Title: Tongues of Men and Angels
Rating: TA for implied?romance.
Summary: Glimpses of grace: the story of one brother and two sisters. Through the grace of God, all things are made new.A series of drabbles. Ish. Gabriel/OC. Ish.
Disclaimer: *obligatory insert*
Chapter VII: Fear Not
…The angel said…"Do not be afraid..."
Genesis 21: 17
Matthew 1: 20
Luke 1: 13
Luke 1: 30
Luke 2: 10
It was good to know that he did not need nourishment—not as these fragile humans did. Manna was in short supply here in the wastelands, he imagined.
Still, when the younger of the two girls brought him a plate full of peanut-butter and crackers and a glass full of chilled apple juice, he wished he had bothered to remember their names—so that he might thank her properly. This one was not as unsettling as her older sister: where the woman had shining eyes and a decimated face and relentlessly touching hands, this child was skittish with her gaze and her proximity. Darker-eyed, lighter-haired, she hunched her shoulders when she approached him—but it didn't stop her from holding out the offering and casting him a quick, hopeful smile.
Something about her bearing reached through the fierce stoicism he'd wrapped himself in.
"You have brought me sustenance," he said slowly, and she jumped at the low thunder of his voice.
"We didn't know—what angels eat," she offered apologetically. The glass was sweating in her hand. "But it's been days since you got here, and we thought maybe there was something we had that you would want—"
He sighed, eying the salty wafers. "Not that," he said, almost regretfully. He supposed it would have been an act of good will if he could have accepted the food, consumed it. Broken bread with them, so to speak.
"Oh." She looked mournful for a moment, and lost, and then she turned back to the house. In spite of himself, he didn't want her to leave. Cut off from his Father's presence, the isolation was excruciating. Perspiration sheened his brow at the effort of existing without it.
"You may stay," he said without thinking, and she dropped the plate in her sudden alarm. He watched impassively as it struck the ground and shattered against the paving stones. When she looked back at him, half-panicked, his eyes narrowed despite his best efforts to maintain neutrality.
"I am not here to harm you, child. Not now."
"No?" she breathed. He could taste her terror. It was different from the holy awe and trembling that had once shaken humans to their core at the sight of an angel—there was no reverence here. Only a kind of strange fatalism. His hands clenched briefly.
"No." The word was short and clipped. "I am here to watch over you."
"I didn't think angels did that kind of thing anymore," she whispered. "Not unless—" She broke off; he inclined his head and watched her, waiting, until she felt compelled to continue. "Not unless it was to point out your every sin," she said, and the words were a haunted sigh.
His held back his own sigh. Teenagers. If he were to please his Father—if he were to be able to properly understand this little family, and humans as a whole through them—doubtless he would have to put her at ease. "We are no longer at war," he informed her resignedly, just in case she somehow hadn't noticed.
"Don't sound so excited," she said sharply, and his eyebrows twitched upward just a fraction. There was spirit in her yet, he supposed—misguided and irreverent though it might be. He wondered if she inherited it from her sister, whose prying and gentle hands seemed to constantly invade his person.
"We are no longer at war," he repeated, "and whatever you encountered during those dark days is gone now."
"You would think," she said only.
"I will not harm you."
She looked up at him cautiously from beneath uncut bangs. "So you said," she responded slowly.
He frowned. "What ails you, child?" he asked, but he was slowly coming to his own conclusions. Her reactions to him might be initially attributed to his role in the Armageddon—or whatever she assumed his role to be—but there was something else to it, an added layer that he had encountered before, though never directed at himself. The way she lifted her shoulders protectively; how she hid her face—"I am an archangel of the Lord," he said sharply. "I am not a human man, with base lusts for power and flesh."
She glowered up at him then, despite her fear. "I am aware of that."
He stood very still, struggling to voice the obvious truth in a way that was not vile: I will not violate you. At last he managed to say, "My Father is very dear to me." The words closed up his throat for a moment before he could continue. "I would not do anything to wound Him." He poured every part of himself into those words, hoping that the child would sense his authenticity—hoping, too, that Father heard him and recognized his sorrow and repentance.
The girl shivered. "I told my sister I wanted to come out here to give you this," she said. "She was worried, but I told her I—I needed to, and she understood." She raised her eyes to his slowly, and when she spoke again her voice was cold in spite of its quaver. "Do you know what I think she would say if she heard you talk like that?"
He was still, silent, waiting. If the child wanted to condemn him—well, he might think it arrogant, but he would swallow it in the name of his Father.
"She would say that if that's your only motivation to keep from hurting me, then we're going to have some very serious problems."
Word Count: 924
Completed: April 15, 2011
My installments are becoming increasingly less drabble-like…uh oh.
In the meantime, the goal of this chapter was to illustrate more clearly Gabriel's mindset and motivation, and how that just isn't going to cut it—not for the sisters, and not for his Dad. Hopefully I accomplished that with subtlety and grace. We'll see.