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Posting from a flashdrive again, and in a hurry, so beware typos this chapter.
Title: The Second Plan
Rating: PG-13
Fandoms: Good Omens, Supernatural
Continuity: Follows straight from Interludes
Characters/Pairings: Gabriel, Sam, Dean, Castiel, Crowley, Aziraphale, Bobby. Sam/Gabriel, Dean/Cas, Aziraphale/Crowley, all fairly strong this chapter
Summary: Some playing in the present, pain in the past, plans for the future
Wordcount: 5365
Spoilers/Warnings: References in particular SPN eps 4x16 (Head of a Pin) and 5x19 (Hammer of the Gods), but is still AU from 5x16. Also refs the Book of Enoch, and the prelude for the Arrangements-verse
Disclaimer: Still not mine, unfortunately
The humming woke Gabriel. Not because it was loud. But because it was very, very persistent. Whoever it was wanted anyone listening to know he was not going to stop until he got what he wanted. Whatever he wanted.
"There. Were. Four in the bed, and the little one said ..." Crowley sang happily. Which seemed Gabriel's cue ...
"The little one said, screw you," he hissed, shoving his head pointedly into Sam's shoulder and pulling one heavy arm back over his shoulders, the way anyone else would pull the covers over their head. Sam, blearily heading towards consciousness, made a little puzzled sound, but let him do as he liked. At that, Gabriel gave considerable consideration to simply never moving again. Crowley, though, was apparently not in the mood for that kind of thing. Hypocrite. Crowley'd slept through the better part of the 19th century. In its entirety. He had no right to be bullying Gabriel out of bed after a whole five hours ...
"Huh. Not the lyrics I was going for, but we can work with it." A thoughtful pause, and Gabriel didn't even have to see the leer to know it was there. "And the little one said 'screw you'. So they all rolled over and ... you know, archangel, I'm not sure there's room, but I suppose we could try ..."
"Is someone going to kill the demon, or am I going to have to get up?" Dean growled huskily from somewhere beyond Castiel. The human sounded hungover, and annoyed, and not at all happy. Normally, Gabriel would be happy about this, but in this particular instance he was in the same boat. Or bed.
"Gabriel will kill him for us," Castiel said, firmly, voice husky with sleep and about two octaves lower than it should have been, but Gabriel figured waking up pressed full length against the love of his life might be partially responsible for that.
"Cas!" The bed bounced alarmingly, cracking the top of Gabriel's skull against Sam's chin, and fine, fine, he was up, he was getting up ... And he didn't need to see that, thank you. He absolutely did not need to see Dean Winchester all but eating his little brother's face. He also didn't need to fall over Sam trying to climb out of the bed, or to have the great lump fall after him and land on him in a confusion of limbs while the demon in the doorway went into hysterics.
You know, on second thoughts? This whole sleeping thing wasn't all it was cracked up to be.
Then he blinked up as Sam untangled them, up into flushed, half-awake features and a sleepy smile, and realised that his human was all but pinning him to the floor, and at least one part of him was very enthusiastically saying good morning ...
"Come back in an hour," he growled at Crowley, waving an imperious hand in the demon's direction. Which resulted in absolutely nothing except the snickers going up in pitch, until the demon had to pull himself together long enough to say:
"Twenty minutes. Bobby says he's coming up with a shotgun if you're not down after that." Some more desperate snorting, and then Crowley breathed deep, and managed to finish. "There's lunch in it for you if you can manage it without scarring him for life."
"I'm sure we will manage," Castiel said, in what was simultaneously the most sex-laden voice Gabriel had heard in months, and the primest tone humanly possible. Even Gabriel found that hilarious, so he pre-emptively knocked the demon out of the room and down the stairs with a wave of his hand, before the laughter could actually paralyse the bastard and rob them of their twenty minutes.
Twenty minutes. There was a lot Gabriel could do with twenty minutes ...
There was also a lot Castiel could do with twenty minutes, apparently, which Gabriel wasn't completely sure he'd wanted to know, but if the noises their humans were making were anything to go by, nobody had any complaints.
On third thoughts, while he was capable of having thoughts, sleeping was fine after all. Not as fine as waking up, though.
Okay. So it was more like half an hour than twenty minutes. But that was only because Gabriel had done a little click-and-snap to clean him and Sam up, and Castiel had tried the same on his end, and the little bastard had managed it. Shining with Grace once more, Castiel had managed something that had been denied him for months, and there'd had to be another ten minutes while Dean kissed him senseless in congratulations, and Gabriel tried to remember how to breathe again, and Sam wondered if Heimlich maneuvers worked on breathless archangels.
They didn't, as it happened. Kissing, though, did.
So. They were ten minutes late coming down. Bobby -and Gabriel felt weird calling him that, but Sam apparently felt weird if Gabriel called him anything else- didn't call them on it, though. Probably because, as far as Gabriel could see, the man had gotten all the sense and decency his adoptive family hadn't. Or because mentioning it would come under the 'scarred for life' heading. Either or. Aziraphale probably had similar reasons for keeping quiet.
Crowley didn't mention it either, but in his case that was less because of decency, and more because the demon had a six-thousand-year old leer that more than made up for any verbal silence on his part. More than made up for it.
Castiel apparently didn't like that. Or simply saw it as the perfect excuse to let loose whatever dirty little secret he'd been holding in since seeing Crowley in snake-form in the ... in the factory. Whatever it was, the end result was Gabriel's little brother marching up to where the demon was seated with the kind of expression on his face that would do a Trickster proud. Gabriel felt all warm and tingly just looking at it.
Though that could have been Sam's hand on his leg, now that he thought about it.
"You are no longer wearing your other shape," Castiel noted, faux-casual, with a beautiful little smirk riding under the seriousness of his expression. Gabriel grinned into the middle distance, and quietly noted that every pair of eyes in the room was riveted on his little brother's performance. Including a very nervous-looking golden set.
"No," Crowley drawled, equally casual, equally false, and wiggled his fingers. "I wanted to have opposable thumbs in time for lunch. Why? Did you need me for something?"
The expression that slowly crept across Castiel's face could only be called a smirk.
"No," he said quietly. "It was only that I hoped for another cuddle. You were so comfortable, last time, and surprisingly muscular ..."
Aziraphale made a noise like a kettle boiling over. Dean echoed him with almost frightening similarity. Gabriel was torn between snickering at the lot of them, and taking the suddenly pale demon outside for a little minute to ask him why he'd been molesting all Gabriel's little brothers. Aziraphale, he might have an excuse. Castiel ...
Crowley growled, pointing a shaking finger at Castiel. "I told you never to mention that," he hissed, but his expression was more pleading than threatening. "After all I did, the least you could do is not mention it!"
