"You'd say the same for the pleasant ones, I'll bet," Gabriel grumbled, rolling his shoulders and glancing back up the path. "As we go. I could make something we don't need and then it'd just be a waste. We'll see how the path goes first."

It also meant that he could gauge how long they needed to last. He'd managed to actually control that, with some of his latest constructs. He'd needed time-delayed fade-aways before; they were useful things. "Who's going first?"

[ooc: I think I'll go with a minor flash of a proxy and the sunlight, since they're not new info he'd want to comment on. Otherwise, sounds good!]

"Canaries first." Gabriel waved her on ahead before following. Even as 'easy' as the first section was, Gabriel was still puffing by the time they got to the switchback. He'd also pulled his goggles on, because the sun reflecting off the stone had gotten to be a nuisance on his eyes.

He paused and leaned against the cliff as Re-l moved across, grateful for the brief rest, but was already searching for good cracks in the rock. There was no way he was going to manage to get across that narrow a ledge without help; it was just as well he didn't have a thing about heights.

Except that he kind of did. Coming down the cliff on the other side, he'd made the mistake of actually looking down. The realisation that he knew exactly how far it was, and that such a fall would make his human body go splat like that unfaithful dick he'd punished the first time he met the Winchesters in person, had made him shiver.

So he resolutely didn't look down. Instead he picked out three different places in the rock, evenly spaced within reach of each other; then he snapped up a trio of steel rings, embedded in the rock not far over where his head would be, without stopping to overthink it. Simple, effective. He sidled across the edge, pressing himself to the cliff and using the rings to steady himself until he was across, keeping his gaze up.

[ooc: okay, I know it's the last scene and all but it makes me want to watch it already. xD Just wish I had the Internet to dl stuff.]

Gabriel shook his head. "Steel's easy in a place like this; metal particles are everywhere in the rock." Still, he hadn't exactly put much into it, not enough to make them last--when he glanced behind, the first ring was already crumbling slowly. He'd timed it just right.

So he was feeling pleased with himself as he examined the track. "Steps might be a bit much," he said regretfully. It was a long path; he could only imagine how much that would take out of him, and this was the wrong time to get hit with another migraine. "But I can ..."

He frowned for a moment and then leaned against the wall to take a look at the soles of his boots. They were worn, grubby as anything, and a quick feel confirmed that the traction had been lost in both. Well, he could solve that. At first he didn't bother with a snap, and instead just laid his hand across the rubber, but when nothing happened he frowned and did it the other way.

This time it worked. Well, damn, that was a tad inconvenient, if his constructs actually relied on the fingersnaps. Used to be he only used 'em because they were annoying, irreverent and just the right kind of pointed showiness. With a shake of his head he slide down the wall to crouch and gestured at Re-l. "Lemme see the bottoms of your shoes; I'll traction 'em up a bit for the trail. The breaks are easy--I just need to make another foot or so of path to stand on. They only need to last a minute, tops."

He was, the archangel realised, going to be making more things in sequence than he ever had before on this trip. He only hoped he could hold out that long, even as small and simple as these things were.

Somehow it was that sentence, 'I don't know what else we might need the power for', which stuck in Gabriel's head. It implied that he shouldn't use it for one thing if they could use it for another, rather than simply holding back as much as possible. Choosing what to use it for, instead of using it for anything he needed.

Keeping his power in reserve was a foreign thought. It wasn't something he'd ever needed before. It wasn't something he'd ever considered before. And yet that's what he'd just been doing, wasn't it? Using his constructs sparingly, because his energy was limited. And the reminder of just how powerless he still truly was made a chill run down his spine.

He frowned a little and then snorted to cover his unease at the thought that he might not get all his powers back at all. "Somehow I doubt you could manage to throw this." He motioned to himself mockingly. Sure, he'd lost weight over the past week, they all had, but he was still bulkier than she was. "Especially on this kind of field." The archangel shook his head. "I'll manage. Rock is pretty basic."

Gabriel's head was aching before not much longer; the goggles protected him only so much from the sun's glare, and he kept his face down to protect it better. He had to lean on the cliff, panting, but continued doggedly onwards despite the burn in his legs.

When he heard Re-l's feet hit the track he leaned his shoulder against the cliff so he could turn, awkwardly, to look at her. He grinned weakly. "At least I can say for sure your boots aren't going to fail on you as badly as your timing."

