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epiphanyx7Length: One-shot
Rating: not for children
Summary: “I could be a demon, too, if I wanted to.” Rodney confided.
Warnings: Whump
Notes: This story refused to be a cracky piece about two baby angels playing on a cloud. It’s also longer than I expected.
*
The alley is cold, and dark. John has never been cold before; he’s never been left alone before either. There are too many things, all new, all frightening, and John doesn’t know if he can deal because he’s never been frightened, before.
The alley is dark, damp, cold. Grime coats the ground, smothers the dark walls of the buildings on either side of him. There’s a dumpster somewhere behind him, the alley smells like sweat and rot, like someone’s pissed in the corner, like something died in the dumpster.
He doesn’t know if anyone is going to come and get him. If they didn’t, he wouldn’t be surprised. They were like that.
He doesn’t like being alone, but it doesn’t really bother him either. He doesn’t mind being alone, doesn’t mind being cold and in the dark. He concentrates on that, because it isn’t that bad, and if he doesn’t think about the cold or the dark or the moisture in the air, he’ll think about the other stuff. The stuff he does mind, the stuff that makes him feel bad.
They never wanted me anyway, he thinks, so this is better. Its better, it has to be, because I didn’t fit in and they didn’t want me there.
He forces himself to breathe deeply, even though he doesn’t need to.
The shadows stretch on into infinity, and that isn’t comforting at all. Before, he’d been warm, and happy. John is cold, is shivering in the night, and he feels naked and afraid. His back hurts.
He pushes a hand into the shadows and pulls it back, draws out the shadow and the night-time behind it. It’s a crude sort of covering, but he doesn’t want to go to the Other Place naked and pathetic. He doesn’t want his father to be ashamed of him, too.
John hurts, too. His back itches and burns, but there isn’t any more blood. He clutches a small handful of white feathers tightly, so tightly that his fingernails dig into his palms and draw blood, but he doesn’t care. When a feather falls, it fades to dust and mist, and he doesn’t want to lose these. He wants to remember, even though it hurts.
He feels lighter than he used to, can feel the itching and the burning near his shoulder blades subside. It’s gone, now, and he takes a moment to miss what used to be there. It isn’t fair, he thinks, but things are never going to be fair. It hurts to think about it, that he’ll never be able to fly, so he tries to concentrate on the cold and the fear and the loneliness.
There’s another hurt, too, and that’s the reason that John digs his fingernails even deeper into his palm and bites his lip. He doesn’t cry, although his eyes burn, too, but he doesn’t cry because he’s not weak, he’s not sad, he is angry. And it doesn’t matter, they left him here, he’s been abandoned by his mother and his friends and everyone who was ever supposed to take care of him.
He holds onto the feathers tightly.
They didn’t want me, anyway.
*
The playground was on a large, fluffy white cloud.
The slide was a rainbow, the sandbox was filled with gold dust, but otherwise it was exactly the same as any other playground. Children, chubby and rosy-cheeked from sunlight and exertion, ran in circles, laughing. They wore white and blue robes over white and blue clothes, almost blending in with the cloud and the sky behind them. Tiny wings, about six inches long, spread and fluttered from their backs.
One dark-haired cherub was sitting near the edge of the cloud, biting his lip and staring out into the sky. He looked about seven years old. He pulled a small tuft of white and threw it into the air, watching it disintegrate and float away. The other children smiled and waved hello at him, but made no effort to invite him to play with them. His wings were black, where theirs were white.
They didn’t like him.
The wind ruffled his feathers and his hair, and he smiled for a second, looked up, into the bright blue sky.
A blond-haired, blue-eyed cherub, smaller, looking like the world’s most smug five-year-old, somersaulted through the air. His fluttering white wings, dusted with gold, providing just enough lift for him to divert gravity for a short while. He rolled to a gentle stop at the loner’s feet, laughing.
“Hi.” He said.
“Hey.”
“Why aren’t you playing?”
“I don’t feel like it.”
