Supernatural Gen Big Bang, The song of Gabriel, Part 1/2

[pamymex3girl]

This is how it begins.

It begins with a song.

Everything begins in a time so long ago Gabriel can barely remember it, back when heaven still felt like home and his brothers were still a family. When they were not tearing each other apart, not fighting a war that could have no actual victor. This is a time, a world, that nobody actually believes ever existed. At times, more so as life went on, it seemed as though that time, that home, hadn’t really been there but mostly Gabriel thinks (believes, knows) that that home really did exist, but only for him. Maybe that’s why it was so easy for everyone else to allow it all to fall apart, to give up on fighting for their home, because they hadn’t felt it like he did. That is the reason, or one of them at least, he ran, Gabriel thinks, because it wasn’t easy for him. But the loss was inevitable and he hadn’t been able to deal with it - hadn’t been able to just stand there and watch it all fall apart.

It began with a song, which Gabriel will admit is a rather strange way for their story - or perhaps any story - to start, but it did. More accurately, that is the way he remembers it. (Just him though, for the others it all began a different way, after all he was the youngest of the four and they never let him forget it.) It’s his first memory and even now - centuries, millennia later - it still manages to comfort him with its soothing nature and yet, for the live of him, he has never been able to recall the actual words. Perhaps that is the most normal thing about him: he had been very small, very young, and too new really, to be able to remember that moment clearly enough to be able to decipher the actual words and he has never, ever heard it again. (He’s not even sure the song actually exists, he’s not sure someone else remembers it, he’s not sure it will ever matter.)

Here is the strangest part about the entire affair: Lucifer is the one who’s signing.

He knows this - he justdoesn’t actually remember.

Of course all of this happened in the before. Before the civil war, before the creation of humanity - but perhaps not before the idea of humanity had begun to form in his father’s mind, he’s never tried to find out. Back when Lucifer was still his beloved older brother, back when his brother still loved them all, back when Lucifer still loved Gabriel. A part of him thinks - or just hopes - that Lucifer still loves them all and that that is the real problem (because nobody tried to fight for him.) He’s never been completely sure what his older brother felt but he likes to believe - it’s the only way he can actually live with all of this - that there is a part of his brother, no matter how small, that still loves them all, that still loves him. It all matters little. Gabriel had accepted, long ago, that his three older brothers would never love him as much as he loved them. They would never love him enough to stop fighting and just listen.

He doesn’t know, he never will, whether Lucifer still loves him now, but he knows that Lucifer loved him then.

In the before when Lucifer sang that song the words of which have long since faded.



His first memory of heaven is a mixture of light and peace and beauty and that song.

He’ll always remember it - for all eternity - as the most beautiful and peaceful place in all the worlds.

At least that’s how it used to be, back then when it was still beautiful and peaceful and filled with love and laughter and family. He still sees it that way and he always will, even though by now he’s learned the truth, even though the mirage has faded and all that remains is the illusion and the memory of that time long ago (that may or may not have been there.) Maybe that’s why he ran. Sometimes he thinks it’s all him, that he remembers it wrong, that all of it was nothing but a dream. And that heaven, the real heaven, has always been something else. That it has always been what he imagines it has become now. Gabriel supposes that it doesn’t matter what heaven looked like then or now, all that matters is how he remembers it. And no place, anywhere, is as filled with love and peace as the heaven of his memory.

It’s strange, he supposes, because by now he has seen places that almost everyone else would consider better. He has seen all the wonders of the human world - he saw some of them build and at times he believes that humans are geniuses and artists. (And at other times they are idiots.) He has seen the home of the Olympian Gods, with all its beautiful gardens, and he has walked through the home of Odin himself. He has seen the home Aphrodite build for herself - with the help of Ares - and the home of the nymphs; he’s swam (though only once) into the underwater castle of Poseidon. He’s spending a lot of time in Kali’s home - which is the strangest place he has ever seen and yet it’s very beautiful in its own way. And they all, every single one, fall short; they shouldn’t he knows this, but they do anyway.

It has nothing to do with heaven itself - his perspective of it anyway, whether it was real or not - but with the people, the angels, in it. Because the most beautiful place in the world is the one where Michael teaches him how to swordfight and Raphael laughs at his jokes and teaches him things. It’s the place where Lucifer sang him that song and the little ones listened to him and made him feel as if he was the smartest angel in all of the heavens. Because heaven was home back then, when all of it still mattered, when the heavens were still filled with laughter and love.

