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Once, there were five siblings. Archangels, the first of Her creations. You see, the Almighty was feeling lonely that day, with only the seeds of what She will one day create to keep her company in this vast nothingness. So She creates in Her own image five figures that She then breathes life into, and to each She gives an aspect of Her own. To Michael and Samael, Her golden twins, cut from the same seed, She grants the ability to inspire loyalty on anyone they come across (leaders of Her Host they will be, a strong voice is needed). To Raphael, She gives healing and empathy. He would need it for the road that lies ahead (an infinity of futures, he will have to choose for his own). For Gabriel, her stalwart child, the gift of tongues (Messenger, She will call him, shock and awe are needed for him to convey Her Will). And for Uriel, the youngest, music and the arts (it wasn’t really music yet, not quite, but it will be soon enough).
It’s a nice setting, almost idyllic, the six of them creating first their home and then everything else. She leaves them alone to experiment, for the most part. There is always work for Her to do now; Time was born the moment She started sculpting Her children. Michael will keep them in line, after all.
The Almighty had told them to behave and to listen to Michael at all times. Technically, She said nothing about pestering their siblings with questions. Currently, Raphael is asking rapid–fire questions to the closest sibling available, which just so happens to be Michael. So you see, he’s just following orders.
“So how do we Create, really?” he asks, chin on hand as he lies down on his belly, wings all aflutter behind him [1]. “Do we just, you know, grasp at the Seeds then shape them? Do you think Samael will teach me how to make stars? Where does the Almighty go to whenever She leaves, anyway?”
“Raphael, I am Samael,” Samael sighs, giving up on shaping whatever it is he’s Creating. Already he’s thinking of changing his form so that no one mistakes him for Michael again. Ever. “Can you please slow down with the questions? I will teach you about the stars if you do.”
Raphael had enough Grace to look sheepish. “Sorry. Will you really?”
“Hold out your palm,” Samael says, and Raphael does. “Now pick out the seeds, we call them atoms.”
Raphael scrunches up his face; if he concentrates hard enough, he’d be able to sense them and pick them out, invisible to the eye as they are. “Atoms?” he asks. Gabriel’s the one with the gift for tongues; and anyway, proper languages wouldn’t be invented yet, so he didn’t really see the need to learn them.
“Indivisible,” Samael replies. “You’ve enough there already. Close your palm, and then squeeze them together. Both hands.”
“Indivisible. You mean like us then?” Raphael squeezes, feeling the temperature in his palms increasing. Weak light escapes from the crevices.
Samael shrugs. “Something like that. You can stop squeezing and let go now, it’ll hold up on its own.”
Raphael opens his hands, slowly but surely. A ball of flame floats up to his face, and he looks at Samael, unsure of what to do next. Samael nods, and Raphael breathes Life into it, watching with fascination as it continues to rise up into the cosmos, until he can only see a faint twinkling.
“Can I make more?” Raphael says, still staring at the star he made. “I know you have dominion over them, but can I?”
Samael ponders over this. “I don’t think the Almighty would mind, so go ahead. You’ll have to keep this a secret from others, though, can’t have everyone messing with my dominion. You can keep a secret, can you?”
Raphael nods, too busy with a second attempt at star–forming to properly reply.
Raphael has just finished shaping another creature to place in their Mother’s Garden when he hears the soft fluttering of wings dragging along the dewy grass [2]. Wings aren’t supposed to be dragging like that; they’re airborne, it’s the principle of the thing. As the fluttering comes closer, so does the overwhelming feeling of pain seeping into his bones [3]. The scent of burnished copper in the air that accompanies it also doesn’t help.
Raphael sighs, letting the snake curl up around his staff, and without turning around he asks “Gabriel Gabby Gabe Gab Gab, my dear sweet little brother, what happened this time?”
Gabriel stops walking behind him. “How did you know it was me?”
“Because, little brother, you still need to learn how to mask your aura,” Raphael says as he finally turns around to have a good look.
Gabriel is, in a word, a mess. His robes are torn in places, his hair stuck with twigs, the feathers in his wing sticking out everywhere, and his right wing itself is drooping slightly above the ground at an odd angle.
