Archive of Our Own ^beta

What you might forget about sleeping, impossible as it might seem if you thought about it consciously, with a faint whiff of ridiculousness, was not so much that you dreamed during that time, but that you weren’t in control of when, how, and what you dreamed.

Or who you met in said dreams.

You would think that someone like him, whom you might in a sense call a master of sleeping, if only because of just how long he’d been doing it – alright, so perhaps also that he could go for hibernations that made catatonic bears seem like power nappers – would be able to remember it.

At least, he would.

Maybe you were right at that. Only, in the same way that being more forgetful as you got older did not necessarily equal a bad memory, keeping track of all intricacies of a subject got progressively more difficult. This was simply because as you got older or at least existed for longer, the more stuff there was to keep track of.

Eventually, the attic wouldn’t hold anymore. The glass would overflow, and what poured out was not necessarily the things that you would want to be rid of, either.

That would be far too easy, wouldn’t it?

Of course, it would.

You might say this didn’t matter so much. Wasn’t anything to lose sleep over. That there was nothing harmful in dream. In fact, you might even proclaim that the fact that you couldn’t control them made for a more interesting and fascinating experience.

Something that you would never otherwise have experienced.

Yes. He was sure the people who travelled through the jungle or the Australian outback in nothing but a bikini and flipflops would say the exact same thing.

If you were content with Ouija board replies, that was.

That had been a good wheeze, hadn’t it?

He knew what he was doing. Trying to cheer himself up. To make it not so bad. Appease himself, at the very least, so that he didn’t have to be too unsettled.

Too uncomfortable.

Telling himself that it was alright, really.

The absurdity of that almost made him laugh.

Correction. It did make him laugh. Only, the sound didn’t seem to come from what he had to assume was still his mouth. Nor from another representation of himself. Instead, it seemed to come from the universe around him.

If you could call the darkness around him light.

Alright, perhaps he should back up just a little bit. Not with a record scratch, which was in any case a horrendous anachronism nowadays – unless you were an angel who –

Shut up. Just, shut up.

The point was that it was a mere rewind. Going back a bit further. To set the stage.

A pity that it would be the kind of stage made by experimental theatre directors that had more passion than experience or sense, but you couldn’t have everything.

He did this to himself on purpose, didn’t he?

To the top of the page.

He hadn’t meant to sleep. Technically speaking, he didn’t need it, and right now, he didn’t want it.

That wasn’t true.

No, but that was because he did want it with every atom of his existence, and that was precisely why he didn’t want it. Was scared of it. Scared of what he would find or end up with.

For one thing, if he slept, then his corporation was unprotected. There was nothing to prevent anyone from going in and just – just taking it. As though they had any kind of right to it. Or could just do with it whatever they felt like.

Without him being able to do a single thing about it until it was far too late by half.

Normally, that would rank as mere paranoia, which he was if not bosom buddies with then at least travel partner with and therefore relatively used to. Right now, it had been upgraded to – to –

To immediate and persistent, relevant paranoia on a whole new scale. One that he had not…that he did not want to risk.

Alright, yeah, so…so it was all over. Bar nothing.

Was it ever over.

Fuck. Off.

Did that mean that it was all safe?

He would be a fool to think that it did.

Well, he was a fool, wasn’t he? A grade A, bona fide fool and idiot. Cut him through and you would find it in every molecule that made him up.

Was he even made up of molecules?

Regardless, he was a fool down to the last bit of him that was left. But he was not that kind of fool.

Maybe he was safe. Perhaps they had at least given up bothering with him. Precedent had been established. Best precedent you could hope for, too –

Focus.

It was not a risk he was prepared to take. Not when everything was like this.

When everything was still fresh.

No matter how tempting such things might seem precisely because it was all fresh.

But the thing about the body is that it remembers, and it will impose itself on whoever inhabits it regardless. So, he was used to ‘getting his head down’, as you might phrase it, and his body felt the need for doing just that.

Felt it with an intensity and keenness that was almost beyond comprehension. Not as though it had been what had been through not just a mangle but a whole laundry factory.

Was there such a thing?

Did it matter?

No. It didn’t. Nothing seemed to. Which, of course, was ridiculous and unhelpful, and he couldn’t bring himself to care. Just as he couldn’t bring himself to care about much of anything else, for that matter. Not at the moment.

This internal lethargy, this impassivity only help to fuel the matter, of course. To make it easier for the body to take charge and dictate what should happen next.

The bastard.

Worst of it was, if you could quantify it like that, that he didn’t notice until he was already being dragged…no, that wasn’t even true. He didn’t notice then, either.

Didn’t notice anything at all until…

Until he realised that he was dreaming.

So, he hadn’t just been unceremoniously plunged into sleep, which he might have been able to forgive when he woke up, after a bit of time had elapsed, say, a year or two. No, no, he had to have been slipped into a dream as well.

Getting the worst of both worlds. A bit of a motif.

Especially as he was fully aware that he was dreaming – and this made not the least bit of difference to any fucking thing that happened!

He couldn’t wake up, he couldn’t have it slip into proper sleep, and he couldn’t even dictate or guide what he dreamt about. Oh, no. That would be far too easy, wouldn’t it?

Wouldn’t it?

There was no answer.

What had he expected?

Possibly an answer. Just a thought, of course. Farfetched and strange, he knew, and asking too much, but – but what the heaven was the point of asking what was acceptable?

You always got short shrift of what you asked for, so why not ask too much? Why not at least try?

He knew the answer to that, of course. Had always known the answer to that. In all its incarnations. Well, near enough. There seemed to be too many new ones that kept popping up for him to keep wholly track of them all.

Bloody weeds.

All of them were bloody weeds, needing pulling.

He wasn’t even sure what precisely he was talking about anymore.

Perhaps that was better.

Well, he wasn’t going to get an answer just by staying here. Or waiting.

It might be dark all around him but so what? Wasn’t as though he wasn’t used to that, and at least this was his darkness. He had created it.

Not that it meant he controlled it, of course, but there was some form of comfort in the notion even so. Why, he didn’t know and didn’t examine in any detail.

He might get nowhere, and his dream might be nothing more than being caught in darkness, unable to move or do anything or be heard, but that didn’t mean he was just going to stay put. If he were aware of dreaming, he might as well show the bastard that he wasn’t going to take this lying down!

Wasn’t he sitting up? Out there, that was. For a given value of sitting, but by his standards…

Didn’t change a thing.

Nor did anything in here change.

In a strange sort of way, it was almost comforting. Just darkness. Nothing more, nothing less. He wasn’t cold, he wasn’t hot. Nor was he otherwise aware of –

He looked down suddenly, panic-stricken, mentally squawking at the idea that had just floated into his face like a particular pestilential leaf, where it had got stuck.

It shouldn’t matter, of course. Shouldn’t matter for as much as a moment, given that he was in fact dreaming. That what happened here did not have any bearing on the outside world.

Except that he didn’t know for certain. It might be that – that they had found some new way of –

Why would they test this on him? He wasn’t important any longer. If he ever had been.

Not to Downstairs.

He wasn’t important any longer to anyone.

It almost made him wish he didn’t have any kind of corporation, just so that he could not…that he could just sort of…let himself drift apart. He didn’t have to, of course, but he could. It was a whole lot easier to keep yourself together when you had a vessel to pour yourself into.

Yet for all of that, he…he found he was grateful to reach his hands down and touch something. To just have hands, honestly, but also to feel them touch his own body. Look down and see his general shape.

Just as he remembered it, too.

Good. Good. He could breathe again. Not that he needed to, even outside a dream, of course, but it was the principle of the thing.

The symbolism.

He was still who he was. Who he had been since…well…

Why did that matter? It shouldn’t matter, because he had never – he’d not had a dream in all his existence where he hadn’t been himself. No matter what else had happened to him, and that was quite a lot of things.

Even having the modifier of the fourteenth century and everything.

Somehow, though, it mattered now. He felt that it did matter. That it was a point. A point being made.

Why?

At least he could be given the script for this fucking thing if he were going to have to play through it.

Of course, nobody listened, and nobody gave him such a script. Or anything else, for that matter. How could he be surprised?

Instead, he was forced to wait, aware of his body and unable to find a way to…to anything at all, as it happened.

Something was coming, though. He felt that, in the same way that…that he had felt this was a dream. That he had not just woken up in some kind of very strange place where they thought it was possible to scare him.

In a way that was both in the body, if you could call it that, he inhabited in this dreamscape and in the dreamscape itself.

Something was coming, and it would come regardless of what he did. Nor would his presence change anything about it.

Well, they would see about that.

He was not going to go down without a fight.

No, that he had already tried –

Shut up. Shut up. Just. Shut. Up.

When he saw him – her – it? – was there any designation that could be used when that was a human thing and they were so clearly not of the earth? When he saw them, he refused to see it – that which would resolve itself into them – for the first long moment, if you could talk about moments or time passing in any meaningful manner in such a space as this.

Refused to acknowledge that it was there, and it was real.

As real as anything in a dream ever was, of course. But that was real enough for him.

It ought to help that he knew he was in a dream. Well, it was either a dream or a hallucination, and he would rather believe it to be a dream than he had gone that far around the bend.

Far enough around to meet himself, apparently.

Well, wasn’t that just smashing?

He would like to smash something.

Yes, but he would like to smash everything, really. Or part of him did, at least. Wanted to lay waste to everything, if only so that it would match.

Match his insides.

What was left of them. He wasn’t sure it was all that much.

Would he prefer it if it were so and there really weren’t very much left?

Honestly?

Before he could answer that question, he unfortunately had other things on his mind. Or perhaps fortunately. It was not that easy to tell, right then or afterwards, for that matter.

These other things was that the ‘it’ had indeed resolved itself into them, as he had known it would.

He had had the feeling, after all. It was not that difficult a point to reach.

That it had happened in almost the literal blink of an eye did neither shock nor unsettle him. It annoyed him, but that was par for the course, really. This kind of thing was what happened in dreams, after all. Something could take an eternity and then the next part was over with in a second or less, and you had just gone through a season’s worth of soap drama.

So, at least, it felt.

And he was once more unable to go anywhere. To get away.

The more he stayed here, the more he struggled, the stronger the feeling that he was being kept there grew in him, like some stock you reduced down into the compressed, concentrated form.

Seemed about right.

He did feel wrung out, after all. To call a habanero slightly piquant.