“Okay!” the blond cherub beamed. “I’ll not feel like it, too! My name is Mer-e-dith Rod-ney. You can call me Rodney. My mom says that none of the others want to be your friend because your father is from the Other Place and that nobody knows if you want to stay Up Here or not.”
“My name is John.” The dark haired one replied, finishing the introduction.
“My mom says that you could be a demon if you wanted to.” Rodney said.
John shrugged. “I like it up here.” He said, looking out over the edge of the playground and into the sky.
“I could be a demon, too, if I wanted to.” Rodney confided. His voice was hushed, his eyes sparkling. “See?” He concentrated for a moment, and then his wings darkened, iron-grey instead of white. His hair lost its shine, and his eyes turned almost black. “Boo.” He said.
John grinned, impressed.
Tiring, Rodney let his wings fade back to white. “I’m not supposed to, yet, but I’m learning how to fly.” Rodney said. He jumped into the air, furiously pumping his tiny wings. He hovered for two seconds before he fell, and then he laughed with delight. “I can see Earth!” he declared.
John stood up and peered over the edge of the cloud. “There’s just another cloud down there.” He said.
“No. Jump higher, then you’ll see!”
*
Young angels do nothing but play for a thousand years.
This is so that they will always understand joy, friendship, and love.
*
“What happens when we’re finished playing?” John asked.
“They’ll give you your wings and break your heart and give you a job that you won’t like.” Rodney answered, dipping his hands into a stream of light.
“Really?” John said. “That doesn’t sound very fun.”
“My mom says that it’s what makes us grown-up.” Rodney said.
“My mom says that you need to stop telling me what your mom says.” John countered.
“My mom says that your mom needs to mind her own business.” Rodney stuck out his tongue.
“Hey! My mom said the same thing!” John laughed.
*
John was hovering in the air, his face turned to the sunlight. His left hand was clamped down on the corner of the cloud, holding him in place even though his wings weren’t strong enough for him to fly. He looked older, a solemn and mature nine.
“John.” Rodney was only half-off the cloud himself. His wings, a full 12 inches long now, were stronger than John’s, but he wouldn’t throw himself into the sky. “John. Don’t go so far out.”
John sighed and then pulled himself closer to the cloud, balancing himself on one foot and leaning into the wind. “Rodney, look!” He shrieked excitedly. “An airplane! Oh, I wish I could fly.”
“Well you’re almost seven hundred.” Rodney replied. “And three hundred more years isn’t that long to wait. Then, you can fly as much as you want.”
John shook his head. “Nah, I’d wait for you. It wouldn’t be much fun to fly all by myself.”
Rodney looked surprised. “Really? You’d wait two hundred more years?”
Shrugging, John jumped back onto the cloud. “Sure.”
*
Demons don’t have children. They can not create life. Demons are born when an angel falls from grace, falls from heaven.
Sometimes, an angel and a demon, together, can create life, have a child. And the child is an angel, as well. Their colouring is dark, not fair as most angels are. Their wings are black, while most angels’ are white. Their soul, however, is still pure.
The child of an angel is always an angel.
*
Rodney was taking handfuls of gold dust and throwing them over the side of the cloud, and John watched him for a few hours before he finally asked. “What are you doing?”
“My…” Rodney paused. “Well. I heard that if you throw something sparkly over the edge of the cloud, it will float down to Earth and turn into a moment of happiness.”
John jumped, letting the wind carry him over to where Rodney was perched.
He’d stuffed his pockets full of gold, and when that wasn’t enough, he made a pouch out of the front of his tunic and filled that, too. He was currently holding a tiny pinch of dust in his small hand, letting it float away gently on the breeze.
“Yeah?” John asked.
“Yeah.” Rodney said. “I don’t know if it’s true. I mean, I just wanted to test. Because that’s how you know something’s true, you know. If you test it.”
“Right.” John stole a pinch of gold and sprinkled it into the empty space at the edge of the cloud. “So we’re making humans happy?”
“Just for a moment.” Rodney said. “I think my mom’s wrong, I don’t think the sparkly does anything at all – but it still counts, somehow. Like if we try hard enough to make some humans happy, then they will be, even if there wasn’t any sparkly at all.”
