Misty things dreams are

[servingmichael]

Who: Raphael and YOU
What: Dreamscapes
Where: Anywhere, everywhere, no where at all
When: Day 84 to 88
Warnings: Violence between siblings, torture, animal predation, death, parental abandonment (most aren't that bad though!)
Notes: What Raphael dreams about between family members, unless it's from the show or played out between players here shouldn't be taken for actual canon - dreams are strange things and in Raphael's case very symbolic.

The Four

Home

TRIGGER WARNING: Animal predation Horror

Brothers

A Special Place

A Special Creation

Betrayal

SPOILER WARNING for Season 8 finale in the links || TRIGGER WARNING for violence between brothers Broken

Abandoned

Vessels

Human Brothers

TRIGGER WARNING: Torture and abuse Anna

TRIGGER WARNING: Death and violence Killing Castiel

Birds

Comments

[servingmichael]

Everything is new. New and unsettled and rough and raw. Raphael is still young, so young, a tiny being of light, air, electricity, and so many shades of green tucked between Lucifer (cold that overwhelmed his own heat and the Light that made him look so very dim in comparison) and Michael (all blues and fire leaving greens and heat almost drowned out), the three curled together. The elder two are so much larger, more substantial than him, and yet Raphael is content, even happy. And yet the knot of archangels spins off balance, there's gaps of emptiness between them, like the don't quite fit together. And then, suddenly, there is something, someone, new there, another being Created. A form smaller than Raphael, golden light and flowing like water, laughing. It's also instant, the way they all settle into something unified, even, balanced.

Gabriel

The Voice is immense, powerful, and present. Their Father, Naming the newest (last) archangel. For an instant the only sound is (Gabriel's) laughter and then a song, lead by Lucifer, then Michael, and then Raphael. There's no real words just tone, the sound. But it's the very definition of 'Joyful Noise'.

[hung_garian]

Gabriel doesn't interrupt the dream until the memory is over. He doesn't have the option to, he's just an observer, but even if he could he wouldn't. Obviously this is something he hasn't seen before - he remembers it more clearly than most humans would remember their birth, but not by much. Once it has played through, he's not sure what to say or do. He stays where he is, standing at a distance and watching, expression carefully neutral. He's silent for a few moments, but after a while he decides to make his presence known - or rather to announce it, since he'd be a little surprised if Raphael were unaware of him.

"Is that really how it happened?"

[servingmichael]

He’d known Gabriel was there, but this was good, fun to relive. And well. He hadn’t minded Gabriel seeing it. “Pretty much so. We knew he was creating another, but that was all we knew. It’s what I remember, though.” Raphael had been young himself, it was like asking an adult about the birth of his brother, when he’d barely been a toddler when it occurred. “But the singing? I think I stumbled over it a little more than that.” He was pretty sure he did – he didn’t really know how to sing when Gabriel had been created. “You did laugh though, right away.”

It might have grated on him after a while. But now that he had lived in a Heaven without Gabriel’s laughter, he missed it horribly.

[servingmichael]

There's noise and movement all around, blurs of light and colors. But it's a happy din, and not the focus of this dream. Instead it's a clump of...something. They look like cells, or soap bubbles all mounded together. They glisten, but they're also empty. Raphael reaches his small hand out and scoops the bubbles up into his hands, holding them. "What are they?" Gabriel reaches over poking one of them with his finger and it pops.

"Gabriel!" Michael's voice was annoyed and scolding, his hand suddenly appearing to smack Gabriel's.

"Ow! Miiiichael!" It's as much actual pain as shock and annoyance.

Lucifer reaches over, gently pushing the bubbles back into place and sliding his arm around Gabriel, who cuddles against Lucifer's side, glaring at Michael from under the curves of Lucifer's great wings. "They were just playing Brother."

"Father said they were meant for something special."

"Then I'm sure He can replace one."

Raphael reached over and took Lucifer's hand and then reached up to take Michael's. "Can we go see that nebula? You promised."

