is sealed off - the only one to hear Gabriel scream is himself, as the sound bounces off the walls and back to him.
Down to his knees then, just for a while. Just for a moment. Gabriel allows himself a small groan, a little hiss, a mumble of pain. And another. His wrists strain at the chains as his body bears down and forwards; the metal no longer chafes, it cuts. Through his armor and sleeves, through the leather of his boots, digging into the tendon at his heel that is still cut to pieces.
That had hurt him. That hurt a lot more than all of this. Michael putting his own Achilles heel out of action. How could he? How dare he.
When Julian had first captured Michael, Gabriel had felt it. Felt the barbs of Empyrean steel tearing into his brother's flesh, felt his confusion, his pain, his betrayal, his sickening understanding and forgiveness for that fiend Alex Lannon. That's why he'd come running - hobbling - half-flying to Michael's aid. If Gabriel had gone with him - it would never - if Michael hadn't been so stubborn - if he hadn't cared - but both of them cared too much - the both of them, for each other - and Michael, for that miserable human being…
Gabriel bites back tears thinking about it - and at the same time is certain he would smite his brother, if only he were anyone else.
Right now, in between the torturous spasms through his shoulders and back and wings and the throbbing sting of his split cheekbone, he can feel Michael's wounds. Perhaps, if he focuses hard enough, he can feel one or two healing. A jolt of relief. It's difficult. As it is, he can hardly balance when he kneels - the strain on his lower leg is agonizing. But if he gives in…
There's a scraping of metal on concrete. Julian drags a stool over to sit before Gabriel and looks down on him. "You know, humans come up with these little adages all the time, and now and then they can be very wise. There's one goes, 'The only way for evil to prevail is for good men to do nothing.'"
Gabriel doesn't grace him with a response, or even a false expression of surety. He does nothing. A stubborn glare is all he'll impart. He can see the little twinge of insult in Julian's half-human eye, and so he's at least half-prepared when the dyad grabs him by the jaw, the tips of his fingers pressing into Gabriel's shattered cheekbone.
Julian's voice is cold, colder than the depths of the sea. "You know Gabriel, when Michael plunged his sword into my back and cut me out of myself, you stood by and you did nothing. You were supposed to be merciful - the 'heart' weren't you? - Except you let evil prevail. Now isn't that just a little blasphemous, for someone like you, on your little crusade to - what was it? Oh yes, 'bring Father back.'"
Anger. Hurt. Not 'supposed to be' - is. Gabriel is the heart. He's the only one that feels and cares enough to destroy this small part of Creation to bring Father back. He's the only one that's trying. He's the only one trying to keep their family together. That whoreson Alex Lannon - this war - they're tearing it apart, and Michael is hardly trying to stop it -
How dare this Julian - this Lyrae - "Go to -"
His spite buys him not time, but a kick in the stomach strong enough that, if not for the chains that jar and pull at his joints and sockets, he would have fallen backward.
"Ah, go to what, go to Hell?" Julian stands over him. "I'm sure your brother would be glad to see a familiar face. I'm sorry, ex-brother. Didn't Michael smite him out of Heaven, too?"
Gabriel grins; he can taste and feel the blood coating his teeth when he licks them. Ignores the sting of the bad memory. "You're two of a kind. Let me send you off with a personal recommendation. I'm sure your inane love of pain would go down perfectly well in the Pit."
"Unfortunately for you, I'm otherwise occupied. We're waiting for Michael, here, Gabriel."
"And your beloved Amphora." Neither of which he must get.
"Oh but we'll have both of them soon," says Julian, rising. "And it's thanks to you, Gabriel. The city's sealed! You've imprisoned your own brother in here, isn't that kind? Don't worry. I'll beat the location of the Amphora out of them. Then I'll finish you off. I've all the time in the world."
"And with all your monologuing I've half-forgot what you're trying to beat out of me, dyad." It's just a cover for his fear. Lockdown. Another useful human invention that's turned its back on Gabriel. He knew they were good for nothing. Surely Michael will find a way out…surely.
The hate in his eyes meets the spite in Julian's. The creature's human streak is strong. Where has the sense from the angel part of him gone? Surely he can understand. They're nowhere near bringing Father back, dallying like this.
"You're what I'm left to work with until the big game is captured again," says Julian. "Not that that's necessarily a bad thing, of course, you deserve your fair share of punishment. But I'll be wanting the both of you. Got big plans for the both of you."
Somehow Gabriel gets his mouth to work. His words are half-slurred, his wit half-gone. "I've high standards. It better be worthwhile."
"Oh, believe me, it will be." Julian brings the chain sailing down on Gabriel, all over, one two three four five six times, again and again, and the blind landscape reappears behind his eyes.
When his senses return to him, he's aware that something has changed. He can barely raise his head to look up - surely some vertebrae in his neck have been jarred out of place - and when he does, through the blur, he sees Noma. Dread falls into the pit of his stomach. If Noma is here, Alex must be too. And if they are here, where is Michael? He lets his head drop, but it hurts as well. Everything hurts.
Perhaps she's brought back the Amphora, but - no, she wouldn't do that. She and Alex would have used that chance to try and save Michael. So where is Michael? Gabriel wishes he could reach out to his twin but in amongst his own pain and fatigue and weakness he can't feel anything else. Damn it. They should have got to him and made a run for it while they had the chance. Brave, strong Noma. About to be brought low by fiends who ought never to have got bodies. She deserved hers. She deserved those wings she's trying so hard to lash out with, that they're wrangling, that they're threatening to nail. He tries to lash out, but the chains catch him, cut him. They didn't even deserve Father's light.
Suddenly Noma screams. Gabriel can't see the cause exactly - he can't see anything exactly, everything is a surmised blur - but she is on the floor, being pelted by something that looks a lot more painful than that chain. The threats come out in vulgar tongues - bits of English and Lishepus.
"Tell me where the Amphora is," he thinks he hears someone - not Julian - say. And he wants to tell Noma to tell him, to stop Julian's men hurting her, to sate them so she can get Michael and Alex and get them out. The threats they start to make hurt Gabriel's ears. But Noma refuses to speak. She's a warrior, that one.
Unlike Gabriel, she'll never break.
A/N: Gabriel seriously did not get enough airtime in 2x06. So this is like a deleted scene - what would've happened perhaps, in the meantime, while Alex was going around finding Michael and Vega was being turned upside down. Both Gabriel and Julian are still very hard to write! But I love them both.
Thank you for reading!