[Fic] Sit right down and I'll tell you a story. Ain't got much grace, ain't got much glory...
OOC: Borderline stream of conscious stuff. I haven't written anything fic-like in, like, two months. Not to be taken seriously as actual fic. I HAD A LOT OF THOUGHTS ABOUT THIS EPISODE and then tried to get them in order and... Probably failed at it. Whatevs, man. Whatevs.
sunday_reveries
"i have the scars to prove
the clock strikes
with her hands"
--Saul Williams
Rock bottom looks a lot like Arizona.
A lone coyote trots across the desert, its tongue lolling out and its gait easy and carefree. It doesn't even bother to pause and as it lopes across the lonesome highway, as if it knows that nothing will be coming down that road at this hour. The moon's out and full and in the distance, a few more of its brethren lift their heads to howl at it, calling out to some unseen deity that will never answer in response.
A few feet away, there's a vague flutter of wings, so quiet that you can barely hear them, even on a desert night so still that when the coyotes stop baying, you can almost hear the soft shaking of a rattler's tail from over a hundred feet away, and that bit of silence might be the saddest sound in the world. There's a joke here about angels and losing their wings, but the punchline's not that funny.
The coyote stops and tilts its head- gold eyes meet a pair of hazel that are turning blue-gray in the darkness. There's a moment of silence between the animal and the new arrival before the coyote shakes its head in some approximation of a human's brush-off and takes off again, never once pausing to look back.
Gabriel rolls his eyes, "Same to you, furball."
~*~
Chuck Shurley isn't the only Prophet currently on Earth. Like Enoch before her, Heather Carmichael of Tupelo, Mississippi chronicles the plight of the angels. The Book of Heather is written on stacks of composition books shoved carelessly into a closet in some run-down apartment downtown, usually forgotten until she's reminded of them after being stricken by another vision.
The Prophet, herself, works at a video store. She's a tall, lanky woman with dirty blonde hair in messy braids and faded jeans. She wears earrings shaped like angel wings. She's an atheist and, personally, she's pretty sure she's just that quiet kind of crazy that no one says anything about until the day she snaps and kills everyone on Main Street. At her funeral, people will say she was such a nice girl.
"You're shorter than the last angel I talked to," Heather says, perching on the edge of the counter. The video store is empty- it being past closing time, but angels don't have to worry about locks. The twentysomething Prophet pops her gum and looks bored by the whole conversation. "Also, if you're an angel and you feed me this stuff, then how come you don't know this already?"
"Trust me, precious, I don't feed you anything," Gabriel responds, matching her bored expression with one of expressed irritation.
"Precious," Heather repeats. "That's a new one. I thought angels were all about the 'my childs' and all that crap?"
"I'm a special kind of angel."
There's a beat before Heather responds.
"Special like.... Remedial?"
~*~
Gabriel's always felt some strange kinship with the desert. Heaven has the Garden in the center of everything, so angels on earth tend to find themselves in the forests, driving themselves that much closer to the home they hated to have to leave, but Gabriel always found his way to the deserts, one way or another. Loki was the Trickster whose body he took when he sauntered vaguely downward, but it might as well have been Coyote. He couldn't tell you why- maybe there's just something about life flourishing in an area so unsuitable for living that appeals to the poet in him.
Most men are overdramatic enough to consider it the beginning of the end when an ex-girlfriend calls them up for no reason randomly. When Gabriel gets the message from Kali in the middle of a desert in Arizona, he knows already how literal it is. Even if he couldn't get anything out of the Prophet in Mississippi, he skips far enough ahead in the storybooks to know there's no happily ever after here.
He goes, anyway, because he's always been loyal and maybe, just maybe, he can subvert his own destiny for once.
~*~
The Trickster Loki has enough arrogance to walk into a room full of gods and smart off to the whole lot of them without fear of retribution, because they expect that of him. They have no idea that the Archangel Gabriel has nothing to fear from them and won't bow to what they perceive as superior power. It's worked wonders for Gabriel in the past and has allowed him to keep his aggressively alpha dominance amongst them for thousands of years without anyone expecting a thing.
