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*
Interlude: In the Beginning
As for the saints who are in the land, they are the glorious ones
in whom is all my delight.
Psalm 16:3
It is hard to say "when they were young," because angels by their very nature exist just the other side of time. But once, when Gabriel and Michael and Sammael were all new—the closest brothers among the five archangels—they stood on the fiery, singing stones at the edge of heaven like sentries, and never dreamed that one day those gates would be closed to any of them.
"Look at all He has made," Michael marveled, peering into the vast cauldron of glowing dust and stars. "Light, and land, and sea. Stars. Now, living things: plants, animals. Each thing is more beautiful than the last."
"Will it always be so?" Gabriel asked them. He admitted privately that Father's gifts were fascinating and lovely, but they all paled in comparison to Father Himself, to the wild glory that suffused every particle of heaven. Gabriel doubted that anything could be so dangerous and glorious and generous—that anything could ever even come close.
"Fear not, little brother," Sammael chuckled. "We will always be His favorite creations, cut and fashioned from holy fire and eyes in His divine imagination and grace."
"You say that because you are secure in the knowledge that you are His most-favored son," Michael said drily, but he seemed amused.
Sammael smile widely, a broad grin that filled his face with holy light and warmth, like a star caught in the first golden rays of dawn. "It is so," he agreed, and laughed. The sound—joyful, free, unhindered—brought answering smiles from the faces of the other angels who heard it. Even Gabriel felt his mouth curve in response. Though he had ever been the solemn brother—compared to Michael's compassionate mercy and Sammael's unrestrained joy—he understood why his brother had always been the favorite of Father's, why he was in fact the favorite of all the seraphim.
Wherever Sammael went, he brought with him light.
oOo
It had always been so: these three. Raphael was the softest of the five archangels, the most tender-hearted, and though he was well-loved he seemed to prefer quiet tendernesses and the company of Father's animals, the stroke of his hand on the head of a doe rather than the blunt camaraderie of his brothers. Uriel was not precisely sullen, but he had a tendency to withdraw as well, preferring the solitude of deep thoughts to the company of angels and beasts. Raphael was a warrior-healer, and Uriel was a master of strategy, but it was the other three who had bound themselves most closely to each other: who reveled in their brotherhood as messengers, as generals of the armies of God.
Even the other seraphim remarked on the easiness of their fraternity, especially among creatures so different. Gabriel trusted these two more than anyone except Father Himself, and if Sammael showed his love in lighthearted jests and contagious laughter—if Michael expressed it in through earnest conversation and heartfelt, insightful kindnesses—then Gabriel hoped he had managed to convey his own devotion through his steadfast loyalty, his constant presence and silent support, his appreciation of all their antics.
His love for his brothers was something solemn and sacred, resting deep in the roots of his heart and his wings. He felt it always, but most keenly when they flew together, when they raced together, when they competed in daring feats and he found himself laughing, almost against his will.
Later, centuries after the Fall, when he realized how much he'd lost, Gabriel would blame Sammael with hushed ferocity. Fiercely, under his breath, he would say, I have not lost one brother but two. Though he had always craved the company of his more light-hearted brethren before, he now found himself clutching almost greedily at his isolation, as though it were a comfort. He would tell himself in the stolen and carefully-guarded moments of isolation that when Sammael had left—had betrayed Father, had betrayed them all—he'd taken with him something vital, something which had allowed Gabriel and Michael to exist in complete ease and harmony.
It was not precisely true, though. Rather, it was as though the favored brother's departure had instead left a ragged wound between the two, a hungry and bloody hole in their fraternal trinity. In Gabriel's heart, there was a sense of quiet unease that their brotherhood had been so easily disrupted, their trust betrayed—and Michael, who did not know how to fix this devastating heart-wound in his favorite brother, had simply tried to work around it.
There is no way, however, to avoid a canyon.
You must climb down into it, and come up the other side.
oOo
"I do not understand," Sammael half-snarled.
Gabriel stared. He had never seen his brother like this before: teeth gritted, hands clenching, high color in his cheekbones and something of ugliness around his eyes. For a moment, Gabriel did not recognize him.
