Someone mentioned that Belial had a passing reference in the show, which I actually didn't remember. I literally just looked up some demon names and thought 'ah, that one will work'. So whether she really was mentioned in the show or not, I have no idea.
This chapter, honestly, is part of a buildup that's been coming for a while between Michael and Gabriel. Like I said in the last author's note, if they want to get anything solid done they're really going to have to get their shit together
I'll be completely honest here and say I don't know how many chapters are left in this story, but...this is really the big climax that we're coming up to. So I guess it's ending soon, depending on how fast I write and what happens in each chapter? I thought I'd let you guys know that this is really the final arc of the story before I finish up.
That doesn't mean I don't have quite a few twists still in store for you guys, though. :)
I also switch perspective a little later in the chapter. I know it's kind of unprecedented, but I think it's absolutely necessary because even if Gabriel isn't there to hear it doesn't mean I can't let you guys see what's up.
Disclaimer: I do not own Supernatural or Harry Potter
Michael and the others had gathered in a drawing room on the second floor, and Gabriel dropped into their midst silently. Muriel was only seconds behind him.
Aziraphale did look uncomfortable. He was hovering near the bookshelf on one side of the room, opposite Michael, but the fact that he wasn't already halfway through one of the thick magic tomes spoke volumes about how uncomfortable he was.
Verchiel, on the other hand, seemed perfectly at ease around Michael. Gabriel thought she was probably faking part of it, but her official air made it obvious why Michael had asked her to come down. She and Michael glanced up from an interrupted conversation.
"And here I thought you might not come." Balthazar was sprawled in an armchair, posture purposefully casual.
"Shows what you know." Gabriel rested his hands in his pockets. "Where's the Order?"
"Downstairs," Castiel said. "I believe they're discussing what to do about Voldemort."
Verchiel frowned. "Is this person an issue?"
"Not to us," Michael said. "We've got bigger issues at the moment."
"It's just a Knight," Gabriel scoffed.
"That's the problem." Aziraphale had drifted closer. Worry had lined his forehead. "It isn't just one of them."
What.
"Fuck," Gabriel said, but it wasn't even close to expressing just how screwed they were. Two Knights? "Who?"
"Paimon." Michael's face was set into determined lines. "I went and had a talk with Cain."
"We thought he might have been involved." Castiel looked determined, as opposed to afraid, but then again he had gone up against worse than a Knight. "What did he say?"
"Not much. He wasn't inclined to share, least of all with me." Michael wasn't quite pacing, but ne wasn't staying still either. "He didn't say how he did it, but it was implied that neither of them were dead in the first place."
Gabriel assumed 'them' referred to the two Knights they were supposed to deal with now. "Well, that's just great. Now we know their origin story. He didn't happen to hand over a convenient shortcut for killing them, did he?"
"The only weapon we don't already posses that works against them is the First Blade," Castiel reminded him - as if Gabriel didn't already know. Castiel needed to grow a sense of humor. "Which, of course, without the Mark is useless."
"Two fucking Knights." Balthazar had gone paler.
"At least we have two archangels on our side," Muriel offered, though she didn't look that much more optimistic.
"Unless we can corned them alone and make sure the other doesn't snow up-" Michael began.
"Why do it one at a time?" Gabriel interrupted. "If we do that whoever's second is going to be a lot more difficult. There's two of us, two of them, we can go after them separately."
Skepticism settled on Michael's face. "After last time?"
Five other angels in the room that Gabriel would have been perfectly happy never explaining what had happened to, and Michael had to go and bring that up. Gabriel crossed his arms. "'Last time' was over two millenia ago. I think I'm good."
"It was Belial then, too." Michael reminded him - as if Gabriel needed reminding. "Don't think this is a coincidence, Gabriel, Cain knew what happened."
"Well, good for him," Gabriel snapped. "That doesn't change anything."
Aziraphale was looking between the two of them, bewildered. "What are-"
"Now is not the time to be cocky." Michael talked over Aziraphale like ne hadn't even heard him.
"I'm not being cocky, I'm saying I've taken a Knight before-"
"Taken?" Michael said incredulously. "You almost died-"
"Since when do you care!"