"Yeah Michael, you promised." Lucifer's voice was teasing but almost challenging. Michael just huffed, not sounding all that annoyed. Or looking it.

"Let's go."

[servingmichael]

The ground is sandy but rather than browns or creams, it's red in color, with some shadings of coral and burgundy. Looking up, the light is filtered oddly wavy and ambient - it might take some a minute or even longer to understand they are in fact nearly a hundred feet underwater. There's strange fern like plants growing from the sand. It's not Earth - the Milky Way doesn't even exist yet - just some small alien planet. Raphael is perched in one of the ferns, climbing out out from a fiddlehead to a frond, where he stretches brushing a fingertip over the spores. He looked over, pillowing his head on an arm, watching some tiny translucent krill-like crustacean swim. There are green spec inside it's body of phytoplankton. Eggs and larvae drift by, all 1/3 or 1/2 the length of the little creature Raphael is contently watching. On the peripheral of his vision, a blob of gelatinous something or another swims over the sand, mostly seeming to be blown by the currents. It really does look like a blob of grape jelly, only with a few, hair like projections hanging off it's body. As it gets closer to the small crustacean , one of the projections shoot out, wrapping around it's head. Another wraps around it's tail. It hauls the creature closer, the creature thrashing, but it's quickly ripped in half, before being pulled inside the blob.

There's a sound from Raphael, quick and loud. To anyone who has ever heard the true voice of an angel - or even Raphael's - it's pretty apparent what the sound is. To anyone who has even taken care of small children, what is also is is equally apparent - a scream from a frightened and horrified child.

[nevermindtherunning]

[ooc: feel free to correct anything I might have misunderstood in this, given my Supernatural knowledge is souly from RP. And I'm assuming Raphael is a child?]

"Hey! Hey there!"

There's tan converse sinking into the sand in quick footsteps, which really shouldn't be happening so quickly and smoothly. In fact, none of this made sense with the Doctor's lean form coming into view. He shouldn't be able to be seen this well or even move this well underwater.

The Doctor reaches out and touches the boy's shoulders, gently and trying to be comforting.

[servingmichael]

(( He sort of is! Michael says he raised his brother, so I assume that they were the angel equivalent of children, once. And dreamspace translates that to him being what others would recognize as a child! ))

He shouldn’t be able to shout either, and yet, Raphael hears him. He’s huddled back in the fern forest and jumps when he’s touched. “It killed him!” People called angels beautiful, and they were, certainly. Something like having the essence of what Raphael was wrapped into a child’s shape, but they are terrifying as they are beautiful, even if Raphael is no were near grown. And right now, he’s deeply distressed, and after that unexpected and shocking violence, any kindness seems magnified. He latches tightly onto The Doctor’s arm.

[servingmichael]

Raphael is, there is no other word for it, sulking. He's all curled up on himself, all six wings drawn around him, and every now and then will glare, banefully, at someone.

To someone who knows something about wings, Raphael's feathers sure are ruffled and - sticky? - and he's stopped attempting to clean them by now. After a few minutes - or days, who knows - a ball water hits Raphael's wing. There's shrieking, high pitched and ringing, and very much not in English. It's Enochian, in fact, and mostly the equivalent of normal brotherly insults. There's a very real level of loud, even painfully so.

"It was just a joke Raphael!" Gabriel was laughing even as he replied, and before it could descend any further, they were both scooped up, an arm around each young archangel, wings sweeping, shushing and soothing them.

"Lucifer you can pick them up every time they yell at each other."

"They wouldn't fight so much if you would encourage Raphael to play rather than parent, or if you did the same."

"Father said I needed to take care of you, all of you-"

"That doesn't MEAN you always have to-"

"CAN ONE OF YOU PLEASE GET THIS OFF!" Raphael didn't often interrupt, but when he did, he made sure he was heard. "Michael!" The name was whined, a plaintive cry.

