Title: Bullet in the Brain Pan
Prompt: Written for hugglewolf on livejournal: Supernatural, Gabriel & Zachariah, No matter how many angels Gabriel has to fight through to reach Zachariah, Gabriel is going to wring his neck for what he did to Castiel when he had him in Bible Camp.
Note: Title borrowed from the Firefly movie, Serenity, particularly a quote by River Tam.
It doesn't have to be a physical neck-wringing. It could be metaphorical. Gabriel's deep. He has layers. He is totally capable of a metaphorical neck-wringing.
Gabriel heaves another little brother out of his way, sending the patron angel of fish down to meet with a few of the Pacific's best. Another steps between Gabriel and his intended target.
This one's not much older than Castiel, and his eyes don't always focus on Gabriel as they fight. In fact, the eyes never seem to actually settle on any one thing.
Nope. Definitely going to be a physical neck-wringing. Bare hands too.
"What?" Gabriel demanded. He doesn't exactly stick around for the answer, because Castiel's won't be entirely satisfactory, and Dean's will just make Gabriel want to smite the Winchesters that little bit more.
Sam cuts him off in the Yard, and Bobby is watching from the porch, but the older hunter doesn't say anything. He's smarter than the Three Freewill Stooges put together.
"What exactly is 'Bible Camp,' Gabriel?"
Gabriel snarls, wheeling about, but Dean Winchester is leaning in the doorway behind Bobby, and Castiel's flit off to Antarctica to commune with the penguins. Avoidant little snot.
"Imagine being turned inside out, boys," Gabriel growled. "You should have some experience with that, right? Nice long tours of the pit; you understand the phenomena, right?"
Sam is green. Dean isn't looking at anyone anymore, but they opened this can of worms, and Gabriel's going to rub their faces in it.
"Only, it isn't someone else torturing you by doing it. They talk to you. They persuade. And you do it to yourself. You open yourself up, and put all the pretty things that make you you on display. Every thought, every action, doubt, wish, dream, goal, fear . . . all of it. Everything that makes you who you are, and you put all that shiny deeply personal stuff out there for everyone else to see."
Gabriel snapped himself up a drink. None of that human nonsense; he goes straight for the Greek ambrosia.
"And they take it out of you, they pass it around, and they get all their grubby fingerprints on your insides. They never stop talking, and you sit there, an empty, gooey, inverted husk, just absorbing everything they say. And they keep parts that they don't like . . . or the parts that they do. And what they do put back, if they put it back, is all marked up like a bad thesis. It doesn't even fit anymore, but they cram it back in, and the thoughts and feelings aren't just yours anymore, it's everyone's. They all get inside your head and they color everything wrong, and they never. Stop. Talking."
Gabriel pointed his flask at Dean. "So if Castiel went River Tam on you afterwards, maybe you can appreciate that the Alliance has done some permanent damage in their attempt to perfect their little weapon."
The analogy flew over Dean's head, which is a crying shame, and Gabriel will probably correct that lack of education when he's in a better mood, but Sam and Bobby are at least appreciative of his references if not the subject matter.
And at least while they're worrying over Castiel, they're not asking stupid questions. Like how Gabriel knows all of this.
Gabriel's never been one to tip his hand . . . before the Winchesters.
"I'm not even sure how Castiel managed to overcome the brainwashing. I can't believe he's still functioning on this plane, and where were you when Zachariah ripped him off of it!"
It's probably for the best that no one actually tried to answer that question. Gabriel might have smote first, and then he'd have to make it up to Castiel. He had a large enough debt already.
"So they tortured him," Bobby started, and who knows what the hunter was going to say next, but Gabriel wasn't going to let anyone finish a sentence that began with "So they tortured him."
Not when the pronoun stood for his youngest brother.
"You call that torture? I call it abuse," Gabriel snapped. "Torture is wrong. But at least it's straightforward. Abuse is taking something good, something that's supposed to be comforting, and using it to hurt. It's taking advantage of something designed to save. It's your brothers destroying your entire identity just to 'fix' you."
Dean flinched.
Sam was stronger. He met an archangel's furious gaze, and asked: "So what are you going to do about it?"
"Revoking custody," Gabriel growled. "And then I'm going to wring Zachariah's sorry neck."
It's his first time in Heaven in almost two thousand years. And with every damaged brother that Gabriel relocates, his resolve hardens. With every shifty gaze, tilted head, and uniform suit, Gabriel grows gentler with the brothers he abandoned long ago to such inadequate care. He softens and tries to reassure as he moves through the ranks, but Gabriel also grows more determined to confront one brother in particular.
It might have been nice if the Winchesters had reminded him that Zachariah was already dead before he stormed heaven in his righteous fury.