The Fallen Warrior: Prologue
Pairing: Jaoel (Joel Miller) x OFC!Eva (Prologue)
Other Characters: Sarah, Thomas (Tommy Miller)
Summary: His memories of them are like clips from a highlight reel
Rating: 18+ Series
Word Count: 6,700(ish)
Warnings: AU, butchered biblical lore for the sake of the plot, fowl language, violence, blood, smut (unprotected p in v), mild description of birth, death, grief, brief mention of rape and manipulative relationships by evil angels, mentions of suicidal thoughts, an almost attempt at suicide
Author’s Note: Thanks to @almostfoxglove for making the lovely moodboard for me!
xxx
The story of Adam and Eve is unarguably one of the most recognized stories from the Bible, if not the most. It tells of the first man and woman, and how they loss their immortality in exchange for tasting the forbidden fruit, lured by the snake that was Lucifer into yearning for its knowledge.
But Joel knew the truth behind the tale. The fruit was not a fruit at all, and the snake was not Lucifer, or even one of his minions.
No, the snake was love, and the fruit was pleasure.
x
Centuries later, he still dreams of them.
The memories containing them clipped like a highlight reel that he helplessly observes as he slumbers most nights.
It freshens the festering wounds on his soul; renews the agony he would do anything to numb permanently.
Almost anything.
He never would wish to forget the beginning. He only longed to erase the pain at the end.
x
Have you heard of Lucifer and how he and his aligned angels rebelled against God? How God banished them from Heaven for it and created Hell to be their prison?
Like any prison, Hell was not inescapable. Lucifer was able to influence humans from below, and his fellow fallen angels managed to slip through the exits, the gates of Hell, every once in a while. They influenced the humans, turned them from the light, from God, and the most sinful of the humans were punished too.
Their souls were sent to Hell, and with time, they became demons, Lucifer's minions. These demons were easier to summon to Earth, and became the biggest threat to humanity by sheer numbers.
God's angels were sent to Earth regularly to combat them. He also had a son who sacrificed himself in the hopes of saving as many souls as possible. The fight was still fairly matched.
Usually light and darkness balanced out, but every once in a while, usually when the fallen walked the Earth, darkness threatened all.
One of these times lasted decades. And in those decades the fallen fell into temptation, as were their natures. They saw the beauty of human women and sought them out, taking pleasure in them, tasting them, whether or not they were willing. Whether or not there was deception involved.
Inevitably, offspring resulted from these unions. Nephilim. Giants in the Bible, but deceptively human in truth. Dangerous all the same. They were overpowered and seen as a threat to humanity, so they were exterminated from the Earth.
A flood of blood was left in the wake of the war against them. Not since Lucifer's rebellion had the light been in such turmoil, for no matter how monstrous the nephilim were at times, they were still the children of their brethren.
Archangel Jaoel had been one of the many who struggled with the morality of the slaughter, advocating for imprisonment instead. But Archangel Michael, the leader of all angels in Heaven, God's right hand, held a zero tolerance. As far as he was concerned, nephilim were too big of a risk to let live. Better they die and let God and Lucifer decide where their souls ended up.
So all of Heaven's angels fell in line with his orders, even Jaoel.
Eventually the blood stains faded from his ethereal hands.
It didn't matter. He still remembered their faces.
x
There were many centuries of peace before the next battle between good and evil commenced. Demons were rising again in massive numbers, and many angels were sent to Earth to protect humans of interest. Humans that were important or going to be important someday.
Jaoel was amongst the angels sent down to play guardian angel, to his dismay. He was an archangel. He'd played messenger before, but never babysitter. He was a warrior. He wanted to fight, not stand around and observe a human for days on end in case a demon sought to extinguish their life.
He couldn't even comprehend how the human he was assigned could be important. Eva was a sheep farmer, living in the forest in seclusion, unusual for a woman of her time, but she had no qualities of a leader.
She was quiet, naturally so since she hardly ever interacted with other humans except to trade. She was soft, too emotional for her time. She mourned the animals she hunted; she sobbed for the lambs that never got to take their first breaths. She lived in her own little bubble, content with not knowing the outside world.
