player.
NAME/HANDLE: Brig
PERSONAL JOURNAL:![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
warcode
ARE YOU 16 OR OVER?: yes
CONTACT: twopoinsettias@gmail.com | brigantinefranke@AIM | haneshinohara@plurk
OTHER CHARACTERS: nope
character.
CHARACTER NAME: Gabriel
SERIES: http://supernatural.wikia.com/wiki/Gabriel
CANON POINT: S5E19 "Hammer of the Gods" aka post-death
AGE: ~immortal~ but appears in his thirties
APPEARANCE: http://images2.fanpop.com/image/photos/12000000/Gabriel-Trickster-richard-speight-jr-12028237-333-500.jpg
PREVIOUS GAME HISTORY: n/a
PERSONALITY:
As might be expected from a character hiding a secret identity, Gabriel has two faces. His public image is Loki or simply "the Trickster," a mischievous and chaotic demigod invested in his own amusements and happy to indulge in all the fine things life has to offer. He likes beauty and sex and desserts and getting away with anything he wants, all the time, and knocking down arrogant humans with clever punishments that sometimes end in murder. He can also be unflinchingly cruel, especially when he's trying to teach someone a lesson. As quite a few of Supernatural's gods and demigods are portrayed as a higher tier Monster Of The Week, complete with a taste for human sacrifice, Gabriel was obliged to pick up some of the same habits in order to keep up appearances.
When other gods in the modern era are having difficulties maintaining their powers without proper worship, Gabriel thrives by having adapted to the times (it probably also doesn't hurt that angels don't require worship to survive). He can blend in with ordinary humans seamlessly when he wants to, understands pop culture, matches Dean snark for snark and insult for insult, loves bad television and tabloid magazines and crazy urban legends. Theatrics and performance are a major part of his existence. Everything is about making an entrance, playing a character and playing to an audience. He's turned himself into a deity specifically associated with pop culture and television, as his last legacy is a goodbye message hidden in a porn film. He's very fond of illusions and prefers to not do any fighting himself, especially if he can try to charm his way out of it instead. When he does have to fight he's more likely to sneak up behind someone than face them head on like a proper soldier.
On the other side of the coin you've got the archangel Gabriel, youngest out of the four brothers Michael, Raphael, and Lucifer. God apparently loved Lucifer best out of the siblings, at least until he created humans and commanded his angels to adore them as he did. Michael became the authoritative Dad stand-in when God vanished and Raphael apparently sides with Michael in everything, which left Gabriel in the midst of squabbling older brothers when Lucifer rebelled. Unable to bear the conflict, Gabriel fled Heaven and hid himself away for thousands of years, trying to distract himself from the past (and what he knew was coming in the future) with humans and pagan gods and shiny things on Earth. He's one of the few angels that sincerely believes that humans are worth something.
Gabe uses the Trickster persona to hide the fact that he ran from his family and his responsibilities. Part of him is still deeply wounded and furious at and even afraid of his brothers, especially Lucifer, who claims to have taught Gabriel all his tricks. Gabriel at first refuses to help the Winchesters try and stop the Apocalypse because he's so resigned to the idea that his brothers are going to stubbornly bull their way into mutual destruction and no one can stop them. Possibly Gabriel knows this from personal experience. Possibly he's still operating under angelic hierarchy, where older and stronger angels have the natural right to command their younger brethren, and possibly it's plain old youngest sibling psychology. In a moment of anger Gabriel bursts out that he doesn't care which side wins, he just wants everything to be over because it's all going to turn out bloody and awful and he's going to lose brothers either way. The war between Heaven and Hell is a sibling grudge that's gotten entirely out of hand and Gabriel is the kid hiding on the staircase with hands over his ears while his family throws dishes at each other.
Or, you know, celestial armies.
In any case Gabe has spent a damn long time plastering over these inconvenient things called emotions and trying to prove to himself the rest of the world how completely fine and self-sufficient and over his family he is. The Trickster is an armored shell for him to hide behind and it's an effective one. No one suspects a mischief-making demigod of having any motives deeper than personal pleasure and whim, and certainly no one would ever imagine that a self-respecting angel, much less an archangel, would lower himself to such a disguise. The only way Gabriel could have made himself more un-angelic would be to Fall and become completely human, without memories or abilities, but doing so would have left him powerless and vulnerable. Instead he's the rebel angel that never really wanted to be one and yet defiantly plays the role, mucking about with humans and pagan magic and over-indulgence. The world is his oyster, goddammit, he has phenomenal cosmic powers and instant illusory supermodels whenever he wants company and all the shiny distractions he could ever imagine to amuse himself with, and not a single bit of it makes him happy. In the back of his mind there's always the nagging reminder that he ran away, that his brothers are out there killing each other while Gabriel hides, that something is always horribly wrong because their Father is gone and everyone is floundering in their own disasters without him. To some degree Gabriel has lost hope that things are going to get better. He's watched his brothers build up their own empires with the sole aim of destroying each other and war machines have a way of perpetuating their own momentum.
As an archangel, Gabriel has an ingrained connection to and sense of responsibility for all the lower orders of angels, his extended family, but he's done his level best to ignore all that and pretend that what Michael and Lucifer are doing to their younger siblings is none of his business.
Despite being the runaway Gabriel is the one who feels abandoned. His brothers are too concerned with fighting each other to really give much of a shit about him. Even if he let them find him (and who knows how much or how little effort they actually made to do so), they would only want him to choose a side in their war. God has vanished and left everyone to the mess of their own making. The other gods tolerate Gabriel's company and while it's possible that some of them care for him sincerely, Gabriel is constantly aware of his own precarious position. If they ever discovered what he really is they could attempt to destroy him or cast him out. More to the point none of them are angels, which were created to thrive as a collective. Having forced himself to be solitary and behave against his own nature, Gabriel has lessened and warped himself just as Lucifer did, becoming something less than an angel. He doesn't consider this a good thing or any kind of accomplishment (although he'd loudly proclaim otherwise if anyone tried to needle him about it). It's something that he feels was forced on him, because he had to flee Heaven, he had to go into hiding, he had to maintain his disguise etc.
The archangel Gabriel, the Messenger, is actually a third mask to him, a stern and unhappy marble statue just as inhuman, implacable, and detached as his older brothers and invested only in their concerns. Gabe doesn't fall into this personality often because it's no longer him, he's spent too much time on Earth to ever go back to being a normal angel. His true personality is somewhere between archangel and Trickster, softened from the high-ranking soldier he once was and not actually as self-sufficient and maliciously cheerful as the demigod he pretends to be. He's a creature that doesn't belong in either sphere anymore. Other angels would find him corrupt or inexpressibly strange, other gods would never be able to forgive his origins and the way he weaseled into customs and religions not his own just to save his skin. Humans, of course, aren't much in a position to understand him at all.
