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.ย 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?ย
From his vantage point in the doorway of the quarters set aside for Caelumโs 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 andย they can never go back. Or maybe the quieter, more devastating truth that sticks in his throat like a swallowed wishbone: it is himย 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.
โIs that all ruling is to you?โ ย 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.ย ย โLecturing and ordering and castigating? No wonder you always look so weary. And how terrible it must be to bear it alone.โ
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 Michaelโs 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.
โNo, I have not come to lecture.โย A rueful shake of his head, his burnt honey curls spilling charmingly over his eyes.ย ย โIs 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 Infernumโs delegations have everything they require.โ
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 thingโs way of asking to be missed. To be wanted, in order to be missed.
Michael will not give, is not in the way of givingย โ he is like God in this manner, and so many others โ and so Gabriel steers them towards the neutral ground of politics.
โIt has been some time since you last graced us with your presence, after all. I believe you met Cador only twice.โย 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.ย ย โIf you must feign interest in any matters of the Holy Landย โ reluctant as you are to concern yourself with mortals โ then let it be his family. We will need them when it comes time for humanity to choose their new Star.โ
Longing has always seemed to grasp his brother by the throat. Michael has seen it in him again and again โ 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 Godโs 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 Michaelโs skin, into his bones.ย 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 โ when the knife against his Fatherโs throat drops โ 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.
โThat is not what all ruling is to me.โ He does not seethe but there is anger coiling in his gut. โYou know me better than to disregard me like that.โย
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.ย
โForgive me, brother,โ Michael holds the weight of the word some place close to his soul. A wound to prod at later. โThe light of your title blinds me, I forget you are not the snake that would rather strike me than embrace me.โ The smile comes easier now. โYou are something much more dear.โ He reaches forward because he cannot stop himself, a hand lifted to cup his brotherโs chin.
Behind the safety of closed doors, he presses a kiss to the top of the Sunโs head. Michael waits for a burn that does not come.
Gabriel turns them back to safety, and โ while his chest aches โ 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. โMy presence in the Holy Land has not been requested.โ There should be wolf teeth that accompany the words, but Michael is not that transparent. โI can only know so much of these people,โ a lie, โand I am very busy at home.โ He settles into a chair, gestures for Gabriel to follow suit. It would seem that even now, Michael cannot escape the call to business.
ย โWhat can the family of the Star offer to me beside the disdain for my title?โ There is no malice in his tone, only truth. Eternity is a long time, and Michael has learned well. And who better to know how to sway the will of the mortals who sneer behind his back than their Sun?ย
โWhat would you have me do for them?โ