blame it on the air that you breathe

[afallenstar]

Who: Anna and Gabriel
When: Day 52, some time after this
Where: House 11!
What: What a family this lot makes. I make no apologies for spamming.


Anna doesn't have to deal with awkward very often. In fact, the only time that she ever has to deal with awkward is when talking to her siblings - no surprises there for anyone who's met more than one of this dysfunctional thing they rarely refer to as 'family'. Still, she spoke to Castiel, surely Gabriel will be easier. And maybe there's a slightly ulterior motive for bringing certain things up, but she'll get to that later.

For the minute she just steps in front of the blank television waving a hand in front of her to get his attention. Come on, give her like five minutes Gabriel. It's obviously something important and maybe even slightly entertaining for him, given how not okay she looks about having the conversation to begin with. Anna's mildly worried though - a whole collection of people she wouldn't count on her best friends list will do that a girl.

"Hey. I might...need your help."

Comments

[hung_garian]

He drags his eyes away from the blank screen with a very world-weary sigh, and looks up at her. He doesn't stand. That would just be too much effort.

"What with? Didja piss off Lucifer or d'you want help doing your nails? Cause I'm not helping with either. Momma's watching her stories."

And very interesting the static is, too. It's exciting. Look, that bit of fuzzy grey is changing shape slightly!

[afallenstar]

"Oh, won't you? Because I was thinking make overs and hair braiding would really help us bond."

He damn well better notice the dry sarcasm that comes out with, complete with the eye roll and everything. She's Not used to these kinds of problems, entirely unprepared and she's been dealing with the other two archangels just fine on her own, thank you very much. This is clearly way bigger than that.

She sighs just as loudly, shrugging and then gesturing for him to move over before perching on the arm of the couch. She's procrastinating just as much with him as she had earlier with Cas - mostly because it's a lot harder to try and run it by Gabriel without all kinds of awkward questions. He's a little more clued in to human habits like this, after all. A lot, if they're being honest.

"Look, just help me out will you? I need to-" This is hard. She'll take talking with Raphael again, any day. "There's a person- people. There's people. I'm trying to keep them out of the way of the dear older brothers, and I figured you're the expert there. No one hides better from angels than you."

Casually sucking up a little to distract from that terrible slip up don't mind her.

[hung_garian]

He turns to face her, zaps the television off, and scoots up so that there's room for her on the actual couch. How generous! Look, see, he's taking this seriously and all.

"And? Lucifer and Raphael shouldn't bother them unless they have it coming. You've got them and their house all sigil-ed up, right?"

His eyebrows are raised; so far, at least, he doesn't see what the issue is, and while he does catch the slip, he doesn't see the significance.

"Unless your pets have screwed up big-time and need rescuing from the big bad archangels, I don't see what you need beyond that."

[afallenstar]

"Lucifer might be the relatively safer bet here, but can you really put it past Raphael to go down the people I like alive route if he decides I've stepped too far out of line?" Because that's pretty much all she's been thinking about since she found out he arrived.

She drops down to settle on the actual couch - don't think she doesn't appreciate that gesture just because she's shooting you a dirty look, she totally does. She just has other things on the brain at the moment, that's all. She rubs her hands over her face for a moment, then slumps back into the couch. She's just going to have to bite the bullet here.

"The house isn't 'sigil-ed up' since I- kind of go in and out a lot. I taught him a banishing sigil, but his friend has gone and made buddies with Lucifer. I just want to make sure he doesn't get his ass killed because of me."

[hung_garian]

"Yes."

But then, he's biased. Give him the barest reason to and he'll think the best of all the archangels, Lucifer included. Whether or not he believes Raphael will do something isn't always the best indication.

"Banishing sigil oughtta be enough. I don't want the humans knowing too much of this stuff, Anna. One paranoid slip-up on their part and Lucifer'll have a real reason to go after them. You could try modifying the sigils a bit, see if you can change the wording to let you in, but that could get messy if it doesn't work. And hey, maybe if his buddy's actually playing nice with Lucy, you won't need to hide 'em at all. Good to see he's making friends."

And because this is Gabriel, and he definitely picks up on that 'him' and the implications thereof, have a smirk.

"Oooor you could just put up the sigils in his place and bring your toyboy over here instead. I'll stick my fingers in my ears if you two start getting rowdy, it'll be fine."

[afallenstar]

"I'm not going around teaching everyone, calm down. Almost everyone still thinks I'm human, remember? I can't exactly go into much detail here, it doesn't gel well with low profile."

Though, how much longer she'll be able to keep up a low profile with four angels and two demons running around is a different story. Not to mention her subtlety is starting to drop significantly, the more crazy stuff that gets thrown their way the more she feels the need to step in to keep people safe. Hero mode doesn't exactly fit in with hiding true natures now, does it.

