Archive of Our Own

There’s a line of fire being drawn from his hip to his ribcage, and he bites his tongue to hold in the scream. A trail of pure essence seeps from the cut, before hands are buried into his feathers, twisting, scraping, breaking. Andrew screams, as shattered and broken as his body, his essence. He jerks up from the stone slab, once, twice, struggling weakly against the chains. It's been weeks, months, maybe years, but the chains hold fast. A solitary feather drifts down from Andrew's wings, broken in half. It lands in a puddle of blood on the dirt, and Andrew watches it with a detached awe. He's not quite sure how he has any feathers left at all.

"Andriel, Andriel," a clawed hand strokes up his opposite side, trailing up his arm until it weaves their fingers together. Hot breath tickles behind his ear. "You know how much I like it when you scream."

Andrew closes his eyes and tries to forget, tries to remove himself from everything, from the violating touch, from the numbing agony, from everything.

Maybe that's why he doesn't notice the chains disappearing at first. The voice calls him back into reality, and it's not the words, but the terrifying realization that the voice shouldn't be here, that the voice can't be here-

Andrew jerks up, wings beating weakly and painfully, head whipping around. There is Abram, red from the elbow down, but dark everywhere else. There is panic in his eyes, but no injury on him, and Drekavac is nowhere to be found.

"- Andrew. Andrew can you hear me? Please-"

Andrew flinches back and muffles a cry. "Abram." He doesn't mean to speak, but his mouth moves. "Abram."

"Andrew. Fuck. Let me help you." Abram takes a step towards him, and Andrew twitches back, tumbling off the stone slab. The world darkens around the edges. When he can see again, Abram is still ten feet away, frozen. "Andrew, can I touch you? I have to touch you to heal you. If you want me to stop, I will."

To have a choice again, to be faced with his own autonomy- Andrew struggles to speak, to find words. "Yes." Abram smiles at him, soft and relieved, even if there's still panic in his eyes. He moves slowly toward Andrew, crouching in front of him, and Drekavac rises up behind him while he isn't looking.

This isn't how it happened, Andrew knows this isn't how it happened, but he opens his mouth to shout a warning as Drekavac's clawed hands come down to curl around Abram's throat-

Andrew wakes up in his bed at Palmetto, sweat soaked with aching wings. His forearms are burning, but he blinks and he's on the roof. He vomits onto the gravel, waves a hand to clean it up, and vomits again. He's shaking, trembling, stricken with the knowledge that he wouldn't be able to defend himself if Drekavac were to appear on the roof at this very moment. He tries to light a cigarette, but his hands are shaking too badly. A dream hasn't gotten to him like this in centuries, but his forearms are burning and he pulls his wings onto this plane and wraps them around himself. They fairly gleam in the predawn light, and Andrew traces one of the scars over and over until he's stopped shaking. When he can light a cigarette and all trace of his panic is gone, he closes his eyes and reaches out for Neil's presence. He's unsurprised to find him awake, curled up with a math textbook and some coursework. The normality of it causes a bit more of Andrew to unwind, and he blows a stream of smoke into the shape of wings.

He nudges Neil ever so slightly with an image of a cigarette, feeling the immediate surprise-acquiescence, before the air shifts and Neil is beside him. His heart pounds at the sight of the demon, alive and undamaged. The dream rattled him more than Andrew thought, if he's still desperate to check that Neil is whole.

The demon for his part isn't stupid, sliding to the ground next to Andrew and stealing a cigarette. He keeps well out of Andrew's space, but is still closer than usual, as if recognizing the need for reassurance.

Andrew stares down at the ground below, letting the desire for flight overwhelm the agony in his essence. He can feel Neil watching him, and the noise the demon makes as he shifts borders on a sigh.

I wish you wouldn't do this. Neil chides him, drawing some of the pain into himself. Andrew bares his teeth at the ground and acts like he didn't hear.

Finally, Neil huffs, and breaks the silence between them. "Let me see your forearms." Andrew inhales deeply, and blows it at Neil's face.

"What will you give me in return." His voice is rougher than he thought, dry and gravelly like he'd been screaming.

Neil meets his eyes steadily, dishonest brown to shattered gold. "Whatever you want."

Andrew pauses, considers. "The brand." Neil shudders, but nods, so Andrew turns to him and peels off the armbands.

It leaves him feeling bare and exposed, vulnerable, but there is no judgement in Neil's gaze. Neil hovers his hands over the pale skin of Andrew's arms and waits for his nod before turning him this way and that, studying the wards written upon his very essence. Something in Andrew purrs at the growing anger in Neil's eyes, that little tick in his jaw, the way that his shoulders hunch forward like he desperately wants to release his wings.

Andrew likes the careful but sure touch on his arms and the way Neil never so much as skirts his boundaries. He likes it too much, wants it too much for an angel not used to wanting anything, so he gives Neil another second before he withdraws and tucks his arms back into his sheaths. "I hate you."

"I could destroy those. I could destroy every damn angel that put those on you." Neil says, dark promise in his voice, staring at his fingertips. Andrew shivers at the thought.

"You'd get yourself killed, idiot."

Neil doesn't answer, doesn't say another word, until Andrew stretches to tap on his shoulder where the brand hides.

The demon shifts to stare down at the ground like Andrew, pointedly not meeting his gaze. "When the Moriyamas- had me. They were. They were going to bind me to Lucifer. The- brand was to summon him and bind me long enough so that he could drag me Down There. They weren't expecting the fight I put up, and the branding iron slipped, just enough. It's how I got away." Neil's mouth twists, and even in profile Andrew can see the deadness in his eyes. "They got too fancy."

"They will never touch you again. I will kill them all. Every last one of them, human or not." Andrew places his hand on Neil's shoulder, over the brand, the touch burning for an instant before he pulls back. Neil shudders, and turns to Andrew with desperate humor in his eyes.

"You'd get yourself killed, idiot."

Andrew shoves him off the roof, ignoring Neil's laughter as he soars upwards, cigarette a beacon in the dark.

Seth's death rattles the humans in a way that Andrew would find pitiful if he could spare enough energy to think on it. Death comes to them all in the end, every last weak human crumbles in the face of the First and Last Cold. So perhaps he's insensitive, eggs his shattered teammates on until even Renee looks disappointed. The only one who understands is Neil, the demon who has watched so many millions of humans fade that another barely makes his radar. Neither of them had particularly liked Seth anyways.

Neil still feels guilty about it, he confesses to Andrew one night on the roof. After all, Seth's death was his fault. Something about their time being too short as it is. Andrew snorts just thinking about it. Too much sentimentality from a demon, too little from an angel.

Even Aaron is shaken by it, expression brittle around the edges in a way that only Andrew can read.

The first practice back is a trial, even if Andrew is late because of his appointment with Betsy. She'd seemed bewildered at his lack of compassion, and after ten minutes he'd given up trying to explain the fragility and briefness of humans. She might like Earth, but she'd spent little enough time among humans that loss still registered. The last time Andrew had been attached to a human had been the late 19th century, and Oscar Wilde's end had been anything but deserved. Humans die, and Andrew is altogether used to it.

Andrew's almost grateful that a phone call stops him from getting on the court. That it comes through Wymack's phone, and that he has to take the call in front of the team, and Neil, makes things a little more challenging.

"Andrew. Why the fuck are the police on the phone for you." Wymack glares at him, as if his petty human anger could so much a touch the abyss that is Andrew.

Police... can only mean one thing, and if he's getting a call it can't be good. Oh perfect, oh wonderful. Andrew smothers a laugh behind his hand as he snags the phone out of Wymack's unsuspecting grip. His essence rolls with something like fear, the fake holiness turning it into hysteria fueled laughter.

"Pig Higgins, how wonderful to hear from you!" Andrew didn't need Wymack to tell him who it was, because there's only one contact Andrew has that's a cop, one kind, determined hunter.

"Andriel. I have a report." The gravity in the man's voice, audible even through the call, simply spins Andrew higher.

"Then give it."

"The wards you gave me twenty years ago went off. All three, just as you said they would. Does this mean-" Pig Higgins sounds apprehensive, even bordering on scared.

"Oh fabulous, you have just made my day." Andrew's voice is flat, as the numbness overwhelms the ambrosia.

"Do you need my help?"

Andrew snorts and hangs up. Higgins calls back once, twice, and Andrew denies the call both times. On the third time, he sighs, feeling Neil's eyes boring in the side of his head. He picks up the phone.

"There is absolutely nothing you can do, so please go away. You have served your purpose. Goodbye." Andrew tells him patiently and hangs up again. Not before he catches an irritated "fucking angel my ass" of course.

He hands Wymack back his phone and turns to leave, decidedly unamused at the thought of practicing. "Where the hell do you think your going?" Andrew stops, knowing he's shivering a bit with suppressed panic and disliking it immensely. He searches deep inside himself for an ounce of power, and begins to rewrite reality, just a little, just enough to get him out of practice. He's most of the way out the door when his careful work is undone with a pulse of energy.

"Andrew, stop." And of course, he forgot the demon, nagging little Neil who is no more fooled by Andrew's illusion than Betsy would be. He drops it, suddenly exhausted. He turns around, and the humans are looking between him and Neil in confusion. Neil, who has taken a handful of steps toward Andrew and stopped level with Wymack.

"I cannot be here right now." And Andrew pushes just a little of the storm in his essence toward Neil, the fiery rage, the nauseating panic, the twinge of pain. The demon's eyes widen and soften, into something like protectiveness. Andrew hates him with a passion so fierce that it overwhelms near everything else.

"I'll take care of it. I'll see you tonight." Neil watches him walk away, before raising a hand and wiping the last few moments from the human's minds. Andrew hates him, hates him, hates him.

Andrew tells Neil he doesn't want to talk about it and the demon listens like the idiot he is. Of course, if Neil knew about the wards, about Drekavac's reappearance... There would be hell to pay in the literal sense, and Andrew didn't need the idiot getting himself killed in a show of undemonic heroism.

It's difficult, trying to put a show on for the team as if nothing has changed, as if he and Neil are still virtual strangers. They sit next to each other on the couch now, and the easy familiarity that once dictated their actions comes back with a vengeance. Andrew tries hard to refrain from guiding Neil with a hand on his shoulder, from shoving him when he's stupid or smacking him on the back of the head when he's annoying. Andrew doesn't like touch, especially touch he hasn't initiated, but Neil is as safe as it gets for him. He can see Neil having similar problems, biting his tongue when he wants to say something too familiar, sharing a look with Andrew when a teammate says something unintentionally ignorant, being stupid enough to occasionally smile at him.

Andrew hates it and him, because despite sixty years apart they fall back into routine like they'd never separated. Routine is dangerous, routine is stupid, routine is all they had to hold each other together once upon a time. The humans are suspicious, Renee accepting, and Andrew distantly wonders how long the facade will hold. It's hard to remember himself, it's hard to watch his actions when Andrew spends so much time fighting the ambrosia, spiraling up into joy when all he wants is enough clarity to think.

Game 2 and Andrew doesn't know if he'll make it to the end. How entertaining, how wonderful. Neil doesn't seem to think so. He'd lied to Wymack's face about not being able to play full halves. They both know he could do it easily, his endurance superhuman (ha). But again, again, again, they try to divert suspicion and suffer the consequences. Or Andrew suffers the consequences. It's a bad idea, what Wymack is asking him. He's done it once before, and last year he'd nearly passed out from the pain. This year, he expects it to be the same, if not worse. And Neil, little demon Neil, is just as concerned as he'd expect.

Neil catches him before they enter the locker room. "Andrew, you can't do this. It'll kill you."

"Doubtful, Neil," Andrew scoffs. "I am not a glass figurine, I won't shatter under the pressure." Andrew shakes him off, Neil's eyes burning into his back.

The others have as many doubts as Neil apparently, Kevin taking it upon himself to shove him into the lockers. Kevin, a measly little human with a touch of darkness in his soul, shoving an immortal being of power and composition he can never come close to understanding, into a set of violently orange lockers. If it wasn't for the flash of panic and memory of being pinned, Andrew would probably find it genuinely hilarious. Instead, a split second of panic and Kevin is bleeding, not a lot, but enough to make his point.

He advances on Kevin, smiling viciously. He taps one of his angelic blades right over Kevin's heart. "Kevin, Kevin. So predictable. So pathetic. How about a tip? You'll start having more success when you ask for things you can actually have." Exy means nothing to him, a way to pass the time. Kevin can ask all he want, but Andrew will never love it, will never base his life around it, will never feel for it the way Neil does. He wishes the human would stop asking him to.

The others leave him alone after that.

Until the stadium, and the vapid human cheerleader that Aaron seems to adore that Andrew wants to rend limb from limb. No one is allowed to touch his brother, that is the deal, and Andrew is not breaking the First Contract because his brother is getting cold feet. He takes that irritation and tries to use it as fuel. When he takes the court, he stops by the blonde one, who looks empty and lost in a way Andrew hates to find familiar. It's not empathy, but cold calculation that makes him stop by her.

"Riko killed Seth. It'd be pathetic if you let him kill you too." Allison straightens, just enough fire in her eyes that perhaps she won't be entirely useless. Good. Andrew shoves any admiration or satisfaction so deep down that he'll never find it again.

