Messenger of Letters

by Spiralled Fury

When someone heard the name 'Gabriel', they might think of the Archangel. Ask a member of an old secret society, though, and they'd remember the name 'Gabriel Moran', a dangerous hunter. Now, Gabriel the Archangel, wounded from both his idiot brother's prize fight and a fall from burned wings, wanders back to the second best place he ever called 'home'; The Men of Letters Bunker.

16. CH 16 The Wolf In Your Darkest Room

GUESS WHOOO!

This chapter was supposed to be about half this long... WhoOPS

I kept thinking it was too short XD and yet, here we are.

Next chapter should come quicker, be shorter. Sorry about that guys.

Also, I learned that Och's name isn't pronounced as it's spelt, it's technically pronounced closer to 'Oak', or 'Awk'. Good information for y'all.

Next chapter will be dark and bitter. And even more broken feeling/sounding than this one is. And it will be weird.

This chapter's AKA is 'Dead and Empty'

---

{Autumn, Before}

Gabriel always enjoyed being on his own.

He supposed it was why he was so independent. As much as he loved his brothers, he appreciated the freedom of not needing to rely on anyone. Dad had told him that was a good thing. He was an Archangel, after all. He was supposed to be a leader, and leaders had to work well alone.

Gabriel flew effortlessly over the Elysian Fields, wings spread wide to catch the sweeping updrafts of heat, barely requiring him to beat his wings as he swirled higher into the sky.

Closing his eyes and relaxing into the heat and light of the open air, Gabriel stopped flapping altogether, simply letting the updraft and wind carry him high above, into the bordering of Heaven and Beyond, the Aether.

Gabriel had learned of points where he could cross over into the Aether, where the world was so bright he thought he was walking on Dad's purest star. The world up there was electric, more energy and power than anyone should possess, but at the same time, so peacefully empty. Gabriel, just dreaming of it, turned his wings for an entrance, a slip between the Aether and Heaven, and dove for it.

To another angel, he just appeared to be plunging for the ground, as though he was trying to crash-land, but hitting the slip at the right speed and angle shot him through, and Heaven was gone.

The waves of mist-chilled grass, a faint, semi-transparent green, flowed silently with the breezes of the daybreak. The never-setting stars glimmered overhead, the sun blocked out in this realm, the only light the eternal glow of some unseen nightfall, where an invisible sun was setting. Twilight was endless, the galaxies of the world spun into a fading stream of mapped stars and solar systems, their imperfections too many to name and too beautiful to be called mistakes.

The air was filled with a frosty chill, so far beyond the warm light of Heaven that the universe itself seemed uncaring as to how cold the Aether was. Gabriel could feel the tendrils of ice that wreathed their way over his feathers, tipping them in clear, brilliant silvery-white.

The Aether was as wide as it was empty, a land of nothing but the most basic creation. Light, the darkness concentrated into the navy arc high above, glittering with thousands of stars. Gabriel watched the sky with a loose sense of detachment, feeling utterly small, a sensation that he - as an Archangel - experienced rarely.

The Aether had always put his world into perspective. In the grand scheme, while he was large, he was neither the centre of the universe, nor was he unimportant. He wondered, often, if he should pull Lucifer, Raphael and Michael into the vault of midnight blues and bright lights, sharp, glittering contrasts. Maybe it would convince Michael off his high horse, and Lucifer to calm with the glowing, and Raphael to stop being such a smartass.

He guessed, despite a fair amount of self-appreciation, that he was more humble than his brothers because of the Aether. He had never taken anyone else into it because he wanted it to be private, wanted this realm to be as much 'his' as he could call it, a space to just fly and think.

So he followed the curve of the ground as the world grew slowly darker, stars blinking out. Gabriel shut his eyes, continuing on the exact same path with practiced skill, a parabolic arc that extended further down the shadows.

And after a time of endless-seeming wingbeats, Gabriel opened his eyes.

The world was an inky black, no light whatsoever, an expanse of empty nothing. Until his eyes adjusted. The area took on the faint appearance of an onyx crystal cave, colour so deep he felt like he could fall into it forever, a black hole.

The Void.

The other half of the Aether, effortless transition. Where the Aether was bright, the Void was black, the perfect opposites to one another.

To most angels, the darkness was something to hate and fear, to fight, to resist and damage.

To Gabriel, it was simply the shadows underneath the light.

And so, simply forgetting whether his eyes were open or closed, Gabriel took in the sensations of the Void, the way noise traveled through it, creating a mental picture of all that he passed.

Gabriel forgot how long he spent floating through the comfortably warm darkness of the Void, unable to identify if he was moving or not, if his eyes were open or closed. For all he knew, he was just floating, unmoving, at the base of the semicircle of black, eyes closed, dreaming the sensation of movement.

He kind of wished that black would buoy him, long enough for him to fall asleep and forget the world, forget any concerns he had and just remain in the shadows for a bit. Because being an Archangel, one of God's warriors, he had to be the brightest, just to show how great their dad was. So being in the blackness didn't hurt him. It was peaceful.

And then light, a familiar wash of cold, and the grass started to appear again. Gabriel grinned as the world lit again, glowing with an ethereal energy, radiance and power.

His laughter made no sound in the airless place, as he located an exit from the Aether, back to Heaven, where by then his brothers would be waking up.

Gabriel had the most backwards sleep schedule in Heaven, and he doubted that, at a good portion of his growth now, he required any. However, Michael still slept, and often, Gabriel would wake up early for his morning fly and see Lucifer curled under Michael's wings, pressed against his brother's side in a tiny 'c' shape. Michael never seemed to react.

Raphael, though, rarely slept. Only when he needed to give information time to seep in. Admitted, he let information sink in rather often, so Gabriel guessed Raphael had a better sleep cycle than he did.

He suspected that because Gabriel went to bed after the others, and woke up long before. Some nights, he didn't even bother, napping during the day to recharge, but other than that, not bothering. He didn't feel it necessary.

Angling himself for the exit, Gabriel levelled out, breathing for a moment before shutting his eyes and hitting the proper velocity.

Which was when he was reminded of a very important lesson.

The entrance always appeared in the exact same spot in the Aether, but the same wasn't true for Heaven. The entrance-slash-exit relocated each time he used it, and as a result, could make escape difficult. But Gabriel thought he was skilled and could manage.

Which was why he opened his eyes just in time to see the tree.

Which was why his brothers woke up to the pained scream of their younger, rather than light bathing the sky.

-{[|]}-

Michael came first, while Gabriel kicked and screeched, struggling, fighting, tears streaming down his face as he tried to free his shattered wing.

"Gabriel! Gabriel, calm down, you're just-" He was interrupted by a gut-wrenching howl of agony as Gabriel's wing twisted the wrong way with his shifting movements.

"What happened?" Lucifer demanded as he touched down, concern filling his voice.

"Not sure, but he's struggling too much, I can't get him from here." Michael jumped up, careful of the branches, to try and get closer to Gabriel, who thrashed in the snarelike trees.

Raphael landed in the tree opposite, not saying anything but eyes wide with poorly concealed horror.

"He's tiring, just wait..." Lucifer murmured, watching as Gabriel's movements slowed before stopping, exhaustion overcoming even the panicked grace-boost he had received.

They started to try and clear the branches, Lucifer hovering and acting as a safety net while Michael and Raphael circled their injured sibling, cutting and tearing the twigs free. It went well, at least until Raphael gripped the wrong branch and Gabriel let out a keening wail, a grating yowl on their graces.

"Raphael, stop!" Their Father burst through the woods, in His favourite form of a man named Chuck. The Archangels immediately backed down, landing on the ground while Chuck reached for Gabriel's once-again-panicking form. "Shh... Shh, Gabriel... stop moving, you're fine. You're fine..."

Grabbing the young angel carefully, Chuck slowly untangled Gabriel's shattered wing while the golden-eyed messenger clutched to His arm, unnecessary breathing working overtime in panic and pain.

By the time Chuck finally managed to free the Archangel, Gabriel was shaking, eyes wide in shock as the Father pulled him down, against His own chest, trying to work heat back into the frozen body.

"Hey now... It's alright. Breathe, Gabriel." He encouraged, rubbing the young angel's back gently.

"Father, what's wrong with him?" Raphael crept forward, curiosity shining in his eyes.

"His wing is broken, Raphael." Chuck responded, making all of the angels flinch back with yelps of their own. "He'll be alright, don't worry. He just needs it to heal."

"So, can we help him?" Lucifer took off, hovering near Gabriel, though the panting, shivering angel didn't seem to notice or care enough to respond. Curious as to the extent of injury on the damaged limb, Lucifer reached forward cautiously, and ran light fingers over the upper edge of the wing.

Gabriel screamed as the feathers pressed on the cracked and pieced bones, pulling further from the light and heat of the outside world, closer to his Father. "Sh, Gabriel... You're alright." Chuck encouraged, running His fingers through Gabriel's hair. "You boys go find your fledglings." He instructed, turning and leading the troop away. "I'm going to help Gabriel's wing, then he can come out with you for a bit."

The three Archangels stared at the shaking bundle of gold feathers and white fabric in their Father's arms with varying levels of curiosity, anticipation, concern and sympathy, Michael hovering protectively over Chuck's shoulder like a guard dog.

Chuck had to smile slightly at that.

-{[|]}-

"Catch me, G! C'mon!" Lucifer encouraged the small angel fluttering after him, green and blue marked grey wings just barely big enough for anything more than a second in the air, already a decent flier by his size.

The slightly chubby, childish shape of Gadreel hopped after Lucifer, who backbeat his wings to escape the smaller, laughing angel.

Michael, with the diminutive Seraphiel sat on his lap, watched with amusement as Lucifer and Gadreel jumped around the grassy hill playfully. Raphael knelt on the grass a few paces away with Naomi, reading a book that Father had given them.

And finally, Gabriel. Laying some decent distance away, one eye lazily opened, half-focused on the engagements around him.

