201: Loss
The last days of June are lost, a total mystery to him beyond the knowledge that this life began in June, he remembers it was June. July passed in a heat haze of incomprehension. It is August in this City of Angels. Waterfront's cool and so that's where he is, this newcomer to the human race, adrift at the shoreline.
Venice Beach, where the police will move you along after too many hours with your hands out, is to the north, the tourists and the natives mingling where the water meets the shore. Once it gets dark he will make his way there, because there is always a fire on the beach, and often food, and sometimes better than either of those is music. Hands slapping hollow hides and holding tambourines, feet kicking in the sand. And then Gabriel can forget, for a few hours, this world he has found himself in, which is so much colder and rougher and sharper than he ever guessed. And this body he has also found himself in, so much weaker, so weak, so needy and fragile.
The music dulls the pain and sharpens it at once: he remembers other music, music of which this is but the most muted and garbled echo, and so he crouches on the sand, just another vagrant in a ragged coat, as if by curling in on himself he could ease the ache in his chest. But for all the pain he cannot stay away. And cannot stop his fingers from shaking, until they must draw forth the trumpet from where he cradles it close to his body. And then the pain comes out, cutting across the drums and home-made tub-thumpers and flutes, a long low heartrending wail of brass that always startles any newcomers to the drum circles.
They are a tolerant tribe and though it has only been a few weeks they have silently accepted him, marked him as one of their own, the unwanted, the unconforming, those who by nature or circumstance have slipped through the cracks of the suntanned city behind them and wound up at the beach. He has traded perhaps a total of a dozen words with his fellow strangers, but it does not matter. They do not ask him for speech when they hear the trumpet.
But this is at night, on nights when the drummers play. And for now it is day, with no music, only the infinite noise. Cars ceaseless on the streets, honks, shouts, people, so many people, they are an endless sea and he is without anchor, oar, or sail. Without direction, save the animal imperatives: the hunger that seems never to cease gnawing in his belly, the heat that drives him to seek shade during the day, the cold that urges him to shelter in the night. No more guidelines than this, for one who once heard the commands of God spoken to his face.
"Okay, time's up, buddy. Off you go."
The words don't register until a foot is added to the instruction, nudging at his leg. Gabriel stirs and looks up, into the black-rimmed glasses of the goateed Starbucks barista holding a broom.
"Lunch crowd's on their way," the young man says, not unkindly. "I gotta sweep the sidewalk."
He nods, because the twenty-something's apologetic face seems to require a response. Standing takes effort-- everything, everything takes such unimaginable effort-- and then he regards the strip of sidewalk that stretches down the block blankly. 'Lunch crowd is coming.' This has meaning: that he will be shooed away from the door of any of the delis or bistros. Beach, then, or the back alley behind the shops, where the lunch crowd's unwanted food will be tossed out... he decides on the alley.
"Hey. Hey!"
This has meaning too: he knows now that such a greeting means he should turn with a preparatory cringe, lest the words be spoken by an angry shop owner, or someone grabbing his arm, or ready to strike him. This time it is merely a paper cup held out to him, a few coins in the bottom of it.
"Don't forget your cup, dude," says the young man, holding it out to him. Gabriel takes it after a long uncomprehending moment.
In the alley it is cool, shade from the buildings cutting a stark line across the asphalt. He drops back down to the ground, letting his head fall back against the wall of the Starbucks. The slice of blue sky overhead is a taunt beyond words, beyond bearing, and soon he closes his eyes. He remembers the air--
But the memory is too weak to hold against the smells permeating the back alley, a disconcerting mix of tempting food-smells counterpointed by trash, urine, perhaps vomit. Gabriel opens his eyes again, his gaze tracking from the mocking heavens to the opposite wall. Someone has spray-painted red letters across the face of newly repainted brick; he traces the curving lines of graffiti with his eyes for long minutes, the letters meaningless.
After a while this becomes tiring so he stops. He remembers the cup he's holding and tips the change into his hand, counting, lips moving soundlessly. Nickel-dime-dime-quarter-four-pennies-nickel... fifty-nine, fifty-nine cents. He cannot remember but he is fairly sure it was all from the same person. They are such a blur, the people.
For a moment helpless laughter grips him at the irony. And to them? He is not even a blur, not even their equal. Only a piece of the landscape, to be casually ignored or casually indulged as the spirit moves them.
He lets the change drop back into the cup. Soon enough, the lunch crowd will be done with their meals and the trash bags brought out here. He can wait.
He has nothing but time.
Eloi, eloi, lama sabachthani...
***
The first door to open is the Italian bistro's. Gabriel's head lifts automatically at the sound, eyes drifting over to the busboy bringing out a white plastic garbage bag. Move, stand, forward. The body does not require his mind to consent to action, it has its own will, its own needs. He thinks that it would be easier to do nothing, to sit still and wait until this flesh simply dies, and then whatever lies beyond that-- oblivion, perhaps-- he would risk it... but the body refuses, it clings to life and claws for survival with a single-minded, undignified tenacity that astounds him. This is human. This is a human trait, because an angel, when the end comes, does not engage in futile struggle. Rafayel, Danyael, Simon, others-- even himself, when Lucifer had taken his heart-- at that point there is nothing but inevitability, and so to what purpose resistance?
That had always baffled him about humans, that they would go down clawing and kicking to the last, even when all logic must tell them it could accomplish nothing. Why, why did they choose to die like such animals? And now he knows, it is not choice, it is animal, something in the created nature of man that drives the body even when the spirit says no more, I cannot exist like this.
And thus, dishes that were sent back to the kitchen or left half-eaten on tables, bits of salad or an overcooked chicken parmigiana. Pride enters into the equation even less than thought. Gabriel fishes a crust of garlic bread, only a little the worse the wear for red wine and tomato sauce, from the trash bag. The door opens again.
"Ay, ¡cabron! ¡Vete!" growls the busboy, gesturing expressively down the alley with a hand holding another bag of trash. The man adds in thickly-accented English, "Go. Go away. Not for you, si? Go!"
Gabriel lets the bag drop back to the pavement, the crust still in his fingers. Argument is beyond him. He has no energy, no will for it.
"Bueno, Diego," says a voice, old voice, familiar voice, quiet and kind. "El está conmigo. Gabriel..."
Bread drops from fingers that have no strength now, and he turns.
Simon is in the kitchen's doorway, Simon. Hands in his coat's pockets, regarding him with all the gentle sorrow of a Pieta. Gabriel stares, because he has been wrong before; seen a human in a long coat and choked out the name of a former brother only to be met with a blank, hostile stare. But this is Simon, it is, no mistaking the sad blue eyes or the red hair falling in soft waves to his shoulders.
"Simon," Gabriel manages, and hears his own voice raspy and rough from disuse. He knows in that moment what it was Eve and Adam must have felt, the sudden desire to hide from the presence of the holy, the knowledge of their own fall. He is dirty, and fallen, conscious of every unknown stain on his face and hands, which are as nothing compared to the filth that Simon must perceive in him. "Simon--"
"Come eat with me, Gabriel," says Simon softly, and he flinches as if struck. Kindness shall be as heaps of burning coals....
Diego intercedes. "Mister, sir, he... cannot come in, he is..."
"He is with me," Simon repeats in a tone that is as implacable as it is gentle. The busboy stares a moment then apparently decides he doesn't get paid enough to continue the argument.
Through the doorway then, through the kitchen, no one impeding their way, no rough hands on his shoulders or voices telling him to stop. Simon is a talisman against it all. He follows like a dog fearing to stray too far from its master; and he fears also to question the miracle lest it should vanish. The restaurant is a blur (so many things are) and then he's seated, Simon regarding him across the table.
"Simon," he says again. Anything beyond that is too much, he does not remember how to shape words, how to command speech. All the languages of the earth and of a thousand worlds beyond were his, once. Gabriel spreads his grimy hands flat on the clean white tablecloth and stares at them, because Simon's face is too much like listening to music: oh, it hurts, to know the things he has lost.
"Here. Here's our food," Simon murmurs, and then there are plates set before him, hot, steaming, rich. Wine poured. Bread served. It is a feast, and the animal in him, the weak flesh, reaches for it--
--no, no, I am not like them yet, not wholly, I am not so low as this yet--
"Simon." And this time he forces out another syllable, another. "How... you are..."
"Shhh. Later, Gabriel. Eat." Simon's hand atop his own is cool and comforting. His stomach turns and clenches and the room is too warm, spins, twists around him and only the soothing presence of Simon's hand holds him in the chair, upright. Gabriel closes his eyes and concentrates on merely breathing, in out, in out, until the dizziness passes. How can Simon be here? Simon is dead, he remembers-- oh he remembers-- fingers twitching on the table, they know what it felt like, Simon's heart a dark red throbbing thing in his grasp--
"Gabriel. Look at me."
He focuses on Simon's eyes and face and it's a little better. A bit. Deep breaths. The sensation of drowning persists just the same. Simon moves his hand towards the plate.
Fumbling, dropping knife and spoon and fork, each clatter of silverware a harsh discord that rings off the immaculate china and through the restaurant. Gabriel feels the stares of other diners upon him and his hands shake, but his stomach is screaming one single message up his nerves food food foodfood and he eats, everything else, even Simon, taking second place.
Some minutes before he looks up, slowly focusing on Simon, who sits serene and calm, fingers laced together on the table. Gabriel reaches for the glass at his place and drains the wine.
"Why. You're here. How..."
Simon's smile is infinite compassion and regret. "Oh, Gabriel," he says. "Don't you know?"
No. He understands nothing, anymore; stares blank and stupid. Simon sighs.
"I'm here to take you back home, Gabriel."
Home. The word is holy. It is a key, and the door of it opens on Paradise. Too much. It is too much, like the food and the wine. He has heard wrong. He must have heard--
"You've been tested, brother. Sorely, I know." (Simon's hand on his again, so reassuring, so soothing, and simply to be touched is another dizzying blessing--) "But it's over. It's all right. You've proven yourself to Him. You can come home now."
"A--" Swallow. Breathe. "A test?"
"Yes. A test of judgment and loyalty. He has seen who has done His will, even when His orders were not clear. And you, Gabriel-- faithful Gabriel-- you have passed through all the fires of hell, through the ignorance of your brothers, through the suffering of this last trial-- and you are as molten gold. Through all you have proven true and wise. You have earned your place as the chief of servants, Gabriel."
It makes no sense. None of it... if only his head was not still spinning, if only the smells of the food didn't still make his stomach lurch. "Michael..."
"Michael has not endured a third of what you have."
That is true, he thinks savagely. Yes. True. True that he... that he has been loyal, through it all... it was only this most recent that shook him, the words of the woman Valerie, and then what Michael had been granted authority to do to him... surely he had been wrong... but if it was a test, only another trial, why then.... it makes sense. It does make sense, it is truth. That he has suffered for the Name and now shall be rewarded, shall once more enjoy the love of his Creator, shall be raised back to the throne of God, back to his former station and beyond, and the words will be spoken over him, This is my beloved son, in whom I am well pleased, above all others in My sight he is faithful and esteemed... above all others he is holy, and he shall be My right hand, and he shall be granted a new name; I shall write upon him that he is like unto Me, and...
(I don't want to be a god, Simon.)
The spinning stops. For a second there is clarity. It is not pleasant, no-- he is aware that he has eaten and drunk much too quickly, of too-rich food; and he is aware of exactly what he is (and has been...). He is a middle-aged man hunched greedily over a plate, food on his fingers and face, clothes filthy, coat stained, hair matted. The knowledge is acid and burns away the haze of Simon's words. This time, when he looks up, he sees the mockery behind Simon's gentle smile.