Cas blinked, all surprised innocence and vague hurt, and Gabriel had to wonder, then. Wonder if there wasn't something they were missing here. Because in his experience, the only people who could look that perfectly innocent ... were people who really weren't. "Is that why you pretended not to know me?" his little brother asked, piling on the hurt. "I don't understand. Why would you not wish people to know that you ... helped me? I was badly injured at the time. I would not have escaped without your help. A ... cuddle ... was a small price to pay, for that ..."
... Dead. Filthy rotten pervert demon was dead. He was sixteen different kinds of dead, and yes, Gabriel was perfectly capable of making all of them happen at once, and even if he wasn't Dean Winchester looked more than set to help him.
"Explain, demon," he snarled, coming up out of his chair, about a split second ahead of Dean, and for once Aziraphale wasn't leaping straight to his demon's defense, still looking between Crowley and Castiel in worried confusion.
Crowley, though, wasn't looking at them. He did glance at Aziraphale for a second, but other than that ... he sat still as stone, and stared at Castiel for a minute. A long minute. Then he raised one shaking hand, pointed at him and said: "Evil. You evil bastard! There are demons out there crying because they can't be as evil as you, you know that? You're a lying rotten bastard, and Gabriel ought to sue you for stealing his schtick!"
Gabriel blinked. "My schtick?"
Crowley grimaced in his direction. "What is it you angels have against me, anyway? Why do you always have to make it sound like I've committed just about the only crimes in creation I haven't actually done?" He paused for a second, and turned back to Cas with narrowed eyes. "Unless ... you're trying to make me admit to what I have actually done ..."
Castiel smiled. "Such as find an injured, hunted angel and rescue him? Such as cuddle up to him on instinct because you were hurt and afraid and, I suspect, thought he was your angel, just for a minute? Such as help that angel complete his mission, and break out of Hell itself?" He smiled. "Why would I want you to admit that?"
"... Hell?" Aziraphale asked, very quietly. Across the table, Dean sat down suddenly, going pale and quiet. Sam reached out mutely and squeezed his arm.
Crowley grimaced. "Yeah, about that ... You know when I had to spend two months in Hell when that rogue exorcist caught me in Naples couple years back?"
Aziraphale went very still. "You told me that was two days, dearest," he said, distantly.
Crowley flinched, looking suddenly panicky. "Er. Did I?"
"Yes, dear. You did. After we got you your new body, remember? You told me, very clearly I might add, that the exorcist had caught you only week ago, and you'd spent only two days Downstairs. You told me, dearest."
"Um." Crowley's sudden greenish complexion went very well with the golden eyes, Gabriel thought. "Um. Well, you know how time blurs together down there, angel. I didn't ... I didn't realise until later how long it had been, that's all ..."
Castiel tilted his head. "Really? While you were helping me, you said you'd been down there twenty years, to my forty. I believe you said it explained why they'd simply put you in the freezer out of the way, while they concentrated on me and my team. You seemed very sure of the time then. Did you forget on reaching the surface?"
Crowley shot him a very, very dirty look, but didn't have time to retort before Aziraphale reached out, tugged him around and met his eyes with the kind of stare that looked like it was cataloguing your toenails. Crowley sucked in a breath, flinching back a bit, and Aziraphale's fierce expression collapsed in on itself, and the angel promptly plucked Crowley up out of his chair and into Aziraphale's arms, burying his face in the crook of Crowley's neck. The demon stiffened, glaring furiously around the room at anyone who might dare comment, and hesitantly patted his angel on the back.
"How many times am I going to lose you, dearest?" Aziraphale murmured thickly, arms tightening convulsively around Crowley's waist.
Crowley glared furiously at Castiel, who suddenly looked more than a little guilty, and snuggled Aziraphale's head carefully. "You haven't lost me at all yet," he pointed out gruffly. "Look, it was just some time in the freezer, angel. Alastair really was busy elsewhere ..." And Dean flinched down to the ground, curving back into Sam, catching Castiel's hand. "... It was just ... cold, that's all. Just cold. The only reason it took me that long to get out was because the psychopathic bastard put a seal around me, and yon tattletale angel over there fixed that when he fell over me and tried to kick my head in. No worries."
"And then he helped me escape," Castiel continued quietly, one hand holding Dean's, the other resting on his human's shoulder like he never, ever meant to let go again. "He helped me find Dean, helped me stay alive until I could, and risked his freedom by waiting until after I had awoken every security force in Hell by stealing the Righteous Man to escape." Aziraphale made a strangled sound, and Crowley glared pure murder, but Castiel was undeterred as ever, and finished with heavy finality. "I could not thank you before, because you did not reveal yourself to me. But without you, I would not be here right now. More importantly, without you Dean would not be here. For that, I cannot thank you enough."
Which didn't seem to mollify Crowley in the slightest, or anyone else for that matter, and for a long moment a pall hung over the room that wouldn't have seemed out of place in a funeral home. And Gabriel ... Gabriel couldn't bear it. He really couldn't. There was only so much angst he could take in one sitting, and this coming so close on the heels of his little talk with Lucy ...
"So, to sum up," he cut in, bright and cheerful as he leaned back in his chair and waiting for them all to look at him. "Basically, there isn't an angel in this room who you haven't personally pulled out of the fire at one point or another, and you've saved more of your supposed enemy than some demons even meet. That about right?" A long pause, while Crowley's jaw worked soundlessly, and Gabriel grinned. "Honestly, Serpent, I had no idea you were so noble. Honourable, even. Merciful. In fact, one might even say ... heroic?"
At each successive adjective, Crowley went redder and redder, and at the last he practically exploded, spluttering incoherently as he waved furious arms in Gabriel's direction. "I am not ... how dare you ... You take that back, Gabriel! You take that back right now! I am not, I was never ... You take that back!"
He squirmed in Aziraphale's grasp, trying to wriggle free so he could hit Gabriel, and he looked so perfectly, uniquely, marvelously comical that they had to laugh. All of them. Sam and Dean, trying badly to hide it, Bobby at the counter hiding behind his coffee mug, even Castiel with that little smile tucked in the corner of his mouth, Aziraphale somewhere between beaming pride and helpless, guilty amusement, and Gabriel ... Gabriel leaned back and let loose, completely unashamed, grinning like a Cheshire Cat while Crowley spluttered at the lot of them.
And because they were all guiltily trying to avoid his eyes, because all of them except Gabriel were looking away ... only he saw the little flicker of pride and relief that curled under the affront in the demon's face. Only he saw that.
"I'm glad you all find me so bloody amusing," Crowley snarled at last, crossing his arms huffily and elbowing Aziraphale gleefully in the ear in the process. "Of course, if the angels in the room would stop doing shit like pick fights with Heaven and Hell, and the Devil, and the entire First bloody Crusade, I wouldn't have to keep stepping in, would I? And it's not like any of you are any better, or did you all just decide to come to my rescue because you were bored?"
