Fic: A History of Heaven (Gabriel/Various Angels, PG-13 for most) 7/59
For full notes and other chapters, please see the Masterpost.
Notes: In this story, before Lucifer fell, his name was Sammael. He was not Lucifer in Heaven.
There is one other canon character operating under an OC name, but I wish for his identity to remain unknown.
Chapter Rating: PG-13
Chapter word count: 2,534
Chapter Summary: Raphael tries to get rid of Castiel by sending him to certain death, but Castiel can’t do anything right.
CHAPTER 7:
Goodbye Unicorns
On a beach on a little island in the middle of the largest ocean, Gabriel sprawled on his belly. His wings were fanned out around him to better take in the sun as he soaked up the heat from the volcanic black sand he laid on. Angels as a rule did not need to sleep, but Gabriel had found that long periods of lazy restfulness felt absolutely delicious and recharged his spirit almost as much as meditation in the Garden.
“Gabriel?”
A hesitant voice interrupted Gabriel’s not-a-nap, and the Archangel grumbled as he stirred. One of his little brothers, an Angel, by the feel of it, was fidgeting near his largest wingtip. Gabriel lifted his head, propping it up on one hand as he looked over at the brother who intruded on his rest.
Castiel shifted his weight again, clutching the gold-edged feather Gabriel had given him millions of years ago, every ounce of his tattered grace radiating distress. Gabriel sat up immediately, his grumbles forgotten in favor of immediate worry as he reached for the injured Angel. “Castiel! What on Earth are you doing on Earth?”
Castiel hesitated for a few seconds before flitting to Gabriel, pressing desperately against his chest and shivering in his embrace. This Angel was still one of Raphael’s. Gabriel’s constant attempts to finagle him out of Raphael’s grasp and into his own choir had not yet succeeded, but Gabriel still kept his eye on his brother. The members of Castiel’s garrison were all trained as warriors to fight the threats that came from the Borderlands. Castiel himself had proven skilled with a sword, and as Gabriel had predicted, his talent for flight had exploded as his wings matured. Unfortunately, he was still very out of step with Heaven. Everywhere Castiel went, little mishaps sprung up in his wake. They were never directly Castiel’s fault and rarely caused injury, but the rumors were already spreading that this Angel had been cursed by God.
Castiel was no longer a fledgling, but only just barely considered full-grown. Out of all the ranks of the Host, Angels aged the slowest. The Cherubim spent almost no time as fledglings, and the Seraphim had been considered children for thousands of years, but there were still some later-awakened Angels not yet fully grown. In Gabriel’s eyes, Castiel was still very much a child. His relative immaturity was highlighted by how obviously scared the Angel was. He clutched at Gabriel’s wings as the Archangel wrapped him in them, squeezing his eyes shut. “I didn’t know who else to go to…”
“Shh, it’s okay. You’re with me. You’re safe.” Gabriel ran his hands down Castiel’s back, petting the younger angel and repeating his mantra over and over again until Castiel’s wings slumped and his arms loosened. Castiel twisted in Gabriel’s embrace so he was curled sideways in his older brother’s lap, resting his cheek against the Archangel’s shoulder. “What happened, Castiel? Where is the rest of your garrison? How were you injured?”
“They’re still in the Borderlands,” Castiel said. “I was assigned to fulfill a special task on Earth. It… didn’t go as planned.”
“Oh?” Gabriel’s wings twitched. He hadn’t requested Castiel come to Earth, nor had he delivered a message to anyone in Raphael’s choir with such a request from God or Sammael. Earth was still Gabriel’s domain. “Who assigned you?”
“Remiel said the order came from Raphael himself. He said it was a great honor, and I should be proud.”
Gabriel snorted derisively. To be singled out by Raphael was rarely a thing of pride in that choir. Raphael didn’t believe in any one angel deserving greater accolades than the rest of his garrison. He only singled out angels he felt deserved punishments. Still, many angels believed any individual attention from an Archangel was worthy of praise. “Raphael had no right to send you to Earth alone, unless he was using you to deliver a message to me. Was he?”
