𝐒𝐖𝐎𝐑𝐃 𝐎𝐅 𝐆𝐎𝐃

𝐆𝐚𝐛𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐥 : second oldest. Meant to be the balance to Michael. To keep up with Michael he often works himself rather hard, but he's also the person that engages with the people in Heaven more. So he doesn't confine himself to his office and is seen around a lot more. A bright and kind person, others aren't as afraid to approch Gabriel for something as they would Michael. If there's a problem, it tends to run to him before it ever does Michael. One of the most positive lights in Heaven, he's constantly trying to find ways to bridge the gap between everyone. This includes all of them and Lucifer.

𝐑𝐚𝐩𝐡𝐚𝐞𝐥 : Heaven's doctor. A bit more cold and calculated, it's been remarked he has no bedside manner. Raphael is Azrael's keeper, as the life side to death he tries to keep Azrael out of trouble and manage his chaos. He doesn't care much for the strict form and regulations of Heaven, he certainly doesn't care for paperwork aspect of anything but begrudgingly does it if it pertains to the hospital. He'll be one of the last ones to show up to meetings because he has to go find and drag Azrael to them.

𝐂𝐚𝐬𝐬𝐢𝐞𝐥 : Heaven's shield. Uptight, actually more strict on rules than even Michael, the first line of defense for the clouds, admires and looks up to Michael, a bit of the odd one out. If Michael is the leader of the Heavenly Army that Cassiel is the closest thing to a commander. Where Michael is the sword Cassiel is the shield putting him as Michael's second on the battle field. Michael actually trained Cassiel himself though the two of them have better chemistry training / fighting together than they do outside of it. Cassiel never managed to form a strong relationship with any of their other siblings, with his hot headed temper often making him find most of them annoying and tedious to deal with. Protecting Heaven is the most important thing to him, putting it above literally everything else. He and Raphael have the biggest grudges against Lucifer for starting the War in Heaven, and Cassiel was the first one injured during it.

𝐔𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐥 : Heaven's light. Dramatic, cry baby, celibate, little ball of happiness. Uriel's power is to discern a truth from a lie. For a while, he actually thought his power was a gift, until he realized the darker nature of it. Sometimes, people lie out of need not to be malicious. Uriel is incredibly sensitive to the emotions of others, and for this reason he spends more of his time around Zadkiel than any of the other archangels. He doesn't do paperwork, and nailing him down is incredible difficult. However, he's a very bright person and just truly enjoys making others happy. In teaching them how to express themselves just as he wishes to express himself. Loves the drama and gossip of archangel meetings.

𝐀𝐳𝐫𝐚𝐞𝐥 : Death. Cold. Possibly unable to express emotions. Actually detests humans despite his job being to help guide them to the afterlife. Hates the Apple of Eden (but doesn't resent Lucifer for it). Pessimistic. A bit like a rebellious teenager when it comes to dealing with Michael. Actually very good at keeping up with his paperwork. Doesn't answer text messages but does whatever Michael asks for. Obeys Raphael far more than he does the others and wouldn't attend meetings if Raphael didn't force him. Tends to fall asleep during them.

𝐙𝐚𝐝𝐤𝐢𝐞𝐥 : Heaven's love. The angel who replaced Lucifer as the Archangel of Joy. Zadkiel is the youngest and the brightest of the archangels. He takes a lot after Samael which makes it hard for Michael to deal with him. He is the worst when it comes to paperwork, and Michael blames Uriel for it mostly. He's constantly getting himself into all sorts of trouble by running around Heaven and fooling around. Doesn't handle responsibility well, and cries at the drop of a hat when Michael gets mad at him. As Heaven's love he doesn't have a cruel bone in his body, when he gets angry he just cries. He's quite terrible at holding grudes and even worse at keeping secrets. As a pacifist he won't pick up a weapon and in that same line he actually has some of the strongest light magic. He just doesn't use it offensively. He's very good at defense though.

ㅤ To allow them to happen, Michael was very aware that falls under the category of being wrong. Allowing them to happen in the first place had been a moment of doubt and weakness. The more humans fell to sin, the more of them that got sentenced to Hell, the larger number of them that there was—it does look bad. It looks dangerous, it looks like Lucifer is creating an army, it looks like just enough swung in the wrong direction could lead to a repeat of the War in Heaven with a much more dangerous number of deaths.

ㅤ And as someone who had already lived through that once, who had his entire world torn down around him in a single day, the fear of that repeating with the loss of even more siblings was all that was needed to convince him of the need of them. To make the hard choice that no one else would want to, to agree to starting another fight with Hell. Michael's entire existence has revolved around needing to protect Heaven and protect what remained of his family.

ㅤ Allowing Adam to handle them took a large weight off of Michael's shoulders, once less army he had to handle and once less problem he needed to settle his head around. He handles so much up there already, if Adam was willing to bare the weight of something that large he didn't feel the need to deal with it himself.

ㅤ Then he had to go and die.

ㅤ What Adam did broke the contract with Hell in two places.

