In which there's a new prophet.
[New verse! Cowritten with smart_alec494. Tony = its_irrelevant, Gabriel = angelic_taxi.]
494 was standing at attention on the dusty parade ground with the rest of his unit when it started. His hand twitched. He tried to still it by stiffening up the muscles but it didn't really help. In fact it hurt. He was trying to listen to the instructions for the upcoming exercise but it was hard because things were starting to hurt worse. His hand clenched into a fist without his permission.
He shivered and his eyes blinked closed. Just for a second. But there were bright lights behind his eyes. He snapped them open, and told himself to pay attention. But it was so hard. It felt like his nerves were catching first and he shivered again. The blink was longer and slower and a place he didn't know spread like water behind his eyes. A doctor in a mask. A women with sweaty tangled hair. His eyes opened and his unit was moving. He forced his limbs to do the same.
He moved but not how he wanted. His knees gave out and now it wasn't just his hand that was pulling tight without his permission, but his back too, and then everything at once. Glass in his joints and fire everywhere else. His eyes rolled up to the sky before sliding closed again. He saw the woman again but now she was smiling and holding a blanket wrapped baby. And boy was that baby girl angry. 494 thought she was the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen.
His eyes opened in time to see people heading towards him. It was hard to think. His head was to full of screaming baby girl. He wished she would stop. It hurt. Or maybe that was his body. He tried to get up, but he spasmed and fell again.
He tried again. He had to be up before they reached him. Before they were sure he was broken like the others. Like his unit sib. She never came back. Tears leaked from his eyes when he thought about her. Gone. He was going to be gone to if he didn't make it up. The fear slammed through him just as hard as everything else and he fell again. And it hurt.
It hurt like nothing ever had before. All of him hurt and now those hands were reaching for him. He shook his head. "No." He scrambled away, limbs going every which-way. He shook his head. "No!" if they got him he'd never come back. He shook his head and his brain sloshed. "Nononono."
They never came back. The ones that went away never ever ever came back. He shook even harder as a hand closed around his arm. His other hand clawed feebly at the ground like he was trying to hold on.
The signs for a new prophet were obvious. Gabriel was attuned to every prophet that happened to land on the Earth the moment they were activated. They were usually accompanied by a lot of pain, as the visions could be uncomfortable, but this was the first one that had been accompanied by sheer terror. And it was more than just any terror, it was a child's terror. It was extremely rare when prophets were tapped so young, but they did happen, and this one seemed to be a particularly nasty set of circumstances. He had no time to figure out what was wrong, what the specifics were, at least, and he went where he was called, arriving at the child's side long enough to easily remove the people that he could only assume were the threats, as easily as though they weighed nothing.
As he crouched down next to the shaking child, he placed a protective hand gently on his back. "Do not be afraid. I'm here to help you."
He blinked up at the new person. His head hurt. Eyes closed and there was the woman with the tangled hair and the beautiful, angry, loud baby. Open and there was a strange man and people who would take him away and he'd die. Everything hurt and couldn't hold still. "Don't want to go." He was crying by now and couldn't stop. His body had completely betrayed him. "They never come back."
"No one will hurt you," he replied, reaching forward and taking the small boy into his arms. "I promise." He could tell that he was shaking out of more than just fear. There was something wrong, but he could get a doctor to look at him once he got him somewhere safe. The place reeked of demons, and he wasn't about to leave a charge here. Not if he could help it.
"Don't make promises you can't keep, Gabriel." It didn't matter that Stolas had found a new meat suit since the last time they'd seen each other, Gabriel would still know Stolas anywhere. He stood with the boy in his arms, before turning to face the demon just in time to see the orderly's eyes flash green. "Didn't you ever learn that you shouldn't take other people's toys."
"If you actually thought I'd let you keep him, Stolas, you're sorely mistaken," Gabriel glared. "He's not yours to own. He belongs to the Father."
