Thank you so much to MSU82 for the awesome prompt! Your amazing! I simply loved it!
Protection he had said. Aid he had said. Helping he had said.
Raziel was seriously starting to doubt that now. Zachariah had always been jealous of him. Of all of them. He remembered it like it was yesterday, the way Michael had turned cold. The way he had went from the caring older brother he had become so comfortable around to the uncaring cold brother who he had been so afraid of that he had fled. Flew as fast as he could towards to gates, he just couldn't stay here anymore. It was no longer home and Michael was no longer Michael. He was a shell of his former self, a shell that had frightened Raziel to the ends of time.
Zachariah had found him just as he was about to 'abandon ship'. Told him that Michael was in danger. That he was going to get hurt should he stay and that he should go with him in order to save the older archangel. Raziel had only been a measly 2,000 years old and hadn't known any better.
"Mikey's lookin for me! Should I tell him where we are?"
Zachariah was very quick to stop him. Having froze in his tracks Raziel had to stop abruptly to avoid running into the older angels back. He spun around so fast that it made Raziel jump back out of surprise.
"No! You can't tell him! You must block off your ties to each other immediately!"
"Why?"
Admittedly it had been a strange request, one that Raziel should have questioned more, and would have gladly done so had he been older to know better then to let it drop at a single 'Just do it' from the suspiciously zealous seraph. But he was still too young to truly comprehend what was truly going down at that particular moment and let it slide.
Raziel wasn't moving nearly as fast as Zachariah would have liked, so he had grabbed the younger archangel by the elbow and drug him quickly down the path. The younger was surprised when they ran through a pair of rusted gates.
Out of the well populated parts of Heaven to a scummy, forgotten sector that held the strange feeling of dread. The angels there, the ones who walked past them anyway, were absolutely dreadful. Michael had been pretty good at keeping Raziel away from these parts. Even if it had been rather difficult no thanks to that certain fledgling.
Zachariah led him past falling apart buildings and graying angels until he was roughly shoved into a small hut type of structure. There was char marks on the walls as if something had singed them there. He stumbled forward at the rough movement and almost lost his footing. Zachariah sneered at him when he had turned around with a questioning look.
"Stay here and don't make a sound"
With that being said the seraph turned wing and left, slamming the door shut behind him. Never before in his entire 2,000 years of life had he been so lonely. He couldn't feel Michael like he always could. The song of his brothers and sisters were for some reason dampened within this room.
He was completely and utterly alone, something he never thought he would have ever have to feel like.
Months had passed. Months turned to years.
Zachariah had returned but he didn't return alone. No, with him, he brought Naomi. She simply loved the fact that she had one of the 'pampered little brats' to 'study'. Raziel didn't know what made him feel worse. Naomi's 'studying' or the fact that Michael had never come to look for him once. He knew it was a long shot at best, he probably never knew he was gone.
Raziel would never admit to it, but the more he sat there alone and in pain the more he wanted Michael. The more he wanted to at least peek at their bond. To see what Michael was seeing, to let him know that he wasn't dead. But he didn't have the nerve nor the strength. Sure he was stronger because of his archangelic grace but he was young and his body was greatly damaged no thanks to Naomi.
He was just, tired.
He couldn't say he had expected Michael himself to come looking for him, but he thought that he would have at least sent someone to do so for him. But nobody ever did.
There was bald spots in his wings.
Naomi had discovered a new spell that required angel feathers. He was apparently a means to an end.
If someone were to walk into this part of Heaven, they'd be sure to hear the whispers. Heck some even reached that of the brighter portion. You'd be sure to hear about the new fledgling that Naomi had been enjoying her time with. You'd even hear tell of a name, a name that hadn't been spoken in almost a century in fear of engaging the eldest's wrath. It was well known when he had lost his bond with that certain unspoken person. He had been overseeing the training grounds when it had happened and afterwards ordered them to redo the entire exercise once again and again and again until most of the soldiers fell to the ground. While Michael was fierce, he was never brutal. Until that day.
Raziel sat curled up in the opposite corner. Once pure white robes now a grayish hue. Scars littered his once tan robed chest. Days upon days of new banishment sigils written in his skin like it was an artists canvas. His once well kept curly locks hung in tangles around his face.
He never heard him coming. But he knew that he was no longer alone when the door slammed open with a sharp bang.
"Hello Razzie"
He wanted to tell Zachariah not to call him that. Only Michael could call him that. But he didn't have the strength to even do that, nor the nerve. Besides he wasn't so sure that Michael still had that right because he had never come to save him.
