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011. Red

Aziraphale looked at the stain of red fluid at the ground, trembling slightly. He could almost hear it crying out to the skies, calling for justice to fall upon the one who had spilled it.

He knew blood, of course. He couldn't have lived so many years on Earth without ever encountering blood, mostly animal, but sometimes human blood, too, when the kids fell down and injured their knees or something like that. However, that was different. Wounds he could deal with; they were a part of life. But this...

This was the blood of a man murdered. And it wasn't right.

Aziraphale felt ill.

Suddenly he couldn't take it anymore. He knew he should have stayed, should have been there for poor Eve who had just experienced a horrifying loss, should have been there radiating comfort and warmth. However, at the moment he was hurting too much himself to comfort anybody else. How could have Cain done such a thing? They had been brothers! They had loved each other! And now beloved Abel was dead, dead and gone forever, and Cain was sent out to wander the Earth, cursed wherever he went.

It just couldn't be possible. He had watched the boys from their very childhood, had watched over them and looked after them. He'd taken delight in their first steps, both of them, and led them away from danger as they'd run in their games, never allowing harm to come upon them in their play. He had been their guardian angel, yet when he had been most needed, he had failed them.

Unable to bear another moment of looking at the stain of blood on the ground he spread his wings and took off, heading up towards the sky, a scream of pain trailing after him as his tears shone in the sunlight.

Gabriel shook his head sadly as he looked at Aziraphale's broken form. The young angel lay in his bed, asleep, traces of tears still staining his face. He had been in a really bad shape when he had arrived. It had taken a lot of effort from both Raphael and Gabriel himself before he had calmed down enough to actually go to sleep. Even now his sleep was rather restless, and he kept tossing and turning like in the grip of a nightmare, murmuring quietly to himself every now and then.

A hand was placed on his shoulder and he turned his head, looking at Raphael miserably. He didn't have to say anything, the other understood. Immediately he was pulled into an embrace. Resting his head against Raphael's shoulder, he sighed. "I wonder," he said quietly, "I wonder how many disappointments it will take before Aziraphale no more agrees to love anything that might cause him pain."

"I'm sure he's stronger than that," Raphael said comfortingly, holding him close. "Aziraphale is not about to give up. He'll get over this, rise back to his feet, and continue on his way; only now he will have one more experience to guide him along the road."

"Not all experiences are good, though," Gabriel said quietly. Then, with a sigh, he added, "But I think you're right. If he's going to continue staying on Earth, he will still have to face evil many a time. The less illusions he holds, the less he'll be hurt in the end."

"Why, such a cynical view of life, my dear," Raphael admonished him gently. Then he kissed Gabriel's cheek. "Come on now. It's about the time we get some sleep as well."

Gabriel complied.

Michael charged at his invisible enemy. A series of quick slashes, step left, strike right, jump, spread wings, up, fold wings from danger, land and strike, defend. An attack followed another as he went through his practice with speed that might have surprised even most of his warriors. He no more gave everything he had in the practice battels against other angels -- there was nobody who would have lasted long enough -- and he had got faster since the days of the Fall. He was ready to claim to be able to spread and fold his wings fastest of all of the Host. At the very least he didn't know of anybody else who could use their wings fast enough to only bring them out as a jumping aid in the middle of a fight. If he had known somebody with that kind of skill, he'd had one top warrior more. Speed and skill, he had come to notice, meant perhaps not everything in a battle but very near so indeed.

Finally he landed again on his feet, his wings quickly disappearing, his sword extended in a strike. As he let the sword fall to his side, however, he heard a surprising sound from behind himself. Somebody was clapping their hands.

"Quite impressive, Our Fearless Leader," Aziraphale said with a slight smile. "I used to think that nobody could fight better than you did during the Fall, but I have been proven wrong. How is it even possible to use wings for such short bursts and hide them from harm the rest of the time?"

"Oh, it is possible easily enough," Michael said with a smirk, placing his sword back in its sheath. "It takes just practice, practice, some more practice, and about a thousand good explanations for Raphael as of how you've managed to sprain your wings, again."

