Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Will report back on the charge as soon as I find him. Which might be a while. I mean, just kidding, it’ll be done in a timely fashion, I swear! Okay yeah I’m signing off.

-Ileao

Ileao has never had a project that was this… hands-on.

Ey’ve had plenty of guardian assignments, of course. And ey’ve worked incredibly hard on every single one. But ey’ve never had to go completely corporeal, and ey’ve certainly never had to roleplay as a damn mortal. What do mortals even do!? Besides get themselves into deadly trouble, that is.

“This is your most important mission yet,” Zabrell had said while Ileao did everything in eir power not to zone out and miss the briefing. “So don’t fuck it up.”

Ey are not going to fuck this up. Ey’re not!

…Though eir current situation doesn’t exactly support that statement. How the hell was Ileao supposed to know that eir halo couldn’t get wet!? That seems like something Zabrell should have known about. There’s no way Ileao’s the first angel to ever go undercover as a mortal, right? That sounds dumb. Ey’re not even good at eir job! Ey try to be, but ey aren’t. Ey’ve only gotten this far through sheer stubbornness and refusal to fail.

Ileao’s halo sparks again, and ey yelp in alarm as eir hair stands on end—as if that changes eir hairstyle at all. Actually, it’s almost helpful, because the rain is starting to weigh down eir hair and it’s really messing up eir whole ‘gravity-defying angel’ aesthetic.

Honestly, this could all be fixed if ey would just give up and find some cover from this cursed rain. But ey can’t, because ey have a job to do, and ey won’t give up until ey find this ‘Alexander’ motherfucker and guard the hell out of him!

…Well. This project is actually less about guarding and more about narcing, but so what? Ileao’s a guardian angel, okay, that’s what ey’re somewhat mediocre at and that’s what ey’re used to. Ey’re not about to change up eir whole strategy just because Zabrell told em too.

“Fucking- Try to- If you can’t- Third diamond-”

Ileao’s halo sparks once more as it tries in vain to deliver the message Zabrell is trying to send em. Most of it is gibberish, the connection ruined by the shorted-out halo, but Ileao still grimaces at the implications of the few words ey do hear. Zabrell is threatening em with another diamond to go under eir crescent. Ey got eir first one about six centuries ago, when ey fucked up and managed to get eir first ever guardian charge killed. After that, ey swore ey’d do whatever it took not to fail again; the idea of racking up three failures and getting exiled terrifies em.

(Ey got eir second diamond four centuries ago—she was the second charge ey’d ever completely failed, and the first and only charge ey’d failed on purpose.)

Thinking about it, it’s actually kind of a dick move for Zabrell to keep bringing it up. But Ileao supposes that’s just how xe is.

A carriage drives by, horses whinnying in the darkness, and Ileao scowls as ey get sprayed with muddy water from the street. Mortals suck ass. Couldn’t the driver have at least asked em where ey were headed? Some goddamn decency would be much appreciated!

Ey tromp through the mud, completely fucking soaked, shivering and tired and without so much as a clue as to where ey’re actually headed. Luckily, ey see a dim light through the fog and the rain—one of the shops in this town is still open! Ileao makes eir way through the downpour to knock violently against the shop’s wooden door. It shakes in its frame, and Ileao can’t even bring emself to care.

After a few minutes, ey hear footsteps, and ey stop knocking just in time for the door to creak open and reveal a young human man on the other side.

“Uh, we’re closed,” he says nervously, and Ileao huffs and rolls eir eyes.

“Yeah, no shit! I just need directions,” Ileao says. Ey hope ey don’t sound as desperate as ey feel.

But ey probably do, since the guy actually replies instead of just slamming the door in eir face. “Sure, where are you headed?”

“I… don’t actually know. Do you know where Alexander Candleson lives?”

The guy’s eyebrows shoot up into his hairline, and Ileao sighs. The two humans ey happened across earlier in the night had similar reactions; Alexander is not a well-liked individual, apparently. Ileao really shouldn’t be surprised. “Are you a Daybreak hunter?” the human guy asks.

“…No? Technically not.”

“That doesn’t exactly inspire confidence…”

Ileao scowls. “Look, can you point me in the right direction, or not? I’m fucking tired, and I need to meet this Candleson dipshit before I get goddamn hypothermia or some shit!”

The man frowns, furrowing his eyebrows. “Well… You’re not going to arrest him?”

“Good fucking god, what is this guy up to!?”

“You don’t even know?”

“Oh my god please just tell me where I’m going.”

The man laughs, relaxing a little, and Ileao can’t bring emself to give a single shit about this stranger’s comfort. Just give em the directions, damn it! “Sorry, I don’t think I can send you his way in good conscience.”

Ileao whimpers, and then promptly hates emself for it. Ey did not mean to do that. Ey are so tired. “Seriously?”

“Sorry, man.”

The guy shuts em out, and Ileao whines and slides down to the ground, slamming eir head back against the closed door. This sucks. This is the worst.

“Zabrell, I can’t find the damn charge! What do I do?”

Ey try to send the question through eir halo link, way past the point of being too ashamed to ask for help. Ey’ll take anything at this point.

Zabrell’s voice filters through the link, and at first Ileao allows emself to feel a hint of excitement. But then…

“ Don’t- Can’t even- What happened- Halo-”

Eir halo emits an odd crackling noise and sends a sharp shock of pain down eir back. That can’t be good. Ey feel the start of another message from Zabrell coming through, but it starts out as muffled gibberish and then fades into complete silence. Well, that’s eir halo link totally severed. Cool. What a good start to the assignment.

Ileao stares out at the dark street, lit every twenty or so feet by a dim street lamp. Oh, god. Ey’re stuck like this. For months, possibly years—for as long as it takes this Alexander guy to tell Ileao his weird evil plans, or whatever it was Zabrell said. Fuck. Fuck! Ey’re barely getting by as a normal guardian angel; ey have to work three times as hard as the other angels just to get the bare minimum required to keep em away from exile. And now ey’re stuck with this impossible assignment that isn’t even in eir normal realm of not-quite-expertise, and eir fucking halo is broken, and ey have to deal with these dumb human feelings like pain and cold and hunger, and-

Ileao tucks eir face into eir elbow and screams.

Well. At least it can’t get any worse. It can only go up from here, right?

Or something like that. It takes Ileao hours of stumbling through the town by halo-light, knocking on strangers’ doors and asking desperately where the big bad Alexander Candleson lives, for em to finally get pointed in the right direction. By then, ey’re pretty sure half the town already hates em. It takes em another hour after that to actually reach Alexander’s house, a creepy weird mansion on a creepy weird hill outside this dumb shitty town. When ey, at long last, knock on Alexander’s door, ey can’t feel eir fingers and ey’re only half-present, a good portion of eir brainpower taken up by the traumatic flashbacks caused by the water and the cold.

Alexander opens the door with his wand held out defensively in front of him, but Ileao can’t even gather up the energy to be afraid. When he sees eir sorry state, Alexander drops his guard a little, lowering his wand and furrowing his eyebrows.

“Hi,” Ileao says, eir voice quiet and hoarse. “S’posed to help you.”

Eir halo sparks again, and a moment later, ey feel it fall heavily onto eir head. Oh, great. So it’s tangible. And probably visible.

“Fuck,” Ileao says, and then ey pass the fuck out.

☼☼☼

When Ileao wakes up, eir first thought is that ey’re being held down, and so ey must be in danger.

What did ey do? Did ey mess up the assignment so bad that some angry higher-up had to take immediate action? Has Merci magically come back to life to take revenge like ey’ve always irrationally feared? Have ey pissed off some mortal enough to warrant an attack? God, Ileao’s such a mess, it could be anything.

But the lack of knowledge only makes everything worse, which is why Ileao immediately shoots up and scrambles backwards, away from… from the…

Oh, shit, that’s Alexander Candleson.

“Shh, you’re alright,” he says, and Ileao is shocked to learn how soft and soothing his voice is. He’s got an accent from some mortal realm, and the skin by his eyes crinkles when he smiles, and his all-black ensemble does nothing to detract from his calming aura. Wait, what the shit? Ileao was told this guy was a fearsome villain!

Ileao’s breath stutters slightly as ey try to readjust, to take in eir surroundings and figure out what the hell is going on. Ey’re pressed up against the wall of… Alex’s house, ey assume, and ey think maybe ey weren’t being held down earlier, ey just had an absurd amount of blankets piled over em. Cute.

“Hey, are you okay?” Alexander asks, and oh my god, that voice! He reaches out slowly, careful not to scare em any further, and Ileao finds it very hard to believe that this man is the same ‘extremely evil and utterly irredeemable villain’ ey were supposed to be assigned to. Maybe there was some mistake? Ileao’s so caught up in eir confusion that ey let Alexander get close enough to lay a gentle hand on eir shoulder, and ey jolt in surprise and jerk back, slamming into the wall on accident.

“Fuck!” Ileao says.

Alexander does not hide his amusement very well at all. “Good morning, stranger.”

Ileao blinks, shaking emself out of eir disoriented stupor. “Oh, shit- Yeah, uh, hi, fuck, did I pass out on your doorstep?”

Alexander laughs, but it doesn’t feel cruel like Ileao is used to. It almost surprises a smile out of em. Almost. “You did indeed,” he says, standing up and holding out a hand to pull Ileao up as well.

After only a few moments of deliberation—impressive given Ileao’s usual paranoia—ey accept his help and allow him to pull em to eir feet, where ey very nearly fall right back to the floor. Luckily, he must have expected this, because he quickly reaches out to steady em, and Ileao has to work very hard to control the heat that rises to eir cheeks at the feeling of his arms around eir waist. What the fuck. What is happening?

“Easy,” Alexander says, gently tugging em back to the bed. Against eir better judgment, ey let emself be pulled. “You were pretty wrecked when you showed up at my door last night.”

“Fuckin’ tell me about it,” Ileao grumbles, sitting on the bed and wrapping eir arms around emself. Somehow, ey’re still cold.

Ey feel a weight across eir shoulders and look up with wide eyes to find Alex draping several of the blankets over em. When he’s finished, he moves back to the chair beside the bed, and Ileao finds emself missing his closeness.

“Why are you so nice?” ey blurt out before eir brain can catch up to eir mouth. Aw shit.

Alexander tilts his head. “Should I be meaner?”

Ileao flushes. “No, I just- I dunno, I thought you were supposed to be some big bad villain?”

“I am,” Alexander says, which is pretty unexpected given the entirety of the conversation leading up to this.

Ileao stares at him, disbelieving. “I, a total stranger, passed out outside your house from exhaustion and probably hypothermia, and you, a villain, chose to take me in and care for me?”

He shrugs. “I am a villain, not a jerk.”

Ileao blinks a few times, trying to comprehend that sentence. “Okay, wow.”

Alexander smiles. “Now that you have recovered enough to insult me, may I ask your name?”

Ileao blushes again, furious at this embarrassing turn of events. Ah, but when have any of eir assignments ever gone as planned? At least Alexander isn’t drowning. “I guess,” ey give in, pulling the blankets tighter around emself as ey look away. “I’m Ileao. Hi.”

“Hello,” Alexander replies, the same well-meaning amusement in his tone. “You can call me Alex.”

Oh, right, he doesn’t know that ey know, like, way too much about him. Ey should probably keep it that way, if at all possible.

“Are you an angel?” Alex asks. So much for keeping him in the dark. He picks up the broken halo lying on the bedside table, and Ileao winces as it sparks in his hand, its color unnaturally dull. “Because if so, I am afraid I have some bad news about your halo.”

Ileao groans, putting eir head in eir hands. “God damn it.” Okay, so ey need to figure out how much ey wanna tell him. Not much, right? Surely. It’s not like ey can just up and tell him that ey’re here to spy on him, to gain his trust and eventually access to his evil schemes. Ileao figures that wouldn’t go over too well. So maybe ey can just tell him the basics—the part ey tell all eir guardian charges, even though it’s a little against the rules.

“Fine,” ey huff, flicking eir eyes back over to him. He’s still smiling slightly, gentle curiosity in place of the demanding impatience Ileao has come to expect from eir charges. Is that an ‘evil’ thing? Ileao wouldn’t have pegged ‘being nice’ as an act of pure evil, but maybe the standards change a little when the target of the niceness is Ileao. “I’m your guardian angel.”

Alex’s eyes widen slightly. Guess he wasn’t expecting that. “My guardian angel,” he slowly echoes.

“Yep.”

He furrows his eyebrows, looking through em instead of at em as his thoughts wander. “Huh. Who is your god?”

“Lathandar.”

“Huh,” he repeats. He narrows his eyes, focusing back in on Ileao, and Ileao feels a tiny pinprick of fear. “Is Lathandar or another angel watching over our interactions?”

“Nah, my halo’s fucked,” Ileao says, and then deeply regrets telling this fucking supervillain that there is literally no reason for him not to kill em or something. Then again… Fuck it. What do ey have to lose? Not much, at this point. “Also, I’m fucked. They always have trouble keeping track of me for some reason, even when my halo’s totally fine.”

“Interesting,” Alex says, humming thoughtfully. “Can you walk?”

“Uh, yeah?”

“Follow me.”

Alex leads em downstairs and- and wow, his house is huge. It’s like every evil mansion ever, with winding hallways and too many rooms… but it’s brightly lit, with a warm, homey feeling, and it doesn’t have the eerie chill that Ileao imagined it would. When they get to the dining room, he pushes em gently onto one of the chairs and then opens the curtains, revealing the bright morning light.

“We will be doing some… unsavory things,” Alex says, putting his hands down on the table and leaning towards Ileao. For one quick second, his smile is almost predatory—but then it evens back out into easy warmth, and Ileao tries to relax. Ey’re just being paranoid; so far, Alex has been extremely nice, and it’s not like Zabrell has a reputation for being particularly trustworthy (at least, not with em). Ileao’s more than ready to just accept that xe was wrong, or at the very least, incredibly biased. Lathandar’s servants almost always are.

But this is still a little concerning, and Ileao would like some clarification. “‘Unsavory?’” ey repeat. “Explain. Now.”

“Well, you are my guardian angel, correct?” Alex asks, and Ileao tentatively nods. “I assume that means you are going to protect me from danger. And, since my… job is a fairly reckless one, you will be protecting me quite a lot.”

Ileao grimaces and waits for him to continue.

“I just think you ought to know what you’re getting into. I am not exactly a pillar of morality, Ileao.”

“I, uh, I know,” Ileao says, eir tone verging on sheepish. Ey quickly try to inject some false confidence into eir voice while ey talk to the goddamn supervillain. “I’ve heard a lot about you.”

Alex raises an eyebrow.

“You have a hell of a reputation,” Ileao covers.

“So I do,” Alex agrees. “And you are alright with that?”

“With the reputation?”

“With committing crimes with me,” he corrects em, and eir eyes widen in realization.

