A Day Late

[Pocky]

By the time Remiel was thirty minutes late Adagio no longer checked the wall clock but he stayed an extra three hours, sipping coffee and displaying his gratitude for table service so that he could order and sip from a mug of hot chocolate as well. Watching people walking by he saw a few attractive darlings that he ached to rush out and meet but his willpower won and he stayed as he was. When handed the bill he smooth talked the waitress with lies and promises, flirting and working a brief tendril of his corruption into her palm as he held her hand. It affiliated her with him temporarily, enough so that she would allow him to skip out without fuss.

Flying to the beach now, with the sun low on the horizon, the promise he'd given Remiel died alongside the light of day. He'd been discarded. Abandoned. Fooled. He checked for the hybrid but didn't see the blond man on the sand. "I don't even know where to look for you!" he cried into the air, unsure if he meant the abomination or the angel who meant to pierce his heart and make him dead. He would always remember the angel, if not the hybrid that brought them together, for each flap of his rosy wings reminded him.

It was the next day that offered him a reward for checking. Eyebrows lifted before he snapped his wings tightly against his back and plummeted towards the glittering sands, flicking them out and arching his back before the earth collected him. He almost miscalculated for his toes left runnels even as he curved upward again, leaping down the short distance that he'd climbed a few metres away from his visitor.

Not the hybrid but the pure. Adagio kept his distance but his eyes roamed the angel's features and physique in a way they hadn't last time.

"You're not bad looking when you're not trying to kill me," he said, then folded his arms across his chest and tipped his weight towards one leg, looking put out.

[Ehcorn]

"Er," Remi said. Not bad looking? Not bad meant good. Adagio considered him good looking, then? Why hadn’t he just said that? Why had he made it sound like a compliment given begrudgingly? He frowned as he took in the dark angel’s crossed arms, irritated expression, and the arm's length he was being held at. While he should’ve been pleased that he was far from an aura that felt like flying too close to a thundercloud, Remi was dismayed by all the signs that he’d upset the dark angel.

It hadn’t been his intention, but he had.

"I’m sorry I didn’t make it yesterday," he began, lifting his sand-caked hands beseechingly. He remained poised like that until he realized his palms were coated in grit and then began wiping them on his jeans as he continued with an explanation. "I ran into this dryad and she needed help with a curse, so I helped her, but..." Remi trailed off, his hands becoming still except for the slight movements of his fingertips over the seams of his jeans. Admitting to a dark angel that he’d passed out after curing a curse didn’t seem wise.

"Anyway, I’m here now. And I brought you some things." He took several steps backwards, his bare feet leaving prints in the wet sand, and spun in time to navigate around a full plastic bag and his sock-stuffed shoes — everything he’d abandoned when he’d risen to greet Adagio. The angel turned after grabbing the bag, head down as he sorted through the contents. "There’s… soap, shampoo, conditioner, a comb for y’know, your hair. Uh… A new shirt since I put holes in the one you have on. I think it’ll fit."

Remi shifted, gathering the bag by the handles, and thrust his peace offering at Adagio. It swayed back and forth between them.

"There was coffee, too, but the lid came off when I was flying." His expression grew pained. "It burned me and I dropped it."

[Pocky]

"A dryad!" Adagio repeated with wide eyes and a scoff. His eyes narrowed in the pause that followed. "Our kind can't help the tree people," he said. His eyes narrowed to slits and he grunted when Remiel swiftly changed the subject. His dismay vanished and he straightened immediately and took a step back upon being told there was something for him.

The plastic bag's list of contents had him approaching the angel, his earlier defensiveness dissipated.

"Your presents imply my appearance needs work," Adagio said, sarcasm dripping off his words as viscous as honey. His eyes were trained on the plastic bag when Remiel explained what had happened to the coffee that wasn't present. Adagio giggled, his tittering almost girlish in its delight.

"Let us bathe, then. Come. Join me." Adagio's wings fluttered briefly as he took the plastic bag and took out the soap and handed it to Remiel before digging into the bag again and pulling out the bottles of shampoo and conditioner. He dropped the bag onto the sand and set down the bottles he held to shuck off his jeans without hindrance.