"Lucifer."
The smile drops. For a half-second there is anger on Simon's face, and then the smile is back, but it is not one that was ever on the real Simon's face, not this easy contemptuous curve of lips that is more a knife's arc than an expression.
"Oh, darn. What gave me away?"
Gabriel feels weariness, or perhaps it is humanity, settle again on him like a blanket of iron. The key and the door crumble to dust. Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher; all is vanity. He manages to shrug.
"You... too much, Lucifer. You went... overboard. Didn't know when to stop." Gabriel lets his eyes shut and slumps in the chair that holds his weight, the only thing between him and the ground. A pause. "Also. You didn't say grace."
"Grace?"
"For the food."
Lucifer stares at him a moment, with Simon's face, then throws his head back and laughs. "Ah yes. I did forget that part, didn't I?"
He doesn't respond and so there is a moment's silence, the air over their table all heavy and sullen. Around them the sounds of the restaurant go on, their fellow diners oblivious at Lucifer's whim. Gabriel reaches for another piece of bread.
Simon, no, Lucifer, is startled into another laugh. "Amazing. You're just going to keep eating."
He lets Lucifer talk. Lucifer loves to do that and Gabriel has different priorities, now, then war or revenge or good versus evil or anything else, anything that would once have mattered between him and Lucifer. Yes, he supposes he hates him; but really... really, there is still the food in front of him and as long as Lucifer doesn't take that away, doesn't take away his influence that allows him to sit here in the restaurant eating, then the Morningstar can talk all he wants. It almost feels good, even as Lucifer twists the knife; just to hear his name spoken, just to be in the presence of one of his kind again.
"...I confess myself surprised-- I didn't think Michael really had it in him." Lucifer has his chin (Simon's chin) on one of his hands (Simon's hands), and regards him with an expression part delight, part probing curiosity. "Stuffy sort of pacifistic bitch that he is, I mean. But he did do it, and we've all been observing with keen interest ever since, let me tell you. How does that feel, Gabriel? To know that most of Heaven, and all of Hell, is watching you root through dumpsters, sleep on cardboard boxes, and stumble down the streets in a daze? You're the equivalent of Jerry Springer for the Heavenly Host, or maybe the after-school special... The good little soldiers upstairs get their holier-than-thou kicks watching you mumble and piss yourself, and each one says pious things about how the Lord's justice is righteous, and each one is privately thinking, oh thank the Name it's him and not me. Goodness, even my boys are looking at you with renewed appreciation for their own jobs. Imagine that: it is better to serve in Hell than live on Earth."
Lucifer sips his wine-- he has not touched his own food-- deliberately, fingers toying with the glass. "Now there's an idea. How about it, Gabriel? A job offer. Serve me. Renounce Him-- it's not as if you're doing much serving of the Name these days anyways-- and swear your allegiance to me. And in return, Gabriel, I'll take you away from all this. Grant you a throne in my kingdom. Authority again-- or, at the very least, three squares a day." Simon's smile is broad and cheerful.
The restaurant is all sounds of silver and china, muted conversation. Gabriel raises his head to look out the window; the Pacific is slate-blue under the hot white sky. It takes a very long time to make his mouth say, "No."
Lucifer sighs and dabs at his lips primly with his napkin. "Shame. It was a good offer. Ah well, far be it from me to drag you forcibly from an exciting life of running from rabid dogs on the street, or take from you the delights of the oncoming winter. Try not to freeze to death-- like I said, you're providing wonderful entertainment and/or shock therapy for us all."
There are gulls wheeling over the sidewalk, over the ocean... He watches one for a few moments, seeing the flicker of wing's tip that steadies it on the air. He remembers flying...
"Kill me," he says softly. "You could do that, Lucifer."
Lucifer's smile, Simon's, is all edged kindness. "Yes. Yes, I could. You could yourself, if you had the balls to throw yourself in front of a passing truck. As you obviously don't, it would be up to me. But as I said-- entertainment. Putting you down like the scavenging dog you have become would be mercy, and that's hardly my department, now is it?"
Another sip of wine. "I could end your existence, Gabriel. But not for free. Nothing's free-- I imagine you've learned that now, about this world."
"What do. What do you--"
"What do I want? Oh, so much, Gabriel. But for a little thing like this... what the hell. There is something to be said for tradition: curse God and die, Job."
Outside the gulls descend to the street and fight over a scrap of hamburger bun. He cannot hear them screaming and shrieking at one another, not through the glass, but he knows they are by their open beaks. Buffeting one another with their wings, squabbling over trash, fighting to survive one against the other. This is existence, here-- this clawing for scraps, this battle that has no victory. Peace, rest, darkness; that is all he wants. That is what Lucifer is offering. An end.
"All you must do is renounce Him as He has renounced you."
Eyes track back to Lucifer, Lucifer who is no longer smiling with Simon's face, just watching him, waiting, fingers steepled, infinitely patient.
"He hasn't renounced me."
Lucifer snorts, not quite a sound any human could make. "Oh, but you are deluded, aren't you? Look at you. Look!" A gesture to the window, and Gabriel obeys, sees the sunken-eyed stranger staring back at him, dirt and grease smudged on hollowed, bearded cheeks, lines in his face that hadn't been there just a few weeks before.
"Gabriel, I can't say I've ever liked you all that much, but I did respect you. You endured me, after all. During your little... visit with us. I ripped your heart from your body and your wings from your back and even then, even when you were in chains before my throne, you never did bow to me. I couldn't break you," Lucifer drawls, tapping Simon's teeth with Simon's fingernails. "But ohhh, how the mighty have fallen. You are not what you were, Gabriel. You are sitting here with me-- me-- because your belly whines for food. Or is it worse even than that? Are you so pathetically desperate for a reminder of what you were that you will be grateful for even my company? No, no looking away, Gabriel. You must listen, darling."
Simon's hand is strong and no longer soothing when it grabs his chin, wrenches his gaze forcibly back to him. Gabriel feels the fingers and nails digging in and knows it will leave bruises, but the hand holds him firmly, does not permit him to cringe back from Lucifer's smile in Simon's face.
"You. You are... pathetic. A disgrace. An animal that retains just enough dignity to know that death is preferable to this existence. I applaud your good taste, Gabriel," Lucifer whispers. His eyes hold Gabriel whole.
"So it's very simple. Acknowledge what everyone else knows to be truth. He's forsaken you, Gabriel. Say it. Say it, and I will snap your neck for you. I will put you out of your misery."
(You know He's not with you. Say it.)
Gabriel starts laughing, uncontrollably, despite the pain Lucifer's nails cause at the motion of his head. It bubbles up from inside his chest, chokes his throat until he must let it out. Lucifer's fingers release his face and Gabriel hunches back in the chair, arms wrapping around his belly, shoulders shaking with mirth-that-isn't-mirth. Lucifer's gaze is hot upon him. Gabriel feels his cheeks wet and his belly hurting and still he can't stop laughing. At some point Lucifer stops being there, just isn't there anymore, and people notice him then, and there's hands on his shoulders and the manager muttering who the hell let this guy in and someone apologizing to the restaurant's paying customers and someone else saying the cops should be called and he gets to his feet and stumbles for the door, hits another table, clatter of dishes and someone's cursing, finally someone hauls him upright and out the door, threats, noise, noise noise noise, just a blur, until the sidewalk hits his shoulder and the sea air finds his face.
Gabriel lies on his back on the sidewalk watching the gulls until a dark blue blur cuts off his vision. The shape resolves into policeman's uniform, come on pal, let's move it, we got complaints, on your feet buddy, and he stays in the sky with the seagulls while they pull his body to its feet again, shove him down the sidewalk in a stagger.
It's been forty days since Michael sent him into this wilderness.
***
Winter comes.
This is Los Angeles, land of palm trees and eternal sunshine, so this is hardly as bad as it could be. But forty degrees at night is cold enough if a coat or cardboard box is all one has against it.
After Lucifer and the restaurant, he stops telling himself he's different than them. Them, them-- there is no 'them,' he is one of them. He is human. Human enough to huddle around fires built in old fuel drums with his fellow creatures, human enough to stand in line with them at the Hippie Kitchen on 6th Street, waiting for a bowl of soup, human enough to sit shoulder to shoulder in the ridiculously-named Los Angeles River to form a wall against the wind that whips through the dry concrete canal.
The first winter is marked by smells. Gasoline fires, cheap alcohol, cigarettes passed from hand to hand. Cat urine and wood rot in the condemned building he crawls into. Pot in that little niche beneath the trees in MacArthur Park. The many-layered stink of a dumpster.
He talks to the angels frequently now, telling them what it's like, watching them watching him. They perch on the ubiquitous telephone wires, or the bridges, or rooftops above whatever alley he's in tonight. Rafayel is the first one, staring at him with dark empty eyes from the edge of the dumpster he is huddled against. Uziel joins him a week later. Then Danyael... All of them, all those dead by his actions or his decisions.
They never answer him, only stare, wait, watch. Sometimes it's almost comforting, their presence as he drops off to sleep. Other times he screams at them until his voice is a raw gurgle, throws cans that pass through them. Once Danyael appears at the mouth of an alley with no other entrance, and he can't summon the courage to go near him for two days and two nights, and finally hunger drives him near, and fear turned to desperation drives him to lunge at Danyael. Nothing, nothing, again nothing; only the air to fall through, and the brick wall that was behind Danyael, the scrape of it against his face and knuckles, and the pitying glance of a woman walking hurriedly by.
Christmas is a nightmare. For weeks, plastic figurines of rosy-cheeked children or blonde maidens, with small iridescent wings stuck on their backs and little gold tinsel circles above their heads, leer at him from seemingly every window. Bells and trumpets, trumpets and bells; he holds his head in his hands, covering his ears, and rocks back and forth on bus stop benches.
Christmas Eve and he passes the open door of San Antonio de Padua, a glowing yellow rectangle of warmth. He makes it up the stairs, to the door, stares in. Long lines of pews but dead ahead the altar. If he could-- if he could just cross that distance-- cast himself down before it, grab the feet of the crucified Christ and weep onto them, throw himself at the mercy of the Son-- surely he would not be refused? Surely not here and now at this place and time? Mercy, mercy, mercy, he would cry...
Judgment, say the blank impassive terrible faces of the dead, standing between him and the altar. Still he stands there, staring hungrily at the altar that seems to recede as he watches, the distance impossible, dizzying. Only when a priest comes to close and lock the doors for the night does he stir, stumbling back down the stairs and into the night.
***
Spring comes. The grey pallor of the dirty city is pierced by green and the beaches are once more populated by bathing suits instead of lone joggers with their dogs. Spring brings life, hope, tourists, more police moving the homeless along so the tourists don't see them... spring brings rain.
As March segues to April he finds himself standing on a street corner watching the automobiles rush by, headlights catching the falling drops of water. Wheels catch the water in the gutters, send it up onto him. He accepts this almost without noticing. His hands are lifted slightly as his sides, to feel the drops on his palms as they fall from heaven. It makes for a poor benediction, soaking him through, chilling him.
He's renounced you, he hears Lucifer purr, and his chin drops to his chest. His hair has gotten long-- and grey, when did that happen? and it hangs around the sides of his face like curtains.