"Naomi says that I shouldn't, but I can't resist, your wings are embarrassing and as your older brother it is my duty to help you"
The way he said 'help' made Raziel sick to his stomach. He felt more then saw the elder seraph grab a handful of once magnificent silvery feathers and yank hard downwards pulling the feathers out by the roots. Raziel arched his back and screamed. He screamed a scream that fell upon loads of deaf ears. Those hands, hands belonging to the one seraph who Raziel would have nightmares about for centuries to come, grabbed handful upon handful of silvery feathers and yanked them clean off.
"Always so sheltered! So pampered! Loved Best!"
Raziel begged him through sobs to stop. Tears falling leaving trails on his worn tired face. But Zachariah was enjoying his pain way too much to stop now. Raziel was left no choice. He honestly didn't even think that it was still there let alone whole, but it was, and he opened it full force.
He reconciled his bond.
The angels in that sector all screamed in agony. Even Zachariah had to pause in pain until the blinding screech faded. Everyone felt it. The eldest and the youngest reconnecting. The pain and anger and fear all swarmed in the air.
It knocked the breath right out of Michael.
His grace responding to the pull and pain of his charge's. It was that instinct of wanting nothing more then to cradle the fledgling and tell him that everything was going to be alright, that fierce protective nature that made him a dangerous enemy at the moment. Following Raziel's screams was like following a freshly laid trail.
What Michael saw when he arrived made his blood run cold. His poor fledgling limp upon the ground as Zachariah of all angels stood above him twirling a single silver feather in between his fingers. Blotchy would be an understatement when it came to the condition of Raziel's once silver wings. A fresh glistening coat of blood covered most of his small wings. Tears no longer falling from his eyes but their tracks a clear indication of their presence.
"You. Will. Release. Him."
Admittedly, in a situation like this one, it would be less frightening if Michael were to start raging upon the startled seraph. Zachariah turned around ever so slowly. Raziel raised his weary head and smiled at the elder. Michael growled at the seraph until he was backed against the farther wall, away from Raziel's limp form.
"Hey... Mikey..."
"I'll deal with you later"
With a flick of his wrist Michael sent Zachariah away, his attention now directed to the fledgling he had thought dead for so so long. Quickly closing the space between them he knelt down next to the baby archangel, Raziel shakily raised his hands towards him in the universal sign of 'Hold Me'.
Never having to be asked twice by this particular fledgling, Michael gently clasped his hands under the blondes arms and picked him as softly as he could. Raziel slowly snuggled closer to him, his warmth, his grace, his very person.
"Oh Razzie... What has he done to you"
Michael wasted no time in rushing the small fledgling to the healing pantheon. Raziel was far too weak to be safe. He tried not to flinch and to ignore the excruciating screams that came from within the room that held the baby archangel as the healers (and Raphael) must have cleaned out the wounds on his plucked wings.
After what seemed like decades, Raphael appeared from his room.
"He is weak. So very weak Mike.. I don't know... I simply don't know.."
"Will he make it though"
It might sound a little melodramatic, but a fledgling's grace couldn't be as weak as little Raziel's. It could kill them. The only reason he had made it this far was a reason only Father knew. By all means, Raziel should be dead at this moment.
"He wants to see you."
Michael looked up startled. Raphael looked at him saddened. How had the two's relationship, one that made many jealous, become this torn and frayed. With a sigh, the healer shoved his older brother into his youngest brothers room.
Raziel looked so small tucked into the white sheets. Sometimes Michael forgot that he was still barely out of his fledgling years.
"Mikey?"
Raziel's brightened silverish gold eyes stared up at him. Michael couldn't stop himself from falling on top of his baby brother, holding him as tightly as he could with no harm as he sobbed into his shoulder.
"Razzie I am so sorry! I should have never made you feel so afraid that you would want to leave! What kind of brother am I? I should have looked for you! Should of looked for proof that you were really... I am so sorry!"
Raziel couldn't say he disagreed, but to be completely honest he didn't really care anymore. He simply wanted to sleep peacefully.
"Mikey, hold me and never let me go, stay with me and hold me and all is forgiven"
Michael couldn't pick him up and lay beneath him fast enough. Raziel gratefully snuggled into his warmth, for the first time in such a long time. Michael kissed the top of his cleaned golden curls as his eyes slid shut.
When Raziel had needed him with a shout of 'I'm Here', Michael had come.
They would get through this like they did everything, Together.
Once again! Thank you MSU82 for the amazing prompt! I hope it turned out like you expected!