Perhaps they still are filled with laughter and love. Perhaps if he were to go there tomorrow they’d welcome him with open arms and love him as he loved them. He doesn’t actually believe that, of course, but it’s nice to hope anyway.



They - the angels, humanity, everyone who talks about it - say (used to and still do) that his Father loved Lucifer the most.

They were right, of course but then they all loved him back then - back when he was all light and love (not hatred and anger.)

That, of course, was in the before.

Now they - the angels, humanity, all who talk about it - will always say that his Father loves Michael the most.

Now everyone pretends like Lucifer had never been there, like he had never been one of them.

Gabriel was never good at not loving people - no matter what they did to him or anyone else. He had, however, always been good at pretending - expect of course he’s not really that good - not as good as everyone else was at least.

Maybe that’s why he ran.



He was created on the day that someday would be known as Wednesday. Although to be completely truthful he’s not even sure about that - it’s the way Lucifer used to tell the story, but his other brother’s had disagreed (seriously they couldn’t agree on anything.) He’s not even sure why any of them think about time this way, why they use the days the humans came up with, but they do and that’s all that matters. It was Wednesday, though, when he came into creation - at least that’s how Gabriel tells it. His brothers might not have agreed on how he was created, but they did agree about something else. Before he arrived heaven was calm and with him came chaos and jokes and laughter. And heaven, as Lucifer used to say, was never the same again.

Sometimes he thinks it’s all his fault. That if he had just been calmer and not so chaotic, if he had just been better, than he would have been able to hold onto Lucifer. But he wasn’t and he didn’t, he just allowed him to slip away. (But then they all did.)

He was very small, very young (a child, really, by human terms) when his father created the earth, but he was there (he remembers.) He stood there the day his Father began the tale that would one day rip them all apart. They stood beside their Father, the four of them, and just watched - he remembers this, though not very clearly, but he knows it happened this way. (Metatron was there too, sitting at their father’s feet, he was always there writing down everything that happened, just as he was told to. Sometimes Gabriel forgot he was there and he knows the others did too.) Lucifer was unhappy and he had turned and left after just one day, so suddenly that it startled him. Raphael had gotten bored after three days - actually he’d gotten bored after the first day but he’d stuck around for three though Gabriel’s never been sure why. Michael, the big brother, the one who always did as he was told stayed for four (though if you hear him tell it you’d swear Michael had stuck around forever.)

But he’d stayed and watched in fascination as his Father created a whole world beneath them and then filled it with everything. He’d begged to be allowed to help, to do something, to create something. His Father - more than likely having grown tired of all his questions and constant begging - had told him to just go crazy which, in retrospect, was probably not the best thing to tell him. (It’s something his Father hadn’t learned until much later but really He should have always known.) He’d spend all day on it and he’d had so much fun. His father had been proud (it wasn’t until later that he understood that most of that was probably because he had been the only archangel to stick around, and had actually been interested not just pretended to be.) It should probably be noted that all those crazy animals all over the world that seemingly have no reason for existing, and that you think are just a part of your imagination? Yeah, he probably created them. He even gave them all names though he doesn’t think his Father used any of them (which was probably for the best.)

Afterwards he’d ran around the heavens, so exited - about the things he’d created and about the fact that his Father had trusted him enough to allow him to invent something. He’d talked about it constantly for who knows how long - the others probably remember - to anyone who’d stand still long enough. Michael had let him babble for a while but eventually he’d grown tired and told him to annoy someone else. Raphael just told him to shut up after a few days. His Father allowed him to talk constantly probably enjoying his enthusiasm. Lucifer had looked him, when he first approached him, with a strange look in his eyes - Gabriel had never been able to figure out what emotion it was that he saw in his brother’s eyes. But he’d smiled anyway and listened and never told him to stop talking - even though it must have been terrible for him. He’d pretended he was interested in everything Gabriel told him.

Because Lucifer was the older brother and Gabriel had been too young to truly understand.

(He’s not entirely sure if he loves or hates his brother for those moments. Mostly because they make everything so much harder.)



Gabriel had always loved Lucifer the most.

(He still does but he’s smart enough not to say that out loud.)

