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Years ago, there was a demon that hid the wings of a vanished angel. It was his secret, buried in a place that he only knew about, away from any outsider’s sight so he could freely hug and smell the soft feathers.
Years passed and the wings still soothed him and made him feel safe, and if he closed his dark eyes, he could pretend that the wings hugged him back. That he won’t be lonely forever.
The truth was that it had been the most cruel thing the demon had done, and sometimes—many times—he regretted it, even if the job of one of his kind was to despise angels and destroy humans' faith.
His demon name was Sasuke, and he was the one who killed the angel named Naruto by doing one of the two ways for an angel to die: forcing him to reincarnate into a human form, ripping his wings from his body until there was blood and screams everywhere, the angel’s blood especially spilling on the sacred floor of a church, the remnants of a battle still intact to this day.
It had been an action driven by jealousy because the angel adored humans too much, had put them on a pedestal when it should have been the other way around. Humans didn't deserve such love; they were naturally difficult, full of contradictions. One day they could whisper prayers, and the next day they could trap anyone in a cage and sell them if the opportunity presented itself.
So, Sasuke said back then—when the intense blood loss eventually made Naruto dizzy and the demon brought him into his arms, hands delicately touching the skin—why don’t you experience their unkindness by yourself? Come down from your heaven, and perhaps you could finally hold a grudge against them as I do.
Because most demons were born through violence and hatred. They emerged as a pure manifestation of resentment for their previous human lives. Like Sasuke, with his little human form trapped in a cage so many centuries before.
And perhaps, when Naruto died once again, this time in his human body, he would be reborn as a demon and not as a divine creature, forgetting his former existence as an angel. (The most beautiful angel Sasuke had ever seen). Forgiving Sasuke.
So, Sasuke just needed to be patient, sometimes hiding away with a pair of useless white wings. He just needed to wait and confirm that Naruto loved him too. Wait and prove that Naruto loved him so much to the point of letting Sasuke tear his wings apart.
It could not be otherwise. Naruto loved him because, despite the fact that Sasuke had told him his full demon name, Naruto didn’t bind him; he didn’t use Sasuke’s name—the most important aspect of a demon and that Sasuke had previously given to Naruto so easily—to bind and annihilate him that fateful day on the sacred floor.
.
.
There was just one word that flooded from Naruto’s lips. One name.
Sasuke, Sasuke, Sasuke...
Over and over and over and over again.
As an angel, back then, his death had been a punishment for loving in the wrong way. For daring to imagine things and brightly smiling each time he saw a certain demon; for befriending him and for letting his mind be plagued with the quiet notion that he could love beyond everything. Never saying a word, like a forbidden secret swelling his heart.
Now, as a person, Naruto believed that he didn’t deserve to die. At least not in the cruel way someone had killed him, the cold grass under him making everything worse. Dying as punishment he didn’t deserve—it was so unfair.
Later, when he had opened his blue eyes again, awakened by new pain and breathing in his new life, he needed to dig his fingers into the dirt, twisting and twisting despite the fact that the pain wouldn’t stop and there wasn’t any way to alleviate any pressure. He forced his body to flip over, his mouth salivating on the ground but still calling for one name. He was suffering; the skin on his back was burning—probably how it must feel to live in Hell.
All his memories crashed down on him, and his tears soaked his face, more abundant than when Sasuke had taken his wings.
But he could only say one word. A name. Like a prayer.
And then, after a little but eternal time, when the muscles snapped and the tendons and veins stretched, little bones breaking the skin of his back, he noticed Sasuke’s heavy boots beside his head.
The demon reached down and gripped Naruto’s jaws between his thumb and forefinger, nails pressing in a dangerous gesture but without inflicting more pain.
“Why are you calling me? Have you finally stopped being so stubborn?” The demon’s breath hit against the agitated gasps of Naruto, but the latter couldn’t properly answer when he saw spots of black through his vision. Perhaps he was actually dying. Perhaps he was imagining all this—his forbidden secret and the bones breaking his body, rebuilding themselves while black feathers started to grow like a dark cotton crop.
Perhaps Heaven had mercy on him, and all this was just an illusion, letting him hear Sasuke’s voice one last time.
