caveofsapphires | suddenly my eyes are open [open]

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suddenly my eyes are open [open]

WHO: Gabriel (Sylvester Wilton) and [OPEN]
WHAT: Gabriel got taken in for a memory-modification. Now he's a little bit weirded out.
WHERE: Sleeping quarters, Bakery, Bar, Temple, streets in-between.
WHEN: Tuesday 10 to Saturday 21 April 2012.

This was one Hell of an elaborate prank. Except that Gabriel was starting to doubt that it was a prank, exactly. Dad wouldn't have thrown him into a place where the inhabitants drilled into his skull. Or experimented on him. Or ... did something Gabriel wasn't quite aware of but which must have happened, because going off to the clinic and then waking up in his quarters without knowing the in-between kind of indicated something happened in the in-between. All at once he remembered the 'dancing alien' prank he'd pulled and wondered if this was in any way similar. Maybe Lucifer had done it, except that Gabriel was fairly sure even Lucifer had no idea where archangels went after they died or how to capture them before they went there.

Maybe this was some kind of archangel's afterlife. If so, Gabriel's only hope was that Luci's turned out worse in the end.

With a groan Gabriel rubbed his temples, trying to wish away the ... it wasn't a throb, exactly. More like a hollow ache. He'd tried to snap it away, naturally, but that had only made the headache worse, so he'd stopped.

"Note to self," he told his reflection in the mirror. "This ain't a game anymore, and pushing the line results in ... in ... something. Just because you've already died apparently doesn't mean it can't happen again. I mean, look at the Winchesters."

With that pep-talk, he staggered to his feet and out the door.

The next five days were, in a word, weird. He still had no idea how to bake, but when he walked into the bakery on Tuesday he found himself automatically pulling out the ingredients for icing and had finished making a multi-tier wedding cake before he realised what he was doing. (Of course, then he had get rid of the excess icing. The cake wasn't actually saleable either, but Gabriel figured he deserved a reward for actually doing some baking and not having it completely burn.)

Tuesday night and Wednesday morning he discovered that powerless archangels in human bodies could, indeed, get sick from eating too much sugar. He made it to work--for a little while--he just didn't get much work done. (Instead he spent most of it looking green and slumped on a chair near the cash-register, with neither the appetite for sweets nor the energy to bake.)

On Thursday after work he went to the bar. If he could get sick, maybe he could get drunk too, and then he could get rid of this niggling uneasiness (fear) that Something Was Wrong. He succeeded in getting drunk quite well, and for a happily oblivious night completely forgot what the hell he was meant to be uneasy about, if anything.

He just didn't make it to work on Friday and spent the day in bed, groaning over the hangover, yelling at anyone who made too much noise and then going back to bed to groan some more.

On Saturday he found the Temple, a tiny little hole in the wall whose only two seats were cut into stone and whose altar sported a couple of thick candles. There was another worshipper, but he left when Gabriel told him to skedaddle, and then the archangel had a very unproductive one-sided conversation with the candles. Anyone passing by might have heard the final rather frustrated and faintly echoing refrain of, "Dad, if you can hear me, get me out of here!"

By Sunday morning something had settled in his mind and he finally became aware that he, in fact, had an extra memory that had been hiding by pretending it belonged there. A memory of baking a multi-tier wedding cake, colour-coordinated with the wedding party, with the mother-in-law hovering over his shoulder. The realisation it was there made him shiver.

He imagined it lurking and giggling, and named it Marie.

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"Wouldn't that make you something like a martyr?" he asked, amused. "Saint Archangel Gabriel. Well done."

Absolutely thrilled to be released, Aziraphale rubbed the back of his neck and straightened his jacket, following Gabriel while attempting to keep his gaze clear and honest. "Better odds than me and an assortment of humans who'd never actually stood in the same room. And the Antichrist, who was of course on his own side."

"They already call me that in some denominations, I suppose," Gabriel answered thoughtfully. "All it means is that I caught up." He snorted, half laughed. "Dad likes bringing things down to the wire no matter what world it's in. You know, I've no idea what happened to our Antichrist. The demons lost him, then found him again, and then lost him." His tone turned mocking. "Our brothers, of course, never had him."