The game is as bad as Andrew remembers, he is being torn apart on the court, ripped into shreds as the wards sear onto his forearms, burned up from the inside out. The first half isn't as awful as it could be, and Andrew plays at a reasonable pace as he comes down. By the time the half is called and they're performing a stupid mid-game pep talk, his arms are fire. Neil stands by him, not saying a word, but stealthily trying to draw some pain.

Then the idiot says he's fine when the nurse enquires. As if he's forgotten that humans are supposed to be fragile and being slammed into by a backliner should at least make him sore. An idiot.

Retaking the court is agony. Everything is agony. Andrew plays instinctively, batting away balls when he can, trying to stop from screaming the rest of the time. At the end of the game, with a win so close, Andrew burns with something not pain for a brief second, and throws himself in front of his goal. His. To protect. He didn't get ripped apart for two hours to lose now. He makes the save, an improbable, impossible save, and the game ends.

Neil's there in a blink, and Andrew might be losing time. He draws such a large amount of pain at once, that Andrew gasps, feeling lightheaded. Neil stumbles slightly, grabbing Andrew's shoulder for balance. The rest of the team is there, Kevin scowling and pretending to be displeased, as they form a barrier around him. A group of damaged misfits, protecting an angel. Andrew can't spare the energy to scoff so he accepts it.

Neil hauls him up, bracing him against his side with inhuman strength. Their chatter fades in and out of Andrew's awareness until they're back in the locker room and he pulls away from Neil to vomit in a toilet. Kevin shoves a piece of ambrosia down his throat, and Andrew showers at the speed of light, desperate for the alcohol Wymack has promised him.

He downs it so quickly he barely tastes it, under the human's amused gaze. He's totally unsurprised when Neil joins him, sliding down the wall to sit with him, but saying nothing. His shoulder presses into Andrew's for a half second as he steals all the remaining discomfort from the game. Andrew hates him, truly. Wymack watches them with confusion, understanding just beginning to turn his mouth, and Andrew lets him jump to the wrong conclusions. It would be very hard to jump to the right one after all.

They are somewhere in Egypt, in one of the early years, when the desert is only briefly broken by humans and their dwellings. It’s hot, burning hot, but Andrew doesn’t wish to feel the heat so he doesn’t, he doesn’t wish to have gritty sand scratching against his skin, so there is none. He’s alone for the moment, away from that annoying, clingy demon, trying to fulfill his orders.

Save the inhabitants of this village, were the words, and Andrew so rarely finds something he actually wants to do that his superiors would approve of. But this village has been visited by Famine, and the humans are beginning to succumb. In this one spot along the Nile, the land has not flooded and there is no fertile land for farming. Food supplies are dwindling, and already an elder has died from weakness.

A small child sits in the sand, crying weakly, cheeks hollow. Andrew drops into a crouch, and immediately the child stops, watching Andrew with something like fascination. Into their hands, Andrew presses a ripe melon. The child stares in shock, before bolting. A bit like Cain, Andrew thinks, out for themselves like all intelligent creatures. Andrew’s sure the child’s siblings will see none of their bounty.

When he stands up, there is no one there. When he turns around, the demon is behind him, Abram, or whatever he has decided to call himself today.

“I thought you didn't care.” Abram says, walking closer. “Didn’t you say last time it was ‘their own stupid fault for not having a back-up plan’?” He stops about three feet in front of Andrew, hand resting on the sword by his waist. Abram is dark-eyed and dark-skinned this time around, hair cut close to his skull, tunic swirling a bit in the wind.

“I have my orders.”

“Camel’s shit, Andrew. Your orders were to give a little kid some melon?”

“Do not make me kill you. Again.” Andrew snaps. Abram tilts his head back and laughs.

“We both know you’d miss me too much.”

“I would enjoy the peace and quiet.” Andrew says.

Abram is no longer there, but behind him, whispering, “Liar.”

Andrew swings with his sword, and misses, entirely on accident. He sheaths the weapon, not because he doesn’t want to make Abram bleed, but because he has other priorities. “Who are you this time?”

Abram tilts his head, before a flash of humor comes into his eyes, “Chike.”

Andrew doesn’t roll his eyes through sheer force of will, unwilling to give Chike the satisfaction. “God’s Power. Really.”

Chike shrugs, expansive. “I mean, wrong direction but still accurate.”

Andrew gives in, and rolls his eyes. Chike smiles at him, genuinely.

“Let’s get out of here. About 150 miles north they're experimenting with tobacco, we could give it a try.”

Andrew wants to, and because he can’t stand wanting anything, declines. “I’m not finished.”

Chike rolls his eyes this time. “Sure you are. I refilled their food stock. They’ll last until next harvest and thank Ra for it.”

Suspicion colors Andrew’s tone. “Why.”

Chike shifts, almost looking guilty. “I made it look like one of the leading merchants that’s been abusing his farmers was being greedy. He’ll likely be driven out of town by sundown.”

“Condemning an innocent man, how demonic.” Andrew says idly.

Chike snorts, “He was hardly innocent, trust me.”

“Why should I?”

For a brief second, Chike looks almost… hurt. It doesn't bother Andrew, it doesn’t. “Okay fine. I don't feel like playing any games with you today, Andrew. I already had to defend my actions to Down There. I'm tired.” And Chike disappears. Cursing himself and the stupid demon, Andrew follows.

They end up smoking the tobacco anyway, and Andrew can still feel the weight of his sword, the smell of the smoke as the wood caught. The fierce warmth in Eve’s eyes as her face was lit by the flames.

There's something dark in the demon’s eyes though, something weary and hurting. Andrew doesn't understand it, doesn't understand him. In the deep well of apathy that is Andrew, something stirs to life. Andrew reaches out a hand and clasps the back of Chike’s neck. He squeezes, and the demon’s eyes meet his own, wide with surprise, but not afraid. Never afraid.

“Don't do anything stupid, moron. It is not my job to keep you safe.” Andrew wonders if Chike gets the implication. The demon searches his eyes for a long moment, and Andrew wants him to ask. For this, for the tobacco smoke thick in the air, for the cool flesh under his hand and the ability to keep him forever, Andrew thinks he would make another deal.

Chike leans forward and thunks their foreheads together. In response, Andrew’s heart stutters and stops, before beginning again. He hates this, hates himself, hates wanting. Their foreheads press together for a long moment, and it takes a drawn out second for Andrew to realize his skin isn't crawling, that the contact is almost pleasant.

Chike closes his eyes, and Andrew mirrors him on reflex. “I'll be fine.”

Andrew hates him, hates him, hates him.

Being around Andrew again makes it easier for Neil to breathe. They are in sync again, in a routine so well-known that Neil doesn't have to so much as think to fulfill his role. They dance around each other like two fighters trying to draw first blood, but both of them knowing that the last thing they want to do is cause permanent damage. Even back in Eden, when nothing bound them together except sarcasm and fascination with humans, they hadn't been out to kill each other. Maim, sure, but then both of them came from places where war was the only career path and violence the only way of life.

Now, there isn't so much real hatred between them, but the comfortable tension that Neil has been used to for 4000 years.

It doesn't make watching Andrew tear himself apart on the court any easier. Neil plays his hardest, as good as he reasonably can, wishing desperately to spare Andrew the pain exertion will bring. He wants to draw the discomfort from him on the court, but knows he can't, not and play well enough to make it worth it. Not for the first time, he considers barging back into Betsy's office and drawing a promise from her to free Andrew, now. He would do it, he thinks, cross all of his self imposed lines of demonic decency just for Andrew.

It's dangerous. Their friendship has always been dangerous. Neil's chief weakness is Andrew, and while he is not self absorbed enough to think he is Andrew's soft point, he knows vividly how easily Andrew is used against him. Sixty years is not much time for memory to fade.

Kill him or we'll kill you.

Not enough time to forget Neil's world crumbling in the space of seven words, the last, most important one being: No.

Somehow he ends up in a shopping mall, with Nicky and Kevin dragging him in and out of clothing stores while Andrew vanishes. Neil keeps an eye on him, however subconsciously. Even muffled, his essence is easy for Neil to track through the mall while the humans demand his attention.

"You look like a homeless person." Kevin tells him, sneering. Neil looks down at the clothes on his human form and tries to find the problem.

Clothes mean very little to him, a stupid human expense meant only to protect their fragile bodies from the elements. Why should colors or quality matter?

Aaron rolls his eyes, and stalks over to Neil, shoving a piece of paper into his hand. It's a list of names and phone numbers. He stares at it.

Nicky seems unamused. "Seriously, Aaron? This doesn't help us."

"Dan asked me to get a list from Katelyn."

"Who are these people?" Neil asks.

"They're the single Vixens." Aaron tells him, rolling his eyes at his cousin's look of disgust. The twin walks away without another word. Kevin, for some reason, looks approving.

"Sorry, Neil." Nicky pockets the list. "We'll find you a nice boy to go with." Traitorously, Neil thinks of Andrew's reaction to that, the slowly arching eyebrow at the insinuation that a "nice boy" would be suitable to go with the demon that invented original sin. Andrew's not there, however, and Neil is stuck in this mess of a conversation.

"Nicky," he says, slow and patient, "I've told you before that I don't swing."

The human has the nerve to laugh. "Come on, Neil. You're nineteen and you've never looked at Allison's tits? There's no way you're straight. You and I really need to sit down and talk about this sometime."

Neil huffs, fighting the scowl that wants to turn his expression into something dark. "Some people have the decency not to objectify women." His reasonable response is overridden by Kevin.

"Nicky, enough. Neil's going to make Court someday, and it'll be easier if he's heterosexual. Imagine the impact it would have on his career." And now Neil's annoyed for another reason entirely.

Stupid modern humans and their obsession with sexuality. Fondly, he remembers the Greeks and the Romans, and even further back before anyone gave a damn. He wonders if Kevin knows that Andrew prefers men, and decides that he must not. Andrew would've decked him if he'd heard this speech before, having even less time for prejudice than Neil does. "We aren't really having this conversation."

Thankfully, Neil manages to get them onto the topic of clothes shopping before the talk derails further. It's gotten under his skin, for some reason he can't name. Everyone always wants to know who Neil is attracted to, always wants to put him in some kind of box. He's heard the talk, from demons Neil ran across back before he was on the outs with Hell. They think he's abnormal, some kind of freak of nature. What kind of demon doesn't enjoy... that? But it doesn't come naturally to him, not like it seems to for the rest. Even Andrew follows the humans with his eyes, picks them up occasionally for the night. The thought of letting a stranger that close, knowing how they could hurt him...

Neil trusts one being on this planet, and none of the other life forms are so much as a blip on his radar.

That one being finds them after Neil is laden down with bags full of clothes that don't seem very different from what he's wearing. He only let Nicky ramble on about how the fraying on these was "artsy and suggestive" for about five minutes before he zoned him out. Andrew sprawls in front of a fountain, playing with a flip phone in his hand.

They're relatively new inventions, cellphones. Neil hates them with a passion, flinches internally every time he so much as sees one brandished by his teammates. Demons aren't bound by physics. In the same style, neither are angels. For those of angel stock or demon breed, size, shape, and composition are simply options. What this means is that telephone lines are an incredibly fast route of travel, assuming that one can abandon one's physical body to fit in the spaces between electrons.

Nicky catches sight of Andrew at the same time Neil does, and makes a sound of dismay at the phone in his hand. Neil desperately wants to echo him, but knows that Andrew would hear it and ask too many questions. "What is that dinosaur?" Nicky asks. "No one put money on a flip phone, Andrew. You ruined a really good pot."

Andrew doesn't even look up from the phone. "So sad." Neil doesn't understand what's going on.

"You couldn't have even found him a touch screen?"

"What for? Who is Neil going to text?" Andrew lobs the phone wide to him, and Neil stretches to catch it on instinct. He freezes with it in his hands. He hasn't held a cell phone in thirty years.

Neil buys one of the new mobile phones on a whim. It's stupid, undoubtedly, irrevocably stupid. He doesn't consider the security risk, doesn't think anything through when he hands over the stolen cash. Just thinks- he can get in touch with Andrew, he can call him, explain, apologize, and maybe the void in his chest won't hurt as badly. Neil doesn't consider that he doesn't know if Andrew is near a telephone, doesn't consider anything in his rush to fix things.

Three days after he buys the phone, he surfaces to six younger demons holding him down and tearing him to shreds with their claws. He escapes by the skin of his teeth and a holy blade wrapped in a shirt so it doesn't burn him to pieces. Of course, he realizes after the fact, all the phone did was open a direct line to him for the Moriyamas to track him, and an easy path for the demons to travel down.

He leaves the phone with the husks of the demons' bodies and never looks back.

Neil doesn't realize he's stopped breathing until Andrew's hand is clamped on the back of his neck, squeezing tight enough that it shocks him into taking a breath.

"Neil." Andrew is in his personal space, inches away from being pressed tight along Neil's body, and this more than anything shocks Neil into the present. He's trembling just a bit, the memory of agony along his essence enough to knock him off of stable ground, and he shoves the phone back into Andrew's hands.