What demon would bother an attempt to corrupt her or take her life? They had no reason to harm a shepherd; no way to draw her towards the dark. Jaoel wasn't sure he'd ever seen a human so pure. Her eternal light an endearing companion to her God-given beauty. Her dark curls and rich bronze skin.
Her allure was sly, slinking slowly into the recesses of Jaeol's mind, igniting something deep within him that had never been awakened before. He felt it every time Eva talked kindly to her woolly wards. Every time she smiled. Every time she laughed or sang, her syrupy voice lulling him into temptation.
He was compelled to know her. For her to know him. He introduced himself to her as a human vagabond in need of work, using her kind heart against her, forcing proximity. She hired him and he began to help her mend fences and care for her sheep under the ruse. He had a lot to learn, but Eva was a patient teacher.
It was too late by the time he realized he'd gone too far; gotten too close, fallen into the trap many angels had before him. He'd convinced himself they could be friends, all the while the passions of human copulation dangerously plagued his daydreams. He knew enough of it, the science behind the physical act, to have a picture of it in mind, to understand it, though not the emotions and sensations linked to it.
He wished to experience it all with her, rational thought slowly losing its battle.
A battle that swiftly came to its pathetic end on a late summer morning almost a year to the day after he initiated their first interaction, six from the day he was assigned as her protector.
That day a demon made an attempt on her life and she'd witnessed his wrath in full glory as he easily plunged his angelic blade in its chest, smoky gray wings exposed for her to eyeball in great detail before he hid them away belatedly.
She was not afraid as he feared she would be, only grateful that a divine being was there to save her.
"Will you be leaving, now that the threat has been extinguished?" she inquired, her expression trained with the intention of hiding her warring emotions.
"i do not know," he answered honestly, allowing himself to brush his smooth fingertips along the contours of one of her cheeks, to touch her for the first time.
He drew in a sharp breath. Her skin was softer than he'd ever imagined.
Her warm brown eyes fluttered shut to his quiet affection finally expressed. She shared it with him.
"So what now?"
What now indeed. Was the demon her only threat or was there more to come? How soon would he be called back home if she was safe?
How much longer did they have?
Jaoel didn't want to wait to find out.
He pulled Eva to him, an iron grip on her upper arms, crushing his lips to hers with a ferocity that combated his inexperience. She melted in his hold, absorbing all of his need, accepting it, expressing her own in the form of a sweet moan that reverberated in his sensitive ears and etched itself permanently into his cerebrum.
He kissed her over and over again, unable to get enough of her divine taste. Years of longing, and she was finally his.
As he was hers.
Without spoken word they both expressed their yearning for more through those desperate kisses and touches to every part of each other they could easily reach without parting.
Eva slowly stepped backwards, leading him like a mythical siren into her home, a cottage perfect for two.
In the dim light of the stony dwelling they began to peel off their clothing, peppering kisses to each other's newly exposed skin as they did so.
"Have you ever done this before?" she asked between heaving breaths, her tone lacking judgement.
"Never," he replied, a drawn out groan accompanying his words as her right hand skimmed tantalizingly close to the waistline of his underwear, too close to the hardening bulge in his pants.
He could feel a heat blooming over his cheekbones. He had often prided himself with knowledge. To be as unsure as he was in their situation was humbling.
Eva smiled widely and placed a hand along his bearded jaw. "I will show you then."
He watched intensely as she reached out for his right hand and guided it down her body, over the tops of her bared breasts and her soft stomach, not hesitating when his hand found the nest of dark hair between her hips, and only stopping when his fingers glided into her folds with her direction.
She was so warm and wet, more inviting than he could've hoped.
She gasped at the touch she'd instigated, swinging her head back, and Jaoel felt his stomach swoop at the sight of the sinful strain of her neck. He tugged her closer and sucked a bruise onto the skin over her vein there, and she hummed happily, basking in his affection.