Before his feet water swirls down the gutter, oil creating rainbow patterns on its surface. He stares at it and feels the pointlessness of it all, a mad rush of motion signifying nothing. Is there beauty in it? Is there some great pattern to it? The rain goes into the ground. The rivers underground go into the sea. The sea comes up to be rain again. That's beautiful. He tells himself that.
Another car takes the corner tightly, another spray of water sheeting up onto his trousers. No beauty, no pattern, only cold and dirt and stink and oil and wet.
***
"Mr. Adler? Gabriel?"
Consciousness comes slowly. There is no memory of whatever immediately preceded this waking, but this is so common for him now that Gabriel spares no thought for that, simply struggles to become aware of his current situation. He's inside, which is fairly novel, and lying on something... soft. He opens his eyes.
"There we are. Good morning, Mr. Adler. I'm Dr. Heffernan. How are you feeling?"
Good, he thinks, and is surprised at that. But he does, he feels warm and comfortable, no ache in his joints or stiffness in sore muscles. It's a bed he's in, he realizes.
"Where am I?"
"St. Jude's, Mr. Adler. You gave everyone quite a scare, you know."
He doesn't know why the man, the young doctor standing by the bed, is calling him Mister Adler, doesn't know what St. Jude's is (other than a man who's been dead many many centuries), doesn't know what he's talking about. Gabriel blinks, tries to keep up with the conversation. "I... I did?"
"Oh yes. Now, Gabriel--" there's the sound of a chair being pulled up, the doctor settling in, peering at him serious and earnest over his glasses, "--we've been over this. You know that you're here for your protection. The staff are not your enemy, Mr. Adler. The other doctors and I are not your enemy. There is no enemy. We only want to help you get better, but you have to work with us. It's a give-and-take, Gabriel. A big part of that is not wandering off the grounds."
He stares stupidly, but things not making sense are such an integral part of this whole being-human gig that it doesn't matter. He drops his head back against the pillow. So soft, so comfortable. He feels the doctor pat his hand.
"I know, it's probably all pretty confusing to you right now. You've had a rough few months. Frankly, we're all just grateful you're still alive, considering how you've been living. Look. Get some rest. Janet will be in-- you remember Janet, right?-- in a few hours with your lunch. Just take it easy until then, okay?
"We're glad to have you back."
***
He takes it easy. Janet comes, and no, he doesn't remember her, this strong-armed big-boned girl who smiles and repeats the doctor's words that they're glad he's back, they're all so glad the police found him, everyone was so worried... Lunch is tuna-on-wheat, and orange juice, and a bowl of fresh chunks of melon, and pudding.
Now take it easy, you've been pretty malnourished, Mister Adler. Don't worry, we'll have you have you back up to strength soon. Tell you what, if you eat all this and keep it down, tomorrow I'll sneak in some potato chips too, 'kay? A confidential wink.
Take it easy. There's laughter somewhere in his mind for that, easy, easy, there is nothing easy in this world of man, and by this point Gabriel has figured out they have mistaken him for someone else, but he can't bring himself to correct them. Food. Bed. Warmth. He keeps his mouth shut; he follows instructions and takes it easy.
Good morning, Mister Adler. How are you feeling? Better? Good, that's what we want to hear...
Good afternoon, Mister Adler. Ready to try going back downstairs? We've missed you in the activity room. No? Okay, no problem. Whenever you feel up to it.
Hey, Mister Adler. Beautiful day, isn't it? Let's get these windows open, let in some of the sun. There, isn't that nice? Yep, time for a shower. You've got a visitor today too. Your wife's here.
"My... wife?"
***
Downstairs. Janet offers to let him sit in a chair and just wheel him, but he says no, no thank you, he's feeling so good today he'll walk, and she accompanies him down the stairs. Gabriel feels sharp pangs of dread during the slow progression downstairs: there is no way that the real Gabriel Adler's wife is going to be taken in by a stranger. It's going to end, they'll find out he's not supposed to be here, here with the warmth and the food, and he'll be back out there again... Through a door now, into a room of bookshelves and big plush armchairs.
A woman is waiting in one of the chairs, her hands folded in her lap. She glances up quickly when the door opens, eyes seeking out his face. He's prepared for a look of confusion, of denial; he is not prepared for her shaky but genuine smile. She rises eagerly, takes a step towards him, then stops, twisting her hands together before her. "Gabe," she says, and ducks her head, but not so quickly he doesn't see the moisture in her eyes. "I-- I've been so-- when they called and said you'd been found, they'd gotten you back... I wanted to come right away but the doctors said I should let you have a week-- I'm sorry. I'm sorry, I'm babbling." She forces a smile. "And you.... you don't remember me anyway, do you..."
"Anne," he says slowly. Names, he still knows names, but hers feels oddly familiar on the tongue, and at the sound of it her gaze snaps back up to him, her eyes wide. They are exactly the color of the summer sky, and they stare at him, and then she does begin to cry, in earnest, her shoulders shaking as she sinks back down into the chair. "Oh God, Gabe..."
He stands there, arms at his side, not understanding, not understanding. His palms want to... touch her, hold her, rock her, Anne should not cry, his beautiful Anne should not be crying, should never have to cry. He remembers-- remembers-- remembers his first glance of her, a much younger woman then, standing in a doorway with the sun in her hair. He remembers a courtship, a proposal at the top of the Eiffel Tower, a wedding. A home. Her hands repotting petunias, no wedding ring because they'd had to sell it for the house. A baby... a death in the cradle... a funeral... tears shed together late at night. Her hands. Her hands at the potter's wheel, stained with clay. Her hands washing dishes, handing them to him to dry. Her hands on his body. His hands on hers. The second house. The arguments. The kisses. Another baby, quickly a child, the years blurred flickers. Summers watching fireflies and gathering dandelions, making dandelion wine. The first strand of silver in her auburn hair. The child, a girl-child, grown strong and full to adulthood. Road trips. Returning to Paris to compare it with what it had been like when they'd been young, standing at the top of the Eiffel again and giving her a replacement ring twenty-five years in the coming. Her hands still busy in the garden, at the potter's wheel, in the kitchen. Her hair more silver than auburn now.
A life...
And the pain in her blue eyes, the ache when they're sitting together in the doctor's office and hear words that have too many syllables to possibly mean anything: schizotypal personality disorder and schizophrenic religious delusions and amnesia related to disassociative identity disorder...
In English: he thinks he's an angel.
You are my angel, she tells him during one of his more lucid moments, when he's not raving about someone named Simon, when he's not reciting from Scripture. You are my angel. You always have been. Isn't that enough?
In the end it's too much to take, too much to expect anyone to bear, and the prognosis from all corners is that it is only going to get worse, episodes more and more frequent, more retreat into the "angel" personality. And she makes the decision, feeling it killing her, tearing her apart, to have him committed. She visits, every day and then every week and eventually just every month, sitting and listening to the man she married, who no longer recognizes her, speak about Judgment Day and the torments of hell and the fields of heaven, if he speaks in English at all.
All of this.
All of this flooding him in two, three seconds, as he stands staring at the crying woman, but it doesn't feel like new knowledge. It feels like something he's blocked off and locked up behind a door, a dam, but in her presence the wall bursts and the memories crash down upon him with the force of desperation.
"Anne," he says again, abject helpless misery in his tone, and his hands move like trapped birds until he gives in to the urge to cross to her, take her in his arms, and she buries her face in his chest and sobs.
"Oh God, Gabe, I miss you, I miss you so much... come back to us..."
Someone clears their throat, and Gabriel looks up to see Heffernan in the room, unnoticed until now. "He's trying, Mrs. Adler. He really is. We're making progress. Please... if you can sit down, we can discuss how the therapy's going..."
Gabriel sits. The universe is yanked out from under him; he sits because otherwise he'll fall, he cannot stand. Anne sits with him, her fingers tangling tightly with his, and she at least listens to the doctor's words about progress, but Gabriel stares out the window trying desperately to make sense of it all. Two lives, two existences... He is an archangel before the throne of the Name. Yes. He is the prince of thunder and fire and the east. Yes. He is the Sword of Heaven and the Left Hand of God. Yes. ...yes? He... he knows the songs the stars sing, and every language ever spoken, and the mysteries of birth and death, and--
--he knows that her fingers are warm around his.
...he knows... he knows he has wings, had them, had wings, that he could fly through the blackness of the void and reach the gates of Heaven, and that he carried a key to those gates around his neck--
--he can feel the wedding band he gave her, digging against his skin.
He knows he is not Gabriel Adler, but Gabri'el, and he knows this because that name is written on his skin by the very finger of God.
Except that it isn't. Except that he raises his free hand to rub there and his skin is smooth, newly scrubbed and shaved and no raised brand. And there is no key around his neck. And there are no wings at his back.
He is a man.
An angel... that's madness. That's crazy, crazy talk, but this, Anne by his side, her fingers squeezing his, the hopeful painful smile she gives him... that's sane, human, real. That's real.
The doctor finishes, arranging papers on his desk, and reluctantly informs them that visiting hours are up, but that she can come back tomorrow. She nods. And takes his face in her hands, leans their foreheads together-- it's so familiar; how many times have they done this, looked into each other's eyes like this, in the last decades? and she whispers, "You'll try, won't you? Promise me... promise me you're trying. Please."
His tongue is thick in his mouth, too thick to answer. But he nods.
***
Sessions with Dr. Heffernan are thrice weekly, long quiet talks. Heffernan is young, can't be more than thirty, curly hair and fashionable glasses and his framed diploma on the wall. Some part of him resents the calm, patronizing words from this... puppy... but Gabriel can't tell whether it's due to being a billion-year-old supernatural entity or from being a sixty-year-old man.
Sometimes he comes in knowing it's all wrong, knowing who and what he is, knowing he is the vengeance and mercy of the Lord. And Heffernan adjusts his glasses and looks at him with disappointment and resignation and makes a note in his notebook and asks him about his relationship with his father...
Micah Adler, a pastor, a firmly devout man, quick with the rod, stern with Gabriel and his brothers... Heffernan reads off things he's said in past sessions, all written down in the notebook, the confessions of jealousy of the favoritism shown to the younger brother and the envy of the older brother who'd been disowned by their father on his refusal to enter the seminary. It's all there, suppressed memories of an abusive childhood and the struggle his entire life to both please Micah and free himself from his overbearing influence. And Gabriel starts to say, No, wait, it-- it isn't like that-- but Heffernan's soothing voice overrides with the calm And then in this session we were talking about how with your older brother gone a greater responsibility fell on your shoulders, but you still didn't feel appreciated...
Truths blur. He comes into the sessions with one knowledge and by the end of it he's leaving with another; shaking, weak and exhausted but grateful, grateful to have had it put in the right words by Dr. Heffernan, taken down from the unbearable scale of massive cosmic struggles and into simple, manageable, mundane, petty terms.
Now, let's talk about this "Simon"...
***
It's turning into fall, not that Los Angeles shows it much. Heffernan's office has big windows, looking out over the landscaped courtyard, the other patients enjoying the out of doors. Gabriel enjoys the courtyard, and no longer attempts the doors leading to the outside; it simply distresses the interns and sets off the alarms and makes more work for everyone, for people like Janet, who don't deserve that sort of hassle.
It's a Friday, which is great, because tomorrow Anne is coming, and Heffernan says he's been making such good progress that he's going to take he and Anne out to lunch, somewhere outside, out in the city. That's going to be nice.