On some level Gabriel knows that both Michael and Lucifer are only acting the way they are because they also felt forced. But just as Gabriel doesn't want to acknowledge that he could have chosen differently (and lashes out at Dean for suggesting it), Lucifer and Michael are defined by the choices they made and both are far more stubborn and terrifyingly implacable than Gabriel ever was. Part of Gabriel's obsession with theatrics and television and even fair judgment is the promise of a neatly wrapped up story where the characters get what they deserve. Heroes win in the end, threats are eliminated, the world is saved to turn another day. It's nothing like the reality Gabriel knows is waiting for him, and he'd rather retreat to fantasy and/or be the one meting out appropriate fates to hapless humans than acknowledge that his brothers will drag him and everything else down in the end.
Nevertheless, Gabriel makes the choice to stand up to Lucifer in the end, mostly because Dean bitched at him and Dean is really good at corrupting angels. While he doesn't hold onto much false hope that he might actually win, he gives it his best shot and dies with the conviction that he'd finally made the right choice.
ABILITIES:
Flight: technically angelic flight, but to an ordinary observer's eye it simply looks like teleporting. Gabriel would be limited to short distances (maybe a block or so) and further limited by the fact that it's suddenly incredibly exhausting to zap everywhere since he's still recovering from being dead and he really ought to be conserving his mojo.
Angelic strength/durability: punching an angel is ordinarily like punching a statue, and they have strength and stamina above an ordinary human's and can also heal life-threatening injuries. As Gabriel is still recovering, he can only push his vessel to superhuman abilities for short periods before he drains his mojo down to zero and knocks himself out. Gabriel is still a hands off type and would much rather spend his energies using an illusion than trying to punch someone in the face anyway. Angels do bleed and can be beaten unconscious or their vessels killed if someone tries hard enough, and when he's out of juice he'll be as vulnerable as any human.
Occult knowledge/holy angel stuff/pagan magic: angels can exorcise demons from a body with a touch, being holy and all that. That probably won't be happening in-game any time soon, but either way Gabriel has an extensive knowledge of random occult stuff, like how to kill a vampire and how to draw a particular seal in ancient Enochian that wards your house against angels or termites.
Archangel sword: a holy blade that all angels can manifest from hammerspace. Archangel blades are supposedly stronger than ordinary angel blades but Gabriel's will be a slightly holy paperweight when he can't get up the juice to charge it properly. Against non-demonic creatures it won't be anything more than a chunk of metal, against demonic creatures it will function as a holy object. Gabriel also hasn't been practicing since he's not really that keen on sword-work.
Dreamwalking/telepathy/prayer: While Gabriel is ordinarily capable of appearing in someone's dreams with a message and/or reading someone's mind, in-game he'll have to be touching them to do it. In his severely weakened state the chaos of a human mind can easily overwhelm anything he might be trying to communicate or perceive. Also Gabriel hates reading minds, it spoils the surprise. As an angel with a distinctly non-human mind, it's going to be very difficult for anyone else to read his mind. No angel has canonly been shown to use telepathy to force human minds to do anything, only to communicate and alter memories, so it's possible that angels can't simply take control of someone's thoughts the way an ordinary telepath can.
Gabriel can hear prayers that are directed specifically towards him, which is apparently like paging for angels. Whether he chooses to answer is another story. If the prayers are more generic, he may or may not be able to hear them, as he's probably spent a long time training himself not to listen to those. For lulz, he might also be able to hear 'prayers' or summons relating to Loki.
Telekinesis: typically used by angels and demons to fling people across rooms or hold them pinned to walls. On good days, Gabriel won't be able to 'lift' anything heavier than a few hundred pounds, and he'll tire extremely quickly, on bad days he might not be able to use telekinesis at all. Brute force is really more of an angel thing, not a trickster's, so Gabriel's not inclined to use it anyway, and he'll be clumsy if he does. No fine precision here. A telekinetic or biotic can probably cancel him out in battle, or wait him out until he's exhausted himself, and even someone with ordinary super strength would probably be able to do the same.
Reveal: as a last ditch defense/finishing move, angels can reveal their wings in battle and flatten or even incinerate an entire room of enemies, if they happen to be demons. Being de-powered, Gabriel's wings can act as a non-fatal concussion blast, but it will immediately knock him out or drain his angel mojo down to zero.
Illusions: having honed this skill as the Trickster, Gabriel can create solid or non-solid illusions to either deceive enemies or gang up on them. His weaker illusions are only as real as the target's mind allows them to be. Stronger illusions are still bound by the general laws of reality, so if he creates a solid illusion of a zombie bodyguard, it can be set on fire or cut in half or punched through a wall and that'll be it for that particular illusion. He hasn't got an infinite supply, either, the more he has to create or the more complicated and realistic it needs to be the faster he'll tire. His favorite combat tactic is creating an illusion of himself and letting his enemies kill it while he gets away, which goes to show how he prefers to fight his battles. Given his fluctuating powers, it's entirely possible that other characters might be able to see through his illusions at any given moment.
Other limitations: Angels can be summoned, captured, controlled, locked out of locations, or forced out of their physical vessels by certain seals and rituals. He's probably also subject to some of the mythological Loki's weaknesses, or for example a binding spell specifically tuned to 'Loki' rather than 'Gabriel' might still catch him. As he's recovering from near death, he'll be constrained to eat regularly, sleep regularly, and tire as quickly as a weakling human, and he'll constantly forget/deliberately ignore the fact that he needs to bow to these requirements. If he tries to use any powers without having sufficient energy stored up, he'll knock himself on his ass. And then turn around and do it again the very next day without having learned a thing.
ALSO I AM HAPPY TO DISCUSS FURTHER LIMITATIONS AND/OR LOCKING CERTAIN ABILITIES just give me a shout on aim or plurk or w/e. Angels are overpowered final boss fight characters in SPN and archangels are even worse.
POSSESSIONS:
Clothes on his back, one DVD of Casa Erotica, one stick-on porn 'stache, one fake archangel sword made out of a can of Diet Slice, real archangel sword, and one pair of neon green shutter shades
samples.
JOURNAL ENTRY SAMPLE:
[ The video clicks on to reveal a man with a fabulous (and fake) mustache, twirling it cheekily as he speaks. ]
Now this, this is what I call craftsmanship. Nobody appreciates a good quality layered illusion these days. I mean look at this, I could poke this wall all day long and it's going to feel like a wall the entire time, am I right? [He demonstrates by, well, feeling up said wall suggestively.]
That's dedication to your deception and you get full marks. But I do have to make a suggestion. Just a small one, I'm not trying to say anything about anybody's robot fetish going on here, but needs more aliens. Female aliens. You know what I mean.
It's Loki, by the way. If you'd like to cut the cutesy sci-fi stuff and tell me why I'm here.