494 cried against the man's shirt, a hand fisting the fabric just to stop it from moving. He still hurt. Hurt so bad he thought he might die, but he also felt safe. For the first time ever. He grabbed the man's shirt with his other hand too.
Stolas's face melted into a sneer. "You're not leaving this building with him."
"Watch me," Gabriel replied, before blinking out of view, taking the boy as far away as he could and to the nearest hospital. There was something wrong, and he wanted to see that it was fixed as soon as possible. There was a parishioner of his who was a doctor at a local hospital, and if he could see him quickly, that would be best for everyone. If Stolas knew the identity of a prophet, it wouldn't be long before other demons knew as well. It took only a few minutes to ask the person at the front desk to get Dr. McCallahan's attention, before he was sitting on the lobby of the hospital, waiting patiently for the doctor to come down. He continued to hold him close, humming a hymn slightly under his breath in an attempt to calm him.
494 did not like this. It smelled like the bad place. Where the people wearing masks always hurt them. He cried harder, angry and hurt. He shook one of his fisted hand back and forth, not letting go but hitting the man a little anyway. "You promised. You promised." He dissolved into minor hysteria, the shaking and shivering didn't let up.
Gabriel was confused at first, not sure what he was referring to, but then again he shouldn't have been surprised. Stolas terrorized children, and he should have been prepared for some unanticipated fears. He pulled him closer and rubbing his back lightly. "I did promise, and that's a promise I intend to keep. No one will harm you while I'm here. In fact, I won't even let you go if you don't want me to."
He shook his head. He didn't want the man to let him go. Not at all. He hurt and he was tired. He wanted to stop shaking and sleep. He could still hear the baby crying but he couldn't see her any more. It was like she was getting farther and farther away.
Gabriel started humming gently, again starting to rock him gently in his arms. It wasn't long before McCallahan made his way downstairs, looking concerned. "Father Riley. What brings you by?"
"Tony, thank you for coming down." He was careful not to refer to the man as a doctor, and for once he was pleased that the man wasn't wearing a lab coat. "It's my nephew. He's been convulsing, shaking -- I think he might be having a seizure."
"You should have taken him right to the ER," Tony replied slowly, reaching for his stethoscope.
"I would have, but he's not very comfortable around doctors. I didn't want to add to his panic."
"I understand. What's his name?"
There was a bit of a pause, and Gabriel looked down at him, studying the boy for a moment, before replying. "Alec. His name is Alec." The information was coming in slowly, but a name definitely wasn't a part of it. And he certainly couldn't give the doctor a number.
"Alec?" Tony began gently. "My name is Tony. How're you feeling?"
494 didn't know where the name had come from. He wasn't supposed to have one, but he figured the man could call him whatever he wanted as long as he wasn't put down. He peeked out at this new person, trying to hold still, breath hitching in stops and starts. "Awful."
"I can imagine," he said with a bit of a smirk, before placing the stethoscope to his ears. "I'm gonna used this -- " He flicked the listening end in demonstration " -- to listen to your heart. Only take a minute, okay?" He slowly started to move the end forward to rest against Alec's chest gently, looking for his heartbeat, not applying any more pressure than he had to.
494 held still for this, or at least as still as he could, which was very still at all, but at least he didn't fight. It was jack hammering away, pretending to belong to a rabbit rather than a cat or a little boy. But he was also a very frightened little boy so it only made sense.
Tony could pick up on that. Scared was one thing, an erratic heartbeat was another. He pulled the stethoscope off, before pulling out a pen light to check his eyes and make sure they were responsive, before pressing a wrist against his forehead lightly. "Aside from the shakes, he looks pretty good. He feels a little warm, but he doesn't seem flushed which is -- odd, but that might just be a side effect of the seizures." He then turned his attention back to Alec, giving him his best friendly smile. "Whadaya say, buddy? Why don't we give you something to stop those shakes, huh?"
He didn't feel hot, he just hurt. But he did want the shakes to stop so he nodded.