"That's it," Eva murmured breathlessly. "Let what you see and feel guide you. I want it all, Jaoel. Everything you want. Everything you'll give."
With some men it would have been a dangerous promise, seen as permission to reveal their darkest desires, ones that shined a light on their cruelty, but she knew she could trust him. That he would take care of her. She'd known him well before she knew what he was, and what he was didn't matter. Only who he was. Her Jaoel. The man who tended to her sheep as attentively as she did. Who ate her every word. Who had never judged her for thinking out loud.
He hissed at her vow and rested his forehead against hers. "I want you all around me. I want to know exactly how it feels. But first I want to see how it feels."
He cupped her firmly where she'd left his hand and she got the message, silently showing him where her sensitive nub was and how to use his fingers to elicit a response from her.
He was mesmerized by what resulted - her quickening breaths, the unrestrained moans that tumbled out of her mouth, the pounding of her heart that sounded like thunder to his supernatural ears. Sweat glistened on her skin as she rocked herself into his touch, trying to get herself there faster, a desperate look on her face.
He found her hole with his index finger, without her help, and hooked it inside her, and that was what did her in. Her breath caught and she mewed into his face, slumping in his muscular arms as she did so.
"Faex!" she panted. "Are you sure you haven't done that before?"
Jaoel hardly heard her question, too caught up in the instant replay rolling in his mind. He'd always thought Eva was beautiful, but she was even more so when she came. And those sounds that she'd made, the way she'd leaned on him after, he'd almost been unable to control himself. He was aching so badly for her that it was all he could think about.
He messily covered her mouth with his and easily scooped her up off the ground, taking full advantage of his superior strength. She threw her arms around his neck and held on tightly as he pushed her up against the wall of the cottage's main room, ignoring the hardness of the stone pressed into her spine to focus on his, grinding her heat against his ready cock after securing her legs around his hips.
They worked together to ease her down onto him as he slowly pushed up inside her, not stopping until he was covered to the hilt.
The sensation of being confined by her warm, slick walls overwhelmed him. A feverish instinct he didn't know he had took over, urging him to drive into her repeatedly, seeking friction as she raked her delicate fingers through his thick wavy hair, encouraging him. "That's it. That's it. Jaoel!"
He'd set a pace not too fast or slow, but it didn't matter. There was no way for him to hold off long enough for her to come again, not with how good everything felt, even as it bordered pain. Not with how she writhed against him and whimpered.
"Can't take it anymore," he grunted out.
"Don't then," she gasped.
Several more deep snaps of his hips into her and his cock was pulsating as it filled her up with his seed. He shut his eyes as it happened, fully embracing the ecstasy and relief that paired perfectly with his release.
When he opened them again his eyes met hers, and they beamed at each other. His heart wanted to burst at the unabated joy in her expression. He knew he loved her then.
He set her down gently on her feet again and kissed her more sweetly than before, dipping two fingers into her heat as he did so and thrusting them in and out in the same manner as he had with his cock. Eva submitted, clinging to him as he wound her up again.
He didn't stop until she was crying out his name.
x
He'd been out with a bow and arrow hunting unsuccessfully for deer all morning the day his life unfathomably changed.
Jaoel arrived back home empty handed but not displeased. He and Eva still had plenty to eat from his last hunt and the garden, so some time alone to sort his thoughts on the back of a horse was reward enough.
His peace did not last for long when he discovered the cottage vacant of all life. Fear struck his soul as his mind drew the worst conclusion. That Eva had been discovered by his brethren and ripped away from him less than a full year after they first indulged in the passion that came with romantic love.
But then he remembered the spring nearby that ran tepid warm, the pool she loved to bathe in, and recalled her wishes to be in it.
But if she's there - Jaoel thought, freezing at the implication of her going there alone.
He dropped his bow at the door and raced for the cave where the warm body of water was contained. It was a little ways into it, but not so much so that darkness impended his sight - or anyone's for that matter. The sunlight still shone through.
He sucked in a deep breath of simultaneous relief and trepidation as he made out her naked form in the pool, arms bent over the edge with her forehead pressed to the backs of her splayed hands.
