Gabriel isn´t sure how they get away from the edge of the roof in the end, probably through Kali dragging both him and Balthazar, although he could swear that Balthazar was dragging him at some point, as well as that he was the one dragging Balthazar. They don´t get very far anyway, collapsing into a total mess while still on the roof, "total mess" maybe being the best and only word to describe their situation as a whole.
"Actually this would be the best moment to attack", Kali suddenly says, breaking the silence. "Kill Michael now, he will never see it coming and the others will be too surprised to react in time"
Gabriel just stars at her, with the feeling that something blazing hot is climbing up his throat and knows he won´t endure much more without throwing up. Yes, Michael is a monster that needs to be punished for what he did to Raphael and all of heaven. Yes, he doesn´t need any angels on his heels right now and faking death his longest tested and approved measure to shake people off. Yes, he needs to save heaven in some way and to do that, he needs to destabilize it first, otherwise Michael´s control would be too strong.
But still, looking at Michael in so much pain, so completely destroyed, the whole thing just makes him feel sick and he can´t help but think that Kali pushed him too far too fast. Made him deliver it too extreme. He remembers himself asking: "Are you sure it has to be that brutal?" and Kali taunting: "Are you able to hurt him, or not?" The memory feels like it takes place centuries ago, even though it has barely been one hour.
One hour isn´t close to being enough time for deciding a measure as radical as this.
"Earth to Gabriel. Anybody home?"
It´s risky, but he has to do this, has to see what he did to his brothers one more time. Slowly he goes back to the edge of the roof, looking down at Michael, at the illusion, that has to be kept upright by Kali, because otherwise it would have collapsed by now as shaky as Gabriel´s concentration is, at Raphael, at all the other angels, feeling nothing coming from them but confusion, pain and anger.
Then he turns to Balthazar, sitting on the roof unmoving, exactly where Kali dropped him after pulling him back from the edge and feels the exact same emotions radiating from his little brother in a wild mess. They are mixed with distrust and the feeling of being betrayed, which is getting stronger by the moment, as Balthazar slowly comes out of shock and his thoughts begin to clear.
Well, shit. He is pretty sure, he will go insane if Balthazar is getting angry at him now, but he can´t really deny that his brother would have every right to. After all the olive oil, really blew through every No-Go-barrier ever.
"Gabriel, seriously, do you want me to do it for you, or what? It was part of the plan, remember?"
Yes, it was and he hadn´t even been drunk or stoned when he agreed to killing his brother. There goes that excuse.
Balthazar is just watching everything with wide eyes and Gabriel feels how inside him the Trickster awakes to protect him from his conscience and painful stuff like that, pushing aside everything that is Gabriel and trying to take control, or more likely already having it, because what he just pulled to hurt Michael was a textbook Trickster move. And the Trickster will go on now and finish Michael off, because the Trickster doesn´t care. Being the Trickster doesn´t hurt, that´s why he always liked it. The Trickster can do anything and walk away just shrugging it off.
Kali has stepped beside him and he hasn´t even noticed. "Seriously", Kali says again, her voice sounding surprisingly – and in some way creepily- soft. "And this point it would be a mercy to kill him"
The Trickster agrees with her. Loki too, after a short moment of hesitation. And Gabriel is drowning in sudden panic, turning to Balthazar for support, because he just realized he can neither kill Michael, nor let someone else do it, because Michael is his brother for crying out loud, but Balthazar just shrugs like he is still struggling to make sense of any of this and says: "Feeling what he feels, I can´t really disagree with her, can I?"
The easiest way, would be just to be the Trickster and be done with it. Give in and don´t think about the past or future consequences, go on living the way he has been living since he ran as Loki.
But he can´t do that. Because handing heaven to the Trickster would in some ways be worse than leaving it with Michael. He needs to be Gabriel for this, even if if every second burns him inside.
"It´s enough Kali. Leave him alone"
She raises an eyebrow, shooting him a strange look and he grabs her arm with one hand, reaching for Balthazar with the other.
"We are leaving. Doesn´t matter where to, let´s just go!"
Kali winds out of his grip with startling ease, giving him her next-time-you-are-freaking-dead-glare, but at least she doesn´t continue the topic of killing Michael or not.
And while Gabriel shoots one last look at Michael, his brother´s numbness and deep, deep pain beneath it radiating through him even though Gabriel is suppressing the bond with all his force, he wonders if his angel part just made the cruelest decision of them all, leaving someone to suffer who Loki and the Trickster would long have mercy killed.
