raphael-gabriel role reversal au is everything to me suddenly. it’s so upsetting. like. imagine free to be you and me with a gabriel who never left heaven. rather than an archangel who is exhausted, holding on by a thread of hope that there WILL be paradise if they can just get through this, we get an archangel who answers castiel and dean’s summons just to recite lines about how this is how it has to be, but watches the angel who has befriended a human as if that’s the real hope for the future. this gabriel has long since given up on angel-human unity ever happening at a broad scale without the apocalypse happening first, but seeing even one angel joining forces with one human...he won’t diverge, you can see in his face that it’s been too long and they’re too close to the end for him to change direction now, but you just know that none of this is how he wanted things to go...
and then raphael in hammer of the gods instead of gabriel...rather than an archangel who ran away and feels he has something to prove, who is here to fight for humanity and go down show-boating, we get an archangel who left because everything seemed pointless, who maybe loves the earth in a way similar to how lucifer does: as a beautiful ecosystem, not necessarily as a home for humanity the way gabriel sees it. raphael shows up and can see how run ragged lucifer is, because raphael is too. raphael isn’t aggressive, doesn’t accuse, doesn’t get clever. raphael just asks “aren’t you tired, lucifer? i know how it feels to be tired. is it worth it, what you’re doing? wouldn’t you rather just rest?” they pull out their blade in an act of mercy — and they fall not due to the failure of a trick gone wrong, but because their invitation to peace has been declined...although at least they found an end to their own weariness