Raphael tuts, covering the distance between him and his brother to examine the damage. As he takes the wing in his hands, Gabriel winces almost imperceptibly, and Raphael has to mumble a rushed apology as he checks the wing’s injuries [4].
“It’s sprained,” Raphael announces, gently letting his brother’s wing slide back down as he miracles a length of linen into his hand. “Now how did that happen?”
Gabriel rubs a hand on his shoulder, mumbling something under his breath.
“What’s that? Speak up, Messenger,” Raphael says, crossing his arms across his chest as he tries to give a stern glance at Gabriel. Tries being the keyword; glaring at people into submission was more Michael’s thing.
“I hit a tree,” Gabriel admits, biting his lip. “I was flying around and checking the Garden and I hit a tree and I tried to miracle my wings back to normal because I knew you’re busy and you get hurt a lot but I couldn’t I’m sorry.”
“Gabe. Slow down,” Raphael says, hoping the headache brewing in his head isn’t actually from a concussion on Gabriel. Oh well, now he knows how Michael and Samael feel whenever he himself talked too fast. “You know our wings are miracle–proof. Here, hold still,” he adds as he goes behind Gabriel, unrolling the linen.
“What are you—?”
“I said hold still, Gabriel,” Raphael hisses, securing Gabriel’s injured wing to his corporation with a splint using the linen. “You can’t change into any of your aspects while it’s healing. Give it a wiggle. ‘S it too tight?”
Gabriel gives it a wiggle. “No, it’s just right. Thank you, Raphael.”
“Right,” Raphael says. “So which tree was it? And why are you in the Garden? You’re supposed to be at home, helping Uriel teach the new members of the Host.”
“The Tree. You know.” Gabriel scrapes his heel guiltily across the ground. “I just wanted to see. They’re beautiful, Raphael.”
“All the Lord’s creations are beautiful, Gabriel,” Raphael says dutifully as he spreads out his own wings, sitting down next to his brother and inviting him to sit down as well. “Do you think Mankind will love it here, when Mother gets around to creating them?”
“They should,” Gabriel replies, accepting the invitation. “It was made just for them. And you helped fill it up, so I’m sure it’s fine.”
Raphael made a non–committal shrug.
“Wait,” Gabriel suddenly says, remembering something. “How am I supposed to go home if I can’t use my wings?”
“You gotta stay here until they heal,” Raphael says in his best “doctor’s orders” voice. At Gabriel’s panicked pouting, he smiles apologetically. “I’m kidding, I’ll carry you back.”
War is—
War is—
There aren’t any words for it, not yet. Angel against angel, sibling against sibling, nameless horrors being born every moment. And yet, Raphael refuses to take sides, stuck in the middle like he always is.
He knows now, what real pain and suffering look like. His purpose, once a source of curiosity, now anathema to him. He heals and heals and heals, as angels from both sides fall, filling the heavens with rivers of spilt ichor. He cannot — must not — break, not even when the pain wracking through him is too much that he can scarcely keep himself steady at times. He is the Healer, this is his sacred duty.
Mother is frustratingly silent, the doors to the throne room barred ever since Samael cast away his heavenly light.
Michael hasn’t been home since this started. Firstborn, first in command, Raphael knows they cannot show weakness, or everything is lost. For Michael most of all Raphael prays, that the war may be over soon and that all will be forgiven. He does not know what it will do to Michael if something happens to their other half, no matter that he was the reason this conflict erupted in the first place.
Uriel clings to Raphael’s ichor–stained robes, too young to be in the frontlines, helping him tend to the ever–increasing throngs of the injured. Even here behind the lines, he can sense his sister’s changing. Really, Uriel shouldn’t be seeing this. She’s made for song and festivities and the arts, not for war.
And Gabriel—
Gabriel, Strength of God, Raphael’s own little brother, he’s too soft to be a general. Every day he returns to their nest, torn and bleeding, and Raphael wishes he could turn back time instead of just stopping it, wishing he could return to merely fixing ruffled feathers and not wounds endlessly seeping gold. Granting Gabriel sleep isn’t a gift either, as the first few times Raphael did so he’d just be tossing and turning and always ends up jolting himself awake, unfurling his wings and undoing all of Raphael’s hard work.
