t e r r i b l e, w i l d, l a w l e s s

Damien has lingered in the Holy Land far longer than he had expected, not especially kept for the celebrations of the New Moon, but for myriad other reasons. There was perhaps something to be said for the celebrations, jubilant despite the show of mourning they’d made not two weeks earlier, much to Damien’s favour. Cador, as far as Damien was able to tell, was never an especially interesting character among mortals, not one that he has any reason to especially miss. It was time, he agreed with the joyful crowd, that everyone move on from that affair to the next, celebrating renewal. 

Flowers and dancing made for a rather uninspiring party in Damien’s eyes, but the attendants alone made it worth coming. After all, when else could one expect to find the Kind of Angels himself standing enraptured in a crowd while mortals dance before them. He looks to the dancers - lovely but unremarkable - and then back to Michael. Nothing that cannot be interrupted, he decides, the hint of a smirk lingering on his wine-stained mouth.

Beautiful, Michael calls it as Damien moves next to him, not even bothering to look away from the scene to see who’d approached him. Damien makes no effort to hide the low laugh that follows. “Really?” he asks, tiling his head as he looks to Michael. The smirk spreads across his face, not looking away from Michael. “Is Caelum truly so dull these days that this is all it takes to so enrapture the mighty King of Angels?”

Celebration brings joy and hopefulness, that cannot be argued. The light and pleasure that thrums through the mortals around them is palpable. Flowers start to bloom, and each bud bends ever so slightly so they might catch a glimpse of this human crafted sunlight. It is that simplicity that catches them off guard, that enthralls them so.  But celebrations have their darker corners — a less than hidden hint of unsavoriness. The baser, hedonistic side that feeds into something sinister. Behind every curtain of beauty, is something that hinges almost on wicked. Michael had been too quick to forget that their allies are few, and their joy must be fleeting.

The Anti-Christ helps them remember. Damien comes to stand beside them as if he has a place here. If depravity interested them more, Michael might have laughed. This puppet who dares to look them in the eye and act like an equal.  Does he even understand the game he is playing?

protect, attack, fight side-by-side with.

summon, banish, absorb.

fuck, marry, kill.

pinch, slap, punch.

 lick, suck, bite.

befriend, adopt, ignore.

NEVER in his eternal existence has Ryuk ever esteemed an Angel in high regard — nothing they’ve said or done particularly entertained him, what with their blessed minds scrubbed clean of impurities and imbued with a healthy dose of virtue to boot. As an agent of chaos, Ryuk had little intention of fraternizing with creatures for good, and yet, he somehow finds himself in the company of the Sun, in all of their shining glory. Michael, the master of Angels and the protector of righteous will, governing their slice of heaven with unsullied hands. No, Ryuk much preferred the company of the demons, whose appetites for chaos aligned far better with their own motives. 

And again, the way in which the word fall from their lips — beautiful, like there is a gem to be found in the rough. After all, what does Ryuk see in mortals but cadavers, ripe for plucking? 

They turn. Gaze all harsh and unforgiving, they follow the other’s gesture with the cup. “I don’t suppose we’re watching the same spectacle,” he answers, only mildly perturbed. “I only see savages delighting in something they pretend to understand.”

The discontent bleeds off of them thick and hot. It acts desperately reaching out and clutching — as if trying to catch Michael unawares. As if it were trying to drag him down — drown him in chaos, and darkness, and nothingness. It is not a feeling he is unfamiliar with — Michael has laid a hand on demons too many times — but it is interesting to sense coming from them. For while it is true that Ryuk is the Horseman he has the least knowledge of, he would at least assumed them more impartial than that. If only because it is the wisest of options when playing this game.

But eternity does not always breed intelligence, Michael has come to know that far too well. He has seen it within his own brethren, he should not be shocked to see it in those so brash and blunt as the Horsemen.

There was a time when Gabriel used to look at Michael like he was second only to the sun. He was the paragon, the holy apotheosis of all angels were and would ever be, and he blazed like the north star, brightest star in all of heaven. It was Michael, most beloved, the best and bravest of them, that led the armies of the Heavenly Host through war and mutiny, to victory. Wherever he went, the eyes of the angels turned to him, heliotropic, like flowers lifting their heads to the skies. He commanded loyalty and admiration, and in its own way, a devotion that demanded worship. Angels do not love softly. They burn, conflagrate, igniting infinitely through time and space.

Imagine being seen like that. Imagine not having to wrestle and claw your way from the shadows for every last scrap of love, every sliver of threadbare warmth.

Gabriel was too kind, too sheer-skinned and canary-sweet to recognise the sickening affection festering in his gut, dining upon him like blood and sacrament, as envy. He was a thing made for love; he was thing made for hunger. And what is love but the highest form of hunger? 