Castiel shook his head. “I was supposed to handle a threat to humanity that you were ignoring.”
“Ignoring!? That pompous twit! I’ll show him…”
In Gabriel’s arms, Castiel flinched from Gabriel’s wrath. The Archangel noticed and immediately cut himself off, closing his eyes and forcing his anger down. He resumed stroking Castiel’s back, letting the presence of the younger angel remind him why anger was not a good response now. Castiel’s grace was still pitted and weak, so Gabriel began stitching the torn edges together with a thread of his own grace, healing his little brother. He wasn’t as adept at this as his twin, but even he could patch up frayed grace. “What sort of threat, Castiel?” Gabriel knew every inch of this Earth, knew every location of every human settlement. He watched over his Father’s greatest creations, and he would have known if there was a threat dangerous enough to concern Raphael. There wasn’t. Nevertheless, it made a great loophole for the Archangel of the Air. Raphael’s domain was technically the defense of Heaven and its treasures, and technically, humanity counted as one of the greatest treasures of Heaven. If Raphael felt humans were endangered, he could interfere on Earth, even though it wasn’t his standard region.
“Unicorns,” Castiel whispered, unable to not flinch at the name of the beasts.
Out of the millions of creatures that had developed from the survivors of God’s wrath, many of them were in some way detrimental to humanity, God’s obvious favorites. A small handful, however, had managed to evolve traits that could injure even angels. There was one creature, known as Eve, who seemed to take a perverse delight in creating angel-attacking monsters. Three of Gabriel’s garrisons hunted Eve constantly. Five Angels and Cherubim had been killed before a reluctant truce had formed-the angels would harry Eve, but they wouldn’t get close enough to kill her, and she would hurl nasty monsters at them, but none were truly deadly.
Of the nasty monsters Eve had created, unicorns were some of the biggest pains. They were larger than horses, with a single venomous horn stretching out from their forehead. Unlike horses, they had vicious, slashing fangs, and their favorite meal was fresh human flesh. While docile and sweet around virginal humans, they turned into raging monsters the moment they sensed a more experienced human, and they had a special bloodlust that they reserved solely for angels. The venom from their horns was one of very few things that could infect an angel’s grace, weakening it, eating holes through it like acid. Now that Gabriel looked closer at Castiel’s, he could make out the distinctive burned edges indicating damage from unicorn venom.
Gabriel was reluctant to completely wipe out any creature, even something as painfully nasty for humans as the unicorns, lest he invoke the wrath of God again, so he had one full garrison set aside simply to tend to them. They managed to kill off the majority of the beasts, leaving just one nomadic herd. Of that herd, they culled the males to keep it from growing out of hand. At the moment, there was only one adult male unicorn and one female pregnant with a male. All of the twenty-six other unicorns and their unborn offspring were female.
“Unicorns,” Gabriel repeated. Castiel winced again and nodded. Gabriel closed his eyes and stilled his hands for a moment, counting to ten before resuming his care. “Castiel, I have an entire garrison monitoring the unicorns.”
“I was told they were too close to a human settlement and needed to be moved away. I was told to corral them and shift them further south.”
“And you were sent alone?”
Castiel nodded, and Gabriel couldn’t help the twist of his major wings, spreading his feathers out to reveal their knife-sharp edges, little tongues of flame licking between the shafts. If Raphael stood before him, Gabriel would have slashed at his face. Castiel was barely more than a fledgling Angel. Gabriel wouldn’t have sent a full-grown Seraph to face down the unicorns alone. Gabriel wouldn’t have challenged the unicorns himself without at least one other angel for backup, just in case. One solo Angel was lucky to have escaped with his life.
“They attacked you.”
“I tried!” Castiel pressed his hands to his eyes, shaking his head violently. “I could outmaneuver them at first, and I tried to herd them away, but they kept charging after me, and there were so many…”
“Did they attack the human settlement?”
