#the way vi was still herself after liliths death

[bookdragon-shenanigans]

ONYX STORM SPOILERS

Something something about how it's said that a riders first love is their dragon and something something about the way Violet refused to give into grief over other events in the series but completely spirals after andarna leaves

[bottleofspilledink]

God's Watching, Put on a Show || Chapter VI

"Hold on, I'll open the garage for you."

Lilith watched as Eve gingerly got off the bike and undid the latch on their fence, scurrying inside.

The two minutes she was gone felt like an eternity of waiting and unbearable silence, but then again, she always felt that way when left alone with her thoughts.

At least this time she had better thoughts to think.

In the quiet, Lilith could still feel the girl's soft, breathy laughter ringing in her ear.

Her shoulder was warm where Eve had pressed her cheek, the white fabric clinging to her skin. While she couldn't see it, she knew the previously pristine fabric that lay straight on her back had been wrinkled by their constant shifting, warm bodies rubbing together with ever gentle sway and cautious turn of the bike.

Each and every one of these thoughts fought to be at the forefront of her mind, til finally, one won.

"Eve has freckles."

The image of Eve's rosy cheek and the side of her small, straight nose, captured only in quick, sidelong glances when her eyes would occasionally flicker over, emerged, clear and vivid like a newly development photograph.

Later, on her ride home, she would sigh and lament her lack of company, thoughts returning to, and longing for Eve.

Her warmth.

Her laugh.

Her hands.

But that was for later.

"Come on in!" Eve said, raising the garage door with a playful flair.

"You can put your bike in here while we're inside."

"Thanks." She didn't know what to say. Lilith honestly hadn't planned this far. Really, all she had hoped for was a few extra minutes with the girl by the bike rack.

"Sorry I took so long," Eve began, "I had to tell mom that I was having a friend over, then she saw my knees, then she saw my hands, and I got myself an earful."

"Crap, really?"

"She doesn't want me using my bike anymore, says I'm too old to be getting my knees scrapped like a kid."

"Doesn't she know that accidents happen?" Lilith kneeled down to disconnect their bikes, fingers tracing mindlessly over the heated metal chains. "Not that it's any of my business, but your mom's acting like she's never been a kid before."

Eve shrugged, "I mean, even if I didn't get into an accident, she'll always find something to say about my bike."

"Why's that?"

"She doesn't like when I ride my bike. Says my legs will get muscles and my veins might show. Says that if I fall I could end up with scars."

"Would that be the end of the world?"

Lilith began to slowly unwind the chain, more careful than she would have otherwise been.

She just wanted a few more moments alone with Eve.

Just a few more.

"That's what I'm telling her!" Eve sighed, slumping down against the garage wall. "But I get where she's coming from; no man wants some buff girl with scars all over her body for a wife."

"So what?" She stood up, whipping her head around to face Eve.

"A few scars here and there won't turn you into some fucking spinster. And even if it did, you're better off alone than with some asshole who'll divorce you as soon as you get wrinkles."

Lilith spoke with a passion she knew she shouldn't be revealing, not to Eve, not until she was certain of her safety.

But she couldn't stop herself.

Just the thought of Eve, kind, compassionate, caring, timid yet witty Eve getting kicked to the curb the moment she was deemed undesirable filled her with this visceral rage she knew she had no right to feel.

Before she realized, before she could stop herself, despite wanting nothing more than to continue, Lilith was next to Eve, clutching her hands as if they were gold.

(And maybe they were worth just that to her. Perhaps even more.)

"You deserve better than that."

The words were out of her mouth in an instant. And while she couldn't take back the tender tone with which she spoke, she could at least be grateful she hadn't said more.

To Lilith's surprise, instead of recoiling with shock and disgust, the girl her squeezed back gently, a smile slowly making it's way onto her features.

"Thanks for the concern, Lilith, really." Eve let go of her hands and took a small step back, an indescribable look appearing in her usually cheerful, brown eyes.

"But I'll be fine."

It was then that Lilith recognized what she saw in Eve's eyes. For it was a look she had seen on herself not too long ago.

Denial.

Desperation.

Anguish.

And... yearning?

What Eve yearned so desperately for, however, she had no clue. Maybe freedom? From her mother, from the life that her mother wanted for her?

"Or maybe..."

No. She refused to finish the thought, unwilling to face another heartbreak so soon after the last.

"I know that God has a plan for me and I know in my mind that if I accept him as my divine ruler, he'll lead me to the right man."