[Ehcorn]

Remi frowned at the box of soap, wishing it hadn’t been his instinct to take what Adagio had held out to him without looking at it first. Something like this had happened the last time he'd gone downtown. He'd been handed a plastic case with a shiny disc inside, surrounded by several men his size or larger, then told that he had to give them money for their music or they’d drag him to an alley and take it from him.

He brightened. Adagio could be dealt with the same way he’d dealt with them, couldn't he?

Remi squared his shoulders and — doing his best to ignore the fact that the dark angel’s jeans were puddled in the sand near his feet — took a step closer. The dark angel’s charged, chaotic aura set his nerves on end, but he gritted his teeth and made himself ignore that, too. 

"No thank you," Remi said, a heartbeat before he pushed the box into Adagio's hands and moved back to his original spot. The difference in the air was immediate. He inhaled deeply, getting a lungful of salt and seaweed, then tacked on a justification he didn't have to give but gave anyway, "I bathed earlier."

A smile twitched onto his face as memory of who he’d bathed with flashed in his mind’s eye. Thinking of Sam’s body was certainly one way to help him block out the one Adagio had put on display, but turning to look at the star-speckled night horizon instead of the dark angel didn’t hurt either.

"Don’t let me stop you, though," he said, voice drifting towards the ocean. "I'll wait here until you're finished."

[Pocky]

"Are you shy or ashamed of your body down here?" Adagio demanded with a hint of joviality, cradling the soap that had been thrust upon him. "I suppose the gravity of this world is stronger than ours, so perhaps you consider yourself danglier than normal?"

Instead of waiting for a response, Adagio tore into the box and removed a bar of soap that he could take with him to the waves. He waded knee deep into the chilly water before sitting down and then lying back. He sat up and rubbed soap vigorously over himself, dunking the bar forcefully into the waves. With an arm held aloft and scrubbing the hair beneath it with his new soap, he looked over at Remiel to see if the angel was still ignoring him, or notching an arrow.

[Ehcorn]

"No," Remi sputtered in Adagio’s direction, but his open-mouthed expression of shock turned into tight-lipped scorn when the other angel sloshed into the ocean — bare ass flashing merrily at him between pink wings — before he could say anything else. Typical. He snorted and crossed his arms over his chest. Adagio had attempted to out-fly his wrath the first time they’d met, too.

He half-glared at the ocean, half-watched Adagio until he realized the dark angel was rubbing the bar of soap into his hair.

"But I brought you shampoo!" he exclaimed. "And conditioner!" Remi uncrossed his arms to scoop the two bottles from the sand where they’d been abandoned. "Soap’s for your body. These," he lifted the bottles so Adagio could see them, "are for your hair. Soap dries it all up!" He lowered and twisted one of the bottles until he could make out rows of tiny print in the dim moonlight. "See, you’re supposed to ‘apply to wet hair after shampooing, massage, let sit for two to three minutes and rinse’."

He tossed one bottle after the other at Adagio and crossed his arms over his chest again to stare at him expectantly.

[Pocky]

Startled, Adagio faced the angel who flung the bottles his way, shrieking. Adagio reached for one of them, unable to catch the other. It splashed near him, luckily bobbing about on the ocean waves, being pushed back towards Remiel.

"When I scrubbed my pubes and armpit hair with this soap you said not a word. What is the difference between them and the hair on my head? You act like I would fall from grace if I hadn't already." The words themselves were a challenge but the tone in which they were spoken was not. Amusement on his face to match the mirth in his voice let Remiel know that Adagio wasn't upset by the reprimand.

He threw the soap towards the shore and it landed near his things before bouncing away, kicking up a puff of sand which also stuck to it. He chased down the second bottle he hadn't captured and sat down in water that washed to his waist or halfway up his chest when a big wave surged forward. By a stroke of luck Adagio used the shampoo first and he rubbed it into his hair. It had a nice smell. The second bottle had a different smell, though in the same wheelhouse as the first. He sniffed it a few times and licked it, pulling a face after he did so.

