Doink both in one post. Both start with a journal entry type thing so...those bits will be in italics?
They weren’t what I was expecting to find when Chaos sent me down to the cells. ‘Cells’ makes you expect murderers of some sort. Mutated, cruel individuals who shy away from kind words. Chaos had done nothing to alter my expectations, even when I asked.
My task was to find the two male occupants in the third cell down and ask them ‘how long’. Whether he was talking about their sentences or a piece of string I had no idea. His emerald eyes were bright as he wished me luck and so I had braced myself for danger.
What I hadn’t braced myself for was the shout as the door to the cell block slammed shut behind me.
“Hey, Kay, let us the fuck out of here already or I’m gonna rip your wings off. Got it?”
An American voice, somewhat low and brisk. I didn’t need to see this person to know that they were angry by nature. I kept walking, although my steps slowed.
“What he means,” chimed in a second voice, “is that this is the third time we’ve been here in two weeks. It’s not even Friday and I’ve got work in the morning. So a little haste would be appreciated.”
British, this time, fairly well spoken. There was something almost musical about this voice that made me feel as if I could listen to it all day. I kept walking, steps even slower than before. The stale air I was so used to seemed warmer here, somehow, ever since the second person had spoken.
“So if you could be a babe and hurry up, we’d really...”
I stopped in front of the cell. Silence.
There was a man standing by the bars, a redhead, all tanned skin and smiles. He blinked at me and I fought a strange urge to smile back. All I could see of the other prisoner was a dark huddled shape in the shadows of one corner. The shadow broke the mutually shocked silence first.
“Who the fuck is this kid? Where’s Kay?”
“Kay? What are you talking about?”
By the time Taivas had finished speaking, Blake had already mentally filed him as a moron and started muttering under his breath. While the leech did his best to pretend the newcomer didn’t exist, Phoenix tried to press closer to the bars.
Pretty was a word at the forefront of his mind. Although almost painfully young-looking, the youth on the other side of the bars was fascinating. His dark hair fell in waves to his shoulders, his clothes were heavy and worn. If it hadn’t been for the deep, blood-red tint to his eyes or the large ebony wings filling the corridor behind him, he would have looked just like any other elusive, troubled, forgettable teenager.
“Goth?” Phoenix asked, leaning one shoulder into the bars and grinning. Taivas blinked before finally allowing a scowl to darken his expression.
“The clothes and stuff,” Phoenix continued, using this as an excuse to look Taivas over again. “I like that kind of thing, actually, so-“
“Shut the fuck up,” Blake interrupted, clambering to his feet with a mildly sickened expression. “Are you really that desperate?”
As the leech approached the bars, Taivas took a step back. His expression was suddenly fearful, confused, and he turned his eyes quickly between the pair in the cell as if looking for something that wasn’t there. There was something wrong with the air around these two. He distantly registered them speaking as he tried to work it out.
“No, but I won’t let a good opportunity pass by if one presents itself to me.”
It wasn’t the auras that were wrong; they looked fine to him, even if he couldn’t read them yet. Something felt wrong…
“You’re disgusting, you know that? A kid and a nephilim? You’re sick.”
It was like a pull, from the redhead. The air was hot there, almost heavy and difficult to breathe. With the other it was more like a push, a cold rush of promised violence. Taivas had never felt anything like either. Chaos had to know about this. Why had he been sent down here? What was he supposed to be learning from this?
“Actually, I’m just more open minded than you.”
An idea. Taivas raised his voice before Blake could let loose a stream of insults.
Another surprised silence settled over the cell block. Thrown off track, Blake blinked and frowned at Taivas as if he had forgotten they had company.
“Annoyed,” he said at length. “Now either get us out of here or stop messing around and call Kay for us.”
“No, not that,” Taivas insisted, waving his hands around vaguely. “I mean…you’re not nephilim. And you’re not human. Are you?”
This was spoken in an undertone, as if he was afraid of even uttering such an assumption aloud. It was the sort of voice used for epiphany scenes in the sort of movies Blake hated. Taivas had the right attitude down perfectly, watching them nervously from beneath his eyelashes with an expression of extreme seriousness. The pair turned to look at one another, scarlet eyes meeting amber.
“No shit,” Blake said loudly, waiting just a moment to grin at Phoenix before turning back to the nephilim. “Nah, we’re totally normal, kid. That’s why we’re in here. That’s why-“
“Who are you?” Phoenix asked, cutting the leech off before he got too carried away and trying to give Taivas an encouraging smile. “I don’t mean to be rude but you’re new to this, aren’t you?”
