Chapter Text
Wemmbu winces as his back slams into the prison wall.
“Fucking demon,” the villager sneers in his face, his hot breath fanning over Wemmbu’s face. Void, how does anyone talk to this guy, Wemmbu thinks, trying to lean away. This close, he can see the giant mole on the man’s nose and can count the teeth the villager still has left. While he’s distracted, the fuckass villager snaps on a pair of metal handcuff chains and drops it onto the floor with a loud thunk.
Fuck. Wemmbu thinks. He pulls at the metal, but it doesn’t budge. Fuck. Damn it.
“Never seen a monster as weak as you before,” the villager taunts. He pushes Wemmbu harshly into the prison wall again as if to emphasize his point, and all the kid can do is bite down a hiss of pain. He’d be damned if he was going to give this asshole the satisfaction. The man continues, “Usually, the uglier they are, the stronger they are, but you’re just plain ol’ ugly, hah?”
Wemmbu bites the bait before he can stop himself. “Guess that makes two of us, hah?” Wemmbu mocks and makes a face.
He does hiss out loud this time when his head ends up making contact with the concrete wall behind him. Worth it, Wemmbu thinks, a little dazily. He’s about to run his mouth again when the villager finally gets up for the door.
“Disgusting brat.” The man spits at his feet for good measure. “Don’t you worry, the hunter is on his way now to put you out of your misery.”
That makes Wemmbu freeze, fear washing through him. The villager’s cackle echoes in the jail cell even after the door slams behind him.
The hunter. Wemmbu can feel chills go down his spine. Traitorously, he also thinks fuck, that’s such a cool name.
Less cool since said hunter was on their way to kill him, Wemmbu admits, but still a little cool. The demon stares at the metal digging into his wrists and tries pulling again. All it manages to do is rattle the chain against the wall. Wemmbu lets out a frustrated huff.
I wish I wasn’t so weak.
It’s not the first time Wemmbu has thought it— might be the last, now that he thinks about it, and wow, isn’t that a terrifying thought. He’s about to be killed for, what, stealing a few apples from the village? And a couple potatoes? And maybe even some steaks? Wemmbu figures he was testing his luck, stealing from the same farmer twice in a row.
Could you blame him? That might’ve been the best steak Wemmbu has ever—
“...hello?”
Wemmbu snaps out of his thoughts. A voice rang out, so soft and quiet that Wemmbu thought he was losing his mind already before his eyes landed on a boy standing right in front of the door.
An angel, Wemmbu mentally corrects, eyes flickering over the other. The angel, who looked around his age, maybe, had white hair curling around his face with just a hint of pale blue streaks at the front. He wore white fabric so expensive that even Wemmbu could tell the difference and detailed embroidery that speckled like gold in the sunlight that managed to slip through the jail bars. It was like whiplash against the dirty walls of the village jail.
Behind him were white feathered wings, folded and not a speck of dust on them.
Wemmbu instinctively curls his lip and straightens up to make himself look bigger. “What do you want?”
The angel startles at Wemmbu’s sharp tone, but doesn’t react otherwise. He angles his head towards the door— his eyes are closed, Wemmbu just realizes— then back to the demon, looking almost nervous.
“I… I saw them bring you here.” A beat of silence. What the fuck is this guy’s deal?
“Okay, and?”
Another beat of silence. Wemmbu’s eyebrow twitched.
“They said… a demon hunter was on the way. To execute you,” the angel adds, as if Wemmbu’s fate wasn’t clear enough. The demon scowls. Did this asshole think he was stupid or something?
“No shit,” the demon deadpans. The angel flinches at the curse word.
There is another long moment of neither of them saying anything, like some kind of stare-off, before the angel’s wing twitches. Wemmbu wonders if he’s about to book it for the door.
He doesn’t. Instead, the angel starts to approach Wemmbu with careful steps.
“What the fuck are you doing?”
Wemmbu can’t help but bristle and jerk back despite not being able to go anywhere. The angel stops and puts his hands up in surrender.
“Opening it,” the angel answers, still soft, gesturing at the lock on Wemmbu’s handcuff. Wemmbu immediately looks over the angel with suspicion.
“You have a key?” the angel shakes his head. Oh good. Instead, he reveals a lock pick-looking thing between his pale fingers. Wemmbu blinks. When the fuck did that get there?
The angel waits patiently for Wemmbu to reluctantly shift his handcuffs towards him, a silent signal to continue. Wemmbu ignores the grateful nod he gets from the boy and glares at him instead for good measure.
