Author: Chauni

RP: Take My Wings

Notes: In response to a ficlet PC wrote where Kyosuke (Nathanael’s vessel) killed him, and how Azrael deals with such a blow.

Fire
(The Birth of Disease)

"The me that you know had some second thoughts
He's covered with scabs and he is broken and sore
The me that you know doesn't come around much
That part of me isn't here anymore."

~Nine Inch Nails ~ "The Becoming"

I wish I could say that it was the romantic notion of our sacred bond that signaled his passing for me, that even across the mental static of a city crammed full of the mortal blood, I could still hear him tell me he loved him as he faded. I wish it was that genuine storybook romance that allowed me to feel him slip away, swept on a wave of cold oblivion that would deposit him wherever it pleased. I wish I could have had that to soothe me, to ease the agony caused by his absence.

But I am no fool. I simply knew because of the power that hummed from his direction was snuffed out, a candle in a cathedral overtaken by the cool kiss of night wind. Angels forever know when one of their brethren is taken away. No romance, no fate; a simple fact of an electrical charge slicing through the air, too high for mortals to hear.

The second Kazu heard it whisper through my thoughts, the moment he felt my despair, he was overcome with his own, realization creating a slow dawn over his senses. A primal wail bubbled from his throat, even as he dropped to his knees in the apartment, scraping them brutally. His cries were wordless, thoughtless, wrenching noises of the dead.

He was riddled with spaces, with holes.

I did not ask, finding no need for pleasantries at this point. If he would not put this body to a decent use, if he could find a constructive act, then I would. I simply snatched it all away, grabbing him by the scruff of his small neck and throwing him behind, letting him keen and sob in the back of my mind, pleading for it to be false, for it not to be true, and oh, won't I tell him that it isn't true?!

I held no pity for him, nothing. His pathetic lover had snatched mine and taken him to Hell. He had taken all of my joy, all of my light, all the flowers and left me nothing. A selfish brat, childish and sorry, no concern for me, for Kazu, for N...for...

I was silent, impassive as I made my way to the bedroom. Kazu's clothing was hardly appropriate for the purging of a society that tore him from me. If Kyosuke had not been subject to the cheap life of worthless sex and alcohol, to abusive parents and damning nightlife, then my …angel might still be with me. If this hellspawn of a spinning planet was wiped clean, if people feared, if the soul was purified by terror, then the world could be the quiet, respectful place it was intended to be.

Nothing sears like the broken heat of fear, wide-eyed and helpless, knowing you are powerless.

I understood so much, what God is, what He intended. All of the wingless abortions are corrupt, were tainted, were hate-filled and destructive and selfish and hateful. They were what forced us to battle; they were the bane of all existence. They were the ones deserving of divine wrath, of pain, of purification wrought from their own selfish desires. They were what taint the world.

I would make it pure.

I would kill them all, watch their bones crush beneath my fingers, turned to dust by their own failures. And if I could win God's favor, if I could redeem my bloody wings in His eye, maybe...maybe He could return my Nathanael to me. Maybe... maybe my Father could make this pain disappear.

Kazu was a series of hysterics in my mind; if I could have struck him, if I could have slit his pretty little throat to silence him, I would have. I know why Kyosuke did this, know it was due to the engagement; I am no fool. This was his fault. He drove him to it.

I ignored Kazu instead, white noise and static in my head.

I tore the flimsy clothes from my body, the satin shirt tearing with movie-produced ease and crumpling to the side of the bed, the short shirt following in quick succession. Gremory was not home; fortunate for him, for I would have snapped his neck where he stood, just another tainted soul. I ripped through the drawers, pulled out his clothes and tossed them over my shoulder, the fabric fluttering down like snow. Finally, coming across a pair of relaxed denim pants a simple cotton shirt, I stormed out of the apartment.

I ravaged Kazu's tormented thoughts, raped him of the information I needed, then shoved him back into the corner to whimper and plead for me to stop. He could not avoid my hatred, my rage, all the waves that had no words. Good. I wanted him to know, wanted him to know everything before I could find that damned Mazikeen and put an end to them both in one blow.

The streets were cold, frozen with a lack of conscious care. My wings itched to be released, to unfurl from the prison of flesh where they are encased like precious baubles, but now was not the time. My breath wafted in front of me, lazy and mesmerizing the moment it spilled from my pinked lips; damn Kazu had used makeup today and I had forgotten to be rid of it. No matter. Nothing mattered, most certainly not something as fickle as an appearance through the eyes of a few select idiots.