"You have a house in Bali right at the beach and you chose to live in a temple in Calcutta?" Balthazar has woken from his stasis, trying to take in the almost comically white beach and the calm turquoise sea behind it, the idyllic nature where they just landed forming a completely surreal contrast to the dark and pain-filled alleyway they just left. "I mean, what the hell is wrong with you, this place is perfect!"
"And not really hers", Gabriel reveals, an involuntary grin stealing on his face. The complete atmosphere change has also scrambled with him, making the surreal beautiful beach seem like a dream, that can not possibly exist in the same world as Michael´s grief. On some level he is feeling guilty for automatically relaxing, but mostly he just wants to spent a day or a week at the beach, screw heaven, screw responsibilities, screw everything.
"Well, the owners are devout enough and they only use it once a year for a few days", Kali retorts, holding open the door of a neat, but obviously sinfully expensive little house. "Also I kind of have a right to this island. More than 90 % of the people here are Hindus. Well, not counting the tourists obviously, they really are annoying"
"Wait!", Balthazar whines. "Why do you get places like Bali and we get Europe and America? That´s so unfair!"
"We´ve also got Mauritius and the Caribbean", Kali grins, clearly having fun.
"What…? Gabriel, I want to convert"
"Nope" Gabriel shakes his head, trying to hide his smile at seeing Balthazar behaving so much like the fledgling he remembers "Converting never ends well, mark my words"
"Well, you didn´t have to chose the Norse", Kali gives back. "I mean, when I think about it now, you could have chosen anything and you chose freezing Europeans"
"You converted to what?"
"Uh, yeah, Norse mythology", Gabriel tells Balthazar, who is looking at him, like he just grew a second head. "I was young and needed the money" Balthazar slowly shakes his head, looking like reality is starting to dribble in again and it is way more crazy than anticipated "No, seriously, I was Loki and don´t say anything against Loki, I quite liked being him"
"I quite liked you being him", Kali quips in, the smile on her face not really leaving room for interpretation on what she is talking about.
"Yeah, thanks", Gabriel answers distracted by the sudden pain and confusion on Balthazar´s face. "Hey kiddo, are you okay? I know it´s a bit much right now, but you´ll get used to it"
"No, I´m fine", the younger angel answers, batting away the hand Gabriel just placed on his shoulder. "Just waiting to wake up in heaven to someone telling me I hit my head really hard, but whatever"
"That´s the normal reaction people have when they meet him the first time", Kali informs, ignoring Gabriel´s hissed demands to shut her mouth. "Are you coming in now, or are we doing a beach party?"
Both angels hesitate for a moment, Balthazar looking pleadingly at Gabriel, then Gabriel sighs, dragging Balthazar with him into the house, ignoring his brother´s weak protests. "Beach party only after we´ve sorted out heaven. Damn it, why do I have to be the adult now?"
Five minutes later the house is inspected from bottom to top, the first scramble over the TV remote has taken place, Gabriel has claimed one of the divans and Kali the other, leaving Balthazar sulking in an armchair that is probably more comfortable than the divans but whatever and the little coffee table between the divans is absolutely littered with chocolate bars and other sweet sins.
"Not that I´m complaining", Kali remarks, switching through some Bollywood channels, that make Balthazar groan and mutter something about Titanic and horrible singing. "But aren´t we kind of trying to take over heaven?"
"We are and I am trying to forget it for a few minutes, but you are ruining my break", Gabriel complains, methodically rumbling through the sweets heap on the coffee table and claiming the best bits. He isn´t really keen on leaving this dreamlike state of pretending they have all the time in the world and that it is totally reasonable to destabilize heaven, by putting everyone through massive agony and then just leave to Bali for holidays, but he knows he can´t push reality back forever and something is already nagging at him. "Wait, how safe are we here? Michael can get pretty radical and he certainly wants you dead now"
"Come on, it´s not the first time I have used this house as a refuge", Kali replies switching off the TV with a sigh. "Not even the first time we are using it together. "It´s protected enough and believe me, I won´t be killed by some Christian"
"Yeah, I know, everyone always underestimates angels, but that is kind of my point..." Gabriel suddenly falls quiet, turning his head and trying to take in as much of his surroundings as possible without having to rise from the divan and thereby giving it up to Balthazar. "Wait, am I the only one feeling something Norse?"
