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“Well, they die if they don’t get help,” Balthazar exclaims indignantly. “I would have thought you and your Celine Dion loving catastrophe of a brother love this kind of thing.”
Meg swallows a very much not demonic giggle at the statement, and even more so at the look of absolute shock on Dean Winchester’s face.
“They are hedgehogs,” the hunter yells, and Balthazar crosses his arms across his chest.
“Yes. And this is a chair, and this is a cup and she-” he points at Meg with his chin- “is a demon. You look enchanting as always, darling. So congratulations, Winchester, to passing first grade, you can name things. Now. What are you going to do about them?”
“Why am I here?” Dean asks, annoyed and frowning at Meg as though she was the one who snapped him here.
Balthazar rolls his eyes. “You really need to work on your listening skills,” he announces. “Guy Fawkes Night is a dangerous night for hedgehogs, so you need to take your annoying brother and go rescue them. The saving part of that ´family business´ you are so proud about.”
Meg can't say she is exactly proud to see the level of her own human reading skills, but she can detect faint traces of dawning understanding on Dean Winchester's face.
“Look,” Dean says, and he sounds somewhere between annoyed and frustrated and maybe a little bit touched, but like the last one is very much covered by annoyance and frustration. “I’m glad that you are caring about something that is not you, for a change,” Meg narrows her eyes at that, but she supposes she can just kick Winchester’s ass some other day, and so she doesn’t move, “but I don’t intend to run around Great fucking Britain tonight rescuing fucking hedgehogs, and especially not when I know for sure about at least six places where we should be investigating now.”
“They get into the bonfires,” Bal replies, ignoring Dean completely. “Thinking they are safe and found new homes. And then they burn, because humans have to set up the fires.”
Dean sighs, deflating.
“That sucks, man,” he admits, and then he sighs again. “Look. Sometimes… it would be awesome, if we could save everyone and everything. But we can’t. And even if we went and ran around like Sonny the fucking hedgehog himself, those little fuckers would still die, because it’s impossible to be everywhere. It sucks. I get that. But I’m off to save someone I actually can save.”
He makes it as far as the door before remembering himself.
“Just zap me the fuck back,” he demands, and Balthazar narrows his eyes.
“But of course, Sir,” he answers. “Whatever my lord wishes.”
He snaps his fingers and Dean disappears and Meg sighs.
“He is not in Sweden again, is he?” she asks, and Balthazar huffs out a weak laugh.
“That happened once.”
“Which is one time more than it should have happened,” she informs him, taking care to sound sternly, and Bal winks at her.
“So you’re saying I was naughty?”
Meg chooses not to answer. There will be better times to have this exchange, she decides, and Bal must sense because he sighs.
“I sent him back to South Dakota,” he promises, and Meg gives him a curt nod.
“Good,” she says. “Because he is a dick, but he’s not wrong that he’s busy with that chimaera case, and has some other waiting.”
“I see,” Bal tells her. “That’s unfortunate. If only we knew someone who is not busy tonight…” he adds and…
And.
Oh, fuck.
“I’m not doing this,” Meg informs him when he turns to her, and the angel frowns at her.
“I don't know what you're talking about,” he replies. “I don't bloody care about what happens with those spiny bastards. If they're stupid enough to climb into a bonfire, their problem.”
“Okay,” Meg says. “I assume we will not stay in the States, though,” she adds, smirking and Bal gives her his most angelic smile, not fooling her at all.
“Well, the bonfires are supposed to be romantic,” he says innocently, but there is an almost pleading look in his eyes and Meg… well. Meg has never been good at telling him no, and especially not when he is staring at her like this.
“That’s completely different,” she agrees dryly. “If any hedgehogs get rescued in the meantime, it will of course be just a coincidence.”
“Obviously,” Bal says.
He leans down and kisses her, and Meg laughs into the kiss, exasperated, and wraps her arms around his neck, and then they are flying, and damn, but Meg could get used to it, even though she will defend her teleportation skills forever.
-
The bonfires actually are romantic, Meg is willing to admit. It’s already dark wherever Bal had flown them to, and the starting fire is nice and Meg thinks she wouldn’t be exactly opposed to the night being spent like this, and she leans into her lover for a moment, and Bal presses a kiss to her hair, hidden by the darkness, and so they both can pretend they are not disgustingly sappy these days, and it is nice, Meg decides, to be able to just be with her boyfriend for a while.
