Chapter Text
Haniel, Anzhela, Parasiel and Vangelis all lounged in various states of laziness around one room. They were cupids, all from the same garrison, who’d managed to find each other after the Fall. And together, they’d ducked out of the fighting, and cobbled together to rent a small apartment. It wasn’t much, but they managed to derive comfort together from the otherwise completely bleak situation.
Things seemed better now than they were before; the angels seemed to be fighting less, and the mean angel who tried to rule Heaven had apparently been toppled. Still, they avoided the outside world – and their siblings – as much as possible, choosing instead to stay in the company of each other.
Haniel was lazing around, along with a few of his fellow cupids. They’d all managed to huddle onto the same sofa as Anzhela popped open the newest DVD case; Anzhela had managed to get her hands on a copy of ‘When Harry Met Sally’. The past few weeks had been dwindled away in a blur ‘The Proposal’, ‘The Princess Bride’ and ’27 Dresses’; the loving angels refused to engage in Heaven’s wars, and decided to watch people engage instead.
It was a nice system they’d set up. Each morning, one of them would go out to find a new set of films to waste hours on. Another would go on the groceries run. Except it was a less of a groceries run, and more of an ice cream, chocolates and tissues run.
Vangelis had suggested they try a different genre at one point, but ‘Saw’ had ended up being turned off after 10 minutes. The gore and violence went against every fibre of their being, whereas romantic comedies made them feel warm. It took almost 2 hours to stop Parasiel from crying. The cupids had all agreed that everyone in ‘Saw’ just needed lots of love, and moved onto ‘Clueless’.
Haniel was happy, if he managed to not think about his brothers and sisters. He’d wanted to help after the Fall, he really did, but everything had descended into violence too quickly. It felt like his heart snapped each time he’d dwelled on the issue for too long.
‘When Harry Met Sally’ had only just begun when the paper airplane hit Haniel, square on his button nose. He made a little squeak of surprise, and picked up the offending object with stubby fingers. “Who threw this?” He asked, his voice a little on the shaky side. Anzhela paused the film.
“Who threw what?” Vangelis replied, lounging across the sofa. His legs were draped over Parasiel and Haniel, crossed at the ankles.
Haniel waved the little paper airplane in the air. The light sparkled off small silver and gold hearts glued along the wings. The nose of the plane was creased from its collision with Haniel.
Parasiel shook her head, protesting with “Not me, brother!” She sounded upset that Haniel could ever think it was her.
“Me neither, Han,” Anzhela said. Her hands lifted a little, as though that was meant to prove she wasn’t guilty.
Vangelis shrugged, a little less emotional with his “Not me,” than his other siblings. It was one of the downsides of being a cupid – where the seraphs felt too little, the cupids felt too much. They were easily volatile, provoked by the smallest of things. Countless little explosions of emotion were packed into cupids; mostly either overwhelming joy with big grins and laughter, or crushing sadness and tears.
A second airplane came whizzing through the air, hitting Parasiel on the back of the head with a gentle bump. She picked it up, and burst into tears at the ‘OPEN IT DUMBASS’ scrawled messily across the wings.
Anzhela shuffled across the floor from the DVD player, resting her hands on Parasiel’s knees. Haniel draped his arm around her shoulder, hugging her into his chest. Vangelis threw the plane behind him and brought the tissues box over to her. “Whoever is being mean,” Vangelis called out, “Please stop it!”
The message of the second plane went completely ignored.
After a few minutes of Parasiel crying, and the three cupids gathered around her offering up kind words, a third airplane zapped around the room with a quiet whoosh. It came to a halt upon Parasiel’s lap. The cupids all saw ‘I’M SORRY’ scribbled in gold ink on the wings. Parasiel bit her wobbling lip and smiled.
“It’s okay, paper airplane. I forgive you.”
The paper airplane wiggled a little. Parasiel giggled. Haniel and Anzhela grinned. Vangelis squinted at it, but the edges of his lips turned upwards into a curve. It shook again, this time a little more violently, and the cupids responded with amusement again.
