Foreigner's God WIP (part two)

Part two of this AU. Another one of those fics where I think I'll be done in a few words and then I'm not and just go well, this is happening.

part two

There are several subsections to their angelic assignments now, and there are still more on the way, which means that the entire department is taking out files, editing and duplicating them as necessary, and including the new sections into their filing system. So far they have seven : Ocean, Rain, Wind, Chaos, Earth, Lightning and Fire. 

Gabriel gets filled in with the other lightning folk, which he thinks is neat but a little worrying since that means his department might be short one person if he’s gone, and he knows that with their work, one person gone means a lot more work for the others to cover. 

“I mean, look at it this way - you get to see the blueprints too,” Eiael says. 

They have a point. And he gets to sit in one of their orientations and purposely find a place at the very front and try to get them to break concentration for fun. 

“And you get to see what’s down there,” Caphriel says. “I’ve only heard things about it from the guys working on the ocean right now.”

And there’s that too. A bit of an early vacation that’s not really a vacation, since he’s still trying to pitch his and Eiael’s idea to the others. Lucifer, so far, appears to be in favour of it, but Michael makes a compelling argument for how much work has to be put on pause if the angels under her leadership stop construction for a day. They’re trying to reach a compromise.

“Yeah, you can tell us how it’s coming along,” Eiael says. “You get to see the real thing. That’s infinitely more interesting than any blueprint.”

“And the office?”

“We’ll live without you,” they say. “I mean, look at us. We’ve got Dagiel. We’ve got Hannah, Haziel, Caphriel. We’ve got me.”

“That’s what I’m worried about.”

Eiael punches his shoulder. He makes a show of wincing even when it doesn’t hurt.

“Rude!”

“You can hardly reach the top of the shelves, Eiael.”

“You’re just lucky you got assigned a tall corporation,” they say. “We’ve got chairs, if I’m too lazy to shift out of this form. We’ll be fine. Dare I say we’ll run even smoothly without you.”

Gabriel feigns a hurt look. “How dare you.”

From the other end of the room, Haziel raises a hand. “I second that.”

“Hey!”

Eiael turns their chair around, not minding that the legs scrape on the floor. “Anyone who thinks we’d do better without Gabriel, say aye.”

Mixed with barely contained laughter and a few chuckles that do slip through, the whole office of now forty angels - minus Gabriel and Eiael - says, “Aye.”

Gabriel falls back on his seat, putting a hand over his eyes, as if fainting, not that any of them really know what that is. He just thinks it feels right for the dramatics. “Betrayed by my own officemates, the travesty.”

“The angels have spoken. We’re kicking you out the office,” Eiael says, nudging his chair with a foot. “Begone, foul - uh, what’s a word for not-friend.” They snap their fingers. “Caphriel, give me something.”

“I don’t know, fiend, I guess.”

“Begone, foul fiend.”

“I made this department,” Gabriel says, although he’s smiling. “You can’t kick me out.”

“Watch us. I’m taking your seat,” they say. “Now shoo.”

“I haven’t even gone under one orientation yet, we’re not deployed until after,” he says. “I’m afraid I still have time to keep my seat.”

“Not for long,” Eiael says. 

Gabriel just shakes his head, fond.

“I do think you should take the assignment,” Eiael says, “Well, I mean, it’s not like you can say no - but it would be worth it, I think. You get to see the ocean. You get to work on Creation.” They pause. “Or, if you really don’t want to go, maybe pass the job on to me.”

“How would we even do that?” he asks, “It’s Mother’s orders.”

“I mean, you’d have to take care of that part, but just know that I’m very open to receiving the position should you choose to forfeit it,” they say.

“I don’t think there’s much we can do about that, sadly,” he says.

It’s not like he hasn’t wanted to see Creation for a long time anyway. He has no idea what’s going to happen, or where it’s going towards, but he just knows he and the others are supposed to ‘begin life’. He doesn’t even know what life is, but he supposes he’ll learn along the way. Their Mother is just full of surprises like that, and the fact that they have to figure everything out by themselves just makes it more fun. 

“You’re sure you’ll be fine even with the extra work?” Gabriel asks.

Eiael lifts a shoulder. “It’s not like it’s going to be forever,” they say, “Way I see it, the more groups we sort right and more files we finalize, the closer we get to being finished. I think Mother’s almost done with creating the rest of us anyway.”

Gabriel smiles. He reaches over and flicks the brim of their hat. They swat his hand.

“Good luck with the office,” he says, while Eiael readjusts their hat, slightly annoyed. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I think, if I’m going to stop feeling awful for saddling you all with what’s going to be my share of the workload, I need to get back to reading these requests.”

“Hey,” Caphriel says from his desk, waving a hand to get their attention, “if there’s going to be a change in leadership, I think we should have a say in who it should be.”

Gabriel raises an eyebrow, curious. “Who do you think it should be?”

Caphriel jabs a thumb to the desk beside him. “Dagiel,” he says. Dagiel, who’s currently putting papers in folders and sorting them into files to be put in the cabinets later, peeks over the towers slowly forming on her desk. 

“I mean, come on, if there’s anyone actually talented with paperwork here compared to the rest of us, it’s her. She’d do better than either of you.”

A balled-up piece of paper arcs from Dagiel’s desk, over the folder towers, and hits Caphriel’s head. Haziel snorts. Eiael laughs.

Gabriel thinks, watching them, that he loves this little team of his very much.

-

Creation is wondrous.

To anyone else who isn’t an angel who might have seen the very beginning, the waters and the wind and the chaos swirling around as they are brought into existence, it would have been dark, and dreary, and horrible, but to someone who has not known much about existence save for the blank, white space of Heaven, Gabriel is seeing something new. New is interesting. New is good. New is making him stare at everything in wonder even if everything is currently too dark to actually be able to see properly.

