“At night we name every star, we know where we are. We know who we are, who we are.”
Michael sat on the roof of the bunker, staring up at the stars. He swung his legs like a child, and his voice had a certain childlike innocence to it, tainted as it was with helpless sadness.
“We keep our island in our mind, and when it’s time to find home, we know the way….”
“Hey, Mike.” Gabriel sat down beside his older brother, leaning back on his hands. Michael looked over at him as Gabriel turned his expression skyward. It was hard to look Michael in the eyes these days. So close to the archangel he once knew, and yet so far.
“Hello Gabriel.” Good. Names were good, as was English. Sometimes a singing mood came along with a memory and sense of time so out of whack that he had no clue where or when or who he was. Songs could also mean he was having trouble talking, translating thoughts to speech. That is, if his thoughts were even ordered enough to make any sense to him.
“Gabriel, why am I broken?”
Oh, boy. A question like that was fairly open-ended, and could mean several different things about Michael’s mood and state of mind, but that tone always meant trouble. Still, maybe the existential crisis could be averted. “Whaddaya mean, Mikey?”
“You know what I mean, Gav’riel.” For a moment, Gabriel couldn’t have breathed if he wanted to. He froze in place, replaying the words over and over in his head. You know what I mean, Gav’riel. You know what I mean. In that sentence, that authoritative I am so done with your shit, Gabe tone, he heard Mikha’el the soldier. His older brother. “Why am I so weak? Why didn’t God fix me?”
It was gone. That awful, childish, something had crawled back in and replaced the inherent Michael-ness he missed so badly. He could punch their father for doing this to Michael. “You’re not weak, Michael.”
“Don’t patronize me, Gabriel.” Gabriel could point out that the use of the word patronize wasn’t exactly correct in this instance, but if you translated it into 1300’s Slavic and then Pre-Fall Enochian, it was close enough. “I know what I am. I know what happened to me. I know you wish I’d died instead of leaving you to pick up the pieces. Don’t try to deny it.” There was no bite to Michael’s tone, just a tired acceptance.
Honestly, sometimes Gabriel thought it might have been better if Michael had never survived the Cage. It was awful, and Gabriel felt bad for even thinking it, but it held a certain brutal truth. And what did they have now but the truth? Seeing Michael like this, trying so hard to be the warrior he once was and just not being able to any more, it was breaking Gabriel. He suspected it was no cakewalk for Michael, either.
“Michael, I honestly think Dad has no plan anymore. I think the moment Sam Winchester took Luci for a ride, the script burned.” Gabriel suspected the script had gone in the fireplace long before that, but saying so to the number one subscriber to God’s Word wouldn’t really help circumstances. “I think whatever happened in the Cage is God’s mess, and he’s too scared to pick it up.”
As soon as he said it, Gabriel opened his mouth to correct his wording. Most days, metaphors threw Michael for a bit of a loop. Today, however, he wasn’t even phased by it. Oh, the irony. The day his brother was feeling up to snuff (save the one or two funky sentences), all he wanted to do was discuss his shortcomings. Gabriel sent a prayer skyward which would have made any nun faint. Oh, how he loathed his father in that moment.
“I just wish I could go back home.”
Whatever moment of lucidity Michael had in him for today was rapidly fading, Gabriel could tell by the sound of his voice. He couldn’t deal with this right now. As he walked away, he could hear Michael’s Heavenly voice floating up to the stars.
“If Heaven’s grief brings Hell’s rain…”
Then I’d trade all my tomorrows for just one yesterday.