"It's not salty," he explained to Remiel, who might've wondered what he was doing if he'd watched. "Help me get my tangles out. Please?" Adagio worked his fingers through his hair but they would only travel halfway along before getting caught. The not-salty-white-cream was still not properly rubbed into his hair but he'd used a lot more than necessary.

[Ehcorn]

"Why would it be salty?" Remi blinked. Unless… No, he wouldn’t have thought they’d bottle that and use it to soften their hair, would he? That would be absurd, even for humans, who he’d recently discovered sometimes ate the reproductive parts of other animals because they were under the impression it would increase their own virility.

Then Adagio's request came and he took in the mess Adagio had made of his hair -- the gobs of conditioner and knots that only grew knottier the more he tried to untangle them -- and sighed. There was something childlike and innocent about Adagio’s ineptitude that pulled at his chest and made him ache to help him. He could. He had the proper tool.

Remi sighed again and leaned over to grab the bag and the plastic, wide-toothed comb from within.

He waded into the surf after the dark angel, every step becoming more difficult as his jeans absorbed more water, but he pressed on until he stood at Adagio's back. Remi remained there a moment, only moving when waves knocked into his legs, and endured the discomfort that came with being so close to Adagio until it became background noise. When that finally happened, he tentatively reached out to gather a handful of sopping wet strands to begin working the comb through the ends, careful to hold it all tightly in his fist so he didn’t yank Adagio's hair from the root.

He’d made his way through the first section before he spoke next. 

"Earlier, you referred to it as ‘our world’, even though you were cast out." Remi pulled the comb back to work at a particularly stubborn knot with his forefinger and thumb. "Would you be part of it again if you could?"

[Pocky]

Adagio didn't respond, too busy using handfuls of water that was salty to rinse out his mouth. He watched Remiel wade in, giggling at the look on the angel's face until he could no longer see it.

As Remiel tended to his hair, Adagio's eyes half-lidded until a hint of pain prickled his eye when a couple of strands that Remiel couldn't properly hold or hadn't already fisted were yanked out of his head. He gave a discontented grunt.

The pause between Remiel's question and his answer was brief. "Of course. It is a place of beauty, of happiness and love, of peace and cooperation. Our kind do not fight each other and cheat each other the way these humans do." There was a pause, then a big sigh as he spoke in a voice only barely audible over the constant push of the ocean waves. "It was a mistake, me falling. I did not deserve it. The judgement was harsh and swift. Unmerciful. One minute I am in love and in utopia, the next I am on the streets an outcast. It is hard and unfair and there is no path back, only forward into something unknown. So I took it because I did not wish to feel everything." He laughed, the sound bitter. "I feel everything anyway."

[Ehcorn]

The end of Adagio's response coincided with more tugging and accidental yanking. Remi had found a patch of knots that resisted all his attempts to pluck them apart, be it with comb or finger. He apologized under his breath as he scooped some of the excess conditioner from Adagio's scalp to massage it into the problem area.

"Humans give second chances," he eventually said, almost as quietly as Adagio had spoken of the pain he'd endured. "They have retrials. If a criminal shows they're willing to be better, they're set free to try again."

He inhaled like he might say more, but released the air slowly through his nose as his mouth twisted into a miserable line and his forehead puckered.

For a stretch of time after that, Remi focused only on his task — rubbing at and wiggling the knotted mess of hair until he'd loosened it enough to work the comb through — and their conversation was replaced by the crash of waves, Adagio's occasional grunts of pain, and Remi's soft apologies. He’d nearly finished when he found it in himself to speak of the thing that’d made him fall silent to begin with.

"Angels are capable of lying, you know. Of deceiving. If they believe it’s for the best, that it serves the greater good, they can and they will." His hands grew still and he licked his lips before puffing out a frustrated sigh. "All I mean to say is that neither place is perfect. Here, at least, you get to choose. It’s not all red or white."

Remi nudged the back of his hand into one of the wings he stood between. "Sometimes it’s pink."

