Deliverance

[Pocky]

The arrow going in had been painful, but being pulled out this way flared his nerve receptors to a degree just below insane. Adagio screamed his discomfort in an attempt to make himself feel better. He gnashed his teeth together and screamed again through them as the shaft travelled out of his body. He could sense when it was over by the way the angel's hand was removed from between his wings. The pain was a roiling, throbbing creature that still had its claws in him. He would ache flying for a long while.

"You shot at me several times," Adagio said once he was certain there would be no more tugging. Beads of sweat were wiped off his brow using the back of his wrist. "My sins were never as great until after I fell."

Adagio turned on his knees to face the angel. His toes barely missed the daggers plunged in the sand. He stared at the dove-winged angel, his eyes both interested and resigned. "If healing me risks your falling, would you do it?"

[Ehcorn]

Remi tossed the broken arrow into the surf. When he’d had his fingers deep in the dark angel’s back, he’d thought he’d never be able to hear anything except his pain-filled screams, but each crash of waves pushed the sound farther away. He stared back at the being who reeked of ozone and burnt plastic. His aura charged the air in a way that made his hair stand on end and every cell of his body scream that he should fly the opposite direction, but he let the waves wash that away too.

All that remained was a question.

His thinned lips and sudden inability to maintain eye contact with the other man hinted at his uncertainty. He was in uncharted territory without a guide. No one had ever said anything about dealing with their corrupted counterparts aside from 'kill them on sight'. Could they really fault him for helping instead if his intentions were pure?

"They won’t cast me out for doing the right thing," he said, nodding to himself. Then he inhaled deeply, and at the same moment his chest rose, he lifted his chin and took a step closer. He rested his hand on the other angel's shoulder and focused healing magic on the wound. Warm golden light pulsed between them and then into the dark angel as he worked to knit together skin and muscle and ease the pain he’d inflicted.

[Pocky]

His question hung in the air between them, becoming a force that competed with the ocean for attention. The air crackled with anticipation as the white-winged angel decided Adagio's fate. His eyes fixed on the angel's face and he studied the slash that was his mouth, the way his nostrils flared as he detected scents that seemed to disagree with him--or perhaps Adagio was the abomination that repulsed the other just like Adagio's immediate aura had been sullied by the partial angel-thing. An upsetting consideration.

The answer that finally was evicted from those lips forced Adagio to bite his own. He stuttered a cough and lowered his head to glare at the sand between the angel's feet. He saw the step being taken and felt the touch upon his shoulder. He flinched, his muscles tightening. Without knowing it, his wings and arms outstretched and he threw his head back, staring without seeing at the sky above.

He felt no pain. Warmth radiated through his body like he was bathing in sunlight from a newborn star. Powerful and pure, the sensation rippled through him like a golden pebble in a murky lake, tinging everything it touched. It removed the cold. It removed the guilt. It removed the sorrow and the misery. It replaced all of these emotions with hope and wonder and a lightness of spirit.

It took him a moment to understand he was looking at sky. He relaxed, lowering his chin so his eyes could find the angel who'd healed him. He wanted to embrace him but there was still wariness that perhaps he'd been tricked, perhaps his powers had been removed from him. He didn't want to use them now in case they were still there. As terrible as Adagio had to be so he could grow them, he didn't want to thank the angel with a blast of corruption.

Peripherally he saw something flash that didn't look right. Turning his head and flexing his wing he saw that they were no longer dark, blood red, but had become the colour of borscht with sour cream mixed in. He stared at them for a moment longer before addressing the angel, his expression betraying his disappointment.

"Thank you, but now my wings are mauve."

He hadn't known they would transform. He should have asked for bandages.

[Ehcorn]

Remi had lost count of how many people he’d healed since he’d been on the earthly plane — curing them of everything from colds to cancers. Reconnecting cells and tissue until a chest was made whole again wasn’t the most complicated thing he’d done, but when he lifted his hand from the dark angel’s shoulder, it trembled. He drew his fingers into a loose fist and frowned when the tremor moved up his forearm, through his bicep, and into the rest of his body.

Strength had fled him, and it was all he could do to spread and plant his feet firmly in the sand to keep himself upright. He swallowed and blinked hard, hoping the combination would keep his head from floating away. The dark angel had done something to him, taken something from him.

‘Fuck’ was appropriate here too, wasn’t it? Fuck. Fuck. Something wasn’t right. He sucked in a shuddering breath and lowered his hand, clenched his jaw and focused on the buzz of a voice until it separated into syllables, words, sentences. Then his blinking turned rapid as he looked from the other angel’s face to a partially spread wing.