Balthazar's armchair had been empty for the last few minutes, and Aziraphale was edging towards the door with Muriel. Castiel had retreated towards the opposite end of the room. Verchiel had, very carefully, gotten to her feet and sidled away. Neither Gabriel nor Michael was paying any attention to them.
"What's that supposed to mean?" Michael demanded. Nir fists were clenched at nir sides.
"It means that if you're so worried about what happened to me last time then now's a funny time to start showing it," Gabriel retorted.
"Er," Aziraphale said, "Perhaps we should concentrate on the issue of the Knights?"
"I am trying to." Michael said curtly, turning nir head sharply to look at Aziraphale. "Unless you've got any bright ideas, stay out of it."
"We do have bigger problems than history at the moment," Verchiel pointed out. "You two are the only ones with the power to face a Knight, unless He decides to intervene."
Castiel scoffed. "If He felt like returning at all."
Gabriel felt like his blood had turned to ice.
"What?" Michael questioned sharply. Gabriel let his expression smooth out.
"Nothing."
"Don't give me that-"
"I said it's nothing. It's not anything important."
He could see Michael's eyes move to Castiel, see nem make the connection.
"Really?" Anger and exasperation - two of Michael's favorite emotions. "You want to bring this up now?"
"I'm not doing anything."
"You're picking a fight."
"So what?"
Aziraphale had disappeared out the door. Muriel was on his heels. Castiel and Verchiel had disappeared through various other exits.
"I know what this is about, and now's not the time-"
"I'm sorry, do you not like being reminded of how you tried to keep it a secret?" Gabriel lashed out. "From me?" Fury was building up in him, old emotions long ago bottled up breaking out and surging to the surface.
"I didn't tell anyone," Michael bit out. "I wasn't excluding you specifically! I was trying to keep anyone else from finding out-"
"And that worked so well!"
"I didn't tell anyone He was gone because I thought I had to!" Michael shouted. "If it had gotten out-"
"Apparently, it has! What, did you think Heaven would fall to pieces if anyone found out?" Gabriel spat.
"You've made it pretty clear that you thought it already had!"
"You didn't have any right to keep it secret!" Gabriel was too furious to care that he could hear thunder rumbling outside.
"Why do you care so much about this?" Michael demanded.
"Because you were wrong!" Gabriel exploded. "Because you still refuse to admit that your only justification for what you did is in pieces! Oh no, they know you're just bullshitting your way through things because there's no one telling you what to do-"
"I was doing the best that I could!" Michael was screaming at him now, just as furious as Gabriel. "Heaven is built on order!"
"So you'll do anything to keep that order?" Gabriel challenged him. "Like letting Raphael put Naomi in charge of making them obey?"
"I had nothing to do with-"
"No, you just let it happen! Don't you dare tell me that you didn't know if was happening!"
"Is what it's like now what you want?" Michael demanded. "Heaven in chaos? Angels killing each other to try and be the one giving orders? None of us are meant to try and choose what we do for ourselves!"
"Of course I don't think this is better-"
"Then what, Gabriel?"
The sound of his name in Enochian shocked Gabriel down to his core. No one had called him that in-
"Shut up." He didn't mean to reply in Enochian as well, but it came out like that.
"You don't get to tell me I was wrong when you're the one who left." Michael's words were sharp as ice. The harshness of Enochian syllables didn't make them any softer.
"Don't you dare-"
"I'll dare whatever I want! You're the one who chose to leave!"
"What was my alternative? Stay and watch you cast down more angels?" Gabriel spat. "Do not try and tell me that they all deserved it, because I know they didn't!"
"You had a choice-"
"No, I didn't have a choice! You never gave me one! You expected me to fall into line like a good little soldier!"
"We are soldiers!" Michael snapped.
"I was your sibling!" Gabriel yelled.
Downstairs, all five angels winced.
"Dear," said Aziraphale faintly. "That one was a bit below the belt."
"I think Michael deserved that one, actually," Castiel muttered.
"So you decided to abandon us?" Michael seethed.
"We weren't an 'us' anymore! Heaven was you and your little foot soldiers who you couldn't have given less of a shit about-"
"I cared what happened-"
"You had a fucking funny way of showing it, then!" Gabriel shouted over nem.