"Says the one I thought was a Norse God for ages", Kali answers, suddenly snappy. "It´s nothing, you are the only Norse thing in here"
Gabriel shrugs, deciding that he doesn´t need any more worries and certainly won´t try to find new ones, if the don´t come smashing in the door. Balthazar doesn´t seem too worried either, so he decides that maybe it is time to focus on something useful again for a change.
"So, Michael is still around"-Kali scoffs at that- "but he shouldn´t do too much right now. I´ve now got the coming-back-from-the-dead-effect and intend to use that at full cost. There should be people following me if I turn up again, the thing is just… The thing is, I´m not sure if I want a war and if I start to rally this could become one. Heck, I have kept out of this for so long and I never even wanted to rule heaven. But I can´t leave Michael to torture any more people, so I had and HAVE to do something … I´m a mess, aren´t I?"
"You never planned this whole thing out, didn´t you?", Balthazar asks, not even waiting for an answer. "Great, just great"
"Hey, I wanted you out and I got you out", Gabriel defends himself.
"Yeah, just..." Balthazar takes a breath, starring at the chocolate bar he just snapped from the coffee table, as if he can´t quite remember how it ended up in his hand. "Gabriel, you hurt people, including me, to eventually make them listen to you and that… sounds way too much like Michael for my taste"
The last remains of their short-lived dreamworld puff into smoke. Bali suddenly doesn´t feel that much different from the alleyway and the blazing feeling in Gabriel´s throat returns as intense as if someone just poured liquid steel into his mouth. The two angels just stare at each other, Gabriel overwhelmed by the sudden urge to hit Balthazar and Balthazar looking back with a strange kind of resignation in his eyes. Like he has been in situations of this kind before, getting punished for speaking his mind and that thought is enough to make Gabriel snap out of his rage, sinking back into the divan.
"Sorry, Balth", he mumbles, pressing one hand against his forehead. "I wouldn´t have done it, I´m not like Michael, I´m not like my brothers, I was just...Shit, I´m sorry"
Balthazar just nods, trying to relax back into his armchair, but still eying the archangel warily, more out of habit then of direct mistrust again Gabriel, but it is still breaks Gabriel´s heart.
"Uh, do you boys want to have the house for yourself?", Kali suddenly asks, surprising both angels.
"What, you are already having enough soap opera? That´s not very much like you Kali", Gabriel says, but he is kind of glad to get her to go away without throwing her out – which probably wouldn´t turn out very well anyway - and he really needs to take care of Balthazar now, before things can get bad between them.
"I only like the drama part of soap operas", Kali declares "and this will turn into the cheesy part way to quickly, so I´m at the beach. See you later, boys"
"She watches Bollywood", Balthazar bursts out, the moment Kali has vanished, while throwing himself on her divan and jamming the TV remote into his pocket "and she has the nerve to say she doesn´t like cheesy stuff?"
Gabriel just shrugs. "I think she mostly did it to annoy you, but then again it´s kind of an epidemic with the Hindu. You won´t believe what kind of stuff Ganesha watches… Anyway, how cheesy do you want our talk?"
"I´m not sure if she is even right about it getting cheesy at all", Balthazar replies, crossing his arms in front of his chest. "I don´t trust her and I´m not sure why you do"
"Good, never trust her completely, she can be pretty mean. But she never betrayed me the hard way and she won´t start now. We had something going on for quite some time, trust me, we will be fine"
"So she had quite some time to get angry at you?"
"Yeah, probably. Okay, you better take care" Gabriel forces a laugh, mentally already preparing himself to ask the question that has been pushing at the back of his mind ever since he heard what Michael did to Raphael. To be honest, he doesn´t really want to know the answer to it, doesn´t know if he can take the truth, but he also knows that he just has to know. Has to know how much Michael did to the younger angels, in particular to the one sitting in front of him, has to know what Balthazar had to go through, while he himself has an easy life as Loki, even if he can never face himself again after hearing about it.
"Uhm, this is a really bad change of subject, but I can´t for the hell of it come up with a good way to start this conversation and honestly I´m afraid of having it, but… Did Michael… to you… did he ever…?"
"You mean if I was in reeducation?" Balthazar looks nervous and is fiddling with a pillow, but he clearly has been expecting that question. "With my inability to keep my mouth shut? What do you think?"