He can command an entire room, but gods are stubborn. He learns that well enough when he gets Kali alone, which is just enough a gambit for her safety as it is a game to get Sam and Dean off the chain. He's cared about a thousand different things over the years and everything he's loved, he's lost, one way or another. There are so few ways you can hurt an archangel, but Gabriel's heart is a fragile thing, no matter how often he covers it up with sarcasm and this illusion of not giving a good goddamn about anyone or anything. Kali and everyone sitting in that room is as close as family to him- they took him in when his true family broke his heart- and they're all going to die if they refuse to listen to him.
Family, he thinks, as Kali fingernails tear open the side of his neck just seconds before he can grab the vials of the Winchesters' blood, has this nasty habit of never listening, even when he does have the stones to actually man up and explain how wrong they are.
~*~
Nothing binds an archangel- they're power personified. Gabriel sits in a conference room with Kali looming over him and pretends like the look in his eyes is betrayal and sadness and, to some extent, it is, but a lot of it is fear. Fear at having no power in a time when he needs it most, fear at being helpless when he's a creature designed and directed to be anything but. This reminds him of being trapped in that holy fire circle, impotent and staring down the barrel of a gun, knowing that someone else is holding all his cards.
And his brother's coming and no one will listen to him and he's going to have to sit here and watch another family die, and he'll run, because that's what he always does, even when it hurts, even when he knows that he shouldn't.
It's enough to make him wonder why he even tries to get involved anymore. He thinks back to his miserable attempts- the mystery spot, trying to convince Sam and Dean to play their roles, the original Fall. Everything's been a game of him trying and failing to stop the inevitable. Destiny screws him over just as thoroughly as it does everyone else. Is it even any wonder why he feels like other people should just man up and accept their destinies?
Or maybe misery just loves company.
~*~
Destiny, Gabriel decides after finally climbing out of the back of the Impala, can go screw itself.
He knows his options. He can keep running, until the day Michael gets fed up and finds his sorry ass and beats every inch of his desertion out of him and then kills him without batting an eye, and that'll be the last recollection the world will ever have of the Archangel Gabriel- he died a coward, hiding and hurting and never standing up for what he knows to be right.
Or... Or he could actually prove he had the cahones to do the right thing. He could look Lucifer in the eye and tell him where to stick it and he knows where that'll put him. He can hope that his brother would have the decency to spare him, but he knows it's a fool's hope. If he goes in there and does what he should've done a long time ago, then he won't come out again. If he makes a stand, then it'll be his last one.
But he always knew he wouldn't live through this. A desperate search for confirmation just to see if he could subvert it only led him to the inevitable end result. This is some sort of turning point- he can stay back and wonder how he'll ever manage to live with himself when the dust clears... Or he can go in there and do the one thing he didn't think he'd ever be man enough to do.
If Dean blames himself for this, Gabriel plans on finding a way to posthumously beat his ass.
~*~
He can't kill Lucifer.
Those are the words that play back and forth in his head as he speaks- The Voice, himself, planning on monologuing his enemy into submission. If he wanted to, this could've been over with from the start. He could have delivered this speech and made his stand, all with a blade pressed to Lucifer's neck, and he could have told him everything he needed to say right before he slit his throat.
But that's never been Gabriel's way. Can't or won't? Well, it's a little bit of both.
He planned this so well- he made it so easy. It's like he's practically yelling, "Look, bro. See what I can do?" Even as he makes one desperate glance over Lucifer's shoulder that could've given the game away, if the game hadn't already been given up long before, he doesn't know which move he expects Lucifer to make- will it be the killing blow or will it be mercy? Forgiveness or Lucifer's own pride?
"No one makes us do anything."
You have the option. Go ahead and stoop to their level for once. It won't kill you.
Lucifer stops the blade and Gabriel has only half a second to wonder if that's where it'll end, before it digs into his chest, and all he can think in between the pain and the agony is that he never should've hoped for anything less. The only solace is the heartbreak in Lucifer's eyes, the sheer level of how much this is hurting him.