"So tell me about what happened after Micah's funeral?" asks Heffernan, and Gabriel tears his gaze from the window, back to the doctor. The memories of being Gabriel Adler come easily; he no longer has to hesitate before answering, or fight down the feeling that he's lying.
"Well, we all went back to our jobs. Michael has the nursery in Irvine, and I have... had... my company here in LA..."
"Yes. Oh, did your older brother attend?"
"No. No. He didn't come. Didn't show up."
"How did that make you feel?"
"I.... well, angry. He... was our father. He should have come."
"Even though he'd been disowned?"
"Maybe it would have given him some closure."
They both laugh over that, and Heffernan writes something down in his notebook, a smile on his face. "Fair enough. Were you at all... jealous? That he didn't attend, and yet you had to? No, don't answer that just now, just think about it. Now Gabriel, I have an exercise for you to do here..." He rips a sheet of paper out from the notebook and slides it across the desk to him.
"I want you to draw Micah's gravestone, as best you can remember it. Make it big, let it fill up the paper."
He complies, sketching the plain headstone on the paper with a marker.
"Good. Now write down his name and the dates of his life and death.... right, just like that. Gabriel, have you come to realize what a domineering influence he was over you? How deeply his views have still affected you, all these years later? By drawing this gravestone, by putting it there in black and white when he was born, and when he died, what we're doing is letting your subconscious know that he really is gone. We're giving you closure. He's no longer this big, haunting, omnipotent presence in the sky for you: he's buried and gone."
Gabriel nods, fills in the dates. His gaze wanders back to the window as Heffernan continues speaking. There's a tree just outside it, an olive tree with branches brushing the glass, and as Gabriel watches a mourning-dove comes to alight in the branches, seeking out its nest and mate.
"Okay... good. Now, there at the top of the page, I want you to write in big fat letters: MICAH ADLER IS DEAD. Good... See, once you accept he was only a man, you can reconcile your love for him with your disappointment, and remember him in a healthy, well-adjusted way..."
The dove is pecking at the window now. He watches it from the corner of his eye.
"And now, just below that, write GOD IS DEAD."
G.... O... D... The dove is pecking harder now, wings flapping. Beating the glass. I... S... D... Gabriel stops writing, his gaze drawn to the dove, to the thrashing wings, the frantic flutters.
"Gabriel? 'God is dead'?"
The dove... Gabriel remembers the dove... the mourning-doves that had cooed outside the bedroom window of their first house, woken him and Anne up without fail every morning, and they had lain in bed listening to the soft calls of the doves...
No. No, that's not the memory that's tugging at him as he watches the dove struggling against the glass.
Gabriel remembers the dove, wings straining as it flew over the water, over the endless glittering water, circling, weary, seeking, seeking. He flew before her, guiding her to the tree, and guiding her back, the olive leaf in her mouth.
Gabriel remembers the doves, the two doves that the poor bring as burnt offering and sin offering to the temple, the doves that struggle in the hands of the priests until the blade descends and blood stains their feathers.
Gabriel remembers the dove: the Spirit descending in the form thereof, from heaven to earth, alighting on the baptized man who stood in the river water streaming from His clothes and body. This is My beloved Son, in Whom I am well pleased.
"Gabriel. Finish the sentence."
He looks down at the paper, at the sketched gravestone, the GOD IS D-. Stares at what he was writing, would have written.
Slowly, he caps the marker and sets it down. Slowly says, murmuring words from the book they've spent months telling him not to quote from...
"I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last. I am that which is, and was, and which is to come."
He looks up at Heffernan, says quietly, "God is not dead. Try again. Brother."
Heffernan stares, then slumps in his chair, pulls off his glasses and rubs wearily at his face. "Gabriel... Mister Adler... we've been over this. I'm not the Devil."
Gabriel doesn't argue, just pushes himself up from the chair. "I'm going back to my room."
"Gabriel. If you end our session early, I can't let you and Anne have extended visiting hours tomorrow. That was a privilege conditional on your progress."
He stops in the doorway, the moment's certainty that had blazed through him fluttering weakly now, rather like a trapped bird itself. He looks back at Heffernan, who does not look diabolical, only frustrated and let down. Doubt shudders and twists in him, and he looks to the window for encouragement, but whatever moved the dove to flail and struggle has ceased, and the bird has found its nest, its mate.
...the mourning-doves that had cooed outside the bedroom window of their first house, woken him and Anne up without fail every morning, and they had lain in bed listening to the soft calls of the doves...
He wavers, feeling himself standing on the edge of a knife's blade. On one side there is Anne and their daughter and their home and a life-- a life!-- that he can remember, that is real and sane and filled with quiet joys, and he can have it back, all he has to do is go sit down and write down three more meaningless letters on that paper and do as Heffernan tells him to and believe what Heffernan tells him to and they will eventually let him out and let him have that life, that world....
And on the other side, there are names and faces and images vast and terrifying. The endlessness of space, the glitter of stars hung in the void, the ecstasies of heaven, the heart-deep hatreds of hell. Wars beyond human imagination. The dead, and his guilt in the dead. So much blood on his hands. A litany of his sins, and his punishment, which is to be chained in this body for.... for how long? For ever? Is it forever? Is what he has done so far beyond forgiveness that even the Name cannot find mercy for him? He will live the rest of this human life in darkness and madness, blind and deaf and dumb, a wounded animal clinging to having once been more than that, and not because he can rightly expect forgiveness, but only because he thinks it is the truth. A cold and hollow comfort, that.
With the other, he would at least be happy.
He looks at the paper on the desk. He looks at Heffernan. He thinks of Anne, who even now will be packing a day bag for the drive to come see him, who has smiled more and more at each visit, whose heart he has already broken and whose heart will break again if he cannot be who he is to her. How terrible a thing to have given her hope.
He looks to the window, and sees only his own reflection, which is grey-haired, lined-of-face, human: not the Gabri'el who has moved heaven and earth in the name of the Lord.
And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall set ye free...
The words of Christ mock him in this moment. Wordlessly, Gabriel leaves the room.
***
The window to his room does not open more than six inches: for your own protection, Mister Adler. Gabriel waits until it is dark, then picks up a picture of Anne that sits beside his bed and uses it to smash the window-- it has a heavy metal frame, and there is nothing else in the room that would have worked. He cuts himself on the shards of glass as he climbs awkwardly out the window, as he drops with no elegance to the sidewalk. Sharp jolts of pain and new bruises and scrapes and now he's not sure he can trust his weight to his right ankle. Yes. This is humanity, all right...
Running is out of the question; he limps down the street. One of the night nurses catches up with him before he reaches even the first stop light, and a heavy hand settles on his shoulder.
"Mister Adler..."
It's Janet, and he turns to her worried face knowing all too well what he looks like, a middle-aged man with blood on his clothes and hands, limping down the street away from a mental institution. "Janet," he says, and is surprised at the desperation in his own tone, "Janet, you have to let me go, please, you can't stop me-- I c-can't face Anne tomorrow--"
"You know I can't do that, Mister Adler," she says, and turns him inexorably about, back to the clinic. He struggles, thinking that now he definitely looks like a madman, but she is a strong young woman and he is feeling very weak right now indeed. His treacherous body decides it wants to be back inside anyway, back in the sane soothing corridors and rooms of St. Jude's, where he is Gabriel Adler, where that is all he has ever been, where his wife is coming tomorrow to see him, where the only path to getting his life back awaits, there in Heffernan's office...
They get back to the clinic's front door, and Janet inspects his hands with a concerned shake of her head, and Gabriel acquiesces mutely. Over. Done. They're right, he's delusional, all of it is madness, he never flew the arching vaults of heaven, and God is dead.
Janet turns her head, and her blonde hair falls back from her neck, and the lobby's lights spill over the side of her throat, where there is a mass of ugly scar tissue, as from a burn.
Gabriel reaches for it automatically, smearing blood on the raised scar, and she jumps about three feet in the air and back from him. "Jesus--!"
"Your neck..."
"...what? Oh, this, jeez. I was in a car accident when I was a kid."
"Of course you were," he murmurs, and stares at her now, eyes tracing her face. How subtle are the ways of the enemy. All the energy wasted in suspecting Heffernan, and all this time the enemy was much closer, every day there with a gentle concerned touch, there with his food, there helping him shower and shave, always with a cheerful smile and behind it Lucifer was laughing and laughing.
He punches her then, putting as much strength into it as he can summon from this tired injured mortal body, knowing he's not going to get a second chance, and this time makes himself run, pain be damned, back out the lobby doors and running until he can't breathe for the pain in his side and ankle. Then he hunches in an alley behind a dumpster, coughing and gasping, rubbing at his ankle, dragging air into his lungs. He'll have to hide, they'll look for him, but he knows enough of LA now to stay hidden, he thinks. He slumps back against the wall and tries to convince himself not to head right on back to the clinic.
"Now... that... was entertainment." The words are accompanied by a slow clap, and Gabriel's eyes roll up to the dumpster, where Lucifer is perched, smiling down at him.
"You," he chokes out.
"Me!" answers Lucifer, in a sing-song tone. "I have to say. Punching a nurse? That alone has made the last few months worth it from where I'm sitting."
"She... she wasn't... she was you..."
"No. No, I'm afraid not. Goodness, are you going to go around assaulting anyone with a likely burn scar on their neck? Gabriel, if I had been her, you would currently be screaming in pain on that lobby floor with most of your bones broken. While I broke the remaining ones. No, Gabriel, you just punched a pretty girl in the mouth for no reason whatsoever. Like I said before: Dinner. Theatre."
Gabriel closes his eyes and slumps back against the wall, sliding down it, exhausted in every sense of the word. There is one thing to cling to, one comfort; he vocalizes it while balling his bleeding hands in the fabric of his shirt. "You're real."
"Me? Not in the slightest. I'm a figment of your imagination, crazycakes. I am all your inadequacies and your rebellious desires projected onto your prodigal elder brother figure, or whatever else the good doctor was telling you. Silly darling, personifications of evil don't actually exist. Get with the times." Lucifer grins, a grin like a skull's, then shrugs carelessly.
"I nearly had you this time, little brother."
Gabriel nods, wearily; it's true. For that matter he's not yet sure he's out of danger.
"You were..." he coughs. "...definitely more subtle."
Lucifer smiles as if graciously accepting the compliment, then steps down from the dumpster to crouch beside him. He runs gentle fingers over Gabriel's face, the picture of concern, then cracks his head back against the wall. For fun. All for fun.
But all amusement has dropped from his face as he leans in and hisses, "Are you congratulating yourself on your victory? Don't. So much better for you had you taken this one, Gabriel. It was a good offer, a nice wholesome human life you could have had if you'd just learn when to shut up and smile and nod. And don't think for a moment that by passing this up you've made any sort of... progress. That this will make things any easier, that you've learned anything from this that will stick with you and provide you with strength.
"This is just the beginning, Gabriel. You've been human a year. You've got... who knows? Twenty or thirty more of them before this body you're in kicks it. And I'm not going anywhere. We're going to have fun, little brother. Just you and me, because He doesn't give a shit about you. Get. That. Through. Your. Head.
"You think you've lost things so far, Gabriel? Lost your name, your faith, your wings, your position, your connection with the Father.... Loss of strength and power. Loss of pride and dignity, of certainty, of direction, of knowledge, of reason and sanity. Loss of a life, of pretty little Anne and how she could have made your remaining years tolerable. Too bad. So sad.
"Gabriel, Gabriel... you're just getting started."
