Interesting discussion! (Edit: My apologies for rambling below. This is a subject I love a lot and have many fond memories of so I'm inclined to ramble when I'm excited and want to share things!)
I feel a bit like the outlier here with having gotten to know several when "off the job" so to speak. Also... I'm still not quite sure what people mean when they're talking about "the fall" or being a fallen angel... Perhaps I have fought in too many wars in general to be able to narrow down to a specific one that everybody seems to be on the same page about. :/
Michael, I know him as "baby brother Mikie." Gabriel too, though Gabby's younger than Michael. I know and we [of my group of brothers and family] considered Gabby the baby of the family alongside Mike (even though those two are still one of the oldest angels around compared to nearly everybody else outside of our family group). Rafael is our dad, Jophiel (Josie) our mom, Haniel and Rainel our aunts (Good Lord don't go up against Auntie Hanny E_E;; ), Sandalphon and Sarchael our uncles, and Metatron the deceased uncle that became corrupt (he "fell" I think you call it?) and BOY was I glad to finally do him in after all the subtle sabotaging he did all those millennia. Meta learned too much from "dear uncle Luce," that he did. Speaking of Uncle Luce... He certainly made our family reunions extremely awkward....... *shudder* Glad he's gone now.
I ...really don't know what it's like apparently to relate to ones like Michael as anything other than an older brother who saw him grow up from a little fluffy-winged baby. I'm very glad he can be serious and stern when on the job. The way I know him best would've had me and others in my position swearing up and down that he is an incurable prankster who is far too fond of jokes, mischief, and doesn't seem to know when to stop with the rest of us. Seriously, it's not that uncommon that we chase him around the place trying to get a whack in once his prank went off with a messy bang. And if anything goes wrong, the first name on our lips is "MICHAAAAAAAAAAAAAEL!!!!" while he sometimes has to say "It wasn't ME this time! o.o" Good Lord, I'm glad he grew out of that teenager fascination with the "make things go BOOM" side of chemistry. He's very good at being a chemist now and doesn't see a need to explode the laboratory all the time, much to our immense relief. If we were human, the cleaning and repair bills would've been sky-high.
I remember our group of 10 siblings went like this: Uriel, Zadkiel, Raguel, Raziel, me and my younger twin Azrael, Chamuel, Jeremiel, Michael, and then Gabriel. Mom (Josie, or Jophiel) and her two siblings Haniel and Sandalphon (Sandy's the oldest with Hanny after him and Josie the youngest of that bunch). Dad (Raf, or Rafael) and his older brother Sarchael and twin sister Rainel. From Auntie Hanny I have as cousins: Ariel, Ozphmael, and Zanemael. I have more family than them but I'm just including the angels this time, not the demon cousins that Sarchael had as children from his demon husband. "Uncle Luce" was more the ....uncle of my grandfather on my dad's (Raf) side if I remember right... Way, way older than everybody else when we finally dealt with him. Metatron had been dad's older brother before we dealt with him.
My coming back into my memories in this human life was rather funny looking back. Damn can I read Michael well. I know it's a rule that you ain't supposed to tell a member of your family that you're related if they're in a physical human life and don't remember yet. They have to figure it out on their own before you can finally relate to them as family members once more.
I was wracking my brain trying to understand WHY certain angel names were so bloody familiar, to the point they had very distinct family relations feels to them (like one was clearly the older brother, while another was clearly the younger brother, and another was clearly a father or an aunt, etc.) Suddenly I noticed that Michael was fidgeting in my peripheral vision. I had asked him to hang around to make sure my home was safe from any spirit invaders. But it was the fidgeting that caught my attention and a distinct...guilty but trying to hide it expression on his face that immediately aroused my suspicions. I knew in that moment I had seen that face SO many times before, and ALWAYS when he was trying so hard not to admit a truth and thereby lying by omission the longer he went without saying it.
So I asked him if my suspicion was true that he was my younger brother. His guilty, furtive look increased and he looked like he was not able to say anything. It suddenly came to me that I had to say it as if it was the truth in order for him to conclusively confirm or deny my assumption. So I said to him, "You ARE my younger brother." Then his face split with a wide smile and he looked so bloody delighted and hugged me. He said, "I thought you'd never figure it out! Welcome back!
" I jokingly admonished him for being so bad at hiding a secret and he protested in that he never wanted to keep it a secret but it was against regulations to tell unless I had already figured it out. He was gleeful, almost over the moon, now at being able to admit our relationship and wanted to get right into where we had left off: teasing the hell out of each other.
Even now, when I think of Michael, I don't think of an "awe-inspiring militant general who kicks a lot of butts in battle." I think of his playful, mischievous, grinning face as he watches his prank go off just as he imagined it, thereby setting him up for a REALLY BAD pun at the victim-of-the-prank's expense. That always, always, always is followed up with a prompt "MICHAEL!!!!! GET BACK HERE!" while Mike races off and the angered victim gives chase. Mike swears up and down that all the pranks he does on our expense is him letting loose from his job when off-duty. Apparently, I've known him in this way for far too long that any mention of how he is while ON his job seems weird and strange to me. Like a whole 'nother person entirely.
