Work Text:
I.
Shealtiel’s bed was an old, empty affair. A single pillow, worn from years of use. A thin blanket that had surely seen better days. And on the mattress, across the sheets, stains from wounds that refused to heal, that were opened, again and again, forcibly, week after week, leaving him always bruised and bloody.
The bed was pushed flush against the wall. On rainy nights, such as this one, he would slowly inch his way towards it, careful not to hurt himself even further, until he had his back pressed against its smooth surface. The window looked out into the darkness; he heard the ceaseless rush of the rain, and behind it, the wind, sometimes screaming, sometimes sighing, like a soul in pain. The wall was solid, and its stone felt cool against his skin.
No one could touch his back - his wings - in this position. He curled up slightly, wrapping his arms around himself. No one could touch him. He was safe. There was the wall behind him. And beyond that, the rain, falling steadily down. He breathed with it, as he had taught himself to do, back when the nuns and the priests had first started to help him, in their own way.
If he closed his eyes, he could pretend that he was leaving. Leaving this bed, this room, this church. Pushing through the wall until he was free at last, soaked through but free, embraced by the water and the screaming wind.
But the wall was solid, after all.
II.
The demon’s bed was nice. For starters, it had two pillows, instead of one. And the blanket was large and thick and soft.
The demon was saying something. Something inane and trivial, most likely, it was hard to tell. But there was also something else - something strangely soothing and familiar. Shealtiel searched his mind, until the answer came to him.
Raindrops.
As if by instinct, his breathing slowed, and calmed. Here he was, in the room of a demon, but oddly enough, he felt no fear. He lay on the bed, his back facing the wall as usual, but this time, he didn’t feel the need to press himself against it, make himself smaller, safer, unreachable. Instead, he let himself lie there, right in the middle of the bed.
The demon asked him a question, and he answered. Then he felt his eyes close, and he found that he was pretending again, listening to the chattering, pattering sound of the rain. Only this time, he didn’t need to imagine himself pushing through a wall to be free.
This time, all he had to do was reach out his hand, and there it was.
III.
Luciferen was lying on the bed now, and Shealtiel was backed up against the wall, trying his best to push him off.
He wasn’t used to it, having another person in the same bed. All his life, he had thought of it as a place of safety, as a refuge. But now here was this demon, this Luciferen, taking up too much space with his spiky hair and his tall frame and his long legs and those damn arms -
He couldn’t possibly tell this demon the real reason he didn’t want to sleep on the floor. That it wasn’t about it being too hard and uncomfortable. But that lying there, on that rug in the middle of the room, with nothing to properly lean back on, would be too much for him. It would make him feel exposed, vulnerable - seen - and after all that had happened, Shealtiel had vowed to himself that he would never, never, let himself be put in such a position again.
And then there were questions, and pillows, and feathers, and Shealtiel found himself lying, stunned, on the floor after all. Immediately, he shuffled backwards, towards the wall. And then, as if the universe were playing some cruel joke on him, Luciferen asked him about his wings.
He covered his left hand with his right, and hugged his knees to his chest, making himself smaller again. He looked away. Memories began to rush forward, but he forced them back, no, no, not now. He gave the demon an answer.
But then a miracle, it seemed, happened. The demon made him laugh.
IV.
The bed was cramped, now that the two of them were lying on it at once. Luci’s ridiculous sleeping posture only made matters worse. He had flung his arms wide, stretching them across the length of the bed. His legs were tangled up in the blanket, which had rolled down at some point to gather at the foot of the bed. He drooled and he mumbled. He snored loud enough to wake the dead.
And he had taken Shealtiel’s favourite spot, against the wall.
Shealtiel tossed and turned, unable at first to get comfortable. He asked himself just why he had agreed to this - this arrangement between them. It was a foolish, rash decision, made in the heat of the moment, his feelings - wait, what feelings? - getting the better of him, until -
“Oh. So this is why.”
Somehow, as if out of habit, or perhaps some strange, unacknowledged desire - hold on, desire? - Shealtiel found that he had manoeuvred himself into his old, familiar sleeping position. But this time, there was no wall to lean back into. Instead, there was a person.
And this person was solid, too. And warm, not cool, against his back, but Shealtiel soon realised that he didn’t mind, and that this, now, was, in its own way, rather nice.
When Shealtiel eventually woke up, he found that it was raining lightly. The raindrops on the window reflected the pale morning sun, forming wan, dancing shadows along the wall.
Sometime in the night, Luci had placed one of his long arms around Shealtiel.
Shealtiel couldn’t tell whether he had done it on purpose, or if it had simply found its way there unconsciously in his sleep.
What Shealtiel did know, however, was that he had no desire to push it away.
Fin.