sing, choirs of angels, sing in exultation!

[expunger]

Characters: Raphael, Lucifer, and Gabriel.
When: Christmas morning
Where: the Chateau
Rating: PG-13 or R for angels and character death. :(
Summary: Legitimately the worst Christmas ever.

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Gabriel lingered, even though it had been ages since he'd spent any length of time at the chateau, preferring to keep to himself until called out. There were things more important than raw aches that accompanied jealousy- he'd always been jealous of whoever got Lucifer's attentions, but never had it been so convoluted that he found himself wondering whose attentions he truly wanted.

But Raphael was more important than his own pettiness- any sibling more important than that, he felt the need to add to himself, as if in reassurance that he did still truly love his family and no position or stance would ever change that. But most importantly, Raphael had earned this from him. She was changing, growing, and Tom Riddle had struck her down before the truth of it could be fully realized- that alone made him wish to rip the boy's heart out.

So close. If the Animus returned her with no memories of her growth here, he'd make what Lucifer did at the Elysian Fields look like Sunday brunch. It wasn't fair.

He was at the lake, watching the ripples in the water not uncovered by winter ice, when he felt the sense of pervasive wrongness press against his angel radio like a mangy cat pressing against someone's legs. Suddenly, he bolted- flew rather- through the open doors of the chateau to appear by Raphael's side.

"Not now. Not today- hold it together." It was an order, albeit one twinged with desperation. He may have held no affection for the holiday, but he knew what sentiment it had for humans. Anyone dying on Christmas was a surefire mood-ruiner, no matter who you are.

[expunger]

They may have shared the desire to disembowel Tom Riddle and feed it to him, for their very different reasons, but maybe Gabriel shouldn't have. Raphael didn't know it, not really, but even now, she owed so much of that growth to him. What she did to Castiel still stood out as the worst single thing she ever did while in Adstringéndum, the one decision she's ever made that she actually had doubts about later.

Without the imminence of death, she might never have made the final push to make it right.

She didn't react to Gabriel's appearance as instantly as usual; it took her a few seconds to look up and notice him there, only to look dismayed and incredibly displeased. He had managed to land right next to her without her noticing. The sound of his wings wasn't enough and the angelic senses she was supposed to have were failing her. Just more ways her body was giving out on her.

It hurt. Her grip tightened on the pen in her violently trembling hand, her other hand gripping tightly at the edge of the book, if only for something to ground her. It was increasingly impossible to hold the stupid thing steadily enough to write, and she could only give him an exhausted, empty-eyed look. "Have you developed an affection for this day?"

[painhumbles]

"Not really- and the kid's Jewish, so she'll probably deal with it better," the sarcastic retort came without its normal vigor, but Gabriel maintained appearances at all cost to avoid allowing his mental house of cards to collapse. "And no one wants to die on Christmas. Ruins the whole day for everyone. C'mon." He leans down and attempts to pull her off the ground, unnerved by how light she seems- light and heavy at the same time. A human body is nothing to an angel at full power, but somehow the weight of an angel about to die is almost unbearable. He'd be better off to try and lift a dying star.

"You can fight through this. That's what we do, right?" Never mind that she'd been fighting with this for almost a month now. He was delaying an inevitability that would be better to come swiftly.

[expunger]

Raphael didn't have to ask or take a second to wonder who "the kid" was. It struck her as strange that any mere human had managed to penetrate into her life to the point that, on her deathbed, her own brothers had her first or second in their thoughts. Strange, that she mattered at all.

Did she? Raphael couldn't tell. She didn't have the energy to wonder.

Any answer to Gabriel's comments would have to wait, as she choked on a cough and grabbed hard at his shoulder for support when he pulled her. It took a second to get her feet under her- only for her knees to buckle slightly and for her to almost fall with an annoyed grunt. She wasn't surprised, though. Her body was giving out. She fisted his jacket tightly and closed her eyes for a second, relying on the false privacy of darkness to give her the mental strength to reply through the indignity of the situation. "Fighting is tiring."

[painhumbles]

Well, so much for giving her some dignity. Gabriel wasted no time in stooping and gathering her in an awkward bridal carry, which was as awkward for him as it undoubtedly was for her- moreso for him. He was carrying someone who, despite not weighing much and still weighing an unbearable amount, was roughly an inch or two taller than him.

"Yeah, but we do it anyway," he grunted. Now that he had her, he wasn't sure what to do with her, so with some hesitation, he moved towards a couch and transferred her onto it. Better than dying on an uncaring stone floor.

"But if you have to stop... I get it." If he'd just kept holding her and standing in the middle of the floor like an idiot, he would have looked less awkward. He didn't do this enough to be good at it. Feelings were meant to be internalized- felt, but never fully manifested. It was so difficult to convey how much he didn't want to lose her, and yet... How much he understand the desire to just stop.

So he let the defeated look on his face do the talking.

[expunger]

Some time between almost falling and being scooped up by her brother, Raphael forgot why she was supposed to be indignant at the treatment. No, by the time he had her in his arms, she was tired enough to rest her head gently on his shoulder while he awkwardly put her down.

The couch was comfortable. It took her a few seconds to rally and pull herself together enough to move her legs and curl into herself. She reached out to him waveringly, willing herself to be strong enough to put a trembling hand on his shoulder, to meet his eyes as if to say something profound. "Gabriel... you look pathetic."

Or, well. Something like that.

"I cannot give up yet. I am not finished." Her book and pen still lay on the floor.

[painhumbles]

Gabriel shot her a look of pure flippancy, because if she wanted to see pathetic, he had a mirror to introduce her to. Once he could bring himself to take his eyes off of her, as if concerned she might just go out like a snuffed light if he dared look away for longer than a few seconds, he abandoned the couch and retrieved the book. A decent brother would have just handed it back to her, no questions asked.