"Okay," Tony nodded, before leading the way back into the hospital. Gabriel followed him, as Tony talked back at him over his shoulder. "If this is his first seizure, I would like to run some more tests, make sure that just giving him the anticonvulsants would take care of it."
"I don't believe it's anything serious," Gabriel replied. Seizures were actually fairly common when it came to first prophecies. Gabriel just wanted to know how to manage them, if he was going to be caring for the child, which was starting to seem to be the most likely scenario. "I think my brother said something about him having seizures before -- they know how to take care of them, I just didn't have any of the medications for it."
"I see," Tony replied, before pushing open the door to one of the rooms. "Well, let me get you a scrip then, just in case it happens again. Wait in here, let him get comfortable, and I'll be right back."
Gabriel nodded, before moving over to the bed in the middle of the room, shifting his weight just enough to get them up on the bed without having to jostle Alec too much, before directing his attention down to the boy in front of him, moving one hand to brush against the top of his head gently. "I hope you don't mind the name Alec. It was the first one that came to mind."
Oh, he liked that. That hand felt nice and hadn't hurt him once. He pushed into the hand the way a cat would and a fitful purr started. "Whatever. . . " Full sentences where apparently more than he could manage in one go. "You want."
"Okay," he said with a nod. "My name is Gabriel."
He nodded a little. "Okay." Social niceties such as 'nice to meet you.' weren't something he had been taught. And even if he had he wouldn’t have cared. He thought his general approval of things was pretty obvious.
A few minutes later, Tony reappeared in the doorway, a small plastic cup with his hands with two pills in it. "Alright Alec," he sighed, pushing himself up on the edge of the bed with a smile. "Just pop these down, and the shakes should stop. I'm gonna ask that you stick around for a little bit, just to make sure everything's okay, and once everything's good, you can head home, alright?"
494's eyes widened in horror. He couldn't go back. Leaving was against the rules. If he went back he wouldn't just be taken away to never come back, he be punished and then taken away. He started to sob and it bordered on and out-right wail. He wasn't normally a crier. No one tolerated it, but his head was all confused and he couldn't stop now that he'd started. He wasn't taking those pills. Not if it meant he had to go back.
Tony frowned in confusion, looking up at Gabriel and the angel gave him a small smile, before taking the pills from him. "Would you mind giving us a minute?"
The doctor looked hesitant, before nodding and pushing up off the bed. "I have other patients to check on. I'll be back in about a half-hour, see how he's doing." A few minutes later, he disappeared through the door, and Gabriel turned his attention back to the little boy.
"I'm not taking you back there, Alec. I made a promise that no one would hurt you, and I intend to keep it."
"'While I'm here.'" He gasped and gulped air around the tears and the shaking. "You said." Meaning that Gabriel had made it conditional. If he went somewhere that Gabriel couldn't or wouldn't go he was on his own again.
"I can be a lot of places," Gabriel replied gently. "And I can fight a lot of things. Do you know what angels are?"
He shook his head. He had no clue. Religion and mythology where not something they were taught.
"Angels were created by God when He first created the world as it's protectors. Our job, what we were created for, is to guide and protect people when they need it. We're very powerful, and I have the power to be anywhere you need me to be at a moment's notice. Even if I'm not physically there, all you have to do is call for me, and I'll be there before you can even finish saying it. I'll always be there." If necessary, he would show him his wings, but hopefully this would be enough, considering he didn't know much about angels to begin with.
"Like today?" Because he'd never seen Gabriel before. And his clothes didn't smell like Manticore, so Gabriel had to have come from somewhere else. "Who's God?" He'd never heard of this God person.
"Exactly like today," he nodded. He paused for a moment, trying to figure out how exactly to explain God. "God -- is the being that created everything. From the expanse of the world itself, to things as small ants."
He had questions. He had a lot of questions. But before he could ask any of them the seizure made him twist and curl. When he could breathe again he decided that self preservation had to come first. "Never going back?" He had to be sure.
"Never," Gabriel replied. Not if he had anything to say about it. There was no way he was letting a prophet fall into Stolas's hands.
