accidental video;

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[Gray. The opening shot is all dim gray and dusky, a boring shot of a concrete wall stained with black ash, before too-bright blue-white light knifes through the picture again, causing horrible screaming static for a brief moment. Everything whirls before the PCD lands, now pointed up at a derelict ceiling. From far off, noise can be heard: footsteps, crackling electricity, a low electric tinny and hard breathing. After a long minute the picture shakes again, lifting and turning around to show Raphael's face.

She looks, for lack of a better word, like shit. For an angel she looks exhausted, with faint circles under her eyes. Her skin has a papery quality that is strongly evocative of Lucifer. Face rot dots her hairline and a small spot on one side of her jaw, again very like what Lucifer suffers from. Despite coming out of a terrible event (for which she was a complete hermit, speaking to and seeing no one), there's obviously something else on her mind.]

The Archangel Michael is gone. You would do well to never speak his name again where we can hear it.

[ooc note: anyone going to find her will find her in the Wastes. Yes, even if they poof to her side immediately, angels. She can hustle.]

Comments

[expunger]

[Actually...]

You could.

[painhumbles.livejournal.com]

[Cue Gabriel being taken aback...] ...Really?

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[Cue a look that is evidently supposed to be guarded and careful, but comes off looking almost honest and a little alone.]

Of course.

[Gabriel, fool and blasphemer though he is, has a few things the other angels don't: he seemed to have finally grasped that first lesson, the one they were taught by force the day they bowed to Adam. Raphael disagrees vehemently with almost everything Gabriel has done, and every way he has chosen to do it, but even a broken clock is right twice a day.

He has a few kernels of righteousness and, besides, is absolutely terrible at guile. He is literally the only person she can trust now, and the only person she would have genuine difficulty lashing out at.]

[checkoutpandora.livejournal.com]

[Gabriel's never considered any of that. He's accepted with some degree of sorrow that he'll never really be his brothers' ideal of anything. But just as Gabriel is stubborn enough to assume he's always right, he's self-deprecating enough to think that no other angel is going to trust him with delicate matters. He's not delicate. He's blunt, snarky. He doesn't deal well with anything.]

I hope this don't mean you'll be expecting me to take up that stick that's been in Michael's since Day One. I don't swing that way.

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[Yeah, well, Raphael will trust the shit out of him whether he likes it or not. So there.]

I will permit you to remain stickless.

[painhumbles.livejournal.com]

[He shrugs] All I ask. [...Later, he'll stare at the ceiling and wonder when this became his life.]

[expunger]

[A few seconds of awkward silence tick by before Raphael turns slightly and stares out. She makes a small, distracted gesture at a bush a few dozen yards off and watches, seemingly fascinated, as it grows.

When it instantly starts to wither away and die, shriveling into blackness, her face falls very, very slightly.]

When Lucifer Fell, what was the first thing you did?

[She doesn't know. She had Michael and the angels to worry about.]

[painhumbles.livejournal.com]

Start doubting. [The answer comes automatically without a trace of hesitation. First comes doubt, then comes disobedience, then comes the running.]

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[That is far from the answer she wants.]

You lost him. The brother you valued most.

[Even now, the word "love" comes slowly.]

What did you do?

[painhumbles.livejournal.com]

I questioned. I demanded that Dad explain why it had to happen. And when he didn't answer? I went to Michael. [Gabriel sucks in a painful breath and turns away] Three guesses on how that one turned out.

[expunger]

[This isn't the answer she wants to hear. She wants Gabriel to tell her something less psychological, more concrete, something she can do to make it hurt less. As incompatible as it is with her pride and fledgling independence, she wants him to tell her what to do so she can stop having to make her own wrong choices.]

Three would not be necessary.

Here, there is no throne to shout at in vain.

[They have to deal with it like adults. How infuriating.]

[checkoutpandora.livejournal.com]

I stopped caring. [That's not even true- he never did stop. What he did was stop thinking about it, went so far down off the beaten path, he didn't have to look or think about Heaven anymore. The trick is to disassociate yourself from it.

It's easier when family isn't staring you in the face, though. In other words, he's not sure he has answer for this.]

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[No, he didn't. Raphael can sense the lie as soon as it passes his lips, but for once does not feel the need to call attention to it. She is too tired and beaten-down to want to.]

Did you intend on ever seeing us again?

[painhumbles.livejournal.com]

Not until something changed.

[So no. Not really.]

It's not like I would've been welcomed back anyway.

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[That answers her real question. Anything Gabriel has to say on this matter is suited to her needs: dealing with the reality of never, ever seeing your family again.]

Not easily.

[There's something she has to say. It bursts out of her before she can stop it.]

Michael's absence will make me more unstable. I have no idea why I am telling you this, but that Lucifer wouldn't listen. [And she has nobody else.]

[checkoutpandora.livejournal.com]

You'll live. [It might sound callous, but it's the truth. She'll get over it and she'll survive and she'll be better for it. That's all there is to it.]