Work Text:
Nancy would never fully understand, on any kind of level, the true sacrifice it must have been for Joe to give up his wings to be with her. They had only been casually dating for some time, growing closer to each other in a way she couldn't describe, before Joe confessed the truth to her, and it took weeks for her to believe him. After all, she was a logical person. Angels? Heaven? God? If they truly existed, then why did they do nothing to help people on earth? Where was God when her mother died? Where was God when she and Carson drifted apart in their grief for those few short years? Where was God when people Nancy tried to help ended up dying?
It took time, and a lot of coaxing, but in the end Nancy started to come around. After all, Joe wasn't "normal", not by human standards. For one thing, he looked like he had stepped right out of a magazine about the perfect human physique, with those too blue eyes and that too perfectly blond hair and that too graceful body. He moved through the world like he knew every inch of it. He could speak hundreds of languages with ease, even some of the languages declared "dead". He knew things about her, things that she had never shared with anyone, not even Bess or George or Carson. And he had this aura, it made people feel at ease when he was around them, helping to soothe them and make them smile more freely.
And Joe always seemed to know what Nancy was up to. He insisted on joining her during her more dangerous cases, and the first time he actively stopped a bus from hitting her just by putting his body in front of hers as a shield, watching the metal crunching and bending against his somehow unharmed skin, well... That had definitely cemented the thought in her mind. Joe wasn't human. He never was. He was close enough to being human. He needed food and water. He needed sleep. He needed to bathe regularly. He couldn't fly, couldn't travel through dimensions.
But he still wasn't human. He was an angel. Or he had been, anyway.
The first time since the revelation Nancy finally asked a question regarding Joe's past, she asked the simplest question she could think of: "So... The angels. Are they your siblings?"
Joe contemplated for a moment as they walked down the country road, his bare feet kicking up the dirt. He was almost always barefoot, complaining that shoes made him feel too confined. "Yes and no," he said finally. "Yes, in a sense, that we were all created together. We learned together, we adapted together, we trained and fought together and we loved together. No, because plenty of the angels take each other as mates. And no because..." He smiled ruefully. "I guess you would say I got disowned."
"Because you...fell?" Nancy guessed.
"It's seen as a terrible offense," Joe said, "unless in rare exceptions. But I didn't Fall for the greater good. I Fell because...I wanted to be with you."
Nancy could feel herself blushing, and she turned away in some embarrassment, and for the time being the subject was dropped.
(*)
The next time Nancy asked a question concerning Joe's past, it was after a case in which Joe actually got injured. Getting him to take his shirt off had taken some time, as he didn't understand why it mattered, and she had to convince him that she needed to tend to his wounds. It didn't matter how shallow the wound was, he still risked an infection, and she needed to head it off early, so he shrugged and pulled off his shirt, exposing the countless scars and marks on his torso, as well as the two large white scars running down his back, starting from his shoulder blades and extending down towards the small of his back. They looked painful, and Nancy couldn't help herself, reaching out to lightly touch one of them with her fingertips.
"Do they hurt you?" she asked, her voice soft.
"They did at first," Joe admitted. "But they don't anymore. I've gotten used to them."
"...Do you miss your wings?"
"Sometimes. I miss flying and traveling. The human way is so...slow."
She gave a small laugh. "Yeah I guess it would be slow to you." After a moment of hesitation, she glanced up at him, finding his face turned towards her, those unearthly blue eyes locked onto her own. "What did they look like? Your wings, I mean, before...you know."
Joe smiled a little. "I had six wings. And they glowed hundreds of shades of colors. Colors that you can't even comprehend. And they had hundreds of eyes."
Nancy's eyebrows shot up her forehead. "Eyes? On your wings?"
Joe laughed, his perfect white teeth almost glowing in the dimmer lighting. "Oh sure! Those paintings that depict angels, they're all wrong. Angels are monstrous creatures to humans. Why do you think we always started a conversation with 'Be Not Afraid'? We had to try and get humans to stop screaming long enough for us to even try and explain why we were visiting in the first place."
"What... What did you used to look like?"
"It would be hard for me to explain."
After a moment of thought, Nancy left the room, only returning with a pad of paper and a packet of colored pencils, setting them down on her desk. "Okay," she said, "then can you try and draw it while I take care of your gashes?"
Joe shrugged, moving over to take the stool. "Sure. Take your time."
Nancy worked diligently, bathing the cuts and bandaging them carefully, all while Joe worked on the drawing. The scratching of the pencils on the paper were almost soothing to listen to, as well as the ticking of the clock nearby, the silence between them comfortable. Her hands traced over the other older scars that marked his torso, and finding a few that seemed to disappear further down, hidden by the well worn jeans he had on. It just made her all the more aware of a life Joe had lived far before she was even a spec in the universe. A life she could scarcely wrap her mind around.
