neutral_omens | (no subject)

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Date: January 23, 2000
Setting: Michael's Room
Status: John, Raphael, Michael, Adam, Gabriel (Semi-Private, Complete)
Summary: John vents his feelings at Raphael. Mayhem ensues. (Continued from here.)

It was a pretty decent plan, John thought. Find Raphael, get him away from his oaf of a bodyguard by whatever means presented itself, and teach the little rat a lesson he'd never forget. He liked it. It was elegant in its simplicity.

The fact that it included no provisions for ensuring his own safety (or survival) in the event that Michael proved less easily hoodwinked this time than last--or that Raphael unexpectedly grew himself a pair--he considered a minor flaw. He was too hacked off at the moment to think that far ahead.*

He found Raphael's room unoccupied and proceeded to Michael's, ducked momentarily down a side-hall to avoid a frustrated-looking Snob along the way (hadn't that damn fool got things sorted out with Belial yet?) and strode up to the door, knocking sharply before he could think better of what he was doing.

---

*Anyway, his most clever, complicated schemes always seemed to lead him into worse trouble in the long run. If things were going to go pear-shaped, they might just as well go pear-shaped straightaway and get it over with.

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If Raphael had had the simple decency to take his licks and wear his bruises like a man-shaped being, John might (possibly) have been satisfied with a couple of good punches. If the archangel had shown some sign of remorse, or at least kept his fat mouth shut, he might have made some effort to control his temper.

Unfortunately, Raphael did neither, and being told that it was no business of his if the guy who gave him back his soul got his arse handed to him by an angelic goon squad was the final straw. With an inarticulate growl, he grabbed, heaved, and pitched Raphael head-first into the nearby dresser hard enough to leave a dent in its wood veneer.

"Don't care if it's my business," he panted, unused to this sort of violent exercise, "you go near him again, you useless little shit, and I swear to God I will send you back to him in so many pieces even He won't be able to put you back together."

Raphael stood and noted that his left radius and ulna had shattered. He repaired them then fixed the dresser, keeping his eye on John while he did so.

"If he insults me, manhandles me and keeps blockading me from what is my right then he will get worse. And if you call me useless you will get the same. You're already stretching you tobacco-stained lungs to the breaking point. Your body can't take much more - whereas I can repair mine. Tell me, how smart does that make you?

So I will tell you one last time," he explained deliberately. "Get. Out. Now. Or... or I swear you'll regret it!"

"Your right? For fuck's sake, get it through your thick head that you haven't got any fucking rights here!" John shouted. "This Manor doesn't belong to you! Neither does sodding Michael! You can't just wander around doing whatever the hell you feel like to people because you're having some kind of fucking mid-existence crisis!"

He laughed derisively at the threat. "Oh, that's a good one. You couldn't even bring yourself to finish off a demon. What are you gonna do, try to kill me too?" He threw another punch, no longer seriously trying to hit the angel or even really even listening to what he was saying, aiming more for Raphael's wrong-headed notions than his body. "Go on, do your worst. Smite the obnoxious human. Make the damn Horseman's week. I fucking dare you."

"Yes I do!!!" He screamed, dodging the punch and scrambling to the other side of the room. "But I knew you'd side with the demon - that everyone would! Everyone except Michael and I don't do just whatever I feel like! It mattered to me! The hospital wing mattered, my dutites mattered, but nobody cares about anything done to me except for me!

None of you care how much it bothered me or how much I was upset or how much it hurts to get pushed aside and replaced - so I'll redress my wrongs by myself!"

Tired of being called weak, tired of being hit and punched, incensed and infuriated, Raphael materialized a Beretta 9000S in his hand and leveled it at Constantine.

"I will kill you," he said swallowing without noticing that he had started to cry. His vision began blurring but he blinked to clear it. The gun remained trained on the human though his hand was shaking violently.

Inside, he felt sick and wanted to vomit. The angel hated guns - yet he continued to point it, his finger on the trigger. Raphael was utterly terrified, but he didn't want to back down, felt the looming threat of shame drive him forward.

