Rising Above

Gabriel almost choked on his gin, recovering and growling with illicit interest. He wasn’t really surprised, for same sex partners were nothing new to either of them; they were both attracted to beauty and sex in any form. Besides, he knew Lilith was too afraid of men to ever enter into a committed, long-term relationship with one. But for now, he let the thought of Lilith and another female cause his desires to start to simmer again, and the thought of him, Lilith and another female made his cock start to twitch. “Where is she?” He tried to maintain his cool exterior, but even he knew he sounded anxious.

Lilith laughed. “She’s somewhere in the Aegean Sea, she’s a Naval Ensign, curb those lusts, Seraph!”
Gabriel took her hand, pressing it to his lips quickly. “Let’s go find her!” His eyes glimmered with lechery and semi-seriousness, leaning closer and closer to her. He’d be up for locating Lilith’s squeeze if she was.

Lilith sighed, she’d always enjoyed the enthusiasm Gabriel took in whatever it was he was doing. Her mind slipped back to Ireland, 1834, and how his enthusiasm had dazzled her every day. “And what would the good parishioners of the Dungannon Presbyterian Church in Belfast say if they could see their honorable Reverend Gabriel A. Ainjell now?” She smiled, her hand on his chest as if she were trying to hold him off. “After all the fire and brimstone you preached to those people about the evils of the sins of the flesh making them unworthy of their very souls! Such sedition, Reverend Ainjell, really!”

Gabriel looked down at her, smiling broadly at the memory too, for he’d made such a fine preacher. He fingered the open sections of Lilith’s black dress. “I don’t know, what would they say about the good Reverend’s good wife if they saw her now?” He leered, slipping his finger underneath the fabric of her velvet dress and probing her nipple just long enough to make Lilith sigh in pleasure. “You know, I’d almost forgotten about my little parish in Northern Ireland.”

“I haven’t.” Lilith said, her voice twisting with a tinge of bitterness. “Mostly because it was there that during one of your emphatic sermons on the evils of lechery, you told your entire congregation that Mrs. Ainjell had to wear the dark glasses because she’d been blinded by Syphilis.”

Gabriel burst out laughing, unable to speak for a few seconds. “I remember that! That was brilliant!” He guffawed. “You were mad at me for months, weren’t you?”

“I pushed you off a cliff, if I recall.” Lilith answered flatly, not as amused by the story as he obviously was, and instead took another sip from her glass, waiting until Gabriel’s fit of laughter was over.

“Yes,” Gabriel began to sober again, wiping his eyes. “Yes, Lily, you did…that’s why I’ve always liked you, you fight back!” He’d managed to stop laughing, but suddenly started again. “I’d been temporarily barred from Heaven…again…, but you made descending to earth for two centuries so entertaining!”

“I’m so glad I could be there for you.” Lilith answered dryly, now wishing she hadn’t brought the whole thing up. Still, a part of her cherished those memories, living all over the world with Gabriel, masquerading as a married couple, the different time periods, the different cultures, the different identities they’d assumed in each new place, the things they’d seen together, nothing could ever compare to that. They would only stay in one place for five, maybe seven years, moving on before anyone would notice that neither of them aged.

Sometimes, she caught herself not only daydreaming of that magnificent past, but also wondering if she and Gabriel would ever pair up again for a few decades in the future. She liked him, appreciated his scope of things and the power he wielded, missed him, but still didn’t trust him, why should she? He was busy with another war, anyway, trying to wipe out human souls, the way hers had been. She sighed deeply, looking up from her glass of blood to find that Gabriel was no longer laughing, but that he was studying her.

Her eyes locked with his and he cupped her face with his hand, obviously wanting her to continue looking at him. Something shimmered in the Seraph’s eyes, something not unsettling, but something Lilith didn’t want to see nonetheless, and she pulled away from him, looking back down at the blood in her glass. It was easier to assume he’d only ever been after her soul than it was to trust him.