______
gabriel * the prophecy series (movie) * word count: 9780 (I'M SO SORRY. IT'S A WEEK FOR LONG PROMPTS.)
Venice Beach, where the police will move you along after too many hours with your hands out, is to the north, the tourists and the natives mingling where the water meets the shore. Once it gets dark he will make his way there, because there is always a fire on the beach, and often food, and sometimes better than either of those is music. Hands slapping hollow hides and holding tambourines, feet kicking in the sand. And then Gabriel can forget, for a few hours, this world he has found himself in, which is so much colder and rougher and sharper than he ever guessed. And this body he has also found himself in, so much weaker, so weak, so needy and fragile.
The music dulls the pain and sharpens it at once: he remembers other music, music of which this is but the most muted and garbled echo, and so he crouches on the sand, just another vagrant in a ragged coat, as if by curling in on himself he could ease the ache in his chest. But for all the pain he cannot stay away. And cannot stop his fingers from shaking, until they must draw forth the trumpet from where he cradles it close to his body. And then the pain comes out, cutting across the drums and home-made tub-thumpers and flutes, a long low heartrending wail of brass that always startles any newcomers to the drum circles.
They are a tolerant tribe and though it has only been a few weeks they have silently accepted him, marked him as one of their own, the unwanted, the unconforming, those who by nature or circumstance have slipped through the cracks of the suntanned city behind them and wound up at the beach. He has traded perhaps a total of a dozen words with his fellow strangers, but it does not matter. They do not ask him for speech when they hear the trumpet.
But this is at night, on nights when the drummers play. And for now it is day, with no music, only the infinite noise. Cars ceaseless on the streets, honks, shouts, people, so many people, they are an endless sea and he is without anchor, oar, or sail. Without direction, save the animal imperatives: the hunger that seems never to cease gnawing in his belly, the heat that drives him to seek shade during the day, the cold that urges him to shelter in the night. No more guidelines than this, for one who once heard the commands of God spoken to his face.
"Okay, time's up, buddy. Off you go."
The words don't register until a foot is added to the instruction, nudging at his leg. Gabriel stirs and looks up, into the black-rimmed glasses of the goateed Starbucks barista holding a broom.
"Lunch crowd's on their way," the young man says, not unkindly. "I gotta sweep the sidewalk."
He nods, because the twenty-something's apologetic face seems to require a response. Standing takes effort-- everything, everything takes such unimaginable effort-- and then he regards the strip of sidewalk that stretches down the block blankly. 'Lunch crowd is coming.' This has meaning: that he will be shooed away from the door of any of the delis or bistros. Beach, then, or the back alley behind the shops, where the lunch crowd's unwanted food will be tossed out... he decides on the alley.
"Hey. Hey!"
This has meaning too: he knows now that such a greeting means he should turn with a preparatory cringe, lest the words be spoken by an angry shop owner, or someone grabbing his arm, or ready to strike him. This time it is merely a paper cup held out to him, a few coins in the bottom of it.
"Don't forget your cup, dude," says the young man, holding it out to him. Gabriel takes it after a long uncomprehending moment.
In the alley it is cool, shade from the buildings cutting a stark line across the asphalt. He drops back down to the ground, letting his head fall back against the wall of the Starbucks. The slice of blue sky overhead is a taunt beyond words, beyond bearing, and soon he closes his eyes. He remembers the air--
But the memory is too weak to hold against the smells permeating the back alley, a disconcerting mix of tempting food-smells counterpointed by trash, urine, perhaps vomit. Gabriel opens his eyes again, his gaze tracking from the mocking heavens to the opposite wall. Someone has spray-painted red letters across the face of newly repainted brick; he traces the curving lines of graffiti with his eyes for long minutes, the letters meaningless.
After a while this becomes tiring so he stops. He remembers the cup he's holding and tips the change into his hand, counting, lips moving soundlessly. Nickel-dime-dime-quarter-four-pennies-nickel... fifty-nine, fifty-nine cents. He cannot remember but he is fairly sure it was all from the same person. They are such a blur, the people.
For a moment helpless laughter grips him at the irony. And to them? He is not even a blur, not even their equal. Only a piece of the landscape, to be casually ignored or casually indulged as the spirit moves them.
He lets the change drop back into the cup. Soon enough, the lunch crowd will be done with their meals and the trash bags brought out here. He can wait.
He has nothing but time.
Eloi, eloi, lama sabachthani...
***
The first door to open is the Italian bistro's. Gabriel's head lifts automatically at the sound, eyes drifting over to the busboy bringing out a white plastic garbage bag. Move, stand, forward. The body does not require his mind to consent to action, it has its own will, its own needs. He thinks that it would be easier to do nothing, to sit still and wait until this flesh simply dies, and then whatever lies beyond that-- oblivion, perhaps-- he would risk it... but the body refuses, it clings to life and claws for survival with a single-minded, undignified tenacity that astounds him. This is human. This is a human trait, because an angel, when the end comes, does not engage in futile struggle. Rafayel, Danyael, Simon, others-- even himself, when Lucifer had taken his heart-- at that point there is nothing but inevitability, and so to what purpose resistance?
That had always baffled him about humans, that they would go down clawing and kicking to the last, even when all logic must tell them it could accomplish nothing. Why, why did they choose to die like such animals? And now he knows, it is not choice, it is animal, something in the created nature of man that drives the body even when the spirit says no more, I cannot exist like this.
And thus, dishes that were sent back to the kitchen or left half-eaten on tables, bits of salad or an overcooked chicken parmigiana. Pride enters into the equation even less than thought. Gabriel fishes a crust of garlic bread, only a little the worse the wear for red wine and tomato sauce, from the trash bag. The door opens again.
"Ay, ¡cabron! ¡Vete!" growls the busboy, gesturing expressively down the alley with a hand holding another bag of trash. The man adds in thickly-accented English, "Go. Go away. Not for you, si? Go!"
Gabriel lets the bag drop back to the pavement, the crust still in his fingers. Argument is beyond him. He has no energy, no will for it.
"Bueno, Diego," says a voice, old voice, familiar voice, quiet and kind. "El está conmigo. Gabriel..."
Bread drops from fingers that have no strength now, and he turns.
Simon is in the kitchen's doorway, Simon. Hands in his coat's pockets, regarding him with all the gentle sorrow of a Pieta. Gabriel stares, because he has been wrong before; seen a human in a long coat and choked out the name of a former brother only to be met with a blank, hostile stare. But this is Simon, it is, no mistaking the sad blue eyes or the red hair falling in soft waves to his shoulders.
"Simon," Gabriel manages, and hears his own voice raspy and rough from disuse. He knows in that moment what it was Eve and Adam must have felt, the sudden desire to hide from the presence of the holy, the knowledge of their own fall. He is dirty, and fallen, conscious of every unknown stain on his face and hands, which are as nothing compared to the filth that Simon must perceive in him. "Simon--"
"Come eat with me, Gabriel," says Simon softly, and he flinches as if struck. Kindness shall be as heaps of burning coals....
Diego intercedes. "Mister, sir, he... cannot come in, he is..."
"He is with me," Simon repeats in a tone that is as implacable as it is gentle. The busboy stares a moment then apparently decides he doesn't get paid enough to continue the argument.
Through the doorway then, through the kitchen, no one impeding their way, no rough hands on his shoulders or voices telling him to stop. Simon is a talisman against it all. He follows like a dog fearing to stray too far from its master; and he fears also to question the miracle lest it should vanish. The restaurant is a blur (so many things are) and then he's seated, Simon regarding him across the table.
"Simon," he says again. Anything beyond that is too much, he does not remember how to shape words, how to command speech. All the languages of the earth and of a thousand worlds beyond were his, once. Gabriel spreads his grimy hands flat on the clean white tablecloth and stares at them, because Simon's face is too much like listening to music: oh, it hurts, to know the things he has lost.
"Here. Here's our food," Simon murmurs, and then there are plates set before him, hot, steaming, rich. Wine poured. Bread served. It is a feast, and the animal in him, the weak flesh, reaches for it--
--no, no, I am not like them yet, not wholly, I am not so low as this yet--
"Simon." And this time he forces out another syllable, another. "How... you are..."
"Shhh. Later, Gabriel. Eat." Simon's hand atop his own is cool and comforting. His stomach turns and clenches and the room is too warm, spins, twists around him and only the soothing presence of Simon's hand holds him in the chair, upright. Gabriel closes his eyes and concentrates on merely breathing, in out, in out, until the dizziness passes. How can Simon be here? Simon is dead, he remembers-- oh he remembers-- fingers twitching on the table, they know what it felt like, Simon's heart a dark red throbbing thing in his grasp--
"Gabriel. Look at me."
He focuses on Simon's eyes and face and it's a little better. A bit. Deep breaths. The sensation of drowning persists just the same. Simon moves his hand towards the plate.
Fumbling, dropping knife and spoon and fork, each clatter of silverware a harsh discord that rings off the immaculate china and through the restaurant. Gabriel feels the stares of other diners upon him and his hands shake, but his stomach is screaming one single message up his nerves food food foodfood and he eats, everything else, even Simon, taking second place.
Some minutes before he looks up, slowly focusing on Simon, who sits serene and calm, fingers laced together on the table. Gabriel reaches for the glass at his place and drains the wine.
"Why. You're here. How..."
Simon's smile is infinite compassion and regret. "Oh, Gabriel," he says. "Don't you know?"
No. He understands nothing, anymore; stares blank and stupid. Simon sighs.
"I'm here to take you back home, Gabriel."
Home. The word is holy. It is a key, and the door of it opens on Paradise. Too much. It is too much, like the food and the wine. He has heard wrong. He must have heard--
"You've been tested, brother. Sorely, I know." (Simon's hand on his again, so reassuring, so soothing, and simply to be touched is another dizzying blessing--) "But it's over. It's all right. You've proven yourself to Him. You can come home now."
"A--" Swallow. Breathe. "A test?"
"Yes. A test of judgment and loyalty. He has seen who has done His will, even when His orders were not clear. And you, Gabriel-- faithful Gabriel-- you have passed through all the fires of hell, through the ignorance of your brothers, through the suffering of this last trial-- and you are as molten gold. Through all you have proven true and wise. You have earned your place as the chief of servants, Gabriel."
It makes no sense. None of it... if only his head was not still spinning, if only the smells of the food didn't still make his stomach lurch. "Michael..."
"Michael has not endured a third of what you have."
That is true, he thinks savagely. Yes. True. True that he... that he has been loyal, through it all... it was only this most recent that shook him, the words of the woman Valerie, and then what Michael had been granted authority to do to him... surely he had been wrong... but if it was a test, only another trial, why then.... it makes sense. It does make sense, it is truth. That he has suffered for the Name and now shall be rewarded, shall once more enjoy the love of his Creator, shall be raised back to the throne of God, back to his former station and beyond, and the words will be spoken over him, This is my beloved son, in whom I am well pleased, above all others in My sight he is faithful and esteemed... above all others he is holy, and he shall be My right hand, and he shall be granted a new name; I shall write upon him that he is like unto Me, and...
(I don't want to be a god, Simon.)
The spinning stops. For a second there is clarity. It is not pleasant, no-- he is aware that he has eaten and drunk much too quickly, of too-rich food; and he is aware of exactly what he is (and has been...). He is a middle-aged man hunched greedily over a plate, food on his fingers and face, clothes filthy, coat stained, hair matted. The knowledge is acid and burns away the haze of Simon's words. This time, when he looks up, he sees the mockery behind Simon's gentle smile.