"I do not understand," Sammael repeated, and Gabriel could tell he was trying—desperately. "They are weak. Not only in flesh, but in spirit. They have no constancy—no devotion!" He bared white teeth at his Father, who was still and calm upon His throne."Half of them only praise You when they are pleased; the other half only acknowledge You when they want to complain!" His voice grew agonized. "You tell them again and again that You love them, and they respond by asking for more, greedy as a starving animal who gorges itself to death."
"Sammael—" Raphael tried to interrupt, to diffuse Sammael's growing ire.
"No, brother! Let me speak." The archangel's beautiful face twisted. "These—people—will be easily turned against each other. They'll be easily turned against You." He gripped his morning star furiously in one hand; the weighted weapon swung on its bright chain. His lip curled. "You've crafted a cannibal, a flesh-eating virus; you've created a creature that will destroy itself."
We shall see, Father said only, soothingly.
The quietness of His response seemed to spur Sammael on further. "I could forgive You for that," the archangel snarled, "but not for abandoning us to grant them Your favor!"
Gabriel sucked in a breath, and Michael tensed beside him. The idea of forgiving their Father, who had created them in purest love and kindness, seemed a sin of pride too great to bear. For the first time since they had been created, Gabriel felt a wild surge of anger for his brother. How dare he speak so to the One who had given them such beautiful gifts—including Life itself?
But Father did not acknowledge the profanity; instead He said, My son—My dearest Sammael—I will never abandon you. I do not love you less, My child: only, I have still more love yet to give.
"And it goes to them," Sammael spat in disgust. "While we who have served You faithfully—who sing Your praises with our every breath and movement, who adore You with every flicker of holy fire within us—we are made to serve them, to be the stones they step on that they might reach You. We who love You!" Sammael cried out, and his voice was an anguished accusation.
You may not understand now, Sammael, but in their very simplicity lies complexity, and in their freedom lies true devotion. They possess an unparalleled depth and potential—and if you are patient with them, you will come to love them. It is inevitable. Father smiled: an invitation. They are My crowning glory, Sammael, and My greatest joy. I wish you to share in this happiness with Me.
"You say I do not understand yet," Sammael said through clenched teeth. "Then explain Yourself to me, Father."
Gabriel's eyes darted back to his Father, who suddenly seemed very still, and very, very dangerous.
Quietly, He said: I will not.
"Explain!" Sammael bellowed.
"Father," said Azazel from the side, his hands raised in a placating gesture as he stepped tentatively to Sammael's side. "My brother only asks what we all wish to know. Please. We know Your love is limitless and Your plan is perfect, but we are small and seek only to understand. We would be happy to commit to Your will if only we knew why You would ask this of us—why You require that we debase ourselves as Your divine children."
One by one, other angels stepped forward: tentative, or ashamed. Gabriel's heart sunk as yet another of his brothers slowly stood before their Father, defying Him, rejecting Him—and another, and another. Together, it seemed their strength and arrogance grew, until they stood smugly, stonily, looking—entitled.
Baraquiel, Yomiel, Adirael, Gabriel lamented, and each of his angry brethren was a stone in his heart. Each step forward by one of his brothers was another betrayal that tore through him, and imagining how it must seem to Father—who had lovingly formed them each from holy fire and the elements, who had created them each uniquely, with hidden strengths and subtle flaws, with beauty and precision—imagining how it must feel, to have His children turn against him…it made Gabriel's stomach turn and clench. Tamiel, Shamsiel….
"Please, Father," Azazel said quietly. "We only ask that, as a display of Your love for us, You enlighten us."
I will not, He repeated, and though His voice was calm, something beneath it was terrifying, and full of awful power. Then, sharply, and with something of wild ferocity under the words: I am a loving God. I am not a caged lion.
"Fine," Sammael hissed from his place at the front of the crowd. Legions of wings shuddered and rippled in unison, rustling like a forest of soft leaves and sharp daggers. "I will show You then—what they really are. What atrocities You've created."
oOo
The wound grew, as all wounds do when left unattended and unacknowledged by those we love.
If Sammael could betray us—betray Father—any member of our legions might.
If Sammael could do such a thing, so might Michael.