"He calls it reeducation?" Gabriel asks incredulous and for one moment he doesn´t regret at all what he did to Michael. His brother is a monster, deserving all of it and a thousand times worse.
"Balthazar, that´s like rule number one! If a country has "democratic" in it´s name it certainly is a dictatorship and if someone says "reeducation" or some other fancy word, that sounds like brainwash the second time you about it, you can bet it´s self righteous torture. In both cases you run and never look back, got that?"
Balthazar is not looking into his eyes, still very interested in the pillow. "Are you just giving me shit for being trapped in what basically is a dictatorship for millenniums?", he asks, voice faltering and Gabriel recoils as if Balthazar had physically punched him in the guts.
"That´s not… Balthazar, I would never do that! I´m not angry at you, I´m just angry at the whole situation, at Michael, at Father… Shit, what did they do to you? How many times…?"
He still can´t say it, doesn´t even dare to imagine it. Balthazar was so young during Lucifer´s rebellion, still so much like a fledgling and the thought of having just left him, having left them all with a monster, makes him want to curl up and cry for eternity.
Balthazar still isn´t looking at him and it is driving Gabriel crazy. The younger angel also takes his time to answer, toying with the pillow a bit more, then throwing it through the room with considerable force and pulling his knees up to his chest, like a frightened little child.
"I don´t know", he finally says, very softly. "The funny thing about reeducation is… if they are doing it right, you won´t remember a thing. Not what you did, not that you even were in reeducation and if you really screwed up, not a few other things from your past, that you really would have liked to remember. So you can´t really tell. I mean, you guess of course. There is something in the way people look at you and how you are struggling, feeling confused, like you just had a huge blackout… The uncertainty is maybe the worst thing about it. When you spent days wondering whether you were just punished horribly or whether you are just forgetting things like normal and your thoughts about reeducation are paranoia and no one will answer your questions... There are no scars, no way to know and you feel yourself slowly going insane" He shakes his head rapidly, snapping out of some kind of trance. "I had that feeling four times. Most horrible thing that ever happened to me"
"Four times", Gabriel croaks out, because he honestly has no idea what to say to the other stuff. Norse gods can be pretty rough and some of their jokes really don´t qualify as jokes any more, but he has never remotely suffered something like what Balthazar is describing. Being pushed around a bit is absolutely ridiculous against the panic and self doubt his little brother must have suffered every single time, all alone with his fear.
Outside the sun shines brightly, postcard wetter, a light-colored house on a perfect beach.
It is sickening, really.
Balthazar gives the least convincing shrug ever. "Yeah, so maybe they got me four times. Maybe they got me two times and I´m just paranoid. Maybe they got me fifty times and I am naive. I only know of one time for sure"
"So you remember it?" Gabriel seriously has no idea anymore if that is good or bad. If you remember, at least you know there was something and can´t slide into so much self doubt and uncertainty. You know you aren´t going mad. But at the same time, his little brother remembering torture is of course the absolutely last thing he wants.
Balthazar shakes his head. "Not the reeducation and I´m glad about that. One of the times I wasn´t sure, Castiel came to me after a while and he remembered parts of what we did and when he told me, it started coming back to me too. Apparently we ran into quite some trouble together in old Egypt..."
He interrupts himself, startled by a groan from Gabriel. "No, please, not Castiel too! No offense Balth, but how could you pull Castiel into any of this? You should have told him off, no one should have ever allowed the little ones to get hurt..."
"Gabriel", Balthazar interrupts him, looking straight at him for the first time since they began talking about this horrid topic. "Castiel isn´t that little any more. And I couldn´t tell him off, because he pulled me into it"
That totally takes Gabriel by surprise. He knows of course that he has missed a lot and that everyone in heaven has had to grow up or go under, but…
"Wait, we are talking about the same Castiel, aren´t we? Little Cassie? The one who could never hurt anyone and would lie in the garden for hours, watching bees of all things, then telling everyone about them for just as many hours and no one could ever throw him out or interrupt him, because it was just too adorable? Little Cassie pulled you into rebellion?"
"I know", Balthazar replies. "Turns out he can be pretty scary when he puts his mind to something"
"Like "Holy shit my puppy just went nuclear!"-scary?", Gabriel asks, still not quite able to imagine it.