THIRD-PERSON SAMPLE:
((recycled from an AU app, disregard the 'still-technically-alive-but-stuck-in-a-DVD' premise))
One of the problems with being stuck inside a DVD, Gabriel reflected, aside from the part where you were stuck inside a DVD, was that you were always at the mercy of whatever happened to be connected to that particular DVD player, like the TV, which was at the mercy of the hands holding the remote, like Dean Winchester's. Channel surfing took on an entirely new meaning when there was nothing else to do but watch whatever happened to be on the screen at any given moment, and you had absolutely no control over it. Even for a connoisseur of horrible television such as himself, reruns and CNN and paid programming after midnight soured quickly without the chance to discriminate.
Mostly he hated the feeling of being confined. Angels weren't meant for it by their very nature, and Gabriel had made a profession out of running away from anything and everything that tried to hold or corner him. Tucked inside his little sanctuary/prison, wings folded tightly around himself to keep from emanating the slightest bit of angelic energy where his brothers (or worse, his ex) might sense it, he spat out a mouthful of insubstantial feathers and squirmed restlessly, wishing he dared order his energy into a bendier shape. Maybe not a horse this time. Or a salmon. Something without a spine.
Not a good idea, though, when he was still recovering and his Grace needed to be let alone to repair itself. If he forced it to contort into something that wasn't its natural inclination, he might end up the victim of one his own favorite pranks, the face your mother told you would freeze that way.
He ran through the worn out pantomime of his own movie for the millionth time, separating himself from his image with a frivolous flicker of power and flopping on the carpet that wasn't really there while his mustached double got busy with the blonde pornstar who also wasn't really there. The entire Room (the Set, really, the one he was trapped in, as he didn't like to remind himself) was less substantial than his weakest illusion, two dimensional and faded and boring. The only sensations it could inspire were memories. Even the prospect of watching his own admittedly flawless double perform had paled eventually once he'd seen the show from every possible angle, and several impossible ones. It just reminded him of how much he fucking missed being tangible.
He told himself the carpet he wasn't really lying on was comfortable, and that the phantom aches he'd get from watching the Room's flatscreen TV upside down weren't really there because he didn't actually have a neck to strain. For a long time (and in here, even a few seconds counted as a long time) the TV in the Room had shown nothing but white snow when he flicked it on. For a long time, Gabriel's tiny little scrap of self had been too small and damaged to even notice or care about anything beyond regeneration, a mote of divine energy buried deep inside his own mindless image. When consciousness finally started to trickle back in, piece by piece and memory by memory (and oh, that had been fun, patiently stringing together flashes of memories that made no narrative sense, it was Memento all over again), he'd spread himself through his image cautiously, water flowing in to fill a container, needing the reminder of his vessel's shape. He'd been too many different things for too many years, and painfully non-angelic for most of them.
Once he'd been able to coax his energy back into form, the next task was stepping outside of his double and existing independently, trying to remember where his silhouette ended. He had the double to use as a model, of course, but the double couldn't remind him how organs were supposed to fit together (imaginary organs, but necessary that he remember them, or they wouldn't be there when he finally became physical again) or how hair was supposed to feel or how his significantly larger angel form had to stay on the inside of his human sized imaginary skin.
The double also reminded him how tall his vessel was supposed to be, and Gabriel frequently considered cheating. Not that it wasn't useful to be constantly underestimated, but there was something enviable in the way everyone, even little Castiel and Lucy, had to crane their necks and look up at a person of Sam Winchester's height. Even if bloodlines and gritty modern stage adaptions of Cain vs Abel weren't involved, it was right up Lucifer's alley to choose a vessel that would tower over Michael's.
Gabriel resolved to make up for the lack with a hat, a really tall one, when he got out of here. Some show on the BBC had informed him that Stetsons were making a comeback.
Television was also his first reconnection to the outside world, when he stretched his recovering Grace just enough to press up against the walls of his prison (he couldn't call it a cage, not like Lucifer's, he couldn't think about it like that without losing time) and felt something press back, a tiny trickle of energy. The flatscreen in the Room flicked on, grainy picture quality and crackling static through the voice of a daytime talkshow host, but it was something new and coming from the outside and Gabriel flung his insubstantial arms around the damn thing and made out with it more passionately than his double had with blondie. When he got a little stronger he didn't have to bother with the mental metaphor of importing images to the flatscreen, he could pick up the signal all on his own and watch it broadcast across his mind's eye. Dean bitched about the angelic network and the fact that their mojo screwed up electronics (Cas had accidentally shorted out the Impala's radio once) and how angels were a fucking menace to be around, but there were times when it paid to be a living energy conduit.
So then he had some entertainment, at least. It still got old quickly, especially with someone else controlling the channels, and he went back to pacing and wondering why it was taking so long for the Winchesters to get to the instructions he'd hidden in the credits of his movie, the ones that told them how to speed up his resurrection.
Then he didn't wonder, because he knew. In hindsight he probably should have seen it coming, what with their track record with following directions and/or making good decisions, ever.
Neither of them actually watched his movie, the bastards. He'd even given the girl the visage of one of Dean's favorite actresses and everything.
So Gabriel was obliged to sit and stew in his self-made prison, waiting for his Grace to regenerate mote by ethereal mote and thankful that the layers of resurrection spells he'd coated his colorful candy shell in would work on their own time, even if certain idiots weren't helping things along to speed up the process. Waiting, and forced to channel surf along with Dean in crappy motel after crappy motel, watching whatever Dean was watching and only getting glimpses of the bigger picture whenever one of the boys would leave the news on. He tried not to complain aloud, mostly because he couldn't complain aloud and make himself heard, which was technically the entire point of complaining. Instead he made snide comments inside the space of his own mind and critiqued the porn Dean watched (never his, of course, and Gabriel sulked over all that wasted effort) and announced the obvious revelations when Sam watched the news. Natural disasters! Lucifer. Death roll rising! Lucifer. Unexplained accidents! Michael.
"Seriously," he told the Winchesters, ignoring the part where he didn't have a voice, "this is so by the book it's a B movie. I hope neither of you paid full price."
Being oblivious to bits of static occasionally interfering with their TV reception, they ignored him.
He rode in the back of the Impala in the bottom of Sam's bag when they left him still in the laptop's DVD drive, or in the bottom of Dean's bag when Sam bitched about Dean leaving angel porn in his stuff. He got back to Sam's laptop as part of a prank war, which was much better than flexing his sliver of Grace to switch on the TV when the boys were out of the room in order to channel surf on his own. Commandeering the computer was a much more efficient medium for digging up information, and didn't take nearly as much energy.
It was only right that he should get to know how the story ended, after all. He'd died for it. Quasi-died. Made an enthusiastic effort in the direction of death. The other gods had been cast low (not destroyed, even Lucifer couldn't entirely destroy what the belief of millions maintained) and were down for the count while the Apocalypse rolled onwards. Heaven and Hell mobilized and even in his weakened, pathetic state, Gabriel could feel them like a weight pressing down on the body he didn't have, every energy current on the planet disturbed and roiling like the mother of all brewing storms. The boys were only human, and didn't know. Even vessels couldn't feel the way time itself ran heavier, circling down, every individual moment that made up destiny tightening up like a chokehold. Hunkered in his little plastic prison Gabriel could still feel it, and his metaphysical shoulders ached with the effort of bracing metaphysical wings above his metaphysical head. In the real world, the brothers fought each other and fought angels and fought demons, and they didn't feel a damn thing.