"Eva," he called out hesitantly.
She lifted her head to peer over at him and her shoulders relaxed at the same time as a corner of her mouth curled up. "Knew you'd remember. I wanted to wait for you, but it got to be too much. I wanted to make sure I could still walk here."
He kicked off his boots and sat beside her on the edge, letting his legs drop into the pleasantly warm liquid she was sitting in. "When did you start feeling the pains?"
"Almost immediately after you left," she informed him. "But not soon enough to flag you down."
"The whole morning?"
She nodded and he pulled his lips into a thin line, a subtle grimace. "I'm sorry, mulsa. If I had known I'd have never gone out."
"You couldn't have known," she said with a hitched breath. She tensed up and dug her nails into the gravel surrounding the natural pool. "You're here now."
Jaoel turned to place a hand on her shoulder in support as she rode out what people in later times would call a contraction.
"I should've alerted the midwife days ago when the baby dropped," he stated aloud.
"That was not my wish," she hissed.
It had been his.
When Eva had conceived his child in mid autumn the previous year, only a couple months after they began their passionate relationship, Jaoel had feared her being struck down by Heaven's army, but then she'd come up with the ridiculous idea of doing this on her own, no medical back up if something were to go wrong, as they did fairly often in her time, and then he'd feared that more.
She didn't like the local midwife though, and he had to admit he understood why. She was not very sympathetic and wasn't afraid to lecture her patients when they didn't perfectly follow the rules she had set in place, including a zero tolerance for manual labor outside the home. That included herding sheep.
The stern elderly woman would probably have an aneurysm if she knew Eva had forgone a bed for a pool of water. Water births were not typical, but a town friend had told her about the practice once when she was halfway through her pregnancy and Eva hadn't given up the dream since.
She'd been so determined to give birth in the spring that when Jaoel had brought up his concerns she'd pushed back. "Let me do it alone then!" she had shouted.
And he had gently turned her head to look him back in the eyes. "Not so long as I breathe."
The idea of being there through the entire birth was daunting, but he would not leave her without someone to comfort her and help usher their child into the world.
A child he'd once dreaded, but now nervously awaited.
It was not like he hadn't understood how he'd gotten Eva pregnant. He'd known fully well what repeated unprotected copulation with her would likely lead to, but she'd made him feel invincible for a time, and she'd wanted a family long before he entered her life. The combination of his recklessness and her care free attitude about it had made her pregnancy only a matter of time.
At the beginning he couldn't share the happiness she felt because he'd seen first hand the cards that were dealt to nephilim. He'd dealt some of the cards himself, to mostly mature ones who had actually deserved it, but still. It would be hypocritical to think his child would be above eradication; that his fellow angels would leave them alone just because he was the father.
Eva would not let him stay detached. She convinced him to voice his concerns and to forgive himself for obeying his orders. She'd convinced him that they were safe at the farm for now, and when they weren't they'd move on. That it was going to be okay.
Then she'd pressed his hand to her swollen belly as the baby kicked and he'd lost all reason once more.
He thought of that tiny foot nudging against his palm through firm skin as Eva's contractions increased in strength and closed in on each other.
She clutched at him through it all, like he was a log floating down river rapids. Her salvation.
He held onto her comfortingly, drawing small circles on her back until she pulled herself away from him, towards a rock shelf on the north side of the pool, a shallow spot.
"Baby’s coming," she panted out, sitting up against the side of the pool and already bearing down with her whole body, her eyes squeezed shut.
All the lambings in the world couldn't have prepared him for this.
He followed her, kneeling in the water before her and nodding. "I have you both."
He did his best to stay stoic and encourage her as she worked to move the baby out of her, listening to her body, pushing with the contractions. He felt utterly helpless and impressed by her strength all at once as he waited with his arms open, at the ready.
He wasn't sure exactly how long it took, but one moment his arms were empty and the next he was holding an infant in them - their daughter.
He raised her up out of the water and studied her little face in wonder as she starred back up at him intensely. He could already tell she was going to look so much like her mother, but those dark brown eyes, those were all him.