So might I.
And so, with the same devotion and efficiency with which he carried out every task, Gabriel set about killing his heart.
Who could say when it started? Perhaps in that moment when, side by side in their last instance of true brotherly camaraderie, they knelt at Father's feet. Michael, perhaps, had been pledging to love humanity, but Gabriel had only been pledging his love for God: a misunderstanding, a simple ambiguity in semantics. Perhaps it was before that, when Sammael had leapt from the Singing Stones without even a backward glance to spare the two of them—or even earlier, when the first talking monkey was sculpted out of dust and ashes.
At first Gabriel would think it was only mourning—for Sammael, for his other fallen brethren—that so plagued his heart. He blamed this sadness, in Michael as well as himself, for their inability to find as much joy in each other as they had once before. But in time, this excuse no longer served, and he found himself gazing on Michael's acts of warrior-mercy and stoic compassion with a stony disapproval. In Michael's tendency to indulge these whims, in his eagerness to salvage even one lost human soul despite all odds—Gabriel saw a dangerous quality, one which he was certain could lead to another betrayal.
"Guard your actions," he told his brother once, sternly and in privacy. Michael had looked momentarily stunned.
"Brother," Michael had said, and there had been something so certain in his voice, despite his weak and willful behavior—"Do you think I would wrong our Father?"
Gabriel hadn't spared him a glance. "Stranger things have happened," he said only, darkly, before casting an implacable sideways stare at his brother. "I would not see you wound Him," he elaborated after a moment, the words clipped and rumbling. He paused, and then added—his voice low and just a little bit aching—"I would not lose you, either."
"Brother," Michael had said again, and had reached for Gabriel's shoulder only to have the larger angel turn away. Michael had brought his hand back and stared at it, as though something precious had just slipped away. "Brother, my actions do not indicate a weakness of spirit, as you seem to think. Our Father gave us hearts for a reason, and He is both loving and merciful. You would pass judgment on these, our brothers and sisters—"
"It is not our place to pass judgment," Gabriel had interrupted sharply, and if his voice had been any stronger it might have been a shout. "Nor, as you seem to forget, is it our place to grant clemency!" He had taken in a breath through his teeth, trying to calm himself. The feathers on his wings were splayed with bladed tension. "We are only here," he said slowly, "to execute His will. To serve them however He desires, and to end them however He desires. To love Him, only." His mouth grew tight. "They tempt you," he said coldly, and perhaps Michael heard the thing beneath the coldness, the thing which sounded frightened, and bereft.
Perhaps he heard it, but he said nothing. Perhaps he did not know what to say.
And the canyon grew deeper.
oOo
"Come," Michael said, urging his brothers forward. "Father needs us now."
"Does He?" Uriel wondered aloud.
Gabriel shot him a stern look. Tension sang through every fiery nerve in the four remaining archangels. "Do you not trust Him?" he asked sharply, but Michael silenced him with a brief wave of his hand.
"I look at these Sixth-Day Wonders," the second-favorite son said, "and I am reminded that His every creation has been more wondrous and strange than the last. I catch a glimpse of what He sees, and it fills my heart with joy and hope."
"With Sammael hounding them, they will destoy themselves within a handful of millennia," Raphael suggested sadly. "He will attack them constantly, to try to prove himself to Father. Not only in times of great significance, but in all the quiet times between: he will distract them with great atrocities, while he slowly eats away at their courage with weapons of self-doubt and despair. He will be relentless, Michael. Every hour will be their most desperate."
"Then we must protect them," Michael said. "We must guard their hearts—for they are our brothers and sisters as well."
"It galls me," Uriel admitted after a silence."To bow to them. I confess to the sin of jealousy."
Gabriel felt it too, but he shook his head. Such emotion was easily overlooked when he thought of his Father. More strongly than any reluctance, he felt—even now—Father's pain, His heartache. Regardless of rank and favor, He had lost just over a third of His beloved children today…No, not lost. He had been brutally betrayed. And in this moment, still grappling with the evidence of his Father's heart-wound, of the deepest treachery of the spirit at Sammael's disobedience and pride, Gabriel knew he would never wound his Father in this way.