"Andrew- I can't-" Neil's voice is ragged. He doesn't care that the others are staring at them in open confusion, he'll ask Andrew for permission to doctor their memories if they get too suspicious. All he cares about is the touch on his neck keeping him from shattering into pieces. Swaying forward just a bit, he lets Andrew catch him and push him back upright, the phone miraculously out of sight. He's not stupid enough to think this means the conversation is over, but Andrew is kind enough to let him shake off his panic before stepping away. The angel is smiling widely at him, false joy, but behind Andrew's eyes is something dark.

Nicky takes Andrew's place, his hand on Neil's shoulder not providing anywhere near the comfort of Andrew anchoring him. It's as if he didn't register Neil's brief moment of weakness and Andrew holding him up, because the phone has somehow ended up in Nicky's hand as he tries to convince Neil he needs it.

Neil sends Andrew a rush of gratitude, which he dismisses easily. The rest of the trip is a blur.

That same day, Neil finds Andrew waiting for him at night practice, the phone set on the locker room bench the angel is straddling.

"My turn," Andrew says carelessly. "Explanation now."

Neil slumps onto the bench in front of Andrew, pointedly not looking down at the cell. Instead of words, Neil hikes up his shirt and bares the crisscross of scars down his sides. He traces them with one hand, almost absently. The memory still hovers at the edge of his mind, but Neil can suppress it easier now that he's recalling it purposefully. He raises his eyes to Andrew's only, to find the angel studying the path of Neil's hand over his torso with an unreadable gaze.

Clearing his throat, Neil says plainly, "I had a phone thirty years ago for a few days. Did you know demons, and presumably angels, can travel down mobile phone connections? Wires and landlines make sense, but cellphones were a surprise."

Andrew's expression shutters, but not before Neil catches a glimpse of what looks like anger. "A demon can only have so many issues."

Neil snorts, letting his shirt drop. "Yeah, I'll be sure to tell the forces of Hell to lay off."

"No," Andrew says, and the air crackles with static electricity. "I'll be taking care of that."

The silence is long, but not uncomfortable. It's not Neil that breaks it, but Andrew. Reaching beneath his armbands, the angel removes one of his holy blades and picks up the cellphone. Neil doesn't see what he does to the back, but he forces himself to catch it when Andrew tosses it to him. Turning it over, Neil marvels at the careful, precise warding on the back.

"Untraceable and no longer a point of debarkation." Andrew says flatly, doing the same thing to the identical phone in his pocket. "I expect you to keep that on and charged at all times. I need to be in contact with you when you’re out of range of..." Andrew taps two fingers to his temple, in both a strange salute and a fill-in-the-blank. "I don't care if you use this phone tomorrow. I don't care if you never use it again. But you are going to keep it on you because one day you might need it." Andrew puts a finger to the underside of Neil's chin and forces Neil's head up until they are looking at each other. Eye to eye, angel to demon. "On that day you're not going to run from me, not again. You're going to think about what I promised you and you're going to make the call. Tell me you understand."

Neil nods slowly, careful not to dislodge Andrew's hand. They stare at each other for a long moment, another inexplicable connection between two beings older than comprehension, closer than possibility.

The moment passes, and Neil leaves to go play Exy.

The fall banquet approaches faster than Neil can bear. It’s not that he’s dreading it, except for the fact that he is and that it could spell the end. He’d provoked Riko. Riko, a petty human who, if he can figure out who Neil is, holds the key to his destruction. How quickly it could all be over, if Riko just summons Lucifer.

Neil shies away from the thought. He sits in front of Andrew on the bus, taking what should have been Kevin’s spot when Andrew points to it with a smile. He can only pass so much time staring out the window and trying to resist the urge to fly away before he reaches out a tendril toward Andrew.

Are you awake?

Andrew gives him the mental equivalent of a flick against the forehead. Yes.

What do you think is going to happen tonight?

You’re going to learn to stay put, little demon. Andrew replies, slow and measured.

Yes, but what-

What do you think? You will get into a fight with Riko, he will reveal whatever information he has dug up on you, and Kevin will be a coward.

Neil flinches. What about you?

I will keep you both alive. Go away and let me sleep.

Neil settles back into his seat, feeling no safer than before.

Like Andrew predicted, things go to shit very, very quickly. They’re sitting at the same table as the Ravens and Neil can feel Riko’s eyes, burning the top of his head. Neil takes an unnecessary deep breath and sits where Andrew leaves a seat for him. One of the black-clad men stands from his spot at the other end of the table and sits across from Neil. The 3 on his cheekbone would have been enough to identify him as Jean Moreau, but a second of eye contact reveals much more.

Everything around Neil slows to a stop, and he forgets to breathe. Behind plain brown eyes, plain brown hair, and a too lanky body, sits Morael. Neil can’t breathe.

A tiny almost infinitesimal twitch of Morael’s mouth is enough for Neil to flinch. He’s still definitely not breathing, and a smile that pained isn't helping matters.

Shhh, Nathaniel. You’ll scare the children. Morael’s voice in his head is faint, but sardonic enough that Neil flinches again.

“You look familiar, have we met before?” Morael leans forward across the table. “Down South, perhaps? I’ve spent some time there, years ago.”

Neil is frozen in his seat, words stuck in his throat. He doesn’t know what’s happening, why Morael is looking at him like something scraped off the bottom of his shoe. He doesn't understand, and he wants out so badly that he hardly believes he’s still sitting in one spot.

“No,” Neil says, after the pause has gone on long enough to be awkward, “I don’t think we’ve ever met.” There’s something dark behind Morael’s eyes, and Neil is breathing again but he’s no closer to understanding.

“That’s a shame, we could've gotten along beautifully, no?” There’s a second conversation going on here, a reason that Morael’s eyes are so accusing, and Neil is trying to fly without wings, falling, falling, falling.

Six thousand years ago, before all of this, before anything, Morael had been his brother. Now he was a stranger playing a game that Neil doesn’t understand the rules to.

“You do seem of the same temperament, Neil.” Riko says, turning his attention down the table.

Morael smiles, broken. “Oh I wouldn’t say that, after all-“

Andrew cuts in, sharp, and Neil turns his head, having forgotten that the angel was even there. “Jean. Hey, Jean. Jean Valjean. Hey. Hey. Hello.”

Neil feels a flash of panic, wondering if Andrew can even sense the other demon, weakened as he is. He moves to nudge Andrew mentally and gets smacked away.

Shut up. I know.

That doesn't erase the queasy feeling in Neil’s stomach, if anything it worsens. Andrew knows, but does he understand?

The attention is off Neil, but the rest of the team is just as vulnerable. Renee defends, and Morael seems briefly fascinated, but Riko makes a slight gesture and Morael nearly flinches back. Oh, that’s how it is then. Neil shouldn't feel so relieved.

Kevin becomes the new target of Morael’s wrath, and beneath the panic and rising anger, Neil wonders what the history there is. “You won't stay. You should reconsider a contract before we rescind it for good, Kevin. Face the facts. Your pets are and always will be dead weight. It’s time to-“

Kevin half-mumbles, “I won't be bound like you” too quiet for anyone but the nonhumans to hear, as Andrew turns to Kevin.

“What? You have a pet and you never told us?”

Morael’s eyes are flashing in true anger now, “Don’t interrupt me, angel. Aren’t there etiquette rules you should be following?”

Andrew’s eyes are burning right back. “Oh, points for trying, but save your breath. You can’t mock me at the same time you are choking around your own collar.”

Dan cuts in, “Enough. Break it up. This is-“

Riko interrupts her, an almost shocking break in decorum. Neil can feel this all spiraling out of control. “Oh are pets not allowed to talk? Is that why your new child is being so quiet?”

He can feel Andrew staring at the side of his head, reminding him to be quiet and shut his mouth. He can picture the resignation in Andrew’s earlier words: You will get into a fight with Riko, he will reveal whatever information he has dug up on you, and Kevin will be a coward.

He desperately wants to prove Andrew wrong.

Matt defends him, “Leave him alone.”

“He was very spirited the last time we met, perhaps that was just a show for the crowd? Are you really going to ignore me?”

Neil tries, he really does. He can feel Andrew’s eyes on him, but then Riko opens his mouth again, a sick smirk on his lips.

“We always knew your other half was better at taking orders, after all, Dre-“

Neil snaps and it’s not much of a surprise.

"You know, I get it, being raised as a superstar must have been really, really difficult for you. Always a commodity, just a weak human being, not a single person in your family thinking you're worth a damn to the bosses—yeah, sounds rough. Kevin and I talk about your intricate and endless daddy issues all the time.”

Neil can hear Andrew’s quiet huff of resignation-fueled laughter, Kevin’s frantic “Neil!”, but he's so beyond shutting up and letting a weak, pathetic human taunt him. Riko doesn’t know who he is, what he could do to every human in this room with but a thought. He will not be muzzled like some pet.

“I know it's not entirely your fault that you are mentally unbalanced and infected with these delusions of grandeur,” Neil continues, his own cruelest smirk curling across his mouth. “And I know you're physically incapable of holding a decent conversation with anyone like every other normal being can, but I don't think any of us should have to put up with this much of your bullshit. Pity only gets you so many concessions, and you used yours up about six insults ago. So please, please, just shut the fuck up and leave us alone.”

The humans freeze in place, shocked beyond words. Morael looks pained, but Neil sees the traitorous twitch of his lips. Kevin chokes on his own spit, and Riko sends Neil a glare that could freeze Hell, if Neil had never witnessed Hell firsthand and the actual horrors it contains. Riko is nothing compared to that.

Neil turns to Andrew, and by default Dan. He says to both of them, Andrew’s annoyed grin and Dan’s wide eyes, “I said please! I tried to be nice!” Neil’s grinning though, just enough to make his apology insincere. The demonic part of him, the part that loves chaos and fucking with people’s expectations, that part is gleeful. Andrew and the half-shocked irritation of humans, these are the two things that he’s lived thousands of years for. He’s never been one for holding his tongue, and now his blood is singing for a fight. Matt goes scrambling to find coach.

Unfortunately, its Morael that turns to him, not Riko, speaking in French so that the others can’t understand. “Are you stupid? You can’t say things like that.”

Neil shrugs his shoulders, still grinning that bastard grin that all demons can scrounge up. “Sure I can, Riko doesn’t own me.”

Morael stares at him like he’s stupid, a familiar look from back in the day. “Yes, he does, you suicidal imbecile.”

Kevin clears his throat, looking like a man desperately grasping for strength and finding a small morsel. “Neil is a Fox, he isn't part of the Moriyama’s games, or your kind’s games.”

Neil winces as Morael’s eyes widen almost comically. “Kevin, shut up.” Andrew barks in French, to the shock of Nicky, who blinks several times in quick succession,

“Since when do you speak French?!” Everyone ignores him.

Morael turns his attention to Andrew. “Hello, brother, I would’ve thought you would have some desire to preserve his life, but evidently not.” He tilts his head at Kevin. “And does he seriously not know?”

Kevin clears his throat, and irritatingly self-important human. “Know what?”

Morael laughs, and Neil would love to lean over and strangle the life out of the first being he ever considered ‘friend.’ "God save you both, you useless fools. No one else can. How either of you have lived this long when you're so miserably stupid is beyond my capacity to understand.”

Wymack shows up then, and he looks pained but resigned. "On your feet. Abby is talking to the event coordinators about finding us a new table.” Neil is both relieved and nervous. The tension is electricity in the air, a storm about to strike, and Neil isn’t stupid, he knows the parting shot is yet to come.

Riko speaks in whip fast Japanese. “You will come with me later, Nathaniel, alone, or I will summon Lucifer here to this godforsaken banquet and hand you over to him myself.”

At the sound of his name aloud, every bit of Neil freezes. Kevin is a solid block of ice on the other side of Andrew, choking out a, “That’s not true,” but Neil isn’t breathing, can’t even think to look in his direction. The threat is real and tangible, the end of everything and the culmination of Neil’s worst fear. He should've expected it, should've been able to see this coming from a mile away but still, he's frozen, torn between running, as far and as fast as he can, or turning Riko into nothing but a smear on the court whose threats are meaningless. Either way, Death will catch him eventually. He hopes he doesn’t drag the others down with him.

Andrew touches the back of his arm, featherlight, but an anchor. It’s enough to get him moving, to get him headed away from the table of Ravens- misguided broken humans and a demon bound to their will. Kevin is being towed by Andrew, lost and unsteady. He can’t seem to take his eyes off of Neil, clearly looking for any trace of the monster he saw that day so long ago.

They sit the same way they did at the first table, Neil and Kevin on either side of Andrew, but now it feels pointed, like Kevin is desperately trying to keep something between them. Neil’s breath is still caught somewhere around his lungs, frozen solid. If he was human he’d would have asphyxiated by now. Thankfully he’s something more. Underneath the table, Andrew reaches for his wrist, squeezing it tight enough to hurt. It startles the air out of him, and he's breathing again. Neil presses their arms together under the table and doesn't meet Andrew’s eyes.

Neil gives up, hating the confused accusation in Kevin’s eyes almost as much as he hates himself. He carefully pushes a thought to the outskirts of Kevin’s mind, shielded from Andrew, something just between the two of them.

