Warnings (For the whole story): OCC Characters (For the most part anyway), Gay Relationship, Attempted Rape, Hurt/Comfort, Growing Up Fic, Mentioned Homophobia, Twist Ending, Somewhat Happy Ending (I think it's a happy one but some people may be disappointed), Gay Sex, Underage Drinking, Language, Mild Fighting Scenes, Mild Underaged Sexual Scenes (He was seventeen so technically underage)
Author's Note: This has to be the longest thing I have ever written and I had planned to post it all as one whole chapter but it took a long while to write just this part so I had to split it. But I had so much fun writing it! I love doing stories like this but I always try to do them with my own original chaptered stories when the topic might better be suited as a short story. Doing this as a fanfiction instead of an original story was a good idea and hope you guys like reading this as much as I liked writing it!
P.S. Cross posted on wattpad and archiveofourown
P.S.S. The italics at the beginning of each part are song lyrics from the song that inspired this whole story. The song is Angel With A Shotgun by The Cab. This isn't a song fic but I wanted to include them anyway.
/x/
(I'm
an angel with a shotgun, shotgun, shotgun,
An angel with a shotgun, shotgun, shotgun.)
Get out your guns, battle's begun.
Are you a saint or a sinner?
If love's a fight then I shall die
With my heart on a trigger.
Most people don't expect to be great, to be someone people can look up to but the ones who expect greatness are never truly great. Greatness was earned not guaranteed. Those were my thoughts as I sat and watched. That was my job; watching and guiding the great ones. And I was currently looking for the next human I would be spending the next twenty to thirty years of my immortal life with until they no longer had need of me. I had not been told much about this one, just where to find him and enough of a description to be able to tell him apart from any other child who might find their way into the alley below me. I was looking for a little boy who was of asian descent and had been living on the streets since his parents deaths a few months ago. It wasn't a large amount to go on but I had found my targets with less. By this point in my angelic life it was more of a waiting game then a guessing game.
I closed my eyes to the setting sun and leaned my head back into the cool air, heightening my already hypersensitive senses with such a simple act. The city was alive around me in sounds and smells that lit up my senses, painting a picture around me; the sounds of cars on the road, people bustling about in their now inpatient way,the sound of a phone ringing, the sounds of yelling and arguing inside houses, a distant gunshot followed by a sickening thud; the smell of dinners cooking in house, flowers blooming in window boxes, the smell of a recent rainfall, the fresh scent of clothes being taken out of a dryer, the putrid smell of gasoline. My nose wrinkled in disgust. I had come to hate what humanity had become with all the killings and the pollution. The sheer destruction of it all and the worst part was I understood them. I had been human once and was ashamed to say I knew their urge to destroy, to beat, dominate, take. I hated knowing how it felt and hated knowing what I had been. It infuriated and disgusted me at the same time.
I opened my eyes to the fading light and the gray bricks of the roof of the building I was standing on. I unclenched my fists slowly and spread pale fingers along the stone parapet, remembering that even though I had watched a race grow to be evil and destructive, not every person was defined by their race. I had seen good hearted people. I had guided them and here I was looking for the next one pure of heart because she had convinced me to give humanity another chance.
A new stifling scent filled the air, invading my senses with a smell I was too familiar with in this day and age. It was fear that hung in the air with its rancid scent. Following the scent by just a few seconds was the cracking sound of shoes smacking the concrete with force as someone ran towards the alley I was gazing down at. A young boy, gasping and out of breath, ducked into the alley as he dove in between a huge dumpster and a metal trash can. He took deep breaths as he leaned his head back against the filthy wall that most people wouldn't even touch with their hands but it looked like filth was something the kid was accustomed to. His already tan skin was splotched with dirt and grim, his clothes was ripped in place that showed his ribs clearly through his t-shirt. The kid looked only about six but he was already this bad off, living on the streets. Maybe the world wasn't worth saving.
I heard a loud gasp and my attention was drawn to the little boy crouched in the alley. He was staring up at me with wide chocolate brown eyes and a slack jaw. That was strange enough by itself because I was using my abilities to cloak myself from prying eyes but what made it stranger was the twisting, pulling that seemed to be dragging me by my insides to the boy. I have never felt something like that before and it scared me. Everything seemed to slow as the boy seemed to gain some semblance of control, his dark eyes blinking and his jaw returning to its normal position, but his lips were still parted in surprise.
The sound of pounding feet snapped things back into motion as the kid's head snapped to the side so hard he probably gave himself whiplash. A little terrified squeak found its way out of his parted lips as he noticed the two bigger boys standing in the opening to the alley, their fists raised threateningly. With a clatter of trash cans and another high pitched scream, the little boy took off running down the alley. Without another thought, I spread my powerful wings and took off into the air, only a single fallen feather left to mark my presence. All thoughts fled besides the ones of that boy. He was an anomaly and I hadn't met many of those, especially not one my own power and body had reacted to so violently. I had to find out what made him special so I followed them on silent wings, waiting for the chance to swoop in and rescue the boy.