Gabriel knew she didn’t trust him; it was sometimes the only certainty in his life, no matter how hard he wished that she did trust him. He’d never meant for any punishment to befall her for his plan, he never meant for her to be scarred with such eyes and teeth, or emptied of her soul, despite how he’d raged against the very idea of giving something so holy to ‘talking monkeys’ as soon God had proposed it. To Gabriel, it was bad enough that the duties of killing and vengeance had caused him to be cast further away from God’s throne, and he would not allow humans, with souls, to enter Heaven, and further usurp his rightful place.

Gabriel remembered Lilith’s creation so vividly, the dust and the clay coming together to shape the most beautiful form he’d ever known outside of the Almighty’s or his own. Her eyes sparkled green like the smooth stems of the white lilies that Gabriel loved so much, her skin was as white and flawless as the petals of his favorite flower, and her hair was red like flame. She was the first woman, created of the same stuff as the first man, different from him in stature and anatomy, but made up of the very same and alike amounts of constituents; Lilith had been right, she was man’s equal, and nothing less, he’d seen the proof in her genesis.
She had from the very start been a beast of great interest to him, he’d never seen a woman after all, and he wondered why God and Adam alike had seen her as something to be considered subservient; there was so much more than that in her lovely and proud green eyes alone. Gabriel had argued his point about the identical steps of creation of man and woman to God, only to be rebuked, but not for the last time. God had never told Gabriel “no” until Gabriel had asked that Lilith be given to him instead of to the human, Adam. Gabriel loved her; from her very origination he loved her. He loved her more than he loved the white lilies that grew in the garden, for just looking at Lilith had filled Gabriel with more peace than he’d known in some time. Gabriel had wanted Lilith by his side so very much. Again, God said, “no, your feelings for the woman are not of my blessing, she is not for you”, and with crippling disappointment, Gabriel had no choice but to accept his Lord’s decision. Perhaps that had been when the feud had started, Gabriel didn’t really know, a lot of things had happened that were all possible catalysts.

The love that Gabriel felt for Lilith because of her beauty was rivaled by the love he came to feel for her on the day she told Adam that she had no intentions of lying beneath him. Even God had told Lilith that she was made to lie beneath the male, but Lilith had still refused to do so. Gabriel had never seen so much determination, so much true strength, in anything before, and he was sick with love and admiration for Lilith at that instant. It was painful for Gabriel to consider that such strength was crippled, ground away, by what Adam had done to Lilith, leaving fear, pain and anger in the place her strength had once occupied. Gabriel could never accept that Lilith’s strength was forever gone, and he knew he could restore it, if only she’d allow him to. He longed to restore her strength, something as phenomenal as the strength Lilith once possessed could not be forgotten, and Gabriel wished he’d been as strong as she was on the day the Lord had named him the Angel of Death and Vengeance, for if Gabriel had been as strong as Lilith, he would also have refused God’s declaration.
Gabriel was the highest-ranking angel in Heaven, there was a time that he stood at the Lord’s throne, but lately, due to many commands that went unfollowed, and even more instances where Gabriel had acted on his own accord, he had not been welcomed there.

However, Gabriel didn’t see this as being his fault, for it was not he who had asked that God give him the power to kill with just one single touch. He had not always been created so, and when God said to him that he would be sent to earth to bring death and vengeance, Gabriel had protested, telling his Lord he did not envy the bitterness that would surely follow such a duty, and bitterness, arrogance and hatred had indeed settled upon the Seraph. Begrudgingly, Gabriel descended to earth in the days before man was created, killing all existing life that God had practiced his powers upon, what most humans would now call ‘Neanderthals’. There had been no joy and no mercy in that mission, and Gabriel returned to Heaven feeling changed, and wishing that God had not made him the strongest and most intelligent of all the angels. For when Gabriel had asked why God had chosen him to become the Angel of Death, God had said Gabriel’s strength and aptitude was the reason, explaining that strength and intelligence would be needed to not only carry out the duties of killing, but also to live and deal with them. Gabriel was strong, and Gabriel was smart, but perhaps God had overestimated the guilt that would crash upon the Seraph, breaking him.

