paradise l o s t

“I will not touch a single hair on your body. You have my promise.” The promise was vague enough to not stop him from acting indirectly and have Mazikeen obliterate Gabriel should his presence in Lux become inconvenience. With the celestial battle raging on Earth it was hard enough to set the piano bar as a neutral zone, the last thing he needed was the sorry brother of his barging in and ruining it in one day.

The clients were scarce, all scattered around the bar. Upon Gabriel’s entrance a few heads turned around but the wounded man hardly attracted their attention. They have seen worse things. The war was raging outside after all. Luckily for the archangel Gabriel, nobody seemed to have recognised him in the battered man who walked through the door. They took him for yet another victim of the war.

“You act like I am the one owing you a favour brother,” having completely ignored Gabriel’s wish to be left alone (not while he’s bleeding on the perfectly fine couch, those were especially hard to come by these days), he continued talking, “while in fact I believe it is the opposite. Or have you forgotten about me saving your life.” A short pause. “Twice now, dare I assume?”

“That’s not….always true though, is it?” She challenged him softly, speaking as if considering a….simple math problem, “Your duty hasn’t always come first…has it? As I remember, you have rebelled a time or two…” She concluded in a sing-song manner, a smile stretching across her lips. 

She slipped off the table, choosing instead to walk around the room, each step precise, almost seeming…prowl-like as she looked around her, before her blue eyes came back to rest on Gabriel.

“Well, that depends….what was the last…you heard of him?” She asked

“Oh, busy sacrificing a village for his own gain,” he said, airily. “Picked off its population one by one, and they all did it of their own free will. Classic Lucifer, when you think about it." Credit where it was due, et cetera. Perhaps that ingenuity was why Father had first ordered him killed. "I thought you would have an idea where he would have gone next. The two of you did have a... connection.” Gabriel mused for a moment, looking for all intents and purposes like he had all the time in the world. Then he leaned forwards and spoke with a flash of steel-sharp smile.

“Well, of course it is,” Lilith spoke with a confidence, a….certainty that there was no other option but to view meeting her as anything besides…well, the honour that it was. “I wish I could say the same, but….I’ve never been interested in playing to a man’s ego. Even an archangel as….interesting as you” 

She dismissed the free chair and instead chose to place herself on the table instead, legs crossed, dangling over the edge. 

“I hear you’ve been a busy boy”

Gabriel dismissed her remark with an enigmatic expression as if he was trying to encourage a particularly under-performing student. A man, woman, those didn’t really matter to him since this corporeal body was merely a vessel--a lesson he had learnt the hard way.

Bowing good, got it. Or at least bowing entertaining, and an entertained superpowered charming not-human-person was one that was less likely to do something painful. Or at least painful to Ethan, and that was the bit that really mattered, wasn’t it?

“A Chosen One…?” he echoed. Well, yeah, he’d heard of plenty of Chosen Ones. Dime a dozen, if one believed prophecies, or maybe it would really have been just one person doing all the things in which case they were probably being run ragged. Hypothetically. Seemed like the choosing of the ones had been thrown out of whack, hadn’t it? “Forces of order reasserting themselves and all, that would be it? Bringing back the old days and—and Queen and Council and all?” The concept of why would I want that? hit the urge to agree to anything Gabriel suggested, and selfishness won out. 

“Don’t think I’d want that. Things as they were. It’s not a paradise, this world, never was, and the people the old days were good for… well, they’re not mine.” He raised his chin to meet Gabriel’s — very intense — gaze. “I’m happy—honored, really to do the job, though. Be your eyes. Just… what’s in it for me?”

With youth came that dangerous mixture of pride and stupidity, after all.

“Maybe it’s fun. With the eyeballs.” The words were out of Ethan’s mouth before he really managed to think about them. “I mean, people do things for fun, right? Maybe the eyeballs and gut-hanging is fun for demons.” Rhetorical question, idiot. Ethan bit his lip and looked away. “I’d, um, I’d not find it fun. Not into the blood ‘n’ guts, they’re gross, and it gets everywhere and then it just reeks.” That bit, though, that bit was stalling the truly idiotic desire to tell Gabriel with his shiny wing-glow and his soothing voice his pretty smile everything about everything.

Couldn’t do that. Well, technically he could, Ripper’d been too skittish about apocalypses and implications and the changing rules of magic to make the oath binding, but he’d made Ethan promise nevertheless. He’d made all of them promise, and as far as Ethan knew everyone’d kept to it. Surely he hadn’t meant it like this, though, right? Surely he’d meant to keep the secret from monsters, from evil people… Wait. Ethan frowned at his own train of thought —  wasn’t he an evil sorcerer though, that didn’t quite line up— and settled on splitting the difference. Safest bet, right? And if Gabriel could read lies, then… well. It wouldn’t technically be lying, would it?

