trials, tribulations, some tears
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Archive Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply Fandom: Supernatural Ship: Gen (Gabriel & Lucifer & Michael & Raphael) Additional Tags: Alternate Universe, Depowered Gabriel (Supernatural), Depowered Lucifer (Supernatural), Depowered Michael (Supernatural), Depowered Raphael (Supernatural), Good Older Sibling Michael (Supernatural), Good Older Sibling Lucifer (Supernatural), Stitches, Minor Injuries, First Aid, Angels Becoming Humans, Medical Inaccuracies, probably. what do i know., Aftermath of Violence Wordcount: 2212 Summary:
First aid is not a skill archangels are usually required to be well-versed in.
Gabriel’s apartment has, for the past month, been a place of noise and chaos and far too many fights. Tonight, it is silent. A spider skitters its way across the bathroom tiles. The tiny sunflower on the windowsill strains to catch the last dregs of light. The TV remote continues to nestle behind the couch where it won’t be found for another week. A very sleepy dog rolls onto his belly and snorts into the rug. It’s peaceful. Too peaceful.
Voices clamor outside. Muffled but distinctly upset.
“-only a matter of time before one of your demons-”
“This is not my fault!”
“Would both of you dicks shut up? Raph’s hurt-” The dog perks up, tail beginning to wag until he recognizes the fear in his owner’s voice. A key clinks against the outside of the door’s lock before sliding inside with a click and letting the cold air and the four once-and-no-longer-archangels stumble through. “-and all you care about is the blame game,” finishes Gabriel. His hair is messy and the jacket he left with is missing. Compared to his siblings, he’s practically unscathed. His dog bounds over to him, whining. “No, Fen, don’t.” Gabriel ducks to pick up the dog and makes room for the rest of them to enter.
“This would never have happened if-” argues the oldest being in the room, who currently looks like a sleep-deprived teenager with a black eye. Lucifer is settling Raphael on the couch, kicking the door closed behind himself. A pained noise tears itself out of their throat. Michael goes dead silent. “You’re right,” he says, softer, “you’re right, little brother. I’m sorry.” He waits a moment, and he sighs when, predictably, Lucifer does not echo his apology despite putting up half the fight. “Humans have places they go for injuries. Hospitals. We should take them to a hospital.”
“Oh, great idea, genius. On whose insurance?” Gabriel shoots back from the kitchen. Michael frowns.
“What’s insurance?”
“Nick had that,” Lucifer says. He’s helping Raphael take off their shirt so that they can better assess their own wound. “Humans don’t keep each other from dying unless you fork over money. Insurance is so you pay less money. Or more. It’s confusing.”
“We don’t have that?” Michael asks.
“We don’t have that.” Lucifer confirms. Michael grimaces. Raphael slaps Lucifer’s hand away before he accidentally touches their wound.
“It’s a graze,” they say. Michael wants to argue that it’s bleeding a lot more than a glancing blow should. He’s not sure how much Raphael’s lost, and that’s upsetting. Knowing exactly how much the human body should have is useless when he doesn’t know how much is still inside Raphael. They fix him with a sharp look. “You are not taking me to the hospital.” It’s disquieting to be ordered around by Raphael, enough so that he doesn’t even think to keep fighting. Gabriel returns, well-worn first aid kit in hand. It’s seen a lot of use over the past month.
“How many bandages do we need?” He asks. There is something in his voice that is very close to becoming panic.
“We have a suture kit,” Raphael says.
“Since when do we have a suture kit?”
“Since I bought one,” Raphael continues. They’re holding onto Lucifer’s arm hard enough that their nails are digging in. He doesn’t complain. “I don’t trust you to not injure yourselves.”
“And yet,” Lucifer teases, “look who got stabbed.” Raphael digs their nails in harder. Lucifer doesn’t even flinch. Gabriel goes to get the suture kit. Michael feels more than useless, relegated to pushing the curious dog away from the couch and watching Raphael suffer. They shift and hiss in pain, and Lucifer leans forward and murmurs something that has their fingers flexing against his arm again. The smile they give him is thin and pained, but it’s real. Michael looks away. It’s not a bad thing, that Raphael and Lucifer have become... close. It’s what they’re all meant to be doing, trying to be a family again.