“Are we gonna get in trouble for this?” John asked, taking a handful from Rodney.
“Probably.” Rodney said cheerfully, his blue eyes winking at John.
Laughing, John threw another handful into the air. “Awesome.”
*
There was no rainbow on the playground at night, but the cloud was soft and warm and the stars were bright, so John made himself comfortable, pushing at the cloud until it made him a little chair.
“Are you sure?” He whispered to Rodney, who had been his friend for over four hundred years.
“Yes.” Rodney whispered back. “It’s always this time at night, when we’re supposed to be asleep but aren’t ‘cause our parents let us stay up. Just watch.”
They stayed mostly silent, although they shifted positions a bit and peered up at the light in the sky.
It was a Halo ceremony, and they’d occurred every night for as long as Rodney could remember. Every day, an angel turned one thousand years old. And every night, that angel received his or her wings and halo.
Tonight, it was Sam-antha, who cried with joy when her halo was put on her head. John and Rodney watched two older angels walk with her as she left. “Walk down to earth, and fly back to Heaven on new wings.” Gabriel said softly as he touched her face.
“Why do they always leave to get their wings?” John asked. “Why can’t they give her new wings Up Here?”
Rodney shrugged. “She has to get her heart broken, and that can only happen on Earth.” He said. “That’s why they fly down with her.
John thought about this. “What does ‘broken’ mean?” He asked.
“I don’t know.” Rodney shrugged, standing up and dusting the moonlight off of his clothes. “Hey, wanna see if we can chase the moonlight into the sunrise?”
*
“You’re it!” John ruffled Rodney’s feathers with his left hand, and propelled himself up into the air. He still wasn’t big enough to fly, but he’d practiced beating his wings so much that he could hover in place for several minutes. Pushing off of the rainbow, he launched himself sideways, narrowly avoiding collision with a younger cherub.
Shrieking with laughter, Rodney followed his erratic path through the air. He wasn’t as skilled as John in his manoeuvring, but his wings were stronger and he caught a slight breeze, using it to push himself faster.
Stretching out his hand, he’d almost touch John’s wing when suddenly a voice – bright as sunlight and loud as thunder – yelled “JOHN.”
Spreading his wings, Rodney stopped himself, and looked around. A rightly glowing figure, clothed in light and music, stood at the far end of the playground.
John, spinning to avoid Rodney, tried to stop and lost control. He spiralled downwards, and spread his wings to try and slow down. Instead, the wind snapped him up.
John reached to grab a hold of the cloud, but it wasn’t there.
Rodney screamed. “JOHN!” And then he was running, running towards John and the edge of the cloud. He spread his wings and ran, ran into open air where the wind didn’t do what he wanted it to, and he pumped his wings and reached towards his friend.
Struggling against the wind, John hovered a few metres away, so Rodney pumped his wings faster, reached further, willed himself to catch his friend.
Their hands touched. “Fly!” Rodney yelled. “John, fly back!”
John’s eyes were wide. He gasped, holding on to Rodney’s hand as if it were the only thing in the world.
“John, fly!” Rodney screamed, pulling him back towards the cloud.
John tried. His wings, already tired, gave out.
He started to fall.
Rodney held on.
Screaming as his wings tried to catch the air, lifting his own weight and John’s as well; Rodney tried to bring them closer to the cloud. The wind fought them. He strained to fly higher, but he could only hover in place. He couldn’t get closer to the cloud, couldn’t fly higher. Rodney tried anyway, because he had to. He couldn’t let go.
And then Rodney’s wings collapsed under the strain.
They both fell.
*
Rodney tried to remember the fall, but he couldn’t. What he remembered was the wind, shrieking past his ears; he remembered his wings and his back hurting, hurting far worse than anything he could have imagined. He remembered John, because John was there and they’d held on to each other.
Rodney had never been hurt, before, had never been away from the cloud or his mother, but John was with him, so he wasn’t afraid.
When they finally landed, Rodney was alone. He couldn’t find John. He was lying on his side in an alley, covered in dirt and grime, and he was by himself.