Balthazar gives a quick laugh, then goes silent, a deep shadow passing over his face. "We shouldn´t make fun of him. He really grew up, well, I guess he had to, and he is maybe the one who tried the hardest to save us all. I have no idea how he does it, but they drag him to reeducation and a few months later it´s like they never did it. He just bounces back from it" Balthazar is speaking with honest awe now, but there is a deep sadness underneath it and Gabriel already dreads how this story will end.
"Well, he did at least. A few years past… guess he finally pushed it too far. I have no idea what they did, but it´s like they wiped his mind clean. I´m scared they killed him for real this time. The part that makes him Castiel I mean"
The following silence is overwhelming. Gabriel pictures the fledgling that Castiel was, one of the kindest and sweetest ones there ever was. Definitely no traditional rebel like himself and Balthazar. Crazy what you learn about people when you push them too far.
Balthazar has curled himself up again and Gabriel has the feeling that his little brother is close to a breakdown. He himself feels strangely lost, having the feeling that he should mourn Castiel like Balthazar apparently does, but not willing nor able to take yet another hit. It´s always one more hit, why does it always have to be one more hit?
"Hey Balthy", he calls out to his little brother, the one he still has. "Remember Cassie nearly stepping on The Fish?"
Balthazar looks confused for a moment and Gabriel nearly curses himself- what if that is one of the memories that were taken from Balthazar?-, but suddenly his face lights up and he starts to smile. "That was crazy"
"It was" Gabriel agrees, fondly remembering that day. Father had finally gotten the hang of evolution and allowed all the angels, even the smallest fledglings to go to earth and watch the fish, that would later evolve into humankind over uncountable generations, come out of the water. Michael had made a fuss about everything, most of all about the fledglings, worrying endlessly about them and what could happen to them, but in the end it had been a wonderful day. They had all been at the beach hours early, in maybe the biggest family trip ever and it had been perfect. Perfect chaos yes, that too, but also perfect in every other way.
"First time Cassie got out of heaven", Balthazar says, a little smile playing on his lips. "I never saw anyone so utterly fascinated by waves and pebbles" "You were the one who told him the pebbles were exciting" "Yeah, because he was disappointed that there were no bees. On a beach! And anyway I didn´t count on him playing with the pebbles for solid three hours, perfectly happy"
Gabriel shakes his head, now smiling too. "Wow, he probably was the easiest fledgling to entertain, ever. You certainly weren´t" "Don´t say that like it´s a bad thing!" "I´m not, I´m not … Cassie just totally forgot The Fish, didn´t he? We were waiting for hours for that fish, talking about nothing else for days and then it comes and Cassie just toddles around at the ocean, and almost steps on The freaking Fish. I was sure Michael was having a heart attack right next to me"
Balthazar laughs, slowly shaking his head. "You tell me. And then Lucifer just sweeps in and picks up Cassie, telling him that there are big plans for that fish and Cassie seriously apologizes to that freaking fish, because of course he does, and we all die from an overdose of cuteness and Lucifer plays with Cassie the whole evening...wait, did Lucifer freaking save humanity from Cassie?"
"He did, oh Father, he really did Wonder if he remembers", Gabriel gasps and suddenly they are both laughing and gasping for air, and maybe it isn´t even that funny, but they both need it and in some way it really is funny and for a few minutes the world is just fine.
Then Balthazar raises his head, wiping laughing tears from his eyes, but suddenly wary.
"Uh, Gabriel, I don´t want to ruin the mood and I don´t even know if something is bad or wrong, but what is that?"
What? Gabriel almost asks, but then he suddenly feels it too. Someone Norse, no multiple someones and it was there from the beginning and he knew it, but Kali shrugged it off.
Kali shrugged it off…
There was also someone Norse the second time at Kali´s apartment, when Kali took so long to open the door, after the horrible talk at the warehouse, but Gabriel though nothing about it, never even asked. Well, Kali´s sex life is her thing, even if it would be nice to know as what exactly she sees him right now, but this is something else, this is about spying. Did the Norse God at Kali´s even leave when Gabriel came in? How much did he hear? How much did he hear now?
And where the hell is Kali, because it doesn´t feel like there is anyone at the beach.
"Gabriel?", Balthazar asks carefully, getting up from the divan "What is it? Are we in danger?"
"I don´t know", Gabriel replies tensely, not wanting to alarm his brother, but also very aware that Balthazar is no fledgling, that you can tell anything anymore. "Take your blade and stay behind me"
Balthazar obeys just in time, as the door explodes.