He just thought it would be harder for Raphael and Gabriel to start seeing Lucifer as their brother, that’s all. That there would be more of a struggle. That Michael wouldn’t still be floundering and unsure of how to proceed around them, around Raphael who stayed, who he has been alone with since Lucifer fell, while Lucifer found his footing with seeming ease.
“Found it,” Gabriel says. Michael watches him lay out the suture kit on the cushion next to Raphael and look at them expectantly. Raphael nods, turns away from Lucifer.
“Sterilize the needle with an alcohol swab.” There’s a shake to their voice that sings of pain. Michael stops himself from stepping forward to soothe it. He’ll only get in the way. Gabriel does as Raphael says. “And gloves. Put on the gloves. Take the needle out- Not with your hand. With the needle holder. Yes. That.” The needle Gabriel is handling is curved like a half-moon and gleams just as brightly, a trail of thread following in its wake. Raphael nods again.
“Now?”
“There should be forceps.”
“Tweezers looking things?”
“Use that to pull the skin away from the muscle.” Gabriel swallows. Michael sees him lower the forceps towards the wound. Raphael leans back, jaw set, eyes shut. They force out a breath through their nose when Gabriel pokes at the cut.
“Sorry,” he says. He turns the forceps slightly. He gets a hold of the skin for a second, but it slips. Raphael winces. Gabriel tries again, pinches too hard this time. His hands are shaking, Michael realizes, and then he doesn’t think before he’s pulling the last set of gloves from the kit and dropping down beside Gabriel. He takes the needle holder from him first. It’s hovering over Raphael’s wound at the wrong angle and shuddering too much in Gabriel’s grasp to stitch anything. It takes a minute. Gabriel doesn’t want to let go, but once he has, the forceps are released quicker. He sits back, hands on his knees, breath coming hard and fast. His dog wiggles into his lap, worried, and Gabriel hugs him close.
Michael looks up to meet Raphael’s eyes. There’s a confusing mixture of emotions reflected in them, and surprise is not one he expected to be part of it. It’s one he’s ashamed is there. He lowers his head. “Tell me what I need to do.” Raphael’s free hand, the one not trying to leave nail-shaped scars on Lucifer, falls onto Michael’s shoulder. Michael does what Gabriel was instructed to before, pulls the skin from the muscle, angles the needle. At Raphael’s insistence, he pushes it through.
They cry out. Michael stops pushing immediately, afraid he’s done something wrong. They shake their head, squeeze his shoulder, and he continues until the needle comes through. He punctures the skin on the other side, and Raphael’s hand flies to their mouth to muffle their scream. Instinctively, Michael reaches for his grace. He only needs a little, not even to heal the wound but to dull the pain, please. He’s met with unwavering silence. The needle slides through, pulling the thread after it.
Raphael instructs him how to cut the thread and tie the knot properly. Michael’s hands feel too clumsy by far, but it’s adequate. They look awful. Michael wants that to be it, but it isn’t. He needs to do it again. Six more times, Raphael determines. Michael takes a deep breath. He readies the needle holder over their wound again. The gloves keep his hands from being bloodied, but that doesn’t change how his chest aches every time they twitch and bite back another noise.
At the end of the third suture and the beginning of the fourth, when Michael is readying the needle holder again, but still inspecting the knot of the last one in case it wasn’t good enough, Raphael whispers, “Stop.” It’s a horrible rasp of a word. Michael freezes, but they’re already gritting their teeth and shaking their head again. “I didn’t mean to- It just-” Michael understands, and he lowers the needle to their skin again. It pierces through, and Raphael gasps out, “Stop, Michael, please.” He can see them rebuke themselves, bite down on their own lip. Gabriel pushes closer. His dog snuffles, wet nose pressing against Michael’s elbow. Michael can’t move. He can’t do this if Raphael is begging him not to. He can’t.
Lucifer turns Raphael’s head to him. At first, Michael thinks he means to push their face against his shoulder, like hiding what Michael’s doing will make the pain lessen. Lucifer does pull them down against him, but then he orders, as sure in his command as if he’d never left the Host, “Bite, Raphael.”
