Angels + Humans (a hush, hush fanfiction)

This was a silence that Nikki had never known before. She had tried to justify the fact that maybe this silence was a sign for her—a sign from whatever god-damned higher power—to give up. To stop fighting. A battle—that was never really hers to fight. She had not chosen this life. To live like this. To feel like this. But in the end, it was a war all the same, raging from the inside as well as the outside.

In hopes of stopping the cracking and breaking of her own heart, she crossed her arms across her chest to no avail. She stared out at what seemed to be a barren wasteland to most; Kenai, Alaska. Nothing but hills of white that flattened out for miles upon miles. To Nikki though, it was anything but bare. This flat, unappealing amount of land sprawled out in a thick never ending desert was filled with memories. Some memories were the greatest in her existence as a human being—a pathetic being, she liked to say—the majority of her memories were breathtaking to be exact. But with these memories, came a painful emptiness that she no longer had the strength to repress.

It had taken so much out of Nikki to accept the fact that the rest of the world had moved on; that she did not remember what it was like to be happy anymore—to be strong enough to go on. She had gone through the stage where she had blamed the world, everyone around her; she even got to blaming the one who had broken her heart—but in the end, the fault would always be hers. For being so stupid and falling for someone who could never completely be there for her.

Frustration built up inside of her, guilt racking up and boiling her blood until she thought she would explode with nothing but hot blood; but she calmed herself. She calmed herself by fingering her ring that sat with a pathetic memory of a ring finger, glistening in a way that she herself did not know how.

Some stupid angel voodoo shit. She thought to herself, wincing at the word.

Angel. They were supposed to be good. And they were—she had been witness to that—until they left you, brokenhearted, used, empty.

She leaned forward against the balcony rails, and out at the dark sky as the colours began to whip back and forth, flow like the river, and snake along the sky. The aurora borealis.

Do you remember this, Nikki? She enjoyed torturing herself with the memory of what used to be. Do you remember how cheesy this night was? How you said ‘yes’ without even thinking about how he would be gone soon anyways? Do you remember how stupid you were that night?

She would fail to admit that it had been the best night of her life.

---

“Azarath,” the voice came from the shadows, but he knew immediately who the voice belonged to. Nobody could sneak up upon him as easily as his brother could.

“Patch,” he gave no indication of his ‘enthusiasm’ in seeing his brother. “Fancy seeing you here.”

The light chuckle escaped from the angel’s lips and he proceeded to take a seat beside Azarath, who was staring intently down at earth, his eyes focused far too long on a certain place, a certain person, in fact.

“I could say the same,” Patch’s arm went around Azarath to give him a light pat on the back. “Welcome back, brother.”

Azarath only nodded in response before he pulled away from his brother’s embrace. It was not a gesture of disgust, more so discomfort. Was it true that despite the fact that he was back—home—that it would no longer feel as it did before rebellion? He wanted to be back. Patch had done it before. He had become a Fallen—but he did not miss life down there as Azarath did because he was now a Guardian. But for Azarath, it was different. Life down there—it had been blissful, not filled with darkness as they rumoured it to be. Up here, it felt right on many levels; a life that he had learned that he could not live without; but it felt too wrong here. Something was missing.

His thoughts immediately fell distant, his mind drifting off to a better place (what place could be better than Heaven?), no pain, nothing but smiles, warmth, and someone who just wanted to be held and told she was beautiful—in such a paradise, nobody would expect him to be anyone but himself.

The memory was so fresh in his mind that he felt her memory reach out to touch his fingertips with her own while his eyes scanned up her translucent figure and meet her eyes, and see the lips that formed into a smile—her smile. He had kissed her lips, and from her lips had been born the ultimate desire for her to be his. He had learned far too quickly how the essence of love could make him delirious.

From there, those thoughts only turned for the worst. His memories as an angel came back in full blasts, enveloping his mind into a deep ocean that he could not escape—his memories of her were so strong that he did not try to fight them. He told himself that he should have fought them; to suppress her memory further into the back of his mind where he would never see her face again, but in the end, Azarath was far too desperate to actually give a shit. Her memory was all he had left—it was all far too precious for him to let go now.

His hand reached out to touch her hand, circle around her wrist before tracing up to run across her arm. He heard her giggle, the laugh that escaped her impulsive lips with a strong ring. It echoed in his ear and ricocheted to his heart, squeezing it as tightly as she did when they had departed, begging him not to leave. He felt himself wince, but it did nothing—it was not a physical pain—this pain was his own personal punishment. One he was willing to accept.

Once his hand reached out to touch her cheek, their lips had already met, and he felt himself immediately tense. The memory was far too strong for him to pull back now—but this time he was fighting not to remember such a touch. He wanted to pull away from her and sever all his feelings he’d had for her, just like Patch had done. He had made it seem so easy when in reality—it was so damn hard.

Her touch underneath his fingertips could have brought him to tears—if he could cry anymore. He could close his eyes and trace his fingers along her skin and know where he had touched, where he had kissed, and where they had touched. He knew her. He knew her far too well for his own good.

“Do you?”

He found her asking these questions often. It wasn’t anything new to him—humans asked far too many questions—stupid ones, might he add. But her questions had not been. Hers had reason, because she rarely spoke her mind to him. Could he blame her? She doubted him, his existence, his capability of love for her. She was right to question everything that he was doing—everything he had done.

“That’s a silly question,” Actually, it wasn’t. “Of course I do.”

“More than Heaven?”

There was a pause. And within that pause, he had let doubt cloud her judgment. Within that pause—no more than a split second—he had allowed their idea of a future to die. He had allowed himself the benefit of the doubt as he had allowed this split second of space come between them and sever the ties that they had been already trying so hard to hold onto.

So he said the thing he always said when he had no answer. When he did not want to say anything at all. When no words could explain how he felt—when his mind was filled with no words at all.

“I don’t know, Nikki.”

In that moment, he had failed to admit the reasoning to why he said he didn’t know. There were far too many. He was exhausted because he no longer wished to explain his complicated mindset. He failed to acknowledge the fact that although Heaven was where he ‘belonged’, she was where home was.

But I know I need you.