Oh, shit. Ey didn’t think about that! Are ey supposed to play along that much!? Zabrell told em to gain his trust so he would tell em his big plans for his upcoming super-crime, or whatever. But exactly how far are ey supposed to go to earn that trust? Is Zabrell cool with em just… becoming a criminal for a while?

Is Ileao cool with becoming a criminal for a while?

Ey’re not exactly a pillar of morality emself, but ey do have eir standards. Ey’re all too familiar with the icky, uncomfortable feeling ey get whenever one of eir charges does something less-than-good… Well, maybe it’s good by Lathandar’s standards, but certainly not by Ileao’s. It’s never fun, and the charges are never nice about it, either. But even then, ey’ve never had to help. Usually ey just wait, invisible and intangible and suitably detached from the situation, and then pop down to throw up a shield or heal the charge in the aftermath.

But it is painfully clear that Alex wants em to be an active part of his string of crimes, and that is so much different.

“Yeah, no, of course,” Ileao blusters. “What, you think I’m some fuckin’ goody two-shoes kind of angel? Nonono. I am more than happy to fuck shit up.”

(Ey are not more than happy to fuck shit up. …A little, maybe, but ey definitely don’t wanna fuck shit up as much as Alex seems to want to!)

Alex chuckles, shaking his head. “I did not say you were a ‘goody two-shoes,’ as you put it. I was just making sure you knew what you’d signed up for.”

“‘Course,” Ileao says again, praying ey don’t sound as uncertain as ey feel. God, why couldn’t ey have just gotten another dumbshit Daybreak? As least those crimes, ey were mostly desensitized to!

“I am glad that’s settled, then,” Alex says, and his tone still holds the barest hint of a challenge, but Ileao thinks now is probably not the best time to rise to it. It’s not like he’s wrong, after all; ey definitely aren’t psyched for this. “Do angels eat?”

“Not normally, but I think I have to at the moment.”

“Why? What is different?”

Aw, fuck! Ileao just can’t go two seconds without digging emself into a hole, can ey? “I’m… Um, my halo!” Oh thank god, an actual excuse. Ileao tries to keep the relief off eir face as ey settle on what to tell him. “It shorted out in the rain last night, I think? I dunno. Point is that I’m totally corporeal now, and I’m usually not, so… This is all kinda new to me.”

“I see.”

“The hell is that supposed to mean!? It’s not like I’m an expert in halo science, okay, I’m a fucking guardian! That is so not my specialty, some other angel should’ve figured that one out long before it became this much of a problem!”

Alex puts his hands up placatingly, backing away from the table. “You are quite the angel,” he comments offhandedly as he walks toward the kitchen, and Ileao stubbornly ignores the twinge of hurt in eir chest. Ey’ve heard that a million times before, so why does it still hurt? Why can’t ey be desensitized to that?

“Fuck off,” Ileao snaps, far more acidic than ey intended, and Alex seems genuinely shocked for a moment as he pauses in his movement to look back at em.

“Sore spot?” he asks after an awkward few moments where Ileao deeply misses the sweet cover of intangibility.

“Did you wanna do something, or not?” Ileao shoots back, crossing eir arms and refusing to look at him.

There’s another short pause that Ileao absolutely hates, but then Alex shrugs and nods. “Well, yes. I suppose we can hurry along.” He strolls into the foyer, twirling his coat off its hook and slipping it on. He calls over his shoulder, “Grab something to eat from the kitchen, we’re burning daylight!”

Which is a hell of a jump from him worriedly asking em if ey can even walk, but ey definitely prefer it to the awkward morality conversation. Ileao hops to eir feet, proud to only sway slightly at the sudden movement, and then ey dart toward the foyer, completely ignoring Alex’s instruction about breakfast. Breakfast is for mortals.

(Ileao just finished explaining to Alex why that was no longer true, but ignoring your problems is a perfectly valid way to deal with them. Right? Probably. If Ileao said that to Zabrell, xe’d likely just roll hir eyes and continue on as if ey hadn’t said anything at all, which ey would take to mean that ey’re being stupid by over-sharing but ey’re more or less on the right track. Point being: no breakfast.)

“Ready to leave?” Alex asks, pulling his hair out of its ponytail so he can put on a hat before he goes. Oh, that has no right being as enthralling as it is. What the fuck?

“Yeah,” Ileao says, a little late. Ey glance down at eir outfit, an absurd amount of layers that have somehow dried from the rain last night. Whelp, good enough! As long as ey’re not cold or wet, ey’re good to go. “Fuck it, let’s do crimes!”

This will be fine. Yeah, this will be totally fine! After all, Zabrell warned em that ey wouldn’t be trusted right away, ey’d have to earn Alexander’s trust to get access to his plans. So xe must have known that ey’d have to play along with his, uh, activities. Right?

If Zabrell didn’t want em committing mortal crimes, then maybe xe should’ve told em so ahead of time.

Alex heads outside, and Ileao follows with only a bit of hesitation. Ey glance around as ey close the door—the house is a lot less menacing in the daylight, actually. Like, it’s still a creepy mansion on a creepy hill, but it feels a lot less final. Feels like maybe it’s not the end of the world.

Alex shouts for em to hurry up, and ey realize ey’ve fallen very far behind. Ey quickly pick up the pace, jogging to catch up to him and blushing when he makes a quip about eir angelic history clearly having no effect on eir speed.

Yeah. Not the end of the world. Weird, and unorthodox, and definitely not what ey’re used to in regards to charges or assignments… But it’s not horrible. He’s not horrible. This might turn out okay, in the end.

Ey’re willing to give it a shot.

☼☼☼

The hat, Ileao learns, is more to block out strangers than to block out the threat of rain.

Alex tilts the tip of the hat down over the top of his face whenever a townsperson gets a little too close, and Ileao realizes with a start that ey might be doing a shit-ton more protecting than ey predicted. It’s not just crimes ey have to worry about, it’s the consequences of those crimes. Ileao has to make sure Alex doesn’t get fucking arrested or some shit.

Er… Do ey? Eir goal is to learn his plans for some big crime he’s working towards with his matron goddess. But if the regular-ass Daybreak officers manage to stop him before he even gets to that point… Like, that would be good, right? Ileao should let that happen?

That doesn’t feel right. That feels like the exact and polar opposite of the guardian angel golden rule of “watch over your goddamn charge.” Even Ileao, who is well known for eir complete lack of competence in the guardian angel field, feels damn near sick just considering it.

(Or maybe it’s just that ‘letting it happen’ is creeping a little too close to ‘Merci’ territory. Maybe it’s just that Ileao will never forget the way she screamed, the way she dedicated her last words to cursing eir name. Maybe that’s just not something anyone could ever forget.)

“Ileao,” Alex says, snapping em out of eir thoughts, and Ileao is almost grateful for the distraction. Being alone with eir thoughts is never fun, and ey’re not used to being directly addressed by a mortal outside of demands for help. Alex would probably be perfectly fine making idle conversation, but Ileao is a little worried about pushing eir luck with him. Like, a person can only be so perfect, right? And the guy is a villain. He’s gotta have some bad traits. How is Ileao supposed to know whether or not ‘responds unnecessarily aggressively to innocent requests for conversation’ is one of them!? “Ileao.”

Oh, right. “Yeah, what’s up?”

Alex quiets down for a second to let a civilian pass them on the cobbled street. Then he lowers his voice and leans in close to Ileao. “All of these people fleeing the town square? They are scared of what’s about to happen.”

“Uh.” Ileao raises an eyebrow, crossing eir arms. “What you’re about to make happen, or what was going to happen anyway?”

Alex chuckles. “The second one,” he assures em. He puts out his hand to slow em as they reach a street corner, and then he peeks out around the building. Ileao copies him, following his gaze to the massive wooden stage that’s been clumsily assembled in the town square. Oh.

“What the fuck is going on there?” Ileao asks incredulously. The stage has two levels, one slightly raised above the other near the back, and there’s a podium in the center near the front. Otherwise, it’s pretty barren, with the only other decoration being the wealthy-looking Daybreak scribe lounging on a chair in the back corner.

“Execution,” Alex says bluntly, and Ileao looks over at him in alarm.

“Holy shit, what?”

“The monster is innocent,” Alex says, as though that answers any of eir questions.

“Wait, they’re executing a monster?” Ileao asks.

“They are trying to.”

…Okay, ignoring the implications of that, “I didn’t know that was even a thing. Like, wouldn’t they just merc the things on sight?”

Alex gives em a look that is vaguely threatening, somehow, despite the smile affixed firmly to his face. Ey’re not quite sure what ey did wrong. “Sometimes, they will murder monsters on sight,” Alex says, looking back to the stage. “Other times, they decide it would be more beneficial to make it a more public affair. With an execution like this, the Daybreaks get an easy morale boost, and any monsters hiding in the vicinity get scared into submission.”

“Oh, that’s super fucked up.”

Alex blinks in surprise, looking back at em. “…Yes, it is,” Alex agrees after a moment. “Luckily, Daybreaks are bound by their own tradition as much as they are bound by their so-called morals.”

“Which means…?”

Alex points at the scribe hanging out on the stage. “That man has the monster’s file, its ‘crimes’ as well as its Daybreak designation and the approval for today’s execution.”

“So you’re gonna yoink it?”

“…Yes.”

Ileao’s gut reaction is to say “fuck yeah” and jump right into it, but then ey think of the disappointed expression Zabrell will wear if ey don’t do what’s expected of em. God, ey wish ey knew what was expected of em. Ey’d do it, really, ey would! Ey’ve sacrificed way too much to keep emself afloat with this job, ey’re gonna be pissed if ey throw it all away through sheer ignorance of eir assignment.

“I’m not helping,” Ileao blurts out. Ey kind of regret it afterward, but ey’ve already said it and it’s probably for the best anyway so ey’re just gonna commit to it. “I’ll stand lookout or whatever, and I’ll make sure you get away safely. But I’m not going to directly steal from a Daybreak officer.”

Alex levels em with a glare that is entirely unamused and unimpressed, and it makes Ileao’s insides crawl a little bit but ey’re doing the best ey can, here, okay?

Why is he even involving em in this, anyway? Even with the guardian angel cover—especially with the guardian angel cover!—he wasn’t expected to accept em into his inner crime circle so quickly. Zabrell said ey’d have to fight to be trusted with even his smallest plans, that ey’d have to do more spying than talking for the first few months until Alex finally started to let em in on the little things. But Alex is just immediately dragging em into a whole entire crime!

“They are going to murder an innocent being,” Alex says lowly, “and they are going to do it with an audience. What about this situation is convincing you not to get involved?”

“How am I not getting involved!? You’re involved, and I’m involved with you!”

Alex’s expression flickers with surprise for a moment, and then his face flushes red even as his expression falls back into a glare—albeit a much weaker one. “One obscenely wealthy man losing a single scroll, weighed up against one innocent monster losing their life. Which is worse, Ileao?”

Ileao feels a familiar panic creeping up eir spine, though ey’re also met with the odd realization that typically, when ey are asked this question, ey are expected to reply much differently than how Alex wants em to. “I- Don’t ask me morality questions, asshole, I’m an angel! I know what’s up!”

“That is seeming more and more doubtful with each passing moment.”

Oh, okay, ouch. That… actually hurts a little. Not that it matters, because- well, it’s not like Ileao knows Alex. Ey don’t. But ey still kind of like him, despite emself, and every once in a while it occurs to Ileao that the whole “be assigned to charge > charge grows to hate you within a day > charge uses you as a living shield until assignment is recalled” thing kind of sucks ass. Ey don’t want to hate emself. Ey’ve tried not to. But it gets really, really, unfairly hard when eir whole purpose is to put emself below every stranger ey’re assigned to. It would be nice if, just every once in a while, a charge would just accept eir protection without commenting on how worthless ey would be without it.

…But ey’re getting ahead of emself. Ey haven’t quite gotten to that point yet with Alex. And ey know ey will, ey know it’s not really the kind of thing ey can prevent, but- but for now, the insult can just be an insult, and it doesn’t have to dig deep into eir soul and remind em that eir job lowkey requires em not to value eir own existence. It doesn’t have to.

Kind of lame that it still does.

Ileao brushes all of those unruly thoughts under the metaphorical rug and scowls, covering eir hurt with anger. “Coming from a guy so bad at staying alive that God decided he needed an angelic babysitter twenty-four-sevs, that doesn’t mean all that much,” ey sneer, crossing eir arms and stepping away from Alex. “Are you gonna steal that fucking scroll, or what? Waiting around for more officers to show up is only going to make my job harder.”

Alex frowns, and Ileao knows ey don’t have a chance in hell of deciphering the complicated slew of emotions that flashes across his face. Ey resolve not to let emself feel any type of way about it, because if ey let emself down that rabbit hole, ey won’t be able to decipher eir own emotions, either.

“I will be back in just a moment,” Alex says after far too many seconds of uncomfortable silence. “Stay out of sight, and if things begin to go south, retreat and meet me back at the house.”

“Nice try, but you’re stuck with me. I can’t leave without you.”

Alex looks frustrated for a moment, though whether that’s because ey’ve rejected his plan or because he can’t get rid of em is up for debate. “If you insist,” he finally says, though he certainly doesn’t seem thrilled about it.

A small crowd is beginning to gather in front of the stage, and Ileao frowns and chews eir lip nervously. Aw, shit. Ey can’t let him run up there now. Whatever he’s planning to do, he sure shouldn’t do it with that big of an audience. “Okay, fuck, do you want a distraction or something? I guess I can do that.”

Alex lights up and oh fuck that was cute. Ileao hopes he’ll attribute eir blush to the cold weather or something, because there’s no way it isn’t super obvious right now. Luckily, he seems too enamored with the idea of his theft being made easier to give a single shit about Ileao’s odd behavior.

“Perfect! Yes, cause a distraction on the other side of the crowd. I will only need a few moments to retrieve the scroll, the scribe will not be a problem.”

Concerning, but whatever. “Sure, cool, got it. Don’t be stupid, Crime Boy.”

Alex looks puzzled at the nickname for a second, but Ileao is already teleporting away to the other side of the town square. Ey take a deep breath and then decide to just commit to the bit. Like, fuck it, right? Ey’re already corporeal and halo-less. It’s not like anyone can tell ey’re an angel right now. Eir wings aren’t even visible! Ey have no reputation to uphold.

Except the one where ey’re a total screw-up all the time, but that part just comes naturally, so ey’re not too worried about it.

Being an asshole comes naturally, too. “Woah, slow down there, fuckwad,” Ileao says to a random citizen, some guy with a completely white Daybreak-themed outfit. Ey hold out eir hand to stop him, and he looks down at em in irritation. Oh, fuck, he’s really tall actually. This might have been a bad idea. Oh well, committing to the bit! “Think you’re wearing enough white? I feel like you were a little too liberal with the color variety here.”

