Chapter 25: Sugar and Spice

From the Journal of Bobby Winchester

I awoke to a reverberating smashing. I leapt to my feet, scrabbling for a weapon, sure that it was Zeus, coming to take me back. The door was broken down, the guards outside of it looked hopelessly flabbergasted. I shouted in rage and horror. I could not go back. I could not.

Little Gabriel stood in my threshold.

I dropped Apollo's knife, the closest blade and hand, and ran to him. My angry terror slipped out of me and I scooped him up and crushed him to my body.

"Gabey, you're okay."I said into his hair. I had almost forgotten he had been on the battle field. My little Gabriel might have been captured as readily as I had. He smelled like sugar.

He gripped me back just as hard as I gripped him. "Sephy! You're back. Did you get out? Did Hades save you? What happened? Did you kill Zeus?" his myriad questions continued in his regular breathless flurry, almost impossible to understand as he buried his face against my shoulder.

I didn't answer his questions, I just hugged him, rocking him back and forth, and kissing his hair. "Why were you out on the battle field? I was so worried about you, did you get hurt?" I turned and barked shriekilly at Crowley, "How could you let him onto the battle field?"

He flapped his wings and it wrenched him into the air at my eye level but out of my arms, "I'm ok, Seph, I had armor, did you see it?"

Crowley was also standing now, much more coolly that I was. "If you don't mind I would like you to focus on my dashing rescue rather than my oversight of the boy's whereabouts."

I pushed Gabe's amber hair behind his ears, it was getting so long, "Yeah, Gabe, I saw your armor. I'm glad you're okay. I'm okay too." But he gave me a sad half smile and I thought he knew that I wasn't telling the truth.

Crowley came up behind me and put a hand against the small of my back. There was a time I might have hated that, but I moved minutely closer to him. He radiated more heat than he should, I could feel it across the distance between us, why hadn't I noticed that before?

I looked over at him, "You rescue was quite dashing. I didn't think you'd look good in armor."

He looked at me with unrestrained malevolence, "I look good in everything."

Gabriel didn't have any time for this sort of talk, "So you saved her? Did you ride through Olympus like a hero?"

"She escaped all on her own, Gabriel, I was just there to give her a ride home." I appreciated his levity.

Crowley looked at me and added, "He has been very worried."

Gabe looked up at me with a deeply furrowed brow, "Put on pants, we have things to do."'

I laughed, "You broke my door." Laughing was liberating.

He looked momentarily put out then brightened in excitement, "Watch, Seph, watch, watch" he narrowed his eyes in concentration and lifted his hand. He stuck his tongue out between his teeth and snapped his fingers. The door fitted itself back on its frame and Gabriel beamed at me, a smile spreading across his entire face.

Crowley reached out and ruffled his hair. God, they were so sweet and lovely and undamaging. I couldn't stop it, my little family was on display before me and a wall and a league of hounds and the infinite pits of Hell stood between me and Zeus and Gabriel was trying so hard to make me proud and contented and Crowley had his hand safely on my back and he was ruffling Gabriel's hair and had taught him to snap his fingers like that I started to cry. Zeus could not craft this, his was a more brutal cruelty, he didn't understand Gabriel's bewildering unpredictability and gorgeous little smiles. He did not know Crowley's narrow brand of paternalism. The boys in front of me were not a trick I would wake up from to Zeus leering smile. That was my little Gabe, fixing doors. It was a devastating thing.

A sob cut through me and I doubled over. Entirely overwhelmed. Crowley and Gabriel both turned their attention to me, moving forward, identical expressions of uncomprehension on their faces. This made it worse. I didn't want them to be worried. I wanted them to continue to watch them. Crowley was going to give Gabriel's playfulness a vindictive edge and I wanted to see it. I didn't want them worried over me. I forced my face into a facsimile of neutrality and stood rigid. "I'm okay..I'm…fine."

Crowley raised his eyebrow and his mouth twisted up in incredulity, "Clearly. The very image of contentment."

"I," I started breathlessly, "Can I…can we eat or something?"

"Gabe," he said, distractedly, eyes travelling diagnostically over me, "Go get her something to eat."

