Gabriel stopped about where the track began to narrow to see how Re-l went and watch where she put her hands, squinting through his goggles and the sun's glare. He should be able to manage, he decided, as long as she was right about the handholds; he was a bit bigger and would stick out more, but if he kept close to the wall it wouldn't be much of a problem.
The pebble clattered over the edge and Gabriel just managed to keep his gaze from following it, jerking his line-of-sight back up. Instead he saw Re-l, and though he couldn't see her face he could see the tension in her back, the quiver in her muscles. Fear.
"So what's the whole thing with 'permission to sleep beside you', anyway?" he asked casually, leaning back against the wall. "I mean, it's not like we were in a bed. It was a freaking rock." He wasn't trying to needle her. Well, he was. But although most angels were created fully-formed, and although they had certainly never been created with a fear of heights, the cupids in particular had tended to get over-emotional about things. And for one or two, that did manifest as fear.
Not recently. That was a long, long time ago; before the Fall, before humanity, back when Creation was new in all the ways that mattered. But that wasn't the point. The point was, in those rare one or two who had tended to cluster in suns instead of flitting about the cosmos taking in their Father's Creation with awe, Gabriel had distracted by talking--as far as angels had 'talked' back then, before language--about everything and nothing until they were too distracted to be afraid.
The memory made something pang in his chest. And so he kept talking, almost as much to distract himself. "Did you get all snarky if someone lay down just a little too close to you on the sand? Dad, I hope you don't have a guy. Most couches really suck with the whole 'damaged springs' thing, and I pity them if they were relegated to that every night."
no subject
The pebble clattered over the edge and Gabriel just managed to keep his gaze from following it, jerking his line-of-sight back up. Instead he saw Re-l, and though he couldn't see her face he could see the tension in her back, the quiver in her muscles. Fear.
"So what's the whole thing with 'permission to sleep beside you', anyway?" he asked casually, leaning back against the wall. "I mean, it's not like we were in a bed. It was a freaking rock." He wasn't trying to needle her. Well, he was. But although most angels were created fully-formed, and although they had certainly never been created with a fear of heights, the cupids in particular had tended to get over-emotional about things. And for one or two, that did manifest as fear.
Not recently. That was a long, long time ago; before the Fall, before humanity, back when Creation was new in all the ways that mattered. But that wasn't the point. The point was, in those rare one or two who had tended to cluster in suns instead of flitting about the cosmos taking in their Father's Creation with awe, Gabriel had distracted by talking--as far as angels had 'talked' back then, before language--about everything and nothing until they were too distracted to be afraid.
The memory made something pang in his chest. And so he kept talking, almost as much to distract himself. "Did you get all snarky if someone lay down just a little too close to you on the sand? Dad, I hope you don't have a guy. Most couches really suck with the whole 'damaged springs' thing, and I pity them if they were relegated to that every night."