A/N: honestly...I don't even know. To be truthful, it is my firm belief that in It's the Great Pumpkin, Sam Winchester, when Castiel says "Uriel is the funniest angel in the garrison, ask anyone" that he's being a total smart ass and trying to make Dean laugh. Perhaps Uriel is funny, but if he is, he has a dry sense of humor; point is I don't think he's so much funny as he would be a total dick who people laugh at his poor attempts of jokes in fear of being picked one so I tried to make that happen in this chapter.
Summary: In which Balthazar plays the role of Marty McFly to Cas' George and Uriel isn't so much funny as a slightly smarter Biff, thankfully Gabriel is there to save the day.
6. It Wasn't Funny The First Time What Makes You Think Time 316 Would Be?
Uriel was the funniest angel in the garrison; ask anybody.
Well perhaps not anybody. If you asked Balthazar about the hilarity that was Uriel, you're likely to hear the statement "The guy's a total dick."
And really, who could blame the angel for his dislike of his older brother. Surely anyone would feel that way when they were subject to horrible second rate pranks being pulled on them. They'd feel disgruntled too if they had to deal with someone constantly sticking their foot out to trip them or making offhand remarks about their wings being a slightly effeminate, just because they were crisp and clean on a nearly daily basis.
Honestly Balthazar was sick and tired of dealing with Uriel's crap. The angel was not funny. Not in the least bit.
Rather, it was more akin to describe the angel as a bully. You know like one of those hot headed jocks who had the entire school scared in to submission and would pull the same tricks over and over on unsuspecting prey, but of course no one would stick up. Sticking up would only result in the focus being shifted to you instead, and nobody wanted to be on the receiving end of Uriel's dickish behavior.
Well almost nobody, Balthazar had made the mistake of intervening, no not a mistake, there was no way he was going to stand by idly while Uriel picked on Castiel for flying slightly crooked. He could have mentioned Raphael's in the closet romanticism, Gabriel's addiction to those stupid sugary concocted treats he would bring back from visits to Earth, Michael's need to figure out that multicolored cube like it held a secret father had yet to tell them, Lucifer's 'not-so-hidden' stuffed horned horse pet he kept on hand, Anna's habit of dropping in to try and sneak peeks on showering soldiers, or even Zach's guilty pleasure of dressing up and singing ABBA songs when he thought nobody was watching, and Balthazar would have turned the other way. But Uriel had been idiotic enough to bring Castiel into his stupid comedic routine, and really that was just too far for Balthazar.
Looking back on it, Balthazar thinks he probably could have gone a different route with matters. Standing up and pushing through the crowd of brothers and sisters to pull Cassie away and glare at Uriel while shouting out something to the effect of "his bitching at others having to do with him lacking in a certain department" in front of the garrison, was probably not the way to go about things.
Scratch that, it most certainly was not the way, but when Balthazar caught a glimpse of Castiel, eyes bright with unshed tears, bottom lip trembling as Uriel stood in front of him pointing and laughing at the bronzed wings pressed tight against Castiel's back, well he saw red and he didn't really have time to think things through.
So there was one person willing to stick up to Uriel, unfortunately, like the McFly's, Balthazar now found himself on the receiving end of the angel version of Biff. Well to be fair, Uriel hadn't made that stupid leaves crack, so perhaps he wasn't as dimwitted as the douchebag teen.
Standing up for Cas was like second nature, and Balthazar most certainly did not regret his decision to stand up to the biggest dick in the garrison, but when he embarrassed Uriel in front of the host, well he didn't expect the backlash to be this bad. And honestly, the pranks weren't bad, in no way were they up to Gabriel's standard, but really that was a blessing that only Gabriel could manage to pull pranks of that proportion. No, they weren't horrible, if anything, they were rather childish. Totally mundane and if Balthazar was being honest, seemed more like something a petulant grade schooler would come up with rather than a powerful celestial being.
Still, childish or not, being tripped once is forgivable and can be overlooked and chalked up to a mistake. Being tripped ten times a day for 30 days in a row, well that was more than a tad annoying. And it wasn't just the tripping, along with that had come the constant blabbering from the angel talking about how Balthazar's wings resembled those of a pre-teen girl's, and if he spent hours on end with their up keep, and other comments referring to Balthazar as a girl.
Castiel was getting fidgety, he didn't enjoy watching Balthazar take the punishment that had been meant for him, but Balthazar just gritted his teeth, pushed himself up off the ground shook off his feathers and ignored Uriel. Of course ignoring just meant the next push would be twice as hard, because the angel needed a reaction, and Balthazar's lack of response, well it sucked something awful for Uriel.
