It was cleanup time. Both angels had flat out refused to clean up the other brother's pranks so their rooms were still a mess. Anything left out in the open had already been cleaned up by some other poor sibling that possibly hit the tripwire. Gabriel was in Lucifer's room, clearing up the paint, glitter, sand and whatever else he'd used while Lucifer was trying to dry out Gabriel's room and tensely remove the huge spider he'd placed in there,
"Joshua, what do I do with this?" He said, his body stiff and frozen in place while he held this huge tarantula in his cupped hands. Joshua looked over and his eyes widened,
"Where did you get that?" He asked,
"I made it on the spot, please tell me where to put it before it moves" Already the spider was making its way up Lucifer's wrists, "Quickly, I can't hold it for much longer"
"Uh" Joshua was stumped. He was trying to think where in the world it was from so he could place it there but Lucifer's unwillingness to stay still means he had no time to really study it. He had to take it off Lucifer. Once he had however, Lucifer didn't stick around to help him relocate it and took off. Joshua peered over it, trying to identify it from its markings. Luckily another bug enthusiast came along, "What spider is this?" Castiel took a look over the large dark body, peering through Joshua's fingers at the white markings,
"A striped-knee I think" He said, "What are you doing with it?"
"Lucifer made it to get Gabriel" Joshua replied, "Then he couldn't even hold still while I was trying to figure out what it was"
"Can I?" Cas gave a small smile as the spider was passed to him, Joshua also smiled. Boy he missed just being able to talk bugs with his brothers. He'd been a little busy with the garden that he hadn't had time,
"Hey Cas? Have you seen- AHHH!!" Gabriel jumped back on seeing the tarantula. It looked a lot bigger in the five year old's hands, "WHAT IS THAT??!!"
"Gabriel, please don't shout. You'll agitate it" Joshua replied,
"It's a tarantula" Cas gave a smile,
"Since when did they grow that big?" Gabriel replied, still hiding behind Joshua,
"Since always" Gabriel shuddered,
"Oh just put it on earth somewhere" He said,
"Where?"
"I'd love to put it in the bunker and see how Sam and Dean would react"
"Oh, they'd love to see it" Cas replied, "What do you think Joshua?"
"I think we should bring it back to its natural habitat" Joshua led Cas by the shoulder to heaven's gate to release the spider into the wild. As they came back, Gabriel and Lucifer had finished their cleanup and were tired. That's when their mother decided to go for a whole family picnic. Both older brothers whined when given responsibility to look after their younger brothers,
"Come on now, we should be able to do something together as a family" Their mother said with a sly smile as she knew they were just finished cleaning. Too bad, most of the younger angels were already getting excited about going to earth again. Michael smiled and nudged Raphael. Raphael too smirked,
"Mum's done that on purpose" He mumbled to his brother. As they headed down to earth, their father made vessels for any angel who didn't have one, sure Hannah was still Catherine, Cas was still Jimmy and Lucifer was still Nick but some like Joshua had never taken a vessel. They landed on a grassy hill, somewhere outside of Illinois. It was pretty remote so the younger ones could play and not attract the attention of humans. As they settle down together, the kids all split up. Lucifer just lay back on his back with his eyes closed, soaking up the sun, while Michael started to count. Gabriel joined the younger ones in their game while Raphael joined Michael. Once both archangels reached twenty, they opened their eyes and looked around, not a fledgling in sight, "Alright, here we come" Michael called out,
"Wait, let's just enjoy this moment" Raphael said, "It's been so long since it was quiet" Michael smiled. Despite the flat land around them, there were hiding places for everyone. There were a few trees that managed to hide at least four fledglings each. Michael and Raphael just went from tree to tree, pulling out fledgling after fledgling. Michael felt something grab onto him as one fledgling just divebombed him,
"Gotcha" Rachel smiled victoriously. Michael fell to the ground in dramatic fashion,
"Oh no, I've been hit. Raphael, save me" He called out and Raphael just laughed. Yep, you hear that. The archangel Raphael could laugh. This caused more fledglings to come out of their hiding place to add to the growing dog pile on Michael's back. What started as fake cries for help soon got pretty real as the weight piled on him, "Hey Raph, little help" Raphael was grinning widely at his older brother,
"Lucifer" He called behind him, not taking his eyes off this pile of about ten little bodies high now. Even Anna was there and she was about fourteen. Lucifer gave a sigh as his peace was disrupted but as he looked over, his smile quickly grew. Raphael decided to just leave Michael to it and went about finding more of his brothers and sisters. He noticed a few weren't really interested in the game of hide and seek when he noticed Joshua with a couple holding a wild snake. Samandriel giggled as the snake slithered up his arm, its tongue kept tickling his bare arms. Castiel was there too, trying to get Sofia to hold a bug he found,
