Raphael feels like he has spent the last few days balancing on a very thin wire, which is stretched over a deep abyss, the other side, where he´ll be safe, barely visible. He isn´t exactly sure when he decided to ignore the risk of falling and try to cross that chasm.
Was it in the garden, when he stood up to Michael for the first time since he can remember, bursting with emotions he couldn´t even name after all those years of emptiness? Or was it even before, when he decided to follow Michael into the garden without permission? Or was the seed planted even before that, when he heard what Michael had done to him and suddenly his emptiness and missing memories made sense in a horrible way, more twisted than he could ever have come up with on his own, and a long forgotten part of him startled awake with a roar, pushing against the layers of fear he had become so used to be trapped in, he started seeing them as a part of himself?
Anyway, the moment he set foot on that wire, he knew he only had this one chance to get across and if he failed, he would fall and never recover again. And if he tried to turn back to safety, he would probably fall anyway, or at least Michael would make sure he would never again get a chance to try and cross the chasm.
It´s an incredibly shaky balance act to stand up to Michael, to defend the younger angels, to always say the right thing, be clear enough to be taken serious, but not so clear that Michael sees his words as an attack, and every step of that act scares Raphael more than he could ever express.
It´s a dark, lurking fear, the one that has controlled him for so long and forced him to give in again and again, taking Michael´s words as law. He wants to give in to the fear, finds it so natural to give in to it, that it seems crazy just to think about keeping up the fight, a fight in which he is blind most of the time, because his worldview has been pieced together by Michael, and ripping himself lose from that, trying to find his own way and fiddling with relations of which he can´t remember how they developed in the first place, is just an absolutely insane task.
But he can´t go back, so he forces himself to go on. Step by step, even though the fear feels like fire in his guts and when it burns him to the bones he tells himself that this is just like every other fight. He can win this one just as easy as a physical one.
He can sit down next to Michael, like they are equals.
He can offer his help to Michael and thereby throw over the previous rules of their relationship using just a few sentences.
He can be skeptic, if Michael´s plans are just off base.
He can defend younger angels against Michael´s anger.
And each of these decisions terrifies him to the core, throws his mind into dark places that were pushed back far and never supposed to be found again, places where he finds himself in excruciating pain, begging for Michael to stop whatever he is doing to him, but Michael just looks at him with fire in his eyes and ice in his voice when he tells him: "You are not my brother anymore. If you want to do yourself a favor, stop whining like I would care", then goes on tearing Raphael apart piece by piece.
He wants to scream. He wants to kill Michael. He wants to take vengeance for every second his oldest brother made him suffer. He wants to hear Michael scream and cry and maybe then the fire would stop burning him out from the inside.
But for some reason he never takes action.
For some reason he stays with Michael, listens to orders and only speaks up, when he is sure it´s worth the risk. He stands by when his brother tortures Kali and even thought he cares nothing about the Hindu goddess his throat goes dry watching Michael´s cruelty and his heart jackhammers against his chest, one single thought racing through his mind over and over again.
This is what he did to me.
This is what he did to me.
This is what he did to me.
And then
Why am I still here then, standing at his side like a good little soldier?
He doesn´t kill Michael, but is it because he chooses not to? Because he is somehow morally better than Michael? Or rather because deep down he is still a mindless soldier and a coward, unable to go against the one who has abused him for thousands of years, unable to free himself for good?
He can´t think about that now, because with a bit of bad luck, the answer will throw him off the wire and right into the chasm.
So he doesn´t think about it, or how he feels about Michael breaking in front of his eyes, or about Gabriel, who he can barely remember, pushing it all away like he is used to, till he is standing on that beach and sees Michael frozen to the spot, unable to approach Gabriel.
"Just go", Raphael urges him, without thinking about what he is saying. He spent thousands of years, thinking carefully about every word he said, turning it around in his mind again and again and not uttering it, if there was any chance that Michael could get it wrong and use it as excuse to start insulting him, and now he finds that this kind of overthinking fuels his fear even more, raising it to unbearable levels. "You both need it"
Michael blinks at him, with an unreadable expression and carefully steps closer to Gabriel and Balthazar, who both look like they aren´t planing to let go of each other any time soon.
