CW: more exposition (stay with me), emotional whump, just two beings falling in love, heaven as an antagonist
TAGLIST: @oddsconvert @flailingfrog @cepheusgalaxy @flowersarefreetherapy @imgoingtobiteyounow
CHARACTERS: Daveed Anastas, Rook Rivera
It doesn’t unfold the way stories insist it should.
There’s no cataclysmic fall, no trumpet-blasted exile, no sudden tearing of wings from flesh. Rook is still a guardian angel. They’re still tethered to Heaven by rules and oaths that hum faintly under their skin. Their grace hasn’t been stripped away. Their wings still answer when they call for them. The bond is strained, yes, stretched thin and aching, but it hasn’t snapped.
What grows between them happens in that fragile in-between.
The first night, Rook sleeps on the couch.
Daveed doesn’t ask him to but Rook still insists. His spine straightens with ingrained discipline even as exhaustion drags at them. Guardians aren’t meant to impose. Aren’t meant to take more than the bare minimum. Their wings won’t fold quite right in a human-sized space, feathers brushing the floor, joints stiff with hours spent holding themselves perfectly still.
Daveed pretends not to notice the way embarrassment and gratitude tangle in Rook’s emotions when he brings extra blankets anyway. Or how relief washes through them when he dims the lights without being asked, quietly adjusts the wards so Heaven’s gaze dulls to a distant pressure instead of a constant ache.
Daveed doesn’t sleep.
He sits in the armchair across the room, posture loose but alert, empath sense tuned low and careful. He doesn’t want to pry—but Rook’s emotions are loud in sleep, unguarded in a way they never are while awake. Dreams bleed through: white corridors etched with scripture, the weight of countless lives entrusted to their care, the fear of failing someone unseen and unnamed.
No judgment yet. No decree.
Just watching.
Every time Rook’s breath catches, Daveed’s claws dig into the upholstery. Every flare of anxiety echoes in his chest like it belongs there.
He doesn’t touch them.
That restraint costs him more than any punishment Hell ever devised.
Morning comes quietly. Pale sunlight spills through the windows, catching on feathers shed across the couch like remnants of something sacred. Rook wakes slowly, disoriented, eyes sharp as they take in their surroundings—still here, still whole, still themselves.
Daveed is already in the kitchen, humming under his breath while he cooks. The food is simple but intentional, infused with warmth meant to ground rather than tempt. He’s careful—guardian angels aren’t meant to feed on infernal energy, and he won’t risk destabilizing Rook’s grace.
Rook eats anyway, tentative at first, then with growing hunger.
“You didn’t sleep,” Rook says, their concern bleeding through the calm they try to project.
Daveed shrugs. “I’m fine.”
They level him with a look that carries centuries of authority. Guardian instinct. “You’re lying.”
He smiles, soft and crooked. “Empaths aren’t great at pretending otherwise.”
That earns him a quiet laugh—and something shifts. Not a break. Just a hairline crack in the distance between them.
Days pass.
Rook stays.
They still answer prayers, slipping out at odd hours with murmured apologies and returning with the weight of other people’s pain clinging to them. Daveed feels it every time—how Rook carries too much, how they refuse to let anything spill unless it absolutely must.
Daveed learns the way Rook circles truths before trusting them to the air. How praise makes them flustered, how they instinctively downplay their own worth. Rook learns that Daveed waters his plants while projecting calm emotions into them, that his empathy never shuts off completely, that raised voices make something tight and old coil in his chest.
They don’t touch much at first.
When they do, it’s accidental. Fingers brushing over a mug. A wingtip grazing Daveed’s arm in the narrow hallway.
Every contact is thunder.
Daveed’s incubus instincts stir—not hunger, not dominance, but resonance. He starts unconsciously smoothing Rook’s emotional spikes, lending steadiness after difficult guardianships, quieting the echo of Heaven’s scrutiny when it presses too hard.
Rook notices.
“You do that on purpose,” they say one evening, perched on the counter while Daveed cooks.
“Do what?”
“That,” Rook says, hand resting over their sternum. “You make the noise fade.”
Daveed stills, empathy flaring with sudden alarm. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to interfere with—”
“Don’t,” Rook says quickly, closing the distance between them. Their emotions bloom—warm, sincere, unguarded. “It feels like being… supported. Not commanded. Not judged.”
Daveed feels it like a hand around his heart.
That’s the night they kiss.
It’s hesitant, reverent. Daveed keeps his hunger locked down to a careful hum, giving Rook every chance to step back.
They don't.
Angelic grace and infernal empathy intertwine gently, like two forces testing whether they can coexist without harm. Daveed tastes devotion and duty and something achingly human beneath it all. Rook feels wanted without being owned, cherished without being claimed.
They part breathless, foreheads touching.
“Oh,” Rook murmurs. “So that’s what that is.”
Daveed laughs softly, unsteady. “Yeah. That’s empathy doing something dangerous.”
After that, closeness becomes unavoidable.
They share a bed—not always for desire, often just for rest. Daveed learns the precise pressure that eases the tension in Rook’s wings after a long night of watchfulness. Rook learns how to anchor Daveed when empathy threatens to drown him, pressing their forehead to his and murmuring grounding nonsense until the world settles.
Heaven watches.
Not with condemnation—yet—but with growing concern.
Hell notices.
Whispers coil through both realms. A guardian angel lingering too long in infernal company. An incubus Knight redirecting his power into protection instead of consumption. A bond forming that doesn’t violate law but skirts dangerously close to it.
Daveed feels the threat long before it arrives.
Rook does too.
One night, tangled together in sheets and quiet, Rook traces the line of Daveed’s jaw, thoughtful and afraid in equal measure. “If they decide I’m compromised—”
“I won’t let them take you,” Daveed says immediately.
Rook exhales, wings rustling faintly. “You don’t know what that would cost you.”
Daveed closes his eyes, pressing his forehead to Rook’s shoulder, breathing them in. Love hums through him—protective, resolute, unyielding.
“I do,” he says.
But for now, Rook is still an angel.