Except that then said boyfriend lets go of her and crosses the distance between him and the bonfire in speed that just isn’t human, and then he kneels and reaches into the flames, and Meg sighs, preparing herself for the inevitable interview of why is your lover not on fire, and fuck, she will have to talk to Hannah again because they have the rules and they can’t just keep breaking them all the time, and then it becomes irrelevant, because Bal gently pulls out a shivering pointy ball, miraculously unharmed, and he cradles it protectively to his chest, and then the thing must sense that it is being cuddled by an angel and not a human, and that it is not about to be hurt, because it… presses itself closer to Balthazar and the angel hesitantly starts petting it and Meg is above all emotions, thank you very much, but she still feels warmth spread across her chest at the sight.
“I understand why you wanted to rescue him,” she comments dryly, ignoring the humans around them clapping their hands, and Bal looks at her, confused, and she smirks. “You are just like him,” she continues innocently. “Pointy above, but actually just a big softie.”
“Well, I am not opposed to being petted, you are right in that,” the angel shoots back. “You could do something about it when…”
He doesn’t finish, and Meg had a sarcastic reply ready and so she is a little bit disappointed, but then…
“He was right,” Bal announces, and he sounds… he sounds defeated and angry and a little bit like he sounded the night, a lifetime ago, when he told her he’ll fight for Clarence even though Clarence doesn’t want to be rescued, and Meg doesn’t particularly relish that memory.
She relishes the fact that she is living it even less.
“Who was right?” she asks anyway, and her boyfriend sighs, and cradles the hedgehog closer.
“Our resident car-obsessed howler monkey,” he mutters, and she doesn’t even glare at him, because, right. “We won’t help all of them. We can’t bloody rescue them all, and they’ll burn, and I-”
And I remember what it is like to be sure no one will save me, he doesn’t finish but Meg understands it anyway.
She thinks of Balthazar collapsing to the ground in front of her when Castiel stabbed him in the back. Thinks of him standing up to the Leviathans anyway, because it was the right thing to do. Because the Earth had no one but them. Of the months it took till he started trusting her with his emotions.
She sighs.
Looks at the angel in front of her, petting the little spicy thing with a wistful look on his face.
“Wait here,” she says.
-
She isn’t exactly proud of herself, if she is being honest. In fact, she is bordering on disgust, if anything, and she supposes she will have to kill someone in a very bloody way very soon to keep up the appearance.
None of that matters.
Not when Balthazar is staring at her with awe and devotion, and not when he gently puts the hedgehog onto the table to wrap his arms around her, burying his face in her hair and whispering thank you.
-
Hannah meets her in a cafeteria somewhere in suburban Bristol. The Queen of Heaven is wearing a dark grey pantsuit and she is looking at Meg like a disappointed kindergarten teacher, which Meg decides is actually a look that kind of suits her. Meg winks and shoves the chamomile tea she ordered for her in her general direction.
“You ordered the entirety of Hell to run around a country and rescue a spiny mammal of the subfamily Erinaceinae,” Hannah says quietly. She sounds confused, mostly, and a little like she is beginning to understand why God hightailed it.
Meg shrugs. Takes a sip of her latte.
“Well. They had a day off anyway.”
It makes Hannah laugh, and she looks surprised at that, as though she is not used to that sound. Having heard what she has about Heaven, Meg can't say she is exactly surprised.
“Humans are asking questions,” the angel points out, though her voice is less annoyed now.
“Humans do that quite often. It's the answers they have a problem with.”
“I will have their memories altered,” Hannah says instead of reacting, staring purposely at the cup of tea in front of her, and the truth is, Meg did not expect this would happen at all, and she looks at the Queen of Heaven.
“Thank you,” she says quietly, and Hannah winks at her, the movement uncoordinated and hesitant, and Meg thinks maybe she should invite her over sometime, for a drink and loosening up, sometime when they will not be dealing with their work.
“You owe me,” Hannah says easily.
“The last angel I had a debt thing with is currently sharing my bed, but as you wish,” Meg replies, smirking and Hannah chokes on her tea.
“We won’t do that,” she says when she is done coughing. “But tell Balthazar I say hi.” And then, “And tell him to get you some flowers for last night.”
Meg laughs. “He already thanked me differently, but I will,” she promises, and Hannah blushes but nods.
“I don’t hate this at all, Your Majesty,” she says then, standing up, and Meg follows her example and raises from her seat too, and offers her her hand.
“Me neither, Your Majesty,” she answers, pleasure clear in her voice, and Hannah laughs and disappears and Meg orders another latte.
She supposes she can treat herself a little, and her boyfriend is busy tending to the rescued hedgehogs along with over-enthusiastic Castiel, and she thinks it might even be true.
She doesn’t hate this at all.