Apparently losing the Antichrist was some sort of universal demonic trend. Aziraphale snorted. "Yes, well, Adam was always quite independent," he said with a shrug. "I don't think anyone could have 'had' him in any case.

"Where did you say we were going?" he added, looking around for familiar landmarks. He could only follow Gabriel around like a forlorn duckling for so long.

"We are--" Gabriel looked around, his brow furrowed, and then with a pang of combined irritation and consternation realised he'd stopped paying attention and, given that he no longer had his angelic mental map, lost their way.

"We were going to the bar," he corrected himself with a scowl, snapping his fingers rapidly by his side, as was becoming habit when he wanted something to happen and it wasn't because he was too bloody human. "But my roadmap's no longer accessible. This whole human shtick is getting really old."

Aziraphale hummed under his breath and turned to face the direction they'd come from. "This would be a lot easier if you hadn't marched me all the way here under your arm," he mused, squinting. "Nevertheless . . . Isn't that the library up ahead? Isn't it around there someplace?"

"Well, I had to keep you from running off," Gabriel told him with a flippant wave. It was more flippant than he was currently feeling; he scanned the street, still frowning. "I'm a lover, not a smiter. Well, not often, anyway. Having a brother run away on me is just not going to happen."

He turned in the direction Aziraphale was pointing, tapping his chin. "Could be. I seem to remember passing by a library once." Not that he'd actually entered it. He wasn't desperate enough for information to subject himself to hours of dust research.

"God forbid," Aziraphale said absently. "But, look, I work there, that's definitely the Library, and the Bar is just down the street." They were the only two important buildings around, so Aziraphale had committed their relative locations to memory while laying in bed with a truly spectacular hangover on Thursday morning.

"Come on," he said, setting off towards their location with what might have been a swagger in his step if he was the sort to that kind of thing. Instead he just had better posture than usual.

"He's not forbidding much these days," Gabriel quipped without missing a beat, and trailed after the other angel with his hands in his pockets. Anyone looking would've been struck by the contrast--Aziraphale, upright and proper, and Gabriel, not slumped but casual and ambling.

He watched the streets, slotting them into his mental map with an equally mental grumble. "Soooo apparently you're a drinker."

It was a prod and a question and an amusement all at once. Not many angels espoused not getting drunk as 'missing out on things'.

Glancing over his shoulder, he raised an eyebrow. "Recreationally," he said, a trace of amusement in his voice. "I had a lot of free time and not much to do with myself." It had been interesting to taste the evolution of alcohol in real time, although he'd never been one for fruit things until Owen had worked his magic the other night.

"You just became my favourite little brother," Gabriel told him with a wicked grin, and then lifted a finger. "But if all you could think to do was drink, then we definitely have some work to do before you can be considered for passing the Loki's School of Trickstering."

"Oh," Aziraphale said absently, rounding the corner and smiling fondly at the bar in front of them. "Was that you? I think I might have been with the Celts for a few centuries around then." He had to admit, it was creative - make yourself a god? Not that he approved, it was terrible, it was deliberately sacrilegious, but it did have a certain style.

Once upon a time he hadn't known what style was.

"I'm afraid to ask," he sighed, pushing the door open.

Gabriel shrugged, ambling behind Aziraphale without once giving the impression that he was, Dad forbid, in need of the other angel's guidance. "It did keep anyone from suspecting who I was, that's for sure. And please, don't be like that! We'll start slow, work our way up."

He slid inside after his brother, clapping his hands together once. "Ah, I have fond memories of this place," he said with a grin. "Just not the morning afterward."

"Or down," Aziraphale muttered, sliding into a booth near the door - the better to keep from being overheard and watch out for familiar faces. Tapping his temple, he considered how drunk he wanted to get. Conclusion: reasonably. Gabriel was still something of an unknown quantity, but he actually seemed quite pleased with what Aziraphale might once have termed his moral depravity, so it was safe enough.

Best to start with wine, though. It was comforting and reminded him of home.

"Hangovers are unpleasant," he agreed, glancing up at Gabriel and wincing at the memory of Thursday morning. "Incidentally, you may not vomit on me tonight."

"Or sideways, even," Gabriel said dryly, sprawling in the seat across from Aziraphale, his gaze leaving off scanning the room to look at the other angel with a fake hurt look. "What, you think I don't have control over my own stomach?"

