the five stages of grief, as they pertain to love [good omens, michael/uriel]

two: anger, part two

Uriel could not have possibly made it to her office faster than she did.

Once inside, the door locked itself tightly, the blinds dropped, and the lamp turned on. Her hands were shaking as she gently placed the two books on the desk and she very nearly abandoned the endeavor as soon as she saw the titles.

"Fundamentals of Human Sexuality" and "Psychology Behind Human Love", both written by some underling named Sarandiel.

How wonderful.

'If Gabriel caught me with this stuff and I hadn't given him an excuse earlier, he would never let me hear the end of it.'

Uriel closed her eyes, took a deep breath, sat down in her office chair, and began with her "research". She had the decency to start with the second book, pulling up a notepad and pen to take a general outline of the contents as she read, but found herself lost in the guide's content almost as soon as she opened the first page.

Time drawled on and Uriel was ignorant to every passing second. The only thing on her mind now was the contents of these books, and God's truth, they were so much more interesting than she'd ever thought they'd be. In Heaven, love as a concept was common knowledge. Angels were built for it, after all. They were not, however, built for falling in love, which turned out to be another concept entirely. The way Gabriel and Sandalphon had talked about the idea had made it seem so trivial and silly, like romantic love was just a concept the Almighty had imposed on them as some sick joke to make them slaves to emotion. As it turned out, however, there was another side to romance that, when Uriel actually gave it some thought, had a lot of qualities that made it incredibly useful to their survival.

From how Sarandiel had worded it, romantic love did indeed have the potential to become the centerpiece of a human's life. It was triggered by a very strong rush of chemicals to a human's brain as a response to seeing another human, and most times those chemicals became borderline addictive to the human in love. The feeling was said to be so intense that humans could get sick off them, rendered unable to function at times by their own brains. The feelings of what Uriel now knew to be 'infatuation' made humans obsessed with their person(s) of interest, to the extent that some made the focus of their lives pleasing their desired person no matter what it took. It sounded like a horrible design flaw at first, until Uriel got to the part describing what happened after that.

Infatuation, when experienced by two humans holding the other as their object of interest, was a powerful thing that brought a pair together and kept them that way for a while. After a period of months or so, however, the intensity of the feelings would wane into something more mild. Sarandiel himself could only describe it as a strong warmth paired with a desire to remain with that person forever and likened it to how angels felt for the Almighty, in fewer words and without the borderline blasphemy, of course. It was such a strange concept to Uriel, particularly because that level of emotional intimacy was entirely unheard of in angelic society. The only entity any of them felt such a deep sense of devotion towards was the Almighty.

At the end of her reading, the word that Uriel now associated with this kind of love was "fidelity". It was truly a beautiful thing, she thought; two humans enjoy one another so very much that they stuck by one another's sides for the rest of their lives. What an interesting place Heaven could be, were angels given the same capacity for such a thing! If angels could feel deeper, more vibrant loyalties and enjoyments of one another, workplace relations would increase and make Heaven a much more...well, Heavenly place. She rested her chin on her arm and let her mind wander, entertaining the idea until something occurred to her.

Surely, there had to be a reason angels couldn't love like this.

'Just think,' Uriel mused, 'If angels were such emotional creatures, we wouldn't get anything done!' She could see it now; angels rendered useless because their designated object of affection worked right beside them, breakups going poorly and creating an awkward work environment, workers too distracted by their beloveds to get their work done properly...

Yes, in the end it was truly a good thing the Almighty hadn't given them the ability to fall in love.

...And yet, the idea of it sparked a strange warmth in Uriel's stomach. She wasn't sure why, but she did know wishful thinking was not a good way of spending her brain power, so she pushed the thought out of her mind and decided to power through the rest of the book.

That did not help in the slightest with keeping the thoughts out of her mind.

By the end of the book, she'd grown to realize she quite liked the idea of romance, actually. There were certainly cons to it, sure, but everything had one or two of those. She was being silly and she knew it, but here in the darkness of her office she at least had some semblance of privacy to entertain such a fantasy as a world in which love existed for her. She wondered absently who, if anyone, Gabriel for example might choose to court. Or Sandalphon. Or Michael.

...Actually, the concept of Michael ever falling in love with anyone made her suddenly feel very angry and jealous. The strength of her jealousy surprised her and was followed immediately by guilt. Angels weren't supposed to get jealous. Angels weren't supposed to be thinking of this sort of thing at all! Uriel's stomach twisted and she laid her head down on the desk.

'Oh, Lord,' She thought miserably, 'What is wrong with me?'