Dogs of the Father: A Legion Fanfiction - Episode 1: Little Prophet

Chapter 7

Audrey grimaced as a razor-sharp feather jabbed through the blanket she'd wrapped around herself to protect her back.

"Don't move," she said.

"But I thought you said—"

"MOVE!!!" she heaved against Gabriel's back.

He grunted in pain as long-disused muscles tore at the semi-healed sword wound in his gut, but from sheer force of will, more than anything she did, the fallen former archangel sat up. She leaped back just in time to avoid being sliced open as he flapped his razor-sharp wings against the dirt to steady himself.

"Watch it!" she snapped.

"I am sorry," he held them stiffly outright. "I was not sure I still had them."

"How can you not be sure you still had wings?" she said. "They were busted, in like, two dozen places. That had to hurt."

"I am not used to feeling the weight of my own body," Gabriel said, his face expressionless. "Or even pain. It's hard to tell which sensation belongs to what part of my body."

"Oh," she said, pretending she understood when, really, she didn't. It was the same 'oh' she used when a teacher gave a long, involved answer to a question in algebra class and the solution to the problem still didn't make sense, but she didn't wish to appear stupid. How could you exist for billions of years and never feel your own body?

"Thank you," Gabriel said formally. He adjusted his balance so he didn't fall back into the hole in the sand where his body had gradually sunk.

From the awkward way he moved, she suspected he'd never felt the full weight of Earth's gravity before, no more than he'd ever had a reason to learn to drink, or swallow, or take a piss. She needed to get solid food into him, something she'd been unable to do while he'd been unconscious, but which he obviously needed judging by the amount of weight he'd lost. Only the sugar in the endless six-pack of Seven-Up that Michael had surreptitiously left behind had sustained Gabriel's body while he'd lingered close to death.

'Solid food,' she suppressed a smirk. 'If he thought having to take a piss was bad...'

"Here," she handed him one of the power bars that had mysteriously appeared in the glove box of the police cruiser along with yet another useful book. "Eat."

"Eat?" Gabriel looked perplexed. "I do not require such sustenance."

"That weakness you're feeling isn't just from your injuries," she said. "You're weak because you need to eat."

"I never—" Gabriel stated indignantly.

"Eat!!!" she shouted with an anger that surprised her. "I don't care what you did or did not need to do before that jerk threw you off a cliff. I only care about what you need to do now! So shut up and eat!!!"

Gabriel's features grew dark and sullen as he studied her like some laboratory experiment. For a moment it occurred to her that she should be afraid, but Michael had promised his brother would not hurt her again. As angry as she was at Michael for saddling her with his fallen brother, she knew she could trust him. Silence stretched between them as Gabriel gave her his most authoritative glower. Audrey glowered back, refusing to back down.

Gabriel looked away first.

"I don't know how," his wings slumped. "Never before have I had occasion to consume worldly sustenance."

He wore the exact same look he'd worn the day he'd realized he possessed a human bladder and had no idea how to control it. While his face remained expressionless, a small shudder rippled through his razor-sharp feathers, creating a sound like weeping.

"I'll teach you," Audrey said softly. "Now that you're awake, it should be a lot easier to explain things. Here. Like this."

She peeled back the wrapper and took a bite, exaggerating her movements as she chewed, and then swallowed with an enormous gulp. She then handed the rest of the power bar to the angel, who decisively bit into it. He froze with a look of utter disgust, not sure whether to chew the offending morsel, or spit it out.

Audrey burst out laughing.

"You mock me?" Anger, blended with confusion, crossed his brute features. As he spoke, clumps of partially chewed brown goop tumbled out of his mouth.

"Ohmigod... no!" she hic-snorted. "It's just ... that ... power bars ... taste ... absolutely ... awful!

Gabriel's eyes filled with storm clouds, a furious dark blue, the color of the ocean after a storm had churned it up. Audrey couldn't help it. She laughed even harder; the first laughter she'd experienced since the world had come to an end. She laughed until she was out of breath, and then she began to cry.

Sobs wracked her body as the full weight of everything she had lost came tumbling down upon her.

"Prophet?" Gabriel asked. "I don't understand."

He coiled for action, as though he was supposed to do something about the sobbing ball of humanity which kneeled before him. It occurred to Audrey that, without her there to guide him, Gabriel was lost. In order to humiliate him, the Father had rendered him even more helpless than the baby he'd originally sent him to kill. Knowledge that this helplessness was a punishment angered her, causing her mood to shift to rage.

"You asshole!" Audrey jumped to her feet. She picked up the bible which boredom had finally caused her to retrieve from the police cruiser and threw it towards the base of the cliff where Gabriel had fallen. "You big, stinking, scum-sucking asshole!!!"

"Prophet?" Gabriel attempted to rise and landed flat on his face. He moaned as injuries that had healed just enough so they were no longer infected or bleeding, but not so healed that they no longer caused pain, made themselves felt.

"Why???" Audrey screamed at the cliff. "Why do you humiliate him so when he was only following your fucking orders!!!"

She picked up a rock and threw it at the cliff, and then another, screaming obscenities that made no sense. She threw rocks until she was so exhausted that she stumbled, and then she raged some more at the god who had ordered his most loyal dog to exterminate them, and then rather than admit he was fallible, attempted to put that dog down.

She fell to her knees, sobbing.

Strong arms surrounded her and pulled her into his chest, silently holding her as she sobbed like a mewling kitten. Gabriel had inched over on his hands and knees, like an injured dog crawling to give comfort to its even more injured owner.

"I'm sorry I displeased you," he said as shudders wracked her body.

In his eyes, she saw abject terror. Fear that she'd abandon him, just like the Father had done. All her life, she'd been able to look into people and see what motivated them, to take a man's measure and see past their lies. It was a horrible gift, the curse of not having illusions. It was what had made her so uncaring and defiant at such a young age. Gabriel was terrified of losing the only spark of light that he had left.

Her...

She curled up in his arms and let him give comfort. From the awkward way he mashed her against his chest, he wasn't used to human contact, but he was big, and warm, like a great, big protective mutt. At some point, exhaustion caused her to drift off to sleep.