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The ratlike teeth of cowardice gnawed Gabriel's bones to the marrow. In the service of God he had shouldered many burdens, and he could not have known it was to be Michael's betrayal that would be his undoing. The walls of the grand Citadel of Heaven itself seemed to share his brother's sombre thoughtfulness. Gabriel paced the corridors, that keen and tireless watch a burr beneath the gleam of his armor. Never had there been secrets of consequence between he and his brother, nor any of their kin. And though he had set foot upon the domain of Man before, never had their influence tainted him so.
Flight, simple flight, he hoped would clear his mind and free him from the cobwebs of conscience; loose him from the flame that had sputtered and grown since he had seen an angel fall to sin and rise up again. His restlessness sped his steps until he ran, footfalls thumping against smooth stone like the beat of wardrums, his wings flicking behind with the urge to stretch until he had moved beyond the maze of corridors and into the embrace of air.
Heaven weighed mightily upon his back as he fought the tug of gravity and sought distance from the Host. Swiftly he passed the veil, descending to where the chill of clouds and starlight promised absolution. He concentrated wholly on the task of flight; the simple, predictable mechanics of flesh carried him far from his fury and his failures. The world beneath him had returned to as it had been in centuries past: resting silent and as dark as coal where the sun's trailing fingers could not lend light. The electric glow across the planet had been erased, no longer marking where the idle and corrupt of God's chosen race had spread like poison.
With rebirth, Man struggled to survive. Still they murdered, still they lusted, but they again believed. Gabriel could feel their prayers buffet him, joyous as the rush of air across his face and beneath his feathers. He shivered with pleasure. O, how they were at their finest when they knew fear.
This was not the lesson he was meant to learn, and the chill of knowing that he did not meet the measure of Michael's faith dulled the momentary thrill. His brother's forgiveness was damning and shameful in its sincerity, following him as a shadow. For miles he sought to lose that trailing darkness, passing above frozen peaks and high jagged cliffs until at the very corner of his vision a true shadow emerged to become form. Stars were eaten from the sky as the sharp silhouette of an angel's form swept like a swordstroke across his path. Gabriel picked out the hushed beat of wings that moved steady as a heartbeat, that did not falter but slowly fell in time with his own. As he dove, Michael followed with squadron precision, and together their wings snapped taut to carve the wind to thin, shrill screams.
"Why do you pursue?" Gabriel shouted. The speed of his descent shredded his words yet the Will would carry them straight to Michael's ear. Unmistakable in both the measure of his concern and in the graceful arc of his flight, Michael began to close the gap between them. Gabriel's heart gave a painful twist. They were tuned so keenly to one another, Michael must know the torment he caused.
"Why do you flee?" came his brother's inevitable reply.
Questions for questions, was it always this way? Gabriel had once been certain of many things, unwavering and fearless. He had felt doubt and yet had turned it away like a glancing blow, grown stronger for it. But with Michael's return, so too came that uncertainty.
Just as their words would carry no matter the earthly elements rushing between them, he did not need eyes to see Michael and how bright his gaze fell, how sharply it penetrated the layers of foulness that saturated Gabriel's being. Wheeling sharply, Gabriel thrust a hand towards the domain of Heaven. "Return," he commanded. To keep him aloft, his wings stretched wide, snapping in the air with the crackle of an impending storm. In the distance, heavy clouds stirred, wakened and ready to heed his call.
Alas Michael was never one to fall for cheap theatrics, and Gabriel was given the option to retreat or hold fast as Michael stepped towards him. He longed for a weapon in his hand and an opponent deserving of his wrath; he was in no mood for idle sparring but for the taste of battle—pure and exhilarating. Michael plainly desired neither, his attention holding no martial edge, yet his observations surely would lead to a judgment more devastating than any wound. Gabriel's lips parted on a plaintive sound—damnation truly, his body betraying all—when Michael's wings pulled back to settle tight against his spine. The leanness of his form cut a sharp and pleasing silhouette as he invited a strike he knew would not come. Michael descended an invisible stair, steadied in the air by Will alone. Gabriel shrank in on himself. Were his own Will so steady, his own gaze so benign.
One hand outstretched, palm open, his brother reached for him. "I regret that you would turn me away."
Gabriel's insides boiled savagely. The sharp singe of remorse started a trembling in his fingers that he could not quell. "I regret many things."
"Know hope, my brother," Michael said. Gently, he touched his palm to Gabriel's cheek and Gabriel wished for the strength to keep from leaning into the caress. Sincerely spoken, the words slid like frosted steel into the hollows of Gabriel's ribs. "Know that I love you more than ever."
The trembling claimed Gabriel's arms and sizzled electric at the base of his wings. Michael loved many things, but for Gabriel to seek loving Michael above both Heaven and Earth was folly. The most terrible of betrayals lay at the end of that path.