"Ah, but we have an excuse!" Gabriel pointed out, grinning. "We are, after all, angels. With some champions of humanity thrown in, yes, and I do realise I use that term only in its very loosest sense ..."
"Bite me," Dean growled, having apparently recovered himself. Gabriel smirked at him.
"You know, you really will have to stop asking me things like that in front of your boyfriend, Deano. He might get the wrong idea."
For a second, there was a guilty flash as Dean looked up at Cas, but there was only faint, delighted amusement in his little brother's face, a kind of playful pride and a joy that his family was playing together, and both Dean and Gabriel gulped at the sight of it. Shivered down to their souls at the sheer, honest love in Castiel's expression, because that wasn't fair, it wasn't fair for Cas to offer them that and not be afraid of it, wasn't fair that he could hold himself out to them and have complete, utter confidence that they wouldn't hurt him for it. It wasn't fair for him to trust them that way.
No. It wasn't fair. But it was real, and it was there, and there was nothing either of them could do except go along with it. So Dean turned back to Gabriel with a smirk pasted over the shell-shocked love, and said:
"Nah. He'll be too busy cuddling his muscular serpent over there."
And while Castiel smirked wider than should really be possible, Crowley snorted viciously, and grinned an evil grin. "And that'll leave Sam, Bobby and the angel in a threesome to round us out," the demon said, "And aren't you all so glad you waited to eat until after you'd had that lovely thought?"
Bobby coughed coffee all over his shirt. While he wheezed and gasped and glared furiously at Crowley as he fought for breath, Sam looked over at the demon, then down at Gabriel, and commented mildly: "You know, I think Crowley's right. He's not at all heroic or honourable."
"Damn straight," the demon grinned, and crossed his arms triumphantly.
They did actually manage to eat in the end, despite Crowley's parting shot. Though Bobby had pointedly refused to give the demon any, and stabbed at his hand whenever he reached for some with all the accuracy of decades of hunting. Crowley sulked, up until Aziraphale slid his plate over with a tiny smile and a gentle pat on the demon's arm, and Crowley had to spend a minute or two deciding whether he should feel grateful or patronised. Gabriel wasn't sure if he ever picked one or the other, or simply decided 'hungry' overruled the lot of them, but the demon tucked in with a will and a smug grin in Bobby's direction.
There were times when Gabriel really did like the little bastard.
He wasn't sure how long that was going to last, however, when he saw the old hunter exchanging meaningful glances with both the angel and the demon while they cleared up. Aziraphale, who either couldn't be secretive to save his life or simply didn't see the point, nodded at him and leaned over to murmur in Crowley's ear without any care at all for who might be watching and wondering. Well well. It looked like Bobby and those two had been plotting while they'd all been upstairs asleep, and that ... that could only be a bad thing.
"Why do I sense a conspiracy in the air?" he asked mildly, leaning back in his chair and crossing his arms with a warning smirk. Sam and Dean looked around carefully, leaning forwards surreptiously across the table, and Castiel simply settled his buzz-saw stare on the back of Aziraphale's head and waited until the other angel crumpled.
The three conspirators sent each a long, very patient, faintly exasperated look. Gabriel tried not to hold it against them.
"Me and the boys here, we've just been getting a few things in motion, that's all," Bobby said gruffly, sitting down beside the demon and kicking Crowley's legs out of the way. He had to pause for a second, to look down at his foot and grin to himself for a moment, before he looked back up and got back down to business.
"In between ... distractions, anyway," Aziraphale mumbled dutifully, and flushed ever so faintly. Crowley leered happily at him.
"Yeah, thanks, didn't need reminding there," Bobby growled, rolling his eyes at them, and Gabriel hid a little smirk. So the demon had gotten a little something too this morning. Aside from Bobby's mortification, of course. Good for him.
"What kind of things?" Sam asked cautiously, looking very warily between Crowley and Bobby in particular. Apparently he thought the pair of them in league was cause for worry. Huh.
"Oh, an army," Aziraphale said breezily. "And some heavy duty planet-wide fortifications. Nothing much."
Dean swallowed audibly. Gabriel didn't blame him. "Uh. What now?"
Bobby grinned. Wide and gleeful, and Gabriel was suddenly reminded of Crowley and Castiel hunched over a table with explosions going off behind their eyes, and remembered what he'd said about handing machine guns to kids and telling them to play nice.
Apparently they had. They'd just offered to share the guns with other kids.
"Turns out the angel has a few handy Old World contacts for us," Bobby grinned happily. "Apparently the Jesuits have already been mobilised against the demon problem, along with the Knights of the Cross and a few other of the more military minded religious bodies. And on the angel side ... well. Got us an in with the Cistercians' metallurgy labs on the Continent. Gonna rustle us up some portable banishing sigils. Not many. Just enough to outfit, oh, say, every hunter across America."
"And some backup funding and manpower from the Families, too," Aziraphale reminded gently. "They can help with logistics, too, if you need to move a lot of people in a hurry."
"The ... the Families?" Dean asked faintly.
"The Mafia, to you," Crowley translated helpfully, grinning snakily. "Not the new crowd, mind. The old families. The old order." He jerked a thumb in the angel's direction. "Angel here's been on speaking terms with most of the family heads for about the last century. They used to help him out when nasty men came around to his bookshop making noises about how very flammable it all looked. Course, this was in London, but they were very helpful in writing him letters of introduction stateside ..."
"The Mafia," Sam repeated slowly. "The Mafia???"
"Lovely people," Aziraphale nodded, smiling gently. "Rather aggressive business practices, of course, but they have been getting better about that over the last couple of decades. And really, compared to the way things used to get done, during the Renaissance for example, they've been one of the more genteel aspects of civilisation. At least they'll talk to you."
"The Mafia," Dean said again. Faintly. Like if he repeated it enough, it might sink in. Gabriel grinned a little.
"Don't know why you're surprised, Deano," he smirked. "These two aren't like me and Cas. They've been down here from the start. Since Eden." A slow smile, eyeing them appraisingly. "They know everyone."
"Not quite everyone," Aziraphale demurred, but he was smirking a little himself. "Merely enough to be useful, hopefully. Oh, and Castiel? Crowley's going to need your help for the next couple of days, if it's not too much trouble. We need to set up the big sigils for the banishment loops, or the amulets the Cistercians are going to start shipping shortly won't be of much use."
"Banishment loops?" Gabriel asked sharply, sitting forwards. Crowley grinned like a shark.
"Big attractor sigils," he explained, the glee bubbling just under the surface of his voice. "A global circuit of about sixteen of 'em. When the angels get banished on the ground, they get sucked into the nearest of these babies, and start getting bounced around the loop. Essentially every time they land in one of them, they get automatically banished on to the next one. And again, and again. Won't kill 'em. Won't even hurt 'em all that much. It'll just keep them out of our hair for a while, and make them sick as pigs in the process."
