Burning House - Oneshot for Angel Week
Ao3
May 23: Masks and Facades/Secrets/Lies (x) @heaven-ecologist
a/n: glad to be back for another day! (or night lol)
Summary: Heaven was never a home and the angels were never a family, but this doesn't stop Abner missing what once was even after he moved on.
Pairing: Implied Past Abner/Gadreel, Abner/Vessel's Wife
Warnings: Mentions of Torture, Mentions of Death, Light Angst
Word Count: 737
“When you’re born in a burning house, you think the whole world is on fire. But it’s not.”
-
Sometimes, when the days were quiet in his quaint, little house, Abner came to miss “home.” To most people, Heaven was the angels’ home – but he knew it was something that never quite existed in the first place, only considered true by false words spoken when faith was low.
Heaven vaguely reminded Abner of a tree, something that grew for years to come, strong and withstanding. He struggled to understand, before everything, how God could believe it all would prosper without plentiful soil, without water, without anything that makes a tree grow. Maybe there was a time, long before Abner had been created, when God had watered the roots of good faith, allowed gentle hands to run along the bark of devotion and give to the leaves, the angels, word of his love; but one could only dream of that, and angels did not dream, not even after the Fall.
The tree though, had not known what it became. It was on fire and it was angry. Who could stop an inferno that was alive; one with a vendetta to take down every guilty arsonist with it, because angels had set that fire – and some loved to watch it burn. The roots had shriveled, the bark turned to ash, and the leaves died, only for them to fall deeper into the raging fire, fueling it higher.
He could shamefully admit that he missed watching the blaze envelope his brethren, behind the familiar bars of his prison. There was a guilty pleasure in the routine of being imprisoned, only needing to wait for his daily persecution. It was practiced, it was simple, it made him homesick to think about.
Over the years, Gadreel had become Abner’s vision of home. Weak arms pretending to be strong, holding him from falling apart after Thaddeus had finished ripping off his wings and then stringing them back on – Thaddeus liked to call it ‘art;’ Abner would be the first to say it was not his calling. The sin of memory allowed him to recall his shame, of being one of the few angels to go against orders, to leave his post. And then to find comfort surrounded by fellow deserters, all of them punished to rot for the implied sentence of forever.
The Fall gave him freedom, a second chance from being just a forgotten angel who failed long before he even knew of consequences. While he could not forget, he could forgive, even with what Thaddeus had done to him. And while he got a second chance, so did his vessel – healing a human’s sins would come to heal Abner himself.
Abner would never learn to define what home or a family truly was, but he could imagine it was what he found amid his wife and his daughter, his little niblet. They called him an angel, a gift sent from Above, and all he could do was grimly smile, accepting that his lineage would not even be forgotten with them. All of Abner’s ugliness was not present with them, they only saw the beauty and kindness that he had to offer.
He knew that none of it was his to keep, so who was to judge the thousand kisses he pressed among them, the light hand he kept to guide them away from any wrong. He wore the mask of his vessel with pride, as this would be the only angelic duty he could follow.
When his wife would rest, he would stay awake in their shared bed, watching her. Her body was lined with marks, showing her time and succession within her life, as if they were the rings of a tree showing age. For once, Abner could gaze upon a tree that was not burning, one that he didn’t feel the desire to water, for she could grow all on her own.
He mourned the day that was to come in due time, when Death would come to claim what was His and all that would be left is her lingering scent among the sheets. It would be his penance, the one he never finished receiving in Heaven. Until then, he would enjoy the days and nights, ones filled with willingful devotion, till their time came.
Abner may have missed “home,” but he thinks he prefers what he found elsewhere.
