This fic is dedicated to the little sibling I never got to meet.
He knows his job is small... tiny really in the big scope of everything. He sometimes hears rumors about the Apocalypse and the Vessels (because everyone knows about them). And of course the faint angel buzz in his head that he blocked out centuries ago – he doesn't really need to hear it, after all, because he's perfectly content where he is and he feels no need for anything else – grows to a thunderous clamor that he can't ignore when Michael and Lucifer, the two brothers he never actually knew, fall into the Cage, the prison in Hell.
He shudders a little but figures out a way to block that out, too, and eventually things fall back to normal. Perhaps a little more chaotic than normal, because with Michael gone, all the angels, those perfect, obedient soldiers, find that Free Will has fallen into their laps when they weren't looking and they're not quite sure what to do with it.
But nothing changes for him.
His little domain is, in his opinion, the most beautiful part of Heaven. Maybe it isn't flashy, like the halls of Heaven's garrisons, or exotic, like Joshua's garden, but it is beautiful and it is his home.
The children in his charge have become his children, and he loves them. All those little boys and girls who didn't even have the chance to create a Heaven of Perfect Memories, so he creates it for them, because he knows exactly what will make them most happy. And as new ones come in, some crying, some frightened and bewildered by the Great Unknown, he wraps his soft wings around their small, small bodies and cradles them with his warm Grace until they've calmed. Then he lets them join the others in the sunshiny field of their joint Heaven.
And it is Heavenly.
Until the day.
Something is wrong in the air that day. He feels it even as he welcomes the newest baby, a little mite of a boy with a crown of dark hair who was lost in a miscarriage. The sweetness of the warm grass is a little too sweet. The warmth of the sun is too sharp. He doesn't understand, but he tries to hide his uneasiness and to pretend that nothing has changed even as a cold breeze (nothing is cold in Heaven) sweeps through the meadow.
Suddenly, something powerful tugs him, ripping him away from the little paradise he's created. He hears the brief cry of a child that is quickly snuffed out by the roaring winds that surround him, and he's terrified. As he's sucked nearer to the gates no, no, not there, please not there he sees bright specks flicking past him, and he knows they're his brothers and sisters and what's happening to us?
He has no more time to think because a particularly powerful gust catches him and pushes him out. And he's falling, falling, falling, wind whistling past him, and the terror builds, blinding him, consuming him.
But it's not for himself.
The little ones. What will happen to them when he is gone? Who will look after them?
And then there is pain. Horrible pain rips through him and he screams as he's burning, burning, burning, like a shining comet in the sky but comets don't fall, they fly, and he will never fly again.
And then he sobs aloud, curling in on himself as he streaks towards the ground. Towards Earth. Never towards Heaven, never again. Never towards his children. Never towards that green field covered in pure white flowers and filled with golden laughter.
He knows his job was small. But sometimes small is big.
He is in free fall now, his wings burnt and skeletal. The horrific odor of his own charred Grace makes him feel sick.
And what will they do all alone?
The blackness roars up and swallows him.
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