"Here. I'll take Gabriel, teach him a few harmless tricks." Lucifer handed Raphael to Michael, leaving Raphael open to kick at Gabriel, which means Michael is quick to put Raphael down.

"Behave Raphael." Michael sounds less like a sitter - or a brother - and more like a parent, even as Lucifer and Gabriel vanish.

[venatical]

That might've been Michael all along, but now it's Dean standing over Raphael, and through the magic of dreams he still manages to know what was just going on. He sighs, hands on his hips, and looks down at him, nothing seeming out of the ordinary yet.

"A little water's not going to kill you. Maybe he wouldn't have hit you with it if you'd cleaned yourself up."

[servingmichael]

Raphael isn't (yet) aware this is a dream, or that Dean is standing in for Michael. He's also having none of this "put down" nonsense, and resorts to clinging tightly to Dean's leg. "It's cold. And I tried. I can't."

[servingmichael]

Earth. According to Lucifer, God's last perfect Creation. Raphael remembers it all, so any place, from the still cooling first crust to well. Anything, including the first people and villages.

[servingmichael]

His first views of people. Small families and clans huddled around fire or drinking water or gathered in the shade of trees.

[servingmichael]

Raphael stands off to the side, and for all but the most detailed observer, looks completely still. He's not - his Grace is wrapped up on itself tighter than any strand of DNA ever could be, moving fractionally. Still, the way the air is before a "sudden" violent storm. Distantly he can hear Gabriel trying not to make a sound, and for the moment he's unaware of the rest of the Host. His focus is on the two eldest, the two figures locked in each other's arms and legs and wings before him.

Lucifer's once shinning wings are bleeding, his face once beauty personified is beaten so severely Raphael isn't sure even he will be able to Heal it without a blemish. As he watches Michael's hand pull back for another blow he swallows hard, forcing the utter terror he feels somewhere distant and far away. He's seen violence over the eons. He's had his ears ring with the violence Lucifer is capable of - it's laid out in Lilith, in the Knights. But he's never seen one of his brothers turn on the other with such savagery.

He can't imagine, can't comprehend, what it takes to do that to anyone. He's angry, it boils in him, at Lucifer. But he can't, can't, cause that hurt. He's very afraid that Michael is going to kill Lucifer. And Michael loves Lucifer, probably more than he loves all the other angels. Raphael doesn't understand and that frightens him. He can hear Lucifer choke - his face moves in ways it wasn't designed to as he tries to talk around the damage. Tries to plead with Michael. And Michael just screams. How Lucifer is a monster, how he destroyed things. How God's commandments are to be followed. He watches, wanting to act. Who wouldn't? Who would want to stand by and watch this brutality?

But the worst is to come. He watches as Michael hauls Lucifer up, hauls his brother up, battered, broken, bleeding Grace, and throws him. Casts him out. Watches as Lucifer falls and burns.

[heavensmostadorable]

[ooc: This is so late and tl;dr, I'm so sorry!]

Of course, it's a scene he's witnessed before, one he remembers well. A hard one to forget, honestly, even if it's one you'd like to. This time it's different though, and he doesn't understand why at first, something just feels... Not off, just different. It's surreal enough that he knows this isn't reality, it's a dream, but that's not the strange part. It isn't until he realizes that what he's feeling is the only thing that's different that he catches on - this isn't his dream. What he's feeling, the fright, the anger, it's not his, nothing like what he was feeling when watching Lucifer being cast out; the fear, that had been there, but this is stronger, it's overwhelming, and it holds him frozen in place.

It isn't too hard, now that he's realized that the feelings coursing through him aren't his, to separate them from his own. They're still there, but he can take a few moments to focus on them, and once he's got an idea of where his end and these ones begin, it becomes important to him to figure out who they belong to. He'd known this event had been hard on most, but he hadn't realized that there was anyone who'd felt like this. Though, as he looks around, he can't find anyone who appears to be the source. At least, until his gaze falls on Raphael. The archangel doesn't appear to be showing all of the intense emotions, but they seem to be emanating from him, and as Samandriel moves closer, they only seem to get stronger.