"Lucifer."
The smile drops. For a half-second there is anger on Simon's face, and then the smile is back, but it is not one that was ever on the real Simon's face, not this easy contemptuous curve of lips that is more a knife's arc than an expression.
"Oh, darn. What gave me away?"
Gabriel feels weariness, or perhaps it is humanity, settle again on him like a blanket of iron. The key and the door crumble to dust. Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher; all is vanity. He manages to shrug.
"You... too much, Lucifer. You went... overboard. Didn't know when to stop." Gabriel lets his eyes shut and slumps in the chair that holds his weight, the only thing between him and the ground. A pause. "Also. You didn't say grace."
"Grace?"
"For the food."
Lucifer stares at him a moment, with Simon's face, then throws his head back and laughs. "Ah yes. I did forget that part, didn't I?"
He doesn't respond and so there is a moment's silence, the air over their table all heavy and sullen. Around them the sounds of the restaurant go on, their fellow diners oblivious at Lucifer's whim. Gabriel reaches for another piece of bread.
Simon, no, Lucifer, is startled into another laugh. "Amazing. You're just going to keep eating."
He lets Lucifer talk. Lucifer loves to do that and Gabriel has different priorities, now, then war or revenge or good versus evil or anything else, anything that would once have mattered between him and Lucifer. Yes, he supposes he hates him; but really... really, there is still the food in front of him and as long as Lucifer doesn't take that away, doesn't take away his influence that allows him to sit here in the restaurant eating, then the Morningstar can talk all he wants. It almost feels good, even as Lucifer twists the knife; just to hear his name spoken, just to be in the presence of one of his kind again.
"...I confess myself surprised-- I didn't think Michael really had it in him." Lucifer has his chin (Simon's chin) on one of his hands (Simon's hands), and regards him with an expression part delight, part probing curiosity. "Stuffy sort of pacifistic bitch that he is, I mean. But he did do it, and we've all been observing with keen interest ever since, let me tell you. How does that feel, Gabriel? To know that most of Heaven, and all of Hell, is watching you root through dumpsters, sleep on cardboard boxes, and stumble down the streets in a daze? You're the equivalent of Jerry Springer for the Heavenly Host, or maybe the after-school special... The good little soldiers upstairs get their holier-than-thou kicks watching you mumble and piss yourself, and each one says pious things about how the Lord's justice is righteous, and each one is privately thinking, oh thank the Name it's him and not me. Goodness, even my boys are looking at you with renewed appreciation for their own jobs. Imagine that: it is better to serve in Hell than live on Earth."
Lucifer sips his wine-- he has not touched his own food-- deliberately, fingers toying with the glass. "Now there's an idea. How about it, Gabriel? A job offer. Serve me. Renounce Him-- it's not as if you're doing much serving of the Name these days anyways-- and swear your allegiance to me. And in return, Gabriel, I'll take you away from all this. Grant you a throne in my kingdom. Authority again-- or, at the very least, three squares a day." Simon's smile is broad and cheerful.
The restaurant is all sounds of silver and china, muted conversation. Gabriel raises his head to look out the window; the Pacific is slate-blue under the hot white sky. It takes a very long time to make his mouth say, "No."
Lucifer sighs and dabs at his lips primly with his napkin. "Shame. It was a good offer. Ah well, far be it from me to drag you forcibly from an exciting life of running from rabid dogs on the street, or take from you the delights of the oncoming winter. Try not to freeze to death-- like I said, you're providing wonderful entertainment and/or shock therapy for us all."
There are gulls wheeling over the sidewalk, over the ocean... He watches one for a few moments, seeing the flicker of wing's tip that steadies it on the air. He remembers flying...
"Kill me," he says softly. "You could do that, Lucifer."
Lucifer's smile, Simon's, is all edged kindness. "Yes. Yes, I could. You could yourself, if you had the balls to throw yourself in front of a passing truck. As you obviously don't, it would be up to me. But as I said-- entertainment. Putting you down like the scavenging dog you have become would be mercy, and that's hardly my department, now is it?"
Another sip of wine. "I could end your existence, Gabriel. But not for free. Nothing's free-- I imagine you've learned that now, about this world."
"What do. What do you--"
"What do I want? Oh, so much, Gabriel. But for a little thing like this... what the hell. There is something to be said for tradition: curse God and die, Job."
Outside the gulls descend to the street and fight over a scrap of hamburger bun. He cannot hear them screaming and shrieking at one another, not through the glass, but he knows they are by their open beaks. Buffeting one another with their wings, squabbling over trash, fighting to survive one against the other. This is existence, here-- this clawing for scraps, this battle that has no victory. Peace, rest, darkness; that is all he wants. That is what Lucifer is offering. An end.
"All you must do is renounce Him as He has renounced you."
Eyes track back to Lucifer, Lucifer who is no longer smiling with Simon's face, just watching him, waiting, fingers steepled, infinitely patient.
"He hasn't renounced me."
Lucifer snorts, not quite a sound any human could make. "Oh, but you are deluded, aren't you? Look at you. Look!" A gesture to the window, and Gabriel obeys, sees the sunken-eyed stranger staring back at him, dirt and grease smudged on hollowed, bearded cheeks, lines in his face that hadn't been there just a few weeks before.
"Gabriel, I can't say I've ever liked you all that much, but I did respect you. You endured me, after all. During your little... visit with us. I ripped your heart from your body and your wings from your back and even then, even when you were in chains before my throne, you never did bow to me. I couldn't break you," Lucifer drawls, tapping Simon's teeth with Simon's fingernails. "But ohhh, how the mighty have fallen. You are not what you were, Gabriel. You are sitting here with me-- me-- because your belly whines for food. Or is it worse even than that? Are you so pathetically desperate for a reminder of what you were that you will be grateful for even my company? No, no looking away, Gabriel. You must listen, darling."
Simon's hand is strong and no longer soothing when it grabs his chin, wrenches his gaze forcibly back to him. Gabriel feels the fingers and nails digging in and knows it will leave bruises, but the hand holds him firmly, does not permit him to cringe back from Lucifer's smile in Simon's face.
"You. You are... pathetic. A disgrace. An animal that retains just enough dignity to know that death is preferable to this existence. I applaud your good taste, Gabriel," Lucifer whispers. His eyes hold Gabriel whole.
"So it's very simple. Acknowledge what everyone else knows to be truth. He's forsaken you, Gabriel. Say it. Say it, and I will snap your neck for you. I will put you out of your misery."
(You know He's not with you. Say it.)
Gabriel starts laughing, uncontrollably, despite the pain Lucifer's nails cause at the motion of his head. It bubbles up from inside his chest, chokes his throat until he must let it out. Lucifer's fingers release his face and Gabriel hunches back in the chair, arms wrapping around his belly, shoulders shaking with mirth-that-isn't-mirth. Lucifer's gaze is hot upon him. Gabriel feels his cheeks wet and his belly hurting and still he can't stop laughing. At some point Lucifer stops being there, just isn't there anymore, and people notice him then, and there's hands on his shoulders and the manager muttering who the hell let this guy in and someone apologizing to the restaurant's paying customers and someone else saying the cops should be called and he gets to his feet and stumbles for the door, hits another table, clatter of dishes and someone's cursing, finally someone hauls him upright and out the door, threats, noise, noise noise noise, just a blur, until the sidewalk hits his shoulder and the sea air finds his face.
Gabriel lies on his back on the sidewalk watching the gulls until a dark blue blur cuts off his vision. The shape resolves into policeman's uniform, come on pal, let's move it, we got complaints, on your feet buddy, and he stays in the sky with the seagulls while they pull his body to its feet again, shove him down the sidewalk in a stagger.
It's been forty days since Michael sent him into this wilderness.
***
Winter comes.
This is Los Angeles, land of palm trees and eternal sunshine, so this is hardly as bad as it could be. But forty degrees at night is cold enough if a coat or cardboard box is all one has against it.
After Lucifer and the restaurant, he stops telling himself he's different than them. Them, them-- there is no 'them,' he is one of them. He is human. Human enough to huddle around fires built in old fuel drums with his fellow creatures, human enough to stand in line with them at the Hippie Kitchen on 6th Street, waiting for a bowl of soup, human enough to sit shoulder to shoulder in the ridiculously-named Los Angeles River to form a wall against the wind that whips through the dry concrete canal.
The first winter is marked by smells. Gasoline fires, cheap alcohol, cigarettes passed from hand to hand. Cat urine and wood rot in the condemned building he crawls into. Pot in that little niche beneath the trees in MacArthur Park. The many-layered stink of a dumpster.
He talks to the angels frequently now, telling them what it's like, watching them watching him. They perch on the ubiquitous telephone wires, or the bridges, or rooftops above whatever alley he's in tonight. Rafayel is the first one, staring at him with dark empty eyes from the edge of the dumpster he is huddled against. Uziel joins him a week later. Then Danyael... All of them, all those dead by his actions or his decisions.
They never answer him, only stare, wait, watch. Sometimes it's almost comforting, their presence as he drops off to sleep. Other times he screams at them until his voice is a raw gurgle, throws cans that pass through them. Once Danyael appears at the mouth of an alley with no other entrance, and he can't summon the courage to go near him for two days and two nights, and finally hunger drives him near, and fear turned to desperation drives him to lunge at Danyael. Nothing, nothing, again nothing; only the air to fall through, and the brick wall that was behind Danyael, the scrape of it against his face and knuckles, and the pitying glance of a woman walking hurriedly by.
Christmas is a nightmare. For weeks, plastic figurines of rosy-cheeked children or blonde maidens, with small iridescent wings stuck on their backs and little gold tinsel circles above their heads, leer at him from seemingly every window. Bells and trumpets, trumpets and bells; he holds his head in his hands, covering his ears, and rocks back and forth on bus stop benches.
Christmas Eve and he passes the open door of San Antonio de Padua, a glowing yellow rectangle of warmth. He makes it up the stairs, to the door, stares in. Long lines of pews but dead ahead the altar. If he could-- if he could just cross that distance-- cast himself down before it, grab the feet of the crucified Christ and weep onto them, throw himself at the mercy of the Son-- surely he would not be refused? Surely not here and now at this place and time? Mercy, mercy, mercy, he would cry...
Judgment, say the blank impassive terrible faces of the dead, standing between him and the altar. Still he stands there, staring hungrily at the altar that seems to recede as he watches, the distance impossible, dizzying. Only when a priest comes to close and lock the doors for the night does he stir, stumbling back down the stairs and into the night.
***
Spring comes. The grey pallor of the dirty city is pierced by green and the beaches are once more populated by bathing suits instead of lone joggers with their dogs. Spring brings life, hope, tourists, more police moving the homeless along so the tourists don't see them... spring brings rain.
As March segues to April he finds himself standing on a street corner watching the automobiles rush by, headlights catching the falling drops of water. Wheels catch the water in the gutters, send it up onto him. He accepts this almost without noticing. His hands are lifted slightly as his sides, to feel the drops on his palms as they fall from heaven. It makes for a poor benediction, soaking him through, chilling him.
He's renounced you, he hears Lucifer purr, and his chin drops to his chest. His hair has gotten long-- and grey, when did that happen? and it hangs around the sides of his face like curtains.
Before his feet water swirls down the gutter, oil creating rainbow patterns on its surface. He stares at it and feels the pointlessness of it all, a mad rush of motion signifying nothing. Is there beauty in it? Is there some great pattern to it? The rain goes into the ground. The rivers underground go into the sea. The sea comes up to be rain again. That's beautiful. He tells himself that.