And then he grinned.

[Pocky]

Adagio's wings rippled at the mention of pink and he exploded with laughter. It died down in sections as he grew thoughtful.

"Our world is imperfect," Adagio said finally. "The longer you are down here the more obvious it will be. The rules shift and change for us as often as the laws do down here. We have more subtleties but that is because all of us try to do the right thing. So many here want to do the wrong thing. Sometimes rebelling can be empowering. I like it when that happens. Everybody wins and the kick I get is similar to receiving a blessing. Remember those? Fuck they used to make me horny." He roared at the ocean.

[Ehcorn]

Remi’s eyebrows went up but he didn’t remark on either of the dark angel’s outbursts. He had a feeling if he did, he’d only end up encouraging Adagio and he was feral enough as it was. Disengaging would be his best bet. He’d finished with Adagio’s hair, anyway, and had shifted to running the comb through the strands not because they needed to be untangled, but because the repetitive motion soothed him the same way it soothed him to preen before he went to bed.

"I’m finished now," he said, backing up and dipping the comb in the ocean to rinse off all the hair he’d managed to pull from Adagio’s head. When he straightened, he frowned and pocketed the comb so he could grab at what felt like spider’s webbing clinging to his skin. Surely if Adagio had been caring for his hair regularly, it wouldn’t have been so bad, but he’d let it go — let it grow, let it tangle to the point he was lucky Remi hadn’t had to cut the knots out.

He eyed the dark angel. "So how long have you been here, anyway?"

[Pocky]

"I'm still new to this world."

Adagio's eyelids opened gradually. The rushing sound of waves and hypnotic constant combing had soothed him into becoming completely relaxed. He turned his head to speak over his shoulder but with Remi directly behind him he couldn't see. He spoke to the space that almost reached him.

"Five years, perhaps? No, six. Six years on here, two hundred and some years up there. I fear my memory of it will extinguish, that I'll forget what it was like. I don't wish to romanticise it nor become bitter. Though the latter is what they deserve for their exclusion."

He turned the soap in his hands.

[Ehcorn]

Remi unwound the last hair from his wrist and dunked his hands, shaking them in water that had felt cold when he’d first waded out to join Adagio but didn’t feel one way or the other anymore. He straightened and wiped his palms on the thighs of his jeans but they were just as wet.

"I’m afraid of that too, but I wasn’t banished. Only sent away for a while. I’ll be able to return," he told Adagio, frowning down at himself. Wiping his hands on his shirt wasn’t doing much either, but standing in the ocean and trying to dry off at the same time could only be so effective. "If you end up falling, maybe they can be convinced to give that retrial thing a try so you could too."

It was quite the shift from when he’d told Adagio he wouldn’t reverse their ruling against him even if he could. He hadn’t been able to look at the dark angel and smile like he was now, either.

"Come on, we can talk more on the beach," he said, moving to where Adagio could see him and tilting his head towards the shore.

He started that way himself, fingers hooked into one of his belt loops to keep his jeans from falling off as he went.

[Pocky]

Adagio brayed laughter. Its sound was rich and fine on the ocean misted air. "You are the salt in my wound and the peach to my cream," he said, eyes narrowing as another few chuckles escaped him. "Perhaps I should be flattered that you think me so special they would change final judgment on my behalf."

He stood, the soap attempting a quick getaway but with a few fumbles and derp faces, Adagio had the soap under control.

"The trick is not to squeeze it tightly," he informed Remiel.

Adagio waded out, the sand that his feet kicked up immediately clung to his legs but he did not mind the abrasive quality. It reminded him of the home he'd made for himself--well, discovered. The graininess was reminiscent of the texture of his earthen walls.

Adagio sorted the plastic bag so the opening was presented to him and dropped the soap into it. Looking at Remiel he wondered if the bottles and comb would be returned to him or if the service provided required it to stay in Remiel's area of containment.

[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?"

[Pocky]

The question at the end about who he sacrificed had him ruffling his feathers.

