Darkness sighs into the right wing. Display lights that bend around the marble sculptures cast a caramel glow in the belly of shadow, stopping just before a mural where a small mahogany viewing bench lies a breath beyond its grasp. Footsteps. In the hollows there are two, maybe three but underlying the prominence of only one, of which belongs to a janitor hurrying to escort himself out, eager to return home after a long day. Minutes after the door closes behind said gentleman do the remaining two amplify in the face of solitude, melting into something comfortable and lazy, reverberating off of the plaster then stopping abruptly in time with each other. As they always do because this isn’t the first time nor certainly is it the last that sin and savior meet after closing when the sun isn’t exposing their secrets and eyes have somewhere else to look, when they’re nothing but two make-pretend individuals with the world revolving under their feet. There’s a subtle noise of rustling fabric that breaks the still, moments gone without a sound, suddenly rippled at the surface in preparation for whatever would proceed it. The angel’s wings tug in tight to his back, falling humbly behind him where the lowest feathers dare to hover just above the floor, nearly touching.
“Evening,” he offers and finds a seat at the edge of the bench, bare ankles crossing and the firm, inky black of the suit he’s wearing appears just a bit more tired around the hems, wrinkling under his weight and yielding to the fold of his legs. He presses back into the paneled expanse of the support behind him, each slot of space creasing into his spine. Truly, the simplicity of it makes him out to be as human and as palpable as every person who’s taken this spot before but there are details that cannot be dismissed; crystalline hues that have lost their saturation, tracing bedtime stories into the paintings while simultaneously sinking into that telltale distance that would make it appear as if he were looking at nothing in particular, floating past an unreachable place in his mind where the archives are kept under lock. It’s not about the wings but the avant gaurde hair and how it’s stripped of its pigment, falling limp and shattered over his forehead. It’s not about the wings but the inexpressible way he folds in on himself when people aren’t watching, even if it’s not with his entire body. It’s not about the wings but they’re an undeniable presence between them, placing a larger divide on a smaller scale. There’s always been a polarity but visually it’s never been more present then when they’re like this, next to each other, living in the dying embers of trivial moments, writing their names in succession; right now it’s Chastity with an abrupt punctuation, red ink dribbling into a bead upon parchment. Chastity an exclamation. A headline. An ending signature.
He exhales then, in a way that would make it feel as if he’s been holding his breath for years, ribs creaking when his chest falls back into rhythm. Never has he been very good at hiding how exhausted he is from expending his energy on tasks he once could only imagine partaking in. The reality of flesh and bone and using it to assimilate into society is one that even decades cannot ease him into. Chanyeol knows this, he believes. Somewhere he thinks not much is different for them, but the thought is muted by what’s been instilled — they are not like his kind. There’s a war. There’s a war and he’s sitting in the Grecian art section of a vacated museum with a soldier from the other side like some anticlimactic cliche — this isn’t the first time he’s questioned the reliability of his better judgement, but he thinks that if he were to foolishly die at the hands of darkness if darkness held melted onyx in their eyes and the warmth of hell at the gate of their lips, then perhaps he was not meant to live alongside it. Danger does not only exist in toeing the lines between their factions, it thrives regardless if they’re shedding blood or sharing tea. Trust is a fragile word between beings like them, but Kris would use it when explaining the fine text. To trust that there are greater things than rivalry, that even though it will be what consumes them in the end, it does not confine them in the days between.
