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It had been a slow day, and Angel was grateful. Per usual, he was tired and didn’t want to work. He had been trying to convince Aki all morning that they would see more from the top of a tall building than constantly patrolling around the same few blocks, and miraculously, Aki had finally agreed. This was how they found themselves on the gravelly rooftop of a nondescript office building for the better half of the afternoon.
“Give me one,” Angel said, eyeing the pack of cigarettes hanging out of Aki’s pocket.
“You don’t smoke,” Aki said.
He’d been leaning against the concrete ledge, looking down over the streets. Still trying to stay on task despite the fact that they had also eaten their lunch up here, and he’d been through 3 or four cigarettes already. Angel had been sitting on the ledge watching him smoke rather than watching the streets for any devil activity.
“I want to try it,” Angel said, holding out his hand impatiently in Aki’s direction.
“Alright,” Aki said.
Angel was almost certain he wouldn’t say no, but he didn’t expect him to tap the ash from the one he was currently smoking and offer it to him. Angel was careful not to accidentally brush their fingers together when he accepted it. He took a long drag, imitating Aki, and blew the smoke away from them down the side of the building. The smoke felt warm in his chest, and the air all around him smelled like Aki for a few precious seconds before the wind whipped it away.
Angel handed it back quickly.
Aki took it and turned it in his fingers, contemplating the bud with a strange look on his face for just a moment. If Angel hadn’t already been looking, he would have missed it completely. Then Aki turned to him, expectantly.
“So?” he asked, before gingerly setting the cigarette back between his own lips.
“Awful,” Angel said.
“Thought so,” Aki replied, looking back down at the city and exhaling a fresh cloud of wispy smoke onto the cars below.
---
Eight in the morning was decidedly too early to have already fought a devil. But Aki was an early riser, and that meant that Angel had to be too. The pair had managed to make a massive gorey mess in the middle of the street, but the altercation was brief and they both came out of it relatively unscathed. Unfortunately for Angel, he was now covered in the guts of the devil they had killed.
Angel busied himself wiping the viscera from the front of his suit while Aki stepped into a nearby shop to make a call to public safety’s cleanup team. He had made the final blow -most of the blows if Angel was being honest- but somehow was less dirty than Angel. He supposed it was just his luck to be in the splatter zone. Or maybe it was retribution for his lack of help in the fight.
When Aki returned, Angel had gotten most of the big chunks off, but he could still feel it on his feathers. He sighed loudly. Loud enough to get Aki’s attention.
“I can’t reach,” He said. Aki eyed him for a moment, and Angel returned the look with one he usually reserved for times when he wanted ice cream. Aki rolled his eyes, and Angel instantly knew he’d won.
“Is it safe to touch your feathers?” Aki asked.
“Yeah,” Angel replied.
Aki closed the short distance between them, and Angel turned around. He spread his wings to their full width so that Aki could get everything off without having to dig and risk touching skin. He felt Aki’s hands card through them, removing bits and pieces of gore. Moving methodically from left to right. He could count on Aki being thorough with everything he did, so his next question wasn’t surprising, at first.
“What about your hair?” Aki asked from over Angel’s shoulder.
“Ugh, is it in my hair too?” Angel said.
He’d begun to consider that getting hosed down back at Public Safety would be easier. Though he hated the bruising pressure, and how they never warmed the water.
“No.”
Aki’s hands continued in their steady march across his wingspan. But Angel felt as if he’d been frozen in place. Why ask, if his hair wasn’t dirty? He wanted to turn and search Aki’s face for the answer, but he just couldn’t bring himself to move. Aki’s hands on his feathers suddenly felt too close, too intimate, too gentle.
“All done,” Aki said, and Angel shuddered. There was a softer tone to his voice than usual, but Angel wasn’t sure if it was true, or his mind playing tricks.
He folded his wings back up, and turned to see the cleanup truck arriving. Aki was already waving the driver towards the correct spot.