The guy scowls. “What are you, blind? This is pure white, there’s not a single speck of color or dirt on here!” he huffs, clearly not picking up on the sarcasm.

Sure enough, ey’re beginning to draw some attention. But it’s not enough, and ey did say ey would go all in…

Before ey can think better of it, ey give the guy a good shove, and he comically pinwheels his arms as he stumbles back and falls right into a puddle of mud. Ooh. Nice.

That gets the whole crowd’s attention, partially because the guy shouts angrily as soon as he notices the new not-so-white color of his fancy outfit. “Why, you little-!”

“Aw, big bad Daybreak simp got a little dirty! How’re you gonna kiss ass when you look like ass?” Ileao asks sweetly, tilting eir head in a show of mock-innocence.

Half the crowd actually gasps, and Ileao figures ey must’ve set eir sights on someone actually important. Good! Ey’re not ever going to tell anyone this, but ey kind of hate the Daybreak higher-ups. Like, would it kill them to have some empathy every once in a while? And that’s coming from Ileao, of all people! Ileao!

“I could have you fired from whatever dogshit job you managed to snag here,” the guy hisses as he pulls himself to his feet, his robe dripping with mud and dirty water.

“Looking like that?” Ileao asks, looking him over and lingering on his robe. After that, ey look up at his face and flinch back melodramatically. “Oh, yikes, and your face is almost worse. Might be a little too much for a simple wash to handle!”

“That’s it!” the guy hollers, and Ileao’s eyes widen as he stands up to his full height, hiking the sleeves of his soggy robe up to his elbows. He lunges forward, and Ileao yelps and scrambles back, ironically also falling into a puddle. The crowd snickers, and Ileao figures ey probably deserve it. Ey provoked this guy a lot.

Ey are a little more hesitant, however, to say ey deserve whatever this guy is now planning to do as revenge. He towers over em as ey prop emself up on eir elbows and scan the crowd for an opening. Yeah, great, there are none. Not to mention, ey started this whole altercation so close to a building that ey’ve now managed to get emself cornered against it.

Eir panic is starting to build now, and that familiar combination of resignation and adrenaline is finally flowing through em. Ey press up against the brick wall of the building and then wince when the angry Daybreak guy pins em up against it forcibly, yanking em to eir feet and then slamming em back into the wall again, likely for dramatic effect. Cool, cool. Fuck, that really hurts.

The guy says something that doesn’t quite make it through the panicked haze Ileao’s brain is currently in, and Ileao’s vision swims a little as he slams eir head back against the wall to get eir attention. Shit shit shit okay this might be a problem, actually.

Alex said he only needed a second, right? Exactly how much hyperbole was he using when he said that? Ileao leans to the side a little, trying to peer past the angry guy to get a look at the stage. Though eir vision remains worryingly blurry and ey are seeing two of the scribe instead of the one ey know is actually there, ey can tell that the scribe is frantically looking for something and that Alex is nowhere to be seen. Okay, cool! Mission accomplished! Now ey need to get the fuck out of here.

“Are you hearing me!?” the angry guy screams, his face bright red. God, dude, ‘say, don’t spray.’ “If you don’t tell me your fucking name, I won’t be able to report you properly, and I’ll just have to carry out your punishment now, personally.”

His smile is way too wolfish to be considered “good” in any right, and while Ileao wants to say this guy was clearly a miss-hire, ey think he was probably chosen pretty carefully. The Daybreaks are just like that, sometimes. “You know, I don’t think this is following proper report guidelines to begin with,” Ileao says weakly, trying and failing to keep up eir untouchably snarky persona. Okay, yeah, ey might be a little bit past that.

“Huh, I think you’re right,” the guy says, feigning thoughtfulness. His smile grows into a predatory smirk. “Guess I’d better just go all-in.”

He reels back his fist for a punch that Ileao really does not want to experience, and Ileao lets out an alarmed shriek and flaps eir intangible wings, grateful beyond belief when those wings actually do their damn job for once and safely teleport em away.

Ey don’t go far, just back to the side of the square ey and Alex were on before, albeit a little further down the street this time. No point in teleporting to safety if eir enemy immediately spots em again a few seconds later. Ey slump down against a weird little herbalist shop, tugging lightly on eir hair as ey try to force eir vision back to some semblance of normalcy. Ey’re an angel, this shouldn’t be a problem—yes, eir halo is gone, but ey still shouldn’t be capable of permanent injury unless the mortal doing the injuring knows a whole lot of angel lore. Ey’ll be fine. Ey just have to convince eir dumb halo-less body to pick up the slack and finish the self-healing.

“Oh, when did you get here? …And bullocks, what happened to you?” someone asks, and Ileao looks up tiredly to see Alex leaning over em, looking em over. “You’re hurt. And soaked, again.”

“I, uh- I don’t really know how to do things half-way,” Ileao says sheepishly, eir words slurring slightly as ey lean eir head back against the wall. Ow.

Alex huffs in disbelief as he crouches beside em, pulling em up to sit a little straighter as he runs his long fingers gently across the back of eir head. “I asked for a distraction, not a brawl!”

“They’re the same thing,” Ileao mumbles. “’’Least, in this case they were.”

Alex shakes his head disapprovingly, and Ileao thinks the quick, familiar sting of shame might hurt worse than the whole ‘head-slammed-into-a-brick-wall-multiple-times’ thing. Oblivious, Alex leans back to peer over at the town square. “You might have put off the execution all on your own,” he comments, sounding slightly amused. “Even if they still had the correct scroll, I do not think they’d be able to wrangle this crowd back into submission.”

“Y’had nothin’ to worry about,” Ileao says with a lopsided smile. “’M actually a professional fuck-up! I get shit done.”

“Hmm,” Alex replies noncommittally. He sits beside Ileao again and pulls out his wand and a pouch of components, and Ileao startles at the feeling of mortal magic surrounding em.

“Woah, what’re you doing?”

Alex tilts his head. “I am healing you? Isn’t it obvious?”

“Well- no, because I’m the angel and you’re the charge!”

He raises an eyebrow. “But you are the one who’s injured.”

Ileao flushes and huffs, crossing eir arms and looking away. “Yeah, but like… It’ll go away. Eventually. I’m an angel, ’m not gonna beef it just ‘cuz some asshole decided to fight back.”

Alex hums again. “Well. Still, I would feel better knowing you were not injured because of me.”

His magic wraps around em like a warm hug, and Ileao will admit that this feels a lot better than just waiting around for eir body to heal itself—especially considering the huge delay ey’d have to deal with because of eir fucked-up halo. Ey breathe out in relief as the sharp pain drains out of em.

“Shit. Healing feels good.”

“Have you never been healed before?”

“Not by anyone but myself,” Ileao replies, and at Alex’s concerned expression, ey hurriedly continue. “I mean, duh, I’m a guardian angel. I’m supposed to be the one doing the healing.”

“What are you supposed to do when you get hurt protecting your charge?” Alex asks. For a moment, ey feel a weird sort of pressure from his gaze, like ey’re being scolded for not knowing or doing enough. A very familiar feeling.

Thankfully, Alex chooses that moment to avert his gaze and begin packing away his spell components, and Ileao relaxes a little and finally finds the strength to reply. “Uh, suffer, I guess,” Ileao says. “My halo heals me, it’s just really, really slow about it. And besides, it’s not… it’s not usually a problem for other angels. Somehow they always manage to come out totally unscathed. It’s just me who comes back from assignments looking like a fucking trainwreck.” Ey ‘tsk’ at emself, staring at the cobbled street. “Zabrell says I can make up for the failure by not wasting time on dumb things like seeking outside healing for myself.”

Alex’s eyes narrow dangerously, his attention now firmly on Ileao rather than on his components, and Ileao shifts uncomfortably. “Uh… Sorry?” ey tack on pathetically.

“What? No,” Alex says, shaking his head and getting to his feet. He holds out a hand to help Ileao up, and ey take it without hesitation this time. Ey know an olive branch when ey see one; ey’re off the hook this time. For… whatever it is ey did wrong. Eh. Ey stopped trying to keep track of eir failures a long time ago. “We should go back to my haven.”

Ileao shrugs and trails along after him. He’s strangely quiet as they walk, which means ey hear it loud and clear when eir halo suddenly calls out to em from clear across the town. Ugh, ey hate that dumb ringing. It’s especially dumb this time because ey know the halo’s too fucked to actually send or receive transmissions, so even if Zabrell just sent em something, ey can’t actually read it.

All the same, ey can make an educated guess about the probable message’s contents. In response, ey close eir eyes and reach out in the general direction of eir halo, sending back a message of eir own.

Yeah, yeah. Finally found the damn charge. I’m working on it. I’ll send reports with my progress.

-Ileao

Alex picks that exact moment to pipe back up with some idle conversation, so Ileao allows eir thoughts to drift far, far away from eir broken halo and far, far closer to eir intriguing new charge.

☼☼☼

As it turns out, last night was not a fluke. Alex’s house is just a lot more scary at night.

The curtains flutter as if in the wind, but none of the windows are open. Something on the top floor is constantly creaking and producing a very faint sound that is eerily similar to footsteps. Ileao swears it’s a whisper that wakes em, even though a quick 3 AM once-over of the room confirms that ey are completely alone. And Alex doesn’t even sleep on the same floor.

Ey suppose ey should just be grateful that ey have a place to stay; ey hadn’t considered eir living situation at all, and when Alex told em he was headed to bed for the night, ey froze as eir mind raced to figure out what the hell Zabrell expected of em. Were ey supposed to get a fucking hotel room, or was that not allowed? Maybe ey were supposed to just make do outside, do some weird elf-style trancing or whatever the fuck they call it. Maybe other angels wouldn’t have this problem at all, maybe they would have been able to turn intangible again when out of the charge’s sight. But Ileao’s never been as capable or put-together as the other angels, and ey certainly do not have that ability.

(It’s dumb that ey still have to be tangible at all. Alex knows ey’re an angel. The jig is up, in that regard. So why can’t ey just follow regular angel physics again?)

Luckily, Alex was perceptive enough to realize ey were feeling more than a little lost, and kind enough to take the extra step and offer em a place in his own home. He told em ey could stay for as long as ey remained ‘his angel.’ Ileao pretended those words did not make em as happy as they definitely did.

So, yeah, ey should just be grateful that ey aren’t out in the rain again. But it’s still creepy. The next morning, ey tell Alex that his house is haunted. He laughs it off and tells em ey must not be used to the impermanence of mortal objects and houses. “Old houses just sound like that,” he says with an easy smile. Alex is a very charming man, Ileao is learning. He has a way of making you feel okay with just a couple of words and a smile. Ileao grins and snarks about Alex’s age in response, but he doesn’t get angry like Ileao was subconsciously expecting him to. He just laughs and jokes right back with em, careful not to attack eir status or competency as an angel.

Alex is very charming, and he is also very perceptive. A dangerous combination, Ileao thinks, but fuck if it doesn’t work. Ileao finds that ey really, really enjoy talking to him. That morning, Alex hands em a granola bar and tells em ey should really consider eating something, but if ey’re having trouble adjusting then maybe it would be easier for em to start small. Ileao takes the small mortal food item with something like stars in eir eyes at the thoughtful suggestion, and Alex just gives em that same charming smile and pats eir hand before leaving the room, spouting something about research.

Ileao hates the taste and the texture of the granola bar, but that doesn’t stop em from smiling as ey eat it.

The next night, the curtains flutter as if in the wind. Ileao double-checks that the windows are, indeed, closed. Something on the top floor creaks loudly every hour, on the hour. When Ileao listens very closely, ey think ey can see how it could be the normal settling of an old building, rather than the footsteps ey had previously thought it to be.

Ileao wakes at 3 AM to a woman’s voice whispering directly into eir ear. Eir whole body feels hot and cold at the same time, and ey stumble out of bed in somewhat of a daze as ey try to rationalize something that feels so damning. Ey listen for the same sound again—maybe it was the rustling of blankets, or the curtains being weird again? But even with those potential explanations to consider, Ileao really can’t convince emself that the whisper sound wasn’t made by a person.

Ey rub the sleep out of eir eyes and ease eir bedroom door open, slipping out into the long, dark hallway. Why the hell does Alex have so many creepy photos framed on his walls? This is why ey thought his damn house was haunted!

Ileao tries to ignore the fact that none of these family portraits feature Alex himself.

Ey don’t hear the woman’s whisper again, but something draws em towards the staircase, and ey’re still half asleep as ey follow that invisible trail up to the third floor of the house, the highest floor. The air feels different up here—thicker, almost—and there’s a constant, very dull thrum that Ileao feels more than hears. Unbidden, Ileao’s mind tries to label the sound as “the exact opposite of eir halo’s ringing.” Ey can’t for the life of em figure out why ey think that.

The thrum sticks around, a dull current beneath the sound of someone speaking—a man, this time. A familiar man. Ileao frowns, calling upon the very few stealthy bones in eir body as ey move quietly through the third floor, following the thrum and the voice until ey’re peeking through a cracked door with wide eyes.

It’s Alex, obviously, but he’s sitting in a circle of candles that burn black instead of orange, and there’s a strange door drawn in chalk on the ground in front of him, covered in magical symbols that Ileao could never in a million years understand. Alex is still speaking—albeit rather quietly—as though in a conversation, and Ileao is hit with the very prominent and very late realization that this is not something ey were meant to be privy to. Whatever this is, Lathandar sure wouldn’t approve of it, and Zabrell would want a full-length report about its ins and outs.

Alex is charming, so Ileao relaxes when he speaks. Alex is perceptive, so Ileao knows he will note eir boundaries. Alex is kind, so Ileao knows he will abide by them.

But Alex is also bad, so Ileao should not let down eir guard.

Quickly but very carefully silently, ey back away from the door, leaving it exactly as ey found it. Ey ignore the harshly soft whisper that returns to eir ears, a woman assuring em of something ey cannot understand. Ey get far enough down the hallway to be confident Alex won’t hear eir wings, and then ey teleport back to eir own bedroom.

That first night was not a fluke. This house holds something dark and grieving, something yearning for the shadows of change, and Ileao doesn’t know whether Alex feeds that thing, or is that thing.

Either way, ey remember now that ey cannot get too comfortable. A broken halo is no excuse; at best, it’s an encouragement to be even more wary. Ey can’t call for help—as if such a call would even be answered if ey could. Ey are in this ‘till the very end, which means ey have to ensure ey’re able to actually make it that far.

Ileao doesn’t go back to sleep that night, but ey think ey’ve got enough elf in em (at least as far as eir corporeal form goes) that it doesn’t matter. The next morning, ey tell Alex that his house may not be haunted, but it sure is fucking loud. Alex laughs and smiles and waves it off, just like the day before.