Castiel shook his head, already calming down. That was another downside to Raphael’s choir, Gabriel felt. Raphael discouraged emotional displays from his angels. He felt emotions weakened the angels who showed them and distracted those who didn’t. Gabriel felt the suppression of emotions was what weakened the angels. Castiel was scared and hurting, and he had every right to be angry at being thrown into an impossible scenario. Forcing those emotions down didn’t remove their effects, and Castiel would likely suffer silently until he could work through his fear and pain. Gabriel re-resolved to get Castiel away from Raphael as soon as he could.
“The unicorns did hurt you, though.” Gabriel ran his hands soothingly over Castiel’s grace, finding another hole to fill in with his own. “What happened to them?”
“Some of your angels turned up,” Castiel admitted, looking down at the feather he held in his hands. “They drove off the unicorns, and the Dominion lectured me on interfering where I shouldn’t. But I had been assigned!”
“Yes, yes, it’s okay. I’ll speak with…” Which Dominion ruled over the unicorns? That would be… Jeremiah, unless Zachariah had rearranged things again. “With Jeremiah, explain things to him. I’m just glad you’re still alive.”
Castiel turned his face up to Gabriel, his bright blue eyes searching the Archangel’s for the truth. Gabriel just stroked his wings against Castiel’s and cloaked the younger angel in his grace. “Unicorns can be deadly. Even I would hesitate to face the herd alone. You were very brave to have done so until my angels could help.” And very stupid, but Gabriel didn’t add that bit. Angels were supposed to follow the orders of their superiors, and Raphael certainly didn’t encourage lateral thinking. Castiel’s only crime was not questioning authority.
“I did something bad,” Castiel whispered, his whole body giving a shiver. “I really messed up, before Jeremiah and his Angels came.” The little angel suddenly thrust Gabriel’s feather up between them, offering it back to his older brother. “I thought… you had given me this, and if I could find you, I could give it back so you would help me, and I figured you maybe were on a beach, because that’s where you were the first time, and please, please help me, I don’t want Raphael to get mad at me, he’s going to be so mad at me, please!”
“Castiel!” Gabriel pressed his hand over his brother’s, forcing him to lower the feather. “I gave you that feather as a gift, not as a way to extort a favor from me. Keep it.” Castiel’s grace immediately dimmed, and Gabriel quickly gathered the Angel close again. “Shh, Castiel, that doesn’t mean I won’t help you. You are my little brother, and you can always turn to me for help… especially if it will make Raphael mad. Now tell me, how did you mess up?”
“I…” Castiel hugged Gabriel’s feather against his chest, curling in on himself. “I killed them…”
“Killed who?” Gabriel asked, trying to keep his voice as calm as possible and not spike with fear. “Jeremiah? His Angels?”
“No!” Castiel’s head whipped back and forth in a fervent denial. “No, some of the unicorns!”
“Oh.” Though the unicorns were endangered, Gabriel hadn’t noticed any signs that God’s wrath would come down on anyone who killed them. If Castiel had killed a brother, Gabriel would have had to… well, he wasn’t sure what he’d have to do if Castiel had managed to kill another angel. No angel had ever drawn a weapon on a brother before. Naomi and Alastair probably wrote it in their code of conduct somewhere. “Killing the unicorns is okay, Castiel. Better than killing angels or humans.”
“I killed a pregnant one,” Castiel whispered. “It was charging me. I killed its baby with my sword. And then the big male ran at me, and I…”
“Did you kill the male?” Gabriel asked. If Castiel had, then Jeremiah would have to protect the mare with the male baby to make sure the whole herd didn’t go extinct.
Castiel shrugged. “I ducked, and another unicorn rammed it, and… I didn’t kill it, but it still died, and…” The little angel shivered and curled up again.
“It’s okay, Castiel,” Gabriel said, rocking his brother gently in his arms. “It’s okay. A couple unicorns died, but no angels and no humans. You did well.”
