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 XXXI: Forsaken
My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?
Mark 15: 33

It was a few nights later, and he did not stay on the roof as had become his custom. Bethany had fallen to her own long exhaustion—both of body and of spirit—and he found himself unutterably, inconsolably alone.

He had not realized how much her presence had given him heart.

He took to the skies, winging his way through the air. It had been long days and long drives since Joy had died—too long, perhaps—but the wound was fresh, and it called to other wounds that Gabriel had long since thought lay dormant. He had wrestled with them for days, beneath Bethany's watchful gaze; though he had no doubt she saw his conflict, she had remained tactfully silent, patient.

Now, alone, he allowed the thoughts to rise, the wounds to reopen. Before his eyes, he saw again: both his brothers, Graceless and fallen; holy blood on his blade; the absence of the Gates of Heaven; the coldness of his own gaze reflected in Michael's eyes.

He saw again Joy's blank and haunted stare, unblinking: lost in some memory of a hellish possession, in the sight of her sister's blood staining her hands.

He saw the scar that tore its way through Bethany's perfection, and it might as well have been made with his own hand: a fiery weal left on both sisters' hearts.

His wings fanned and he swung lopsidedly through the air, wheeling back around, unwilling to let the house too far from his eyes and his reach. Father had—perhaps—entrusted these two human girls to him, and had he not already lost one? And still, the thing in his head was Michael's eyes, Michael's pain, Michael's begging him to rethink his position, to disobey. He had thought Michael's betrayal was like Sammael's, but perhaps it was his own betrayal—of Michael—that was far the worse.

He thought of Bethany holding onto Joy in the dark, whispering stories and memories and promises, refusing to sacrifice her sister to the thing within her, refusing to relinquish her love. He thought of his words to Michael: I would not have shown you such mercy. There was no doubt in his mind, now, that Michael would have held onto him, had their roles been reversed: that Michael would have borne the wound for the sake of his brother's soul, that he would have done anything in his power to save him.

Who are we if we can't protect our brothers and sisters?
We must guard their hearts—

The words ran through his head like the bloody Nile.
How had he failed? And when had he gotten so lost?

Heaven had never seemed farther. His Father had never seemed farther. How had he ever thought that loyalty to his Father would mean forsaking everything He had created, and turning it all to ash?

His wings beat against the wind wildly, agitatedly. There was a copse of dying trees just shy of the house: he landed there, gracelessly, his knees plowing into the stony earth. His knuckles bit into the ground; he gripped the pebbles there, caked with dried mud. He swallowed and it made a strange, agonized sound in the back of his throat—again he heard Michael's voice, low and pleading in his ear as he embraced Gabriel from behind, trying to pin him to the earth, to some lost memory of what it felt like to love. Again, he felt the arms of the girl in the backseat of the vehicle, trying to protect the newborn Messiah.

Trying to hold onto him.

I held on, Bethany had said, begging for her sister's death to be untrue. Please—I held on.
He could have told her that such a thing never made a difference.
But it should. Oh, it should.

The wound ripped open inside him, ugly and raw, far more painful than the long-healed slice in his side. He bowed low, his face between his gripping palms, his forehead pressing into the dirt as he groped wordlessly for forgiveness—not only from his Father, but from Michael as well, and from Joy, and from Bethany, and from the widower at the gas station, and from the woman who had borne the Second Messiah, and the man named Jeep and the dead girl who had tried to wrestle him from the back of the vehicle, and the man who had lain with a broken spine and a lighter in one hand—

—and a voice called him out of the void, so sweet and so quiet he almost didn't hear it, lost beneath the tumult of his own warring heart.

"Gabriel."

Word Count: 774
Completed: May 25th, 2011
****This title also goes hand-in-hand with the verse ("abandoned" and "forsaken" are often used interchangeably in translation). As he is on the cross, Jesus cries out, Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani? which translates as: My God, My God, why have you abandoned me? [c. Mark 15]

Coming Soon:
XXXII: Whisper. A still, small voice pierces the storm.
XXXIII: Revelations. Gabriel finds God in the wilderness.
Interlude IX: Hemmed. "You are searching for a reason for the apocalypse." "Among other things."
XXXIV: Metatron. Gabriel is called home.
XXXV: Psalmist. Gabriel tells a story.
XXXVI: St. Peter at the Gates. Reuniting with a brother.
XXXVII: Prodigal. God speaks.
XXXVIII: Joseph, Reuben. Another reunion.
XXXIX: The Stone is Rolled Away. Gabriel comes home.
Epilogue: Seventh Day. A couple enjoys each others' company in a Garden.