Author's Note: though it should be obvious, this story takes place beyond the current scope of the manga as released in the US. Keiichi and Belldandy have been married for six months at the time of this story.
Keiichi Morisato sighed as he relaxed in the bath. It had been another normal day in his life; his sisters-in-law, Urd and Skuld, were arguing over something he could hardly understand, while his wife Belldandy just went about her day bringing order to the chaos around her.
Then the demon attack came. Since Keiichi and Belldandy married six months ago, the hordes of the Underworld had made it their mission in life to make the newlyweds lives miserable. It didn't help that they personally knew the Head Demon, Urd's mother Hild; if anything, it made things a hundred times worse.
They prevailed in the end, but at a cost. Belldandy was totally exhausted at the end of the battle, and passed out. She was now asleep in their bed, renewing herself, while Keiichi was in the bath, soaking the ache out of his body, and wishing Belldandy was next to him.
She fumbled and fussed, twisting this way and that, trying to somehow relax so she could rest. She had a hard day of it, and desperately needed to recharge herself.
Holy Bell had expended a great deal of energy today in the demon attack, as had her host, Belldandy. Both beings needed to recharge their heavenly powers, and they only way they could do that was through sleep. Belldandy had managed to sleep, but she could not reach the deepest level necessary for maximum replenishment, and her angel was the reason why.
Holy Bell was molting again, and the itching of her flaking skin was driving the angel to distraction. Not only that, but nits were eating at the base of her feathers again, nearly driving her crazy. She was due for a good cleaning and preening, but Belldandy's condition precluded that at the moment.
Holy Bell was in a quandary; she couldn't rest and recharge unless something was done about her condition. And Belldandy couldn't fully replenish herself until Holy Bell settled down. The goddess was too deeply asleep to rouse, and the angel couldn't do what needed to be done by herself. So what was an angel to do?
Then, an idea dawned. She carefully slipped from Belldandy's sleeping form and made her way to the bathroom.
Keiichi almost shot through the roof when he felt a slight touch on his shoulder.
"Urd!" he hollered as he spun around. He was about to add something when he saw it wasn't his older sister-in-law, come for some mischief of her own. Instead, back across the bathroom, hovering slightly off the floor and looking afraid, was Belldandy's angel, Holy Bell.
Goddesses and their angels shared a symbiotic bond. As such, Holy Bell was never far away from Belldandy when she appeared, and generally, the angel reposed within Belldandy herself, only coming out when needed.
Now, the angel was sitting just off the floor, under a meter away from him, and meters away from her host. The look on the angel's face was almost pleading.
Help me.
Keiichi couldn't mistake it. Holy Bell had somehow spoken in his mind!
"What's wrong? How can I help?" he asked.
Holy Bell carefully floated closer. As she did, Keiichi noticed that parts of her body didn't glow as brightly as the rest of her did. I was almost as if she were shedding.
It itches! Help me...
"Wha', I don't know what to do," he sputtered. She replied by sending images of Belldandy, sitting with her in the bathroom. The goddess gently bathed the angel in soap and water, then carefully pulled what looked like dead skin from the her body.
"You want me to do that?" he asked. The angel nodded enthusiastically in response.
"Well, okay."
With that, Keiichi stood up, got out of the tub, and wrapped a towel around himself. Six months ago, no, even two weeks ago, he would have been embarrassed by standing naked before Holy Bell. But there had been more than a few occasions where the angel, let's say, added her support to Belldandy when the couple made love. Keiichi almost had a heart attack the first time, but Belldandy reassured him that Holy Bell meant no harm, and whether she was inside Belldandy or outside her, the angel was well aware of what was going on between the couple, and enjoyed it just as much as Belldandy did. As a result, today Keiichi just said, "heck with it," and got up.
Holy Bell floated over to the shower, removing the flowing robes she generally wore, and sat on the stool, getting ready. Keiichi went over and took a close look at her. He could see patches of dull skin all over, and in some pretty interesting places. he also noticed that there were little dark things in the angel's wings; things that looked like they didn't belong. Holy Bell's hair was also a mess. All in all, the angel's condition was surprising. Every other time Keiichi saw her, she looked, well, angelic.
Just as mortals need to groom themselves, so do we, Holy Bell told him, Belldandy tends to me as part of her bath, but today was rough on her, and she passed out before she could bathe. It was rough on me, too, but I can't rest like this. If there were any other way, I would have not disturbed you, Kei-chan.
"Don't you worry about that," Keiichi replied, "now, is there any particular soap you like?"
Helping Holy Bell shed her skin was a little nerve wracking at first. Sometimes, it wasn't quite ready to come loose, and the angel would suddenly suck in her breath as Keiichi pulled on it. He asked her what he should do, and she told him to gently pull it away, and she would bear the discomfort. He blushed when he got to her breasts. She giggled and told him not to worry about it, just be extra careful, as they were just as sensitive as a human's. It was even worse when he worked his way lower, but he finally managed to strip away all of the dead skin. The nice part about it was, when the skin separated from the angel, it disappeared, so there was no mess to clean up.
