Family Matters
As soon as Raphael snaps Alex out of the apartment Gabriel breaks out of her deer caught in the headlights look and turns to him.
"What the hell, Raph? Why are you being such a bitch?"
"She is not part of this conversation." Raphael crosses his arms.
"You could have politely asked for privacy, you didn't have to such a rude imperious asshole!"
"You will speak to me more respectfully, paseh."
"Sure, when you act like an adult instead of a petulant little brat." She retorts.
"Children." Michael snaps, making them both stand to attention almost automatically. "Raphael, Gabriel is a fully grown angel and heaven's regent. You have no right to force her to go anywhere against her will. Gabriel, do not speak to your brother that way. I don't care what disagreement you have, he is your elder brother and you will address him properly, do you understand me?"
"Yes, sir." They both avoid looking at him.
"There is no reason at all for the two of you to be behaving this way." Michael continues scolding them, half on autopilot the whole thing is so familiar.
"Oh, Bullshit!" His little exclaims, going off script.
"Excuse me?" He looks at her, astonished.
"Bullshit! We were working on fixing heaven and having a nice conversation and he just grabs me and somehow I'm in the wrong for telling him it was a dick move? No! Fuck that. And being so damn rude to a human who hasn't done anything but go through great pain and put herself in danger for all of us repeatedly just because he's jealous mommy's paying attention to someone else? I knew it would be like this. You always take his side. You always coddle and spoil him and never cut me any slack!"
"As if you weren't coddled and spoiled more than I ever was." Raphael retorts. "And why should he give any leeway to the devil's apprentice?"
"Raphael!" Michael snaps, taken aback by the hurt look in his sister's eyes at this rather cruel remark.
"Well," She rallies herself. "I'm not a very good apprentice, then, seeing as you're acting more like him than I ever did, you hypocrite." With that slap across the face, Michael has to act quickly to force the two apart before they demolish the area in windstorms and earthquakes. It takes almost all the energy he has left to do so and hold onto their upper arms keeping them at arms length on either side of him.
"I repeat, if she doesn't want to be here, she doesn't have to be. And Gabriel, his wrong doing is not an excuse for your own, even in the mild form of disrespect and name calling. Now apologize to each other," He looks at them each in turn. They each mumble a half hearted apology and turn away from each other when he lets go of them. "Now, Raphael, go apologize to Alex for being so rude. This sort of behavior is unworthy of you"
"Yes, Michael." Raphael finally looks properly contrite, though Gabriel does not.
"She also needs some assistance in transporting furniture into the apartment. You will help her as recompense."
"Yes, Michael." This one is more sullen as Raphael shoots Gabriel a dirty look and disappears. When Gabriel notices they're alone, she freezes again, her shoulders stiffening and for once she doesn't seem to have anything to say. For the life of him, Michael can't think of anything either. What can he say to heaven's prodigal daughter? He wants to just yell at her,shake her, hug her, never let her out of his sight again, and throttle her. But he doesn"t want to move or speak and frighten her away and she is frightened. Why wouldn"t she be? Their brother who was closer to her than Michael ever was, he killed her. The first angel Gabriel ever saw kill another angel was Michael.
"I won't hurt you." Michael says after a moment passes. "I would never hurt you, Gabriel." She gives a bitter laugh at this and rolls her eyes, but still doesn't say anything. "You abandoned us, Gabriel. You were the one who left, who stayed away, who never came back. We thought you'd… we thought you were dead."
"No, you thought I was with Lucifer."
"At first." Michael admits. "When we knew you weren't, we thought you'd destroyed yourself, given into the call of the empty somehow. You could have come back at any time. We would have welcomed you with open arms."
"No, you'd have clapped me in irons, tried to… to correct me.. persuade me for deserting you. Luci's the only one who'd have welcomed me with open arms and without judgment if I'd given him the chance. You would have made me pay and you know it."
"No, I wouldn't have. Do you think I didn't understand how much it broke your heart to see what he'd become? All of heaven would have rejoiced at your return. But you never did. Never. Did it ever once cross your mind to come home? If not for me, for Raphael." Michael demands, stepping towards his little sister. She shakes her head and takes a step back away from him. "I didn"t mean to drive you away, too."The raw pain in his voice makes her cringe.
"I didn"t think you"d care."
"You're my sister, Gabriel. Of course I cared. I care… I… How could you think I didn't?" Michael takes a breath. "I know I made a mess of everything I touched. I failed at everything I tried to accomplish, but.."