An eternity passes, and the war ends [5]. Samael Falls, as his twin takes on a different form and becomes his own judge, jury, and executioner. A spectacle ensues when Michael severs Samael’s Grace and shoves him into a bottomless pit that materialized into existence at the exact spot where the last drop of ichor spilt by the rebellion fell. It’s a warning to everyone, a reminder of what would happen if they stepped out of line.
What was left of the Host is then divided clean in half, as those who followed Raphael’s brother followed him into the abyss as well. Hell, they called it, a concept Raphael still cannot wrap his mind around. Demons, his brother’s followers are called.
Raphael doesn’t even know if he’s still allowed to call Samael his brother.
Why can’t they be forgiven? Raphael addresses to no one in particular, as he silently mourns and accidentally invents the first rain.
Raphael flies away to the cosmos the next day without so much as a by–your–leave, a single blue feather falling from his wings as he did.
In the vast emptiness of the cosmos, Raphael finds his peace. Funny how creating the stars would be what heals the Healer. It’s not the same of course, without his brother there to help him as he painstakingly adds atom by atom until what he holds in his hands has enough restless energy in it to hold up on its own.
Mother is creating new beings again, Raphael knows without being told. New celestials to occupy the spheres that remain bereft after the war, filling them up as if there was never a war to empty them in the first place. Earth, he also knows, is being crafted lightyears away from where he is. He wonders if the creatures that will someday occupy the planet will be able to see the stars he made.
It’s not the only thing Raphael wonders about. As he continues to fill up the cosmos with stars, he asks more and more questions. Why can’t his brother be forgiven? Why must there be a war? Why create things but then test them to their destruction?
Mother never answers, though he’s sure She always hears.
And then one day Michael arrives, just as he’s finished breathing life into a blue–white star the same shade as his feathers; their eyes as red as their wings and as hot as the plasma in his hand [6]. He knows why they’re here without being told, but still, he asks.
As silly as it is, even as he’s falling, he wonders; if there was ever a purpose for him in Heaven, if the stars he hung up without the Morningstar would hold up on their own or if they will fall with him, just to erase his existence completely.
Unbeknownst to him, the first meteor strikes the Earth upon his own impact onto the boiling pit of sulphur.
What surprises him the most is that Crowley still has his gift of healing.
See, he hasn’t had a chance to test it, not that he actually wanted to. Didn’t want to know how much he’s lost and how much he’s retained from the Fall. In hindsight, he probably should have known with the ever–present pain, a low humming noise constantly surrounding him that he can ignore only sometimes.
No one really knows who sent Pestilence on this particular assignment. Hell certainly hadn’t, they’re too busy fomenting at the other side of the continent with War; and Aziraphale would have said something had Heaven summoned Pestilence to do the job, with the usual spiel about how it’s part of the Ineffable Plan even as he’s shaking his head in disapproval. Probably Pestilence has just gone rogue, like the other horsepersons do whenever they’re bored.
Crowley really, truly detests the fourteenth century.
He’s stuck in Rome for the time being because of the quarantines. The plague is in every corner of town, affecting everyone from the beggars to the highest of the highborn.
The first few days he’s managed to stay out of the way, staying at an unremarkable inn drinking himself sick, and wondering if Aziraphale will be able to leave Calais now. He knows this isn’t the test, as obviously the Antichrist hasn’t been born yet, but still. Still.
He folds, eventually. It’s always the children. Some miraculous recoveries here and there, with an excuse ready for when Hell comes asking about what he’s doing. They don’t. They’ve left him well alone. For now. So then he goes big, posing as a plague doctor to gain access to the local hospital.
Entering the hospital for the first time makes him freeze. It’s been millennia, and the hospital doesn’t at all look similar, but he’s reminded of the war. The endless moaning and groaning of those near–death, the rows of discoloured beds that seemed to stretch on all over the floor. Crowley had to lean on his stick to keep himself steady.
It’s been almost half a year since then. He can’t save everyone, but he tries anyway, draining away his energy. He can’t do miraculous recoveries most days anymore, it just leaves people suspicious. He leaves suggestions in the minds of the other human doctors, telling them about lancing the buboes and reducing the suffering of those beyond help. He’d need a really long dip in hellfire after this, if he could be arsed to ask Lucifer to conjure some up for him. Luci’s insufferable about that sort of favour these days.