Castiel leaned forwards, blue eyes suddenly shining in a way that was frankly unholy, in Gabriel's opinion. "Self-sustaining?" he asked, voice hitting that deep register again in a very worrying way. Crowley smirked.
"If we do it right. Got to link them all up to the central one in the Himalayas. I've got a few friends over there, some monks, lovely blokes, who'll happily sustain the circuit for as long as it takes if it'll help save the world. They're very civic-minded like that over there." He snuck a sideways look at Gabriel. "Play our cards right, and the archangel here might even be able to arrange for a guard on it, too. Someone not even archangels will challenge lightly."
Gabriel blinked. A lot. "You want me to ask her?" he asked, staring. "You want me to ask Kali to babysit some monks and the end of the world?" The demon shrugged cheerfully.
"Or get her to ask one of the others, either," he said casually. "Shiva or Vishnu should at least appreciate the aim, and it's not as if they'd have to hold it for long. This isn't a siege we're preparing for. Nobody has that kind of time. Besides. It's her world they're threatening too, and if I recall correctly Kali never did take that kind of thing well. I'm sure she'd agree."
"Well, yes," Gabriel murmured slowly, but the doubt was thick in his voice. "But if any of them do go for her, she's going to slaughter them. Asking Kali to go easy on someone is like a human trying to make a river run uphill with his bare hands. They'll be killed!"
"Yes, well," Aziraphale said quietly. "Hopefully they will realise that and not try it. But we have very few choices left, Gabriel. We have to do something." A pause, and then ... "Besides. That's really the least of our worries. There's something far more important that we haven't dealt with. Something, I think, we were all hoping we wouldn't have to deal with. But I think recent events have rather show us otherwise ..."
He trailed off, but he didn't really have to finish. Gabriel's wings had started aching the moment he opened his mouth, phantom pain through scarred bone and tissue, and he didn't think any of them failed to realise what Aziraphale meant. Who Aziraphale meant.
"He won't let us do this bloodlessly," Crowley whispered softly, looking right at Gabriel, and Gabriel could happily have gone his entire existence without having to see the pity in those golden eyes. "He's going to come for us one way or another. And that jumped up little twerp topside likewise. Whatever about Michael, according to Castiel Zach's got at least Raphael on his side, and nothing we've got now will help us much if archangels start breaking down the door. We've got nothing against that power-class. We're going to have to do something, and the fastest way to shut all of them down is to shut Lucifer down."
Gabriel shook his head, mouth twisting up. He just shook his head. He couldn't. He couldn't harm them. Any of them. Not even if they were obviously more than willing to harm him. Not even if at least one of them had a habit of nailing him to floors, and the others a habit of letting him. They were still his brothers. He couldn’t ...
"Gabriel," Aziraphale said, very quietly. "Gabriel, look at me. Look at me please." He waited, waited until Gabriel lifted his eyes almost unwillingly, and reached out, eyes soft with pity. "Gabriel, we are not asking you to kill them. Do you understand. We are not. But we need a way to deal with them. A non-fatal way, for preference, but we need something."
"I know you have a plan," Crowley spoke up, golden eyes boring a hole in the side of Gabriel's head, but not malicious. Just ... contemplative. "I remember you, archangel. I remember the old days. You aren't a Trickster just because it was handy. You didn't just pick that because it was the first thing that presented itself. You were always the one called when someone needed a more ... unorthodox solution to a problem. I remember that."
"Yes," Gabriel hissed, glaring at the demon. He remembered that too. He remembered it far, far too well. There was more than one reason he left. "You might also remember, though, that those 'solutions' tended to come with a healthy chunk of planetary population for a bodycount! I will not do that again! I will not be that again! And I will never, ever point that kind of 'solution' at my family! Never!"
He came half out of his seat, Grace crackling with fury and all but an inch from lashing out as they all stared at him, and somewhere inside him something twisted hard. Something that remembered what he'd done, once upon a time. Something that remembered what it had felt like to do it. Something that whispered how easy it would be, just to do that again. He'd wiped a whole race off the face of the earth, once. Literally. Destroyed them to a man, simply because they hadn't seen him coming, hadn't understood what he was and what he did to them, and there was a part of him now that whispered how Lucifer wouldn't see him coming either. Or Raphael, or Michael. They hadn't seen. They didn't expect. Every last one of them thought him less than useless, less than weak, and not one of them would ever expect ...
It would be easy. It would be so easy. And Gabriel would sooner tear out his Grace and kill himself then and there than ever, ever be that thing again. He wouldn't do it. He wouldn't do it!
"You won't have to," Aziraphale said quietly, cutting across Gabriel's fury with implacable calm. Completely merciless and endlessly compassionate, doing what needed to be done despite how much it hurt, and it was that, and that alone, that made this angel terrible. Where any other angel would either pretend his pain didn't exist as he asked, or look away from it, Aziraphale looked straight at him, seeing, accepting and understanding every part of him ... and asking anyway. "You won't have to kill them, Gabriel. But we need something, and you are the only one of us who might know what. You are the only one of us who knows their weaknesses."
"We might not have to use it," Crowley said, cautiously. "I have an idea ... there's something that's been bothering me for a while ... But we can't afford to be wrong when we're messing with archangels. We won't survive being wrong. Not unless we have a back-up plan, something that can shut them down. Even temporarily."
"Please, Gabriel," Aziraphale finished. "Something that can trap them, maybe? Something that we can threaten them with, even, try to make them see reason? Anything? Anything at all? Please, you must know something ..."
They looked at him. All of them. Aziraphale and Crowley, tag-team, plea and persuasion together. Sam and Bobby, tiredly hopeful. Castiel and Dean, and there was something strange there, something between guilt and hollow empathy, something in the way Dean in particular looked out at him as if he'd been there, as if he'd had to make this choice once, as if he'd been asked a terrible thing before. They all looked at him. To him.
And the thing was ... the thing was, Gabriel almost believed them. Almost believed they would let him stay his hand, be content with a trap, when at least three of them knew full well that Gabriel had it in him to end all their problems permanently. When at least three of them knew all that he had been, all that he had done, all that he could do again if they only broke him enough. And they could. The hold they had on his heart now, they could break him if they chose. They could ask, and make him give. Though it killed him. They could make him give.
But they wouldn't. He didn't know why he believed that, why he trusted that, but he knew they wouldn't. Though literally every other person Gabriel had ever called family would have, and had, in a heartbeat, these people wouldn't. He could trust them for that.
So maybe ... maybe he could trust them with a little more.
"You know the Horsemen?" he said at last, collapsing back into his chair and pointedly not looking as they collectively breathed out in relief and helpless gratitude. "Well, see, the Horsemen have these rings ..."