Gabriel had never bonded with one of his angel siblings, the 'guarding-slash-teaching' aspect seemed almost against his nature, the nature to fly far and fast from most things, only hanging out when he wanted to. Gabriel preferred things on his own terms.

Which, he supposed, was sort of the reason he was on the ground with his wing bound up, half drugged on poppy oil, trying not to sleep while watching his brother bounce about with a tiny fledgling.

The game had switched, and now Gadreel was chasing Lucifer, who enthusiastically kept just out of reach until Michael grinned, flicked a finger and launched Gadreel at Lucifer, who let out a surprised squawk as the smaller pounced on his back.

"Gotcha!" Gadreel cheered, tiny hands fisting into Lucifer's toga.

"Yep," Lucifer coughed, everything in his body having been double-squished when he was nailed by a baby angel, and then thrown to the ground. "yep, you got me."

"He caught you pretty good, huh Lucifer?" Michael asked with a smile, acting innocent as Seraphiel giggled.

"Yep..." Lucifer let out a wheezy chuckle, rolling onto his back and grabbing Gadreel to place on his chest. "Yeah, you did!" He exclaimed as he dug in his fingers a bit, causing the angel to squeal with delighted giggles, half heartedly pushing away from the tickling fingers.

Gabriel smiled at the ridiculousness of it, of watching his big brother with essentially a baby on his chest, laughing and playing. Lucifer rolled over, knocking Gadreel's tiny warrior body onto the ground, before both of them jumped to light stances, a pair of playful cats, before Lucifer wheeled around and darted off, Gadreel's small wings pumping as he struggled to catch up.

Seraphiel giggled at the pair, pushing off Michael's lap to stand. Lucifer whirled past her, touching her chest with enough force to push her back a step, calling, "Tag!" over his shoulder.

Seraphiel grinned, light violet wings whipping as she took off, shooting for Gadreel first. The other, flashier coloured child dodged her first strike, causing her to switch targets for Lucifer.

Lucifer was slower than normal, because he was only using his first set of wings, the other two stationary at his sides, providing little more than gliding power. He didn't, however, notice the small streak of purple that launched at him, dragging light fingers across his shoulders. "Tag!" Seraphiel exclaimed, spinning away before he could snag her back.

"Oh why you-" Lucifer swirled down, landing in front of his older brother. "Michael, your fledgling is out of control!" He gasped dramatically, hands on his hips. "You need to come up here and show her how to behave." He ordered, folding his arms with an air of joking finality.

Michael raised an eyebrow. "Do I, now?"

"Yep." Lucifer nodded, holding his nose high in the air.

"I'm... Quite fine on the ground, Lucifer." Michael shook his head.

"You don't get a choice!" Lucifer hopped closer with a wide grin, pushing on his brother's chest with three fingers. "You're 'it' now! Come get us!"

"Lucifer, you have to be-"

"Aw come on, Michael!" Lucifer reprimanded. "You too scared to admit that your little brother might be faster than you?"

A few cheered 'yeah's made it into the air from Gadreel and Seraphiel, Raphael even having glanced from his book, small smile on his lips as Naomi focussed utterly on the pages in her lap.

"Oh, is that how it is?" Michael tilted his head.

"You bet your butt." Lucifer stepped back slightly, readying himself.

Michael sighed, slowly getting to his feet. "In that case..." And with that, the streaks red and white shot into the air, the fledglings scattering with excited squeals.

Michael switched direction midway, tapping Gadreel's shoulder on his way past, the other angel immediately launching for Raphael. "C'mon Naomi, Raphael! Come play!" He encouraged, all bright smiles and relentless joy.

Raphael regarded him coolly, before making a soft humming noise. He pushed the book from his lap, closing it carefully. "Alright." Raphael jumped into the air, moving with a decent degree of clumsiness as Naomi joined the fray of fledglings with a cheer.

Raphael targeted Seraphiel first, having to use all of his wings and barely staying aloft, Lucifer giggling at his flared feathers and mistimed flaps. Until Gadreel, who had been tagged by Naomi, who had been snagged by Raphael, launched at him.

"Whoa!" Lucifer exclaimed, whirling around to fly farther off, trying to shake the fledgling on his tail.

And they played, a family growing closer while the final member lay trapped below, ensnared by his own stupidity.

He wasn't sure what that said about his future.

Instead of considering it, Gabriel curled up a little tighter, covering his face with a wing, shrouded in warm darkness and the knowledge that someone was at least watching over him.

He didn't wake up until he felt a sharp spike of pain go through the broken one, flinching with a gasp. He tried to take in his surroundings, remembering why he was in pain.

"Hey, Gold, it's alright. Calm down." A familiar voice told him, hand grabbing his head to gently press him back down. Gabriel resisted as best he could.

Seraphiel, Gadreel and Naomi were in a small angel-pile, wings and limbs splayed over each other. Gadreel was on the bottom, Naomi laying over his back with her head on his chest. Seraphiel sprawled over the two of them, wings spread out over Gadreel's head and Naomi's seemed rather comfortable, sleeping all over one another.

Raphael, a few feet away, was reading a much thicker tome, but now he glanced up to Gabriel, fixing him with a narrowed expression. To any other angel, it might've looked like disapproval, but Gabriel knew it as worry.

Lucifer was also sleeping, not far from Gabriel, red and orange-faded pinkish wings curled against his body for warmth and comfort as someone's hand threaded through his hair.

Gabriel finally registered the fact that Michael was underneath him, wings resting on either side of him in a large arc that hid Gabriel quite well. Letting himself be pushed down, he rested against Michael's stomach as the older angel's hand slid over his eyes. "There you go, Gold..." Michael whispered in a way that made Gabriel wonder if he had been awake before.

"'m awake, Mikey." Gabriel responded, though it was slightly garbled.

"Oh, so you're actually awake this time." The eldest son chuckled, slowly removing his hand.

Raphael glanced up from his book. "Michael, you know that Gabriel's grace is more highly pitched than the rest of us. It is of no surprise that he would be the one to half wake for us."

The pitch of an angel's grace determined how 'high strung' they were, how twitchy and aware. Gabriel's, as far as Dad had told him, was incredibly high for any of the Archangel's.

"What, did I say something?" Gabriel yawned, sitting up and shifting closer to the warm grace of his older brother.

"You woke up multiple times." Michael explained. "Mumbled for a moment, went back to sleep." He grazed a hand over the broken wing, making Gabriel hiss in pain.

"Mikey, off the wings!" Gabriel snapped protectively, guarding the wing.

"Not my fault you broke it hitting a tree." Michael chuckled, but his concern was evident.

"Gabriel, you are in pain again. Here, Father said we were to give this to y-" Raphael broke off to yawn. "You." Raphael held out a small container.

"Looks like you could us some yourself." Gabriel chuckled, taking the proffered bottle.

"I can fall asleep without pain rather easily." Raphael informed haughtily, looking away slightly.

"Then put away the book, Raphael." Michael encouraged gently, leaning slightly away from Gabriel and grabbing Lucifer's shoulder, pulling his younger brother against his side, chest under Michael's arm and face against his ribs. Lucifer woke slightly at the action, eyes opening blearily. "Go back to sleep, Luci." Michael told him, and with a small nod, Lucifer obeyed. The Morningstar nuzzled his face into Michael's stomach and chest, finding a comfortable enough spot to sleep on.

Raphael awkwardly moved closer as well, flopping back with his head on Michael's legs.

"Ow, hey!" The eldest exclaimed quietly.

"Hay is for Father's horses, Michael. Do try to get it right." Raphael responded in good-natured condescendence, not looking from the book resting on his chest.

"Oh, I'll show you who's right. You aren't going to last until sunset."

Raphael snorted, and Gabriel grinned at the conversation, simply pretending to be asleep. "I'll be certain to prove you wrong then."

It wasn't really long before Gabriel heard the shift of weight that marked a position change.

"...I know you aren't asleep, Gabriel." Michael murmured, and Gabriel turned to look at his older brother.

"So does that mean I win?" Gabriel pulled up his head, twisting to locate Raphael.

The other Archangel really hadn't lasted long, hands gone slack over his book, which lay over his face.

It was fairly entertaining to watch his brothers in sleep. Raphael, asleep in the same position that he had maintained while awake. Lucifer, practically hugging Michael's arm, as though he could protect it. Or maybe it could protect him.

Gabriel knew that he slept in a loose coil, like a snake. But really, Michael was the best to see.

If Michael got and held a certain degree of heat while even slightly tired, he'd just sleep. Apparently, his position mattered not, just the simple heat of his body. With his white wings, it was often difficult for him to absorb the light like a sunning lizard, so Lucifer had figured out his secret.

It had been winter, and to help keep Michael's snow-white wings warm, Lucifer had spread his set of three, significantly darker coloured wings over Michael's back. He made a quick little 'stay quiet' gesture to Gabriel and Raphael, and within minutes, Michael had slumped against Lucifer's side, snoring.

It had been fairly entertaining, to watch their eldest brother, the unshakable, indisputable brother Michael, sway side to side under Lucifer's wing, as though vaguely trying to keep awake, before his subconscious seemed to give in, letting him slide down in the nest and his head falling onto Lucifer's shoulder, eyes fluttering shut.

"There." Lucifer had said quietly. "Told you it worked." He smiled kindly, lovingly at his older brother, reaching up one hand to gently run through Michael's hair. The older angel didn't even flinch.

"He's really asleep?" Gabriel had crept closer, carefully grabbing the wrist of Michael's top wing to pull over his brother's chest. Michael didn't wake.

Which was when Raphael, the little scientist, walked right up and poked their brother firmly on the nose, much to Gabriel and Lucifer's horror.

Michael snuffled vague words before his wings subconsciously pulled up around his head, which turned further into the base of Lucifer's neck. The Morningstar stiffened briefly before relaxing, chuckling faintly at the activity. "And I'm not moving for a few hours. But now you know. You get him warm, he'll pass right out."