Michael's hand travelled lightly down his face, beneath his jaw, settling finally to curl against the metal that fit snug against his racing pulse. Would Michael remove it as he had his own, if even for a moment? Would he fall so far as to allow Michael to rip it from his neck? Would he beg for it? Gabriel burned hotter to think of his brother's tongue upon his naked throat, a slow lick across unbound flesh demanding silently for him to follow Michael's Word. "Know that I share your desires," Michael said, and proved that he knew nothing at all.
The flame that raged in Gabriel would engulf them both. He raised his head high as it shone in his eyes, incandescent and cruel. Let Michael see so plainly what he would beg of his brother. If Michael thought he desired a chaste kiss of forgiveness upon his brow, he remained a fool.
With a push of his wings, Gabriel withdrew. "I would befoul us both," he spat, twisting and descending towards the earth in all haste.
Stubbornly, Michael pursued. Even with the lifeblood of things mortal and wicked beckoning amongst the trees, Gabriel did not slow. He banked between thick trunks heavy with moss, dodged between branches thick as his torso and headed towards where the trees grew so tightly even clever Michael would have to cleave them in two to keep chase. Mere yards from the advantage, a brief clearing afforded Michael room to strike. Gabriel howled as the hard slam of a boot met the low of his back. His wings crumpled and he fell tumbling, skidding on his hands and knees on a cushion of deep moss and decaying leaves. The forest floor seemed as cold as the high atmosphere but his blood had risen and he thought little of the creeping frost that rimed the clearing. The smell of dirt met his nose, so alive that it dizzied him, and he looked up to see the wide spread of Michael's wings haloed by the moon before Michael dropped with the weight of stone towards him.
All of his soldier's instincts bade him to roll, to slice with the tips of feathers and find purchase on his feet. But he rose only so far as to rest on one knee. Between breaths, Michael's descent slowed, his wings not hardened to cutting edges but fluttering gently as he kept himself aloft. The sole of Michael's boot met his chest, resting lightly against his breastplate. Under that gentle pressure, Gabriel sank to his heels and looked up at his brother hovering before him.
"Let us know union once again," Michael said, settling his wings as he landed before Gabriel. "Let us mend with flesh what your stubborn self resists."
"Resists for good reason!" Gabriel was no diplomat, and could not see ways in words to turn Michael's mind. Nor would further words come to him as Michael crouched before him, forearms draped upon his thighs. His brother's wings trailed beautifully behind and the muscles of his legs bunched in such a way as to leave Gabriel's throat narrowed.
If only for a short time, Michael had known all of what it was to be mortal. The memory was a raw and gaping wound in Gabriel's mind: Michael, ever temperate and sure, had succumbed to fear. In his last moments, he had prayed. There is another way.... he'd said, before death swallowed him.
"He will smite us," Gabriel protested, yet he welcomed Michael's thigh nudged between his own. A hunger suffused the pathways of his form only to fade and leave him hollow, a shell effortlessly crushed by Michael's gentle kiss. Had Michael also known lust whilst free of honor beyond his own? Had he for ages upon ages, as Gabriel had, suffered the weakness of a growing desire?
Michael whispered to him, lips lingering close against Gabriel's cheek. "That may come to pass," he agreed, and unbuckled his armor. He cast it aside in a clattering heap, and with the soft brush of kisses on the line of Gabriel's jaw, he urged Gabriel to do the same and discard with each piece his feeble concerns.
Gabriel could not so easily dismiss that which he was bound to obey, but like an hourglass his resolve drained steadily. He fought to remain still though he wished feverishly to tear Michael's clothes asunder and to return the shaky kisses that moved to grace his temples. Nearly he reached to grab Michael and tumble them together through the scatter of leaves and soil, but just as his resistance readied to crumble, Michael rose to bare himself of all save his collar. He stood broad-shouldered and nude before Gabriel, as fearless as the day he defied all of Heaven for the pitiful lives of Man. The glory of his form was painful to look upon. Gabriel burdened with all his faults did not look away.
"I long for you," Michael said, his gaze lit with its own fierce hunger. He held Gabriel's eyes with his own until the glow spread to form runes on his chest and his wings went a ghostly white to match the glittering moonlit frost.
Conquered wholly, Gabriel closed his eyes. "Then have me," he said, succumbing. The harsh glow of energy bleeding into the clearing faded, leaving afterimages dancing beneath his eyelids. Gabriel tipped his head back, as he had when he had begged Michael for a clean death. "I open myself to you."
Michael did not take him quickly nor with violence, but with a steady calmness that sought to trick Gabriel into believing the act would go unpunished. Slowly, Michael's Will overrid his own, his doubts swept away by soft kisses left trailed along his skin. The strength of the earth buouyed him as he lay back, knees spread by Michael's hands firm upon his thighs.
