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[dontcallmegabby.livejournal.com]

Date: Late night, August 30th
Status: Private - Gabriel (complete)
Setting: A pub in London
Summary: Gabriel goes looking for answers.



Once he was away from the confounding forces of the manor, finding the demon Helion was no difficult task for Gabriel. Indeed, the archangel thought that perhaps he’d spent too much time in the presence of Crowely’s adulterated evil, because the demon he now tracked stood out as plainly to his senses as a spot of crimson blood against the white of angel wings.

It also helped that Helion seemed to have discovered how easily one could access alcohol in the mortals’ nearest pub. Gabriel didn’t doubt that demon was already drunk, because he was being careless with his powers. Even among the music and raucous laughter, Gabriel recognized the demon instantly as he entered.

Embarrassingly careless, really.

Having an archangel slide into the seat next to him at the bar seemed to be the last thing Helion had expected, and he froze upon meeting Gabriel’s eyes. For his part, Gabriel answered the querying looks of Helion’s mortal companions with a friendly smile before sliding a familiar arm around the demon’s shoulders and fixing him with a grin.

“You old rascal,” he said with a grin that made Helion squirm where he sat. “Did you really think you could sneak into town without me finding out? Honestly, I’m hurt. I mean, it’s been ages since we last saw each other…”

It had. Three thousand years, if Gabriel remembered right.

He leaned in close, whispering in the demon’s ear so that none of the mortals around could hear. “Sober up,” he said, and though his eyes flashed dangerously and his voice held a threat that made Helion shudder, Gabriel never let his amiable smile waver.

Helion may as well have turned to stone in his seat, so Gabriel once again turned his beaming smile on the group gathered around Helion’s table. Not one of them could meet his eyes for more than a moment.

“Aren’t you going to introduce me, then?”

The thought seemed to spur Helion into action, and the demon hauled his stout frame from his seat almost before Gabriel had finished the question. The mortals didn’t seem sure whether to be amused or anxious at their companion’s plight. Helion gave them a mirthless grin, muttering, “If you’ll excuse me, gents…”

He all but scurried into the empty restroom, Gabriel keeping a calm pace behind him. He wheeled on the archangel as soon as the door had fallen closed behind them. “What’s your game, ange - ?” But his spiteful words were cut off when Gabriel grabbed the demon by the collar of his shirt and shoved him roughly up against the dingy bathroom wall.

Helion’s eyes flashed red, and the demon growled even as his feet dangled helplessly off the floor.

“I have a few questions,” Gabriel said, all traces of his former mirth gone. “And you are going to answer them.”

“I’ll be doing nothing of the sort,” Helion spat.

Gabriel shoved the demon harder into the wall, their faces now inches apart. “Oh, I think you will,” he said. “Carthiel.”

The demon’s eyes widened at the sound of his former name, and he let loose a howl that could not have been more pained if Gabriel had dealt him a physical blow. He hadn’t needed to, though, for the demon grew more uncomfortable in his presence each second.

Gabriel began to think idly of Heaven.

“You bastard angels are all the same,” Helion ground out, though he writhed in unseen pain.

“Really?” Gabriel responded, disinterested. “Perhaps you’d rather deal with Michael, then?”

He remembered clearly the ringing of Michael’s flaming sword as it clashed with Lucifer’s. The rebellion had come to blows, and the angels fought amongst themselves. Heaven was torn.

He remembered then the Morning Star’s Fall.

Helion was staring at him with horrified, unblinking eyes.

The demon had been much harder to break three thousand years ago. It seemed that the reminders of Heaven, drawn out as much by the archangel’s presence as the memories purposefully dredged up in the lesser demon’s thoughts, weighed more heavily on the demon now.

Another howl rent the air, and then Helion wheezed breathlessly, “What – what do you want?”

A faint smile passed over Gabriel’s lips, though his eyes held no mirth. “I’m glad you’ve decided to be reasonable about this.”

Helion let out a sharp, pained bark of laughter, but said nothing in reply.

“What do you know about the angel Aziraphale?”

“Why?” Helion spat out, clinging to any semblance of resistance. “Can’t keep track of your own Up There?”

Gabriel thought idly of the Fortress of God, cherubim lined up along its shining gates.

Helion whimpered.

“What do you know,” Gabriel repeated, his voice deadly soft, “about the angel Aziraphale?”

“He – he’s in our agent’s reports,” the demon hissed, looking as though he hated himself for speaking. Though Gabriel’s hard eyes never left his face, his gaze had become unusually preoccupied with a urinal on the opposite wall. “Talks about him all the time.”


Gabriel grimaced; whatever lies Crowley had told his superiors about Aziraphale did not interest him. “What other reports have there been?” he asked. Surely if Michael had received a commendation for what he’d done to Crowley, some demon had eagerly made his actions against the angel known.

“I don’t know.” Helion gave a very un-demonic squeak when Gabriel slipped the image of the Heavenly hosts singing their Lord’s praise into the demon’s riled thoughts. “I don’t - something about going after him Burning his place. But I don’t know what happened to him, if that’s what you’re playing at.”

It wasn’t; Gabriel pressed the demon harder into the wall. “Who’s report was it?”

“I don’t know. I don’t, I don’t!” Helion’s eyes were shut tightly now against the reminders of what he was now cut off from that flashed more insistently, more intensely before his mind’s eye. “Must have been a Duke’s. Or a Prince’s. Someone higher up. I don’t know who,” he insisted miserably.

Gabriel bit down a flash of annoyance. “Do you think this is torture, demon?” he whispered. All he could think of now was the feverish face of Aziraphale; he wanted answers, wanted more, he feared, than this demon could tell him. “Do you think it is I who cause you such pain?”

Helion cringed and did not open his eyes.

“Do you know what tortures you?” he continued, the question a menacing hiss on the air. “It is six thousand years of lies and deceit. It is ages of hatred and jealousy harbored for the one thing that no one ever took from you. You lost it yourself when you Fell. You chose this. I have not brought this upon you, demon; you have brought it upon yourself.”

There was silence, and then soft pleading. “I – I don’t know anymore,” Helion whimpered. Gabriel knew it was the closest the demon would come to begging. He breathed a heavy sigh and let Helion down; the demon wobbled unsteadily and finally collapsed at Gabriel’s feet.

Gabriel regarded him blankly.

After a moment, he asked quietly, “Why?”

Helion’s red eyes flew to meet his gaze. He seemed to boggle for a moment before he understood the question. “The Apocalypse,” he answered simply, surprised.

Gabriel turned towards the door, stopping only when Helion spoke to him once more.

“Why are you going through so much trouble for one field agent?” the demon asked. He sounded genuinely curious.

When Gabriel met the other being’s gaze once again, he saw not the demon with the stout figure and glowing red eyes, but a pitiable creature who was tortured by glimpses of rapture and could not remember any reason to fight for a friend. The sight made Gabriel feel suddenly ill.

He had turned away before he could manage to speak, and even then, the truth eluded him. “I am only the messenger,” he said.

With that, he was gone.