Sorry about the huge delay in updating! I just had to finish Pilot Light, and now that I have, everything feels strange. That was the longest project I've ever worked on...

So! More Gabriel angst! I promise it'll get better soon, though! I just have this thing with Gabriel - he seems like such a complex character, and I like exploring his dark side, and he's in a very dark place right now.

"This is useless," Gabriel muttered, running his fingers through his hair for what Roché thought must have been the eightieth time that morning. He looked a little less tired than he had the day before, but it still wasn't much of an improvement. At least it appeared that he'd gotten a bit of sleep. "I'm not sure how entertaining I'm going to be today."

"You'll be fine," Roché said reassuringly, although he had his doubts as well. Still, he needed to be calm for Speight because if he could feign his confidence, maybe it would give him the confidence he needed to get through this. Yes, Gabriel was hugely popular with his fans, but he was notoriously bad with interviews.

Considering where his head was right now, he would need all the help he could get.

Gabriel just sighed and stared out the window at the city passing around them.

Roché considered cracking open a bottle of champagne—if only to give Gabriel something else to focus on—but decided against it. The last thing he needed was a drunk, depressed Gabriel Speight making a fool of himself. He didn't quite trust Gabriel not to go overboard, the reason he expressly forbade him from drinking the night before.

"Speight."

The writer didn't look at his agent. It was as though he simply couldn't hear him.

"Gabriel."

Gabriel finally turned his head.

"You can do this. You'll be fine."

He nodded slowly, as if genuinely weighing Roché's words and agreeing with them, but Balthazar recognized the motion for what it really was. Gabriel just wanted him to shut up.

Gabriel crossed his arms over his chest and stared right into the camera. He knew that if he'd been engaged to be married right now, this whole situation would be a lot easier to deal with; he'd be grinning and probably a lot easier to work with. But as it was, he couldn't even muster up a genuine smile and every time he tried, it looked forced. Even with the lighting nearly blinding him, he saw Roché leaning in to the photographer and the editor to murmur something, and Gabriel hoped his agent was telling them to take pity on him. Really, everything he was giving them right now was all they were going to get out of him.

"Alright, Mr. Norse, you're fine. Miss Masters is going to be conducting the interview now."

From the light, a woman who was probably twenty-five at the oldest emerged. She had close-cut bleached-blond hair and a smile that, while pretty, seemed dangerous, too. "Good morning, Mr. Norse. You can call me Meg." She held out her hand, and Gabriel shook it.

"Gabriel. Just don't put that in the article." He half-smiled for the briefest of moments.

"You got it." She let him off the set of the photo shoot and into another room just down the hall, Roché five steps behind them. "You've been interviewed before, right?" Meg asked.

"Yeah. A couple times."

"Okay, good. Then you're familiar with the process."

"Fairly."

She motioned for him to take a seat on a fairly beat-up sofa as she settled into an armchair across from him and Balthazar went to a fridge in the corner, pulling out three bottles of water. He tossed one to Gabriel and one to Meg, both of whom caught them easily.

"So your first novel was quite a hit, wasn't it?"

"Yeah. It honestly wasn't something I expected. I mean, I knew I was a pretty good writer, but I didn't think anything about the way I wrote or what I wrote about had any mainstream interest. I would have been happy with selling a hundred or a thousand books."

"And yet you sold over fifty thousand in the first two weeks," Meg said, laughing.

"Yeah, that was pretty cool. When my agent first told me, I thought he was fucking with me." Gabriel shrugged. "It wouldn't have surprised me if he was, but he wasn't."

"Not all of us feel the need to prank everyone around us," Balthazar said smoothly, cracking open his water bottle.

Meg aimed a slightly confused look at both of them, and Gabriel sighed. "I have a tendency not to take things seriously and I've been known to play tricks on people."

She grinned. "You're not going to prank me, are you?"

Gabriel just shook his head. "I highly doubt it. I'm not feeling so hot right now, so you're safe."

"Are you sick?"

He bit his lip for a moment. "Um, no. My girlfriend of three years just dumped me a few days ago—on our anniversary, by the way—so I'm not really my usual merry self."

Meg didn't look convinced.

"For once, I tell the truth, and everyone thinks it's a joke." He sighed again and opened his water bottle. He took a swig and capped the bottle again. "Alright, let me be completely honest. I really don't want to be here right now. I like meeting my fans but I don't do well with the press. Most of you are untrustworthy, devious with ulterior motives. My words get twisted unless I'm the one to write them. And if you're going to ask me how my second novel is going, I'll tell you right now—it's going shitty. I haven't written in a few days. Everything in me is utterly indifferent. I have absolutely no drive to write anymore and I don't know what's going to happen. For all I know, I'm not going to publish another book. So the sooner this is over with, the better." He leaned back and glanced at his agent.