Gabe nodded, looking at Crowley, lost. "OK," he said and fled through the door.

The door shut behind Gabe and Crowley tipped my head back to look at me, "Bobby."

I seized his hand and pressed it against my face and smelled him, god he was warm. "It's you right? This is you? You aren't even some trick. I'm really here."

He looked vaguely insulted, "You think that Zeus the thick skulled colossus could replicate me? Or more significantly, you think that Zeus who is, for all his myriad faults, relatively sane, could possibly start to mock up a passable Gabriel?"

I dropped my forehead against his shoulder. "No. No. No. It's you. It's really you."

"Yes," he said, hand curling up into my hair, "It's really me, how did you ever get so lucky."

In a softy and sad voice, I murmured into his shoulder, "I like to think it's a combination of indomitable charm and impossible good looks."

"You must have hurt your head on the climb down Olympus."

I smiled at him, "Maybe you'll be able to keep up with me now."

I stepped forward and tucked myself against him and smelled. This many years later and so far removed, god I remember the way he smelled. Because he always smelled the same. Sometimes there was sweat or smoke or dog stink mixed along with it, but it was always the same. Not even particularly pleasant, mostly sulfuric. But always the same.

Gabriel came back in shyly, carrying tray burdened down with only desserts. Crowley took it from him and set it on the foot of the bed.

"Come on, kid," I said and lifted him, swinging him around and letting him go so he flew through the air toward the bed. His wings expanded in a feathery flurry and he landed softly, I crawled up next to him and pulled the tray across our laps. Crowley flicked his wrist and closed the door, sliding onto the bed on my other side. Crowley reached out his hand for a fork but Gabe grabbed a chunk of cake and shoved it messily into his mouth.

"Gabriel." Crowley said sharply, "Is that any way to – "

I cut him off, "He's right, Gabey Baby," I said, and lifted a much larger chunk from the tray with my hand, "You and I both know you can do better." And I smooshed it messily onto his face. He threw his head back and giggled, scooping up more dessert and assaulting me with it. I retaliated by ticking his sides without mercy, which sent him into dessert spilling fits. I pulled gently at the tips of his wings which I knew would get him and he thrashed in snorting laughter. He snorted when he laughed.

When we were finished we were covered in dessert, sticky and disheveled. He stood in the center of the room, wings poofy from a recently concluded mock chase, shirt entirely covered in frosting, hair crunchy with sprinkles, cake still stuck to his face. Only Crowley, who apparently was not going to join our dessert battle, was anything close to clean. Although one of Gabriel's allegedly misfired throws had smeared frosting up the right side of his face and into his hair.

My shoulders sank and I shook my head at the sticky angel, "My Gabey Baby."

He wrinkled his nose, "Stop calling me that. I'm not a baby."

I scooped him up and hugged him crushingly, nuzzling his frostinged hair, "Oh, Gabey, I will never stop calling you that."

He wiggled some to free his wings and wrapped them around me.

XXXXX

From the Journal of Bobby Winchester

I wanted to be okay after that. I wanted sugar coated bonding with my pint sized angel to fix me up. But I woke feverish. I had started sleeping. I slept every night for so many nights, head tucked beside Crowley and always woke trembling.

It had been so long and I couldn't think or breathe. I was hyperaware and blurred at the same time. I awoke as I always did, shaking and afraid. I rose and fled to the adjoining bathroom. Before Crowley could ask me if I was alright because I wanted to be alright and I was not alright. I shut the door behind me and looked into the mirror. My lengthening hair was brittle at the end and god I could hardly look at it for remembering Zeus pulling me by it to the marble floor. I shuddered and tried so hard to brush it and make it shine again. The snags in it tore at my scalp and I thought I was going to throw up.

I pulled a knife I had not removed to sleep from my belt and seized a clump of my betraying hair. I cut through it at the scalp. I carried on like this, hacking and gasping. My scalp was bleeding and I was so tired and my hair was only halfway destroyed. There was still so much that I could be grabbed by. I dropped the knife loudly into the sink and gripped its edges, sobs thundering in my shoulders and chest.

