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Aki has been running for most of his life. Desperately, hopelessly, running, towards a figure in the distance he could never really see. Maybe it is revenge, maybe it is grief, and maybe it is something else entirely. But he dreams, sometimes, of snowfall in the bright sun, and his footsteps tracking through the powder behind a second set of feet. He hears laughter and feels the sun hitting his pink face, and he runs forward, chasing, chasing that shining light–
His eyes snap open at the sound of soft clicking. He’d just drifted off for a moment, sitting back in the driver’s seat as they waited in the night. The engine is off, the radio silent, the windows cracked just enough for a bit of cool air to drift in. Aki blinks, and turns his head to the passenger’s side. The lighter flickers, clicking again and illuminating the small space, then shuts off. That must have been the light Aki was seeing behind his eyes.
“You started talking again,” the Angel hums. “Not real words, just mumbling. But you did it yesterday, too.”
Angel sits in the passenger seat, knees pulled up to his chest, with his arms wrapped around his legs. He’s somehow gotten Aki’s lighter in his hand, flicking it on and off with a curious gaze. When Aki doesn't respond, he asks, “Would you let me try one?”
Aki wasn't aware he talked in his sleep. Angel had never mentioned it before. He musters up his voice.
“No,” he says, groggy. “They aren’t good. That’s why I was trying to quit.”
Angel huffs softly. He draws a single cigarette from his lap, teasing it between two fingers.
“How did you get that?” Aki asks.
“Your jacket pocket while you slept,” Angel says. “I was careful.”
Aki swallows. “I know you were.”
Angel blinks, eyes turned away, then flicks the old lighter again, and lights the end of the cigarette. Once it’s burning, he turns his eyes, and holds it up to Aki’s face. Aki lets him lift the stick up to his lips, then reaches his own hand up to take it carefully from the Angel’s fingers. Placing it between his lips, he inhales.
Their skin doesn’t touch. Never, never touches. For a moment, Aki wishes that he could reach over and cup the pale skin of the Angel’s cheek. Drag his thumb against it, make it turn pink, push the smoke from his mouth into the Angel's. He sighs and looks away. They have to be somewhere soon.
–
Where it began? He’s not quite sure. One day the devil in his eye will ask him, and he won’t have an answer.
Aki would like to say that maybe it was the day that Angel stared up at him from the park bench, ice cream in hand. He was so pretty there, with his hair blowing in the wind and the tilt of his head making his curious eyes shine even in the shade.
The truth that he keeps tucked away is probably the moment Aki first handed that little square of cloth to the Devil with the halo shining above his head, and decided it was pretty fucking ironic that something so indifferent to the despair around it could be called an Angel. Even so, he probably knew, right then, that this Devil would be the one he would give everything for.
—
The Angel tags along when he goes home from work the next day. It's a bad habit they've grown into, Aki writing the excursions off to the department far too often, but he doesn't ever want to tell Angel no. All he has to do to tell Aki to take him home now is to wrap one hand around Aki's arm, fingers pressing on his elbow bend. A silent plea.
After changing into comfortable clothing, and having difficulty deciding against offering Angel some, he sets off to the kitchen. The Angel sits on the counter and watches Aki cook for all four of them, a popsicle in his hand that he'd stolen from the freezer even though Aki told him not to eat before dinner. He doesn't say much unless prompted, and Aki isn’t much of a prompter; he just traces Aki's steps across the kitchen with his eyes and hums whenever oil pops amuse him. Aki isn't disturbed by it, and on occasion from the corner of his eye he'll watch his socked feet swing on the edge of the counter.
Denji and Power likely won't be home until much later if they aren't already. Aki serves them bowls for later, left on the stove, and then points Angel to the table.
With a bit of reluctance, Angel picks at the food, pushing it around the bowl. Aki eats his fill, and then another serving, and tells Angel the story of how Denji came to move in.
Aki tells about the miserable little teenager and his horrible habits, his horrible upbringing. He speaks of teaching him to be an adult, of his failed attempts to get him to do laundry. The Angel says Denji can’t be that bad, because he’s never learned to do laundry either, and it tears a rare laugh from Aki’s throat.