Raphael knows that he should take command of the younger angels, as he always does when Michael is busy otherwise. He should get some order into this mess, he should sent the angels who aren´t needed with this outcome back to heaven, only leaving a few to keep an eye on the fighting Norse and then he should decide what is to be done with the survivor, then return to heaven himself, awaiting new orders…
Raphael realizes he has crushed his vessel´s fingertips so hard into his vessel´s opposite palm, that blood is flowing. He could heal that little mishap within a second, but instead he just stands and stares, watching the blood drip on the sand like the steady drop is hypnotizing him, while somewhere a universe away, Michael and Gabriel are talking and hugging and crying and making impossible promises.
Just go. You both need it.
What about me? Raphael thinks, while fear and insecurity about his position are crushing him from the inside, damaging him worse than even the fire. What if I need it too?
But they don´t want him, do they? He can´t count how many times Michael has told him, that he is inferior, that there is nothing between them, that he should leave him alone.
Mindless soldier.
You are not an archangel.
You are not my brother.
He told himself he didn´t care about anything all this time and maybe he didn´t. But those words never stopped cutting, no matter how much they became normality and they never cut deeper than they do now, as he is standing alone in the middle of the beach, the younger angels far behind him, Michael and Gabriel finding each other again in front of him.
Would anyone even miss him, if he just went away? Michael and Gabriel have got each other now and the younger angels would be glad to get rid of him.
Raphael was never as tethered to heaven and the garden as Michael was, but he never was a natural runaway like Lucifer and Gabriel either. Yet in this moment he feels what he assumes Gabriel must have felt, right before he turned his back to heaven. Heat in his stomach, threatening to burn him. Blood pounding in his ears. The feeling that something dark is right behind him, just one second away from swallowing him whole, his legs and wings aching from the urge to bolt and run until all feelings fade away into exhaustion and he can finally breathe again.
It´s just too much to bear and he almost gives in to his impulses, when a sudden thought derails him, pushing back the darkness. Despite what he thought first he actually has areliable memory of Gabriel, one that he is fairly sure didn´t get tinkered with, since it´s just a few days old, formed in the warehouse, where he saw Gabriel seemingly for the first time.
"What do you say?", the little brother, he barely remembers is asking, holding out a hand to Raphael and trying to smile for him to cover up his shock, after what they both just heard from Michael. "You come with me and we are getting out of this mess?"
Gabriel cared about him, cared after all these years and Raphael is close to tears, because he has no idea how he deserved that kind of offer, how he deserved someone who still cares.
It´s like he is still balancing on the wire, scared to fall, but now Gabriel is standing on the other side of the chasm, holding out his hand and urging him to take the next step.
And suddenly Raphael is running, the chasm forgotten and then he is breathlessly dropping down next to his little brother, who is hurt and crying and curled into Michael like a fledgling and Michael is shooting him a strange look and mouthing "What are you doing here?", while pressing Gabriel closer to himself. And Raphael, to far gone to ever turn back, looks Michael straight in the eyes and with only a minimal tremble in his voice announces: "I am his brother too"
"He is hurt, this is not the time...", Michael begins, but Gabriel peaks up at the sound of the other archangel´s voice, whispering "Raphael?", through his tears and Raphael has no idea what to do and if he should touch his brother or not, but Gabriel takes away that decision by grabbing for his hand and holding it just as tight as his other hand is holding on to Michael.
"Missed you", the youngest archangel murmurs, curled between two of his older brothers, purposely not addressing one of them directly.
"Missed you too, I guess", Raphael whispers back and even thought he barely has memories of his little brother, he knows it isn´t a lie. One of the funny things about reeducation is, that no matter how carefully they erase the traces of what they took from you, the feeling that something vital is missing never stops.
They heal Gabriel on the beach, Michael letting Gabriel lean against him, while Raphael kneels in front of his brothers to have a better look.
Michael wants to bring Gabriel home first and get him more comfortable, but Raphael thinks that moving the youngest archangel now could do some serious damage and tells Michael so without hesitating, not quite sure where this new surge of confidence is coming from.
