freosan

I seem to have a thing for human vs inhuman POV. Hm.

For those who were not present or did not care, Seijirou and Jester broke up... sometime last year, I believe. Seijirou took it rather hard.

For the newbies, Seijirou is an angel who keeps demons off earth, Kiros is an angel who keeps angels off earth, and the god they work for is not nearly as powerful as he would like you to think.

Kiros POV, G, angstish, 1 387 words.

Kiros is not worried. He refuses to worry about a man who has spent the better part of the life of the universe fighting things too horrible for thought. It wouldn’t be right. He is concerned.

He is concerned enough that as soon as another angel comes to the Gates, he hands off the Book, citing a matter of pressing importance. The young man, Peter, takes on the job with barely a breath of complaint. Kiros is glad. It’s been a few thousand years since he’s found an assistant as good as that boy.

Instead of doing what he usually does – go to Earth, go out, perhaps find Chiyo, or meet with Lirael or Abby – he finds himself at the door to his counterpart’s rooms.

He considers going in. The hallway here is bright and open and anyone could come along, to find him standing outside this door contemplating the sunburst carvings.

He shrugs and, because he doesn’t want to make noise, walks through the door. Or tries to. The other angel has put some sort of ward on it and Kiros bumps into the wood. He looks around, grateful that no one else seems to be within line of sight, and reaches for the doorknob.

The door opens easily, which is strange. Perhaps he just didn’t want to be taken by surprise? Kiros looks around. The rooms –

The last time he’d been in here – he thinks back, that would have been nearly six months ago – the floor had been cluttered, things blowing every which way in a wind through the open window. Now it is eerily neat, the hardwood floor shining, all trace of personality gone. Kiros glances into the bedroom. The huge four-poster is gone, replaced by a utilitarian cot. The sheets have been made perfectly. Kiros suspects they haven’t been slept on.

Humans have to sleep. Angels don’t.

Kiros would curse, if he could.

He stands in the centre of the main room and glances about. “Seijirou?”

He doesn’t expect a response, but he gets one. The blond steps out of the third room almost immediately.

“Use not that name,” he says flatly. Kiros stares.

He is in full angelic regalia, all white-and-gold robes and tongues of flame. His eyes are the hard, metallic colour of gold, rather than warm amber. He does not smile, he does not laugh, there is nothing in his manner or his voice to indicate that he has ever been anything but ineffable.

“What has happened to you?” Kiros wants to ask, but doesn’t. Instead he takes several steps forward, almost entranced, until he is within a foot of the other angel.

“Then what…?” he says, and reaches up with one hand, stopping just short of touching his face. The other angel does not move.

“Vimael. It is the name Our Father gave me. Kirel.” He isn’t breathing. Kiros should be able to feel the air moving, but he can’t.

Seijirou always took the time to sleep, to eat, to breathe, to keep his heart pumping. Vimael… Kiros doesn’t know Vimael all that well. It’s been a long time.

“Don’t call me that. Please.” Kiros’s hand drops, and he looks at the ground. “How can one human have done this to you?”

He says it almost to himself, but Vimael answers anyway. “He did nothing; I brought this upon myself. I should have listened to Zohe -” Kiros cuts him off.

“Don’t call her that, either. We decided we were more than what we were created. How can you throw away years – centuries of work for one man?”

Vimael turns away. His silks swish on the floor. Kiros can see now that his hair has been cut, a mere half the length it has been.

“It is because he is one man that I must. If one man can do so much, how can we remain attached to their world? I shall not.” He bows his head, and his wings relax so that they drape on the floor.

Kiros can’t stop himself; he takes a single step forward and wraps his arms around Vimael, resting his head on the angel’s shoulder. He sighs.

Vimael tenses, almost bolting; he doesn’t relax even when Kiros steps back again, leaving only his hand on the other’s shoulder.

“I understand. I wish I didn’t, but I understand. But….” He trails off, unsure of himself.

There is silence for a moment before Vimael breaks it. “I know not why we continue this. Zero tried to be human, and she failed. I was beyond prideful to attempt what she could not do. I tried to love, and I failed. I only wish… thou wilt still try, wilt thou not, Kirel – Kiros?” he asks.

“I have to. I think we all do, even if it can’t be done. But that’s not important now, is it? I came here to see if I could help you.” He finally lets his hand drop. “But I guess I can’t. I’m sorry – I’ll be going.”

Vimael turns back to him, suddenly – Kiros is momentarily fearful, but it passes when he sees the expression on his face. He looks lost, almost. Kiros can’t remember the last time he wasn’t certain of himself.

He turns and takes a step, then looks back. Vimael has stepped forward, without really meaning to judging by the expression on his face.

He can’t leave him alone. He takes the angel’s hand, stepping close again. Vimael is almost vibrating with nervousness, and Kiros unconsciously starts smoothing the tension out of his palm.

“I wish it could have worked for you,” he says. They’re the right words, but they lack something, and Kiros doesn’t know how to force it out, whatever it is. He moves to the other hand. “The three of us – sad, aren’t we?” he asks. Vimael nods.

“We try too hard, and then we fall. Even men warn against such arrogance,” he says. Kiros doesn’t look up at him, but he knows without even trying that his expression has turned thoughtful, that he’s watching Kiros’s fingers move up his arm and to his shoulders.

“This would be easier if we sat down,” Kiros mentions after he’s worked his way to the wing joints. Vimael says nothing, but turns to walk into the bedroom, and Kiros follows.

Vimael has several knots of tension in his wings. When Kiros has worked them out, they both sit on the bed, leaning on each other with their wings wrapped together. It’s an intimate position, but not in the way that it might have been a year ago. For one thing, angels don’t have a sex drive. For another, that would be the last thing Vimael needs right now.

