Work Text:
If you don’t want to live in this world anymore
Hold on to your friendships bit tighter
And by their side, you, I promise
Will think of your demise no more
And when you’ve decided to end it
Your loved ones love harder, I say
If you come to love them, love truly
You won’t wreck yourself right away
“Men’s tears” by Neschastny Sluchai / "Unfortunate accident"
Thinking about 13x21 ending for a long time, you can understand why Gabriel’s death was... if not justified, then, in its own way, fitting and expected.
* * *
First things first: who exactly came back to us after going at Lucifer with a blade in hand and after supposedly kicking the bucket? Was is Gabriel really? Or just a semblance of him, a voiceless creature, tortured to the extreme, that fears touch and flinches from a mere mention of grace? Pretty sure it was the latter. We know that much.
But do we understand what exactly has changed over these seven years and has continued to change after his escape? What was left in Gabriel then, and what was forever gone? What had he truly had – even before Loki and hell happened?
The identity-less persona
The most obvious change is, without a doubt, post-hell Gabriel having little to no grace. And completely lacking the ability to satisfy his every whim in a snap. There weren’t only his powers that he’d lost, but his freedom and independence too: which, as we know, meant to him a great deal. Being able to make his own decisions, to shape his own destiny, to avoid dealing with things he disagreed with – weren’t those the reasons he left Heaven may centuries ago? Wasn’t it his grace that allowed him to make his aspirations real by swapping faces with Loki?
For his entire life grace and archangel powers have been his guarantee of being fine – with them, he can go to the other side of the world, away from an observant hunter or some other threat, in a snap. Just a snap – and he’s in the company of a /fake/ but very beautiful girl, ready to provide a detailed proof of just how awesome he is. A snap – and a perverted professor falls out the window and Gabriel gets a reason to be proud of himself for punishing evil once again.
After many centuries of being a Trickster Gabriel had literally built his identity and self-esteem around the things he can do. Performing miracles. Restoring the justice in the world. Enchanting and impressing hot ladies (the real ones – by his exceptionality, the fake ones – by the mere fact of his existence). That’s what allows him to smugly hit Dean’s shoulder and joke that he doesn’t see the wooden stick in his hand – the knowledge that it’s no threat to him anyway and that he can handle two dumbass hunters if he has to.
He’s a trickster with a power of an archangel: it’s basically a never-ending Vegas with bottomless wallet. And it’s been this way for a thousands of years. No wonder it goes into his head.
So who does he become when he’s been literally robbed? When Fenrir rips his shirt in the fight (he wouldn’t even get the chance to get close before!), when the portal in pretty telling manner closes in front of his eyes, all but turning into a mocking «dweeb»? Who is he, if not a powerless cripple that can’t even land without falling onto Cas’ legs?
(I still dislike this scene. Brrr)
Let’s not dig into the details of how have his trauma and torture added to his loss of identity. One thing clear: they definitely have.
The pointing that has no point
So, free from his captivity, Gabriel has no idea who he is.
Not a Trickster anymore: he’s cut off from his past as Loki, because his pagan friend-slash-enemy he perceives only as a reminder of how he trusted the wrong person and then went to hell. It’s unlikely that Gabriel’s comfortable with having spent centuries with a face of a guy who doomed him to torment.
Not yet an archangel: he’s cut off from his past as Gabriel, but that’s more of an old, scarred break than it is a fresh reason to get lost in himself. That was the most fateful decision he has ever made – to resign from his heavenly duties and leave his brothers’ quarrels behind. He hasn’t been an angel for a long, long time, so he can easily brush off Cas’ words about his responsibility for “his father’s creations”. Gabriel is used to believing that he doesn’t owe anything to anyone just because of his archangel status: not to God, not to people, not to his brothers, not even to the Winchesters. Have to emphasize: just because of the status. I’ll tell why he still went to the Other World and why was he defending humanity in front of Lucifer a bit later.
