Fic: A History of Heaven (Gabriel/Various Angels, PG-13 for this chapter) Gabriel’s Interlude
For full notes and other chapters, please see the Masterpost.
Notes: Sammael = Lucifer
Chapter Rating: PG-13
Chapter word count: 2,816
Chapter Summary: Gabriel met Death long before God tasked him to find the Horsemen and give them their rings.
This is the fourth Interlude chapter, set when the Archangels were kids themselves. Michael and Sammael are roughly equivalent to older teenagers to early twenties here, while Raphael and Gabriel are closer to 5 or 6.
GABRIEL’S INTERLUDE
“No, you gotta be the Leviathan, cause this was my idea!”
“I don’t want to be the Leviathan! You should be the Leviathan, and I’ll be Michael!”
“I wanna be Michael!” Gabriel flapped his wings at his twin, balling his hands into fists. He and Raphael were on the newest planet their Father had created, a yellowish thing wrapped in heavy clouds and raining hot acids. Michael and Sammael had left them there while they were checking on something, but Raphael was being horribly difficult and not playing nice with any of Gabriel’s ideas.
Raphael flapped his wings right back at Gabriel. “I’m Michael!”
Gabriel groaned and spun in a circle in frustration. “FINE! You can be Sammael, and I’ll be Michael, and we’ll pretend the Leviathan!”
Raphael crossed his arms in front of him, his eyes narrowed. “You be Sammael. I’m Michael.”
“This was my idea!”
“Get back!”
The real Michael was flying at Gabriel and Raphael as fast as he could, his wings a blur. He tackled his youngest brothers, sweeping them behind him and holding them in place with his great wings. Gabriel shoved feathers out of his eyes and tried to look around his brother, but Michael refused to budge. “Miiiiiiiichael!” he whined, tugging at the oldest angel’s wing, all games forgotten.
“Shh!” Sammael came up behind the twins, much gentler as he pulled Michael’s wings out of their faces. He tapped them between the eyes and shook his head at them. “He’s coming. We must be reverent and respectful and stay out of his way.”
Raphael nodded his understanding and obedience, his dark eyes solemn, but that wasn’t enough for Gabriel. “Who’s coming?” the littlest angel demanded, flapping his own wings to try to lift himself around the barrier Michael was making with his own body. “Sammael, who? Is it Father? Is Father coming? Why do we have to be reverent and respectful? We love Father! He loves us! That’s just silly!”
“Shh!” Sammael swept his own wings forward, wrapping Gabriel from top to bottom in soft feathers, muffling his voice. “Gabriel, for Father’s sake, please stay quiet!”
“But-” Gabriel squirmed his hands up above Sammael’s wings to push them down, and Sammael clamped his grace around the angel, silencing Gabriel completely. Gabriel crossed his arms angrily and turned away from Sammael, peering out around Michael again.
My sons.
God was in front of the angels now, towering above the four. To his right stood a dark shadow holding a curved metal weapon. Michael and Sammael ducked into deep bows, spreading their wings wide. “Father,” they chorused. Between them, Raphael did the same, his little wings trembling as he tried to stretch them as big as he could. Gabriel looked at all three of his brothers, then up at God and the other being with him before Sammael tweaked his wing, hard. Gabriel jumped and hastily bowed in half, spreading his own wings. He was still mute from Sammael’s grace wrapped tightly around him.
Michael, Sammael, Raphael, and Gabriel.
They were being introduced to the other being. Gabriel peeked up between his wings, looking at the second being. He was as big as Father, but darker, an absence of Life instead of a source.
Michael straightened first, shoving the twins behind him again with two pushes of his wings. Sammael remained behind them both, his hands on their shoulders, wings wrapping forward. His older brothers were defensive, Gabriel realized. Not openly hostile, but they were sheltering him and Raphael. Michael’s wings were held back, and Sammael’s swept-forward wings touched them lightly. The twins were completely surrounded by the oldest angels.
There was danger here.
Danger was still new. They’d felt it before-Raphael got burned when he tried to swim in a star like Gabriel did, and Gabriel once broke a wing when he got caught up in one of Raphael’s storms-but they’d never had it approach them. Danger had always been something stationary, a place Michael and Sammael would warn the twins away from. Danger had never come to them in the form of a tall, thin anti-Father.
Death.
