Because I found an awesome art and fic Ask thing on tumbler called Friggin Witches, where Gabriel, Castiel and Balthazar are all turned into toddlers and Sam and Dean take them to live at Bobby's while they try to work out how to change them back. All the artwork and fics are awesome, but there's a distinct lack of little Balthazar and fics centred around him, and While Gabriel is my ultimate favourite angel in the whole show, I couldn't just leave poor Balthazar out in the cold, he's adorable too dammit!
And thus this fic was born. Balthazar doesn't show up much in it, but I just wanted to sort of set the scene for some Balthazar lovng later on. Please enjoy
Disclaimer: Own nothing, just borrowing the characters, and the idea. I'll give them back... soon.
xxx
"Where's Balthazar?" Dean asked, suspicious.
Gabriel was colouring quietly beside Castiel, and had been for the past hour and a half, not a single hint of mischief out of him. That was concerning enough by itself, but with Balthazar now noticed to be missing it could only spell disaster.
"Sleeping." Gabriel answered promptly, tongue poking out from the corner of his mouth as he concentrated on getting the crayon colour to stay inside the lines.
Dean frowned, not believing that for a second. "Did he get into Bobby's whisky again?" he asked, only because the last time Balthazar had slept in for any length of time the little bastard had gotten into one of Bobby's stashes and given himself a hangover.
"No." Castiel answered, slowly and carefully. Dean knew that meant he was hiding something, or rather, was being made to hide something.
"Gabriel." Dean said warningly, because it would be just like Gabriel to rope Castiel into playing a prank.
Gabriel looked up at him. "If you don't believe us go and check."
Dean was taken aback by the adult look that shone through. It had been over a month now, since they had been changed, and they behaved so much like the toddlers they looked like that it was sometimes hard to remember that they were adults in there, aeons old adults. Castiel had explained it. It was instinct vying for dominance with instruction, impulse with control, and for the most part the childish emotions they felt won hands down over any adult logic. It was easier to just give in to it rather than fight, which left them exhausted and cranky, and even more likely to behave like little kids.
Leaving the two angels to their colouring Dean went upstairs, hooking the attic stairs down and climbing them. Sure enough Balthazar was curled up in the nest of 'borrowed' clothes and sheets and the softest towels, eyes closed and thumb firmly pressed into his mouth. Dean didn't reach across the space between the attic opening and the nest to touch the sleeping angel. Balthazar didn't really appreciate being touched or 'manhandled' as he called it, and was fairly vocal about it when he was awake.
He descended the stairs and pushed them back up, sealing the attic up again until Balthazar decided to get up, and returned back to the living room, where Gabriel was still colouring quietly. Dean was still suspicious, but for the moment he was willing to take the break he was given.
xxx
Lunch came and went, and Gabriel's mischievous streak came back with a vengeance, resulting in everything getting covered in honey and sugar. The adults ended up being so busy cleaning up and trying to bathe two very sticky angels that no one noticed Balthazar still hadn't come downstairs yet.
It wasn't until much later, when Sam was setting up the DVD player with the newest addition to their ever growing Disney collection, A Bugs Life, that the blond angel's presence was missed again.
"Where's Balthazar?" he asked.
Castiel and Gabriel shared a short look before Gabriel screwed his eyes shut for a moment. "Sleeping." He said, when he'd opened them again, there was the smallest hint of concern there suddenly.
"Still?" Dean asked with a frown.
"Still?" Sam echoed his face scrunched up into a frown. "Now that you mention it, he wasn't at lunch."
Castiel hunched a little suddenly and opened his mouth, over which Gabriel suddenly clamped a hand. "He's just tired. He'll be fine tomorrow." The little archangel said brightly.
"Gabriel." Dean said warningly.
There was a struggle on Gabriel's face, as he tried to come to some sort of decision. Castiel pushed the hand away from his mouth and spoke before Gabriel reached his own decision.
"Balthazar's sick."
Sam was moving before Castiel had even finished his sentence, and Dean could hear him taking the stairs three at a time.
"Cas. What do you mean he's sick? I thought you said Angels couldn't get sick." Dean said.
Gabriel let out a frustrated sigh suddenly. "It's not that kind of sick." The archangel told him. "He's…" Gabriel struggled to find the right word. "Pining."
"Pining?" Dean asked, not understanding.