The door opened and Crowley was leaning in its frame, "Something amiss?" he stopped talking, looking slowly over me, eyes red rimmed and staring at him, body curled over the sink. Hair half shorn off, blood dripping down around my ears.

He rolled his eyes, "You're an idiot."

"What?" I gasped at him. Terror was still prominent in my blood. I could have struck him.

He repeated himself and lifted the knife from the sink, "You're an idiot." He took a lock of my hair firmly, "You have to cut it short before you can shave it off." He sliced it short and continued on across the rest of my still long hair. Then he put the knife down briefly to take something out of one of his drawers I had never had reason to explore and spread an oil across my scalp before running the knife back across my head, shearing my hair off entirely without the ripping and bleeding I had inflicted.

I touched my cold head. I looked like a victim of some cruel disease, scabbing cuts marring half of my head, the other expertly shaved and smooth. God I was a mess. I was bleeding and shaking, and my eyes wouldn't lose that wild quality and Crowley was so still, considering me and tapping the knife against his crossed arms. I had been a queen once, hadn't I? Hadn't I stood before an adoring crowd, crowned and sure? Hadn't I led an army in gleaming armor and glittering spear? Hadn't I sat in a throne beside a King in cool reserve?

I felt used and irreparably broken. How had I once held my body so still?

I pushed passed him back into the room. Wasn't Hell filled with people who could at least decorate the throne better than I could? Who would not be such a hapless and damaged thing?

Zeus had ruined me and I wasn't going to be put back together.

I snarled and kicked rabidly at a twisting bed post and it cracked, falling irresolutely onto the unmade bed. I picked it up, regretful that I had broken it. I tried hopelessly to fit it back onto the bed, slamming the broken pieces together again and again.

Crowley stayed my hand and gently unwrapped my fingers from the post. He was still so damned calm. I shrieked and pushed him away from me.

"CAN'T YOU FIND SOMEONE ELSE?!" I screamed at him in desperation.

He curled his mouth down and glared at me, "What?"

I shouted, pushing him again, "Can't you find someone WORTH HAVING!?" my voice was breaking in angry sobs.

He approached me slowly and held out a sure hand, "Bobby Winchester," he said in a voice so damn smooth.

I turned away, arms wide and screamed, falling in on myself, clutching my face and growling. "STOP IT!"

He sounded exhausted, "Stop what, Bobby?"

I flailed back at him and shoved him again, making him keep his distance, "HOW ARE YOU SO GOD DAMN CALM!?" I hadn't thought my voice could be so high pitched.

His shoulders stiffened and his mouth jarred into a jagged sneer, "YOU THINK I AM CALM?" he roared. He raised the bed post, still in his hands and brought it down on the bedstand. It shattered into shards of varnished wood. His chest rose and fell harshly, his eyes blazing red, that smoke curling from his shoulders. "I AM LIVID!" he screamed into my face, "I AM FURIOUS! I HAVE NEVER FELT SO MUCH WRATH." As he shouted wrath he swung the bedpost again, it crashed into a wall, leaving a destructive hole. "I WANT TO TEAR ZEUS INTO ATOMS AND I WANT TO HAVE BEEN ON THAT BATTLEFIELD TO KEEP YOU IN HELL AND I WANT TO FIX YOU AND I CAN'T DO ANYTHING."

I kicked out again and splintered a second bedpost off its frame. I hefted it, weighing it for a moment in my hands before bringing it down on my vanity. The wooden vanity collapsed under my assault and the delicate bottles and jars atop it shattered, spilling their liquid across the carpet.

I snarled and smashed my bedpost again and behind me Crowley snarled too. We laid waste. We snarled and hooted and smashed until the room was in tatters around us and we were both out of breath, him quite a bit more than me.

He collapsed on the floor and I fell down beside him, laying on the floor next to him. I looked over at him and he half opened his mouth and I could nearly see a long and snarky monologue brewing. He closed his mouth and wrenched me by the shoulder until I was laying across his chest, listening to his heart thud hard in his chest.

It thudded like it had when we were the last people left on earth.

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