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"Matt!" Shiro smiled widely and waved his friend over to the small collection of reserved tables that took up the back corner of the pub. Matt wove his way through the drunken crowd with his sister trailing along behind him, her nose glued to her smartphone. "And, Katie! How's school been treating you?"
"Gap year," she muttered into her phone.
"Shiro! Long time no see!" Matt smiled and opened his arms for a welcome back-slapping hug. "A whole year now right?"
"Yep! Remission officially declared a year ago, well next Tuesday technically," Shiro said with a laugh. "But this was the best date for the party. Do you want a drink? Pitchers on the tables are free, but you are on your own if you want anything from the bar-"
"Hey. Where's Keith?" Katie asked abruptly.
"Oh, he's running a little late." Shiro couldn't stop a fond smile from spreading across his face. "He planned all this, you know? Keith's amazing."
Matt and Katie traded an undecipherable look.
"It's almost midnight," Katie said slowly. Matt nodded seriously. Shiro wondered if they were expected somewhere.
"Everything alright?" Takashi asked. He didn't like their seriousness. It was so incongruent with the celebratory atmosphere of the pub.
"Nothing, it's just Katie was looking forward to catching up," Matt said with a wide grin. Katie made wordless noise that might have been agreement, or protest. She ducked back down to her phone again. "He usually work this late?"
"Not usually," Shiro surreptitiously checked his own phone. He tried not to let his worry over his missing boyfriend show. Keith was capable of taking care of himself, but the garage he worked at wasn't in the safest neighborhood. "But, I'm sure he'll be here before long."
The siblings traded silent looks again. Katie shrugged her shoulders with an uncertain frown.
Matt gave him a nervous smile. "Well, if you want to go check on him, we can hold the fort down here for you."
Katie muttered something Shiro couldn't catch over the background chatter and music.
"I, um" Shiro ran his fingers through his hair nervously. "You sure?"
Matt just smiles. "Sure, we're sure. Go on! The sooner you get going, the sooner you get back with him and then party can really gets started!"
Shiro smiled and clapped Matt on the shoulder again. "Thanks, man. I'll be right back."
He signaled to a couple of other party-goers so no one would worry. Veronica just waved back without pausing her conversation with James, and Curtis didn't even look up.
Outside the night was cold and clear. Cold enough for Shiro to throw on his greatcoat to ward against the evening air. Overhead a handful of stars struggled to shine through the light and air pollution. He wondered if he could talk Keith into ditching both his work and the party. A clear night like this out in the desert would be breathtaking.
The drive across town was quiet and short with little traffic. The garage was an unremarkable building only distinguishable by a battered metal sign reading "Kolivan's Auto Parts & Repair."
He wasn't worried when he didn't see Keith's cherry red bike out front—employee parking was around the back—nor when he didn't see any lights in the shop.
What worried him was when he found the door unlocked.
Shiro called Keith with his other on the handle ready to tug it open in the short window before the system locked it down again. Only, the door swung open easily under his touch. He stood there with the open door in one hand and his ringing phone in the other. The phone just kept ringing. Four, five, six times before clicking over to voice mail.
He hung up without leaving a message. Unease curdled in Shiro's gut.
"Keith?" He called softly. Voices drifted in from the back as Shiro carefully crept through the shop.
"....Need more time, please," Keith was saying—was begging.
"Now, you know that's not how this works," The other man was saying. Takashi could see he was a large, heavyset man in a rumpled cheap suit. "You get your wish, you get your time, and then you pay what comes due."
"I know, I know. But, can't you just-" Keith looked up, past the man he was speaking to. He looked at Shiro and his eye's went wide. "Shiro? You- you're supposed to be at the party. You can't be here."
Keith's voice rose in pitch, high and breathy with panic. Shiro stepped out. He didn't know what was going on, but he wasn't about to stand by while some asshole threatened Keith.
"Keith, is everything alright?" He gave his friendly camera-ready smile at the man, the one that almost hid the sharp threat underneath. He held out one hand for a shake. "Hi, I'm Takashi Shirogane. I'm sure we can sort out whatever it is you think Keith owes you."
The man looked down at Shiro's hand like it was holding something scraped off the bottom of his shoe. He took a long drag on a battered cigarette. The pungent smell of tobacco and smoke curled around him. "What I think—Keith—here owes me, is his soul."
"What? His soul?” Shiro felt his face freeze. He glanced between the man and Keith. While the words were absolutely ridiculous, the fear etched in Keith's face was not. He couldn't help the nervous laugh. “You some kind of devil?"
The man smirked. "Yeah, some kind of. Now, why don't you mind your own business, go back to your little party, and your nice, long, healthy life. Just without Pretty Boy here."
Shiro looked at Keith. "Keith, what's he talking about?''
"I- you were dying," Keith choked out. Every word a struggle. "I had to do something."
"I'm not," Takashi protested, but he remembered the doctors calling the sudden remission a miracle. No one had believed it at first. There had been so many tests. It was impossible, but something that echoed deep inside told him it wasn't. "What did you do?"
"One soul for one life. That was the deal," The man, the demon, said. He draped one arm around Keith's shoulders and pulled him into a rough side hug. Keith still looked terrified, but also determined. "And now, he's not going to do anything to jeopardize that deal. Is he?"
Keith grit his teeth in that stubborn look that Shiro knew too well. "Takashi, please. Just go."
Shit, breaking out the first name; Keith was really serious. The demon leaned forward and grinned.
"Yeah, listen to your boy, Takashi," he said enunciating the name poorly, like it was a private joke.
"No," Shiro said. He shifted his stance and planted his feet. "Take it back. Leave Keith be, and take it back."