Michael used to say - and he probably still believes - that it was because Lucifer was the only one who had the patience to put up with him. The only one who would always, no matter what, listen to him, even if he disagreed. Raphael used to say that it was because he and Lucifer were so alike. (Gabriel spends years trying to be like his older brother but in the end they had been too different.) His Father, however, used to say that it was because when he was created, so long ago, the first face he saw had been Lucifer’s and he had been the one to always care for his little brother. Gabriel’s not entirely sure whether it really matters why he loved him.

Whatever the reason he’d follow Lucifer around constantly, imitating his every move - or at least trying to - in an attempt to be just like him. Lucifer had taught him everything - the tricks he used, the plans he came up with, everything. Gabriel knows now that they were not meant to be the same, that perhaps they weren’t even meant to get along. Because he’d been laughter and jokes and he’d loved the earth and the animals and even the humans (although, to be fair, in those months he hadn’t even thought about them at all.) And Lucifer was anger and hated everything on earth. But back then Lucifer hadn’t really cared about their differences. He’d helped with his jokes and listened to his constant talks about the earth and the animals. He had not minded that he had a little shadow that would just not leave him alone. There were times that Lucifer would look at him with a strange far-away look in his eyes and Gabriel thinks - though he’s never thought to ask - that somehow Lucifer had always known that it would all end in tears. That they were too different to always get along, that some far away day they would stand on opposite sides of a war, no matter how much they might have wished everything would be different.

Maybe that’s why he ran because he was so afraid of the day he might have to fight his older brother.

(He couldn’t bear the thought.)

Nobody really mentions how much Gabriel had once loved Lucifer, not since the fall.

(It’s easier that way.)

There are things they don’t say, things they might not know or things they have chosen to ignore. Like the fact that Gabriel had been the brother that Lucifer loved them most. (He looked up to Michael but it was Gabriel who won the prize.) Because Gabriel had always listened to him and never looked at him with growing distain. Because he had, somehow despite all the warnings, still been caught by surprise when he’d been thrown to earth by their Father. And because Gabriel loved him.

(But that love, no matter how great, would never be enough.)

For the record Gabriel still loves Lucifer the most.

It still does not matter.



On a Friday his Father made him the messenger.

(Probably one of His less than brilliant ideas.)

It should probably be noted that all of those strange messages and all the problems that arose from it were not his fault. It was his Father, after all, who worded them all, and who decided who the recipient should be. Although, to be fair, he had a lot of fun causing confusion and therefore there is a high possibility that most of the problems that arose - and all the misunderstandings - were probably his fault. Mostly because he thought some things would sound better another way, or because he just thought it would be fun. But it was his Father who made him a messenger so really it was all his fault (He really should have known better.)

He’d been terrified the first time his Father decided to send one of His messages.

(A fact that will never be acknowledged.)

His brothers, for once on the same page, were of absolutely no help. Raphael sat him down in his favorite part of heaven - which was Gabriel’s least favorite part of heaven. That day, for the first and only time ever, Raphael gave him some advice - the strangest advice ever. He sat there on the grass, after Raphael left, for hours, trying to determine what it was his brother meant - he never did figure it out. He thinks (or he likes to think) that that was the whole point, that all Raphael wanted was to make him forget his fear - and it worked. Michael was different - always the one following all the rules, never questioning anything even if he too, at times, must have been afraid. He didn’t offer advice, just sat down beside him and told him just to get on with his job that everything would be alright because it was what he was meant to do. (It wasn’t helpful at all, not at the time at least, and yet somehow that advice helped the most.)

Lucifer came after five hours - maybe more, maybe less - and regaled him with the tale of his first task.

Everything that could have gone wrong had apparently gone wrong then.

It was hilarious.

But it wasn’t helpful at all.

(Actually it made everything worse but he didn’t tell Lucifer that.)

He left in the morning, early, filled with confidence - it lasted about three hours. In the end he got lost no less than three times, delivered the message to the wrong person and then delivered the wrong message when he finally found the right person. In short it was a disaster.

He came back tired and embarrassed and Lucifer stood waiting for him. He’d expected laughter but Lucifer had only shown understanding - and he probably did understand considering how horribly wrong his first task went. They’d sat in Gabriel’s favorite part of heaven - the heaven of a young girl that loved to swim in the sea - and they’d just talked. (And laughed and played silly games.) Even Michael and Raphael - usually so detached - showed up and sat down beside him and listened. Later they laughed, later they teased but in that moment they’d been a family.

They’d sat next to the ocean in a heaven that belonged to someone else and for once they’d finally felt like the family Gabriel had always wanted.