I have plenty of funny stories to go around for everybody that I know. Dad the absent-minded scientist who has a literal compulsion to heal others, is a book-obsessed maniac (My term for him and Sarchael.
B.O.M.s! Boy you should've heard their freakouts when the Library of Alexandria was going to burn!), and an avowed workaholic. Mom the artsy, beautiful, and gracious one who somehow knows all your bloody secrets without you saying a freakin' word and just sees it and knows it and doesn't say anything until you come out and admit it finally and she just smiles and nods like she knew all along (of course she did). Uriel the utter emo workaholic (my shorthand for "emotionless person" or those who seem emotionless on the outside) who is a calm and caring, gentle person to those he is closest to and will always be there to hug a younger brother so they can go back to sleep after a nightmare. Zadkiel the badass, zany thrill-seeker, the "cool older brother," who has quite the secret fetish for BDSM and being dominated in the bedroom. Raguel the personable, charismatic and friendly as hell jokester, who is in a loving mate relationship with Raziel and has been so since they were very young. Raziel who varies from being another prankster in his off-duty time, to a frustrated emo from having to play charades for the rest of us to guess at what information he wants to tell us but isn't allowed to actually SAY to us due to his job's limitations. Me the creative eccentric who would much rather live in the sky than set foot on ground, and didn't really have too much ambition for all that government ruling stuff but I had to do it anyways. My twin Azrael (whom I swear took all the government ambition allotted for the two of us while we were still in the womb! Not fair!) who can be an emo workaholic (he was so bad, we had to force him to take vacations, seriously!) but is a wonderfully kind gentleman that is sweet, caring, and oh-so compassionate to others in pain, especially those who are dying and afraid and need to be comforted and reassured that death is not a bad thing, not scary, and doesn't actually hurt in the end. Chamuel the flirt who likes to get it on as well as is one of the infamous "Troublesome Foursome" as we've come to name the youngest four brothers due to their extreme dedication to fun, mischief, pranks, and jokes on the rest of us. Jeremiel who idolized Jack Frost [aka the Personification of Winter] and when he's not one of the Troublesome Foursome, he is a cool, sweet guy who always has your back. Mike, as I've said much about him before, he's always the goddamn instigator of the pranks and passionately in love with and devoted to his mate. Gabriel is a tiny, adorable cutie-pie who knows his best weapon is his cuteness so he plays it up, and he is extremely proud of being the inspiration behind "Puck" in Shakespeare's "Midsummer Night's Dream." Literally if you ask him he won't shut up about it. (And even if you don't ask him for that matter.) The "Gift of Gab" is well named since we've always figured it meant the "Gift of Gabriel" aka, talk a lot!
Then there's my other relatives as well. Uncle Sarchael who is cheerful and funny, friendly but still clearly a book-obsessed-maniac (B.O.M!
) like his little brother Raf, even if he is (thankfully) not a workaholic like dad is. Auntie Rainel who is headstrong and passionate but quite committed to social justice causes and loves to tease the hell out of her younger twin brother Raf. Auntie Haniel scares the heck out of me and all the others sometimes. She is committed to the defense and protection of women and those identifying as feminine, and has her motto of "First warning I take an ear, second warning I take the other one. Third warning I take the head." Her ear collection is impressive! Nobody messes with Haniel and her cleaver. NOBODY. Michael minds his ears around her and even he will pale and scram whenever she takes out her cleaver. She does have an awesome blunt sense of humor though and is quite good at teasing other people. Just don't get on her bad side!!! Uncle Sandalphon is quiet and definitely an emo, though he is gentle and very much a workaholic and shows his softer and happy side only with those closest to him. Cousin Ariel is a blast to hang around with, doesn't seem to have much of a filter when she talks, and always loves to go barefoot with twigs and leaves in her hair from hanging out with the animals. Cousin Ozphmael is more shy and timid at times, but can be studious and wanting to be responsible when he can even if he is rather endearing in how he goes about it. Cousin Zanemael is cool and laid-back, and very artsy with a love for monochrome and grayscale artwork. All my cousins are younger than me by the way. *fond chuckle*
Even still, all the ones I've mentioned are extremely old compared to any other angel around. My thinking of some as "younger" and even "child-like" is more my perspective since I remember seeing them grow up from being little babies. The old adage is true that if you saw someone grow up, it can be difficult to separate the adult they are now from the child they had been before.
Anyways, again my apologies for rambling. I love sharing these wonderful memories and they make me smile whenever I go over them. It's even more fun to talk and relate to my family again mentally and with their frequent check-up visits to see how I'm doing, if I need more protection from any spirit attacks or the like, or even just to chat. I have way more stories to share, even if Mike is uttering cute whines about me emphasizing his prankster traits instead of his "cooler and way more badass!" warrior traits instead. *snorts and grin*