And Raphael bites. Lucifer finally does flinch. Michael can see the pain hit him, see him breath through it, and settle, rubbing the back of Raphael’s neck as encouragement. He offers himself up, the bullet for the bleeding soldier, and Raphael can’t beg Michael to stop if their teeth are buried in Lucifer’s shoulder. Lucifer shares a look with him. Michael can’t tell exactly how hard they’re biting, Lucifer’s shirt sleeve is between his skin and their teeth, but Lucifer would probably let them do it even if they were breaking skin. Michael knows that because he would do the exact same thing.
Michael keeps puncturing and knotting and hurting his younger sibling to keep them safe. By the time he’s finally closed the wound, they’re sobbing against Lucifer’s shoulder, and there are damp bitemarks scattered all over his sleeve. None of them seem to have gone too deep. Their nails, on the other hand, have drawn blood. Michael sets the needle aside and smooths his hand over Raphael’s thigh.
“What next, Raphael?” They don’t answer.
“Raph, come on, please. We’re almost through.” It’s Gabriel’s voice that rouses them. They lift themselves off of Lucifer.
“Antibacterial,” they manage. Their voice is wrecked. Gabriel finds the tube of ointment they’re referring to and hands it over. Michael tries to be gentle when he applies it, but they still choke out a sound and more tears stain their cheeks.
“Bandages?” Gabriel asks. Raphael nods. Gabriel takes over as Michael pulls the bloody gloves off his hands. He goes to dump them in the trash. He doesn’t realize Lucifer’s followed him until he hears him rustling in one of the cabinets for the stronger pain medicine. The kind Gabriel sometimes says they should lie about having if the cops ever ask and is only mostly joking. Lucifer’s arm is still bleeding, not much but still there, and Michael sighs and circles around him to the sink. He picks up a (presumably) clean dishrag and wets it. Lucifer doesn’t pay any attention to him, too busy sorting pills, until Michael tries to take hold of his arm. Lucifer recoils hard enough that he takes a full step back. Michael raises his hands, placating.
Michael’s not someone who Lucifer is comfortable being touched by without warning. And he’s going to have to live with that. Maybe forever. Lucifer gives Michael his arm. He’s still tense, ready to pull away. Michael cleans the blood off the punctures Raphael left behind. His gaze slides up Lucifer’s bared arm. His skin starts to purple before it disappears under his sleeve.
“Take off your shirt,” Michael says. Lucifer’s eyes narrow. “Please.” For once, Lucifer listens. Maybe they’re all too exhausted to fight tonight. Lucifer’s shirt finds home on the floor. Gabriel’s dog pads over and snags it with his teeth. He shakes the shirt back and forth. Lucifer actually smiles at him, prods the dog with his foot as Michael looks him over. He’s a walking bruise. The worst spots have small cuts, too, ones that have stopped bleeding but should probably still have a band-aid over them. It’s a good thing they’ve stockpiled a lot of those. The spots Raphael bit are as bruised as the rest of him and swollen now under the pain of being gnawed on. Lucifer still let them do it.
“Don’t look at me like that. You’re the one who got punched in the face.” Lucifer says.
“You got thrown into a wall.”
“Ladies, ladies, you’re both pretty.” Gabriel interrupts. His voice sounds a lot steadier than it did before. Still a performance, but one he knows the lines for instead of adlibbing. Lucifer sticks his tongue out at Michael, because he is a child, and Michael absolutely does not do the same back, because he’s the mature one. “These for Raph?” Lucifer nudges one of the tiny piles of pain meds towards Gabriel.
He pushes another towards Michael, and claims the last share himself. Gabriel doesn’t get a pile, but seeing as he got away without being thrown into anything or being stabbed, he probably doesn’t need it. Michael takes his, watches Lucifer swallow his down, and looks back at their younger siblings as Gabriel convinces Raphael to do the same.
Michael is fucking exhausted. He wants nothing more than to curl up on the rug in front of the couch and pass out. Forget the bedroom. It’s too far of a walk.
Instead, he lets out a breath.
“I’ll get you some band-aids,” he tells Lucifer.
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