For once they’d loved him just as he loved them.

(It didn’t last long.)



Most angels think (believe) their Father loves the humans the most.

(Even those that did not side with Lucifer.)

Gabriel thinks - though he does his best to keep his opinions to himself because the one time he did in fact say what he thought Michael had lectured him for hours - that their Father loves them all. The humans and the angels, even those that wronged Him, even those that did not believe, even if none of them can truly understand it, even if He hides His feelings. They never talk about it, they never will, instead they simply say their Father loves Michael the most (and pretend they don’t think that their Father loves humanity the most.) It’s easier than facing the truth and accepting that even they can be wrong. His brethren will never say what they truly feel; will never show what it is they believe. Perhaps that’s why he ran.

There are other whispers too.

Some say “Father loves Joshua the most.” Because even now after being gone for so long He still speaks to him. But Gabriel had talked to his Father, had heard the man speak to him at the most unexpected times. He knows what it feels like to have no control over when someone will speak to you; he knows how much it actually hurts to talk to someone that just won’t come to you.

Others say “Father loves Metatron the most.” Because one day He’d made him the scribe and allowed Metatron to sit at His feet and always be there. But then, Gabriel thinks when he hears them say this, if He loved Metatron the most why did He leave him behind? Why did He not say anything to this angel He supposedly loved the most?

Now they say “Father loves Castiel the most.” Because no matter how many times his little brother dies, or how many mistakes he makes, their Father keeps bringing him back. But Gabriel thinks how horrible it must be to never be allowed to reach peace. To always come back no matter how big your mistakes, to always have to face everything. That’s not love. (Or maybe it is, maybe their Father only thinks about not allowing Castiel to die and not about the consequences. Despite being His messenger Castiel has yet to figure his father out, just like with Lucifer he doesn’t think he’ll ever be able to.)

Truthfully Gabriel believes that their Father, despite all that has happened, still loves Lucifer the most. He’s just smart enough not to say that out loud.



Metatron the scribe, who sits in his corner all alone ignored by all, who sees everything, knows they’re all wrong. All of the angels, all his brethren, trying to figure out what it is their Father feels. He’d like to say it is him their Father loves the most but he knows it is not. He knows because one day he sat where he always sat and watched as Gabriel approached their Father. He was silent - everyone was silent, ever since the fall, but somehow it worse in Gabriel. Gabriel who had always been loud, filled with laughter and millions of jokes was now just silent - it scared him, it scared everyone. So silent was he that day that it took Metatron almost ten minutes to realize his brother had been standing there. (He doesn’t actually think Gabriel ever realized he was there, but then nobody ever truly did, it was easy to ignore the scribe at their Father’s feet after all.)

Gabriel spoke softly; whispering only ‘Father’ but Metatron thinks their Father had known he was there the entire time.

Maybe He’d even known what it is that Gabriel wanted. If He did He’d known more than Gabriel himself, because though he talked for a while, softly, Metatron never heard him say what it is he wanted. Their Father was silent, just looking at Metatron’s older brother, never saying a word, as if He was just waiting for Gabriel to finish. Eventually He’d turned, looking down to earth, and He’d told Gabriel that he could go, that he was free, and that he could have exactly what he wanted. Gabriel had stayed for hours, just standing beside their father, looking down to earth - almost as if they were waiting for something, though if they were Metatron never figured out what it was. Three days later Gabriel had been gone from the heavens and he never returned and though Michael asked Metatron had never told him what Gabriel had asked their father, though he’s not exactly sure why.

This is how Metatron knows that Gabriel was the one their Father loved the most.
Because he was the only one who had gotten exactly what he wanted, and he only needed to ask it once.



The heavens were beautiful but they were also incredibly lonely.

He knows now that he’d been too different, too much for his brothers. (Too loud, too chaotic, too disruptive.) Michael was a follower, always doing what their father asked and never considering, not even once, that there might be a different way. Michael never liked it if everything did not go according to plan. And the truth was that whenever Gabriel got involved nothing went according to plan. (Sometimes by accident but mostly by design, because when things went according to plan life was boring.) But at least he and Michael had still had their moments, it was completely different with Raphael - he’s not entirely sure why though. (He thinks it was Raphael’s coldness but then it might have also been his own fault.) Lucifer had been the only one to listen to him, the only one to spend time with him but over time he pulled away. He grew colder and angrier as Gabriel grew older. (The worst part perhaps is that they weren’t that different, their only big difference lay in the fact that he loved the earth while Lucifer did not. He thinks, at times, that if he had just loved it a little less and Lucifer had just loved it a little more nothing would have happened.)