It didn't matter. Gabriel had gambled on his hand and he'd lost, badly, as badly as he could have predicted if he'd allowed himself to think ahead. Lucifer 1, little brother Gabe fuck all, just like how it had been back in the good old bad old days.
Getting Kali and the Winchesters out alive didn't feel terribly much like a victory. Each of them had tried to kill him at one time or another, and after every disaster the Winchesters extricated themselves from they'd just run right back into a new one. It was like rescuing lemmings. Kali wasn't much for learning from past mistakes either. And now Gabriel had to be a spectator for the rest of the show in karmic mockery of how he liked to conduct his pranks, sitting on the sidelines after his fifteen minutes of limelight, which had totally not been flattering.
The look of regret on Lucifer's face had been as much of a sword to the heart as the actual sword was. It wasn't regret over his actions. It was the same look Gabriel had seen on self-righteous human after self-righteous human, usually right around the time Gabriel decided that said human needed their narrow little worldview shaken up, Trickster style. Or. You know. Ended permanently, also Trickster style.
'Don't make me do this,' Lucifer had said, honestly, as if Gabriel was the one standing there with blood drenched hands with a massacre at his back. As if Gabriel was the erring child crossing a line that his loving, dedicated, principled older brother would have to punish him for. Lucifer had a martyr complex the size of Heaven and Hell combined and for all the melancholy in his eyes, there'd been nothing but surety in his hands, pushing the blade in. Invading Gabriel's Grace and ripping it to shreds in a burst of whitehot light.
It was nice to know exactly where you stood with your family. Really. Gabriel had definitely wanted that reminder keeping him company during his time trapped in the Room. In his moments of weakness (which were rare, rare, and no one was ever going to report otherwise) he wondered what would happen if he tried to crack his shell prematurely, if he pushed and screamed and called for Michael and Raphael, if either of them would swing low and rescue him. If they would feel the awful raw scarring of his Grace where Lucifer's murderous intent had ripped him open as no angel should ever do to another, and take him under their stronger wings to let him heal. They could do that for him. They were elder, and even though the harmony of the Four had been disrupted since Lucifer's absence, Michael and Raphael were still strong enough to weave their youngest back together. If he begged sweetly enough, if he played the role they wanted (and he could, he could kneel and show them the tatters of his Grace and tell them Lucifer's attack had changed his heart, and part of it would be true), they might even let him come home.
He dared not. If he thrashed his way free and spread his hurting wings as wide as they were meant to be in his true form, from horizon to horizon, the attention he attracted might be the Morningstar's.
More likely than either was the simple, terrifying prospect that no one would come at all, and he would destroy himself in the act of struggling free. Plummet to the unforgiving ground like those blind, wrinkled infant birds that clambered over the protective lip of their nests and fell from the tree.
There was a metaphor in there that he refused to think about. He wasn't Fallen, not yet, he knew God's existence as a solid fact written in the fiber of his being, so he was in no danger of losing his faith like little Castiel. Nor did he particularly feel like becoming a mortal, even if he'd made a speech about wanting to protect them. He could choose to stretch his hand forth and protect humans, or fluffy retarded kittens that liked to ride on Roombas, or whatever, without actually wanting to be one.
There were other ways to become less of an angel. Gabriel was pretty sure he'd just discovered a new one, crammed into the Room with no space to spread his growing Grace and no outlet for his frustrations and every day the ceiling getting lower. He felt the world spinning down. His feathers were ragged, bent against the walls, snapping in half when he squirmed helplessly against the ache, and he couldn't make himself any smaller when he felt Lucifer and Michael both approach.
He was there at the end of it all, crouched and wordless inside his thin layer of plastic, forgotten in the Impala's backseat while destiny held her breath and Sam Winchester, whipped and spurred into it like the champion Thoroughbred he was, did his level best to beat his older brother to death in a cemetery. Gabriel didn't get to see, but he could feel. He would have felt the outcome of that battle even if he'd been unconscious or possibly dead. Lucifer fell a second time, and Michael with him, and Gabriel was still silent when the Cage door slammed shut on them. For once, there was nothing he could think of to say.
Getting free of his own prison suddenly didn't seem quite as important after that. He let the better part of a year pass on the outside before raising his head from beneath his stiff wings, stagnated to metaphysical marble in that position. The realization hit him like a ton of bricks that he now had enough juice to slip free from the plastic, if he wanted. There were power lines buzzing and wires laid in the ground and a radio in the garage with him. There was an entire spared world out there that had continued turning, full of people and events that the Trickster in him whined over missing out on. Hubris to punish, petards to hoist. Ex-girlfriends. Distraction. There was a brand new future, one Gabriel hadn't skipped ahead to visit.
The marble cracked carefully. Gabriel found the Room dark and grainy, like old film, and his double and the girl were mere shadows, as if they'd gone through the motions of their scenes so many times they'd burned themselves to nothing.
He looked beyond all of it, outside. His eyes hurt as if he hadn't used them for a long time, except he didn't actually have eyes so they couldn't really hurt.
There was a distinct lack of his Father anywhere, as usual, and Gabriel thought briefly about Lucifer and Michael in the cage, tearing each other apart for all eternity and/or whenever the next idiot managed to get the lock open. Being confined in the same space wouldn't make them stop and compromise. They probably weren't even trying to get free.
He thought about Raphael still Upstairs, probably still reeling from what had happened, probably still refusing to believe that two humans could have thwarted the divine plan and all the will of Heaven. Raphael wouldn't take any hints. He'd probably keep the war going if he could, just to thwart any kind of peace that had been accomplished by humans.
"That's what you get for underestimating mud monkeys," Gabriel muttered into his feathers, brushing chunks of marble from them, and the radio on the table sputtered static. Underneath the Impala, Dean tried to sit up at the sudden noise and promptly hit his head on the undercarriage.
The cursing made Gabriel feel a little better. He flexed his Grace and found it strong and willing, for a given value of low level poltergeist strong. The radio switched over obligingly to a country station, which didn't make the cursing stop.
Tomorrow, he told himself. Tomorrow he'd get up (metaphorically) and spread his wings (slightly less metaphorically) and zap through a power line or a radio signal and find out what he was missing. It might be another six months or even a year before he could materialize physically, at the rate he seemed to be recovering. In the meantime he'd have to lurk in electronic signals, no longer bound to the Casa Erotica DVD. There were probably new daytime TV shows he'd missed. New reality TV and gameshows and carbon copy medical dramas and police procedurals. Things with comfortable, familiar endings.
Tomorrow.