The tipping point had come around shove number 311. That one had been particularly bad, not only had Uriel tripped Balthazar, but this time it wasn't a well-placed foot, more a perfectly timed shove. Right place, wrong time, sort of deal where Balthazar happened to be walking near the end zone where Uriel was running towards, the fact that the field had been running in the opposite direction, horizontally before Balthazar showed up was not mentioned by the other angels.
Besides being run over by the older angel, Balthazar had landed in a pile of mud…face first, and that was all fine and dandy, he could wash up, but the unnecessary kick that resulted in dirt coating his outer layer of feathers…well that was more than Balthazar would stand for.
Yes he prided himself on hygiene, and he kept his feathers pristine, it wasn't a matter of vanity, but rather responsibility. They needed their wings to travel, and if they weren't kept in order, well flight would be hindered, and who wanted to ruin such a perfect thing because they got too lazy to clean their feathers?
So the dirt to his appendages, yea that was the last straw.
Balthazar stood from the ground, feathers dripping with mud, face stony as he walked away, fist balled up by his side ignoring the guffaws from Uriel and the hesitant accompanied laughter of the other angels trying not to draw the angel's wrath their way. There was one person he needed to talk to right now. One person who would right everything, because honestly this childish pranking had to end and it had to end now.
Gabriel was doing things when Balthazar found him, he's not quite sure what exactly, but glitter was involved, and that was never a good sign, since mess usually followed whenever glitter was involved with the archangel.
It didn't take long for Balthazar to explain matters to Gabriel, really it just took a look at the dismal state of his wings for the older angel to know something was wrong, and it reeked of Uriel's doing. Not many people in all of the host were dickish enough to pick on the younger angels, Raphael had an ongoing problem with Balthazar, but he'd never stoop to ruining wings, Zachariah was an ass that nobody liked, but he preferred mindgames to physical harm of another's wings, those were off limits, but then there was Uriel, the dick of all dicks who had no regard for others and just barely held his brothers and sisters above humanity, and that didn't say much. Yes, Uriel would be the one to pull the wing ruining card.
Eyes narrowing Gabriel had held up a hand to silence Balthazar before he strode up and touched two fingers to his brother's wings, cleaning them and repairing the clumped feathers, leaving them shinning nicely when he was done. Looking Balthazar over he noticed the bruise forming under his left eye and that was it.
"Why didn't you tell me sooner you were Uriel's mark?"
Balthazar shrugged averting Gabriel's glare.
"Bal, you idiot, you need to tell me these things," Gabriel hissed pacing in front of Balthazar. Whipping around he pointed a figure, "how long has this been going on?"
"A month," Balthazar mumbled.
"What!"
"A month," he repeated a bit louder looking up at Gabriel.
Body vibrating with anger, Gabriel let out a sigh trying to calm down before he spoke again. "Well, I'm glad you finally told me, because we're putting an end to this; Now. " Grabbing Balthazar's arm he prepared to snap his fingers but stopped raising an eyebrow, "you were looking after Cassie weren't you?" At the silent response, Gabriel nodded and snapped his fingers sending him and Balthazar to the football field.
Uriel didn't know what hit him…literally.
One second he was smiling brightly at Gabriel as he did a touchdown dance, and the next thing he knew he was flat on his back…a Steinway piano over him.
Gabriel's normally honey colored eyes had darkened to a murky shade as he glowered over Uriel's crumpled heap. "You're a lousy comic Uriel, and really, tripping someone? That's so fledgling status. But see you messed up, Bal here, he's my friend, and you don't mess with my friends without having to deal with me," Gabriel growled out leaning against the piano. "So why don't you just cut it out and leave these 'pranks' to the original prankster and busy yourself elsewhere?"
Uriel groaned out an "ok" with an unsteady shake of his head and Gabriel smiled, not a happy smile that sugar usually brought, more a feral, you've just unleashed a monster smile.
"Are we clear?"
"Crystal," Uriel mumbled.
"Good," Gabriel smirked leaning back and snapping his fingers vanishing the piano and restoring Uriel to an image of perfect health. "Nice touchdown dance by the way, that's what I call dancing till the music ends," he quipped before turning around to face Balthazar.
A small smile pulled across his lips as he found the blond angel holding Castiel close to his chest rubbing a hand over those wings that started everything mumbling something that sounded like "it's going to be ok, Gabe's got everything covered."
And Balthazar was right, because nobody messed with Gabriel's friends except him, and really wings were off limits.