Gabriel looked back fondly at that day.

So now, with the poppy oil numbing his brain and the comfort of his older brother's hand on his back, Gabriel relaxed, as did Michael, evidently enjoying the heat of his siblings.

And the Archangels, their little family, slept.

{January, 1910}

Raven moved unbelievably fast.

Like a bullet, inhuman and brilliant, as though an angel, while really, the exact opposite.

Gabriel's weekend had gone poorly after one of the demons escaped from Raven's torture ring, lunging at him with a stolen angel blade.

The result for Gabriel was a broken rib and a five-inch gash in his arm, both of which he had to swallow his distaste for demons of to let Raven sew him back together.

Angel blade wounds had a nasty habit of being unable to magically heal.

She though, had crossed the clearing in a second, eyes flicking to a dangerous half-black as they tore through the demon before her. Gabriel didn't know why the thought of both Damian and Raven defending him was comforting.

She had, after that, killed the others and packed up her equipment, having expected Gabriel to have healed or flown off. He had, so far, done neither.

So, in the back of her van-thing, Gabriel had his arm stitched up, wrapped and slung by a possessed person.

Add that to the list of 'Things I Never Need Dad to Know About'. Gabriel thought as she turned on the car, pulling to the road. They hadn't talked for a bit, until Raven had pulled into an Inn, parking on the street outside, and picking her bag out of the backseat.

"Gabriel, are you flying off, or staying with me?" She had questioned casually, as though she wasn't talking to an Archangel.

"Pardon?"

"Am I getting a second bed?" She clarified, fixing him with a single raised eyebrow.

"...If you'll have me, I'll stay." Gabriel shrugged. Contrary to popular belief, he did certainly enjoy learning. And one of perhaps three vessel-demon friendships was right here before him, he was curious! That would be his defence.

Which was why he was laying on a ratty old Inn bed, in the upper floors of some old lady's house, across from a young woman who wasn't so much ignoring him as just relaxing, enjoying silence, while the smoky black form of a demon curled around her chest.

It had been strange, to watch the demon voluntarily exit her body, only to wrap it's shadowy shape around her middle, a non-living blanket. She sat there, running one hand mindlessly over the approximate middle of the formless shape, humming faintly to the tune of a song Gabriel recognized as 'Somewhere, a Voice is Calling'.

It took him an inordinately long period of time to realize how much of a bonding period this was to them, a show that they trusted each other entirely.

Gabriel lay his head on the pillow, wondering, briefly, how one could get back that kind of trust for their family.

When he opened his eyes again, not having remembered closing them, he felt an odd presence above him, hovering. Looking over the beds, Raven was watching him with a faintly happy, though suspicious and wary, smile, not even bothering with the book on her lap.

Gabriel twisted to see what was staring at him, when he was met with the demon. In smoke form.

He could feel fear and animosity from the demon, but only in minor degrees. It trusted Raven enough to know that she'd stop Gabriel before anything bad happened. The other emotion though, was curiosity. The demon, floating ominously above his head, was curious.

"...He likes you." Raven noted, though her stance, subtle as it was, never relaxed. "That's rare. I've known him to like maybe two other people, and never an angel."

"Well uh..." Gabriel tilted his head at the demon. You know I could kill you. But you're curious enough to ignore that. Huh. "...I think we're as curious about each other as you are to me."

"Sounds about right." Raven smiled, and with that, turned away, as though Gabriel had passed some kind of test.

Pulling into a straight sitting position, Gabriel smiled. "So, this is the real Damian, huh?"

There was a pause as the ghostly gas form of Damian rotated around, morphing into a thin, just-barely-drinking-age spirit, horns curving downward and weeping lines of grey from his wide red eyes. Back-canted paws brushed the floor while long, clawed fingers rested on the bedspread. His ears, triangular and slightly doglike, were pointed forward, though the left one drooped as though broken. All in all, had he not been burned, blackened, twisted and a little shattered, he would've been quite a pretty soul.

To Raven, he looked no different then the gaseous blob of normal, but to Gabriel, the true form spoke volumes.

Damian stared at him, ruffled, spiky hair a mess on his head as the red eyes caught his attention again, wincing slightly as he focused on Gabriel's true form. "...nice lightshow." Damian commented, raising one hand to guard his eyes.

"Thanks." Gabriel replied with frequencies true forms used, keeping his voice low and soft, not wanting to harm the demon. "So, you like it here?"

"Liked it enough to stick around." Damian nodded with a small grin, sharp teeth showing. "How 'bout you, angel? You liking it here?"

"On earth, or with you two?" Gabriel questioned, stretching his back for a moment.

"Earth." Damian shrugged. "Or Hell, even here. Gotta be weird for an angel to just chat with a demon, huh?"

"I don't know." Gabriel nodded to the side. "Long time ago, I met a fledgling named Kemrial. He fell because he was friends with a demon. Never found out what happened to him."

"Oh, I think I know that one. Key, is what he's called now." Damian pushed off the floor, floating further onto the bed and lying at the end of it, his batlike wings pressed close to his side and his thin, forked tail flicking like a cat's. "Diende, that's the demon. They live on Earth, now. Diende's a Crossroad's, and Key is a high ranking guard for Hell's exit."

"So that's what happened to him." Gabriel snorted slightly. "Demonized."

"Hey, just because we can't experience true happiness and love, doesn't mean we can't experience anything, angel." Damian shook his head. "I mean, I've seen worse relationships in humans."

"I suppose that's good enough then, right?"

"It has to be." Damian sighed, turning his head to look at Raven, cross-legged and staring at her book, eyes flicking side to side as she read lines and passages. Her mouth formed the words in another language, translating effortlessly. With those words, Damian judged the conversation over, his lower half returning to it's more gaseous form as his arms launching him lazily over the gap between the beds, circling Raven.

Gabriel watched as she glanced from her tome, Damian waiting as though for an invitation, and she lifted her arm up. He immediately crawled over her lap, lying there as if he belonged there, stretching his hands as though a cat, claws spread wide while he yawned, laying his head across her leg, joining her in the reading of the book.

The Archangel watching them wondered how deep trust could truly run.

Deeper than I thought, apparently.

He picked up a book of his own, translating through.

-{[|]}-

"Gabriel, up." A voice ordered, and Gabriel immediately shot awake, sitting straight up.

To come nose to nose with Damian.

The demon yelped, tumbling over backward, staring at Gabriel with wide, slightly scared eyes. He had been entirely expecting an attack.

Even without Gabriel making a move to hurt him, Damian leapt off the bed, gliding to Raven, currently standing over the cracked porcelain sink with a glass of water, and swirled around her legs before landing on her shoulders, glaring across the room to Gabriel.

"What's got you riled up?" Raven chuckled, obviously not having noticed Gabriel awake. "Ready to spend the day in a car again?"

Damian didn't reply to her, knowing she wouldn't understand him, and instead did something that Gabriel found simply impressive.

He morphed his smoke form, the one Raven could see, into an extremely accurate and detailed replica of a Husky, all puffy fur and long tail, powerful body and dense, long-limbed structure.

Gabriel had to blink in shock.

He had heard of some demons learning to take animal shapes, to blend into natural society.

Never, had he ever seen one this accurate, well-contained, or simply pretty. He looked like a show dog.

"Good, so we're on the same page." Raven stated as Damian sat down in front of the doorway with a sharp dip of his head. "Want to get reacquainted with the plan, or should we write it?" She asked, and Damian barked with a small nod. "Alright then."

Raven knelt down, and Damian relaxed into his smoke form, lazily floating around her face, as though asking permission, before she opened her mouth, taking a breath in.

And the next second, had Damian's hazy black body disappearing into Raven's mouth.

She stood up, shaking her head with a blink, eyes appearing differently. One was normal, one was entirely black. Leaning back with a soft groan, she shook her head, popping her spine and readying herself for something. She stood, eyes shut and body relaxed, while Gabriel got to his feet and put on clean clothes.

Then she knelt back down, and Damian poured back out.

"You have to be careful, got me?" She ordered as the now-doglike shape of Damian purred around her legs, then bounded for the door, morphing into ash before swirling under the door, vanishing into the outside world.

"Where's he going?" Gabriel questioned as she packed up, throwing weapons into bags. "Alone?"

"He's playing chaser. We need a hunter out of the way, so he's going to go lay some sulphur and keep people off our tail." Raven answered, checking the sharpness of a small handblade.

"And if he gets caught?"

"The collar." She tapped a hex bag in that was taped to her hip. "It's enchanted. He gets caught, he can call me. It'll lead me straight to him, help me get him out."

"...Huh." Gabriel smiled at the thought of a friendly demon. "And what else?"

"We get in the car. I'm taking you back to your Bunker, and meeting up with him on the way out of town." Raven ordered. "You've already been out too long, and I'm not about to piss off Marcus because I stole his Archangel."

Gabriel sighed, picking himself off the bed. "Let's go, then..." He mumbled, joining her down the stairs as they trotted for her car, still on the street.

-{[|]}-

As it turned out, Damian got himself in trouble, because midway through their lunch, Raven flinched with multiple swears.

"We gotta go. Pull out that angel blade, Damian's in trouble." She snapped, throwing a handful of cash on the table and barely pausing to pick up her coat as she darted from the establishment, getting in the buggy and pushing it as fast as it could go.

Before Gabriel knew what was even going on a bit, they were pulling off the road beside a dilapidated barn, Raven racing around to the back seat, cocking a shotgun - loaded with salt - with one hand, throwing it at Gabriel, while she pulled out a brilliantly dangerous weapon.

Gabriel knew that Vance would've drooled over it, but the modified, dark-wooded Ross Mk. III rifle was no popgun. And it definitely wasn't filled with salt.

Raven loaded it skillfully, barely an inch of hesitation as she held it, point down, against her torso. "...In case." She growled.