In the end all of them, even their father, pulled away from him, all of them caught up in their own little worlds.

They left him alone.

(All he had ever wanted was for them to be an actual family, for his brothers to love him and each other. For them to accept each other’s differences and learn to live with them. But that apparently had been beyond their capabilities - his wish would never be the truth.)

It was really the little ones that saved him from the boredom and the loneliness - he probably should stop calling them that though. They used to look at him with big adoring eyes and they’d followed him around everywhere, idolizing him - as he had once done with Lucifer. They’d sit in front of him and listened to the stories of his adventures and of all the jokes he played on people. They’d loved him, unconditionally. It had been, almost, as if he was the most important angel in all of the heavens (not all the little angels but that didn’t matter to him; it would have been wonderful even if there had only been one.) Little Anna had loved his tales of the humans, always demanding for more, while Castiel had been far more interested in all of the animals. (Even the ones Gabriel himself had created.) Balthazar was there too, listening to the tales, but he seemed more interested in hanging out with his friends (his siblings.) (There had been Uriel following Anna and Innias and Samandriel and others too.)

He’d come home to find them there waiting for him, demanding all his tales.

But eventually they too grew; eventually they too faded away as they all got their own responsibilities.

And he was left all alone again.

(Maybe that’s why he left.)



His brothers had never had an easy relationship.

Lucifer had always idolized Michael but they had never been able to get along for long. There had been fights - between them, between Lucifer and Raphael, sometimes even with their Father. Gabriel had always stood on the sidelines, hearing their screams, ignoring their anger. Somehow, despite all his years with them, Gabriel had never actually been a part of any of their fights. (Maybe that’s why the end caught him by surprise.) He had been on the receiving end of many “Why did you do this?” and “Can’t you ever give it a rest?” and “Seriously, Gabriel, again with the dumb jokes!” lectures but he’d never really been a part of their fights.

He’s not sure if his brothers did that on purpose or if it was all just a coincidence.

Probably the latter.

Over time, as Lucifer grew more detached, the fights only became worse and eventually he could no longer deny it (though he desperately wished he could.) It used to be Michael and Lucifer then, louder, angrier with their father occasionally in the middle. Raphael used to just stand there watching them, always clearly on Michael’s side - but not really a part of everything. Gabriel hadn’t been a part of anything at all; he’d stood on the sidelines and watched it unfold - though he’d missed most of it for the longest time. (At times he was convinced his brother’s even forgot he was there.) Eventually the fights were all there was left, they were normality, so common that even Gabriel eventually forgot that there had been a time when everything was alright. (He knows that some of the little ones don’t even remember that time.) His jokes and pranks faded, his laughter grew softer but nobody truly noticed - his Father looked at him with sad eyes, as if He at least understood what all of this was costing him, costing all of them.

(The little ones grew too afraid to go near his older brothers except for a hand-few that kept following Lucifer around.)

Gabriel faded into the background.

It was almost as if he had never existed.



It was a Friday in November when he finally grew tired of all their fighting.

He decided that day that he needed some time to himself.

His Father gave him a message to deliver that morning and he’d just left without saying goodbye. He’d hoped that would make a difference because he always took the time to say goodbye - just in case they actually cared. He’d flown to earth and delivered his message - without any problems - and then he’d just stayed. By the sea, a place he loved, staring at the waves that somehow calmed him. He hadn’t told a soul, though perhaps his Father had always known, hoping that his brothers might grow worried enough to stop fighting and search for him. They might get pissed later when they discovered it was a joke but it would (might) be worth it. He’d stayed on that beach, looking at the ocean, listening to the sound of the waves for three whole days.

He’d made his way to the gates were the little ones waited.

They were worried, asking millions of questions, trying to determine what had happened. (Anna was the one asking the questions, actually, while the others stood around him.) Michael and Lucifer were still arguing - though perhaps not the same argument, at least he hoped not - in Michael’s favorite part of heaven. He stopped a few meters from them and watched them scream at each other, Michael to his left, Raphael in front of him and Lucifer to his right. It dawned on him, then suddenly, that his brothers hadn’t noticed he’d been gone, that they hadn’t cared about him at all. The disappointment was overpowering, his anger burning just underneath the surface and in a moment of complete stupidity - he’ll say it himself because nobody else might - he decided to involve himself in the argument. He’d moved forward, without thinking, standing in between his brothers, trying to draw attention to himself. All he’d really said was ‘Hey, I’m back’ just to see how they would react. One of them - he’s never been sure which one it was and he’s not sure if it matters - pushed him, suddenly (they had always been stronger than him.)