This time, eir heart is torn between instinctual trust and rational wariness. Ey smile back just like yesterday, but when Alex leaves the room, Ileao hunts down eir broken halo. Ey run eir fingers over it, wincing at the shock of unused power that jolts into em at the contact. Yeah, the transmissions system is definitely busted far beyond any repair that Ileao would be capable of. All the same, ey figure it’s for the best that ey keep sending in reports, just in case one ever goes through—just in case Zabrell checks the halo after its fixed.

Just to cover eir tracks, and to protect emself, and to sate eir paranoia. Just, ey suppose, to fulfill the requirements of eir actual job.

That night, the curtains flutter. The third floor creaks. A woman whispers, quiet as a mouse and loud as this haunted fucking house, for Ileao to do something for her.

No matter how hard ey try, ey can never quite make out what she wants.

☼☼☼

Over the course of the next month, Alex drags Ileao into several of his criminal excursions, and Ileao finds emself roped into helping a little every time. Sometimes it’s lookout, sometimes it’s a distraction, sometimes it’s just preparing to get Alex the fuck out of there if and when the gig starts to go sour.

Ileao learns more and more about Alex as a person, both through his rationale for his various criminal activities and through the much less stressful conversations ey’re able to hold with him outside of his work. Ey learn that Alex used to be a Daybreak monster hunter himself, before he defected and descended into his life of crime. Ey learn that one of Lathandar’s showy tricks blinded him, years ago, and that Shar—the goddess of shadow and grief—restored his vision by gifting him his current eyes, otherworldly and distinctly dark with their black scleras and purple irises. Ey learn that Alex is acidic and harsh in his interactions with Daybreak-affiliated parties, and soft and patient in his interactions with any so-called “monsters.”

(Ey also learn that this is all, apparently, common public knowledge, and that perhaps ey do not know him as well as ey want to believe.)

Still, as much as Ileao has caved to Alex’s charm and temporary friendship, ey think ey’ve done a much better job in the past month of remembering eir mission, too. Ey try to take Alex at his word, in regards to the little things, but ey take everything else with a grain of salt. Ey like Alex. A lot.

But, ey’ve come to learn, Alex has that effect on a lot of people.

“I was intrigued by your filing system,” Alex says, which is the lamest thing Ileao has ever heard anyone say, like, ever, but it works on this absolute square of a librarian, so ey suppose Alex is on the right track. “I have never seen one organized like this, but now I wonder why everyone does not do it this way.”

The librarian, an older woman with long gray hair intentionally woven with leaves and vines, almost cracks a smile. It must be hard, seeing as her face looks as though it’s been locked into the same irritated frown and furrowed eyebrows for the last fuckin’ century. “You’re Alexander Candleson,” she says instead of responding normally, and Alex winces almost imperceptibly.

Ileao notices because Ileao has come to expect it. Somehow, he’s always unpleasantly surprised when someone actually recognizes him, which Ileao thinks is dumb as fuck since he’s a literal supervillain and even Lathandar has him on his radar. Granted, Alex can talk his way out of it about 70% of the time, but Ileao still thinks he could benefit from a pair of fuckin’ sunglasses.

Surprisingly enough however, this woman does not recognize him in the way most people do. “You saved me once, when we were much younger,” she says with a faraway look in her eye, and Ileao feels an unfamiliar twinge of… something deep in eir chest. “I’ve never forgotten that.”

Alex’s approach to the situation flips like a switch, and Ileao wonders how the librarian doesn’t notice. “You are the woman I saved,” Alex says, as if in awe. “I almost didn’t recognize you, as you are somehow even more beautiful now than you were back then.”

The woman looks like she is internally swooning, but Ileao just narrows eir eyes as ey try to think that one through a little more. As sweet as it sounds on the surface, ey’re pretty sure it’s just on the edge of being an insult rather than a compliment.

“I am honored to say I have never forgotten you, either,” Alex finishes, giving her one of those beautifully warm smiles that Ileao simultaneously loves and hates.

“We could catch up over dinner, maybe?” the woman asks, probably thinking herself very smooth as she rests her chin in her hand, her elbow on her desk as she leans across it to get closer to Alex. Irrationally, and for reasons Ileao does not understand, ey fucking hate her guts.

Alex feigns pleasant surprise. “Well of course, it would be a pleasure! When are you finished here at the library?”

“Only about an hour left for me here!” she replies, the barest hint of excitement making its way into her expression. “Shall we meet at a restaurant-”

“I will pick you up here, a lady as lovely as yourself deserves to be pampered,” Alex cuts her off. “In exactly one hour.” Ileao can practically see the timer being set in his head. “I am just not so certain I will be able to finish my research in time, since I have to go through all of the checking-out process…”

He must roll pretty high on his Manipulate Someone check, because the woman catches his drift within moments and immediately moves to assist him. “Oh, you don’t really need to do all that,” she says, handing him a temporary, anonymous ID sticker. “Just be responsible in there—and don’t forget about me!”

“I would not dream of it,” Alex says, shooting her another smile as he ushers Ileao forward, past her desk and into the restricted portion of the library. Once the door is shut tight and Alex has confirmed the restricted room to be empty apart from Ileao and himself, he grins at Ileao. “We have less than an hour to get as far away from here as possible.”

He says it like it’s an inside joke, like he expects Ileao to laugh along. And a large part of em very much wants to do exactly that… But a small yet obnoxiously loud part of em reminds em that ey are no different from that woman in terms of simply ‘having something that Alex wants,’ and that ey would not be a part of this supposed in-joke if ey were not literally his guardian angel.

He doesn’t need to know that, though. Ileao laughs, just like he expects em to. Ey feel a little sick as he digs out an absurdly old tome on godly rituals or something, but ey push the feeling down as deep as possible before he can turn and spot eir internal struggle. Ey’d rather that struggle stay internal, thanks.

“I am not sure which restaurant that woman had in mind,” Alex says as he flips through the dusty pages, “but I am certain I could find a better one for you and I to go to.”

He looks up at em expectantly, awaiting eir answer. There’s a soft, idle upward curve to his lips, and the skin by his eyes crinkles like it always does when he smiles a little more believably. Ileao’s throat feels tight. Ey don’t know why.

“Are you alright?” Alex asks, his voice tinted with obvious concern as he steps closer and rests a hand on eir arm, book momentarily abandoned.

“Oh, yeah, for sure,” Ileao says as ey jump back to life. “I, uh, guess I’m just not completely used to human food yet. I’d be down to try something new, though.”

Alex seems placated by that, and he smiles again and launches into a spiel about the best restaurants in the town and how many of them have yet to ban him for life. His tome lies entirely forgotten on the nearest podium, but Alex must have gotten whatever he came for, because he starts toward the exit with Ileao in tow.

Just in front of the door to the library’s main area, he pauses, peering through the window at the busy librarian woman and then looking back at Ileao. “I don’t think we want her to see me again right now,” Alex says cheekily, and Ileao can’t help the tiny smile that crawls onto eir face. His happiness is contagious, okay? And even if eir brain knows full well that Alex is only being nice because ey’re his fucking angel and he has to be, eir foolish little heart can’t ignore that someone is being nice to em for the first time in centuries and that that someone is Alex—lovely, funny, patient, charming Alex.

(”He wouldn’t be nearly as patient if you weren’t of use to him,” Ileao desperately tries to remind emself. “He wouldn’t waste energy charming you if there were an easier alternative. He’s just trying to keep one of Lathandar’s angels from turning on him. That’s all.”)

(As expected, eir heart really does not care.)

So, despite eir continued internal protests and self-promises to not fall for this bullshit, Ileao still grabs Alex’s hand when he asks for help with his Big Magic spell, teleporting the two of them back to his house—his haven, as he calls it. Alex laughs and squeezes eir hand before he darts off to put his new library information to use, and Ileao thinks that will be the end of that.

But then he pokes his head back into the room with a soft smile. “If you genuinely want to go out to lunch and weren’t just accepting to be polite, we can leave in about half an hour.”

“Okay,” Ileao says weakly. Oh. He’s actually following through.

Ey’ve gotta hand it to him, he sure does commit to the bit.

☼☼☼

(After they eat, Alex teaches em how to dine and dash. Ey’re sure Zabrell wouldn’t consider this a ‘necessary evil’ in regards to completing eir mission, but ey go along with it anyway.)

(It’s probably fine.)

☼☼☼

A week and a half later, Alex drags Ileao towards the town square again. Ey’ve been coerced into many, many crimes in this area by now, but ey’re still not expecting it when Alex directs em not toward the Daybreak outpost, the Daybreak-owned supply shop, or the actual town square, but rather into a small herbalist’s shop beside the town square.

The sign reads “Chloro-Feeling It!” in bubbly, slanted font, and Ileao doesn’t quite know how to feel when ey realize that this is the same shop where ey asked for directions to Alex’s place on eir first night in town, as well as the same shop Alex healed em against after their first together-crime.

“I thought this place was privately-owned, just some kid squishing leaves together?” ey ask, confused.

“It is!” Alex says, not even bothering to correct em on the latter half of that sentence. Ileao frowns as he pulls em through the door, ignoring the obnoxious ding of its overhead bell. If this place is owned by some rando citizen, then why the fuck is Alex targeting it?

Maybe this is not actually a crime time. Maybe Alex just needs some fuckin’ flowers.

“What are we doing here?” Ileao asks, trying to dispel the growing feeling of- is that guilt? Is this what guilt feels like? …Nah, probably not. But it definitely isn’t good, whatever it is. Ileao doesn’t like it, ey feel uncomfortable and ey want very badly to leave. But ey can’t, because this is where eir charge is.

“It is a surprise,” Alex says cryptically. He runs his hand over a painted wooden shelf, sliding his fingers around the clay pots it supports. The plants growing in the pots are varied and way beyond Ileao’s area of plant expertise (as if ey even had one to begin with), but ey can still tell that they’re healthy; the leaves are a beautiful green, and the flowers—on the plants that have them, that is—stand vibrant and tall. Vines curl from this shelf to another, and the stone counter in the back of the store is covered in what Ileao thinks are creeping thyme and climbing hydrangeas. It’s a very pretty shop, and Ileao kind of likes the vibe, even if ey know fuck-all about herbalism. Gods, ey really hope Alex isn’t about to burn this place to the ground or anything.

“Alex, there’s no one even here.” It’s totally empty, and the owner is nowhere to be seen.

“Good,” he replies, winking at em, which doesn’t exactly fill em with confidence. Even though it kinda makes eir heart flutter a little. Just a little. Gods, maybe ey should get eir heart checked out. Ey’ve never had a mortal one before! Ey don’t know what the fuck it’s doing!

“Why do you say that,” Ileao half-heartedly asks, already dreading the answer.

“You’ll like this,” Alex says, which at least calms em a little bit. Until he reaches for the counter, grabs a royal purple pouch off of it, and pulls the string to tug it open. “Spell components,” he says. “On the expensive side, too, which makes it all the more upsetting that they taste so good.” He pulls out a tiny pink bulb-like flower and pops it into his mouth, and then he takes out another and sets it on the counter for Ileao before closing the pouch and tucking it into his pocket.

That actually does sound really funny, and ey really wanna try one. But that feeling is vastly overshadowed by the tired resignation that washes over em. Of course.

“Kind of a dick move,” Ileao says dully, crossing eir arms. “Couldn’t you have found some asshole Daybreak to steal from? How are you going to justify stealing from a local business owned by a normal-ass citizen?”

Alex just looks somewhat amused by the whole thing, and Ileao can feel eir hope for Alex’s intentions quickly deflating as he outright laughs, showing off that blinding smile of his.

Cool. Just like the other charges, then. Doing whatever the hell he wants, and twisting his morals to allow it.

(Ileao thinks of Merci saying, “What the hell is wrong with you, Ileao!? What kind of monster hits a friend?” after an ally showed signs of turning on her and Ileao attacked a little too hastily.)

(Ey think of her sneering, “This doesn’t count,” as she pushes em to the ground, “because you screwed up and let me get hurt.”)

Ileao knows eir own moral code is not particularly straightforward. Ey know that there are situations in life that require you to bend the rules a little, because no scenario is exactly the same, and no size fits all. Even so, Ileao often wonders—usually alone, or abandoned, or having just been let down—how anyone could go back on something they once felt so strongly about. Hell, Ileao has known Alex for a month and a half, and even though ey now fear he may be just as bad as eir past charges, ey don’t think ey could ever bring emself to hurt him, to willingly let him get hurt.

(But then ey remember watching Merci drown.)

So maybe ey’re just overreacting.

“Hey,” Alex says quietly, softly, and Ileao didn’t realize how heavily ey had zoned out but it’s obvious once ey snap back to the present. Alex has moved closer, his hand a comforting weight around eir wrist, and he speaks as though the slightest hint of a raised voice would cause Ileao to shatter. “I am sorry. Can you tell me what’s upsetting you, sweetheart?”

Ileao’s heart pounds and breaks at the same time, somehow, and ey silently determine that mortal hearts just suck ass at doing their jobs. Ileao opens eir mouth to snark and lie—probably with an accidental voice break for good measure, as though Alex isn’t already painfully aware of how much of a mess ey are—but ey’re cut off by someone shouting.

“Sorry, Alex, I heard the bell but I was busy!” they call, and then the voice’s owner—a young man who is far too tall for his own good, in Ileao’s opinion—comes running into the main room of the shop from the employee’s-only door in the back. Oh, wait, shit, that’s the same motherfucker who refused to tell Ileao where Alex lived on eir first night in town! Ey were kind of hoping he wasn’t actually the store’s owner, so ey wouldn’t have to see him again. “You better not have been eating the new components!”

The guy stops short behind the counter, blinking in surprise at Ileao. Ileao shrugs in response. Alex’s problem, not eirs.

“I may have done a small taste test,” Alex says with a slight smile.

The guy has obviously long-since moved on from that line of questioning. He eyes Ileao uncomfortably, and ey just sigh and look away, waiting for this to be over with. “Uh,” the guy says nervously, eyes flicking back and forth between Alex and Ileao. His voice drops as he whisper-yells at Alex in a sorry attempt at discretion. “I know this person, I think ey’re with the Daybreaks!”

Yikes. Luckily, Alex only nods and tugs on Ileao’s wrist to pull em closer to him. “Yes, ey are one of Lathandar’s angels, actually.”

Ileao’s eyes widen in alarm and ey whirl around to face him completely, hissing “Alex!” with a poorly-veiled panic.

The nervous young human freezes, just as alarmed, and backs up a little, eyeing em warily all the while. “Oh,” he squeaks. “Well, I think Darla wanted to talk to me actually so I’d better get going-”

“I am sure Darla would appreciate it if you finally talked to her again,” Alex says calmly, “but I find it hard to believe that that is really where you are headed.”

Kevin grimaces. “Alex-”

“It’s alright,” Alex says, cutting him off. “Ileao is here to protect me, and ey have been perfectly fine with assisting me in my… endeavors so far.”

