caveofsapphires | suddenly my eyes are open [open]

Entry tags:

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.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

“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."

"Who said anything about steering him into it?" Gabriel asked innocently, giving Aziraphale a winsome smile. His actual point had been that he'd just happened to see the guy's soul in need of just desserts, and there just happened to be a cement truck nearby, and since it was appropriate ... no, spontaneity didn't mean a lack of creativity at all.

There were a lot of things there that Gabriel could say, and most of them he didn't want to. Most of them included talking about how he'd left Heaven because he didn't want to fight, but hadn't actually questioned, until about five minutes before his death. At least, he hadn't let himself. Part of him had been for a while; that was the part he'd spent two thousand years ignoring.

He settled for muttering, "The world's a better place than most of the family liked to believe," an unintentional wistful note in his tone. A better place than a lot of humans even liked to believe. There were good things about Heaven, but most of the things that had been good about it had degraded badly by the time he'd left, let alone by the time of Armageddon.

Aziraphale stared into his wineglass again. This was where it all got complicated. Questioning was so different for everyone. Falling was so different for everyone. It wasn't a matter of here is the line, toe it or you'll Fall; it was a matter of opaquely-defined "right thinking", a certain level of blind obedience, and a complete lack of creativity.

Crowley, for example, had not asked to Fall. He hadn't particularly wanted to Fall. He had, as it were, hung out with the wrong crowd. Crowley wasn't much of a demon at all. And then you had the Metatron, who was cruel while at the same time being entirely boring, and he was the height of holiness. Somewhere on this same spectrum was Aziraphale, who had uncharitable thoughts, who had doubted, who had (though he was loath to admit it) sinned, who was now human - being punished or rewarded or simply having fallen off the radar by accident, he had no way of knowing - and he was an angel, more or less.

What was fair about that?

"They are a tremendously stupid bunch, overall," he said, frowning and not really listening to himself. "They never paid attention. I understand Hell is quite the same. Just a clutch of the Fallen with the same single-minded dedication to . . . the end of everything." He glanced up at Gabriel then, and his expression of polite puzzlement was simultaneously the most and least angelic ever found on a human body. "The world is lovely, though, I don't know why they don't see it."

That was an odd phrasing--as if Hell had no demons, nothing but Fallen angels. Gabriel let it tick over in his mind for a moment, then decided it was a better subject to be continuing on with than this suddenly far-deeper-than-he-intended heart-to-heart. Then he changed his mind again almost instantly. How often had he been able to talk about this with a brother, after all? Someone who might actually get it? Castiel didn't count. He'd been like a sheepdog with a bone called Winchester, and just a little too smug because he thought he'd worked it all out and Gabriel hadn't.

Well, excuse him for having issues. That didn't mean the archangel was going to answer seriously, of course. Couldn't give up his reputation just like that!

"There's too much light in their eyes," he said with a smirk. "It blinds them from seeing any of the good stuff. You know, like television, pizza, pudding and sex."

While Aziraphale was not particularly fond of television, pizza, pudding, or sex, he took Gabriel's point, although his lips did turn down at the corners slightly at the mention of pudding - really, there were so many better things you could put in your mouth - and sex, simply because he didn't see the appeal. Books, he amended, and tea, and good dinners, and no hosannas, and conversations, real conversations. He didn't say any of this aloud because he was certain Gabriel would make fun of him.

Still, he leaned forward, steepling his fingers. A serious expression settled on his face. "My main confusion," he said, carefully leaving out the part where he had not come to it independently - the idea had been Crowley's, the idea was always Crowley's - "is in the concept that, even if a creation far surpasses its intentions, Plans can't be changed. As if they're set in stone - well, I suppose they are literally set in stone somewhere - but the point is - "

He struggled to find a point. "The point is," he managed at last, "it's not worth it. All the light at the expense of being able to - to learn."

Gabriel probably would have. Or brought up porn. And never, ever had admitted that a good conversation with someone was something he'd missed, was the reason he was willing to let this one continue despite the territory it was treading on.

"Plans can always change," Gabriel said with a roll of his eyes, tilting up his bottle to take a drink. "Or so I've heard, anyway. Our family's just not very good at working on the fly. It's probably that blindness syndrome."

He rapped the table surface thoughtfully. "I wonder if we'd gone better if I'd made it a compulsory field-trip for angels to be human for a lifetime. Anael went native and it worked well for her, up until she got her Grace back." Sure, his family would object strenuously to losing their Grace, however temporarily, but it was a thought. Part of him wished he'd had it sooner, before he'd had to tell the Winchesters how to throw Lucifer back into his cage.

Aziraphale considered this and took another sip, letting his hand cup the bowl of his wineglass reverently. "It certainly couldn't have hurt," he mused. "I found that my time on Earth provided . . . " He let out a puff of air. "Perspective."