“Raphael said I had to be careful. He said I shouldn’t hurt them, that there were only a couple left. He said I had to get them away from the humans without hurting any unicorn.”
Gabriel waved his hand dismissively. “Castiel, unicorns are an Earthly concern. My concern. If I say that no permanent damage was done to the herd, Raphael can’t get mad at you for it. He can get mad at me, but not at you.”
“Jeremiah said both males were killed.”
Gabriel looked down at the young angel tucked against his chest. “Both males?” Castiel nodded meekly. Gabriel closed his eyes and rubbed a hand over his face. Oh Castiel… With both males dead, the unicorns would eventually go extinct. The suicide mission Raphael had sent Castiel on had wound up killing the wrong creatures. And it had been a suicide mission. Gabriel had no doubts there. Castiel’s mishaps gummed up the cogs in the well-oiled machine Raphael wanted to turn his angels into. If Gabriel knew his twin (and he did), Castiel’s existence was a blight on Raphael’s choir. Raphael was far too proud to give Castiel over to Gabriel, though, so sending him to his death was the only possible way to get rid of him.
And Castiel went and screwed up even getting himself killed.
Gabriel couldn’t help the chuckle that was bubbling up within him. He dropped his hand from his face to hug Castiel again, laughing unrestrainedly as he fell back against the sand, his wings shifting through the fine black grains. “Only you, Castiel, only you!”
“Are… are you mad?”
“I’m not mad,” Gabriel assured Castiel, cradling the younger angel against his chest as he closed his eyes again, soaking up the heat of the beach. “I’m glad. I’ve wanted to remove the unicorns as a threat entirely for centuries, but I didn’t want to make such a huge movement. This way, they will all die out, unless Father intervenes, and this way, Father has time to intervene, if it were meant to be. So thank you, little brother. I will personally speak with Raphael on your behalf about this. I’ll make sure he doesn’t punish you at all.” Gabriel reached up to close his hand over Castiel’s, still clutching his feather. “You have my word on that.”
Next...
Notes: In this story, before Lucifer fell, his name was Sammael. He was not Lucifer in Heaven.
There is one other canon character operating under an OC name, but I wish for his identity to remain unknown.
Chapter Rating: PG-13
Chapter word count: 2,534
Chapter Summary: Raphael tries to get rid of Castiel by sending him to certain death, but Castiel can’t do anything right.
CHAPTER 7:
Goodbye Unicorns
On a beach on a little island in the middle of the largest ocean, Gabriel sprawled on his belly. His wings were fanned out around him to better take in the sun as he soaked up the heat from the volcanic black sand he laid on. Angels as a rule did not need to sleep, but Gabriel had found that long periods of lazy restfulness felt absolutely delicious and recharged his spirit almost as much as meditation in the Garden.
“Gabriel?”
A hesitant voice interrupted Gabriel’s not-a-nap, and the Archangel grumbled as he stirred. One of his little brothers, an Angel, by the feel of it, was fidgeting near his largest wingtip. Gabriel lifted his head, propping it up on one hand as he looked over at the brother who intruded on his rest.
Castiel shifted his weight again, clutching the gold-edged feather Gabriel had given him millions of years ago, every ounce of his tattered grace radiating distress. Gabriel sat up immediately, his grumbles forgotten in favor of immediate worry as he reached for the injured Angel. “Castiel! What on Earth are you doing on Earth?”
Castiel hesitated for a few seconds before flitting to Gabriel, pressing desperately against his chest and shivering in his embrace. This Angel was still one of Raphael’s. Gabriel’s constant attempts to finagle him out of Raphael’s grasp and into his own choir had not yet succeeded, but Gabriel still kept his eye on his brother. The members of Castiel’s garrison were all trained as warriors to fight the threats that came from the Borderlands. Castiel himself had proven skilled with a sword, and as Gabriel had predicted, his talent for flight had exploded as his wings matured. Unfortunately, he was still very out of step with Heaven. Everywhere Castiel went, little mishaps sprung up in his wake. They were never directly Castiel’s fault and rarely caused injury, but the rumors were already spreading that this Angel had been cursed by God.