"No!" Keith yelled in protest. "You can't-"
"Keith," Shiro interrupted him gently. "I'd been prepared for my death for a long time. While I wouldn't trade this past year with you for anything, it's not worth your soul."
Keith shook his head. "No."
"Touching as this all is," the demon interrupted with a dry cough. "Its a moot point. All contracts are final. Pretty Boy's ass is mine. Although-"
He trailed off, both Keith and Shiro stared at him, mesmerized and thoroughly caught in the trap he was laying.
"Although?" Shiro asked. Dread curdling in his gut.
"Nothing to say a new deal can't be made. Especially if there's new—collateral, so to speak."
"'Collateral.' You mean my soul," Takashi said slowly. He ignored the way the words made his skin crawl.
"Hm-mm," the demon hummed agreement. His red eyes glowed with a sharp predatory light. "Your soul for lets say, another year with Pretty Boy, before I'm back to collect on you both."
Takashi tried to swallow with his throat suddenly gone dry. "Keith's natural lifespan. That's what, eighty years?"
The demon laughed. "Not how this works. Five years."
"Minimum, no collecting early due to accident or mis-"
"No!" Keith yelled. He pulled himself violently away from the demon. The demon snarled and shifted his grip for a better hold, but years of fighting gave Keith an edge. He twisted and somehow got the leverage to flip the demon head-first into a rolling cart of tools nearby. "Shiro, run!"
"Not without you,'' Shiro said. He grabbed Keith's hand and pulled him towards the door.
"I have just about had enough with you brats!" Behind them Shiro could hear the demon cursing and struggling amidst the heavy clang of falling metal. A quick glance back and he could see the demon's bloodied and battered body collapse to the floor in an explosion of black ember-laden smoke.
They ran faster. They were almost to the door when something heavy and unseen slammed into them sending them both to the hard concrete floor. Shiro struggled to get up against an invisible weight. He could only watch as the smoke coalesced around Keith. His body arched as it forced its way down his throat.
"Keith!" Shiro cried out. He tried to drag himself to Keith's side as he collapsed again to the floor, but Shiro couldn't get the purchase and his fingers just scraped bloody lines in the concrete. After the smoke was gone there was nothing left in the oppressive silence but their labored breathing. "Keith?''
"Fuck," Keith groaned and dragged himself to his feet. He shook himself roughly and stamped his feet, before staggering to the now still body of the demon. He crouched down and fished around in the jacket pockets before pulling out a crinkled up pack of cigarettes. Shiro could only watch, puzzled—Keith didn't smoke, he hated the things—as Keith tapped one and lit it with a snap of his fingers. After a long drag he coughed hard into closed fist, the force of it almost doubling him over. "Shit. Fresh lungs."
"Keith?" Shiro asked with a sinking feeling. Keith straightened and glanced over at Shiro before taking another long drag, he didn't cough this time, and sauntered over to where Shiro lay. Keith made a strange away gesture with one hand and Shiro felt the weight on him being lifted. Keith crouched down in front of him.
"You really should have taken that first offer. Now," Keith made a wet clicking noise with his tongue. "Well, too late now."
"Keith?'' Shiro asked again. He couldn't stop the hitch in his breath at the alien look in Keith's red eyes. They were supposed to be purple. Shiro felt a stirring in his chest. The sussurrations of feathers.
"Hmm? You really aren't the brightest bulb in the bucket are you, champ?" Keith reached out and tugged at Shiro's white fringe in a move that was heartrendingly familiar. "Nothing in there but fluff and feathers."
"Keith, wait," Shiro protested as Keith stood up and stepped over Shiro.
He whistled sharply and snapped his fingers. "C'mon, Kosmo. Time to go. Heh, who's a good boy?"
Shiro could only gape in shock at the- the massive thing made from void and lightning appeared at Keith's side. It looked back at him and Shiro could see the golden glow of hellfire in its eyes. Then they were gone and Shiro was left alone on the shop floor. "Keith!"
He staggered to his feet and ran out to the street. Even knowing that there would be nothing to find he looked around desperately. Keith was gone. It wasn't supposed to be like this. Shiro was the one who was supposed to leave a gaping hole in the world behind. Instead he was the one had been gutted. No longer sick, but left dying all the same.
And, in that growing emptiness, there echoed a voice. It filled the spaces left in his hollowed out Soul and asked the question he once swore he would never answer. Now?
Shiro closed his eyes but all he could see was his life stretched out before him but barren without Keith. He took a deep, shuddering breath.
"Yes."
... ... …
Barashiel—Shiro to the lazy bastards in his cohort—opened his eyes to the mortal realm for the first time in centuries. The vessel finally accepted his Grace after far too long in quiet rebellion. He glanced down at the body he now inhabited. It was riddled with mortal weakness and Hell's machinations. He considered the flaws in silent contemplation for a long moment before raising his right hand. It took but a moment to isolate the impurities from the rest of the body.
"If thine eye offends thee..." He spoke softly to himself. Another simple act of Grace purified the unclean. "Pluck it out."
His arm disinterested. It crumbled to ash starting at the fingertips all the way to the shoulder. Shiro furrowed his brow in concentration as he reformed his angel blade to a prosthetic that fit to the wound left behind. An echo of Creation turned Celestial steel to flesh. He opened and closed his fist and tested his range of motion. That would do. A hidden weapon would never not be useful. Especially with demons around.
Shiro turned to consider the fading stench of brimstone. Keith? There was a small hopeful stirring in his vessel. Shiro's lips pulled down into a frown.
"No." The soul was still once more. He would learn; they all did.
You could not save a soul determined to damn itself.