Truthfully, it was as much the sheer exertion of climbing the trail was that exhausting him as the use of his power. Then again, his head was ringing slightly and he couldn't tell if it was the sun or the fatigue or how ever many steps he'd made to get this far up.

He hesitated for a moment, but then nodded. "That would be nice," he admitted, and this time the exhaustion was plain in his voice. At least the track was wide enough for a sit down, not all that far along; when he made it there he slid down the wall to sit without even taking his pack off.

"The Workers are probably just goons," Gabriel said, taking deep gulps of air and blinking rapidly in a futile effort to keep the buzz out of his ears. "As far as they know, maybe the landscape's not that difficult. Or they can't afford a guide, or they think this'll help us remember, or whatever. As far as the Caretaker's concerned, pretty sure he's just playing with our heads.

He stretched out his legs, letting them hang over the edge of the path, and leaned his head back, resisting the urge to close his eyes. If he'd only known what Re-l was thinking, he would have laughed. Humanity was what made all the difference. That was why both the forces of Heaven and Hell used Earth as their medium for war.

The nudge actually snapped Gabriel awake, and he pushed himself up, blinking the sleep away. "Right," he muttered, wincing a little at the mild throb that had settled into his temples. "If they don't have a fully-staffed five-star hotel waiting for us there, I'm going to smite someone."

At least the rest had helped. Not that Gabriel felt energised, exactly, but he felt better able to keep going.

He wasn't sure how far it was up the track when he snapped up his third stepping-stone and a wave of dizziness swept over him. He swayed, his vision burning white and gravity turning around him, but he simply could not tell which way was up. Or where the edge of the path was.

The sensation made panic stab at him, and he gropped desperately for a handhold in the cliff.

Gabriel gripped her arm and exhaled slowly, trying to take control of his own breathing. He laughed and the sound was brittle.

"I don't think I can, either." He wasn't exactly talking about being dragged dizzily across a gap in the path. With a light thud he leaned his head back against the cliff, blinking as his vision slowly settled. "How far do we have to go?"

If he was lucky, the cliff would be jagged enough there to let him sidle his way across without any constructs necessary. He let out an involuntary sigh of relief; if it had been another gap he wasn't sure what they would have done.

The archangel gave her a bright grin, the sort that comes on the last fumes of energy. "I knew you cared." Then he sobered again, shaking his head. "Did you see some of those gaps? There's no other way I could've gotten past those."

"I'd say 'backatcha', but I'm pretty sure I wouldn't mind some part of that," Gabriel said with a smirk. He took Re-l's hand, but used the cliff-side as much as her help to lever himself up. When his head whirled he stopped, leaning against the rock and breathing deeply until the sensation went away.

"No problems there," he muttered, rubbing one temple, and then followed her up the track. Unlike the woman, he very staunchly did not look down over the side.

Gabriel stopped about where the track began to narrow to see how Re-l went and watch where she put her hands, squinting through his goggles and the sun's glare. He should be able to manage, he decided, as long as she was right about the handholds; he was a bit bigger and would stick out more, but if he kept close to the wall it wouldn't be much of a problem.

The pebble clattered over the edge and Gabriel just managed to keep his gaze from following it, jerking his line-of-sight back up. Instead he saw Re-l, and though he couldn't see her face he could see the tension in her back, the quiver in her muscles. Fear.

"So what's the whole thing with 'permission to sleep beside you', anyway?" he asked casually, leaning back against the wall. "I mean, it's not like we were in a bed. It was a freaking rock." He wasn't trying to needle her. Well, he was. But although most angels were created fully-formed, and although they had certainly never been created with a fear of heights, the cupids in particular had tended to get over-emotional about things. And for one or two, that did manifest as fear.

Not recently. That was a long, long time ago; before the Fall, before humanity, back when Creation was new in all the ways that mattered. But that wasn't the point. The point was, in those rare one or two who had tended to cluster in suns instead of flitting about the cosmos taking in their Father's Creation with awe, Gabriel had distracted by talking--as far as angels had 'talked' back then, before language--about everything and nothing until they were too distracted to be afraid.

The memory made something pang in his chest. And so he kept talking, almost as much to distract himself. "Did you get all snarky if someone lay down just a little too close to you on the sand? Dad, I hope you don't have a guy. Most couches really suck with the whole 'damaged springs' thing, and I pity them if they were relegated to that every night."