Sanctuary

[low_key_angel]

Gabriel went to the only place he knew was safe. The Roadhouse. No one was in the building, but the first one on the scene might be a little surprised to find a semiconscious archangel slumped beside the bar, all six bronze and golden wings manifested, two of them visibly and badly broken

Comments

[sleight_of_fate]

Rhys was used to a lot of very strange situations in the middle of the night and first thing in the morning. He'd been around the block more than a few times in his thirty-ish years, and he liked to think he was difficult to surprise. It was almost a bizarre sort of game with himself as to exactly what he could take in stride without blinking.

But this was way the hell beyond that. Lost that round, because he sure as hell blinked. The psychic feedback hits him first- an impression of pain that jolted through him with a faint spike of nausea, then the feathers, and he didn't know quite what he was looking at, at first, except that he was going for his hexblade instead of his pistol before it actually did register and...

"Shit." Rhys barred the door behind him on reflex, realizing that opening just might be delayed a bit, because this was...a problem. It takes him a second to find his voice, because this is just not something you see, even with his life, and he's crossing the bar carefully once the door's secure. Recognizes the angel

[low_key_angel]

The sound of heavy boots on the floor, a quiet mutter and the sound of the bolt sliding shut penetrate the haze of pain and the struggle to keep a lid on his grace, to keep the flares and surges of injured grace from blowing out every breakable surface (human skulls included) in a five mile radius. Slowly, Gabriel struggles to pull himself upright. Oh good. Just the guy he was looking for.

His grin is bloody and sharp, more of a death's head grin than a friendly one, but he's at least trying. The kid was important to both Bill and Sam which meant that he could trust him. Wings were painfully vulnerable when manifested and it was something of a supreme amount of trust on his part for them to even be visible to the young bartender.

"Brothers dear might be on lockdown or pasted, but their allies are kinda pissed that I'm not doing what they want them to do. Needed some place warded to hide out."

".. and some help."

[sleight_of_fate]

The consideration is appreciated- Rhys isn't fully human, but he's just as mortal and vulnerable to displays of angelic grace. In fact, the shadowy thing coiled in the back of his head has woken up and is currently demanding to know if Rhys knows what this pile of busted-up feathers is and why the hell they aren't moving very quickly in the direction of "away" before they wind up a little smoldering pile of charred, unravelled DNA. But it's just the half-formed voice of instinct, and Rhys shuts it out

[low_key_angel]

Gabriel's experience is much broader than most angels, especially in terms of creatures that aren't necessarily human. A few hundred years running with the pagans had opened his eyes to more than a few species that weren't always as evil as their mythology wound up casting them.

.. there was also that weekend he'd had in Alexandria with a particularly sexy incubus. So Gabriel happened to wake up two weeks later and three continents over, it had been one hell of a party.

"Nothing that won't mend quick enough." He pulls a hand away from his side, there's a long, ugly slash that's leaking blood and brilliant white-gold grace. "At least after a little while. Wings are the only things broken though." They were also the most painful, visible manifestations of damage done to his grace, to his very being.

With slightly shaky fingers, Gabriel paints a pair of runes in blood on the side of the bar. "Protection wards bound in angel's blood. Think we're cloaked now."

Gabriel and his vessel - telepathic conversation

[low_key_angel]

“Gabriel? Gabriel, talk to me.” Bill closes his eyes, reaching out for that presence that had always been there, the sound of rushing water and trumpets and wind, his angel. He’d only just gotten him back and something had attacked him, tried to take him away again. Beside him he can feel Sam pulling Rhys close, his voice a low, worried murmur before he was buried in Gabriel’s warm wings