Author's Note: In this fic, Seraph was a seraphim program, but we're just going to call them angels. Please enjoy.


A Feather For My Love

Wings

Neo had just grabbed the teahouse door's handle when pain lashed through his body. Shocked, he let go of the door and fell to the ground as the fiery pain spread through his RSI and settled between his shoulders. It felt like his bones were breaking as he curled in on himself and he held in a scream as he felt something ripping. 'Go away, go away. God, where's Seraph ? Oh, please, please let it end, love ?'

He'd squeezed his eyes shut and then Seraph's voice was echoing through something soft. It felt like there was a hand on his arm, but it was a lot softer than his arm and too far away. It freaked him out when he uncurled and muscles he didn't know he had stretched and a pair of big, white feathered wings unfurled.

'How ? How can I glitch enough to get wings ? I'm a human, I shouldn't be able to glitch at all. Seraph has to be able to help me, he has to be.'

Then Seraph's words filtered into his ears, "Are you wounded badly, brother ?"

It was hard to see the black-haired, tan-skinned A.I. through the heavy fog. When he waved his hands in front of his face, the wings, his wings flapped away some of the fog. As the fog cleared away, he gasped, Seraph…Seraph had his wings again. A single pair of black feathered wings framed Seraph, meanwhile they stood on the edge of a mountain.

'Dear God, his wings are beautiful. I mean, I always imagined they would be, but I never imagined they would be this beautiful. I just thought they'd be white or silver or something cheery.'

Slowly, he pushed himself up and answered, "I-I don't think s-so. W-why are your wings black ?"

The other man shook his head slightly before he whispered, "Those new Agents are close by, we must leave."

'Agents ? Since when have Agents been new ? Why does Seraph suddenly have his wings back ? The one day when I asked him, he said they'd been cut off after he'd been exiled, so, how did he get them back ? Diddid I just time-travel or something ?'

The thoughts confused and shook him, but he managed to keep calm enough to ask, "Ah, Seraph, how do I fly ?"

Seraph's brown-eyes glowed, "You glitch enough to forget flight, but, not my name. You are an odd one."

His gaze drifted into the code and past his love as Seraph's wings folded. Down the mountain, he could see Smith as an Agent, along with the other two making their way up. For a second, he took a steadying breath and followed Seraph's lead in running and jumping off the mountain.

When he tried to follow Seraph's example of folding his wings before opening them again quickly, all he managed to do was plummet like a stone and crash into an actual snow-covered boulder. As he got up, on impulse he wrapped his wings around himself and peered through a small gap in his feather tips as Smith and the others approached. Nearly cursed aloud and froze even further as he saw blood droplets leading right towards him.

He shivered and his feathers rustled as Smith let out a dark-laugh, "Perhaps we did wound you after all, hmm, Seraph ?"

In response, he willed his wings open and as the bright-blue eyes were shocked he quipped, "Not quite, you missed again, Smith."

Simply because he could, he launched himself at Smith and kicked the Agent in the face. A snarl as he turned away and found his wings flapping in broad-strokes towards Seraph who had flown back towards him. 'God, I've hardly done anything, but I'm tired already. I hope wherever Seraph has in mind to go isn't too far away.'

Hissed as a bullet tore through his right wing and Seraph was grabbing his hand, pulling him higher into the air. "Follow my wing beats as much as you can, if you cannot just let yourself drift."

Smith's voice echoed after them, "You will not escape, Neo Angelus, neither will Seraph. Your deletion is inevitable and when I find you, when I finally have you I'll cut your pretty little wings off."

'In a round about way he just called me Neo. Well, technically, he just called me 'New angel' why would he combine Greek and Latin just to call me that ? Technically, I haven't even met him yet, if this is an earlier version of the Matrix, so he can't hate me yet.'

A half-turn later, he shouted back, "You might not remember, but I've escaped you plenty of times. So, you know what ? Fuck you, Smith !"

Another laugh echoed up to him, "Consider that challenge accepted, Neo.", as himself and Seraph got even farther away.

Just when he thought he'd pass out, they landed on the unfamiliar roof of the unpleasantly familiar chateau of the Merovingian. The black-graying haired Merovingian stood waiting, while he sipped from a crystal glass of white wine, "Zo, you 'ave ay'rrived again, Mon de toute beauté aile, Zeraph. Vous apporter avec une beau visage." *My beautiful wings* *You bring with a beautiful face.*

Though, he couldn't understand a word of French, he recognized the lust filled look from back in Levrai. Simply put he was too exhausted to realize just when the Merovingian started kissing him, but when he did realize it was happening, he shoved the French-man away. Really, it shouldn't have surprised him that he was sworn at, it just surprised him when his wings flared in anger.

"Si vous voulez être à l'extérieur de vous baisant la merde plumeuse mes hommes vous prendront. Peu Dieu baisant merde." *If you want to be outside you fucking feathery shit my men will take you. Little God fucking shit.*

Everything went black and when he woke up Seraph was leaning over him. The angelic program looked relieved, "Good, I am glad you awoke. Do you still wish to know what our wings mean ?"

Again, he pushed himself up and unlike any other time, Seraph leaned away from him. It hurt, 'I can't feel that way with him, for all he knows I'm just a random stranger. I'm not his lover, now.'

When he said, "Please, Seraph.", he noticed the man wore a blue version of his regular white jacket, but he still wore black-pants.