As they came the last bit towards him, he felt his whole insides turn. Not just turn like in a pirouette, but like the rolls of a mangle, which was fitting.

Them and their stupid gown and oversized wings and poofy, stupid, twee hair.

Them and their look of perplexed innocence.

As though nothing bad could possibly happen to them.

It made his whole spine concertina and itch while it was at it, and he greeted them with a sneer.

A light sneer, it had to be said. Only so because he couldn’t be bothered with more.

Everything still felt…it felt…

Ashen.

That was the only word for it.

The bookshop burning had been easier to –

“Hello?” they inquired, hovering a little distance away but close enough to see him. Just as he could see them.

Oh, brother…

They tilted their head as though they were in fact a fucking bird, too. As though that made them somehow appealing – and what was the deal with the light they gave off? Not just light, either. No, of course not. That would be far too plebeian, wouldn’t it?

Far too common.

As though they were actually someone of importance.

He didn’t mean to do it, insofar as he wasn’t aware he was doing it, but his sneer grew a little.

So, no, they couldn’t be content with just light. They had to have a sense of having a nebula behind them.

Little tit.

“Hello?” the other called again, beating their wings once and floating closer. Their head tilt grew more pronounced. “Is there anyone there?”

As though you can’t see me perfectly well, you bastard. Come on, come closer. Come real close. See for yourself what is here. What you’re going to turn into.

I bet that would scare the wings off you.

His sneer was almost fully grown now, or at least big enough to be allowed out without supervision.

He knew he wasn’t going to get out of it, though. Tempting as it was to just pretend that he wasn’t there, let them pass by, he knew he wouldn’t be allowed that.

This was probably the very reason he had the dream in the first place.

It would just about fit and all, wouldn’t it? That it would be – that they would – that he would have to talk to them.

Why? What possibly thing could he have to say to them?

Except obscenities, and he could scream those in life just as well. Maybe he even had already, he honestly couldn’t quite remember. Nor did he much care if he had or not. There was always room for another round, if he felt like it.

He didn’t think they would want to hear that, though.

Would they even understand?

Well, he did.

Yeah, but this was not – they were not –

“Is there anyone there?”

“You’ve got eyes in that floofing head of yours, of course, you can see there’s someone here!” he snapped, fed up at last, and that much faster than he expected.

Or perhaps it had been building for longer than he had been aware of up until this point. He wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if that were the case.

The figure didn’t startle backwards, nor did they run, unfortunately, though he did have the satisfaction of seeing their wings halt mid-push downwards, which gave them a startled look in itself.

Their eyes also widened a little.

Stupid eyes.

Brown and big and innocent.

Of course, that would be what he would –

“Yes, hello,” the other said, recovering from his verbal assault with annoying speed and even a bit of bloody grace, too. Not Grace, thank someone, but the minor vision was quite bad enough. “I thought I saw someone, but I wasn’t sure, and I didn’t want to startle anyone who might be there.”

Of course, you bloody well wouldn’t. That wouldn’t be right, would it? It would not be considerate and nice and –

He clacked his own mental mouth shut, then, not wanting to give into it.

They were not going to go away, he had already realised as much, and –

And that was all the more reason to let everything rip. To lean into it and make them regret that they were ever –

But that was him, wasn’t it?

No, it wasn’t. Don’t be ridiculous.

“Well, ta ever bloody so,” he said out loud instead. “How very bright-eyed of you. Far to come just because you thought you saw someone.”

“Oh, I was going this way in any case. Well, nearly, it’s not that far out of the way, and I thought I saw – well, you, really.”

They smiled, and something inside him…didn’t so much die as curl up and cry.

Scream, really.

He wanted to scream. To cry. To do – do something.

Anything.

Anything other than…than this nothing that he had been reduced to.

He most especially wanted to do it to this – this – this fucking twee twink of a featherbrain.

That wasn’t even very good. Besides the fact that it did not in the least come close to what he felt about this thing or, or anything about it.

Least of all what it – what he – what the plan was for it –

The creature moved further around him, closer, but moving in a circle as it did so. As though it was taking stock of him.

He sneered involuntarily, though if it had been a decision, he would’ve leapt at it gladly.

It didn’t seem to notice.

“But I am rather puzzled. I’ve never seen anything like you before.” It tilted its head again, fucking bird, in a most endearing and inquiring manner. “What are you?”

He was just about to sneer at it, though precisely what he was going to sneer, he wasn’t a hundred percent sure, which might and might not be for the best.

It was a moot point in any case, as he was suddenly distracted two-fold; not only did the other come closer still, he felt something shift in himself.

Namely, something came loose.

Something which he had tried to keep in check for…for so long that it was second nature. Or first nature, perhaps, when you were caught in a corporation.

Except, of course, he wasn’t right now.

No more than this little idiot dove, at any rate – and that just about said it all, didn’t it?

It most definitely said more than he meant it to, and that was…

“Oooh.”

Oh, hell’s sake, really? Really? Of all the bleeding things it might have been able to utter in all of this, that was what it chose?

It wasn’t even…not even all that –

His thoughts were derailed again, but this time from something simultaneously closer to home and very much external.

Namely, something touched one of the wings that had just sprouted from his back. He had a fairly good idea of what that something was.

He pulled the wing away from the hand immediately.

Nobody touched his wings.

Well, technically speaking, nobody had either.

Or –

Yes. Alright. He got it. He understood. It wasn’t as if it was precisely a mystery of the ages that he had to solve on that one, was it?

“How absolutely extraordinary. I’ve never seen them in that colour before – how did you do that?”

“Oh, come on, you cannot be serious! Even you cannot be serious on that point!”

The other blinked, several times, as though he had said something very strange indeed. Something that he could not honestly be expected to understand.

He had just about enough, and they’d exchanged, what? Less than a hundred words? Very few, at least. He didn’t want to exchange any or be reminded of the other’s existence, either, but here he was, and he was not getting out of it.

By now, he had enough pinch marks to make a –

“I am afraid I don’t understand you. Why should I know such a thing?”

“Why? You ask me why? Haven’t you noticed something?” he all but snarled only to catch himself before the other could answer.

“No, you haven’t. Of course, you haven’t.” The words came out through his teeth, and audibly so. “Why would you notice? You’ve no clue of what you look like yourself, do you? No, why am I asking? You don’t. I know you don’t.”

“Sorry, but how do you know? Who are you?” There was a pause, then more quietly but no less earnestly, “Are you alright?”

He jutted out his jaw as he looked up, beseeching something for a moment or two before he realised the utter futility of such an action and gritted his teeth even further.

“Are you alright?” the other repeated.

“I’d watch it with all those questions if I were you, mate,” he said, and he didn’t sound so much angry anymore as he did wholly and utterly drained.

Resigned.

For the moment, at least.

“Why?”

Was there something amusing in that? Possibly. He wasn’t disposed to laughing, though, for reasons that perhaps were obvious.

“Because asking questions isn’t very healthy. You might end up asking them to the wrong kind of people.”

“Who would that be?”

“There you go, you’re doing it again.” He gave the other a once-over. “But then, you cannot help it, can you? No, obviously not. Just listen to me. I should have bloody well learned and I’m still doing it.” The last part came out somewhat quietly.

Almost as though he was thinking out loud instead of talking. But inside a dream, what was the difference, really?

He couldn’t have said.

“I’m sorry, but who are you? You seem to know a lot. Perhaps you can tell me.”

“Oh, you don’t want to know.” He raised his eyebrows as high as they would go and looked down to the side, his eyes relatively wide, trying to emphasise his point. “Believe me, you don’t want to know. Not at all.”

Hold on, why did he say that? At all, let alone emphasise it that way? It did not make sense.

Why not?

Because he didn’t want to – seriously, was he asking that? It should be bloody well obvious why he wasn’t – why he wouldn’t –

Except, of course, that this didn’t change anything, obvious or not.

It did! It should, and it did.

He was under no obligation to help this, this – this creature. To try and – and save it.

What would be the point?

Even the word ‘save’ was ridiculous. Absurd. Beyond the pale.

Any such word that you could think of, quite frankly, and even then, it didn’t begin to cover it.

Painful like nothing else that he could remember, and he could remember so much that you would never have thought he could.

Why had he thought it a good idea to even think of that word?

Or an idea, come to that.

He didn’t want to save it.

Not when – when it was the one who tried to destroy him.

To obliterate him and all that he was.

Replace him with it.

With that…that thing.

That hallucination. Figment. Fata morgana. Fantasy.

The thing that had never – that which had never experienced anything at all. That didn’t know – and it won.

By default, it won.

Fuck.

Because of what it was.

Because of what he no longer was.

What he never would be. Could be. Not again.

Not without losing…losing just about everything that was him. That went into making him.

Fuck.

“I’m sorry, what is happening? Are you sure you’re alright?”

“I never said I was, and I don’t see why I should have to tell you,” he said, and it didn’t come out quite the snap that he had intended.

Or rather, it came out the snap of branch breaking or possibly a rope snapping. Untethering something in the process.

Something that he was not in control of, in other words, and that just about said it all, didn’t it?

No, it didn’t.

He just wanted it to.

Oh – oh, piss off.

All of it could just – just go away.

And now he didn’t even feel right that he was cursing.

“I didn’t mean to – but you do look rather unwell. Is there anything I can do to help?”

Yes! You can wipe yourself out of existence!

He wanted to scream this at it, to shake it and tell it word by word right in its face. That it could wipe itself out of existence altogether. It no longer existed, anyway, and it was not – it would never – it could never –

Only, it did exist, didn’t it? He had seen that it existed. Clear as anything. Stronger than he had thought it ever did, ever could.

It was only that the place it existed was not a place where he would – where he could –

The place where it existed had been one that he hadn’t been prepared for but which he really ought to have seen coming. It was so very obvious in hindsight that – that he couldn’t believe that –

That it was all but impossible to believe that he could have thought anything could’ve –

But he had hoped, hadn’t he? As always, and even when he had no bloody reason to be, he had hoped. Not just lived through it or muddled through, gritted his teeth and born it, despite what he had tried to project. No, he had to go and hope.

Always the idiot, wasn’t he?

An optimist.

Yes. That was what he’d said, wasn’t it? A complete and blithering fool.

Where was his surety that the universe would look after him now?

Buried beneath all the rest of it.

Beneath reality and all that had been thrown at him.