Before everything went dark, the small kiss on his lips alleviated some of the unbearable pain he never asked for.
.
So Naruto finally had a pair of black wings on his back. He didn’t belong to the human world anymore, just as he had stopped being an angel all those years before.
Sasuke sighed, seeing the tall, naked figure of Naruto contemplating himself in front of the mirror in the hotel room they were currently occupying, his appearance like someone in their mid-twenties. There were bandages, medical cotton, and water bottles scattered all over the floor, but the blood had stopped so long ago.
That was good; seeing Naruto being stained with red fluid once again had put a scratchy feeling in the back of Sasuke’s throat.
Then the dark-haired demon approached the other, placing himself behind Naruto as one of his hands sneaked his way from the side of the blond’s naked body to the center of his belly, resting there while dark eyes reflected on the mirror in front of them. It was the first time they had seen both of their bodies completely naked.
Sasuke inhaled the natural sweet smell of Naruto, and he swallowed all the emotions trying to spill from his mouth, chasing away the butterflies in his belly because there were more important matters to give attention to: despite the wings, Naruto seemed to hold little interest in the things Sasuke had tried to tell him about his new form of life, such as the need for a new full name, so no one could cast a binding on him. The new demon hadn’t even paid attention to the promise of Sasuke to hunt and torture the human who had let his lifeless body lie in a desolated place.
“Stop it," Naruto said now, his voice sounding like a beg while spinning himself around to hold Sasuke away with a palm on his pale chest.
Sasuke saw the small tears that burned the corner of blue eyes; he wanted to kiss them and erase them for eternity. “Ah, you're being so cruel right now,” Sasuke murmured, gripping Naruto’s elbow and forcing both of their bodies to get closer again.
The blond stared up at him, and there wasn’t enough space for how Sasuke’s heart hammered against his ribcage. His desire had been conceded; with his and others' acts, Naruto had suffered enough to gain a pair of demon wings. To the infinite fortune of Sasuke, the former angel hadn’t perished; Naruto was right there with him.
They were equals now, physical and mentally, and so Sasuke’s hands went to the perfect hips in front of him. Naruto let him.
“What am I supposed to be now?”
Mine, Sasuke thought, pulling Naruto nearer to him, holding his hips while kissing him on the lips. He heard a protest for a brief second—the way Naruto gasped as if he were truly scared to death—until the blond threw his arms around Sasuke’s neck, kissing him back and forgiving the demon for all his sins.
A demon that could fall to his knees if that was what he needed to do to make Naruto believe that being next to him was the safest place in the world.
Soon enough, Sasuke's hands came to rest on Naruto’s ass, his fingertips digging into the flesh there and kneading, provoking the kiss to break.
“Sasuke,” the blond said, pulling his face away a little, and that name on those lips was a moment that seemed to stretch on forever, just dissipating when Sasuke’s gaze on Naruto carried such reverence that it could only make Naruto feel like a god.
Such a big sacrilege.
“I know for certainty one thing, Naruto. I knew it since the moment I found you in that church, and in all the subsequent visits I made. I knew it while I ripped your wings off. I know it now: this is not divine intervention but rather my greatest achievement.”
Naruto glared, about to argue something, but he refrained from doing so when Sasuke leaned over him, lips brushing again, pale hands holding the sides of his face now.
“You could continue thrusting humans or whomever you want to the point of foolishness,” the dark-haired demon said, his big wings finally appearing behind his own back, slightly agitating around and then folding forward to cover both of them, as if hiding their shapes from the world. It made Naruto tremble, earning an animalistic growl from Sasuke when he felt their pelvis shamelessly touching. “You can try to ignore the fact that you’re like me now; ignore as much as you want that you cannot accept that you’ve already had enough of your past or the foregone conclusion that deep in your heart you repudiate humans. Continue making all the little protests you want because I’ll firmly make you realize the most precious truth between us: you’re forever mine. ”
When Sasuke slid his hands down over pretty skin, feeling the pulse beating under it, and how Naruto was ready to melt—break—through his sharp, quivering inhales, what Sasuke heard one second later wasn’t a sob or more protests but all of his wishes finally turning into reality.
"Then I'll hold you to that promise, Sasuke Uchiha.”