Contd: Interlude II - Gabriel
Title: The Second Plan
Rating: PG-13
Fandoms: Good Omens, Supernatural
Continuity: Follows straight from Interludes
Characters/Pairings: Gabriel, Sam, Dean, Castiel, Crowley, Aziraphale, Bobby. Sam/Gabriel, Dean/Cas, Aziraphale/Crowley, all fairly strong this chapter
Summary: Some playing in the present, pain in the past, plans for the future
Wordcount: 5365
Spoilers/Warnings: References in particular SPN eps 4x16 (Head of a Pin) and 5x19 (Hammer of the Gods), but is still AU from 5x16. Also refs the Book of Enoch, and the prelude for the Arrangements-verse
Disclaimer: Still not mine, unfortunately
The Second Plan
The humming woke Gabriel. Not because it was loud. But because it was very, very persistent. Whoever it was wanted anyone listening to know he was not going to stop until he got what he wanted. Whatever he wanted.
"There. Were. Four in the bed, and the little one said ..." Crowley sang happily. Which seemed Gabriel's cue ...
"The little one said, screw you," he hissed, shoving his head pointedly into Sam's shoulder and pulling one heavy arm back over his shoulders, the way anyone else would pull the covers over their head. Sam, blearily heading towards consciousness, made a little puzzled sound, but let him do as he liked. At that, Gabriel gave considerable consideration to simply never moving again. Crowley, though, was apparently not in the mood for that kind of thing. Hypocrite. Crowley'd slept through the better part of the 19th century. In its entirety. He had no right to be bullying Gabriel out of bed after a whole five hours ...
"Huh. Not the lyrics I was going for, but we can work with it." A thoughtful pause, and Gabriel didn't even have to see the leer to know it was there. "And the little one said 'screw you'. So they all rolled over and ... you know, archangel, I'm not sure there's room, but I suppose we could try ..."
"Is someone going to kill the demon, or am I going to have to get up?" Dean growled huskily from somewhere beyond Castiel. The human sounded hungover, and annoyed, and not at all happy. Normally, Gabriel would be happy about this, but in this particular instance he was in the same boat. Or bed.
"Gabriel will kill him for us," Castiel said, firmly, voice husky with sleep and about two octaves lower than it should have been, but Gabriel figured waking up pressed full length against the love of his life might be partially responsible for that.
"Cas!" The bed bounced alarmingly, cracking the top of Gabriel's skull against Sam's chin, and fine, fine, he was up, he was getting up ... And he didn't need to see that, thank you. He absolutely did not need to see Dean Winchester all but eating his little brother's face. He also didn't need to fall over Sam trying to climb out of the bed, or to have the great lump fall after him and land on him in a confusion of limbs while the demon in the doorway went into hysterics.
You know, on second thoughts? This whole sleeping thing wasn't all it was cracked up to be.
Then he blinked up as Sam untangled them, up into flushed, half-awake features and a sleepy smile, and realised that his human was all but pinning him to the floor, and at least one part of him was very enthusiastically saying good morning ...
"Come back in an hour," he growled at Crowley, waving an imperious hand in the demon's direction. Which resulted in absolutely nothing except the snickers going up in pitch, until the demon had to pull himself together long enough to say:
"Twenty minutes. Bobby says he's coming up with a shotgun if you're not down after that." Some more desperate snorting, and then Crowley breathed deep, and managed to finish. "There's lunch in it for you if you can manage it without scarring him for life."
"I'm sure we will manage," Castiel said, in what was simultaneously the most sex-laden voice Gabriel had heard in months, and the primest tone humanly possible. Even Gabriel found that hilarious, so he pre-emptively knocked the demon out of the room and down the stairs with a wave of his hand, before the laughter could actually paralyse the bastard and rob them of their twenty minutes.
Twenty minutes. There was a lot Gabriel could do with twenty minutes ...
There was also a lot Castiel could do with twenty minutes, apparently, which Gabriel wasn't completely sure he'd wanted to know, but if the noises their humans were making were anything to go by, nobody had any complaints.
On third thoughts, while he was capable of having thoughts, sleeping was fine after all. Not as fine as waking up, though.
---
Okay. So it was more like half an hour than twenty minutes. But that was only because Gabriel had done a little click-and-snap to clean him and Sam up, and Castiel had tried the same on his end, and the little bastard had managed it. Shining with Grace once more, Castiel had managed something that had been denied him for months, and there'd had to be another ten minutes while Dean kissed him senseless in congratulations, and Gabriel tried to remember how to breathe again, and Sam wondered if Heimlich maneuvers worked on breathless archangels.
They didn't, as it happened. Kissing, though, did.
So. They were ten minutes late coming down. Bobby -and Gabriel felt weird calling him that, but Sam apparently felt weird if Gabriel called him anything else- didn't call them on it, though. Probably because, as far as Gabriel could see, the man had gotten all the sense and decency his adoptive family hadn't. Or because mentioning it would come under the 'scarred for life' heading. Either or. Aziraphale probably had similar reasons for keeping quiet.
Crowley didn't mention it either, but in his case that was less because of decency, and more because the demon had a six-thousand-year old leer that more than made up for any verbal silence on his part. More than made up for it.
Castiel apparently didn't like that. Or simply saw it as the perfect excuse to let loose whatever dirty little secret he'd been holding in since seeing Crowley in snake-form in the ... in the factory. Whatever it was, the end result was Gabriel's little brother marching up to where the demon was seated with the kind of expression on his face that would do a Trickster proud. Gabriel felt all warm and tingly just looking at it.
Though that could have been Sam's hand on his leg, now that he thought about it.
"You are no longer wearing your other shape," Castiel noted, faux-casual, with a beautiful little smirk riding under the seriousness of his expression. Gabriel grinned into the middle distance, and quietly noted that every pair of eyes in the room was riveted on his little brother's performance. Including a very nervous-looking golden set.
"No," Crowley drawled, equally casual, equally false, and wiggled his fingers. "I wanted to have opposable thumbs in time for lunch. Why? Did you need me for something?"
The expression that slowly crept across Castiel's face could only be called a smirk.
"No," he said quietly. "It was only that I hoped for another cuddle. You were so comfortable, last time, and surprisingly muscular ..."
Aziraphale made a noise like a kettle boiling over. Dean echoed him with almost frightening similarity. Gabriel was torn between snickering at the lot of them, and taking the suddenly pale demon outside for a little minute to ask him why he'd been molesting all Gabriel's little brothers. Aziraphale, he might have an excuse. Castiel ...
Crowley growled, pointing a shaking finger at Castiel. "I told you never to mention that," he hissed, but his expression was more pleading than threatening. "After all I did, the least you could do is not mention it!"
