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[dontcallmegabby.livejournal.com]

Date: April 7, 2000, morning
Setting: Raphael's Room
Status: Private - Raphael and Gabriel
Summary: Raphael's got some things on his mind.


Early morning light filtered delicately through the trees of the manor ground, dancing in fleeting patterns of dark and light across his crimson surroundings; bright and ever-changing, like the stained glass in the manor's run down little chapel. But somehow, the warmth, the luxury, the dancing shadows on the walls were not enough to rid him of the sense of anxiousness that seemed to hang in the air.

Belial, lying still at his side, gave him a fuzzy, questioning glance when he stirred; he pressed a light kiss to the other's cheek, murmuring faint reassurances, and slipped from the covers.

If there was any doubt as to where the growing fray of emotions that reached him had originated, it was erased when he arrived in the hospital wing to find Constantine bed-ridden yet again. Gabriel, assured by the angelic aura that still clung to the mortal, decided with little more than a glance into the room that the man had once again escaped whatever dangers had befallen him, and silently moved on to leave him and the other being that sat at his side - Crowley? he thought - in peace.

Further down the hall, he found that same angelic presence he'd sensed about Constantine, looking perhaps a bit haggard as he fussed about the hospital room. Knocking quietly on the half-open door, Gabriel peered in. "Raphael?"

Comments

[winged-healer.livejournal.com]

"Remember? Remember to what end? Since coming here, I've ceased serving humanity. There's nothing beyond these walls and he was the only one... I'm sorry. But it's as though I found a lovely blossom that withered at my touch.

"I am responsible for so much, and that will never change. And since being here - what other existance did I have in the mansion, outside of him? I was only underfoot. He gave me something. Maybe not meaning, but something. Since it's disappeared, all I've thought about is finding it again. And until I do, nothing else matters."

Raphael closed his eyes tightly as if to block out the agonizing memories which had accumulated so quickly.

"Angel I might be; but a terrible one. And as painful as this loss is, as this separation is..." His voice lowered to a whisper. "I would almost give it up, my divinity, just to be with him again. Selfish, I know. But I can't help it and I can't stop the feelings.

"If he cannot be as 'good' as I, why should I not concede to being as Fallen as he?"

He sniffed and trembled as though he were cold. "I am afriad to fall, but I'm tired of the manor and recrimination and spending every day in a drug induced half-asleep haze. I'm not holy and hardly even try anymore.

"My own happiness has come to matter more than my duty. And surely that, in itself, ought to be enough to damn."

[dontcallmegabby.livejournal.com]

Understanding had turned quite suddenly to petulance as Raphael's sentiments quickly became what he feared, and he pulled away, turning to face the other archangel. "How dare you," he said, and though his expression showed little, his voice took on a dark tone as he continued. "How can you say such things after all that's happened? Michael was trying to protect you when he Fell. Would you toss that so carelessly aside? You hardly even seem surprised to turn against that which has been your existence since before Creation. You were not meant to put your own wants before the purpose for which the Lord has created you. Can you not see it in those who have Fallen? The most vile of them are those who care for nothing beyond their own interests; it goes against the very fabric of our beings. You're right, it is damnable. But, despite your words, you are an angel, and you should not be ready to dismiss it so lightly."

[winged-healer.livejournal.com]

"I'm not dismissing it lightly," he frowned. "I know he was trying to protect me - but what good is it if I get relegated to a desolate fringe?

"He didn't think things through when he did that, Gabriel. He only thought to protect me, not to separate us. I don't want to turn against what I am...

"I'm just saying that I'm not sure what I would decide, if it came down to it. I don't know, I can't say. All I know is that I miss him terribly. And I'm tired of being dutiful when all it seems to involve is getting into verbal or physical spats with other beings."

He played with the fabric of his robe, picking at it.

"I don't want to fall. But I don't know what we'll do in the longterm."

[dontcallmegabby.livejournal.com]

Gabriel took a single, calming breath, arms folded across his chest as he fought against the despair which seemed to seep into his thoughts, a dark disease in the face of all that had come to pass. Things seemed to change so quickly now, the world turning so swiftly beneath his feet after the relative calm of six thousand years. It had once seemed straightforward, unquestionable.