“John?” He said. He forced himself to stand. His voice sounded higher, more fragile than he thought it should, so he tried again. “John?”
“I’m over here.” John replied, his voice coming from deeper in the alley.
Rodney turned and looked, but couldn’t see his friend. He walked back towards the other end of the alley, away from the fading sunlight. “There you are.”
John was curled up, his head pressed against the wall.
His back was a bloody, terrifying mess, and Rodney felt ill when he looked at it. There was blood, and that wasn’t right, because angels didn’t bleed, this wasn’t supposed to happen. Why was he bleeding? Rodney crouched next to him.
A passerby would have noticed them right away, a ten-year old boy and a twelve-year old boy, both clean and beautiful, one covered in blood.
No one passed by, no one noticed them.
Reaching behind him, Rodney grabbed a hold of one wing and pulled. He could feel the feathers pulling, felt a short spike of pain and then he had a handful of his own feathers. He didn’t like pain, it hurt, it felt awful, but it was worth it when he pressed the feathers to John’s bleeding back and the blood stopped. Rodney patted the feathers, sticky and red with blood now, into John’s skin and then reached behind him, pulling out more. It hurt even more this time, but he didn’t care, because it was helping John, and that was more important. John’s wings were bloody and torn; he looked as if he couldn’t move them.
“It’s going to be okay.” Rodney said. Of this, he was certain.
John smiled at him, but didn’t say anything.
“They’ll be here any minute.” Rodney said. “And they’ll take us home.” Rodney finished healing John’s cuts, and smoothed down the feathers of his night-black wings.
*
Hours later, it was cold in the alley. The sunlight they’d worn before was gone, and Rodney had woven a thin blanket of moonlight to keep them warm, reinforcing it with the flickering weak glow of the street lamps.
There was no glowy, showy entrance. Instead, there was no one in the alley before, and then there was one other person, wearing music and starlight and the aurora borealis.
“Gabrielle?” Rodney said. His eyes burned in the sudden light. “Are you here to take us home?”
She smiled, slowly, a sad smile that Rodney had seen before, although he wasn’t sure what it meant. “I am here to take you home, Rodney.”
He went limp, suddenly, with exhaustion or relief or something else, and she came closer and gathered him up in her arms, warming him up.
John stumbled to his feet.
“I’m sorry, John.” Gabrielle said. “I am so sorry.”
“What?” Rodney asked.
Closing his eyes, John bit his lip.
“John.” Gabrielle stepped closer. “I wish it didn’t have to be this way.”
“What?” Rodney asked. “What’s going on?”
“I cannot take him with us.” Gabrielle said.
“No.” Rodney protested. He pushed at Gabrielle until she let him go, landing in a heap on the ground. He pulled himself to his feet, turned and stared at the angel in front of him. “He’s coming with us, Gabrielle.”
“No.”
“Why not?” Rodney demanded. “Why are you taking me back and not him? What did he do?”
“He Fell, Rodney.” Gabrielle said. “I’m sorry. I wish it didn’t have to be this way, but he Fell. He fell from heaven. He doesn’t belong there any more.”
The boys were both silent.
“He fell, and you tried to save him, and he pulled you down to earth.” Gabrielle said. “But you didn’t Fall, you only tried to help him. And that is why I am taking you back. That is why you can go home, but he cannot.”
“So you’re going to leave him?” Rodney turned and looked at John. “You’re going to leave him alone? Send him to the Other Place?”
“It’s okay, Rodney.” John whispered. “It’s okay.”
“It’s not okay.” Rodney said. “It is not okay, John. It is not okay, Gabrielle. I won’t let you leave him here all alone. I won’t let you send him away. He’s my friend!”
“He will be taken care of.” Gabrielle told him. “It has been arranged.”
“He will be alone.” Rodney replied. “You have arranged to abandon him.” Rodney had never before understood what those words meant. It was like fear. It wasn’t supposed to happen, not to angels, not to him, not to his friends.
Gabrielle was silent.