NAME/HANDLE: Brig
PERSONAL JOURNAL:
warcodeARE YOU 16 OR OVER?: yes
CONTACT: twopoinsettias@gmail.com | brigantinefranke@AIM | haneshinohara@plurk
OTHER CHARACTERS: nope
character.
CHARACTER NAME: Gabriel
SERIES: http://supernatural.wikia.com/wiki/Gabriel
CANON POINT: S5E19 "Hammer of the Gods" aka post-death
AGE: ~immortal~ but appears in his thirties
APPEARANCE: http://images2.fanpop.com/image/photos/12000000/Gabriel-Trickster-richard-speight-jr-12028237-333-500.jpg
PREVIOUS GAME HISTORY: n/a
PERSONALITY:
As might be expected from a character hiding a secret identity, Gabriel has two faces. His public image is Loki or simply "the Trickster," a mischievous and chaotic demigod invested in his own amusements and happy to indulge in all the fine things life has to offer. He likes beauty and sex and desserts and getting away with anything he wants, all the time, and knocking down arrogant humans with clever punishments that sometimes end in murder. He can also be unflinchingly cruel, especially when he's trying to teach someone a lesson. As quite a few of Supernatural's gods and demigods are portrayed as a higher tier Monster Of The Week, complete with a taste for human sacrifice, Gabriel was obliged to pick up some of the same habits in order to keep up appearances.
When other gods in the modern era are having difficulties maintaining their powers without proper worship, Gabriel thrives by having adapted to the times (it probably also doesn't hurt that angels don't require worship to survive). He can blend in with ordinary humans seamlessly when he wants to, understands pop culture, matches Dean snark for snark and insult for insult, loves bad television and tabloid magazines and crazy urban legends. Theatrics and performance are a major part of his existence. Everything is about making an entrance, playing a character and playing to an audience. He's turned himself into a deity specifically associated with pop culture and television, as his last legacy is a goodbye message hidden in a porn film. He's very fond of illusions and prefers to not do any fighting himself, especially if he can try to charm his way out of it instead. When he does have to fight he's more likely to sneak up behind someone than face them head on like a proper soldier.
On the other side of the coin you've got the archangel Gabriel, youngest out of the four brothers Michael, Raphael, and Lucifer. God apparently loved Lucifer best out of the siblings, at least until he created humans and commanded his angels to adore them as he did. Michael became the authoritative Dad stand-in when God vanished and Raphael apparently sides with Michael in everything, which left Gabriel in the midst of squabbling older brothers when Lucifer rebelled. Unable to bear the conflict, Gabriel fled Heaven and hid himself away for thousands of years, trying to distract himself from the past (and what he knew was coming in the future) with humans and pagan gods and shiny things on Earth. He's one of the few angels that sincerely believes that humans are worth something.
Gabe uses the Trickster persona to hide the fact that he ran from his family and his responsibilities. Part of him is still deeply wounded and furious at and even afraid of his brothers, especially Lucifer, who claims to have taught Gabriel all his tricks. Gabriel at first refuses to help the Winchesters try and stop the Apocalypse because he's so resigned to the idea that his brothers are going to stubbornly bull their way into mutual destruction and no one can stop them. Possibly Gabriel knows this from personal experience. Possibly he's still operating under angelic hierarchy, where older and stronger angels have the natural right to command their younger brethren, and possibly it's plain old youngest sibling psychology. In a moment of anger Gabriel bursts out that he doesn't care which side wins, he just wants everything to be over because it's all going to turn out bloody and awful and he's going to lose brothers either way. The war between Heaven and Hell is a sibling grudge that's gotten entirely out of hand and Gabriel is the kid hiding on the staircase with hands over his ears while his family throws dishes at each other.
Or, you know, celestial armies.
In any case Gabe has spent a damn long time plastering over these inconvenient things called emotions and trying to prove to himself the rest of the world how completely fine and self-sufficient and over his family he is. The Trickster is an armored shell for him to hide behind and it's an effective one. No one suspects a mischief-making demigod of having any motives deeper than personal pleasure and whim, and certainly no one would ever imagine that a self-respecting angel, much less an archangel, would lower himself to such a disguise. The only way Gabriel could have made himself more un-angelic would be to Fall and become completely human, without memories or abilities, but doing so would have left him powerless and vulnerable. Instead he's the rebel angel that never really wanted to be one and yet defiantly plays the role, mucking about with humans and pagan magic and over-indulgence. The world is his oyster, goddammit, he has phenomenal cosmic powers and instant illusory supermodels whenever he wants company and all the shiny distractions he could ever imagine to amuse himself with, and not a single bit of it makes him happy. In the back of his mind there's always the nagging reminder that he ran away, that his brothers are out there killing each other while Gabriel hides, that something is always horribly wrong because their Father is gone and everyone is floundering in their own disasters without him. To some degree Gabriel has lost hope that things are going to get better. He's watched his brothers build up their own empires with the sole aim of destroying each other and war machines have a way of perpetuating their own momentum.
As an archangel, Gabriel has an ingrained connection to and sense of responsibility for all the lower orders of angels, his extended family, but he's done his level best to ignore all that and pretend that what Michael and Lucifer are doing to their younger siblings is none of his business.
Despite being the runaway Gabriel is the one who feels abandoned. His brothers are too concerned with fighting each other to really give much of a shit about him. Even if he let them find him (and who knows how much or how little effort they actually made to do so), they would only want him to choose a side in their war. God has vanished and left everyone to the mess of their own making. The other gods tolerate Gabriel's company and while it's possible that some of them care for him sincerely, Gabriel is constantly aware of his own precarious position. If they ever discovered what he really is they could attempt to destroy him or cast him out. More to the point none of them are angels, which were created to thrive as a collective. Having forced himself to be solitary and behave against his own nature, Gabriel has lessened and warped himself just as Lucifer did, becoming something less than an angel. He doesn't consider this a good thing or any kind of accomplishment (although he'd loudly proclaim otherwise if anyone tried to needle him about it). It's something that he feels was forced on him, because he had to flee Heaven, he had to go into hiding, he had to maintain his disguise etc.
The archangel Gabriel, the Messenger, is actually a third mask to him, a stern and unhappy marble statue just as inhuman, implacable, and detached as his older brothers and invested only in their concerns. Gabe doesn't fall into this personality often because it's no longer him, he's spent too much time on Earth to ever go back to being a normal angel. His true personality is somewhere between archangel and Trickster, softened from the high-ranking soldier he once was and not actually as self-sufficient and maliciously cheerful as the demigod he pretends to be. He's a creature that doesn't belong in either sphere anymore. Other angels would find him corrupt or inexpressibly strange, other gods would never be able to forgive his origins and the way he weaseled into customs and religions not his own just to save his skin. Humans, of course, aren't much in a position to understand him at all.
