Title: Access Denied
Author: DhampyrX2
Genre: General/semi X-over elements
Rating: G
Disclaimer: I don't own these characters. Don't sue me, I've got nothing
Summary: What exactly were the Archangels doing as Charlie visited Heaven? Why watching their niece from afar, of course. Companion piece to Painful Contemplation.
"Are you SURE Mom said we couldn't meet Char-Char?" Azrael asked impatiently from where she looked out onto the streets of the promenade and kept careful watch of a particular figure clothed in a dark red suit with a familiar head of long blond hair atop her head as Emily and Saint Peter sang out their usual "Welcome to Heaven" greeting song that replaces Uriel's somewhat more taciturn greetings to new arrivals. As she spoke the Angel of Death readjusted her black robes as she fidgeted in excited agitation
"Yes, Azrael. Did you think I, of all angels, forgot to relay a message correctly?" her brother, the Archangel Gabriel, God's Messenger, replied with a roll of his eyes as he ran his right hand through his hair. Unlike Azrael's pageboy cut of dark hair, his hair was a messy tangle of blonde curls reminiscent of the actress Tilda Swinton in the movie "Constantine," although his locks were the same shade of blond as Lucifer and Charlie.
"Aren't you already the only one of us allowed to see her when you escort souls to Hell, Rae-Rae?" Uriel, the Archangel of Wisdom asked as he peered cautiously over the railing.
"Yeah, from a distance, but Luce and Lilith never let me near her," Azrael responded sadly.
"Not surprising given the strained relations between us," the last of the siblings residing in that particular tower room interjected, namely the Archangel Michael, God's Right Hand and Lucifer's twin brother. "Sammy doesn't exactly interact with most of us on his good days," he reminded them. Honestly, he was mostly there to help Uriel keep Gabe and Rae-Rae from taking their rubbernecking too far and ticking Mom off. Like Sera, their mother, he got the same intelligence briefings about Samael's life in Hell and had watched Charlie grow from afar literally since the day she was born.
"Didn't he go through you and Uri to arrange her visit, Rae?" Gabe asked.
"Yeah, I'm probably the only one he even talks to at all because of my job, and that's rare. You know he's still too upset to even try to talk to Mom and he's got too much pride to go over her head and try to contact Dad," Azrael conceded.
"He's the Prince of the Pride ring for a reason. And he still blames me for being the one the physically cast him out," Michael noted with carefully cultivated lack of emotion. The thought of his Twin, the other half of the Demiurge itself, refusing to even speak to him still stung after all these millennia.
"To be fair, Mom blames Lilith, not Lucifer. But Luci won't turn his back on her or swallow his pride so he won't deal with Mom," Uriel noted. As always, he saw the patterns that reality itself wove around him and it helped to give him a more even view of events. Hence, why he brought Michael with him to guard his siblings.
"I'm surprised only four of us came to watch Charlie's visit. Where are the others?" Gabriel asked if only to stop discussing the rift between them all and their missing brother.
"Raphael is still in the infirmary, although I can guarantee he's using a viewing globe to track Charlie. Camael, Jophiel, Saraquiel, and a few of our other sisters are going the same thing in another tower and calling it a girl's day. Surprised they didn't ask you to join, Rae," Uriel replied.
"They did," Azrael responded. "Not my scene," she elaborated. Azrael had always been one to get along better with her brother in her you, Lucifer in particular before he was banished.
"She looks so much like her dad, doesn't she?" Uriel commented, his Angelic eyes spying Charlie as easily as if he were there on the street beside her.
"Like Sammy in drag," Michael joked with a smirk.
"She's wearing a suit, Mikey," Azrael noted.
"Details, details," the head of the choir of Archangels waved off with a grin.
After a somewhat comfortable pause it was Gabriel that asked, "Do you think her idea will work?"
"Rehabbing damned souls? It's possible. It's worked in other realities. It's been Sammy's calling in some of those realities. But Mom won't listen, and she'll keep the other choirs from supporting it until we literally start getting reformed souls showing up. Mom's still too in her head about Sammy choosing Lilith over us to listen to reason. And she's paranoid about Roo," Uriel theorized.
"As if Lucifer wouldn't take up arms to help up fight if Roo did make her move," Michael snorted in derision.
"It's not that. It's that Lu chose his wife over listening to Mom. You know what she's like. She won't let that go. Lu go his pride from somewhere," Azrael countered with a shake of her head.
"Definitely," the three brothers in the room agreed with a wince. They all understood that half the reason they were forbidden from interacting with their niece was because Sera couldn't let go of the fact that Charlie's mother was Lilith.
"What do you think the outcome of the hearing will be, Uri" Michael asked. Probably the greatest injustice in all of this is that Sera had forbidden the choir of archangels to attend the hearing or offer their thoughts on the matter as it served as a "conflict" of interest since it involved their brother and niece.
Uriel looked uncomfortable as he replied, "They'll judge against Charlie and say there no proof the hotel works, because there isn't, yet. Adam will most likely run his mouth in public and finally let the rest of Heaven know about Extermination Day, which a LOT of people won't like. Things could get chaotic for a while. Emily won't agree with Mom's decision either." As always, he used his gift of pattern recognition to the point it worked as a form of precognition.
"And the three of us will pull guard duty again like we usually do to keep Lucifer from interfering in the attack. Although this time I think he'll do more than ignore us and hole himself up in his workshop designing rubber ducks," Gabriel added with a motion toward Uriel and Azrael.
Michael nodded at that. Lucifer was generally to depressed to even put up token resistance to the yearly purges. So long as Charlie and the Hellborn were shielded from attack, their brother would play nice. That was one of the reasons Michael avoided that particular guard detail. You didn't need the Archangel that acted second only to their parents taking time out of his busy schedule to watch his twin brood.
After a moment, Michael commented, "It won't be like normal."
Uriel's expression grew grim as he noted, "Unless Adam develops enough sense to leave Charlie alone and not try to use her to goad Sammy, it could get ugly. If Adam violates the treaty, it's not even our place to intervene to save him. We, quite literally, give the Devil his due and come home. We'll have to negotiate a whole new treaty later."
"Too bad I can't set that pig straight before Lu has to dirty his hands," Azrael spat in disgust. The Angel of Death was not a fan of the loudmouthed braggart that was the First Man.
"There's a chance Charlie will untap her potential to take care of it before Sammy intervenes, but it would take something nasty, like losing her lover, for it to happen. It's way more likely our brother will step in before that happens," Uriel noted with an air of certainty.
A sober mood filled the room for a moment before Azrael broke it as she chimed in, "It's still not fair that we're stuck watching her visit from afar. Emily was planning to take her to the zoo. Can you imagine Charlie there cuddling a koala?"
Her bothers smiled at the imagery as they fell into idle small talk and speculation about their wayward niece, all trying to forget the tension looming closer by the day. They really hoped things didn't escalate to the point they had to had to fight their brother directly, not over Adam's petty grudge, but if asked to act, they all knew they would be forced to do so as Archangels. Such was the burden of their station. They just didn't like the thought of having to fight the missing member of their own ranks. Particularly when Lucifer was the one in the right in this conflict.
NOTE: Yes, I used the Netflix template for Azrael/Rae Rae's looks and the Constantine template for Gabriel's. I'm trying to show that these are all beyond multiversal beings that exist if countless realities simultaneously and there is bound to be some bleed over in different timelines.