He comes to a silent halt next to his brother, almost wary, and suddenly uncertain of what to do. He'd approached with no plan, but even those that might have been beginning to form slip from his mind as he stares quietly at Raphael, then over to where Michael has just thrown Lucifer. Everything is tense, and now the silence seems to ring in his ears until finally he looks back to Raphael, hesitant, but knowing that he has to say something. He can't just stand there.
"I never realized how hard this was for you," he murmurs finally, eyebrows drawing together with worry as he watches his brother's face closely, trying to determine if he's all right. An apology almost slips from his lips, but thinking about it, it...doesn't feel appropriate. "I suppose I always forget how close the four of you once were..."

[servingmichael]

(( OOC: Don't worry about it! ))

Raphael as fought his way out of this dream before and now, he's just too tired to do it. And just like the time when it actually happened, Raphael isn't aware of Samandriel until he speaks up.

Raphael's jaw tightens and he closes his eyes. He's trying to force himself calm, and failing. No one had realized how hard it was. Not even Gabriel and Michael - they had each been too caught up in their own pain, and Raphael had taken time to reach out to them himself, and then it had been about their hurt, not it. "We did a good job of making sure of that." In light of Castiel asking about Naomi, that's more an admission of guilt than most were likely to get, but at the moment, he just wasn't invested in maintaining the show.

[servingmichael]

There's a sucking void all around Raphael's ears. Silence doesn't ring, it's just the lack that fills all the empty space between every molecule.

Angels don't need to breathe. They don't have hearts that beat. And yet, there is a fast, panicked pulse in Raphael's being.

He's not young, not in the way he has been until now. It couldn't be say he was grown either, but he's mostly self sufficient. And yet, in this instant, he feels so unbelievably young.

"FATHER!" It's a scream, a cry. Disbelieving, frightened, and hurt beyond his ability to put word to it. He cries out again, and again, at some point starting to weep as his voice grows both more frantic and quieter, as if the sheer force of emotion is wearing him out.

And yet, there is no answer.

[servingmichael]

An old woman, uncommonly old, leans over the pot, carefully stirring the brew inside. A young girl is at her elbow, slowly repeating the instructions to make it. They each have a cord, dyed green, tied around their left wrists. In a corner of the room, an infant cries and is shushed by his mother - to those who know much about medicine, the cry is weak and the mother is pale. The brew the old woman is making will not only nuroish the mother, but will help her produce milk.

"Now for the important part." She repeats a prayer. Raphael is never named, but it's meant to him none the less - the guardian of the new and helpless, the One Who Heals. Unseen, Raphael smiles.

He reaches over, touching the mother's forehead, then the infant's. Their color looks better, the infant looks more alert. Neither even noticed the touch. But Raphael isn't finished.

Still unseen, he reaches over, extending his Grace over the woman, and through her, her children. All of them. She and the young girl glow for a moment.

An archangel's first vessel. A line started.

[servingmichael]

The little boy is running around in a shirt many sizes too big, in wool booties almost worn through. His hair is a mess of tangles and there are blue stains on his mouth and hands from berries. He's young - can't be more than four, and is running around the countryside, laughing.

An older boy - only slightly older, seven at most - pops over a log and is tackled by the younger one. They continue to play, endlessly.

Raphael stands by and watches.

[gayspider]

The little boy reminds Alec of his younger brother Max. The childish laughter causes Alec to dig his fingers into his palms and he turns away from the boys with a bitter expression. Max is dead, Alec would no longer catch him reading comics, or chase after him.

He wishes he could leave the dream immediately.

[servingmichael]

(( Hit his perms post please? ))

Raphael had no desire to leave - he enjoyed this. The younger brother, if push cam to shove, reminded him of himself and he sorely missed his brother. But he did become aware of another in this space over time and finally turned to look at him.