Castiel nodded. "It's the closest human equivalent." He said. "It's a wasting sickness."
That didn't sound good. "Wasting? As in, he's going to fade away? Starve to death?" then Dean's face hardened. "Is this some kind of ploy so we'll give him alcohol? Because that's not going to happen."
"No!" Gabriel burst out, his wings twitched in agitation. "He's… It's…"
"You don't touch him enough." Castiel said bluntly.
Gabriel's wings twitched again in Dean's stunned silence. "It's not so much that. More that you don't ever seem to touch him when you're not… agitated with him, or sort of angry in general."
Dean's eyes sought out Bobby's, who had stopped by the doorway to check in on them all. "But Balthazar doesn't like being touched." He said.
Gabriel snorted and Castiel gave Dean a thoroughly disapproving look. "Of course he likes being touched!" Gabriel said imperiously, as if he was speaking to a small child, and was not, in fact, one himself. "He's just too shy to throw himself at you for it like Cas does."
Castiel's glare redirected for a moment to land on Gabriel, who just looked back, unrepentant.
"Balthazar's shy?" Bobby asked with a snort.
Gabriel rolled his eyes. "Shyest in all of heaven." He confirmed.
"Am not!"
Balthazar's statement made everyone turn. The little blond was curled against Sam's chest, cheeks a little red from embarrassment, or anger.
Gabriel grinned at his brother. "Balthazar, we'd all of died of old age before you'd reach out to any of us first."
Dean's eyes flicked between the angels for a minute before he looked at Sam, who shrugged a little. Castiel caught his confusion and explained, as best he could.
"Angels touch with their grace. We are not constrained in specific forms as humans are, unless we are in a vessel. But even then we can still spread our grace to touch one another." He said. "When we are cut off from others of our own kind, we feel this loss of touch keenly."
"It sucks ass." Gabriel added in, conjuring up some candy for himself and his brothers.
Castiel nodded. "We each form a method to help us cope with that loss. For Gabriel it was his tricks, and I suspect his obsession with confectionary." Gabriel nodded, seemingly uncaring that he was revealing something to them now he would never have revealed as an adult. "For Balthazar it was alcohol, and for myself it was you."
"But what does that have to do with us? I mean, you three have each other now, so how does us touching you help anything?" Dean asked.
"Whether you like it or not Deano, you, Sammy and Grumpy Hat over there are part of our little flock." Gabriel told him plainly. "Surely you noticed that we used to touch you before all this?"
"Yeah." Sam said suddenly. "You and Castiel did."
Gabriel nodded. "We can't touch grace with you like we do with other angels, so we have to do it the human way. It's the same basic principal anyway." He shrugged.
Dean looked back across to Sam. Balthazar was being very quiet, not, he realised suddenly, that Balthazar was every really chatty with any of them, saving all his words for whispered conspiring with Gabriel, or soothing Castiel after one of Gabriel's pranks, or a particularly nasty sarcastic comment to one of the adults. He hadn't moved from where Sam held him against his chest, he did look tired and about ready to fall asleep again, despite sleeping the whole day away so far.
"That doesn't explain why Balthazar's sick." He wasn't going to say pining, because it sounded like the little angel was heartsick, and that just sounded troubling on a whole 'nother level.
"Told you." Gabriel said, around the lolly he's crammed into his mouth. "Balthazar's shy."
"'m not." Balthazar rejoined tiredly.
"Our Grace is not enough to sustain us sufficiently." Castiel said, hunching down again. "It is like when we were first created, we never really felt complete and whole unless we could feel the affection of our siblings."
Gabriel shook his head. "We could be trying to explain it to you for the rest of your lives and you still wouldn't understand. Can we just leave it at this? You all need to ignore it when Balthazar tells you he doesn't want to be picked up, or cuddled. Not that he'll be saying much of that the next couple of days. And you need to remember to touch him at least once every day, because he's shy!" Gabriel gave each of the humans a stern look and then turned back to look at the TV.
"Now, can we please put on the movie?"
xxx
Balthazar stayed curled up against Sam's chest for the whole movie, dozing peacefully. The following day he was back to himself, scheming with Gabriel and helping Castiel with some translations. None of the humans in the house fully understood what Gabriel and Castiel had been trying to explain to them, but at least they were now aware of it, whatever it meant.