"It´s not like I want him to fly by himself", Michael hisses back, shooting wary looks around and even without the bond Raphael can feel how tense his brother is. He probably still can´t believe that Gabriel is alive and having the archangel bond cut off in this moment, is clearly driving him crazy, as is his paranoia that something horrible will happen at the last minute, if they don´t get their youngest to heaven now. "I can carry him, he wouldn´t even have to move"
"It would still be a strain on him and that´s the last thing we want", Raphael answers, not even looking up from the checkup he is doing on Gabriel and sharply taking in breath, when he realizes how much grace his little brother has lost. "Those wounds aren´t fatal right now, but I definitely wouldn´t start experimenting how much we can do till they are"
"Leave him", Gabriel murmurs weakly into Michael´s shoulder and both of the older archangels immediately shut up to listen to him, although Raphael´s hands never stop moving, concentrating on getting the major wounds at least superficially healed, so that Gabriel won´t loose any more blood and grace at least. "He´s the healer"
For one moment Raphael is seriously confused who Gabriel is defending here, but then Michael huffs in apparent defeat, pushing Raphael´s hands away to look after the superficial wounds himself and motioning for his brother to take care of Gabriel´s grace, which is the far more complicated task and that throws Raphael completely off guard.
"Wait, since when am I the healer?", he asks, but even as he utters the words, he knows that Gabriel is probably right and it starts nagging at him, that Michael apparently not only took his past, but also his true mission. There a no old memories to support him having been a healer at some point, but he remembers how naturally healing Balthazar earlier felt, how confident he suddenly got while checking up Gabriel, almost like some part of him was certain that he knew more than Michael and that the oldest archangel would see that eventually and give him control.
Gabriel stars up at Raphael as if he just exploded, fear suddenly creeping back into the youngest archangel´s eyes and he slightly jerks away from Michael, pushing feebly again his oldest brother´s hold. He probably isn´t even doing it conciously, but Raphael still feels like a traitor for pushing his little brother back into Michael´s grip, telling him to keep still.
"Are you kidding me?" Gabriel rasps, like he is trying to shout, but his body isn´t supporting him at all. "You always were the healer! rafa´el ! Your freaking name means "God heals"! Who did you think you were?"
Did I tell you I wanted a comment?
I am your superior and you will do what I say and you won´t question it! Ever!
I was right, you are just a mindless soldier.
Just a mindless soldier.
Raphael raises his head, searching for Michael´s eyes, but his older brother´s gaze is fixed on Gabriel´s wounds and he refuses to look up, shoulders shaking so hard, Raphael isn´t sure, if his brother is crying again. They have all become creepily good at crying without making a sound over the years.
"I don´t know", he tells Gabriel, not sure why he is protecting Michael again, even though he should call him out without hesitation, but he feels like he is doing the right thing, when a bit of peace returns into the youngest archangels eyes. "I guess I didn´t think much about myself at all"
They stop talking after that. Gabriel falls into a state of unconciousness, only twitching and whimpering when Michael moves behind him, Michael stubbornly refuses to even look at Raphael, but does everything his little brother tells him to do without questioning it and Raphael is busy pushing away a new flood of emotions and feelings of emptiness, in order to dig out everything he knew about healing grace, from wherever Michael stashed it.
It feels like wading through mud and while there is still some knowledge left to recover, Raphael has no illusions at all about most memories Michael touched being destroyed forever. His hands seem to remember though, so he is pretty sure he could do this based on long practiced instincts and motor memory and probably would, if he wasn´t to scared of further injuring Gabriel, because he was too proud to ask a simple question.
He asks a few little questions in the end, only enough to feel certain that he isn´t making everything up out of nowhere and Michael seems a bit relieved to be needed, which is something Raphael tries really hard not to see with malice. Without you taking away my memories I wouldn´t even need help he thinks, for once glad that the archangel bond isn´t working here, because he doesn´t want to distress Gabriel with his sudden fury. The little one deserves a bit of rest, without the past troubling him in any way.
The sun is rising, when he finally steps back, but he has no idea if that means much time has passed or not. Raphael has never really learned to keep track of time, first living from moment to moment, then from order to order. "That´s it", he tells Michael, who is still holding Gabriel close and absentmindedly stroking his little brother´s hair. "I think we did all we can do for now and if he doesn´t strain himself too much, he is going to be fine. Let´s give him a bit of rest, when he wakes up we can all go home"
Home meaning the garden, as he realized while speaking the words. Home has always been the garden.
Michael just keeps his eyes on Gabriel, who is still unconscious, but doesn´t seem to be in pain anymore. The youngest archangel looks relaxed and incredibly young, but gratefully also very alive, with his chest rising and falling softly and a bit of color returned to his cheeks.