---
It was the end of another exhausting day, and the setting sun was streaming into the windows of the train, coloring the floors, walls, and passengers in gold and orange. It felt warm on his cheeks, and Angel got lost in the sensation for long enough that he didn’t realize Aki had been still for a long while. When he turned to check, he saw that his partner had fallen asleep; arms crossed over his chest, head lolled down and to the side, gently bobbing with the movements of the train. Angel watched his slow breathing, astonished that someone so uptight would allow himself to nod off like this. He almost looked sweet. Like a different person with all the weight of Public Safety and Gun Devil revenge off his shoulders. Angel felt like he was intruding on something private by watching, and forced himself to look away. He thought about closing his own eyes too, maybe leaning against Aki’s arm and napping for the rest of the ride. But if Aki wasn’t keeping them on track, he knew they would likely ride the train all the way back to the depot. So instead, he stayed awake, stealing glances until their stop was next. When he heard the announcement, Angel reached out and tugged at his arm.
Once. Twice.
Aki blearily opened his eyes.
“Ours is next,” Angel said, quietly.
Aki straightened up in his seat and stretched his arms over his head, letting one fall to catch his yawn.
“Thanks,” he said. His voice was husky from sleep.
It seemed so perfectly normal.
Angel looked at his own shoes, and wondered when they’d grown so comfortable with one another.
---
“We’re closer to the apartment than public safety or the clinic,” Aki said. “I have a first aid kit there.”
Aki was cradling his bloodied arm to his chest, trying to hold it level to his heart. The deep gash from their recent devil encounter had left his shirt and suit jacket soaked, and his hair had come loose from his topknot falling messily around his face and shoulders. Still, nothing about his usual demeanor had changed.
Angel lagged behind, limping, and watching Aki’s shoulders for signs that he was in more pain than he was letting on. Sometimes Angel felt like interacting with his partner was like playing a human card game. Neither would let on what they were thinking or feeling until something came along to force their hands. Angel had been trying to pay more attention; to learn Aki’s tells. It wasn’t just that he hid things from his ‘Buddy’, but his superiors, his friends, even the blood fiend and the chainsaw boy.
“Hurry up,” Aki called over his shoulder when he noticed that Angel was lagging behind.
“My leg hurts,” Angel complained in an exasperated tone.
Aki immediately turned around. He looked Angel up and down, lingering on where his pant leg was torn at the shin, and the bloody cut underneath.
Aki sighed, and held his injured arm out to Angel, supporting it with his other hand. Angel stared at it blankly.
“Drink. Then you can heal, and stop slowing us down.” Aki said.
Angel immediately took a step back away from him. He wasn’t sure how much blood a human could lose before it clouded their judgment, but maybe Aki was already at that point.
“It’s going to waste anyway,” Aki added. He wasn’t entirely wrong. There was already a series of drips collecting on the pavement by their feet.
“That’s dangerous,” Angel said. It was all he could think to say. Even if he would have loved to bite down into that fresh wound and taste Aki’s blood… there was no way to do that without taking more of his lifespan. He had so little to spare. Standing here to collect the droplets wouldn’t improve the situation either; they would need to stop the bleeding sooner than later.
Aki huffed, shrugged off his suit jacket with a wince, and pushed it firmly into angels arms.
Angel frowned, but it was a fair compromise. He popped the corner of the sleeve into his mouth, and sucked some of the blood off the soaked fabric. That seemed to satisfy Aki. He turned around and continued to walk in the direction of the apartment. Angel closed the distance between them, but stayed behind so Aki couldn’t see his face.
The blood was good, vibrant and electric on his tongue, and maybe the experience was colored by the fact that -for once- it was blood given to him willingly. Angel felt a sort of fluttering in his chest. He felt the sinew of his leg stitching itself back together, and walked a little faster to keep up.
By the time they got to the door, Aki’s white button down was soaked to the elbow and both his hands were slick with bright red blood. Angel could see a light sheen of sweat on his face as he slipped and fumbled with the keys to get the door open. He supposed none of this was good, but he didn’t want to say it until Aki acknowledged it himself. Angel followed him inside, the jacked still clutched to his chest, and trailed behind him to the bathroom where he perched himself on the closed toilet seat and watched Aki bring down the first aid kit from the cabinet.
