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Angel has always been ready to die. He’s been prepared to die for a while, not in an actively suicidal way but an “eh, if it happens it happens” sort of way. Existence is exhausting and Angel loathes the feeling of exhaustion. If death chose to take him at any moment he wouldn’t really care because then he at least wouldn’t be tired.
Angel has always been ready to die so he doesn’t know why he suddenly finds that there’s a small piece of himself desperate to stay alive.
The hand fisted into the front of his button-up is the only thing keeping him from being torn apart in the maelstrom that is the Typhoon Devil. He doesn’t know how he’s able to hear Aki’s grunt of pain over the deafening sound of the wind that whips around them but he catches it immediately.
Aki.
“Grab onto something!’ Aki shouts as loud as he can, his features being pulled into a grimace as his whole body shakes under the stress of keeping Angel anchored. It only takes a moment for Angel to understand that, no matter what, he’s going to be ripped away from his partner’s grasp.
“No! I can’t!” he yells back. His voice is thin and reedy, more of a mournful whine than a complaint. Angel doesn’t want to think about what that means. He doesn’t want to think about why the emotional turmoil openly shown on Aki’s face makes him want to fight to stay alive.
I’ve never fought for anything of my own free will, his mind whispers, So why fight for this?
Aki’s blue eyes flutter as he does his best to maintain his hold on both Angel and the utility pole. The pain he’s feeling is obvious, his fingers shuddering where they clutch the fabric of Angel’s shirt. He’s going to be pulled apart if he continues to try to keep both of them grounded and just out of death’s grasp.
“It’s fine…” the words spill from Angel’s mouth before he even realizes that he’s speaking. “It’s fine! Just let me go already!” Aki’s eyebrows knit together into a furious expression and his eyes harden into sharpened steel. Angel recognizes this look, he’s seen it plenty of times before on his partner’s face; the determination and stubbornness to remain steadfast in his goal.
Angel doesn’t know when he started to pay so much attention to Aki that he’s now able to decipher each individual expression but he’d rather not examine it.
He swallows, his heart pounding in his chest as the wind picks up and Aki’s grip is loosened even more. Don’t, his mind begs silently, don’t try to save me.
“If I’m going to die then that’s fine! Today was just my time to die!” he almost chokes on the words like they had been lodged in his throat. “It’s fine… I’ve always been ready to die!” It’s true. He’s always been ready to die, even craved it at times when he felt the most resigned to an empty existence.
So why, in his final moments, is it so hard to imagine leaving life behind?
Aki’s eyes flash with something unreadable before they shut tight. Let me go, Angel insists, don’t let yourself be killed over this. There’s no reason for you to die, as well. His partner’s jaw clenches, teeth grinding and Angel can feel the desperation in his shaking hands. If Angel didn’t know any better he’d think the wetness on Aki’s face was from shed tears instead of the raging typhoon around them.
Please, just let me go. I’m not worth it.
And then he’s torn away. The cotton fabric slips through Aki’s fingers and Angel can’t help the gasp that’s ripped from his throat. This is it, he thinks to himself, his wide crimson eyes staring straight into the sapphire depths of his partner’s as he drifts away. Angel can’t bear to look at him.
He doesn’t know why he cares— you do —and he doesn’t know why he doesn’t feel more relieved by his imminent death— you do —but at least he won’t be endlessly plagued by the longing that creeps under his skin, barely contained.
The longing for what? his thoughts betray him.
He tries to think of something, anything that will keep him content with the idea of leaving Aki behind. A face flashes through his mind, brown skin, dark hair, dark eyes, and a crown of chains set upon her brow. Angel doesn’t know who she is, he can’t remember her identity, but he immediately knows that she’s the same as Aki. That she means something to him; something hopeless and painful and meaningful.
Stay alive. You have to stay alive.
The hard clap of a hand against his skin is shocking. It sends a sharp jolt of electricity up his arm and through his body, forcing his eyes wide open. He doesn’t even understand what’s happening until Aki screams. It’s not even really a scream, more of a shout, but it’s a painful noise that makes Angel’s blood curdle.
Panic ricochets through Angel once he realizes what Aki’s done. “Wh-Wha - ” the words escape him in a startled gasp before he’s roughly plucked from the sky and pulled back down to earth. His mind is completely blank as Aki pulls him close. He doesn’t even know how to describe the distress that wells up inside of him, the rage, and the worry that he feels.
That absolutely fucking idiot —
Angel stares blankly ahead, dumbfounded by the sheer idiocy of Aki’s decision, as the aforementioned idiot’s arm wraps snuggly around his shoulders and across his throat. He could have died, he could have died, he could have died — the same sentence repeats over and over in his head.