Kevin, not now, not here. We’ll talk tomorrow.

Nathaniel? Kevin’s eyes are wide, but he's clearly trying to communicate, even in a way that’s unfamiliar to him.

Neil. My name is Neil.

Does Andrew know? Kevin asks, unconsciously feeding alarm and fear into the question.

Yes. Later. Neil sends, as pointedly as he can.

Kevin gives a harsh nod, realizes that their whole table is staring at him, and leaves, unsteady on his feet. Abby follows at Andrew’s nod, and the rest of the table turns their attention to Neil.

Neil wants to squirm, but Andrew’s grip on his wrist stills him. The regard of these humans matters. In some strange, painful way they matter to Neil and he wants to protect them, wants them to like him.

“Neil, are you okay?” Dan asks, leaning across the table and meeting his eyes head on. Neil searches for a reassuring smile and comes up short.

Andrew snorts, grin playing at the edge of his mouth. “Does he look okay to you?” The glare Dan sends him is impressively venomous. Of course, Andrew brushes it off as unimportant and looks again at Neil, “I told you so.” Neil tugs at his wrist, and Andrew releases him after one last squeeze.

Wymack is coming around to Neil now, and it takes everything he has not to flinch away. With thoughts of Lucifer becoming horrifyingly close to reality, the dark spot in the human’s soul is more than a little disconcerting. "Did you or did you not tell me you weren't going to start a fight?"

Neil wants to run, wants to fly. He wants out of these repurposed courts, wants out of this state, wants out of this country. He wants Andrew to hold his wrist again and keep him from running away.

He doesn’t realize he's zoned out of the conversation until Wymack’s hand claps over his shoulder. “Neil, if you can’t be here right now-“

Neil thinks about, running away, but if he left now the others would be at Riko’s, and whoever he chose to summon’s, mercy. He can’t do that to the fragile humans so intent on living their lives and becoming something better. He can’t do that to Andrew.

“I’m fine.” Neil says, trying to look straight into Wymack’s eyes.

“What can I do?” If only the man knew, could understand. He would realize that what he was offering was much more than he could ever hope to give.

“I don’t know.”

The Ravens find them on the dance floor. Andrew shifts so quickly into a battle ready stance, hand on an armband, half a step in front of Kevin and Neil, that he almost misses the movement. Riko catches it too, if the half-amused twitch of his mouth is any indication. From there is posturing and chaos, and Neil isn’t surprised when he’s shuffled off by Morael.

Andrew will go ballistic when he sees him missing, but hopefully Neil can make it back quickly enough that it won't be too much of a disaster.

“Morael-“

Morael cuts him off, tugging harder on his arm as they slip into a locker room. “It’s Jean now. If anyone should understand adopted names, I thought it would be you, Neil.”

Neil closes his mouth, strangely hurt.

Riko is waiting for them, arms crossed and eyes cold. “Nathaniel, it’s been so long.” There’s no trace of fear in Riko’s eyes, not so much as a twitch in expression. If Neil had it in him, he’d be impressed. The first time Riko had met him, he’d left a bloodbath in his wake. Kevin could barely stand to be near him once he found out the truth.

“Riko.”

Riko stalks closer, Jean as his shadow. “Imagine my surprise when it turned out that not only were you not Neil Josten, you were the demon that slipped through my family’s grasp eight years ago.”

Neil leans back against the locker room wall, and lets a bit of his true self shine through, just the shadow of wings, a hint of essence. “Maybe your family should have held a little tighter.”

Riko steps nearly onto Neil’s toes, smiling cruelly. “I could summon Lucifer right here, watch him rend you limb from limb, damn you to an existence of torture, and then point him at all your little friends out there. What’s to stop me?”

Neil shoves Riko a step back, advancing. “I am older than you can possibly comprehend. I could wipe you from existence in the most painful way possible before you could so much as begin the ritual. I am a fallen angel, the oldest demon on this planet, the Serpent of Eden, a thing of your nightmares, and you dare to test me? You? A weak human excommunicated by his own family from the only thing that would give him power? You threaten me?” The lights above them flicker, and something like fear finally creeps into RIko’s eyes. It’s wiped away almost instantly by arrogance.

“Either way, you bring the King of Hell down upon your head, Nathaniel. Don’t make the mistake of thinking that you have any way out except obeying me and being a good little demon.”

The truth keeps Neil from killing Riko outright. “I won't be your pet.”

In the hallway, a door bangs open. Neil can hear footsteps, multiple sets, and he knows they only have seconds.

Riko grabs his chin. “You will, unless you want me to have your precious angel torn to pieces.” The rush of fear is the same as it was 60 years ago. Neil already gave up everything for Andrew once. Deep down, he knows he's enough of a martyr to do it again and again.

Andrew bursts through the door, stone cold and deadly with Matt a step behind him. His eyes catch on Riko’s hand, squeezing Neil’s chin hard enough to leave a bruise if he were human. “Let. Him. Go.”

Riko steps back, as if even in his arrogance he recognizes testing the angel that has already killed one human is bad idea. “Think about what I said, Neil.” He leaves, with Jean shadowing him out. Neil tries to catch Jean’s eye, but the other demon won’t so much as look at him.

Rushing into the room, Matt stops in front of him, looking him over. “Did he hurt you? What did he want?”

“I’m fine. It’s okay, I’m fine.” He meets Andrew’s eyes over Matt’s shoulder, and the angel turns away. “I just want to get out of here.”

Andrew doesn't hover over him on the bus, in fact, after a pointed, told you so, he ignores Neil entirely. It just gives Neil more time to worry. It's disconcerting to realize you're wearing a collar, and even more disconcerting to realize that someone you hate is holding the leash.

Wymack waves at him to come back to his apartment when they arrive on campus, and reluctantly Neil follows. He still doesn't much like spending time with the human, even if his personality and drive is something Neil has always favored.

Neil tries to make eye contact with Andrew before he slips into Coach’s car, but the angel is ignoring him. Fine.

At the apartment, Wymack waves a hand at the couch. “I don't expect you to sleep or stay, but I expect you to be here in the morning when I wake up, understand?” Fear rushes through Neil at the implication, but he nods.

“Yes, Coach.” The man offers a nod before flipping the lights. Neil stands by the couch for a little while, mind racing. He doesn’t know what the man knows, what he suspects, but it’s terrifying.

So he leaves.

He finds himself, unsurprisingly, on the roof of the dorm building. He reaches out towards Andrew, desperate almost for some company, but finds the angel asleep. It’s strange to see one of them sleeping willingly, but Neil can’t bring himself to wake Andrew. So he sits on the roof alone, until the sun rises, and he makes his way back to the apartment. It takes another hour for Wymack to leave his bedroom.

He comes out to find Neil waiting for him on the couch, not the least bit disheveled or tired. Something around the corner of his mouth tightens, and Neil is so afraid, afraid for no reason, but terrified.

“You know,” Wymack says, as he rustles together a suitable breakfast, and Neil sits frozen at the kitchen table, “I’m starting to think I misjudged you.” Neil swallows hard. “I don't know how or where, but you're still not adding up right.”

Wymack puts a plate down in front of Neil, and they watch each other across the table, sizing each other up. “I don’t know what you mean.” Neil tries, but even for a demon made for lying it feels false on his tongue.

Wymack snorts. “Don’t lie to me, kid. I know you're not entirely human, you can’t be. Not with the history you and Andrew have, because we both know that kid is something else.”

Neil stops breathing, forgets how to, for a long moment. This is his worst nightmare, something Andrew has never understood. To be discovered as an angel, well that can only end up as a good thing. To be discovered as a demon? His kind have been persecuted since time was freshly invented, burned at stakes, exorcised, murdered over and over again. In most instances, it was for good reasons. Neil can’t pretend the rest of his kind have gotten as attached to this planet, these humans, this existence as he has. Most of his kind want him dead, would gladly rend him limb from limb out of jealously or sheer evil.

Andrew could be accepted, the first humans knew he was an angel and adored him, he never had to worry about being hunted. Neil? Neil fears.

Maybe Wymack can read the sheer panic on his face, because he softens.

“Easy, I'm not going to hurt you. I recruited Andrew knowing very well he wasn't human, and that didn't stop me. If you talk, walk, and act like a human, you get a second, third, hundredth chance. And god knows if anyone has ever looked like they needed another chance its been you two.”

Neil pauses, weighing the words in his mind. Wymack sounds sincere, even if he's touching at things he can never understand. The power that Neil and Andrew hold, the amount of time they've lived… Nothing Wymack might be imagining could ever come close, but still, the thought is nice. “Okay.” Neil finally says.

Wymack watches him, as if waiting for something more. “Jesus, its like getting blood from a stone. You can trust me, trust this team.”

Neil shakes his head. “I’m sorry, I can’t tell you anything. You don't want to know in the first place.”

“Leave it up to me to know what I want, wiseass.” Wymack says, scowling. “But that’s not the point. I’m going to tell you a little something about the Moriyamas that maybe you don’t know.

“There’s two branches of the family, and Tetsuji heads up the side branch. The main branch is run by his brother, Kengo, and rumor has it they're descended from something with serious power. Sure, they're the most powerful mob in America, but they've also got their fingers in some other pies, if you know what I mean. They hold a lot of power with,” Wymack waves at Neil and then off toward the door, “your kind. You should be careful.”

“I will be.” Neil knows it’s one of the cheapest lies he's ever told, but what is he supposed to say. ‘It’s too late for that, my death warrant is signed and there’s no coming back this time’?

“Don’t lie to me about this. You need to stop provoking Riko, before you get yourself killed.” Wymack’s face darkens. “They have connections to Hell.”

Neil tries to keep breathing, forces his lungs to work.

“Oh?” He can’t help that it sounds a little breathless and the opposite of casual.

Wymack just looks sour. “So hold your tongue next time, idiot.”

With that encouraging start to the day, Neil goes to the court to talk with Kevin. Surprisingly, Kevin is separate from Andrew, sitting at center court alone. Neil can hardly believe that Kevin would agree to be alone with him. He looks up when Neil slips in, and watches him with something close to fear as Neil sits across from him.

“Kevin.”

“You can’t really be- Tell me you aren’t really Nathaniel.”

Neil flinches at the sound of his First name, tied up with too much baggage for him to ever be comfortable. “Don’t call me that. It doesn’t matter what I started out as, I’m Neil right now.”

Kevin stares at him like he's something fascinating. “Why are you here? What are you doing playing Exy? They’ve hunted you for decades!”

Neil shrugs, and lets some of his humanity slide away. “I love it. It's something to pass the time. But mostly, I’m here for Andrew.”

Kevin shakes his head. “This is suicide.”

“Nothing they do can kill me.”

“Lucifer will.” Kevin says, near the edge of hysteria. And Neil flinches again.

“I got away once-“

“You will not get away again.” Kevin interrupts. “Your only hope is to run and never look back.” A human, trying to dictate to Neil, who has lived more lives than his mind could ever comprehend.

“I ran for sixty years, and I've lived for six thousand. Those years on the run were the worst sixty years of my life. I can’t do it again.” Neil runs a hand through his hair, glaring at Kevin. “Why do you even care? You know what I am.”

Kevin looks away, his arrogant mask slipping for just a second. “Eight years ago, you were caught. You were the only person to ever escape the Nest, and I always wished you had taken me with you.”

“I’m not a person,” Neil snaps, “and I killed people in front of you to do it.”

“‘The demon that loves,’ that's what they call you, a disgrace, a mistake. You killed those men, and that night Tetsuji beat Riko and I black and blue for watching, and the Moriyamas killed a child as a sacrifice to summon Lucifer, and the family enslaved Jean a week or two later. I grew up around collateral damage, but you didn't kill either of us that night. You could have, but you let us live.

“And now you play Exy.”

Neil smirks a little, unable to help himself even as his mind is reeling. “Exy was really the selling point, wasn't it.”

“Shut the fuck up.” Kevin scowls. “Don’t think I’ve forgotten the part about how you could be giving me more on the court than you are. I know you aren't human, and yet you still act like you can’t endure two full halves?”

Kevin truly does have a one track mind, and it’s almost beautiful. “Not everyone knows what I am Kevin. I’d rather not give away the fact that I'm not human.”

Kevin glares at him, and then Andrew, who is sprawled across the stands. “Why do you two refuse to reach your full potential, I don't get it.”

“Andrew honestly doesn’t care that much, and I think its unfair.” Neil shrugs, because what would the fun in the game be if he just cheated the whole time?

“Jean doesn’t seem to care.” Kevin retorts.

“From what you’ve said, Riko has him collared. I’m here by choice. There’s a big difference.” Neil tilts his head, considering the question he's been meaning to ask for a while. “Why is Andrew here? What deal did you make with him?”

Looking shifty, Kevin replies too quickly, “How do you know I made a deal?”

“Andrew doesn’t do things for free.”