With a quick look at Gabriel - an ancient, cynical look that might have surprised those who'd known him before - he added, "But it would never work. There's pride at stake, after all." Just because pride was a sin did not preclude the Host from feeling its influence. Quite the opposite, in his experience. In fact, the version of Gabriel he was familiar with had been quite prideful indeed (although in that respect he was not yet convinced that this other Gabriel was much different).

"That's easily fixed by taking away their memories," Gabriel said in the semi-whimsical tone of someone who was seriously planning a venture even though they knew it was a pipedream. "Anael lost all hers when she tore out her Grace. Solves any prior personality issues."

Come to think of it, he didn't know just what had happened to Anael. He knew that she's gotten her Grace back, but otherwise all he knew was that she was still avoiding being dragged back to Heaven. "Of course then you'd need to keep an eye on them for the rest of their lives," he added with a longsuffering sigh. "And if their childhoods suck, humanity is still doomed. But still."

"Mm, I don't know about that . . . " Aziraphale brightened slightly, interested in the idea even though, yes, it was impossible, and that really wasn't them anymore. Still. "There's so much of life after childhood. And even if your childhood is wonderful, being an adult can be very unpleasant. It's all a game of chance, really, and a matter of experiencing everything that humans experience."

In other words: taking the good with the bad. Which would be the ultimate stumbling block, of course, because angels were not good at taking the good with the bad. Aziraphale sighed and finished his wine. They were all so . . . stubborn.

"Ah, yes, chance," Gabriel murmured, a smile on his lips that was somewhere between a smirk, plain nostalgia and wistfulness. "The best game of all. Sometimes."

He swigged his beer. There were times he'd visited casinos, and he'd always gone for the games of chance. Sure, he could manipulate them just like every other game in there, nudge the ball or die to come out what he wanted them to, but he didn't have to. And when he didn't, he had no idea what was going to happen. It wasn't like poker or blackjack, when he could simply see the players' souls, the dealer's hand, and couldn't help it.

"'Course, it'd do them some good," he added musingly. "Being taken down a few hundred notches. Wallowing in the mud, same as the monkeys." His intonation was mocking, mimicking of his brothers' customary insult, and he rolled his eyes. "Is our club exclusive or what?"

"It is a bit." Aziraphale made a sour face, tapping the stem of the glass. As if angels were the superior creation. He wondered what He really thought of them all, sometimes. After all, he had allowed the Apocalypse to be averted - or at least not made a fuss about it, and when God made a fuss, well, it was quite a big fuss. Someone would have noticed. Aziraphale would have noticed.

Glancing up at Gabriel, he studied him for a moment before adding, "Which actually makes me wonder . . . what are the odds of you being here, as opposed to someone more . . . " He waved a hand vaguely. "Traditional. It's strange."

The archangel looked wounded, laying a hand over his heart, though the effect was offset by the wry twist to his lips. "Bro, I'm hurt. Really. You think I can't be wicked enough to earn a punishment?"

If only the younger angel knew just how Gabriel had been spending the last two thousand years. Gabriel got the distinct feeling Aziraphale would not approve.

Aziraphale looked at Gabriel levelly. No, that was not what he thought. "Believe me," he said, raising his eyebrows. "I would not accuse you of that. I'm sure you've been - well. I believe you. I simply meant . . . " He spread his hands in a shrug. "Of all the angels in all of Heaven - Heavens, apparently - the odds would be in favor of choosing two far more put off by the idea of humanity than we are."

It was both insulting and amusing, and Gabriel chuckled. So good to know he was already corrupting the younger angel's perception of his own humourless Gabriel.

"That depends on what the point of it is," he said. "And whether it's meant to be punishment, reward, or some accident or other." He paused. "Or just Dad's way of entertaining himself."

"I don't - " Aziraphale frowned. "I don't know that He would do such a thing for no reason."

That was the whole point, of course; he didn't know. He'd been all right - more than all right - with that once, but lately it had been more and more difficult to reconcile with what he felt was right. He certainly didn't see God as a creator capable of toying with his creations for sport, but, well. If not that, then what? And if it was an accident, would it be rectified? That was fine for him, but what about Gabriel?

He rubbed his temple and waved someone over. "Another, please," he muttered, and watched distantly as another glass of the same was fetched. He couldn't think about this sober for much longer.

"Did I say 'no reason'?" Gabriel asked innocently. Entertainment was a reason unto itself, after all, even though Gabriel, deep down, didn't truly believe Dad would use such a frivolous excuse. "Who knows what He's thinking? I don't. Hardly ever have, even when I was still being a good son."