If she weren't utterly crushed, Lilith would have laughed, either out of pity or the burden of knowing the three possibilities that awaited the poor girl before her.

Death by her own hand due to fear, due to sorrow, due to desperation or death by some sick "therapy" that was meant to cure this "ailment" that plagued her.

Misery in a loveless marriage, wasting away with some man she would never be able to love more than a friend, that is, if she was granted the small mercy that was a husbands she didn't completely loathe.

Or she could break away. She could accept who she was and run, never to look back.

Lilith could only hope Eve wouldn't perish too much.

"Anyways, let's go inside. My schedule's in there already."

"Okay."

...

The softness of Lilith's hands were mesmerizing, and Eve longed to run her fingers over her palm, tracing and feeling every indent, crevice, and vein til she could close her eyes and picture them exactly as they were, the warmth that came from her hands nearly making her own melt into it's touch.

But Eve looked temptation in the eyes and denied it, gently prying her hands from it's clutches and making her way back to the path the Lord intended her to take...

No matter how reluctant she was to do so.

She and Lilith were quiet til they reacher her room, their eyes glued to the floor the whole way over.

The silence was suffocating and stifling the both of them as they waited for the other to break it.

She had to say something.

Immediately.

"Here's the schedule. You can sit at my desk while you copy it, I just need to sort my laundry."

"No! That sounded so rude..."

"At least now that my hands are all messed up, mom said she'll just take my clothes to the laundromat along with hers, so I actually have the afternoon off!"

Eve could only hope that her awkward attempt at lightening the mood would be enough to coax the dejection expression off Lilith's face.

"Yeah?" The girl said, her usual teasing making a comeback.

"So I guess you'll want me over every Friday so you can get out of doing work, huh?"

"Hmm, I'll think about it!" Eve teased back and grabbed her clothes bin out of the corner, dumping everything inside it on the floor for her to sort.

"That's good enough for me!"

Lilith plopped herself on Eve's desk chair in the same manner she did with all other chairs: exuding confidence and melting into it as if it were her own.

"Hey wait!"

"Yeah?" Eve separated her white button up uniform from her skirts, two neat piles of cloth by her feet.

"If you guys have the money for the laundromat, why do you even have to laundry your own clothes?"

The girl brought out her notebook, scribbling down the schedule haphazardly.

"I mean, it's important to to learn how to do it by hand incase it's really delicate or something, but you have to laundry your uniforms by hand every week?"

"Uhm..."

"Don't tell me you've never even asked y-"

"I did ask! It's just," Eve quickly buried her white bra in one of the piles as Lilith turned around, "I don't think you'll like the answer."

The redhead let out an exaggerated sigh that echoed through the room.

"Lemme guess, husband?"

"And children."

"Just tell your husband to buy you a washing machine or you'll divorce him."

Eve giggled her usual, reserved laugh, shaking her head while she searched her skirt pockets for loose change or any handkerchiefs she may have forgotten to take out.

"We covered this two weeks ago."

"What? We didn't even know each other two weeks ago!"

"No!" She said, laughter slightly louder. "The divorce and demand thing, dummy!"

"Huh?"

"Sister Jane said in CLE just a while ago: "The wife is not to make demands towards her husband, for it is by God's will that the men lead the women in their relationship." Or something similar to that anyway."

She found two pennies and a gum wrapper, putting them on her bedside table to dispose of later.

"And the divorce thing is pretty self-explanatory. If you were a true Christian, you'd find a way to make your marriage work instead of trying to break the sacred rite that God bestowed unto man."

"I wasn't really paying attention to that lesson."

"You need to!" Eve began folding the clothes with quick, practiced movements. "How are you gonna pass the test if you don't even know what's in it?"

"Just pick the least enjoyable option there, it's usually the right one."

"Okay, and what if the test isn't multiple choice?"

"Then I write down the least enjoyable I can think of." Lilith said, a smug look on her face.

At this point, she had abandoned even the pretense of writing, turning the chair around to talk to Eve as the papers she was copying were simply forgotten on the desk.

"Well sometimes, you have to do things that don't benefit you or aren't fun for the sake of going to heaven and saving your soul."

Now, even Eve had become too absorbed in the conversation to do her chores, her mind was racing to find ways to prove Lilith wrong, all the while trying to ignored how the sun that came in from her window made the girl looked immaculate, hair glinting in the light as she lounged on the wooden chair.