He just can’t consider his future at the moment: he’s thrown from hell to the bunker, from the bunker to Loki, then at the search for Lucifer and finally to the Oher World. I, personally, not only wouldn’t be able to sketch out my five-year plan, but brushing my teeth would consider a victory! So he’s not yet worried about what he would do when (and if) the Michael problem gets resolved. There’s no time, no time!..
I think he wouldn’t continue with the pranks. But also don’t think he’s just go back to Heaven. The path he’d choose could only be shown in time, but that’s the luxury Gabriel simply didn’t have.
And there is a mess in his present too: everyone suddenly wants something from him, and Gabriel has to get distracted to reply to them instead of taking a minute and thinking about himself. What does he feel? What does he want? How should he behave, after all: no one’s going to believe in the “righteous archangel” persona should he put it on, least of all himself. And he just can’t be Loki anymore.
The absence of his old self is not noticed by Gabriel right away: remember what I’ve said about his powers? And enchanting and impressing? The old Gabriel in no time would have figured a way to snatch half an hour of pleasure with Rowena. And this one doesn’t even comprehend what she wants from him: honestly, you’d have to be a complete loggerhead to miss these signals. And he’s just standing there, processing...
Sex is an old good way of making himself feel better that used to work before. To make sure of your significance and overall coolness. But now, after all these painful events, it’s “too little too late”.
So even though the eternal questions of “Who am I? What’s my place in this world?” are not at the top of Gabriel’s list, they are still present. He just doesn’t have time to get to them, even though he feels how old and familiar view of himself is crumbling down. And that the old idea of his life turns out to be meaningless and empty: he’s not good even for a Trickster, let alone an archangel.
Or maybe it was the contrary: he has just now found himself, and stripped down of his masks, he learns that he’s just not familiar with his true self.
One man, no man, no will
And so he exists in the world, as lost and faceless creature, all by himself.
Let’s rewind: how Gabriel used to live before his captivity? Did he have any assistants, friends? I suppose that even if he kept in touch with Loki, they weren’t close, it wasn’t really a friendship. More like a casual partnership, and even that for the time being. He didn’t take any assistants – there was no need, ‘cause he can do anything on his own and he can do it just fine. In order to keep his sanity, he creates some girls and a dog (I choose to believe that the pup was real, though). Besides that... Okay, for that let’s leave a fanfiction gap, though it is implied that there was no one of constant importance in his life. Saying that, I remember about Kali, who is his ex-girlfriend (and therefore is the romantic relationship that was over) and about other pagans – who would have been aware of the wings behind his back if they’d truly been his friends.
Conclusion: Gabriel lived alone. He hasn’t started a family, probably remembering about his brothers and how much of a pain in the ass relatives can be.
That said, deep down at heart he did look for unity and belonging with other people: I’ll go back to pagans for a second, because even though they weren’t his real friends, he still considered them important enough to try to protect them from Lucifer. Everything he did in the hotel just screams: guys, we go way back, just listen to me here, I simply want to help. I’m not the bad guy, I care about you, just trust me on this. Except they don’t, and by their death they convince Gabriel that he wasn’t worthy of their trust and that their blood is on his hands too.
There were also the Winchesters. Oh, these Winchesters!.. Really can’t tell whether he had any far-reaching plans in their regard in “Tall Tales”, but it was then when he took a notice of them. And in “Mystery Spot” he rushed into the battle to “save” Sam and convince him that Gabriel’s way was the only right one.
I won’t be describing everything that has happened between them there, but I’ll say that by staging all those Tuesdays Gabriel chose a very specific way of getting his point to Sam. The way which made Sam’s reaction to losing Dean change drastically. And Gabriel should have known Sam well in order for his plan to succeed. Not the pawn in the game of Apocalypse, not the gifted hunter – Sam Winchester. A human. A person. It can be partly explained by his trickster perceptiveness but let’s still admit that something in Gabriel reached out to Sam there. Something was looking for a way to connect and just wasn’t able to find it.
It’s even easier with Dean: “I see right through you, you know that? The smart-ass shell, the whole “I could give a crap” thing? Believe me, it takes one to know one.” What’s there to add? They are the same pole magnets and so they push off each other every time.