“Why did you touch my hand?” he shrieks, “Do you want to die?” His still-beating heart thuds beneath his rips, evidence that his life hasn’t been stripped away the way Aki’s could have been. Angel is startled by the intensity of his fury but that doesn’t dampen it in the slightest. How could he have been so careless, doesn’t he realize what could have happened?
“Of course I don’t fucking want to die!” Aki snaps, his arm tightening around Angel’s shoulders. “How much life did I lose just now?”
His body is warm where it’s pressed against Angel’s back and the devil can’t help but falter under the feeling of another living, breathing soul. He can’t bring himself to look at Aki as he mutters, “About two months…”
Angel can feel Aki’s body grow tense at the admission and he doesn’t know what to call the emotion that strikes his heart. Guilt? he wonders. But I never feel guilty. I never really feel anything.
His breath hitches in his throat when he feels something warm and gentle wrap beneath his wings and cross over his chest. Aki sighs as he settles his arms around Angel in an embrace unlike anything the devil has ever experienced before. One of Aki’s hands clamps around the wrist on his other side, keeping Angel trapped where he’s held close. People don’t touch me. No one ever touches me.
Angel breathes in and out, unsure how long this strange intimacy will last, but he knows that he wants to keep Aki like this as long as he’ll allow it.
“If you want to die, then go someplace far away from me to do it,” Aki’s voice is barely more than a whisper but Angel doesn’t have to strain to try to hear him. His breath is warm in Angel’s ear and the devil’s eyelids droop. A tender, fragile feeling settles in his chest with the acknowledgment that if Aki is breathing then that means he’s still alive. It’s strange that his heart still aches with pain, knowing he’s so close and yet will always have to stay apart.
“I’ve had enough of watching people—” Aki’s words sharply cut off and Angel’s eyes look to the hard concrete beneath where they’ve settled to try and resist the storm. Aki swallows before speaking again, his voice breaking upon the first word, “— die in front of my eyes…”
Angel sucks in a deep breath at the confession and his eyelids flutter shut. He’d been ready to die before this. He was certain that there was nothing to keep him confined to his bleak existence on earth, but…
Aki’s hands were cold when he reached for Angel. His fingers created a frozen manacle around his wrist, keeping him in place, and refusing to let him be taken away. Anyone else would have flinched away from how cold his hands were, but to Angel, it was the warmest touch he’s ever felt.
The memory of Aki’s bare skin touching his own felt like forbidden fruit, a sin of Aki’s own making, something he himself had chosen to bear. Angel rubs his own hands together, confused why the Devil Hunter had chosen to sacrifice months and potential years of his life just to try and save his good-for-nothing, lazy partner.
He can’t help the way he leans back into the steady pressure of Aki’s chest. Most people are too afraid of an accidental brush of their hands to get close to him. Aki had never feared him. Angel had liked that about him, he supposed. It was strange to have a human that wasn’t wary of him but Aki has never been too concerned about his own self-preservation.
That idiot… Angel sighs inwardly but his thoughts have no malice behind them. His thoughts have become less and less irritable the more Aki space has taken up in his life.
It was dangerous, this… thing growing between them, this thing they refused to name. Angel didn’t like to think about it. There was no point in dwelling on something that would only end in tragedy. He isn’t naive enough to hope for a better outcome than what is destined for creatures like the two of them.
Even though they know better, they can feel it. The electric energy that crackles between them in those quiet, intimate moments. Sometimes Angel will catch Aki’s gaze on him and they’ll be caught in a swell of tension. It’s almost like he can feel it crawling beneath his skin when neither of them is willing to break eye contact first, the knowledge that they both share and will never speak of because they know it will only serve to hurt them more in the end. The sadness and yearning that pulls and repels them to and from each other, lurking in the background of every moment together.
It’s me, Aki’s gaze would seem to whisper whenever their eyes of red and blue would create a lavender haze, we both know that it’s me and you.
But eventually, one of them would break and look away. It wasn’t feasible, the desire they both felt in the depths of their souls. It was better to stay as they were in that silent limbo when their deaths were inevitable.
And Angel had just stolen another two months away from him.
He swallows and pushes his building emotions into his hands, gripping the fabric of his black slacks with startling desperation. He could tear the fabric easily and rip into his own skin as if that would be enough to repent for taking a piece of Aki’s life away the way everyone else has.
And yet Angel wants nothing more than to reach up and cling to the warm embrace Aki has wrapped him in, to wrap his fingers around the muscle of his forearms and hold him as close as he can while they try to wait out the storm. To finally be as they want to be. He wants to stay in Aki’s grasp and feel the scorching touch of his pulsing heart, surrounded by warmth and flesh and life. That means something, he knows it means something; something horrible, something that he’ll never speak the name of because if Angel dared to name the longing in his heart, the pull to be as close to Aki as humanly possible, then it might just make him feel like he’s human as well.
Angel has always been ready to die.
But maybe there are some things worth living for.