Then he started on her hair. He washed it thoroughly, then rinsed it out. While he did this, he noticed that hair seemed to be pulling away from the angel's scalp. For a second, Keiichi wondered if he was scrubbing too hard, then realized what was happening. The skin was peeling away on her scalp as well as the rest of her. The only difference was that the new skin underneath also had new hair that was trying to get out. So, even though he was pulling what looked like massive clump of hair from her head, nothing was actually lost.
"You know, most women would die to be able to do this," he told Holy Bell, "pull off dead skin and have pretty youthful skin underneath? Not only that, but pull off their old hair like a wig and find a new head of hair underneath it."
Holy Bell only smiled.
When Keiichi finished, he wrapped her hair in a towel to dry.
"We'll brush it out in the bedroom," he told her.
Lastly came her wings. Keiichi had always admired angel's wings, but this was the first time he had ever been so close to them. He gently ran his hands along their surface, stopping when he felt one of the little nits. He would then gently pull it away and throw it in a bucket of water that Holy Bell had him prepare. She said the parasites wouldn't survive in the water, and throwing them there would make them easier to dispose of when they were done.
Along the way, Keiichi encountered some loose feathers. If they felt loose enough to pull out, he did; if not, he would try and smooth them back into place. Bell winced when he removed them, but assured him that he was doing the right thing.
The whole time Keiichi was tending to Holy Bell, he noticed a change come over her, over and above the change in her appearance. When she first came to him, she shied away as soon as she touched him. When he started cleaning her, she was tense and stiff, almost like she was nervous or afraid. As he tended to her, she began to relax, until she completely unwound. As he washed her hair, she actually leaned back into him, like she was giving herself permission to enjoy what his hands were doing. And then there was the smile she gave him when he told her how lucky she was to be able to shed her skin like she does. Her acceptance of him preening her wings seemed to be the culmination of her trust in him. She stretched and extended her wings almost sensuously so he could get at the parasites that were causing her trouble, almost quivering at times as he ran his hands along her feathered surfaces.
When he finally removed all of the nits, Keiichi dumped the bucket in the toilet and flushed the parasites away. He then put the bucket away and put on his robe. Holy Bell put back on her robes, and the two went back to their bedroom.
When they entered, they saw Belldandy peacefully asleep on the futon. the angel flew over to the dresser and seated herself, removing the towel from her head in preparation for the next step. Keiichi walked over and looked for a brush.
"Is there a particular brush you use?" he asked.
Holy Bell quickly picked out her brush, the one Belldandy bought just for her, and held it out to Keiichi. He smiled as he took it from her, and kept on smiling as he saw how she eagerly awaited his ministrations. He stood behind her and drew the brush carefully through her hair. When he came to a tangle, he carefully applied a little more pressure to undo it, and continued the stroke. All the time, Holy Bell was beaming pleasure to him as though he were fondling her. He couldn't help himself; he would coo and tickle at her, play little games with her hair in the mirror, causing her to laugh. In this moment, Keiichi felt more like the angel's father than her friend, and he liked the feeling. They continued like this for some time.
As Keiichi worked, Belldandy stirred. She had felt all of the joy Holy Bell was experiencing, and the angel's close proximity intensified it. The angel's relaxing had been just enough so the goddess could slip into the deepest level of sleep and recharge. She still needed more rest, but she had recovered enough to register the pleasure radiating from her angel. This piqued her curiosity, so Belldandy slowly opened her eyes and saw her husband brushing her angel's beautiful hair. She also saw that Holy Bell had been cleaned up and preened, and was looking magnificent once again. But what brought the smile to her face was the way Keiichi was acting. He treated the angel as his own daughter, getting her ready for bed. And Holy Bell was acting just like a little girl, happy to have her father's undivided attention, if only for this moment. Of all the beautiful things Belldandy had seen in her life, this moment was one of the most beautiful. The goddess sat up in the bed.
"Keiichi?" she softly called out.
The reaction was instantaneous. Keiichi spun around, pulling Holy Bell's hair, causing her to squeak as she also turned around. The both of them looked like small children who had been caught playing doctor.
"Uh, Belldandy, this isn't what you think," Keiichi quickly said.
"You mean you aren't brushing Holy Bell's hair," Belldandy replied, "you mean you didn't bathe her and clean her wings just now. You mean you weren't doing what I wasn't able to do?"
"Well, yeah, I did that; but I didn't..."
Belldandy giggled. "Silly, you couldn't have sex with Holy Bell if you tried. Angels don't reproduce in that manner, though they can share in our pleasure when we do."
Keiichi's face turned red at that.
"Anata, she is as much a part of me as you are. I know her and trust her just as she knows and trusts me. Just as I trust you. She wouldn't have come to you unless she was truly uncomfortable; and given today's events, I'm not surprised that she did. I'm just sorry I wasn't awake to see more of you two together."
The whole time, Holy Bell was sitting next to Keiichi, beaming her joy and relief back to her goddess. She finally turned to Keiichi, took him in her arms and gave him a warm kiss on the cheek, then whispered, "thank you," in his ear. She then flew over and disappeared back into Belldandy.
"Tomorrow," the goddess said, "we both will tend to Holy Bell's care, and I'll show you more of what she needs done. But tonight..."
She slipped off the nightshirt she was wearing, and held her arms out to her husband.
"I will show you just how much we both appreciate you."