"Welcome to the club." Gabriel gives a bitter smile. "I'm sorry, too. I wish I'd have known what else I could have done. All I know is what I couldn't bear to do."
"I understand. I'll forgive you, if you forgive me."
"Okay." Gabriel nods. "Okay." When Michael embraces her, they both just stay there for a while. It's been so very long since she felt his all consuming warmth, or he her boundless energy. So, so long.
"Ahhh, ah-ah, ah-ah, I'm hooked on a feelin' (do doodoo dooo)high on beleivin' (do do dooo) that you're in love with…. holy fuck!" Alex stops singing along to her phone as she comes out of the bathroom, her towel wrapped around her hair, to see Raphael standing patiently in the main room. "Don't you people ever knock? You angels…. Give me a minute." She ducks into the bedroom and throws on her evening dress. At least she had her underwear on.
"Michael instructed me to apologize for my rudeness."
"Don't bother with an apology unless you mean it."
"Very well. He also ordered me to assist you in bringing furniture back to your apartment as penance. I don't believe it's optional." He states firmly before she can protest this as well.
"Oh, well, I'm not doing it tonight so unless I can talk Michael out of making you do this, I'll just have to call you when I am." Alex pulls her hair up into a messy bun, and grabs her purse. "Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going out on a date. One I've had to reschedule a thousand times. So, unless there's an emergency, you"ll be happy to know I"ll be unavailable for a few hours." She clips on a couple blue rhinestones on her ears to match her dress and checks her phone. "If you need anything in the apartment, feel free." She slips on some short black heels and grabs a few tootsie rolls from the cabinet, just in case there"s a long wait at the restaurant, before heading out.
"Well, I did throw this big party once when she was out of town at this sheriff's convention in Minnesota or something. I went all out, streamers, fireworks, the only people who showed up were the ones in my study group. We had fun, but then the group started getting really into the whole vampire thing and I just couldn't deal, so…"Alex shrugs. "What about you?"
"Let's see," John walks her up to the front entrance. "I 'borrowed' the car to go to a concert in Virginia while my parents were on their second honeymoon. Unfortunately I pushed the odometer over to all 00s again and I got majorly busted. I mowed the lawn until I left for college. Dad still makes me when I go home. What did Jodie do to you?"
"Well, after checking the liquor cabinet, grounded me for a week and confiscated the rest of the fireworks. I made sure to clean up afterwards. Probably the best cleaning job I"ve ever done, honestly. I did it in such a blind panic I start to hyperventilate every time I even look at a brillo pad now."Alex confesses. John laughs and puts an arm around her shoulders.
"Well, no one can say you don't clean up great." he looks her over. "Blue really suits you. So, so much better than all those layers. I was starting to think you were hiding bunch of scars or moles or something." Alex gives a weak smile at this. She used to have scars from when they had to let blood to feed her family. Nothing where it would show, but she wouldn't exactly have been wearing tank tops and daisy dukes, either. Those actually vanished when Bree turned her back from a honey badger, but sometimes she can still see where they were like shadows under her skin. "Are you going to invite me in for a nightcap?"
"Not tonight. I'm just moving in and I don't even have an chairs." She informs him regretfully.
"That's alright. We can do it standing up." He winks.
"Seriously, no tv nothing. Can we take a rain check? Once I get everything set up, you can come over for dinner."
"Sounds good." He leans in for a kiss. Unfortunately she opens her eyes for a second just before his lips touch hers and sees a small spider on his eyelash.
"Oh my god!" She pushes him away and bats at his eye, knocking the spider off.
"W-what?" John looks a bit bewildered.
"There was a spider, on your eye. I'm sorry."
"Oh, god, did you get it?" He starts brushing at his eyes.
"It's gone. I'm sorry. Did I hurt you?" She apologizes and kisses his eyelid.
"No." He says a bit embarrassed. "Though, next time, just tell me." He leans into kiss her again, cupping side of her face in his hand. Not a terrible kisser but you can tell he's a smoker. "Are you sure you don't want me to come up?"
"Yes." She gives a regretful sigh.
"Well, call m-motherfucker!" He jumps back shaking his hand, more and more spiders start appearing. just crawling over his hand and up his arm. "What the fuck!" He can't seem to get them off and panics just slapping himself all over trying to get them off. Alex sighs, takes a small duster of sunbird feathers from her purse and starts brushing him off with it. The spiders flee at its touch and don't come back.
