Title: Five times Balthazar met Gabriel on earth
Author: gyuumajo
Fandom: Supernatural
Characters: Balthazar, Gabriel, mentions of Castiel
Rating: G
Summary: Exactly as what it says on the tin.
Disclaimers: Supernatural does not belong to me. No profit was made for the production of this piece of fictitious work.
Warning: Unbeta'd as usual. Butchering of historical events in the name plot. A/N at the end just in case.
Epilogue:
"Hey there Balthazar! Fancy meeting you here!"
He whirled around to face the owner of that obnoxious voice. Gabriel had his arms out wide and was advancing towards him for a hug. He quickly sidestepped the archangel and crossed his arms in front of his chest.
"Aww... We're in Angel Limbo and you still wouldn't give your crea-" Balthazar cut off the archangel with a raised palm.
"Don't. I'm not in the mood for your games. Your littlest angel that could just backstabbed me. Literally *and* figuratively."
"Atta boy, Cas!" Gabriel cheered happily & patted the grimacing angel right over the stab wound.
White hot Grace filled the wound, knitting it closed.
"You didn't have to do that," Balthazar said quietly. The small smile on Gabriel's face stretched out to a full-blown grin.
"Well I can't have you going around with a hole on your back, now can I? People are gonna think I'm a shoddy workman!"
And with a snap of fingers, he was alone.
...
He wasn't sure how he got to Belgium but he suspected it had something to do with the being he was standing in front of. With a nudge of his boot at what used to be Sergeant Warren Muck, he put on his exclusively-for-Gabriel bitch-face.
"Hey there Balthazar! Fancy meeting you here!" Gabriel cracked open an eyelid. Balthazar thought he saw a flash of pain cross the archangel's face but that was quickly replaced by a shit-eating grin. "You know you shouldn't but mind helping an old man up? I seemed to be all over the place right now."
Balthazar refrained from groaning at the decidedly tasteless pun and knelt beside the missing archangel who was pretending to be a fallen soldier. The moment he was in contact with Gabriel, he felt his Grace being drained greatly and rapidly. Almost as soon as it had started, he felt Gabriel slam a stopper in place, leaving him reeling but not completely depleted. He was saved from getting a face-full of mud by the same being that caused him to fall face forward in the first place.
"Oh Balthy, you don't look so good. Maybe you should lie down and rest a little," Gabriel tutted and lowered him into the mud- and blood-filled foxhole surprisingly gently.
And with a snap of fingers, he was alone.
"Assbutt," Balthazar groaned.
...
"Hey there Balthazar! Fancy meeting you here!" He whirled around to find Gabriel enthusiastically waving at him from an empty pedestal, the statue atop being recently torn down during the revolution. He felt himself being jerked forward and ended up sitting beside the archangel on the stone slab. "Cake?"
"No, thank you."
"Aww come on Balthy, live a little!" Gabriel whined with a mouthful of brioche. "I know! You want popcorn, don't you? Well, you can't. They haven't found out about it yet."
"What are you doing here, Gabriel?" Balthazar wrinkled his nose in distaste. Gabriel smirked and continued to pack away plates and plates of meringues, macaroons and soufflés.
"Can't I just drop in and say hi to my favorite brother?" Balthazar forced an exasperated whine down his throat. "Good job on the fire by the way. And the snake... And that one in the trenches. Fun times!"
Trenches? Balthazar was pretty sure he hasn't been to one yet.
"Monsieur, je vous demande pardon. Je ne l'ai pas fait exprès."
"Oh, that's my cue," Gabriel sighed. "I hate bloody goodbyes."
And with a wink and a snap of fingers, he was alone with plates of all kinds of desserts surrounding the entire pedestal.
He was about to clear them away when a familiar stripy red and white box filled to the brim with caramel corn caught his eye, sitting innocently on the space that was occupied by the archangel seconds ago.
...
"Hey there Balthazar! Fancy meeting you here!"
The flippant tone of Gabriel did not match the chaos and destruction that was unfolding before their eyes. The sheer panic in the air was palpable and Balthazar could feel it like a ceaseless ache in his bones.