“I won’t let you do that.” He said. “I can’t… I can’t leave him. If you’re sending him away, you have to send me away too.” He raised his chin, stared defiantly at her. His heart beat loudly, hammering against his ribcage, but he knew that he was doing the right thing. It’s okay to be afraid. He thought to himself. It’s going to be okay.
The angel smiled the sad smile again. “You cannot go with him.” She said. “You are not meant for the Other Place, Rodney.”
The sky, already black, darkened. “I could be a demon, if I wanted to.” Rodney growled. “I don’t want to go Up There without my friend!” His hands shook. His wings flickered from white, to dark grey, and then turned a dark, glossy black. Rodney’s hair, his eyes, darkened until they, too, were the deep and dark black of the empty night sky. His face flushed, and he pulled shadows from the side of the alley, wrapping himself in darkness instead of light.
“Hell will not take you.” Gabrielle said.
“Rodney, don’t!” John sobbed. He wiped tears from his cheeks and then threw himself at his smaller friend. “Don’t. Rodney.”
The instant John touched him, Rodney’s wings flared white again, stretching and becoming longer, stronger. His hair, platinum blond before, was now a deep gold. His eyes, wet with tears, glowed a deep and brilliant blue as he held on to John and cried.
“I don’t want to leave you.” Rodney said. Tears streamed down his face, littered the alley floor like soft and liquid diamonds.
“It’ll be fine.” John whispered, his hands tightening around Rodney. He held tightly.
“I’m sorry, John.” Gabrielle said. “We have to leave you now.” She pressed a kiss to his palm. “Goodbye.”
“No!” Rodney screamed, holding on to his friend. “No, no! You can’t make me, I don’t want to leave him!”
Gabrielle pulled him away, ignoring his hiccupping sobs of pain as handfuls of feathers were pulled from his wings. She gathered him in her arms and looked up at the sky. Her wings flared brilliant and white behind her, and she pulled Rodney with her.
Rodney clutched his hand around a handful of black feathers, disintegrating and fading in his hands even as he tried to save them, and he cried.
The alley is cold, and dark. John has never been cold before; he’s never been left alone before either. There are too many things, all new, all frightening, and John doesn’t know if he can deal because he’s never been frightened, before.
The alley is dark, damp, cold. Grime coats the ground, smothers the dark walls of the buildings on either side of him. There’s a dumpster somewhere behind him, the alley smells like sweat and rot, like someone’s pissed in the corner, like something died in the dumpster.
John doesn’t make a sound, doesn’t move. He crouches in the shadows and he waits, and waits, and waits.
He doesn’t like being alone, but it doesn’t really bother him either. He doesn’t mind being alone, doesn’t mind being cold and in the dark. He concentrates on that, because it isn’t that bad, and if he doesn’t think about the cold or the dark or the moisture in the air, he’ll think about the other stuff. The stuff he does mind, the stuff that makes him feel bad.
They never wanted me anyway, he thinks, so this is better. Its better, it has to be, because I didn’t fit in and they didn’t want me there.
He forces himself to breathe deeply, even though he doesn’t need to.
The shadows stretch on into infinity, and that isn’t comforting at all. Before, he’d been warm, and happy. John is cold, is shivering in the night, and he feels naked and afraid. His back hurts.
He pushes a hand into the shadows and pulls it back, draws out the shadow and the night-time behind it. It’s a crude sort of covering, but he doesn’t want to go to the Other Place naked and pathetic. He doesn’t want his father to be ashamed of him, too.
John hurts, too. His back itches and burns, but there isn’t any more blood. He clutches a small handful of white feathers tightly, so tightly that his fingernails dig into his palms and draw blood, but he doesn’t care. When a feather falls, it fades to dust and mist, and he doesn’t want to lose these. He wants to remember, even though it hurts.
He holds onto the feathers tightly.
They didn’t want me, anyway.
*
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Date: 2009-07-27 11:20 am (UTC)I hope I already commented on how warm and fluffy this fic made me feel (and the sad ending!, want sequel NOW) because I read it before, once, or twice, or three times...