The pair snuck close to the building, listening and waiting for the proper moment to strike. Raven nodded to the side, drawing Gabriel closer as they snuck under a broken chunk of wall, creeping into the dusty confines of the barn.

The gaseous form of Damian pinged around a cylindrical area, unable to step beyond the trap on the roof. A human, male, maybe thirties, watched him with muted interest, every so often mumbling a line of an exorcism, just to watch him squirm.

Raven didn't hesitate.

Gabriel watched in semi-horror as she swung the gun to her shoulder, focused down the sight, and without so much as a flinch, pulled the trigger.

The man's head wasn't split with a deafening crack, blood and grey matter sprayed across the floor in a painting of destruction, like Gabriel expected.

Instead, the shot went into the base of his neck, a guarantee for slow, long bleed outs and suffocating on his own blood.

Gabriel's jaw dropped.

He knew that Damian, the demon, hadn't been influencing that shot one bit. He hadn't changed her trajectory, from his head to his chest. That had been all Raven.

Raven who ran to the middle of the room, aimed at the roof and broke apart the outer ring on the devil's trap.

Damian, who had been crouched against the floor, as though expecting to be returned to Hell, immediately shot for her, and she breathed in, encouraging the demon to come back to what she considered 'safety' for him.

For a few minutes after, while Gabriel kept watch, they simply kneeled, her arms wrapped around herself, face scrunched up as they convinced each other that they were fine, Raven humming a shaky song that Gabriel definitely didn't recognize, as though she had written it herself.

Gabriel wondered, honestly, what that was like.

True, worried fear for another being.

He wondered if he'd feel it again.

...Probably not.

{February, 2014}

Gabriel flew fast.

The airways were clear, alone, so desperately cold and dark that Gabriel could swear he was the only thing so far alive.

He turned his head for the north, wings twisting to accommodate the change in direction, the wind rippling over his feathers as he beat them a few times, accelerating toward the north with no dilutions as to how his meeting was going to go.

Gabriel stared at earth with narrowed eyes, observing the starry patterns of human souls that covered the earth, those concentrated in cities glittering brightly, other, smaller dots of light peppering the landscape with houses for farmers, families together.

Gabriel pointedly ignored those, and followed the hum of grace.

He was hunting.

Archangel instincts had cut back on his powers initially, his own indecision his greatest enemy, but now his senses were starting to kick back into full gear. He had finally accepted the basest of his instincts, simply wielding them as though a blade, through which angelkind would be burned.

He would crush the fools in his way and then fly to Heaven, and he would rip Metatron into pieces.

He would shred Metatron's wings, pluck off every feather and fillet the meat from his bones. He would rip out his grace as that evil, lying, sack of crap did to Castiel, the little baby angel that damnit, Gabriel loved.

If the angels were a pack of ferocious dogs, dangerous and wild, but still close together and partners, then Gabriel was a panther.

His golden fur, shimmering through the concrete jungle of the cities and towns where he was the top of the food chain, was a mark of death for the creatures, the dogs he stalked.

Watch out, boys. Gabriel's grace purred with the promise of blood on his hands. Archangel's coming home.

-{[|]}-

An Archangel's bloodlust was to a lesser angel what a Wendigo's wrath was to a hunter.

All vicious and brutal, cruel and unthinking. The Wendigo didn't stop to consider it's prey, just it's hunger. It saw food, and thought 'eat'.

And yet, through all that, it was still intelligent.

A Wendigo would mimic a human's cries, drawing in more prey as it strung up the first victims, preserving them for a few extra weeks, giving it more food.

Gabriel found himself frequently comparing his and his brother's basest instincts to those of the Wendigo that had tried to kill him less than a week ago.

It moved fast, but not fast enough. When it took off the ground with a roar, long claws spread wide to pounce on the human-ish creature before it, it wasn't expecting the person to whirl around with his wings summoned, slamming the Wendigo across the clearing and into a tree, shattering the decades-old oak with a single stroke.

The Wendigo scrambled to it's feet, obviously unused to being fought back against. Gabriel spread his wings, hooding them behind his back and over his shoulders, staring off with the thing twice his height and weight.

This was what Gabriel considered the first test. The Wendigo shot for him, all claws and teeth, snarling and slavering as it tried to bite through his wings and body, while Gabriel didn't even bother to pull out his blade.

At least the Men of Letters taught me that... He thought, grace lighting fires on his fingertips that wreathed his hands and lapped at his arms, an icy heat that reminded him of Sodom and Gomorra, with it's rain of fire.

And while he hadn't been the one to light the bright red tongues of flame, the golden and blue ones that charred bodies so quickly it seemed more like a blessing to die so fast, those were his.

And that was what turned the Wendigo to nothing but ash.

Gabriel left the smouldering pile on the ground, only a fleeting thought running through him of other hunters.

Was anyone on this case? Did I just kill their Wendigo? He wondered briefly, eyes flicking around the forest.

Some tiny part of him, the part that still wanted him human, piped up.

Is Sam he-

NO!

Gabriel gripped his head as the emotions flowed over him, a wave of ice that threatened to drown him before he forced it back, damming up he flood that loomed above him.

He couldn't think about Sam. Sam was taken, a prisoner to an angel that Gabriel was going to shred slowly. He didn't have time for that. He'd come back and get Sam when he knew that he could protect the hunter.

Because even his Archangelic side had gone and gotten itself attached.

But he had a mission first. Protect the humans, defend Heaven. The angels were ripping earth apart with their petty squabbles over who got the honour of killing Metatron. And nobody, Gabriel knew, was shanking that bitch but him.

But the angel war was killing as many humans as angels, the vessels left to die from fatal burns and knife wounds. Fully aware that it could not sustain itself, Gabriel was under no illusions that they needed to unite. Which was why he was going to hunt down and kill the top ranking angels in the factions, scattering them until they reunited as one.

He knew it was a twisted, broken, flawed logic, but it was, for the moment, the best plan he had. Until a better one could be formed, he was stuck with nowhere to go.

He only had Archangel instincts to rely on now, not his supposed family, not his preferred family, not anyone. It was all up to him now, and damn him if he would fail his duty again.

Somewhere, in the back of his mind, the strains of a song played, as though on repeat, an echo of something once present, now lost.

"Oh boys... Oh boys... The devil's come for you...

The sky... it is dark, and he's come to collect his due...

You forget, what you are... you forget it every day.

Now you're here. All alone. And Hell, has come to pay."

-{[|]}-

Gabriel landed outside of a hospital, where he had managed to snag knowledge that Trismegistus, one of Bartholomew's leaders, was hiding out. At least twelve angels circled the place in vessels, another three currently hiding out missing them, waiting for some human with a weak soul and weaker mind to give in to their weakening body and let in a damn angel.

A friggin' angel. Like he needed more of those to deal with.

Gabriel hid himself from sight without so much as a sigh of impatience and waited, standing a few feet from the door as he watched for an angel to catch. He needed a victim, someone to take the guise of and get information from.

I need to stop getting lucky. Gabriel reflected briefly as an angel, young with soft, sable-shaded wings, stepped out of the hospital, pulling out a cigarette. The angel stuck it between his lips, shielding it with one hand as he lit it, briefly pausing to take a breath in, exhaling through the nose.

Gabriel materialized, stepping forward to clap one hand over the angel's mouth, his blade flashing to life without a second thought, pressing a line of bright red into the other's throat. "One squeak, I kill you, got it?" Gabriel stated, monotone voice bleeding with a calm sense of control.

The angel swallowed, but no true voice bled through his vessel in an attempt to call his friends. Gabriel yanked back, walking the blonde-haired angel down the steps and around the corner, out of the way of prying eyes.

Pinning the angel against the wall, Gabriel tapped his blade to their throat, then desummoned his weapon and placed his hand over the angel's chest. "What's your name." It wasn't a question, more a demand.

"A-Adiel, s-sir!" The angel exclaimed after a few moment's hesitation, staring at the hand on his ribs, directly over the core of his grace.

"How many angels are in this building." Gabriel snapped again, forcing the angel's attention back on him.

"I-I-"

"Better question: Who's in charge?" The Archangel growled out, eyes glittering with the faintest trace of his true form as he pushed down slightly.

"B-Barth-Bartholomew i-is d-dead... Castiel k-killed h-him." Adiel stammered fearfully.

Castiel, Castiel... Unimportant. Combatant, but- Oh, Cas. Yeah. Right.

The memory lapse was strange, unpleasant, and rather disturbing. Gabriel quickly shook off his discomfort and returned to the angel in front of him.

"Well, he's out of the picture. Who's in charge now?" Gabriel leaned closer, fingers sinking into Adiel's skin, his true form reaching within, surrounding Adiel's slowly.

"N-no, please-" The angel struggled slightly, pushing with panicked insistence on Gabriel's arm.

"Answer me, who. Is. In. Charge?" Gabriel snarled, louder, true voice hissing behind his words. The grace sunk deeper, blood spots blooming beneath his vessel's skin. It's an angel, you can't feel a soul in here. It's just the angel. The comforting mantra he kept was the only thing keeping him in control. The blue sheen of grace also tinged the bruises, torn scraps of the grace that Gabriel was filleting.

"W-wh-"

"Too slow." Gabriel meant for his voice to sound like a growl, but it comes out more as a quiet sigh. In one smooth, effortless movement, Gabriel's grace sunk all the way through, clawing around the other's grace before tearing through skin, bone and other human body parts that simply gave way under his power. The angel choked, shock evident on his face.

Gabriel raised the fistful of struggling angel to his face, blood and fluid dripping down his arm in a languid few drips. He rotated his arm considerately, making a dull humming noise in the back of his throat as he examined the angel. Every movement he made was deliberate and overly calm. "...way too slow." He murmured, tightening his hand around the angel. It writhed in panic, the small barrier of defence it had thrown up buckling, crushing it's light down and tighter. And finally Gabriel tilted his head to the side, and snuffed it out. The angel's dying screech was little more than background noise by the time it registered.