He flew backwards, flying through the air, hitting something, though he’s not sure what.

Then it’s dark.

He wakes to voices, all around, calling his name - and perhaps saying other things as well but he’s not sure (never will be.) He thinks he hears Michael, all worried, and Raphael, also worried and Lucifer, almost frantic. He thinks they’re asking if he’s alright, which would be logical, but then they might have been asking him about the weather for all he knew. His Father’s there too - Gabriel thinks He’s the one trying to wake him, healing him, but again he might have been wrong. (And he hears the little ones, definitely Anna and Castiel, asking if he’s alright, somewhere in the background. He kind of hopes he’s wrong about that one because if he’s right then the little ones saw all of it and that is not good.) When he finally opens his eyes the world is turning so much he’s almost wishing he never opened them again - but then he had to. His brothers are hovering above him - almost like they’re flying, which he knows they are not - and his Father is by his side, holding him down, caressing his face. (The moment is sort of immortalized in his brain forever; it’s the first thing he remembers when he thinks of his brothers. It’s not exactly a happy memory.)

“It’s alright, Gabriel, my boy, everything is alright. Try to stay down okay; you’ll be fine in a moment.”

The thing is Gabriel can’t stay down. Because his brothers are hovering above him, all worried, pretending that everything is going to be alright (but it’s never going to be alright again.) But mostly because he can hear them, the little ones - and now that he’s more conscious he realizes it’s all of them, all the ones that follow him around. He has to get up to show them he’s alright, that this is nothing more than a silly disagreement between brothers. He needs them to believe that it’s nothing -even when it isn’t. Because he doesn’t want them to be afraid, he doesn’t want them to worry, he wants the little ones to be just that little ones, for as long as they can. So he needs to get up, even if the world is turning, even if his head is pounding, he needs to. His Father knows this too, Gabriel can sense it, He wants Gabriel to stay down but He understands this is something that Gabriel needs.

After he’s send the little ones of - and yes he knows they didn’t buy it, he knows they know this wasn’t nothing but it’s all he had at the moment - he focuses on his brothers, not because he wants to, but because he has to. They’re in shock, just like he is, just like their Father - because none of them ever saw this coming. For a moment, after it’s done, he stays where he is and then he gets up and has his Father help him walk away. (His Father was angry at his brothers not a minute ago, he wasn’t yelling but he was definitely furious.) They try to help him, tried to get near him but he was done - for now at least. (Sometimes, most of the time actually, he thinks this is the moment he realized it was all done, even if he didn’t exactly accept it. That this was the moment he realized that someday he would have to run away or lose himself.)

Afterwards he stayed by the sea surrounded by the little ones (who wouldn’t leave him alone anymore.)

He stayed there for three weeks, ignoring his brothers.

They didn’t fight for three weeks.

(He supposes that means they did in fact care.)



Everything began with a song.

It all will end in a scream.

But then it doesn’t, not really, for the tale doesn’t end there at all. It keeps unfolding; their lives go on no matter what happened there that day. But to him - and perhaps even to his brothers, he’s never actually asked - for just one moment it really did seem like everything ended that day. This is the way Gabriel would tell the tale - in such a case of course that there was someone who actually wanted to know - and yet for all he’s tried he can’t actually remember if Lucifer screamed. It seems like the moment he would or maybe even should, but he has no actual recollection of it. He thinks he did, or maybe it would be easier if he did, Gabriel isn’t sure. He knows what happened, what the events were that brought them there - standing in Lucifer’s favorite part of heaven and sometimes Gabriel wonders if that was some kind of punishment as well or if it was a gift. Still though he could recite the events Gabriel has always felt, always known, that there was something he was missing. (That, in fact, being the actual words, the last moment, the final drop. He’s always wondered what exactly it was that finally drove his father over the edge.)

On his father’s insistence all three of them had been there.

(Four if you count Metatron, but then nobody really counted Metatron.)