"Well sometimes," Lilith said, getting up and casually strolling over to where Eve sat on her bed before kneeling down in front of her, "you have to do things that benefit you and make you feel happy to make life worth living."

Eve was so caught up in making a retort that she hadn't even noticed how close they were til she opened her mouth, carefully planned response dying on her lips the moment she felt Lilith's breath fanning her cheek.

There was barely five inches between them, but she couldn't be bothered to think about it, instead admiring what was in front of her.

She had such sharp, almost angry features. A tall, bridged nose, defined jawline, fierce brows and a slight widow's peak. But, if she searched for it, there was softness there too. Big, blue eyes, plump lips...

While Eve was lost in thought, it seemed that Lilith realized their closeness too, her usually half lidded eyes widening a fraction, a delicate blush appearing on her cheeks, reaching all the way to her ears and her collarbone.

Lilith had to stop herself from moving away, no longer feeling the need to as Eve seemed fine with it all, pleased even.

The girl kept herself still as a rock as Eve's pretty, brown eyes slowly moved over her, observing, memorizing.

Lilith was able to relax with time, however, shoulders becoming lax as, she too, allowed herself to look at Eve as she was doing to her.

There was so much she had yet to see with Eve. She had never seen Eve angry or indignant, and while she never wished too, she had never seen Eve sad.

So she focused on what she could see now. She was so pretty, Eve. Bright brown eyes that looked like honey when the light hit it just right, soft cheeks dotted with freckles.

Lilith vaguely wondered if there was a pattern to them, eyes shifting while her mind tried to form one.

Eve had such soft, cupid's bow lips, dainty and delicate and kissable...

Despite the both of them being aware of what was happening, they didn't move away from each other, simply content to look at each other in a tranquil silence, their bodies devoid of movement besides the shifting of their eyes, the soft rise and fall of their chests, and the erratic beating of their hearts.

The two girls stayed like that for who knows long, blue eyes staring into brohowawn, brown eyes staring right back.

Was it her imagination, or were they getting closer, and closer, and-

"Eve!" Her mother knocked on the door.

The girls backed away from each other, frantic, the sheets beneath Eve rustling with the sudden motion, Lilith falling onto her back in shock, knees giving out completely.

"I'm leaving in five minutes, so hurry it up, please. Have you finished separating the whites from the colored clothes?"

"A-Almost!"

"I'll be waiting down stairs, I have a bag to put them in so don't worry about that."

Eve listened to her mother's footsteps disappear, shame rising in her like bile.

"We almost..."

...

Lilith scurried back to the desk as Eve swiftly folded what was left of her clothing and left the room, leaving her to wallow in her misery.

What was she thinking?

They were right. Eve wasn't like her, or Joan, or Paula. She knew that she might have been wrong in hoping she was like them, but she risked it anyway.

But more importantly, what was going to happen.

Would Eve report her? Would she get sent to some conversion camp in the middle of nowhere to get "fixed" up?

Lilith could feel her throat shut and her eyes well up.

This was it.

She was going to die.

They were gonna strap her to some chair and electrocute her and pump her full of weird pills and she was going to die.

Lilith scrawled down what she needed to and started to pack up.

Would she be able to lie her way out of this? What was she even going to say when they asked her about what happened? She needed an alibi, she needed-

"Joan."

Joan would know what to do, right?

She always did when it came to this kind of stuff. She'd help her come up with something or, if worst came to worst, she had some friends two towns over where she could crash at while she thoughtful of where to run away to.

Lilith had to hurry though, Joan's parent's would be back by seven and they didn't like having people over for dinner, not unprepared anyway.

But before she could think about the quickest way to get to Joan's house, Eve came back.

"Have you finished writing down the schedule?" Her expression was unreadable, eyes downcast and voice monotone.

"We're having P.E. on Monday in case you didn't read."

"Thanks for the reminder..."

The short walk downstairs was reminisce of the walk up, silent and awkward, but instead of beating herself up for not keeping her mouth shut, Lilith's mind was filled with nothing but dread.

She got on her bike, ready to take off to Joan's house before Eve's voice cut through the deafening silence.

"Lilith?" The girl spoke from behind her, voice wavering.

She couldn't see Eve's face, though she briefly thought that it was better this way. Even if this girl would be the one to bring her death, there was a part of her that still didn't want to see her upset.

"Please... don't tell anything about today, yeah?"

Eve came up behind her, wrapping her arms around her waist, head burrowing into Lilith's shoulder.