Well, it’s not like Ileao’s cover wasn’t blown the moment eir halo went corporeal right in front Alex, but that doesn’t make it any less nerve-wracking for another person to find out. Ey really hope Zabrell doesn’t get mad at em about this. But if Alex trusts this guy, then he’s probably not the biggest fan of the Daybreaks, which means the chance of him fucking em over is a lot smaller. In fact, given his reaction, ey’d wager that he’s a goddamn war criminal or some shit. Ileao regrets not yelling “DAYBREAKS, HANDS IN THE AIR” as ey entered the shop, just to see what would happen.

“What the hell did you do?” Ileao snorts. “You acted like you thought I was gonna attack you on the spot!’

The guy shifts uncomfortably, and Alex steps in to explain. “Oh, Kevin here is a werewolf,” he says.

“Alex, why would you say that!?” Kevin yells with twice the panic Ileao had about being outed as an angel. Yeah, fair e-fuckin-nough!

“Yeah, Alex, why the hell would you say that!?” Ileao echoes. Are ey supposed to report him now!? Do ey have to!? Zabrell can’t see em right now, right? The halo’s too fucked? Ileao’s too fucked?

“Calm down, lad, I would not have said it if I thought ey were a threat,” Alex tells Kevin, and Kevin looks between him and Ileao in total disbelief.

Ileao is almost offended. No, fuck, ey are offended! “The hell is that supposed to mean?” ey ask huffily. “I- I can do shit! I’m not the best angel but I’m not worthless, I’m- I try!”

(Oh fuck oh shit what if he means it, what if he really thinks that, what if-)

“All it means is that you have never given me the impression that you would hurt someone because of something they cannot help,” Alex says, grabbing eir hands to stop em from digging eir nails into eir arms. Oh, fuck, ey didn’t even realize ey were doing that. “I don’t think you are worthless, Ileao. I would never think that.”

“…Oh,” ey say meekly, unsure how to respond to such confident reassurance.

“Okay,” Kevin says slowly, still watching em with a wary gaze. “If you say so…”

It takes five more minutes of coaxing from Alex, but he does eventually convince Kevin to let Ileao into the employee only room, where there is a small table set up. Alex pulls out Ileao’s chair even though he really doesn’t have to, and it does Things to Ileao’s heart that ey really aren’t ready to address. Regardless, the three of them end up seated around the tiny round table, Alex and Kevin exchanging stories from their lives and just generally catching up with each other.

Habitually, Ileao starts to zone out, knowing full well that eir charges always hate when ey try to participate in conversations that ey aren’t being directly addressed for. As a guardian angel, ey’re not supposed to interfere with the mortal’s ability to enjoy their life. Adding Ileao to any life tends to make it a bit less enjoyable, so it’s no surprise that Ileao’s charges always boot em out of the conversation. Ey’re used to it by now, and it doesn’t hurt em nearly as much as it did for the first century or so.

But Alex seems to view the whole thing a little differently. Ey don’t know how long it’s been since ey zoned out, but it surely can’t have been more than ten minutes. Ey only snap out of eir head because Alex puts a hand on eir shoulder to get eir attention.

(Ey’ve never experienced this much casual affection in eir entire fucking life, but that’s a crisis for another time.)

“Ileao? You with us?” he asks, still smiling from whatever he and Kevin were talking about before.

“Uh… Do you want me to be?” ey ask, raising an eyebrow. Ey don’t see much point in, like, eavesdropping on them, if it’s not a plan for something that could put Alex in danger or anything relevant like that.

“Of course we do,” Alex says, like it’s obvious. It definitely wasn’t. Ileao’s a little confused. “We were talking about some bloke who tried to order a bouquet of flowers from Kevin and ended up with nothing to show his wife on their anniversary but a barrel full of poison ivy.”

Ileao raises an eyebrow again in question, and Kevin huffs playfully and crosses his arms. “I told him I was out of stock of just about everything! And I’m not even a flower shop to begin with!”

Ileao snickers, and Alex squeezes eir shoulder and then drops his hand back to his lap. “I can confirm, it was entirely the man’s own fault,” he says with a nod. Then he gives Ileao a warm, inviting smile and asks, “What about you? You are a guardian angel, I can only assume you have had to deal with some pretty ridiculous people.”

“Yes…” Ileao says warily, still unsure as to where he’s going with this.

Alex, infinitely patient, just keeps up his smile as he clarifies. “Do you have any funny stories about them?”

“Oh!” Ileao blinks in surprise. “You… want me to talk? About-” Realization strikes. “Oh, you want to hear how I’ve fucked up so you’ll know what to look out for.”

While Ileao thinks about how best to break the news that ey’re The Worst, Alex’s eyes widen. In fact, he looks the most caught off guard ey’ve ever seen him. “Ileao, no,” he says hurriedly, shaking his head. “I don’t care about that. Everyone makes mistakes, and I am sure you have already been unfairly ridiculed for yours. Not to mention, I can take care of myself just fine. The responsibility is not all on you.”

Ileao furrows eir eyebrows. “But… It is all on me. I’m your guardian angel, Alex, I should be-”

“You are a person first,” Alex corrects em seriously. “And we are a team. I don’t care about anything you may have done prior to meeting me, and when you do make a mistake with me as your charge, it will not be the end of the world. I will not be angry with you, and I will do my best to help you get past it if needed.”

“Um,” Ileao says dumbly, unable to take eir eyes off of his.

Alex smiles almost fondly, which Ileao is sure is just eir brain playing tricks on em and/or jumping to conclusions, but after that speech, it’s hard to think otherwise. “I am not going to ask you to recount your own mistakes,” he finishes, as though the very notion is absurd. “Kevin and I are asking you to recount your charges’ mistakes.”

Ileao is having a little- fine, a lot of trouble processing all of this. Almost as if on autopilot, ey respond, “Any mistakes my charges may have made were my fault for not thinking ahead-”

“Ileao.”

Alex is giving em the most knowing and patient look, and it’s driving em crazy and oh gods how are ey supposed to be a good little angel when talking to Alex feels so easy? If Zabrell wanted em to stick around eir charge and still follow protocol, maybe xe shouldn’t have given em such a kickass charge!

“My charge from two centuries ago died to his own dumbshit trap and it was the funniest thing I’ve ever fucking seen but I’m not allowed to tell anyone!” Ileao blurts.

There are a few moments of shocked silence, and then Kevin bursts into a laugh. Ileao immediately feels less bad about eir confession.

“That,” Alex says, leaning against the table as though settling in for a while, “is exactly the kind of story we are talking about.”

“So?” Kevin asks excitedly. “Tell us about this trap!”

Quickly warming up to the idea, Ileao grins and allows emself to finally tell someone about the dumbest fucking charge ey’ve ever had. “Okay, fine, but first you have to know that every time he introduced himself, he added the words ‘the Trap Master’ after his name. Like, unironically.”

Ileao proceeds to tell them every detail ey’ve been ordered by the other angels to forget, and by the time ey get to the guy’s last words, Alex looks almost gleeful and Kevin is nearly in tears.

“So this fuckin’ vampire lord has just walked in to find the hero stuck in his own goddamn trap. So I—I’m completely tangible at this point, thinking that he definitely needed help—but I just had to be a little shit, I guess, so I asked him if he wanted help. And this motherfucker said no!” Ileao rolls eir eyes. “His last words were ‘This is all part of the plan!’”

Kevin wheezes. “You even offered to help him!?”

“Yes! But he was so damn sure that his masterpiece of a trap would come through in the end. So I said ‘Tell me if you change your mind,’ and this dumbass looked me in the eye, tied tight as fuck to this goddamn pole in the middle of his biggest enemy’s main lair, and his shitty DIY timer counted all the way down to zero. The potions fell out of the makeshift hatch in the ceiling and doused him real good, and he was dead in seconds.”

“Oh my gosh,” Kevin laughs. “What a-”

“No no no, hold your horses, Kev!” Ileao says lightheartedly. “I’m not done.”

Alex looks almost horrified. “What could have possibly made it worse?” he asks.

“Well,” ey happily continue, “this vampire lord was in the room with us, right? So my charge beefs it with Mr. Vamp as an audience. He gets hit with the potions, dies, slumps down to the floor. And then the vampire narrows his eyes like he’s trying to remember something, and he walks closer to my charge’s body, and… Oh, would you look at that, the ropes are loose.”

“Wait, how!?” Kevin asks incredulously. “You said he triple-checked the knot.”

“He did!” Ileao confirms. “And the ropes are still tied, at this point. Same knot, tight as ever. But the vampire lord walks over to his body and just kind of… pulls him away.”

Alex furrows his eyebrows. “But he was tied to the pole.”

“But,” Ileao says, “the pole—get this, I swear to god I’m not kidding—the pole didn’t reach the ground.”

Kevin gasps. Alex looks like he is experiencing second-hand embarrassment.

“Apparently it was actually a delivery chute or something, so it ended a foot or so off the ground. He could’ve just, like, crouched, and he would’ve been free. And like, the vampire lord knew that, obviously, because it was his lair. So he just kind of… let it happen.”

The boys look to be slightly in shock.

Ileao sighs. “The vampire lord asked if I would be back with another hero, and I said ‘I sure hope not’ and teleported the fuck out of there. And then I showed up a decade later with another charge. So that was embarrassing.”

Fighting a smile, Alex asks, “Did they at least win that time?”

“Sort of? It was a draw. That charge was really into bombs.”

Alex chuckles, Kevin loses it all over again, and Ileao—despite eir self-warnings not to—feels safer than ey have in centuries. They talk for a little longer, and Ileao learns a lot about both of the boys; ey learn that Alex and Kevin did a couple ‘hunts’ together posing as Daybreaks when the actual Daybreaks wouldn’t help the people who needed it, and that Kevin used to date a woman named Darla who is now his rival in the herbalism business, and that Alex dislikes Darla because she once said something ridiculous about Alex’s magic and a talking hat and he just couldn’t find it in himself to forgive her. Most importantly, ey learn that Alex and Kevin try very hard not to be seen in public together so no one will connect Kevin to Alex and his many, many crimes. That’s why they’re so very secretive about their meetings; the fact that Ileao got to come to one at all makes em feel nice and warm inside.

Nice, warm, and wanted.

Alex talks Kevin into eating one of those flower bulb components, and Kevin looks vaguely inconvenienced by how good it is as he walks back to the front room of the shop. He then looks significantly more inconvenienced when he sees the woman waiting in front of the counter. She’s got her arms crossed and she does not look impressed, though there’s a subtle hint of sadness beneath her muted anger.

“Will you get mad at me if I attack her?” Ileao whispers to Alex.

“No, but you still shouldn’t.”

Satisfied that she’s not a threat—and secretly very pleased with Alex’s assurance, a hopeful sign that he at least won’t be as bad as Merci—Ileao relaxes and settles in to watch shit hit the fan. Kevin grimaces and shifts nervously, looking like he’d rather Ileao attack her after all.

“Kevin,” the woman says. “Have you really resorted to petty pranks?”

Kevin frowns. “Wait, what? No! What are you talking about?” he asks, seeming genuinely confused.

“Please don’t deflect,” the woman says pleadingly. “You always do this! Just call off whatever spell caster you paid to move around all of my utensils.”

“I didn’t pay any spell caster,” Kevin insists. “And while it is pretty funny that someone moved all your stuff…”

“No, my stuff wasn’t moved. It is moving. Currently. It is dancing around and knocking over important pots.”

Ileao snickers. Darla narrows her eyes at em, and ey quickly straighten up with a sheepish smile. “Is this em?” Darla asks, still watching Kevin accusingly. “The spell caster?”

“I didn’t fuck up your utensils, but I’d be happy to fuck up something else for you,” Ileao offers. “Like, wow, those pots, those sounded interesting! Do they need smashing, maybe?”

“You are not going to smash Darla’s pots,” Alex says calmly.

“If you say so.”

“As laughable as it is that you would ever do as I say, I am still glad to hear that.”

“What! I always do what you say! I follow your plans and shit!”

“You always manage to find some loophole. Like nearly getting yourself beaten to a pulp when all I asked for was a distraction.”

“Okay, well, they were definitely distracted, so.”

“Can you two please flirt somewhere else?” Darla asks with a long-suffering sigh. “It’s a little insensitive, considering-”

“Uh I think it’s time for my shop to close up for the day!” Kevin interrupts her, awkwardly shuffling around the counter to flip the ‘open’ sign to ‘closed.’ “You’d better go, Darla!”

Darla looks frustrated. “Kevin, will you please just talk to me-”

“I would, but I’m pretty busy… Sorry!” He nudges her toward the door, and she sighs and shoots them each a pointed look before finally acquiescing.

Once she’s gone, the boys are silent.

“…I’ll be honest,” Ileao says, “she didn’t really seem all that bad.” Ey pause, taking in the flabbergasted looks on the boys’ faces. “Yeah, and I dislike pretty much everyone on sight.”

Sheepishly, Kevin smiles, rubbing the back of his neck. “She’s pretty nice, I guess… I’m just avoiding her at the moment.”

Alex’s eye twitches. “And she compared my magic to a talking hat.”

“You guys have weird standards,” Ileao comments, and Kevin laughs as he ushers them out of his shop.

☼☼☼

Alex and Ileao are looking up at the towering building before them.

In fairness, the building looks like shit. The locals refer to it as the Firmament Detainment Center, a prison—or so Ileao has heard, it doesn’t exactly look the typical part—and it ruins the whole vibe of this part of the town. It makes the whole area seem like part of a military state or something, just from the sheer amount of guards roaming the place. Like, they’re a really small town. Smallish, anyway. Who the fuck decided they needed a prison?

Who the fuck is committing crimes!?

As far as Ileao knows, it’s just Alex. The rest of this town is either scared shitless, or aligned with the Daybreaks—even if that alignment is born of cowardice and a lack of options. All that considered, it’s pretty obvious who the prison is for.

‘Monsters.’

After meeting Kevin, who is the most polite human to ever grace this earth, Ileao thinks, Ileao is finding it harder and harder to detect even an ounce of truth in the old Daybreak teachings. Like, okay, yeah, if a monster is burning a city to the ground, terrorizing entire crowds, kidnapping children like some fairytale witch- then, yeah, obviously that’s a problem. Those people should definitely be contained in some way.

But Ileao doesn’t see how looking a certain way or having a certain ability would automatically put a person on the same level as those assholes. Ey try to imagine Kevin doing even the tamest of the heinous activities the Daybreaks told em monsters were doing on the daily, and ey can’t even begin to picture it. He’s too fuckin’ nice!

“Are you ready to step it up a little?” Alex asks, turning to look at em, and Ileao winces. Even with eir massive change of heart in regards to monsters in general, ey’re not sure how willing ey are to stage a goddamn prison break. Ey’re pretty sure that’s the kind of thing that would put you in prison, and Ileao has way too many angel responsibilities to deal with! Ey cannot be locked up in a tiny room, ey would probably drive the guards insane on accident! Ey’re just like that!