For a moment both of the older archangels just watch their little brother breathe, then Raphael abruptly turns around, as the feeling that Gabriel and Michael are doing just fine without him and that he is being the third wheel, suddenly overwhelms him again
"I...should look after the young ones", he presses out, striding hastily away, eyes fixed on the sand.
Do your duty.
Mindless soldier.
You are not my brother anymore.
And Michael hasn´t even looked at him since Gabriel accidentally revealed some more of the extent of what he did to Raphael. Because he regrets it? Or is that just what Raphael tells himself and his brother doesn´t look at him, because his mindless-soldier plan just blew up and he doesn´t know what to do with Raphael now?
Wait, since when does he think of Michael as his brother again? Michael is nothing more than his leader, his superior, has been for millenniums. He can´t loose it now, as nice as it is to have Gabriel back, as much as he wished to have brothers again, he has to get it together.
Remember who he really is, or he is making himself vulnerable. If you have nothing at least nothing can be taken from you. If you don´t care about anything, at least nothing can hurt you.
Mindless soldier.
"Rafa´el", Michael calls out softly and freezing mid step Raphael isn´t sure what to make of Michael´s sudden Hebrew pronunciation, but he slowly turns around, expecting an order, concerning the younger angels maybe.
Michael looks him straight in the eyes and whispers: "Thank you"
It was my duty, Raphael almost responds, but that wouldn´t be the truth, not at all. He wanted to heal Gabriel, needed to heal Gabriel. He needed to do this, in order to stitch himself back together.
"Be careful with him", he answers, even though he is sure Michael will handle Gabriel like a raw egg for the next weeks anyway, but he doesn´t know what else to say without loosing his shields completely. And breaking down in front of Michael is something he just can´t do yet, can maybe never do again.
But that doesn´t mean things can´t get better he realizes, because as he lifts his head and walks away from his brothers, a warm feeling is swirling in his stomach, lifting him in a way he wouldn´t have thought possible only days ago.
Thank you.
And slowly the healer starts to heal.
…
After he´s given up Gabriel to Michael, Balthazar is restless, although he knows he couldn´t have healed his brother on his own. Gabriel needs archangels to take care of him, no matter how much Balthazar hates to give him to someone, he just can´t trust after all that has happened in heaven.
He is expecting to be called by someone, told that he should do something useful not just stand and stare, but Raphael, who now is officially in charge, seems to be stuck in a crisis himself and when the last archangel goes to join his brothers, no one is quite sure who is in command any more.
They watch the Norse fight for a bit, but it would feel wrong to intervene. Actually it feels wrong to even look. This is someone else´s tragedy and Balthazar is really glad that the archangels haven´t brought someone working too close with Naomi, or someone like Zachariah (Although he has long suspected that Zachariah is part of Naomi´s team) Those dicks just wouldn´t understand that it´s best not to get involved here, because of simple decency, which probably is a foreign concept to them.
In the end it´s Frigga, who missed a step in her anger and anguish. Balthazar doesn´t even blink when Hoder finishes the bitch, who tortured Gabriel, but there is still something wrong about seeing someone kill his mother and when Hoder lifts his head and realized that he has had quite an audience, there are tears in the blind god´s eyes.
They stay frozen for a moment, Hoder clearly waiting to be executed, but none of the angels moves an inch. Maybe they are waiting for orders. Maybe they feel as uncomfortable as Balthazar does.
He just has to think about Hoder pouring holy oil – yes, yes, it wasn´t holy oil, he thought it was - on Gabriel´s wings and he wants to rip the bastard´s throat out. But he wasn´t blind to what was going on between Frigga and Hoder either, and damn, he knows a thing or two about being neglected, but being driven so far by it, the killing your family seems the only way to get free …
"Anyone thinks the archangels will fry us, if we let him go?", Balthazar asks into the silence, voice incredibly scratchy.
There are a few hisses like "We aren´t a democracy!" and "Since when are you in charge?", but since most angels don´t really know much about Hoder and his role in all of this and no one wants to disturb the archangels at any cost, most just keep quite.
"Okay", Balthazar announces, trying to sound much more certain than he really is. "Just go and don´t bother us ever again, do you understand?"
Hodor´s blind eyes are like endless pits. "Where can I even go?", he asks, no emotions left in his voice. The corpse of his mother is lying at his feet, but he ignores it, like she ignored him his whole life. "You don´t think I can go to Asgard after this, do you?"