"I didn't want it to come to this," Lilith could feel tears dripping down onto her shoulder, Eve's breath now shaky and uneven, "but if you tell the nuns I almost... if you tell them about what happened then..."

The girl's trembling fingers clutched at the sides of her uniform as she tried to recollect herself.

"I'll tell them that you started the fire."

"It's okay." Lilith gently pried Eve's arms off her, turning around to face her, grasping her hands just as she did earlier.

"I won't tell anyone."

She smiled as softly as she could, cupping the girl's face and wiping her tears away with her thumb.

Lilith realized something while Eve sobbed and shook in her arms.

Eve was scared.

Eve was scared, just like she was long ago, if not more so.

"Stop smiling!" The girl swatted her hands away, confused and crying even harder.

"You're supposed to be angry! I just tried to blackmail you!"

"Didn't you say that there's no point in being rude to someone, even if they were rude to you first?"

"Yes, but that's different! If I tell, you could be expelled, or sued, or-"

Lilith cut her off. "And what would happen to you if I told them about what went on today?"

"I won't tell anyone anything, but not because I'm scared of what you'll tell them, understand?"

Eve looked up at her, hiccuping still, though her tears had stopped, calmed by the promise of secrecy.

"I won't tell on you, 'cause I've been where you are right now and, say what you will, but I didn't not like earlier."

The girl had settled now, no more sobs or shaking, a shocked silence taking it's place.

"And technically, I didn't move away either so it's not just your fault."

"Wait, "I've been where you are." What do you mean by that?"

"I'm not- I can't-" She took a deep breath, composing herself as best as she could.

"I'm not That."

Eve let go of her hands, stepping back.

"Thank you for trying to comfort me, but we aren't the same. I'm not like you. I'm not going to live the kind of sinful lifestyle you're living."

Lilith's smile fell, heart shattering with the other's words.

"Okay." She muttered.

What else was there to say?

"Okay." Eve gave a half-hearted smile. "Thank you for not telling, though. I appreciate it."

The girl moved to open the garage doors, stiff, shoulders tense as she fiddled with her hair, a few strands coming off with how hard she tugged.

"Today was a mistake, and it won't happen again."

Every word she said felt like a stab to the chest. Lilith could feel the tears from earlier making a comeback and she gripped her handlebars for dear life, trying to will away the tears.

"Okay."

She could only hope Eve didn't hear the crack in her voice.

"Thanks again." Eve's voice was so perky, smile widening with every moment that passed.

"Is she really this happy to have me leave?"

"I'll see you on Monday!"

And with that, Lilith fled, peddling as fast as she could away from Eve.

...

Eve watched her disappear down the road, her hushed, hurt "okay" playing again and again in her mind.

The second she was gone, she slammed the garage door closed, sinking down and sobbing even strong than she had earlier.

"I'm sorry." She whispered to no one, to everyone, to herself, to Lilith.

"I'm so sorry."

______________________________

Taglist: @anon-nom-nom95 @littlemisscalamity @melpomenismask @phillyinthebathroom

[theomachys]

road to ruin

angel & demons au  — wonwoo x yoobin

trigger warnings for mentions of blood, mild violence, implied body mutilation.

i the order of the malakhim is not a forgiving one.

when he fails in his duty, justice is swift and absolute. celestial trials do not resemble human ones; there is no jury, no judge, no evidence and no witnesses. only the condemnation from Him, and the instrument of His justice meting out the punishment. because it is His will, His desire, he does not resist as they force him to his knees.

( perhaps he imagines it, but his brother looks dismayed as he raises the curved golden sword above his head ).

pain is brutal. pain is electrifying. gasping, he crawls to the edge of the polished floor and looks down once—only once—and closes his eyes. a sandaled foot presses down on his back, slick with blood, until he cries out. they await repentance, a plea for his life. but he says nothing.

“be at peace,” his brother says, so low that he nearly misses it.

then—

for a wingless angel, it is a long, long fall from heaven.

ii. the advent of his downfall was not Her.

( she is his salvation ).

his failure was jeon wonwoo, the charge he was assigned to as a guardian angel. to watch over from birth to death, or so the order dictated.

humans were not his concern, not in the way a few of his brothers and sisters seemed to regard them. earthly matters should have been beneath an angel of even his stature, but He loved His children and so His angels were to love them as well. he did not. humans were fragile, chaotic, discordant. his wings stiffened in the presence of their disharmony. he did his duty and watched over humans, yes, but he did not care for them.

wonwoo was sickly. dull. dissatisfied with his immobility, with his life. his job as the boy’s guardian angel was not taxing or particularly challenging.

until.