It is in one such lancing that Crowley sees him, ominously standing by at the other end of the room and watching as Crowley tucks in a child whose fever just broke [7].
Crowley snaps his fingers, letting time slow down around him as he walks towards his guest and smiles. “Hello, Azrael.”
Death regards Crowley from beneath his cowl. “YOU CAN’T SAVE THEM ALL.”
“Wasn’t trying to,” Crowley says with a wave of his hand. “Haven’t seen you in a while. Where’s Pestilence?”
“ATTEMPTING TO BREACH POLAND,” Death says. “HE WON’T SUCCEED.”
Crowley stretches his back until the ache in it lessens. “Good, I don’t need more work.” He sighs, twirling his stick in his hand to feign disinterest as he asks “Who are you here for this time?”
“HIM,” Death replies, pointing to the same child Crowley just put to sleep with his scythe.
“I suppose I can’t persuade you to bargain?” Crowley asks, frowning. “He’s just a child.”
“IT IS HIS TIME.”
Crowley removes the lenses from his eyes. “I was made to keep you at bay once, you know.”
“AND YOU HAVE. FOR AS LONG AS YOU CAN,” Death says. Crowley doesn’t find it so reassuring. “LET THE CHILD GO. HE HAS SUFFERED ENOUGH.”
And haven’t I suffered enough? Crowley thinks. “Will he be happy? Wherever it is you’re taking him.”
Death nods. “HE WILL BE… COMFORTABLE.”
“Wait,” Crowley says, slouching as he walks back to Pietro’s bedside, careful not to jostle him awake as he carries the peacefully sleeping child into Death’s waiting wings. He almost prefers it this way, the child drifting away into the next world while he’s dreaming. Those who passed on while fully conscious never look quite as pretty. If Crowley’s lucky, which he’s not, when his own time comes he’d go like this.
“WE WILL MEET AGAIN, RAPHAEL.”
Crowley lets the use of his old name slide, just this once, watching as Azrael unfolds his wings and disappears. Death is an old friend, after all.
“Do you mind? I was in the middle of something,” Crowley says, spitting out some of the muck that got in his mouth when he landed face first. It’s been a while since something like this happened to him, six millennia to be exact. Why can’t he be pulled back after they’d finished dining at the Ritz?
“Is that how you greet your elders now, Raphael?” Lucifer asks, reclining on his throne with a slight smile on his face. “Your manners have grown appalling since you went topside.”
“Well, Samael,” Crowley says as he dusts himself off. Two can play at the name game. “It’s not great manners to drop me into a pit without warning, either.”
“But you wouldn’t answer my summons if I sent them now, would you?” Lucifer counters with a raise of his eyebrow. “Don’t worry, I’ll send you back to your nest soon enough.”
“It’s not a nest,” Crowley says, suddenly thankful for his reptilian cold–bloodedness. “And your flunkies did try to dissolve me in holy water, I’m sure you understand.” He shrugs. “Not gonna give me a chair to sit in, huh.”
Lucifer rolls his eyes and flicks his wrist, and a throne manifests itself behind Crowley.
“Aw, my old throne? Luci, you shouldn’t have,” Crowley says in mock delight, sitting down on it anyway. “Seriously, why drag me back here? Getting bored of ordering Beelzebub around?”
“The throne’s still yours if only you’d accept it, Crowley,” Lucifer sighs. “Look, I didn’t tell them to go ahead with the trial. I was… preoccupied. My apologies.”
“Yeah, Adam really did a number on you,” Crowley says, grinning as his gaze fell on Lucifer’s wings. “Your flight feathers are crooked. Really shouldn’t have sent up a glamour to intimidate the poor kid.”
“How is my rebellious son?” Lucifer asks, stretching out on his throne like a newly–awake cat, his extensive wings dipping down towards Crowley.
“Not your son,” Crowley says, smoothing down his brother’s feathers without being prompted, knowing that he’s definitely the only being Lucifer still trusts anywhere near them. “Still human, still a little shit. D’you know, I never realised how powerful your gift of persuasion is until Adam tried to use it on me. Your fault, by the way, that he disowned you. You’re almost as bad as our Mother in the whole ‘checking up on kids’ department.”
