❝ Why can’t things be the way they were before? ❞
✞ Words that immediately strike the archangel with a sinking feeling in his chest. It makes him go still, his expression unreadable beneath the mask. A mask he insisted upon keeping on, even to those who tended to him. He can't... show his face. Not now. Maybe not ever again. He just can't.
He was in bandages. Around his core, his shoulders and arms, unrobed above the waist due to them. They still ache, but he heals quickly. He'll be fine again soon, his body, immaculate- built to endure combat, refused to stay scarred for long. But for now, as he speaks, there's a faint groan from the lingering ache as he pulls himself to sit upright and speak.
" Gabriel, I... I fear nothing shall be the same. Ever again. And I am... so terribly sorry for that. " He mutters, even without seeing his eyes, you can tell he is looking anywhere but directly at them. " What I would GIVE to go back to a time before all this... this chaos. When all was simpler... When I knew, without hesitation, what I was... " He doesn't finish the last, his words cutting himself off with a pause then a sigh. Nevermind that thought. Its a dangerous one. It sounds like doubt. What matters is that he failed. Failed Heaven, failed Sera, failed-- failed for the first time in centuries on end. Dwell on that, as one deserves. That was the only shame worth having.