"Are you alright?" She asks brushing a last spider off.
"What the hell was that?" He still shudders, batting at his clothes. "You know, fuck this. You're cute and all but seriously fuck this!"John back away. "You have some serious problems,woman!"Well, he"s not wrong. He runs back to his car before speeding away. There"s a slight laugh behind her and she turns to see a pitch black man in a bright yellow suit.
"We got the annulment, Anansi!"she holds up her ring-less hand. He leans forwards and looks at it. "You don't need to defend the sanctity of the marriage."
"Huh, so you did." He gives her a shit eating grin that tells her he damn well knew that already. "Wonderful, Tano will be so pleased."
"What? No! I have no interest in Tano, or Bia or any other god or demi god or brother you can come up with. I have too much work to do." She pleads.
"Of course. So we must not waste time with idle chatter. Mother is expecting you." Before Alex can protest, she's whisked away, leaving only the small feather duster behind her.
"Hey, Alex." Claire opens the door to her apartment, looking at the taxidermy rat in her hand. It's positioned on it's hind legs, in a black reapers cloak with a scythe in one hand and a withered black rose in the other. "Check out my retirement gift. Beats a gold watch, huh?" She laughs holding it up. "Who the fuck are you?" She demands as she sees a young black woman in a black pantsuit, reading some articles from a folder that she knows was in Alex's backpack. "And what are you doing, snooping around my sister"s apartment?"
"I am Gabriel's brother Raphael and she gave me permission."
"Getting in touch with your feminine side I see." Claire comments. He just ignores her. This whole damn building is lousy with archangels. She's going to have to start setting traps. "Alex! Get your butt out here! I'm not bringing my present into that disaster of a bedroom. How can you get a room so messy without even having anything to mess it up with?"She walks over to the bedroom door and knocks on it.
"She's not here. She went on a date a few hours ago."
"Then why are you still here?"
"Michael and Gabriel are conversing downstairs. I'm waiting for them to finish." He turns the page.
"Oh, you know a little purple in that suit would look so much nicer than just plain black and white. Maybe a lavender blouse, some trim around the lapels and hems."Claire goes to the cabinet and grabs a few tootsie rolls, but when she unwraps one she finds a tightly rolled five dollar bill instead. "Cool." She rolls it back up and wraps it again.
"I'll keep that in mind should I ever start to esteem your aesthetic sensibilities." Is the dry and not a little bitchy response.
"Someone's in a mood today. Bree being a pain in the ass?" Claire keeps checking tootsie rolls until she finds an actual piece of candy and chows down.
"I would appreciate it if you did not speak of my sister in that manner." He looks up at her, sternly.
"As soon as she stops being a pain in the ass, sure thing. I'm going to go lie down. If she brings a fella home, warn her I'm in there, would you?" Claire stretches and heads back into the bedroom.
When she wakes up in the morning, not only has the air mattress deflated into a puffy vinyl coffin, but Alex isn't home yet. Claire takes out her phone. Sure enough, Alex texted her the name of her date, her itinerary and his info. John Elliot, officer Elliots son, a nice restaurant too. Alex"s phone is off, going right to voice mail so Claire calls John's cell.
"Hey, John. This is Claire, can I talk to Alex? Her cell's dead."
"No. She.. she's at her place. We...it didn't go well. I think someone slipped something into my drink. I started hallucinating all these spiders and kind of freaked out. I sent her an apology this morning, but if you see her before her phone is back on can you tell her I said I was sorry and am incredibly embarrassed and will make it up to her?"The guy sounds embarrassed, though Claire knows that he probably wasn"t hallucinating.
"Are you okay? No bites or anything?"
"Yeah, no, I'm just... embarrassed."
"Not your fault, trust me. But thanks, and yeah, I'll let her know." Claire hangs up and buries her face in the mattress, giving a scream of frustration. It's a short walk downstairs to Bree"s apartment. Not wanting to get attacked by the craziest archangel again, she bangs firmly on the door.
"Come in." Babe calls. When Claire opens the door, she sees the tv is on, playing some romantic comedy with Ellen Degenerous from before she was born. "S'up, Claire?" Claire just gives a weary sigh and turns to the pillow nest where Michael"s sitting against the corner with an arm around each of his younger siblings, all watching the movie.
"So, anyone care to explain to me how you can have three damn archangels in a building and yet Alex can get kidnapped by a pagan god right after getting brought home by her date? Because I am fucking exhausted and would like a small break between crises. IF that's at ALL possible!"