On some level Gabriel knows that both Michael and Lucifer are only acting the way they are because they also felt forced. But just as Gabriel doesn't want to acknowledge that he could have chosen differently (and lashes out at Dean for suggesting it), Lucifer and Michael are defined by the choices they made and both are far more stubborn and terrifyingly implacable than Gabriel ever was. Part of Gabriel's obsession with theatrics and television and even fair judgment is the promise of a neatly wrapped up story where the characters get what they deserve. Heroes win in the end, threats are eliminated, the world is saved to turn another day. It's nothing like the reality Gabriel knows is waiting for him, and he'd rather retreat to fantasy and/or be the one meting out appropriate fates to hapless humans than acknowledge that his brothers will drag him and everything else down in the end.
Nevertheless, Gabriel makes the choice to stand up to Lucifer in the end, mostly because Dean bitched at him and Dean is really good at corrupting angels. While he doesn't hold onto much false hope that he might actually win, he gives it his best shot and dies with the conviction that he'd finally made the right choice.
ABILITIES:
Flight: technically angelic flight, but to an ordinary observer's eye it simply looks like teleporting. Gabriel would be limited to short distances (maybe a block or so) and further limited by the fact that it's suddenly incredibly exhausting to zap everywhere since he's still recovering from being dead and he really ought to be conserving his mojo.
Angelic strength/durability: punching an angel is ordinarily like punching a statue, and they have strength and stamina above an ordinary human's and can also heal life-threatening injuries. As Gabriel is still recovering, he can only push his vessel to superhuman abilities for short periods before he drains his mojo down to zero and knocks himself out. Gabriel is still a hands off type and would much rather spend his energies using an illusion than trying to punch someone in the face anyway. Angels do bleed and can be beaten unconscious or their vessels killed if someone tries hard enough, and when he's out of juice he'll be as vulnerable as any human.
Occult knowledge/holy angel stuff/pagan magic: angels can exorcise demons from a body with a touch, being holy and all that. That probably won't be happening in-game any time soon, but either way Gabriel has an extensive knowledge of random occult stuff, like how to kill a vampire and how to draw a particular seal in ancient Enochian that wards your house against angels or termites.
Archangel sword: a holy blade that all angels can manifest from hammerspace. Archangel blades are supposedly stronger than ordinary angel blades but Gabriel's will be a slightly holy paperweight when he can't get up the juice to charge it properly. Against non-demonic creatures it won't be anything more than a chunk of metal, against demonic creatures it will function as a holy object. Gabriel also hasn't been practicing since he's not really that keen on sword-work.
Dreamwalking/telepathy/prayer: While Gabriel is ordinarily capable of appearing in someone's dreams with a message and/or reading someone's mind, in-game he'll have to be touching them to do it. In his severely weakened state the chaos of a human mind can easily overwhelm anything he might be trying to communicate or perceive. Also Gabriel hates reading minds, it spoils the surprise. As an angel with a distinctly non-human mind, it's going to be very difficult for anyone else to read his mind. No angel has canonly been shown to use telepathy to force human minds to do anything, only to communicate and alter memories, so it's possible that angels can't simply take control of someone's thoughts the way an ordinary telepath can.
Gabriel can hear prayers that are directed specifically towards him, which is apparently like paging for angels. Whether he chooses to answer is another story. If the prayers are more generic, he may or may not be able to hear them, as he's probably spent a long time training himself not to listen to those. For lulz, he might also be able to hear 'prayers' or summons relating to Loki.
Telekinesis: typically used by angels and demons to fling people across rooms or hold them pinned to walls. On good days, Gabriel won't be able to 'lift' anything heavier than a few hundred pounds, and he'll tire extremely quickly, on bad days he might not be able to use telekinesis at all. Brute force is really more of an angel thing, not a trickster's, so Gabriel's not inclined to use it anyway, and he'll be clumsy if he does. No fine precision here. A telekinetic or biotic can probably cancel him out in battle, or wait him out until he's exhausted himself, and even someone with ordinary super strength would probably be able to do the same.
Reveal: as a last ditch defense/finishing move, angels can reveal their wings in battle and flatten or even incinerate an entire room of enemies, if they happen to be demons. Being de-powered, Gabriel's wings can act as a non-fatal concussion blast, but it will immediately knock him out or drain his angel mojo down to zero.
Illusions: having honed this skill as the Trickster, Gabriel can create solid or non-solid illusions to either deceive enemies or gang up on them. His weaker illusions are only as real as the target's mind allows them to be. Stronger illusions are still bound by the general laws of reality, so if he creates a solid illusion of a zombie bodyguard, it can be set on fire or cut in half or punched through a wall and that'll be it for that particular illusion. He hasn't got an infinite supply, either, the more he has to create or the more complicated and realistic it needs to be the faster he'll tire. His favorite combat tactic is creating an illusion of himself and letting his enemies kill it while he gets away, which goes to show how he prefers to fight his battles. Given his fluctuating powers, it's entirely possible that other characters might be able to see through his illusions at any given moment.
Other limitations: Angels can be summoned, captured, controlled, locked out of locations, or forced out of their physical vessels by certain seals and rituals. He's probably also subject to some of the mythological Loki's weaknesses, or for example a binding spell specifically tuned to 'Loki' rather than 'Gabriel' might still catch him. As he's recovering from near death, he'll be constrained to eat regularly, sleep regularly, and tire as quickly as a weakling human, and he'll constantly forget/deliberately ignore the fact that he needs to bow to these requirements. If he tries to use any powers without having sufficient energy stored up, he'll knock himself on his ass. And then turn around and do it again the very next day without having learned a thing.
ALSO I AM HAPPY TO DISCUSS FURTHER LIMITATIONS AND/OR LOCKING CERTAIN ABILITIES just give me a shout on aim or plurk or w/e. Angels are overpowered final boss fight characters in SPN and archangels are even worse.
POSSESSIONS:
Clothes on his back, one DVD of Casa Erotica, one stick-on porn 'stache, one fake archangel sword made out of a can of Diet Slice, real archangel sword, and one pair of neon green shutter shades
samples.
JOURNAL ENTRY SAMPLE:
[ The video clicks on to reveal a man with a fabulous (and fake) mustache, twirling it cheekily as he speaks. ]
Now this, this is what I call craftsmanship. Nobody appreciates a good quality layered illusion these days. I mean look at this, I could poke this wall all day long and it's going to feel like a wall the entire time, am I right? [He demonstrates by, well, feeling up said wall suggestively.]
That's dedication to your deception and you get full marks. But I do have to make a suggestion. Just a small one, I'm not trying to say anything about anybody's robot fetish going on here, but needs more aliens. Female aliens. You know what I mean.
It's Loki, by the way. If you'd like to cut the cutesy sci-fi stuff and tell me why I'm here.
