Of Wings And Wishes

[Existentially Odd]

The time had come. All eyes were on him. Samuel needed to speak... but the words seemed stuck in his throat.

It was he that had organised this meeting, booking an audience with Ben Samson and Kerr Galvin at their office space in The Luminary. Here they all sat in Kerr's office, finally settled in his lounge area after everyone had chosen their seat. Kerr was in one of the armchairs and Sam was in the other, opposite him, leaving Ben on the long couch in between and Remi on the plush ottoman situated to the right of Sam's armchair. It was in the large space close to the plate glass wall and might have been brought there specifically to cater for Remi's wings. Sam was impressed, if that was the case.

So far, the only words spoken between the four men had been meaningless pleasantries. They'd exchanged names and polite enquiries after the general wellbeing of the others but now the pressure to get to the real agenda was on. Ben and Kerr were looking expectantly between Sam and Remi, the four of them forming a haphazard square (though Remi was sticking pretty closely to Sam, their knees pressed against each other) so that they could all see one another from where they sat. The vampire power couple had no idea why they were there, though, and they seemed eager to get on with it.

Sam swallowed and cleared his throat, realising belatedly that he hadn't planned out the content of the meeting into a strict order. He'd thought he'd just start at the most logical place and continue from there but, now that he was under pressure, that seemed like a really stupid idea. Why hadn't he made notes? Brought palm cards? Jotted something onto his phone? Beneath the scrutiny of Ben's intense gaze, he immediately felt like a failure and doubt undermined his resolve. He cleared his throat again, wondering if they thought he was overdressed in his grey suit and maroon tie. It'd seemed like a formal occasion, so he'd... his whirring thoughts cut off the instant he felt Remi's warm hand on top of his, stopping his fingers from tapping his knee with a gentle squeeze.

It was what he needed. A gesture of reassurance. With a grateful smile at his lover, Sam sat up a little straighter and looked Ben in the eye. "We're here for a few business-related things and some personal ones as well," he opened, relief trickling through him as his voice didn't waver. He sounded calm and together! He switched his eye contact, looking at Kerr instead. "We need your help. But let's start with the business." He looked back at Ben.

"We wanted to tell you that Remi got fined by the Ward for flying in the city uncloaked. We paid the fine but District Leader McCloud summoned him anyway. He made real nice with Remi but he didn't hardly spare me a glance," Sam drawled, a wry twist lifting the corner of his mouth. The apparent humour didn't reach his blue eyes; they showed how upset he'd been by Jake's treatment. "Interestingly - well, generously, I guess - he's given the penthouse of The Capital building to Remi to live in. Bought it for him without being asked. Remi signed the papers and took it over last night and Jake was all over Remi, smiling and grabbing at him. All the while, he talked about what good friends they'll be and how glad he is to have an angel in the neighbourhood. My question is this: do y'all think he's gonna put Remi in danger? Like... what do you think he'll bribe Remi into doing?"

~*~

Kerr blinked at Sam's blunt question, finally managing to snap out of his worshipful daze. From the moment he'd first seen Remiel, with his oh-so-white wings, beautiful face and graceful demeanour, he knew he'd been staring. He hadn't been able to help it. The wings... they were just so white and real! They were huge and awe-inspiring and Kerr couldn't help but wonder what his long-dead mam would say if she saw him taking a meeting with an actual angel. There was something so much more imposing about Remiel than Zoheret or Saraekiel could ever manage, he didn't know exactly why. Maybe it was just the shiny white feathers? Maybe it was Remi's palpable goodness? Either way, he hadn't had to say too much during the initial conversation, allowing him to wallow in all his religious, fanboying glory over the angel in his office.

Nothing tainted awe like the mention of Jake McCloud, though. Kerr's brow furrowed and he glanced at Ben, immediately conflicted. Remi shouldn't have taken Jake's bribe in the first place, though he could understand the guy accepting. It wasn't every night someone offered you a multi-million dollar home just because they wanted to manipulate you. Kerr was also excited by the prospect that Jake wanted to buy Remi's loyalty so that he'd hold the best weapon against the dark angels infesting the city. Perhaps he'd even use Remi to attack? A thrill of excitement washed through him at the thought that Remi could kill Saraekiel.

He held his tongue for the time being, his gaze raking Remi's form thoughtfully, wondering if this beautiful man could plunge a blade through the heart of his fucking nemesis and release him from the one blight on his relationship with Ben once and for all. A guy could fantasise.

