*They were used to blending in, years of being dead to all who knew them ensured that much.*
*Dead to the world, who knew them as an archangel, the giver of God’s messages to the living in the form of visions, an offshoot of communication as a whole. Dead to all of the people who asked for one more message, one vision, one sign that God still cared about them, because they couldn’t take the weight of it all anymore.*
*Dead to their family — their siblings, Father, and those they’d chosen. Who knew them as Remi, the foundation, the glue that held everyone together, every one of them clinging to them in different ways, each one begging for them to stay, each one of them relying on them too. The kids, the little three, a painful echo of the eldest three, all needed them all the time, and they couldn’t stand it any more. They felt bad for admitting it to themself, never mind the fact that they would never in a million years be able to admit it to any of them. It wasn’t their fault.*
*Dead to Heaven… that one stung, the fact that the orchestra they’d first put together all those years ago still ran through the same warmup they’d designed at three in the morning one sleepless night of many, a not-so-subtle tribute to them. The fact that the theatre they had started a lifetime ago was still running off of the investments they’d insisted on setting up, and their baby brother was a regular performer there stung too. *
*The fact that they had no reason to be here, this close to ruining everything they’d stayed hidden for, this close to turning back and begging to be let into their own family after running away so… selfishly. That was the problem, wasn’t it? They always were selfish.*
*It was selfish to want to go back. After everyone had mourned them. *
*And yet… Here they were, walking the streets they knew as well as the scars covering their skin, heading to the theatre they’d built from scrap bricks, the theatre they knew that one of their siblings would be inside. *
*At least one of their siblings.*
*This was a bad idea.*
*This was a very bad idea.*
*They stepped over the threshold, and the wards, old and worn and cracked like old paint, rushed over them. ‘Welcome home’ it said, the magic theirs and oh-so-familiar, and cold… like life itself was injected into their veins and waking them up from a sleep they hadn’t even realised they’d fallen into.*
*Yeah, this was still a bad idea, but they’d heard the rumble of chatter through the cherubim, those few that still existed at least. They needed to see for themself, just in and out.*
*Just… one minute. It’d be easy enough to prove, look at the box or the front row and it’s done, and they can leave, go back to their… death. Being dead. There was no way anyone would be able to recognise them. They were more grey and brown than ginger now, and they had to wear glasses, and they didn’t have the energy to smile, not like they used to.*
*They weren’t like they used to be, in many ways, Remiel the Perfect Archangel was dead. He- they- it- the mask died. Years ago. When their siblings were still young.*
*They didn’t mean to cause all of their siblings to resent one another, but they certainly hadn’t done anything to stop it.*
*The door thrums with magic, their own, and countless others’, and swings open easily, silently. Just enough for a quick look. That’s all. They knew they were lying to themself.*
*Still, they walked down an aisle enough to glimpse the front row, scanning for empty seats. There are none. That should be enough. They should leave… but their eyes flit to the stage anyway — the stage they built with their friends, which had undoubtedly been replaced plank by plank as the old ones wore out, the curtains they’d first repurposed ship sails to make now a dark velvet, pulled back to the sound of the orchestra they’d put together. They feel tears prick their eyes as they turn on their heel and walk back out.*
*They walk hurriedly to an alley and dry-heave as their breaths come too fast and their vision blurs with the tears trailing down their face, down on all fours as their surroundings shift and shake around themself, and bile burns their throat.*
*Against their better judgment, they wait in that alleyway for hours that pass like minutes, leaned against the wall of a building that was once a clothes shop but now stands empty. It had likely stood empty for some time, they knew the owner of the shop all those years ago… they’d seen her yesterday, in fact, and this morning before they’d left the house.*
*They wouldn’t trade the life they’d build in the shadow cast by their death for anything. And yet here they were. This was stupid, so very stupid, Netzach would surely have issue with this if either of them were in their right minds. But they weren’t. She wasn’t. They both had a burning desire to come back to what they’d created so long ago, to spend time around the echoes, the children and grandchildren of their friends, their families.*
*It was cowardly to run like they had… but it was more selfish to come back like this.*
*Remiel was… is dead.*
*But they were never all that creative when it came to names, so Remi now stands in the exact spot Remiel used to sneak to see their partner in. Remi waited, though the old part of their soul that still was a brother, a son, a friend screamed at him to leave before it was too late. They weren’t any of that and yet they were, and Remi could only shy away from who they were for so long before it was time to step out of the shadow they themself had casted in their death.*
*And, like a coward, they waited to be seen.*
( @angels-maybe )