A shaking hand reached out for those pills.
Gabriel picked up the cup, and handed them over to him, letting him take the dose on his own.
He swallowed them down dry and wondered how long it would take them to work. He closed his eyes for a minute and realized he couldn't hear the baby at all anymore. He was so tired.
Gabriel continued to hold him close, starting to rub his back slowly, hoping that that might ease him off to sleep.
Sleep wasn't going to be happening. But he stayed as quiet as he could, enjoying the feeling of someone taking care of him. After a while the shaking eased, but wouldn't stop all together.
Tony wandered in a while after, looking them over gently. "How're things going?"
"Don't like this." He figured if they were asking he could voice his opinion.
"He's doing better," Gabriel supplied. "But the shakes still haven't stopped completely."
Tony nodded slowly, before starting to look Alec over again. "That probably just means I have to up the dosage a little bit. Not a problem."
"He seems to be having trouble settling into sleep as well." Gabriel could feel how tired Alec was, and he wasn't even trying.
"Well, that could be a side effect of the seizures. Low serotonin production is one of the causes of epilepsy, and if your brain isn't producing enough serotonin, you won't be able to sleep. Once we find the right dosage for him, he should be able to drift off just fine, but I'll get him something to help him sleep, just in case."
"Thank you," Gabriel replied, and the doctor nodded before heading out the door again.
He listened to them talk about him, but it didn't seem to be bad so he stayed quiet turning his questions over in his head. He wasn't sure what the rules concerning questions were.
Gabriel sat in silence for a moment after the doctor left, before looking over at the boy again. "If there's anything you want to know, you can ask." He considered that distracting him from what was going on with his body might be an easier way of dealing with things.
"Don't think God made me." He pressed his nose to Gabriel's shoulder. He smelled clean and sharp like winter air. "Made in a lab."
"I wasn't speaking in the literal sense. In some instances, yes, but God gave humans natural curiosity, and it was that that lead them to the idea of creating you. So He had more of an indirect hand, but a hand nonetheless."
"Okay." That made sense to him. "Why're you helping me?"
Gabriel wasn't sure if he wanted to explain the responsibilities that came with being a prophet right then. It was complicated enough when it came to trying to explain it to an adult, let alone a seizing child. So he tried to just keep it simple, and see if more elaboration was needed. "Because you're very special to God."
"Why?"
"You've been chosen for a very important job," Gabriel replied, smoothing one hand over the top of his head again. "I will explain more after you've had some rest."
"Okay."
It wasn't long after that that Tony returned to the room, holding two cups in his hand, as well as a white paper bag under his arm. "This," he handed Gabriel the first cup, "is the adjusted dosage for the AED, and this," he held the second cup in his hand, "is a gentle sleep aid. I also filled the prescription for him, so if this dosage works, he should be covered with regards to AEDs for at least a month, but then you'll have to get it refilled."
Gabriel nodded as he handed Alec the first set of pills. "Thank you."
He took them and downed them quickly before his hand could shake and drop them. "Thank you." That seemed to be the right response when someone gave you something you wanted. At least that the impression he was getting.
"You're welcome," Tony nodded, handing Gabriel the second cup and placing the bag down on the table near the bed. "I'll just wait here and make sure everything works."
It didn't take long this time. And he was asleep pretty much as soon as his body stilled long enough to let him.
Gabriel breathed a slow sigh of relief, before looking up at the doctor. "Thank you, Tony. I'm sorry for having to put you in that position."
"Don't worry about it, Father. Whatsoever you do for the least of my people, right?"
Gabriel chuckled softly. "Precisely. I will see you on Sunday."
Tony nodded. "I can stop by after mass, make sure he's doing alright."
"Please do," the angel nodded, waiting for the man to leave the room, before picking up the medicine given to him, and disappearing from the room, bringing him back quickly to the room his vessel had at the seminary. Once there, he quietly tucked the little boy under the covers to let him sleep, before settling into one of the nearby chairs near the bed, picking up one of the books, intending to read quietly while he waited for Alec to wake up.