—the world ended.

iii. he lies broken in a pool of his own blood for days. the scavengers steer clear of him when they realize he is wingless. humans are greedy; they care only about commodities, like the rare and desired angel feathers. they have no use for one of the fallen.

fallen. some would say better to be dead.

clothes are stripped from a corpse: ill fitting pants and a torn shirt. his wounds bleed, always. stories say they will bleed for the rest of his days. he ignores the stinging pain and searches: first for a food and water, then for a weapon should he need to defend himself from attackers.

( could you kill someone now? a part of his brain asks. do you want to?

i have fallen but not sinned, he answers back. not yet ).

iv. when the world broke, when demons poured out of the cracks in the earth bringing fire and death with them, he was witness to it all.

stuck on earth guarding his human charge, he and many of his brethren were to be the first line of defense against the invasion. their own lives were to be sacrificed to save the humans, at least until the archangels could assemble the full host of heaven to combat the threat.

wonwoo was his to watch over from birth to death. he understood now: the death did not have to be wonwoo’s. it could be his as well.

when his human charge stumbled out of his home in search of his mother, he followed. when wonwoo cried out at the flaming sky, the smashed cars, the mass of bleached bones and gutters full of blood, the naked corpses strung up on telephone poles and street lamps, he stood beside the boy and thought, why did He allow this and i must protect him. both thoughts were short lived.

he had seen one demon in his life during his studies. not a fallen angel but a true demon, a child of lilith. horned, with red eyes, sharp fangs, and sharper claws for hands. it was a grotesque caricature of a human being, and he was glad when one of the others put it out of its misery. demons, he learned, were creatures of power and evil intent. they wanted nothing more than to cause as much destruction as possible. unlike angels, they were dark. dirty.

but, lured by wonwoo’s cries, the demon that stepped forward from behind the mound of bones was not grotesque or dark. it looked like a pale woman with dark hair. small white horns protruded from her forehead and her eyes shone red with bloodlust, but her hands were delicate, though coated in gore, and she was—

radiant.

her eyes fell on wonwoo first, then shifted to him. “guardian angel?” she asked, tilting her head to the side. he said nothing, simply moved to stand in front of wonwoo. beautifully captivating as she was, he had a duty to take care of his charge. his movements amused him. she tittered and stepped forward. “i’ve always liked angels. and i hate killing them.” her voice was innocent and bright. “do you really want to die for a human? here, like this?”

“… yes.” protocal said to never engage a demon in conversation, but he was forced to respond. “i must do what i have to.”

“but do you? it’d be a shame. and all for a crying boy.”

wonwoo was sobbing, trembling in fear. “y… ye… no.” the denial ripped itself from his mouth, and he scrambled to take it back. “i—no—i don’t want to die.” he didn’t want to say this, but by the grin on her face, she knew. and she was pulling it from his mouth, his heart. “stop this.”

“i thought angels were supposed to be honest.”

“i will protect my charge.”

she took another step forward. her grin was wide enough to be frightening, and yet all he could think was how white her teeth were. blinding, bright, the sun contained in her smile. “no,” she said. her words were sharp and crisp. “i don’t think you will.”

he was paralyzed, frozen in place as she approached him and pressed her mouth against his. teeth sunk into his bottom lip and drew blood, but he still did not move. he couldn’t—or did not want to. she tasted like cherries and sin, like iron and despair. she pulled back and brushed the hair out of his eyes. “you’ll stand here and watch while i gut your charge in front of you.”

“i will not.”

“and then you’ll watch me rip through the rest of this neighbourhood, until the streets run with the blood of all the people you’re going to willingly sacrifice to me.”

“i—”

she giggled. “we’ll see.” he was still frozen as she moved past him, as wonwoo’s screams filled the air, as flesh and brain splattered onto his wings and back. dazed, he cradled the broken body of his human charge and trailed after the demon ( to kill her—no, to be with her. to kill her. to avenge, to— ) as she wreaked havoc on the neighbourhood.

at the end, she blew him a kiss and sauntered off, leaving him with wonwoo’s remains. he fell to his knees and thought: i have failed. i am doomed.

but all he could focus on was the taste of her mouth and the way she glowed amidst the carnage.

v. weeks past before he meets her.

she is outside an abandoned storefront, perched on the hood of an abandoned silver car. white horns protrude from her forehead, the ribcage of a human dangling from her right hand. tossing it to the ground when her eyes find him, she wipes the blood on her shirt ( white—his eyes follow the movements ) and leans forward, crossing her legs. “ah! look what we have here!”

he stops in his tracks, heart racing in his chest. she could reach in and tear it out with her bare hands—and he would let her open him up and tear him apart, let her discard his ribcage as easily as she had the other one. he pushes the thought out of his mind with reluctance. is it his own or a demoness’ invention?