Aki ran the sink and washed out the wound before slathering it with some kind of antibacterial fluid and grabbing a needle and thread. Angel watched silently as Aki struggled to thread the needle with shaking hands. He wondered if the human was really so stubborn that he’d rather die than ask a devil for assistance. Or maybe it was something worse, and he wouldn’t ask because deep down he never expected ‘help’ to change the outcome. At least not in the way he could on his own.
Either way, Angel was tired of this game.
“You’ll bleed out at this rate,” Angel said, voice even. It was a fact after all, not an opinion.
Aki shot him a glare, tried again to thread the needle, and again failed. Angel got down off his perch and stepped towards him.
“Tell me how,” Angel said. He picked up the thread off the counter, and met Aki’s eyes. Aki seemed to waver, his mouth fell open just slightly as he stared back at his partner. Then his gaze drifted down to the mess he’d already made. Blood was smeared over the faucet, the kit, the sink, and himself. He sighed, and leaned forward against the countertop heavily.
“There’s a pair of plastic gloves in there, you’ll need to put them on,” he said.
Angel immediately went in search of them and pulled them over his hands, while Aki gave directions on how to do the stitching. Angel insisted he sit or lay down because there was no way Aki would be able to hold his arm still enough while standing for a novice to do good work. Aki relented, and climbed shakily into the bathtub. He leaned back and rested his arm on the ledge of the tub so that Angel could kneel on the other side and do his work on a flat surface. It helped too, that the arm was elevated again. Angel got to work, curling the needle through Aki’s torn flesh and pulling it back together again. Zipping him back up with every tiny stitch. It felt strange, to be putting a living thing back together. He imagined his powers working in reverse, injecting a little bit of life back into Aki with every pierce of the needle. If only.
If only.
After a minute or so, he realized that Aki had leaned his head back against the tile and closed his eyes.
“Don’t pass out,” Angel warned.
“I won't,” Aki said, but the color of his skin didn’t give Angel a lot of faith in his statement. He finished up as quickly as he could. The stitching may have been less than perfect, but Angel was as gentle and as thorough as he could have been given the circumstances.
“All done,” Angel said. He set down his implements and popped a gloved finger into his mouth, sucking some of Aki’s blood off it as if he were getting a bit of leftover cake batter off his hands after baking. Just a little reward for a job well done.
Aki opened his eyes and lifted his arm a bit to turn it, and survey the work. He seemed satisfied with the stitches. It would likely scar, but he had plenty already.
When he looked up at Angel again, their eyes met. Angel had moved to the second glove. He didn’t hide his enjoyment this time, or look away. Aki, surprisingly didn’t either, he watched Angel lick the rest of his blood off his hands with a morbid fascination and swallowed hard when Angel was done.
Angel swore just a bit of color came back to Aki’s face afterwards.
Then, the front door slammed open with a bang, and the sound of bickering filled the hall.
“I smell blood!” came Power’s excited screech.
Angel shucked off the gloves and tried to press himself into the corner of the bathroom as quickly as possible, anticipating the stampede of roommates. Sure enough, Power, closely followed by Denji, appeared in the doorframe to the bathroom. With Denji craning over Power’s shoulder to try to see why she stopped so suddenly. Both of their expressions immediately soured.
“No fair! The ANGEL DEVIL got to bite you before me?!” Power yelled. Incredulous at the thought alone.
“He didn’t bi-” Aki attempted to reply, before Denji cut him off.
“You look like shit, dude!”
Aki slumped back down into the tub, and let out an exhausted huff. “I’m sure,” he said.
Denji shoved power out of the way and squirmed past her sideways through the narrow door frame, noticing the blood that had been smeared or dripped over the majority of the surfaces in the tiny room. Power seemed to notice too, but in her mind, a free samples sign lit up.
“I’m really good at bandages,” Denji said. “I used to do me and Pochita up all the time.”
Power had grabbed the kit and was running her tongue across the lid. Denji swatted at her and pulled it from her grip so he could get a roll of clean gauze.
Aki leaned his head back again. “Sure,” he said.
Denji took his arm gingerly and began to wrap him up, and Angel felt a pang of something in his chest. He wasn’t quite sure what feeling to assign to it, but he wasn’t fond of it.
