This was also posted at aarinfantasy, so apologies if anyone's reading it again or something. It was originally meant to be more Rei-centric, but then as I got writing it seemed like it would work better from Shin's point of view, so it turned into a bit of a Shin/Judas fic, although it's still fairly light. I was mostly interested in how Rei and Shin are dealing with the same apprehension but don't really seem to actively share their feelings, they just stifle them.

It's supposed to be set post-OVA.

The disturbance ended up being nothing important. The animals had grown restless due to imbalance in the order of the world since the guardian angels had disappeared, but their investigation yielded nothing from Judas and Luca or their followers. They were still at square one, knowing they would proceed forward and yet completely lost as to how they should face this threat, with all the things that had passed between them.

"Dinner will be ready soon."

Shin looked up in surprise from his book on the various human cultures to see Rei's slim figure standing in the doorway.

Rei slowly entered the room. "Reading still? You really put your best effort into everything about your work. I admire it, Shin."

Shin quickly bookmarked his place and set the tome aside. "No, no. I just thought that if we spend very much longer with the humans, we ought to know how to fit in a little better. I don't think we can stay in this haunted mansion forever without finally being noticed."

"Indeed," Rei said, smiling as he nodded. He moved towards the window, looking out at the sunset, just barely discernible behind the sparse cover of the trees.

"I think more than ever we have to focus our abilities on the mission at hand. And learning to move easily among the humans will help us if we want to seek out more information about strange happenings. But, of course, I want to give my best effort to everything, even if its just for its own sake, that is true, you could say," Shin admitted.

"But it's difficult when your heart is restless, isn't it?" Rei said, still looking distantly at the sunset, not meeting Shin's shocked gaze.

Indeed how could it not be? All of them shared the same apprehension, the same confusion and unsurety about how they were to proceed. But truly he understood what Rei meant, for they both shared another type of memories, the same feelings about the angels who had fallen to hell what seemed far too short a while and yet so long ago. So much had changed since then, and yet how could Shin forget those memories of their rebellion against Zeus, or the times before that which had seemed so much a paradise? Sitting by the river as he struck his harp while Judas sat in silence beside him, smiling; the moments of laughter when the six of them were together: Gai and Rei caught in endless teasing and Goh reprimanding them, Judas taking no side but with strong and gentle words diffusing the situation; the memories when he felt that strange and mysterious feeling as though he could be no closer to anyone in the heavens than Judas at that moment…

But there were other memories, ones that came to him in his dreams. Goh clutching on to the gravely hurt Gai, Luca shielding an unconscious Rei with his body, and Judas…Judas using the last of his strength to heal Shin's own wounds, despite the fact that they had in the end betrayed him, falling under Zeus' influence while he and Luca were absent from heaven. Judas then was indeed such an angel that could still kiss his betrayer. Long after that Shin had still wished to atone for their grave error, the one that had ended up in their loss against Zeus and the banishment of Judas and Luca to hell, sealed beneath the earth for countless thousands of nights and days.

But things were different now, Heaven had again reached stability and peace and Judas, it seemed, had become corrupt in his ideals, no longer the straightforward and just angel that Shin remembered. The Judas from then would not have condemned the guardian angels so, nor corrupted and led so many angels to their doom. The fates of Natsuki, Hiro, Rio—the Judas he knew would not have done such things. But still Shin remained sure that the traces of the great angel that he used to be must reside somewhere within. If they could somehow throw off the poison that had corroded their former friends' hearts, if they could reach to the memories of who they once were—the same poignant and bittersweet memories that Shin now thought of—maybe they all could clear the taint from the past that haunted them and end it peacefully. Maybe they wouldn't have to end it fighting. Maybe the future could be brighter for them all.

"Yes," he replied, placing his arm around Rei for comfort.

They stood in silence, forgetting for a moment the world outside this little room, remembering the greater world beyond it.