He had lost…lost the one thing that had been a constant. That was supposed to be a constant, and he had no way of getting it back.

How could he believe that the universe would look after him when it had not just spit in his face, but had made sure that it blinded him in the process?

If he were blind, this would probably be a whole lot easier.

Yes. It would be. If he were in any doubt of that, he need only go and ask –

Shit.

Fuck.

Fuck.

He felt something touch him again. Instinctively, he pulled away, but this time, it was not budging. Or rather, it followed him, but that didn’t make it the least bit better. If anything, it made it worse.

Made it feel as though it were something sticky that he could not release him from.

About right, that, wasn’t it? In more ways than one.

Shit.

 This something was a hand on his shoulder. A warm hand. Familiar hand.

Well, it would be, wouldn’t it?

“Why are you not alright?”

“Well, for one thing, I have to look at your mug,” he said, but the sneer crackled even as he said it. As did his voice in general, as it happened.

“Mug? What’s a mug?”

He pointed. “That. Your face. I don’t want to look at it.”

The other blinked, several times in rapid succession, very confused indeed. Of course, they did.

“I can go to the side, but I don’t think that’s what you mean.”

“How clever of you. Did they assign you special duties for that?”

“Oh! As a matter of fact, they – “

“Yeah. I know. Shut it.”

They did, too. As easy as that. As though it meant nothing at all. Which he supposed it didn’t, either. To them, at least, and that was – they were –

Well, of bleeding course, they were. Why wouldn’t they be?

He did his best to try and gather himself. To keep himself together, rather, because he thought that he was coming apart.

Considering that this was meant to be a dream and everything, it was more than a little surprising to him that he hadn’t in fact come apart the moment he had thought it. Or just believed it, which came earlier. Not that he was trying to give anyone any ideas, of course.

If he was going to tear himself apart, then he would do it on his own. He had the experience, after all.

Even though he wasn’t coming apart, precisely, because he held on, he didn’t think he was coming together either. Didn’t think that he was keeping himself from –

“You should rest.”

“What do you think I’m doing?” he said through gritted teeth.

“Me? I think you’re tearing yourself apart.” It was said so earnestly, so matter of fact in a way that was not so much dry or detached as it was truth being delivered with care. “And I don’t understand why.”

“Give it roughly six thousand years, mate, then you’ll bloody well understand alright.”

The other looked completely nonplussed at that, if not outright befuddled. It was probably meant to look…no, but it looked pleasing.

That was the worst of it.

He could see it. Now, here, staring at – at it – he could see the point. He could see what the fuss was about. Just why it would be it that was what wanted. Why you would want to choose that there rather than –

Than him.

He would never be a first choice. Or a choice at all.

Not when there was this in the offing.

How could he hope to compete with that?

He couldn’t, was the long and the short of it. He couldn’t, and he never would be able to. No matter what he did.

What he did? What did it matter what he did? The choice had already been made.

It had been made, and he had lost. He had lost through and through. Nothing to be done about it now, the dice were cast.

Didn’t he usually cheat at dice?

Yes. Of course, he did. He was a demon. That was what he bloody well did, wasn’t it? Not just in games, either. Although you could argue that everything was a game in a sense. Find a clever way to get around it. To bend the rules or twist them. Cheat, if you liked.

Why couldn’t he do that this time, then?

Because it was not – this was not a game of dice. Despite what he’d just said. Thought. Which-fucking-ever. In here, it probably amounted to the same thing.

If only he could get out!

If he could just get out, then – then –

Then nothing.

That was the point.

Nothing.

Nothing at all.

Except to wait for whatever it was that Heaven was playing at. At what they had cooked up and was about to –

And so what if they unleashed it? Why did it matter to him if they did or not? It wasn’t as though he could change anything.

He hadn’t thought that when it had been the end of the world, and it had turned out that he was right. That they had managed to –

No, they hadn’t. That hadn’t been about them. Or because of them.

For a change, his grimace was wholly unrelated to the stupid creature that hovered next to him in that way.

Why that word? Why couldn’t he –?

Because it had been…it wasn’t, but it had been, and that was another difference.

It had been saved not because of him or anyone else but the Son of Satan, who turned out to be a great kid.

Perhaps he could go to –

And what would that help? Even if he had retained some powers – and you would think if he had, then he would’ve done something about the things that had happened in the world since – what of that? This was Heaven, for Sat – for someone’s sake!

So what? He had gone up against them before. That time and before, too.

Hadn’t he broken into the very place under pretence of being arrested just so that he could –?

And it had all been for naught. For nothing at all, because he had lost everything that he had – and that after just one coffee –

He would – he should – he ought to –

Ought to just go in and order death.

He would like that.

Right now, he would bloody well love that. Love it beyond anything that you could imagine.

Except, of course, that he didn’t get to have that kind of escape.

Would he want that escape? When he knew what lay on the other side? He was persona non grata with whipped cream on top right now Downstairs.

And Upstairs, too.

That would almost be fucking funny, that. To waltz right in there again and – and just slap the face of the Archangel –

He was startled by a keening noise, so high that it was felt more than it was actually heard. Immediately, his teeth bared to snap at the idiot creature to shut up already.

As he bared them, however, he felt the vibrations of the noise.

In his teeth.

His eyes also rose to look at the thing that was still hovering near him. Right next to him, in fact. Why? Didn’t they have anything better to do than hover here, looking at a poor, broken demon who had nothing left?

Was he that much of a fucking show?

It only belatedly, rather stupidly dawned on him that in point of fact, part of why they hovered as near as they did was because they had to. Mostly because it was either that or rip their tunic. What with how tight he held onto that tunic, that was to say.

As it was, he might rip it anyway.

A good thing it was only a dream, then, wasn’t it?

Yes. Good. Very good. So very good. Wonderful.

Just as everything else was. Wonderful. Fine.

Why wouldn’t everything else be fine or even outright wonderful? Everything was just bloody dandy, wasn’t it? As fine as it ever was. As it ever could be. Naturally.

He couldn’t see how it couldn’t be. Why it wouldn’t be. There was no reason for it.

No reason for…for any of…

Any of it…

It just didn’t make…

He couldn’t make it…

But it was fine. All fine…it would be…

He would be…

Something touched his hands.

He held on tighter. Refusing to let go of the robe. A stupid thing.

They could just make a new one if they wanted. Whether this was a dream or not. They only needed to – to snap their fingers, and then it was – they were –

Only needed to snap their fingers, and they would have everything that he could have wanted.

And they wouldn’t even know it. That was the worst part.

No, the worst part was…the worst part was that he would know it. He would know it, and so would…so would the arch –

“Come now.”

“Piss. Off.”

“I can’t do that.”

No. They couldn’t, could they? Not in the way he meant it. They might think it was for another reason, but he knew the truth of it.

Always knew the truth of it, didn’t he?

No, he didn’t. Not always. He wouldn’t say that. That was arrogant, and arrogant beyond a level that he would’ve climbed to, as well. It was only that he knew it now.

Knew this truth.

In a way that the other didn’t. Couldn’t. How could they?

But they could go away. Move away.

Just leave him alone.

They probably couldn’t do that, either.

The two of them was likely bloody well stuck together however long this dream was going to last. That would just about fit, wouldn’t it? And there was nothing he could do about it.

Pardon him while he panicked.

Except that he didn’t panic, not truly.

He was far too gone for that. For anything of that kind, even, which was…it might have been comforting to someone else, but right now, he would almost wish that he did panic. That he could.

If he panicked, he didn’t have to think about anything else.

He didn’t have to think at all.

Wouldn’t that be nice?

The touch grew stronger or at least more determined on his hands. He held on tighter.

It might be that he couldn’t hurt the creature, but he could – he could make it wish he could. Wish for pain instead, because pain was better than what he would –

The hands pried his own hands loose.

Pieces of fabric came off with it in the process. He was only disappointed that it wasn’t more. That it wasn’t worse, and that he had been unable to hold on.

It shouldn’t be that strong.

At least, he should be stronger than it was.

Should he? Why? He was only what was left, after all, wasn’t he?

The charred remains, as it were.

The leftovers.

He swallowed.

Leftovers. Gone bad. What did you do with those?

Why hadn’t it let go of him? It had got him to let go of its robes, so what else was there? What else could it possibly be interested in –?

Something, perhaps curiosity and perhaps something else, made him look up, then. Glance up, really. Not intending to do so, and most definitely not intending to let it linger in any way or sense.

Why would he?

He would have already seen far more than he had any need for, let alone want of.

Except…

Except that he was wrong.

Those big, brown, trusting eyes looked at him as though there was something about him that drew them to him. As though there was something they had only just realised or was merely starting to realise and now they sought some confirmation in his own eyes.

He was tempted to look away. To not give the creature the satisfaction of seeing.

On the other hand, if it saw, it might know.

And what happened when you knew, eh?

If anyone ought to know the answer to that question, it should be him, shouldn’t it?

Serpent of Eden.

Original tempter.

And just how well had that fucking worked so far, eh? How well had it gone for him, that? When it came down to it, that was. When the important part had come around, what had he done then?

Hm?

He didn’t answer.

When he looked away, it wasn’t because he didn’t want to give it the satisfaction of looking, of seeing. To be frank, it had nothing to do with it.

Nothing and everything.

“Why are you so familiar?”

“You know why. Or if you don’t, you don’t want to know. Trust me. On that if on nothing else. You do not want to know. You’re happier when you don’t know.”

“But what has happened to you? You seem as if…I don’t understand.”

“Treasure that.”

Pf. If he really could go back, if he could – could tell this creature what awaited them should they continue on the path they were on, would he do it?

Leaving paradoxes aside, would he do it? If he could, that was.

In something other than a dream.

He didn’t believe for a moment that it was anything more. Even if it could happen…even if it could, technically speaking, it would be something that never happened to him.

They would ensure that kind of thing never happened to him.

No matter what – what might be promised.

It was nothing but lies.

Everything was lies. Lies, untruths, and mere fiction.

Fata morganas was nothing but concrete in comparison to – to –

Why was the bloody creature shaking like that? He wasn’t that disgusting to hold onto – and if he were, then there was nobody who made them hold on. They could let go any moment if they chose to.

He opened his mouth to snap this at them.

Only to stop before any word emerged.

They weren’t – it wasn’t they who –

The one that held on was not them after all.

It was him.

