I want to thank my Jessy for fixing the end poem thingy. I don't do poetry.

A few scenes are taken from the season 11 episode 22 transcript.

.-~*~-.

There were a lot of things Gabriel would never acknowledge agreeing with his brother on. However, the one he could gladly -and would gladly- flaunt was dramatic entrances. The two of them arrived side by side, though Gabriel kept himself hidden for the time being, and Lucifer was almost instantly surrounded by shock-stricken angels.

"And here I thought I had made real inroads with you guys." Lucifer was practically beaming as he was escorted down the hall. The angels were not amused. What had started as a small party of four was quickly increasing in number as more and more angry angels appeared, one after the next.

"You thought wrong, Serpent." Abriel huffed, holding a blade to Lucifer. As though it could actually kill him, especially in Sam.

"Serpent." Honestly, Gabriel almost laughed at that one too- the only thing he could do was muffle himself and resist it.

"We loathe you. We'll always loathe you." Another angel- one Gabriel didn't know the name of.

"Welp, I came here to ask a good-faith favor of you folks, but as you are clearly less than kindly disposed, perhaps you'll, uh, lend an ear to my very own Jiminy Cricket. Hmm?"

Gabriel moved to the front of the escorting group, drawing all of his power to the center of his vessel and rolling his shoulders before making himself visible. "Brothers, Sisters." Gabriel spoke, truly spoke, and the crowd of angels whipped around- staring at him in shock as he spread his arms to the side, his wings, his power rippling across Heaven in a way he was sure they hadn't felt since Michael left. As it ripped across Heaven, as he spread, he broke down walls, ripped open doors and removed barricades until all of Heaven, all at once, was exposed to itself.

"Gabriel!" Thousands of angels cried in horror and awe as they left their posts, returned to Heaven, souls cried out in shock and surprise as they were given free reign to all of Heaven again- just as it had been the last time he was there.

"How about you let my wife go?" Gabriel grinned widely, watching as confused and disturbed angels stumbled away from Lucifer.

"I am not the wife."

"You absolutely are." Gabriel brushed his brother's annoyance off, turning around slowly and letting his gaze search across Heaven, billions of souls were awake for the first time since their deaths, confusion, shock, and panic resonating across all of it as angels continued to flock in from all corners of the planet.

"You were dead." Abriel's voice broke across them all, "He killed you."

"You know what they say, can't keep a bad man down. Or is it a good man? Well… I guess I'm not really either so screw it. Guess who's home, and newsflash, it ain't me."

"What are you talking about?" Several angels spoke up at the same moment while others bowed, ugh. As Loki it had been fun, as an archangel it was just plain annoying.

"Daddy's back from the liquor store and man does he have a plan."

"I think it was my plan, Gabriel."

"I think you're the only one counting, Lucifer." A glance at Lucifer who had joined his side confirmed that he really didn't want Chuck taking credit for it, which was a fair request. "But yes, it was Lucifer's idea. The man… -or woman? Who can really remember those days anyways-, with a plan. But we need your help."

"Our help? You expect us to bow to you? To believe you?" Ah, there it was. The reaction he'd been looking for.

"Gods no. I'd never ask you little fuzzballs to bow to me. That's our big bros' thing. I do expect you to believe me, though." A glance around the entirety of the gathered crowd found him meeting the distrustful glare of Brendiel who was making his way to the front of the crowd.

"Why-"

"Because, no matter how strong an archangel is, we can't do this." A snap of his fingers and the power that Chuck had loaned him burst across Heaven, healing the wings of every angel it touched and earning a united cry of shock and joy. "I'm not telling you to do anything. I'm not a leader, I'm a runaway. You all have every reason in the world to hate me, because I did abandon you, but I'm asking- no, begging you." Shoving all of his pride, his confidence, and ego to the side Gabriel dropped to his knees. Every instinct as both an archangel and god made him want to reject the concept, to get back on his feet and tell them to help or fuck off, but they did need the young ones- and he had to do this to make the point.

'Gabriel, what are you doing?'

"Please. We need your help, and we can't win without you."

All of Heaven was dead silent, even the souls were quiet and Gabriel couldn't imagine what kind of picture he painted. The youngest of the archangels, one of the proudest, on his knees before them, begging them for their help.

But there was another reason for it, a reason that Lucifer couldn't understand. Gabriel needed the trust of these angels, because when it came to it, when the fight with Amara was over, Lucifer and Michael would both be back on the playing field and Gabriel didn't have any clue what they would do.

"Yes." The first angel broke the silence, then another, and another. A thousand yeses broke across Heaven in a single moment.

A silent promise.

All he could hope was that it was enough.

"We will call you when the time is right." Gabriel said quietly, disappearing in a snap of fingers.

.-~-.

"Where's Chuck?" Gabriel asked when he returned to the front room of the Bunker, scanning the room and watching with a bit of envy he was more than willing to admit as Chuck walked in with a woman and man in their mid-twenties at his side. Well, woman and man was a subjective term. They didn't have souls. To top it off they were freshly made so they didn't have any memories to fuel them. Empty shells.

"Holy shit." Dean was staring, eyes wide. "Dude- he looks like me!"

They both looked just like the brothers, hell Michael's could've been Dean's twin brother. He was shorter by a couple inches, hair a bit longer- hair which he definitely didn't get from Dean-, it looked like the closest early representation of his golden grace, glimmering a bit in the light of the room.

As for the female? She looked like the perfect offspring between Lucifer's grace and Sam's soul. Hazel eyes, strong build for the most part. Not identical, but close enough that it was clear she was definitely his offspring. There were etches of Lucifer's true form mixed in as well, especially clear in the pure white hair that almost glowed with his grace.

"Why is she female?" Lucifer demanded as he appeared in the room.

"My addition." Gabriel chimed happily. "Gotta say, kinda envious."

"Then you take her."

"Nope. This body's me, and you've got a deal to hold up. So, vacate the hunter."

"You did make a deal, Lucifer." Chuck added, guiding the bodies to chairs and pushing them each until they sat.

"I'm well aware of the agreement I made. I just- damn it, fine. I'd close your eyes, Dean." Lucifer huffed as he walked over to the empty female body.

"He's right." Gabriel added, to clarify that his brother was being serious.

"Are we not going to talk about the fact that she looks like my brother?" Dean demanded, shutting his eyes anyways.

"Better than him wearing your brother." Gabriel responded, looking away as Lucifer vacated Sam, bright light flooding the room for a solid twenty seconds as he clearly had trouble infiltrating an empty body.

The moment the light dissipated Gabriel looked back to see Lucifer in the new body, flexing his fingers and rolling his shoulders while Sam collapsed to his knees, Chuck placing a hand on his shoulder and healing any of the damage that Lucifer may have done while possessing Sam- not that there was likely to be any.

"Woah." Gabriel's gaze moved as both Castiel and Dean dropped down next to him. "Cas-"

Without any care for the present audience Castiel tugged a flustered Sam into a kiss, Dean groaning loudly with annoyance but not saying anything as he backed off.

"As much as I'm enjoying the peep show…" Gabriel snapped his fingers, sending the two lovebirds off to Sam's room. "Alright, let them rekindle a bit while we talk about the plan."

"You're kidding, right?"

"You got into the middle of their bullshit, Luci. You don't get to complain."

"I hate to agree with him- her?" Dean looked over at a glowering Lucifer. "But… is this really the best time to send them off to screw?"

"It's fine." Gabriel waved his hand. "They've done their part, they'll play the rest when it gets down to business."

"It'll work." Chuck agreed, watching Lucifer as he rose to his feet, making his way around the room slowly.

"So we've got me, Luci, and Heaven."

"Michael and Raphael are manifesting."