Cas blinked, all surprised innocence and vague hurt, and Gabriel had to wonder, then. Wonder if there wasn't something they were missing here. Because in his experience, the only people who could look that perfectly innocent ... were people who really weren't. "Is that why you pretended not to know me?" his little brother asked, piling on the hurt. "I don't understand. Why would you not wish people to know that you ... helped me? I was badly injured at the time. I would not have escaped without your help. A ... cuddle ... was a small price to pay, for that ..."
... Dead. Filthy rotten pervert demon was dead. He was sixteen different kinds of dead, and yes, Gabriel was perfectly capable of making all of them happen at once, and even if he wasn't Dean Winchester looked more than set to help him.
"Explain, demon," he snarled, coming up out of his chair, about a split second ahead of Dean, and for once Aziraphale wasn't leaping straight to his demon's defense, still looking between Crowley and Castiel in worried confusion.
Crowley, though, wasn't looking at them. He did glance at Aziraphale for a second, but other than that ... he sat still as stone, and stared at Castiel for a minute. A long minute. Then he raised one shaking hand, pointed at him and said: "Evil. You evil bastard! There are demons out there crying because they can't be as evil as you, you know that? You're a lying rotten bastard, and Gabriel ought to sue you for stealing his schtick!"
Gabriel blinked. "My schtick?"
Crowley grimaced in his direction. "What is it you angels have against me, anyway? Why do you always have to make it sound like I've committed just about the only crimes in creation I haven't actually done?" He paused for a second, and turned back to Cas with narrowed eyes. "Unless ... you're trying to make me admit to what I have actually done ..."
Castiel smiled. "Such as find an injured, hunted angel and rescue him? Such as cuddle up to him on instinct because you were hurt and afraid and, I suspect, thought he was your angel, just for a minute? Such as help that angel complete his mission, and break out of Hell itself?" He smiled. "Why would I want you to admit that?"
"... Hell?" Aziraphale asked, very quietly. Across the table, Dean sat down suddenly, going pale and quiet. Sam reached out mutely and squeezed his arm.
Crowley grimaced. "Yeah, about that ... You know when I had to spend two months in Hell when that rogue exorcist caught me in Naples couple years back?"
Aziraphale went very still. "You told me that was two days, dearest," he said, distantly.
Crowley flinched, looking suddenly panicky. "Er. Did I?"
"Yes, dear. You did. After we got you your new body, remember? You told me, very clearly I might add, that the exorcist had caught you only week ago, and you'd spent only two days Downstairs. You told me, dearest."
"Um." Crowley's sudden greenish complexion went very well with the golden eyes, Gabriel thought. "Um. Well, you know how time blurs together down there, angel. I didn't ... I didn't realise until later how long it had been, that's all ..."
Castiel tilted his head. "Really? While you were helping me, you said you'd been down there twenty years, to my forty. I believe you said it explained why they'd simply put you in the freezer out of the way, while they concentrated on me and my team. You seemed very sure of the time then. Did you forget on reaching the surface?"
Crowley shot him a very, very dirty look, but didn't have time to retort before Aziraphale reached out, tugged him around and met his eyes with the kind of stare that looked like it was cataloguing your toenails. Crowley sucked in a breath, flinching back a bit, and Aziraphale's fierce expression collapsed in on itself, and the angel promptly plucked Crowley up out of his chair and into Aziraphale's arms, burying his face in the crook of Crowley's neck. The demon stiffened, glaring furiously around the room at anyone who might dare comment, and hesitantly patted his angel on the back.
"How many times am I going to lose you, dearest?" Aziraphale murmured thickly, arms tightening convulsively around Crowley's waist.
Crowley glared furiously at Castiel, who suddenly looked more than a little guilty, and snuggled Aziraphale's head carefully. "You haven't lost me at all yet," he pointed out gruffly. "Look, it was just some time in the freezer, angel. Alastair really was busy elsewhere ..." And Dean flinched down to the ground, curving back into Sam, catching Castiel's hand. "... It was just ... cold, that's all. Just cold. The only reason it took me that long to get out was because the psychopathic bastard put a seal around me, and yon tattletale angel over there fixed that when he fell over me and tried to kick my head in. No worries."
"And then he helped me escape," Castiel continued quietly, one hand holding Dean's, the other resting on his human's shoulder like he never, ever meant to let go again. "He helped me find Dean, helped me stay alive until I could, and risked his freedom by waiting until after I had awoken every security force in Hell by stealing the Righteous Man to escape." Aziraphale made a strangled sound, and Crowley glared pure murder, but Castiel was undeterred as ever, and finished with heavy finality. "I could not thank you before, because you did not reveal yourself to me. But without you, I would not be here right now. More importantly, without you Dean would not be here. For that, I cannot thank you enough."
Which didn't seem to mollify Crowley in the slightest, or anyone else for that matter, and for a long moment a pall hung over the room that wouldn't have seemed out of place in a funeral home. And Gabriel ... Gabriel couldn't bear it. He really couldn't. There was only so much angst he could take in one sitting, and this coming so close on the heels of his little talk with Lucy ...
"So, to sum up," he cut in, bright and cheerful as he leaned back in his chair and waiting for them all to look at him. "Basically, there isn't an angel in this room who you haven't personally pulled out of the fire at one point or another, and you've saved more of your supposed enemy than some demons even meet. That about right?" A long pause, while Crowley's jaw worked soundlessly, and Gabriel grinned. "Honestly, Serpent, I had no idea you were so noble. Honourable, even. Merciful. In fact, one might even say ... heroic?"
At each successive adjective, Crowley went redder and redder, and at the last he practically exploded, spluttering incoherently as he waved furious arms in Gabriel's direction. "I am not ... how dare you ... You take that back, Gabriel! You take that back right now! I am not, I was never ... You take that back!"
He squirmed in Aziraphale's grasp, trying to wriggle free so he could hit Gabriel, and he looked so perfectly, uniquely, marvelously comical that they had to laugh. All of them. Sam and Dean, trying badly to hide it, Bobby at the counter hiding behind his coffee mug, even Castiel with that little smile tucked in the corner of his mouth, Aziraphale somewhere between beaming pride and helpless, guilty amusement, and Gabriel ... Gabriel leaned back and let loose, completely unashamed, grinning like a Cheshire Cat while Crowley spluttered at the lot of them.
And because they were all guiltily trying to avoid his eyes, because all of them except Gabriel were looking away ... only he saw the little flicker of pride and relief that curled under the affront in the demon's face. Only he saw that.
"I'm glad you all find me so bloody amusing," Crowley snarled at last, crossing his arms huffily and elbowing Aziraphale gleefully in the ear in the process. "Of course, if the angels in the room would stop doing shit like pick fights with Heaven and Hell, and the Devil, and the entire First bloody Crusade, I wouldn't have to keep stepping in, would I? And it's not like any of you are any better, or did you all just decide to come to my rescue because you were bored?"