"I will. I will and if you think I won't... you're... you're wrong!" He gulped in air. "I will fucking shoot you until you're dead and then I'll shoot your fucking corpse!" He uncharictaristically swore, hoping to give his words an air of bravador and seem more confident than he felt.

"You keep pushing! It isn't my fault - you just keep pushing!!!!" He wiped his eyes and forced his hysteria to calm down and willed his hand to stop shaking.

"I can kill you. And you can't do a damn thing about it, you insolent sack of flesh."

Of all the things he had thought Raphael might do, the possibility that he might pull a gun, of all things, had never crossed John's mind. As far as he knew, no angel in history had ever used one. Christ on a trampoline. He really is insane. The curse words sounded clumsy and unconvincing on Raphael's lips, but the simple fact that he was using them was evidence enough that he was not in a normal or stable frame of mind.

John knew very little about firearms, but Chas had shown him a bit and he could see that Raphael wasn't holding it properly. And that he was just as scared of the thing as John was. The safety was definitely off, however. Not a good combination at all; the angel could just as easily shoot himself, or someone else through a wall, by accident as shoot John intentionally.

"All right," he said as calmly as he could manage, his mind racing for a solution and his eyes fixed on the barrel as he slowly raised his empty hands, "I believe you. You could kill me. You wouldn't need a gun, but that'd do the job, right enough." He shifted his gaze to meet the archangel's. "So what do I have to do to get you to put it down?"

"You see?" He muttered. "You and Crowley - you're just the same! It's all disrespect and insults until you think I can hurt you, that's that only way anybody takes me seriously!"

His hands were sweating and he shifted the pistol from one hand to the other, drying it off on his robe before clutching it shakily again. He tried to level the end of the barrel at Constantine's chest, lining it up approximately where he knew his lungs to be, telling himself that if he did pull the trigger maybe it would only collapse a lung.

"What can you do? It's a little late for that, don't you think?" His face twisted into an ugly grimace. "You call me useless. You say I have no rights. You punch me and slam me against a wall for losing control, losing my temper - which everybody does sometimes - even after I tried to fix it. You criticize me for what I do and ignore what others do to me. You don't even give me a chance to say anything. You lecture me like I'm an idiot.

And then when I have a gun you ask what you can do.

You... you fucking hypocrite!" He spat, perturbed.

"You and Crowley - you're just the same!" John couldn't help but smile slightly at that, though he knew it was probably a bad idea.

"Yeah, you're right," he said levelly. "Everybody does, sometimes. What can I say--I get mad when my friends are hurt, and I don't especially want to die right now. Call that hypocrisy if you want, I won't argue.

"But don't stand there and tell me I didn't try to get your side of the story, Raphael. You know I did. I listened and I gave you the best advice I knew how and I kept your secret. And you turned around and pulverized my best friend because what, he didn't show you the proper respect a demon owes an angel?"

He swallowed. "You want to know why I trust Crowley? He gave me back my soul, Raphael. Bought it back using the spell he cast in the infirmary, got himself in Lucifer's personal bad books for his trouble, and then he gave it to me, no strings attached, like--like it was a pack of cigarettes I'd misplaced. So yes, I am on his side. Absolutely. If that sets me against you, I'm sorry, because I really had nothing against you until all this happened. But that's how it is. If you're gonna shoot me for it, you'd better just do it and get it over with before anybody else gets hurt."

"He called me weak," Raphael said coldly. "He pressed every button, played on every fear I had. What he did... it wasn't even about respect. You're right - you did listen. So you know how I feel, know how frightened I've been.

Crowley deliberately used that to verbally jab me. Before that he purposefully kept me in the dark, insulted me, disparaged my efforts and shut me out of where I belonged."

The weight of the gun seemed gradually more certain in Raphael's hands and with each moment that passed he grew used to the feel of it and appreciated the sense of power it lent him.

"Well good for him - maybe you shouldn't have been selling your soul in the first place. Why on earth you would do something so foolhardy is beyond me. But I really don't care what he did for you; he used my space as the site for his demonic practices, didn't tell me - didn't even ask. And then he had the nerve to call me useless, after pushing me out of my own practice, after picking me up and throwing me down like a rag doll, someone he could just smack around.