As it was him who was shaking.

Shaking as though he was a tree in a high wind. Or a tuning fork set into too violent a vibration.

As though he was something meant to come apart, and he was coming apart alright.

No, he wasn’t. He couldn’t be.

Couldn’t bear to be.

Couldn’t he? But could he bear not to be? Hadn’t he thought that it would be better if he didn’t exist? If there was nothing of him left, not even – not even a mind?

Or perhaps the best thing that could happen was if…if there was a body and little mind left? Not no mind, because that would be destruction. Just…not enough that it was possible to care. Or do anything.

Force himself into a catatonic state.

Yeah, that about sounded right.

Sounded good.

Perhaps this – this bastard would emerge then. After all, they were not as gone as he had thought they were, and they were still wanted, so…

So it would only make sense if that was how it played out. If that was how it ended.

For him if not for anyone else.

Then everyone got what they wanted.

Except him.

But what did it matter about him? He wasn’t important, after all. Not important enough to bother with. Or important enough to be – to not be left behind.

Not unless he changed everything that he was.

Well, alright. He would…he would do that. If that was what was wanted. He would do that.

Some part of him protested at that. Loudly. Strongly. Vehemently.

Desperately, almost.

But even though this had been quite the steep and quick slide, he didn’t drop from one point to another. There was a progression, grim though it might seem, and everything had been prepared in advance, even though he hadn’t been aware of it at the time.

Or at all until the moment had come, it seemed.

It had all sort of clicked into place.

Or perhaps it had all come apart, like the shards of a mirror as it shattered. He didn’t know. Just…just didn’t know.

And it was all because of…it wouldn’t have happened had it not been for…for…

For the thing that held onto him as – as though it was the one who had need of someone holding onto it.

The thought was ludicrous. Beyond moronic.

How could it need that? It was about to get all that it wanted.

No. Not all that it wanted.

All that he wanted as well as all that he’d thought he’d had. Which only made it all the worse. Brought it home all the sharper just how…how…

How fucking unworthy he was.

He had never stood a chance, had he? It had always been – never been – it would always be that he was only a shadow. Nothing but – but what he – what the other –

An arm came around him before he could register it, much less fend it off. That didn’t mean he didn’t try, or that he didn’t put as much effort into the attempt as he could when he did register it.

He did not want that.

Did not want – it was the last thing he wanted.

Bloody thing!

How dared it? How fucking dared it? When it was the cause of – when it brought home just what – when it had everything that he would –

How did it have the gall to touch him, to try to comfort him, when it was the very thing that meant he would…that he could never be enough?

When it had brought home that it had never been him.

It was not him that was seen. Not really. It had always been it.

His whole body shuddered, so hard that he was sure that he was coming apart. Truly, this time.

Please.

Please.

He was not…

It was not…

He couldn’t…couldn’t…!

Please.

The arm around him unfortunately didn’t budge, no matter how wiry and almost spindly it would seem. How easily it should be to get rid of.

But that was just – just what he could’ve expected, wasn’t it? It fitted. Of course, it bloody well fitted.

They were more than him. Even if it were not that they were stronger than him but merely him that had no strength left, it still proved the point.

He was not enough.

Not good enough.

Not good…enough…

He felt something touch his cheek.

Before he knew it, he had raised his head and didn’t so much glare at the other as just about spear them with his eyes.

If he could have, he would’ve burned them. Even if it were pointless. If it wouldn’t bring back the – wouldn’t turn time back and make everything –

“Why did you have to come back?” he hissed. “Why did you have to exist?”

“I don’t know. I just do. Like everyone else.”

Why did –? It wasn’t fair that they had to express a point that was not just a valid excuse for them but a bloody good point, too.

It only made it hurt all the more when the words burned out his throat, “I don’t.”

“Yes, you do. You’re right here. I can touch you.”

Oh, you sweet idiot angel.

His heart hitched in his chest. Or lurched, possibly.

He tried to help it all the way out. It wasn’t fair that they were given corporations and then they had to have a metaphorical heart as well as a physical one. What the heaven was the use of that kind of thing? It could only hope to hurt someone.

Yourself, mostly.

“Yeah. You can, can’t you?”

“I don’t understand.”

“Try to keep that up,” he said, and he was weary. No, he had been weary from the start, but now he sounded it as well. “You’re going to go much further that way.”

“Why do you say that?”

He wanted to argue, to repress it and shove it away, but he couldn’t find the energy. Even the energy to hold on was slipping from him.

As were tears that slipped down his cheeks in an irregular drip.

Fucking ridiculous.

“Because I’ve tried the other path. You get nothing that way. Only a reminder of – of what you failed to be.”

“Meaning me?”

He looked at the other oddly.

Well, to say ‘oddly’ was akin to calling the snarl of a wolf a slightly unhappy response to the situation.

How was he – they weren’t supposed to be that perceptive. He hadn’t been surreptitious, per se, but neither had he made it outright obvious, and he was not – he had not expected that of them.

Didn’t want that from them.

They must have been bright enough on their own to understand his silence. Frowning, they nodded. “You do. That’s why you don’t like looking at me. You see something you remember.”

So close and yet so fucking far, and how was this…?

None of this made – this was not how dreams were supposed to work.

But he was a demon.

Even the dreams of demons.

Even demons who had an imagination?

This was not imagination, it was – it was though he had stepped back in time or – or into some alternate dimension.

If that was so, couldn’t he stay here? Even if the other went to meet –

Then at least he would get peace. Or as close to peace as he would get.

“What’s happened?”

“You don’t want to know. Seriously, you don’t – “He cut himself off, sharply.

“But you need to tell. Don’t you?” they asked, and they had the nerve to ask the question gently.

That almost made him flare up properly again. “What the heaven’s the point? It won’t change anything. Won’t turn the clock back, and it won’t make him come back to – “

His voice cracked like a branch in winter, and he found it had deserted him afterwards, even though he tried to get it back.

Perhaps that was what would happen. Little by little, he would lose everything that made him, and it would be…there would be nothing left but this creature.

Please.

Yes, please.

“Who’s he?”

No. No, he couldn’t. Couldn’t do that, couldn’t tell them. It. How could he tell? It was hard enough to think about – and he didn’t owe them any explanation.

Didn’t owe them anything at all.

What had they done but take away all that he had? Or prove to him that he hadn’t had it to begin with?

That he wasn’t…good enough.

Never good enough.

How could he be? He was only a demon.

Not ‘the right sort’ after all.

It had been…it had all been nothing but…but a lie. A pretence. Buried deep or papered over so many times that the façade looked convincing, even though it was nothing but a massive layer of papier maché, and it was just as easily broken through when the time came.

When the truth was revealed.

What an absolute fool he’d…

“I’m sorry, was that the wrong thing to –?” the creature began only to stop. “Clearly. But you shouldn’t be – is there nothing I can do to help?”

He almost laughed at that, but the noise caught like a rusty saw down his throat, and he choked instead.

So much for all the things he’d kept bottled up. For all that he hadn’t shown.

They were bound to come out in front of this one creature, weren’t they? And it didn’t make it any better that they didn’t actually judge him. If anything, he might well argue that it made it worse in a sense.

It proved just how much better they were. How much more they always had been. Even when they were as innocent as a babe, if not moreso – thinking that asking questions was perfectly safe, for crying fuck’s sake – they were more than him.

Would always be more than him.

A mere shadow.

A shadow puppet. Strung along. Pulled and played. Made to feel as though he were real. As though he was of anything of worth.

A real person.

Yet all the time he…he had only been that shadow. That puppet.

Fucking ineffable, wasn’t it?

He hadn’t realised he’d said this out loud, if you could call it out loud in a dream, until the creature jerked a little. They did not let go, but they did look startled, too.

“You know about that? But nobody’s supposed to know about that.”

“No. Isn’t that convenient? Makes it ever so easy to change what it is supposed to be or what it actually is, doesn’t it? Without anyone ever finding out the difference either.”

We’ve always been at war with – what was it? Eurasia? Or was it –? Never mind.

That made them almost recoil. Only for them to draw back, keeping a hold of him.

Bastard.

But the worst of it was that he could see why they would be preferable to him. He really could, despite not wanting to. Wanting to cast mud on – on everything.

Throw acid on it.

Holy water. Or Hell fire.

“I’m sure there’s a good reason for it.”

“Yes. So good that they won’t bother tell any of you about it. Or what the point of it is. Not even what you’re working towards.”

He was being petty, and he knew it. Cruel, too, in a sense, and he couldn’t – he should help it, but he couldn’t bring himself to.

Why not?

That was fucking obvious.

But they weren’t to know. They weren’t at fault. How could they be? They were only themselves.

It wasn’t their fault they were preferred, and he was dropped like something nasty you’ve found at the bottom of a bag.

Never blame the other woman.

Not when she wasn’t aware she was the other woman.

He felt like screaming.

Right now, though, he also felt like – like shaking the fucking Archangel and perhaps slapping him in the face as well.

Or worse.

Worse if he could get away with it. Even if he couldn’t, he would – he’d try.

No, he wouldn’t.

“It was never going to be me,” he said. He swallowed his throat of knives. “It was never going to be me. He only ever wanted you.”

He had thought he’d known this – hadn’t he tortured himself with this knowledge ever since he…?

But to hear it loud…to hear him say it himself, his own voice, speaking the truth of it like that, so succinctly, it was…he was…

It was knowing it all over again and breaking apart from it. In what parts were not already broken beyond belief, let alone repair.

He couldn’t be repaired. Nor was there any point. No point whatsoever…

Let him just fall…fall apart this time.

Let him…

Let…

The arm kept its place around him and so did the wing that had come over to shield him, too, and he only screamed internally all the more. Not a word or noise escaped him.

A small eternity passed in the moments they stayed there.

Something flickered in his vision, and he tried to focus on it. Just why he did so, he couldn’t have said. Maybe just the moth flying to the flame or a predator following any movement, but he did look at it.

It was not their own flickering head-moves – he didn’t notice the resemblance to that in what he did – but something else.

From the very beginning he’d first seen them, he’d though that they were as white as white could be in both robes and in their wings. Of course, they were. Why wouldn’t they be? They had been right from the beginning. He knew they had.

Knew it better than everyone.

And this was a dream, so of course they would be even whiter.

Except…

Except they weren’t quite that. If there had been any real light and any real shadow, he might have thought it was that, except it wasn’t that either.

