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SUPERNATURAL POST 5x19 FIX-IT MEME
I would hereby like to declare an official
SPN 5x19 Fix-It Meme!
Here's how to do it:
1) Post a comment with some possibility for how to bring our Gabriel back.
2) Give other people's prompts your rendering in commentfic.
3) Clap your hands really loudly and say "I DO BELIEVE IN ARCHANGELS."
4) Pimp subtly so you don't spoil your flist:
no subject
Tragicomedy
...
There were a lot of reasons why they weren't there, and weren't missed, and weren't much thought of. They weren't warriors, had never been warriors, had never been strong enough to fight even in their prime. Had never had a great deal of *agency* even in their prime -- there was a reason they didn't show up so much in the myths.
If they'd faded less than some others it was partially because they hadn't had as far to go. Only partially, of course -- the other reason was that they could mostly still do what they'd always done, with slightly different window dressing. They were still useful, not necessary, but useful. (Among the metaphors suggested and rejected had been fertilizer -- "What, so we're cow manure?" -- artificial insemination -- "I'm going to pretend I didn't hear that" -- chemical catalysts -- "*You* may spend too much time in science buildings, but that's meaningless to the rest of us" -- and Cupids -- "I'm *really* going to pretend I didn't hear that".) They were a lot better off than gods whose job had been, oh, to steer the sun. ("Funny that the adoption of the heliocentric model made Helios lose his job.")
Ultimately, though, they were very minor goddesses from a very has-been pantheon. Oh, some of their relatives might make a big thing out of being remembered, but the shift to not being taken seriously had started *early*, and the being remembered? Half of that came down to the present through *Roman fanfiction*. ...Some of which they'd been involved in creating. Thalia refused to apologize for the whole Ovid thing.
Between some resentment of still being active and Thalia's caginess about her degree of involvement (if any) in various recent works of fiction centered on Heracles-by-Roman-name, the last conversation which could have turned into an invitation ended in Calliope being called a flute girl. You could get away with that with some of them, but not Calliope. That put an end to *that*. Anyway, half of them were busy already.
It turned out to be lucky for them. Take an event involving the gods, which is major -- historical -- and common knowledge, or at least not secret, and you get Clio coming back to Parnassus in tears, because she knows. She just knows, just like Calliope knows this whole apocalypse thing through the humans involved and their epic lives. She knows.
In hindsight the flute girl argument was a bad way to part. Gods grow back, if the roots are still there ("I don't think you should be allowed to use metaphors anymore"), but their family... well. Some of them, maybe. In time. If there is time. ("Of course if you relax the 'family' definition to 'descended from Zeus', we're probably related to at least half the mortal population of Europe by this time.") They gather on the slopes of Olympus and lament as they did for Orpheus, because it is the thing that is done when kin die. Even when the kin that matter most are still with you.
They agree to try to stay -- keep -- under the radar ("Calliope, that does mean you should keep at least, oh, a mile distant when *stalking people*"), and that at the very end they'll all come back, be together, go out together, because they're sisters and it's always been that way.
And then Clio goes back to the humans she's helping in building a weird, super-durable, kind of abstract time capsule (to be found by the planet's next sapient species or by aliens, whichever), and Urania goes back to haunting the world's telescope laboratories (because Urania apparently cannot imagine the world ending without a big asteroid coming into it somewhere). Terpsichore and Euterpe go back to whatever their Secret Project is (and how secret can a song-and-dance number be, even if it is codenamed 'Zombie Jamboree'?). Calliope goes back to stalking epic people. And the rest of them go back to being at loose ends. Sure, they could do their usual thing, but it feels weird to ignore the apocalypse.
Continued...
Re: Tragicomedy
Erato announces that instead of *inspiring* lyric poetry about the apocalypse, she's going to write some herself. She's matchless at inspiring poetry, but kind of sucks at writing it, so she ends up with limericks and at one point tries to rhyme 'blister' and 'fester'. So that leaves three of them (all vowing not to attempt to write anything personally).
Strangely enough, it's Polyhymnia's idea. Gods letting people down does tend to make her depressed and sometimes rather erratic ("The purpose of my *existence* is songs of faith and praise, I'd *like* to feel as if I'm not *lying* to people"), but it's still a surprise. Understanding the metaphysical basis of the birth and regeneration of gods is one thing, testing it is something else, even on an easy (relatively) candidate. It wasn't too hard to talk the twins into it. Calliope wouldn't let either of them follow her, not that Thalia especially wanted to, and everyday drama lacks a certain intensity.
