suddenly my eyes are open [open]

[trickntreats]

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.

Comments

perfect. :3

[trickntreats]

It certainly looked pretty, with iced piping around the edges and matching little icing flowers on every layer. At the top was a flourish of icing foliage which would have made the bride and groom dolls look as though they were standing in a garden, if there had been any dolls.

There were dirty bowls and things lying all over the place, but the only one with anything still in it was the half-filled one Gabriel was holding as he smoothed down the icing. He pursed his lips and stepped back to take in the whole of the cake. It was over four feet tall. "I do, don't I?"

His tone was light, belying the sudden pang of unease. When he'd come in this morning it had seemed the most natural thing in the world to pull out his pots and pans and bake the cake. He knew it wasn't as good as it could be--he'd been taste-testing, and there were things off about it, like he hadn't quite gotten the base right. The icing was fine, perfect even; that, he had been able to get right early on. But he already knew the cake itself was going to taste fair at best.

None of which explained why the Hell he'd started to bake it. Abruptly he whirled around and sauntered toward Elena, snatching up a couple of clean spoons and offering her one. "Looks like I overestimated the icing, too. It's your lucky day!"

:D

[hisprecious]

The casual and almost humble way he played off the massive (and beautiful, she had to admit) cake gave her some pause. True, she'd only met him once, but from that time, her general impression of him was not someone who was incredibly modest. Or even a little, to be honest. For that matter, if anyone could learn something like this in days, that'd really be something.

Elena eyed him before cautiously accepting the spoon. "It's not poisoned, is it?" she said, only half-jokingly.

:3b

[trickntreats]

"What, you think I haven't already taste-tested it?" Gabriel asked with a grin, waving the bowl slowly in front of her nose. "I'll tell you a secret--only about three quarters of the icing actually made it onto the cake."

He didn't wait for her to decide whether to trust him or not. He just spooned out a dollop of his own and leaned back against the wall to suck at it contentedly, eyeing the cake.

[hisprecious]

Elena scraped out half a spoonful of icing and nibbled on it as she admired the handiwork put into decorating the cake with the 'three quarters' of the icing. This was different from when she'd chip away at the cookie dough her mom made, but all of a sudden, it gave her a homesick feeling in the pit of her stomach.

"This isn't bad," Elena admitted, leaning forward to take another spoonful. Sometimes, in the lack of chocolate, you just had to find any substitute you could. "A bit sweet, but it's okay."

She looked at the cake again, and decided to take a shot at figuring out what happened. "So did you finally resort to using a recipe?"

[trickntreats]

"A bit sweet!" Gabriel looked at her incredulously and hugged the bowl to his chest, whapping her spoon away with his. "You've got no culinary taste."

Or at least no taste for baked goods, obviously. He frowned a little, glancing back at the cake. "No. I already knew how to make it."

And wasn't that strange? He hadn't known he knew how to make anything which required more than a finger-snap.

[hisprecious]

"Already knew how?" Elena repeated, in more than just a little disbelief. She stepped a little closer, a frown appearing on her face. "Last time I came in here, you said you had no idea. Now you just... suddenly know how to bake a three layer cake?"

Then she remembered what Anselmo told her. About their memories coming back slowly, and Elena put two and two together. "Sylvester... are you regaining your memories?"

[trickntreats]

"No," he said immediately, and then frowned, searching his mind for anything new, anything intrusive. He found nothing except the niggling sensation that he was missing something. "I can't be. And it wouldn't be regaining, anyway, because they're not--"

He checked himself, glancing up toward the edges of the ceiling with a scowl, searching for the cameras he couldn't see but suspected were there. "I can't be," he murmured, for once at a loss and feeling a tendril of fear.

[hisprecious]

"Why not?" Elena asked challengingly, passing by his near faux pas. "How else do you explain this?"

She makes a broad gesture at the cake, and himself. If this was true, then it'd be understandable that he would be in denial. But she couldn't write off this gut feeling as paranoia when the evidence was right before her eyes.

[trickntreats]

He looked at her, and for a moment the worry was clear; then a moment later his eyes narrowed, any concern covered the intensity of someone who was usually extremely powerful and did not like being toyed with. "They did something to me. That's how I explain it. They ... encouraged it."

He wasn't sure how, and sure as Hell didn't know where in his head they were hiding the memory, or whatever it was, but that's all it could've been. He'd gone in for some kind of medical test and come out knowing how to make a four-foot-tall tiered wedding cake. Therefore, the Workers had something to do with it.

The part that really concerned him was that knowing how to make the cake didn't actually bother him at all. It should have, but it didn't. That was what made the chills crawl down his spine. He scowled at the cake, torn between annoyance at a job not done quite as well as it should have been and worry over the fact he was even annoyed about it.

[hisprecious]

Did something to him. Elena couldn't disguise the chill that went up her back at that. So that was it then... that was the 'punishment' they were talking about. They would force their memories back into their heads? If Elena had any doubts about this world before, now, they were solidifying.

"How?" she asked, in a voice barely louder than a whisper. This sounded too much like compulsion for her liking. But there was no way they could do that here... could they?

[trickntreats]

"I don't know," Gabriel admitted grimly, staring at the cake. He still gripped the bowl; if he'd had his true strength, it would have shattered. As it was, it groaned a little and Gabriel looked down at it with vague surprise, then laid it aside with an odd sort of gentleness.

"They probably don't consider it a punishment," he said with a snort. "It's just 'helping us along'. I recall someone saying that. I just don't remember exactly what ... happened."

He wanted to bristle. Instead he scowled at the cake, hands on his hips, and found himself running through his head some things he could do that might fix the dough for next time. "This is a pain," he grumbled.

[hisprecious]

Elena listens to his words and gives a moment for them to digest, turning them carefully over in her mind. So his defiance of their rules did end up screwing him over, though in a less severe, yet at the same time, much more terrifying way than she had imagined. She was already unsure about this whole memory thing coming back, but 'helping along'?

That definitely gave her the chills.

"I guess you could look at the bright side of this," Elena finally said dryly, as she stuck her spoon in her mouth again and licked off the last bit of the icing. "You can probably open for business now."

[trickntreats]

Gabriel looked at her sharply, vaguely surprised by her levity, but then laughed--a genuine laugh. "I earned that. Here, just for that crack you get some more free icing."

He picked up the bowl and shoved it at her, taking back his icing-laden spoon. Okay, so things currently sucked. There were bright sides to look on. Sort of. Maybe. Despite all his pranks Gabriel wasn't actually much more accomplished at looking on the bright side than anyone else--he was just really, really good at looking for distractions.

He leaned back against the counter, eyeing the cake thoughtfully, and finally announced, "Next time I'll even make it a triangle."

[hisprecious]

The bowl being shoved into her arms caught her by surprise (he must be more disturbed by this than he looked), but Elena recovered in time to keep it from falling to the ground.

She does smile at his words, though. "That's what I like to hear."

Then Elena looks at the massive cake thoughtfully and adds, "Though I think triangles are a bit too easy for you now."

[trickntreats]

"Ah." Gabriel lifted a finger with a grin. "That depends on their angle. Triangles are great for construction. Circles, not so much, unless you're looking to have a big fat head for something."

He put out his hand as if measuring against the cake. "I bet out of that much cake I could build, oh, maybe the Eiffel Tower."