Chapter 22: Sugar Coating

From the Journal of Bobby Winchester

I hate to continue to interrupt my story with vague ramblings. But there are other things more important that the war that brewed. What I mean to say is that, all of that was still happening, I was still training with my soldiers every day, I still made battle plans and tried my hand and logistical analysis. But that isn't what's important. War was never as important as I thought it would be. This was the beginning of my golden days. This is what is important.

I was on the wall, surveying. Running really, sprinting pell-mell across the top of it, that three headed hound on my tail, we had called him Cerberus, out of duty. He yelped and barked as he chased me, and I howled and I fled, running atop the ramparts with disdain for the danger. The dead hooted at me as I scampered passed. My disregard for the seriousness of our situation gave them unexpected bursts of hope. That's how Crowley put it anyway.

A streak of light flitted across the horizon, deep in the pits that now spread beyond the walls. Crowley's pits. I stopped midstep, my foot dangling precariously in the air. Cerb growled behind me. Without a second thought I flipped over the edge of the wall and skated to the ground. Hell, I had found would rise up for me when I fell, so the sheer drop down the side of the wall face was a few seconds wild skidding. Cerberus, unfortunately did not follow but howled after me.

I thought, perhaps, that this light was the sign of something coming, an agent of Zeus, I had my armor on, as I always did in those days, and was determined to face it. As I remarked on before, I was irresponsibly excited for this war. So I flew off, my soldiers yelling warnings after me, and I ignoring them. It was, after all, only one little light.

I stopped a ways off from the very person shaped thing I could see heading toward me. It was an odd person shaped thing. And only mostly person shaped. He, for I thought it was a he, even from this distance, seemed to be limping. The magnitude of that, however, paled rather considerably in lieu of the rather majestic set of wings that were sprouted from his back.

These weren't the squalid and broken wings of a Hellion either, even from here the feathers glistened, even if some of them looked a little bent.

I jogged toward him.

I stopped twenty or so paces away, the face guard down on my helmet, my spear up. Quite famously, of course, there was an angel who found his way into hell, and I wasn't perfectly sure when that was supposed to happen, but I was perfectly sure that I wouldn't like it when it did.

"Halt!" I barked, pointing my spear at him. That sounded oddly formal and aggressive out loud, but I was a little scared I was going to be going toe to toe with Lucifer so, in defense, I was trying a little to sound like Crowley.

To my embarrassingly strong surprise, he did halt, wavering a little on his feet. Getting good look at him, I was almost immediately sure he wasn't Lucifer, or if he was, he didn't seem like much of a threat. He was a little thing, half grown at most, chestnutty hair all ruffled, scowl set over his eyes that didn't quite get rid of their softness. His face still had a child's roundishness. He stood his ground but looked scared more than anything. It was hard to keep my spear pointed at him, he looked so little and afraid and those baby eyes in that child face looked an awful lot like my little time god.

"Are you alright, kid?"

This livened him, "I'm not a kid!"

He had certainly perfected the put upon look. But at the same time, his cheeks were hollow and his fingers shook, I lowered my spear but didn't entirely relax it. I watched as he faded and almost fell before he caught himself.

I glanced over him. Now that I was closer I could see why he had fallen, not only were some of his feathers crooked, there were chunks of them missing and the tip of one was at a rather nasty angle. He stood awkwardly, favoring one side.

"Did somebody attack you?"

I was also becoming certain that this was not an agent of Zeus, but then, if Zeus knew anything about me, this is just the sort of agent he would send. An adorably snot nosed kid, damaged and alone. I had such a blind side for anything partially grown. Crowley told me sometimes that it was a side effect of being a female, but I had a suspicion that it was the side effect of murdering the first child I had ever known.

The boy, for he was hardly more than a boy, I wasn't sure how angels aged but if he had been a human, he would have been hardly any older than maybe eleven, teetered. His eyes fluttered closed and he tipped forward. I caught him haphazardly and put a steadying arm around him, he still had the skinny shoulders of a child. His wings flapped in an attempt to keep himself upright and he winced visibly.

"It's ok, kid, I'll bring you someplace safe, you'll be ok."

We struggled back toward the wall, his feet scraping along the hot ground in a slow pattern. At this closer proximity, I thought a few of his ribs were broken.

He fell right as we reached the wall and for a moment I was perplexed as to what to do. His wings stretched limply out under him, making it impossible to lift him up like a normal little boy. I laid him down softly, his breathing shallow. Careful not to jostle the broken sections, I wrapped his wings up around him and lifted him into my arms.

Sensing the inconvenience of wall climbing, a slim threshold manifested in the wall and I walked through it, bearing my little angel, heading swiftly back to the palace. Carrying him, he seemed even littler than he had before, each of his little ribs stuck out. I hurried on.

The guards at the palace doors were hasty to admit me, burdened as I was and I made straight for a spare room. As I marched passed our war room, Crowley looked up from his maps and furrowed his brow at me. As I continued on I could hear him following.

"What is that you've found, kitten?"

"Oh, darling can I keep it?" I called back over my shoulder, doing my best to sound eager and forlorn. He opened the door for me, mostly, I thought, as an excuse to get in front of me and look at what I was carrying.

He looked at me nonplussed, "Is that an angel?"

"…just a little one."

I brushed passed him and laid the little guy out on the bed, untucking his wings and stretching them out. I set to work, bending back the twisted feathers and cleaning the blood from his wounds, wrapping them in bandages.

"Who is he?"

"I don't know, he didn't say."

Crowley sighed in exasperation, "This is the sort of moronic, ill conceived idea that is going to get a knife shoved into your pretty little throat. Or worse yet, my pretty little throat."

"I couldn't leave him, Hades, look at him."

He opened his mouth to say something else and then closed it. He walked toward the door then turned back, "Bobby, saving a half grown angel brat isn't going to bring back Ethan."

"Thanks, Crowley, I was here waiting on baited breath for me to not have murdered my own kid."

He sighed angrily, "He wasn't your kid, Bobs."

I snarled back at him, "Then whose kid was he, Crowley? Was he Castiel's? The Hellion's that we found him with? Was he yours?"

"For Hell's sake, Bobby, he was a pathetic little orphan boy, he wasn't anybody's."

"He can't just be nobody's!"

He looked condescendingly at me, "Of course he can, there are thousands of children that are nobody's. And they take care of themselves or they die. You can't take care of every snotty brat without a mother just because you put a knife in the first one you happened to know personally."

I straightened my back and looked across at him with frigid eyes, the voice that came out of me was one I wasn't yet familiar with. It was low and controlled with ice behind it, "Yes, Crowley, I can. And until every patch of the Hell I built with my blood is on fire and every ounce of my strength is gone, I will never kill another child and if they ask me for help, they will always get it.

Crowley looked taken aback at me, used to my wild and rushing energy and disaffected laughing he didn't seem entirely able to recognize me. He blinked a few times then gave me a little sneer, "If you had spoken like that to Zeus we wouldn't be in this mess." Then he swung around and left me to the boy angel.

I returned to tending him, his wounds were wrapped and he was mostly clean of the caked on blood, he was a lot cuter when he looked less battle worn. A big round face and tiny little limbs, entirely dwarfed by long, muscled wings. I stroked his hair back from his face and he woke in a rush.

His wings flapped in fright and he tried desperately to sit up. I put a soft hand on his chest and pushed him back into the bed.

"You're okay," I murmured, "Stay still, you're safe."

He lay back, looking around the room. "Where am I? Who are you?"

The defensiveness had leaked out of his voice and left the tremble of a scared little boy.

"You're in the palace in the underworld, my name is Persephone."

He furrowed his brow, "You're the Queen right? The Queen of the dead."

"Yeah, something like that," I laughed, "You got a name?"

He turned his head away and looked uncomfortable, I let it go, familiar with a resistance to use one's real name.

"How'd you get down here, featherbrain?"

He straightened a little, "Hey! I'm not a featherbrain, featherbrain!"

I ruffled his hair, "You look featherbrained to me."

He laughed, his laugh was one of the most adorable things that I had heard.

"You look hungry, do angels eat?"

He grinned, "Yeah we eat, it really pisses off Mikey, my brother, he says that if people, I mean like humans, treated Dad like they should we wouldn't have to, but yeah we eat and I'm starving can I have something to eat?"

He said all of this very fast and rather blurred together, I fought back giggling at, what I could only presume was the great archangel Michael would one day cajole my father to be his vessel for the final judgment being called Mikey.

"I'll get you something." I stood up and walked to the door, I called out of it for Anydka. She came bustling up the hall and stopped before me.

"Yes, m'lady? Can I help you with something?"

"Yeah, Any, could you get some food for our little guest?" I turned back to Freatherbrain, "What do you want?"

He gave me a playful little smile, "Dessert."

I laughed, "Could you get him dessert?"

Anydka gave me a half bow and flitted away, I walked back to the kid, "So you're really not going to tell me your name, you can make something up if you want."

He furrowed his brow, "Like just pick a name?"

I laughed, "Hell, I did."

"Really?" he sounded quite amazed and impressed, then he huddled forward conspiratorially. "So what's your real name?"

I edged closer and whispered, "Can you keep a secret?"

He nodded excitedly.

"Ok, well I'll make you a deal, I'll tell you my name I you promise to tell me yours. But we keep our deals in the underworld, ok?"

He nodded, "Deal."

I whispered very softly, "My name is Bobby Winchester." It felt nice, sort of, to tell someone else my real name. Like I was really there and not just pretending.

He looked like he had been given a great gift for a moment but then sort of hunched back, looking uneasy.

"You made a deal, featherbrain."

He pouted but looked up at me irately, "Gabriel, okay. They call me Gabriel."

"Nice to meet you, Gabriel."

Anydka came back in with a tray half filled with desserts and a nice reasonable amount of fortifying dinner. I stood and took the tray from her, "Thanks, Any." I said.

I gave Gabriel the tray and he set in, entirely ignoring the food and filling his face ravenously with the desserts.

I pulled a chair around to sit next to him, occasionally snagging bite or two from his desserts. "So who beat you up, angellette?"

"Nobody," he said, his cheeks chipmunkingly full with dessert, "I mean…nobody on purpose."

"So, who accidentally turned you into a punching bag?"

"My brothers." He said, quieter than before, swallowing his treats. He hurried to elaborate, "They weren't trying to hurt me, they were fighting. I mean each other. They always do that. I just wanted them…I just wanted to them to stop fighting. Michael and Lucifer I mean, those were my brothers who were fighting. I just…I just wanted them to stop. It's my fault." He stopped talking and crammed another dessert into his mouth.

I didn't think that platitudes about it not being his fault would help, so I took some more of his dessert and ruffled his hair. "You can stay here as long as you want."

XXXXX

From the Journal of Bobby Winchester

I had never had more fun than while little Gabe was running around. He healed quickly, not instantly as I was told he one day would be able to, but faster than most. It was his wings that took the longest. But the moment he was able to clamber up onto his feet he was darting after me around the palace and through the fields of Hell.

His laughter was omnipresent and his humor relentless. But he never left my side, something that seemed to irritate Crowley to no end. Half of the day I nearly tripped over the boy as he scampered around under my feet.

It was three weeks into his stay when his wings finally looked better. I wasn't sure if it had taken so long for them to heal because they were delicate and intricate angelic contraptions or because he seemed to have so little control over them. Perpetually he would skid around a doorway and let his wings slam against the threshold then just stop and shudder, his face alight with pain. Then he'd shiver and take off again. But after three weeks of this abuse on his tender wings, they seemed back to strength.

I threw out my arm and stopped him scampering passed me, "You wanna try to fly today, Gabe?"

He looked up at me, "You think I can?"

"No, I think you've got tiny puny baby wings."

He looked at me fiercely and beat his wings, "I. Do. Not."

I laughed and, after a long moment he laughed too, "I can fly. Come on, will you watch me?"

"Course, Gabey Babey." I pushed his shoulder, "Let's go outside."

He followed me outside, giddy with excitement. The moment we got outside he started running, I watched him work himself up to full speed, wings spread out behind him. He leapt high and beat his wings furiously. His little body lifted ungainly into the air. He whooped happily and cried out.

"Sephy! I'm flying again! I'm flying!" He laughed for a long time and slid through the air, going in loops and whirls.

"I suppose he is rather cute." A gruff voice said behind me. I turned, Crowley was standing with his arms folded over his chest. "I guess if we were going to have a pet, a pet angel is an alright one to have."

"Yeah, I like him."

"Is it true he has to eat?"

"Yeah, he eats pretty much just dessert so far, but he definitely was starving when I found him."

"And to think that eventually his race will end the entire world, aren't you the least bit angry?"

"At the tiny barely grown angel who had nothing to do with it? No. Are you?"

"I'm always a big angry, comes with the territory."

I laughed, "The territory of being the uncontested king of a Hell you helped build with hand crafted Hellhounds, a personally trained army and an adorable Queen?"

"You aren't adorable."

"Well I don't want to hone in on your area of expertise."

"You crafted hell, took control of the legions, and look better than me in armor, what do you mean you don't want to hone in on my area of expertise?"

"I left you being adorable. You're doing great."

"Glad you think so."

Crowley gave me a long and rather warm look, then clicked his fingers and disappeared. He had recently rediscovered he could do that and I wasn't sure he had walked anywhere since.

Gabe landed in front of me and teetered forward, "Were you watching?"

"Yeah, Gabe," I said smiling proudly at him, "I like the loops."

"I learned those all on my own aren't I good at them are you hungry I'm really hungry can we get some food how cool was it when I was flying upside down did you see that did you see when I almost hit the wall but then I did that dive whats for dinner a lesser angel would have hit the ground but did you see how good I did oh did you see my spiral I was going so fast I thought I'd throw up."

"Let's just get something to eat." I said in lieu of putting a hand over his mouth. He had been breathlessly talking without a single pause, if anything, getting faster as he continued.

"Ok!"

He followed me to the dining room, the small one, we had one for big royal things, and a little one just for us, and now for Gabe. There was food already there, I thought Crowley must be to thank for that. Without pausing for breath Gabe threw himself into his bench. We had given him a bench so he had wing room, and started shoveling food into his mouth, talking around about three forkfuls of potatoes and roast.

I tilted my head at him, "Wow, real food, you must really be starving."

"Huh?"

I gasped mockingly at him, "I've never seen you eat real food when you could be eating all of that cake I'm sure they brought just for you."

He shrugged, "I'm really hungry and…" he trailed off and shoved some more food into his mouth.

"And what Gabe?" he had looked so happy a moment before.

"I dunno…I…I like it here…a lot. Eating desserts is something I just…I dunno." He looked unsure of himself, "Something I do when I'm sad." Then he shook off his melancholy and grinned, shoving food ravenously into his mouth.

AN: Long fun chapter that was fun! I hope you guys liked my addition to The Bobby Crowley family!