Kevin sighs, rubbing at the scars on his left hand. “You don’t understand what he was like when I met him. He was playing human, in high school with Aaron, and utterly empty. It was like all the life had been sucked out of him, he simply didn't care about anything but his brother.” Neil feels something curdle in his stomach, a voice whispering in his head, you did this, you broke him. He hates it, hates himself more. “We tried to recruit him, having no idea who he really was.” The irony of that, that the most powerful Hell-sponsored humans on Earth tried to recruit Andrew, an angel, and not just an angel, but the Angel of Earth… In a different situation, it would be funny.

“He turned us down flat and in the process, he revealed that he was an angel, and that we had absolutely nothing appealing to him. I’ve never seen the family so angry as when we told them we’d found him. Half wanted to kill him instantly, the other half was terrified they'd bring you down upon their heads. After all-“

“He doesn’t know.” Neil says quickly, casting a quick net of privacy. In his current state, it’s unlikely that Andrew could hear them without significant effort, but better safe than sorry. “He doesn’t know about why I ran, or the orders, or anything.”

Kevin’s eyes are wide. “You can’t be serious.”

“You won’t tell him. If you tell him the truth, I will ruin you.” Neil lets a bit of his true nature shine through. “He would try to take on the Moriyamas by himself and he’d be slaughtered.”

“That’s-”

“Kevin.” Neil says, low and deadly. “Swear.”

Kevin swallows hard, but because he's not a complete idiot, he swears. Neil stands, ready for some peace and quiet to regroup. “Our deal,” Kevin rushes, also standing, “was that he would protect me if I helped him find a reason to live- if I helped him find you.”

Neil stops, back to Kevin and fighting the urge to look backwards. “What.”

“The deal is that I would help him find you, with the Moriyama's old contacts and everything else at my disposal. He knew I’d had a run in with you and he was getting… desperate.”

Desperate has never been a word Neil associates with Andrew, not even when-

Neil can’t believe Andrew would feel that way about finding him, he can’t.

“Nath- Neil.” Kevin catches himself. “Will you still practice with me?”

Neil thinks about a clock ticking down, about him losing this life he's built for himself, about losing Andrew. Whether he runs or stands and dies, the result will be the same. This is the last life Neil will live, no reinvention, no coming back, no disposable bodies. Even if he ran and didn't stop, bad luck would come eventually, be it in ten, fifty, two hundred more years. He’d rather die now. In a place where he's wanted, where Andrew is, where he's having fun.

“Every night.”

He tries to spend more time with the humans. It’s easier to befriend them when he knows they’ll likely out live him. Humans are so fragile, so brief, that Neil usually tries hard to keep his distance, burned one too many times. He’ll never forget swinging Cain up into a tree top, chasing him around, watching him grow from a carefree child, to a bitter adolescent, to an angry man, and standing vigil with Andrew while he died. He’s done it over and over again, and for all that he’s a demon, he finds it very hard to stop caring.

Matt slowly becomes his friend, in a way that’s surprising but gratifying. He teaches Neil how to play video games, and tells him stories about his mom. In return, Neil helps him with his homework and quietly irritates anyone that ever looks at Matt wrong, judging his track marks or his attitude. A small series of profoundly embarrassing accidents befalls each and every one, from accidental mooning in front of the class, to private messages being displayed on projectors, to computers mysteriously crashing and entire papers being lost.

Matt never suspects anything when he tells Neil and the girls these stories with a laugh, but Renee watches him. Something small curling the edges of her mouth. Dan is scrappy and fierce, one of those humans that Neil has always been in awe of. He doesn’t inconvenience the people that talk down to Dan, because he knows that she can take care of it herself, often in more spectacular fashions than Neil could ever dream of.

Allison keeps him up to date on gossip, and he uses the information she gives to get back at the students that piss him off. She's the one that wants to know the most about him, the one that questions his stories and watches him shrewdly for slips. Despite this, they all like him and he likes them, finds himself wanting to protect them, like has done for a handful of humans over the millennia.

Andrew laughs at him and shoves him off the roof, even as he has his own group held close and safe. Nicky is fragile in the way that his widemouthed grin hides. Neil can see the cracks beneath the surface, and the surprisingly sturdy duck tape holding him together, It’s why Nicky’s volume and energy don't bother him. Besides, he gives out useful information sometimes too, especially when it comes to the relationship between Aaron and Andrew.

Aaron is the enigma of them all. Neil doesn’t understand why he's here, why he's chosen to fall and become nothing more than a weak human. Why he seems to hate Andrew, when Neil knows that Aaron was the first deal he ever made. They used to be twin angels, in sync, feared by the whole of Hell’s army. This much Neil remembers. Did 6000 years apart do this damage, or was it truly over Aaron’s weak, human mother? Despite what Nicky says, Neil isn't sure.

And then there’s Renee.

Neil finally gives in and talks to her. It takes a week of psyching himself up, and a week of Andrew telling him he’s being stupid, but he does it.

Renee looks mildly surprised but entirely too pleased to see him. She might not be pure human like Kevin is, but it stands to reason she should at least be a little nervous around him. Instead, she seems eager.

“Andrew said you’d be coming to see me, but I didn’t think you were ready yet. Do you mind talking as we walk?”

Neil shakes his head, and they walk. He tries to find the words, but they stick in his throat. How does he ask someone, who by all means should want him dead, to tell him why she does what she does, why Andrew likes her when he’d vowed to stop getting attached?

The words don't come, so instead, Neil just says, “Tell me.”

Renee smiles at him. “I am a bad person trying very hard to be a good person, but I would not be trying at all if not for the outside interventions in my life. I grew up with my mother and her string of heavy-handed boyfriends. Even worse, I grew up with a festering magic that I didn’t understand. When my mother found out, she turned just as violent as her boyfriends.

“Maybe it was inevitable that I got into trouble myself. I started working for one of Detroit's underground magic groups. The kind that wasn’t about opening oneself up, but about dark, blood magic and sacrifice. It took me a couple years to work my way up to harder work. I did anything they asked me to and didn't care who I hurt. I thought anything was worth being accepted for my magic. When the leader found out how much latent power I had, things got worse.

“I got caught eventually, but that was sheer luck. Obviously the police didn't know the full scope of the group, but my lawyer traded my testimony for a reduced sentence. My words got a lot of people in trouble, including my mother. My lawyer explained my home life so the court would understand my lack of positive role models. His findings sent both my mother and her then-lover to prison on assorted charges. They were beaten to death by angry members of the gang I helped put away.

“When I was put in the system, my foster mother recognized something in me. She took me into her group of hunters, and trained me to use my magic to help rather than hurt. They were hunters, and they taught me things about myself that I never would have learned otherwise.” Renee meets Neil’s eyes. “I have a lot of power, and Andrew had to learn to trust me.”

Neil continues to walk with her, turning everything over in his head. It makes sense, explains things about Renee that have made him wary, the constant awareness and tension, the aura of power. “But you don’t want to hunt me.” Neil makes the statement into a question.

Renee shakes her head, colorful hair caught in the wind. “No. Andrew said you're a friend, and I’ve spent enough time with you now to know he's right. I’d rather learn from you than ever hurt you.” The shock must be glaringly obvious on his face, because Renee puts a hand on his shoulder. “I mean it Neil, regardless of what you are, who you are is a friend.”

It takes Neil a few seconds to compartmentalize. Here is a human that has little to no good experience with darkness, who was taught to hunt demons, and yet…

He thinks he gets why Andrew likes her so much.

He tells himself that it doesn’t matter, that he’ll be dead soon anyway, but he can’t stop smiling the rest of the day. Andrew shoves him off the roof twice in one night, but Neil feels something hot and fierce in his chest. He doesn't want to give this up.

It makes the inevitable so much worse.

They are somewhere in Greece, no they are in Turkey, surrounded by Greeks, and it is nearing 1100 BC. The city is burning, and Andrew half wants to stop it, half wants to let it ignite.

He leans over a screaming child huddled on the ground, covering their ears and sobbing huge, body shaking sobs. He leans over the child and opens his wings, stopping the burning timber from igniting them both.

The child stops crying and looks at him, eyes wide. They open their mouth, and Andrew crouches, pressing a finger to his lips. “Be quiet.”

When he’s met with silence, Andrew closes his eyes and focuses. He rifles carefully through the young mind, lighting on the idea of family in a distant village. With an effort of will, he places the child there, safe from the flames and the death that is awaiting them all. By the time he straightens up, chaos has descended even further and dozens more have fallen. There’s no way he can save them all, and it infuriates him.

As often happens when War comes to visit, there is no right or wrong side, no innocent or guilty party, just a lot of fire and dead children. Andrew doesn’t hate much, but he thinks he hates this.

Through the dancing flame, he catches sight of a woman, deliriously beautiful and laughing, laughing, laughing. Helen, War, whatever she's going by this time around. She laughs and the city falls, and anarchy descends.

A ragged line of smoldering soldiers rushes in her direction, and Andrew turns away. He has other priorities.

A small child is pelting him with rocks from a half collapsed threshold, nowhere to run as he gets closer. Their sobs are hysterical, high and frightened, and Andrew sends them away, affording them a wisp of calm. There’s more, so many more, but even he knows he can’t keep this up forever. He turns a corner to see Abram there, popping up behind soldiers as they fight and banishing them to a place far away. Stopping the violence before it can hurt anyone else, but they both know it’s too little, too late.

Andrew steps forward and takes down a soldier aiming his spear for Abram’s exposed back. He sends him all the way back to Greece, stripping him of his armor in the process. Maybe defenseless he’ll be less violent.

He covers Abram’s back, and Abram covers his as they move as many soldiers, victims, and children as they can.

It’s a long, never-ending night, until Troy has burned to the ground and the scattered Greeks are victorious.

Abram watches them with something dark on his face, as burning as the city around them. Andrew can see his lips move, see the flare of power as he lays down some kind of curse. Andrew doesn’t stop him, not out of the lack of ability, but because some part of him agrees. One of the soldiers kicks the body of a child that neither Andrew nor Abram had been quick enough to save, and he turns away.

With a thought he's gone, hundreds of miles away from the devastation and the soldiers who won't get back to Greece for a very, very long time.

Seconds later, Abram is beside him, holding a jug of some kind of wine, and a distinct lack of tobacco.

Andrew takes the jug from him, and pours enough into himself until his edges are a little fuzzy. He doesn’t let his essence purify the blood, and instead rides a wave of drunken numbness. Abram puts away equally as much of the wine and dangles his legs over the side of the branch. The tree that supports them doesn’t so much as groan, and Andrew savors the feeling that runs through him, the desire to spread his wings and fly. Heights are as much a comfort as always.

“I really hate them sometimes.” Abram says, out of the blue. His face is solemn, eyes somewhere else. If he were anyone else, Andrew would be wary. As is it is, he snorts.

“You just spent the whole night saving them.”

“And the children we saved will one day grow to be soldiers, and kill more than we could ever imagine.” Abram snaps back, looking at Andrew like he has the answers, like he is an answer. Andrew hates him.

“It’s a cruel world.” Andrew tells him.

“It’s not the world that’s cruel, it’s the people in it.”

And Andrew doesn’t have a response for that. Whatever they do to the humans, what they do to each other will always be ten times worse.

Before they so much as blink, the game for the Ravens is upon them. Andrew doesn’t know if it’s the ambrosia messing with his sense of time, or whether things are just moving that quickly now that Neil is back in his world. The long slow years before Aaron are something that Andrew doesn’t like to contemplate.

They suit up for the game that Andrew knows they're going to lose, and Andrew revels in the burning fire in his forearms and the agony throughout his body. His mind is clear, he can take unneeded breaths in utter freedom, and it is glorious.

The Ravens set down to destroy them, and they do it thoroughly.

Andrew puts everything he has into the game, partially to see Riko’s smug smirk crumble and partially because Neil’s fierce grin, dangerous and just a little bit evil, makes him want to fight. He jumps higher, moves faster, is stronger than he should be and Riko scowls, Kevin nods, and Neil smiles.

They lose, 10-6, Andrew snagging some goals that weren’t humanly possible, but that he got none the less. 150 shots. He only let in ten, but for a second, over the roaring in his ears and fire in his essence, Andrew wants those the goals back with a vengeance.

He sits down on the floor, exhausted, and as has become habit Neil, followed by the rest of the team, is there in second. He pulls such a large part of Andrew’s pain that they both sway, lightheaded. He crouches in front of Andrew, and his grin could set fire to cities, and in fact Andrew thinks it has. Neil grabs him by the shoulders and presses their helmets together.

“You’re incredible. Wasn’t that fun?” Andrew closes his eyes for one tired breath, before opening them in a glare.

“I hate you, you know that?” He pretends not to hear Allison nudging Nicky and whispering, pay up loser.

Andrew looks up and catches Aaron watching them, his gaze dark. When he realizes Andrew is looking back, his twin turns and heads off the court.

The thing they don’t tell you about Heaven is that it’s boring.

Perhaps that’s not the best word for it. It is, by definition, Paradise in every shape and form. The humans that end up there find it always to their liking, pleasing to every sense, everything they could have dreamed of. Nothing is upsetting or wrong, and everyone is happy and perfect.

The debate is whether any of it is real. The human mind perceives it as real, without a doubt, and scholars can’t imagine it being anything else.

Heaven is very different for those who have called it home since the beginning.