He’s always suspected (always known) that his father was teaching them a lesson, proving a point. He’s not sure if anybody actually learned whatever it is their father wanted them to learn - he thinks that they learned what they themselves thought was the point. (And maybe that had actually been the lesson.) Gabriel hadn’t wanted to be there, he’d wanted to pretend none of it was happening at all, he wanted to be the little ones in that moment, hidden away from the pain. (Or Metatron, on his father’s side, just writing it all done. With no feeling, no pain, no nothing. Gabriel would have given anything to be him in that moment.) But he was an archangel, one of the four, his father’s messenger, and he had to be there no matter his personal feelings. Sometimes he wonders if his brothers had been as heartbroken as he was, as lost but he doesn’t think they actually were - and if they were they hid it well.

Michael stood beside his father with his head held high.

(From that moment on Michael always stood at their father’s side.)

There had been no emotion except for anger in his face - though if you looked closely enough you could, in fact, see pain in his eyes. Raphael stood beside him - to his left if Gabriel recalls it correctly - and he had seemed even more detached then Michael. In his eyes there had been no emotions, the mask of indifference was impenetrable. It was scary how his brothers could just shot off their emotions like that, how they could just stop caring if that is what they wanted - how they could make the whole world believe they felt a certain way when the opposite was truth. It terrified him. (Because if they could this now, he thought, how many other times had they done this? What did they actually feel? Did they care at all? Did they care about him? ) And yet he wished he was like them, wished he could pretend nothing matter. For surely that, no matter how cold and calculating would be better than feeling what he does. But then almost everything would be.

Sometimes he wonders what it is exactly that Metatron wrote down. Did he just write down the facts? Did he tell the world what he felt when he watched his older brother fall? Did he describe how everyone reacted? If he did, if he went into detail, then this is what he wrote about him: he stood in the corner, separate from all of them - any further and he wouldn’t have been near them at all. He’d been leaning against something - and he can’t remember what it was, a tree he suspects, he supposes he could know if he’d read Metatron’s words but he’s never tried to find out, it is a small, unimportant detail after all. He’d leaned against it because he knew that he would not be able to stand on his own, his knees would not be able to support him. (He still believes that if he had been better than nothing would have happened at all but there is no changing it anymore.) He’d been shaking and crying - though he had been trying desperately to stop the tears. If he had been like his brothers, he’d thought in that moment, than it would at least not hurt that much. (Or maybe it had hurt just as much, maybe they were just better liars then him.)

For him it had been too much.

Too overwhelming.

Too painful.

He’d watched because he’d been told he had too, because it had been his father who had issued the order. (If it had been Michael he would not have come. He suspects his father knew this.) But right before he fell, right before it was all done, Lucifer had looked at him. He’s not sure why he did that, not even sure if he did this on purpose - perhaps it was just an excuse not to look at their father and his older brother. Still whatever his reasons, whatever he might have wanted to tell his younger brother in that moment all he had done in the end was shake his head. Only a little, Gabriel had barely realized that that was what he was doing, as if he was silently giving his little brother his final advice: don’t watch. And he hadn’t, in the last moment, right before; he’d looked down and closed his eyes, trying to pretend it wasn’t happening at all. He hadn’t seen it, in the end, he’d only felt it. Like something had been ripped from him, like some part of him was dead. He stayed upright, though Lord only knows how, despite his pain, despite his fear. Michael had been furious, because he had not listened, because he had ignored his father’s decree. But his father had not been, he’d silenced Michael and just looked at him with a strange look in his eyes. Gabriel is not sure why his father wasn’t angry with him. Perhaps it was because he was clearly distraught. But Gabriel thinks it has more to do with Lucifer. Because in his last moments, right before he fell, his brother had found it more important that Gabriel did not see something that would cause him pain than to argue for his life (wings) again. Perhaps His father believed that since Lucifer had done this that there was still some way to save him. Gabriel doesn’t really know.

He knows this: when Lucifer proved to be unchangeable, when he needed to be silenced, his father had not called for him. While He and Michael had built the cage and Raphael had watched, He had send Gabriel to the other side of the heavens. To help Anna and her garrison as they prepared for their first solo mission. He’s still grateful for that.

That is how it ends.

The story might go on, the tale has not finished it course, but it has ended nevertheless. Nothing would ever be the same again. Nothing could be the same again. And the song that had comforted him through so much - that still comforts him in his darkest moments - had not managed to calm his heart then, had not been able to drown out the feeling of his brother falling to earth.

He suspects nothing ever would.