Point being that Ileao’s not sure ey’re ready to do this big of a crime yet. Or, ever? Ey don’t know. Ey wouldn’t have considered any of this shit before meeting Alex, but- well, but this is for eir mission! Ey have to play along with him. Right? Yeah, no, yeah, Zabrell would agree. Zabrell will be proud of em, for going so far to achieve eir objective and get those damn plans!

…Still.

“What did they do to get put in here?” Ileao asks, which ey recognize is a big step-down from the ‘are you sure about this’ that ey would’ve been asking two months ago. Oh, gods, Alex is corrupting em. Ey’ll just go ahead and table that thought, thanks. Seems like the kind of thing ey should have a panic attack over at 3 AM, not the kind of thing that should take up eir brainpower while ey’re about to stage a prison break. Fuck, the prison break! Ey almost forgot, ey managed to ramble so much in eir own thoughts.

“They existed too close to the town,” Alex replies solemnly.

Woof.

“Fuck it, fine,” ey give in, throwing eir head back and groaning dramatically. This is em. This is who ey are now. This is where life has taken em.

“You are much more comfortable with this than I expected,” Alex comments, raising an eyebrow.

Ileao hopes eir blush isn’t too obvious, but ey duck eir head a little anyway—just in case—as ey hurry after Alex. He’s heading straight for the front doors, and Ileao has no clue how he expects that to work, but ey’re past trying to predict his plans at this point. Ey know ey probably won’t understand, and that’s fine by em. As long as Alex is safe, ey’ve done eir job, and that’s good enough.

(Plus, ey at least convinced him to wear some damn sunglasses this time. So here’s hoping he won’t be discovered on the spot.)

Ileao shrugs. “You’ve kinda desensitized me to a lot of this. That’s a huge sin, you know, corrupting an angel of Lathandar?”

“Corrupting?” Alex echoes in surprise. He’s not looking at em, his focus technically on the prison doors, but his mouth is turning up into a smile. “You think I’ve corrupted you?”

“I think you’ve started to!” Ileao replies, still trying to get eir blush under control. This is ridiculous. Ey’ve never had trouble with this kind of thing before! Maybe it’s the mortal body.

“That is good to know,” Alex says cryptically as he peeks through the tinted windows on the doors. “Okay. Once we go through these doors, we will need to be confident inspectors.”

“Inspectors?” Ileao asks incredulously. “You’re gonna pull the inspector card. Honest-to-gods.”

“I thought it was clever.”

“Maybe six centuries ago!”

Alex rolls his eyes and smiles, more than used to their playful banter by now. “It will work.”

“No, seriously, it won’t. What kind of prison would be cool with a random person strolling in and walking around? They have entire security routines you’ll have to go through, and-”

“Not this prison,” Alex says, and Ileao frowns at the sudden distaste in his voice.

“…Why?”

“If they operated and were registered as an actual prison,” Alex explains lowly, “they would have to treat their prisoners with some modicum of respect.”

Ileao’s eyes widen, and ey whisper-shout, “How bad does the treatment have to be for it to be below the already very low bar!?”

Alex sends em a look that kind of says everything. Ileao doesn’t bother questioning him further.

Apparently ready to go now, Alex stands up straighter, rolling his shoulders back and suddenly oozing confidence. How the hell does he do that? Ileao tries eir best to mimic him for a moment, and then decides there’s no chance in hell of em making that work. Instead, ey decide to go for the “aggressively bored cynicism” persona that comes so easily to em.

“Identification and reason for your visit,” the guard at the front desk says in a monotone voice.

“Inspection,” Alex says. “Bradford Swade and… Oaeli Bookson.” Oh holy shit, he’s terrible at this. How has he gotten this far!? “We are from the greater Daybreak guild up north, and we heard word of an unregistered detainment center in this town. If you can just show us your identification, we will be on our way.”

The guard’s eyes widen, her boredom giving way to alarm. “Uh, I- Well, I’m just not sure I-”

Alex sighs loudly. “Fine. I am sure your supervisor will have the proper files. Who runs this place?”

The guard stumbles over herself trying to unlock one of the doors in the room, and then she throws it open and clumsily gestures for Alex and Ileao to head on through.

What the fuck. That worked!?

Alex holds idle conversation with the guard as she guides them down the bland corridor. Yeah, this is not a normal prison. Not to mention the guards here are dumb as fuck. And yet, as they near the end of the third hallway this guard has led them down, she seems to suddenly remember something, and then her walk slows considerably as she furrows her eyebrows. Uh oh.

“I’m so sorry, I think I forgot to get your identification back there,” she says. Sheepishly, she adds on, “I may have gotten a little nervous.”

“Understandable,” Alex says kindly, offering her a smile. Ileao settles in to watch him work his magic. “Which documents did you need, specifically? There are so many these days, as you surely know.”

“O-Of course I know! I know all of the proper documents needed for a proper registration with a proper Daybreak headquarters!” she says, her voice rising in pitch.

“That is good to hear,” Alex patiently replies.

A few minutes pass before she suddenly gasps and says, “Oh, I forgot again! Let’s see, I’ll need your basic Daybreak identification card for your person, and I’ll need the I.D. card for your department, too, since this is a… uh… specialized visit.” She looks like she is completely guessing on that last part. Ileao wonders if she has ever even seen the document she’s talking about.

“You mean my Department of Legal Inspection I.D.,” Alex bullshits, acting like he knows more than her. Ileao knows for a fact that that is simply Not A Thing, but ey’ll admit it’s pretty smart for him to play off her faulty knowledge and then expand upon it.

“Yes! That,” the guard says, her face flushing in embarrassment. Ileao swears this is the sixth corridor they’ve walked through. Where the fuck is she even taking them? And who the hell designed this place!?

“Of course,” Alex says, though Ileao notices he’s beginning to speak more slowly, drawing his words out a little longer. “Yes, those are common enough that we carry them with us physically instead of storing them in a rift. Allow me to just…”

Careful not to distract the guard from her task in guiding them, Alex begins making a show of patting himself down, checking all of his pockets for these made-up identification cards.

“Bullocks,” he says after a minute, snapping his fingers in defeat. “Oaeli, I don’t suppose you have them with you?”

Ileao copies Alex’s movements from before, reaching into each of eir pockets in search of something ey know ey will not find. Luckily for Alex, ey have a lot of pockets. At some point, Ileao finds a crumpled-up note from a charge ey had two centuries ago. It says “Fuck you, Ileao.” Ey pretend it is an I.D. card, but the wrong I.D. card. Out of the corner of eir eye, ey can see Alex struggling not to laugh.

Finally, ey can’t stall any longer, having exhausted each and every overcomplicated fold of eir overcomplicated outfit. Alex tuts and clicks his teeth. “Well, how inconvenient. We must have left them in the carriage. Ileao, why don’t you go fetch them and then catch up with us in the supervisor’s office?”

As clever as that is, and as much time as it would surely buy them, Ileao’s not dumb enough to let eir charge go somewhere alone just because he told em to. The last time ey did that, the charge nearly died. Zabrell wouldn’t stop holding it over em for decades.

“But we both have to be there to do the inspection spell,” Ileao bullshits. “You wouldn’t be able to start without me.”

“You are right,” Alex says, but Ileao can tell he’s not too pleased about it. Still, he covers it well and looks at the guard, turning his smile up a notch. “But I am confident you are a talented enough guard that it will not be too much of a threat for us to just get you the documents later?”

The guard glows at the praise, and then quickly deflates as she tries to puzzle through the problem in that sentence. “Oh, I’m not sure that’s such a good idea… We can just go back for the cards now!”

Ileao shoots Alex a concerned glance, and there is a visible difference in his stature as he turns his charming smile up to eleven and strategically brushes his hand against the guard’s as they walk. Ileao feels an odd curl of—jealousy? No, must be something else—in eir stomach. Ey promptly ignore it.

“I see,” Alex says. His smile falls into a dejected frown, making it all the more obvious how goddamn bright that smile was. “I was hoping we would have time to chat a bit before my partner and I had to head back, but with such a time delay…”

Gods. It’s kind of scary, Ileao thinks, the way he can just… switch. How he can flip-flop between one manipulative strategy and another, how he can assess how well his charm is working and then flip it on its head if he thinks a different direction would suit it better.

Ileao does not think it’s scary, actually. Ey think it’s terrifying.

(Ey promise emself that if he ever Manipulates Em like that, ey will not mark experience.)

“I have a girlfriend,” the guard blurts.

Huh.

Okay, so, that backfired. So much for adaptive charm-

“Oh my, there may have been a misunderstanding. When I said ‘partner,’ I meant romantically—Oaeli here is my spouse.”

Huh.

Yeah, okay, Ileao hates that. Mostly because ey don’t hate it, because ey don’t immediately recoil in disgust like ey would have with any of eir past charges. Because Alex is funny, and nice, and relaxing to be around—even if his preferred free-time activities induce more than a little adrenaline. Because Ileao thinks that, deep down, ey kind of know why ey’re so afraid of him using that strategic charm on em. Because if he were to reach out and hold eir hand right now as they walked, Ileao would actually have to think about it for a while before deciding to pull away.

And that’s a slippery goddamn slope.

To prove his point, Alex grabs eir hand and intertwines his fingers with his own. Son of a bitch.

(Ileao doesn’t pull away.)

“Oh!” the guard says, her eyes widening. Then she melts a little and coos. “Aw, you two are so cute together!”

“Thanks, we know,” Ileao says, because if ey don’t start snarking right this second, ey’re going to catch some real fucking feelings, and no one wants that. Gods, imagine the inconvenience. …And the fear. And the rejection. Shit, fuck.

“I’m sure you and your girlfriend are very cute together, too,” Alex says a little more politely.

And thank the gods, that last little bit of stalling was enough to get them to the supervisor’s office. The guard sighs and laughs and assures them that while this place is definitely for sure a valid registered Daybreak station, they’re too understaffed to keep a close eye on records, so it’s probably not a big deal if she doesn’t check their I.D.s. Alex thanks her genially, and then she waves goodbye and strolls back on down through what Ileao thinks might be the seventh corridor they’ve seen.

“Sorry about that,” Alex says, dropping eir hand without even looking at em, and Ileao stubbornly ignores the twinge of hurt that causes em.

“I’ll live,” ey reply, and then Alex pushes open the supervisor’s door.

This room—office, ey guess?—is pretty cramped, given what seems to be its purpose. The supervisor’s desk is huge and boasts the same kind of engraved, polished wood that most big-name Daybreaks get for their work-desks to show off their positions, but Ileao’s sure this dinky little excuse for a prison that isn’t even registered doesn’t quite warrant such a display. The desk is topped with trinkets, bits and pieces of… Oh, shit, those are monster trophies! A vampire lord’s fang on the end of a shitty little necklace, a small bowl full of various claws, a tiny glass cube full of goop. Interspersed between the trophies, though, are little personal items that don’t quite fit the vibe. There’s a glowing friendship bracelet, a red knife engraved with two initials surrounded by a heart, and a small, charred image of a family. Oh.

The rest of the room holds a series of simple control panels, not much more than buttons and labels and some ongoing clairvoyance spells altered to display their feeds across the walls. The space between the desk and the biggest control panel is just big enough that Ileao could shimmy through it sideways. Doesn’t seem very safe or efficient, but then again, this place clearly isn’t following protocol.

There’s a tall wood elf seated at the desk, and they look up abruptly when Alex throws open the door. Immediately, their eyes narrow, and they begin to rise from their chair. “Identify yourselves,” they say, turning up their nose as they stand to their full height—which is very tall, holy shit—and look down at Ileao and Alex.

“Bradford Swade, at your service,” Alex says, bowing politely and then looking up at the wood elf with a broad smile. Holy fuck, Ileao’s pretty sure his teeth just anime-sparkled. What the fuck. “And you would be…” Ileao watches as he quickly and surreptitiously scans the elf’s desk, settling on a half-hidden nameplate. “Quinnwise Hourpod?”

“Indeed,” ‘Quinnwise’ replies, not dropping their snooty stature. They look Alex over appraisingly, not even bothering to try to hide it, and Alex just waits, unflinchingly patient as always. “And your… friend?”

“Spouse,” Alex corrects them, apparently deciding to stick with the same story. He reaches out to put an arm around Ileao’s waist and pull em closer, and ey can feel eir face practically catching fire. Oh sweet Lathandar. “Oaeli Bookson.”

Quinnwise raises an eyebrow, unimpressed. “Neither of you took the other’s name. Not very committed then, hmm?”

Alex’s smile turns strained, but he keeps it up anyway. “That is certainly a brave opinion you have.”

Quinnwise laughs and manages to make it look all regal and shit. Gross. “I can’t see how it could be any braver than your spouse’s attire.”

Ileao scowls. “I’m right here!”

“Oh, trust me, I know. You look like a traffic cone.”

Ileao flushes again, but being judged for eir fashion sense is nothing new. Ey’ve been dealing with that for centuries… But Alex doesn’t know that. He pulls em the tiniest bit closer, a small enough movement that Ileao doubts Quinnwise even sees it, and ey suddenly find emself feeling a lot calmer. Ey’re not alone. Ey have someone on eir side.

(At least for now.)

“Should we get on with what we came here for?” Alex asks, not responding to their comment. Quinnwise looks almost intrigued by that, for whatever reason. Ileao doesn’t like it.

“If you insist.”

“Great! We cannot seem to find any registration for this place, so we will just have to inspect a few of your security measures before we can be on our way.”

“Shall we start with the main cell block, then?” Quinnwise asks, already heading for another door on the other side of the small room. “Follow me. Oaeli, try not to knock anything over.”

Ileao bristles but just barely keeps eir mouth shut. All the same, ey’ve never been the best actor, and ey’re certain ey must look as furious as ey feel. Quinnwise, when they glance back and notice this, only smirks and stands up a little straighter. Alex lets go of Ileao to walk after them, and Ileao doesn’t know why it feels like the end of the world.

(Zabrell says ey like to overreact. Xe’s not wrong. Ileao’s brain tends towards paranoia and loves to jump to the most self-deprecating conclusions it can find, and Ileao rarely finds the strength to ignore it. Ey spiral hard and fast, and ey never have anyone around to snap em back to the real world.)

(The thing is, Ileao knows all that. Ey know ey overreact. Ey know ey jump to conclusions. Ey also know that ey’ve been right too many times to simply disregard eir paranoia.)

(Ey were right before. Ey could be right again.)