[Trillian]

Ben's silver-blue eyes flicked from Sam to Remi and back again, his thoughts not straying too far from Kerr's. His anger was triggered more obviously, though, and because he didn't have Jake fucking McCloud here to take it out on, he took it out on them.

"Seriously?" he scoffed at Samuel. "You call it generous in one breath and a bribe in another, it can't be both. Jake McCloud is not generous. He's selfish. He's a user, unfit for the power that he wields for himself, without a thought for the city. Do you think he has Central District's interests at heart or maybe he just wants an angel close by because he wants Remi to execute the other two District Leaders who are dark angels. Two people who Jake's supposed to be working with, by the way." Ben huffed his disdain.

He looked at Remi next. "The District Leaders are supposed to come to meetings here, at Ward Headquarters. How easy would it be for Jake to point you at them and make you his personal assassin? What do you think he'll do once they're dead? Sit on his hands and wait for someone to elect leaders in the north? Or do you think he'll just take those two districts over like he did with the west? And do you think he'll protect you if you slay two District Leaders? Or even one? He can't protect you from their murders, even if you do it in his District. The Ward would have you and judge you. And their laws for murder are very much an eye for an eye."

He stopped talking to let his words sink in. Fucking fools.

[Ehcorn]

The derisive tone Ben took with Sam had an immediate effect on Remi. He sat up straighter, pushed his shoulders back, and flicked his wings in agitation. The sound of his quills rustling and clattering might’ve been lost to all but Sam, who he tightened his grip on and glanced at, trying to determine how he felt about what was happening. Before he could read his expression, though, Ben began sharing his less-than-favorable opinion about the District Leader and Remi faced him again, his lips thinning and his brow lowering as he narrowed his eyes. Selfish, user, unfit, untrustworthy, thoughtless. He didn’t have a single good thing to say about the man, and it didn’t mesh at all with the opinion Remi had formed of Jake.

"You act like I don't have a say in the matter," he said stiffly once Ben had relinquished his hold on the conversation. "I was given the penthouse as a gift. I didn't become his personal weapon. I don’t belong to him. If I pursued a dark angel, it wouldn’t be Jake's doing. It would be my desire to protect the people in this city from them."

He thought of Adagio, then, and how he’d flown to the beach intending to execute him because he thought that was the only way he could stop his corrupting influence from spreading, but in his failure to do so, he’d made a discovery.

"I might not have to kill them anymore to do it, though," he said. He continued to look intently at Ben, his excitement at finding an alternative coming to light in his eyes. "If they’re receptive, I believe I can help them become fallen again. They wouldn’t have magic corrupting them anymore, forcing them to feed it by... well, by corrupting others, too."

The angel’s gaze drifted to Ben’s chest. He’d felt it emanating from him the moment they'd met — the same stomach-churning prickliness that he felt any time he stepped too close to a dark angel. It was faint, but it was there, buzzing like a fluorescent lightbulb about to go out.

"Does it hurt you?" he asked quietly, his expression softening when he looked up again.

[Trillian]

I might not have to kill them... anymore?

Ben frowned darkly at the angel, concerned about Saraekiel in a way he hadn't before. He knew that angels and dark angels were at war because of the books Halen had possessed, tomes that declared how the angelic plane had been at war for many millennia. How many dark angels had Remi killed already? And had he done it here or on his own plane?

His talking about making them fall again - Ben couldn't see Saraekiel wanting that for himself. He could see it now, Remi trying to talk Ben's dark lover into surrendering all of his powers just so he didn't have to be executed. Nope. It would be kill or be killed.

Already he was feeling anxious and hostile to the angel before him because he was a threat to someone Ben cared about... and now as the white-winged creature's gaze fell to his chest, he knew what was coming even before it was said. Had Kerr lined this up a fucking intervention?

Does it hurt you?

Ben's sour gaze found Kerr, accusing him before he looked back at Remi. "No." Ice in his voice.

[Existentially Odd]

Samuel's eyes widened as Ben launched into a diatribe about how awful Jake McCloud was and how Remi's affiliation with him could lead to him executed. It was difficult to think past those hysterical extremes until Remiel started speaking and cut through it all with logic. Sam turned to watch him speak, his gaze settling and a small smile gracing his lips as he gazed at the angel. Ben had voiced Sam's worst fears but Remi soothed them by pointing out his autonomy.

