Shattered Glass and Grace

Elias flew through the air, crashing violently into a heavy wooden dining table. The oak splintered into jagged shards upon impact, the metal chairs screeching across the linoleum as they were thrown aside. Elias hit the floor, sliding until his back slammed against the base of the front counter.

He grunted, shaking the dust from his hair. His human disguise was holding, but his angelic durability absorbed the kinetic force. He looked up, his eyes flashing with a dangerous, preternatural gold light.

"You want to fight?" Elias growled, pushing himself up from the wreckage. "Fine. Let's see what they teach the perfect little cherubs these days."

Elias lunged. He crossed the room in a blur of motion, tackling Micah around the waist. The momentum carried them both backward, crashing through a display case of stale pastries. Glass exploded in a glittering cascade, raining down on them along with powdered sugar and crushed porcelain plates.

Micah roared, bringing a heavy elbow down onto Elias’s back. Elias absorbed the blow, pivoting on his heel and driving his knee into Micah’s stomach. The younger angel gasped, stumbling backward.

The café was rapidly disintegrating around them. They were fighting with a suppressed, terrifying strength, treating the mundane urban sanctuary like a cardboard film set. Elias grabbed Micah by the lapels of his soaked trench coat and hurled him toward the front of the shop.

Micah slammed into the massive, plate-glass front window. The safety glass spider-webbed outward in a massive, chaotic pattern but held. Micah bounced off it, dropping to one knee, panting heavily.

Elias didn't stop. A millennium of rejection, of agonizing loneliness, and the perceived betrayal of his brother staying in heaven fueled a blind, devastating wrath. He grabbed a heavy metal barstool and swung it like a baseball bat.

Micah raised his arm, blocking the stool. The metal bent around his forearm with a sickening screech. Micah threw the ruined stool aside and tackled Elias. They went down in a tangled heap of limbs, rolling across the coffee-stained floor, trading brutal, earth-shaking punches that cracked the concrete foundation beneath the linoleum.

"You left me!" Micah screamed, his voice breaking, tears mixing with the rain on his face as he threw a wild punch that grazed Elias’s jaw.

"I was protecting you!" Elias bellowed, catching Micah’s next strike. He twisted his brother's arm, using his superior weight to flip Micah onto his back.

Elias straddled him, pinning Micah’s wrists to the cracked floor with a crushing, inescapable grip. Elias pulled his right fist back, his knuckles glowing with a faint, lethal, golden heat. He was fully prepared to deliver a blow that would knock his brother unconscious, to end the fight and throw the golden child out into the street.

He looked down, his chest heaving, his face a mask of absolute fury.

But Micah wasn't fighting back anymore. He was staring up at Elias, completely exposed, completely broken.