“Did you vanquish your foe at least?” Power asked the pair, her eyes lingering for a moment on Angel’s torn pants before returning to Aki.
Aki nodded, and Angel, feeling like he needed to explain to them why Aki was in such bad shape, blurted out; “It surprised us. Got in a few good hits early on, so we had to finish the fight before we could get him sewn up.”
“Humans are weak and fragile,” Power said, nodding sagely. Angel shrugged, she wasn't exactly wrong. But with the three of them standing around a tired battered human in the small dwelling that he had provided for (most) of them, it really felt like he was something small and precious that they all should have been taking better care of. Their human could fight, he could hold his own, he bossed them all around and kept them on track… but he wasn’t very good at keeping himself out of danger. He wasn’t good at keeping himself alive. Maybe that was something they needed to help him with, if he would accept it.
Denji finished up the bandage with a small fastener and turned to Power, who had been oddly silent with Angel for the last minute or so.
“Powey, help me get him out of the tub,” Denji said.
“I can get up on my own,” Aki protested, with no real energy to his voice.
“You need help to lift this small mortal? HAH. I could do it alone!” Power said, seeming to snap out of her own contemplative state. She hopped into the tub, planting a foot on either side of Aki’s hips and hoisting him up by the armpits dramatically.
“Wait!” Aki yelped, as Power tossed him over the side like a ragdoll into Denji’s arms. Angel ducked out of the way to avoid the flailing limbs, and Power launched herself back out of the tub to grab Aki’s legs. Together Denji and Power team lifted Aki, dragging him down the hallway and tossing him down onto a mattress in their shared bedroom. Angel followed behind the chaos at a safe distance. He listened to the string of creative curses flowing from their human, Power’s laughter, and Denji’s directions on where to pivot and when to drop him. Once Aki had been deposited safely into bed, Denji turned to power with a huge grin.
“We should make some red meat for dinner, so he can regain his strength,” Denji said, and it really wasn’t a terrible idea.
Power began chanting “Meat Meat Meat” and the two ran off to the kitchen in a thunderous stampede of bare feet.
Angel sat down next to Aki, and pulled his knees up to his chest, wrapping his arms around them and glancing down at the frazzled man.
“Please stop them,” Aki said weakly, “They’re going to burn the entire building down.”
“No,” Angel replied with just a hint of a smirk.
Aki let out an exasperated noise and closed his eyes.
A few moments passed and the pair sat in comfortable silence. Angel watched Aki’s chest rise and fall slowly, and wondered if he’d fallen asleep.
“They seem to care about you,” he said quietly, half hoping Aki would miss it.
Aki opened his eyes again, and searched Angel’s face. Angel looked away, and focused his gaze on his knees.
“I might, too.” Angel finally admitted.
Aki didn’t say anything, but Angel heard a rustle of fabric and looked up to see him reaching out slowly with his uninjured arm, giving Angel time to back away if he liked. Angel watched his hand closely, but didn’t move back.
Aki made contact then, and took a lock of Angel's hair between his fingers, playing with it gently.
“It’s soft,” he said on an exhale. There was reverence in his voice, and it occurred to Angel that Aki had been wanting to do this for a long time. Angel watched him touch his hair so delicately, as if it was the most precious spun silk, and it took everything in him not to let his emotions well up and overflow.
Then, Aki smiled. It was exhausted and small, but it was genuine.
Angel felt something break inside him.
He saw Aki’s expression change before he felt the moisture on his own cheeks.
“What’s wrong?” Aki asked, dropping his hand immediately.
“We’re idiots, aren’t we?” Angel said, his voice cracking.
“Ah,” Aki moved his hand to Angel's lower back, and let it rest there. “Probably…”
Angel wiped the tears from his face and laid down next to Aki on the edge of the futon. He hesitantly curled his arm around Aki’s waist, and Aki tilted his head down to bury his nose in Angel’s hair.
In another part of the apartment, something crashed and Power and Denji erupted into yelling.
When Denji and Power finally returned with charred unrecognizable plates of something that had once been alive, they found the pair just like that; asleep in each other's arms. Power gagged at the affection and ran off to eat their portions, while Denji lingered just for a moment.
He turned out the lights and closed the door softly behind him.