"Where?" Dean's head snapped to Chuck, astonishment clear in his expression.

"The dungeon, I increased the warding for you as well as adding Archangel traps to the floor. I don't trust either of them on their own yet."

"I'm going down there."

"Be careful, Gabriel." Chuck warned him as he turned, "The warding will affect you as well."

"I've lived without my grace before, I'll be fine."

"It will also affect your pagan portion."

"I've been human before. I'll be fine." Gabriel repeated, huffing a breath of annoyance as he left the room.

In truth, he needed some time to himself, away from his brother and Father and fucking Dean. All of it was happening too damned fast and yet, it was nowhere near fast enough. They were coming down to the final showdown and Amara was fully aware of just who was involved. It was only a matter of time before she made her move and Gabriel was terrified of what that might mean for the planet if they couldn't pull themselves together enough to fight her again.

"You swore that you wouldn't do something stupid. You promised."

"So did you." A snap of his fingers put warding on Sam's room before he was subjected to sounds that would ultimately lead him to needing his ears bleached.

Taking a deep breath, Gabriel stopped outside the dungeon, staring at the door as the warding pressed at his powers from the inside. It was going to be hell inside, but if it was placed down by Chuck it meant that it would keep Michael and Raphael subdued- though he didn't doubt that Raphael would be more reasonable.

No, the problem was with Michael. Michael, who the last time Gabriel had seen him, had been a broken down mess. Michael, who very well under the direct influence of fucking Lucifer.

There was a thread of hope in that story, though. The first being the bond- Lucifer had actively sought it out, which meant he was afraid, even after saying Michael was under his control. The second was that Gabriel had found Michael in Heaven. It was that Michael had let him kill him.

Lucifer's story simply didn't add up. With that in mind, he pushed open the door and stepped through. The room was one he'd been in before, nothing unfamiliar though the bookshelves had been moved to the walls, two large archangel traps were set on opposite sides of the devil's traps and one housed a bright, twisting, ball of light that Gabriel immediately recognized as Michael.

The other had a dark-skinned woman in the middle of it who was pacing around the edges, throwing uncomfortable glances in Michael's direction. He didn't even look up when Gabriel came in and as Gabriel got closer he recognized why, along with the heavy warding that had him feeling more and more human by the second, there was a strong obscuring ward that he broke with a snap of his fingers. The second it was gone the dark-skinned woman- Raphael, whipped his head up, narrowed eyes meeting his from across the space.

"Gabriel." Raphael greeted coolly, warily, and there was a thread of discomfort underlying all of the words. It was something Gabriel had no doubt his brother was trying to hide. "I should have known you were involved in this?"

"In what? Your resurrection. Ironically, I have nothing to do with it."

Raphael stared at him for a long moment, reading him in a way that Gabriel hated. Even with his grace on low reserves, Raphael still saw through people clearly.

"Why would Lucifer possibly have me brought back, Gabriel?"

"Because the world's ending, and this time everything goes with it." Holding his brother's gaze he stepped forward until he was at the edge of the trap. "This is bigger than anything ever has been. It's bigger than the bullshit between Michael and Lucifer, and it's bigger than us."

"God brought us back. I am not at all surprised that there is something seriously wrong." Raphael paused in his pacing, tilting his head and walking to the edge of the trap. "Not to mention that ring around your grace. The extents that you've gone to prove just how dire this is." Pressing his palm against the invisible barrier, Raphael narrowed his eyes. "The answer is no."

"No?"

"I'm not subjecting myself to helping Him, and you shouldn't either, Gabriel. The answer is no."

"This is all of reality, Raphael. Not just-"

"I have been dead, Gabriel. Whatever it is that… The Darkness does to these worlds, it will be nothing more than He deserves for abandoning us. The answer is no. If you were wise, you would stand with me. The world is suffering, screaming, and I hear every moment of it. There is nothing I can do to repair it, so the answer remains. No. I will not help."

