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It was just an ordinary day for Michael, he’d woken up entangled with his guardian angel, this one clinging to him as he slept, and leaving him no options but to wait for him to wake up as well.
But, on that day, as he laid there, scrolling through social media posts, on his phone, post after post, he suddenly received a notification.
It was a message from his little brother, or, more like, a video from his little brother.
Michael found it weird that his brother was sending him a video with no text message attached to it, as they’d usually send each other stupid videos, and as Keith liked to send him videos of his new songs, but it was usually sent with some typical beeps and boops from him, not like this.
As he went to open the video, Michael found himself becoming anxious, maybe something was wrong. Maybe his brother had gone through something and needed to talk about it with his voice and not in text. But, then again, why not just a voice message? It seemed improbable.
Without waiting more, and with an anxious mind, he started the video.
Immediately, he was taken aback and alarmed by the scene. The first thing he saw was a lazy hand uncovering the camera, shooting at the ground, that was covered in clutter, that looked old and walked on. It looked like he was in an abandoned house or building.
But, of course, it was only the beginning of the video, the rest was much more alarming.
The hand that held the camera lifted it up to shoot three people, two of them bending over someone laying on the ground.
Immediately, Michael started to panic, sitting up abruptly in his bed, startling awake the angel.
“Michael? What’s wrong?” Armaros asked sleepily, sitting up next to him and rubbing his eyes.
Michael didn’t respond, his eyes fixated on the video.
In it, was his brother, laying on the ground, looking beaten up, and in rough shape, as the two men towering over him kept one foot on his head and back, to keep him down.
Then, there was a voice.
“If you don’t want anything worse to happen to him, you better come to this place, in one hour, and without anyone. If we see anyone with you, we will kill him immediately.” As he said that, the voice of the man that was holding the phone, pulled up a revolver and pointed it at his brother. “One wrong move and he’s done for. If you care even a little about his life you better obey.”
With that, the camera turned back to the ground, before cutting out.
“What was that?” Armaros asked, alarmed by what he’d just heard coming from Michael’s phone. “Who was that?”
“They got him.” Michael replied with a shaky voice, unable to look at anything but the paused video, shocked.
“Who got who?” Armaros asked, confused.
“I don’t know who they are, but they got my little brother.” Michael finally looked at the angel with worry in his eyes.
Armaros took a moment to register what Michael had just said to him, as he was still a little sleepy, but quickly understood the urgency of the situation.
Without letting him much time to react, however, Michael suddenly got up and practically ran to his closet to get dressed, almost tripping on the carpet.
“I need to go now!” He said as he hurried to put on his shirt and pants, struggling to get his classic hoodie on.
“Michael. Calm down. We need to not rush into things.” The angel tried to calm him down as he got up as well, walking over to him to also get dressed.
“I can’t! I have to go quickly! And you can’t come, they’ll kill him if they see you!” The young man replied, as he was totally panicking.
“You can’t go alone. They’ll kill YOU AND HIM if you go alone.” Armaros reasoned. “If they went through the trouble to get your brother to find you and get you to come out there, they’re definitely not going to keep you around to see him freed.”
“But, what am I supposed to do? They got my little bro! They’re going to kill him! God knows what they did to him already!” The young man replied, panicked.
“If you don’t calm down your heart is going to go awry, and you’ll be of no use to help your brother. Just take a moment to breathe, okay?” The angel tried to reason with him. “Just take a moment to calm down. Then we can figure something out together.”
Michael didn’t reply to that. He knew that the angel was right, and he could already feel his heart beating too fast for his own good.
Armaros, once he was dressed properly, gently took his hand and guided him to sit down on the bed again.
Michael let himself be guided, and tried his best to breathe deep in and out. He knew that he needed to calm down if he wanted to save his little brother.
Armaros stayed by his side, a hand on his shoulder, rubbing it gently, until Michael finally calmed down enough to think clearer.
“But, what are we gonna do? You can’t come with me or they’ll kill him.” Michael said worriedly, looking back at the angel.