As far as he knew, angel wings only came in four colors: white and gold for light angels, and red and black for the dark ones.

Not pink.

He cocked his head to the side, his mouth twitching as he tried — and failed — to hold back a smile. The smile turned into a chuckle, and then to breathy still-light-headed laughter. When he realized what he was doing, Remi rolled his lips into his mouth and tried to keep his amusement at bay.

A few strangled laughs escaped regardless.

"I’m sorry," he said, "I didn’t mean— Oh, they are though, aren’t they?" He clapped his hand over his mouth. "I’m not sure why they changed, but it’s not bad," he continued through his fingers. "They’re… They’re like the sunset. That color between red and orange, you know?"

[Pocky]

Adagio flexed his muscles, feeling limber and strangely vibrant. If the angel before him had a change of heart and wished to fight, Adagio felt ready to face him. Thoughts of battle faded when the angel made a noise akin to evicting his nose of all guests before a hand hid what looked to be a smirk.

Despite the unfortunate reaction Adagio's feathers had on the other, he preened at the description.

"Sunset wings, yes," he declared agreeably, a smile lighting upon his face whose shine didn't reach his eyes. "I am unique. A mixture of milk and blood," he said, sounding very much like he was convincing himself to be pleased about his wings. "A burning sky," he muttered, though cast a suspicious look between his open wings and the angel's face.

With a shift and a flutter he stood, wings folded tightly against his back.

"I am Adagio," he introduced himself with a deep bow. "What should I call my merciful saviour?" he asked once upright.

[Ehcorn]

He’d known the dark angel was tall — in Dreki’s memories, Adagio had stood taller than the hybrid angel and Dreki had a couple of inches on him — but Remi had forgotten that until Adagio rose from his kneeling position.

Remi blinked, dropped his hand, and took a few steps back. Enough of his lightheadedness had passed that his feet didn’t give way beneath him, only the sand did. He was able to take a new position without falling, one that made it so he didn’t have to tilt his head back to look the dark angel in the eye. That didn’t make him any less aware of their difference in size, though. The other angel was taller and broader than him and it made Remi unconsciously straightened his back and lifted his wings.

"Remiel," he answered, giving his full name because ‘Remi’ felt soft and small in comparison. It was a pet name for Sam to whisper to him in private, not something he should give to just anyone. "Are you alone?" He cast what he hoped were surreptitious glances around and above them.

Adagio’s name had ruled him out as a district leader, but not as one of Zoheret's four lackeys. And where there was one, there might be three more.

[Pocky]

"Remiel," Adagio repeated, the name departing his lips with a musical lilt. Remiel looked about like he was afraid someone would discover them. Adagio joined his search, casting glances above, around and below them then out to sea where he gestured openly at the waves. "There is only the ocean to hear us and it is too busy whispering secrets," he said, then smiled, his arm returning to his side.

An eyebrow lifted as he regarded Remiel before him. "How do you want to do this? Shall we pick a day, time and place to meet? Perhaps tomorrow afternoon at a coffee house, unless caffeine is a vice to be wary of?" He dropped a wink.

[Ehcorn]

Remi grunted soft acknowledgement of Adagio's remarks while he continued to look around, paying close attention to the sky. No matter how much he squinted, or which way he tilted his head, he saw wing nor feather of the dark angels he'd convinced himself would attack while he was distracted by talk of their agreement.

The questioning note in the dark angel’s voice caused him to look down in time to catch Adagio's eyebrow dip and his eye close in a motion that alerted him that his final comment, the one about vices, had been meant in jest. Remi didn't laugh. He narrowed his eyes in thought.

"I don't know what caffeine is," he admitted. "But I do know coffee houses. They smell nice."

Next up came Remiel’s best impression of his father, where he crossed his arms over his chest and stared at Adagio sternly. "I will come if you promise to forget about the hybrid angel. He’s not meant for the dark. Don’t lead him down that path."

[Pocky]

"They do smell nice, they really do," Adagio nodded intensely, eyes narrowing as grin broadened. "Robust and exotic and like nothing on our plane. Have you tried chocolate yet? It comes from beans that grow on tree bark like mushrooms," he said, lifting a hand so he could giggle coquettishly behind it like a blushing lady of the court. "These humans have unlocked many hidden treasures."

He'd been leaning forward, sharing Earthly secrets with his newfound frenemy but the warning caused Adagio's spine to straighten and his demeanour to stiffen.