"If you care so much about fixing things then why didn't you try back then?" Michael demanded. "Or do you just enjoy blaming me for everything?"
"What could I have done? Talk to you about it and hope you'd actually change things? Don't pretend you were the same as you are now, Michael!" Gabriel didn't want to think about what Michael might have done to him then if he'd expressed the slightest doubt.
"You didn't even try-"
"Because you would have handed me over to Naomi! Made me the soldier you wanted!"
Michael looked like Gabriel had physically struck nem. "How could you think that?"
"Because we all saw what happened to Lucifer! Tell me, Michael, what exactly was I supposed to think?"
"You're my sibling, I wouldn't-"
"Oh, so I'm your sibling when it comes to torture but not when Father is gone?" Gabriel demanded. "The rest of Heaven doesn't count as your siblings? You don't care if they were forced to meet with Naomi? Make up your mind!"
"Everything I did, I thought I was doing the right thing."
"And that makes it right?" Gabriel spat. "I don't believe you. And here I was thinking humanity had actually made you better."
"How dare you," Michael hissed. "I've learned from my mistakes-"
"Is that why you're insisting you were always in the right?"
"You don't understand!"
"Then explain it to me!" Gabriel shouted. "If you're so sure of everything, then explain how you're right, because I don't see it!"
Michael faltered at that. Nir hands were curled to tightly into fists it looked painful. Gabriel couldn't bring himself to care.
"Get out."
"What?" For a minute Gabriel thought he'd heard wrong. You have got to be fucking kidding.
"I said get out!"
"Yeah, that's going to solve everything!" Gabriel shouted back. He couldn't believe Michael was doing this - again. "We argue, your solution is always the same, isn't it, shout at me to go away and the problem solves itself!"
"Just go!" Michael's Grace lashed out, fiery and furious, and Gabriel fled.
The five downstairs heard a heavy thud and a crash that sounded like a vase breaking on the floor. Michael, faintly through the floor separating them, swore viciously in Enochian. It was enough to make some of them wish there was a little more than just a floor in between them and the angry archangel.
"That went fabulously," Balthazar huffed. "There go our good chances with the Knights."
"They wouldn't just refuse to help." Aziraphale was wringing his hands together worriedly. "Not with something like this. Would they?"
"Was I the only one who heard them screaming at each other three seconds ago?" Disbelief dripped from Balthazar's voice.
"We can't say for sure if they would." Castiel cast a wary glance at the ceiling. "Whether or not they'll allow their own feelings to get in the way of solving this issue..."
"Judging by that display, they just might." Verchiel was arguably the most shocked out of all of them. Then again, she'd only been there for about half an hour. "Are they normally like this?"
"Normally, they just avoid each other," Muriel said. "I think it was a mutual agreement to try and stop...well, this kind of thing from happening."
"And that's worked just fantastically," Bathazar muttered.
"We've got to do something," Aziraphale said.
"If you want to go upstairs and try to get Michael to see sense," Castiel said, "be my guest."
"I don't give a flying fuck whether they 'see sense'," Balthazar scoffed, ignoring Aziraphale's tut of disapproval. "I'd just like them to be able to get along long enough to kill a few Knights. After that they can go back to shouting, as long as I'm nowhere nearby."
Verchiel gave him a flat look. "You can't just think about yourself in a situation like this."
"Says who?"
"What the hell is going on?"
All five of them turned to see Hermione staring them down.
"I get here and someone's having a fight and you're just standing here instead of doing anything about it!" Hermione huffed. "Would someone please explain what's going on? Where's Gabriel?"
All the angels glanced at each other.
"We're not really sure," Muriel said. It was true - Gabriel wasn't upstairs anymore, and he could have gone anywhere. Wherever he'd gone, though, was probably nowhere nearby.
"Where's Michael, then?"
Muriel couldn't help but glance upstairs. Hermione followed the glance, and moved towards the staircase.
"Wait just a moment!" Aziraphale hurriedly put himself in between her and the stairs. "I'm not sure that's a good idea-"
"Why not?" Hermione asked sharply.
"Because you're about to walk up to an archangel who's just come out of an argument," Balthazar said, as if it should have been obvious.
"Oh, Merlin." Hermione rolled her eyes. "They were fighting with Gabriel, weren't they?" She sounded like she knew the answer already.
