A/N: Weird little idea I got from reading someone else's fic. Sorry I can''t remember who it is! Enjoy a little brotherly love between Luci and Gabe.
Gabriel hated hell. He really did. The way the fire licked at his wings and the way caged souls reached at him as if he was their savior. It made him feel hypocritical. He was a coward who was being treated like a hero. That's why he had his back route. Instead of waltzing in the front door, he slipped in even closer to the cage. He walked, mostly to avoid the attention of the host but also to allow him to feel important once in a while. The climate chilled as he ran down the stairs between each circle in hell. Finally he reached number seven, closest to the cage. He slipped under a trap door that Lucifer had demons make to allow him to speak with his brother. The only one who still cared.
"You came," Lucifer's once regal voice croaked. Gabriel stepped up to the bars and peered through. Where his older brother who had taught him his tricks behind Michael's back once sat was a shadow of his former self. His wings dragged on the ground, his white feathers in a disarray. Bloodied hands clutched thin arms while his knees were pulled close to his chest.
"I wouldn't miss it for all of Father's creation," Gabriel smiled.
"How are you?" Lucifer whispered so softly Gabriel had a hard time hearing it.
"I'm alright, I miss Cassie and Balth though, I actually saw Cas recently, Anael brought him along for negotiations with the Norse Parthenon," Gabriel explained sitting Indian Style outside the cage.
"How are they?" Lucifer asked.
"Anael is a bit concerning, she seemed to want to die, she provoked Odin and Thor, I have a feeling Castiel was sent to keep her in check. Castiel has grown so much, remember how his wings used to be awkwardly large?" Gabriel responded.
"Yes, of course, how could I forget how he would always trip over them,"Lucifer smiled weakly.
"Well they're still huge, but now he can actually use them the way he's supposed to. If he wasn't a soldier, he'd be a great messenger," Gabriel commented.
"He's a soldier?" Lucifer frowned.
"Yeah, brainwashed like the rest of them," Gabriel said.
"I didn't want that for him," Lucifer sighed.
"Neither did I," Gabriel added.
"Why couldn't he go into guardianship, or secretarial," Lucifer sighed.
"He will be a guardian someday," Gabriel exclaimed in a moment of mental clarity. He was regretting that second mug of ale.
"What?"
"Remember when Dad had Metatron write down the apocalypse tablet and it was just you and I there, everyone else was busy? He had him write down about the Righteous Man, and how he would be saved from hell and the angel that did so would leave his mark and fall in love? Well, before Dear-Ol-Dad left, I asked him who the angel was and who the Righteous Man was. He wouldn't answer the second, saying that I would know him if I saw him. But he did tell me the angel, it's gonna be Casie!"Gabriel grinned.
"A regular angel's wings would get scorched," Lucifer commented after a moment of happy silence.
"It's not for several thousand years still, the fledgling is still barely off Ambrosia," Gabriel comforted.
"So he gets to have his blue wings a bit longer?" Lucifer smiled thinking about his younger brother with wings like the night sky.
"Couple thousand years," Gabriel confirmed.
"You shouldn't stay much longer," Lucifer advised.
"I wish I could."
"I don't want to get you in trouble."
"You're a punk," Gabriel smiled.
"You're a jerk," Lucifer replied automatically. Gabriel pulled a feather out of his bottom left wing and passed it between the bars, the fire reflecting off the gold surface.
"See you in a hundred years," Lucifer commented sadly.
"See you then," Gabriel replied as he climbed the ladder to the trap door.
He retraced his route out of hell. The souls realized he wasn't there to help and watched sadly as he left. As soon as he reached the open air, he hid his wings from view of the pagans and sat down on a glacier. After a few hours, Kali sat down next to him.
"Loki what's wrong?" She asked.
"Kali, did your father ever wrongly punish one of your siblings and you were the only one sticking your neck out for them?" Gabriel asked.
"All the time, why, problems with Baldur, or Thor, or is it Odin?" Kali replied placing a delicate hand in his arm.
"No, his name is Hêlêl and I hope you never have to meet him," Gabriel replied already knowing his idea was pointless. In 2010 at the Elysian Fields Hotel he would confront Lucifer and die, saving Kali and others in the process.