“And, if you go alone, they’ll kill you before you even get a chance to see him.” This one reminded him. “What we’ll do is this: you’ll go to the meeting, and i’ll follow you from afar, i’ll be ready to shoot. The moment you get to them, try to distract them enough that I can make sure you’re not going to get shot, and let me make sure your brother isn’t about to get shot as well. I’ll try to be sneaking to where they keep him while you do. When you see me in there you can try and get the guys on you down, i’ll be right behind you to help you out.”
“It’s much too dangerous! What if they see you beforehand? They’ll kill my brother!” Michael worried more.
“Michael. We don’t have a choice, you said it yourself, if you don’t go they’ll kill him. If we had more time I would rather we call in your brother Raphael to help out, but we don’t have this time. You’ll have to trust me.” He replied seriously, looking at the other in the eyes and holding him by the shoulders, to make him understand how serious he was.
“O- Okay…” Michael replied after a moment, worried at first, but relaxing a little and putting one of his hands on one of Armaros’. “I trust you.” He gave a small smile.
“Good.” Armaros gave him a smile in response. “Now, it’s time to go. You go ahead, I'll follow you from farther away.
“Okay.” Michael replied, getting up once the angel let go of him and walking to the door. “Let’s do this.” He said, Armaros nodding as he prepared his gun, before he went out.
It didn’t take too long for Michael to find the old and abandoned house that sat in the middle of a small forested part near the city, well hidden by the trees, the vegetation having regained most of its rights over the house and around it.
He didn’t really take time to look at how beautiful the place looked in that state, as he was focused on his task at hand.
He approached the house, noticing someone coming out of it to meet him.
“There you are. You’re right on time. I like that in a man.” The man greeted him pleasantly, as if nothing was wrong with the situation and they were just two men meeting outside.
“Where’s my brother?” Michael replied coldly.
“Now, now, it isn’t a proper way to greet someone, ‘Big Bro’.” The man teased.
“Where is my brother?” Michael repeated, colder.
“Don’t worry. Your brother is safe. For now.” The man replied with a dark grin.
“I’m here. You can free him now.” The young man replied.
“Now, now, don’t be so hasty.” He replied. “You’ve barely just arrived.”
“I’m here. It was your condition to release my brother.” Michael reminded him coldly.
“Oh? Did I say that? I think there was a little misunderstanding. I said nothing bad would happen to him. I didn’t say I would ‘free’ him.” The man shrugged dismissively.
“You Bastard!” Michael replied, ready to get up to the man’s face.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you.” The man took out his gun, previously seen on the video, and pointed it at Michael. “One wrong move, and I’ll kill you, here and now.”
Michael only gritted his teeth in response, digging his nails in the palm of his hands.
“But, it wouldn’t be fun, would it?” The man continued. “You asked to see your brother. And you will see him.” he said calmly. “Boys!” He called out to the ones inside the house.
Of course, while this interaction was taking place, Armaros, who’d followed from farther away, as he’d said, managed to go around the house and enter from the back, getting a few cuts from branches because of how overgrown the place was.
He paused for a moment, waiting, listening for any sound. When he heard low voices from the front of the house, he sneaked his way towards the room, being slow and careful, as, one wrong step, one small noise from the clutter on the ground, would mean he would be found, and the possible death of Keith.
Thankfully, angels are lightweight creatures, even a fallen one like him didn’t gain any weight. He was able to walk skillfully to the room, peeking in as he held his gun at the ready.
In it, two men were mumbling to each other, talking about what they were going to do once they’d be done with Michael, what would happen to his little brother. Of course, they had no intention of letting him go, far from it. He’d seen too much, he couldn’t stay alive.
“Boys!” The man from outside, with Michael, called out to them, making them get up from where they were sitting.
“It's time.” They agreed, going to the corner of the room, where Armaros could finally see Keith, bound and gagged, laying on the ground.
Armaros decided it was time to act, he could see that they didn’t have their guns on them, having forgotten them to where they were sitting previously.