Lucifer glowers at him then groans, and really, that’s just what Crowley wants to hear. No imminent threats of discorporation if the King of Hell’s too busy having a taste of his own medicine.
“The sands of time. Really, Crowley?” Lucifer says after a while, when Crowley’s turning over the bent primaries back into place. Seriously, why can’t Lucifer just shrink his wings back to normal size so this preening goes faster?
“Well, I needed time to think,” Crowley replies, contemplating on whether he should pull out a blood feather to get out of this conversation. Best not, really.
“In your domain? The one place I can’t enter? Just because your angel threatened not to talk to you again?”
“Oi,” Crowley says, tugging at a covert that was already loose.
“Whipped,” Lucifer mutters under his breath.
On second thought, maybe he should pull a feather out. “What’s that, oh brother mine?” Crowley says, tightening his grip on a blood feather that incidentally is in a very conspicuous spot, letting the underlying threat hang in the air.
“Oh, nothing,” Lucifer says in a casual tone, hiding his wings in the aether before Crowley could blink.
Crowley laughs a deep, hearty laugh, the easy–going kind he hasn’t done in this particular brother’s presence since well before their Falls, and soon Lucifer joins in himself.
Crowley wakes up to the vague buzzing of a phone buried under a mountain of covers.
Loathe to move on a lazy Sunday morning, Crowley ignores the buzzing, imagining that either it’s just those pesky telemarketers or that Aziraphale would soon be annoyed enough to pick it up for him.
The buzzing soon morphs into a garbled dance version of a certain Dolly Parton song, and Crowley groans, thinking, Adam.
Crowley dives deep within the covers, finally fishing out the phone with a triumphant Ha!
“Hey, Uncle Crowley,” Adam says at the other end of the line, with only the slightest hint of alarm in his voice.
Crowley raises an eyebrow. “I told you not to call me that. What’s up?”
“Sorry, Uncle Anthony,” Adam amends, to Crowley’s vexation. “Anyway, can you and Uncle Aziraphale come over? Please?”
Generally, Antichrists did not beg, not in the sincere, desperate way Adam did, anyway. And so, Crowley mentally prepares himself to throw down with whichever celestial sibling’s giving trouble to their nephew, or worse, puberty, before he asks “What’s wrong, kid?”
“Well, you see…” And here Adam pauses, as if to contemplate first the best way to break the news. “I have wings.”
The good thing is that Adam’s managed to figure out how to make his wings invisible to his parents. The bad thing is that the wings still exist in this dimension, which means it keeps hitting everything in its path and collecting dust particles in the air like some occult feather duster.
“Oh dear,” Aziraphale says in the passenger seat, as soon as they catch sight of Adam waiting for them on his plastic throne in Hogback Wood, wings spread out in full glory.
Crowley runs a hand through his hair, muttering under his breath.
“Uncle Crowley! Uncle Aziraphale!” Adam says, perking up and approaching the car, his wings catching some more fallen leaves from the undergrowth.
Crowley makes a motion that may have meant zip it as he gets out of the car.
“Hello, Adam, dear,” Aziraphale says, ruffling Adam’s curls as Adam blows raspberries at Crowley. “Since when did you have wings?”
“Since this morning,” Adam replies, much more cheerful now. “I was worried but then I thought, can you teach me how to fly now?”
“You can’t fly with your wings like that,” Crowley says, circling Adam like a shark who’s just caught the scent of blood in the water. “Look at your feathers, they’re all over the place,” he adds, plucking a tertiary feather falling off its shaft to emphasise his point.
Adam peers up at him with puppy–dog eyes, and Crowley blesses under his breath for the third time that day.
“You know, Adam,” Aziraphale says, turning the feather shafts of Adam’s right wing right side up. “I’ve never seen wings quite like yours. European roller, are they?”
“Opalite,” Crowley corrects, smoothing out the primaries on Adam’s left. “Should have known you’d get wings at some point, really [8].”
“What kind of a bird is an opalite? Sarah goes bird–watching every now and then but she’s never mentioned an opalite,” Adam asks, who was visibly relaxing with the preening. If Antichrists can purr, Adam would’ve done so by now.