"Done." Joe slid the paper to the side to allow her to look, and Nancy stared at it, her jaw dropping a bit in utter amazement. The drawing was extensively detailed, almost terrifyingly so, and the details that were in front of her were...well...
"That thing has three heads."
"Yeah, that's a self portrait."
"You have three heads?!"
"Well, I used to." Joe shrugged again. "I don't anymore, obviously. This is what my True Form looked like."
"And those eyes, you don't even have pupils!" She leaned in a little, running her finger over the drawing, at the clawed hands clutching a flaming sword, at the one pair of wings that were covering the center face, the mouth open to expose a mouth filled with fangs. The other two heads were devoid of any characteristics, except for four eyes, glowing red, no pupils to speak of. The rest of the body was shrouded in a cloth, feet bare as always, and the other two pairs of wings stretched wide, covered in eyes as Joe had told her they used to be.
Powerful. Mysterious. Something to behold.
"Beautiful." Nancy's cheek flared red as she realized she had said it out loud, covering her mouth briefly.
Joe smiled a little, looking down at the picture too. "Yes. But not as beautiful as you."
(*)
Several weeks later, they lay in an open field out by the river. The moon was full, and they were far enough away from town that the light pollution hadn't done too much damage, so the stars that littered the sky was full and beautiful, expanding across the black sky in a dazzling array. Joe had brought out some food for a midnight picnic, and Nancy just watched him as he stared up at the sky, tracing constellations with his finger, that wistful look in his eyes sending a small sharp pain through her chest. As comfortable as Joe seemed to have become living on earth, she couldn't help but worry he wasn't very happy here.
"Do you miss Heaven?" she asked finally.
He glanced at her, and he slowly lowered his hand to take hers. His fingers were cool to the touch, something she didn't understand. No matter how warm the area could be, his hands were almost always cold.
"Sometimes," he said. "It was my home for millennia after all. Most of my siblings are still there."
"Most?" she repeated.
"The War with Lucifer," he explained. "Many of the angels joined his side. They fought and Fell for pride and envy. The rest who stayed Loyal to our Father still reside in Heaven. The only ones allowed to leave are the Guardians."
"And that's what you used to be."
He smiled a little. "Yes. It was what I was created to be."
"What was that like?" Nancy asked. "How did you get humans to be a Guardian for?"
Joe sighed a little, looking back up at the sky. "Father first made humans out of clay. But as time went on, he started using star dust instead, to create the soul. When a Guardian is assigned someone, they have to bond with the soul first, as to make sure you know who you are watching out for. I was there for every human Father wanted me to protect." Then he glanced back at Nancy. "I was there even when Father created you."
Her eyes widened a little. "Really?"
He nodded. "Your soul comes from one of the brightest and biggest supernovas. Father collected the dust right after the explosion and crafted your soul from that. I held onto you for what only felt like moments before you had to be conceived by your parents, and then I was there from the moment you were born."
It should have been unnerving to hear this. It felt like Nancy was being given secrets to the very universe, told she was made from stardust, and a supernova at that. But she didn't feel scared or wary or nervous. She felt like she was in awe, like this was just one piece of a puzzle she had never considered before, being laid out in front of her, adding just another small image to the larger picture that was her life. All the things she had been through, all of the scary encounters she had encountered in her life before Joe arrived, any time she escaped by the skin of her teeth, that had always been Joe, watching her, protecting her.
"...But why did you Fall?" she asked finally. "What about me made you decide to leave everything you know behind?"
For the first time, Joe seemed stumped. His brows furrowed a bit as he tried to think, and she wondered just how fast his brain could comprehend problems. He had been an angel, for millions of years, how was his mind able to hold all this knowledge and all these memories without driving him insane?
"...I don't know," Joe said finally. "All I knew was...as I was holding you... As I was watching you grow. It was as if I could hear it calling out to me. I couldn't bear to ever leave you alone, just having to return to Heaven for other duties felt like I was being stretched between two different places. Like...we were tied together, you and I. And I made the decision that if it came down to it, I couldn't bear to live my entire existence and not know you better. Not see you, or talk to you, or hold you. That brought on a pain that I never felt before. A pain I never want to feel again."
"And you Fell," Nancy said quietly. "For me. You gave up everything for me."
"No," Joe said. "I left one life and I joined another. I gained so much more than I ever had in Heaven." He rolled onto his side then, and bathed in the moonlight, Nancy could almost see it, the powerful angel he used to be. "And I would do it again in a heartbeat Nancy. Knowing you has been sweeter than anything I can describe. And I'm without many of my powers, but I can still see you clearly, just as the first time I laid eyes on you."
"Oh yeah?" Nancy smiled slightly. "What do I look like?"
He smiled back, his eyes so soft and filled with love, it almost ached. "Radiance," he said. "Just absolute radiance."