Gabriel is genuinely and humanly drawn to the Winchesters, aside from his Apocalypse plans and other shit going on in the world: all three of them are children abandoned by their fathers with an undue strain placed on them. What a kinship, what an affinity.
And still Gabriel pushes all of this away in order to achieve something that he thinks actually matters: preventing the End of the World. “There is a bigger goal in my life now, than to be their friend and ally,” he repeats the sour grapes story to himself. He sacrifices his attachment and his affection, locks his heart behind a lock so that he could do what needs to be done.
At the end of the day he decides not to die, but to reset both his feeling for the Winchesters and his obligations to them: in for a penny, in for a pound, it was obvious that having got his CD, Sam and Dean would want to use it with Gabriel, too. So hello there, this new life of his, in which he doesn’t owe shit to anyone!
And also the life where no one owes shit to him.
Who does Gabriel ask to prove that he hasn’t been left an orphan by his own fault? That he hasn’t cut himself off from the right way in life? Who does he expect to assure him that he hasn’t screwed everything up and that joining the Winchesters would only mean becoming a pawn in their game?
Loki.
Loki, who has already hit the reset button on Gabriel’s life, giving him a chance to start it all over. Loki, who many centuries ago, understood him. Loki, who will with no doubt agree to set it up once again.
When his hopes for the help are not only shattered, but turn out to be a total catastrophe, Gabriel is furious. He got back at Asmodeus for his pain, but, ironically enough, he tries to take revenge on Loki for his betrayal: he came to him in his hour of need and got backstabbed. It’s incomprehensible to Gabriel that in that hotel he was the first one to break the terms of their deal and that their relationship weren’t warm or close enough for forgiving something like that. I mean to say that when after the Elysian Fields Gabriel sought out Loki’s affirmation of his significance (“we’re friends, you’ll get me and you’ll help me”), Loki set things straight with no remorse (“the only thing that bound us together was our deal, but now you mean no more to me than a bargaining chip”). Loki’s act made Gabriel realize that he had no one to count on in the first place.
And with that painful realization he wakes up on Earth seven years later.
The old crutch, his angelic powers, is gone. His Trickster role’s too. He doesn’t believe in his own importance and there’s no one to convince him otherwise.
That’s why “I need you” from Sam shakes him to him very core: Gabriel has been desperate to hear that from just anyone, he aches for believing that there is some sense in his existence. That there way was a reason why he’s lived. And now he gets to hear those words from Sam Winchester of all people. From a person with the most pure, most unwavering faith he has ever met. It’s like getting recognition on your Chemistry project from a Nobel laureate. It’s almost a blessing to live.
Sam’s words allow him to pull himself together, give him not even the strength, but the confidence that he can burn Asmodeus and set himself free once and for all. That was a release of pure energy, which, sadly, is ephemeral on its own.
Charged by this energy, Gabriel joins Team Free Will. Not immediately, because he goes after Loki, but still, he joins them. He scrounges up a bit of grace. He helps them to catch Lucifer. He works, he performs the tasks no one other than him can do. But Gabriel still doesn’t do it for himself. He does all of those things merely because there is an immediate need for them, because if he doesn’t, the world that he cherishes and the people he cares about will choke on war.
Even if he tries to “earn” his place by the Winchester’s table (deliberately or not, not sure), he still places emphasis on things he’s capable of and not on who he is. “Take everything you need from me, just let me know I mean something to you too from time to time”. Must’ve been a practice adopted from Cas, huh...
It’s actually kind of funny how when he had plenty of power, he refused to help, but now, when his resources are almost drained, Gabriel is desperate to make his contribution. Nothing said, his timing was a little off...
Despite of this ongoing “trading” activity, Gabriel is still lonely and detached from others. He doesn’t begin to build a strong and long-lasting connection with the Winchesters and Cas: both because there’s no time for that and because he doesn’t know how to (years of being alone are showing). He’s lost the skill of making friends, he forgot how to be a friend himself and how to believe that you are genuinely and with no ulterior motive loved.