Holding more than one extermination a year when Lucifer agreed to one.

Going after Charlie who was a Hellborn.

ㅤ With this break in the contact, effectively ending the exterminations in the legal aspect, they can't technically continue. Though the last one is a bit of a gray area depending on if the exterminations specifically sate murdering a Hellborn or just attacking them, the first break did end it entirely. Which means, in order to continue them, Michael would need to renegotiate with Lucifer.

ㅤ Something he isn't entirely keen on doing.

ㅤ When the matter of the exterminations landed back on his desk, with the problem of the contract being broken thanks to Adam and Lute, his first instinct was just to ignore it entirely. Michael does not regret signing the exterminations, he regrets how out of hand they got. The exterminations were never supposed to become a competition between the exterminators, seeing who could get the highest number that year. They were never meant to turn the angels bloodthirsty and wrathful, hateful in the clear way that they had turned out. They were just supposed to be a way to quell the number of sinners to keep Heaven safe. To protect those who live in the clouds from those in the darkest pits for the sins they committed.

ㅤ He can find many reasons to justify what he signed off on, he can't find as many to justify allowing them to spiral as they did. Just as he is nearly certain that Lucifer would not want to resign the exterminations.

ㅤ Truthfully, he knows as well, Hell has never actually caused problems for Heaven.

ㅤ Which was why, to avoid having to renegotiate the exterminations, Michael included in his journey to Hell on top of finding the answers to his questions, learning about the sinners. About Charlie's hotel, about if what she dreams of is possible. About if there is more to the sinners that what condemned them to Hell. Though a blanket excuse for his reason to be down there, it is also a truthful one. It allows him to a lot at once, and to not worry about turning the timer on the Heaven Embassy back on.

   And he doesn’t think about the amount of times he looks over his shoulder expecting to see someone he can’t see anymore. 

   Those moments still play out in his head, that confrontation near the palace, the emotions that had twisted through Sam–Lucifer’s eyes. The words that he threw at him, the feeling of his blade sinking through his own brother’s back, the golden blood that dripped down it, that stained the clouds. The feeling of Lucifer’s halo shattering in his hands, destroying his divinity and the angelic nature. 

   The light that faded from his eyes as shadows finally consumed it. 

   Every time he closes his eyes he can still hear him. His voice, his laughter, his kind words that had always brightened even the darkest bits of the world. They had made a promise, several promises, and not a single one had been kept. They don’t matter anymore. No matter how much Michael turns around now, how much he searches, his twin won’t be there anymore. Because of Michael he won’t be there anymore. 

   The other Archangels are avoiding him, and Michael is equally avoiding them just as much. Unable to look his siblings in the eyes, unable to face them after what he had done. They’re afraid of Lucifer, undoubtedly, but they’re just as afraid of him. If he was willing to do that to his own twin brother, what would he do to them? Would he rip them apart just as fiercely for a mistake and throw them from Heaven? Burn them as he burned the devil? 

   He didn't want to hurt any of them, he didn’t want to hurt Lucifer. And now every time he closes his eyes he hears his brother screaming in his head. The pain, the anguish, the heartbreak at what was done to him. The burning and crushing feeling of that halo shattering in his hands. Dissolving into nothing as if it was never there in the first place. None of them had even known Michael could actually do that. He didn’t even know… he’d just been so angry at the situation. So afraid of what was happening, at what his brother was turning into, at losing their other siblings. 

   It wasn’t fair. 

   The office door opened and Michael turned from the bookshelf he was staring blankly at, an attempt at organizing his thoughts by cleaning. It hadn’t worked, he was exhausted and doing literally anything to keep himself going. To keep himself away so that he doesn’t have to close his eyes and picture what happened in the clouds, that endless repeated vision of harming his own twin, the sounds of his petrified voice echoing in his eyes. 

   Gabriel stepped into the office and closed the door behind him, his gaze quickly taking in the mess that the office was. Scrolls everywhere, papers littering the desk and the floor, the books he had knocked over, the blanket in the corner that covered HIS violin and the stuffed duck. Something he needed to have close, but that he couldn’t look at anymore. Things he refused to let the Seraphims take away, but that hurt to keep close as well. He can see the moment that Gabriel spots it, registers whose white blanket that is, but turns away from it just as quickly. He won’t ask. 

   The Archangel’s kind gaze turns over toward him and he attempts for a soft and comforting smile. It is anything but. As much as he loved Gabriel, Michael can’t take his kindness right now. His heart is too heavy and his head tells him that he doesn’t deserve it. A deep breath is taken and he turns back to the bookshelf, setting the ones in his arms down where they belong. “Can I help you, Gabriel?” 

   “I came to check on you. Azrael… he said you haven’t been home, really.” Of course the Angel of Death was keeping an eye on him, he was quiet and sneaky, Michael hadn’t even noticed him. Not that his head was allowing him to notice much at the moment. His ears pick up the sound of Gabriel moving closer, lingering off to the side. “You know we can move your room. That we probably should. The palace is large enough we could stick you on the other end of it if we have to.” 

   “And what is that going to help, Gabriel?” The words are bitten out, harsher than he intends to and Michael shoves the last book onto the shelf. “Will that change what happened?” Will it fix what he did? No. Nothing will fix that, no matter how much Michael repents in his life from now on, it won’t undo what he did to Lucifer. It won’t fix the situation. It won’t put his twin back in the clouds. 

   Michael turned to face his brother finally and saw the way his face lost the frown, the pinch of sadness on his expression, the concern but also the judgment and judgment won out in the end. “If you didn’t want him not in Heaven anymore, then why did you throw him from the clouds? We could have figured something else out. We could have–tried whatever it took to change how this went.” 

   “You think I wanted to?” His voice cracks, his heart shattered at that question and the feeling of distress that had been trying to consume him since he tossed Lucifer over that edge was finally starting to win out. “You think, out of any of us, that I wanted to be the one to step in front of him? To hold my own sword against his own? That I wanted to hurt him like that?” Of course he did, it’s what all of them believe, including Lucifer himself. He saw it on his face, when he delivered that final sentence, when he chained him to that pit he created in his fall. He looked at Michael and he believed he wanted that from the very beginning. 

   To be rid of him. 

   No. The only thing he ever wanted was to just keep him close. To hold onto him. To watch him flourish and shine like the star he was named after. To continue to bubble with that joy, that love of the world and everything in it. He just wanted to protect him as he had promised, to stand beside him and be there when he needed him. The last thing, in this entire world, that Michael wanted was to watch all of those things he loved about his brother vanish from his eyes. 

   But he hadn’t been given that choice. 

   The ability to do that had been ripped from him. 

   “...I can’t protect everyone.” The words tremble out, slipping from his numb lips desperately as the burning in his eyes finally made itself present. Finally won out against the fight in his chest. He had tried, God above how he tried. To do what he could, to protect everyone, but he had to choose. Heaven and the rest of the angels who were falling or Lucifer. It wasn’t a choice he wanted, no one ever wants to have to pick which family member they harm, but he had to. That was left on his shoulders as each of his siblings were knocked from the sky, beaten and falling apart. All of them or one of them. And he’s a big brother, he had to save his little siblings, to hold them close and protect them. 

   Michael’s hands curl against this chest, gripping his own vest as the tears finally started to escape down his cheeks. “He wasn’t going to stop.” ( I can’t ), “He was going to hurt everyone.” ( I’ll go through you first ), “I had to choose–” ( Even if it costs my life, Sam, I will rip you from the clouds ). 

   It hurts, his chest feels like it’s constricting and against his own volition a sob tore from his throat. That was it, that was his undoing. Michael crumbled under the weight of his own desperation and fell to his knees. It felt like he was choking on his emotions, struggling to breathe as the heavy sobs finally fell from him. He hates it, it’s not fair, why did it have to come to this? He can still remember what it felt like to have Lucifer by his side, that ever constant and warm presence, that familiar bond that lingered between them. The joy at feeling his brother hang off of him, that unconditional love as he reminded him they were all more than what God deemed them to be. 

   That it was okay to be themselves. 

   To have fun, to be free, to live. 

Now he goes back to an empty room, he turns around and no one is there, he can’t feel him anywhere in Heaven. Call out is useless, he has nothing left of his brother to hang onto other than that damned violin and duck plush in the corner of his room. A visible, painful reminder of a shattered past and the joy that once existed in himself. 

   He did this and it still hurts. He did this and he hates himself for it. He did this. 

   Does it matter that he was trying to protect their siblings? That he was saving their family? That he knows, if he actually killed any of their siblings, Lucifer would have hated himself? No. No it doesn’t matter. Because he did it. That was it. Facts, actions over reasoning, that was what people saw, that was what they listened to. That was what they believed in. Those actions spoke more than words ever could. They draw their own conclusion from what they see without searching for the actual truth. No matter how much this tore up his heart, no matter how much he just wants his brother back, Michael was the villain. 

   And his broken sobs, his shattered heart in his hands, will mean nothing. He could cry, scream, and bleed for what he had done. For his brother that was thrown from the clouds and left to rot at the bottom of that pit he created, and no one would care for how he sees it. For the anguish that tore through him at making a choice that no person should ever be able to. 

   For all that he can’t breathe under the weight of this pain, he knows that Lucifer suffers just as much in this–if not more. 

   For all he feels he lost, his twin lost just as much. 

   Gabriel finally seemed to react and he felt his brother’s arms wrap around his shoulders, pulling him up against his chest and gripping him as tightly as he could. Grounding Michael and the anguish that ripped through him. He buried his head in his little brother’s shoulder and sobbed for the heartache that was crushing him. Drowning him and ripping the remains of his heart into nothing. 

   Why does it have to hurt so much? Will it ever stop hurting? 

“You’re alright.” Is he? “We’ll get through this.” Do they have any other choice? “No one won that day, there is no victory in war, Michael. No one blames you for what happened.” They do, though. Lying, he’s lying to try and make this better. But nothing will.