After following Quinnwise for a few minutes, they end up in a large cell block, two floors with an open middle area and edges lined with tight, dirty cells. Oh, yeah, this doesn’t match any protocols. Still, Alex pretends it isn’t one of the more horrifying sights you could come across in a town like this—even though Ileao knows by the stutter in his step that it is—and Ileao just keeps eir mouth shut and hopes for the best. If ey talk right now, ey’ll say something stupid or mean or both, and ey don’t wanna mess up Alex’s plan when it actually seems to be working.

So ey listen silently as Alex and Quinnwise talk to each other, and ey try to ignore the fact that Quinnwise is blatantly flirting with Alex. What the fuck. Again, ey are right here!

“I do know a library where you could find out more about it,” Quinnwise says to Alex. “I could take you. It’s exceptionally quiet. And secluded.” They smirk. “I believe the lights even dim… for ease of reading, of course.”

“Okay, what the fuck?” Ileao snarls, completely forgetting eir vow to shut the fuck up. Quinnwise is being the worst! “You can’t just-”

“Oaeli,” Alex cuts em off loudly. He shoots em a warning glance, and ey shrivel slightly under his gaze. “I think I dropped a document in Mx. Hourpod’s office. Why don’t you go look for it?”

Ileao hopes eir expression doesn’t show all the irrational hurt ey are currently feeling. By Quinnwise’s proud smile, ey think it probably does. “Fine,” Ileao spits, turning on eir heels and marching back out of the cell block. “I’ll be back in a minute!”

Ey won’t be. As much as ey hate what just happened, ey know it’s more than a little beneficial for Ileao to get to be alone in the control room, and even more so for Alex to be able to speak privately with Quinnwise. Alex knows how to get what he wants. Ileao knows that very well.

So ey head back to Quinnwise’s stupid fucking office, and ey try eir best to get eir sizzling temper under control as ey go. This is dumb. This is stupid! Ey shouldn’t be this mad about something so small. They’re acting, for the gods’ sakes! Ileao and Alex aren’t even a thing! And Ileao is still very stubbornly refusing to believe ey give a shit about him!

Ey’re still fuming when ey reach the office, except that the fury is starting to redirect itself at Ileao emself instead of stupid Quinnwise. Unfair, but unsurprising. Ileao takes a deep breath and starts toward the control panel-

And then ey get sidetracked and yoink every single heartfelt trinket on Quinnwise’s desk. It’s not like they actually belonged to them anyway; those things were definitely stolen from the prisoners. Maybe ey can return them to their proper owners later. Less out of sympathy and more out of spite towards Quinnwise, though. Ey’re just not that good of a person, unfortunately.

Then ey go to the control panel. Ey got there in the end! Ey just had to have a little fun first. Feeling slightly vindicated—at least enough to no longer be extremely pissed—ey look over the controls. They’re labeled with pieces of tape with chicken-scratch handwriting on them, which is also a breach of protocol, thank you very much. Ileao has to lean down and get up very very close to the labels to have even the smallest chance of deciphering them, but ey think maybe if ey squint ey might be able to figure them out… Or ey could just press them all.

…Probably shouldn’t though. But ey could. But ey won’t. …Yet. Okay, one of these definitely says “Clairvoyance Levels” with a “1,” a “2,” and a “3,” so maybe that’s a start. Ey press the “1” button, and all the clairvoyance feeds disappear. …Weird labeling, but okay.

Curiously, ey press the “3” button. Immediately, the clairvoyance live feeds return to the walls, but this time, they include sound, and Ileao soon finds a set of buttons that cycles through the different feeds, determining which one the audio will come from. Ileao pushes every button in that section just to see what happens, and then freezes.

Because after the fifth button-press, Ileao hears the words, “You could do so much better,” in a familiar, bitch-ass voice.

Scowling, ey let eir eyes flicker across all the feeds until ey locate the one from the main cell block. Alex and Quinnwise are standing in the center of the open middle area, and they are way too close and Ileao hates it. “Whatever do you mean?” Alex asks.

“Oh, don’t play dumb,” Quinnwise laughs. “That’s more your spouse’s thing, don’t you think?”

Quinnwise runs their fingers up Alex’s arm. Can angel blood boil?

“It would not be very proper of me to agree out loud,” Alex replies, the implication perfectly clear.

“A shame,” Quinnwise sighs, though Alex’s words have obviously encouraged them, enough for them to move even closer to him. Damn, leave space for Lathandar! “You’re so much more polite and well-spoken then your… counterpart. How in the world did you end up with em to begin with?”

“Sheer circumstance,” Alex replies, and when Quinnwise doesn’t seem entirely sated by that, he tacks on, “and plenty of bad luck.”

Goddamn this wonky mortal heart. Who designed this fucking thing?

“Then why are you still with em? There are plenty of other people who would have you.”

“Am I to believe you are one such person?”

“Obviously.” Quinnwise removes their hand from his arm only to drape their own arms around his neck. Ileao wants to smash something. “Perhaps we should go somewhere a little more private.”

“May I suggest the room where you keep confiscated items?”

“You may,” Quinnwise replies, too caught up in their success to recognize such a red fucking flag. They drop their arms to take his hand and lead him out of the room, but as the two of them go, Quinnwise glances up, staring right at the clairvoyance point. Ileao startles, and Quinnwise just smirks and then ushers Alex out of the room. Alex doesn’t even notice.

Ileao determines that Quinnwise is an even bigger asshole than ey are, which ey think is really saying something.

After that, Ileao presses all of eir emotions down as deep as they’ll go and then forces emself to focus. Ey give it a few minutes to make sure Quinnwise won’t be returning to the cell block any time soon—though the possible reason for them not returning makes em want to throw up a little, to be honest—and then ey press every button in the “cell block A lock control” section. Ey are pleased to see that it was labeled correctly, if a little messily, and the clairvoyance feed for cell block A quickly floods with newly-freed monsters. Ileao grins and cycles the clairvoyance audio to another cell block, checking all the nearby rooms for guards. Hey, what kind of prison doesn’t have guards in their main fucking cell block? The more Ileao learns about this place, the more worried ey get about whatever the fuck they’re doing that forces them to keep their operation so underground. Unfortunately, given Alex’s plan so far, ey doubt ey’re ever going to find out.

Before ey can do much for cell block B, the door to the office flies open, and Ileao whirls around with wide eyes that immediately narrow in irritation upon registering who it is. Quinnwise. Ileao moves to stand in front of the cell block A clairvoyance feed as Quinnwise strolls confidently into the room, thankfully too proud to notice the nervous way Ileao is standing. Actually, it may be that eir irritation is just outshining literally any other emotion ey could having, so ey just kind of look angry. Works for em!

“Oaeli,” Quinnwise says, turning their nose up with a proud smile as they approach em. “How are you holding up?”

Ileao squints. “What do you mean?” ey ask, tentatively taking the bait.

“I mean you’ve just lost your husband to a stranger—albeit one far superior to yourself.” Quinnwise sighs dramatically as they approach em, coming to a stop only a foot or so away. They cross their arms and look down at em—and they can really look down, holy shit—with a look of mock sympathy. “How worthless you must feel after such a failure.”

“‘Worthless’ is a strong word,” ey say. Ey’d rather not let them know that ey’ve been called that so many times, it’s almost become routine.

(And yet ey’re still not immune to the spiral.)

Quinnwise only laughs. “You’re telling me that after watching your husband drop you like a hot coal the moment someone better appeared, you don’t feel like a pitiful mess? You certainly look the part.”

Ileao scrunches up eir nose. Yeah, fuck, eir freckles are already starting to glow black. Uh. Well, there’s no way for Quinnwise to know what that means! Surely they can’t deduce it from a single color change-

“Black,” Quinnwise muses, their gaze now laser-focused on Ileao’s glowing cheeks. “They were pink when you first walked in, when he put his arm around your waist. He must not show affection to you much anymore, hmm? Since he’s clearly lost interest.” They uncross their arms to mockingly lift Ileao’s chin, as if ey weren’t already having to crane eir neck upward to look at them. Ileao tries to focus on how dumb and petty they are instead of how they’ve clearly got em pegged with the freckles. “They were red when I insulted you.” How are ey so fucking expressive!? Can everyone tell what ey’re feeling all the time!? “And now they are a pure, haunting black.”

“So what?” Ileao snaps, jerking away from them.

Quinnwise tilts their head and leans down, good gods, way to be condescending. “So I think you’re a little more crushed than you’re prepared to admit,” they say quietly, and Ileao swallows hard and takes another step back, bumping into the control panel—damn this cramped fucking room!

Something starts to beep. One of the clairvoyance feeds is blinking red. Fuck.

Quinnwise furrows their eyebrows, standing up straight again. “What is-”

“What the hell did I do to you!?” Ileao shouts, stepping in front of the blinking feed—oh fuck, Alex is in there, okay—and regaining Quinnwise’s full attention. Ey let emself finally focus on the feelings of worthlessness that have been brewing within em for centuries, consistently pushed down and stubbornly ignored. Just for a couple minutes, ey can let those feelings out. Ey mentally flick through the dozens of hurtful memories ey have of Merci, and in the end, ey don’t even have to settle on one; just vaguely remembering each event has tears welling in eir eyes. It’s… possible ey may have been bottling this up for a little too long. “You don’t even know me, I haven’t done anything wrong! What about me makes you immediately assume that I’m not fucking worth anything?” Ey scowl, hating the feeling of hot tears dripping down eir cheeks. At least ey know eir freckles will help sell the ‘act.’ “What is it about me that makes it so impossible for me to be loved!?”

Quinnwise, rather than experiencing any sort of guilt or shame for their actions, smiles. Ileao suddenly feels a lot more empathetic towards the many monsters in this prison who have to deal with Quinnwise’s emotionally sadistic behavior on the regs. They take clear joy in the pain they think they’ve caused, and it’s obviously pure confidence that has them walking closer to corner Ileao against the control panel. Fuck, what is it with em and backing emself into corners? Zabrell would say ey’re just predisposed to failure. Zabrell would say ey just don’t think. Zabrell would say ey’d have died centuries ago without hir to save em.

Fuck. Fuck. Ileao may be having trouble balancing this little act on the line between “letting out enough emotion to make up for eir lack of acting skill” and “letting out too much emotion to the point of genuinely spiraling in front of this asshole stranger.”

“Fascinating,” Quinnwise says, towering over em, and Ileao winces. “This has happened before?”

“N-Not- Not exactly,” Ileao says, frantically trying to backtrack.

“But something similar,” Quinnwise corrects themself, unbothered. “Perhaps you have not lost a romantic partner to your own ineptitude before. But you must have lost someone else, or something else.” They laugh, barely trying at all to hide their pleasure. “Look at you; how could you have not?”

(Merci, telling em she wouldn’t be ignoring em if ey were just better company.)

(Merci, swearing the merchant wouldn’t have turned her away if she hadn’t had Ileao’s presence weighing her down.)

(Merci. Screaming. Drowning.)

“Please stop,” Ileao says quietly, eir voice breaking. Ey- Ey went too far. Ey bit off more than ey could chew. Ey shouldn’t have let emself think about this, shouldn’t have let emself feel. Now ey’re thinking about everything, feeling everything, and ey can’t stop! Ey can’t put it back!

“Oh, you are hopeless,” Quinnwise comments, and Ileao can’t help eir whimper in response.

Ey need out. Ey can’t do this, ey need to get out. Ey have to bail, ey can’t stay- no, fuck, eir charge, ey have to stay! Ey can’t mess up again, ey can’t just fucking leave like ey did with Merci, ey can’t be such a disappointment again, ey can’t keep being worthless-

“Can you not even breathe correctly?” Quinnwise asks, but even they are starting to grow uncomfortable, maybe realizing exactly how far Ileao has spiraled, and exactly how little time it took em, and exactly how far ey have yet to fall.

At that moment, the beeping coming from the control panel triples in volume, and Ileao glances back to see that there are now three clairvoyance feeds lit up red, each of them frozen as though the connection has been broken. And, of course, each one is frozen on a frame that contains—in one way or another—Alex.

Quinnwise’s eyes widen almost comically, and Ileao knows ey won’t be able to distract them again. “Would you look at that,” ey say weakly, and then ey spin around and slide eir hands across three cell blocks’ worth of ‘unlock’ buttons. “Laters!” ey chirp—as much as ey can chirp, at the moment, given that ey are still extremely close to just fucking losing it—and then ey wave and teleport out of the room.

Oh, shit. Ey don’t have eir halo. Ey haven’t had eir halo for months. Any lingering direction provided by what remained of the halo’s magic has almost certainly collapsed-

Predictably, the teleport flops a little bit, and ey end up teleporting ten feet above and to the right of Alex, rather than right beside him as ey’d intended. Ey yelp as ey crash to the ground, eir head spinning with the disorienting change.

“Ileao?” Alex asks with a reasonable amount of alarm in his voice. When ey finally sit up and look at him, he’s crouching in front of em, ready to help em to eir feet. He blinks in surprise. “What happened?”

“I fucking fell,” Ileao grumbles, because being mean is a lot easier than not being mean and ey’re pretty low on energy at the moment.

Alex doesn’t seem bothered by eir snappy reply though; if anything, he looks even more worried for em. “No,” he says softly, reaching up to wipe away eir tears with the pad of his thumb. “Ileao, what happened? Are you okay?”

“Oh,” Ileao says dumbly. Ey… didn’t expect him to confront em about it. Fuck, ey don’t have a good excuse. “I- My attempt at stalling didn’t go so well,” ey say, unable to inject the intended humor into eir tone. “I won’t get in the way, I promise.”

“I am not worried about that,” he says gently.

“Yeah, well, I am,” Ileao replies, sniffling and looking away. Ey don’t accept his help in standing up.

Alex sounds more uncertain than Ileao has ever heard him as he asks, “Can I help..?”

“No, fuck off,” ey say. Ey glance over at him just in time to see his face fall. “Shit, no- I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have-” Ey tug helplessly at eir hair. Quinnwise was right, ey’re a worthless fucking mess. “Can we just get this over with?”

“If you insist,” Alex says, sounding torn. He gestures around at the room they’re in, and Ileao notes the empty cells in relief. Ey don’t recognize this cell block, but it must have been connected to one of the button sets ey slammed after Alex fucked up the clairvoyance feed. “You did well with the cells. We only really needed to free Cell Block A.”

“Well you didn’t fucking tell me that,” Ileao grumbles.

“I just did not expect you to go the extra mile without being asked.”

Ileao’s breath stutters in an ugly mix of shock and hurt, and ey shoot Alex a dirty glare to cover it up. “Okay, asshole. I don’t always do the bare minimum.”

Alex’s eyes widen. “No, I, that is not what I meant!”

“Then what did you mean?” ey ask tiredly.

“I thought you would be… less than thrilled about committing any bigger of a crime than was absolutely necessary.”

Ileao groans, rubbing eir temples. Right, yeah, ey’re doing criminal things. Ey’re a criminal now. Undercover or not, Ileao really can’t see a scenario in which Zabrell doesn’t chew em out for this. Like, at least a little. “I’m trying not to think about it,” ey reply. “Are we done here?”

