summary: The sky is a mix of crimson and smoke and the world is slowly crumbling down but she prays that they will be the last things to burn out. —Raffe, Penryn, and everything else left unsaid.
notes: Trying my hand at Raffryn. Alternating POVs.
She finds him in the middle of a war.
She finds him when the sunset is burning a hole in the horizon and she has to squint through the haze to find him in the midst of dirty white feathers and flashing swords. If she was honest with herself, though, Penryn wouldn't exactly call it finding—it's more like he was inconveniently there and her heart just happened to take control in the most inopportune of moments—but she doesn't think twice before she dives for the glint of silver and tosses the sword with an accuracy she never knew she'd possessed.
And then—
(The ground nearly gets yanked out below her feet when he snatches the blade mid-air, and then she's scrambling away back to Paige when she realizes the angel with wings the color of the bleeding sunset cuts her with hard amber eyes and then she runs, runs like she's never done before.
But of course, only a fool would ever think that they could outrun an angel.)
—the world stops spinning for a second before everything is over because her legs are shaking and her voice is hoarse after shouting at retreating wings, black dots forming in her vision from staring at burning red far too long.
I'm so sorry, Paige.
So maybe she does finds him, in a way—her fingers dig into his arm right when the ground gives out.
Just when Raffe thinks that he's seen it all, the world throws him a curveball in the form of a petite girl with dark hair and even darker eyes and tosses him into an unknown sea with a raft for shelter, no paddle, and only her for company.
But it's her spirit, he thinks, that draws him to Penryn the most, after she'd cornered him in the apartment right after she'd bandaged his wounds, telling him that she was going to find her sister one way or another, with or without his help, but she'll greatly appreciate his assistance, thank you very much. Or maybe it was the way she held her chin up and back ramrod straight when she walked into the crowded camp hall with nothing but frozen peas to the bruise on her jaw, silently daring someone to say a word about it.
Her presence takes up too much room; she couldn't be ignored, teddy bear sword by her side or not.
And so tells her this, in the dead of the night when they're fleeing from Obadiah's camp: Sometimes, as we're stumbling around in the dark, we hit something good.
In the World Before, she remembers reading books about parallel universes. Remembers reading about red strings of fate, degrees of separation, fixed stars, and almost everything in-between.
Penryn tells him all this when they set up camp in an abandoned apartment complex, half a day's travel to the Aerie. She's not sure why she's opening up right when their journey together is almost over, but something's gotta give and she couldn't be the only one that wanted to fill in the blanks in the silence that hung between them when they ran out of practical things to talk about.
She tells him how she'd wished she'd read something that taught her how to deal with the apocalypse and Raffe snorts and tells her that she's better off without it because she's a smart girl and they're alive and we'll get back your sister, okay.
(Penryn wonders how long he'd saved that line, since all she's ever talked about is Paige and food and shelter and honestly, she's surprised that he hasn't told her that earlier in response to her constant ramblings.)
It's dark out but and she kinda feels like sleeping so Penryn finishes her dinner of canned soup and leans against the sofa. Raffe's inspecting their bags on the other side and it's quiet again and all Penryn can think about is his eyes look so lonely and this might be the last time to have a real conversation and everything just kind of stops.
She scoots closer to him and takes the plunge.
He says her name out loud sometimes—
(Penryn, he'll whisper when the lights are all out and he can see the moon clearly outlined against the night, when he's lying on scratchy beige carpets with pillows under his head while she takes the couches; stretching out the second syllable of her name like he has something to prove.
Penryn, Daughter of Man. Penryn, I'm named after an exit off Interstate 80 Young.
Raffe tells himself that it's okay. It's okay because once he got his wings and her sister back, it'll be all over. It'll be over and he won't have to stay awake thinking about how she's the first human (girl) in centuries that he'd spent more than a week with or how she'd managed to get under his skin so easily with her snark and sarcasm.
Sleep never came easily when he's like this but the truth is, Raffe doesn't know why his heart races, can't remember why his throat is so dry with all these thoughts in his head, thinking, god, they're the type of people poets wrote tragedies about.
So it's Penryn. Penryn, because everything else is such a mouthful and it makes her seem even farther out of reach than she already is and he'd rather have her close or not at all.)
—and it sounds a little bit like heaven, a little bit like sin.
So maybe that's why Raffe ignores the way his heart races, why he tells himself not to feel anything when she's standing in front of him in a simple red dress with curled hair, dark eyes framed in smoky kohl.
If he closes his eyes and thinks back, decades, centuries past, he could think of a hundred other girls that looked like her—brown hair, dark eyes, red lips—but then, none of them walked with an angel sword hidden under a teddy bear, or with knives strapped underneath dresses.
(She's suddenly too close now, hands dangerously close to his, and he takes in a slow breath.)
So when he kisses her with the feel of his fingers tangled underneath silky strands and the taste of Penryn everywhere,
it burns.
(And it's the closest to heaven he'll ever be.)
She'd asked him about angels before. Asks because she's Penryn Young, seventeen years old, too curious and noble to be still trying to find reason in chaos.