Andrew remembers it as boring, utterly, entirely boring, and so that’s how he describes it when anyone asks.

In Heaven, Andrew had only one purpose. To be a soldier. When there were no battles to be fought, he was nothing, and so he floated in eternal numbness. The fall of Lucifer and those around him had been entertaining for a few thousand years, but even that had grown worn out and gray after awhile.

His twin angel Ariel could not understand. They were twins but different, identical but dissimilar. Andrew protected Ariel, under the bounds of the First Contract, and what some might call Love. Ariel was all Andrew had, his brother, his confidante, his entire universe, even if they didn't always get along.

Well, they always got along, because in those days to think for yourself, to not be in harmony, was to be one of the fallen, one of the despicable demons. They were not always assigned places together, which of course made it harder for Andrew to protect his brother but he managed. It was Ariel’s turn, technically, to be guarding Eden when it all went down, but Andrew had taken his shift, sent his brother away to be rested and protected. Ariel’s faint resentment at being treated like a child was the last thing he felt from his brother for six thousand years.

After the apple and then the fire, after Andrew looked Him in the eyes and pretended to have lost his sword. After all that, Andrew was on Earth and Ariel was locked away in Heaven, safe as he could get. Andrew missed him like he didn’t think he was capable of, some part of him ached for his twin, his other half, but it was better this way. Ariel was safe.

For five thousand years, everything was okay. And then, a few hundred years after Drekavac, after Andrew was pulled to pieces, torn apart, left screaming and aching and scarred- they offered him back up. A backup to be more efficient on Earth, they said. The request has been lodged for several centuries, and they had now deemed it possible to fulfill. They offered him Ariel.

It should have been everything. His twin back, and the part of Andrew that he had yet to manage to shut off yearned for it. And then he thought of Drekavac’s promise, twin angels of suffering, and he said no. Never. Unnecessary. Useless. Better Ariel be safe than Andrew be more efficient, wanting was pointless.

So it was okay again, he had Abram watching his back, Ariel was safe, and everything was fine for another thousand years.

And then Andrew stumbled across a fifteen year old human, addicted to the pills his mother had given him, covered in bruises from that same horrid woman, empty but burning, burning, burning with what had been-

And that scrawny child looked at Andrew and froze, every piece of him, before he whispered, “Andriel,” and fell to the ground screaming.

It’s almost interesting, what the weight of an eternity of memories does to the human mind when they are so abruptly rediscovered. Andrew kept Ariel alive out of sheer luck and single-minded determination rooted in the First Contract.

But Ariel, no Aaron, was angry. They no longer had that harmony that had existed so effortlessly since the beginning. Both of them were closer to humans than angels had any right to be, and Aaron had lived a human life entirely ignorant. The rift grew larger, even as Andrew pulled enough tricks to make himself part of Aaron’s life permanently, forged birth certificates, changing his form, implanting memory after memory in the minds of the humans.

But Aaron hated him, and Andrew could not figure out why. Andrew disposed of that useless woman who beat him and ruined him, protected his cousin like he had asked for, fixed his life. Andrew did everything that should have worked, and Aaron stopped speaking to him, as if he was a part of him that he had severed and thrown away.

And so they existed, Aaron all but human, no power left, having fallen for a reason Andrew could not understand. And Andrew, choked by a collar, a leash held by Heaven, almost as powerless as Aaron and yet still a little more.

And so it went.

Eden’s holds a Halloween party, and so they go out costume shopping. Andrew flips through the selection, only half paying attention to Neil arguing with Nicky, while the rest of his focus wavers in and out, a smile pulling on his lips. In the rack, he finds a devil costume, a bit big for him but nothing that a quick flick of the finger won't fix. Clothes always fit him as he’d like them too, even when the ambrosia and runes have him contained.

He makes sure Neil doesn’t catch sight of the costume he's picked, and makes a mental note to change Neil’s cowboy costume to something more angelic before the big night.

They're in the checkout, Aaron saying something idly to Nicky, while Kevin picks at his costume, when Neil clears his throat. He’s standing by Andrew’s shoulder, closer than he lets any of the humans.

“We should invite the others to come with us.” Neil says, completely oblivious to the outrage he causes.

Andrew doesn’t respond immediately. Instead, he laughs. It’s just like the demon to get attached to this little group of humans, just like him to get invested in their wellbeing and try to protect them, and unite them.

Andrew knows better, is tired of being burned by the humans’ so very short lives, but he doesn’t care enough to say no. "Ask Matt, and tell the busybodies to come along if they dare.”

Neil smiles and that’s that.

And then they arrive back at the dorm, and Andrew finds Higgins waiting for him.

The man is significantly older than he was the last time Andrew saw him- a young twenty something cop desperate to keep order in both the human and other world- but he's still got that same fire in his eyes, even if his hair is graying and his back is slouching.

“Andrew-“

Andrew tsks, shaking his head with a smile. “Pig Higgins, didn’t I tell you to stay where you were? I thought for sure we had this conversation.”

The hunter takes a step closer to him, glancing at the rest of the Foxes watching them with narrowed eyes. Neil watching them with narrow eyes. “Andrew, I can help you. You know you need my help.”

“There is nothing you can do, so stop wasting both of our times and get back on a plane.” Andrew’s patience wears out, and if the human doesn’t get out of his way, he’ll move him with force.

“Drekavac is-“

Andrew freezes for just a moment, every muscle and bone becoming solid ice. His wings are on fire, his essence is screaming, and he wants away-

Neil makes a sound in his throat that sounds almost like a snarl, and it snaps Andrew back into awareness. This is his problem, not Neil’s, and he will not air it to the demon, never mind the rest of the team.

He slaps a hand over Higgins mouth before he can say anything more, and drags him down the hallway. “Walk with me.”

When they're outside the dorm, away from prying ears and prying eyes, Andrew turns on the human.

“You have fulfilled your role, done exactly as I asked. Why do you insist on making me want to kill you?”

Higgins crosses his arms defiantly, looking like nothing more than an angry child being scolded by their parent. “You entrusted me with this information, and it is my duty as a hunter-“

Andrew laughs. “It is your duty to do as I tell you, and drop it.” Stepping closer into Higgins’ space, he lowers his voice. “There are things going on here that you could never understand. For the sake of your life, and the life of the hunters you are teaching, and the life of all that you love. Drop. It.”

Andrew turns away, and Higgins catches his arm. It’s a mark of how much restraint he has that he doesn’t burn the man where he stands. “You might be far greater than I can comprehend, Andriel, but it doesn’t mean you’re infallible.”

Shaking him off, Andrew calls back over his shoulder. “Go home, hunter. I’ll call you if I need you. So never.”

Higgins mutters something about him being an asshole under his breath, but Andrew ignores him. He doesn’t give a shit what the human thinks of him, as long as he’s alive.

Neil lets him blow off the topic, and this time, Andrew isn’t sure whether he's glad. Everything has the potential to go down hill at once.

Halloween comes and the team goes out together. Neil’s face when he sees Andrew’s costume is priceless, but it’s nothing compared to his reaction when he looks down and sees that he’s all of a sudden dressed as an angel. It’s almost as entertaining as Aaron’s sour, disgusted look.

When the upperclassmen get out of the car at Sweetie’s looking apprehensive, but at the same time hopeful, that’s the icing on the cake.

Neil and Andrew happen to be on either side of Kevin at the time, one to each shoulder. Dan’s mouth drops open as she looks between the two of them, as if her eyes are messing with her.

Matt tries to speak, “Are you two dressed as-”

Allison cuts him off. “Are you two wearing a couple’s costume? I don’t think anyone had money on that.”

Renee makes her way over to Andrew, smiling. “I like the costumes, they're very fitting.”

Andrew laughs the rest of the ambrosia away.

Despite everything, it's not a disaster, and yet that night still finds Neil standing on the balcony at Eden’s watching the crowd with a frown. Andrew makes his way over, tossing back another drink to ward off the runes.

He hands Neil a whiskey, and watches him down it without smoothing out the lines on his forehead. He doesn't care. He doesn’t, but-

“Planning to reenact Barcelona?” Andrew asks, keeping an eye on Kevin who’s drunkenly saying something to Matt over the pounding music.

Neil rolls his eyes. “I thought you liked this place and wanted to keep it in one piece.” Andrew shrugs, and waits for Neil to speak.

It takes a minute for the demon to find the words, but once he does, he says them with a bitter little smirk curling across his lips. Andrew hates that expression. Always has. “Their time is so short. They don’t even realize it but. It’s stupid to get attached.”

“You’re the one that wanted them here.” Andrew tells him. The demon flinches and looks away, but Andrew decides not to press out of the goodness of his heart. When Neil stays silent, he sighs and gives in. “Besides, you are the most idiotic demon I know. What’s the point of you discovering a brain cell now?”

Neil looks surprised for a second, and then laughs.

Andrew leaves him there for it.

It’s a day when Andrew feels like his skin is trying to crawl off his body, when humanity fits around him like a too loose cape, and the veil between his essence and the rest of the greedy, greedy world is paper thin.

Neil finds him smoking out the window. The demon closes the door.

Andrew. Can we talk? Neil presses ever so gently at his mind, walking closer. Instead of answering, Andrew lets him up on the desk to perch beside him. That in itself is enough of an answer, he thinks.

“Nicky wants me to ask you to come home with him. His mother called.”

Andrew feels a fire-hot flash of surprise, and he lets out the smoke in his mouth in a rush that’s almost a laugh.

Neil continues, like he didn't hear Andrew. “He seems to think that you’ll refuse, that you dislike his parents for some reason. I didn’t think you cared.”

Andrew reaches over and covers the demon’s mouth a hand. “Be quiet. Do not make the mistake of thinking this has anything to do with Nicky, and misplaced outrage on his behalf.” It’s only partially true, because while Andrew has made many vows over the years, to stop getting attached, stop having faith, stop wanting Neil by his side, he summarily fails to keep any of them. He doesn’t particularly like humans, but Nicky is one of his now and there’s no getting around it.

Then why? And that’s the problem with bastardized telepathy. Covering Neil’s mouth and cutting off his voice fails to shut him up.

Andrew takes his hand off Neil’s mouth. “What do I get in exchange?”

Neil tilts his head. “I’ll draw the pain if you’d like to be sober the rest of today. It’s your ‘birthday’ after all.”

It’s a fair trade, so Andrew blows some more cigarette smoke out the window. “Luther Hemmick is a holy man, at least by his standards. We know the drill, with those kind of pathetic humans.” He looks back at Neil, face blank. “He put his child into one of those camps, because that’s what ‘God’ would have wanted. I tried to show him the error of his ways. He didn't listen.”

Something dark and hating flashes over Neil’s face. Yes, they both have experience with that breed of man. The gears keep turning behind those fake, fake eyes. “You revealed yourself to him. Didn't you?”

Andrew laughs, because the demon is always so fast to catch on. “Yes. For a holy man, he could have used some more faith. Or perhaps a diaper.”

Neil looks dumbfounded. “He didn’t believe you?”

Andrew grins, and it cuts across his mouth. “It is how it has always been. Humans too wrapped up in their own neuroses to open their eyes to what’s in front of them. He was rather convinced, the last time I checked, that I was more in line with you than his version of Heaven.”

Neil thinks, and Andrew doesn’t watch him. “We should go. I’ll give him a taste of Hell.” When Andrew turns back, there’s something dark and plotting on his face, and Andrew swallows his misgivings. Retribution is so sweet when he doesn’t have to play a part.

“Oh Neil. Neil, Neil, Neil. You wouldn't know what to do with a God-fearing minister. You haven’t had to eat with one in centuries. There's no way you could last a sit-down with Luther. He'd end up exorcising you when you snapped.” It’s almost a funny picture, except for the memories he has of what Neil’s screams sound like when he's actually being exorcised. Andrew will probably have to stop it, and everything will get so messy.

“It could be entertaining.” Neil says, a half smirk curled across his mouth.

Andrew laughs, because it could be. Neil is a wild animal, and perhaps when confronted with what actual Hell looks like, Luther will come to his senses. Or perhaps Andrew will get to see him squeal like a child and beg for mercy. Both seem rather enjoyable. “Fine. Next weekend.”

Neil leaves the room, but not without brushing his essence against Andrew’s first. Something sour curls in his stomach, like a warning, like foreboding, but Andrew brushes it off, reveling in the clarity that comes with Neil taking his pain.

A demon of his word, truly such a funny thing.

Neil in the Hemmick’s house is almost entertaining. He walks in, new racquet over his shoulder, and stares around at all the Bible verses and metal crosses. It’s a place that should simply reek of holiness, and yet it’s as empty as a crypt. Faithless.

Andrew catches his eye and laughs. They say an awkward grace, that lacks any semblance of religion, and then Luther turns to Neil and asks, “Are you religious?”

The demon chokes on his own spit, and Andrew digs his fingers into his forearms to stop his smile. “Uh, no. Not particularly.”

“Neil’s a satanist.” Andrew says, baring his teeth towards the man that turned away from an angel, belittled what Andrew watched come into existence.

“Excuse me?”