But then he shuddered inwardly with a ghostly memory, the impression of something he had not witnessed, but which haunted him nonetheless: Tali's scream.

There had always been questions, he thought, letting his eyes fall shut against the world; he'd just never had the courage to ask them.

"Raphael," he asked softly, earnestly, his eyes seeking the Healers, "was there ever a time when any of this was easy?"

[winged-healer.livejournal.com]

"It used to be," he replied quietly. "Before coming here. Before efforts. Before acting ridiculously human. It used to be very easy indeed, or at least always clear what needed to be done if not always enjoyable.

"Nothing was difficult like living here. At least... At least not for me," he amended.

He gazed into Gabriel's eyes, wondering what was behind them, aside from a being stronger and better than he. He seemed to ask some of the same questions - was he as utterly confused? Perhaps not if he could still utter words and assurances, admonishments and reminders of what they were.

Raphael sighed, weary.

"Everything is wrong, no matter what I do at this point. I have no right course of action. No matter what course I take someone will be furious at me for it. But I cannot allow that to matter.

"As kind as you are, Gabriel, you do not make up for what this place is and what it does, for what I feel here. There are two I know who truly care for me.

"Soon I will go to one or the other and this place, this obscene gathering of occult detritus, can do as it pleases and go where it will; but it will do so without me."

Sitting there, tired and worn, he wondered that he did know what he had to do, or at least what he could do, but perhaps feared the finality of picking one or the other.

But that decision would have to be made, sooner than later.

[dontcallmegabby.livejournal.com]

Perhaps he would have done better to show compassion, Gabriel thought, knowing to an extent the conflict of emotion that Raphael must have been feeling; but all his empathy seemed to have earned him little more than a frustrated ache blossoming with white intensity behind his eyes. It hurt, almost physically hurt to hear another angel, and one who had been so steadfast for centuries, speak so easily of Falling.

Of Falling for the love of a demon. For Gabriel's same offense.

And yet there seemed nothing he could say to stop the mad rush of it, so he kept his eyes cool and impassive on Raphael's. "It is true that this place is confounding, that perhaps all of us have been faced with circumstances we may never have imagined," his words as sterile and cool as the plain walls of Raphael's hospital, "but if you should Fall, Raphael - if you should turn from Him now, knowing full well the consequences - little kindness will be spared you from either side."

[winged-healer.livejournal.com]

He scoffed.

"What kindness is spared regardless? You are the only one I talk to. Will you hunt me down? And I didn't promise to Fall.

"If I just went back home, started doing my job and ignoring this whole situation... I'm not supposed to but surely I could plead my case.

"I know He loves me no matter what - and I think it's about time I was reminded of that directly."

He felt the ache inside, the loneliness that came with being away from a place that was really home. An ache made worse knowing that not all were there, nor would they be.

Even so, he wanted to shake the dust of the manor off his feet, go and never look back. If he couldn't withstand, it would be better to withdraw.

After all - what were Adam or any of the others to him anyway?

[dontcallmegabby.livejournal.com]

A subtle, creeping ache inserted itself behind his eyes, and Gabriel felt as though he'd been trying to shove over brick walls without the convenience of ethereal power. He rubbed, tired, at the bridge of his nose.

"That's probably a good idea," he said finally. "For all of us, I'm beginning to think." He knew just how tiring the manor could be; more so, he thought, than most places on Earth, for all its concentration of opposing powers. While his relationship with Belial had found some tentative resolution, that did not mean he wasn't all too aware of the dangers; indeed, Michael's Fall along with Gabriel's recent conversation with the succubus Ellie served as a tangible reminder of what twists of fate may, with the wrong step, lie in wait.

He sighed to himself, breathing deep of the shadows. This visit seemed to have earned the pair of them naught but more worry, so, in the silence, he said quietly, "I am glad to find you still in one piece, at the least, Raphael. I do wish you well." And with that, he turned to leave.

[winged-healer.livejournal.com]

"Thank you. Good bye, then."

And he turned back over, closing his eyes trying to get back to sleep.