Somehow... Gabriel can die with that knowledge. Long ago, he expected apathy, dismissal, and just simple, unmitigated wrath for his actions from his family and that led to him hiding himself away. The fact that the act of killing him could break Lucifer's heart just reminds him that once his family loved him, once they were close, and if this war hadn't torn everything to pieces, if Gabriel hadn't chosen the side that neither of his brothers stood on... Perhaps this whole situation could have been different. He hadn't faded away and been forgotten, a lost cause, another casualty, a disloyal wretch meant to be cast to the guillotine and remembered as nothing more than a traitor.
Sickest, sorriest revelation to ever have when you're dying by your brother's own hand. Heaven always did have the most dysfunctional relationships.
~*~
"If you two idiots actually got to the end of this, you're officially more depraved than I am. Congratulations. Although... Can't say I blame you. I may have whipped this up in a back alley on short notice, but it's some high-quality stuff. I mean... C'mon.
Anyway. A few more things. No, they're not relevant to the Apocalypse, so don't start bouncing up and down in excitement. There's just... A few things I need you to do for me.
First of all? If Kali hasn't tied your entrails in knots by now, tell her... I'm sorry. And I hope she forgives me. Well. It's not actually gonna matter if she forgives me or not, but... What can I say? I really am a little sentimental.
Two? And I know you're gonna wanna give yourself both root canals with bendy straws before you'll do this for me, but do it anyway.... Tell Lucifer I don't blame him. If you have to tell it to him while he's singing "Jailhouse Rock" back in his cage, then fine. He may be a rat bastard, but he's still my big brother and, like it or not, I did kinda... Force his hand. Sorta.
And finally? Burn my vessel. Yeah, I know. It's a shell. It doesn't mean anything, but I've had that thing for thousands of years and, again, I'm kinda sentimental. Sorry. I know it's such a burden to do me any favors when I'm sitting here giving you the keys to the final showdown in my Last Will and Testament, but I think you can find it in your hearts to suck it up and deal.
And if you need an idea of what to do with the ashes.... I kinda always had this thing for the desert. Y'know. Just sayin'."
sunday_reveries
"i have the scars to prove
the clock strikes
with her hands"
--Saul Williams
Rock bottom looks a lot like Arizona.
A lone coyote trots across the desert, its tongue lolling out and its gait easy and carefree. It doesn't even bother to pause and as it lopes across the lonesome highway, as if it knows that nothing will be coming down that road at this hour. The moon's out and full and in the distance, a few more of its brethren lift their heads to howl at it, calling out to some unseen deity that will never answer in response.
A few feet away, there's a vague flutter of wings, so quiet that you can barely hear them, even on a desert night so still that when the coyotes stop baying, you can almost hear the soft shaking of a rattler's tail from over a hundred feet away, and that bit of silence might be the saddest sound in the world. There's a joke here about angels and losing their wings, but the punchline's not that funny.
The coyote stops and tilts its head- gold eyes meet a pair of hazel that are turning blue-gray in the darkness. There's a moment of silence between the animal and the new arrival before the coyote shakes its head in some approximation of a human's brush-off and takes off again, never once pausing to look back.
Gabriel rolls his eyes, "Same to you, furball."
~*~
Chuck Shurley isn't the only Prophet currently on Earth. Like Enoch before her, Heather Carmichael of Tupelo, Mississippi chronicles the plight of the angels. The Book of Heather is written on stacks of composition books shoved carelessly into a closet in some run-down apartment downtown, usually forgotten until she's reminded of them after being stricken by another vision.
The Prophet, herself, works at a video store. She's a tall, lanky woman with dirty blonde hair in messy braids and faded jeans. She wears earrings shaped like angel wings. She's an atheist and, personally, she's pretty sure she's just that quiet kind of crazy that no one says anything about until the day she snaps and kills everyone on Main Street. At her funeral, people will say she was such a nice girl.