Crowley hooks the barbs together, and satisfied, smooths them back down. “‘S a gemstone. Manmade. Suits you.”
“Huh,” says Adam.
“But, my dear fellow, why now?” Aziraphale asks, brushing the last specks of dust off Adam’s contour feathers. “Didn’t we get our wings when we popped into existence?”
“At a guess,” Crowley says, licking his finger then using it to separate some of the downs that got entangled. “They’ve always been there and they just chose to manifest in this dimension when Adam came into his full power. Or maybe just a puberty thing for mortals who are also celestials. I don’t know, have you ever seen Jesus walking around with wings? Didn’t think so. Anyway, we’re done here,” he adds with finality as he lets go of Adam’s wings.
Adam frowns, tentatively testing his wings via flapping them with a little too much force that it sends the dirt flying around them, and also hits Crowley with an alula feather.
“Can we go flying now?” Adam asks innocently.
Crowley’s already wincing.
A bolt of lightning strikes right beside Crowley, and he jumps up like a startled cat.
“Hello, brother,” Michael says, looking at Crowley from top to bottom. “What are you doing here?”
“J— Someone, Michael! At least tell me when you’re going to drop by,” Crowley says. “And I’m teaching our nephew to fly, what does it look like? Hey, kid! Stop flapping about, you look like a chicken!” Crowley cups his hands around his mouth as he yells at an Adam who’s fumbling around in the sky like a child on a bike recently deprived of training wheels. “Copy Aziraphale’s technique! Aziraphale, do that glide again!”
Aziraphale rolls his eyes, but tilts his wing slightly anyway so he can go along with the thermal.
“Is it really teaching if you’re not up there with them?” Michael asks, inching closer to Crowley until they’re shoulder to shoulder. Or at least, as shoulder to shoulder as one can get with a brother who’s a great deal taller than you.
Crowley scoffs at the notion. “You know me. Not a big flying fan, me.”
“Nonsense, you love the sky. It’s why you created the nebulae,” Michael points out even as Crowley’s shrugging. “There was no one in your cottage when I went there earlier today, thought I’d find you here. When did he get his wings?”
“Just this morning,” Crowley says. “Or so he says.”
“The colour’s familiar,” Michaels says with a nostalgic air and a meaningful side glance.
“They’re not lapis lazuli, if that’s what you’re implying, Michael dearest,” Crowley sighs. “They’re opalite. Blue in some lights, orange in others. You’d think it’s symbolic or something.”
The ground shakes beneath them as a pool of lava oozes out of a crack that wasn’t there a moment earlier, and Michael instinctively releases their wings from the aether, mantling them around both themselves and Crowley.
Lucifer forms himself from the pool, letting the bones in his neck make a cracking noise as he cranes it from left to right. His corporeal self in all its egoistical glory, not just a glamour to scare beings into submission.
Michael’s wings wrap around Crowley just a little bit tighter.
“Crowley,” Lucifer says with a conspiratorial grin. “Consorting with the Enemy, brother?”
“Er, well…” says Crowley, whose brain is now in the process of short–circuiting.
“I’m not allowing you to drag him back,” Michael warns, fingers twitching like they want to summon their own flaming sword from wherever it currently is.
“Hello, Michael,” Lucifer greets, six thousand years of resentment bubbling up at the surface and dropping the temperature around them with just a word.
Crowley’s quite thankful the twins do not favour the same forms anymore; otherwise he’d be smack dab in the middle of a mirrored argument. He clears his throat.
“You guys know you can’t fight on Earth, right? There’s an entire nephew up in the sky right now who’d pitch a tantrum if you end up obliterating Tadfield,” Crowley says, lifting Michael’s wing off his shoulder, and looks up at the sky to see if Adam’s noticed anything. The answer is not yet, Adam’s too busy trying to follow Aziraphale and keeping himself airborne.
Crowley studies the form Lucifer took. A few centimetres taller than him, dark hair, a cleft on his chin, clothing stylish and expensive enough that an ordinary mortal would think him a billionaire, the whole nine yards of the profile of a Roman god. If Crowley squints, he could maybe find some resemblance between Lucifer’s form and Adam.