And downhill it goes, Nicky trying to get the bigoted, useless humans to love him, to forget their own prejudices, and Andrew almost feels bad. If the millennia have taught him anything, it’s that humans are unlikely to abandon their creed, even if God Himself tells them it’s wrong (or one of his angels, ha).

Even with the ambrosia clouding his everything, Andrew knows something is wrong, something is off. So, when Luther, after a bigoted rant that had even Neil and Kevin looking queasy, gestures for Andrew to follow him inside, he does. He stays purposefully out of Neil’s space when he stands, but the demon leans toward him slightly anyway.

The kitchen is quiet, the voices from outside muffled and all but gone.

Luther puts a counter between them and meets Andrew’s eyes.

“I’m surprised you came, demon.”

“You did threaten to exorcise me the next time I set foot in your house, and I was curious to see how that would go.” Andrew says, letting the ambrosia twist his lips into a smile.

Luther scoffs. “It’s too late for you to smile and fake holiness, I can see straight through you, demonic scum.”

Andrew laughs. “Oh, Luther, no. If you could see straight through me, you never would have welcomed me back in your home. I told you what Heaven thinks of heretics like you.”

“You blaspheme!”

Andrew walks around the counter, cornering the pathetic, sniveling little child. He lets as much of himself out as he can, flickering the lights, a shadow of wings, a voice deeper and truer. “No, Luther Hemmick. You pervert the Word, you mistreat the Chosen, you take of the Bounty only for yourself. Judgement will come upon you.” And then Andrew settles back into perfect humanity, the effort of expending himself scraping him raw.

Luther looks scared, even chastised for a brief moment. Then he’s back to his arrogant self, a human so holy that he worships only himself.

“Upstairs. Second door on the left.” Luther swallows hard, and that feeling is back, prickling the back of Andrew’s neck, telling him run, hide, protect. “Some minister said he had some information for you regarding an old friend. I don’t trust you, but I gave my word I would pass on the message.”

Andrew steps back, and reaches out as well as he can. He feels muted and raw, but everything seems normal. Quiet. Safe. Perhaps some old contact, reaching out with outdated information about Neil. Perhaps some old contact, reaching out with fresh information about Drekavac.

He goes up the stairs even though everything is telling him to run.

He twists the doorknob. Opens the door.

And the wards that he can’t feel until it is too late suck him inside.

His wings are out, Drekavac is there with that horrible smile on his face, and there’s nowhere to run, nowhere to hide, nothing-

“Hello, Andriel. It’s been such a long time. Did you miss me?”

They are somewhere in London, and it’s the late 1340s, which is a particularly bad time to be in London and a particularly bad time to be alive.

Thankfully for the humans, staying alive is much harder than normal, and respite is so very near.

It comes in the form of swelling, bulbous masses, overtaking bodies and weakening immune systems. And the humans die there, fevered, distorted, weak. Pestilence has really outdone himself this time.

Andrew is fighting, but he’s weak, the ambrosia makes him weak, and Drekavac has him pinned, trapped-

And so they are somewhere in London, and Andrew is wearing a Plague Mask. It’s pointless, really, when most of the problem is the lack of bathing and the stench of sewage in the streets. The regrowth of city life is needed for civilization, but Andrew really does wish they’d be a little cleaner, take a page from the book of the Greeks and Romans and enjoy some running water. At least he can simply turn off his sense of smell for a few centuries until things clear up.

Andrew steps into another home, and follows the stench of death.

A mother holds a child in her lap, or a mass of buboes that was likely once a child, but is now a well of sickness and death. They are crying the both of them, or maybe-

Andrew’s face is wet, but he refuses, it isn't tears, it’s blood, he’s-

They look at Andrew in his mask, terrifying beak, blank and still eyes, and they hope. It is useless, hardly a stone in the current of the plague, but he crouches by them and takes the child’s head in his hand. He reaches deep inside himself, and pulls, pushing his essence into the child, into the mother, and burning out the illness, piece by piece.

When he stands to go, they are unconscious, but they will heal. Out on the street, the only movement is the incessant traffic of the corpse carriages, ferrying the dead and the near dead to a place hardly better from whence they came.

Andrew takes off the mask and closes his eyes, just for a second, just to remind himself that he doesn’t care, that he is above all of this-

Andrew feels claws in his feathers and fights with a renewed fire, his head bashed against the wall again and again, until his eyes-

His eyes open, and Abram is there, plague mask in one hand, and a box of tobacco in the other. The demon looks… beaten, dark eyes surrounded by darker circles, hair tied back and dirty, an expression that speaks of death even as they are the only ones to cure it.

Abram disappears and Andrew follows him.

Andrew is not in a small house in industrialized America, he is strapped to a stone table, and the desert swirls around him, and Drekavac-

They smoke, and they talk, a bantering conversation that is not so much about the words as it is about the company. The humans die around them, but they have each other, they're together, they're one. This is what Andrew carries on for, this is what matters, this is all there is.

It shatters around him like a cruel mirage that never was, a glimmer of peace in famine, in war, in sickness. But peace is something that Andrew has learned not to believe in, he has learned to believe in pain and the End but little else. Little else.

Drekavac bites down, and Andrew doesn’t scream, doesn’t fight, doesn't breathe.

Neil knows something is wrong. He can feel it crawling under his skin, has felt it the whole trip to Columbia, in this farce of a home, in the forced smiles, in Andrew’s tension, subtle but there.

When he disappears into the house with Luther, and then doesn't come back out, Neil waits. He gives it a minute, five minutes, and feels nothing from Andrew. When he searches harder it's almost like the angel has disappeared entirely.

He's completely lost track of the conversation at the table now, but he hears Luther respond to Nicky’s question, “Someone was here to see him.”

Neil searches harder and feels the edge of wards, and he knows. So much makes sense.

It takes an effort of will not to teleport, not to completely freak out the humans. Scrambling from his seat, Neil all but sprints. Aaron follows, maybe sensing somewhere deep down where an angel lives that something is wrong, or maybe just curious as to why Neil is running.

On the way to the stairs, Neil snags his new racquet and tosses it back to the human. If he's right, he’ll need both of his hands.

The door is warded, just like Neil thought, and the panic is rising too fast, followed by rage, uncertainty, and sheer unadulterated worry. With barely a thought toward subtly, Neil slams into the door like a battering ram.

What he sees is a bloodstained memory and some new, awful horror. Andrew is pinned to the bed, face pressed into a pillow, wings out and being torn to shreds by Drekavac’s claws- Drekavac is on top of him, licking up a drop of blood, and Andrew is fighting a grin, the ambrosia pulling him higher-

Neil doesn't stop and think about consequences, about witnesses, about anything. He can't stop and think, so he reacts.

It goes like this.

Six thousand years ago, when humans had just began to walk the Earth, there was little influence on them. They had true free will, no meddling in either direction, just tons of beings watching from both sides. Watching and waiting.

But Neil got bored.

It's a hell of an excuse, to say that he created sin because he was bored, but.

He hated Lucifer. He hadn't meant to fall, he'd simply gotten caught up with the wrong people, or Morael had gotten caught up with the wrong people, and then he was tumbling from Paradise to Hell. And Neil didn't want to be there, not really, so he decided to not be there.

Six thousand years ago, he slipped into the body of serpent when no one was looking and made friends with Eve. That he inadvertently created Original Sin and screwed everything up for everyone, well- No matter what the stories say, he hadn't pushed her, he'd just been curious. She was sick of listening to all the men telling her what to do and she rebelled.

A much better story than Lucifer’s fall, really.

But anyway, six thousand years ago Neil snuck onto Earth and became the first ever demon in this dimension.

It gives him a bit of power, a bit of hidden strength and influence that rivals even Lucifer’s in this plane. Earth is his home, humans are his family, and Andrew is his everything.

So when he walks in and sees Drekavac torturing Andrew, he reacts, and his reaction is far more explosive than anyone is prepared for.

“Get your hands off of him.”

And Neil reaches for all his anger, his protectiveness, his pure undiluted power, and pushes out. A red haze fills his vision and he lets out a single short scream before he changes.

What he becomes is the closest to his true form he can get. Blindingly bright wings smack into the far wall, and he knows that he's glowing a fiery red, knows that his hair and his eyes have reverted, but for once he doesn't care.

Drekavac freezes, and Andrew lifts his head, looking straight at Neil. His lips are twisted into a mockery of a smile, but his eyes are dead, dead, dead. Blood drips from his hair, tracing a messy line down his cheek.

With barely a thought, Neil throws Drekavac across the room and far from Andrew. He shuts down the demon’s attempts to get away and stalks closer. When he's as close as he dares, Neil pushes again, feeling inexhaustible, feeling powerful.

He fucking vaporizes him. Finds that writhing mass of darkness inside human flesh and burns it from existence, stinking ounce by stinking ounce. He burns Drekavac up from the inside and lets him scream.

Neil has never felt more like Lucifer in this moment, never felt more like a monster as he soaks up Drekavac’s dying sounds, but he loves it. Loves it, loves it, loves it.

When there's nothing left but a human husk, still able to breathe, but barely more than a vegetable, Neil feels a hand on his arm. There’s a hand on his arm, a fragile, human hand, and it brings him back.

It's Aaron, grim, but determined. Human, but glowing nonetheless with some remnants of angelic strength. There's horror in his gaze, along with cold calculation and shocked satisfaction.

“Let me.” Aaron says, and his voice is too loud in the quiet room. Neil steps aside, having done all he wanted, and Aaron swings.

The racquet buries itself in Drekavac’s head with a squelch, and Neil feels a splash of blood across the bridge of his nose. He crumples in on himself, wings disappearing, hair and eyes fading back to nondescript brown, glow fizzling out. There's still blood all over him, being so close to Aaron when he swung, but Neil doesn't care. Now that the threat is eliminated, his only thought is Andrew.

The angel hasn't moved from his spot on the bed, hands trapped to the headboard with some kind of rune. Worst is Andrew’s face, pressed hard into the pillow and barely muffling his high, hysterical laughter.

Maybe Neil should just keep going and kill every last angel that thought doing this to Andrew was fair or right.

Instead, he gets as close to Andrew as he dares and holds up his two empty hands.

“Andrew.”

“Neil! Oh Neil, my knight in shining armor yet again.” Andrew says, grin splitting apart his face.

“Let me help you? I have to-” Neil starts, his own voice wavering an uncertain.

“Touch me to heal me, yes I know.” Andrew laughs. “We’ve done this before, haven't we?”

Aaron makes a sound that Neil can't acknowledge, something between a whimper and a sob.

“Yes or no?” Neil doesn't move, won't take away Andrew’s choice. There are footsteps on the stairs, and so Neil freezes time, just a little to give them more space. He lets Aaron join them in the pocket.

Andrew’s smile falls away gradually. “Yes.”

Neil starts with his wrists and finds the runes binding him to the bed wrapped around the runes binding Andrew to the ambrosia. He might be glowing again. There are other ways to free Andrew, but they'd take longer and Neil is sick and tired of sitting on the sidelines.

He burns away the runes, all of them, like he's been thinking of doing for months. It's like a lock clicking open, a door swinging free. Andrew glows, briefly, before he sits up and lets his wrists fall into his lap.

He meets Neil’s eyes. “You have a death wish.” It's as serious as Andrew can muster. As close to normal as he can get with the ambrosia still spinning him up, up, up.

“If they try to put them back on you, I will kill them all.” Neil tells him. His lips are numb, his mind is numb, all he can do is react to this and compartmentalize for later. It's too much for Aaron.

“Andrew, wh- what’s going on?” Aaron’s voice is shaking. Andrew’s head whips around so fast that he immediately has to bend over to retch. Neil banishes the mess before it has time to hit the bed.

Aaron comes closer at Andrew’s gesture and desperately clutches at him. He wonders if Aaron never found out about the incident a thousand years ago, if that's why his expression looks so broken and poleaxed.

Andrew for his part is putting up with the contact, his wings coming up unconsciously to shelter Aaron. A wall of feathers and blood as his hands pat Aaron down.

“It's everywhere. Did he touch you?” There's a rage somewhere in Andrew’s voice that leaves Neil shaken. Aaron doesn't give him the answer that he wants, so Andrew holds him closer. “Answer me. I said did he touch you?”

Aaron exhales shakily, leaning into Andrew’s feathers. The angel’s wings flutter and resettle, still tight around Aaron. “No.”

“You were safe. You were supposed to stay.” Andrew sounds almost as if he's talking to himself.

Neil swallows. “Andrew, your wings?”

Andrew doesn't look away from Aaron, still cataloging. “Yes.”

Neil heals them the best he can, feeling like he's a thousand years in the past and trapped in his worst nightmare. Some of the wounds are in the same place, and he wishes Drekavac were still alive so he could kill him all over again.

When the wings are as good as Neil can get them, and the strain of freezing time is becoming noticeable, Neil steps back. Without a wince, Andrew tucks his wings back where they came from.

Andrew stops him from healing the rest of his form. “Unless you want to make things infinitely more complicated there needs to be some damage.” Sighing, he leaves the injuries but takes away all the pain associated with them to make them little more than decoration. Neil lets time start flowing again and things move very quickly.

