Gabriel Passione

The Night The Angel Fell:

There was a reason that Gabriel never drank – a reason he stayed far from alcohol and instead told people that he wasn’t a fan of the taste. One drink, and Gabriel was hooked, unable to keep from downing “just one more,” until that one more turned into 8 more drinks. He’d been drunk once in Italy, on his 19th birthday, the first time he’d dared to go out drinking with friends. After that, he strayed away from bars, keeping his hands shoved in his pockets and politely declining any invitation to drink.

Tonight was different; Gabriel knew the moment he walked into the local bar that he’d put down his wall of careful resistance and was instead craving the slurred mind of a drunken man. A mind clear of Theo; Gabriel soon found that even the alcohol couldn’t erase the man from his mind. He could still hear Theo’s voice, soft and familiar in his mind.

“I love you, Gabriel.”

“No!” Gabriel muttered, slamming his glass of beer onto the counter. He wiped his mouth with his shaking hand, an image of Theo fluttering into his mind, or perhaps it had always been there; he’d just become so accustomed to it that he no longer noticed it until he was trying to get it out. He loved the man – that, he couldn’t deny. He loved the quivering feeling that gripped his stomach each time Theo shot a smile in his direction. The way Theo’s eyes moved over his face, and the warm blush that he could feel blooming across his cheeks when Theo kissed him.

“How could you love an idiot like me?” Gabriel whispered breathily, picking his drink back up and downing the rest of it. It was his 7th beer; he waved the bartender over to refill it. The man looked at him worriedly, “You do have a designated driver, don’t you, man?” Gabriel gave a weak half-nod, grabbing his drink and downing it.

He’d had 10 beers before he left the bar, stepping into the passenger side of his car. He fished out his phone, his fingers hovering over Theo’s number for a moment. He closed the phone before he could make the mistake of calling him. He glanced over at the driver’s side. The school was relatively close to the bar – he could make it, couldn’t he?

No. Even in his drunken state, Gabriel wasn’t that idiotic. He piled out of the car, making sure his keys were in his pocket. He pressed the lock button, then staggered onto the sidewalk, stumbling his way back home. The streets were fairly empty, and Gabriel imagined that most people were home at this time of night. There were no cars zooming up and down the streets, and after a moment’s hesitation, Gabriel strayed from the sidewalk and began walking down the cool black highway.

“Selfless bastard,” Gabriel scolded himself, keeping his eyes locked on his feet, or at least, he was trying; it seemed as though he had 6 feet now instead of two, “Theo was doing what he thought was best for both of you – what he thought needed to be done so that he would no longer have to hide his feelings for you. So that you two wouldn’t have to-“

The sound of a car horn cut Gabriel’s thoughts off; he turned around, stumbling backwards slightly as he saw the fast-approaching headlights. He couldn’t move in time. He was frozen to the road in fear, paralyzed, unable to jump out of the way of the oncoming car.

Under normal circumstances, Gabriel would have prayed; in that moment, it was as though he was an angel who had been locked out of Heaven, scorned and tossed away, betrayed by his own sins. His wings had been ripped from him, torn from his back by the very one who gave them to him. When he closed his eyes, he muttered no prayer. Instead, he accepted it, until the impact of the car pushed all air from his lungs and sent him spiraling towards the ground.

“Even though my angel has forgiven me and rescued me, who on earth will save him, who cannot be allowed into the light of the sun, who has lost his name, who can only hide himself in the world of darkness?”