The depression and animosity, which slowly began to consume Gabriel, had not gone unnoticed by God, for even the Seraph’s eyes and the bed’s of his fingernails had darkened with despair. God began to give Gabriel other tasks to perform and other abilities, such as mercy, and grace, even sending him as a messenger of good news, trusting him of all the angels with the message to Mary that she would bare the Savoir, hoping it would instill a balanced mix of goodness and badness in the Seraph. In addition, God gave the sword that Gabriel had expected to be gifted, to Gideon, giving Gabriel the trumpet instead, hoping to draw the Seraph’s focus more to his duties as a messenger of good news and annunciation. Such efforts, however, had come too late, and Gabriel had seen the attempts as a form of coddling that he would not react to or cherish. He’d become a creature that thought and acted upon his own whims, with very little consideration for what his duty may have been. The Seraph became independent, and God hated independence.

Gabriel no longer found peace in doing what he was told. He became so jealous of Michael, whom Gabriel had outranked, but who was being brought closer to God’s throne as the Lord pushed Gabriel further and further away, knowing the highest Seraph was becoming a danger. More and more anger, bitterness and arrogance filled Gabriel as he was shoved from the Lord’s side; he hated the damned trumpet, he hated the killing touch. But what he hated most was the unfairness of it all. He had not asked to be made a monster that everyone disliked, and his Lord had known the risks of carrying the killing touch were severe, for why else would He have chosen His strongest and brightest Seraph to give it to? God had been wrong; there was no amount of strength or intelligence that would allow anything to maintain its’ grace when faced with the duty of killing, but then, God was never wrong, and so God never apologized. The Almighty understood Gabriel to merely not be conducting himself, or his duty, properly. Gabriel felt abandoned, locked out of God’s throne room; punished for a sin before he’d even committed it.

And so Gabriel had begun to wail and whine and shout about the task of killing that had befallen him, and how alone it had made him, unfit to be at the throne of God, or even find peace in the ranks of his angel brethrens. And so God decided to create a Lieutenant for Gabriel, naming him Uziel. Uziel was not meant to be only a soldier to the Seraph, but also a companion, a companion that had been made in Gabriel’s likeness, strong and intelligent, his mind open to the killing touch, for God had hoped to give Gabriel someone who would understand what Gabriel felt. Yet, Uziel had been made too much like Gabriel, and Gabriel again was insulted at the Lord’s attempts to placate him when what he had really wanted was his rightful place back at God’s throne. Uziel, while Gabriel had grown fond of him, was just a partner to kill and grow even more resentful with, and God pushed Gabriel even further from His throne.

However, the creation and assignment of Uziel had given Gabriel such inspiration where Lilith had been concerned. He’d wanted her so much; he’d never loved or wanted anything as badly as he had her. Gabriel considered Lilith beautiful enough and intelligent enough to be considered his own equal; why couldn’t she have been assigned to heaven, beside the Seraph, instead of sent to earth with God’s stupid talking monkey man?

Again, Gabriel whined and wailed and shouted how God had cursed him with the duties of executions and revenge that had twisted his grace and mind, causing God to rule him unfit to stand in the Seraph’s due place at the Divine throne, giving what was once Gabriel’s to Michael. Gabriel continued on about how when he had suffered from the loneliness the killing touch had brought him, he was sent another soldier with which to cause more death, instead of being cleansed by his Lord. And yet, when Gabriel had at long last found something that would have cleansed him, when he’d found something that he loved, he had been denied it. He waited, hoping God would reconsider Lilith’s destiny.