In point of fact: he hadn't. He'd managed to avoid throwing up after eating too much cake, but that had been something of a surprising given after he got drunk. It was an experience he never wanted to repeat. Now if only he could figure out how to cheat ...

Snorting, Aziraphale shook his head. "No, I don't. Because I didn't. I doubt that we're physically different enough to have entirely different reactions to the sudden onslaught of copious amounts of alcohol." Although in point of fact it had taken him considerably longer to become sick than he'd thought was normal. He'd gotten all the way home and managed to stick his face in the toilet (which in retrospect may not have been the wisest choice, because face in a toilet).

He noticed Gabriel scanning the room and wondered if he was looking for anyone in particular. "Pick something," he said, ignoring it for the moment.

For a moment Gabriel looked like he was going to object further in some fashion, but then he laughed and sank back into the seat, one arm flung over the back. “It was worth a try. Don’t worry, Azzy; hurling was one of my worst experiences as a human to date and I don’t feel like revisiting it.”

He wasn’t looking for anyone specifically—it was just that ‘off’ feeling that had been following him all week and the fact that they had been somewhat open in their walk down the road. May as well take a look and see if there was anyone who might be liable to spy—especially as they started to get drunk enough not to care about censoring themselves.

“I should start with a beer,” he said, and then glanced over and grinned just a bit wickedly, remembering his conversation with the bartender from the other night. “But I’ll probably go for something hard-and-fast later.”

"That's reasonable. It's certainly a design flaw," Aziraphale mused, considering other design flaws he had discovered. A tendency to tire after long walks. A certain occasional restlessness. The need to use the bathroom.

Nodding, he said, "Be right back," and headed to the bar. He got whatever was on tap for Gabriel - something hoppy, apparently, though he didn't know beer from Adam, so to speak - and the same dry red as before for himself. Heading back to the table, he placed the beer in front of Gabriel before sitting back down.

He probably could have called someone over, but honestly, he thought that a few seconds of breathing room from Gabriel wouldn't do him any harm. The man was . . . slightly overwhelming.

“That’s a nice way of putting it,” was Gabriel’s rather grumbling assessment just before Aziraphale went off. Almost as bad as the ‘feeling sick after eating too much’ thing. Now that was annoying. And the shaving thing. Really? That got to be a pain after the first couple of days. He wasn’t even going to touch the other-physical-functions thing, especially since the only other specifically physical function he enjoyed, he didn’t have any opportunities to indulge in.

At any rate, Gabriel needed a few moments alone himself. He propped one leg up on the table, palms together almost as if in prayer, except that he rested them against his mouth. So then. He had a little brother here with him. A dead little brother? That would indicate afterlife or not. Possibly a construct too, seeing as how they were all human. An angel’s memories could be duplicated more easily than their physical form. And if not either of those then … Well, then Dad was playing with them or wanted them to learn something, probably.

None of it still made sense, but Gabriel got the sense there was a vague sort of shape to it behind the curtains. He just needed to know more. And that would come in time, seeing as how Dad was the most likely culprit.

When Aziraphale returned Gabriel looked up at him almost absently, his eyes intense from looking into the distance he could no longer see. A moment later his focus snapped together and his serious expression rearranged itself effortlessly into a mocking grin. “And here I was beginning to think you were going to abandon me.”

Aziraphale, for his part, was entertaining thoughts in entirely the opposite direction of Gabriel's. While he was not convinced that their Father intended to play with him - things still being, on the whole, ineffable - he was also entirely certain that God was not here. Perhaps this was because of the nagging sense of absence that he'd been feeling since un-Armageddon, a feeling that had only intensified upon his arrival here. Had he known better, he would have termed it instinct, but angels were not meant to have instincts, only certainty. It wasn't like they'd evolved, officially, although in Aziraphale's case the case could be made.

He raised one eyebrow just so when he saw Gabriel staring off into space, then the other as well when his tight focus returned. Oh, masks. He was a bit tired of them. "That would be rude," was all he said, sliding the beer across the table and sitting with his wine.