494 was standing at attention on the dusty parade ground with the rest of his unit when it started. His hand twitched. He tried to still it by stiffening up the muscles but it didn't really help. In fact it hurt. He was trying to listen to the instructions for the upcoming exercise but it was hard because things were starting to hurt worse. His hand clenched into a fist without his permission.
He shivered and his eyes blinked closed. Just for a second. But there were bright lights behind his eyes. He snapped them open, and told himself to pay attention. But it was so hard. It felt like his nerves were catching first and he shivered again. The blink was longer and slower and a place he didn't know spread like water behind his eyes. A doctor in a mask. A women with sweaty tangled hair. His eyes opened and his unit was moving. He forced his limbs to do the same.
He moved but not how he wanted. His knees gave out and now it wasn't just his hand that was pulling tight without his permission, but his back too, and then everything at once. Glass in his joints and fire everywhere else. His eyes rolled up to the sky before sliding closed again. He saw the woman again but now she was smiling and holding a blanket wrapped baby. And boy was that baby girl angry. 494 thought she was the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen.
His eyes opened in time to see people heading towards him. It was hard to think. His head was to full of screaming baby girl. He wished she would stop. It hurt. Or maybe that was his body. He tried to get up, but he spasmed and fell again.
He tried again. He had to be up before they reached him. Before they were sure he was broken like the others. Like his unit sib. She never came back. Tears leaked from his eyes when he thought about her. Gone. He was going to be gone to if he didn't make it up. The fear slammed through him just as hard as everything else and he fell again. And it hurt.
It hurt like nothing ever had before. All of him hurt and now those hands were reaching for him. He shook his head. "No." He scrambled away, limbs going every which-way. He shook his head. "No!" if they got him he'd never come back. He shook his head and his brain sloshed. "Nononono."
They never came back. The ones that went away never ever ever came back. He shook even harder as a hand closed around his arm. His other hand clawed feebly at the ground like he was trying to hold on.
The signs for a new prophet were obvious. Gabriel was attuned to every prophet that happened to land on the Earth the moment they were activated. They were usually accompanied by a lot of pain, as the visions could be uncomfortable, but this was the first one that had been accompanied by sheer terror. And it was more than just any terror, it was a child's terror. It was extremely rare when prophets were tapped so young, but they did happen, and this one seemed to be a particularly nasty set of circumstances. He had no time to figure out what was wrong, what the specifics were, at least, and he went where he was called, arriving at the child's side long enough to easily remove the people that he could only assume were the threats, as easily as though they weighed nothing.
As he crouched down next to the shaking child, he placed a protective hand gently on his back. "Do not be afraid. I'm here to help you."
He blinked up at the new person. His head hurt. Eyes closed and there was the woman with the tangled hair and the beautiful, angry, loud baby. Open and there was a strange man and people who would take him away and he'd die. Everything hurt and couldn't hold still. "Don't want to go." He was crying by now and couldn't stop. His body had completely betrayed him. "They never come back."
"No one will hurt you," he replied, reaching forward and taking the small boy into his arms. "I promise." He could tell that he was shaking out of more than just fear. There was something wrong, but he could get a doctor to look at him once he got him somewhere safe. The place reeked of demons, and he wasn't about to leave a charge here. Not if he could help it.
"Don't make promises you can't keep, Gabriel." It didn't matter that Stolas had found a new meat suit since the last time they'd seen each other, Gabriel would still know Stolas anywhere. He stood with the boy in his arms, before turning to face the demon just in time to see the orderly's eyes flash green. "Didn't you ever learn that you shouldn't take other people's toys."
"If you actually thought I'd let you keep him, Stolas, you're sorely mistaken," Gabriel glared. "He's not yours to own. He belongs to the Father."
494 cried against the man's shirt, a hand fisting the fabric just to stop it from moving. He still hurt. Hurt so bad he thought he might die, but he also felt safe. For the first time ever. He grabbed the man's shirt with his other hand too.