THIRD-PERSON SAMPLE:
((recycled from an AU app, disregard the 'still-technically-alive-but-stuck-in-a-DVD' premise))
One of the problems with being stuck inside a DVD, Gabriel reflected, aside from the part where you were stuck inside a DVD, was that you were always at the mercy of whatever happened to be connected to that particular DVD player, like the TV, which was at the mercy of the hands holding the remote, like Dean Winchester's. Channel surfing took on an entirely new meaning when there was nothing else to do but watch whatever happened to be on the screen at any given moment, and you had absolutely no control over it. Even for a connoisseur of horrible television such as himself, reruns and CNN and paid programming after midnight soured quickly without the chance to discriminate.
Mostly he hated the feeling of being confined. Angels weren't meant for it by their very nature, and Gabriel had made a profession out of running away from anything and everything that tried to hold or corner him. Tucked inside his little sanctuary/prison, wings folded tightly around himself to keep from emanating the slightest bit of angelic energy where his brothers (or worse, his ex) might sense it, he spat out a mouthful of insubstantial feathers and squirmed restlessly, wishing he dared order his energy into a bendier shape. Maybe not a horse this time. Or a salmon. Something without a spine.
Not a good idea, though, when he was still recovering and his Grace needed to be let alone to repair itself. If he forced it to contort into something that wasn't its natural inclination, he might end up the victim of one his own favorite pranks, the face your mother told you would freeze that way.
He ran through the worn out pantomime of his own movie for the millionth time, separating himself from his image with a frivolous flicker of power and flopping on the carpet that wasn't really there while his mustached double got busy with the blonde pornstar who also wasn't really there. The entire Room (the Set, really, the one he was trapped in, as he didn't like to remind himself) was less substantial than his weakest illusion, two dimensional and faded and boring. The only sensations it could inspire were memories. Even the prospect of watching his own admittedly flawless double perform had paled eventually once he'd seen the show from every possible angle, and several impossible ones. It just reminded him of how much he fucking missed being tangible.
He told himself the carpet he wasn't really lying on was comfortable, and that the phantom aches he'd get from watching the Room's flatscreen TV upside down weren't really there because he didn't actually have a neck to strain. For a long time (and in here, even a few seconds counted as a long time) the TV in the Room had shown nothing but white snow when he flicked it on. For a long time, Gabriel's tiny little scrap of self had been too small and damaged to even notice or care about anything beyond regeneration, a mote of divine energy buried deep inside his own mindless image. When consciousness finally started to trickle back in, piece by piece and memory by memory (and oh, that had been fun, patiently stringing together flashes of memories that made no narrative sense, it was Memento all over again), he'd spread himself through his image cautiously, water flowing in to fill a container, needing the reminder of his vessel's shape. He'd been too many different things for too many years, and painfully non-angelic for most of them.
Once he'd been able to coax his energy back into form, the next task was stepping outside of his double and existing independently, trying to remember where his silhouette ended. He had the double to use as a model, of course, but the double couldn't remind him how organs were supposed to fit together (imaginary organs, but necessary that he remember them, or they wouldn't be there when he finally became physical again) or how hair was supposed to feel or how his significantly larger angel form had to stay on the inside of his human sized imaginary skin.
The double also reminded him how tall his vessel was supposed to be, and Gabriel frequently considered cheating. Not that it wasn't useful to be constantly underestimated, but there was something enviable in the way everyone, even little Castiel and Lucy, had to crane their necks and look up at a person of Sam Winchester's height. Even if bloodlines and gritty modern stage adaptions of Cain vs Abel weren't involved, it was right up Lucifer's alley to choose a vessel that would tower over Michael's.
Gabriel resolved to make up for the lack with a hat, a really tall one, when he got out of here. Some show on the BBC had informed him that Stetsons were making a comeback.
Television was also his first reconnection to the outside world, when he stretched his recovering Grace just enough to press up against the walls of his prison (he couldn't call it a cage, not like Lucifer's, he couldn't think about it like that without losing time) and felt something press back, a tiny trickle of energy. The flatscreen in the Room flicked on, grainy picture quality and crackling static through the voice of a daytime talkshow host, but it was something new and coming from the outside and Gabriel flung his insubstantial arms around the damn thing and made out with it more passionately than his double had with blondie. When he got a little stronger he didn't have to bother with the mental metaphor of importing images to the flatscreen, he could pick up the signal all on his own and watch it broadcast across his mind's eye. Dean bitched about the angelic network and the fact that their mojo screwed up electronics (Cas had accidentally shorted out the Impala's radio once) and how angels were a fucking menace to be around, but there were times when it paid to be a living energy conduit.
So then he had some entertainment, at least. It still got old quickly, especially with someone else controlling the channels, and he went back to pacing and wondering why it was taking so long for the Winchesters to get to the instructions he'd hidden in the credits of his movie, the ones that told them how to speed up his resurrection.
Then he didn't wonder, because he knew. In hindsight he probably should have seen it coming, what with their track record with following directions and/or making good decisions, ever.
Neither of them actually watched his movie, the bastards. He'd even given the girl the visage of one of Dean's favorite actresses and everything.
So Gabriel was obliged to sit and stew in his self-made prison, waiting for his Grace to regenerate mote by ethereal mote and thankful that the layers of resurrection spells he'd coated his colorful candy shell in would work on their own time, even if certain idiots weren't helping things along to speed up the process. Waiting, and forced to channel surf along with Dean in crappy motel after crappy motel, watching whatever Dean was watching and only getting glimpses of the bigger picture whenever one of the boys would leave the news on. He tried not to complain aloud, mostly because he couldn't complain aloud and make himself heard, which was technically the entire point of complaining. Instead he made snide comments inside the space of his own mind and critiqued the porn Dean watched (never his, of course, and Gabriel sulked over all that wasted effort) and announced the obvious revelations when Sam watched the news. Natural disasters! Lucifer. Death roll rising! Lucifer. Unexplained accidents! Michael.
"Seriously," he told the Winchesters, ignoring the part where he didn't have a voice, "this is so by the book it's a B movie. I hope neither of you paid full price."
Being oblivious to bits of static occasionally interfering with their TV reception, they ignored him.
He rode in the back of the Impala in the bottom of Sam's bag when they left him still in the laptop's DVD drive, or in the bottom of Dean's bag when Sam bitched about Dean leaving angel porn in his stuff. He got back to Sam's laptop as part of a prank war, which was much better than flexing his sliver of Grace to switch on the TV when the boys were out of the room in order to channel surf on his own. Commandeering the computer was a much more efficient medium for digging up information, and didn't take nearly as much energy.
It was only right that he should get to know how the story ended, after all. He'd died for it. Quasi-died. Made an enthusiastic effort in the direction of death. The other gods had been cast low (not destroyed, even Lucifer couldn't entirely destroy what the belief of millions maintained) and were down for the count while the Apocalypse rolled onwards. Heaven and Hell mobilized and even in his weakened, pathetic state, Gabriel could feel them like a weight pressing down on the body he didn't have, every energy current on the planet disturbed and roiling like the mother of all brewing storms. The boys were only human, and didn't know. Even vessels couldn't feel the way time itself ran heavier, circling down, every individual moment that made up destiny tightening up like a chokehold. Hunkered in his little plastic prison Gabriel could still feel it, and his metaphysical shoulders ached with the effort of bracing metaphysical wings above his metaphysical head. In the real world, the brothers fought each other and fought angels and fought demons, and they didn't feel a damn thing.