Avoiding Gabriel's eyes for a moment, he looked into the depths of his wineglass. Well. "Human, then," he said under his breath, and toasted nothing in particular, then swallowed too much wine in one go. It might have been a challenge, if he'd been someone else.

It would be rude. Gabriel rolled his eyes longsufferingly. Obviously he had a lot of work to do. At least Castiel had had the Winchesters to help corrupt him, as far as he could be corrupted; Gabriel still know much about Aziraphale's circumstances. He flicked a finger at the other angel.

"You need to learn to break out of the mould a little more." Not that his actually leaving would have been any good, because Gabriel would have hunted him down again, but a little bit of spirit in his brothers, please!

... Other than stopping the Apocalypse. Why was it that the ones who wanted to do that were the ones who were all work and no play?

The archangel smiled sardonically and raised his beer. "Humanity." He leaned back in his chair and actively chose not to take that challenge. For all his teasing, he hadn't been kidding when he said he didn't plan to drink to excess. "So tell me, bro. Adopted bro. Whatever. What shoved you off the cliff in your dream?"

"Break out of the mold in what way?" Aziraphale's lips twitched. "I daresay that if I conformed entirely to your standards you'd be bored. Correct me if I'm wrong." But he was fairly sure he wasn't. He hadn't watched humanity for this long only to have absorbed nothing. Gabriel had sauntered, as it were, sideways and down, and Aziraphale anticipated a certain level both of wickedness and of distractibility.

Sighing, Aziraphale took a slightly more sedate sip of wine and shook his head, just barely. "Nothing shoved me off any cliff. Please give me some credit. I didn't die, I simply . . . arrived here."

"Of course I would," Gabriel said promptly. "That's why you surprise me with your creative mold-breaking abilities." Aziraphale certainly wasn't wrong. True, Gabriel had thrown off some aspect of the trickstering to take on Lucifer, but not most of it by any means. Two thousand years was a long time to settle into habits.

That hadn't been the question Gabriel had been asking (off the cliff, away from Heaven, toward humanity), but it still answered one he'd been wondering. Scratch the afterlife idea, then. "No one shoved you out the door to any exclusive clubs?" he asked, caught between exasperation and humour, and then he waved his hand dismissively. "Oh, of course; you didn't dream about falling."

Laughing under his breath, Aziraphale shrugged. "Well, I can't precisely say it's creative if it's not planned. Believe it or not, my first priority is not to impress you. Though I suppose I'll just have to continue spontaneously surprising you."

With a sigh, he rubbed the bridge of his nose. "Oh. That." Squinting up at Gabriel through his fingers, he let his hand fall softly to the table. "As I've said, I didn't Fall. I . . . " Changed? Shifted? "Adjusted?" he said hesitantly. "Over a period of time. I never rebelled. Or questioned."

No, wait, that was a lie. His mouth twisted into odd shapes for a moment, and then "Mostly" spilled out and he let his eyes fall shut. Wine. He drank, and felt better.

"Semantics!" Gabriel waved his hand. "Spontaneity can be just as creative as something planned. Remind me to tell you about the time I was passing a guy passing a cement truck."

He grinned wickedly. At least the man hadn't died or anything. Just ... regretted a few of his recent actions.

Ah, now. That was a look Gabriel recognised. His smile might have been sympathetic if it weren't so wry. "There's nothing wrong with questioning once in a while. It's something humanity does all the time, and they don't get smote for it. Sometimes they even manage to work things out for the better." He paused, the rim of his glass at his lips. "When they don't screw things up totally, that is."

Aziraphale made a face. "So . . . in order to break out of the mold I ought to . . . steer people into cement trucks instead of being courteous?" That was logical, he didn't think. The look he gave Gabriel was extremely stern and entirely serious. One does not steer people into cement trucks. One just doesn't.

Shrugging, he tried to articulate what he meant without explaining the situation entirely, and ended up just stuttering. It was too complicated. He looked towards the ceiling helplessly, then back at Gabriel.

He was tired of this. He was used to being able to do and say more or less what he wanted under Adam's protection. Tapping the bowl of his wineglass with a fingernail irritably, he frowned and said, "Well, I didn't question until everything started falling down around my ears, you know. Not really. Not big questions. But I didn't want the world to end." He paused and added perfunctorily, "It was a very good dream."

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