Samael knew he shouldn’t keep watching, but he couldn’t stop himself. He felt responsible for Death, even though he couldn’t bring himself to fix the breach that he had caused. It had been his choice to walk away. At the time he had needed to, because he couldn’t keep saying goodbye to the spirits he’d got close to, which was something that the Death at the time couldn’t understand. Every time he’d watched another spirit move on he’d felt like a part of himself was being torn off. Watching them didn’t stop it from happening.
Sighing, Samael shook his head. He should know better at his age, it wasn’t as though he hadn’t watched the creation of the Earth, but sometimes he acted like a human teenager. A file he should be reading sat next to him, but he still couldn’t pull his eyes away from what Death was doing. There was something about her that made him wish he could put aside his fear and try to get her to understand why he had decided to walk away. It was just difficult. Some day he would have to say goodbye to her too, sooner rather than later, and he wasn’t sure he was ready for it.
“Focus,” he muttered to himself, picking up the file.
It was normal for the other angels to turn to Samael for… help wasn’t the right word, because they didn’t need help. They liked to have his view on things, as though it would make a difference, even if the angel asking was older than he was. He couldn’t understand why they asked him. Sometimes he believed he had screwed up more than the other angels. It had been foolish to get close to the spirits who became Death, to see them as friends when he knew they would have to move on at some point; foolish to walk away because he couldn’t cope with saying goodbye any longer; foolish to continue watching them in the mirror; and foolish to feel so unsure about whether he should talk to Death, now that she was so wonderful.
Biting his lip, Samael glanced at the mirror. He hadn’t turned it off so he could still watch her. The file was placed back on the table. Charis was the sort of Death he would have picked, if he had ever had a chance to pick a Death. Perfect was probably an overstatement, but she was calm and always knew the right thing to say, even when she was first starting out. Some didn’t have a clue, which really was his fault, because he had been the one to train the Death when they were starting out, and walking away had left a void that had never been filled.
When Samael thought of what he had done he knew he’d let the Deaths down, because of his own problems, which was something an angel shouldn’t do, even though angels were nowhere near as sorted as people seemed to believe they were. He was an example of it. A failure of an angel, no matter what the others thought. Uriel was one of the most supportive, but then Uriel understood what it was like to keep saying goodbye, because he worked with the spirit guides. Not even the guides stayed in the afterlife permanently.
Shaking his head, again, Samael shut down the mirror. When he glanced at it wistfully he knew he needed to walk away. He couldn’t be sure that Charis was still Death, because he wasn’t entirely sure what day or time it was. An angel’s sense of time was always a little off, due to them spending hours watching different spirits during their many lives, but his was worse than most, especially when he found himself past Deaths. His room, like all the angel’s rooms, lead straight to the common room.
“Hey, Sam,” a voice called, making Samael jump even though it was normal for there to be someone in the common room at all times.
“Gabriel,” Samael replied, nodding his head respectfully to the older angel.
“How are you doing?”
Samael’s eyes met Gabriel’s for a moment, as Samael wished he hadn’t ended up talking to one of the most empathetic of all the angels. “I’m getting there,” he said finally, aiming for a half truth because it was better than telling Gabriel that he was still dwelling on the mistakes he’d made.
“Sam…” Gabriel sighed. “If you want to talk about it then I’m a good listener.”
At first Samael wanted to say no. Talking about his problems never seemed like dealing with them, but he knew he needed someone to open up to. Spending all his time watching other people, like some strange stalker, wasn’t really helping him, and it never would. Running a hand through his hair he sat on the sofa opposite Gabriel.
“Do you ever think that you should never have been an angel?” Samael asked.
“There are times when I feel like that.” Gabriel smiled. “I think we all do, Sam, because we all make mistakes. We’re not infallible.” He reached out and touched Samael’s hand. “You worked more closely with spirits than I ever could, so I can’t understand why you made the choices you did, but I can empathise with them. If I had to keep saying goodbye to people I got close to I probably would have made the same choice.”
Samael shook his head. “I doubt it,” he muttered. “You’d have been strong.”
Gabriel raised an eyebrow. “My decision, a long time ago, was to not get close because I didn’t want to deal with the problems you have. I feel like I should be doing more, I should be more involved with the spirits like so many of the angels are, but I’m scared, Sam. Just as scared as you are.”
For the first time in… years probably, Samael really looked at Gabriel. “How about we make a deal?” Samael said, hoping that it would work out. “I’ll talk to Death if you get involved with one spirit, the way you feel you should.”
There was a long silence and then Gabriel nodded. “Okay, Sam, you have yourself a deal.”
Mirrored from K. A. Webb Writing.
