A Day Late

[Ehcorn]

"Here you go," Remi said, answering Adagio's unspoken question by rolling the two bottles he'd gathered from the sand into the bag, followed by the comb from his pocket.

He then produced the shirt he'd rescued from having anything wet dropped onto it, taking a step back to shake it out from the neat rectangle it'd been folded into. It was a short-sleeved button-up in the same shade of blue as the warm, tropical waters that surrounded the islands in the Pacific, and covered in flamingos, hibiscus flowers, and vivid green palm trees.

"You can find all of these things in Hawaii. That's why it's called a Hawaiian shirt." He smiled as he held it out to Adagio. "The pink reminded me of your wings when I saw it."

[Pocky]

Adagio set the plastic bag upon the sand, the crinkle of it settling upon the sand temporarily louder than the hollow rush of the ocean waves. He picked up his old shirt and slapped and rubbed himself with it before it ended up crumpled in the bag of gifts as well. Once he'd pulled on his leather pants with much wriggling, holding of breath and gnashing of teeth, he looked at the Hawaiian shirt held out to him with a light frown and a dubious expression.

The remark about the pink had him shoot a stare in Remiel's direction. It remained upon the angel for a while as Adagio held the shirt and did very little. Eventually he unfurled one wing and held the shirt up to them.

"It is the wrong pink. My wings are a deeper colour. Like borscht with a dollop of sour cream stirred into it. I will wear it to please you because of your effort with my hair." He glamoured his wings so he could put his arms through the material. He left it hanging loose as he screwed up his nose. "It is like wearing a spiderweb. There is no heaviness to it."

[Ehcorn]

"Oh," Remi said, his smile fading in the face of Adagio’s displeasure. "I suppose you’re right." Pink was pink, he’d wanted to say, but now that he could see the flamingos next to Adagio’s feathers, he knew it was too bright a pink to fairly compare the two. He’d overestimated how much shirt Adagio needed, too. The dark angel was taller and broader than him, so of course he’d need a bigger size, and an extra size on top of that, just to make sure it fit. Well, it fit alright. Poorly. Over Adagio’s tight leather pants it looked borderline ridiculous.

"It’s the first shirt I’ve picked on my own. Vretil… my uh, my mentor, he always buys my clothes for me," he admitted. Remi scrubbed at the back of his neck, frowning at the colorful, shapeless sack he’d purchased for the other angel. "Maybe next time you should pick."

[Pocky]

Adagio held out his arms to see that the short sleeves came close to his elbows and then he flapped them before lowering them, attempting to hook thumbs into his belt loops but the shirt was in the way. He settled for palming his hand flat against his sides, the bend of his elbow displaying the shapelessness of the intensely colourful shirt.

After listening to the peculiar setup that Remiel had regarding his clothing and seeing the dejected look cast about his person, Adagio relented.

"It reminds me of our home," he said, looking down at himself. "The colours here are so drab in comparison. Perhaps that it why you felt drawn to it." Adagio looked back at Remiel. "Next time, darling, I will bring you something to wear. But we can't meet here because sand will get on it. Perhaps somewhere you won't stand me up? You name a location."

[Ehcorn]

"It didn't have to do with the coffee shop," Remi said, but his excitement about naming a place of his choosing made him smile brightly and lift his wings behind him. He’d perked up like a flower recently watered.

"There’s a park that I like to go to. At the center is this huge," Remi stretched his arms out to either side of him, "oak tree. Pixie Park, I think it's called." He dropped his arms and frowned. That wasn’t right. "Piss— Key? Pisky! Pisky Park. It has a house, a greenhouse, where they grow all the colorful flowers that wouldn’t normally grow here because it’s not warm enough."

Remi shoved a hand into his pocket to take out his phone so he could show Adagio a map, but the screen was too damp to activate the device. He flipped the bottom of his shirt out to begin wiping it off.

"I’m leaving the city in a couple days, though," he continued, glancing up at Adagio. "Not for long. A week. When I come back, that’s where we should meet. Do you have a way for me to contact you? A phone, maybe?"

[Pocky]

Adagio listened intently to Remiel's description of the Pixie Park. The second name he used didn't sound as lyrical on the tongue.

"I like flowers," Adagio admitted. "I miss those the most. Down here we can't see all the colours anymore. This world is like seeing through murk. I tried on a pair of eyeglasses once but they didn't help."

He watched as the angel finished cleaning his device and demonstrated where the park and greenhouse was upon a miniature map on his screen that had lines for roads and names on everything. Adagio's confusion only lessened once he understood the park was south of where they currently stood.

"I have a few different phones but they need me to put numbers into them to make them work. I have not yet figured them out," he said. "Sometimes I try different numbers but the phones locks themselves. I don't think you can call me on any of them so we should just pick a day and time to meet at the greenhouse. Two weeks from now at noon? Then the sun will be up to make it warm and bright and we can pretend we are both home."

[Ehcorn]

"Alright," Remi said, sliding his phone into his pocket. He left his hand in there, too. "I’ll meet you at the greenhouse in fourteen days." Unless, of course, another cursed dryad was dumped into his lap and curing her meant he slept through their meeting again. How likely was that to happen, though? "I don’t think I’ll be held up this time," he continued. "We’re only going to visit my—"

Remi’s shoes were being eaten by the ocean, forcing him to abandon his conversation with Adagio to wade into the surf after them. For a time, it was all splashing and cries of dismay and flared wings, but he eventually succeeded in corralling his footwear and returned to dry land.

He plopped down next to Adagio's bag with a sigh, and as he began to clean the grit from his bare feet, he glanced up at the dark angel.