The kid finally made a fatal wrong turn in his running through the alleyways and ran into a dead end. The older boys, about eleven or twelve, advanced towards the cowering boy with their fist raised threateningly. I didn't wait to see what was going to happen, I just acted on instinct. I swooped down, letting my powers thrum through my veins, making my body light up like a true angel. My fingers curled towards my palm as my sword formed out of seemingly nowhere just before I landed in a crouch in front of the boy as I uncloaked myself. I had no intention to use my sword but having it was intimidating and would likely scare the kids away if my appearance wasn't scary enough. I knew how I looked, flushed with power and ready for a fight: glowing white eyes, fiery sword clutched in my hand, the light of heaven illuminating me.
One look at me had the bullies running. I grinned and turned to the boy still pressed flat into the wall. I pulled my power back, trapping under my skin once again and I felt everything fade away again. Pushing my hair out of my eyes, I leaned forward to get a better look at the boy I had just saved as if that could explain why my very power itself was drawn to him.
The boy was Asian no doubt and I was right in my assumption of his age because looking at his face there was no way he could be any older than seven. He looked like he's been living on the streets a good while now, probably around four or five months. Props to the kid for surviving that long. Wait. Asian. Orphan or runway but orphan was more likely. Child. It couldn't be and yet it had to be. I had been waiting on top of that building for three hours and nobody had came that fit the description of my new charge. Nobody but this boy.
That was when I noticed just how scared he was. He stared at me with wide almond eyes and harsh pants falling from his lips. He was terrified of me. Well I guess I didn't make the best entrance to make him trust me.
"Hey lad, it's alright. I don't plan ta hurt ya." I told him gently as I pulled my hands out of my jeans pockets in a gesture of surrender.
"But you're a monster and monsters hurt people." The boy said as he said pressed to the wall, not daring to come closer to me.
"You're right monsters do hurt people but I'm not a monster. I am a badass angel," I said as I grinned and flapped my wings in demonstration. Not that that was particularly a good demonstration. Demons had wings too and some even had feathery wings but the kid didn't have to know that.
"But you don't seem like an angel," He said even as his posture loosened up.
I looked around quickly, trying to catch my reflection in something to see what he meant. I caught a glimpse in a nearby metal trash can but I didn't see anything out of the ordinary. I was wearing the same kind of thing I have worn since the late 1990s; pale jeans with frayed edges, a light blue hoodie over a black t-shirt I could just see the collar of. My hair hadn't changed much either since that time. It was cute short on the sides and dyed light brown while my natural lime green angel hair hung in my face. Why angels have unusual colored hair when they are expected to blend in with mankind, I have no idea. My hair had been light brown when I had been alive, evidence by the brown scraggly beard on my jawline but for some reason when I became an angel, the hair on top of my head turned green. That was probably what the kid found off.
"The green hair wasn't me choice."
"It's not just that. You just don't seem like an angel. You seem human," The boy said as he pulled himself off the wall and stepped closer to me.
"That's the idea lad," I said as I pushed my hair out of my eyes once again. "So how does a little boy like ya end up on the streets."
"My parents died in a car crash and I was in it to and ended up in the hospital for a week. My grandmother took me in after that but she got to old to care for me so they took me away. I had no other family so I ended up in the orphanage but they all picked on me and beat me up. So I ran away. Those boys were from there." The boy looked down at his feet. "You aren't going to take me back are you, Mr. Angel?"
"Not unless ye want ta go back. I'm here to guide ya, not make you do something you don't want." Guardian angels couldn't force their charges to do anything. Free will was a big part of our job.
"Guide me? So are you like a gaurdian angel?"
"Yep. All yers. Name's Jack." I told him as I held out a hand. Jack wasn't my angel name because I rarely told that one but it had been my name when I had been alive so it worked.
The little boy smiled, his grin bright and so full of like, as he reached out to take my hand.
"My name is Mark," He said a fraction of a second before his hand slid into mine. Light bloomed from the touch and I felt my power pulling towards him but this pulling was familiar. My power was seeking him out, linking him to me until the time when our contract was done. Mark's lips parted in surprise as the light faded and he was left with a tiny white wing embossed on the back of his hand. I felt that pull, the strange one, again as he looked up at me with that innocent look on his face and his little hand clenched tighter in mine.
"So you're going to protect me now, Mr. Angel?"
"It's just Jack and yes Mark, I will."