"Were you expecting something like this?" Castiel looked startled.
"They've been half a second away from something like this ever since Michael got their memories back," Hermione said, exasperation coloring her tone. "I tried to tell them that pretending nothing was wrong wasn't going to do anything, but they refused to talk about it, much less to each other." She tried to go around Aziraphale, but he held out an arm in front of her.
"Just a moment-"
"Get out of my way," Hermione tried to push Aziraphale's arm down, and he was startled enough that he let her. "Michael's my friend. I'm not going to be in any danger or whatever you think they're going to do." She strode purposefully upstairs and disappeared around the newel post at the landing.
The floorboards complained under a set of determined feet, a door's hinges creaked once, then twice, and there was a soft thud and click as a door closed.
Five angels were left staring up the stairs after her.
"I'm going to leave," Balthazar said. "I don't want to see what might happen next."
"Michael's not going to do anything to her," Muriel said, somewhat waspishly.
"Are you sure?" Aziraphale sounded worried.
"Surely Michael knows how to control their temper around humans," Verchiel said.
"Well," Balthazar announced, "I'm not sticking around to find out." He made good on it and vanished.
"I'll go find him and make sure he doesn't do anything crazy," Muriel volunteered. That left Castiel, Verchiel, and Aziraphale looking at each other awkwardly and trying not to eavesdrop on the quiet conversation upstairs.
"I heard this place has a library," Aziraphale said. "We may as well find something to do."
If he was completely honest with himself, Gabriel was sulking.
Maybe sulking wasn't the right word, but it was close. He'd gone as far away as he could, without ending up in the middle of the Pacific. The situation was entirely too similar to what had happened directly before he'd left for his tastes.
There wasn't enough oxygen to talk properly this high in the Himalayas, but there wasn't anyone to talk to. Preferably, it would stay that way.
The last thing Gabriel wanted right now was someone coming and trying to talk to him.
If he'd been human - ignoring the fact that he would have been dead this high up with so little air - the drop his legs were dangling over probably would have scared him shitless. The only real annoyance for him was the snow, and he'd melted most of that into steam in an uncontrolled flash of Grace.
It had probably been a bad idea to do something like that so close to humans - however far down the mountain they were - but Gabriel didn't care at the moment.
He felt almost numb.
Michael had basically attacked him. He didn't know why he bothered to hope - think, he corrected himself sharply - that Michael experiencing humanity would change anything. Ne were just as self-assured as ne were before, just as fucking righteous-
Gabriel tried to mentally change the subject, but his mind refused to let go of what had just happened.
He didn't bother keeping track of how long he sat there. The sky darkened overhead until it was nearly black. It was probably well below zero, but even in a light jacket it didn't effect Gabriel.
The darkness, however, did, and if not for the flare of Grace and light he wouldn't have been able to make out Michael's body against the dark backdrop of rock.
"What are you doing here?" Gabriel was on his feet in a second. If he was fast enough-
"I came to apologize." Michael didn't attempt to close the distance between them. Ne didn't seem bothered by the lack of oxygen. Gabriel could already feel the air thickening, particles drawing in closer so Michael could fill nir vessel's lungs and talk as much as ne wanted.
"Really." The sarcastic retort leaped to Gabriel's lips instinctively. What the hell did Michael want now?
"Yes. I-" If he wasn't mistaken, Michael looked almost embarrassed - or guilty. "I lost my temper. I shouldn't have."
"Great. You apologized. Now you can leave."
"It's not just that, Gabriel."
"Then what?"
Michael inhaled slowly. "I know I said that I thought I was right," ne said. "About a lot of things. And I did. But...'thought' is the key word there. I...a lot of it wasn't right. And I get that." Ne held up a hand when Gabriel opened his mouth to speak. "Just let me talk. Please. I want you to understand."
Gabriel stayed silent. Curiosity, in this case, overwhelmed the part of his mind that said fuck Michael and just leave.
"I was wrong," Michael said. "I had to figure things out on my own. It probably would have helped if I'd told you, but I convinced myself that I was doing what was right and what was best. And I wasn't. I - kind of panicked. I did panic. When I realized He was gone. I thought if anyone found out they'd start doubting, that we'd have a repeat of Lucifer and-"
Michael's voice broke, and Gabriel was left staring at the rock they were standing on because it seemed wrong, somehow, to keep looking at nem when ne was like this.