"I know you’ve been getting by without me, but do you have a safe place to stay?" he asked. "Enough food to eat? I don’t want you to go hungry while I’m gone."

[Pocky]

Adagio watched the angel chase his shoes as they were tossed about in the surf. He tittered and guffawed at a reckless leap, snorted amusement when the wave dumped on him.

Once the angel was free from the ocean's hold with his loafers in hand, Remiel watched him gather himself and speak without qualms. When the angel offered him safe haven, the Cheshire Cat had nothing on the tooth-filled smile that was directed at Remiel.

"You are quite kind when not shooting arrows in my back," he said before adding on a wink. "My living situation is satisfactory. Food is bountiful down here if you know where to look. You never finished saying who you were going to visit."

Remiel's hair dripped onto his shoulders and Adagio's hands twitched a few times before he folded them into his arms.

[Ehcorn]

He'd opened his mouth to point out that he'd shot an arrow into Adagio's chest and through his back (as if that somehow lessened the insult of being shot in the first place), but the wink made him close it again and huff. The dark angel was teasing him. Of course. He shook his head and resumed brushing off his feet until Adagio's gentle refusal of his help bled into a question.

Remi froze. His heartbeat rose loud in his ears, competing with the ocean for his attention.

"I uh..." He cleared his throat and pushed his sand-covered hand into his hair, digging his fingers into his scalp and displacing more droplets of salty ocean water onto his soggy shirt. "I'm going to visit my mother." Remi darted a glance at the dark angel. His expression was twisted by uncertainty. "I don't know if she'll want to see me, but... I have no way to know until I go."

[Pocky]

"Your... mother?" Adagio repeated slowly, his eyes distant and glassy. "Your mother who might not want to see you," he repeated, this time with a lack of a question at the end. His head lolled forward and he peeked at Remiel over this new angle. He wasn't quite looking up but he wasn't looking down either.

He made a few noises that never realised the language they were intended to be. His eyebrows danced merrily as his mouth opened and closed. Eventually he squinted at Remiel and pulled himself up to full height, the glassiness of his eyes had dissipated and now they were knife sharp.

"You were born upon this earth?"

[Ehcorn]

He twisted to look at Adagio more fully and frowned when the other angel’s demeanor shifted into something that felt predatory, like a cobra unfurling its hood and staring him down while it decided whether he was edible or not. His heart stuttered. He’d fucked up, hadn’t he? He considered telling Adagio that just because his mother was on Earth didn’t mean he’d been born there, but the lie sat sour on his tongue and refused to go any farther. He didn’t need to lie, anyway. His origin didn't change who he was now.

Remi came to his feet to face Adagio and rolled his hands into fists, grinding sand into his palms. He looked back at the dark angel, unblinkingly, and with none of the open friendliness he had while he'd combed the other man's hair.

"I was born here, yes," he ground out. "Then I was reborn on the heavenly plane. I remember nothing of that life. There’s no difference between me and any other angel of light."

[Pocky]

"Settle petal," Adagio said, a smile wide upon his face. "It means you're better equipped to understand my position, except you are not because you say you do not remember." He heaved a large sigh, shoulders lifting and dropping in exaggerated fashion. "You would have been a guardian angel. I have never met one that I know of. I thought the mixed one was one of those but then he explained himself. You are young in your powers then. It explains much."

Adagio tittered a few times then tapped his lips with an index finger.

[Ehcorn]

Remi didn’t settle. He couldn’t. Not when he was being laughed at by a dark angel. His knuckles grew white, his wings flared behind him, and he jerked his chin up to look down his nose at Adagio — quite a feat, considering their height difference.

"Explains what, exactly?" he demanded.

[Pocky]

Adagio's brief joy abated and darkened in the shadow of Remiel's hostility. His words were spoken with a sadness that felt as if they were summoned from deep within him. From the heart inside his chest.

"Why you are so passionate in your hatred for me, enough to attempt murder without warning. You believe the fallen and the turned are worthless at best and deserving of death at worst. My death on our first meeting would have left you satisfied and you would have called it good. I seek power so I am considered evil while your righteousness wipes the blood from your weapon. You judge me for wanting what I used to have, even if it is a twisted version." With half-lidded eyes Adagio whispered, "We are both killers but yours are untainted. Your elders understand the hypocrisy even though they ignore it."

[Ehcorn]

Remi didn't say anything while Adagio made all his accusations. On a few occasions, he rolled his eyes or scoffed, but he didn't move to defend himself until the dark angel fell silent.

"The last dark angel I met took someone I loved from me and then ran a spear through my chest," Remi said, all the pain and anger he'd felt the night he'd lost Diego crawling up his throat and making its way into his every syllable. "And the ones before that? One bludgeoned me with a mace, the other stabbed me with a sword. Know what they all had in common? They attacked me on sight. So based on that, yeah, when I found you, I shot first. I didn't want to, but I didn't know I had a choice."

He heaved a sigh and on his exhale, loosened his fists and relaxed his wings, but he wasn't finished yet.

"When I thought I'd killed you," he continued, his voice growing softer with every word, "it didn't leave me satisfied. It made me sad. You were like me once. If we'd met before... or after you fell, we would've had no reason to fight. But when you became a dark angel? That changed everything. Even if falling was an injustice like you say, once you landed here, you made a choice. I can't judge you for wanting something to replace the light that was taken from you, but I can judge what you did to get it."

His brows dipped, weighed down by the act every dark angel had to commit to open a path of darkness that would return their power and immortality.

"Do you remember who you sacrificed?"