"Ah, but we have an excuse!" Gabriel pointed out, grinning. "We are, after all, angels. With some champions of humanity thrown in, yes, and I do realise I use that term only in its very loosest sense ..."
"Bite me," Dean growled, having apparently recovered himself. Gabriel smirked at him.
"You know, you really will have to stop asking me things like that in front of your boyfriend, Deano. He might get the wrong idea."
For a second, there was a guilty flash as Dean looked up at Cas, but there was only faint, delighted amusement in his little brother's face, a kind of playful pride and a joy that his family was playing together, and both Dean and Gabriel gulped at the sight of it. Shivered down to their souls at the sheer, honest love in Castiel's expression, because that wasn't fair, it wasn't fair for Cas to offer them that and not be afraid of it, wasn't fair that he could hold himself out to them and have complete, utter confidence that they wouldn't hurt him for it. It wasn't fair for him to trust them that way.
No. It wasn't fair. But it was real, and it was there, and there was nothing either of them could do except go along with it. So Dean turned back to Gabriel with a smirk pasted over the shell-shocked love, and said:
"Nah. He'll be too busy cuddling his muscular serpent over there."
And while Castiel smirked wider than should really be possible, Crowley snorted viciously, and grinned an evil grin. "And that'll leave Sam, Bobby and the angel in a threesome to round us out," the demon said, "And aren't you all so glad you waited to eat until after you'd had that lovely thought?"
Bobby coughed coffee all over his shirt. While he wheezed and gasped and glared furiously at Crowley as he fought for breath, Sam looked over at the demon, then down at Gabriel, and commented mildly: "You know, I think Crowley's right. He's not at all heroic or honourable."
"Damn straight," the demon grinned, and crossed his arms triumphantly.
---
They did actually manage to eat in the end, despite Crowley's parting shot. Though Bobby had pointedly refused to give the demon any, and stabbed at his hand whenever he reached for some with all the accuracy of decades of hunting. Crowley sulked, up until Aziraphale slid his plate over with a tiny smile and a gentle pat on the demon's arm, and Crowley had to spend a minute or two deciding whether he should feel grateful or patronised. Gabriel wasn't sure if he ever picked one or the other, or simply decided 'hungry' overruled the lot of them, but the demon tucked in with a will and a smug grin in Bobby's direction.
There were times when Gabriel really did like the little bastard.
He wasn't sure how long that was going to last, however, when he saw the old hunter exchanging meaningful glances with both the angel and the demon while they cleared up. Aziraphale, who either couldn't be secretive to save his life or simply didn't see the point, nodded at him and leaned over to murmur in Crowley's ear without any care at all for who might be watching and wondering. Well well. It looked like Bobby and those two had been plotting while they'd all been upstairs asleep, and that ... that could only be a bad thing.
"Why do I sense a conspiracy in the air?" he asked mildly, leaning back in his chair and crossing his arms with a warning smirk. Sam and Dean looked around carefully, leaning forwards surreptiously across the table, and Castiel simply settled his buzz-saw stare on the back of Aziraphale's head and waited until the other angel crumpled.
The three conspirators sent each a long, very patient, faintly exasperated look. Gabriel tried not to hold it against them.
"Me and the boys here, we've just been getting a few things in motion, that's all," Bobby said gruffly, sitting down beside the demon and kicking Crowley's legs out of the way. He had to pause for a second, to look down at his foot and grin to himself for a moment, before he looked back up and got back down to business.
"In between ... distractions, anyway," Aziraphale mumbled dutifully, and flushed ever so faintly. Crowley leered happily at him.
"Yeah, thanks, didn't need reminding there," Bobby growled, rolling his eyes at them, and Gabriel hid a little smirk. So the demon had gotten a little something too this morning. Aside from Bobby's mortification, of course. Good for him.
"What kind of things?" Sam asked cautiously, looking very warily between Crowley and Bobby in particular. Apparently he thought the pair of them in league was cause for worry. Huh.
"Oh, an army," Aziraphale said breezily. "And some heavy duty planet-wide fortifications. Nothing much."
Dean swallowed audibly. Gabriel didn't blame him. "Uh. What now?"
Bobby grinned. Wide and gleeful, and Gabriel was suddenly reminded of Crowley and Castiel hunched over a table with explosions going off behind their eyes, and remembered what he'd said about handing machine guns to kids and telling them to play nice.
Apparently they had. They'd just offered to share the guns with other kids.
"Turns out the angel has a few handy Old World contacts for us," Bobby grinned happily. "Apparently the Jesuits have already been mobilised against the demon problem, along with the Knights of the Cross and a few other of the more military minded religious bodies. And on the angel side ... well. Got us an in with the Cistercians' metallurgy labs on the Continent. Gonna rustle us up some portable banishing sigils. Not many. Just enough to outfit, oh, say, every hunter across America."
"And some backup funding and manpower from the Families, too," Aziraphale reminded gently. "They can help with logistics, too, if you need to move a lot of people in a hurry."
"The ... the Families?" Dean asked faintly.
"The Mafia, to you," Crowley translated helpfully, grinning snakily. "Not the new crowd, mind. The old families. The old order." He jerked a thumb in the angel's direction. "Angel here's been on speaking terms with most of the family heads for about the last century. They used to help him out when nasty men came around to his bookshop making noises about how very flammable it all looked. Course, this was in London, but they were very helpful in writing him letters of introduction stateside ..."
"The Mafia," Sam repeated slowly. "The Mafia???"
"Lovely people," Aziraphale nodded, smiling gently. "Rather aggressive business practices, of course, but they have been getting better about that over the last couple of decades. And really, compared to the way things used to get done, during the Renaissance for example, they've been one of the more genteel aspects of civilisation. At least they'll talk to you."
"The Mafia," Dean said again. Faintly. Like if he repeated it enough, it might sink in. Gabriel grinned a little.
"Don't know why you're surprised, Deano," he smirked. "These two aren't like me and Cas. They've been down here from the start. Since Eden." A slow smile, eyeing them appraisingly. "They know everyone."
"Not quite everyone," Aziraphale demurred, but he was smirking a little himself. "Merely enough to be useful, hopefully. Oh, and Castiel? Crowley's going to need your help for the next couple of days, if it's not too much trouble. We need to set up the big sigils for the banishment loops, or the amulets the Cistercians are going to start shipping shortly won't be of much use."
"Banishment loops?" Gabriel asked sharply, sitting forwards. Crowley grinned like a shark.
"Big attractor sigils," he explained, the glee bubbling just under the surface of his voice. "A global circuit of about sixteen of 'em. When the angels get banished on the ground, they get sucked into the nearest of these babies, and start getting bounced around the loop. Essentially every time they land in one of them, they get automatically banished on to the next one. And again, and again. Won't kill 'em. Won't even hurt 'em all that much. It'll just keep them out of our hair for a while, and make them sick as pigs in the process."