There were shadows, as it happened, but they were in the wings. Not on the wings, either, but in them. As though someone had smudged them somehow. With coal dust or a smidgeon of watercolour. It was faint, and he thought at several points in the few moments he stopped to look at it that it was only in his mind.

Well, it was, of course.

All of it was.

But it didn’t feel as though it was nothing more than – than an invention, put it like that. Another thing that he had made up.

None of this did feel that way, in fact. It was the most realistic dream he could remember having, and that was not…he could have done without that.

That was a bit like saying you could have done without choking to death, though.

Yes. It was. Wasn’t it? How apt of him.

Point was that it was not a trick of the light nor a trick of his mind. Or it was, but that was because it was a memory.

Only, it couldn’t be a memory. He hadn’t – his wings hadn’t – he knew how it went.

If anything, it was burned into his eyeballs and his memory so sharply that nothing could touch it. Nothing could alter it. It was burned into his very core. All that went into making up him, you might say.

Right now, it wasn’t much, but it had been. Even if had never been enough.

Only, that might be precisely why he couldn’t remember. Without it being untrue. It had simply taking over so much that there was not the least bit space, mentally, for him to remember the rest of it.

All the little signs that hadn’t seemed signs until afterwards.

Hindsight really was a first-class bitch, wasn’t she?

He looked at the feathers in question, their reality settling into him. Or possibly blooming forth again. Looking it didn’t make him feel at all better, it wasn’t that, but it did…it added another dimension to it. Another facet.

“What is it?” the other asked. “You’re staring. What have you seen?”

“Nothing.”

Why was he lying? Why was he trying to protect this – this creature? Again, too.

What? He hadn’t done it even once, what was he on about?

Of course, he had. He’d tried to tell them they didn’t want to be asking questions. That it would be better if they didn’t know.

Yet here they were. Here they had been.

Not understanding. Asking questions.

Trying to understand.

He should know that it was dangerous to try and understand.

Yours is not to reason why, yours is to do and die.

Well, near enough. Tennyson wouldn’t mind. Strange fellow.

It was already happening. Had already been happening. Long before he – he had thought it had happened. Before he thought it could have happened. It seemed impossible that he could – that they would have been –

He had just hung around the wrong people. Hadn’t meant to fall.

But he’d asked questions. He’d done more than do, and so he had died.

They had died.

And that was the angel that…that the Archangel wanted back. Had always wanted back.

Only, it wasn’t, was it? Because that was not what he’d seen. He wouldn’t have. The blind bastard. Of course, he wouldn’t have seen it.

What he had seen was the first impression, the – had it been joy? It was almost too painful to think of, but the memories rolled out without consultation as he looked at the creature in front of him, and yes, it had been joy.

He had been so…so happy and delighted with all that he’d helped to create. There had been so much good in there. So much that had had meaning and worth and…and then things were happening that…that he didn’t understand.

Why had he not just accepted that?

It would have been so much easier.

For everyone.

He wouldn’t have lost him.

But he wouldn’t have known him, either.

No. That was how he wouldn’t have lost him. Can’t lose what you didn’t…what you never…

Fuck!

The expletive did not even come close to expressing a fraction of what it was being forced to accommodate. He felt so much more, and none of it could be expressed in mere words. But it was all he had, and he couldn’t merely scream, either.

So, he had never even lost him…

He had only thought that he’d…

And all the time, it had only been…

“Who is this person you keep talking about?”

He wondered whether he could still spare the creature. Then he wondered what the point was. It wasn’t even vindictive or angry at this point, it was only…he was just…

Nothing seemed to matter.

But if it were already too late for them, why shouldn’t they know?

So, he told them. Not all of it, as he couldn’t bear that. But so bare boned as to make a skeleton feel underdressed, he told them of the angel they’d got to help them start the nebulas and such.

About their friendship.

He then also had to tell them about falling. About his Fall, that was.

Why he tried to make out that it was only his own, and that it was entirely separate from them, he wasn’t sure he could’ve said. Not when he had mentioned the angel they had seen.

When they had made the connection.

If anyone suggested that it was because he was trying to protect them, he would’ve sneered at them. No, he would’ve bitten their head off, quite frankly, and he would’ve chewed the vertebrae for good measure. Just to make the bloody point.

They listened to him throughout it. Not at one point, they asked any questions nor protested, but their expression grew more and more puzzled and worried as they listened.

He could only imagine he had looked that way when he’d been told what the universe was actually for. It looked stupid beyond belief, but he couldn’t – much as he wanted to sneer at it, he couldn’t bring himself to do it.

He told himself that it was just because he was too tired for it. That there had been too much and it wasn’t worth it, in any case.

Something along those lines.

It would be true, too.

By the end of it – and to say that it was a potted summary was akin to trying to compress a whole movie trilogy into three single frames – they looked just as confused as they had at the beginning.

Then, it seemed to finally sink its way in.

He watched with a grim, twisted and small sense of satisfaction when they looked at their wings.

Also, with a pity that he had not ordered and a guilt that poked pins in his heart the size of lances.

“You mean that it’s really – that it will – that is why you didn’t want to tell me? Because you knew?”

“Told you that you didn’t want to know,” he said, and there was neither triumph nor satisfaction in his voice. Not with how they sounded.

“But you – you could have – “

“No. I couldn’t. If I could, I would have done. Believe me, I would have.”

The other looked at him, their eyes wide and uncertain. They had still not understood, but they were beginning to suspect, and in that moment, he saw something that…something that he recognised.

Something that he had felt himself often enough.

They did not blame him, though. He could see that much.

Why did that fill him with more than a small sense of relief? It shouldn’t matter what he thought of it or didn’t think of it.

Nor should it – it was already over and done with.

Or if it wasn’t, this was only a dream. He was never going to – they were never going to –

Weren’t they? Then what had he been so afraid of?

He swallowed and felt the void of despair whirl up again inside of him.

They were going to. Even if it was only a dream, it might not be. It was still not – they were still the one that was real.

In the sense that they were the one that was loved.

The only one that ever would be loved.

Could be loved.

They would sense it, too. Of course, they would. That was what they did, wasn’t it? Sensing the love. It was an angel thing.

As a demon, he was barred from it, and so he had been – so the other had –

So he had fooled himself. That was the long and short of it. He had hoped, and he had therefore fooled himself. Seen what he wanted to see.

What had never been there.

Not for him.

“Can I – is there anything I can do?”

“For your wings? Probably. Go and ask forgiveness. Stop thinking. They’ll love that. Make them as white as snow. He’ll like that.”

“The one that you – “

“Shut up.”

“But it’s true, isn’t it?”

“I told you to shut up, you fluffy excuse for a bird’s first draught.”

“So, it’s true.”

“And so fucking what if it is?” he suddenly snarled, and it startled him as much as it evidently startled the other.  But he couldn’t have stopped it if he’d tried. “What’s that going to change? I’m not going to have – it’s not going to be me regardless of – why would he want to have me?”

He had already rejected him. What he was.

Had rejected him for what he had been.

Or what he had thought he was.

Not who he was.

He was going in circles.

It was that or dropping down a pit, and it wasn’t going to be that blissful void that he thought it was or would want, either. He knew that without even having to think about it any further. It was sort of…obvious that this was so.

If only because he knew precisely how his luck went.

“But you said you’ve known each other a long time.”

“Doesn’t matter. Doesn’t seem to – it was never me he saw. It was you. It was always bloody well you, and I can’t – I can’t – “

If it hadn’t been for the fact that it was a dream, he would have thought he was trying to tear his corporation apart, with the way –

“You don’t have to.”

“So long as you’re here, I have to. So, so just – just piss off already.” He snarled at them, baring his teeth as much as muscles would allow – or perhaps a little further, really – a hissing noise escaping him. “Piss. Off.”

“I’m not leaving.”

“You’re only going to get hurt if you don’t.” His fingers twitched, now, aching with so many things rheumatism would look like a mild spasm, and he could feel his wings trying to rise up in to the air. Not to mantle but…but something.

The creature stared at him. Their eyes were wider still – you’d think they’d have popped out by now – and their expression sort of flickered. But for all of that, the hand was still on his shoulder and their wings were still around him, sort of. As much as it could.

The intention was there if nothing else, and that in itself was – was frankly bloody unwise.

It was also far more than he would’ve ever expected from them. If he were honestly, he would’ve expected them to have run off long ago already but at the very least when he threatened them.

They were naïve but were they supposed to be that dumb?

He wouldn’t have thought so, with all the questions, but it seemed to be something that – that was catching.

“I am not.”

“Oh, you think not? Why not?”

“Because you haven’t hurt me up until now.”

He tipped his head as though he had a crick in it. “Maybe I was saving it up. I am a demon, after all.”

They didn’t flinch.

Why didn’t they flinch? It was only sensible that they should. Not as though they didn’t know what that was. Not now.

“I’m not leaving.”

“You are. You are going to leave and leave me here. Piss off. Bugger off into the body and be – be that which he wants you to be.”

“But I don’t know him.”

“You will.”

As he spoke, he snapped the fingers on one hand and pushed hard with the other.

Unfortunately, whether this was a dream or something else, it seemed something was amiss with both his strength and his miracles.

Not only were they not confused or blown away, but they did not move the least bit. Alright, so there was no wind in the middle of space, but by that logic, they shouldn’t have any need for wings and definitely shouldn’t have any need for them.

Point was that the blasted thing didn’t move at all. He stared in anger and disbelief and more than a little helplessness.

Nothing he could do seemed to have any kind of effect.

Instead, they caught the hand he had used to try and push them away.

“I’m not leaving.”

“You’ll regret that.” It wasn’t a threat, but simply a statement a fact. Probably just as well when your attempt at a threat had just gone up in nothing.

Not even smoke.

Where was the style?

“Maybe. I don’t think so.”

“I can hurt you.”

“Yes.” It was also just a statement. Which somehow made it worse or at least more potent. “But you haven’t. I don’t think you will.”

“Why? Because you’re me?”

“No. Because you are me – and because you looked sorry when you tried.” The other smiled, the absolute bastard. “I’m not leaving you.”

“You have to.”

“If they’re going to hurt me – “there was a look at the wings that was so minute that it was only because he was watching so closely that he caught it – “they will if I don’t do it and if I do. Don’t you think?”