The observation made his breath catch and he found himself transfixed, locked in that moment with her. Just looking.
Then she scrunched up her face and began to wail.
Jaoel thought he'd seen everything beautiful to see in the universe, but witnessing his daughter's first breath, first cry - a life beginning, one created out of the love he and Eva shared - he'd never seen anything more beautiful outside of his father's throne room.
“It’s alright, babygirl, you’re fine,” he soothed automatically. “Wanna meet your mama?”
He glanced over to Eva and her face lit up. She gestured for him to hand over their daughter almost desperately and he did so carefully so not to drop her back into the water.
A look of awe passed over Eva’s tired face and she started sobbing, her head pressed gently against her daughter’s.
“Are you alright my love?” Jaoel asked, concerned, touching the elbow of her right arm.
She nodded vigorously. “Yes, it’s just…she’s perfect, Jaoel. And she’s ours.”
The disbelief in her shaky voice made him smile. “Yes, she is. And she's just as perfect as her mother.”
Jaoel had never felt such overwhelming joy as he did then, not since standing in front of God himself, and even then it was a different kind of thrill.
He figures years later that he should have known better than to settle into it.
Everything is fleeting.
x
Jaoel.
One word, his name, and his world greyed.
He'd heard it said behind him, but he didn't want to turn around. He wanted to keep looking forward, watching his five year old daughter innocently play in a field of dandelions, not a care in the world.
He knew that voice. It might as well have been an axe.
"Jaoel, what have you done?" the voice hissed, outrage barely contained.
He swung around then, meeting eyes with a woman nearly his height and in a dark green tunic and sandals. Her hair was a stark pale blonde and her eyes were ghostly blue. Icy, just like her attitude.
"Jophiel," Jaoel said. "What are you doing here?"
"Gathering everyone," Jophiel replied. "The fight is over for now. The demons are controlled. The humans are safe. Or so we thought."
She jerked her head in his daughter's direction.
"She's not dangerous," Jaoel told her firmly. "She's just a child."
"Of course she's dangerous!" Jophiel screeched. "I can feel her power radiating out from here. She is an abomination!"
"She is mine!" Jaoel growled, taking a step forward, chest out. Furious and terrified but refusing to show the latter. "She is no abomination. You've shed enough blood. Leave us be."
"You know they won't do that," said another quieter, subdued voice.
Under other circumstances Jaoel would've been elated to hear it, but it that moment it pained him.
"Thomas," Jaoel whispered.
He craned his neck to see him to his right, dressed in a tunic as well, his cream. He looked younger than Jaoel by six years, around twenty-one years old based on human aging, but it was an allusion. Heaven's angels didn't age. Only the fallen, and even they aged very slowly.
Thomas was as close to a brother of blood as angels could get. Jaoel had been in charge of training him right after the lower angel had been created. They'd spent hundreds of years fighting the dark side by side. They'd cared about and trusted each other more than all their other fellow angels.
Jaoel had no idea where Thomas would fall in this argument. Thomas was as loyal to Heaven as he'd been and even if he did side with him, it meant he'd be banished from Heaven too. Most likely killed, if not thrown into Hell with the rest of the fallen who would eat him alive for not having sided with them, with Lucifer, when they rebelled.
For his daughter's sake he wanted Thomas on his side, but for his brother's sake he wished he'd never shown up.
Thomas looked torn. He had never agreed with the zero tolerance rule for the nephilim either. He'd slain one, a teenage boy, under Jophiel's direct orders once and had been haunted by it for decades. The boy had shown signs of delinquency but nothing atypical of a human his age. He'd begged for his life. Jophiel had promised a tortured death if Thomas didn't do it himself. She'd cornered him.
She'd never tried it with Jaoel before because they were both archangels, but in that dandelion field she changed that. There was a reason Jophiel had brought Thomas with her. Most likely she'd had her suspicions after Jaoel stopped checking in with his siblings, giving updates.