Roché was leaning against the wall, one arm crossed over his chest and the other elbow propped up on his wrist, hiding his face in his hand. He looked up, looking frustrated and embarrassed. "Sorry, Meg. I knew he was going to be moody, but…"

Gabriel gave him a bored look. "I tried to warn you earlier. It's not my fault you didn't listen."

"It's alright," Meg said quickly. "I'll make this as fast and painless as possible." She half-smiled. "I certainly wouldn't want to subject you to my untrustworthiness and deviousness any longer than necessary."

Gabriel didn't even have the decency to look apologetic. He just nodded and took another drink of water.

"Okay. When did you start writing?"

He looked up at the ceiling. No one ever asked him any interesting questions. "Around the same time I started reading, when I was five or six. My early work was terrible."

Meg giggled. "Did you always want to be a novelist?"

"It was the one thing I always wanted to do. Sometimes I wanted to be a cop, an astronaut, a TV show host… I contemplated joining the Navy for awhile when I was seventeen, too. But yeah, I kind of always knew it would lead to me being an author in the end."

"Well, if this hadn't worked out, what would you be doing right now?"

Gabriel shrugged. "Probably would have been a teacher."

"What do you do when you're not writing?"

"Watch TV, mostly. BBC's Sherlock, Boardwalk Empire, Dr. Who, The Walking Dead, pretty much anything British-produced or on HBO."

"Okay, well, that's it for now. But if I think of any more questions—"

"Just call him and he'll forward them to me," Gabriel said, pointing at Roché, who rolled his eyes to the ceiling.

"Gabriel—" Roché started ten minutes later in the limo, but Gabriel cut him off.

"Don't even start. I could not conceivably give less of a fuck."

But he started anyway. "You were absolutely, horribly rude to that poor girl. This is not the way to earn fans. You—"

Gabriel twisted in his seat, giving him a hard glare. "Did I not just say that I don't care? I knew this was going to happen and you forced me into it anyway! I knew I was going to be sulky and you—"

"The world doesn't revolve around you, Speight! Your girlfriend dumped you—big fucking deal! People get cut loose every day! What makes you so special? If you weren't a fairly recognizable author, no one would care. Get over yourself!" A second later, Roché regretted his words. Yes, Gabriel wasn't in a unique situation, but he was right. This was partly his fault, and maybe the writer had overreacted for nothing, but he'd been unnecessarily unkind.

But Gabriel just gave him a cold look before turning back to stare out the window again.

"Sorry," Balthazar murmured.

"Fuck you."

He was about to say something else, something to ease the sting to his obviously-bruised ego, but Gabriel's phone rang a moment later and the younger man pulled his phone out of his pocket, checked the caller, and answered it.

"Hey." There were muffled, indistinguishable words on the other end. "Yeah. I don't want to talk about it." More words. "Yeah, it was, actually." More words, and suddenly Gabriel recoiled in his seat. "Actually… we broke up." Silence for a moment, then that distorted voice again. "Yeah, I actually need to get out of the apartment for awhile." He glanced at Balthazar for a moment. "Listen, can I call you back when I get home? I can't really talk right now." A few more words. "Yeah, bye." He hung up and pocketed his phone again.

Balthazar knew better than to ask who'd called. "Look, Gabriel. I'm sorry. What I said was harsh. I'm frustrated. I spoke rashly. I—"

"You're right."

"Sorry?"

"I'm not special. I'm just self-centered." He ran his fingers through his hair. "I'll get over it. I just need time. Just…" He turned meet Balthazar's eyes. "No more interviews, okay? I really can't deal with that shit right now."

Roché nodded. "Yeah, I'll make sure of it."

"Thanks." He turned back to the window, and a heavy weight settled in Balthazar's stomach. Not for the first time, and not for the last time, he wished both that Kali was here and that it was okay to strike a woman who deserved it—because she definitely deserved it.

They're both assholes. I love it. LOVE IT. Next chapter should be a bit more fun, though! Gabriel goes and hangs out with a certain friend! By the way, I don't like writing the angel characters with big families - they're a lot more fun to play with when they're not all related, and even though in Pilot Light and Little Glass Vial, Castiel had an older brother (Michael and Gabriel, respectively), none of the angels are family in this one. (Michael, Lucifer, Gabriel, and Castiel are all brothers in The Family Business, which I haven't posted yet, but there's a really good reason for it.)

So yeah! Updating Flash next I think.