Gabriel had to open it to see what was in it. "Little late to be keeping a diary."

Gallows humor. Always fun.

[expunger]

Raphael made a sound that was supposed to be a judgmental retort, but died somewhere between her brain and her mouth. Some part of her appreciated that she was dying, that this meant her Grace was so depleted that she was relying on failing brain function to continue to function. Somehow it was hard to care. Not when she had something to do.

“It is not a diary,” she ground out slowly, choosing every word painfully. “Lucifer told me.” A pause for breath turned into a wet, choking coughing fit that almost sapped her strength. “-Suggested that I... keep a record of. What I don’t want to forget.”

The book was thick now, but to open it it seemed to have so many more pages than it appeared when closed. A two thousand-page tome that shut to look like a four hundred page book. Entire sections could be skipped if you didn’t want to see them (with some last bit of the power she had), such as the catalog of human history that Raphael felt compelled to set down for herself. It took less than a day. More compelling was the part that came before, which detailed the long, slow process of watching the creeping centuries go by while she and Michael sat at the top of Heaven, stone kings over a field of stone. The early days were detailed, and the wars (both old and new), the joys of being young and carefree and the overcoming burden of ruling the Host alone, with no archangelic brothers around her. How she shrugged her shoulders and accepted those chains like any order from on high, how she tired, how she feared when the Castiel-who-was-not stared her down like a cat worrying its prey.

Almost a third of the book was about Michael. The section about God was smaller. Raphael never bothered to consider what that said about her fears.

However, her mind was on the last part of the last section- her life in Adstringendum. Raphael hadn’t finished writing about the strange, challenging, compelling place yet.

“I spent too long writing about Grace.” In case she returned healed and whole, the feeling of burning and dying laid out in great detail. Even if she came back to life restored, it was something she never, ever wanted to forget. How it felt, and what it taught her. “I must finish.”

She didn’t want to say out loud that the section she was writing was about her friends. Friends, as if they were a thing she had.

[painhumbles]

And he thought Moby Dick was excessive. "Melville would have a coronary over this," he muttered, thumbing through it as well as one could, although he had the advantage of knowing instinctively how it worked. She'd poured more than ink into it- more than just Grace too. It was truly a work of art and a sign that there was hope. Hope that Raphael could falter and join the ranks of angels who found beauty beyond Heaven in humanity. It was the only true way to peace amongst their ranks- to accept that which made them quarrel.

He handed it back to her and then laid a hand on her wrist, summoning his own Grace from the wellspring confined in this sack of meat and bone to offer her a little bit of strength. A flicker of small, frayed wings played across the back wall, only to furl and vanish again like dying firelight.

"So finish it." It wouldn't save her life, but it would give her time. Time enough to find the ending.

[expunger]

Raphael didn't want to think about what the book meant. On some level, some part of her knew it meant she was branching out from the person she used to be- that she was growing, finding something outside of Heaven to find beautiful and worth preserving. But Heaven held no hope for her any more, no sultry call of home that she could cling to and exclude all else. Lucifer's Grace mutilation brutally forced her to look elsewhere. It was hard to consider in any real depth.

For now, she just wanted to finish her book. She took the pen from him with a slightly touched expression (unusually open in her exhaustion) and set pen to paper.

"I will." It was its own kind of thank you.

She found it harder than anticipated. The strength was good, yes, but her thoughts were still slowly scattering on the wind, and she found herself muttering at times. If Gabriel listened he could hear snatches of sentences about action and reaction, about faith, reason, and prioritizing something over family. A muttered snippet of a very familiar name - Rachel - could make everything clearer. She was writing almost laughably clinically about her friendship with the girl, as puzzling as it was. The small boosts of mental strength she derived from the girl's constant prayer. Setting her aside as off-limits to Lucifer, and whether that was a rational action or not. She came to no conclusions, but very carefully wrote out a sentence postulating that perhaps her actions were based in something less clear-cut than reason.

A little progress, grudgingly made.

[painhumbles]

Gabriel leaned back and watched for as long as he could, but it occurred to him that the borrowed strength could be better utilized, and he finally got frustrated enough to lean over and pluck the pen from her hands. "Lemme do it- you dictate. I can write faster than you can and at the rate you're going, that vessel'll be decomposed before you even get to the juicy bits."

Which was teasing, of course- Raphael's life had no 'juicy bits' and what might be easily construed as those sorts of bits she was already writing. Whatever- Gabriel lived to tease his siblings, even when they were on the verge of death.

[expunger]

Raphael made an annoyed sound and sat back, glaring at him with as much real irritation as she could muster. Which is to say, not much.

"I was capable of finishing it," she lied quietly. The sentence trailed off into a rough cough that hurt deep in her gut and sounded worse, with bits of pure-white light blinking out brightly.

Once she could breathe again, she rubbed her face weakly, gathering her thoughts. "Turn back one chapter."

To the page simply titled "Castiel." The first page was almost hesitant, recalling the first day she met him at the dawn of the world. How small he was, how insignificant. How obedient. She thought so little of him in flippantly scolding him for nearly crushing some unimportant fish. A little, meaningless lie about the earth-shattering importance of some Tiktaalik roseae. A mundane memory, delicately recalled.

[painhumbles]

Gabriel shot her a look that said, in no uncertain terms, that he didn't believe her and she should calm her tits and let the angels with functioning lungs handle the hard work.

At her demand, he flipped the pages back and stared at the page for a moment before looking back at her face, searching for something and not entirely certain what.

Eventually, he just gave up looking and shrugged it off. "Okay. Let's finish up Chicken Soup For The Dying Archangel's Soul, already."

Gallows humor. Always appropriate, but never ceasing to pain him greatly.