Death. That was the name of this being with the vast, old eyes, deep eyes that slid over Gabriel without pause. Death ignored the twins in favor of studying Sammael. Sammael straightened under Death’s gaze, lifting his head and staring back defiantly. A flicker of something-amusement?-swept through Death before he moved on, turning his attention to Michael. Unlike Sammael, Michael ducked his head slightly in deference to Death’s apparently greater status. He stretched his wings back further even as he did so, wrapping Sammael in them as well and drawing him close. Gabriel was squished between his brothers, barely able to see anything through the feathers in his face.
“What a charming family.”
The voice scratched nails down Gabriel’s back, ruffled his feathers the wrong way, but still managed to echo with power like Father’s did. Beside him, Raphael whimpered. Unlike with Father’s, Death’s voice made Gabriel turn away, cringing against Sammael. Raphael pushed forward against Michael’s back. Sammael stooped low to scoop Gabriel up without letting his gaze waver from Death. Gabriel curled into Sammael’s shoulder and pulled his brother’s grace around him as a comforting blanket.
I am pleased with them.
“You would be.”
Gabriel got the distinct sense that Death’s words weren’t meant as a compliment, and he pressed himself even closer to Sammael, using his own wings to hold his brother. Sammael shifted forward, trapping Gabriel between Michael and himself, with Raphael pressed between them below. His wings wrapped around both of the twins, and Michael’s wings covered Sammael, and the four were are close as angels could possibly be without mixing their grace together.
Let Me show you the star.
God and Death were gone as suddenly as they arrived, and Michael and Sammael sagged with the sudden release of tension. Sammael tugged his grace away from Gabriel so the littlest angel could speak again, but Gabriel didn’t let go of his brother. On the ground, Raphael’s pudgy arms were wrapped around one of Michael’s smaller wings, his eyes absolutely massive in his face. “What was that?”
“That was one of Father’s… acquaintances,” Michael explained slowly, turning to his brothers. He carefully untangled Raphael’s arms and picked him up, balancing him easily against his side. Raphael curled a wing around the back of Michael’s neck for balance.
“Why was he here?” Sammael asked Michael, his voice quiet as if that would keep Raphael and Gabriel from hearing. “He’s not…?”
“Father mentioned a star.” Michael smoothed his hand along the side of Raphael’s face and tucked him against his throat. His hold was protective, trying to shelter Raphael in his arms. Sammael’s wings were still heavily wrapped around Gabriel, keeping most of his body covered. “Perhaps that requires Death to reap.”
Sammael closed his eyes, spreading out his grace in a wide net. Gabriel closed his eyes as well, touching his grace to Sammael’s so he could feel how his brother explored the universe without moving. Sammael caught his grace and guided it, teaching by demonstration. When he opened his eyes again, he pressed his forehead to Gabriel’s, making the little angel giggle. “Father’s far from here. I think we’re safe.”
“We still need to be careful,” Michael warned. “They can both be wherever they want to be whenever.”
“Then we’ll stay with these two until he’s gone again.” Sammael swooped Gabriel in the air and spun him around. Gabriel flung out his arms and fluttered his wings, laughing as he “flew” without effort. “What were you two up to before we so rudely interrupted?”
“We were playing Archangels and Leviathans!” Gabriel told Sammael.
“I was going to be Michael,” Raphael said before Gabriel could claim the oldest Archangel as his own role. Raphael was looking adoringly at the angel who held him.
Michael exchanged a look with Sammael before touching a flattered thread of his grace to Raphael. “And who were you going to be, Gabriel? The Leviathans?”
I was gonna be Michael, Gabriel thought bitterly, but he didn’t say that. Sammael was holding him, and he did love Sammael just as much as he loved Michael. “I’m Sammael!” he chirped, forcing happiness into his grace. He didn’t want Sammael to think that he didn’t want to be Sammael! It was just that Michael was the biggest, and Gabriel didn’t like being the little one all the time.
“Well then, you need some Leviathans!” Sammael tossed Gabriel into the air, making the little angel fly on his own as he curled his fingers into claws and stomped after him. “Rawr! I’m going to eat you!”
“Stay back!” Gabriel scooped up rocks from the ground, swooping around Sammael to chuck them at his brother. “You stay away from my brother! Michael!”
Michael startled a little, but he stayed put and released Raphael so the other Archangel could rush to Gabriel’s aid. After a moment, he started stalking toward the twins as well, not quite as enthusiastic as Sammael but still able to roar convincingly enough to make Gabriel scared for just a second. “You can’t fight off both of us!”