"You're shorter than the last angel I talked to," Heather says, perching on the edge of the counter. The video store is empty- it being past closing time, but angels don't have to worry about locks. The twentysomething Prophet pops her gum and looks bored by the whole conversation. "Also, if you're an angel and you feed me this stuff, then how come you don't know this already?"
"Trust me, precious, I don't feed you anything," Gabriel responds, matching her bored expression with one of expressed irritation.
"Precious," Heather repeats. "That's a new one. I thought angels were all about the 'my childs' and all that crap?"
"I'm a special kind of angel."
There's a beat before Heather responds.
"Special like.... Remedial?"
~*~
Gabriel's always felt some strange kinship with the desert. Heaven has the Garden in the center of everything, so angels on earth tend to find themselves in the forests, driving themselves that much closer to the home they hated to have to leave, but Gabriel always found his way to the deserts, one way or another. Loki was the Trickster whose body he took when he sauntered vaguely downward, but it might as well have been Coyote. He couldn't tell you why- maybe there's just something about life flourishing in an area so unsuitable for living that appeals to the poet in him.
Most men are overdramatic enough to consider it the beginning of the end when an ex-girlfriend calls them up for no reason randomly. When Gabriel gets the message from Kali in the middle of a desert in Arizona, he knows already how literal it is. Even if he couldn't get anything out of the Prophet in Mississippi, he skips far enough ahead in the storybooks to know there's no happily ever after here.
He goes, anyway, because he's always been loyal and maybe, just maybe, he can subvert his own destiny for once.
~*~
The Trickster Loki has enough arrogance to walk into a room full of gods and smart off to the whole lot of them without fear of retribution, because they expect that of him. They have no idea that the Archangel Gabriel has nothing to fear from them and won't bow to what they perceive as superior power. It's worked wonders for Gabriel in the past and has allowed him to keep his aggressively alpha dominance amongst them for thousands of years without anyone expecting a thing.
He can command an entire room, but gods are stubborn. He learns that well enough when he gets Kali alone, which is just enough a gambit for her safety as it is a game to get Sam and Dean off the chain. He's cared about a thousand different things over the years and everything he's loved, he's lost, one way or another. There are so few ways you can hurt an archangel, but Gabriel's heart is a fragile thing, no matter how often he covers it up with sarcasm and this illusion of not giving a good goddamn about anyone or anything. Kali and everyone sitting in that room is as close as family to him- they took him in when his true family broke his heart- and they're all going to die if they refuse to listen to him.
Family, he thinks, as Kali fingernails tear open the side of his neck just seconds before he can grab the vials of the Winchesters' blood, has this nasty habit of never listening, even when he does have the stones to actually man up and explain how wrong they are.
~*~
Nothing binds an archangel- they're power personified. Gabriel sits in a conference room with Kali looming over him and pretends like the look in his eyes is betrayal and sadness and, to some extent, it is, but a lot of it is fear. Fear at having no power in a time when he needs it most, fear at being helpless when he's a creature designed and directed to be anything but. This reminds him of being trapped in that holy fire circle, impotent and staring down the barrel of a gun, knowing that someone else is holding all his cards.
And his brother's coming and no one will listen to him and he's going to have to sit here and watch another family die, and he'll run, because that's what he always does, even when it hurts, even when he knows that he shouldn't.
It's enough to make him wonder why he even tries to get involved anymore. He thinks back to his miserable attempts- the mystery spot, trying to convince Sam and Dean to play their roles, the original Fall. Everything's been a game of him trying and failing to stop the inevitable. Destiny screws him over just as thoroughly as it does everyone else. Is it even any wonder why he feels like other people should just man up and accept their destinies?
Or maybe misery just loves company.
~*~
Destiny, Gabriel decides after finally climbing out of the back of the Impala, can go screw itself.
He knows his options. He can keep running, until the day Michael gets fed up and finds his sorry ass and beats every inch of his desertion out of him and then kills him without batting an eye, and that'll be the last recollection the world will ever have of the Archangel Gabriel- he died a coward, hiding and hurting and never standing up for what he knows to be right.
