He was not sure that love was possible for a beast such as himself, or what love would even feel like if it were possible. He knew that Loki had felt love before, had acted upon it, but Loki was a mask and not at all a real being. He was only a personality that Gabriel had conjured up from somewhere deep inside of himself.

Still, Loki had felt love. It was in the way he spoke quietly to Kali when he was cold with all others, brushed her hair away from her face, kissed her calmly, never included her in the terrible games that he played with the humans. He loved her with all of his soul and heart, but Gabriel had never felt such love.

Gabriel was Heaven's greatest weapon, and like gun powder, he was allowed to do nothing but wait or kill. He'd never allowed himself to be anything but a great weapon, and somewhere underneath all of his mischievous masks, he was still nothing but. Anger ripped through his being like an explosion, and when it did, he killed, maimed, and destroyed. Love wasn't part of the equation.

Still, he thought musingly, that the anger of an angel must be greater than the love of an angel. Or perhaps they were very similar after all.

They both included hatred, anger, passion, strength, greed, destruction, and they both sucked life out of the people who dared to act on them.

Looking at her now, Gabriel thought that it would be very hard to love Kali. She was beautiful, her dark chocolate curls framing beauty's incarnation, her eyes warm when she looked at him, or who she thought he was. Beautiful, yes, but she was destruction, death, and hatred. Gabriel had so much of those things in himself, he did not think he could love her. She gave him so much; sex, love, drive, passion, but he thought that he could give her more than she could ever hope to reciprocate.

Yes, he thought, the love of an angel must be something to behold. But he was not sure he knew what love was at all.

Kali turned her head to him, watching him with the hint of a smile. "What are you doing?" It was not a true smile; Kali never smiled. Not unless he'd done something to hurt her, and that was not truly a smile, but a grimace. A grimace that told him clearly that he'd pay later for what he'd done.

"I love you," he lied.

"I love you too." She was not lying.

The love of an angel must be something to behold, and if you measured Gabriel in how many people he loved, he would be a dull glow. He didn't know what love was, but he thought, maybe it would not be so terrible to love her, if anyone at all.

Maybe he liked hatred. Maybe he liked death and destruction. Maybe he liked her.

Or maybe, just maybe that was what love was.

Maybe that was why his father had left him all of those years ago. Maybe his love was so destructive that he could not contain himself, loving so many. If love is destruction and love is hatred, it must have been overwhelming. Especially when all of his sons and daughters in Heaven were weapons. Nothing but weapons. It must be difficult to love so many, and have no love in return.

Because weapons cannot love.

And Gabriel is nothing but a weapon. Still, as he watched Kali, he found that perhaps she was a weapon, too.

Careful precision, red lips.

Ruby pout, circles,

dark skin, calm,

eye of the storm, love

battlefield amour, Kali.

She was destructive, and beautiful, and maybe those were the same things after all.

And Gabriel was nothing if not destructive. If she wasn't lying about her love, then maybe, just maybe.

She could teach him how to love her ruby red lips, the dark circles under her eyes, her beautiful calm like an eye of the storm, because they all made up what he knew to be the reincarnation of love.