Never.
"Michael speaks wisely," Gabriel said. "As does Raphael. Every day, every moment—every heartbeat—must be a war for their souls. We must not let them lose heart. This," he said, with nothing but love in him, "is what Father wants."
"It's what He needs," Michael added. "He needs us. At His side. He needs His remaining sons to show both their allegiance and their love."
And before Raphael or Uriel could say another word, Michael was striding toward the throne, with Gabriel flanking him on the right. At the pinnacle of heaven, Father sat, radiating sorrow.
"Father," Michael said, and his voice rang out. "We will serve."
"You will serve Me?" He asked. "Or you will serve My newest sons and daughters?"
Gabriel waited, and swallowed the bitterness under his tongue. He breathed deeply, and took any thought of his own—any notion of willfulness or self-importance—and he locked them away, far beyond reach. In time, he thought, they would even cease to be a temptation. For his Father, he would do anything. For his Father, he would always obey, and he would never betray Him. For his Father, he would act as guardian for mankind.
He would not let them break His heart.
"Both," said Michael. "Always, and with unconditional love." He dropped to one knee, bowing his head.
Gabriel closed his eyes. "Unconditional love," he echoed firmly, and knelt.
oOo
Bethany knelt.
"Can't you just heal me, Gabe?" Joy whined.
"It does not work like that, child," Gabriel responded, with something like regret—even though it was just a small wound. He watched intently as Bethany cleaned the blood away from her sister's knee, blowing on it to ease the sting of the antiseptic. Her lips were a soft moue, and he saw now—so clearly—what made her precious to his Father, limitless and beloved.
This is where I find God.
"Owww," said Joy.
"Oh, hush," said Bethany. "You've had worse than this, haven't you?"
"Bossy know-it-all," Joy sulked.
"Yeah, yeah. Ya big baby." She placed a feather-light kiss on her sister's knee before sealing it with a Band-Aid. The gesture came so naturally, so easily, that Gabriel's wings constricted with the nearness of it, the familiar fragrance of a memory.
"All better?" she asked.
"The kiss helped," Joy admitted grudgingly.
Word Count: 2,903
Completed: May 15th, 2011
This chapter is dedicated to ROGUEFURY, one of my kindest and most constant readers, and a dear friend and fellow writer (feel free to check out her stuff!). She posed a question waaaay back (in the beginning, haha) that inspired this brief backstory.
I realize this chapter may be confusing. It started off as an actual, legitimate drabble (rather than a long, drabblish-chapter thing), which then spawned other drabbles, but I didn't want to spread them out over multiple chapters, so…here they are. I know I have had a reviewer or two inform me that flashbacks-within-flashbacks are so confusing, but…I think memory is like that sometimes. At any rate, while I am not averse to creating some confusion in my readers, I hope this was coherent enough.
Important images that I hope everyone picked up on, but am afraid I perhaps was not successful at emphasizing (and they meant a lot to me, along with the craftsmanship of this chapter, so I have to address them here):
1. Gabriel is wounded by Sammael, and when this wound goes unchecked by his brother, it grows. Joy's scraped knee ("even though it was just a small wound") is given loving attention. The idea is that even a small thing can become devastating if ignored, and that the "direct approach" has healing power in and of itself. Granted, these sisters have other divisive problems, but as a whole their relationship is much healthier, I think, than Gabriel's and Michael's in their latter days.
2. The other image is the wound as a "canyon" which Michael tries to "work around." On the other hand, Bethany and Joy have no qualms with taking Gabriel directly to the heart of the canyon and are actually—quite literally, considering their destination—doing precisely that.
In other news….the next installment will be HUGE! Like, three chapters, plus as interlude! And then you will all hate me! :) Just know: this is where the story was always heading.
All author's notes for Chapters 24-26 will be located at the end of the next interlude (though the story is far from over yet).
****I feel like this title is self-explanatory, but for those of you unaware, In the beginning…are the first three words of the bible, describing the Creation story (interestingly, they are echoed again in John, which retells Creation briefly and interestingly, taking into account the idea of the Trinity as a relational being in and of itself). [c. Genesis 1, John 1]