neutral_omens | (no subject)

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Date: January 23, 2000
Setting: Michael and Raphael's room
Status: Semi-Private - Gabriel, Raphael (Complete)
Summary: Gabriel comes to find out what happened and Raph gets to feeling rather guilty.

Raphael woke up in a bed feeling like he had a massive hangover and it took a few moments to register the fact that the sound which had woken him up was somebody knocking at the door. He shook his head to clear it and saw Michael smiling at him from the bedside, his eyes colored with concern. For a moment, Raphael wondered why he felt so utterly drained and exhausted.

Then the memory of what he'd done came rushing back and he bit his lip nervously. There was a good chance that whoever was knocking was pissed off and possibly demonic. Michael was there though and he supposed he ought to see what the being wanted, just in case.

"Come in!" He called before Michael had to get up to open the door.

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Raphael touched Gabriel's hand and looked into his eyes. His stomach twisted as he thought of how his fellow archangel might react to an admission of near deceit or at the very least manipulation. Then again, it was Gabriel and he tended to be understanding.

"Promise you won't tell anybody?" Raphael whispered. "And that no matter what I say you won't get mad at me? Promise?"

The very air around them seemed tense with something larger than his own worry, and the weight of it closed upon his lungs when he breathed, in and out, slow and steady. His blue eyes never left Raphael's.

"I won't be angry," Gabriel said, fighting a little more now to keep his voice even. "Raphael, you can tell me."

His throat grew dry and his hands trembled. Yet Raphael still managed to speak; quietly, but he managed.

"I... I've been upset by the presence of that... that disgusting disease breeder," he whispered, his face contorted. "So I entertained... entertain thoughts against him and... I just wondered why he was needed!" His face grew pale. "But Uriel said that it wasn't good to ask and implied... he implied I'd Fall!" He shivered. "And nobody else in this place cares, they all want it, except...

Except that to Fell me Uriel's sword has to touch me. And maybe if there was... you know... something... somebody to fight for me, stand in the way, maybe it wouldn't happen that way. Maybe I could get away or... or something."

He refused to look at Gabriel as he came to the worst of it.

"And he was already two-thirds of the way there anyway, and if he's that thick, it's not my fault!" He burst out in an effort to rationalize it. "I just... gave him a nudge. Exaggerated a little. So maybe I said somethings that weren't exactly true, or that I didn't really, really feel but I only did it so that I wouldn't Fall because I was scared but now..."

Raphael's voice quivered.

"He thinks I love him! And... and I don't know what to do! Because if he's not there I could Fall but what I've been - no, what I am doing..."

His he hung.

"And I... I twisted things too. To provoke a fight with the demon Crowley. I was angry so I said stuff that wasn't exactly not true but... but it made Michael think that Crowley tries to molest me. I was mad at him. He mocks me. Says I'm weak. Wanted Michael to show him. Hurt him.

I was scared and angry. And I think I'm in over my head," he told Gabriel in a very small voice.

Then he waited for the blow to come, for Gabriel to be horrified, disgusted with him. Maybe he'd run off and go tell Michael or worse, Uriel or Crowley and then things would really take a downward turn.

He felt ill inside and wanted to cry but instead just sat there, looking at the sheets and wondering how he was going to get out of the mess he'd made.

For a long while, Gabriel could not find the words to match this confession, and he sat, unblinking, as though he could absorb just as much of its meaning from the other angel's troubled expression. And Raphael did look troubled, looked on the verge of tears, and Gabriel wondered how long the archangel had been caught up in this, imprisoned in his own lies. Wondered how he could bear to betray another angel thus.

"Raphael..." but the words fell away, weak and faded for all the wrenching feeling in his stomach. He'd known about the rivalry with Pestilence, understood it in part, but that it seemed to have taken such a hold, to have sparked the flame of such a deception... He leaned his cheek in his palm, his own touch seeming cold compared to the memory of Belial's, and started again. "Raphael, I understand your fear. I know it's not always as easy as it should be, even when we were created for no other purpose, and this place... this place is trying, to be sure. But, Raphael, you can't - you've got to realize you can't keep on this way. Maybe you've led Michael to believe your feelings are deeper than they are, but you do care for him. I know you do.

"What if something happened to him? Would you be able to forgive yourself if he Fell for you?"

My greatest downfall and my only saviour.

Gabriel faltered, feeling his heartbeat most prominently in his throat, drowning word and thought until he'd managed to slow it with a deep, deliberate breath. He wasn't looking at Raphael any longer, though he knew the other angel wasn't aware of it; his eyes were fixed somewhere beyond the deep blue of the sky outside the bedroom window.

"It's not fair to either of you," he concluded after a moment, his lost gaze finding Raphael once more. "You've got to be honest with him. You know that, Raphael, or you'll only be treading deeper. You know what you're doing isn't right. But it's not too late, not yet. Not if you tell him now."

Raphael lifted his face to look at Gabriel. There were tears in his eyes but they remained unspilled.

"You don't understand - nobody does, nobody is in my position! I can't," he stated in an agitated but firm voice. "Don't you see that? I can't because then if something happens I won't have anybody to help me. He won't Fall. He can fight and protect himself. That's something I simply cannot do. Of the four of us I'm the least powerful in terms of combat. Do you think that's easy, knowing that I can barely defend myself?

I need him. Maybe... Maybe just until were out of the House or whatever happens, happens... I don't know. But I don't want to Fall!"

He took another deep breath.

"Besides... besides maybe it's already too late." He looked down at his hands again. "We've... I've... I mean... Michael and I have done a lot of stuff together. A lot of stuff. If he finds out I was, well... faking it, something bad could happen. He might get mad at me. Or at himself. He might do something stupid."

Suddenly, his face contorted and he grabbed a pillow, throwing it violently against the opposite wall.

"Why did he have to be such an idiot? So gullible?" He ranted hysterically, but low enough so that no one outside the room would hear. "It was like an invitation to do what I did! If he wasn't so dumb then this never would have happened! I wouldn't have tried if I didn't know I would succeed!

Stupid Michael," he pouted, flopping back down on the bed. "Stupid Michael, stupid house, stupid horseman, stupid everything."

Raphael sighed.

"I can't tell him, Gabriel. I can't. He might be my only chance. It feels like I'm going to explode, keeping it in, and I know I'm trapped...

But I can't."

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