"I need to know what caused this," she tells him in half-formed whispers back in Obadiah's camp. "I've heard the part they're gonna play. Now I need yours."
She notices that he hesitates once, like he doesn't know where to begin, but then he takes her by the hand and guides her toward a corner table in the dining hall where nobody frequents and begins.
You'd thought Angels were kind, the golden holy warriors of the Bible. But let me tell you, it was an angel with a flaming sword and crown that drove Adam and Eve out. But here we are, harbringers of everything you never thought we could be.
He'd taken a long look here at her, a careful, measured look backed by centuries of history.
But then again, here you are, everything I thought you would never be.
He doesn't know how to think back to the World Before, or anytime at all before the apocalypse. It's like someone reordered time and set the pendulum back in motion before he ever had the chance to catch his breath again. Like someone wiped his slate clean when he wasn't looking, rewriting the story in the process.
He doesn't know how to go back to the time where he'd look at her and wonder about how he'd never noticed the way sunlight lit up her hair like a halo, before days of war on Earth and how her gaze had burned into his, raising one brow up in something like a challenge to see if they could both get what they wanted—his wings, strapped securely to her pack, and her sister, lost in a city by the sea—without ever getting burnt.
(So this is before—
In the beginning, God had the angels.
And the angels were fine until God made Man.
Man, who built and destroyed whole empires in the span of decades and centuries, burned and salted the Earth in the name of glory, plundered and ravaged cities, entire civilizations for power. Man, who believed in thou shalt not painted the skies in crimson and gold and thought nothing about crumbling kingdoms, only for flashing crowns. Man, who believed in one thing thing and did another, et cyclum pergit.
So yes, the angels were fine until Man came along.)
"Tell me a secret," she says. Tell me something you've never dared to say before because we might turn to dust tomorrow, because you've never had anyone listen in centuries and I think I might be in love with you.
In the dark, tucked between stolen sheets and feather-down pillows, is where they're both at ease. In the safety of the shadows she asks him in hushed whispers what would happen if the sun never rose again. All the what-ifs flood past the gates and he silences her by taking her hand and telling her that it wouldn't change a thing.
The sky is a mix of crimson and smoke and the world is slowly crumbling down but she prays that they will be the last things to burn out.
When the world begins again, he's lying on a boat heading for the end of the world with the sun in his eyes and she's right beside him, one hand clasped in his and the other smoothing windblown hair back.
He tries to blame it on the concussion back at Alcatraz when all the words he's meant to say somehow get stuck in his throat and caught between his teeth; he ends up telling her that he's willing to be her pig farmer and somewhere along the way—between all the jokes and don't tell me that this is that all you've got, Raffe—the kiss she gives him is an answer all on its own.
(They head back to shore far too quickly, and Howler and the rest of his Watchers pretend to take double takes at their clasped hands, but all he does is roll his eyes good-naturedly and that's that.)
It still takes a while for her to change into pajamas instead of going to bed in jeans and a sweatshirt, and even longer for her to stop sleeping with her back against the wall.
Still, she gets restless during nights and sometimes, she flings her covers back and grabs her jacket, busting open her window scaling up the fire escape, retreating to the roof where she lies down lets her feet dangle, eyes locked on the stars. This is how Raffe finds her after a week of sneaking off into the night, arms crossed behind her head, sock clad feet draped over the edge of the roof.
He tells her that sulking alone is almost as bad as drinking alone as he takes a seat next to her, settling down and sitting criss-cross-applesauce. She laughs a little, a half-formed sound in the dead of night and asks if he's speaking from experience, shifting to the right so she can look at him without craning her head at an odd angle. It's still dark and she can't exactly make out the details of his face but she thinks she catches the faint glint of teeth against the night.
Raffe doesn't quite answer but pulls her up so her head is resting on his lap and Penryn breathes out a sigh.
"I," she starts, but stops, catching herself. They're in a good place now, her and Raffe, and she's not sure if blow up everything and send it all up in smoke but there's just something else that she needs to get out of the way.
"I've never loved anyone like this before," she says. I've never done anything like this before. I've never been loved like this before. And she means it. She has her mother and sister, but everyone who came after left and she's tired of being left behind.
She's looking into his eyes as she says this, and what she sees there makes her feel silly for even saying what is clearly reflected back at her.
"I know," Raffe says simply (reassuringly) and his touches are feather light as he brushes back her hair and standing up, pulling her up along him in one smooth movement. "Come on, let's go back before you freeze."
A retort's on the tip of her tongue but when she looks up at him Raffe's got the stars in his eyes and it kind of slips away when he pushes her against the fire escape and leans down, brushing her mouth with his.
They make their way back into her room and Raffe's reaching for her bedroom door when she climbs back out of her bed and reaches for his hand.
"Stay," she says, and it's somewhere between a plea and an order; he throws a what will your mother say half in jest and she responds with let's find out.
So maybe she finds him, he finds her, they find each other—she yawns and leans back into his arms, drawing the covers over them both. Raffe buries his nose in her hair and Penryn laces her fingers through his, squeezing once.
(And the dawn races across the floor.)