He watches and waits for his orders, standing by with the rest of the angels on the same team as him, as the others arc about, guiding their elements and shaping the world about them. He watches as the angels of the oceans guide the waters to gather together, as the angels of chaos lighten their hand, and as the angels of the earth have their element rise above the waters. He could watch the whole thing forever, he thinks, as he stares at the earth forming before him. 

When they’re called in, they sail over the winds, flying almost in gleeful abandon, striking down lightning over the earth, over the water, beginning life, as Eiael had explained to them when it had been their turn to sit in the conference room to receive their instructions. He’d been too fascinated to mess with Eiael then, listening as they pointed to chart after chart, explaining what was to be done and what will happen.

Life, Gabriel thinks. A combination of all these wonderful elements that have been brought into existence by his Mother and her children. Begun with the crash of electricity he’s helping call forth to strike the ground. 

He laughs, over the wind, over the rain, flying high and then dropping down so suddenly just to feel that rush of joy he’s just discovering when he suddenly pulls up and sends another bolt downwards. He doesn’t know if the others are watching. He doesn’t even know if they’re finding the same excitement he is - he can’t fathom them not doing so, because they’re starting life. They’re in Creation right now, they’re helping with Creation right now, and it’s so beautiful, in all its chaos and darkness.

He almost forgets he still has to go back to Heaven after his assignment is done. He doesn’t know how long it has been. He’s not sure how to tell time down here, and he’d forgotten to, in his excitement. When he gets back to Heaven, everything is too bright for him, although he expects the feeling to go away after he gets back to work, since he had been in the dark depths of the rest of the universe for a while, after all. 

Eiael is sitting at his desk when he opens the office door. They grin when they see him, somehow even brighter in the midst of the white of Heaven.

“Hey, Newsboy.”

The office has a few more shelves and desks now. Several hands wave as the angels who recognize him see him at the doorway, while the new ones look at him with a bit of timidity. Caphriel, from his desk, lets out a, “Hey,” while his arm is being bandaged by another unfamiliar angel. Gabriel’s brow creases in concern as he steps into the office properly, passing by the injured angel’s desk.

“What happened with that?” he asks as he reaches Eiael.

“Caphriel and Haziel volunteered for information dissemination,” they say, “There was a bit of a small construction accident and Caphriel didn’t get out the way in time.” At the obvious worry on his face, they add, “He’s not hurt too badly, though, don’t worry.”

“I really am not,” Caphriel chimes in, trying to move his arm, only for the curly-haired angel patching him up to hold him still by the shoulder. He winces.

“Anyway, how’s work been, Newsboy? You’ve been gone a while,” Eiael says. 

“How long, exactly?” Gabriel lets them change the subject. If they don’t want him to press the issue on Caphriel getting injured doing a job that was supposed to be his now, he’ll talk about it later. “I wasn’t able to keep time down there.”

“I’d say about eight - uh, we call them weeks now, right? Eight weeks, I believe.” 

Gabriel blinks. That’s actually a lot shorter than he’d thought he’d been gone.

“How was it?” Caphriel asks, trying to stay very still so as not to disturb the work of the healer. Dagiel, from her desk, pauses in her work to look up at Gabriel expectantly. So do several other angels in the office. 

Gabriel recalls the roar of the waters, the darkness, the rough, cold earth, and the harsh winds. 

“It’s beautiful,” he says, “It’s a lot darker down there for now, but it’s just - it’s beautiful, really. I can’t quite put my thoughts into words. It’s glorious.”

“It’s dark?” Dagiel asks.

Gabriel nods. “I believe that’s why there’s been plans for celestial bodies, since they’re supposedly sources of light,” he says. “It’s very loud, too, the water especially, and the winds, but it feels…” He tries to find the word for it, the word for how it feels like to feel the intensity of the chaos there as opposed to Heaven’s steady air and pristine white walls. That was the state of everything in Heaven, actually. Very clean, with a natural order. Very blank. Creation wasn’t clean or blank. 

“It’s different from Heaven,” he says, settling for that.

“And - and it’s not awful?” Dagiel asks.

“Not at all,” he says, “It’s different, but in a good way. At least, I thought so.” 

“How so?” Caphriel asks.

Gabriel struggles with his words for a moment. Funny that his words should fail him when it comes to this, especially as he’s the messenger of Heaven. But, he supposes, to angels who have only ever known Heaven and have only seen its pristine beauty, and who have been taught by everyone who has come before them that this is our home, anything outside of it might be terrifying, or odd. 

He can say it’s nothing like Heaven, but would that be frightening instead of intriguing? He can say it’s the opposite of Heaven, but would that win them over instead of make them think it’s something to avoid? How does one say it’s good because it’s not Heaven without any of them taking it badly?

“It’s not as quiet,” he says. “There’s things to find and figure out. The ground looks like huge masses of earth, but then you touch it and it crumbles under your fingers. You can feel the water on your fingers and it’s cold. We don’t have cold here in Heaven. It’s dark, but then when lightning is thrown across the sky, everything suddenly brightens.”

He looks around the room, at the faces of his officemates who have stopped to look at him. Even the healer has turned to listen. They look curious. They look fascinated, and he thinks yes, exactly, it’s new! It’s not Heaven. It’s so beautiful. 

“I’ll try to get us those days off so we can drop by Creation,” he says, “You have to see it.”

He turns to Eiael then, who is staring at him in rapt attention. He wants to drag them down to Creation, show them how it feels like to fly with the wind and the rain, and the lightning at their fingertips, the feeling of life sparking about around them.

“It’s beautiful,” he says, “It’s so alive.”