Exiles From Delight
We, unaccustomed to courage
exiles from delight
live coiled in shells of loneliness
until love leaves its high holy temple
and comes into our sight to liberate us into life
~Maya Angelou, Touched By An Angel
Disclaimer: I own nothing except what is mine.
Chapter Four
Sixty-seven stitches, a full bottle of hydrogen peroxide, four packages of sterile gauze and two rolls of paper towels later, Dev stepped away from her patient to survey the results. It wasn't anywhere near as good as a doctor would have done, but she thought it looked pretty damn good. The wound was definitely closed. And she'd managed to keep the stitches neat and even.
Mostly.
Which reminded her…
"Is that gonna scar?"
"No," Gabriel affirmed absently as he too examined her work.
"Oh good…no worries then." Dev looked down at her hands and grimaced at the blood on them. "Ugh. Time for another scrub down."
On her way to the sink, her stomach let out an impressive rumble of complaint and she instinctively looked to the digital clock on the microwave before rolling her eyes at her own forgetfulness. They had a generator to power the essentials—and the microwave wasn't anywhere to be found on that particular list. Shifting her gaze out the window, she eyed the light and shadows. The morning was definitely getting on (ten, maybe ten-thirty…she wasn't nearly as good at this as Pops was), and neither she nor Pops had eaten any breakfast.
And then there was their new houseguest, who had abandoned studying her handiwork in favor of studying her instead. At present, he was eyeballing her with the same sort of baffled scrutiny that one would direct at a particularly disconcerting puzzle.
"Are you hungry?"
Gabriel blinked, his expression immediately shuttering. "All living creatures require sustenance; I am no different."
Dev wrenched the handle and shut off the faucet. "You could've just said yes."
"I thought I had."
Jackass, she thought.
"Of course you did," she said. "Do you like eggs?"
"They are sufficient."
"How about sausage? Bacon?" She paused, frowned. "Are you even allowed to eat them?"
Gabriel arched a brow. "An odd question, Navi. Why would I not be?"
She finished drying her hands on the kitchen towel hanging off the hook suctioned to the side of the refrigerator and glanced back at him over her shoulder. "I don't know...the whole kosher thing?"
"Those laws are not mine to obey. I eat what I will. And bacon will do."
"Eggs will be sufficient," she parroted back at him, already pulling out pans, "bacon will do. Does anything ever actually sound good to you?"
"I do not understand the question."
Dev sighed and rolled her eyes. "Is there anything that you actually enjoy, Gabriel? Or is everything in your life just…adequate?"
Gabriel's expression blanked even further, rendering his face a stark study in lines and angles. "My life is my duty, Navi. The rest is immaterial."
She didn't believe him—not about the second part anyway. While she was sadly certain that he had little else in his life besides duty, she knew—knew—that it wasn't because he preferred it that way. More like, she suspected, he'd never had any choice in the matter.
But that was hardly something she was prepared to say to him.
"I guess that's one answer," she said eventually.
"It is the only answer."
She had no response to that, save a swift, non-committal, "Hmmm."
She set the pans she'd been holding down on the island, then turned and hefted the camping stove from the back counter and placed it beside the pans on the island so she didn't have to cook with her back to him. "Coffee? Would that suffice too?"
"You mock me."
"A little bit, yeah. And was that a yes or a no?"
"If you will."
Oh good Goddamn.
"Fine."
It wasn't until she had the stove lit, the coffee on and bacon sizzling away in a pan that she turned her full attention back to him, once more trusting herself not to crack him over the head with Grams' cast iron Dutch oven. And what she saw, now that she was really looking and not preoccupied by his bullheadedness, was a man who'd been through the proverbial ringer.
There was a shadowy bruise beneath his left eye and a swiftly healing gash high on the left side of his forehead. The skin was split just below his right eye, along his cheekbone. His jaw at the right hand corner of his mouth was swollen and deeply purpled, his lip split and equally swollen in that same spot.
And that was just his face.