Gabriel shrieked as Michael snatched him out of the air, thrashing his wings as hard as he could. Sammael pounced on him, his fingers finding all the weaknesses in Gabriel’s grace and making him shriek with helpless laughter as he tickled the younger angel. “Roar! I’m eating you all up!”
“Leave Sammael alone!” Raphael jumped onto the real Sammael’s back, hammering his tiny fists against Sammael’s shoulders.
Sammael cried out in mock-pain and fell back. “Ah! Oh no! I’m being killed!” He pinned Raphael beneath him and grinned as the smaller angel tried to wiggle free. “At least I’m taking you down with me!”
Gabriel wrenched free from Michael to attack him, slashing with his wings the way his brothers had taught him. “Take that, Leviathan!”
“Noooo!” Michael staggered back under Gabriel’s onslaught, falling to the ground and letting Gabriel land on top of him, shaking his fists triumphantly. “Argh, you got me!”
Gabriel cheered, but then he saw Raphael was still stuck under Sammael. “Michael! I’m coming!”
As Gabriel tried to pull his big brother off Raphael (and Sammael made things as difficult as possible by staying limp and not moving), Michael propped himself up on his arms to watch. Eventually, Gabriel managed to lift Sammael’s shoulders, and Raphael squirmed free.
“Victory!”
“We win!”
Gabriel jumped around, cheering his excitement at the victory over the evil Leviathan, while Raphael wiped an imaginary sword clean and sheathed it. “Congratulations, Sammael. You fought well.”
“I saved your life!”
“I had it handled.”
“You did not!”
“Did too.”
“Did not!”
“Did too!”
As the twins shouted at each other, Sammael rolled over and crawled to Michael’s side. He nestled against the older Archangel’s shoulder, his arm looping around Michael’s back. “You okay?”
Michael gave a nod, tilting his head to the side to rest it against Sammael’s. Gabriel looked over to see them cuddling and abandoned his fight with Raphael to fly to them, snuggling between his older brothers. Michael chuckled and smoothed down Gabriel’s feathers, while Sammael beckoned for Raphael to join them. The four angels wrapped their wings around each other, safe in their brothers’ embraces. Death might be somewhere in the universe, but on this yellow planet, everything was good.
Next...
Notes: Sammael = Lucifer
Chapter Rating: PG-13
Chapter word count: 2,816
Chapter Summary: Gabriel met Death long before God tasked him to find the Horsemen and give them their rings.
This is the fourth Interlude chapter, set when the Archangels were kids themselves. Michael and Sammael are roughly equivalent to older teenagers to early twenties here, while Raphael and Gabriel are closer to 5 or 6.
GABRIEL’S INTERLUDE
“No, you gotta be the Leviathan, cause this was my idea!”
“I don’t want to be the Leviathan! You should be the Leviathan, and I’ll be Michael!”
“I wanna be Michael!” Gabriel flapped his wings at his twin, balling his hands into fists. He and Raphael were on the newest planet their Father had created, a yellowish thing wrapped in heavy clouds and raining hot acids. Michael and Sammael had left them there while they were checking on something, but Raphael was being horribly difficult and not playing nice with any of Gabriel’s ideas.
Raphael flapped his wings right back at Gabriel. “I’m Michael!”
Gabriel groaned and spun in a circle in frustration. “FINE! You can be Sammael, and I’ll be Michael, and we’ll pretend the Leviathan!”
Raphael crossed his arms in front of him, his eyes narrowed. “You be Sammael. I’m Michael.”
“This was my idea!”
“Get back!”
The real Michael was flying at Gabriel and Raphael as fast as he could, his wings a blur. He tackled his youngest brothers, sweeping them behind him and holding them in place with his great wings. Gabriel shoved feathers out of his eyes and tried to look around his brother, but Michael refused to budge. “Miiiiiiiichael!” he whined, tugging at the oldest angel’s wing, all games forgotten.
“Shh!” Sammael came up behind the twins, much gentler as he pulled Michael’s wings out of their faces. He tapped them between the eyes and shook his head at them. “He’s coming. We must be reverent and respectful and stay out of his way.”
Raphael nodded his understanding and obedience, his dark eyes solemn, but that wasn’t enough for Gabriel. “Who’s coming?” the littlest angel demanded, flapping his own wings to try to lift himself around the barrier Michael was making with his own body. “Sammael, who? Is it Father? Is Father coming? Why do we have to be reverent and respectful? We love Father! He loves us! That’s just silly!”