It didn't matter. Gabriel had gambled on his hand and he'd lost, badly, as badly as he could have predicted if he'd allowed himself to think ahead. Lucifer 1, little brother Gabe fuck all, just like how it had been back in the good old bad old days.
Getting Kali and the Winchesters out alive didn't feel terribly much like a victory. Each of them had tried to kill him at one time or another, and after every disaster the Winchesters extricated themselves from they'd just run right back into a new one. It was like rescuing lemmings. Kali wasn't much for learning from past mistakes either. And now Gabriel had to be a spectator for the rest of the show in karmic mockery of how he liked to conduct his pranks, sitting on the sidelines after his fifteen minutes of limelight, which had totally not been flattering.
The look of regret on Lucifer's face had been as much of a sword to the heart as the actual sword was. It wasn't regret over his actions. It was the same look Gabriel had seen on self-righteous human after self-righteous human, usually right around the time Gabriel decided that said human needed their narrow little worldview shaken up, Trickster style. Or. You know. Ended permanently, also Trickster style.
'Don't make me do this,' Lucifer had said, honestly, as if Gabriel was the one standing there with blood drenched hands with a massacre at his back. As if Gabriel was the erring child crossing a line that his loving, dedicated, principled older brother would have to punish him for. Lucifer had a martyr complex the size of Heaven and Hell combined and for all the melancholy in his eyes, there'd been nothing but surety in his hands, pushing the blade in. Invading Gabriel's Grace and ripping it to shreds in a burst of whitehot light.
It was nice to know exactly where you stood with your family. Really. Gabriel had definitely wanted that reminder keeping him company during his time trapped in the Room. In his moments of weakness (which were rare, rare, and no one was ever going to report otherwise) he wondered what would happen if he tried to crack his shell prematurely, if he pushed and screamed and called for Michael and Raphael, if either of them would swing low and rescue him. If they would feel the awful raw scarring of his Grace where Lucifer's murderous intent had ripped him open as no angel should ever do to another, and take him under their stronger wings to let him heal. They could do that for him. They were elder, and even though the harmony of the Four had been disrupted since Lucifer's absence, Michael and Raphael were still strong enough to weave their youngest back together. If he begged sweetly enough, if he played the role they wanted (and he could, he could kneel and show them the tatters of his Grace and tell them Lucifer's attack had changed his heart, and part of it would be true), they might even let him come home.
He dared not. If he thrashed his way free and spread his hurting wings as wide as they were meant to be in his true form, from horizon to horizon, the attention he attracted might be the Morningstar's.
More likely than either was the simple, terrifying prospect that no one would come at all, and he would destroy himself in the act of struggling free. Plummet to the unforgiving ground like those blind, wrinkled infant birds that clambered over the protective lip of their nests and fell from the tree.
There was a metaphor in there that he refused to think about. He wasn't Fallen, not yet, he knew God's existence as a solid fact written in the fiber of his being, so he was in no danger of losing his faith like little Castiel. Nor did he particularly feel like becoming a mortal, even if he'd made a speech about wanting to protect them. He could choose to stretch his hand forth and protect humans, or fluffy retarded kittens that liked to ride on Roombas, or whatever, without actually wanting to be one.
There were other ways to become less of an angel. Gabriel was pretty sure he'd just discovered a new one, crammed into the Room with no space to spread his growing Grace and no outlet for his frustrations and every day the ceiling getting lower. He felt the world spinning down. His feathers were ragged, bent against the walls, snapping in half when he squirmed helplessly against the ache, and he couldn't make himself any smaller when he felt Lucifer and Michael both approach.
He was there at the end of it all, crouched and wordless inside his thin layer of plastic, forgotten in the Impala's backseat while destiny held her breath and Sam Winchester, whipped and spurred into it like the champion Thoroughbred he was, did his level best to beat his older brother to death in a cemetery. Gabriel didn't get to see, but he could feel. He would have felt the outcome of that battle even if he'd been unconscious or possibly dead. Lucifer fell a second time, and Michael with him, and Gabriel was still silent when the Cage door slammed shut on them. For once, there was nothing he could think of to say.
Getting free of his own prison suddenly didn't seem quite as important after that. He let the better part of a year pass on the outside before raising his head from beneath his stiff wings, stagnated to metaphysical marble in that position. The realization hit him like a ton of bricks that he now had enough juice to slip free from the plastic, if he wanted. There were power lines buzzing and wires laid in the ground and a radio in the garage with him. There was an entire spared world out there that had continued turning, full of people and events that the Trickster in him whined over missing out on. Hubris to punish, petards to hoist. Ex-girlfriends. Distraction. There was a brand new future, one Gabriel hadn't skipped ahead to visit.
The marble cracked carefully. Gabriel found the Room dark and grainy, like old film, and his double and the girl were mere shadows, as if they'd gone through the motions of their scenes so many times they'd burned themselves to nothing.
He looked beyond all of it, outside. His eyes hurt as if he hadn't used them for a long time, except he didn't actually have eyes so they couldn't really hurt.
There was a distinct lack of his Father anywhere, as usual, and Gabriel thought briefly about Lucifer and Michael in the cage, tearing each other apart for all eternity and/or whenever the next idiot managed to get the lock open. Being confined in the same space wouldn't make them stop and compromise. They probably weren't even trying to get free.
He thought about Raphael still Upstairs, probably still reeling from what had happened, probably still refusing to believe that two humans could have thwarted the divine plan and all the will of Heaven. Raphael wouldn't take any hints. He'd probably keep the war going if he could, just to thwart any kind of peace that had been accomplished by humans.
"That's what you get for underestimating mud monkeys," Gabriel muttered into his feathers, brushing chunks of marble from them, and the radio on the table sputtered static. Underneath the Impala, Dean tried to sit up at the sudden noise and promptly hit his head on the undercarriage.
The cursing made Gabriel feel a little better. He flexed his Grace and found it strong and willing, for a given value of low level poltergeist strong. The radio switched over obligingly to a country station, which didn't make the cursing stop.
Tomorrow, he told himself. Tomorrow he'd get up (metaphorically) and spread his wings (slightly less metaphorically) and zap through a power line or a radio signal and find out what he was missing. It might be another six months or even a year before he could materialize physically, at the rate he seemed to be recovering. In the meantime he'd have to lurk in electronic signals, no longer bound to the Casa Erotica DVD. There were probably new daytime TV shows he'd missed. New reality TV and gameshows and carbon copy medical dramas and police procedurals. Things with comfortable, familiar endings.
Tomorrow.