We all know this one: «If we want the rewards of being loved, we have to submit to the mortifying ordeal of being known». We have to allow to know ourselves if we want to be truly loved. To show ourselves as well, all flaws included. And Gabriel just can’t allow that to happen. What’s there to show, to expose – his weakness? His cowardice? His mistakes?
He’s unable to open himself in front of others, to trust them, and there’s no true, close friendship and affinity otherwise. It just doesn’t exist without this.
So after getting this energy boost from Sam, Gabriel alone can’t contain it. True friendship, a close spiritual bond, a family could hold this in, but none of them are present in Gabriel’s life and there’s no hope for them to come in the nearest future.
Tormented by his loneliness and isolation more than ever, Gabriel goes into the World of Apocalypse. He goes for the humanity, in which he saw the beauty and the light. Takes tentative steps towards being close with the Winchesters and with his fate, succumbs to the wind’s blow and leaves his home world unaware that he won’t ever return.
In that Other World Gabriel loses Sam. Just think of Gabriel’s face when one of the few people who needed him is gone.
(and of Sam’s face when someone he needed is also forever gone)
That was the last nail in the coffin of his already-shaky faith in himself: he couldn’t protect someone he cared about. There were people was going to be with – really be with - and he let them down.
Sam comes back to life, Gabriel gathers enough strengths to metaphorically slap Lucifer with hard truth about their father, humans and Jack (for which I’ll respect him forever). He seems to be living and working again, but on the verge of escape they meet Michael, and...
And having no support system for his entire life dooms him to his death. He doesn’t believe in his unconditional a value (“I’m good just because I am” is an incomprehensible thought to his mind). He has no purpose, no destiny and no fate which would justify his existence (there’s no place in the world for a Trickster nor for a weak archangel). He has no family and no friends who could pull him out of this pit of despair and give him the strength to live.
He is caught in this labour-intensive state from which you can only crawl out on your elbows – even if by an inch for a day, but to crawl, to crawl and to crawl. He has no time and no cause towards which he would move his feet just a little. Quite the contrary, his every mistake seems to pin him to the ground.
People don’t live like this for long. And people don’t live like this by themselves: take Sam and Dean for example. If not for each other, they’d die long ago. But every “please” from their brother gives them the strength to come back to life.
And our dear patient literally died because he was unable to continue living.
He ran towards death looking for a pain and suffering, familiar to him from hell. Maybe he thought that he can make up for his life full of mistakes with this grand saving gesture. Maybe he decided that Sam, Dean and Cas can take better care of the world than he ever could and that he can just throw himself to waste. Be a collateral damage. Maybe he just was dead tired from this all...
But in all these ideas Gabriel seemed to miss that it’s okay to change. It’s fine not to know who you are and what are you supposed to do. It’s only scary to always remain the same: I’m 20 and when I imagine that I’ll always be exactly as I am... God forbid. I want to grow. I want to become wiser.
“We all change, when you think about it, we're all different people; all through our lives, and that's okay, that's good, you've gotta keep moving, so long as you remember all the people that you used to be. I will not forget one line of this, not one day, I swear. I will always remember when The Doctor was me.”
«The Time of the Doctor»
It’s natural to feel alone and there’s nothing bad in changing your life so that it would accommodate something that’s truly worth it. Every human being needs another one.
And it’s so very essential to believe in the best. The bad day is always followed by a good one, which is then replaced by a bad one again. Change is the only thing that stays the same, and that’s the one rhythm we can always count on. As waves, as ebb and flow they rotate, letting us know that even the strongest sorrow and the scariest pain go away at the end.
“And I seem to have such strength in me now, that I think I could stand anything, any suffering, only to be able to say and to repeat to myself every moment, ‘I exist.’ In thousand of agonies – I exist. I’m tormented on the rack - but I exist! Though I sit alone in a pillar – I exist! I see the sun, and if I don’t see the sun, I know it’s there. And there’s a whole life in that, in knowing that that the sun is there”
“The Brothers Karamazov” by Fyodor Dostoevsky
So the Trickster may have had to die. But it was Gabriel who had to live.