He could have told them that much from the beginning. But that was not the kind of thing they would want to know.

They were meant to be kept pure. That was what they were.

It was what appealed, wasn’t it?

The one thing they had that he no longer had. That he could never hope to regain. No matter what he might think to do or what might be promised to him.

This was why he was not them and never had been.

The one you see is not me. I am not there.

If they lost that, then – then they wouldn’t appeal either.

But they could turn that back, couldn’t they? They wouldn’t lose anything if they did.

“As for – for your friend.” There was a moment of hesitation before the other seemed to rally and pull themselves together. To get determined in some way.

He didn’t say anything but suspected that his expression said just about everything that he could’ve hoped to say on the subject.

It didn’t deter them, because of course, it didn’t. Why would he ever be anything like as lucky as that?

Never knew when to leave well enough alone, did he?

The creature went on, “I don’t think he would want me. Whatever that means. It’s not me that he knows. We only met once.”

And that was enough. That was the worst of it. No, it wasn’t. There were too many candidates for that particular position for any one point to qualify as ‘the worst’. It was instead a whole smorgasbord of worst, and one of them was that after one time, it was still that person that – that was wanted.

Not the one he had had an Arrangement. Had spent thousands of years with, in one way and another.

The one he had made a friendship with.

Or what had appeared to be a friendship.

All of that was nothing compared to – to one time. One time!

Where he hadn’t even been paying attention to – well, no, he had paid attention, but his attention had been as much on what he had just set in motion as the angel that had helped him for most of it. It was only when the conversation had turned to the lifespan of his creation – not his alone, but his in part – that he focused fully on the other.

That was what had caused…that was what his friend wanted to bring back.

To restore him to.

But it wouldn’t be restoration. It would be destruction.

Erased as thoroughly as if he had been deleted from the Book of Life.

Wasn’t that going a bit too far?

Was it?

He was still here. Would still be there if –

Only provided he was allowed to have it done, and for some reason, that didn’t seem likely to him. They would not allow – even what an Archangel said didn’t automatically go.

You had only to look at what happened to –

Fuck him, too.

Fuck him for daring to just – to bugger off as though he could just leave everything behind and – and –

And he was angry with him not for what he had done so much as the fact that he could do it, and he couldn’t.

He had not been given that chance.

Are you happy now? He wanted to scream it out loud, and he couldn’t bring himself to do it.

Why not? It would be heard regardless, wouldn’t it? If so, it was already known, and it didn’t – it didn’t –

Nothing mattered.

Nothing at all.

Fuck.

He couldn’t win against not even a memory, but a twisted fantasy of what he was. What he had been.

That was not him.

It wasn’t even the creature he in front of him, looking at him as though they were afraid of him.

No, not afraid. They weren’t afraid. That was not the expression on their face.

It was – oh, for someone’s sake, how dared they?

How dared they show compassion for him?

They had no right! No fucking right at all to –

Except…they did, didn’t they? Really. When you got down to it. They did have a right, more than anyone else ever had. Ever could.

Even though they didn’t understand, they were the only ones who understood. If that made the least bit of sense.

It did to him. What more could he want?

Everything.

But yes, he understood what was meant here. What he himself meant, frankly.

They wanted to understand, too. Or perhaps they just didn’t want to leave him alone. On his own. As though it was…it was…

What?

Their duty, perhaps?

No. Just their desire. Even though they knew what must happen. What they risked.

But they were…this was not…

They were not a mere fantasy, were they? This was the memory of…of who he had been. Of what he had been and what he had lost.

He was a grim and horrible warning to them.

But perhaps he was also a hope…

How? How could he ever be anything remotely like a hope? Wasn’t he everything that an angel was supposed to fear? To hate? To be repulsed by?

He was a bloody demon, so of course, he was. What else could he possibly be?

To know that this was your future must only exacerbate the natural disgust and repulsion felt by them.

Yet they were the one that had approached. He’d told them not to – had wanted them not to, for crying out loud, and they had not listened for a moment. Or they had listened, and they’d done what they thought best after all.

Sound familiar, eh?

There was that, yes.

But that did not change the point!

Didn’t it?

Really? It didn’t? How could it not?

How could he ever be a hope? Unless it was because you weren’t destroyed as you Fell – and he couldn’t imagine that wouldn’t have been preferable.

It didn’t matter anyway.

This was not real, after all.

None of it was real. It was all just a dream. Just another projection of things, and therefore, it didn’t matter one way or another. He had wasted a lot of time and effort on absolutely nothing.

Sound familiar?

Oh – oh, fuck off!

He hadn’t known. Hadn’t thought that – that it could turn – that it would ever turn –

Why couldn’t he just – why did he have to keep suffering through it?

“It’s still you that he wants. Or what he thinks you are. Or were. Not what I am or have been. I’ve been nothing but a – a – “

“A real person?”

It was said so innocently, so earnestly, that he almost smiled.

I’m a real boy, I am.

Only, he wasn’t.

He was nothing now. Not an angel, not a proper demon, not a human being. Neither had he anywhere he belonged.

Except in nothingness.

Nothingness forever.

Destruction.

Go on, then. Smite me down. You don’t want me, he doesn’t want me. Nobody wants me, so why don’t you just come and finish the job? Or are you too distant to bother with such trivialities as that?

He knew he was taunting, and that it was dangerous. But he wanted it to be dangerous. Wanted to see it come through.

Right now, he didn’t care. Didn’t care at all, they could bring the lightning rod, and he would climb right up unto it.

Hit him.

Just hit him already.

“Shadow. A skeleton. Nothing real. Just the charred remains.”

“He doesn’t sound very nice.”

He almost laughed at that, but it became a choked noise somewhere along his throat, and he couldn’t have changed it if he’d tried.

Nor stopped it for that matter.

“He is. Oh, but he is, and that’s the fucking trouble, isn’t it? Because I’m not and I never will be. You are, and you can – “

“But I’m not you.”

“Exactly!”

“But he can’t want to – I wouldn’t want to give up someone I know for someone I’ve only ever seen. Like that large angel with the dwarf star jaw. You know.”

The stupid thing was that he did.

No, the really stupid thing was that he almost smiled at that. Well, grinned, really, but it didn’t want to come out in any case, and so the point was a little bit moot.

Mutely moot.

“No. You don’t want to know him.”

“But I will.”

“Yup. He’ll try to kill you. Twice.”

“How can he be an angel, then?”

“Good fucking question.”

“It doesn’t seem right – but maybe if you got to know him? Then it would.”

Fucking little nebula of sunshine, weren’t they?

No. They weren’t. They just wasn’t a spiked mine of misery and uncertainty, that was all. He couldn’t blame them for that. Even though he wanted to.

He wanted to have anything to blame. Anything to – to –

To be angry at. To vent at.

To empty himself into and never be whole again.

Or did he?

What? Of course, he bloody well did. That was obvious.

Except that it didn’t…it didn’t quite feel like that anymore.

Only because he’d stamped on it until it bled.

But it hadn’t. Or he hadn’t. It was there, and it was real, but it was nothing which…which he…

It was all complicated and strange and –

And he did not feel better!

How could he feel better? This was just a dream. It wasn’t real. Even though it had managed to make everything here feel real and far more real than the world loosely called reality felt at the moment. It was not real and never would be real, either.

So why was he bothering?

It would never change anything.

Facts were facts.

His fate was his fate.

It was sealed.

It was…

But it hadn’t been for that fucker with the dwarf star jaw, had it?

No, because he chose otherwise. He chose. Because he could choose.

Everyone could. If they made the choice to. Dared to.

So had – and he hadn’t chosen him.

It was as simple as that. When you got down to it, there was nothing more to it, and there was no point in thinking anything else.

No point in anything.

He hadn’t answered them.

“I don’t understand why your friend would want to have someone he didn’t know and didn’t know him when he would have the person he’d spent so long with. Someone he cares about.”

“He doesn’t. Not me. It’s not me.”

It was never –

“But how could it be otherwise? I’m just an angel. Same as everyone else.”

“You’re not, though, are you?”

The creature, the angel, paused, then. Then they shook their head and their stupid hair bounced and flounced.

Oh, fuck, had it really looked like that? It was unbearable.

And just right for this fluffball excuse for a bird, too.

“I don’t know,” they said at last, and their voice was small. Then they swallowed and said, more firmly, as though it had made up its mind, and it was going to stick to it.

Perhaps they had. He would be oddly…it sounded stupid to say, but he would almost be proud of them if that was so.

“But if I’m not, then – then that’s still in you, isn’t it? If it were there before, then it is there now.” They reached out their other hand and touched his chest.

Just touched it.

It was with a small jolt and a bit of wry amusement that he realised that in point of fact, they had no idea where they were meant to be touching.

But they got the spirit.

Then he was almost sent toppling by what they said next.

“I’m still in there, aren’t I? I never left.”

“You were burned in a pool of molten sulphur.”

“But so were you. We were. You are still here.” They tilted their head again, as though that would reveal something. But they frowned as they did so. Thinking about it. “I think I still am in there. That I have never left. Else how could I be here?”

“Because you’re nothing but a memory.”

“Wouldn’t the memory burn up, too? If I was gone altogether, that is?”

Why the heaven did the creature have to argue?

It wasn’t the arguing, though, was it? Not really. It was the fact that it, they had actual good points on their hands, and that they didn’t let up.

Sounds familiar, doesn’t it?

Yes. Of course.

He just hadn’t been prepared for…for…

For any of this.

He did not feel calm, and he definitely did not feel the least bit better, but…but…

“That’s not how memories work.”

“Why not? And if I was only a memory, then – then shouldn’t I know your history already? If I was only in your head? Or I shouldn’t understand anything at all. If it were static.”

“You shouldn’t be able to argue like that, for a start,” he snapped, but there was little if any bite in it to be honest. “You shouldn’t have any qualms about any bloody thing.”

“Which goes to show.”

“Oh, shut up.”

For all of that, though, he felt himself drawing closer to the other.

Just who did it first, he couldn’t have said, but in the next moment, he had them touching his back and waist and they let him hold onto them in the same way.

“I don’t want this.”

“I know.”

“You’re not – and if you’re going to be me, you’re going to…you poor bastard, you’ve got it all to come.”

“I think I know that, too. And it isn’t fair.”

“Welcome to heaven,” he muttered, and he felt their arm tighten around him. Then he felt something wet in his hair.

