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 XXIV: Beloved
Place me like a seal over your heart, like a seal on your arm; for love is as strong as death.
Song of Solomon 8: 6
When Bethany struck out just after dawn the next morning, in search of bottled water and basic first aid supplies in nearby houses, Gabriel went with her. Joy was still sleeping, as was her trend, and the morning air was cool and sweet—good weather, in the desert, for raiding.
While they walked, Bethany chattered ceaselessly, and he marveled anew at the difference between the two sisters. Looking downward and sideways, he caught a glimpse of her copper-bright eyes catching sunlight, the deep scar, the flashing whiteness of her teeth—and in that moment he wanted to stop her, to answer any prayer she might have. The words welled in his mouth, a verse written long ago by a king in awe of a vineyard-woman—you are a lily among thorns—and he froze in the street, his lips already parting to speak.
But instead of a song of songs, there was the sound of squealing tires in the distance. Both of them startled, and Gabriel's gaze slanted in the direction of the sound, and something went out of the air: a certain flavor or scent, a certain clarity which he'd grown accustomed to without noticing.
And suddenly, he knew, in the way that only angels can know.
He launched into the air without thinking, without waiting. It occurred to him to take Bethany with him, and he immediately rejected the notion. There could be no time to waste, and even then, he wasn't sure he would want her to—
see.
Baby was barreling down the road, but he ignored the truck in favor of the younger sister, who was sprawled against the curb. He could see clearly what had taken place here: human refugees, less generous than Bethany and her dark-eyed Joy. They had taken the truck, and when Joy had heard the motor started—and who wouldn't hear it? the contraption all but roared—she had run out to protest and defend. Instead, they had mowed her down with such force that her legs were now strangely shaped, inhuman. He could see a mess of red, and her white ribs splintering through her chest, the missing skin on her swollen jaw, where her face had been scraped clean of the bone. Her blood was a faint smear on the concrete; he was vaguely surprised that there wasn't more. For a moment he thought she was already gone, but then he felt her: a soul, tattered and fluttering at the edges, waiting to be free.
Can't you just heal me, Gabe?
It does not work like that, child.
"Joy," he said, and knelt at her side—a position he had once taken eons ago after his brother's fall, a position he had just moments ago yearned to echo before this wounded girl's sister. His hands were infinitely gentle when he took her fingers in his palm, delicately smoothing the flesh there. He was startled to find that his fingers were shaking.
Her eyes rolled blindly at the sky. "Gabe?" she asked, and her voice was full of fear and trembling and fluid, which sprayed out in a fine red mist. "I can't see you—I can't move—"
He touched her brow. "I am here," he said, though his voice was low and tight with dread.
"Where," she asked, desperation leaking in, "—where will I go?"
He knew immediately what she meant, and that she would even question such a thing made him want to weep. "I have no doubt that on this day you will be welcomed lovingly into heaven."
She sighed softly, and if he hadn't known better, he might have thought it her last breath. "Gabe," she said tremulously, "will I see you there someday?"
Her words wrapped around his heart and constricted. To know she would miss him…
"I do not know," he confessed. And he understood, suddenly, what an uncertain thing it was to not know your place in Father's plan.
And then, the realization fast on its heels but so very slow and painful, like a cactus that bloomed in the cold night: he did not know.
It might very well be his last moment with Joy.
"I will," she said suddenly, calmly—without any shadow of doubt. Then: "Gabe?" Tears sheened her blind eyes. "Will the angels hate me?"
He did weep then—silently and stoically, too full of grief to hold back the clean wash of tears.
"It is impossible," he told her steadily, with more certainty than he'd ever felt anything before.
"What if," she asked. "What if I see the angel who—who hurt me?"
He swallowed thickly, and tears slid down his throat and over his collarbone. He leaned close and, very gently, he whispered into her ear. "If you see him, say this one thing, and I vow to you: you will never need fear him again. If you see him, you will tell him—that you are beloved by Gabriel the Archangel."
Her eyes focused suddenly and she managed a small, sweet, and very young smile. "Take care of my sister, Gabe," she said, and her voice was a child's. "She sucks at knowing when it's okay to let go." And then, with just a whisper of breath, she added, "I love you too, Big Brother."
He had seen humans die before, but never had he felt it. Something empty and swallowing opened up inside him and he realized how frighteningly simple a thing it was: for a soul to slip away. How bereft one felt at the sight of the empty shell, which only served as a reminder of the desolate loss. And what if Joy was wrong? What if he never did receive Grace, and was never welcomed back to his Father's kingdom? This child had invited him into her family, in spite of all the reasons she had to fear him. She had sought him out, and held out her open palm to him on a desert street in the parched late-afternoon light. The thought that he might have lost this dark-eyed haunted human child—forever—was suddenly more than he could bear. His heart wrenched open at the reality of it, the raw ugliness of the sudden wound, the loneliness of it, the vast open haunting burden of freedom. He pressed her hand against his armored chest, and when that was not enough, he lifted it to the place where his shoulder joined the side of his throat, where his pulse beat strongly. He dug her knuckles into the flesh there, then pressed them desperately to his mouth, as if he could call her back.
"Gabriel?" Bethany said from a few steps away, and everything in her voice was a question, and each one sounded lost.
Word Count: 1,125
Completed: May 16th, 2011