“where are your wings?” she asks with an impish smile. she is shark teeth and cruel red eyes on a cherub’s face, Her mouth a gaping scarlet maw—carnage personified, he thinks, and wonders why it does not worry him. he opens his mouth to answer, but nothing comes out. swallowing, he tries again to no avail. noting his difficulty, she throws her head back and laughs. “oh, i’m sorry. i forgot you weren’t much for talking.”

“i… can talk.”

“oh, i knew you could, but you wouldn’t really. not to me at least, back when we first met.” she giggles as his mind flashes back to the terrible day. “but it’s nice to hear your lovely voice. so…” tapping her chin with a manicured finger, she smirks. “… angelic.”

“stop.” he is surprised by the steadiness of his tone. “i will not be mocked.”

“i’m not mocking,” she counters, expression unchanging. “i’m trying to compliment you—take it for what it is.”

“compliments from a demon are always backhanded.”

her eyes narrow. “but i’m not just a demon,” she says, uncrossing her legs and jumping off the car. “i’m more than that.” advancing with slow, leisurely steps, she stops in front of him and reaches up to touch his face. her hands are ice-cold, but he does not recoil from it. “after all, didn’t you damn yourself for me?”

lies, he thinks, a split second after yes. “not… you…”

she studies his eyes, his face, his mouth, a victorious smile lighting up her expression when she finds whatever she is looking for. “no,” she agrees. “for a kiss.” his cheeks warm. “shame.” she pulls away and he mourns the loss of her touch. “and here i thought i might finally have a pet angel of my own.”

the word ‘pet’ does not bother him as much as it should. “i am no longer an angel.”

she grins and leans into his chest, peering up. “then what do you want to be?”

he does not know. not this, not fallen and aimless. not without purpose. not nothing. “i—”

“maybe,” she says slowly. “think about it—you’re free now.” freedom is not how he could classify this state of being, but looking at her, wild and dangerous and free, he wonders if it is something he can embrace as well. silent too long for her liking, she gives him a peck on the cheek and untangles herself from him. “find me when you figure it out,” she tells him.

he does not respond but—

promises himself he will.

vi. a guardian who allowed his charge to die in front of him had to be punished.

an angel who was no longer pure had to be cast out of heaven.

he was guilty of both—willfully. the punishment was his to accept.

and even as he fell, her face swam in front of his eyes.

vii. he follows the trail of death she leaves in her wake until her finds her temporary home in an abandoned car garage. she’s decorated the place with spoils of war: trinkets taken from victims. polished skulls lying on the table, names scrawled in blood all over the walls. his eyes fall on a familiar name, and he does not notice her walk in until the sudden, sharp burst of pain from his open wounds bring him to his knees.

“you came!” she says gleefully, circling around until he can see her bare feet. a freezing hand jerks his chin up. “are you ready to be my pet?”

“i—” he wets his lips, wincing in pain. “i don’t want to be one of the fallen. i don’t know what i want.”

“then join me.” she claps her hands together. “stick with me and figure out what you do want.” noting his skepticism, she added, “you let me poison you—so let me give you the antidote now.” she leaned forward until their noses were touching, voice dropping to a whisper. “have you ever sinned, angel?”

she is too close—his pulse races. “no,” he chokes out. “i w—want to.” with her. he will sin with her. desire and want are not concepts he understood before he fell from His grace.

the cheshire grin on his her face causes him to shiver. she pulls him to his feet and steps back. “hmmmm,” she taps a finger against her chin. “well, if you’re going to join me, then you need a name. for example, i’m yoobin”

angels don’t have names, but he is not one anymore. his eyes fall on the familiar name once more. “… wonwoo.” it slips out of his mouth before he has a chance to think, but it’s fitting. wonwoo was how they began. “my name is jeon wonwoo.”

she smiles at him like they’re sharing a secret. “no it’s not,” she says, but takes his hand anyway.