His own grip tightened in turn.

It was not the right grip, not the right person, and he did not want this, but on the other hand, he…he wanted this quite desperately.

He could only hope he made a difference to them.

“Neither is it fair he doesn’t choose you. If he should choose anyone, he should choose the one who knows him. The one that cares.”

Now he definitely knew that it wasn’t himself. Or the version of himself that he had – that had been a star maker, put it that way. They wouldn’t have been – they wouldn’t have thought of any of that.

When he looked at their wings, though, they were still mostly white, and his was as black as they had been since…since…

The pool of molten sulphur. Or burning? Was it one or the other?

“What’s fair got to do with anything?”

“He’s still an angel, isn’t he?”

“Yes.”

“Then it’s got everything to do with it.”

“You’d say that, wouldn’t you?” he said, and he tried to make it a sneer or at the very least a grimace. It didn’t go particularly well, though.

Was he surprised at this point?

Come to that, was he surprised by anything at all?

Not as he should be – and no, he didn’t know what that meant, either. He didn’t have to know everything, did he? Even when it came to his own body and his own mind.

As you could so very easily tell, too.

The creature looked at him as though he had said something almost profound.

Yeah, that would be the day, wouldn’t it? Or it would’ve been the day, at any rate, back when –

Enough.

If it were that easy, then there wouldn’t be a problem in the first place, though, would it?

“I think I would, but that doesn't mean it’s not true.”

“Only a demon can be unfair, is that what you’re saying?”

The other looked as though they had not the least bit idea what he was saying or what they were supposed to have meant.

He sighed.

“Never mind. Just – just never mind all of it. It doesn't matter. None of it matters. Not anymore.”

“I think it does.”

“You would – and what good has that done?” he said, and his time, it was a snap. Just who the snap hit was a different question altogether, and one that he wasn’t sure he could answer, honestly or otherwise.

“I – I don’t know.”

“No, of course you don’t,” he muttered, looking away, his anger burning out just as quickly as it had flared up.

It really didn’t matter.

They didn’t pull away or run off, and when he tried to pull away, they held on.

“Go. Away.”

“You will be alone if I do.”

“So what if I am?” he hissed, and it was not a conscious choice in the slightest. It just happened.

Had he been able to look into his own eyes – the ones that weren’t big and brown and ever-so-bleeding-soft-it-was-a-crime, anyway – he would have seen that…

Well, frankly, he would’ve seen that they’d stopped quite resembling human eyes some time ago, if they had at all during all of this, but they were more reptilian right now than they had been for at least a little bit. Enough that it was noticeable.

The other didn’t seem to either notice or care. One or the other, it was not easy to tell. He would plump for the former, but that was just…well, he would, wouldn’t he? Regardless.

“What does it matter if I’m alone?” he went on, before the other could answer. “It’s not as though that’s going to be any different, is it? Might as well get used to it. Properly this time. That’s just. How. It. Is.”

With each punctuated word, the hiss got louder and stronger, and the other looked more and more concerned. Confused, too, but he didn’t confuse the two. Concern was the greater one there.

Why?

Why did they bother? What was the point?

He didn’t need to have concern. Or care. Or anything at all, for that matter. None of it was needed for him, and he didn’t want any of it.

Not even forgiveness.

Especially not forgiveness.

He couldn’t be forgiven.

Hadn’t he said that before?

Yes, and this had nothing to do with forgiveness, either. If it were to do with anything at, then it was to do with pity, and he didn’t want that either. Didn’t want that at all. None of it.

He wanted nothing.

Needed nothing.

Nothing was what he –

“But that’s not how it should be.”

“What does that have to do with anything? You’ve got to – no, you haven’t. Of course, you haven’t. But the rest of us had to learn that how it should be, that has got fuck-all to do with the reality of the world. Or the universe. How it should be is only ever valid in the vastness of fantasy and delusion, and you can’t – you can’t make it – you can’t bend it to – to what you think – to anything you would – “

His voice cracked at that, to his immense embarrassment, and the worst of it was that it cracked with a decided vibrato in it. A certain tearfulness, too, if he were any judge.

Why couldn’t he just – why couldn’t he bloody well keep it in check? Keep some sense of control of himself? Even in his own dream or wherever the heaven this was, it was apparently impossible for him to do anything of the sort.

No wonder, then, that it was not – that he was –

But it was just what – that was precisely what – what had been the idea when he – when they –

When he had lost him.

Of course, he would tear up at this. Of course, he would struggle with that.

Maybe, but that didn’t mean that it was alright, or that he shouldn’t pull himself together and actually get something out of it.

Himself, perhaps?

Well, wouldn’t that be nice?

He couldn’t have put more contempt in the word if he had actively tried.

The creature only tightened their grip on him.

He thought he felt something in his hair again. Something wet.

His head jerked up and away. He could see the shine of the brown eyes. That was just the tin lid, wasn’t it? “Don’t you fucking – you’re not supposed to do that!”

“Why not? Because I’m an angel?”

“Yes!”

“But I’m also you – and I choose to do it. Regardless of what happens.”

He stared at them, pulling away as he did so. Only, he didn’t get very far.

“You only say that because you’ve got no idea of what happens. That or because you’re nothing but my own memory. Because you’re not real.”

“Aren’t I?”

“No. Just a figment – and if I am going mad, why couldn’t I do a proper job of it, at least? Something better than this, for a start, and something far more effective than – than – “

“More effective than what you so clearly loathe? What you think has taken everything away from you?”

He had to admit the thing had a point. Not that he wanted to admit to it, but you could only run from the facts of it for so long.

No, you couldn’t. You could run forever if you wanted to. No trouble at all. It was only a matter of –

“I don’t think I am a figment. Not really. But even if I am…”

They trailed off.

“What? Even if you are, then – then what?”

They didn’t answer.

He followed their gaze.

Their wings were no longer…or at least, they were not as black as they had been. It might be nothing more than the light and how it fell, but somehow, that didn’t seem quite right.

He didn’t know how to feel.

On the one hand, it made him feel…feel relieved, of all the things possible. It didn’t make any sense that he should, and that fuelled the other side of it. The other hand, as it were.

That he felt resentment and anger and a justification for being – for feeling that the were not and never would be him.

He had never been them. Not this thing.

This – this creature. It was nothing but a figment, a fantasy, and it would never be anything else either. Not now. Even if it were brought back.

It wouldn’t be him that was made into an angel again.

But neither would it be it.

Of course, it would. You only had to look at it to know that – that of course, it was –

Why, then, had they not gone away? Why were they still holding onto him? Hm?

Because they were a fucking idiot.

In other words, not perfect. Far from perfect, and not the fantasy that – that was wanted.

It might not be a fantasy that was –

Now he was arguing the other side just to be contradictory, and it wasn’t working very well, as far as ould be told. Why was he bothering? It was only going to exhaust him further.

Yeah, well, maybe he could sleep, then, couldn’t he? If he couldn’t get torn apart and become nothing at all, then he could at least escape the world by sleeping. He had done it before, after all.

Come to that, he was doing it now. Right now. As he spoke. Well, near enough. The principle was there, and it was strong.

How well did he think that was going? Being in control and all that? Knowing what he was going to do, for that matter.

What? What did that have to do with –? Oh, fucking great. Now he was losing control of even that. If he’d had it to begin with, which he wasn’t…

He wasn’t…

Wasn’t…

For a moment, everything swam. In a way, that was.

Only, it wasn’t everything around him that did so. It ought to have been, especially given the ‘everything’, but it was instead as though everything inside him swam.

Dissolved, almost. Started to melt and swim apart, at the very least.

For a moment, he felt peace. Delight.

Relief.

Calm.

The very calm that he had wanted all the time and which he hadn’t a hope in…in any part of the world or universe of getting.

Then it dawned on him what that meant.

What it had to mean.

It kept on dissolving. Only little by little, really, but it did still dissolve, more and more…without him being able to do a single thing to prevent it, either.

He tried to, after that first moment.

Tried with everything that he had, but the more he struggled, the more it seemed to slip and slide away from him. Almost as though it was trying to…

It was giving him what he wanted.

Precisely what he wanted.

Dissolving him.

What made him into him. Everything that was on the inside.

And he couldn’t stop it. For all that he struggled, it didn’t stop. But neither did it change or even speed up, for that matter.

That was almost the worst of it. Almost.

The inexorable inevitability of it.

He had not noticed it start nor why precisely it had started now. Maybe it hadn’t started now, and it had only progressed to a point where it had to leap some kind of barrier, as it were, at that point where he felt the dizziness.

Or maybe he’d exacerbated it with his wishes.

He didn’t know either way and had no chance of knowing. Nor any way to understand.

Maybe it wasn’t real. It could still be that it was all only in his head, and everything that was around him was not…that it didn’t have any real bearing on the…on what happened.

On him.

He wouldn’t be so lucky, though, would he? Why would he be?

Somehow, he knew that this was not the truth of it. That he was indeed…that this was in fact very much happening.

Had been happening for a while, too, and it would continue to happen. Without escalating in the slightest nor without stopping.

It would continue until he had dissolved altogether. Until there was nothing left of him. In any way, either. All there would be…was…was the creature.

The angel that he had once been. Or that someone had dreamt up, possibly.

Was this…?

No. It was not the Book of Life. That would’ve wiped out the both of them. All of them, as it were.

Who said that this was not what was happening? He couldn’t tell from the other’s expression. Or anything else, for that matter.

Could he tell from himself?

He looked down at himself or tried to.

It didn’t work.

Somehow, it didn’t work, and he couldn’t understand why.

It did nothing to dispel the feeling that he was indeed about to come apart altogether. That he was already unravelling, and so was everything that he had ever was or ever would be.

You might think that if you were erased from the Book of Life, you’d have never existed at all, and so you’d be gone between one thought and the next.

From the outside, it might look that way. Who knew what it felt like from the inside? It wasn’t as though anyone was popping in for a tell-all expose on the subject, now, was it?

Not as far as he knew, no.

So, this might be the reality of the situation – and it might explain why he’d been given this dream that he couldn’t escape or control. It was not a mere coincidence nor merely to punish him, then. Or maybe it was that as well, but it was…

It was likely to be intended to give him one last chance. Or merely a chance for the other to take over. That the chance was theirs, not – not his.

Wouldn’t that suggest that – that someone was trying to –?

Fuck.