Stolas's face melted into a sneer. "You're not leaving this building with him."
"Watch me," Gabriel replied, before blinking out of view, taking the boy as far away as he could and to the nearest hospital. There was something wrong, and he wanted to see that it was fixed as soon as possible. There was a parishioner of his who was a doctor at a local hospital, and if he could see him quickly, that would be best for everyone. If Stolas knew the identity of a prophet, it wouldn't be long before other demons knew as well. It took only a few minutes to ask the person at the front desk to get Dr. McCallahan's attention, before he was sitting on the lobby of the hospital, waiting patiently for the doctor to come down. He continued to hold him close, humming a hymn slightly under his breath in an attempt to calm him.
494 did not like this. It smelled like the bad place. Where the people wearing masks always hurt them. He cried harder, angry and hurt. He shook one of his fisted hand back and forth, not letting go but hitting the man a little anyway. "You promised. You promised." He dissolved into minor hysteria, the shaking and shivering didn't let up.
Gabriel was confused at first, not sure what he was referring to, but then again he shouldn't have been surprised. Stolas terrorized children, and he should have been prepared for some unanticipated fears. He pulled him closer and rubbing his back lightly. "I did promise, and that's a promise I intend to keep. No one will harm you while I'm here. In fact, I won't even let you go if you don't want me to."
He shook his head. He didn't want the man to let him go. Not at all. He hurt and he was tired. He wanted to stop shaking and sleep. He could still hear the baby crying but he couldn't see her any more. It was like she was getting farther and farther away.
Gabriel started humming gently, again starting to rock him gently in his arms. It wasn't long before McCallahan made his way downstairs, looking concerned. "Father Riley. What brings you by?"
"Tony, thank you for coming down." He was careful not to refer to the man as a doctor, and for once he was pleased that the man wasn't wearing a lab coat. "It's my nephew. He's been convulsing, shaking -- I think he might be having a seizure."
"You should have taken him right to the ER," Tony replied slowly, reaching for his stethoscope.
"I would have, but he's not very comfortable around doctors. I didn't want to add to his panic."
"I understand. What's his name?"
There was a bit of a pause, and Gabriel looked down at him, studying the boy for a moment, before replying. "Alec. His name is Alec." The information was coming in slowly, but a name definitely wasn't a part of it. And he certainly couldn't give the doctor a number.
"Alec?" Tony began gently. "My name is Tony. How're you feeling?"
494 didn't know where the name had come from. He wasn't supposed to have one, but he figured the man could call him whatever he wanted as long as he wasn't put down. He peeked out at this new person, trying to hold still, breath hitching in stops and starts. "Awful."
"I can imagine," he said with a bit of a smirk, before placing the stethoscope to his ears. "I'm gonna used this -- " He flicked the listening end in demonstration " -- to listen to your heart. Only take a minute, okay?" He slowly started to move the end forward to rest against Alec's chest gently, looking for his heartbeat, not applying any more pressure than he had to.
494 held still for this, or at least as still as he could, which was very still at all, but at least he didn't fight. It was jack hammering away, pretending to belong to a rabbit rather than a cat or a little boy. But he was also a very frightened little boy so it only made sense.
Tony could pick up on that. Scared was one thing, an erratic heartbeat was another. He pulled the stethoscope off, before pulling out a pen light to check his eyes and make sure they were responsive, before pressing a wrist against his forehead lightly. "Aside from the shakes, he looks pretty good. He feels a little warm, but he doesn't seem flushed which is -- odd, but that might just be a side effect of the seizures." He then turned his attention back to Alec, giving him his best friendly smile. "Whadaya say, buddy? Why don't we give you something to stop those shakes, huh?"
He didn't feel hot, he just hurt. But he did want the shakes to stop so he nodded.
"Okay," Tony nodded, before leading the way back into the hospital. Gabriel followed him, as Tony talked back at him over his shoulder. "If this is his first seizure, I would like to run some more tests, make sure that just giving him the anticonvulsants would take care of it."