“That’s alright,” Aki says, “I’ll do it for you, too.”
Angel’s suit jacket rests over the edge of the couch just a few feet away. He’d taken it off, but resolutely kept his sleeves rolled down and his thin gloves on. Aki thinks he has a steamer in the closet he can use.
The smallest huff comes from Angel’s lips. It almost sounds like a laugh, the tilt of Angel’s mouth so close to amusement. “No human has ever offered something like that to me.”
Aki glances away, rubbing the back of his neck distractedly. “Yeah, well…”
Most humans wouldn’t come within ten feet of the Angel Devil. Most of them would run for the hills, especially if their time is already so limited. Most humans wouldn’t be sat at the same table, laughing with the creature, thinking about how their socked feet have been bumping each other for the entire meal.
Aki looks back up at Angel, and takes a breath. He’s relaxed, for once, shoulders at ease and hair tucked behind his ears. Pretty. Pink. Glowing in the lamp light.
"You're thinking about kissing me," Angel says noncommittally.
Aki pauses. He wipes his hands off, and then stands to toss the napkin quickly. He turns to the Angel. He sighs, "Maybe."
"I've thought about kissing you," Angel responds softly, “Wanted to, in the car yesterday."
Aki swallows, and heads for the balcony. He can't do this.
"I'm going to smoke," he mumbles, fishing for his lighter in his sweats pocket. He doesn't find it, and looks back to see Angel holding it in his fingers, like a cat waving its dead little prize in its mouth.
"Let me try one," Angel says, walking up next to him. In a moment of weakness, Aki reaches, and lightly grasps the edge of a pink lock of hair. He twirls it around his finger, then lets it drop.
He sighs, and nods. "Come outside."
He takes a stick from the box he leaves on the table out there, and then the lighter from Angel's hand. He holds one end in his mouth, flicks the light, and smoothly lights the other. He gives himself one good inhale before he turns to the Angel, whose eyes now seem to be glowing a bit in the dark. Excited, maybe.
"You don't get a whole one, I don't want you in the habit of liking them and asking for more," Aki grumbles. "Come here.”
The Angel steps up to him, head tilted. Aki can do this. “S’called a shotgun. I’m gonna exhale the smoke into your mouth. Breathe it in when I breathe it out, alright?”
Angel thinks about it for a moment, then nods. Must be good enough. Aki takes a drag of the cigarette, holding it in his mouth, and taps the side of Angel’s wrist. The Angel opens his mouth curiously, and his eyes flutter a bit when Aki leans down.
Aki lets himself come just a fraction of space away, carefully, carefully, and exhales into the Angel’s mouth. Angel breathes it in, mouth closing.
"Breathe out before you cough it up," Aki hums. Angel exhales a gentle plume of smoke from his mouth, drifting down towards his chest and dispelling into the night. “Good?”
The Angel pauses, then says, "Doesn't taste as good as you make it seem."
Aki’s throat is tight. He wants, he wants so much, and yet, and yet—
“Aki,” the Angel says, and it feels like a burst of lighting down his spine. The Angel’s hand comes up slowly from his side, raising up. He still wears the white gloves he’d had on all day, and with a slight pause, Angel cups his palm on Aki’s cheek. He has to tilt his head all the way up to look him in the eye when they’re this close. Aki doesn’t stop his own hand from circling to rest on the small of Angel’s back.
“Aki,” he says again. His glowing eyes flit back and forth, and Aki can’t take how bright they are.
“I don’t have long,” Aki whispers. “Not for this. Not nearly enough.”
“That’s alright,” Angel replies, the words far too simple. For a moment, Aki believes him. The Angel holds the tips of his fingers against his lips, and Aki leans in.
It's strange, the phantom feeling of Angel's skin through the cloth. A mimicry of what he wants. But it lets him feel the closeness of his lips, and the odd way the fabric dampens with his breath makes it feel like he can taste him. When they break apart, his hand falls back to his side, and they stand there, face to face. Angel's breathing is shallow, and if Aki were less determined to live, he'd have pulled him back in to taste the cigarette lingering there himself. Death be damned.