(In hindsight, it had been a poor decision, but he'd been afraid a fellow angel would see through his lies, the stories he made up to cover that he was no longer just guarding Eva.)
Jaoel could see what Jophiel was trying to do from a mile away.
"You belong with us, Jaoel," she stated stiffly. "I am not completely heartless. Let us dispose of her. Thomas will do it, quick and painless, and then you can come home. I will forgive your transgressions, convince Michael to give you a pass."
She only didn't want to face one of Heaven's most powerful warriors, fallen or not. A lesser angel would've never gotten any ounce of mercy.
"Over my dead body," Jaoel spat out, pulling his blade from one of his coat pockets.
"This won't end well for anyone if we fight him like this," Thomas told Jophiel. "You're a better leader, but Jaoel's a better fighter and he knows all my tricks."
Jophiel huffed, clearly not pleased that he'd pointed it out but smart enough to know not to be bull headed about it. "You're right. We need back up. Come along."
She spread her stunning golden brown wings that spanned ten feet and flew away without further do.
Thomas lingered, unable to look Jaoel straight in the eye.
He sighed. "Of all of our siblings, I'd have put you on the list of least likely to be tempted by a human woman. You've put me in an awkward position, big brother."
"I'm sorry," Jaoel said honestly. "It just happened. I cannot describe how I got here. Why she's here. But look at her, Thomas. Please."
Thomas glanced up, obeying, and Jaoel shifted to see what he was seeing.
His daughter, standing still in the middle of the field with a beautiful blue butterfly clinging to her tiny index finger, her chocolate eyes bright and curious.
When he turned back to Thomas he saw a softness in them. "She is beautiful," his brother admitted. "If it were up to me she would live. You wouldn't be forced away from this place. But alas, it is not my decision. If I argued, I'd be cast out too."
The last two sentences sounded bitter, an aged rage in the words, and Jaoel knew he was thinking of the boy.
Jaoel shook his head. "I'm not asking you to rebel. I'm asking you to disappear, busy yourself. Find a wayward demon on your way to gather others for our execution. Stay out of this."
Thomas gave him a small, bittersweet smile. "Always looking out for me." His expression turned solemn. "Even when I fail you."
Jaoel's stomach dropped and he realized then that Jophiel had never mentioned killing Eva, even though the mothers of the nephilim were always executed as well.
"No..."
"Jophiel has been observing you all morning," Thomas told him. "She waited until you left and struck herself. She found me after, said there was one last evil for me to dispatch. A nephilim. She never said it was your daughter. But she did say she already killed the mother."
Jaoel backed a few steps from him. "No...no...you're lying. Jophiel's put you up to it."
"I wish it was one of her elaborate plans, that I was lying. But I'm not."
"NO!" Jaoel snarled, charging forward to grab a fist full of the fabric just under his neck. "She can't be dead!"
"Take your daughter and run, now." Thomas said, more pleading than commanding. "I'll bury her."
"No! You're lying! I'm not leaving her behind."
It couldn't be true. She was his one. His soulmate, as the humans would say. Denial was all he had to keep himself from falling apart.
Thomas sought his eyes out. "Look me in the eyes, brother, you know I'm a bad liar."
Jaoel didn't want to, but he did, and he regretted it. There was no lie in his eyes. Only painful truth.
Thomas saw the change in his expression. The anguish. "I'm so sorry." He went to cup his face but Jaoel fell to his knees.
Thomas was already gathering him up and helping him back to his feet as soon as he hit the ground. "Go. Save your daughter while you still can. She won't take long."
He might have as well shoved a blade through his heart, it would've hurt less. But Jaoel knew Thomas was right. He had to leave with his daughter now. He couldn't go back to bury Eva. He couldn't go home to say goodbye.
Tears blinded him. "Bury her by the oak tree next to the barn. She loved lying in the shade there on sunny days."
Thomas gave him a curt nod. "It is done."
Jaoel started for his daughter on trembling legs.
"Jaoel," Thomas called out after he got a few feet.
He glanced back at him. "Her name was Eva."
"And your daughter's?" Thomas inquired.