With a soft exhale, Gabriel turned around and hopped back up the steps into the hospital, ready to start his hunt.

And as he walked past the waiting room, where a group of children sat, he took note of a song that they were singing.

"This little light of mine... I'm gonna let it shine...
This little light of mine... I'm gonna let it shine...
This little light of mine... I'm gonna let it shine,
Let it shine, let it shine, let it shine..."

-{[|]}-

Gabriel stalked the halls of the hospital with purpose, head down and eyes shadowed, flicking back and forth between people. If they weren't angels, they were disregarded.

Civilians. Try to protect the humans. He reassured himself, ducking just behind a corner and acting casual as a nurse walked past, pushing a sealed metal cart. Gabriel would've, just to create a diversion, made the cart's front tires stop, but hospitals commanded a good degree of his respect. He wouldn't screw around with lives in the balance.

Instead, he simply changed his direction, waiting beside a mechanical door for someone else to come out. When the doors finally opened wide, a brunette stepping out, Gabriel pulled up a trickster illusion, making himself appear as another nurse before he caught one of the double-doors in his hand, sweeping inside unnoticed.

Gabriel trotted down the hall, only keeping up the fake cover until he turned a corner, the first victim on his list dead ahead.

The female angel carried an empty tray, shining silver in the hallway lights. She met his eyes a second before she realized what was about to happen, but by the time she could call for help, Gabriel had already thrown his blade at her head. The point buried itself in her brain, leaving her to stand, the human within her locked up, unable to move as the nerves all fired in death throes.

Gabriel moved quickly, catching her falling body before yanking the blade from her skull, dragging the nurse's limp form with him.

He wound up tucking the body in a supply room, behind a gigantic metal cabinet with enough space between it and the wall to well, hide a body. After that, he took her image, and replicated the angel's grace as well as he could.

But he was done pretending. He didn't want to come out and say 'look, in the sky, the Archangel Gabriel is fucking alive!' That would be too forward, like painting a gigantic target on his back.

Creeping through the halls, Gabriel turned the corner and ducked into a doorway back to the main floor. The church minister, as he could sense, was an angel. He was the second closest one, and these were all combatants. He'd need to move fast. It wouldn't be long before someone figured out the voices were silencing.

He checked the hallway before releasing the disguise, pushing open the doorway as himself again. He had a feeling that Loki's energy was about to become very useful.

His blade was pressed to the inside of his wrist under his sleeve, completely unseeable to any passerby as he silently marched through, pausing at the side of the open door at the church.

He hated the thought of entering one of his Father's houses after so long, and with such dishonour to the Archangels hanging in his grace, but there was an angel within. And he had a job to do.

Gabriel stalked through the doors, walking rather quickly down the row between the pews.

"Ah, hello." The angel greeted with a soft wave, glancing up for only a second. It took him longer than that to realize, the person coming closer wasn't a human.

He didn't have time to scream when Gabriel plunged his blade into the angel's chest.

The man choked, the grace within him glittering and burning around the fatal wound, and Gabriel caught his falling form, quickly dragging him into the back of the church's stage, kicking the body under the fabric that ringed the perimeter.

The carpet'll absorb most of the blood. I'll be gone before they find this body. He reasoned to himself before desummoning his blade and flying to the next level. With angels down, he had flight access without detection up to the third floor.

In a corner of the fourth, his third target resided.

Patient, male. In a hospital bed. This would be the worst to take, Gabriel knew. He had to get into the room, then manage to keep the nurses off long enough to finish the kill. And somehow, prevent them from finding the body.

Joy.

-{[|]}-

The bodies left in Gabriel's wake were hidden, as best they could be, under tables and behind cabinets, in the dark spaces where antiseptic and bleach turned the world into a chemical-scented nightmare.

The shadowed hallways reminded him of some spaces in Heaven, little sections that no one talked about and fewer people knew of.

Gabriel knew of them.

He took the stairs two at a time, trying to press down the instinct to just fly to the final two targets, a female angel on the eighth floor and Trismegistus on the sixth.

The female, he knew, would be of use to him later. He'd handle her last.

Trismegistus, though, there was a fight.

Gabriel had been slashed only twice with a blade, two of nine angels actually spotting him in time to engage in a half-second of futile combat, before Archangel power and strategy won out and they were ended.

This particular bitch angel, though, had strategy and experience equal to his own. After all, Trismegistus was an old Rit Zien. He would fight for everything he had hold of, and it would be a bitter battle. Not even an Archangel would be able to overcome a Rit easily.

And as for catching Trismegistus by surprise, the Rit would probably sense him the minute he set foot on the floor, the amount of internal turmoil he was throwing off.

Not that Gabriel cared.

He flipped his bloodstained knife around his hand a few times, the silver underlay of a thin burgundy shimmering brightly. His grace lay still within his vessel as he silently jumped up the last of the stairs.

He wondered, briefly, if this was how he'd be remembered to angels. Not as the Trickster, not as the Archangel who ran away. But as the hunter, the killer. The angel who stalked others, his vessel silent and dead, unidentified and dangerous. He was an assassin, the wolf in a flock of sheep, capable of cloaking himself in one of their skins and keeping his head down just long enough to lure one away.

He found himself indifferent.

Pushing open the door to floor six, Gabriel turned his senses for the glowing spot of reddish-pink light, a Rit Zien hiding out. Their grace was differently coloured, not too much less-bright than his own. Rolling his shoulders down and back, Gabriel trotted casually down the hall, humming faintly the tune of a song he randomly thought of, uncertain of it's name.

When the glowing red ball of Trismegistus finally realized he was there, Gabriel had gotten more than halfway across the building. Five more minutes, he'd be in the Rit's office.

Gabriel couldn't help but notice the panicked twisting of the red-pink grace, something the Rit shouldn't've been doing. If Trismegistus played his cards right, chances are that he could actually escape the Archangel currently tracking him. At least temporarily.

That was another problem with Rit Ziens; They could see through grace illusions. Which meant that Trismegistus knew who was coming for him, knew that there was an angel, far more dangerous than himself, coming in for a kill.

Gabriel's instincts sang for grace to spill, to pour over the floor as if he was nothing more than an honourless killer.

Looking at it then, he supposed he was.

Gabriel kicked in the door of Trismegistus' office.

The angel had taken the vessel of a young human male, thin and powerful. Evidently a sportsman, a runner, powerful legs and body. Perfectly done lady-killer hair, soft blue eyes... He reminded Gabriel slightly of a younger, shorter haired-

He cut off that thought just in time to dodge the blade thrown at his head.

The silver blade dug itself a clean six inches in the drywall and probably concrete, because Gabriel could see the molecules of silicone and carbon, forming rock and body behind the papery thinness of drywall.

"...Gabriel, this fight does not concern you." Trismegistus growled darkly as he pulled his blade back to his hand, other palm tinged with pink energy, the Rit in him reacting to the agonized angel across the desk.

"On the contrary," Gabriel snarled, summoning his own blade with a soft noise. "this fight concerns me more than you." He lunged forward, vaulting the desk as Trismegistus darted around the side, barely dodging the first strike. "I'm sorry about this." The Archangel sighed, kicking the swivel chair out of the way as he stalked forward. "It's nothing personal."

Trismegistus let out a low hum, true form spreading through the air as he tried to convince the other, sick angel before him to stand down, but no Rit had ever actually tried to take down an Archangel. Which was why, when Gabriel unleashed his true form and towered over the other angel, Trismegistus took a step back.

Gabriel shot forward, the desk slammed into the opposite wall as his wings flapped powerfully, flinging objects and papers in a swirl around the room, slashing down as the other angel tried to block him, the glowing red hand landing on Gabriel's wrist.

And his true form lit up with agony, sparks and bolts shooting up his spine down to the tips of his wings, Loki's magic blocking most of the physical damage but almost none of the pain.

Gabriel howled, kicking Trismegistus in the stomach to throw them apart, cradling his hand against his chest and rubbing it gently.

"Ok, retract my former statement." Gabriel hissed, eyes alight with golden glow. "Now it's personal."

Trismegistus' vessel swallowed hard as he realized what he had done; namely, piss off an Archangel. Gabriel fired forward, grace flared to it's widest, paper whirling around the room as he let out a roar, blade lighting up with golden-yellow and blue fire, meeting the Rit's blade in a shower of flaming sparks.

Trismegistus had braced for the blow, but nowhere near how much he needed to be. His vessel's left tabula and fibula, the main guard, bowed and snapped like twigs beneath Gabriel's powerful strike. Immediately, the Archangel shot backward as Trismegistus' cream wings sprang to life around him, throwing up a defensive layer.

The red edging on the middle third of the Rit's primary and secondary feathers glowed with a dangerous pink light, a sign that he was ready to fight, well and truly. Trismegistus' eyes glimmered dangerously between sharp feathers, alight with pain and anger.

Gabriel drew up his shoulders and then dropped them, his wings flaring from his shoulders in a huge whoosh, all three sets arching upward as the pair stared each other down, sizing themselves compared to the other.

Trismegistus had a Rit's ability of grace-burning death energy, but Gabriel was faster and stronger. Plus, Trismegistus would be expecting his ability to work almost immediately in crippling the Archangel, while Loki's energy would protect him from the majority of the damage.

So Gabriel waited, for Trismegistus' Rit instincts to work against him, force his hand first. Archangels had near-infinite patience, and he could play with a lesser angel all day.

It was kinda fun, anyway, to play.

Like a cat with a mouse.

Trismegistus lept forward with a furious cry, wings spread at his sides, red burning off them as Gabriel ducked under, his own triple set wrapping tightly to his compact body before flaring open and tapping the corner of the Rit's left wing.

The action threw his opponent off-balance, crashing into the wall opposite and barely moving in time to avoid Gabriel's punch, cracking bricks as he smashed the concrete to pieces.

Trismegistus swirled around the other side, hovering a good half-foot off the ground, wings struggling to flap in such a small space, while Gabriel used his a completely different way.