It was when Michael pressed into him that he saw the sliver of uncertainty in his brother's eyes, the matching wonderment, and Gabriel no longer harboured curiosity if Michael had enjoyed more than prurient thoughts while free from the tether of Heaven. They learned this sin together, with naked trembling limbs that could not twine tightly enough. How simple the act of coupling, so crude in comparison to the flow of swordplay or flight, and yet Gabriel could not seem to catch his breath. He filled his lungs with shallow gulps of air, raised his hips to urge Michael to pierce him deeper, to sheath fully in his form.
They did not move together gracefully at first, each too eager in his own right, riding the thrill of awakened nerves. It was only when Michael slipped free of him and Gabriel rolled to his stomach that they no longer wrestled with the difficulties of trying to explore one another with hands and lips and tongue whilst connected so intimately. Michael kissed along the length of Gabriel's spine, stroked his hands up to where thick muscle coiled at the base of his wings. A hard shudder passed through Gabriel to think of Michael tearing feather and bone from his body. To make him mortal and claim him as he did now with sure hands and a hard cock. In so weak a form Gabriel would be overwhelmed, held down not by his own unwillingness to resist but pinned completely by Michael's strength and Michael's need.
"Release me," Gabriel said, the words nothing but a faint whisper until he voiced them again, as rough and forceful as his push back against the thrust of Michael's hips. He reached back, blindly seeking Michael's arm to find his wrist and bring his brother's hand to where the metal of Heaven's collar bound him. "Release me into your service, Michael. You have defied Him once."
Michael stilled, leaving Gabriel desperately rutting. Feathers rustled across damp leaves as Michael drew his wings around them both, a charcoal curtain that bathed them both in darkness. His primary feathers stiffened for a heartbeat, moonlight catching on razor edges as he curled against Gabriel's back. "No," he said into Gabriel's skin, the word sliding between Gabriel's ribs to pierce his heart.
A wretched sound clawed its way into the winter air. In the distance, thunder snarled. Around them, the trees' tangled branches creaked and stuttered in the rising wind. "I beg of you, Michael. What worth do I have left to give Him? Be again merciful as I could not."
Michael's hand tightened beneath Gabriel's, knuckles straining. Abruptly Michael straightened, the heat from his chest leaving Gabriel's back exposed to the cold. Just as Gabriel's wings reflexively drew tighter to shield him from the chill, Michael's palm slapped to the centre of Gabriel's spine. Hot as a brand, Michael's hand skid up to the nape of Gabriel's neck, his fingers curling around metal to hold fast. His grip was as solid and unforgiving as the metal of Gabriel's collar, and lust spread like chain lightning across Gabriel's skin. He dropped his forehead to the ground, worshipped Michael silently and did not question the blasphemy of it.
Michael pumped his wings once, stirring debris, the force driving his hips to bury him to the root in Gabriel's flesh. If he had broken Gabriel down like steady waves against stone before, now he struck as a hammer. The storm gathered now for Michael, rain pattering in heavy drops mere miles away. "Choose to serve Man," he said. "In serving them, you serve me." His words felt weary, tattered at the edges like an aged parchment, yet the message was as powerful as his grip. "That is all the mercy I possess."
"You have my word," Gabriel said. He wept to know that Michael, of all in Heaven, still valued it so greatly. And moreso that Michael did not abandon him upon the vow, but touched him again like something treasured, valuable.
He did not resist as Michael's Will entered him more deeply than the coupling of their forms. His hands dug into the soil, nails clogging with dirt as he strained beneath Michael's weight and the burden he welcomed anew. Panting, elated, he cried out as Michael held him down, fucked him and claimed him with power that only so favored a son could wield. Gabriel spent himself as Michael's Will etched bone, writ in runes that hummed an electric current into the network of muscle lashed around them. He rocked with Michael's pace, viciously aware now of each molecule of their bodies that remained in contact, and he felt time stretch when Michael finished inside him.
"No more running," Michael said, when each of them could draw a steady breath. He settled alongside Gabriel and pressed a kiss to his shoulder. A heavy boom of thunder followed the soft brush of his lips. Whether it was nature not as easily quelled as stirred, or the echo of His disapproval, Gabriel did not care. He knew wickedness as he had not in ages past, and perhaps if in their service the weaknesses of Man saturated him fully, so too would Michael champion him.
Gabriel turned to face Michael, their bodies mirrored and legs tangling. He had a purpose again, and if it concerned him not whether the empire of Man grew great, already he took pleasure in knowing it mattered to Michael. As the edge of the rain crept towards them, and Michael's gaze bore through him, Gabriel spread his wings for shelter.