There’s nothing Kiros can say. He’d like to try, but he can’t put enough meaning in any of the words.

Vimael is staring intently at a frayed feather on the end of Kiros’s wing. When he speaks, his voice is quiet, and detached.

“He said, ‘you don’t do anything unless it benefits you in some way’. Is that true? I ought to know, so that I might change…”

Of course ‘he’ is Jester. Who else? Kiros’s response is immediate. “It’s false. You cannot be selfish any more than the rest of us can.”

“Then why should he say that?” Vimael reaches out and smoothes the feather into place. His hands are cool – his blood isn’t moving.

“Humans do not think the way we do. He was emotional and he struck where it would do the most harm,” Kiros says. He thinks this is the right answer. He’s not positive, though he sounds it. Vimael has spent more time around humans than he.

Vimael doesn’t show a reaction, merely continues his inspection of Kiros’s wingtip. Kiros leans against his side, curling an arm over Vimael’s silk-clad shoulders. “I wish…” he says, too quiet to carry, but he doesn’t know how to complete the sentence.

Heaven tends to have noise, not too loud but at least a low background susurrus, but these rooms are dead quiet. He can’t even hear Vimael’s heart, and soon he realizes he’s holding his breath in sympathy.

“We are not supposed to be dead,” he says.

“Neither are we alive,” Vimael responds. There’s no answer he can give that will be true or hopeful, so Kiros says nothing.

Kaos is disturbed, Leoran is angered. The best way to show someone you love her is to kick her in the kidneys.

Kaos stormed back into the House, glaring. Her fight with Sutebenu had not made her feel better, and she could still feel the touch of his lips on her cheek. She’d let that – that creature touch her. She was slipping, badly.

She put her staff and wings away, and dropped her armor and boots at the door to the dojo. Time for some practice. She rushed at the punching bag, fast first, then settling into a rhythm – hit, step back, cast spell behind, jump and hit – when her knuckles started bleeding she stopped, and switched to kicking.

She’d lost track of time, and was deep in battle mode, when she felt another aura come into the room. Without even thinking, she whipped around and aimed a kick for the center of it.

Leoran caught the kick, and pushed her leg straight up in the air. She caught herself on one hand, scrambled back up and aimed for the nose; he blocked, again, and threw his own roundhouse. She dodged, countered – but he had his wings out already, so flying above her was no problem, and neither was aiming a dropkick for her ribs. Hit, she went down, a bit harder than necessary. He hesitated a moment, and it was enough to get back up and put a foot in his face. He stumbled backwards and she went to finish up.

The fight ended with his fist below her chin and her fingers below his eye.

“Getting better,” she said, after some time had passed. She dropped her hand and bowed to him, a formality.

He followed suit. He’d learned, over the years, that a good fight was the best way to calm his girlfriend down – so he’d learned to do that, too. The extra help this gave him fighting came as something of a bonus.

“Thanks. Something happen? You’ve got blood on you and some of it’s not yours.” Not unusual, but she was too distressed for it to’ve been a demon.

She nodded, absently touching her cheek. “Complete idiot. Needed hurting,” she says. “Got it.” She looked darkly satisfied, at least. That was Kaos – never lost.

“Someone I know?” he asked, lightly, taking her hand. The knuckles were completely split open – she must’ve been going at that bag for an hour at least. He made a move to heal them, but she shook her head.

“Leave it.” Very cold. He sighed, and grabbed her in a hug, which she eventually relaxed into.

“Fine, but explain. I know it wasn’t Bianca, so who’d you feel the need to kick the shit out of?”

She sighed against his shoulder, an entirely pleasant experience. “Called Sutebenu.” Her shoulders were tense again, and when he moved his hands up to work the stress out, she stiffened further.

“Don’t.” She was looking through him, not at him; he hadn’t gotten that look out of her for a while. Something bad – she couldn’t’ve lost. So…?

“Relax, Kaos. Please? And tell me what’s up.” Lost cause, but he could at least try. He started leading her out of the dojo, because she really didn’t need to be around all the bad auras left over in there. She let him without question, which was even weirder. Kaos had never taken direction from him well.

“He – got past me,” she said, quietly. “Touched me. Hasn’t happened in – years.” She sounded too shaken for it to simply be a punch, though.

He managed to make it to their bedroom without further incident, and sat down in the easy chair with her on his lap. She curled against him, looking at nothing with a thousand-yard stare.

“So he’s a good fighter. You still won, yeah? Don’t know what he did to deserve it in the first place,” he added as an afterthought, and Kaos jumped.

“He’s a rapist. Scum of the universe,” she said, or more growled. She managed to make it sound more vitriolic than any string of curses ever could.

That explained that, then. Leoran felt a sudden surge of white-hot anger towards Sutebenu. And he dared to touch her? Though not a violent man, Leoran suddenly wanted to kill.

Kaos must have sensed the change in his aura, because she uncurled herself and rested her cheek against his. Her touch was hesitant, and her body was stiff like it hadn't been since the early days of their relationship. “No. Scared him, can’t kill him,” she said. “Wrong. Not war.”

Of course, she was right, and Leoran wouldn’t’ve been able to live with himself after killing a non-enemy.

“What did he do?” If it’d been more than just fighting back Leoran would have to change his classification.

Kaos’s voice was as blank as her eyes. “Raped Skye. Kissed me.” She pushed Leoran back down when he started up, flaring anger.

He nodded, reminding himself again that he shouldn’t kill mortals. But…

“Can take care of myself,” she reminded him. Leoran had to agree with that. But he wished that she would look at him.