He calls himself Gilbert after he Falls because: it feels right. Is there any other reason to do something like that? He Fell on a whim, after all, why not do everything else that way, too?

Or at least... this is what he tells himself. Better to indulge in comforting denial than admit he's more complex than others think he is. That he isn't stupid. He plays stupid better than anyone would suspect, wears it like a lie. Like a lie.

But: Gilbert. It's a name. It'll do. He'll need a surname at some point, he supposes. Something to worry about later.

Another feather drops to the ground next to him. It was probably, he reflects, the fourth round of shots – or maybe the stranger he kissed behind the bar, open-mouthed like something a man can fall into. Maybe it's the act that he's forgetting what God looks like, or maybe he's forgetting God because he lost another feather. Doesn't matter. All that matters is the way it shines between his fingers, like a beam of light.

He twirls it about between his fingers. Back and forth and back again.

When he first Fell, he tried crawling into churches, curling up in the pews, and listening to the soft murmur of prayers. He was a holy thing, once, he insisted to himself. To himself because: nobody else would listen. Nobody else would care. Something like grief wrapped itself 'round his bones.

"I'm an angel cast down from Heaven," he murmurs to himself, as if it mattered. He didn't really 'Fall,' technically, because the term refers to those who decided to ally themselves with Lucifer so long ago, but the human languages lack a word for the process through which an angel is exiled from the heavenly plane. So 'Fall' will have to do. He repeats his words again, for good measure. "I'm an angel who got kicked out of Heaven."

Then he varies his words, that makes it easier somewhat. "I'm an angel that got kicked out of Heaven. The tribunal found me guilty, all right?" he whispers to himself. "Dishonorable discharge."

And maybe a part of him wishes he'd jumped, because that would have been braver than being pushed, but the result is the same.

"I was too awesome for them!" he says, louder. A man on his knees in the front of the chapel shushes him. Gilbert's eyes widen, and while he does not apologize, he does lower his voice.

"Yeah, way too awesome for Heaven."

And anyway, he's not really an angel anymore, can't really call himself one. He's just... human, sort of. His feathers have all fallen away, at least. His form has been squished and stretched. He's not water and earth, though, not born of mud and God's hands. He's just something that looks like that. He doesn't have a soul, after all, that's the tricky part. Even the angels can't just manufacture one of those, and trying to cram something like that into a new vessel? Even a human-shaped one? Well, that would just be rude. Gilbert doesn't understand the process, really, but that's okay.

Best he can tell, he's stripped of wings and teeth and certainty and purpose. He's smaller. He feels almost blind. And like he has poison in his cells, the inevitability of death, one day, some fifty or sixty years out.

There's a space in his chest where he feels a soul should go. Still, this is better than the alternative. They could have unmade him entirely.

But his body feels new. He has shadows like bruises beneath his red eyes. He sees a shock of silver hair on his head. He has no idea which clothes to wear.

"Stuck here with nothing," he grumbles to himself. "But fine, I'll live here!" he shouts to the cross, to the sky, to the flickering of a candle, to all the things he still can't help but see God in.

"I'll live."

This, too, is very human.