Or... Or he could actually prove he had the cahones to do the right thing. He could look Lucifer in the eye and tell him where to stick it and he knows where that'll put him. He can hope that his brother would have the decency to spare him, but he knows it's a fool's hope. If he goes in there and does what he should've done a long time ago, then he won't come out again. If he makes a stand, then it'll be his last one.
But he always knew he wouldn't live through this. A desperate search for confirmation just to see if he could subvert it only led him to the inevitable end result. This is some sort of turning point- he can stay back and wonder how he'll ever manage to live with himself when the dust clears... Or he can go in there and do the one thing he didn't think he'd ever be man enough to do.
If Dean blames himself for this, Gabriel plans on finding a way to posthumously beat his ass.
~*~
He can't kill Lucifer.
Those are the words that play back and forth in his head as he speaks- The Voice, himself, planning on monologuing his enemy into submission. If he wanted to, this could've been over with from the start. He could have delivered this speech and made his stand, all with a blade pressed to Lucifer's neck, and he could have told him everything he needed to say right before he slit his throat.
But that's never been Gabriel's way. Can't or won't? Well, it's a little bit of both.
He planned this so well- he made it so easy. It's like he's practically yelling, "Look, bro. See what I can do?" Even as he makes one desperate glance over Lucifer's shoulder that could've given the game away, if the game hadn't already been given up long before, he doesn't know which move he expects Lucifer to make- will it be the killing blow or will it be mercy? Forgiveness or Lucifer's own pride?
"No one makes us do anything."
You have the option. Go ahead and stoop to their level for once. It won't kill you.
Lucifer stops the blade and Gabriel has only half a second to wonder if that's where it'll end, before it digs into his chest, and all he can think in between the pain and the agony is that he never should've hoped for anything less. The only solace is the heartbreak in Lucifer's eyes, the sheer level of how much this is hurting him.
Somehow... Gabriel can die with that knowledge. Long ago, he expected apathy, dismissal, and just simple, unmitigated wrath for his actions from his family and that led to him hiding himself away. The fact that the act of killing him could break Lucifer's heart just reminds him that once his family loved him, once they were close, and if this war hadn't torn everything to pieces, if Gabriel hadn't chosen the side that neither of his brothers stood on... Perhaps this whole situation could have been different. He hadn't faded away and been forgotten, a lost cause, another casualty, a disloyal wretch meant to be cast to the guillotine and remembered as nothing more than a traitor.
Sickest, sorriest revelation to ever have when you're dying by your brother's own hand. Heaven always did have the most dysfunctional relationships.
~*~
"If you two idiots actually got to the end of this, you're officially more depraved than I am. Congratulations. Although... Can't say I blame you. I may have whipped this up in a back alley on short notice, but it's some high-quality stuff. I mean... C'mon.
Anyway. A few more things. No, they're not relevant to the Apocalypse, so don't start bouncing up and down in excitement. There's just... A few things I need you to do for me.
First of all? If Kali hasn't tied your entrails in knots by now, tell her... I'm sorry. And I hope she forgives me. Well. It's not actually gonna matter if she forgives me or not, but... What can I say? I really am a little sentimental.
Two? And I know you're gonna wanna give yourself both root canals with bendy straws before you'll do this for me, but do it anyway.... Tell Lucifer I don't blame him. If you have to tell it to him while he's singing "Jailhouse Rock" back in his cage, then fine. He may be a rat bastard, but he's still my big brother and, like it or not, I did kinda... Force his hand. Sorta.
And finally? Burn my vessel. Yeah, I know. It's a shell. It doesn't mean anything, but I've had that thing for thousands of years and, again, I'm kinda sentimental. Sorry. I know it's such a burden to do me any favors when I'm sitting here giving you the keys to the final showdown in my Last Will and Testament, but I think you can find it in your hearts to suck it up and deal.
And if you need an idea of what to do with the ashes.... I kinda always had this thing for the desert. Y'know. Just sayin'."