–
Denji stares at him for a moment too long one morning, as he munches his way through the plate of food Aki handed to him, his blonde hair puffed up from a restless sleep. “You know, y’smell like him a bit. How’d that happen, you guys can't even–”
“Denji…” Aki sighs. “Listen. We’re figuring it out. Maybe. I don’t know.”
“You don’t know?” Denji chuffs through a monstrous bite of his breakfast.
Aki hums. He shucks his suit jacket on, preparing to leave for the day, and adds, “Don’t know if it’s worth it falling in love with someone who’s only got a couple years.”
“For you? Oh, for him?” he asks. “But he’s got time. Lots of it. Y’know– I could die tomorrow. If It was me I wouldn’t waste my precious time sittin’ and worrying if some pretty devil lady should have the right to like me.”
“Good thing you don’t have some pretty devil lady knocking at your door, then,” Aki shoots back.
Denji squawks behind him, and he shuts the door maybe a bit too harshly on his way out.
–
They find out that the Angel’s wings don’t take life the way his skin does. Right now, Aki sits on his bed, the Angel resting between his legs, his back to Aki’s chest. His wings are sticking out of the holes in the back of Aki’s hoodie that he so lovingly carved out when Aki wasn’t watching. Aki runs his fingers along the feathers, and marvels at their softness.
“Do you shed?” Aki hums.
Tch, the Angel huffs. “No. But I do lose them sometimes if I’m stressed.”
“Can I have one?”
Angel sighs, and wiggles a bit. “You’re more strange than people realize. Sure.”
Aki has gotten into the habit of keeping a pair of gloves on his nightstand. Sometimes he marvels at how such an insignificant piece of clothing before gives him so much now. With them on, he can slip his fingers under the hem of Angel’s hoodie, and brush the taut skin of his stomach slowly. Carefully.
He wonders if Angel has ever been held in his entire life. Aki certainly has never held someone like this before. He was too busy chasing something off in the distance.
The Angel sighs, and relaxes a bit more. He’s pulled the hood up over he head as a precaution, and it’s fortunate that winter makes it cold enough to justify them both sleeping in one. He has no idea what he’ll do in the summer.
"You know, I have watched so many of you die. So, so many," Angel hums. Aki’s hands stay still under the hoodie, palms flat on his hips. He just holds.
Angel has a strange idea of the things that are appropriate to say with his partner's hands up his shirt. Considering that Aki, too, has seen so many humans die, he almost laughs at the suddenness.
“I did know that,” Aki responds. “Why do you mention it?”
“I don’t know,” Angel says. “I’ve never felt pity for them before. I guess I don’t know I could love them. Bizarre realization for an angel to have.”
Aki feels wetness in his eyes, but blinks it away. His hands tighten, and release.
“Do you think you’ll love another human?” Aki asks, the sadist inside of him rearing out. “After me.”
He almost doesn’t breathe. Angel rolls onto his stomach, face pressed into Aki’s shirt, and sighs. His hands keep roaming the planes of Angel’s back, lean, slightly colder than skin should be.
“Don’t waste your time worrying about it,” Angel replies easily. “Besides. Even if I— even if. Not like you. Like this.”
It’s enough for Aki. Before they fall asleep, Angel rolls away and shoves a few pillows between them just in case. Aki knows it’s still a dangerous setup. He promises himself not to make it a regular bad habit like all the others, and falls asleep anyways.
–
When the sun rises, Aki has no inkling of the fate that awaits himself or the Angel tucked into his sheets. Their time is more limited than he could ever know.
But the morning is quiet. Now that he is alert, he moves the pillows, and wraps himself around the Angel. Angel feels small, so small, in his arms. The bits of pink hair sticking out from the hood tickle Aki’s chin, and for a moment, it feels like the Angel could be peppering kisses across his jaw. He feels Angel stir, and his halo begins to glow brighter as he blinks awake. Aki grasps the light of it in his eyes, and smiles.