Chapter Text
Reki was first to arrive at his new human ward’s side. A good sign, he thought to himself as he observed the new baby squirm in his blankets. He didn’t have a name yet, his mother and father were recovering from a panicked emergency c-section. Reki knew his name though.
Miya Chinen
The flurry of nurses subsided in the room as the situation calmed and his mother was finally given her new baby. She cooed and touched his soft cheeks, tears welling in her eyes.
With a huff, the demon perched himself on the windowsill out of the way. Reki hated this part. The baby years. When his ward was helpless and squishy and couldn’t do literally anything. He idly wondered where his angelic counterpart was before hoping for more time without them.
Angels were all the same. Stuck up losers who wanted to please their ever watchful God. They would tell you what to do and push you around and lead their human to the light or whatever. Yuck. Reki didn’t care. He didn’t even care about leading his wards anywhere.
“Do whatever you want!” Reki would always tell his humans. “Have fun! You only live once!”
The angels hated that. They always went on about being superior and holy and helping others to salvation and yadda yadda yadda.
It was all bullshit.
But Reki liked being on Earth. And he liked humans. He had a good feeling about this one too, Miya was already looking like he’d be a little menace, pulling his mother's hair and soiling the blankets he was wrapped in. The nurses gave a half-hearted chuckle, set him in his crib next to the window and moved to get a towel.
The baby wriggled and cried softly, eyes pinched shut. His hand was stuck in his blanket, tiny nails caught in the loose strings. Reki leaned closer. He could help, no one would know.
Reki carefully reached out… and a firm hand grabbed his wrist.
“Your claws will hurt him.” A soft male voice said.
Shocked, Reki pulled his hand from the unwelcomed grasp. Great. His angel companion had arrived. “I’m not that stupid, you fucking bird.” Reki’s other hand came up to calm the tingles on his skin where the angel touched him. Angels never touched demons.
“What a typical first impression,” the angel shifted away and Reki lifted his gaze to get a look at who he’d be spending the next 70 to 80 years with.
Fuck…
He was really pretty.
Angels are usually good looking. That was kind of a given, but this one... He was different.
His long blue hair flowed over his shoulders and wings. His cheekbones and jawline were sharply defined. His ivory skin was pale as most angels’ skin was but his seemed to shine with a muted glow. The flowy white outer layer of his robes cut out around his shoulders, pressing his upper arm to his torso, a black tighter fitting underlayer covered the rest of his body in a long dress-like garment. It looked a little hard to move in but he glided effortlessly across the room, flexing his wings and crossing his arms over his chest.
The glowing blue halo over his head tilted slightly as he cocked his head at Reki. “Are you okay?”
Reki’s hand was still rubbing his wrist, he quickly moved his hands behind his back and sat up straighter. His tail was doing a poor job of staying still. Damn thing had a mind of its own. “Yeah!” He said too loudly.
The angel narrowed his (beautiful) blue eyes at him briefly before taking in the surroundings. The people were rushing around with more blankets and towels for Miya; and caring for his mother who was quickly losing strength and falling asleep. She must’ve gotten lots of drugs. The angel watched them in silence for a while. Until they had everything sorted and both mother and baby were clean, fed, and sleeping. When the last nurse left the room, Reki hopped down from the window, straightened his veil and approached the angel. He figured it was time to finally introduce himself.
“So, I’m Reki,” He outstretched his hand like the humans did. This was a private joke with himself, since the angels never touched him. He’d been doing this for as long as he could remember and every angel he’d been paired with either slapped his hand away, disregarded it entirely, or something of that manner. He could gauge a lot about his tenure with his companion just from this simple interaction. “Nice to meet you!”
The angel’s wings fluttered as he gave Reki a full once-over, like he was just seeing him for the first time. His blue eyes scoured his face for an answer to a question Reki didn’t know. Then the unthinkable.
The angel shook his hand. His slender fingers wrapped around Reki’s, pressing their palms together and taking Reki’s breath away. His hand was cold. “I’m Langa.”