"I don't believe it's anything serious," Gabriel replied. Seizures were actually fairly common when it came to first prophecies. Gabriel just wanted to know how to manage them, if he was going to be caring for the child, which was starting to seem to be the most likely scenario. "I think my brother said something about him having seizures before -- they know how to take care of them, I just didn't have any of the medications for it."
"I see," Tony replied, before pushing open the door to one of the rooms. "Well, let me get you a scrip then, just in case it happens again. Wait in here, let him get comfortable, and I'll be right back."
Gabriel nodded, before moving over to the bed in the middle of the room, shifting his weight just enough to get them up on the bed without having to jostle Alec too much, before directing his attention down to the boy in front of him, moving one hand to brush against the top of his head gently. "I hope you don't mind the name Alec. It was the first one that came to mind."
Oh, he liked that. That hand felt nice and hadn't hurt him once. He pushed into the hand the way a cat would and a fitful purr started. "Whatever. . . " Full sentences where apparently more than he could manage in one go. "You want."
"Okay," he said with a nod. "My name is Gabriel."
He nodded a little. "Okay." Social niceties such as 'nice to meet you.' weren't something he had been taught. And even if he had he wouldn’t have cared. He thought his general approval of things was pretty obvious.
A few minutes later, Tony reappeared in the doorway, a small plastic cup with his hands with two pills in it. "Alright Alec," he sighed, pushing himself up on the edge of the bed with a smile. "Just pop these down, and the shakes should stop. I'm gonna ask that you stick around for a little bit, just to make sure everything's okay, and once everything's good, you can head home, alright?"
494's eyes widened in horror. He couldn't go back. Leaving was against the rules. If he went back he wouldn't just be taken away to never come back, he be punished and then taken away. He started to sob and it bordered on and out-right wail. He wasn't normally a crier. No one tolerated it, but his head was all confused and he couldn't stop now that he'd started. He wasn't taking those pills. Not if it meant he had to go back.
Tony frowned in confusion, looking up at Gabriel and the angel gave him a small smile, before taking the pills from him. "Would you mind giving us a minute?"
The doctor looked hesitant, before nodding and pushing up off the bed. "I have other patients to check on. I'll be back in about a half-hour, see how he's doing." A few minutes later, he disappeared through the door, and Gabriel turned his attention back to the little boy.
"I'm not taking you back there, Alec. I made a promise that no one would hurt you, and I intend to keep it."
"'While I'm here.'" He gasped and gulped air around the tears and the shaking. "You said." Meaning that Gabriel had made it conditional. If he went somewhere that Gabriel couldn't or wouldn't go he was on his own again.
"I can be a lot of places," Gabriel replied gently. "And I can fight a lot of things. Do you know what angels are?"
He shook his head. He had no clue. Religion and mythology where not something they were taught.
"Angels were created by God when He first created the world as it's protectors. Our job, what we were created for, is to guide and protect people when they need it. We're very powerful, and I have the power to be anywhere you need me to be at a moment's notice. Even if I'm not physically there, all you have to do is call for me, and I'll be there before you can even finish saying it. I'll always be there." If necessary, he would show him his wings, but hopefully this would be enough, considering he didn't know much about angels to begin with.
"Like today?" Because he'd never seen Gabriel before. And his clothes didn't smell like Manticore, so Gabriel had to have come from somewhere else. "Who's God?" He'd never heard of this God person.
"Exactly like today," he nodded. He paused for a moment, trying to figure out how exactly to explain God. "God -- is the being that created everything. From the expanse of the world itself, to things as small ants."
He had questions. He had a lot of questions. But before he could ask any of them the seizure made him twist and curl. When he could breathe again he decided that self preservation had to come first. "Never going back?" He had to be sure.
"Never," Gabriel replied. Not if he had anything to say about it. There was no way he was letting a prophet fall into Stolas's hands.
A shaking hand reached out for those pills.