When it jumped into the air and flew in a short zig zag pattern, landing in the lap of a new presence, the reaction was a little more surprised than happy. That was, until they cast their gaze upwards from the plane to the face of the new presence, and felt the grace of the new presence. Then even euphoria didn’t touch on how the cupids felt.
“Since you didn’t bother reading my message, I thought I’d come visit you oversized love monkeys.”
Gabriel was perched at the other end of the sofa, toying with the airplane nestled in his lip, wearing a smug smile on his lips. A strand of hair had fallen down across his forehead, but he made no move to fix it, choosing to watch his younger siblings stare at him in awe instead.
Anzhela was the first to respond to the new voice. With a rather squeaky “Brother!” and a bone crushing hug.
It didn’t take long for all four cupids to pile on top of the archangel with various squeals of delight and happiness. Gabriel’s various protests and pleas were muffled by layers of fabric and cupid.
That was the first time Gabriel wondered if death by hug or excessive affection was possible. He felt like he was probably about to find out, when they started to shuffle out of the hug, watching him like he was every Christmas ever rolled into one fun sized package.
It was sickeningly adorable. He couldn’t decide if the overly affectionate welcome was a good thing, or just a warning for what waited in the days to come.
“I missed you, brother!” Haniel said, with a big grin eating across his cheeks and up to the corners of his eyes.
Gabriel opened his mouth with a snarky retort, when Anzhela chimed in with a sing song voice: “Me too! We thought you were dead, brother!”
“It was so horrible, brother! We mourned your passing,” Parasiel continued, and Gabriel wondered if there was some form of psychic connection between the cupids with the way they flowed from one to the next.
“I’m glad you’re with us again, brother.” Vangelis was the only one who managed happy without being overwhelmingly joyful. Gabriel decided he was the most tolerable in large doses – albeit still quite intolerable.
“Shucks, I’m blushing,” Gabriel said, narrowly avoiding another wave of crushing cupid hugs. “You sure know how to make a guy feel loved.”
“That’s our job!” Haniel said, almost bouncing up and down on the spot.
“I know. That’s why I’m here.”
There was a collective confusion, and Gabriel was convinced that they were mentally connected. They all just seemed ridiculously in tune with each other. That, or God hadn’t been very creative with the personalities of the cupids.
Finally, Vangelis verbalised what the four of them were thinking in a short “Huh?”
“You guys live for love, right?” The cupids nodded eagerly in response. “What if I said you could help in one of the greatest love stories ever?”
“Romeo and Juliet?” Anzhela asked, tilting her head.
“Think now, Shakespeare, not the dull ages.”
“God and humanity?”
“I’m gonna be sick, kiddo. No.”
“Wait… Wait, Gabriel, are you talking about who I think you’re talking about?” Haniel said, his eyes lighting up a little more with each word.
“Maybe,” Gabriel replied, with a grin that spelled trouble and mischief.
“You want to set up Dean and Castiel!” Haniel shouted excitedly, pointing at the archangel. The cupid had started bouncing at this point, his stubby little wings wiggling frantically (and invisibly) on his back.
“Bingo, bucko. And I’m a man with a plan, if you want in.” The loud, excitable responses Gabriel got suggested that they might be interested in helping. A chorus of agreement rang out, and took a few moments to quieten again.
“How can we help, brother?” Parasiel asked, clasping her hands together.
Gabriel started to narrate his plan to them. His hands waved about animatedly as his words translated in literal, mid-air paintings of giant cakes and dancing troupes and quartet groups. Every utterance spelled out romance clichés straight from films, and it had the young cupids hanging on his every word. Glitter and cheesy music and a curiously copious amount of cross-dressing weaved through Gabriel’s plan, all reaching a climax in something that could’ve been set in a Broadway production.
“So?”
Vangelis nodded with a grin. “I’m in, brother.”
“Me too!” Parasiel added. Her brown eyes were wide with excitement.
“Count me in,” Anzhela said, with a smirk plastered across her lips.
“Sounds like a plan, brother!” Haniel replied.
Gabriel grinned, and stood up from the sofa. “We better get started then, kids. Valentine’s Day is closing in on us.”
He managed to disappear from the room before the cupids managed to engulf him in another hug. They followed the trail of his grace, and one by one, left the room.