The only time he and Remi had been apart in the last few days had been when he'd gone to visit the dark angel at the beach. Sam thought it was odd that he was befriending Adagio but he understood the theory behind it. As a scholar, he was intrigued by the prospect of an angel re-falling and was keen for the lack of bloodshed - anything that kept Remi safe was the right choice, in Sam's opinion. It was almost a battle of nature versus nurture and, though he had his doubts, he was hopeful. It was all learning.

If Jake decided to rebel against Remi's refusal to bend to him and have him attack dark angels in the future, his time with Adagio would be useful. On a personal level, they could be in real trouble, though. Jake wouldn't take lightly to being refused. Hopefully it would just mean the loss of the penthouse and that they'd have Ben's support going forward. That was the main reason he'd brought Remi here tonight - to make him known to Ben. As the future District Leader, he was a necessary ally (just like Jake was right now). The fact that Remi liked Jake irked Sam but not nearly as much as it did Ben, apparently.

He could only frown in confusion when Remi asked Ben if something hurt, noting from the body language on every other man in the room that they understood the question. Sam's gaze shifted animatedly between his companions, trying to decipher the mystery that had Ben so on edge.

~*~

Ben's initial attack on Jake didn't surprise Kerr but the angle that followed did. He tilted his head and frowned at Ben as he fretted over Jake using Remi to assassinate Zoheret and Saraekiel. His repeated mention of the north had Kerr's lips tightening into a stiff line and the excitement that had been burbling down their blood bond (because he'd been genuinely impressed by meeting the angel) withered, hardened and darkened. Seriously? He was so afraid of his precious fucking Ray being killed that he tried to scare the shit out of Remi in order to dissuade him from doing it?

For the first time, Kerr felt pity for Ben; it nestled in his heart with all the fear curled there. Ben was so blinded by Saraekiel's sexual impact that not only did he fail to see his overall ineptitude but now he was passively threatening a being of light? It was appalling and Kerr was ashamed. It was the sort of knee-jerk reaction Ben chided Jake for.

Kerr cast a sympathetic look at Sam - he was already a different man at Remi's side than he'd been at Vomas' - before he listened to Remiel's response. Kerr was impressed that Remiel could think for himself but the notion of not killing dark angels sorely disappointed Kerr. He couldn't see any dark angel willingly falling away from their power and he hoped that that wasn't Remi's only way of dealing with them. Death should certainly still be an option, as far as he was concerned.

When Remiel mentioned Ben in pain and cast a pointed look at his chest, it took only a moment for Kerr to realise what he was talking about. The filthy fucking mark. Hope burst through him like a flare shot into the night sky, leaving him tingling with so much pleasure and excitement that Ben's tone didn't even register. Instinctively, he sat forward, his face alight with expectancy, missing Ben's look at him as well. "Can you get rid of it?" he asked Remi urgently, his grin broad.

[Trillian]

"Fuck you," Ben spat at Kerr the instant the question was out of his mouth. He had no ability to withhold his instinct, he was already livid.

[Existentially Odd]

Kerr swivelled towards Ben, his expression one of shock. "What?" he asked, belatedly registering Ben's mood with a sweeping glance. "You don't want... it gone?" he asked stiltedly, sourness curling inside him.

A strange cold feeling crawled over his skin, making his face feel hot but the rest of him cold... which was stupid, since such differences in temperature were foreign concepts.

He hadn't anticipated Ben not wanting it gone. He... couldn't think beyond that. Didn't want to. Couldn't.

[Trillian]

Kerr's reaction brought doubt to the surface, enough so that his instinctive reply about jealousy and pettiness over who Ben took to bed was wiped away.

He realised, after the briefest of moments, that maybe this meeting wasn't an extravagant way to get the mark off his skin.

Well done, Ben
You figured out the world doesn't actually revolve around you

"I thought..." How humiliating, to demonstrate his misinterpretation out loud. "Never mind. We'll talk about the mark after we find out why Sam and Remi are here, okay?" he said, sound as stiff as he felt.

[Existentially Odd]

Kerr continued to frown at Ben, hitting that glass wall inside of himself and unwilling to push past it. Or look at it. He knew what was on the other side. At Ben's urging, he turned to look back at the couple opposite him, only half paying attention to them.

~*~

Samuel glanced at Remi, uncertain what was happening. The mark? Remiel hadn't answered but he took Ben's words as his cue to continue with their meeting agenda and perhaps diffuse the astronomical tension that had suddenly arisen between his boss and his partner. It was a daunting task.

"Uh... okay," he agreed, looking away from a silent exchange with Remi and back to Ben. He flicked a glance at Kerr but whatever was going on with him had turned him dark and glowery so it was easier not to look in his direction either.