I could feel the bitterness inside me, could feel the harsh numbness that settled in all my limbs, but I called it The Truth. This was the One Path, the absolution I needed, screamed for, cracked my lips and bled for. This would earn me salvation in some form, and what form mattered not in the least. This was all that needed to be done. Whatever the cost. Whatever the loss. It would all be mine. I would tear down all society, I would bathe in the dripping blood of the masses, if only it would vindicate what had been done.

I would take my beloved’s place, and my Vengeance would be divine.

The destination I sought was seven city blocks east and three south. I was never approached, the sworn promise of death thick in my ebony aura, the active shifting of my back beneath the thin cotton shirt. Even with my long hair brushing against my waist, the slight weight of my body, the smooth features of my face, I was never accosted. My eyes were too dead.

Corpses are not fun to play with, you know.

I could feel the sin and decadence filtering through the black brick walls that had shifted into view, the neon lights describing the name basking the street in cheap pink light, a whore’s paradise. Kyosuke had frequented here, his scent, his feel still thick around it as if he had pressed his body against every wall, marking it as his precious territory. This was his land, this corrupted him, this killed my Nathanael and tore him bleeding from my arms. The flat eyes of a few kids lingering outside landed on me, and I said nothing as I stalked past them, the back of my shirt beginning to bulge, to strain, and finally tear as the doors closed on an ebony world of black feathers.

Kazu screamed inside my head, and ever so politely, I silenced him for the last time.

~*~

Most assume that death is a silent little practice, that after there is little else than decaying tissue and still remains, there is a lull, a sort of hush that grabs everything in the room. They forget the dripping of the blood, or the shifting of weight as gravity takes hold of still, clumsy muscles. They forget the body's natural form of expelling what lingers inside.

I stood in a room painted crimson by the blood and insides of fifty-seven people, smelling nothing but fear and shit and death. Walls cried scarlet, the floor an uneven carpet of cadavers, entrails draped like Christmas lights along the bar. My feet stepped in thick puddles and splashed it against my saturated jeans, the blood having long since seeped through all my clothing to the burning flesh beneath. The sound of settling was still permeating the air, the shifting of organs, the steady drip of blood, the spongy spill of intestines spilling onto the wet floor.

There were only two living sounds: my labored panting and the final sacrifice as he hung from his bound, crucified position against one wall. He was a pretty little thing, no more than nineteen, lean and short with the most striking scarlet hair and piercing green eyes. Blood ran in a lazy crawl from thirteen superficial cuts that scattered his naked chest, pooling to the top of his dark jeans. He was talking, or trying to, but it was difficult to hear him through the wires cutting into his throat, pulled savagely from the radio equipment at the front of the club. It split the flesh like supple fruit, wine pouring from where it slid into his wrists, his ankles, his neck.

The shifting club lights flickered, changing the scene to green, to blue, jaundice and blood. I watched the brightness of white strike the haunted pallor of his skin, then shift to a black light that illuminated it in a split-second heartbeat of mourning glory. I had tied him slightly above me, and as I pressed my ear against his chest, I could feel the heightened vibrating of his simple little heart.

“You could have been just like him,” I murmured through stained lips. “You could have been my new angel.”

My lips found the cold sweat of his flesh, tasting the blood that had careened down. It was metallic and bitter, addictive in its raw nature. Looking up through my lashes, I spied the glaring wash of scarlet hair, chopped at his shoulders, a shame. His eyes were so frightened, staring down at me, so wide, so pathetically afraid. The palm of my hand found his cheek, and it fit so perfectly in the cup of it, as if it had been made for that purpose, to be held and crushed by me.

“You look like him, almost,” I hissed, voice cracking. “You almost look like him…”

“Puh-please…”

The poor boy was sobbing, and I could feel the torrent of tears dripping onto my damp, sticky hair. I ignored them, but simply relished in the fear, in the hot wash of terror as it overpowered the other scents in the air. This was all fickle, all for show, for my own sense of justice, and I was pleased.

My eyes slid off to the side, eyeing the bare wall between the arm and his side, the cool surface hard and naked. It was the glaring reminder, the obvious cry of a flawed individual, the wakeup to my dream. I could feel my hate growing, the growl emanating in the back of my throat as I pulled away, as the cold settled over my stiffening clothes. The boy sighed gently, hidden from my ears, before I leveled my metal eyes against his.