“We just have to get out,” Alex confirms. “Our target has been freed and sent in the right direction, and I have retrieved her things.”

“Why does that sound like you’re about to say-”

“But, I’m afraid ‘getting out’ may prove to be a bit more difficult than I imagined.”

Ileao sighs. “And why is that, Alex.”

“Look up.”

Sure enough, when Ileao lifts eir head again and follows Alex’s pointing finger, ey find that the main door to this cell block is being held shut by strings of fiery black magic, and ey can see through the barred window that it is holding back many, many guards.

“Oh, good,” Ileao says, feeling slightly detached from the situation.

“I will do my best not to kill any of them,” Alex says. He’s looking at em weirdly, and it takes em a moment to realize he’s watching eir freckles. Fuck! Why can’t ey control these things!? Who thought giving mood-ring freckles to an emotionally unstable angel was a good fucking idea!?

“Good,” Ileao repeats. “Non-lethal. Use, like, sleep magic, or something.”

“I can do that.”

With a deep breath, Alex releases the magic on the cell block door, and a flood of guards comes bursting through. The guard who led them to Quinnwise’s office isn’t there; probably for the best, she seemed pretty nice. Ileao glances over the crowd of enemies and lets eir magic begin to crackle and build around eir hands. If ey’re being non-lethal—which ey should be because these are technically sort of kind of (?) innocent people and Zabrell would throw a hell of a fit if ey killed one of them—ey probably shouldn’t be relying too much on eir five-demon bag. That thing hits hard.

Within moments, the scene has descended into utter chaos, guards trying their best to counter Alex and Ileao’s very unconventional blends of magic with nothing but their dinky little wands and standard-issue swords. As Ileao watches Alex put three people to sleep at once, ey begin to relax a little. This won’t be a problem. There’s no way ey’ll need to break out the demon bag for this! And then, after everyone is safely, non-lethally incapacitated, Ileao and Alex can go back to his haven and Ileao can isolate emself and work on pushing all of eir stupid emotions back down.

Most of the guards are down, now. There’s only a couple left, and Alex is handling them. And yet, when Ileao sees the other door to the cell block opening behind him, eir mind goes totally blank. Distantly, ey remember that this is an easy fight and it’s already almost over and there’s really no need for em to do anything more than cast a low-level sleep spell.

But the thing is… Ileao is not exactly known for eir stunning self-control, or rational thinking, or reasonable decisions. Ey’re actually kind of known for the opposite of that. So, despite knowing that ey shouldn’t use regular-strength attacks on normal citizens that legally did not warrant it, when Quinnwise walks through that door and sneaks up behind Alex with their wand drawn, Ileao figures ey might as well indulge eir reputation.

Sleep spells aren’t as fun, anyway.

So Alex takes down those three guards, and in the meantime, Ileao reels back eir five-demon bag and just fuckin’ smacks Quinnwise across the face with it.

Alex spins around in surprise, his eyes comically wide as he takes in Quinnwise’s unconscious form and Ileao grinning with eir demon bag held over eir shoulder. “You-” He laughs, covering his mouth. “Did you just hit them!?”

“Maybe. Yes? Yeah. Why?”

Smiling, Alex shakes his head. “I did not expect you to be okay with that, is all.”

Ileao flushes. “I dunno, I- They were going to hurt you! I panicked!”

(That is not a lie. Ever since eir encounter in the office with Quinnwise, ey have been in a constant state of muted panic. Ey really need to find emself a secluded place to hole up and repress things.)

Alex hums thoughtfully, and Ileao can’t help but duck eir head when Alex’s gaze stays unwaveringly stuck on em. When his eyes still don’t leave em after a couple seconds, Ileao’s cheeks flush and ey cross eir arms. “Are- Are we finished? Can we go?”

“Yes,” Alex says after a few more moments’ delay. He finally looks away, his eyes drifting to the door Quinnwise came through. “Although, I fear the building may have put up some of their magical defenses, given that we just took out half of their guard force.” He looks back to Ileao. “I have not seen you teleport before.”

Bit of a non sequitur, but whatever, it was going to come up eventually. “Yeah, you keep missing it,” ey say, glancing back at where eir wings would be if they were tangible. “Some angels’ wings are better at teleporting than flying.” Alex brightens and starts to speak, but Ileao quickly cuts him off. “But the teleportation is heavily connected to my halo. And my halo is both totally fucked and totally not on my person. Thus why I fuckin’ fell into the room instead of gracefully appearing or some shit.”

Alex frowns, furrowing his eyebrows. “So it would not be safe for you to teleport us out.”

“Yeah, no. I’m fine making reckless decisions for myself, but I’d rather not get in trouble for recklessly teleporting my charge.”

“You would get in trouble for that?”

“If you got hurt, yeah. I mean, I think most guardian angels only get punished when their charge actually dies outside of their intended destiny. But I’m a professional fuck-up, so I get yelled at a whole lot more.”

Alex frowns even more, but he doesn’t comment any further. “Hmm. Come along, we should hurry—I am certain the shields will be up, but we can likely influence the magic if we find where the mages are hiding out.”

“Sure, whatever. Lead the way.”

Alex seems to have done his research fairly well, because with most of the guards out of the way, he makes quick work of finding the room the detainment center’s mages are stationed in. There are a lot of mages in there, but it’s clear they’re the discount kind, the kind that you only hire if your business isn’t supposed to attract a lot of attention. Alex and Ileao have them all knocked out in mere minutes, and then there’s only one left, a woman with a fancy badge that Ileao doesn’t recognize. Ileao steps forward, ready to put her to sleep, but Alex puts an arm out in front of em before ey can get very far.

“What? What’s wrong?” Ileao asks, furrowing eir eyebrows. They were doing fine, why would this woman be any more trouble than the others? She doesn’t look that special.

Alex has that thoughtful look again as his eyes scan Ileao’s face. Briefly, ey hope eir freckles aren’t doing something stupid. “Actually, I have something else in mind,” he says slowly.

“Stop stalling!” the mage woman shouts angrily, her wand outstretched toward them. Alex scowls, the least-friendly expression Ileao has ever seen him make, and Ileao tilts eir head in concern.

“Alex, what-”

“This one is special,” Alex interrupts em, his eyes trained on the mage. He still doesn’t look over at em as he says, “I think we should kill her.”

Ileao’s eyes widen and ey immediately try to backpedal and bring Alex with em. “What!? Alex, no, what the hell? I agreed to a jailbreak, not a murder!”

“She has done things far worse,” Alex says, his eyes still not leaving her.

Frustrated, Ileao takes another heavy step back. “I’m not fucking killing someone, Alex!”

“You hit Quinnwise!”

“Yeah, hit them, not killed them!”

Alex’s lips twitch into an irritated frown for just a second before he can cover it up again with a face of pure neutrality, and Ileao’s heart feels heavy with the reminder of exactly how convincing his acting can be, and exactly how much it can cover up. Alex is upset with em. But he doesn’t want em to know that.

(And that makes Ileao worry even more about how much he’s already hiding from em.)

“Fine,” Alex says after a moment, and despite his extensive experience with acting and lying both, Ileao still detects an edge of frustration in his voice. “I understand. We have found the line you are not willing to cross.”

“Thought this was a pretty obvious line, but, yeah!”

Alex sighs, but he raises his arm and casts his fiery black magic, effortlessly putting her to sleep.

Refusing to feel bad about this, Ileao strides over to the only window in the room, one that spans the entire wall in width and oversees the front entrance of the detainment center. Ey reach it just in time to see a shimmery spray of magic as the supposed protection falls. Damn. Ey and Alex worked so fast, ey never even got a chance to see the actual fucking protection, just its aftermath. Nice.

What’s not nice is the utter silence Alex has allowed the room to fall into. He doesn’t look mad, but Ileao knows better than to assume that means anything.

“Time to go,” Alex says suddenly, looking up from where he’d been staring at the floor, seemingly deep in thought. “You said your halo is what allows you to teleport?”

“Mostly. Why?”

“And the halo must supply you with some form of arcane power, for that to work.”

What the hell, he’s being so suspicious. “I don’t know, probably? Alex, why?”

“If I combined my own magic with yours, would that make the teleportation safe enough?”

“No? No, Alex, that would not be safe.”

“But would it be safe enough.”

Ileao squints. “…Depends on how high your standards are.”

“Currently, they are quite low. Will we arrive alive?”

Ileao clicks eir tongue a few times, thinking. “Well… we would definitely arrive somewhere alive. Gonna give it maybe a fifty-fifty chance of actually being the intended destination.”

“Is that enough to convince your angel friends not to be upset with you?”

“Oh, no way. But it’s enough to convince me to do it anyway, so, you’re in luck.”

Alex chuckles as he joins em by the window, and Ileao is irrationally comforted by the fact that he’s relatively happy again.

(Part of em is, in eir opinion, very rationally comforted by the fact that he’s not mad, specifically. For the split second where ey accidentally think about that, ey’re almost scared by how readily ey accept that that anger will be inevitable and messy—no one is ever sort of mad at Ileao. Everyone ey’ve ever known has gone all out. Distantly, ey realize that that isn’t okay, that it might be bad that ey’re so used to that kind of reaction. But Ileao isn’t sure how to go about changing that, and ey’d actually rather just press all these feelings down and say it doesn’t bother em, it isn’t a problem, ey’re overreacting like Zabrell says ey always do, and anyway who’s to say ey don’t deserve it-)

(Fuck, spiral, spiral, spiral. Ey can do this, ey can tough it out for a few more minutes until ey can turn eir brain off and forget ey exist. Ey don’t have to think like this. Ey’re okay. Ey just need to breathe, and remember that Alex is not mad.)

“Ileao?” Alex asks softly, and Ileao’s breath hitches as ey jerk away, eir back hitting the window.

“Oh, fuck- Sorry, I’m sorry, shit, uh, zoned out. Let’s- What were we doing? Magic! Yeah, okay, I’ll- I-I’m good to go, let’s do this.”

“We can wait,” Alex says, stepping closer to rest a gentle hand on eir arm, and ey yank away again, thankfully having the good sense to go sideways instead of backwards.

“Don’t- Don’t.”

Alex frowns, his hand still hovering in the air for a second before he drops it back to his side. “Okay. Do you want to leave? We do not have to teleport. With a little more time, we can make it out normally.”

“No, it’s fine,” Ileao says tersely. “I just want to be h- at your haven.”

“Okay,” Alex says again, sounding just as concerned. Ileao’s not about to buy into that, thanks. But when he holds out his hand—tentatively, considerately—Ileao still takes it.

Alex’s hand glows with magic as he entwines his fingers with Ileao’s own, and teleporting with the help of his magic is surprisingly effortless. Well, okay, Ileao rolls a mixed success and he only barely helps em stabilize it enough to get them all the way to the haven, but- the act of merging their magics was surprisingly effortless. They teleport into the living room on the first floor, and Ileao drops Alex’s hand and leans tiredly against the wall as soon as they arrive.

“I want my halo,” Ileao says, unprovoked. “Even if it’s broken.” Maybe it’ll still help a little to at least have it nearby.

“I might be able to fix it,” Alex offers. He hasn’t moved from the space right beside em, where he showed up when they ‘landed.’ But he doesn’t try to touch em, either, so whatever.

“Okay,” Ileao says, and then ey suddenly freeze. Oh, god. If Alex fixes eir halo, all of eir reports will finally go through to Zabrell—and, more importantly, Zabrell will finally be able to respond. Fuck, fuck, xe’ll make it so much worse. Ileao doesn’t know why Alex is so much more difficult than eir other charges, or, rather, why this assignment has em in such a fragile head space. But ey do know that if ey have to hear Zabrell berating em on top of all this weird new stress… It won’t end well. Ileao, sometimes, can stop emself from spiraling when ey’re on eir own, with no one around to put em down. But with Zabrell nearby? Not a chance. “Wait,” ey blurt out, before ey can stop emself. “Don’t- I mean, you don’t have to fix it all the way- uh-”

Alex tilts his head. “You don’t want me to fix it?”

“N-No, I just-” Fuck, ey’re being stupid! Having the halo back is more important than Ileao’s dumb mental state. And anyway, ey’re supposed to be available for contact with Zabrell. That’s what the reports are for. “It just… might be hard to fix. So, it’s okay if you can’t fix every part of it.”

“I am fairly confident that I can,” Alex replies with what is surely meant to be a comforting smile.

“Great,” Ileao says weakly, managing a strained smile of eir own. “I, uh- I’m going to bed.”

“It’s only six,” Alex says, confusion overtaking his features yet again. “And… Do you not trance, at night?”

“Trancing sucks,” ey answer, already heading toward the stairs. He’s not going to stop em. Ey need to get away so ey can break down without getting in trouble, so ey can recalibrate and recover and repress. “And I don’t care.”

“Alright,” Alex says after a short hesitation. “I will see you in the morning, Ileao.”

“Yeah.”

Ileao teleports the rest of the way to eir bedroom, aiming for the bed solely to cushion eir fall when ey inevitably end up several feet in the air. Once there, ey shut the door and close the curtains and sit back down on the bed, pulling eir knees up to eir chest and squeezing eir eyes shut, trying to block out all of the terrible thoughts that are still swirling around in eir head, just beneath the surface.

Ey hate when this happens. Ey feel ridiculous, like ey can be having a perfectly neutral time and then something small will set em off to the point of- of this, of hiding away and fearing everyone in sight and wanting something ey know ey can’t have. Overreacting, that’s what ey’re doing. Like Zabrell always says. Ey just wish ey could make emself stop overreacting.

But ey can’t, and whenever some tiny, insignificant thing gets em all freaked out, ey hate emself for eir inability to keep emself under control. Zabrell doesn’t seem to struggle with this! None of the other angels ey know have ever shown signs of having to deal with this weird bullshit, and none of eir charges have ever had any episodes like this, either.

Are ey just broken? Is it something ey’re doing, something ey should know not to do? Ey always feel so guilty when ey do this, when ey have to lock emself away just to avoid bothering the people around em. Ey should be able to ignore it. Ey shouldn’t have to hide away. Some part of em understands why eir charges have always disliked em, even grieves alongside them for the angel Ileao could have been, if only ey weren’t such a goddamn fuck-up. So many of eir charges would’ve been so much better off with any angel other than Ileao, and at times like this, ey just feel bad for getting in their ways.

Ileao’s freckles, currently as black as the void, are glowing so much that they allow eir hands to cast shadows on the blankets. The curtains flutter, allowing the moon—gods, how long has it been?—to bathe the room in shadows even more, and the ‘creaking’ of the top floor joins the mix right on time. The same whispering woman echoes in eir ears, and ey still don’t understand what she wants from em.

But she never scoffs, and she never yells, so Ileao doesn’t mind.