Half folding his wings and planting the wrists on the ground, Gabriel raised himself off the floor, as if flying but using his wings as enormous stilts. He jumped forward, slashing through the corner of Trismegistus' wing, the Rit's other wing coming around to scrape over his own feathers, pressing down ferociously over his right top wing.

Gabriel shouted in pain, dropping his centre left wing to the ground, raising up his left top and punching Trismegistus in the face.

The other angel carted off-balance, wings caught between gliding and hovering as he fell back, landing on the table in a heap. Shooting forward with a growl, Gabriel drove his blade into where Trismegistus' head would've been, if the bastard would stop moving around.

Gabriel paused, listening for a second as Trismegistus circled around back quickly, before ripping the flaming blade from the aged wood and whirling about, launching the weapon from his fingers effortlessly and with deadly accuracy.

The pained shriek that Trismegistus let out told Gabriel he had hit his mark.

Focusing properly on the Rit, Gabriel noted that he had indeed struck him practically perfectly, the blade pinning the angel to a wall by his wing, stabbed clean through the wrist joint.

Gabriel sighed, listing to the side and lifting his burned, weak wing off the ground as the others slowly relaxed, lowering his feet to the floor. He walked over slowly as Trismegistus scrabbled weakly at the blade embedded in his already charred wings. He wouldn't be flying long distances anytime soon.

The Rit was crying, silent tears running down his cheeks as his blackened hands pulled and scratched at the blade, wreathed in Archangel's fire, that was locking him against the wall.

Normally, Gabriel would be struck by such profound fear in the angel's eyes, the horror and realization, the thought of 'I don't want to die!'

Now, he felt indifferent to it.

Gabriel shoved Trismegistus' hands away from the hilt of the blade, taking it in his own hand instead. Without any words or other indication, Gabriel braced Trismegistus' wing to the wall and yarded out the blade, immediately turning to stab it into the Rit's throat.

Trismegistus made a faint choking noise, kicking at Gabriel as his grace burned, physically charring his vessel from the inside out, ripping through with the finesse and force of a freight train.

All that was left was a husky, drippy, ashen corpse and the Rit Zien's pretty wings turned to black imprints on the walls when Gabriel finally pulled out his blade.

Cleaning it off on the corner of his shirt, Gabriel searched the room with careful scrutiny, leaning down to start sifting through pages scatters on the floor. Few had information he cared about, but enough did. Enough that Gabriel started forming a seriously bad-good idea. Castiel-Purgatory-Soul-God level bad-good.

He folded up the pertinent sheets of paper and slid them into his pocket for later. He had just the man in mind to handle the small outposts of angels marked out on the huge wall-map. Unfortunately, he'd have to come back to get that.

Because there was still that one female angel two floors up.

The female angel was young. New, inexperienced.

Absolutely no idea what she was getting into, or how to sense and fight what was coming for her.

Gabriel peeked around a corner with a dark promise in his eyes, tracking each of the human souls that bustled around the building. The molecules and cells of their bodies glittered as their souls shone through, painting a beautiful picture of life.

He had no eyes for it today.

The sharp, harsh blue-white of grace glittered beyond a wall, where the angel stood, simply humming and flipping through sheets of the patient she was assigned to. Her orders had been to pretend to be a normal human nurse, serving and tending to humans.

What angels were meant to do.

After checking the hallway, he moved forward with swift assurance, blade dropping into his palm easily.

Gabriel rounded the corner, grabbed the angel's throat and slammed her against the wall, listening to her panicked squeaks as she pushed uselessly against his arm.

"Open your radio." He snarled, blade digging into her neck and trickling a long, thin line of red down her collarbone.

"W-what?" She stammered, struggling, her grace writhing in her vessel.

"Open. Your angel. Radio." He ordered, eyes glowing gold with power. "And not to your faction, everyone."

She let out a shaky nod, trying to be steady and failing. "O-ok, i-it's open."

"Listen up." Gabriel growled low, the light in his eyes stepping up a few notches. "This goes out to every angel out there." He announced, hearing the steady rise-fall, high pitched hum of the other angel's true voice spreading out over the angel radio. "To all combatants, and non combatants, pay attention." The snarl, the hiss in his voice was evident only to the angel directly in front of him, not wanting his name known yet. "Combatants, I'm coming. And oh yeah..." He grinned joylessly, a terrifying barring of teeth. "I am coming to kill you. Noncombatants, you have my protection and blessing. Combatants..." He murmured with finality. "Listen to the cries of your sibling, and know this is no joke."

The angel looked at him with wide, confused eyes, finishing the message quietly.

And Gabriel shoved his blade through her second rib, downward, into the heart of the human. With a single twist, he felt the silent, cold, cruel blade shake slightly with the final, struggling beats of her heart.

"...Have fun with that, angels."

-{[|]}-

Gabriel knocked on the metal door of the old bomb bunker, stepping back with his arms at his sides rather than in his pockets, one folded slightly under his shoulder to support the rolled up map he had stolen from Trismegistus' office.

A man - past middle age and slightly overweight, with a receding and greying hairline - opened the door, suited body and air of unamused professionalism screaming 'demon' before Gabriel even took a second glance at him.

At least this King's professional... Gabriel thought as the man's eyes widened, flicking briefly to his demonic red, before darting back inside and slamming the door.

Gabriel heard at least three locks click before footsteps fled down the hall. Of course, I get the slow service... He thought with a sigh.

"Hey!" He yelled, knocking harder on the door. "Hey, I'm not here to hurt you, I just need to talk!"

There was no reply for the longest time, before finally the locks slowly slid out, and a demon poked a single red eye between the cracks of the door.

"Hello." Gabriel greeted shortly. "I need to talk to Crowley, if the Winchesters let him out."

"...Crowley's not here." The demon responded, looking suspicious when Gabriel didn't take a step forward or try to charge in.

"Ok, well, can I speak to whoever leads this little section?" He questioned. "I have information on Heaven's movements on Earth that they might find important."

Long hesitation as the demon considered his words and threat level. "...I can call Becka. She runs this base." The demon nodded, shutting the door and locking it back up before heading off down the hall. Gabriel stood outside in the half-frosted air, though temperature didn't affect him one bit. The only thing it did was make him almost hyper-aware of his non-breathing. It made him feel awkward enough that he actually wanted to start inhaling and exhaling again, at least until the locks ground open once more, and a female demon appeared in the doorway.

She was taller than he was, but not by much. Only an inch or two, technically, but it looked like five or six because of the heels she was in. Her hair was soft brown, streaked with platinum silver, eyes gleaming with the midnight blue that deemed her a powerful demon. Her outfit, a professional looking dress suit, accented her already sleek figure. "...Good afternoon, Archangel." She said, voice light and with deceptively suspicious calmness.

"Hi." Gabriel dipped his head. "Let's ignore the pleasantries," He stated, all playfulness lost from his tone. "I have information, about angels."

She narrowed her eyes at him, deep navy wings flicking behind her. The action made Gabriel take a glance back, seeing the three other demons crouching behind, staring at him with wide, scared eyes. "...And why would you give up information about your own species?"

"Because I want them back in Heaven as badly as you do. Or, if you don't care, as badly as your employer does. Crowley needs to get his ass back in-"

"Crowley is no longer in charge." Becka purred smoothly, the midnight in her eyes shifting colour slightly, to a lighter blue.

"Well, then who should I take this information to?" Gabriel tilted his head.

"Abbadon."

Gabriel was certain that if his heart was beating, it would've stopped. He knew that name. The one Knight Of Hell with even a sliver of a chance at being alive.

"...Abbadon." He repeated in an unreadable, flat tone. There was a long pause as the demon looked awkwardly to the side and Gabriel tried to process it into his growing plan. Without Crowley, he'd have a lot more struggle dealing with demons, especially if a Knight Of Hell was leading the charge now. "...then I assume she won't wish to see me... alright, then can I come in?" He asked, taking a step forward.

Becka positioned herself expertly in front of him, blocking his entry. "I have reason to doubt your apparent lack of malicious intent against me, Archangel."

"I just don't want the papers to blow away. It's just me working on the ground right now, I need some kind of backplay team." He held out the map. "But if you don't want me inside, here." He placed the map in her arms, then the folded pages and a couple files he stole. "Information. Decipher what you can." And with that, Gabriel flew away, leaving a group of very stunned demons in his wake.

-{[|]}-

Gabriel's memory lapses were starting to get crazy.

He had lost the last week, and reasons he was in Salt Lake City were pretty foggy, though, once he woke up, he understood. Salt Lake was damn near crawling with angels.

Worst of all, he thought he had a guess for what was causing the lapses.

Archangel grace was unique in a lot of ways, mostly though, in it's makeup. While most angels were just angels, created and born with grace, and as such could be disconnected from it, Archangels couldn't. They were made of and from grace, and as a result, their personality wasn't quite tied in with the energy.

Their instinct, however, was.

Their most base form, what was called the Colour Form, was perfectly wired into their grace. In that form there was no conscious thought, just basic commands. He could recognize friend and foe, sort of, and he could fight without remorse. None of the Archangels ever had to spend more than a few days, maybe a week in Colour Form before being pulled out of it, but Gabriel had the oddest feeling that if he gave in - which, he realized, he already partially had - he'd never come out.

Gabriel only had to truly go fully into Colour Form near the beginning of humanity, when his Father assigned him to cull the giants.

And by all things holy, did he ever wreak some havoc.

He woke up to Lucifer cradling him, whispering words of calming comfort. "You scared me, Gold." He had whispered with wide eyes. "You wouldn't come out of it. Like it had you trapped."

Gabriel never admitted that, right before his memory faded, he did remember. He remembered the power flooding his body, the simultaneous heat and cold. The roar of the dam breaking, letting out the dragon that hid within the wolfskin. And that power hold him captive, wrapping him in a righteous sense of satisfaction and anger.

