Fic: Can't sleep. Word will eat me.
This is not all of... well, this. There's another chunk. But my brain is going spinnyspin, so I'm going to stop here. It's less a fic and more a character study.

Can't sleep...


The Walls around Heaven are vast, and somewhat symbolic. They have guards. They have, now and then, tourists.

At the moment, they have a young boy, about 14, maybe 15. He's leaning out, watching as blessed souls drift up and toward the gates. He feels... odd. Almost mature. Almost interested in a host of things. But temperamental and frustrated, too. He wonders if he should reach further, try to be older... And yet, that way lies danger, too, for the humans he protects.

Christopher has -- in the slang of Heaven -- been eaten by his Word.

He hadn't been a child for a long time before he gained his Word. He knows full well that Children must grow up, and become adults. He knows that someone has to be the grown-up.

But his Word makes it easy, far too easy, to simply relax into its themes. To be what he wants to protect.

He pushes away from the Wall, with a teenager's sudden burst of annoyance, and stomps through the streets until a worried flight of relievers hover around him and he remembers that someone has to be the grown-up -- and it shouldn't be them. So he smiles at them, thanks them for their help, and tries to be older. At least seventeen.

He is older. He knows he's older. He could be... if only he could wrench himself out of this funk he's in about being Word-eaten.

Catch-22.

He used to be Stone, he should be tougher than this. He should be stronger than this. It's not fair...

He catches himself dwindling again, and forces himself older. But it's clear he can't handle doing this alone. He really, really doesn't want to go to Novalis about it. Everyone else is either too busy, or too alien.

He pauses, and looks up, over to where the Wall rises into Gates. It reminds him of other Archangels, other parental sorts (like he should be, drat it).

Christopher breaks into a run, and hopes that Zadkiel can figure out a way to Protect him from his Word.