"Did you do that?" Accusation colored his question.
"It was an accident! I swear!" Gabriel threw both hands up in the air in defeat. "You become the God of Fire *one time* and everyone thinks you're an arsonist."
"You don't make it easy for people to believe you either. God of Mischief and Lies being among one of your other titles."
Gabriel grinned with pride. "So, how are things up there? Didn't get the chance to ask you, given our rather hasty meeting the last time we met."
Balthazar shook his head. "I haven't been back home since Nazareth."
The smile on Gabriel's face dropped so fast Balthazar got whiplash from looking. The full force of Gabriel's anger bore down on him. If ever he was in awe and fear of the archangel, now was the time.
"I left you to look after stuff for me upstairs and you left?! I should just take back my Grace and be done with you!"
"You cannot truly believe that I will stay behind when you'd left home yourself," Balthazar scoffed, amazed at the courage he had for talking back to the much more powerful and wrathful being.
"I-" Gabriel looked like he had more to say and Balthazar was truly afraid for his continuing survival.
But with a snap of fingers, he was surprised to feel the fire flare up higher and hotter all around him.
He was more surprised to find himself left alone to help the citizens of Rome put out the fire.
...
"Hey there Balthazar! Fancy meeting you here!" Every other word was punctuated by a hiss and sizzle as a drop of venom ate through flesh.
"What have you gotten yourself into, Gabriel?" Balthazar winced in sympathy at the red raw gaping wound on the archangel's chest. He was about to reach over to undo the knots of entrails but his hands was stayed by Gabriel's warning.
"Be careful of the venom, Balthy boy. It stings like a-" Whatever colorful description Gabriel was going to say was discarded in favor of a string of even more colorful curses.
"Ouch. Right... What do you need me to do?"
"Untie me but don't touch me."
Don't touch him? That was going to be hard seeing how tightly those entrails (whose entrails?) were tied.
"Just try your best okay? And hurry up. Sigyn's gonna be back soon."
Balthazar frowned at the unusual request but ignored it in favor of snapping those entrails away. Gabriel's laughter, while pained and rattly, was still mirthful and caused Balthazar to turn his frown into a scowl.
"Yup, I haven't been trying that at all. Nah uh..." Unfortunately for Gabriel, his thinly veiled bravado was briefly dropped in favor of wincing.
Balthazar watched as the masquerading Norse God writhing against his bonds. He was tempted to just leave the archangel be, if not for the fact that the distant prick he felt on his own chest had been annoying him for months. So he did what he came to do and reached over, carefully avoiding both the snake's venom and Gabriel's exposed skin and made short work of the slippery knot.
"Thanks, mini me," Gabriel breathed, eyes closed in sweet relief even Balthazar could feel. "In case you're wondering, if you touch me-especially if you touch me skin to skin, you're gonna be sapped. By me. Sorry."
The insincerity of his apology was jarring in the presence of the sincerity in the archangel's eyes.
Before he had the chance to ask the archangel for an elaboration, Gabriel turned towards the snake and gave a solemn nod. "Don't worry about it. I know you didn't mean to do that."
"Uh oh... She's back," Gabriel sighed wistfully. "I'm gonna miss her but I hate teary goodbyes."
And with a snap of fingers, he was alone. He heard shattered pottery behind him and made that his cue to disappear as well.
...
"Hey there Balthazar! Fancy meeting you here!"
He looked up from the campfire he was guarding to see the Messenger of God bend to sit down beside him. He was lucky his two travelling companions were such deep sleepers.
"Haven't seen you around much lately," Balthazar commented by way of greeting.
"Well, y'know... We all have our roles to play," Gabriel shrugged. He tilted his head skywards, distracted by a particularly bright star. "Speaking of which, how are you settling into yours?"
He felt exposed as Gabriel watched him out of the corner of his eyes, as if those fire-tinted golden irises saw right into what passes for his soul and knew what he had planned.