As Seraph talked his raven-black feathers ruffled and the beautiful wings mantled above the white queen bed, "White is the most common color for our wings, green is the second and black is the least common. The ones who have multiple colors on their wings are programmed to be able to do great things. Pearl-emerald is the lowest of the multi-wing, pearl-obsidian and emerald-obsidian are higher, but tri-wings are the highest of us. Either way, all of our wings when wrapped around ourselves have the capability to hide us from others if we so wish. Have you remembered your name ?"

Those words drifted through his head with a dawning yet surprisingly detached sense of horror. 'Oh, God, oh God, when I got dragged into the Agency…I thought I saw something huge, something that was green, black and white mounted just below the ceiling. That's why he suddenly had that weird smile on his face…he recognized me, he knew he'd taken my wings. I'm going to loose my wings before I even get used to them.'

He felt dizzy and, unconsciously, his wings unfolded to steady himself as he muttered, "Just call me Neo, how'd you get that ass to take us in after I pushed him away ? He sounded pretty pissed off."

"I will have the heart's resolve to take his price for our stay. You are already injured and I would not be able to bear if you died because of him."

Another thing clicked suddenly in his head. 'I was jealous of myself, I was jealous of my own fucking self because he always said that he took those knife-scars, those whip-marks for a "Beautiful but amnesiac angel." When he, when he really took those for me. I can't believe Seraph let himself be scarred because he loved me. I can't let him do that, it probably won't work, but, I've got to try.'

"You can't, what if you get scarred or one of your wings breaks ? Seraph, what if you get hurt ? Let me do it, he wants me anyway."

Seraph shook his head and looked about the airy, beige and gold-colored room. A hand cupped his chin, "I cannot let you, by your wings alone, you are worth more to the Matrix than I am. I am an obsidian-wing, but you are an obsidian-tri-wing and I need to protect you from as much as it is possible for me to do alone."

"Who cares about wing colors ? What if my supposed worth proving event never happens ? What if you end up scarred for nothing ?"

"Then I will know that my heart's resolve can last through any challenge. I know not why you care so deeply, the other obsidian-multi-wings would not care that I do this. Don't cry, I promise that I can handle this."

To be honest, he hadn't even realized that he had started, his wings ruffled as a gravelly voice asked, "Are the pretty birdies having fun at their slumber-party ?"

Both himself and Seraph jerked their heads towards the door. A huge, bald, tan-skinned man who was probably 6'5 or 6'7 in black-leather, fur-trimmed coat stood in the doorway. 'That's the bouncer from Club Hel, so, I really must be back in time because I killed him before Smith showed back up again.'

"Does it truly matter to you that much, Romulus ?"

'Romulus ? So, he is one of those werewolves after all, if you by the fact that the one Niobe killed was called Cujo.'

"I want to know if there's something to watch to later on."

'Watch ? Watch, he's a freaking pervert.'

Annoyed, he threw out a hand and willed Romulus out of the room. The werewolf was carried off his feet and out the door, then he manipulated the door's code closed.

The next morning, Seraph was teaching him how to fly without slamming into another rock or killing himself. Flying with wings was a lot harder than telekinetic flight, as he curled his left wing to do a barrel roll and over-flapped on his upstroke…right into a downdraft with a girly scream as he lost control.

Seraph chuckled, "Tilt your secondary feather-tips downward and flap outward in a spiral."

He blushed as he followed Seraph's instructions. It had worried him how late Seraph had come back to the 'Aviary' as Romulus called his and Seraph's room. When the slightly shorter man had pulled off the blue-shirt, he'd seen bloody stripes shining in the moonlight on the tanned skin.

Flash-forward

It shocked him when Seraph pulled off the white jacket to show that the small of the tanned back was covered in barely visible scars. Then his gaze drifted up to the ex-angel programs back to see two shorter and bulkier scars in the center of Seraph's shoulder blades.

Gently, he ran his fingertips over the scars, "Are you…okay now ? Do they still hurt sometimes ?"

There was a giggle and he looked down at Sati with a blush as he pulled his hand away. When he looked up the Oracle smiled and Seraph was watching him interestedly.

"It is only a few times in a year normally, otherwise I am fine, thank you, Neo."

End Flash-forward

It seemed like seconds later that they were landing on the asphalt in front of the chateau. Romulus walked out of the house/castle with a few very familiar looking wolves in his stead.

"Did the birdies have fun on their flight ? I'll bet you're hungry, well, either way, I could eat and the Master wants you two in the main dinning-room."

'Oh great, now I get to see that French idiot again. I hope Persephone is still likable, or, will be likeable now too. Either way, she's better than her cheating, pervert husband.'

When they walked into the main dinning-room, Persephone asked, "Who is this ? I was not aware that we had a new guest. Much less another angel like dear Seraph and a more powerful one than him if I am right."

It still startled him as his wings rustled as he nodded, "My name is Neo and I'm an obsidian-tri-wing. Apparently, it means exactly what you think it means."

Frenchie gestured for himself and Seraph to join them at the close end of the long table. Sunlight poured into the beige room with it's multitude of windows that showed the drop hundreds of feet below. Seraph's wings threw rainbows onto the table as they walked, while his own cast a mix of green and rainbows.

Instead of chairs at the other end, there were expensive, of course, highly carved obsidian stools so their wings wouldn't get cramped, which his had been earlier this morning before his shower.

'My wings are probably going to be sore for a while, still I'll take what I can get while I have them.'