"What?" Babe gets quickly to her feet. "No, no, I got this." She motions as Michael starts to get up as well.
"Pretty sure it's Anansi, again."
"Ahhh. Fuck." Babe winces, and covers her face with her hands.
"Do you want me to call Sam and Dean for back up? Because I just… I seriously don't have it in me to deal with him again. Not if you want him left alive. I really don't." Claire sits down in the chair by the door, wearily slumping down in it.
"I said I've got this!" She disappears.
"You know, maybe Hara's not the best fighter or most experienced healer or really a good angelic soldier in general, but at least he gives a damn about us, you useless dicks." Claire gets up and storms back out, slamming the door behind her.
"Wait." Raphael stands up as Michael moves to go after their sister. "You're too weak. I'll go back her up. Though I doubt she needs it. If you want to help, go back to heaven and just rest and regain your strength in case we need you. I'm speaking as Heaven's healer, understand?"
"Yes." Michael nods and gathers his courage.
"Alexis Jones!"Asase Ya greats Alex with a broad smile and embraces her heartily as Alex walks sleepily out of the guest room. "Thank you so much for coming to assist me. I trust my son extended our invitation in an acceptable manner."
"Well, no one died or was hurt, really." Alex's dry response reflects her annoyance which is graciously overlooked.
"Good, good. My Nanzi is not of course here. Tano sent him and his wife to either Switzerland or Jamaica. I forget which. I miss my Shi Maria, though. My elder sons seem incapable fo keeping a woman alive long enough to be useful. And of course, they vent their frustrations out on each other. If you would please work some more of your wiles on them, I would be most appreciative." She clasps Alex's hands in hers.
"Are they still fighting?"
"Of course. Meal times are peaceful enough, but as soon as the food is gone, off they go to spar like children. It is maddening. Not your fault, of course, you spent such little time here." Asase Ya pats Alex's cheek. "Bia! Tano! Look who has come to see us."The earth goddess announces, leading Alex into the dining room. The two godly brothers are lounging around eating fruit. Tano smiles as she enters and gets to his feet. Bia, as usual, looks mildly amused.
"Well, if it isn't our favorite virgin. How"s married life?" Bia gives her a broad smile, reminiscent of his brother Anansi's.
"We managed to get an annulment," She forces a smile.
"I deeply apologize for the whole affair." Tano takes hold of her hand, pulling her forwards to kiss her cheek. "Had my brother been lest obstinate, I would have been able to spare you the humiliation of such a union."
"You know what they say, all's well that ends well."Alex pulls her hand back.
"That is a lovely dress. It makes quite an impression."Tano compliments her, looking her over. She deeply regrets dressing to the nines for her date last night.
"I was on a date when your brother... requested I accompany him."She informs them and takes a seat beside Asase Ya. "If I could have my phone, I"d like to let my sister know I"m alright. And I am expecting a call about a job."
"A job? Are you in difficulties, darling?"Tano offers her some more of that awful aloe juice.
"Not particularly. I just like eating more than ramen noodles occaisionally. Thank you."She graciously accepts it.
"Clearly you have not met a man who knows how to take care of him woman."Tano chides her. Alex just sips her juice.
"My Alex. I hear your former wife is the new angel of death."Bia inserts, clearly unable to resist teasing his brother. Tano makes a cool remark Alex can't understant. Bia just raises his hands to concede whatever point was made.
"No. She did substitute for a while, but Azrael"s returned and resumed her position. What have you two been up to since the... competition?"Alex forces herself not to sound too pissed off about the whole affair.
"The usual. Eating, fighing, loving, sulking." Bia looks to his brother who gives him a dirty look.
"Miss Jones, as you are again free and I presume as much an eligiable maiden as you were before this nonsense, will you do me the honor of allowing me to show you our mother's garden? I don't believe you had the pleasure during your last visit." Tano gallantly invites her.
"I appreciate the offer, but it's only right I should assist your mother in the kitchen."Alex demures.
"Perhaps later, then."
"Perhaps." Alex looks down at her plate awkwardly. Crap, crap, crap. Not this mess again.
"I'll look for your phone." Bia adds, snagging the last mango out from under his brother's finger.
"Thank you." She'll have to make sure to let Michael know everything is alright too, in case he wonders at her absence, but she can just pray to him. Hopefully everything is alright and they don't try to auction off her hand is marriage (virginity) again. Or expect her to be grateful for it.