Castiel was no longer a fledgling, but only just barely considered full-grown. Out of all the ranks of the Host, Angels aged the slowest. The Cherubim spent almost no time as fledglings, and the Seraphim had been considered children for thousands of years, but there were still some later-awakened Angels not yet fully grown. In Gabriel’s eyes, Castiel was still very much a child. His relative immaturity was highlighted by how obviously scared the Angel was. He clutched at Gabriel’s wings as the Archangel wrapped him in them, squeezing his eyes shut. “I didn’t know who else to go to…”
“Shh, it’s okay. You’re with me. You’re safe.” Gabriel ran his hands down Castiel’s back, petting the younger angel and repeating his mantra over and over again until Castiel’s wings slumped and his arms loosened. Castiel twisted in Gabriel’s embrace so he was curled sideways in his older brother’s lap, resting his cheek against the Archangel’s shoulder. “What happened, Castiel? Where is the rest of your garrison? How were you injured?”
“They’re still in the Borderlands,” Castiel said. “I was assigned to fulfill a special task on Earth. It… didn’t go as planned.”
“Oh?” Gabriel’s wings twitched. He hadn’t requested Castiel come to Earth, nor had he delivered a message to anyone in Raphael’s choir with such a request from God or Sammael. Earth was still Gabriel’s domain. “Who assigned you?”
“Remiel said the order came from Raphael himself. He said it was a great honor, and I should be proud.”
Gabriel snorted derisively. To be singled out by Raphael was rarely a thing of pride in that choir. Raphael didn’t believe in any one angel deserving greater accolades than the rest of his garrison. He only singled out angels he felt deserved punishments. Still, many angels believed any individual attention from an Archangel was worthy of praise. “Raphael had no right to send you to Earth alone, unless he was using you to deliver a message to me. Was he?”
Castiel shook his head. “I was supposed to handle a threat to humanity that you were ignoring.”
“Ignoring!? That pompous twit! I’ll show him…”
In Gabriel’s arms, Castiel flinched from Gabriel’s wrath. The Archangel noticed and immediately cut himself off, closing his eyes and forcing his anger down. He resumed stroking Castiel’s back, letting the presence of the younger angel remind him why anger was not a good response now. Castiel’s grace was still pitted and weak, so Gabriel began stitching the torn edges together with a thread of his own grace, healing his little brother. He wasn’t as adept at this as his twin, but even he could patch up frayed grace. “What sort of threat, Castiel?” Gabriel knew every inch of this Earth, knew every location of every human settlement. He watched over his Father’s greatest creations, and he would have known if there was a threat dangerous enough to concern Raphael. There wasn’t. Nevertheless, it made a great loophole for the Archangel of the Air. Raphael’s domain was technically the defense of Heaven and its treasures, and technically, humanity counted as one of the greatest treasures of Heaven. If Raphael felt humans were endangered, he could interfere on Earth, even though it wasn’t his standard region.
“Unicorns,” Castiel whispered, unable to not flinch at the name of the beasts.
Out of the millions of creatures that had developed from the survivors of God’s wrath, many of them were in some way detrimental to humanity, God’s obvious favorites. A small handful, however, had managed to evolve traits that could injure even angels. There was one creature, known as Eve, who seemed to take a perverse delight in creating angel-attacking monsters. Three of Gabriel’s garrisons hunted Eve constantly. Five Angels and Cherubim had been killed before a reluctant truce had formed-the angels would harry Eve, but they wouldn’t get close enough to kill her, and she would hurl nasty monsters at them, but none were truly deadly.