😈🪽😈
Reki was punished when his supervisors found out he was in love with the angel he was paired with, but in a very Hell-like way, wasn’t discouraged from tempting his colleague.
As Miya grew, Reki made every effort to catch Langa’s eye, mainly by wearing as little clothes as possible. He wore his slutty low cut pants and exposed his arms, chest, and stomach whenever he could. Langa didn’t seem to notice one bit. His focus was always on the humans surrounding them.
So he moved to a different tactic.
Bothering him as much as possible.
😈😈🪽😈😈
PAP
A third spitball hit the window behind where Langa stood.
A raspy laugh from the source of the chaos, all chaos in Langa’s life actually, erupted from Reki. His counterpart in guiding their human ward, Miya, leaned back with maniacal laughter in the plush armchair in the living room.
Taking a grounding breath, Langa narrowed his eyes at the demon. “Enough. I’m serious!”
“I didn’t even hit you,” He was chewing more paper. “Chill out, dude!”
Langa felt his feathers tense with annoyance. This was insufferable. He should leave. But Miya was alone with Reki for most of the day and he doesn’t like how Reki spent more time eating junk food and watching probably more junk on Miya’s tablet than actually doing his job… maybe he should be grateful for that on second thought.
Langa clenched and unclenched his jaw as Reki loaded and aimed the straw from his extra-large soda. With a rush of air, Langa appeared in front of Reki and scrunched the straw in his hand, yanking it from the demon’s lips.
“HEY!” A pout materialized on his face instantly, Reki’s eyes narrowing from behind his sheer vail. “You’re no fun!”
“We aren’t supposed to have fun!” Langa scolded, throwing the broken straw at the demon’s face.
Another rush of air and Langa returned to his spot by the window. He was trying to give more distance between the two of them recently. Reki was giving him weird looks. Langa didn’t like it.
“We’re supposed to protect Miya and he’s doing just fine.” Reki gestured to the dark haired teen boy sitting at the table with headphones on, a pencil in hand working over the math homework he was focused on.
Langa folded his arms, poignantly ignoring the demon, and shifted to watch the people walking to the bus stop out the window. He liked watching the humans, wondering about their guardians and if their angels were paired with demons who’s alternative goal was to make their angel’s life miserable.
PAP
A spitball hit the window mere millimeters from his face. Langa whipped his head around to meet the gaze of a snickering demon. His wings flared as a reflex as he felt his whole body fill with anger, with wrath. A sin.
“OH YOU SHOULD SEE YOUR FACE!!!” Reki cackled loudly with more laughter.
“This is impossible!” Langa rubbed his hand over his face, smoothing the feathers around his ears. Why was he always so loud!?
“No, it's not,” Reki straightened up, disappearing with a smoky yellow puff only to reappear next to Langa with a mirror in his clawed hands. “Look at how cute you are when you're mad~!” He smiled and lifted the mirror to Langa.
Langa didn’t even bother looking. He pushed the mirror away and Reki with it. “I mean,” Langa tried to infuse his voice with some sense of venom. “Working with you!”
Reki tilted his head, the jewels that adorned his long ears jingled against each other. “Awwww, the little dove is upset!” His ribbon-like tail twirled itself around Langa’s outstretched arm.
“Can’t you just leave me alone?” Langa shook his arm but the tail wrapped tighter.
Reki’s face twisted into an amused smile, the mischievous glint constantly shining in his eyes. “No,” he said in a devilishly sweet tone.
A dark bloom of… something Langa didn’t understand swelled in his chest and he vanished for the safety of Heaven in a mist of blue smoke.
Reki huffed and slumped against the table.
“You pissed him off again?” Miya lifted off one ear from his headphones.
Reki nodded, “It’s getting too easy!”
Miya rolled his eyes before focusing back on his homework. “Whatever. You’re both super annoying.”
“Yeah but now I’m bored!” Reki whined, slumping further on the table.
“Here,” Miya passed him the iPad. “Shut up and stop looking up porn on the normal browser. Do I need to show you how to open incognito tabs again?”