Taivas shifted uncomfortably, clearly not sure whether he should be trusting them but wanting to anyway. He shoved his hands into his pockets and shrugged.
“The ‘too cool to care’ attitude looks shit on you,” Blake muttered. He was ignored by both.
“You’re young,” Phoenix said, counting on his fingers, “for a start. You obviously don’t know what we’re doing down here. You look like you expected us to be like you, in your minority group, or humans, who only end up here after they’ve gone through the whole dying process. That and…” He smirked. “You keep bumping your wings on the wall. Not used to them yet, are you?”
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“Give and take, babe. It’s all give and take.”
Give and take, huh? It’s been that way for years, since the night we met. It means that we give the other what he needs while taking everything we can and not feeling guilty about it. We can’t do that with anyone else.
Sounds neat and tidy when you put it like that. But it’s not that simple. We tell people it is and we pretend it is but it hasn’t been simple for years.
I give him my body, he gives me his blood. Right? That’s all we say and that’s all people know. But there’s more to it than that. Sometimes, it’s impossible to ignore. Those months were particularly bad, the time the kids were staying with us. We’d go up to a week without give and take because I didn’t want them to hear us. By the time I was shaking and smoking through all my money, he’d be close to throwing me against a wall every time we locked eyes. You could feel it in the air at times like that.
But when we did just give in and accept we weren’t getting our privacy back any time soon, none of it was simple at all. My body. His blood. And then there were my tears, his kisses, my nightmares, his gentle, frightening, dangerous words. During those nights, I did all the taking.
I have a problem, you see. A secret. Hell, sixteen years worth of secrets that I haven’t told anyone. I came close, once, after the fire, but even then it was too hard. Telling Phoe won’t make it better. Sure, keeping it all quiet burns me from the inside out but telling him won’t stop it from hurting. And he’ll hate me. Or, worse, pity me. I can’t deal with that. So instead of being a man and facing all the shit I work so hard to hide, I sometimes scream at the stars or shake so badly I can’t breathe or even make myself bleed until it all feels just like old times.
And none of that helps either. After two years in London, I’d started to think that I was totally and utterly fucked, that nothing would ever help. And then I spent a week with Phoe.
It’s sick, right? I’m more depraved than he is. But the truth is that sometimes the only way to make everything stop hurting is to let him do whatever the hell he wants to me. The world just … stops. It’s a high beyond anything I’ve ever taken and only a little more sinful.
He doesn’t know, I think. But he suspects. Because on those nights I end up crying. He’ll say nothing, just kiss and compliment me until it passes and I remember to tell him to shut up. I hate relying on one person so much. Whatever else I’ve been in my life I’d never been weak until I met him. I’d never had time.
Better to be weak than dead, I guess. I don’t think I’d believe that if it wasn’t the opposite of what I’d been taught was true.
That night, I think the kids heard us. When I finally left the bedroom to let the idiot sleep, they gave me a look. Not revulsion as I’d expected. Pity. And suddenly I felt nauseous all over again.
“So just stop now, okay? ‘Cause I hate to see you-“
“Enough. You’ve got to sleep.”
A rustle of sheets and half of the bed was left empty. Blake turned the pillow over before moving away, hiding the tear stains. Ignoring the crimson eyes searching his face for something, anything other than this flat denial of the last hour, the leech stepped away from the bed. Phoenix watched in silence as he found his gloves first, pulling them on and covering the ruined flesh before even looking for his jeans and shirt.
Closing his eyes so that he wouldn’t be able to see Blake’s expression as he left, Phoenix rolled onto his side and tried to work out exactly why he wasn’t angry. His arms ached from holding the other close, his own cheeks were wet with Blake’s tears.
“Don’t do anything stupid,” he murmured, hearing the door to the bedroom open.
A soft laugh in response was all that was given in way of a promise. It was good enough. After waiting a moment to make sure there were no other questions, the leech stepped out into the dimly lit hall and shut the door behind him. The television was on in the living room, volume down low. He wasn’t surprised when two heads peered around the doorframe as he walked past.
Amethyst had been the one to speak. A real angel. Knowing that if anyone in the flat could see exactly how he was feeling it would be the kids rather than himself, Blake hurried towards the door.
“I’m fine. Going out for a while.”
Air would help. A few hours to think and then back to living whatever this excuse for a life was, living to someone else’s plan. He ignored the start of an argument from the girl and pulled the door open, letting it slam into the wall.