He sneaked inside, deciding to go behind them first, and shoving his gun into the skull of the bigger of the men, immediately knocking him out.
The second man only had the time to register what was happening and let out a sharp gasp before he received a hit as well.
“Boys?” The man repeated when no one came.
“What’s going on? You said I would see my brother.” Michael pointed out coldly.
“He’s coming. Boys! Bring the boy, right now!” The man started to get impatient, looking towards the house over his shoulder, not really paying attention to his gun anymore.
Suddenly, someone came out of the house, but it wasn’t one of his men, it was Armaros, with his gun pointed at the face of the man.
“Too late, buddy, your guys are not coming out.” He said in a cocky way, as he advanced onto them.
“What the-” The man started to turn around in surprise when Armaros called out.
“Michael!”
Without hesitation, Michael jumped onto the man, bringing him to the ground, and knocking the gun out of his hand.
“This is for my little brother!” He said as he punched the man in the face repeatedly.
Armaros just stood there, watching for a moment, before he stopped Michael with a hand on his shoulder.
“Enough, Michael, he’s already out.” He pointed out.
Indeed, the man had already passed out from the punches he’d received in the face.
“I’ll call the police, you, go inside and free your brother. I didn’t have the time to free him yet, but he’s inside.” He said as he pointed to the door.
Without waiting, Michael stood up and ran inside.
There, he found his brother laying in a corner of the main room, his back turned to him.
His heart beat harder as he couldn’t see if he was alright, couldn’t see if he was even alive.
He quickly made his way towards him and turned him over, which seemed to wake him up.
“Michael?” Keith asked as he looked at him, confused.
“Yes, baby bro. I’m here.” Michael didn’t wait to untie his brother and, without thinking, pulled him in his arms, shaking.
“What happened? Did they get you as well?” The younger one was confused by the situation, not having been conscious during the event, therefore, not knowing what had happened.
“No. We came to rescue you.” Michael replied as he hugged him close, trying not to cry.
“We?” Asked Keith.
“Hey, midget.” Armaros said as he was walking in, playing with his gun.
“Armaros?” Keith wasn’t sure what was happening, but then, he noticed the two men on the ground by armaros’ feet, knocked out. “Did you do that?”
“Sure did.” Armaros replied with a cocky grin. “But, you should’ve seen what your brother did to their boss.”
“Michael?” The younger man asked, trying to get a good look at his brother, but this one was still hugging him, clinging onto him.
“I’m sorry.” Michael apologized, shaking. “I’m so sorry.”
“Why are you apologizing?” Poor Keith was only more confused by his brother’s behavior.
“It should have been me.” Michael cried softly. “They were after me. They wouldn’t have hurt you if it wasn’t for me.”
“Big Bro…” Keith mumbled, feeling bad for how his brother was feeling about the whole event. “It’s not your fault. You couldn’t have known this would happen. And you didn’t know about them either.” He pointed out, hugging his brother back.
“But, it’s not the first time I put you in trouble.” Michael argued, shaking his head. “They wanted me. They would have killed you if Armaros didn’t help me.”
“And I put you in danger more than once too. It doesn’t matter. You both saved me. I’m fine now. A bit battered and bruised, but fine.” The younger brother reassured as he held him close.
“Your brother is right, Michael. It wasn’t your fault. No one could have known this would happen.” Armaros sighed as he approached to come rub Michael’s back gently.
Michael didn’t reply to that, staying clinging to his baby brother and crying a little still.
Keith and Armaros took a moment to comfort him, hugging him and rubbing his back, until he stopped crying.
Once he was calmer, and finally let go of his brother, they both brought him outside, where they waited a little more for the police to come.
They had to give in their testimony before they could finally go home, Keith following Michael and Armaros to their apartment, deciding to stay for the day with them, so that Michael could be reassured that he was really fine, and this one could fuss over him.
That night, Michael found himself checking on his little brother a few times during the night, when he wasn’t stuck, untangled with Armaros.