"Don't you remember the rule?" Adagio snarked. "Even the mudders on this planet got it right; you are not the one who is allowed to judge. That falls to your leader alone, the one who rules our world and wishes to also rule this one."

Breathing heavy and heart pounding in his chest, Adagio had more to share. "The ritual that made me what I am is one from an Earth-born civilisation. I didn't create this corruption, I used the tools left over. Condemn me if you wish but then you must condemn every soul on this wretched globe."

Moving closer and no longer afflicted by the opposing force that light and dark manifested--perhaps because he'd been healed by this one--Adagio finished quietly. "My heart was filled with light until I fell. The darkness in me now is not a choice but necessity for survival. Would that I have been killed an angel, I would have suffered less."

[Ehcorn]

Adagio moved closer but Remi stood his ground, squaring his shoulders and tilting his head to glare up at him.

"Not a choice? Not a choice? There was always a choice, Adagio! You were made mortal when you fell. You didn't need the darkness to survive on this plane, you needed it to extend your life beyond theirs, to make you more powerful than them. You could've filled the hole in by living out an entire life without hurting anyone, but you chose to sacrifice an innocent because you couldn't cope with being less than."

He breathed a laugh and ran his hand through his still damp hair. "Do you even want to become fallen again? Or did you tell me what you thought I wanted to hear so I'd spare you?"

[Pocky]

“What do you know of falling?” Adagio shot back. “I died that day. No friends, no family, an outcast from my home because I dared to brag! Falling rips away everything and everyone you’ve ever loved. Becoming mortal was like being deaf and blind in a world I didn’t understand. I was scared, alone and grieving, I only lasted two days before I sought out something better. There was no choice! Nobody would choose to live in confusion and fear!”

Adagio spun away, his fingers clutching his freshly washed and brushed hair and elbows covering his face. The sea wind tugged at him, salt and sand mingling in the air with each crash of the waves. After a moment he released his hold and lowered his arms, facing Remiel once more. When next he spoke it was in a softer tone, one of persuasion.

“I understand this world now. I can try again. Falling now would be a choice.”

[Ehcorn]

The hand he'd put through his hair went to his face next. Remi scrubbed at the side of his nose, under an eye, and then down and across his mouth, groaning as he did so.

"Your second chance," he finally said, referencing the conversation they'd had earlier while Adagio had knelt in the ocean and he'd stood behind him, carefully untangling his unkempt hair.

"Alright. Fine, but I want you to know something." He dropped his hands to his sides and looked searchingly at Adagio, trying to get a read on his expression as he continued. "I don't hate you. I hate what's happened to you. I hate what you've done. But I don't hate you."

He sighed. "It'd be easier if I did, though."

[Pocky]

Adagio puffed short breath with relief etched deeply on his handsome face.

"That makes two of us," he said after a moment, looking to the side towards the middle distance. "You should know, guilt and self-loathing are not absent in our species. I act and am rewarded with an intensity of power and when it subsides I feel remorse. It is a pattern I find difficult to break." He gave Remiel a twist of the lips in a parody of a smile. "Looking at you is bittersweet. You remind me of what I have lost but you also--" he faltered in his sentence, expression shifting as he considered his next words. "You also remind me of how far removed I am from myself. Does that make sense?"

[Ehcorn]

"I think so," he said after a stretch of time spent pursing his lips and narrowing his eyes and fidgeting with a few damp coins in his pockets. "You weren't all that different from me, once, but it's easy to forget when no one is there to remind you."

Maybe that's all he'd ever needed. The reminder. Not banishment. Guidance.

"I want this to work," he said abruptly, and with enough adamance that his voice carried easily over the endless sound of crashing waves. "I want to help you fall and I want to go back and show them that it can be different. That we don't have to kill each other." The tinking of coins stopped and he smiled wistfully. "Wouldn't that be something? You and me, putting an end to a war that's been waged for millennia?"

[Pocky]

A quizzical tilt of Adagio's head was quickly followed by a toothy smile. The mauve-winged angel nodded at Remiel's words. "Our world is hanging on the balance of your success," he said before laughing soundly at the sky.