"I don´t care", Balthazar manages and suddenly he knows that he isn´t letting Hoder get away, never really planned to. The only way Hodor can get away is death and Balthazar is refusing him exactly that. "You wanted to be free, you killed your family to get free, now live with it. I really don´t care what you do now, as long as you never touch my brother again"
And as long as I never have to think about whether I´m giving you another chance here, or whether this is the cruelest thing I´ve ever done.
They stand in silence for a while, Balthazar almost yearning for Hoder to say something, that gives a new twist to this whole mess, something Balthazar can cling to, to make up his mind, but Hoder never spoke much and he isn´t starting now.
His expression is unreadable as he picks up his mother´s corpse, shortly vanishes, then comes back for Baldur and vanishes hopefully forever. Balthazar wonders if he is going to give Baldur and Frigga a proper funeral, or if he is just going to throw the bodies of a cliff.
He wonders what he would have done.
Strangely after Hoder is gone, no one brings up going back to heaven, although that is probably what they should do. A strange silence has settled over the beach, with the angels standing around in groups of two or three, watching the archangels, the waves, the sky, wondering about the future. It feels like the end of something and like a beginning. It feels like a new chance, a chance for freedom, or peace, or maybe just to a catching a break.
Balthazar finds Castiel standing close to the water, staring out at the ocean. Feeling a little guilty about having lost all focus on his little brother after seeing Gabriel, he gently puts a hand on Castiel´s shoulder and is incredibly relieved, when the younger angel doesn´t pull away.
"Are you okay?", he asks quietly, getting a blink and a slightly absent "I think so" in return.
"Good", Balthazar murmurs. Knowing that he won´t get more than that, he heavily sits down on the sand and motions for Castiel to join him. The younger angel looks pretty skeptical and when he finally sits down, it doesn´t look relaxed at all, but hey, small victories are victories too.
Looking out at the water, Balthazar suddenly remembers a different time and a different beach and a grin slowly forms on his face.
"Hey Cassie, remember The Fish?"
Castiel looks confused and Balthazar´s grin quickly vanishes. Of course they would have taken a memory that so prominently features Lucifer in a good way from Castiel. Balthazar has already wondered why he still has the memory. He should have expected anything, really. He should be so crestfallen because of one memory of one stupid day which…
"Did I step on that fish?"
"Yes", Balthazar almost shouts, grinning like an idiot, because somehow impossibly, Gabriel, Castiel and him have all managed to preserve that memory through the years and given how often it could have been ripped from him and Castiel it feels like a victory and not a small one. "Yes, you did"
"Well, almost, humanity exists obviously", he adds after a moment. "But that day was just great, glad you remember it"
Castiel just frowns at him. "I don´t understand what is so great about me almost destroying humanity"
"I guess everything is cute when a fledgling does it", Balthazar muses, leaning back and looking up to the stars. "Cassie, come on, just relax. Remember the stars in Galilee? We ran away just to get a longer look. Stayed all night on that roof and no one ever found out…Wait, did they find out?"
Castiel stays quiet for so long that Balthazar is already preparing to throw that memory on the way to high memories-that-seem-good-,but-are-actually-horrible pile, when the younger angel turns his head and says: "I don´t think so. I don´t have any blank spaces. Have you?"
"No", Balthazar answered, almost dizzy with luck, because Gabriel is safe and he and Castiel have found at least one untainted good memory and the world suddenly looks like there could be some more untainted memories coming up. "Remember how we used to prank Zachariah?"
"Is that why he hates me?"
"Oh, stop saying that, as if that means he is right to bully you. If he is still mad because of our fledgling pranks he is nothing but a giant prick. Okay, he is a giant prick, but still…"
They talk all night about everything and nothing, filling in each others lost memories and stealing glances at the archangels. They kept watch together with the other angels and when the sun comes up Raphael comes over to them.
"How is Gabriel?", Balthazar asks immediately and maybe he is drunk or something, because Raphael, Raphael of all people, actually smiles at him and Balthazar had no idea that the archangel was even capable of that.
"He will be fine, we are just giving him a bit of rest", Raphael answers and Balthazar can keep himself at the last moment from hugging the archangel, hugging Castiel instead.
Raphael freaking smiled.
Castiel has more memories left, than Balthazar would have thought possible.
Gabriel will be alright.
For one moment Balthazar allows himself to just let himself float and cherish his luck. Small victories are victories too. And all piled together, they can be huge.