Of the nasty monsters Eve had created, unicorns were some of the biggest pains. They were larger than horses, with a single venomous horn stretching out from their forehead. Unlike horses, they had vicious, slashing fangs, and their favorite meal was fresh human flesh. While docile and sweet around virginal humans, they turned into raging monsters the moment they sensed a more experienced human, and they had a special bloodlust that they reserved solely for angels. The venom from their horns was one of very few things that could infect an angel’s grace, weakening it, eating holes through it like acid. Now that Gabriel looked closer at Castiel’s, he could make out the distinctive burned edges indicating damage from unicorn venom.
Gabriel was reluctant to completely wipe out any creature, even something as painfully nasty for humans as the unicorns, lest he invoke the wrath of God again, so he had one full garrison set aside simply to tend to them. They managed to kill off the majority of the beasts, leaving just one nomadic herd. Of that herd, they culled the males to keep it from growing out of hand. At the moment, there was only one adult male unicorn and one female pregnant with a male. All of the twenty-six other unicorns and their unborn offspring were female.
“Unicorns,” Gabriel repeated. Castiel winced again and nodded. Gabriel closed his eyes and stilled his hands for a moment, counting to ten before resuming his care. “Castiel, I have an entire garrison monitoring the unicorns.”
“I was told they were too close to a human settlement and needed to be moved away. I was told to corral them and shift them further south.”
“And you were sent alone?”
Castiel nodded, and Gabriel couldn’t help the twist of his major wings, spreading his feathers out to reveal their knife-sharp edges, little tongues of flame licking between the shafts. If Raphael stood before him, Gabriel would have slashed at his face. Castiel was barely more than a fledgling Angel. Gabriel wouldn’t have sent a full-grown Seraph to face down the unicorns alone. Gabriel wouldn’t have challenged the unicorns himself without at least one other angel for backup, just in case. One solo Angel was lucky to have escaped with his life.
“They attacked you.”
“I tried!” Castiel pressed his hands to his eyes, shaking his head violently. “I could outmaneuver them at first, and I tried to herd them away, but they kept charging after me, and there were so many…”
“Did they attack the human settlement?”
Castiel shook his head, already calming down. That was another downside to Raphael’s choir, Gabriel felt. Raphael discouraged emotional displays from his angels. He felt emotions weakened the angels who showed them and distracted those who didn’t. Gabriel felt the suppression of emotions was what weakened the angels. Castiel was scared and hurting, and he had every right to be angry at being thrown into an impossible scenario. Forcing those emotions down didn’t remove their effects, and Castiel would likely suffer silently until he could work through his fear and pain. Gabriel re-resolved to get Castiel away from Raphael as soon as he could.
“The unicorns did hurt you, though.” Gabriel ran his hands soothingly over Castiel’s grace, finding another hole to fill in with his own. “What happened to them?”
“Some of your angels turned up,” Castiel admitted, looking down at the feather he held in his hands. “They drove off the unicorns, and the Dominion lectured me on interfering where I shouldn’t. But I had been assigned!”
“Yes, yes, it’s okay. I’ll speak with…” Which Dominion ruled over the unicorns? That would be… Jeremiah, unless Zachariah had rearranged things again. “With Jeremiah, explain things to him. I’m just glad you’re still alive.”
Castiel turned his face up to Gabriel, his bright blue eyes searching the Archangel’s for the truth. Gabriel just stroked his wings against Castiel’s and cloaked the younger angel in his grace. “Unicorns can be deadly. Even I would hesitate to face the herd alone. You were very brave to have done so until my angels could help.” And very stupid, but Gabriel didn’t add that bit. Angels were supposed to follow the orders of their superiors, and Raphael certainly didn’t encourage lateral thinking. Castiel’s only crime was not questioning authority.
“I did something bad,” Castiel whispered, his whole body giving a shiver. “I really messed up, before Jeremiah and his Angels came.” The little angel suddenly thrust Gabriel’s feather up between them, offering it back to his older brother. “I thought… you had given me this, and if I could find you, I could give it back so you would help me, and I figured you maybe were on a beach, because that’s where you were the first time, and please, please help me, I don’t want Raphael to get mad at me, he’s going to be so mad at me, please!”