"I couldn't do that again." Michael's voice was rough and Gabriel pretended he didn't hear anything out of the ordinary. "I could never have done that again. Not to that extent."
"But you were okay with staring up the Apocalypse?" Gabriel knew he sounded bitter.
"I thought I had to." Michael sounded like ne was pleading with Gabriel. "If I ever thought I'd had a choice in it, I - I would have done something else. But all I had was what He told me before He left. I thought - if I did everything right..."
Michael inhaled sharply again, like ne were struggling for breath even though Gabriel knew ne couldn't be. "I thought He might come back."
Michael was being bluntly honest with him, and Gabriel didn't know how to handle it.
"Kinda selfish." It was a mutter, if anything. Gabriel knew all too well what Michael must have been feeling.
He'd looked, long before Castiel had.
It was a very certain kind of desperation.
The comment, though, was enough to startle a laugh out of Michael. "Yeah," ne said. "It is. I was an asshole."
Gabriel didn't disagree, but it felt strangely rude to say that out loud. He glanced up warily, but Michael seemed to have mostly recovered.
"I'm sorry," Michael said. "That you ever felt like you had no choice but to leave. I - saying I never meant for you to feel like that is - it's an excuse. Whatever I meant to do - all my good intentions got twisted up along the way and I never bothered untangling them. And I only paid the price after the rest of you did." Ne paused, but Gabriel didn't say anything. What could he say?
"I don't want to make excuses for anything," Michael said. "I know I can't do that and ask you to forgive me. I'm not asking for forgiveness at all. I'd just like..." Ne sighed. "Something else. Something that's not what we had before. That was never really going to work."
How was Gabriel supposed to be angry at Michael when ne was in front of him admitting that Gabriel was right to blame him?
"I thought about what I could have done." Gabriel didn't know where the admission came from. "If I'd stayed," he clarified, not looking Michael in the eye. "What I could have done to fix things. To try and make it better."
"You were right, though." Michael said. "Back then, I wouldn't have listened."
"I still told myself I could have tried." Gabriel fisted his hands where they sat in the pockets of his jacket. "Running away was-" I was a coward for doing it.
"Don't beat yourself up about it." Michael sounded tired. "I shouldn't have, so don't do it to yourself. You weren't wrong to want to get away from all that."
"Would you have done it?" Gabriel asked sardonically.
"I don't know," Michael replied. "I couldn't say what I would have done in your position."
They stood like that, neither moving towards the other. There was some sort of moment happening, but Gabriel couldn't have said whether it was a good one or not.
"Did I tell you," Michael said eventually, "that you were the last one to hear from Him?"
That made Gabriel's head snap up, staring at Michael in surprise. "What? I thought-" That He'd talked to you all the time.
Michael shook nir head. "When you spoke to Mary," ne said. "That was the last time you heard from Him, wasn't it? I hadn't been told anything by Him in...for a long time before that."
Gabriel had thought that it was Michael He always spoke to. The idea that he had heard from their Dad more often than nem was mindblowing, to say the least. "Why are you telling me this now?"
"I figured you had a right to know," Michael said. "No more secrets between us, however old they are."
"What are you asking for?"
"I'm not asking you to tell me anything." Michael managed a small smile. "Just letting you know that you don't have to keep everything to yourself."
Gabriel let a breath filter out of his mouth slowly and wondered when things had changed so much when a little while ago he'd been sulking over how they hadn't. "What about Belial?" He asked eventually.
Michael's smile faded. "I still don't think you should face her on your own."
"I know last time went badly." I was kind of there. "But it's not like I haven't grown up a little. It was ages ago, Michael."
"I know," Michael said quietly. "But I don't want you to end up like that again - or worse - when we've just started to get somewhere. And Belial's had time to gain power, too."
"Trust me," Gabriel said. "She's not going to see anything I've got in store coming."
Maybe it would be alright.
OH BOY YOU TWO
This was sad to write but also kind of fun? I felt like we really needed to see Michael's point of view on all this. Anyway.
Read and review?