It had taken all of them to hold him back, and each one of them had to work to get him to return to himself.

Gabriel remembered when each of his brothers shifted into Colour Form, and how, while they were difficult to drag free, they weren't nearly impossible.

Like he was.

So he guessed, if he went Colour, he'd never come out.

Which was why Salt Lake was a dangerous place to be.

He was surrounded by combatants. You could tell which angels were combatants because their grace burned high and fast, rather than slow and calm, considerate.

The hundreds, thousands of souls in the area flickered with their bright colours, human and ignorant to the fact that creatures so much more dangerous than anything they could create or have with them, the dark, oily spots of demons and light blue-ice flickers of angels.

It was then that he saw the noncombatant.

A single angel, grace glowing mutedly through an apartment wall, obviously warded to the sky and back, paced around the room, his barely visible figure pausing every few seconds by the window, as though checking.

A noncombatant. Gabriel thought, staring at the grace on the thirty-eighth floor of the apartment complex. So they do exist.

He watched the angel circle the room with curiosity, his worry palatable even from that distance. The poor angel, grounded an now, stuck in a city full of angels, was unable to escape without impression into one of the sides or death.

I should help him. Get him out of the city. Gabriel thought, staring unabashedly at the confused, lost, hapless angel who was stuck within a guillotine of picking something he didn't want to do, or death.

Gabriel's eyes narrowed as he made up his mind, standing from the rickety Starbucks chair outside in the snow and starting down the street for a crosswalk.

When he made it inside the building, Gabriel gently stomped off his boots, shook the snow from his hair and made his chest move in and out without actually taking in any air. He did blend in more than most angels, having spent a good few centuries on the planet. After a moment of rubbing free of snow, he walked to the elevator, signalling to the woman at the desk. "Got a friend here." He explained with a friendly smile, keeping up a pleasant appearance until the elevator door open at the button's command, and he stepped inside. Then the facade dropped as if it never existed, replaced instead with cold determination.

When he reached the floor he wanted, Gabriel turned to the north side of the building, using his measures of the windows from watching the young angel to judge where exactly he would be. Knocking on door 3811, Gabriel let his hands fall to his sides and waited.

A young man, bright orange hair and pale hazel-blue eyes stared at him in suspicion, then fear, then confusion and recognition.

The door shut, a chain sliding from it, then opened fully, revealing person within.

Who spoke a single word.

"...Riel?"

The angel gaped in obvious disbelief, observing him with his jaw dropped. "Riel, what in the livid- look, what are you doing here? Where did you go?"

Gabriel was as confused as the angel before him. Evidently, this young one recognized him, even if the same was not true in reverse. "Pack your things." Gabriel ordered, pushing the angel inside. "I'm getting you out of Salt Lake."

"Riel, stop, hold on," The angel cut him off with a sharp shove to the chest. "what are you on about? I mean, yeah, that's great, but what's going on with you?" The angel's wings, soft-looking and sky blue, bristled behind him in anger. "Don't you recognize me?"

I'm not certain what you mean by- Och. Gabriel's eyes widened, and for a half second he wondered if he could make it all better now. If he could regain his humanity and go back to being himself. Instead, he crushed it down. "Yes, I do, Och. Now pack up, we have to hurry."

"Riel, you're gonna do what, through Salt Lake City? We're dead. So dead." Och backed up, pressing his hands to his face and sliding them up to brush through his hair. "Riel, I don't know what you're on about, but there's no way."

"You're a noncombatant, almost a civilian. I need to get you out." Gabriel answered simply.

"And you need to back up. Riel, I thought you were a freaking dream for the longest time, where the fuck did you get dug out of?" Och obeyed, throwing items into a small bag as he talked.

"Och, I just need to get you out, and to do that," Gabriel spread his wings out while talking, sensing for other angels. "we have to move, before someone figures out I'm h-"

"Holy shit."

There was a thump as a bag hit the floor.

Gabriel turned around, only to catch Och staring at his wings, particularly the huge top and small, thin bottom pairs. The angel's mouth opened and closed as though trying to make words, but no sound came out.

"...Och?"

"You're a fucking Archangel?!"

Gabriel wondered, for a moment, if perhaps Och had either spent too much time in a bar, or picked up some bad habits from another angel. "...yes."

Och scrambled for a moment, searching Gabriel and the room. "I-I'm so, sorry sir." He panted, trying to tidy up. Gabriel quickly darted in, grabbing the angel's wrist and forcing him to turn away.

"Och, look..." Gabriel murmured, more kind and comforting than he had been in almost two months. "You're fine. I'm not here to give you an assignment or to tell you what to do." Gabriel took his hand off the angel's wrist and moved it to his shoulder. "I just need to get you out of here, alright? It's not safe."

"...You're not here to... order me to go to the factions?" Och looked honestly confused, eyebrows narrowed and a slightly unhappy head-tilt thing going on.

"Father, no." Gabriel shook his head. "The only reason I'm not-" Killing you. "The only reason I'm here is to get noncombatants like yourself out."

Och examined him, looking for chinks in the armour, any reason that he might've been telling a falsehood, but found none. "...Ok." Och agreed with a soft nod. "But we have to get out my friend too."

"Yes, the other fledgling... Um, Eth?" Gabriel knuckled between his eyebrows.

Och took on an expression of bitter regret. "No, not... Not Eth. She left when Bartholomew came and tried to take us all. My friend and I ran... His name's Rampiel." Och picked up his bag, slung it over his vessel's head, diagonally across his chest. "He's..." The look on Och's face was one of worry, fear, self-flagellation and love, pure, absolute love. "We're close. And I won't leave him here."

"Is he a noncombatant?" Gabriel questioned.

"He defended us once, but he doesn't want to fight." Och quickly stated. "We were planning on heading to Canada, but while he was looking for other places for us to hide, a whole group of angels showed up. We're pretty boxed in." He turned to a countertop, snagging a small cell phone. A burner, to be precise, and called a number. "Rampiel?" Och questioned the phone. "Are you ok?" There was a pause, Gabriel waiting for the reply. Och paled briefly, before whispering an Enochian prayer. "Ok, look, Gabriel showed up. He- Yes, that Gabriel. Not as dead as we all thought, it's ok. He wants to get us out, but we gotta move, ok? We'll be there to pick you up in a few minutes." The blue-winged angel turned off the phone, looking to Gabriel with worried eyes. "...You won't harm us?"

"You are the next set of angels destined to become the servants of Heaven. You don't want this pointless war. And it's my job to ensure you survive." Gabriel nodded slowly. "I won't hurt you. I promise you, Och." He swore solemnly. "I will get you and your friend out of this city, safe."

"...Ok." The young angel agreed, walking closer to him.

-{[|]}-

It had been a long, nervous cab ride to the apartment Rampiel was trapped in.

Once there, Gabriel had been quick to etch some warding onto their ribs and tattoo it onto their skin, noticing with muted, dulled interest how close Och stayed to Rampiel, his light blue wings constantly guarding and protecting the pair of soft brown wings, edged in silver and green, under his own.

Had he been feeling like himself, he might've been more interested, trying to joke about what they were like in bed, or being semi-serious and asking if they were happy.

But Gabriel was just... Empty.

"Ok." He announced finally. "Time to go. We have to get you out of the city and heading northward before morning. I'm certain someone's been watching you."

Rampiel nodded, standing slowly and leaning against Och, who supported his weight easily. Rampiel was badly injured, a blade having cut a huge hole in the left of his abdomen, obviously an angel's damage. It had also clipped his wing, making the already burned feathers further incapable of flight.

"You ok to walk?" Och questioned softly, his own charred wings wrapping over Rampiel's.

"I'll be fine." He nodded, bracing his side gently, in pain even after Gabriel had wrapped him up. Angel blade damage took time to heal.

"Let's go." Gabriel peeked out the front door, examining the street for anything aside from human souls.

There. Two blocks down, at the Starbucks. His gaze lingered over the angel's grace before continuing to track, searching for another grace signature. Building above, fifteenth floor. Restaurant to the right, the waiter.

And Dad knows how many more waiting at the exits.

Gabriel's eyes narrowed, calculating their chances. Poor. Very, very poor. He took a glance back at Och and Rampiel, the former biting his lip nervously. But I made you two a promise I intend to keep. Gabriel stepped into the sun, carefully waiting for Och and Rampiel to position themselves beside him, Gabriel using one wing and some Trickster energy to cloak the pair, extending the golden extremity around them as though a gigantic cloak.

Carefully flagging down a cab (The magic of a downtown area, he thought briefly.) Gabriel pushed the pair of angels toward the road, looking in at the driver. "What's the farthest out y'can take us?" He half-demanded, checking to the side again.

The Starbucks angel had moved.

Damnit.

"Ah' go out 's far as Springville, sonny." The aged black man informed him with a pleasant smile.

"Take us there, please." Gabriel popped open the back seat, helping Och get Rampiel inside and buckled. "I'll double the money if you can make it fast." He whispered as he got into the passenger side, the man smiling gently instead.

"Sonny, I can make it fast for ya'." He agreed, pulling onto the main road with a small look to the three of them, his hand sliding between the seats and the centre console, where Gabriel knew there was a gun. He was eternally thankful that this human had decided to help anyway. Admitted, he probably knew more gangs in this area, and had probably been a getaway for more than one fight, but he was still grateful. "Name's Tully."

"Gabriel." The Archangel greeted, shaking the man's hand as they stopped at a red light not twenty feet down the road. "Sorry for the rush, we have to get out of here." He explained vaguely.

"Ah understand, sonny." Tully nodded. "Trust me, ah understand. You boys don't need to tell me anything. Ah'll get you out in good time." He stated, starting forward as the light changed to green.

Which was when the missing angel, red-edged grey wings hooded overtop of him, landed clumsily on the hood of the car.

"Shit!" The car swerved, Tully somehow handling it with one hand as his other slipped fully between the seats to yank out the gun.