"Raphie, please." Gabriel pressed his hand against the trap, touching his brother's hand through the magical barrier and putting on his best puppy eyes. "I died for them, for the world. I'll do it again, but I don't want to."

"You left, Gabriel." Raphael responded coolly, watching him closely as their vessels' hands touched, grace mingling just beneath the surface. "You abandoned us all."

"I did. I abandoned Heaven. I left it all behind." Taking a breath, Gabriel closed his eyes and sent flashes between their connected grace, images and memories of his time as Loki, his children, the joys and misery of it all.

The secret to how he survived.

"Raphael." Michael's voice rasped across the distance between them, sudden and sharp and jarring both of the youngest from their contact. Whipping his head from Raphael he stared at Michael, throat closing slightly. He wasn't back together, not completely, but already it was clear… Michael was so damaged. "Don't trust him."

"Michael-"

"He killed me."

A silence fell between the youngest of the archangels, long, drawn out, and then, "Gabriel."

"I didn't have a choice, Raphael." Gabriel breathed out, stepping a bit closer towards Michael as the bright light that was his grace curled around, pressing against the edge of the trap. "He was a threat."

"Do you call being on the floor, begging for mercy, a threat? Is that your definition of a threat, Gabriel?"

"No." Gabriel responded, bristling slightly even as fear tried to claw its way up. "I call a deranged, delusional archangel a threat. Especially you."

"You murdered Michael?" Raphael asked, somewhere between being impressed and appalled.

"A mercy killing." Gabriel responded shortly. "Michael, I need to know something-"

"You have no idea, Gabriel. You don't have a single clue what I went through and you killed me."

"Yeah, I did. And it was the hardest thing I've ever done." Gabriel forced himself to hold his eldest brother's gaze, even when everything in him screamed to run in terror. "You were deluded."

"I was begging you for help!"

"You were begging Lucifer not to hurt you!" Gabriel retorted angrily, grace flaring bright beneath his vessel with anger. "You don't understand-"

"Gabriel!" Raphael shouted from behind him, breaking him from his momentary reverie, "Listen to what he's saying. Are you listening?"

"Yes." Gabriel responded, running over the conversation again and- oh.

"Michael, look at me."

"What do you want, Raphael?"

"What did Lucifer do to you?" Michael's grace burned a bit brighter with his annoyance when Raphael disregarded his question, and Gabriel was admittedly impressed.

Raphael had never stood against Michael. The two had been inseparable for as long as he could remember. Two halves of the same thread of creation.

"What did he do to me?" The laugh that followed was metallic, cold and harsh. "What didn't he do? That Winchester drug us down there and Lucifer? Oh, pity poor me! The stories really never did him justice, did they? Oh, it hurt. Father, help me did it hurt. That was the first thing he taught me- the first thing I learned. Hell? It's his domain, even the Cage." Michael shoved against the wall, grace twisting into some corrupt version of what could've been a human form made of light.

It may have been the most terrible sight Gabriel had ever seen.

"It was my prison, Sam Winchester's prison, but for Lucifer? It was his playground."

"Michael-"

"And who gave him the key?" Michael's violent glare shot straight into Gabriel's gaze, all of him at once hitting the wall of the trap and in a panicked flurry Gabriel fell back, stumbling- shit, right into Raphael who caught him under his arms. "You traitorous little coward!" Michael screeched, glass shattering in the room as Raphael tugged Gabriel behind him, acting as a physical barrier between his eldest brother and his youngest. "Face me! Let me out!"

Guilt, shame, fear, and a million other emotions leeched into him, gnawing at his mind as Michael shouted at him, called him every name in the book. All the while Raphael tried to talk Michael down. They were trapped, and Michael's words? His anger?

Every ounce of it was justified, but Gabriel also couldn't make himself regret a second of it.

Father, please.

.-~-.

four little archangels, together again,

two who are truly afraid, two who have lost their heads

~-.-~