No.

Please.

That couldn’t be true. Even if it were true, it wasn’t. Not like that. Not in the way that – that it appeared. It wasn’t – he wouldn’t be –

But he might not know what he was doing. It might not be intentional. Or he might have thought he was doing something else altogether. Something better.

They might have told him that it was –

No. No, if it were anyone’s fault, then it was – if that had been intentional, then the decision would rest with him and only him. He might not have meant it to be like this, but that didn’t mean that –

“Are you –?” the other begin, looking at him in concern. Or in confusion. They seemed alright. “What’s happening? Something is happening, isn’t it?”

It was, and he couldn’t say it. Couldn’t answer at all, in point of fact, and he couldn’t help but feel more than a little…grateful for it?

No, that couldn’t be right.

Why not? It meant it had come far. That there wasn’t much time left as it had already reached his vocal cords or his tongue, he didn’t know which.

Couldn’t he be grateful for that? When there was nothing to do about it, the wait for it to be over was surely the worst?

But it meant that he couldn’t answer the question. Couldn’t help the creature.

What did that matter? They were the ones that he would lose to in any case.

Only, they weren’t. Not really.

He had lost to a fantasy. To something that had never been real. Not them – and even if he had, they were not at fault.

He was the one who – who had chosen to –

“Please. I don’t understand what’s happening. What are you – are you –?” they asked, and there was something almost like panic in their voice now, even though that was quite silly. He knew it to be silly.

They need not worry.

Why not?

Wouldn’t they go with him? If he had never existed, it included them.

He opened his mouth to say as much but not a word came out. Not even a noise. Something came out of it, but that was not the same thing, and he…he didn’t want to know what came out.

The other jerked but didn’t pull away altogether. Instead, they held on tighter.

“What can I do? Why are you –? You can’t just – not like this. You can’t. What can I do? There has to be something I can do.”

There wasn’t.

He wished he could tell them.

As something kept pouring out of him, in a trickle that was a steady torrent, emptying him out from the inside, he felt an odd sort of calm settle over him.

He wanted to fight, to scream, to struggle. To do everything in his power to stay here. Even if it hurt. Despite all that he had been through and would continue to suffer through, he wanted to…he didn’t want to lose it. He wanted to keep existing.

At least try to.

But it was evident that he couldn’t. That nothing he could do would accomplish this, and so he…

No. It wasn’t even that. He just couldn't do anything, and the hopelessness, the apathy and the calm that settled over him was not of his doing, either.

There was no choice.

He would perish, and he would be fine with it.

That somehow was the most horrifying of all, and –

And he did not want that to happen to the other. Even if he couldn’t save them, he could at least – he was not going to allow them to do that to an innocent being.

They were nothing, though. Nothing but a figment of –

Did it seem like he cared?

Yes. It did. Just not about that.

With all the powers left in him, he pushed at the other. Trying to get them to go away. To be hurtled away like a pigeon in a hurricane.

His wings wouldn’t cooperate, however, and his arms were not…they seemed to give way under him. In front of him, rather, but –

And they held on even tighter to him.

No amount of glaring or of pleading was enough to make them stop.

Go away, you idiot. You’re going to be hurt like this, too. Destroyed like this, and I don’t – you don’t get to do that. The least you can do is –

“I’m not leaving. I’m staying right here.”

You’ll be erased, too.

“Yes. But that’s okay. It won’t be that bad. I promised I wouldn’t leave you alone – that I would stay.”

You can’t – you’re going to be – one of us has to be – he would want –

“But I’m not here for him. Or for anyone else but you.”

And they clung onto him. Holding him tighter still. To the point where it not only would’ve hurt if there had been much feeling left in him – and despite it being a dream, it didn’t feel strange to talk about sensations – right then and there, but where it almost…

Where it almost felt as though something had started to –

He felt it and pushed even harder. Trying to make them see. To make them understand that they were ruining – that they were destroying –

The white of their wings all but burned into his eyes even as his vision blurred and came apart.

So much for it being a slow descent into it. Inexorable and inevitable in its slowness.

It was, still.

No, it wasn’t.

Yes, it was. It was only that it had spread so far that even if there were not a lot of movement, there was so many points it spread from that comparatively, it was moving fast.

Exponential growth, was it? What a fucker.

And it was spreading.

Spreading across him and into – onto – into the other.

He watched, horrified, some part of him remembering the sulphur and another just the fall itself, and another part feeling the cold emptiness of this as it was now, and none of those parts wanted this to happen to…

To that which was…which was wanted by…

No. It wasn’t even that.

He just didn’t want to see this idiot hurt. Regardless. He didn’t deserve that. Didn’t deserve any of it.

Nothing he did could make them let go, however, even though it must hurt. If anything, they clung tighter.

As they did so, he felt – he felt –

Well, for one thing, he felt something, and it was…it wasn’t horrible.

It was…he didn’t know what it was or how he was meant to understand it, either, but he felt it, and it was real, far more real than anything even as it poured into him.

In a strange sort of way, he almost felt more himself again.

More than he could remember feeling for a long time.

Ironic, wasn’t it? That he was coming together as he was coming apart.

Metaphorically and literally, too.

Just bloody perfect, that. Precisely what he could expect, really.

I’m sorry, he thought and was surprised though he wasn’t sure just what he was surprised by. I’m so sorry.

I’m not.

Though the voice was no longer audible, either – and he could unfortunately guess why – it was no weaker nor did it give any impression of uncertainty or vagueness.

I’m not. I won’t be. If anyone deserves me, it’s you. Where you go, I go. We go together.

As he felt that thought, it dawned on him how far it had gone now. How far it had spread.

Not just through him but through the other. Wholly so.

But it wasn’t even really that, was it? Not really, if only because he’d known that already even if he hadn’t quite accepted it.

It was…it was that they truly did seem to come together. Not as individuals or the way you saw in movies where two halves of a split soul spliced together like rope. It was more like whatever was tearing him apart bit by agonising bit and doing the same to the creature, the angel that he was, be fair, something was coming from them.

Connecting them.

Keeping them together and whole. It wasn’t quite light, though it felt that way to him.

Instead, it was something that he’d never thought he’d feel again. Something that he was not – that he was never going to – that he didn’t think he was worthy –

That was too much. He couldn’t – it was – oh, fuck.

Fuck!

It was difficult enough to come apart or come together.

To have both…

Both, and they filled his world to capacity.

He held on, afraid to let go even as everything around him began to grow dimmer and vaguer. It wasn’t so much that it was crumbling or falling apart as it seemed to merely…unravel. Roll back.

Fade out.

Become nothing. Nothing at all…

There was…he was…this was it, then?

It seemed so.

That he couldn’t struggle, couldn’t fight it bothered him immensely. He didn’t want to give up, and that even as he knew he had to. That he’d never had a choice or a chance, in any way.

Right now, though, there was nothing left to fight with. Nothing left at all, and so he could only watch himself, feel himself disintegrate.

But at least…at least…

At the very least, if nothing else, as he came apart and became nothing, he was…he was not alone. Not really.

Moreover, he was wanted.

Loved.

What had flowed from the other was…love.

That was worth something.

Wasn’t it?

He closed his eyes and gave in.

When he woke, he almost couldn’t believe it.

Perhaps it would’ve been more surprising if he had been able to believe it. If he had opened his eyes and thought nothing more of it.

Just another day to wake up to and get through, somehow or other.

Of course, that begged the question of just what precisely it was that he couldn’t believe. Was it that he had woken up and couldn’t remember or that he had woken up at all? That there was a ‘him’ that could wake up in the first place? Or whether or not he had in fact woken up?

He paused, halfway up out of the…the what? The bed? The chair?

It should be an easy enough question, and yet it was nothing of the kind. He knew that it wasn’t, and moreover, he knew he had to answer it. As he had to answer the rest of it.

He needed to know.

To know if he were…if it were true.

Any of it.

All of it.

It was easy enough to check his surroundings, and it was a bed. Which was strange, because he thought he’d gone to sleep in a chair. That was, he hadn’t realised he had gone to sleep in it, but the last thing he remembered was sitting in it.

Just thinking.

With no intention of sleeping, either. That was…it was…

It had snuck up on him, then. Or he had been asleep already and couldn’t remember.

Oh, fuck. Not one of those – it would be too ridiculous if he were truly in one of those ‘Am I even awake? Am I real?’ things that were so in vogue in pulp stories at one time.

Yet he didn’t feel like sneering. Or laughing, for that matter. He felt…chilled.

Chilled yet warmed, too. Which shouldn’t make sense, and it annoyed him that it did make sense. The least it could do was make up its bloody mind.

But it had, hadn’t it? Not in the way he had thought, perhaps, but…

What?

What the heaven was it on about? That did not make any sense.

Yes.

It did.

As for the other questions…had he really woken up? He’d dreamed he was coming apart, so to find that he was still here was –

Was no indication of anything at all, and if he believed that it was, then he was in trouble.

He was in trouble anyway, of course, but…but –

Breathe.

Didn’t need to.

No. But breathe anyway, you idiot. Just breathe. Make the world settle down and then maybe you can make some head or tail of it if not outright sense. Alright?

He breathed.

As he did so, more bits came back to him. Little by little, shuffling in as though they knew they’d been away too long and was expecting some kind of punishment. But they come.

Of what he had been doing before. Why he had been in a chair and how he might have got himself into a bed.

That he had in fact dreamed and was most definitely alive now.

What?

Awake. He meant awake.

Hadn’t he?

Then he began to think about, began to remember what he had in fact dreamt about, and he almost wished that he hadn’t remembered. That he couldn’t remember.

Almost.

A wish that faded out into nothing as more came back to him. He could think that it came back to him out of spite more than anything, but that would be…well, that would be him, wouldn’t it?

Nothing to do with what actually happened.

But did it happen?

It was a dream.

Maybe.

It still affected him, though.

Yes.

He stared out ahead of him, seeing nothing.

Trying to see. To feel.

To understand.

There were tears on his face. Their coolness burned.

He didn’t know…couldn’t say yet how it affected him or whether he wanted it to affect him, either. But for all of that…no matter how it turned out…

No matter what happened, he was glad of it.

As he was glad to still be here.

Alive.

Himself.

As far as that went.

It possibly went further than you would think.

Maybe it would even go for long enough. For what was needed.

Stranger things had happened.

He could only hope, eh?