Castiel leaned forwards, blue eyes suddenly shining in a way that was frankly unholy, in Gabriel's opinion. "Self-sustaining?" he asked, voice hitting that deep register again in a very worrying way. Crowley smirked.
"If we do it right. Got to link them all up to the central one in the Himalayas. I've got a few friends over there, some monks, lovely blokes, who'll happily sustain the circuit for as long as it takes if it'll help save the world. They're very civic-minded like that over there." He snuck a sideways look at Gabriel. "Play our cards right, and the archangel here might even be able to arrange for a guard on it, too. Someone not even archangels will challenge lightly."
Gabriel blinked. A lot. "You want me to ask her?" he asked, staring. "You want me to ask Kali to babysit some monks and the end of the world?" The demon shrugged cheerfully.
"Or get her to ask one of the others, either," he said casually. "Shiva or Vishnu should at least appreciate the aim, and it's not as if they'd have to hold it for long. This isn't a siege we're preparing for. Nobody has that kind of time. Besides. It's her world they're threatening too, and if I recall correctly Kali never did take that kind of thing well. I'm sure she'd agree."
"Well, yes," Gabriel murmured slowly, but the doubt was thick in his voice. "But if any of them do go for her, she's going to slaughter them. Asking Kali to go easy on someone is like a human trying to make a river run uphill with his bare hands. They'll be killed!"
"Yes, well," Aziraphale said quietly. "Hopefully they will realise that and not try it. But we have very few choices left, Gabriel. We have to do something." A pause, and then ... "Besides. That's really the least of our worries. There's something far more important that we haven't dealt with. Something, I think, we were all hoping we wouldn't have to deal with. But I think recent events have rather show us otherwise ..."
He trailed off, but he didn't really have to finish. Gabriel's wings had started aching the moment he opened his mouth, phantom pain through scarred bone and tissue, and he didn't think any of them failed to realise what Aziraphale meant. Who Aziraphale meant.
"He won't let us do this bloodlessly," Crowley whispered softly, looking right at Gabriel, and Gabriel could happily have gone his entire existence without having to see the pity in those golden eyes. "He's going to come for us one way or another. And that jumped up little twerp topside likewise. Whatever about Michael, according to Castiel Zach's got at least Raphael on his side, and nothing we've got now will help us much if archangels start breaking down the door. We've got nothing against that power-class. We're going to have to do something, and the fastest way to shut all of them down is to shut Lucifer down."
Gabriel shook his head, mouth twisting up. He just shook his head. He couldn't. He couldn't harm them. Any of them. Not even if they were obviously more than willing to harm him. Not even if at least one of them had a habit of nailing him to floors, and the others a habit of letting him. They were still his brothers. He couldn’t ...
"Gabriel," Aziraphale said, very quietly. "Gabriel, look at me. Look at me please." He waited, waited until Gabriel lifted his eyes almost unwillingly, and reached out, eyes soft with pity. "Gabriel, we are not asking you to kill them. Do you understand. We are not. But we need a way to deal with them. A non-fatal way, for preference, but we need something."
"I know you have a plan," Crowley spoke up, golden eyes boring a hole in the side of Gabriel's head, but not malicious. Just ... contemplative. "I remember you, archangel. I remember the old days. You aren't a Trickster just because it was handy. You didn't just pick that because it was the first thing that presented itself. You were always the one called when someone needed a more ... unorthodox solution to a problem. I remember that."
"Yes," Gabriel hissed, glaring at the demon. He remembered that too. He remembered it far, far too well. There was more than one reason he left. "You might also remember, though, that those 'solutions' tended to come with a healthy chunk of planetary population for a bodycount! I will not do that again! I will not be that again! And I will never, ever point that kind of 'solution' at my family! Never!"
He came half out of his seat, Grace crackling with fury and all but an inch from lashing out as they all stared at him, and somewhere inside him something twisted hard. Something that remembered what he'd done, once upon a time. Something that remembered what it had felt like to do it. Something that whispered how easy it would be, just to do that again. He'd wiped a whole race off the face of the earth, once. Literally. Destroyed them to a man, simply because they hadn't seen him coming, hadn't understood what he was and what he did to them, and there was a part of him now that whispered how Lucifer wouldn't see him coming either. Or Raphael, or Michael. They hadn't seen. They didn't expect. Every last one of them thought him less than useless, less than weak, and not one of them would ever expect ...
It would be easy. It would be so easy. And Gabriel would sooner tear out his Grace and kill himself then and there than ever, ever be that thing again. He wouldn't do it. He wouldn't do it!
"You won't have to," Aziraphale said quietly, cutting across Gabriel's fury with implacable calm. Completely merciless and endlessly compassionate, doing what needed to be done despite how much it hurt, and it was that, and that alone, that made this angel terrible. Where any other angel would either pretend his pain didn't exist as he asked, or look away from it, Aziraphale looked straight at him, seeing, accepting and understanding every part of him ... and asking anyway. "You won't have to kill them, Gabriel. But we need something, and you are the only one of us who might know what. You are the only one of us who knows their weaknesses."
"We might not have to use it," Crowley said, cautiously. "I have an idea ... there's something that's been bothering me for a while ... But we can't afford to be wrong when we're messing with archangels. We won't survive being wrong. Not unless we have a back-up plan, something that can shut them down. Even temporarily."
"Please, Gabriel," Aziraphale finished. "Something that can trap them, maybe? Something that we can threaten them with, even, try to make them see reason? Anything? Anything at all? Please, you must know something ..."
They looked at him. All of them. Aziraphale and Crowley, tag-team, plea and persuasion together. Sam and Bobby, tiredly hopeful. Castiel and Dean, and there was something strange there, something between guilt and hollow empathy, something in the way Dean in particular looked out at him as if he'd been there, as if he'd had to make this choice once, as if he'd been asked a terrible thing before. They all looked at him. To him.
And the thing was ... the thing was, Gabriel almost believed them. Almost believed they would let him stay his hand, be content with a trap, when at least three of them knew full well that Gabriel had it in him to end all their problems permanently. When at least three of them knew all that he had been, all that he had done, all that he could do again if they only broke him enough. And they could. The hold they had on his heart now, they could break him if they chose. They could ask, and make him give. Though it killed him. They could make him give.
But they wouldn't. He didn't know why he believed that, why he trusted that, but he knew they wouldn't. Though literally every other person Gabriel had ever called family would have, and had, in a heartbeat, these people wouldn't. He could trust them for that.
So maybe ... maybe he could trust them with a little more.
"You know the Horsemen?" he said at last, collapsing back into his chair and pointedly not looking as they collectively breathed out in relief and helpless gratitude. "Well, see, the Horsemen have these rings ..."
Contd: Interlude II - Gabriel