Which was probably why there'd been a few, er, incidents during his tenure. Well, how was he meant to know the three wise men would lose their way if he left them to have a bit of downtime while on Earth? They were meant to be wise men. He would've thought it was obvious you don't go announcing to a king that a new king just got born in his own country.

Philosophers. They never stopped to think things through. (... To a relative degree, of course.)

He drained the rest of his beer and held up his hand before the server could escape. "Me too!"

Frown deepening, Aziraphale leaned forward on his elbows, his gaze intent and focused. This was not a conversation he'd been able to have with anyone before, not even Crowley, because that have been terribly insensitive. Now that he had the opportunity, he was not going to let it go. "Why," he asked, "does being a good son mean not asking questions? And, and staying distant from Creation. And never having ideas. That's barely existence."

As he said it, he realized, in a more concrete way than he ever had before, and, remarkably, without any urge to tamp the realization down, that he had disobeyed in spirit long before Armageddon, before the Arrangement. It had begun with Eden and the gift of fire, but it had evolved over millennia into an engagement with humanity and history and Earth that he hadn't even been conscious of.

Barreling forward recklessly, he spread one hand wide, knuckles of the other going white on the edge of the table. "And stupidly black-and-white thinking, and no interest in anything, and being dull. Why do we have free will if not to use it?"

Never having ideas. Staying distant. No free will. Gabriel froze a little, amusement dropping off his face as he stared after the server. And because he'd been thinking back anyway, he couldn't quite stop some of the memories he had consciously avoided in the last two thousand years.

Before the Fall, before humanity, before any fights or conflict and there was only family. Pride was a sin, but Gabriel felt it anyway, for the song he'd written.

"That was beautiful, little brother. Did Father give it to you?"

Michael. Gabriel dimmed a little, drew in, protective but not wary. "No. I wrote it myself, for Father. It was Lucifer's idea."

Surprise and uncertainty flickered in Michael's Grace. "... Well. Father seemed to like it."

He flew through Heaven, darting between the lines of Creation, sometimes just a little too fast not to leave ripples in his wake. He couldn't stop; they were about to catch up. Why, oh why, had Father given him this mission?

Abruptly he collided with Lucifer's Grace as the older archangel gripped him tight and brought him to a halt. "Gabriel! You're disrupting the cosmos!"

He panicked and then had a flash of inspiration, and let his Grace ripple with a command to those pursuing him. "Lucifer wants a hug!"

Only the cupids would ever even dream of mobbing one archangel at the behest of another. Then again, they always did what Gabriel said anyway. That was probably what Father intended when he gave them to Gabriel to train as messengers.

Later. Much, much later, after the Fall, after everything had gone bad. After Lucifer was imprisoned, Michael thought only about the day he'd be able to kill his own brother, Raphael still refused to have an original thought and Gabriel was left to try and keep their family together. He was returning from his mission on Earth to usher in his Father's Son, irritable and embarrassed and too far gone to even bother caring about the hints of shame.

Wise men. Hah.

Heaven was actually heavens, now, and despite the perception of his Father with a throneroom it wasn't anything so ostentatious. And yet it was more spacious than any actual 'room' could be. Gabriel sank into the fabric between the heavens, the foundation of Creation, where his Father infused every inch of time and space. It opened up before him, inside him, and he felt his Father pull him close in His embrace.

"They're in Egypt," he reported, and explained what had happened with Herod's decree. Not exactly with words. It was never with words, with Father, not even to the half-point the angels used among themselves to supplement their communication through Grace. He just already knew.

He didn't explain how Herod had known. How Gabriel had left the philosophers to their own devices for just a little too long to slip into a willing human and indulge in some of those amazing herbs they had on another continent. But he knew Father knew. Part of him was afraid Father would say something, chastise him, smite him--

The rest wanted Him to, dared Him to. Say something! Do something!

Not a word. He never said a word about Gabriel's transgression, and when Gabriel left Him to seep back into the universe, he felt angry and relieved and strangely disappointed. Thirty-three Earth years later, after the Son had returned to Heaven, Gabriel was gone from it.

Gabriel blinked and took a sharp breath, and when he looked back at Aziraphale there was an angel's lifetime of bitterness in his eyes. "I don't know how it went where you're from," he said, "but in my universe? After the Fall, all Michael was interested in was smiting things. Raphael was Raphael and wouldn't know an original thought if it bit him. So take a guess who had to keep the family together, keep our brothers happy. That whole shtick with Herod and making the Son flee to Egypt? That was me. That was because I took a joyride in someone on the other side of the world to get away for a while and trusted wise men to be able to find their way and keep their mouths shut. It almost ruined everything. And Dad never said a word. Not one word."

He gave the other angel a brittle smile. "So you're asking the wrong angel, Aziraphale. Forget about not having room to make my own choices. I would have given anything for just a little more fucking guidance."

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject