There was an answer to that, but since it wasn't a question asked out loud, Raphael let it pass by. The rules had changed once people knew they existed. Before, answering unspoken questions in some fashion was the only means they had to answer them at all; now, waiting until they were actively asked seemed like the best way to avoid too much interference--which, regardless of his usual actions, Raphael agreed with his brothers was necessary.
It would just be self-policed in a way none of them had ever expected before.
Besides, that silent question aside, the one Skulduggery was really asking was far more important. The Archangel was taken by surprise by the sudden blast of anger, and before he could control himself his eyes narrowed.
"What do you mean, Skulduggery?" Merlin asked, regarding the skeleton with confused patience.
"I know," Rafe cut in tersely, and Merlin's head snapped around to look at him in surprise. Raphael didn't look back. He was too busy wrestling with that upsurge of anger, even while he came nearer to where the skeleton stood. Even so, his voice was tightly controlled--but furious. "My brother gave you his NAME."
"He what?" Merlin's startled voice was a background noise. Raphael ignored it.
"This is exactly what I was talking about in the car. There is no manipulation of that kind. There will never be any manipulation of that kind. You know that, and yet here you are: asking me if Gabriel would make you feel things because you are so bound up in neuroses you cannot help but wonder."
It wasn't just the fear of what Skulduggery was suggesting. It was that Skulduggery was expecting, assuming, that it was a foregone conclusion. That was the part that made the Archangel so angry--that Skulduggery would bend to his own neuroses enough to assume that Gabriel, the gentlest and most loving of them all, would actually be capable of such a thing.
Under any other circumstance, Raphael would understand. He would. But this was Gabriel, and Raphael was finding he was far less objective when things came to his loving, reckless little brother. The worst part was that he knew his words would do nothing to convince Skulduggery of anything at all, except that he wasn't worthy. The fear wasn't worthy, not Skulduggery, but he was so busy chaining himself to his guilt that he couldn't tell the difference between the two.
So in a fit of recklessness worthy of Gabriel, Raphael showed him.
"Hey there, li'l bro, what's cookin'?" Raphael appeared suddenly with his arm around Gabriel's shoulders, sudden enough that the younger Archangel actually looked startled. Rafe was prepared to feel smug, except that startle segued easily into amused incredulity.
"What was that? That wasn't any accent I've ever heard."
"I was experimenting," Rafe admitted, torn between chagrin and amusement, and wound up simply laughing as he sat beside his brother on the middle rung of the H in the HOLLYWOOD sign. The Archangel looked down at the city sprawled beneath them, all shining into the night sky like a reflection of a much more rainbow-coloured moon. "What are you doing here? After--"
He cut himself off, surprised by the sudden well of emotion. After so long away from our Master, I would have thought you'd want to stay close.
Gabe heard it anyway and shifted a little nearer, enough to press their shoulders together. "I needed to think," he said softly. "After some things He said. I didn't want to ask Him more about them because, well ..."
"We're meant to be thinking for ourselves?" Raphael finished for him, and Gabe nodded. The younger Archangel looked at him with puzzlement in his eyes.
"But there's something else I've been wondering, Rafe. You've taken to ... all this ... so well. You weren't even involved in the wager, but you don't seem to be finding this hard at all. Your horrible accents notwithstanding."
The last was said dryly, with a fleeting grin. Rafe grinned back before sobering. "He didn't have anyone to talk to while you were gone, Gabe. I think He was lonely without you. So He came to me, and there were some things He said--I didn't understand them at all, at the time. But now I do."
He didn't wait for Gabe to ask before sending over the memory; the question was in his brother's face, as was the uncertainty over whether he should ask.
In real time, the here and now, Raphael dulled that memory-within-a-memory for Skulduggery. Most of it was private, but there was one thing--just one--which was relevant, and that, Rafe let Skulduggery see.
He wouldn't usually have done this. He wouldn't usually have done this at all. But Skulduggery needed to understand why Gabriel would never, ever do what the detective was thinking. Know it, understand it, not merely think it and then continue to worry. Gabriel's name should have been enough, but apparently it wasn't, and some part of Rafe was angry enough to hit Skulduggery a bludgeon.
Enough that he showed more than, perhaps, he intended or was wise.
"You know how much time I spent down here trying to fix the massive neurosis Lucifer had inflicted on those sad innocents, but they were too convinced I was angry at them to trust Me. I tried reassuring them. I tried jokes. I even tried punishing them, hoping they'd feel expiated and leave it behind. But nothing worked ... and that's when it hit Me, Rafe."
They were on a snow-capped mountain, a strong wind all around them, enough to make the mountain groan. Yet in spite of that, the Creator's voice was the thing most solid in the memory, audible over everything, as if everything else were simply background. That voice, glowing with excitement.
"I remember standing on a hill one day, watching them burn down each other's little villages, all trying to shove their own shame onto others' shoulders, just as Lucifer had done to them, and suddenly thinking, "Oh my God! They really are totally out of control! Even Mine! Raphael, awful as I felt about what they were doing, I could not have been happier about what they were! I swear, Rafe, if Lucifer could have just stopped trying to eradicate his shame by getting rid of them all, I might have invited him back with open arms and a hero's welcome!
"Of course, this hardly excused Me from addressing all the damage My own angel had inflicted. So I hung around, trying to shove them back on course: forcing them to apologise when they'd maimed someone, thwarting their little wars, telling them over and over that they couldn't be God no matter how angry they were, scaring the crap out of them when it was necessary. Let's face it, Rafe, I was a world-class party pooper, and yet the most amazing thing happened. A few of the little buggers began to get what I was after, and, Rafe, they liked Me!"
The smile. The child-like smile of wonder, a silly little smile of a kid who had been all alone for a very long time and was all of a sudden invited to a party. That smile, and those tears. "Love. My greatest creation took Me by surprise."
"But ... I do not mean to contradict You, Master," Raphael said, and in the memory his own voice sounded disconcerted. Hesitant, at a loss, no idea what was going on or why his Master should look like that. "But how could Your own creation take You by surprise?"
"Oh, I created the things that created love, but while I was more than able to make them obey Me, nobody made them like Me, not even Me! This wasn't just an empty imitation. It was the real thing! Don't you see? They chose, Rafe. Well, I saw right off that the whole thing had to stay free, or none of it would be real. You can't control the bad stuff and pretend the rest is spontaneous. So I backed off. I still do what I can, of course. I'm not one to leave the building before the fire's out, especially when I helped set it. But even knowing too certainly that I exist would kill the whole thing. Like what you said earlier, why would you lie to Me? Why would you try? You wouldn't, even though you could. And I don't really want you lying to Me, Rafe, but in another way, you'll never love Me the way they do--the ones that do love Me, at least."
The rest of the memory-inside-the-memory faded deliberately into background noise, but in the memory Gabriel heard it all and had tears in his eyes.
"He's right," said the Archangel, and there was a mix of misery and wonder in his voice. "All this time and we were never what He really wanted. I--"
He was cut off by the sudden arm around his shoulders again, by Raphael pulling him in for a sideways hug. "You know that's not what He meant, little brother," Rafe said, a little gruff because of the tears in his own eyes. "We're capable of it, just like them. We just didn't know it, and couldn't until we'd figured it out on our own. But that's why I don't seem to be having as much trouble as you." He smiled through the tears. "Though you're better off than me, you know. You've already experienced what it means to love Him without being asked. I haven't, yet. I just know ... because He told me."
For a very long time, long enough that night had turned to day had turned to night again, they sat in mutual, silent contemplation of the cityscape below and their own existence. Then, abruptly, Gabriel laughed, and there was such a wealth of understanding in that laugh that Raphael almost laughed with him. "Do you remember that pair of sisters? The doctor that wouldn't stop praying to you, and the aimless student who was always jeering about her sister's piety but at night, she'd write those little stories about you?"
For a moment Raphael looked at him, nonplussed, before the memory clicked and he laughed. "Do I! Some of those stories were amazing. Completely wrong, but so funny."
Gabriel grinned. "You spent so much time with the first sister because she was always asking you for help during surgeries."
"But it was the second sister I liked being with more," Raphael said quietly, Gabriel's meaning hitting him like a lightning-bolt of intent. "Because even though she didn't believe I existed, she still liked me. For me."
"I think that's probably what it's like, Rafe." Gabriel leaned into him, resting his head on Raphael's shoulder. "We've all had people like that, haven't we? People who think they have to like us just because of what we are, and then the people who really do."
"I think you're probably right." Raphael looked back toward Los Angeles, still smiling.
When the memory ended, Raphael looked silently at Skulduggery, and didn't hide the tears on his cheeks.
no subject
It would just be self-policed in a way none of them had ever expected before.
Besides, that silent question aside, the one Skulduggery was really asking was far more important. The Archangel was taken by surprise by the sudden blast of anger, and before he could control himself his eyes narrowed.
"What do you mean, Skulduggery?" Merlin asked, regarding the skeleton with confused patience.
"I know," Rafe cut in tersely, and Merlin's head snapped around to look at him in surprise. Raphael didn't look back. He was too busy wrestling with that upsurge of anger, even while he came nearer to where the skeleton stood. Even so, his voice was tightly controlled--but furious. "My brother gave you his NAME."
"He what?" Merlin's startled voice was a background noise. Raphael ignored it.
"This is exactly what I was talking about in the car. There is no manipulation of that kind. There will never be any manipulation of that kind. You know that, and yet here you are: asking me if Gabriel would make you feel things because you are so bound up in neuroses you cannot help but wonder."
It wasn't just the fear of what Skulduggery was suggesting. It was that Skulduggery was expecting, assuming, that it was a foregone conclusion. That was the part that made the Archangel so angry--that Skulduggery would bend to his own neuroses enough to assume that Gabriel, the gentlest and most loving of them all, would actually be capable of such a thing.
Under any other circumstance, Raphael would understand. He would. But this was Gabriel, and Raphael was finding he was far less objective when things came to his loving, reckless little brother. The worst part was that he knew his words would do nothing to convince Skulduggery of anything at all, except that he wasn't worthy. The fear wasn't worthy, not Skulduggery, but he was so busy chaining himself to his guilt that he couldn't tell the difference between the two.
So in a fit of recklessness worthy of Gabriel, Raphael showed him.
"Hey there, li'l bro, what's cookin'?" Raphael appeared suddenly with his arm around Gabriel's shoulders, sudden enough that the younger Archangel actually looked startled. Rafe was prepared to feel smug, except that startle segued easily into amused incredulity.
"What was that? That wasn't any accent I've ever heard."
"I was experimenting," Rafe admitted, torn between chagrin and amusement, and wound up simply laughing as he sat beside his brother on the middle rung of the H in the HOLLYWOOD sign. The Archangel looked down at the city sprawled beneath them, all shining into the night sky like a reflection of a much more rainbow-coloured moon. "What are you doing here? After--"
He cut himself off, surprised by the sudden well of emotion. After so long away from our Master, I would have thought you'd want to stay close.
Gabe heard it anyway and shifted a little nearer, enough to press their shoulders together. "I needed to think," he said softly. "After some things He said. I didn't want to ask Him more about them because, well ..."
"We're meant to be thinking for ourselves?" Raphael finished for him, and Gabe nodded. The younger Archangel looked at him with puzzlement in his eyes.
"But there's something else I've been wondering, Rafe. You've taken to ... all this ... so well. You weren't even involved in the wager, but you don't seem to be finding this hard at all. Your horrible accents notwithstanding."
The last was said dryly, with a fleeting grin. Rafe grinned back before sobering. "He didn't have anyone to talk to while you were gone, Gabe. I think He was lonely without you. So He came to me, and there were some things He said--I didn't understand them at all, at the time. But now I do."
He didn't wait for Gabe to ask before sending over the memory; the question was in his brother's face, as was the uncertainty over whether he should ask.
In real time, the here and now, Raphael dulled that memory-within-a-memory for Skulduggery. Most of it was private, but there was one thing--just one--which was relevant, and that, Rafe let Skulduggery see.
He wouldn't usually have done this. He wouldn't usually have done this at all. But Skulduggery needed to understand why Gabriel would never, ever do what the detective was thinking. Know it, understand it, not merely think it and then continue to worry. Gabriel's name should have been enough, but apparently it wasn't, and some part of Rafe was angry enough to hit Skulduggery a bludgeon.
Enough that he showed more than, perhaps, he intended or was wise.
"You know how much time I spent down here trying to fix the massive neurosis Lucifer had inflicted on those sad innocents, but they were too convinced I was angry at them to trust Me. I tried reassuring them. I tried jokes. I even tried punishing them, hoping they'd feel expiated and leave it behind. But nothing worked ... and that's when it hit Me, Rafe."
They were on a snow-capped mountain, a strong wind all around them, enough to make the mountain groan. Yet in spite of that, the Creator's voice was the thing most solid in the memory, audible over everything, as if everything else were simply background. That voice, glowing with excitement.
"I remember standing on a hill one day, watching them burn down each other's little villages, all trying to shove their own shame onto others' shoulders, just as Lucifer had done to them, and suddenly thinking, "Oh my God! They really are totally out of control! Even Mine! Raphael, awful as I felt about what they were doing, I could not have been happier about what they were! I swear, Rafe, if Lucifer could have just stopped trying to eradicate his shame by getting rid of them all, I might have invited him back with open arms and a hero's welcome!
"Of course, this hardly excused Me from addressing all the damage My own angel had inflicted. So I hung around, trying to shove them back on course: forcing them to apologise when they'd maimed someone, thwarting their little wars, telling them over and over that they couldn't be God no matter how angry they were, scaring the crap out of them when it was necessary. Let's face it, Rafe, I was a world-class party pooper, and yet the most amazing thing happened. A few of the little buggers began to get what I was after, and, Rafe, they liked Me!"
The smile. The child-like smile of wonder, a silly little smile of a kid who had been all alone for a very long time and was all of a sudden invited to a party. That smile, and those tears. "Love. My greatest creation took Me by surprise."
"But ... I do not mean to contradict You, Master," Raphael said, and in the memory his own voice sounded disconcerted. Hesitant, at a loss, no idea what was going on or why his Master should look like that. "But how could Your own creation take You by surprise?"
"Oh, I created the things that created love, but while I was more than able to make them obey Me, nobody made them like Me, not even Me! This wasn't just an empty imitation. It was the real thing! Don't you see? They chose, Rafe. Well, I saw right off that the whole thing had to stay free, or none of it would be real. You can't control the bad stuff and pretend the rest is spontaneous. So I backed off. I still do what I can, of course. I'm not one to leave the building before the fire's out, especially when I helped set it. But even knowing too certainly that I exist would kill the whole thing. Like what you said earlier, why would you lie to Me? Why would you try? You wouldn't, even though you could. And I don't really want you lying to Me, Rafe, but in another way, you'll never love Me the way they do--the ones that do love Me, at least."
The rest of the memory-inside-the-memory faded deliberately into background noise, but in the memory Gabriel heard it all and had tears in his eyes.
"He's right," said the Archangel, and there was a mix of misery and wonder in his voice. "All this time and we were never what He really wanted. I--"
He was cut off by the sudden arm around his shoulders again, by Raphael pulling him in for a sideways hug. "You know that's not what He meant, little brother," Rafe said, a little gruff because of the tears in his own eyes. "We're capable of it, just like them. We just didn't know it, and couldn't until we'd figured it out on our own. But that's why I don't seem to be having as much trouble as you." He smiled through the tears. "Though you're better off than me, you know. You've already experienced what it means to love Him without being asked. I haven't, yet. I just know ... because He told me."
For a very long time, long enough that night had turned to day had turned to night again, they sat in mutual, silent contemplation of the cityscape below and their own existence. Then, abruptly, Gabriel laughed, and there was such a wealth of understanding in that laugh that Raphael almost laughed with him. "Do you remember that pair of sisters? The doctor that wouldn't stop praying to you, and the aimless student who was always jeering about her sister's piety but at night, she'd write those little stories about you?"
For a moment Raphael looked at him, nonplussed, before the memory clicked and he laughed. "Do I! Some of those stories were amazing. Completely wrong, but so funny."
Gabriel grinned. "You spent so much time with the first sister because she was always asking you for help during surgeries."
"But it was the second sister I liked being with more," Raphael said quietly, Gabriel's meaning hitting him like a lightning-bolt of intent. "Because even though she didn't believe I existed, she still liked me. For me."
"I think that's probably what it's like, Rafe." Gabriel leaned into him, resting his head on Raphael's shoulder. "We've all had people like that, haven't we? People who think they have to like us just because of what we are, and then the people who really do."
"I think you're probably right." Raphael looked back toward Los Angeles, still smiling.
When the memory ended, Raphael looked silently at Skulduggery, and didn't hide the tears on his cheeks.