Again, God had heard the Seraph’s frustrations and heartache, but the woman was not meant for Heaven, and not meant for Gabriel. God had not seen Gabriel’s professed feelings for the woman to be anything more than the arrogance that had so consumed the Seraph, and God had thought that it was not Lilith, but only recognition and a trophy that Gabriel truly desired. The Lord no longer believed Gabriel could interpret love. However, God knew He must try again to close Gabriel’s wounds with a companion, a companion unlike Gabriel, or Uziel. The Lord looked at His angels, searching for the one among them whose nature was most opposite of Gabriel’s, for He wanted the sweetest, kindest, loving and most giving of His angels to be Gabriel’s next companion, hoping that such a companion may even heal the Seraph’s bitterness. And so, based on the credentials of innocence, charity and hope, God made His decision.
God called forth the Power, Simon, calming his fears about Gabriel, for most of Heaven feared what the Seraph had become. In a gesture of comfort to Gabriel, but also in the hopes of distracting the Seraph, God changed Simon’s hair from golden blond to red before sending him to Gabriel, telling Simon to love Gabriel. And Simon had done as he was told, as he always did, and for a while he had managed to divert Gabriel from his fit. But when Lilith and Adam had begun to fight, Gabriel could not be contained by any amount of love or threats.

Like Gabriel, Lilith did not agree that she was made meek and submissive, and swore to Adam that she would not lie below him. Even God would later say that He had made Lilith too strong and too intelligent, a mistake He did not duplicate when He created Eve. Adam, never having been given a woman before Lilith, and never having faced any type of conflict either, became angry, confused and when Lilith did not meet his demand that she lie beneath him, he’d forced her to the ground, holding her there with his stronger and heavier body, taking her as Lilith kicked and screamed and fought him.

Gabriel had seen it; he’d always remember the look of panic and pain on Lilith’s face, for before then, he’d never seen panic or pain on a woman’s face. Gabriel had about bursted with the desire to descend to her rescue, but God not only forbade him to do so, but also kept a very good watch over every move the Seraph made.
God had not given any of his other angels the power to kill with a single touch, only Gabriel, and Gabriel had so badly wanted to kill Adam for what he’d done. Gabriel may have been told that he could not involve himself with Lilith, but he had not been told that he couldn’t plot and plan a way for Lilith to be avenged, and Adam to suffer, and perhaps even in the process, for all ‘talking monkeys’ to lose their souls when God saw that they would disobey His word. Vengeance after all, was one of Gabriel’s duties.

Gabriel waited until Lilith flew from the Garden in fear and anger, and he sent his Lieutenant Uziel to follow her. Gabriel’s hopes had risen that his Lord would send him to collect her, he’d offered to, but again, God said, “no, you will have no association with the woman.” However, Gabriel had not listened, appearing to Lilith, taking her in his arms as she cried, and telling her about the apples, and what they should do, and she had agreed. Even though she had been so horridly punished for agreeing with him, and had forever blamed Gabriel for what had happened to her, holding it over his head whenever she had the chance, Gabriel had never stopped loving Lilith. But because of the blame Lilith placed on him, she did not trust him, and because she did not trust him, Gabriel could not make her see that he loved her.

Those two centuries he’d had with her were nearly everything he’d dreamed since he first saw her take shape. She would not ever allow him above her, even though he was not a human male, and she would never look into his eyes for very long, always turning away in fear of what she may see, and while that had saddened and frustrated Gabriel deeply, what she was, what they were together, made those years the best of his existence. Lilith was not human, nor was she an angel, for she’d been shut out of Heaven and could not enter it, yet she was not a demon either, Gabriel couldn’t detect her by any scent; she was Lilith, and there was nothing else like her in the world. Gabriel was driven by death, dying, vengeance and sex, Lilith was also driven by sex, but also by her fear of men and anger, and her anger was mostly due to him. Nothing he seemed to do during the time they where together ever erased that, though she shared his bed, laughed with him, encouraged and supported him. For all accounts, he knew she loved him, but he was the only one who knew that, for Lilith would never let herself realize that, and never trust him again. There would eternally be a wall within her that kept him out, but he would eternally attempt to bust it down, or climb over it.

Thank you so much for reading! If you like it, please let me know! I'm working on a sequel, so tell me what you think! It's the only way you get more to read!:-)