“But you are flawed. All of you are flawed and pathetic and wingless,” I growled, fingers twitching. “You are walking abortions that were forgotten. You are the taint of this world, hated and hateful, needing to be destroyed. You are nothing but a failure, you and every other wingless fool that inhabits this earth. You have taken what is beautiful, what is great, and decimated it!”

One of my hands slid over the narrow expanse of his chest, before curling around the wires at his throat. I pulled them taunt, watching a new wash of blood spurt forth, tasting it as it sprayed my lips, slid between my teeth and rested along my tongue.

“You could never be him! He was perfect! He was perfect and you killed him!”

I wasn’t sure when I had begun to cry, but their taste settled onto my tongue as well, thick and mixing salt with metal. His eyes were starting to glaze as the waterfall continued, and my fist struck his chest with all the rage I contained. Ribs cracked, the flesh falling in on a drastic cave.

“You can’t die yet! You have to suffer as he did! Your sins are not clean!”

I struck again, the sickening sound of ribs cracking in blood drowning out the other sounds of death. I was screaming, my voice cracking as tears and blood and split flew from my mouth, running down the shattered chest.

“God does not want you! God hates you! I hate you! You should not be! You should not be!”

The stark whiteness of moonbeam flesh illuminated like mercury beneath the black light, and I slid down his crushed chest, nail raking across his flesh. I could feel the bones-turned-dust as I fell, as I went and struck my knees against the puddle that had formed beneath his suspended, still body.

“Bring him back! Give him back to me! Give my Nathanael back to me!”

Doubling over, I buried my face into the blood against the ground, wings heavy with the streams of crimson that bathed the glossy ebony plumage. I could feel the scarlet against my eyelashes, could feel it in my mouth and against my cheeks. I was drowning in it, in everything, and I never wanted to breathe again, because it was agony when I did.

“I want him back….I want my Nathanael back…come back, come back to me…I can’t do this alone…I can’t do it alone…”

My rage faded away, the hate, the blame, all of it seeped out of my body. My anger was pathetic, and now, now I was forced to wrestle with my guilt, my shame. I had killed. I had indulged in what I had hated in myself for centuries. I had become what our Father made me.

I pulled myself up like a puppet with all but one string snipped, and clung to the bottom of my final murder’s cuff. I tugged, sobbing, feeling his death, feeling his fluids sliding down and pooling at my knees. I had taken an innocent, torn and massacred all this poor souls and the only offense was that they existed…and my Nathanael did not.

“I’m sorry. I’m so…so sorry…Please forgive me. Please, please forgive me…”

I could hear Lucifer’s voice in my head, memories overlapping as he claimed this was God’s crime, that He had been the reason for my angel’s death. I hated the world in the several heartbeats, and so many would be suffering as I had. I had given into my instincts, into my genetic makeup, had let down my reigns and indulged in the way I had been crafted. I was a murderer, a killer, worthless and destructive.

“I didn’t mean it… I didn’t mean to…I’m so sorry…I’m so sorry…”

I buried my face into the pantleg, sobbing, just another bodily liquid to mingle with the others. No one could hear me cry, no one could hear my grief. Nathanael was not hear to look on with shame, or to hold me and force this agony away. I was alone. Alone forever.

Feather tips made foreign patters against the floor, new age painting for the blind. No one was there to listen to my pleas, but I made them anyway. God had abandoned me the day I stepped onto the dais. There was nothing.

“I didn’t…want this…Never wanted this…I’m sorry…so sorry…”

I didn’t hear the door open, never struck me as strange since I locked it. I never turned, never noticed the presence, the soaking footsteps that weaved with ease between the body and entrails that littered the floor. Even when I felt the hand on my shoulder, comforting, squeezing, I was slow to react, slow to cease my tears.

“Come on, Azrael. Let’s get out of here.”

I let my hands fall to my sides, hanging limply as I climbed to my feet. I did not bother to peer at the one who had come, who had followed my rage to this missed climatic moment; I threw myself into their arms, sobbing over my tainted hands, my fingers burned and creased with blood.

“I’m so sorry… I didn’t…”

“Shhh.” A consoling hand rested at my back, rubbing it, before the person pulled away. A warm hand encircled my scarred wrist, another shackle, another promise. I didn’t mind.

I do not think I would ever mind much of anything again.

The End