“I remember!” Reki gently took the tablet in his hands and giddily shuffled back to his chair with his snacks.
🪽🪽😈🪽🪽
Langa sat on the grass in the sun while Miya ran laps for his gym class. He spread his feathered wings to catch the warmth. The morning had been quiet so far and by that, it meant that Reki wasn’t there. It was more rare that Langa was alone with Miya. Langa figured if he were Reki, he wouldn’t want to spend much time in Hell either, so he never pressed about how the demon decided to spend his time.
Langa felt Miya working hard on the exercise, filling his chest with a sense of pride. Even though Reki spent a little more time with Miya, he was a good kid. Staying mainly in the path of Light. While he did stray a little, it was a normal pattern in adolescent humans. He was doing well. He needed to do well to get promoted.
The angel lifted one of his wings to his chest and ran his fingers through the warm, white feathers. Starting from the innermost layer, Langa took his time straightening and cleaning his feathers. It took forever to preen his wings, but it needed to happen daily and this was the perfect time to do it. He was about half way through his right wing when he felt Reki appear beside him.
“Morning, loser,” Reki greeted him.
Langa didn’t look up from his task. “Hey.”
He heard Reki plop to the ground to his left and felt something bump his wing. He peeked his head around to finally look at the demon.
Reki was looking away with his arm outstretched, a strawberry milk bumped against his wing again. Reki shifted on his knees and sipped his own pink carton, watching Miya and his class line up to pick teams for soccer. Langa didn’t pretend to understand why but Reki always does this when they have bigger fights. Reconciliation.
It’s impossible working with you.
That was a pretty nasty thing to say. Langa shouldn't have lost his temper.
He accepted the milk, taking a break from preening to drink in the unusual quiet, as both of them appreciated the sun and watched the many interactions taking place on the field. They finished at the same time, the bubbly sounds of sucking up the last of the drink making him feel lighter. Reki never apologizes, this was as close as he got. Honestly though, Langa would take his unspoken gestures over how many of the other demons he’d been paired with acted.
Being paired with Reki was very different from any of his other assignments. One of the major ways was…
“Do you, uh,” Reki scooted a fraction closer, placed his empty container down and reached for Langa’s left wing. “Can I help?”
For some reason, Langa had allowed Reki to touch him.
He told himself it was strictly to make preening go faster, since it took foreverrrr, but in truth, it felt good.
“Okay,” Langa shifted his wing closer. Langa felt his heart beat faster with the vulnerability. This wasn’t allowed. Angels were never supposed to be in physical contact with demons at all, and yet… that rule never fully set in with them.
Langa tried not to jump when Reki’s warm hand made contact with the shaft of the wing’s outermost feather. Reki was always gentle and meticulous, never pulling or pinching the sensitive down around his skin. It felt nice, like someone playing with your hair, and Langa saw nothing wrong with making the most annoying task pleasant and faster.
Reki used his sharp nails to carefully remove the crusted sheath around one of his pin feathers. He was extra good at doing that since his claws were sharper than Langa’s nails. Langa held back a sigh as Reki completed a second pin feather.
“How many times have you done this?” Reki asked, aligning the primaries and moving closer.
“Preened my wings? I don’t know, hundreds of thou-“
“No, I mean, been a guardian angel?”
Langa isn’t sure why Reki wants the answer to that question all of a sudden. It must be for some kind of trick. The fragile trust they’ve built was torn down and rebuilt on a weekly, if not daily basis. Langa has been doing this for hundreds of human lifetimes; thousands of years. He doesn’t see why Reki needs to know his experience. Probably to judge how little effort he’s been putting toward guiding Miya… Reki doesn’t need to know that he’s been focusing on getting promoted to get away with entry-level tasks and time with demons.
At Langa’s silence, Reki’s motions paused, “It’s just, you’re different from the-“
“Reki, stop.” Langa pulled away even though he didn’t want to. He hated when Reki tried to talk to him like they were the same. “I am exactly like the other angels you’ve met.”