Besides. They're always up for a good story.
###
The first thing Gabriel is aware of is that he remembers everything, and all of him is... present. Not intact, exactly, but present. Recoverable.
The first exterior thing he's aware of is the somewhat muffled sound of Italian opera. Wincing from that, he realizes that *everything hurts*, and he's sitting up, propped against something.
He opens his eyes, and realizes he's propped against an altar. Sort of. A plywood altar, wedged in between a stack of chairs and a metal cabinet marked KNICKKNACKS. Ah. Prop room. That partially explains the opera.
Then, finally, he notices he's not alone. Only a few feet away is a settee with blue satin tasseled pillows and two pretty blonde girls -- twins. They're wearing blue dresses cut identically, but different colors, one darker than the settee cushions, one lighter. They're watching him with eyes that match their dresses, and they're holding hands.
Gabriel recognizes the one in the lighter dress, with the lighter eyes (she likes tricksters, would sometimes follow him around and laugh at all his jokes), so he knows them both.
He'd ask what's going on, but -- that's not what he does. Instead, he says, "This must be your sister. Should I guess which one?"
"The one who got *very* interested in you when you turned out to have run away from your tragically angsty family and then tragically got killed by your brother right after choosing a side," Thalia says, straight-faced. "And there may have been tragic love. Was that *strictly* necessary?"
"The sister who you traumatized with your dual identity has probably cleared the hemisphere by now," Melpomene puts in. She raises her free hand. "Glorious messenger..."
"...And Loki," Thalia finishes. "Cognitive dissonance."
"Poor Polly. Couldn't quite turn her back on a herald angel, though." She half-shrugs, almost shyly. "Any more than we could."
Oh, for... "So you're telling me I'm now a tragicomedy?" Gabriel asks.
"A tragicomedy with religious themes," Thalia corrects with a smirk. "Though not enough to keep Polyhymnia here."
"And a good thing, too. It took all three of us to draw you back, even with all the roots intact."
"If he hadn't gone all tragic, he wouldn't have needed to be grown back." Elbow, eye-roll, shoulder-bump, hair-toss, and the sisterly dispute is shelved for the moment.
Gabriel wants to ask why they did this. Thalia likes him and his tricks, sure, and the disastrous turn his life has taken would certainly attract Melpomene like a fly to honey, but -- the muses don't do this. They mostly don't do anything. They watch people do things. They talk about people doing things. They inspire people to create things, but usually not anything substantial. This? "I didn't know you were into resurrection."
"We're *not*. You're... we..." Thalia waves a hand wildly. "*I* don't know. Uh..."
Melpomene rolls her eyes. "As soon as you had the basics, you accessed the infrastructure of your annoying--"
"--And tragic--"
"--Family, to renew yourself. We just regrew the trickster part of you -- the god part, that grows back -- so you had somewhere to stand to do it."
That... works, actually. He thinks. "Regrow. So that makes you... fertilizer?"
Continued...
Re: Tragicomedy
"Nonexistent?"
"...*Limited*."
They rise as one. "There's nothing special about this place," Thalia says. "Not for anyone but us, at least. I expect you can lie low here as long as you like."
"If I don't mind opera."
"I suppose there is that. We may be around."
"Or we may not. It depends."
"But we will catch up... after."
"If there is one."
After another quick exchange of looks, they each offer him their free hand. Gabriel thinks of refusing the help, is reminded again that *everything hurts*, and accepts the tug to his feet -- and more. They leave him sitting on a settee with blue satin tasseled pillows in the prop room of some theater, listening to Italian opera.
They didn't have a lot of power to share, and it's nothing like Grace. Mostly what they have to give is essentially the same inspiration they give to humans. It *does* lend strength, and it *will* help him recover, but it also leaves a nagging urge to write both comedies and tragedies.
"Convenient," he mutters, and sits back for a more thorough assessment of the healing yet to be done.
###
The other reason they didn't turn up much in the myths is that they had a lot to do with writing them.
It's always the quiet ones.
---
(Fine. There it is. Now maybe I can get some homework done.)
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