Another car takes the corner tightly, another spray of water sheeting up onto his trousers. No beauty, no pattern, only cold and dirt and stink and oil and wet.
***
"Mr. Adler? Gabriel?"
Consciousness comes slowly. There is no memory of whatever immediately preceded this waking, but this is so common for him now that Gabriel spares no thought for that, simply struggles to become aware of his current situation. He's inside, which is fairly novel, and lying on something... soft. He opens his eyes.
"There we are. Good morning, Mr. Adler. I'm Dr. Heffernan. How are you feeling?"
Good, he thinks, and is surprised at that. But he does, he feels warm and comfortable, no ache in his joints or stiffness in sore muscles. It's a bed he's in, he realizes.
"Where am I?"
"St. Jude's, Mr. Adler. You gave everyone quite a scare, you know."
He doesn't know why the man, the young doctor standing by the bed, is calling him Mister Adler, doesn't know what St. Jude's is (other than a man who's been dead many many centuries), doesn't know what he's talking about. Gabriel blinks, tries to keep up with the conversation. "I... I did?"
"Oh yes. Now, Gabriel--" there's the sound of a chair being pulled up, the doctor settling in, peering at him serious and earnest over his glasses, "--we've been over this. You know that you're here for your protection. The staff are not your enemy, Mr. Adler. The other doctors and I are not your enemy. There is no enemy. We only want to help you get better, but you have to work with us. It's a give-and-take, Gabriel. A big part of that is not wandering off the grounds."
He stares stupidly, but things not making sense are such an integral part of this whole being-human gig that it doesn't matter. He drops his head back against the pillow. So soft, so comfortable. He feels the doctor pat his hand.
"I know, it's probably all pretty confusing to you right now. You've had a rough few months. Frankly, we're all just grateful you're still alive, considering how you've been living. Look. Get some rest. Janet will be in-- you remember Janet, right?-- in a few hours with your lunch. Just take it easy until then, okay?
"We're glad to have you back."
***
He takes it easy. Janet comes, and no, he doesn't remember her, this strong-armed big-boned girl who smiles and repeats the doctor's words that they're glad he's back, they're all so glad the police found him, everyone was so worried... Lunch is tuna-on-wheat, and orange juice, and a bowl of fresh chunks of melon, and pudding.
Now take it easy, you've been pretty malnourished, Mister Adler. Don't worry, we'll have you have you back up to strength soon. Tell you what, if you eat all this and keep it down, tomorrow I'll sneak in some potato chips too, 'kay? A confidential wink.
Take it easy. There's laughter somewhere in his mind for that, easy, easy, there is nothing easy in this world of man, and by this point Gabriel has figured out they have mistaken him for someone else, but he can't bring himself to correct them. Food. Bed. Warmth. He keeps his mouth shut; he follows instructions and takes it easy.
Good morning, Mister Adler. How are you feeling? Better? Good, that's what we want to hear...
Good afternoon, Mister Adler. Ready to try going back downstairs? We've missed you in the activity room. No? Okay, no problem. Whenever you feel up to it.
Hey, Mister Adler. Beautiful day, isn't it? Let's get these windows open, let in some of the sun. There, isn't that nice? Yep, time for a shower. You've got a visitor today too. Your wife's here.
"My... wife?"
***
Downstairs. Janet offers to let him sit in a chair and just wheel him, but he says no, no thank you, he's feeling so good today he'll walk, and she accompanies him down the stairs. Gabriel feels sharp pangs of dread during the slow progression downstairs: there is no way that the real Gabriel Adler's wife is going to be taken in by a stranger. It's going to end, they'll find out he's not supposed to be here, here with the warmth and the food, and he'll be back out there again... Through a door now, into a room of bookshelves and big plush armchairs.
A woman is waiting in one of the chairs, her hands folded in her lap. She glances up quickly when the door opens, eyes seeking out his face. He's prepared for a look of confusion, of denial; he is not prepared for her shaky but genuine smile. She rises eagerly, takes a step towards him, then stops, twisting her hands together before her. "Gabe," she says, and ducks her head, but not so quickly he doesn't see the moisture in her eyes. "I-- I've been so-- when they called and said you'd been found, they'd gotten you back... I wanted to come right away but the doctors said I should let you have a week-- I'm sorry. I'm sorry, I'm babbling." She forces a smile. "And you.... you don't remember me anyway, do you..."
"Anne," he says slowly. Names, he still knows names, but hers feels oddly familiar on the tongue, and at the sound of it her gaze snaps back up to him, her eyes wide. They are exactly the color of the summer sky, and they stare at him, and then she does begin to cry, in earnest, her shoulders shaking as she sinks back down into the chair. "Oh God, Gabe..."
He stands there, arms at his side, not understanding, not understanding. His palms want to... touch her, hold her, rock her, Anne should not cry, his beautiful Anne should not be crying, should never have to cry. He remembers-- remembers-- remembers his first glance of her, a much younger woman then, standing in a doorway with the sun in her hair. He remembers a courtship, a proposal at the top of the Eiffel Tower, a wedding. A home. Her hands repotting petunias, no wedding ring because they'd had to sell it for the house. A baby... a death in the cradle... a funeral... tears shed together late at night. Her hands. Her hands at the potter's wheel, stained with clay. Her hands washing dishes, handing them to him to dry. Her hands on his body. His hands on hers. The second house. The arguments. The kisses. Another baby, quickly a child, the years blurred flickers. Summers watching fireflies and gathering dandelions, making dandelion wine. The first strand of silver in her auburn hair. The child, a girl-child, grown strong and full to adulthood. Road trips. Returning to Paris to compare it with what it had been like when they'd been young, standing at the top of the Eiffel again and giving her a replacement ring twenty-five years in the coming. Her hands still busy in the garden, at the potter's wheel, in the kitchen. Her hair more silver than auburn now.
A life...
And the pain in her blue eyes, the ache when they're sitting together in the doctor's office and hear words that have too many syllables to possibly mean anything: schizotypal personality disorder and schizophrenic religious delusions and amnesia related to disassociative identity disorder...
In English: he thinks he's an angel.
You are my angel, she tells him during one of his more lucid moments, when he's not raving about someone named Simon, when he's not reciting from Scripture. You are my angel. You always have been. Isn't that enough?
In the end it's too much to take, too much to expect anyone to bear, and the prognosis from all corners is that it is only going to get worse, episodes more and more frequent, more retreat into the "angel" personality. And she makes the decision, feeling it killing her, tearing her apart, to have him committed. She visits, every day and then every week and eventually just every month, sitting and listening to the man she married, who no longer recognizes her, speak about Judgment Day and the torments of hell and the fields of heaven, if he speaks in English at all.
All of this.
All of this flooding him in two, three seconds, as he stands staring at the crying woman, but it doesn't feel like new knowledge. It feels like something he's blocked off and locked up behind a door, a dam, but in her presence the wall bursts and the memories crash down upon him with the force of desperation.
"Anne," he says again, abject helpless misery in his tone, and his hands move like trapped birds until he gives in to the urge to cross to her, take her in his arms, and she buries her face in his chest and sobs.
"Oh God, Gabe, I miss you, I miss you so much... come back to us..."
Someone clears their throat, and Gabriel looks up to see Heffernan in the room, unnoticed until now. "He's trying, Mrs. Adler. He really is. We're making progress. Please... if you can sit down, we can discuss how the therapy's going..."
Gabriel sits. The universe is yanked out from under him; he sits because otherwise he'll fall, he cannot stand. Anne sits with him, her fingers tangling tightly with his, and she at least listens to the doctor's words about progress, but Gabriel stares out the window trying desperately to make sense of it all. Two lives, two existences... He is an archangel before the throne of the Name. Yes. He is the prince of thunder and fire and the east. Yes. He is the Sword of Heaven and the Left Hand of God. Yes. ...yes? He... he knows the songs the stars sing, and every language ever spoken, and the mysteries of birth and death, and--
--he knows that her fingers are warm around his.
...he knows... he knows he has wings, had them, had wings, that he could fly through the blackness of the void and reach the gates of Heaven, and that he carried a key to those gates around his neck--
--he can feel the wedding band he gave her, digging against his skin.
He knows he is not Gabriel Adler, but Gabri'el, and he knows this because that name is written on his skin by the very finger of God.
Except that it isn't. Except that he raises his free hand to rub there and his skin is smooth, newly scrubbed and shaved and no raised brand. And there is no key around his neck. And there are no wings at his back.
He is a man.
An angel... that's madness. That's crazy, crazy talk, but this, Anne by his side, her fingers squeezing his, the hopeful painful smile she gives him... that's sane, human, real. That's real.
The doctor finishes, arranging papers on his desk, and reluctantly informs them that visiting hours are up, but that she can come back tomorrow. She nods. And takes his face in her hands, leans their foreheads together-- it's so familiar; how many times have they done this, looked into each other's eyes like this, in the last decades? and she whispers, "You'll try, won't you? Promise me... promise me you're trying. Please."
His tongue is thick in his mouth, too thick to answer. But he nods.
***
Sessions with Dr. Heffernan are thrice weekly, long quiet talks. Heffernan is young, can't be more than thirty, curly hair and fashionable glasses and his framed diploma on the wall. Some part of him resents the calm, patronizing words from this... puppy... but Gabriel can't tell whether it's due to being a billion-year-old supernatural entity or from being a sixty-year-old man.
Sometimes he comes in knowing it's all wrong, knowing who and what he is, knowing he is the vengeance and mercy of the Lord. And Heffernan adjusts his glasses and looks at him with disappointment and resignation and makes a note in his notebook and asks him about his relationship with his father...
Micah Adler, a pastor, a firmly devout man, quick with the rod, stern with Gabriel and his brothers... Heffernan reads off things he's said in past sessions, all written down in the notebook, the confessions of jealousy of the favoritism shown to the younger brother and the envy of the older brother who'd been disowned by their father on his refusal to enter the seminary. It's all there, suppressed memories of an abusive childhood and the struggle his entire life to both please Micah and free himself from his overbearing influence. And Gabriel starts to say, No, wait, it-- it isn't like that-- but Heffernan's soothing voice overrides with the calm And then in this session we were talking about how with your older brother gone a greater responsibility fell on your shoulders, but you still didn't feel appreciated...
Truths blur. He comes into the sessions with one knowledge and by the end of it he's leaving with another; shaking, weak and exhausted but grateful, grateful to have had it put in the right words by Dr. Heffernan, taken down from the unbearable scale of massive cosmic struggles and into simple, manageable, mundane, petty terms.
Now, let's talk about this "Simon"...
***
It's turning into fall, not that Los Angeles shows it much. Heffernan's office has big windows, looking out over the landscaped courtyard, the other patients enjoying the out of doors. Gabriel enjoys the courtyard, and no longer attempts the doors leading to the outside; it simply distresses the interns and sets off the alarms and makes more work for everyone, for people like Janet, who don't deserve that sort of hassle.
It's a Friday, which is great, because tomorrow Anne is coming, and Heffernan says he's been making such good progress that he's going to take he and Anne out to lunch, somewhere outside, out in the city. That's going to be nice.
"So tell me about what happened after Micah's funeral?" asks Heffernan, and Gabriel tears his gaze from the window, back to the doctor. The memories of being Gabriel Adler come easily; he no longer has to hesitate before answering, or fight down the feeling that he's lying.