"Sarah," Jaoel answered. "It was her grandmother's name."
He didn't waste anymore time after that, racing towards Sarah without checking if Thomas was leaving. He could take care of himself. Sarah could not.
"Daddy, what's wrong?" she asked, frowning at the way he'd rushed to her and at the pain in his expression.
"Daddy can't explain now," he told her, trying not to choke up. "Dangerous people are coming here. We have to go."
Her eyes rounded with fear. "What about Mommy?"
"I sent someone to get her," Jaoel replied. It was vague enough not to be a lie.
He would tell her the full truth later, after they put distance between them and Jophiel.
"We're going to fly to escape them," he said, trying to mask his grief as much as he could. "Come quick."
Sarah lit up. She had always loved flying. Flying made everything better.
She jumped into Jaoel's waiting arms and wrapped her arms around his neck as he unfurled his wings. She stared at them in awe as she always did, then Jaoel launched off the ground.
He flew her far away, not sure where to go, only knowing that no matter where they went, they'd never be safe for long.
x
The morning light shining through the open bedroom window of the abandoned cottage Jaoel had set up as a safehouse just before her birth bathed Sarah in gold as she slumbered, a sight that soothed Jaoel's ravaged, aching heart.
Finding out Eva was dead had been painful, telling Sarah the news had destroyed him.
She'd fallen asleep from utter exhaustion after all the tears she'd shed, but despite how weary Jaoel was, he'd been unable to catch any sleep himself.
He was too worried about his siblings finding them. Was too caught up in how open ended everything felt. He'd never be able to tell Eva goodbye. Would never have any idea what her final moments were like. He could only hope Jophiel had been merciful about it; something that had never been her strong suit.
He'd spent most of the night pacing or leaning on the door frame to the bedroom, watching his daughter, the rise and fall of her chest and the sound of her heart beating the only things keeping his despair at bay.
Then a striking blue butterfly, of the same species as the one that had been on Sarah's finger in the field flew into the room on a wind and landed softly on her forehead.
Something about its choice of a resting spot made Jaoel recall how sometimes butterflies were used as messengers by those who have passed on, and his breath hitched as he realized that Eva had died before the butterfly had settled onto their daughter's finger. That blue had been her favorite color.
"Eva?" he whispered. It couldn't be, could it? Was the butterfly a message to him?
It immediately flew off, back to the forest beyond the cottage, and Jaoel knew that was the answer to his question.
It gave him some solace.
She was still around, even if he, a fallen, couldn't see her.
x
It was almost mid morning and Sarah was still sound asleep when the door to the cottage quietly creaked open. A human would've missed it, but Jaoel didn't.
He dug out his blade from his coat and crept towards the main living space, every muscle in his body tensed in preparation for a fight.
He'd expected Jophiel or one of her closest allies to be waiting for him, but he found Thomas instead, standing by the fireplace.
"Thomas, what are you doing here?" he hissed. "How'd you find me?"
"I know you better than you may think," Thomas answered, the left side of his mouth quirking up slightly. "Luckily Jophiel has not cared to."
"You were supposed stay away," Jaoel told him, a flair of anger in his chest over his brother putting himself at risk for him. "You cannot be here long or you'll be cast out too."
Thomas approached him and lifted his right hand to squeeze his shoulder as he met his eyes. "I am staying. For far too long I have heeded their every order, sacrificed my morality in the name of their laws, for a father who has not let us see his face for centuries. I'm tired of cowering, brother. I am standing my ground. Your lover has been laid to rest, the sheep rehomed, and you will not protect your daughter alone, no matter where we must go."
Jaoel felt tears stinging his eyes once more, and to his surprise Thomas' eyes were shining too.
"Thank you," he said, his words nearly getting caught in his throat.
There was no use arguing with Thomas once he'd firmly drawn a stick in the sand, so he accepted his help. It felt good too, the burden on his shoulders feeling slightly less heavy with his beloved brother pledging to be there.
He yanked Thomas into a spontaneous embrace and his brother flinched, caught off guard, but soon relaxed into it and patted his back.