Gabriel picked up the cup, and handed them over to him, letting him take the dose on his own.
He swallowed them down dry and wondered how long it would take them to work. He closed his eyes for a minute and realized he couldn't hear the baby at all anymore. He was so tired.
Gabriel continued to hold him close, starting to rub his back slowly, hoping that that might ease him off to sleep.
Sleep wasn't going to be happening. But he stayed as quiet as he could, enjoying the feeling of someone taking care of him. After a while the shaking eased, but wouldn't stop all together.
Tony wandered in a while after, looking them over gently. "How're things going?"
"Don't like this." He figured if they were asking he could voice his opinion.
"He's doing better," Gabriel supplied. "But the shakes still haven't stopped completely."
Tony nodded slowly, before starting to look Alec over again. "That probably just means I have to up the dosage a little bit. Not a problem."
"He seems to be having trouble settling into sleep as well." Gabriel could feel how tired Alec was, and he wasn't even trying.
"Well, that could be a side effect of the seizures. Low serotonin production is one of the causes of epilepsy, and if your brain isn't producing enough serotonin, you won't be able to sleep. Once we find the right dosage for him, he should be able to drift off just fine, but I'll get him something to help him sleep, just in case."
"Thank you," Gabriel replied, and the doctor nodded before heading out the door again.
He listened to them talk about him, but it didn't seem to be bad so he stayed quiet turning his questions over in his head. He wasn't sure what the rules concerning questions were.
Gabriel sat in silence for a moment after the doctor left, before looking over at the boy again. "If there's anything you want to know, you can ask." He considered that distracting him from what was going on with his body might be an easier way of dealing with things.
"Don't think God made me." He pressed his nose to Gabriel's shoulder. He smelled clean and sharp like winter air. "Made in a lab."
"I wasn't speaking in the literal sense. In some instances, yes, but God gave humans natural curiosity, and it was that that lead them to the idea of creating you. So He had more of an indirect hand, but a hand nonetheless."
"Okay." That made sense to him. "Why're you helping me?"
Gabriel wasn't sure if he wanted to explain the responsibilities that came with being a prophet right then. It was complicated enough when it came to trying to explain it to an adult, let alone a seizing child. So he tried to just keep it simple, and see if more elaboration was needed. "Because you're very special to God."
"Why?"
"You've been chosen for a very important job," Gabriel replied, smoothing one hand over the top of his head again. "I will explain more after you've had some rest."
"Okay."
It wasn't long after that that Tony returned to the room, holding two cups in his hand, as well as a white paper bag under his arm. "This," he handed Gabriel the first cup, "is the adjusted dosage for the AED, and this," he held the second cup in his hand, "is a gentle sleep aid. I also filled the prescription for him, so if this dosage works, he should be covered with regards to AEDs for at least a month, but then you'll have to get it refilled."
Gabriel nodded as he handed Alec the first set of pills. "Thank you."
He took them and downed them quickly before his hand could shake and drop them. "Thank you." That seemed to be the right response when someone gave you something you wanted. At least that the impression he was getting.
"You're welcome," Tony nodded, handing Gabriel the second cup and placing the bag down on the table near the bed. "I'll just wait here and make sure everything works."
It didn't take long this time. And he was asleep pretty much as soon as his body stilled long enough to let him.
Gabriel breathed a slow sigh of relief, before looking up at the doctor. "Thank you, Tony. I'm sorry for having to put you in that position."
"Don't worry about it, Father. Whatsoever you do for the least of my people, right?"
Gabriel chuckled softly. "Precisely. I will see you on Sunday."
Tony nodded. "I can stop by after mass, make sure he's doing alright."
"Please do," the angel nodded, waiting for the man to leave the room, before picking up the medicine given to him, and disappearing from the room, bringing him back quickly to the room his vessel had at the seminary. Once there, he quietly tucked the little boy under the covers to let him sleep, before settling into one of the nearby chairs near the bed, picking up one of the books, intending to read quietly while he waited for Alec to wake up.