His footsteps are silent, Wemmbu observes as the white-haired boy kneels in front of him to start fiddling with the lock. It feels ironic— an angelic being kneeling in front of him, a demon. Helping him. This had to be a trick of some kind, some kind of entertainment to the angel maybe. Give the disgusting demon hope just to take it away.
The lock makes a soft click and drops into the angel’s hands. Wemmbu watches as the other slowly sets the metal handcuff down to avoid making too much noise. The angel steps back, clearing the path to the door and freedom.
“Go,” the angel whispers.
Wemmbu doesn’t move.
“Why?” the question leaves Wemmbu’s mouth before he can stop it.
The angel doesn’t react, just stares at him with his eyes closed, and for a moment Wemmbu thinks he’s not going to answer before the boy is shrugging.
“Because,” he starts softly. Too softly to be directed at someone like Wemmbu. “Because you deserve to live.”
Wemmbu inhales sharply. That’s… well. Wemmbu stands slowly and rubs the small, faint marks the cuffs left around his wrists. He’s still a little weary, still a little tense, as if expecting the villager from earlier to come running through the door with a wicked cackle for falling for this trick. Wemmbu hears no approaching footsteps.
“What’s your name?” Wemmbu finds himself asking. He blames it on the fact that he’s getting tired of repeating the angel in his head. A flicker of surprise crosses the still-no-name angel’s face, or what Wemmbu assumes is surprise, before settling back into a neutral look.
“Eggchan.”
Wemmbu blinks.
“That’s a weird name,” he says bluntly. The angel just nods.
“I know,” he agrees. No shame, no embarrassment. Wemmbu rubs over his sore wrist again.
“I’m Wemmbu,” he says eventually.
The angel—Eggchan—softens and smiles a just-barely-there smile. It’s the warmest smile Wemmbu has ever seen.
“Nice to meet you, Wemmbu,” the angel says, holding out his hand. Wemmbu stares at it as if expecting it to disappear before taking it. His hand is soft, the demon notes. The other has somehow made a handshake feel kind.
Then, Eggchan tilts his head towards the door, his white hair brushing over his eyelids.
“Shall we?”
…
“Thank you for coming so soon. That demon is being held right over there.”
Wemmbu and Eggchan barely managed to scramble around the corner when they heard two sets of footsteps and voices. Well, Wemmbu scrambled for cover and then had to drag Eggchan with him when he noticed the angel’s lack of urgency.
“Void,” Wemmbu mutters quietly, giving the other a side eye. He can’t tell if the angel sees it or not with the whole, uh, eyes-closed thing, so he sighs to show his annoyance just in case.
“No problem,” a new voice, deeper and smoother, replied. “Got here as soon as I could.”
Wemmbu recognized the first voice as the ugly villager from before, could recognize the way he spat the word demon from miles away. The second voice, the hunter Wemmbu assumed, talked with a sense of reassurance. As if he was confident he could take on anything that came at him.
“As long as you got the bag, I’ll kill anything,” the hunter speaks again, his arrogance dripping from his tone. The villager laughs loudly.
The demon glances at his own scratched hands and the clueless angel next to him. Oh, we’re so dead, Wemmbu thinks, almost miserably. Then, again, he traitorously thinks void, the hunter sounds so cool and strong.
Eggchan pokes him, breaking him out of his eavesdropping. Wemmbu has to bite down an instinctive yelp to avoid giving away their hiding spot. Instead, he raises a questioning eyebrow at the angel. The angel points towards the outskirts of the town, down the opposite way the voices came from.
“Shouldn’t we, like, run?” Eggchan whispers. Wemmbu blinks. Right. They should probably leave instead of waiting for the hunter and villager to realize he’s escaped. Good idea. The demon nods, and the two of them start creeping away from the voices.
They start in a slow creep, careful to keep their footsteps light, but the moment Wemmbu hears “the demon is— where the fuck did he go?” and a loud door slam, he immediately breaks into a sprint. Wemmbu doesn’t wait to see if Eggchan can keep up; he just grabs his thin wrist and pulls him around another building. He mentally thanks the town for being too lazy to put guards around the village jail.
“Wemmbu—!” Eggchan yelps, his voice not losing its softness somehow, stumbling from the sudden change in pace. Wemmbu can’t help but throw a grin over his shoulder.
“What, you never ran in heaven or something?” he laughs and pulls Eggchan’s wrist meanly just to watch him stumble over his feet again. They nearly run into a wall because of it and um. Wemmbu does actually trip over some crate filled with carrots placed haphazardly in the path, though he manages to right himself before he lands face-first into the dirt.
Eggchan tilts his head slightly, amused maybe. Wemmbu can’t really tell.