There are police and hospitals, and Betsy arriving faster than humanly (ha) possible. She doesn't smite Neil for removing the bindings on Andrew’s wrist, in fact she gives him a subtle nod.

Wymack is there, and everyone is terribly concerned with how Neil is handling things, and he doesn't have it in him to fake upset. It's not like Drekavac was a human, and it's not like he was the first person Neil killed. If anything, he's delighted. That monster is gone for good. The only thing bothering him is Andrew.

Someone Up There will have noticed the lack of bindings on him soon, if Betsy didn't already inform them. He never meant to bring Heaven down on Andrew’s head, but he’ll fight them all if necessary. They can go together, run until they're caught. He's not leaving Andrew behind this time, never again.

Instead, Betsy finds him up on the roof, above where Andrew is sleeping. Keeping a silent watch.

“Neil.” She doesn't take him by surprise, and she hasn't done anything to anger him, so he lets her sit next to him.

“Betsy.”

They watch the stars.

“I know you killed Drekavac.” She says eventually. Her voice is calm and quiet.

Neil swallows a sigh. He grimaces. “I should've killed him a thousand years ago. This never should've happened.”

More than anything, he feels when her wings come out, the displacement of air, the faint breeze stirred by her feathers. Then they arch around him, in something like a cocoon.

Neil should be scared. He's being surrounded by an archangel when he's her greatest enemy. But perhaps, from long exposure to Andrew, an angel’s wings don't scare him. They make him relax. Neil doesn't lean into her side, doesn't place that much trust in her, but he at least stops holding himself together so tightly that he’ll shatter.

She hums in approval and hands him a cup of still steaming hot chocolate. Neil isn't one for sweets, but he drinks it anyway, for Andrew.

“What happens now?” He asks. For the first time in hours, he can almost breathe.

“I spoke with my brethren about the unique situation. They agreed to let Andrew stop taking ambrosia.”

Neil stops breathing again, but this time it's from sheer relief. If they had tried to keep Andrew on it, Neil would've had to fight and it would've been so, so messy. But now, there's hope. He can have Andrew back, his Andrew. His apathetic, calm, and blank angel that he has grown so used to after six thousand years. Turning, he meets Betsy’s smiling eyes with his wide ones.

“There's just one condition. Andrew has to spend a human month or two in Heaven being,” Betsy grimaces, the most negative expression he's seen on her yet, “re-indoctrinated.”

It puts Neil out for a few minutes, wipes the smile momentarily, but. But.

He'd been without Andrew for sixty solid years, and before that, especially in the beginning, they'd gone five or ten years without running into each other. Two months is absolutely nothing if he gets Andrew back at the end of it. Hell, if Andrew gets Andrew back, it'd be worth twenty years.

“Okay.” Neil tells her. She has the gall to look surprised.

“You're okay with this? I'll likely stay down here to monitor him after but-”

“Nothing is more important than giving Andrew back his autonomy.” Neil says firmly. “Especially after…”

Betsy smiles at him, sweet as can be. “Thank you, Neil. I always underestimate what a good friend you are.”

Neil scowls, almost offended. “I'm a demon. I don't have friends.”

She laughs at him, and Neil almost doesn't mind.

It ends up with them here, in the kitchen, in front of a small audience that is still too big.

Andrew stands in front of him, the smile forced on him by the ambrosia slowly starting to fade away. They’re close together, less than a foot of space between their two bodies, and Neil feels safe in a way he only can when Andrew is close. Slumping back against the counter puts them at the same height. Neil can feel Kevin’s eyes, knowing and scared, Wymack’s, thoughtful. But he only has eyes for Andrew.

“Can I trust you to survive on your own while I’m Up There?” Andrew demands.

“Yes.” Neil says, even though his stomach twists at the thought.

“You will be here when I get back.”

“Yes.”

“Kevin-”

Neil straightens and reaches for Andrew’s wrist. Andrew lets him snake it up under his shirt to press against the scars marking his stomach. The warmth of his palm makes Neil’s breath catch, and Andrew’s other hand finds the back of his neck.

He squeezes once, and Neil thunks their foreheads together. His eyes close, and Neil hates the gazes on them both, wants this moment to just be them, a goodbye that is hopefully not permanent, a promise that is hopefully to remain true.

“I’ll keep him safe, Andrew. I swear it.” The words echo between them, power lacing them together.

Andrew pulls back, and Neil tries not to feel like he’s lost something. They, together, are forever. Two months is nothing, barely a speck in existence, in their existence.

Andrew leaves, and Neil watches him go until he can’t sense him anymore.

Wymack stands by his shoulder in the kitchen, with Kevin upstairs probably wishing he’d never left the Ravens.

“When did that happen?”

Neil focuses his mind back on the present, and raises his an eyebrow. “What?”

Wymack stares at him for a long moment. “I don’t get paid enough to deal with you idiots.” Neil walks outside. He wants a cigarette, so there’s one in his hand. Wymack eyes him, but accepts the offer after a second. “Look," Wymack says. "I know I’m not really a part of your world. I've said it's not my place to get into anything outside the court. I hope you've figured out by now I'm just blowing hot air. I'm not real good at being a shoulder, but I do have a working set of ears.”

“There’s nothing to say.” Neil says, even though it tastes like a lie.

Wymack doesn’t look impressed. “Listen up, because I’ll say this once. I know that thing couldn't have gotten to Andrew unless it was something more. I know a knock from Aaron wouldn't have killed it. I know that you did something, dealt with it or whatever, and I don't care. But if you need to talk about it, you can talk about it.”

There’s something like gratitude stuck in Neil’s throat that makes it hard to swallow. The offer doesn’t mean anything really, but. But. Wymack wants to help him, and Neil can count on one hand the number of living beings that would offer that.

Neil nods, and manages to fumble a “Thanks.”

The smoke from their cigarettes curls up towards the clouds, and Neil drags barely any comfort from it.

The Christmas Banquet is when it all goes to shit, which is fairly unsurprising.

They’re by the drinks table, and as soon as Neil feels Morael coming, he sends Kevin off to find Matt. The backliner can watch over him while he deals with Riko. He lets the human get close to him, and then bares his teeth in the most aggressive way he knows how. To Riko’s credit, he doesn’t stumble back.

“I am not impressed by your petty intimidation tactics. You will show me the proper respect.” Riko snaps.

Neil doesn’t wipe the snarl off his face. “You still think you can order me around. Nothing you can do will hurt me.”

“Is that a dare? I think you’ve underestimated me, Nathaniel. I can make you hurt in ways you've never dreamed of.” Riko steps closer.

“I’ve been to Hell.”

“My family serves Lucifer. You think we haven’t been taught some tricks?”

Neil ignores the unease churning in his stomach, and reaches for his power down deep. He makes the lights flicker, for just a second. People on the dance floor don't seem to notice.

“Riko, Riko, Riko. We both know you’re not really part of the family, just a pathetic little cast-off.”

Riko’s face darkens so quickly that Neil almost feels impressed. In between their bodies, Neil feels the press of a blade, sanctified and burning. “Watch your tongue, demon, or I’ll cut it out. You are going to listen, and you are going to do what I say.”

"We talked about your delusions."

"I warned you to learn your place."

“I don’t answer to you.”

Riko laughs once, and the blade comes closer. “Yes. You do. You're coming to Evermore for winter break.”

Neil leans closer, almost into the blade. “The fact that you think you can control me-”

“Oh no, that’s right isn't it,” Riko says over him. “The only one that owns you is that little angel. Where is he anyway?”

Neil can feel the build up of rage, the white hot bubbles in his stomach. “Shut the fuck up.”

“Wasn’t he ‘attacked by an unknown assailant’? I think I read an article on that. But we both know what really happened. Someone sprang Drekavac’s cage. I’ve been looking for that one ever since I found Andrew, and what better time to make use of the knowledge.” Riko leans forward to whisper in his ear. “I heard that he didn’t scream, just laughed and laughed. Didn’t you like the sound? You are a demon after all.”

Neil makes a sound of wordless fury. He’ll kill him, he’ll burn him from a existence, he’ll destroy this insolent little thing. But Riko keeps talking.

“You will come to Evermore tomorrow morning on the first flight out. You will stay two weeks. Or not only will I raise Lucifer to wipe you from existence, I’ll file some very innocuous paperwork. Your angel won’t come back, Up There will have to keep an eye on him permanently. How long do you think he’d last before he killed himself trying to get down here. One year? Two? And if he made it out of Heaven, it would be to find everyone he cares for dead, and a line of demons waiting to make him scream.”

Neil sees red. Every ounce of him wants to kill Riko, wants to make him hurt like Drekavac did, like everyone who ever touched Andrew. Every last ounce of him. But Neil is wearing a collar, and Riko just tugged on the leash. So he does what he can without breaking any rules.

He punches Riko in the face.

Morael- Jean picks him up from the airport. “You shouldn’t have come here.”

Neil shrugs, stretching out his arms like he’s warming up for the torture. “I didn’t have much of a choice.”

“We all have choices.”

“Do you?”

Jean doesn’t respond.

They don’t say another word to each other until they’re putting Neil’s things in the bedroom. Of course, he's staying where Kevin slept. It only makes sense.

Jean stops him with a hand on his arm. “You really shouldn't be here. He will break you.”

Neil met his eyes steadily. “He can try. Did he break you?”

“Yes.” Jean says, unashamed. “It’s easy to be broken when you have nothing to live for. We are partners now. My success is your success. Your failure is my failure. You are to go nowhere unless I am with you.”

“Just like old times.” Neil says. He feels a flare of pity and protectiveness for Jean.

“No, nothing like that.”

Tetsuji finds him in the locker room, when he’s pulling on a jersey that makes everything feel wrong and too tight.

They clamp a collar around his neck, runes lining every inch of the leather, and Neil’s hands burn when he tries to touch it. “He won’t be as effective of a player this way,” Neil hears over the sound of Tetsuji’s blessed cane cracking down on him again and again. “But it’ll make him more fun to hurt.”

It’s one of the last things that Neil remembers with any clarity.

Riko has him strapped to the bed, in restraints much like Andrew had been wearing. Andrew-

A blessed blade draws lines of his ribs and Neil-

He’s on the court, but he hates it, Jean is shouting at him, every part of him aches-

There’s a pen in his hand, but he doesn’t want it, can’t. And then the pen is going through his hand and he’s screaming-

Neil wakes up in the airport.

He calls Wymack because he doesn’t know what else to do. The collar is gone, but Neil is expending so much energy trying to keep himself alive, keep this form alive, that the most he can do is make his phone turn on when it should be dead.

“You have a good reason to be bothering me on a holiday?” The sound of the human’s voice is comforting in a way it shouldn’t be, but Neil loves them, he loves his humans, his Foxes.

“I didn’t know who else to call.”

Neil doesn’t remember getting in Wymack’s car, but he blinks back into awareness and he’s on Wymack’s couch and he’s glowing. Oh, he doesn’t remember doing that either, but it’s rather concerning that he can’t shut it off. Everything hurts, like his insides are being scraped out and set on fire, like his essence is being twisted into a tight knot and then tied tighter and tighter. It hurts, so badly and so purely that he can barely feel Wymack’s hand on his arm.

“-eil. Neil, I need you to tell me how to help you. Neil.”

Neil forces himself to breathe, to be human, but his ribs ache, his head aches, everything is burning.

“I’m sorry.” He gasps out, and Wymack steps back.

"He sounds like Neil," Wymack says, eyeing him carefully, "but he doesn't look like him. I'll take your explanation from the top and without a side order of bullshit, thanks.”

Neil doesn’t understand, until he does. He stumbles his way to the bathroom and stares at himself in the mirror. Fire red hair, icy blue eyes, and he looks like Lucifer, like a spitting image of the devil.

He tries to change back, tries to force his hair and eyes back to their unassuming brown, but he can’t. And then he remembers the binding scratched into his rib bones. The body is stuck this way, stuck in the closest thing to his real form that he can get it.

He’s still glowing, Neil thinks. Abruptly, he wants Andrew. Wants the angel to hold him together, keep his pieces glued.

Wymack tears off the bandage on his cheek, and it’s a number four.

Neil maybe loses it for a while, tries to cut the tattoo off, but he’s so weak that Wymack is able to stop him, trap him on the floor where he can’t hurt himself.

Later, on the couch, after Womack has tried to patch him together and said nothing about the strange scars, the burns from Holy Water, the gashes from blessed blades, the horrible, seeping runes-

After Neil has remembered how to play human again, how to breathe, blink, relax into a couch-

After Wymack tucked a blanket around his shoulders and dared him to say anything-

After, Wymack watches him.

Neil says, through a throat that’s still sore from screaming. “I can’t tell you everything, all I can say is that I did it for a reason. For Andrew.”

“For Andrew.”

Neil decides to give a bit of truth. Just a bit. “I’ve known him since the Beginning. He’s everything.”

Wymack runs a hand over his close cropped hair and sighs. “Yeah, alright kid. It’s fine.”

Another year comes to a close that night, just one, a single year in a sea of them. But it’s still time passing.

He might not see another, in fact he probably won’t, but he’ll die by Andrew’s side, and he supposes that when you’ve existed as long as he has, that’s all that really matters.