“Not really a group, there’s always people coming and going.” A few of them always stayed, but between Ripper and Randall they just kept on picking up strays and alliances. “London’s … dangerous now. No one really expects to stick around—people’d figure I did a runner if I didn’t come in.” Actually, the exact phrasing had been ‘fucking off to some fuck-off dimension,’ but that was rude, see. Let’s not be rude to the… very very charming not-human-person. 

“S-sorry, lost my manners, didn’t I? I’m Ethan—it’s, um, it’s an honor to meet you.” That seemed like the right word, honor. And if it wasn’t, a bit of flattery never hurt, right? Top it off with an awkward bow as he pulled himself back to his feet. Couldn’t hurt. 

Oh, okay, full attention on the stranger now. Gabriel. Pretty name, seemed like it deserved some sort of an honorific attached, but one never could be sure about those things what with the whole apocalypse and all. Weird how the world went kinda dim and spinny there, Ethan was just going to… sit, for a moment. Surely Gabriel wouldn’t mind, and it seemed like the alternative was falling over the railing. Ha, Gabriel was really tall from this angle, which was funny because Ethan was pretty sure he was actually the taller one… maybe it was just a matter of presence. Either way, Ethan couldn’t look away.

A dozen questions to the effect of can you hear it because it’s your name or can you hear everything reached the tip of Ethan’s tongue and stayed there. Surely it would be bothering the man — entity? — to run his mouth like that, better sit tight and shush unless spoken to, and while he was at it get his hammering heartrate under control.

“I—um…” The little bit of common sense still left in Ethan’s head reminded him sharply not to give Gabriel, whoever and whatever he was, too many details. “It—there was a raid, bunch of us found the nest an’ blew it up. This one must’ve got away.” He shot a nervous glance up at Gabriel and floundered for a justification. “They eat people. Take out their eyeballs, R—s-someone told me.”

Huh, color was coming back to the world, little by little. Was it a spell, a trick of some sort…? Fascinating, either way. “D-do you…um, is this your city? Do you live—” Finally tore his gaze away — mesmerizing, that was the word — and looked up again, past Gabriel’s head. Wasn’t anywhere one could jump from, not reasonably. “—around here…?”

There, a spark of magic, this one soft and honey-smooth instead of burning, now his fingers stopped burning. The whole breaking of dimensions had one upside, and that was how much more easily his magic flowed. No more potions and rituals and hiding behind Ripper for him, not now that Chaos was a driving force. And they’d said he’d regret a specialization, ha!  Ethan didn’t regret a single bloody thing. 

“Special, huh? I’ll take that,” he said, grinning back at the stranger. Oh, he was wearing glamours, cool. Major ones, too, not the sort that could hide scrapes and bruises, the kind that hid entire parts of a self. Was there a way to break those? Ethan made a mental note to find out. “Not that you’re particularly ordinary yourself, are you? I mean…” His gaze drifted upward, trying to guess where the man had descended from. Could he fly?  

“Mm?” An apology, now that was a rare thing, even when it came with a side of laughing-at. “Oh, that. It’s fine—I can handle myself.” He smiled brightly. “Maybe you can swoop in and rescue me next time, though! Wouldn’t mind that, and well…” He leaned backwards over the railing to look down into the alleyway—upside down, right side up, one could see movement either way, right? Dark, boring, empty at the moment. The stranger himself was much more interesting “Always bound to be a next time. Tell me your name and I’ll be sure to scream it.”

Some days it was really hard to tell the world had technically ended—people were still people-like and that meant a lot of things stayed familiar and normal. Or maybe Ethan just had a rather wobbly grasp on normal, that was also possible. Anyway, today? Not one of those days. Today was apparently an everything wants to eat your head kind of day. Cowering on a balcony and and trying to un-singe his fingers, Ethan mentally relegated this particular cologne to the demon-bait category. Pity, really, he’d liked the smell, but it was not worth the sheer amount of—

Holy shit, where had that guy come from?

Flinging himself out of the suddenly appearing — suddenly descending, really, wasn’t it? — stranger’s way turned quickly into trying not to pitch off the balcony’s edge which turned quickly into trying to look like he was lounging in a relaxed way.

“I—uh—” That guy was some kind of shiny like nothing else in the world. Wait, that descriptor didn’t really work anymore, did it? Unfamiliar power glowed in him, under his skin and spreading outward, like nothing Ethan’d ever seen. Pretty, that, like wings.

“Um, practice?” Lame, but better than telling a clearly supernatural stranger about all his friends and where they were, right? “Plus, everything’s all broken. That helps, with the magic.” Well, with Ethan’s magic, at least. He eyed the stranger curiously. “Does it help you too?”