Her eyes drifted lower, tracing over his torso. The top half of his chest, aside from the shoulder wound, was unblemished—due, she assumed, to the armor he had worn. But where that had ended, so did the smooth, pale expanse of perfect skin. There was, of course, the wicked slash that stretched from just below his ribcage on the right to just above his hip on the left. Beyond that, his skin was peppered with cuts and bruises and burns. The damage extended to his arms as well, and she even noted one mark on his left bicep that looked suspiciously like a bullet wound.
Whatever had happened between him and Michael, it had clearly been one hell of a fight. He looked...
Gabriel moved then, his wings flaring ever so slightly, every muscle bared to the chilly air shifting and tensing and he looked...
He looked…
Fucking. Gorgeous.
And wasn't that just criminally unfair?
This wasn't a new thing for her, this attraction. She'd long been of the opinion that Gabriel was about as perfect a specimen of maleness as she'd ever laid eyes on. The first time she'd found him waiting for her in Michael's place, she'd been seventeen and had nearly tripped all over herself.
Then he'd opened his mouth and the bud of a truly stupid teenaged crush had been well and truly nipped, his allure tempered by the fact that he was an arrogant ass.
But arrogant ass or not, she really needed to find him something to wear, because he was far too attractive for her peace of mind and she refused to spend the next few days harboring lecherous thoughts about the freaking Messenger of God.
"You are staring, Navi. And I fear you are ruining the bacon."
She jerked her eyes away from him at the same time that she yanked the frying pan off the burner. She dumped the bacon on a waiting plate and leaned forward to examine the pieces. "They're not burnt," she said quickly, guiltily. "Not really."
"Our definitions of burnt appear to differ greatly." Gabriel studied her through narrowed eyes. "What displeases you so about my person?"
How the hell was she supposed to answer that?
"What do you mean?"
"You are staring. What offends?"
"I…" Dev dropped her eyes, ran them over the countertop, the sink and then the camping stove. "Coffee's ready," she chirped, spinning around to grab mugs out of the cabinet. "How do you take yours?"
"Black."
Surprise, surprise.
"You have not answered my question."
She poured him a cup and slid it across the counter toward him before meeting his eyes. "Nothing offends and there is nothing displeasing about your person, Gabriel," and boy didn't that just sound all kinds of wrong. "It's just...you look like shit."
Gabriel's hand jerked, spilling coffee down the side of his cup. "Truly, you are too kind, Navi."
Dev grimaced and reached over to mop up the spill. "Sorry...I shouldn't have said it like that. I just meant that you look awful."
"Oh yes, that is imminently better."
There was that snarkiness again. She was tempted to tell him it looked good on him, but with as badly as she'd fumbled this conversation so far, she was pretty sure he would take it entirely the wrong way. "I give up. How do you want your eggs?"
"Unburnt."
Jackass.
"I'm gonna pretend I heard scrambled."
"As you will."
They were both silent after that—she fixing his breakfast, he sipping angrily at his coffee. Dev hadn't even known you could drink coffee angrily, but she figured if anyone could do it, he could. By the time she had plated his food and fished a fork out of the drawer, she was ready to try talking to him again.
"I didn't mean to offend you," she said quietly as she slid his plate in front of him. "I'm sorry if I did."
Her honest apology threw him, and she could actually see the anger drain from his face, leaving a thick, bone deep weariness behind. "Do not apologize," he said, sounding as tired as he looked. "I have done little enough to deserve the many kindnesses you have shown me this day," he picked up the fork and prodded at the food on his plate and a faint smile bent his lips, "even if you have burnt my bacon."
Two days ago—hell, two hours ago—if someone had told her she would be standing across her kitchen island from Gabriel, watching him eat a breakfast she had cooked him and listening to him toss out playful banter, she would have laughed in their face.
Now, it felt oddly...normal.
"Keep complaining and see what I do to your lunch."
His smile widened, spread all the way up to his eyes. "Perish the thought."
Dev couldn't help but match his grin with one of her own. "Shut up and eat your food before it gets cold."
In the end, he ate every bite. Even the bacon.