Aziraphale laughed at that. "I wonder why he didn't simply lock you up in the end," he teased.

Michael chuckled. "Oh, rest assured that he tried to," he said, smirking. "However, Gabriel convinced him to let me be. So," he then said as he led Aziraphale out of the large, empty room he used for exercise and into the living room of his quarters, "what's brought you Up Here this time?"

Now, Aziraphale's expression turned dark. "He killed him," he blurted out.

"What?" Michael frowned in confusion. "Who killed who, exactly?"

"Cain," Aziraphale managed to say, "Cain... he killed Abel..." He cast his eyes down, tears gathering. He hardly even registered the comforting hand that was placed on his shoulder. "They were brothers, Michael! They'd been together all their lives! And not only that; they also were created in His own image, they were His children. How can such a horrible thing happen!"

"Aziraphale," said the warrior quietly, "the Man Fell, and so did his wife. They may have been created in His own image, but they are tainted with sin. And why are you so surprised? We are angels, after all, creatures of Light. We always feel Him and His love, we get to be closer to him than any other being in all of Creation, yet among us a brother killed another. Why would it be surprising that the humans, touched with sin and so far away from his Glory, raise their hands against one another?"

Aziraphale stood silent for a moment, then shook his head, eyes still downcast. "No... I suppose he isn't," he said, and then sighed. "I failed them, Michael, failed them all -- and you, too. I couldn't keep them from going that far, I couldn't protect them from each other --"

"Aziraphale?" Shut up," Michael said in his best command voice, and Aziraphale immediately did so. Even the other archangels were known to have obeyed Michael's commanding tone without a moment's hesitation. "You haven't failed anybody. It is not your task to keep humans from hurting each other. You may encourage good will and mercy and charity and things like that, all right. It's your job, after all. However, what you have to look after, what you have to take care of, is the humanity -- not the humans as individuals. You can't keep them from sinning as the Original Sin has tainted them. Humans have free will. What you have to do is to keep an eye out for the Enemy and his forces, thwart their evil, protect the humans from them -- not from each other. If you even try to fulfill that task to the best of your abilities, nobody can demand any more from you."

"Nobody but myself," muttered Aziraphale. "And if I do not look after the humans, who is going to do so? Surely they can't be left to their own devices while I concentrate on the demons?"

"I never said that," Michael said. "Every human has their very own angel here in Heaven, and when need be, that angel shall go down to aid them. However much you may want to, you can't look after them all. And we can't protect them from all the sorrow and pain, either, just a small miracle here and there, where the need is strongest or the faith is faltering. They have free will, and, because of that, we are supposed to keep our hands off their business as completely as possible. Of course," he then added with a smile, "you, in your task of looking after the humanity, are allowed to do whatever miracles you want to in order to steer them to His direction. But only on general level, okay? Don't try to overdo it."

"I'll try to do as instructed, I suppose," Aziraphale said, a wavering smile on his lips. "But Michael... There was blood on the ground, and it was red, and it looked so wrong..."

At this point, Michael drew the younger angel into an embrace, holding him as he sobbed and cried his shock and sorrow which he still hadn't properly dealt with. Too often they forgot that Aziraphale, for all his skills and years, was little but a child in the end. He still had to work for quite some time to achieve the calmness and serenity of an adult angel, a state where he may grieve but also came to accept the situation. Sorrow was one thing, breaking down completely another.

However, Aziraphale was still so very young, and he needed all the support Michael could give to him.

The warrior couldn't help but notice a few flecks of crimson on the younger angel's sleeve. It was human blood, already dry, but for some reason it still looked fresh.

Michael was an adult angel, one of the oldest ones, actually. Still, he felt a chill in his heart at that sight. Aziraphale had been right. It was so very, very wrong -- and, coming from the only angel who had firsthand heard Lucifer Morningstar's words against Him, the word "wrong" carried quite a lot of weight.

He didn't cry, though. He just stood there, serious and steady, and held Aziraphale until his tears ended.

Next Prompt: Orange.