“Shh!” Sammael swept his own wings forward, wrapping Gabriel from top to bottom in soft feathers, muffling his voice. “Gabriel, for Father’s sake, please stay quiet!”
“But-” Gabriel squirmed his hands up above Sammael’s wings to push them down, and Sammael clamped his grace around the angel, silencing Gabriel completely. Gabriel crossed his arms angrily and turned away from Sammael, peering out around Michael again.
My sons.
God was in front of the angels now, towering above the four. To his right stood a dark shadow holding a curved metal weapon. Michael and Sammael ducked into deep bows, spreading their wings wide. “Father,” they chorused. Between them, Raphael did the same, his little wings trembling as he tried to stretch them as big as he could. Gabriel looked at all three of his brothers, then up at God and the other being with him before Sammael tweaked his wing, hard. Gabriel jumped and hastily bowed in half, spreading his own wings. He was still mute from Sammael’s grace wrapped tightly around him.
Michael, Sammael, Raphael, and Gabriel.
They were being introduced to the other being. Gabriel peeked up between his wings, looking at the second being. He was as big as Father, but darker, an absence of Life instead of a source.
Michael straightened first, shoving the twins behind him again with two pushes of his wings. Sammael remained behind them both, his hands on their shoulders, wings wrapping forward. His older brothers were defensive, Gabriel realized. Not openly hostile, but they were sheltering him and Raphael. Michael’s wings were held back, and Sammael’s swept-forward wings touched them lightly. The twins were completely surrounded by the oldest angels.
There was danger here.
Danger was still new. They’d felt it before-Raphael got burned when he tried to swim in a star like Gabriel did, and Gabriel once broke a wing when he got caught up in one of Raphael’s storms-but they’d never had it approach them. Danger had always been something stationary, a place Michael and Sammael would warn the twins away from. Danger had never come to them in the form of a tall, thin anti-Father.
Death.
Death. That was the name of this being with the vast, old eyes, deep eyes that slid over Gabriel without pause. Death ignored the twins in favor of studying Sammael. Sammael straightened under Death’s gaze, lifting his head and staring back defiantly. A flicker of something-amusement?-swept through Death before he moved on, turning his attention to Michael. Unlike Sammael, Michael ducked his head slightly in deference to Death’s apparently greater status. He stretched his wings back further even as he did so, wrapping Sammael in them as well and drawing him close. Gabriel was squished between his brothers, barely able to see anything through the feathers in his face.
“What a charming family.”
The voice scratched nails down Gabriel’s back, ruffled his feathers the wrong way, but still managed to echo with power like Father’s did. Beside him, Raphael whimpered. Unlike with Father’s, Death’s voice made Gabriel turn away, cringing against Sammael. Raphael pushed forward against Michael’s back. Sammael stooped low to scoop Gabriel up without letting his gaze waver from Death. Gabriel curled into Sammael’s shoulder and pulled his brother’s grace around him as a comforting blanket.
I am pleased with them.
“You would be.”
Gabriel got the distinct sense that Death’s words weren’t meant as a compliment, and he pressed himself even closer to Sammael, using his own wings to hold his brother. Sammael shifted forward, trapping Gabriel between Michael and himself, with Raphael pressed between them below. His wings wrapped around both of the twins, and Michael’s wings covered Sammael, and the four were are close as angels could possibly be without mixing their grace together.
Let Me show you the star.
God and Death were gone as suddenly as they arrived, and Michael and Sammael sagged with the sudden release of tension. Sammael tugged his grace away from Gabriel so the littlest angel could speak again, but Gabriel didn’t let go of his brother. On the ground, Raphael’s pudgy arms were wrapped around one of Michael’s smaller wings, his eyes absolutely massive in his face. “What was that?”
“That was one of Father’s… acquaintances,” Michael explained slowly, turning to his brothers. He carefully untangled Raphael’s arms and picked him up, balancing him easily against his side. Raphael curled a wing around the back of Michael’s neck for balance.
“Why was he here?” Sammael asked Michael, his voice quiet as if that would keep Raphael and Gabriel from hearing. “He’s not…?”
“Father mentioned a star.” Michael smoothed his hand along the side of Raphael’s face and tucked him against his throat. His hold was protective, trying to shelter Raphael in his arms. Sammael’s wings were still heavily wrapped around Gabriel, keeping most of his body covered. “Perhaps that requires Death to reap.”