"No" She said, pulling herself away from it, "You don't know where that's been" She squeaked loudly as another bug started to crawl up her arm. Cas smiled at that, gently picking it off her,
"Sofia, it's just a bug" He chuckled. As Raphael continued to look for fledglings, he stumbled into Gabriel. Gabriel was sitting under a tree with Hannah. She was attempting to get him to play with her and he was just too tired to do much. He was lying on his stomach and just let his little sister sit on top of him. Raphael plucked Hannah from Gabriel's back and put her on his shoulders,
"Hannah, help me find the others" He said. She smiled widely. Raphael is pretty tall for a seventeen year old. She looked across the fields,
"There" She pointed out a group that were still hiding. Raphael was smiling too,
"Then let's go" He jogged across. Lucifer opened his eyes as the clouds piled up, blocking the sun. Hael nudged him, pointing at the clouds,
"It looks like a lion" She said, pointing up at the unformed blob. Though similar in shape, Lucifer couldn't agree. He reached his hands up, shaping the air above his head and slowly the cloud moved and took on more of a shape,
"That's a lion" Lucifer said,
"Hmph" Hael lay down on the grass next to her brother, moving her own hands like he had and the cloud changed shape again,
"Turtle" Lucifer guessed before it was even formed,
"Nope"
"Oh Giraffe" Lucifer guessed as soon as she made the long neck. They continued forming cloud animals and as they did, Chuck looked to the sky, bringing a chilling northern wind. Rose smiled,
"What are you doing?" She whispered in his ear. She put a wing around the baby in her arms so he could continue sleeping through the temperature drop. Before long, the sky filled with dark grey clouds. Hael and Lucifer's game was ruined so they sat up to look around for something else when Hael flinched,
"What happened?" Lucifer asked before a delicate white flake fell into the back of his shirt. His shoulders went up immediately with a yelp in surprise. Before long, huge snowflakes the size of their thumb were falling from the sky, gently and delicately as if each were falling with a small parachute. All the kids ran out in it as it settled in their hair and melted into their clothes. Lucifer smiled at Hael as she jumped up to catch the biggest ones. Michael managed to crawl out of the dogpile as all of them were mesmerised by the snow, like they hadn't seen it thousands of times before. Now they looked at it through the eyes of a human vessel and it looked so much more beautiful than it had ever been. Castiel looked up at it, eyes wide in excitement. He looked back and laughed at his little brother as Samandriel had his head tilted back and his mouth open, trying to eat them. Hannah was picking snowflakes out of Raphael's hair and stared down at the ones that just seemed to disappear. The green fields became coated in a thin layer of snow and all the fledglings jumped around, pouncing on it as it was the first time they'd ever had it beneath their feet. Rose watched them all, her eyes wide in excitement, giggling to herself as these thousand year old kids frolicked in the snow like they'd never once seen it. Chuck leaned over to his wife,
"Happy anniversary" He said in her ear,
"Our wedding predates time itself"
"I like the human tradition"
"Me too. So you chose January 1st for our anniversary?"
"The start of every year. I'm not a romantic but I do try"
"You do" Rose kissed Chuck on the cheek, "And I love you for it" Chuck smiled and kissed his wife on the lips just as a snowball was thrown their way, hitting them both in the face since they were so close. By this point, the snow had risen and the couple looked up startled by the snowball. All their kids either dropped their snowballs or hid theirs behind their backs, pointing to others around them as the culprits. Chuck smiled and took a handful of snow, chucking it in their direction. The cries of excitement grew as their father joined in the fight. Rose was still nursing baby Inias but when no one was looking, she did throw a snowball or two. One landed squarely on the back of Lucifer's head. He looked up and she looked away, smiling to herself,
"Alright, who was that?" Lucifer got up and joined the fray. She chuckled and watched the warfare. Each one joining the snowball fight. She could see Joshua with Samandriel building up a snow bank to hide behind while Sofia and Castiel threw snowballs over it. Michael and Lucifer were hurtling fistfuls of snow at each other, Gabriel putting it down the back of Raphael's shirt. Anna and Balthazar used the trees to sneak up behind the fortifications of Joshua and Sam. Rose looked away for a second and heard squeals in that direction. She looked down as Inias woke up in her arms. He made little baby groans before his eyes grew at the snowflakes landing around him. His tiny hand reached up for one that was bigger than his own fist. He huffed breaths from his mouth as it curved into a smile,
"Now this is how I always remembered it" She smiled at the baby, kissing him on the forehead.