Reki was frozen watching the soft feather drag through his fingers. Everything about Langa was soft; his feathers, his eyes, his hair, his demeanor, his advice to Miya, even his voice when he was trying to argue. The constant ache in Reki’s chest burned hotter as he clenched his fists. The ache made him angry. And it made him remember how much dislike he harbored for the angel beside him and the rest of his kind.
“Yup, you’re right.” Reki flopped on his back on the grass. He felt pointy, rough, hard and sharp; the exact opposite of the being next to him. “You are just like the rest.”
And Langa didn’t know why Rek lumping him with the other angels made him feel so horrible.
🪽😈🪽
Miya really liked having his lunch scheduled after gym. It meant he could take an actual shower and not be gross the rest of the day. He didn’t mind having to rush to finish lunch if he felt clean.
He walked back to his homeroom from the locker room, students from his year filtered inbetween to the main buildings. A trio of boys chatted in front of the door he needed to enter. He knew these guys, they were in his class in middle school last year. They were a few of the only people Miya genuinely admired. They were always the easiest to talk to and were actually funny. The three of them had been close for years, so for Miya to be included, even for just that one year, felt really special. When they saw his approach they smiled and waved him over.
“Hi Miya!” Greeted Kaito, the boy Miya felt closest to. “What’s it like in Class 1A?”
They had all been separated when they entered high school this year. It felt good to be able to jump right back into a rapport with these guys.
“Totally lame,” Miya smirked. “The teacher is about as old as dirt.”
Kaito laughed and Miya felt good. He wanted these people to like him.
They caught up briefly but the three boys were late for class and had to cut the conversation short.
“We should hang out soon! Free tomorrow?” Denji asked quickly. Miya nodded and he went on, “Great, come to my place around 6?! We can play the new Zelda!”
Miya nodded again and waved. “I’ll bring some of my switch games.”
“Cool! I’ll text you!”
“See ya!”
“YEAH, boys are back together!”
They all called after him as they ran in the direction of the gym and Miya felt that happy feeling slowly drain away.
Shit.
He had plans tomorrow. He had scheduled skating practice and regionals were coming up. He shouldn’t miss it.
“Call in sick.”
“Reki, stop! He has the right feeling!”
His angel and demon appeared on his shoulders. Reki lounged on his back, tail swishing under him as he hovered above his left while Langa stood crossing his arms on his right. While Miya could always see them, they made a point to always counsel him in the standard way.
“He can miss one practice!” Reki waved a hand dismissively. “Those guys are cool and fun and we should hang out with them!”
“No, we have commitments!” Langa must be able to feel Miya’s sway toward doing what Reki was saying. Miya hated disappointing Langa but how bad can missing one practice be?
“Miya, what are you going to tell your trainer? That you’re sick?” Langa tilted his head and frowned at him. “What if he tells your parents?”
“And so what?!” Reki chirped back. “They might even be happy that we’re hanging out with friends.” His eyes widened under his veil. “Wake up call, Langa! We’re not doing so hot in the social department, ya birdbrain. No offense dude,” Reki patted Miya’s shoulder in consolation.
“I still have 3 weeks before regionals.” Miya pulled his phone out from his pocket as he walked to his homeroom. “I can make it up another time.” He drafted a text to his coach.
“Yesss!” Reki raised a fist to the air and Langa groaned. “We are gonna have so much fun with those guys. Kaito is so cool.”
Langa remained quiet and ran a hand down his face. “I guess improving social skills is important. We should work to maintain friendships.”
“That’s the idea!” Reki cheered and poofed onto Langa’s shoulder. He wrapped the angel in a loose headlock. “Maybe you don’t have feathers for brains, huh?”
“Enough! Stop!” Langa squirmed and fought against Reki’s hold. They disappeared from his shoulder and reappeared fullsize in the hallway next to him. Langa shoved the demon off him but Reki held tight and they both tumbled to the floor with a thud across from his homeroom door; a pile of wings, horns, fists and loose clothing.
Miya rolled his eyes with a quiet groan and wished for new guardians.
😈🪽😈🪽😈🪽😈🪽😈