"Castiel is doing well. And is curious why I feel like you sometimes." That startled a bemused snort out of Gabriel.
"He did?! Wow... Good ol' Curious Cas!" Balthazar had to admit that was a pretty clever nickname. "So what did you tell him?"
"That all Grace feels the same," he smiled as Gabriel doubled over in laughter when he shared the image of Castiel's befuddled head tilt. "He spent a decade thinking something was wrong with him until Uriel told him otherwise. By then, he was too annoyed with me to bother."
"That's one way of dealing with that little issue," Gabriel sighed. "I thought I'd made it such that no one could feel the similarities but the littlest angel that could really could, couldn't he?"
"Now you're just being deliberate," Balthazar accused in jest. "I can see why you'd want me to watch over him."
"And both of you are turning out to be more than I'd hope for," Gabriel ruffled his hair. "Melchior is waking. I best be leaving then."
And with a snap of fingers, he was alone.
...
Prologue:
He jolted awake to the sound of finger snap. Blinking at the brightly lit room like the newly created being that he was, his vision cleared just enough to see a blurry shape.
"Hey there," the voice said. "Much as I would like to stay, I'm not going to be around much longer so I need you to keep an eye out on things up here for me, okay? Especially on Castiel. Big plans for the littlest angel that could."
He watched as the archangel (how did he know what an archangel is?) sighed and pressed a kiss to his temple. He felt the other being's Grace pour into him, warming parts of him that he didn't even knew existed before settling over a small spot the size of his fist over his left breast. "I think I'll call you Balthazar."
And with a snap of fingers, he was alone.
End.
A/N: Oh hey! Didn't see you there! Thanks for reading all the way through! First time writer for the Supernatural fandom so be gentle with me? :)
I wasn't sure if I should include the following notes or leave it at where the fic finishes but the need to justify explain myself won.
Assumptions:
1. Yes, this fic is written in reverse chronological order. And yes, the angels meet chronologically. They're not flashing forward or backwards in time, even if they have the power to.
2. Energy cannot be created or destroyed. Similarly, the angels are just shored up somewhere until they eventually come back in forms familiar to us all! #headcanon
3. Band of Brothers reference for the win! How can I resist?
4. Castiel learnt the word 'assbutt' from Balthazar because Balthazar is the bad influence that he is.
5. Cake? French words? If you google the phrase, you'll know which event in history I'm referring to.
6. Gabriel is just seems like the sort of guy who gets all the girls!
7. Also, remember what I said about flashing forward and backwards in time? Gabriel totally peeked at the end of the book.
8. Oh look! A fire in Rome. I wonder which event I'm referring to now.
9. An angel's Grace, if separated, will tend to seek each other out and merge back into one whole complete Grace again. Like the world's holiest magnet. #headcanon
9a. And since Gabriel is the originator and is holding onto the larger piece of his Grace, the smaller piece will get absorbed back into him.
9b. Also explains why he needs to drain Balthazar in the trenches. He needed more energy to put himself back together again.
9c. I apologize for telling instead of showing wrt point 9.
10. The names of the Biblical Magi are Caspar, Melchior and Balthazar. Gabriel and Balthazar's meeting can take place before or after the birth of Christ, doesn't matter actually. (I like to think it's after everything was said and done but I can't quite explain why the Three Wise Men didn't just go their separate ways after throwing Christ his holy baby shower...)
11. The angels go about their business in what looks like human vessels (but isn't actually human) in heaven? And that Gabriel was out and about on earth more than most (being the Messenger of God and whatnot) so he's picked up a few tricks or two dozen. Including one where he makes a functional vessel for Balthazar to use in both heaven and earth? #headcanon
I dunno… I need to work on that last one…
…And you're still here! Thanks for sticking around for my poor attempt at explaining why Balthazar reminds me of a lite version of Gabriel (Gabriel-lite?). Let me reward you with a slice of All-American apple pie from your favorite store.
If you wanna talk shop, discuss more or just disabuse me on my headcanons (please don't abuse me), drop me a message and I'll get back to you within this century. I hope.
=3