I'm tired of being that angel, the 'weak' one, the healer, the one without a weapon.

And if I shoot you it won't be because you associate with Crowley; it will be because you treated me with that same disrespect that he did, that same casual arrogance that feeds the insecurities that made me run to Michael in the first place."

He took a deep breath and adjusted his grip on the gun.

"Nothing I can make you say would ever be sincere - no apologies, no words of regard. It would all be lies to save your hide.

But while you're here - why don't you tell me exactly what debauched thing he did in my hospital that nobody else seems to want to share?

John hesitated a moment. This one wasn't his secret to tell, but it seemed to lie at the root of all Raphael's issues somehow. Maybe if he just told the crazy bastard what he wanted to know, he'd lay off them all, find somebody else to blame for his own dissatisfaction.

"He cut Belial loose from Hell," he said flatly. "And I helped. Almost had to kill him to do it, and Lucifer fought to keep him. That's why you felt so much demonic power around the place. But it worked. He's free."

His eyes narrowed. "And since you brought it up, I sold my soul to Hell because I was dying of terminal lung cancer, the Devil was out to get me and Gabriel told me nobody in Heaven would help me. Guess you must not have got the memo or you'd know that already. You don't have to take my word for it, though. Ask him."

Raphael's eyes grew wide.

"Liar!" He hissed. "You're lying. You have to be. I don't believe you. Why wouldn't he just tell me? If there wasn't anything wrong about... Why didn't he say something?!!"

He looked away from Constantine, at the wall.

"I didn't know. Gabriel should have said that. I would have... If I had been allowed." He cleared his throat. "You shouldn't smoke so much. And you don't eat very well either. You... you really should quit. It's a terrible habit that wrecks your lungs and teeth, to say nothing of the second hand smoke you're creating."

The pistol was suddenly heavy in his hand and Raphael feared that he wouldn't be able to shoot. He didn't want to but neither did he want it to look like he always backed down. His instincts held him back from causing harm but his pride told him that you didn't pull a gun without meaning it and John still thought of him the same way, so wasn't there cause?

He faltered and then refocused, playing for more time, trying to decide what to do.

"Anything else you'd like to say while we're having this lovely conversation?" He inquired in a level tone. "Now would be the time. Any other things people are hiding from me? Or maybe you'd like to take a few more shots at me. Tell me what you really think.

I'm listening."

Which was only half true. His anger was subsiding but his finger rested on the trigger indecisively, half wanting to go through with it and afraid of his inability to do so.

"It's a dangerous piece of information," John said softly. "We didn't want to tell anybody if it wasn't absolutely necessary. Imagine what might happen if the rumor started spreading around this place that the secret of free will had been discovered." He shrugged slightly. "And, well, you know, you're an archangel. He's a demon. Not exactly a situation conducive to trust, yeah?"

He shifted uneasily. "What I think? I already told you I think you need help. I'll be buggered if I know what kind, though. I really don't get you, Raphael, I honestly don't. Every time I think I've got you figured out, you reverse course on me." His mouth twitched wryly. "I'll tell you this much, though, you're a lot easier to talk to when you're drunk."

"I trust less when I'm kept in the dark," he retorted. "That only leaves me free to assume the worst. And I wouldn't have told. I don't spread rumors."

He frowned and felt himself blush.

"I didn't mean to," he muttered. "That was an accident. I got careless.

I don't need help. There's nothing wrong with me," he retorted. "All I want is to be taken seriously and to be able to act without fear." He paused. "And that's why... that's why I have to... I've got to or I'll never be taken seriously, everyone will laugh and say I was too afraid..."

Raphael looked at the gun, then John and then the gun once more.

"I just have to pull the trigger. Just squeeze a little. Then no more sarcastic smiles. No more getting pushed around." He frowned. "I can't even count what happened to Crowley, you know that? I lost control, it wasn't deliberate, and I did try to fix it.

I didn't even have the... the fortitude to just walk away and leave him, let alone use the hose."