"Well, we all went back to our jobs. Michael has the nursery in Irvine, and I have... had... my company here in LA..."
"Yes. Oh, did your older brother attend?"
"No. No. He didn't come. Didn't show up."
"How did that make you feel?"
"I.... well, angry. He... was our father. He should have come."
"Even though he'd been disowned?"
"Maybe it would have given him some closure."
They both laugh over that, and Heffernan writes something down in his notebook, a smile on his face. "Fair enough. Were you at all... jealous? That he didn't attend, and yet you had to? No, don't answer that just now, just think about it. Now Gabriel, I have an exercise for you to do here..." He rips a sheet of paper out from the notebook and slides it across the desk to him.
"I want you to draw Micah's gravestone, as best you can remember it. Make it big, let it fill up the paper."
He complies, sketching the plain headstone on the paper with a marker.
"Good. Now write down his name and the dates of his life and death.... right, just like that. Gabriel, have you come to realize what a domineering influence he was over you? How deeply his views have still affected you, all these years later? By drawing this gravestone, by putting it there in black and white when he was born, and when he died, what we're doing is letting your subconscious know that he really is gone. We're giving you closure. He's no longer this big, haunting, omnipotent presence in the sky for you: he's buried and gone."
Gabriel nods, fills in the dates. His gaze wanders back to the window as Heffernan continues speaking. There's a tree just outside it, an olive tree with branches brushing the glass, and as Gabriel watches a mourning-dove comes to alight in the branches, seeking out its nest and mate.
"Okay... good. Now, there at the top of the page, I want you to write in big fat letters: MICAH ADLER IS DEAD. Good... See, once you accept he was only a man, you can reconcile your love for him with your disappointment, and remember him in a healthy, well-adjusted way..."
The dove is pecking at the window now. He watches it from the corner of his eye.
"And now, just below that, write GOD IS DEAD."
G.... O... D... The dove is pecking harder now, wings flapping. Beating the glass. I... S... D... Gabriel stops writing, his gaze drawn to the dove, to the thrashing wings, the frantic flutters.
"Gabriel? 'God is dead'?"
The dove... Gabriel remembers the dove... the mourning-doves that had cooed outside the bedroom window of their first house, woken him and Anne up without fail every morning, and they had lain in bed listening to the soft calls of the doves...
No. No, that's not the memory that's tugging at him as he watches the dove struggling against the glass.
Gabriel remembers the dove, wings straining as it flew over the water, over the endless glittering water, circling, weary, seeking, seeking. He flew before her, guiding her to the tree, and guiding her back, the olive leaf in her mouth.
Gabriel remembers the doves, the two doves that the poor bring as burnt offering and sin offering to the temple, the doves that struggle in the hands of the priests until the blade descends and blood stains their feathers.
Gabriel remembers the dove: the Spirit descending in the form thereof, from heaven to earth, alighting on the baptized man who stood in the river water streaming from His clothes and body. This is My beloved Son, in Whom I am well pleased.
"Gabriel. Finish the sentence."
He looks down at the paper, at the sketched gravestone, the GOD IS D-. Stares at what he was writing, would have written.
Slowly, he caps the marker and sets it down. Slowly says, murmuring words from the book they've spent months telling him not to quote from...
"I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last. I am that which is, and was, and which is to come."
He looks up at Heffernan, says quietly, "God is not dead. Try again. Brother."
Heffernan stares, then slumps in his chair, pulls off his glasses and rubs wearily at his face. "Gabriel... Mister Adler... we've been over this. I'm not the Devil."
Gabriel doesn't argue, just pushes himself up from the chair. "I'm going back to my room."
"Gabriel. If you end our session early, I can't let you and Anne have extended visiting hours tomorrow. That was a privilege conditional on your progress."
He stops in the doorway, the moment's certainty that had blazed through him fluttering weakly now, rather like a trapped bird itself. He looks back at Heffernan, who does not look diabolical, only frustrated and let down. Doubt shudders and twists in him, and he looks to the window for encouragement, but whatever moved the dove to flail and struggle has ceased, and the bird has found its nest, its mate.
...the mourning-doves that had cooed outside the bedroom window of their first house, woken him and Anne up without fail every morning, and they had lain in bed listening to the soft calls of the doves...
He wavers, feeling himself standing on the edge of a knife's blade. On one side there is Anne and their daughter and their home and a life-- a life!-- that he can remember, that is real and sane and filled with quiet joys, and he can have it back, all he has to do is go sit down and write down three more meaningless letters on that paper and do as Heffernan tells him to and believe what Heffernan tells him to and they will eventually let him out and let him have that life, that world....
And on the other side, there are names and faces and images vast and terrifying. The endlessness of space, the glitter of stars hung in the void, the ecstasies of heaven, the heart-deep hatreds of hell. Wars beyond human imagination. The dead, and his guilt in the dead. So much blood on his hands. A litany of his sins, and his punishment, which is to be chained in this body for.... for how long? For ever? Is it forever? Is what he has done so far beyond forgiveness that even the Name cannot find mercy for him? He will live the rest of this human life in darkness and madness, blind and deaf and dumb, a wounded animal clinging to having once been more than that, and not because he can rightly expect forgiveness, but only because he thinks it is the truth. A cold and hollow comfort, that.
With the other, he would at least be happy.
He looks at the paper on the desk. He looks at Heffernan. He thinks of Anne, who even now will be packing a day bag for the drive to come see him, who has smiled more and more at each visit, whose heart he has already broken and whose heart will break again if he cannot be who he is to her. How terrible a thing to have given her hope.
He looks to the window, and sees only his own reflection, which is grey-haired, lined-of-face, human: not the Gabri'el who has moved heaven and earth in the name of the Lord.
And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall set ye free...
The words of Christ mock him in this moment. Wordlessly, Gabriel leaves the room.
***
The window to his room does not open more than six inches: for your own protection, Mister Adler. Gabriel waits until it is dark, then picks up a picture of Anne that sits beside his bed and uses it to smash the window-- it has a heavy metal frame, and there is nothing else in the room that would have worked. He cuts himself on the shards of glass as he climbs awkwardly out the window, as he drops with no elegance to the sidewalk. Sharp jolts of pain and new bruises and scrapes and now he's not sure he can trust his weight to his right ankle. Yes. This is humanity, all right...
Running is out of the question; he limps down the street. One of the night nurses catches up with him before he reaches even the first stop light, and a heavy hand settles on his shoulder.
"Mister Adler..."
It's Janet, and he turns to her worried face knowing all too well what he looks like, a middle-aged man with blood on his clothes and hands, limping down the street away from a mental institution. "Janet," he says, and is surprised at the desperation in his own tone, "Janet, you have to let me go, please, you can't stop me-- I c-can't face Anne tomorrow--"
"You know I can't do that, Mister Adler," she says, and turns him inexorably about, back to the clinic. He struggles, thinking that now he definitely looks like a madman, but she is a strong young woman and he is feeling very weak right now indeed. His treacherous body decides it wants to be back inside anyway, back in the sane soothing corridors and rooms of St. Jude's, where he is Gabriel Adler, where that is all he has ever been, where his wife is coming tomorrow to see him, where the only path to getting his life back awaits, there in Heffernan's office...
They get back to the clinic's front door, and Janet inspects his hands with a concerned shake of her head, and Gabriel acquiesces mutely. Over. Done. They're right, he's delusional, all of it is madness, he never flew the arching vaults of heaven, and God is dead.
Janet turns her head, and her blonde hair falls back from her neck, and the lobby's lights spill over the side of her throat, where there is a mass of ugly scar tissue, as from a burn.
Gabriel reaches for it automatically, smearing blood on the raised scar, and she jumps about three feet in the air and back from him. "Jesus--!"
"Your neck..."
"...what? Oh, this, jeez. I was in a car accident when I was a kid."
"Of course you were," he murmurs, and stares at her now, eyes tracing her face. How subtle are the ways of the enemy. All the energy wasted in suspecting Heffernan, and all this time the enemy was much closer, every day there with a gentle concerned touch, there with his food, there helping him shower and shave, always with a cheerful smile and behind it Lucifer was laughing and laughing.
He punches her then, putting as much strength into it as he can summon from this tired injured mortal body, knowing he's not going to get a second chance, and this time makes himself run, pain be damned, back out the lobby doors and running until he can't breathe for the pain in his side and ankle. Then he hunches in an alley behind a dumpster, coughing and gasping, rubbing at his ankle, dragging air into his lungs. He'll have to hide, they'll look for him, but he knows enough of LA now to stay hidden, he thinks. He slumps back against the wall and tries to convince himself not to head right on back to the clinic.
"Now... that... was entertainment." The words are accompanied by a slow clap, and Gabriel's eyes roll up to the dumpster, where Lucifer is perched, smiling down at him.
"You," he chokes out.
"Me!" answers Lucifer, in a sing-song tone. "I have to say. Punching a nurse? That alone has made the last few months worth it from where I'm sitting."
"She... she wasn't... she was you..."
"No. No, I'm afraid not. Goodness, are you going to go around assaulting anyone with a likely burn scar on their neck? Gabriel, if I had been her, you would currently be screaming in pain on that lobby floor with most of your bones broken. While I broke the remaining ones. No, Gabriel, you just punched a pretty girl in the mouth for no reason whatsoever. Like I said before: Dinner. Theatre."
Gabriel closes his eyes and slumps back against the wall, sliding down it, exhausted in every sense of the word. There is one thing to cling to, one comfort; he vocalizes it while balling his bleeding hands in the fabric of his shirt. "You're real."
"Me? Not in the slightest. I'm a figment of your imagination, crazycakes. I am all your inadequacies and your rebellious desires projected onto your prodigal elder brother figure, or whatever else the good doctor was telling you. Silly darling, personifications of evil don't actually exist. Get with the times." Lucifer grins, a grin like a skull's, then shrugs carelessly.
"I nearly had you this time, little brother."
Gabriel nods, wearily; it's true. For that matter he's not yet sure he's out of danger.
"You were..." he coughs. "...definitely more subtle."
Lucifer smiles as if graciously accepting the compliment, then steps down from the dumpster to crouch beside him. He runs gentle fingers over Gabriel's face, the picture of concern, then cracks his head back against the wall. For fun. All for fun.
But all amusement has dropped from his face as he leans in and hisses, "Are you congratulating yourself on your victory? Don't. So much better for you had you taken this one, Gabriel. It was a good offer, a nice wholesome human life you could have had if you'd just learn when to shut up and smile and nod. And don't think for a moment that by passing this up you've made any sort of... progress. That this will make things any easier, that you've learned anything from this that will stick with you and provide you with strength.
"This is just the beginning, Gabriel. You've been human a year. You've got... who knows? Twenty or thirty more of them before this body you're in kicks it. And I'm not going anywhere. We're going to have fun, little brother. Just you and me, because He doesn't give a shit about you. Get. That. Through. Your. Head.
"You think you've lost things so far, Gabriel? Lost your name, your faith, your wings, your position, your connection with the Father.... Loss of strength and power. Loss of pride and dignity, of certainty, of direction, of knowledge, of reason and sanity. Loss of a life, of pretty little Anne and how she could have made your remaining years tolerable. Too bad. So sad.
"Gabriel, Gabriel... you're just getting started."
______
gabriel * the prophecy series (movie) * word count: 9780 (I'M SO SORRY. IT'S A WEEK FOR LONG PROMPTS.)