"Daddy, who is he?"
Jaoel backed away from Thomas to turn to Sarah, who was standing just outside the door of the bedroom, staring at the younger angel curiously.
"Sarah, this is Thomas," Jaoel replied, glancing to him before meeting her eyes. "Your uncle."
x
For years Jaoel and Thomas traveled all over the world with Sarah, fearful that if they stopped moving their brethren would catch up. It kept her safe, but also built frustration up in her as she aged. She wanted to be with other children, to learn in the same environment as they did. She got tired of being so isolated, so cooped up. As much as she loved her father and uncle, they weren't enough. Safety was not enough.
She was just a teenager being a teenager when she crept out of the cabin they were staying in while they were both sleeping, having the intention of hanging out with a few other girls in the village for several hours.
She was just a teenager, fourteen years old, when she healed a serious head injury one of the girls acquired while they were flitting around the forest like nymphs of myth in the night.
It was an unfortunate matter of circumstance that an angel that hadn't even been searching for her sensed her power when she used it and found her before Jaoel and Thomas could.
They met her friends first, bawling and clinging to each other, hardly able to spit out enough intelligible words to let them know what had happened. They'd seen things their young human minds couldn't grasp and witnessed a girl their age being slain. They'd be haunted by it for the rest of their lives.
As soon as they got the location Jaoel was racing through the thick treeline to find his daughter, legs pumping as hard as they could, faster than any human's but still not fast enough because he was already too late. He knew that, but he was compelled forward anyway.
He found her on her back, innocent brown eyes open and empty, staring blankly up at nothing. Her shirt was caked with blood that was beginning to dry. There was a stab wound to her abdomen, one clearly made by an angel's blade.
Jaoel dropped to his knees and gathered her already cool body into his arms, holding her close, his head in the crook of her neck.
"No, no, come on, come on babygirl, wake up, wake up!"
He was rocking her body, in total devastation, when Thomas caught up. He dropped to the ground at the heartbreaking sight before him, weeping alongside his brother.
They did not notice the ugly grey moth that fluttered down to sit on Joel's hunched back, by his right shoulder, a symbol of what he'd become.
x
Thomas was burying Sarah just outside the cabin but Jaoel could not bare to help. Instead he was sitting in a chair in the bedroom she'd been occupying just a few hours before, flipping his blade between his calloused fingers.
He paused to point it at his heart and tried to muster up the strength it would take to shove it in, knowing there would be prolonged pain if he did it wrong. But maybe that's what he deserved, subjecting Eva and then their daughter to the wrath of his family. It had been selfish. He should have stayed a distant observer. Saved Eva and moved on.
"Jaoel."
He flinched and his eyes darted up to see his brother standing in the doorway.
"Don't do it," he pleaded. "We can heal together. We can find a new home."
"I cannot go on without her, Thomas," Jaoel murmured, struggling to breathe as he spoke. "Go."
"You would leave me to fend for myself?" his brother asked.
Jaoel wanted to punch him for it. "You're nearly as old as I am; you can take care of yourself!"
Eyes downcast, Thomas nodded. "You are right. But I wish not to. I have already buried a niece tonight; do not make me bury you too."
Bastard.
Jaoel wanted nothing more than to end the unbearable weight that had fallen over him since he'd found Sarah's body, but the hand gripping the blade loosened its hold without his consent and it tumbled to the floor.
For as much as he was in pain, he could not leave his brother to mourn alone, to live alone. Not when he'd fallen because of him.
x
Joel Miller wakes up from the dream turned nightmare and swipes at the sticky tear track on his cheek.
When will it end? He wonders silently in the dark of his second story bedroom.
He can't help but think, far from the first time, that maybe he should've used the blade after all.
xxx
Latin Translations:
Faex = shit
Mulsa = honey
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Tagged: @harriedandharassed
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Series Masterlist
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Ngl I started reading this before I even got out of bed this morning, just curled up holding my pee, almost made me late for work. Turns out I'm incredibly into soft sad fallen angel Joel (and Tommmyyyy). 😏