"But he's caught in the in-between, fitting nowhere like a lost puzzle piece," Adagio protested with a voice rising in pitch but not in volume. His eyebrows angled his concern while a hand rose palm up, proffering his plea towards Remi like a material thing. The expression he appealed to remained unchanged. Expression fell and shoulders slumped. "I will do my best," he said.

[Ehcorn]

"Okay. Just know if you don’t, I’ll stop helping you." He was sure it didn’t need to be said that he wouldn’t give up on their mission and then let Adagio roam free, continuing to corrupt and kill his way to being the best dark angel he could be. An arrow would find his chest again, and Remiel wouldn’t miss his heart a second time.

He inhaled sharply, and on his exhale, Remi let go of his father. His arms fell loosely to his sides and his expression softened. He didn’t want to kill Adagio. He wanted to help him. The problem was that he wasn’t sure what would make him fall again. There’d been some change, but he wasn’t any more sure what had made Adagio’s wings turn from deep red to pink. It’d coincided with healing him, but beyond that? Had it been his magic pushing out the corruption? Or had he taken on some of Adagio’s corruption? Would his wings be pink, too? He briefly stretched one wing to check that his long primary feathers were as pristine and white as they had been when he’d landed.

They were.

With a sigh of relief, he dug his hand into his pocket and extracted his phone.

"So," he began, tapping open a calendar he was still familiarizing himself with, "tomorrow afternoon at a coffee house that—" He lowered the phone and gave Adagio a hopeful look. "—has chocolate for me to try?"

[Pocky]

"There is a good one on Portobello Road," Adagio announced gleefully, gesturing towards the land. "It has the most delightful name. Wait for it, it is called," he paused for dramatic effect, "Huggamug." His expression displayed his joy and he stared at Remiel expectantly.

[Ehcorn]

Remiel, who'd been painstakingly typing the street name he'd been given, looked up and stared blankly at an excited Adagio. He shifted his weight onto his heels and cleared his throat, realizing he was missing out on some joke that he should’ve understood.

Rather than try to fake or force amusement he didn’t feel, he shook his head.

"Huggamug? I don't get it." In an effort to lessen the blow he might’ve delivered the dark angel, he also explained something of his time on the Earthly plane. "I haven’t been here long, though. There’s a lot that I don’t get yet. Maybe I will once I’ve been there."

He returned his attention to his phone.

When the time and place of their next meeting was forever stored within his digital calendar, he put the device away and took a step back, then another, eyes flicking from Adagio to the spot he’d left his daggers. So far, there hadn’t been any signs of aggression from the other angel, but the moment he’d started to disengage from him, the space between his wings had started to crawl.

"I’m going to leave now," he said, backing up more with his palms held out in a staying gesture. "Please don't throw your daggers at me when I take off. I don't want to have to shoot you again." 

[Pocky]

Glee fell from Adagio's face as obviously as a material item. His eyes lowered to Remiel's hands and he waited out each jab at the screen as the café name was input into the angel's mobile phone. "Two Gs, it's Hug-Ga, not Hug-a, for a reason I cannot explain."

There was some more watching and spelling out and time stretched awkwardly between them. When Remiel backed away with an accusation, Adagio stiffened and stood ramrod straight.

"I have never attacked anyone when their back is turned and I will not start now," he declared. It was his turn to fold arms upon his chest. He lifted his chin and looked imperiously down his nose at Remiel, his words hanging heavily between them. He fluttered his wings, the swishing sound of his rippling feathers lost to the sizzle of waves hitting the beach.

[Ehcorn]

"Yes, well—" Remi’s gaze went to the spot on Adagio’s chest that, minutes earlier, had one golden shafted and white fletched arrow sticking out of it. He smiled wryly. "— I did shoot you, so I would understand the inclination."

With his hands held up as they were, moonlight had the opportunity to shine on the golden ring that resided on his pointer finger. He glanced at it. The gift from his father wouldn't be as effective at camouflaging him while he flew, but it would make it harder for Adagio to hit him if he changed his mind.

As he continued to back up, Remi reached for his magic and frowned. Usually, it was a pool filled to the brim, but now all he could sense was a droplet or two — not nearly enough to power his ring. His eyebrows rose. So that's why he’d felt like Adagio had taken something from him when he’d healed him.

Like a ground well, his magic would replenish itself, but that would take more time than he had. He had no choice. He'd have to trust Adagio.

"Alright. I'll... see you tomorrow, then. Huggamug. With two Gs," Remi said, wariness thick in his voice as he took one final step backward. Feeling like he was trying to outdistance a coiled snake before it decided to strike, he turned and began to run the opposite direction along the waterline, pumping his wings hard to get him into the air and flying away faster than he'd imagined possible.