From his vantage point in the doorway of the quarters set aside for Caelum’s sovereign, he studies Michael. The scent of fresh linen and soft musk cuts clean through the air. The taste of ozone and morning crispness that can only be felt at first light from the highest point in the sky so achingly familiar that Gabriel can feel the ghost of it at the back of his throat. He misses flying. He misses Michael. It is the same, everything is the same and yet irrevocably changed. His wings will never grow back, and God is dead and they can never go back. Or maybe the quieter, more devastating truth that sticks in his throat like a swallowed wishbone: it is him that can never go back.

He thinks that if perhaps he had known the day he left Caelum for the Holy Land, to become anointed as their Sun, he might have made Michael promise to come see him now and then.

“Is that all ruling is to you?”  Gabriel says, musing, amused, abandoning the sourness of the tension twined underfoot for playfulness. He speaks lightly, stray sunlight woven into speech, but his words bear the gravitas of truth.  “Lecturing and ordering and castigating? No wonder you always look so weary. And how terrible it must be to bear it alone.”

If Michael had learned how to be King from God, then it is small wonder that he became thus. Even in his glory and exaltation, he seems burdened by some untouchable, imperceivable weight. What was it that the mortals of old used to say? Like Sisyphus, like Atlas. The weight of the world upon your shoulders. Except Michael’s world was the Kingdom of Heaven with all its ravaged history and blood-paid collateral, eons of a family splintering to the very extremities of being so far from what it was once that it could barely cling to the denomination of divinity.

“No, I have not come to lecture.”  A rueful shake of his head, his burnt honey curls spilling charmingly over his eyes.  “Is it so strange that I would come to simply speak with you? As allies, if not brothers? It is my duty to ensure that the members of Caelum and Infernum’s delegations have everything they require.”

A hundred years is nothing to an angel, and yet. Sometimes the teeth that slip into his mouth and draw blood, paint harshness where his heart would have favoured softness, are simply a starving thing’s way of asking to be missed. To be wanted, in order to be missed.

Michael will not give, is not in the way of giving — he is like God in this manner, and so many others — and so Gabriel steers them towards the neutral ground of politics.

“It has been some time since you last graced us with your presence, after all. I believe you met Cador only twice.”  Once, at his ascension. The second time, at the Solstice of celebration, the fiftieth anniversary of the vanquishing of the Heretics, and the formation of the Tridium.  “If you must feign interest in any matters of the Holy Land — reluctant as you are to concern yourself with mortals — then let it be his family. We will need them when it comes time for humanity to choose their new Star.”

Longing has always seemed to grasp his brother by the throat. Michael has seen it in him again and again — seen it in Raphael in equal parts. It is the curse of his own gift, the knowledge of his brethren that runs too dark and too true. It is a burden to understand the things that Gabriel keeps hidden. A burden to know his love is not enough to sate that hunger, just as God’s was not enough for Michael.

Perhaps that was the true reason he sent his brother from his side. Cast him to the world of mortals with the chains of power in the place of his wings.

But what Michael fails to see is the longing in himself. How in his own heart it has twisted and turned and created something too fragile. Gabriel studies him, and the weight of his gaze sinks heat into Michael’s skin, into his bones. Michael has recognized his longing in the face of ambition. Has known it in the drive for justice. But after the war and the blood and the politics fade — when the knife against his Father’s throat drops — he has forgotten how striking the longing in his heart is for the comfort of love.

He has never been loved less than he has now.

Michael blinks and the mood has changed. He may have given this position to Gabriel, but his brother has made it his own. He is a politician through and through. Saying exactly what he means but hiding it with goodness and jest. Michael stiffens.

“That is not what all ruling is to me.” He does not seethe but there is anger coiling in his gut. “You know me better than to disregard me like that.”  His smile is tight lipped, but it comes all the same. The displeasure bleeds from the lines of his body by force. Gabriel has only just arrived. 

“Forgive me, brother,” Michael holds the weight of the word some place close to his soul. A wound to prod at later. “The light of your title blinds me, I forget you are not the snake that would rather strike me than embrace me.” The smile comes easier now. “You are something much more dear.” He reaches forward because he cannot stop himself, a hand lifted to cup his brother’s chin. Behind the safety of closed doors, he presses a kiss to the top of the Sun’s head. Michael waits for a burn that does not come.

Gabriel turns them back to safety, and — while his chest aches — his mind is pleased. This is nothing. This offers no part of him. And so it takes no time to rebuild the stone of the walls of the King of Caelum. “My presence in the Holy Land has not been requested.” There should be wolf teeth that accompany the words, but Michael is not that transparent. “I can only know so much of these people,” a lie, “and I am very busy at home.” He settles into a chair, gestures for Gabriel to follow suit. It would seem that even now, Michael cannot escape the call to business.