“Why are you here, anyway?” Crowley finally asks.
“Isn’t it obvious? I’m here to visit,” Lucifer says with a smile.
Crowley simply stares. Lucifer has never gone topside before, especially not for something as mundane as a visit.
Lucifer scoffs, walking over to the both of them even though Michael still hasn’t stood down from an offensive position. “Oh, come on, brother. The King of Hell needs a vacation sometimes.”
Crowley is still staring, already planning on saying “Who are you and what have you done to my brother?” before deciding it was a terrible idea.
“Okay, fine, I sensed my son getting his wings and thought I should teach him to fly,” Lucifer says as he raises his hands up with a glance heavenward. “But I see you’re already doing such a good job of it. Now stand down, Michael.”
Michael narrows their eyes at Lucifer, but folds back their wings anyway.
“Hang— Hang on,” Crowley interjects, an idea forming in his mind that has only just rebooted. “You’ve never taken an interest in Adam before. Why now?” he asks with a smile familiar to anyone who’s ever gotten one over a sibling.
“I can and I will smite you, Crowley,” Lucifer warns. “But yes, I see now why you like it here. I should stay a while.”
Crowley’s still pondering on whether the King of Hell roaming the Earth is a good idea when another lightning bolt strikes in front of them.
“Michael! There you are, we’ve been looking all over for you! Now I know it’s your day off, but Uriel needs some assistance with the…”
It’s not every day the Messenger can be startled enough to stop while spewing his spiel, but today Gabriel stops in his tracks when the glare of the lightning flash disappears from his eyes and sees who exactly is standing beside Michael.
“Raphael,” Gabriel breathes.
There’s a soft flutter of wings taking off to Crowley’s right, and he knows Lucifer has flown away for now, presumably to greet his son properly for the first time. Or maybe just to get out of a possible smiting, who even knows.
“Hey, Gabe,” Crowley says with an awkward wave. Way to start a long overdue conversation. “It’s Crowley now.”
“You never came back,” Gabriel says with a peculiar shine in his eyes and oh, that hurt.
Crowley hums. Here comes the blame.
Gabriel barrels towards him instead, way heavier and taller than Crowley remembers him to be. “Would it have discorporated you to leave a note when you ran away?”
Crowley looks to Michael with a pleading look, who ignores him instead. “Can’t leave a note when you Fall. Sorry.”
Gabriel just tightens the hug. “I’m never letting you out of my sight again.”
“Probably shouldn’t, I’m a wily old serpent, after all,” Crowley says, returning the hug.
1 Corporations are a relatively new concept. Raphael chose his form himself, but, as with the rest of his siblings, had not entirely grasped the concept yet, thus his current form was just a touch too tall, too thin, and overall, too much. [return to text]
2 Snake, he decides — he rather likes how they turned out. His first prototype was the millipede, but he’d decided they had too many legs. This one looked much better. [return to text]
3 Raphael’s thankful for the gift Mother had bestowed upon him, honest, but it’s already starting to tire him out, having to feel every single hurt the Host experiences that sometimes he can’t tell if he’s the one who’s already hurting. [return to text]
4 Though really, if Raphael hadn’t felt the pain of the injury himself when he touched Gabriel’s wing, he wouldn’t have noticed the way Gabriel winced either. [return to text]
5 Time is immaterial to celestials, but they can feel the passing of it all the same, doubly so for Raphael who had dominion over it. [return to text]
6 When the Earth is peopled and the stars have been named by them, he hears the last star he ever created called Vega. Falling. How fitting, he thinks. [return to text]
7 Pietro, only five and already an orphan because of the plague. [return to text]
8 Unlike Archangels, who have feathers literally made out of precious gems, angels below them in the hierarchy have wings similar to birds, with each angel having their own unique pair. Or if you want to be technical, birds have wings modelled after angels’. Since the Archangels rarely unfurl their wings after the Rebellion, most angels have not actually seen the Archangels’ wings, excepting Aziraphale in a few memorable occasions post–Armageddon’t, and thus, the Host assume the bosses have avian wings like everyone else. Hence, Aziraphale asking if Adam’s wings were of a common European species’. [return to text]