“What, you never seen a crate before?” the angel asks so monotone that Wemmbu can’t tell if it’s a joke or not. The demon opens his mouth to retort. He doesn’t know what yet when they hear a distant “no sight of the demon over here!” and he starts running again.
By the time they stop, Wemmbu is panting, sweat running down his forehead, and leans against a tree outside the village for support. Eggchan, annoyingly enough, doesn’t even look to be out of breath as he looks around in that creepy, closed-eyes way of his.
“Do you think this is far enough?”
“Do I think—” Wembembu turns to the angel, incredulous. “We just ran for like, 10 minutes straight! This better be far enough!” The demon is still catching his breath, embarrassingly, and can feel the burn in his feet already. He eyes the angel. If he squints, he can maybe see a bead of sweat.
“Are you not tired?” Wemmbu asks. Fuck this. Wemmbu plops down on the ground, leaning back against the tree. He’s not tired. He’s just… saving his energy. In case they need to keep running.
“I am.” The angel shrugs. Then pointedly says, “I know you are.”
Wemmbu doesn’t gawk, but it’s a close thing.
“What are you— why did you even follow me if all you’re gonna do is bother me!”
Eggchan doesn’t seem fazed by the sudden change in topic. He tilts his head slightly, curious this time if Wemmbu had to guess.
“You grabbed my hand.”
Wemmbu blinks. Huh, he did do that, didn’t he?
“Yeah. Well,” the demon says stubbornly. “You can leave now. I don’t need you here. I was just making sure you weren’t gonna get caught—”
His stomach grumbles. Loud. Loud enough to interrupt Wemmbu and put the two of them in silence.
Goddamn it. Wemmbu internally groans. How uncool. He thinks the crickets hiding in the grass might be laughing at him. The demon pointedly looks away from the angel. He doesn’t want to see him making fun of him too.
When was the last time I ate? Now that Wemmbu focuses on it, he can feel the hunger eat away at his embarrassment, leaving him cold and empty. He curls around himself a little. His tail wraps around his right leg, a stupid habit he’s never been able to shake since he was a kid.
“Hey,” the angel calls out softly, trying to get his attention.
Wemmbu, very maturely, ignores Eggchan and keeps his gaze to the side. The angel doesn’t take the hint and tries again.
“Hey. Hey. Wemmbu.”
The angel pokes his arm.
“Wemmbu. Hey. Hey—”
“What?!” Wemmbu finally snaps, lip curling in a snarl. He’s agitated, hungry, and sweat still sticks to his skin uncomfortably, and now there’s some fuckass angel taunting him with a carrot in his face—
Wait. Wemmbuu blinks.
“Where did you get that?” the demon asks, confused, still a little snappy. He eyes the carrot and briefly wonders if this is some trick the angel is playing on him. Eggchan wags the carrot in his face again.
“When you tripped on that crate,” Eggchan answers. He reaches in his expensive jacket and pulls out another 3 carrots. “I thought you might get hungry.”
“Right, you thought—” Wemmbu stops mid-scoff, all anger draining out of him in an instant. “Wait, you got these for me?”
His voice betrays the vulnerability he feels, cracking in the middle of the question. Wemmbu doesn’t feel embarrassed about it, though, because he’s still hung up on the fact that he grabbed these for me? Me?
Eggchan nods and wags— not wags, offers Wemmbu realizes now— the carrots again. Wemmbu hesitantly takes them.
“All of them are for me?”
“Yes.”
“Oh.” Wemmbu stares at the damn carrots in his hands. He feels something warm and unfamiliar build in his chest. “Oh. Um. Thanks.”
Eggchan shrugs. The angel sits down on the grass next to him, facing the sunset. Wemmbu steals glances at him and then back at the carrots. Without turning towards him, Eggchan deadpans
“I didn’t poison them or anything.”
“I know that,” Wemmbu says defensively. He did not know that. He takes a bite out of a carrot with a crisp snap to prove his point.
He could’ve lied and poisoned the carrot anyway, Wemmbu thinks a beat later, right after he’s already swallowed a bite. He glances at Eggchan again. Surely the angel wouldn’t have poisoned him. How would the angel even poison him? Why bother breaking him out of the prison just to poison him a little bit later?
Reassured, Wemmbu takes another chomp from the carrots.
The two of them must make a comical sight, Wembu muses. A demon and an angel sitting next to each other while watching the sun set peacefully over a nearby village. He lets himself relax fully against the tree trunk.
“Do you want one?”
“No. I already ate.” Eggchan points at a small bite taken from the side of one of the carrots.
“What— when did you take a bite??”