gabriel has lived for millennia in one vessel. gabriel has folded himself inwards from a being that reaches the stratosphere to a quiet confinement of muscles and red blood. gabriel has experienced those millennia in a stagnating suffocation. gabriel willingly chose it. forgot ( no; he’s always been the best at pretending ) what it was like to be a bolt of white lightning cradled in stasis by the universe itself, and how it felt to reach out with a multitude of wings and touch something ancient and watch infinite stars be born into a deep black that enshrined a newly designed existence.
forgot ( ... ) that was how it felt to be free, to be right. right in the sense of purpose and meant-to-be, in an awe inspiring and terrifying beauty that would blind mortal eyes if they glimpsed it.
gabriel willingly chose to abandon not only his own light && grace but the light of his brothers && sisters and of an absentee father. he opted instead to discover a lie of his own creation; it was better than deceiving those he adores and would have died for, once, like michael did. like raphael did. like he did. there was an ending to what once was, though, however unwilling the recipients of that end were, are, will be.
he fled.
now, all of a sudden, he’s not so sure. there was a moment, a brief heartbeat of centuries, where he wouldn’t have stood tall no matter who came begging, not after everything. now, that certainty is gone. he’s not sure. it feels like and it sounds like a vicious degradation but it’s upward mobility. it’s a change in the bedrock, a once solid foundation built from betrayal && misery. it only took two persistent humans. two humans who didn’t care for the thousands of years he’d lived among other humans and did so in blissful avoidance of anything too real and was never changed or shaken by. and none of it was real. some of it- some of it cut deeper than most, dug its way deeper into borrowed bones to nest a little too close to his nonexistent soul. but none of it ever reached his heart, he, himself; gabriel. some of it was love, and some of it was hate, but none of it ever reached into the bottom of the abyss. there was always a final obstacle that offered him protection.
he despaired.
and then the winchesters caught him. two impermanent boys who feel all too permanent, who reminded him that he loves. it’s something he will always claim he never forgot ( he did, and thats what he wanted in the first place, but it wasn’t ), even as the growing pains begin. because- he’s changing, like he’s always been meant to. electricity isn’t supposed to remain motionless or burrow into the earth, like he did. it’s a harsh reminder, but one he’s grateful for. or is furious for; the space between those two feelings is microscopic.
and he wants to hate them, but he doesn’t. he wants to hate michael, and lucifer, and raphael and even castiel, but he doesn’t. he’s been reminded that he’s a warrior, and he’s going to fight. this time, on his own terms. he’s waking up, stretching out again into the cosmos and while it’s uncomfortable, still sparks a panic in him and makes him want to recoil into the darkness again, away from life, he’s not going to stop. he’s gabriel.
he loves.