Matte black and short handled, the Glock was a perfect little bolt of black in a world that felt like a whole lot of white.

Thank Father it's the middle of a damn Monday. Gabriel thought as the car spun slightly, the angel gripping to the hood tightly with wide-eyed shock that the human didn't just scream and slow to a stop. Instead, Tully pulled out a gun and accelerated, focusing half on the road and half on the angel he was about to shoot. In the back seat, Och and Rampiel gripped to each other and let out a fearful shriek. The noise only reinforced Gabriel's desire to protect the pair, and he slammed his elbow into the passenger window to try and crack it open, the angel driving his blade through the windshield, attempting to hit Tully.

Which was when Tully shot him.

The bullet went through the windshield, slamming into the angel's shoulder.

Immediately after, Tully drove one foot down onto the brakes, their seatbelts locking in as the car lurched to a halt, other cars honking their horns and people at the sidelines screaming.

The angel was flung off, hitting the ground and rolling for a moment, the stunningly accurate shot to his shoulder practically incapacitating him right then, staggering to his feet and realizing that the force had ripped his blade from his hand.

Gabriel summoned his own blade, cursing the whole time, going to step out and take down the angel, when the passenger side door, Rampiel's side, was torn open, a hand coming in to rip the injured angel out of the car by his wing.

Letting out a shriek, Rampiel landed on the concrete with a sob, other wing fluttering weakly in panic and fear, feathers falling free as he struggled to escape the painful grip on his damaged appendage.

Gabriel moved to help him, but Och moved faster.

The blue wings swept out of the car with a furious roar, pouncing on the offending female angel and driving her off the wounded person below her.

Gabriel kicked open the door in the next instant, stepping out as Tully took his foot off the brake, not waiting for anyone to approve of his actions as he charged forward, ramming the angel who had originally attacked them.

Gabriel's wings spread out, smacking the angel who had attacked Rampiel back, flinging her to the side like a piece of dirt. Taking a quick glance to Och, standing protectively over Rampiel, Gabriel waited, uncertain of attacking or defending.

"I've got this, Gabriel!" Och called over, lifting Rampiel onto his feet, practically carrying the other angel. "Get rid of them!"

Gabriel dipped his head sharply, unfurling all of his wings to their widest, his huge golden feathers scraping the ground and dragging the gravel spread on the concrete into the air around him, the molecules of earth reacting with his grace, a pure primal energy answering the call of a pre-universe demand.

With a single flap, Gabriel rammed the angel and flung him to the side, a second angel pouncing on his back and driving a knife through his wing. No survivors. Demanded his grace. They can't let others know that you're back.

Gabriel kicked off the ground, flipping forward and twisting, the angel thrown off balance as one of the Archangel's bottom pair flared out, a donkey's kick to the stomach of his attacker, flinging the angel to the ground.

Whirling about with a flip, Gabriel drove the elbow of his top left wing into the angel's chest, or he would've if the bastard hadn't dodged. The female angel lunged at him, catching one of his wings by the corner and dragging him from his stance.

Which was when he brought up one of his other wings and slammed it onto the female's wing. They were pale cream, lined faintly with grey and auburn and a faded undertone of a chocolate brown, marred with burns and missing chunks of feathers.

The scream she made when her wing snapped in half was extremely satisfying for Gabriel.

She crumpled, a marionette with her strings cut, while the male charged him again. This time, Gabriel didn't waste a half-second in handling the issue.

The blade slid home startlingly easily, ripping through delicate human muscle and bone, shredding his diaphragm and left lung with a dull choking sound. Gabriel felt the angel twitch on the end of his knife, a painful-feeling movement. He ignored the obvious agony of the angel, practically throwing him off the end of his blade instead, his body hitting the ground with a dull thump.

At the same time that Rampiel let out a shriek of horror.

Och hit the ground beside Rampiel with a blade buried into his back, just under his scapula. Gabriel twisted to slash the female angel through the throat in a near-effortless action, her blood spraying in a perfect arc around his movement path, feet landing with nothing more than a slight tap to the ground before he was shooting for the angel who had stabbed Och.

The green-silver winged angel obviously didn't know what to expect when an Archangel's flaming blade plunged through his heart, but it obviously wasn't the slow charring that he got. Gabriel yanked Rampiel's blade from his shaking, uselessly weak hand and threw it with unerring accuracy at the angel still chasing and challenging Tully.

That one hit the ground too.

Their observers on the streets, the paramedics just arriving, the chaos surrounding them in a painful blanket made Gabriel's ears ring, at least until he forced his true form away from his vessel.

Gabriel jumped over to Rampiel and Och, grabbing them by the shoulders and spreading his wings, turning his head toward the open sky and flying as far from there as he could think to be 'safe', aiming for anywhere with a group of noncombatant angels.

He had to keep them safe, had to save them, had to get them to the next part of their story because his story was theirs and-

And he flew for Alaska.

-{[|]}-

An oak tree.

At least half a century old, huge and impressive, it's huge, clawlike branches spreading into a wide canopy over the small cross near it's base.

Where Och was buried.

It was faintly poetic, to be buried under a tree with a similar name. Gabriel had located a noncombatant angel base in Alaska, hence, leading him here. He needed somewhere safe to send the injured angels in his charge, even if it had been tiring to fly them both there.

And especially if, on landing, one of them was dead.

Gabriel's grace had felt like it wanted to eat itself when the burning sensation of dying angel writhed up his arm. He had wrapped his wings around Rampiel, hoping that he wouldn't wind up with two dead and nothing to show for his attempt at bringing himself back to what he wanted to be, the saviour and helper, not a murderous monster.

But still, the aching presence in the back of his mind had remembered his words.

'I will get you and your friend out of this city, safe...' It reminded traitorously, even as he flipped himself backward and took the brunt of the landing, bouncing on the dirt as he braced Rampiel and Och.

Which was when Rampiel had finally felt Och's body.

Gabriel untangled his wings from around the young angels, only to look at Rampiel, uncaring for his own wounds, shaking Och's body with tears in his eyes. "No, no, no please no..." He whispered, biting the corner of his lip hard enough to bleed. "No, no, not Och. You aren't allowed to have Och. Please. No..."

Gabriel had recognized it, the tone, the prayer. Even as other angels ran out of the cabin beside their landing location, Rampiel ignored their surroundings. He sat there instead, holding Och's limp form in front of him, hands sunk into the other's shoulders, before slipping back, under his arms and crossed on his back, pressing Och's lolling head into the junction of his shoulder and neck. "Wake up, please, please wake up..." Rampiel pleaded with empty air, pulling one arm up to sink his fingers through Och's hair, gripping tightly, like it was the only thing keeping him bound to earth.

Rampiel was praying, begging to their Father to, "not let this one go, please don't take him from me..."

Gabriel's lower two pairs of wings had folded to his back, concealing his status once again as he struggled to get off the grass, all while trying not to look at the angel that he had killed.

You should've waited, planned better. You could've taken out the other angels and then got them out now what? Gabriel felt guilt and hatred pressing in on him from all sides, the suspicion and fury from the surrounding angels like a bitter scent in the air.

Now, though, standing before the huge tree, staring at the cross that he felt bore the weight of his failures, Gabriel understood why his Father had made him use his colour form all those years ago.

Rampiel walked over slowly, arm in a sling, but his wing tied to his back with sticks to provide stability. "...He wouldn't've blamed you, y'know."

Gabriel didn't reply.

"He wasn't like that." Rampiel continued unfazed. "He didn't believe in blaming someone for bad circumstances."

"I made you a promise."

"No you didn't."

"I made him a promise, then." Which just makes it worse.

"You did your best. Circumstances work against us, Gabriel." Rampiel gave him a sad smile. "Sometimes it's best just to move past them."

And he held out a hand.

Gabriel glanced over, looking between the angel's earnest face and his outstretched hand, searching for something, anything other than an open invitation to go back to how he was, to return to being Gabriel, the Archangel-Trickster, who loved candy and being human and people.

You're in too deep now.

Gabriel shook his head. "You don't understand, Rampiel... I can't just move on, it's..." It's more than just letting go. "There's a war being fought, and I..." I have to be the end to it. "...What I'm becoming is..." A means to an end. "...It's..." Going to tear me apart.

Rampiel gave him a weird look. "...Are you alright?"

I haven't been in years. "I'm fine." He nodded shortly. "Take care of yourself." He grumbled unhappily, turning and marching away from the grave.

"Hey Gabriel," Rampiel called to him over his shoulder, turning slightly to watch the Archangel.

Gabriel paused, but didn't glance back.

"...Don't do anything you're going to regret."

Silence.

Then the flapping of multiple pairs of wings.

And he was gone.

-{[|]}-

The minute Gabriel's feet hit the ground in the barn, the warded-to-the-nines-and-back barn that Dean and Castiel first met in, his knees buckled, tears flowing hot and fast. His lungs cramped up, unused to air on top of the overworked sobs that came all-too-heavy on his weary body.

Gabriel folded his arms over his chest and tried, at least made an attempt to keep in his cries, the whimpers that filled the cramped, oppressively dark space far too loud for him.

He had flipped to curl into small lump on the floor, head down and body low, shaking faintly.

He didn't want to have to do this. To have to become this. But the war had already cost him people he promised to protect, people he cared about, people he loved.

It had cost him his family, what he wanted to be, and where he wanted to stay. It had cost him his home.

The thing he wanted to become though... That hadn't cost anything, so far. He was ready for it, so much more than ready.

Gabriel's hands curled and uncurled, nails piercing his skin with each tightening movement. "F-Father..." Gabriel panted through his shuddering final sobs. "...Father forgive me."

He could almost hear his Father replying, 'What, Gabriel? What requires forgiveness?'

Nothing yet, Father. I am not here to apologize for things I have done. His head lowered, eyes shutting with a final exhale.

Then he lifted his head, eyes glowing with icy golden grace.

...Father forgive me for everything I am about to do.