“Castiel!” Gabriel pressed his hand over his brother’s, forcing him to lower the feather. “I gave you that feather as a gift, not as a way to extort a favor from me. Keep it.” Castiel’s grace immediately dimmed, and Gabriel quickly gathered the Angel close again. “Shh, Castiel, that doesn’t mean I won’t help you. You are my little brother, and you can always turn to me for help… especially if it will make Raphael mad. Now tell me, how did you mess up?”
“I…” Castiel hugged Gabriel’s feather against his chest, curling in on himself. “I killed them…”
“Killed who?” Gabriel asked, trying to keep his voice as calm as possible and not spike with fear. “Jeremiah? His Angels?”
“No!” Castiel’s head whipped back and forth in a fervent denial. “No, some of the unicorns!”
“Oh.” Though the unicorns were endangered, Gabriel hadn’t noticed any signs that God’s wrath would come down on anyone who killed them. If Castiel had killed a brother, Gabriel would have had to… well, he wasn’t sure what he’d have to do if Castiel had managed to kill another angel. No angel had ever drawn a weapon on a brother before. Naomi and Alastair probably wrote it in their code of conduct somewhere. “Killing the unicorns is okay, Castiel. Better than killing angels or humans.”
“I killed a pregnant one,” Castiel whispered. “It was charging me. I killed its baby with my sword. And then the big male ran at me, and I…”
“Did you kill the male?” Gabriel asked. If Castiel had, then Jeremiah would have to protect the mare with the male baby to make sure the whole herd didn’t go extinct.
Castiel shrugged. “I ducked, and another unicorn rammed it, and… I didn’t kill it, but it still died, and…” The little angel shivered and curled up again.
“It’s okay, Castiel,” Gabriel said, rocking his brother gently in his arms. “It’s okay. A couple unicorns died, but no angels and no humans. You did well.”
“Raphael said I had to be careful. He said I shouldn’t hurt them, that there were only a couple left. He said I had to get them away from the humans without hurting any unicorn.”
Gabriel waved his hand dismissively. “Castiel, unicorns are an Earthly concern. My concern. If I say that no permanent damage was done to the herd, Raphael can’t get mad at you for it. He can get mad at me, but not at you.”
“Jeremiah said both males were killed.”
Gabriel looked down at the young angel tucked against his chest. “Both males?” Castiel nodded meekly. Gabriel closed his eyes and rubbed a hand over his face. Oh Castiel… With both males dead, the unicorns would eventually go extinct. The suicide mission Raphael had sent Castiel on had wound up killing the wrong creatures. And it had been a suicide mission. Gabriel had no doubts there. Castiel’s mishaps gummed up the cogs in the well-oiled machine Raphael wanted to turn his angels into. If Gabriel knew his twin (and he did), Castiel’s existence was a blight on Raphael’s choir. Raphael was far too proud to give Castiel over to Gabriel, though, so sending him to his death was the only possible way to get rid of him.
And Castiel went and screwed up even getting himself killed.
Gabriel couldn’t help the chuckle that was bubbling up within him. He dropped his hand from his face to hug Castiel again, laughing unrestrainedly as he fell back against the sand, his wings shifting through the fine black grains. “Only you, Castiel, only you!”
“Are… are you mad?”
“I’m not mad,” Gabriel assured Castiel, cradling the younger angel against his chest as he closed his eyes again, soaking up the heat of the beach. “I’m glad. I’ve wanted to remove the unicorns as a threat entirely for centuries, but I didn’t want to make such a huge movement. This way, they will all die out, unless Father intervenes, and this way, Father has time to intervene, if it were meant to be. So thank you, little brother. I will personally speak with Raphael on your behalf about this. I’ll make sure he doesn’t punish you at all.” Gabriel reached up to close his hand over Castiel’s, still clutching his feather. “You have my word on that.”
Next...