Sammael closed his eyes, spreading out his grace in a wide net. Gabriel closed his eyes as well, touching his grace to Sammael’s so he could feel how his brother explored the universe without moving. Sammael caught his grace and guided it, teaching by demonstration. When he opened his eyes again, he pressed his forehead to Gabriel’s, making the little angel giggle. “Father’s far from here. I think we’re safe.”
“We still need to be careful,” Michael warned. “They can both be wherever they want to be whenever.”
“Then we’ll stay with these two until he’s gone again.” Sammael swooped Gabriel in the air and spun him around. Gabriel flung out his arms and fluttered his wings, laughing as he “flew” without effort. “What were you two up to before we so rudely interrupted?”
“We were playing Archangels and Leviathans!” Gabriel told Sammael.
“I was going to be Michael,” Raphael said before Gabriel could claim the oldest Archangel as his own role. Raphael was looking adoringly at the angel who held him.
Michael exchanged a look with Sammael before touching a flattered thread of his grace to Raphael. “And who were you going to be, Gabriel? The Leviathans?”
I was gonna be Michael, Gabriel thought bitterly, but he didn’t say that. Sammael was holding him, and he did love Sammael just as much as he loved Michael. “I’m Sammael!” he chirped, forcing happiness into his grace. He didn’t want Sammael to think that he didn’t want to be Sammael! It was just that Michael was the biggest, and Gabriel didn’t like being the little one all the time.
“Well then, you need some Leviathans!” Sammael tossed Gabriel into the air, making the little angel fly on his own as he curled his fingers into claws and stomped after him. “Rawr! I’m going to eat you!”
“Stay back!” Gabriel scooped up rocks from the ground, swooping around Sammael to chuck them at his brother. “You stay away from my brother! Michael!”
Michael startled a little, but he stayed put and released Raphael so the other Archangel could rush to Gabriel’s aid. After a moment, he started stalking toward the twins as well, not quite as enthusiastic as Sammael but still able to roar convincingly enough to make Gabriel scared for just a second. “You can’t fight off both of us!”
Gabriel shrieked as Michael snatched him out of the air, thrashing his wings as hard as he could. Sammael pounced on him, his fingers finding all the weaknesses in Gabriel’s grace and making him shriek with helpless laughter as he tickled the younger angel. “Roar! I’m eating you all up!”
“Leave Sammael alone!” Raphael jumped onto the real Sammael’s back, hammering his tiny fists against Sammael’s shoulders.
Sammael cried out in mock-pain and fell back. “Ah! Oh no! I’m being killed!” He pinned Raphael beneath him and grinned as the smaller angel tried to wiggle free. “At least I’m taking you down with me!”
Gabriel wrenched free from Michael to attack him, slashing with his wings the way his brothers had taught him. “Take that, Leviathan!”
“Noooo!” Michael staggered back under Gabriel’s onslaught, falling to the ground and letting Gabriel land on top of him, shaking his fists triumphantly. “Argh, you got me!”
Gabriel cheered, but then he saw Raphael was still stuck under Sammael. “Michael! I’m coming!”
As Gabriel tried to pull his big brother off Raphael (and Sammael made things as difficult as possible by staying limp and not moving), Michael propped himself up on his arms to watch. Eventually, Gabriel managed to lift Sammael’s shoulders, and Raphael squirmed free.
“Victory!”
“We win!”
Gabriel jumped around, cheering his excitement at the victory over the evil Leviathan, while Raphael wiped an imaginary sword clean and sheathed it. “Congratulations, Sammael. You fought well.”
“I saved your life!”
“I had it handled.”
“You did not!”
“Did too.”
“Did not!”
“Did too!”
As the twins shouted at each other, Sammael rolled over and crawled to Michael’s side. He nestled against the older Archangel’s shoulder, his arm looping around Michael’s back. “You okay?”
Michael gave a nod, tilting his head to the side to rest it against Sammael’s. Gabriel looked over to see them cuddling and abandoned his fight with Raphael to fly to them, snuggling between his older brothers. Michael chuckled and smoothed down Gabriel’s feathers, while Sammael beckoned for Raphael to join them. The four angels wrapped their wings around each other, safe in their brothers’ embraces. Death might be somewhere in the universe, but on this yellow planet, everything was good.
Next...