Flipped 3

Gabriel idly twirled his spoon in his bowl of soup, watching the broth swirl in flowing patterns around the polished silver. That was something he found odd about this Wonder Chef's personal collection of dishware and cutlery; all of it was store-bought or imported from some foreign craftsman. It wasn't like this for the Wonder Chef of his own reality, who had everything in his collection made of hand-crafted wood or forged steel. Nothing mass-produced or manufactured the modern way.

Caleb personally crafted everything according to Adam's specifications, from the forks and spoons down to the frying pans and cooking pots. The Wonder Chef claimed it made his cooking taste so much better than when he cooked on his own; Caleb just seemed happy to do anything that made the chef happy.

Not Caleb seemed to just buy whatever this Adam asked for with an air of annoyance that Gabriel read as 'Here. Now shut up and get back in the kitchen.' If his brother were here to see that, Caleb would have ripped the blonde imposter's head off for his actions.

He sighed and lifted a spoonful of soup to his mouth to sip at as he let his mind stew over his first meeting with Red Gabriel -and the several shorter ones after that-. Each time New York was attacked, Not Caleb would roll his eyes and glare at him like it was his fault and Gabriel would fly out to find the redhead and get him out of battle. Then they'd land on some neutral ground somewhere, like a remote rooftop or a park but not near manufacturing plants or warehouses. Gabriel learned what Adam meant when he got too close to one and Red Gabriel recognized the building for what it was.

A full volley of missiles and shrieks of rage later, the blonde found his flipped counterpart whaling away at the ruins of a chemical waste container with a metal pipe that was already badly bent, still screaming in an unholy fury over it leaking something sickly green into the dirt. Gabriel couldn't get through to him at all that day.

The other few days where he could talk to Red Gabriel just gave him more and more evidence that this redhead was nowhere near the mental and spiritual strength of his brother. And for the life of him, Gabriel couldn't understand why. Aside from the flipped roles and other cosmetic changes, everything in this world should play out exactly like their mirror images in his world. But Not Caleb was a coldhearted jerk and an ass, Adam was weak-willed and had no confidence at all, and Red Gabriel cared for nothing but spreading eco-terror whenever he showed up, blasting apart buildings that served overly processed and artificially flavored foods and gunning down people who gorged themselves on it or helped produce it. Either that or moping. Red Gabriel moped a hell of a lot, listless and gazing hopelessly at a city that gave him no joy. Gabriel even had him stay out to watch the sun rise, thinking that it would give him something to be at peace -with the way it made him feel so much better about things-, but the redhead just watched it impassively and then asked him to describe what breakfast tasted like.

This was a nightmare. Gabriel wished he could wake up from it soon.

"Any luck with finding a way to go home?" Adam asked as he pulled up a seat at the table with the blonde android, setting down a bowl of soup for himself.

"No. I've been stuck here a week; any longer and I'm pretty sure I'm going to go stark raving mad." Gabriel sighed, stirring his soup again before taking another mouthful. The chef watched him as he ate as well, and Gabriel uttered a little grunt of annoyance. "You look like you want to ask me something. What is it?" he muttered. Adam's little wince annoyed him more, but he supposed it couldn't be helped. The human was practically trained to be pathetically submissive to Not Caleb's temper.

"If there's a different Caleb in your world, does that also mean there's a different me?" Adam asked carefully.

"You're there. But," and Gabriel gestured at all of him the way he gestured at Red Gabriel, "not like this. The Adam from my world has more backbone than you do. He even fought against me when I was still with MasaTech!" He swirled the spoon around the bowl again, frowning. "This place is all wrong; the three of you are all wrong. Which defies logic, as I can see myself in Not Caleb and say I am wrong. It implies there was a change made to me without my awareness and now seeing a version of me and defining it as 'wrong' means that version of me is lacking that change."

Adam blinked at him, then rolled his eyes up thoughtfully. "Well, if something happened to you in your world that makes you see this world's version of you as wrong, then would making that change in this world's version of you make it right?" he remarked slowly, trying to get the logic out in his own head as he spoke.

Gabriel stared at him flatly before catching the words fully and processing them. Then he wrinkled his nose, thinking it out for himself as he sat back and gazed up at the ceiling. In some strange way, that actually made sense. Not Caleb was operating under Gabriel's personality prior to 'The Change'. Did that mean that there were similar changes that should have happened to this Adam and Red Gabriel that didn't, thus making them 'wrong' in his eyes?

"I wish my brother was here; he'd have figured this out on the first day and gotten back home in time to make dinner." he sighed in a mix of irritation and genuine longing, "I also wish I hadn't pissed him off by asking him what was the point of having his pet around." Adam perked up at the mention of dinner, looking a bit more like what Gabriel expected of the Wonder Chef.

"Your brother cooks?" the chef asked eagerly. Gabriel nodded, lower lip jutting out in a manner that was most certainly not a pout.

"Every chance he gets. He'd rather be in the kitchen with my world's Adam, cooking or baking or whatever, than in his office doing paperwork." the blonde android returned, "They'd come up with new recipes for Adam's restaurant just down the street. You know the one." He lifted an eyebrow when the chef shook his head. "You don't? But you own the thing!"

"Maybe that world's Adam does, but not me." Adam replied and sighed, hunching his shoulders pitifully, "Caleb says he can't trust me to stay alive by myself, so I never get to go out unless I have a bodyguard. I can't open a restaurant because he says there's no point in me making money when he's already got plenty for both of us. But I don't want to run a restaurant for money; I want one to cook and serve healthy and delicious food for people and make them happy." He sighed morosely. "It's always been my dream to have my own restaurant, but Caleb won't let me."

"That's stupid." Gabriel grumbled, folding his arms over his chest, "Not just stupid, but wrong! My Caleb would do just about anything for his Adam; it's like a fact of the universe!" He gestured wildly, angrily, and the chef ducked to avoid getting hit. "A Caleb that mistreats a Wonder Chef named Adam is a fundamental flaw of existence! That's not how the relationship between them is supposed to be!" he yelled in aggravation.

And Gabriel couldn't allow a flaw of that magnitude to continue; not when it was his nature to erase flaws in any manner he saw fit to do it.