The smirk prompts another face rub on Anna's part, more to buy her more time to come up with a retort that might get him to drop it than anything else. She's hardly a miracle worker though, and finally she just raises an eyebrow at him. "Yeah, forgive me but I think I'll be giving that option a miss. Last time he met one of the family things didn't really go that well."

[hung_garian]

"Please say you've at least told your boy. Pretending to be a different species? Not exactly a recipe for a successful relationship."

He should know, after all. But that's not a particular priority of his - the most important thing as far as he's concerned is making sure Anna's friends don't get under Lucifer or Raphael's feet.

"Anyone'd think you were ashamed of us. Well, like I said, banishing sigil ought to be enough, provided these people of yours aren't total idiots - which, if they're going around trying to befriend Lucifer, they probably are. Might be worth teaching them the sigils, just in case they ever need 'em. And you can always bring them here, if it comes to it."

[afallenstar]

"Well, not in so many words, no." And it occurs to her how bad that sounds almost as soon as the words come out of her mouth, so it's quickly followed up with a justification. "He knows that I'm not human though."

This is sounding remarkably close to one of 'those talks' and there's not even something to be talking about. That's as good a sign as any that the conversation should move really swiftly forward - it's not hard, she could shoehorn this into an archangel risk assessment conversation pretty easily at this point. In fact that's a pretty important conversation that should be happening in favour of how to keep said archangels from getting near her favoured humans.

Anna's nothing if not selfish though, and after successfully keeping shut about this on off thing she has going on for a month, giving herself five minutes to get some grief out doesn't seem like a bad pay off.

"I think after Castiel attempted to scalp him and decided to pick exactly the worst moment to be overprotective, he's hesitant to meet any more of you.I'll...keep it in mind though."

[hung_garian]

"It'll do, as a minimum. Just don't lie. Not unless you want some kind of a domestic on your hands."

Is it obvious that he wants this mysterious suitor brought home? Call it fraternal concern. Or possibly a fraternal desire to smash in the kid's head if he's unworthy. Either way, it's a more appealing topic to him than discussing Lucifer and Raphael, because he really, really doesn't want to see them as risks. No Apocalypse, no problem... right?

"Yeah, well, Cas also turns up naked in people's kitchens, I don't think he's a reliable yardstick for angelic behaviour these days."

[afallenstar]

"Kind of having a little trouble working out how to bring out the angel card here. I am more than open to suggestions, seriously."

She's actually not kidding there. Help her, Gabriel, because she's got absolutely no idea how to do that. Of course she knows that she has to tell him something, and she knows she wants to tell him the truth. The problem is the truth is complicated, and she's really not all that sure he'll even believe her.

He went with the sigils though, didn't he? That's something if not some kind of an indicator that the knee jerk reaction won't always be 'you're insane'. This is difficult, enough so to earn a heavy sigh and her head dropping back onto the back of the couch. Even human life hadn't really prepared her for this. Sure there had been a bit of casual dating here and there, but Christ. She's actually considering bringing him here to "meet the family". That's not good.

"Maybe. Maybe, alright? But you'd have to promise best behaviour, seriously. I'm not bringing him around if you're just going to throw around threats."

[hung_garian]

"Well, it's a shame Christmas is over, or you coulda perched up the top of a tree. That woulda worked."

Honestly, Gabriel probably isn't the best person to ask about ways to come out as an angel, since he hasn't voluntarily done it since before he'd been pretending not to be. And 'be not afraid's are substantially different to 'so we've been shacking up for a while you probably ought to know I have wings'.

"Best behaviour. Cross my heart and swear to die. I wouldn't dream of anything less."

Which is to say, he will be throwing all the threats ever, and probably physical objects too.

[afallenstar]

"Yeah, I think an 'I am an angel of the Lord' might be a little last millenia. I'll figure- something out."

Probably. The thing is, the longer she goes not saying anything, the harder it becomes to interject with that kind of bombshell. She knows he's curious - and it's not like introducing him to all of these elements of her world is making that any easier, but it's not exactly the thing you drop into casual conversation.

"Yeah, well. I'll stick a needle in your eye. Be nice." She heaves out the most long suffering sigh in existence, rolling her eyes and everything, but there's the slightest hints of a fond smile tugging at the corners of her lips all the same. Talk about conversations she'd never thought she'd be having. She gives a small shrug, and slouches down a little further into the couch and picking lightly at one of her nails as she adds oh so casually.

"You know. Even if you're a huge ass most of the time, I'm pretty glad you're here."

[hung_garian]

"Hey, what do you take me for? I'll play nice... so long as he doesn't give me a reason not to."

And while Gabriel should probably not be trusted to keep any of those other promises, he can be trusted to find a reason. Look at the little shit, his shoes are all scuffed, he doesn't deserve their hospitality. Her attempt at being casual (very sneaky, well done), though, gets her the smuggest grin ever. He reaches over and messes her hair up.

"Course you are. I'm a joy to be around."