"So there's a couple other things besides Remi being beholden to Jake. I wanted y'all to meet, obviously, but, uh, Remi needs a bit of help.  More than I can give him. See, I wondered if either of you knew if it would be possible to cure claustrophobia? I mean, Jake was making noises about making Remi his Sheriff but when we first met him at the White Rabbit, Remi couldn't get properly inside before he had a panic attack. If the Sheriff thing were to happen, Remi couldn't get in the building. He doesn't do well in elevators or any buildings, really. Is it possible?"

Sam really wanted to look at Kerr, aware that he was a much older vampire and likely the one to be able to answer this question but he couldn't bring himself to do it. He squeezed Remi's hand just to acknowledge and reassure him while still staring at Ben.

[Trillian]

Ben closed his eyes to will away his frustration with Jake fucking McCloud.

"I have a cure for Remi's claustrophobia in mind, but I want to find something out first if you'll permit me," he said through a tight smile. "How beholden do you want to be to Jake? Because you say you have your own agency, but if you accept the penthouse and become his Sheriff, you're choosing a side. His side. Is that what you want?"

He wanted an answer about that before he gave them any answers they wanted.

[Ehcorn]

Remi had glanced back at Sam and shrugged, equally unsure what was going on. He'd been prepared to offer to cure Ben of whatever the dark angel had done to him, but with the way he'd reacted to being asked about it, and how Kerr had reacted... He was still trying to process everything when the subject shifted to his crippling fear of losing access to the sky any time he found himself surrounded by four solid walls and a roof. Getting to the floor Ben and Kerr wanted to meet them on had been more challenging than it'd had any right to be. Rationally, he'd known the elevator wouldn't trap him forever, but the doors had closed and his mind had shut down. It'd taken a plethora of gentle touches and coaxing from Sam just to bring him back enough to step off when it came time.

Yes, he needed help.

But first there was a question.

"His side?" Remi repeated, blinking. "I don't want to choose a side. I want to help people. Becoming the sheriff for his district would give me resources and connections to help more than I can help alone. If I could get them another way, I would."

[Trillian]

Ben watched Remi for a moment before his stare flicked to Sam, who he gave a quizzical look to. Eventually he glanced back at the angel.

"So you want to help people, using resources that you don't normally have access to, and you don't want to choose a side. Why haven't you signed up with the Ward?"

[Ehcorn]

"I didn’t know I could," he admitted after a long stretch of silence filled with shifting thinking expressions -- more blinking, some lip pursing, and a brief stint staring into the distance. "They weren’t kind to me when they found me flying. Do you think they’d want me?"

[Trillian]

Ben smirked. "No, they're generally not kind when someone is caught doing the wrong thing. But they're neutral, which is what you want, and their objective is to keep the peace, and if you sign up with them you'll know all the rules, and I know for a fact they want to bolster the ranks. There are signup sheets downstairs at their reception, and you can even pick one up at the Luminary's front desk."

After a brief pause... "Would you be opposed to letting a powerful vampire into your head to take the claustrophobia out? Because Kerr had a favourable experience with something similar," Ben said, then looked at Kerr for him to explain.

[Existentially Odd]

Samuel frowned the whole time Remi and Ben spoke, holding his tongue because he hadn't thought of Remi joining the Ward. Even if he had, he doubted he would've brought it up because the thought of his... Remi have a job in addition to his general altruistic tendencies was disheartening. Between his work, Remi's work and Remi's penchant for sleeping, when would they ever see each other? Still, he had to admit that Remi working for the Ward would be a good fit.

The mention of a powerful vampire digging around in Remi's head had Sam's interest captured immediately. He'd thought it might be something that Kerr was capable of doing but Ben was obviously talking about someone else doing the deed. At least they didn't say it couldn't be done.  It just had to come from an unknown party. Sam's gaze shifted to Kerr as he spoke at last, the mild lilt of his accent making him extra interesting to listen to.

~*~

Kerr held Ben's gaze a beat too long, his mind still fretting about the argument they were going to have because Ben wanted to keep that hideous mark? He just didn't... couldn't fathom... it gutted him to consider it. Thinking about Charon was much easier.

He turned to look at Remi instead of Ben. "I think curing your claustrophobia is a bit beyond my capabilities. Charon is ancient and would be able to help you where I can't. He removed a command I'd had in my mind for four hundred years, so claustrophobia should be easy for him. It won't hurt," Kerr assured the angel, summoning a smile. It didn't reach his eyes.