As he looked at the weapon, he agonized over what to do next. Now that he'd pulled it, like with Michael, he felt trapped. To his mind, he was caught between going against his purpose and backing down from cowardice.

"For what it's worth - it's too bad it's you," he told John, his voice quivering slightly. "But you impugned me. I have to quit just taking it, so to speak, if I want to ever not be afraid. You might come after me again if I do something else to offend you or Crowley anyway.

And I don't think you're sorry. But I am."

He felt himself hesitating for what seemed an interminable time, trying to justify to himself that he had to do. In the seconds that passed he stopped breathing and didn't move at all, hovering on the edge.

"Won't help," John said, speaking rapidly and ignoring the sweat dripping down his face and soaking his collar. "They'll take you seriously, all right. Crowley will likely go spare and come after you hellbent for blood, the other angels will think you've gone insane and the other demons will want to test just how much of a threat you are. And you'll feel like absolute shit."

He swallowed hard. "Look, you're holding one of War's favorite toys. You really want to play right into her hands? Become what you hate? Is the kind of respect you're looking for really worth that price?"

A few tears leaked from Raphael's eyes and he shook his head.

"What other choice do I have? If I lower it then I go back to being derided as someone who can't defend himself. And I'll feel like 'absolute shit' then too, except I'll know that if anybody threatens me I'll be too afraid to do anything about it."

You're supposedly a fucking archangel, not a kitten. How could someone as weak as you help anyone?

"I have to get it somehow!" He started shaking again. "And it doesn't matter because I hate what I am now, someone who always gets pushed around unless Michael's there - and sometime even when he is.

At least I would be considered a threat and not a joke..."

John tilted his head slightly to one side, eyeing the archangel thoughtfully. "Mate, you're an archangel. You've got power to spare. You put Crowley down for the count without Michael's help or a pistol, remember? And I'll wager you could knock me on my arse without half trying. Size isn't everything, you know." He chuckled. "Couldn't you just beat the shit out of me and call it a day?"

Come on, either put the damn thing down or shoot me already. This is getting ridiculous, he thought with an inward sigh.

"Only against creatures like demons. All I had to do was turn up the halo, so to speak. And being furious helped.

It's not a matter of how... If I can't do this and not feel bad about it, what difference does method make?

Don't lie to me anyway. When Crowley wanted to, when I wasn't using my aura, he just picked me up and pinned me down. Easy as anything. And he's not even as big as you are. I can't beat the 'shit out of anything' that I can't affect with my aura. Including the Horsemen. Including you."

By then he was crying, feeling confused and felt reminded of his body, useless under Crowley's weight and his ineffectual struggling. He felt small, especially given that most in the mansion were at least half a foot to a foot taller than he was. The gun shone under the lights of the room and he felt dizzy for a moment.

"If being an archangel was all I needed to get respect then Crowley wouldn't have called me weak to begin with. If you really worried about me beating you, you wouldn't have attacked me. Nobody until now has been afraid of me at all - and if I lower the gun, nothing will have changed.

You showed me no respect until I pointed this at you - how can you expect me to believe you when you say that I don't need it?"

"I didn't attack you because I assumed you couldn't fight back," John said tiredly, "I attacked you because I was too angry to care.

"Look. I'll make this easy for you. Shoot me." He flung his arms out wide, walking slowly toward the angel. "Just go ahead and pull the damn trigger and then you won't have to wonder anymore, you'll know. Probably put you that much closer to Falling, just like you wanted." He snorted. "Though considering it's me, it might just do the opposite...come on, Raphael." He stopped a few inches from the barrel, acutely aware of the pain it promised and the eternity of torment that would follow.

"Either pull the trigger or act like the Healer you are and give me the gun."

Raphael looked at him, could smell the disgusting stench of his cigarettes, could see every line on his face.

He took a breath, cocked the gun, aimed...

And froze.

"Damn it!!!!" He sobbed and his whole body slumped.

John waited for long, long moments, scarcely daring to breathe.

"Hey," he said finally, almost whispering. "It's all right. Sometimes it takes more courage not to do harm. Truce?"

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