"Hello there."

[servingmichael]

Anna's torture in Heaven

[servingmichael]

Inside the prophet's house, Castiel stands beside the window, protecting Chuck. Raphael didn't know why - he wasn't going to hurt the Prophet. The house shook, the windows rattled.

Raphael could almost feel Michael's impatiance, though it's just as likely he's imagining it. And still, Castiel won't flee. Why won't he?

He delays, a little more. Finally he can't delay any longer and he has to and pushes ahead. There's a pressure to him, like his jaw is clentched. And then Castiel simply explodes.

[tryingitall]

He sees the scene through Raphael's eyes, helpless to alter the outcome, and helpless to look away. It's a nightmare; if Balthazar had to pinpoint the exact moment it all became too much, the moment he gave up, it would be the split second in time when he felt Castiel's Grace forcibly released.

Maybe that would be an oversimplification. But there's no doubt this hurts, and he would give anything to forget it ever happened.

Raphael may not be aware of the little brother riding his memories, struggling desperately as the moment he can't stand to see hurtles closer. But even through his silent cries of NO, Balthazar can sense something in Raphael he never expected.

Reluctance.

Maybe even a precursor to doubt.

He can't think on it long. Castiel explodes in a shower of light and gore, and Balthazar screams.

The next thing he knows, he's huddled on the floor, fully corporeal, as if he's somehow taken the place of the dream-Chuck. Shaken, he covers his face with both hands, too shattered to notice whether Raphael is still there.

[servingmichael]

Raphael is too caught up in trying - failing - to force the nightmare away to notice Balthazar. He didn't enjoy killing Castiel, didn't want to harm his brothers, had acted only because Castiel had refused to budge, hadn't given his a choice but to use lethal force. He had hoped that Castiel would go, run, as Lilith had.

He'd been wrong.

He hasn't experienced nightmares personally before and they are more difficult from the inside to dismantle. And he's almost managed it, when he hears Balthazar scream.

Even then, it takes him several minutes to respond. But he eventually lands beside Balthazar, pointedly looking anywhere but the gore splattered over the room. "Balthazar?" He's not sure, immediately, that he wasn't hurt.

If he had known that Balthazar thought that was the moment that lead to him doubting however...he'd have been much more sad. Because really that was the end of it.

[servingmichael]

There's a high, steep cliff. It's almost entirely sheer, with no telling how high it is. At least eight miles down, the cliff disappears, hidden by a white and silver bank of clouds that completely block any view lower. Less than twenty feet from the top of the cliff, there's a series of narrow ledges, the center ledge deeper, as if gored from the rock by a might talon. The sky is completely still, and if you zoom on the cliff, there's a huge nest, at least twice the diameter of two school buses and eight feet deep. The nest itself is made of various types of wood, all so worn it's no longer identifiable, opalescent shells ground into the wood, too trampled to judge size. There's light down of all colors scattered, and the nest is feathered by feathers of normal size - even if they don't make sense. There are feathers from a great golden eagle, shining white swan feathers, greys and creams of a fishing eagle, the multicolored whites, blacks, and blues of a magpie's. And the nest is full, dozens upon dozens of clutches of varying ages and varies types nesting together, from fledglings to nearly fully grown birds. Canaries, finches, and love birds play with hawks, falcons, and eagles. Some preen each other, some chatter and sing together.

Perched on the edge of the nest is the fishing eagle, and he cocks his head, watching over the nestmates, and he can't be still for long. There's too many. Some cry out to be fed, some just call out distressed, others who are fighting, and the lone eagle responds to each one, sheltering and shading with his wings, preening others with his beak, stepping carefully so that none of the smallest or younger are trapped under his talons. Occasionally one of the birds will begin to climb from the nest - some even manage to fly out, though he is quick to take off after them, delicately catching them and putting them back. If you watch long enough, a great gull begins to help him, then a prim little owl, but even those he has to guide.