So this story was a spur of the moment thing last night. I saw that Hush, Hush is lacking in stories so I had the urge to contribute. I really felt like getting into Patch's head during the motel scene in the book, so that's what I did. This is essentially everything Patch was thinking the entire time.
Disclaimer: All the characters and dialogue belong to Becca Fitzpatrick, not me. I only came up with what could possibly be in this angel's head while he is alone in a dark motel room with Nora ;)
Patch's POV
I put the key in the door and opened it in one smooth motion. After Nora was inside, I shut and locked the door. I put one candle on the nightstand in the main room. Still holding the other, I took of my baseball cap and shook out my soaking wet hair.
"You need a hot shower." I went to check out the bathroom and left the other candle there by the sink. "Looks like bar soap and two towels." Nora tilted her chin up just a little.
"You can't f-force me to stay here."
"That sounded more like a question than a statement."
"Then ans-s-swer it."
"It's hard to concentrate on answers with you looking like that." I smiled slyly.
I was currently staring at Nora, soaked through head to toe, wearing a black shirt—my black shirt—that clung to her tightly in the most convenient places. I couldn't help myself. I also knew she needed a shower before she got hypothermia. I had to force her, but have her do it of her own free will. She looked down at herself, glanced back at me and the smile I just couldn't hide, and shook her head as she danced past me and shut the bathroom door behind her. Mission accomplished; hey, it's not like I wasn't allowed to have a little fun. I lived by my own set of rules, and I have for centuries.
I heard the water pounding against the tile in the shower. I thought about Nora's reaction if I went in and surprised her…it was tempting, but I couldn't bring myself to do it. Just like I couldn't bring myself to kill this girl. Tonight was about trust. I was getting in deep. I couldn't tear myself away from this girl. This girl…this girl, who was the key to my strongest desire; this girl, who could make me human—if I got her to sacrifice herself for me. That was always the plan, anyway. But now more than ever, I couldn't let her do it—I wouldn't. Tonight I was going to let Nora into my world; I was going to tell her. If I was being honest with myself, I loved this girl. It was time.
She seemed strong. All the time I've been watching her these past eight months, I had not once seen her break down—not when her mother would leave her alone for days at a time, not over her father's murder, not over anything. I tried to picture how she would react when I told her I was a fallen angel. I was still debating whether or not to tell her everything else. That would depend on how she takes the first confession.
I walked over to sit on the king size bed in the middle of the room. There wouldn't be a better time to do it. I hadn't known Nora was going to call me at this time of night and ask me to come get her in Portland. I hadn't known it was going to rain—well, not until after I'd gotten her. Granted, I did know there was a motel here and I made her think the engine in the Jeep was dead. But I had nothing at all to do with the telephone lines being down and the power cutting out. That was all due to the storm. I was beginning to think someone up there was helping me out, even after all these centuries.
I hadn't the slightest idea how the hell I was going to bring up the subject, though. It's not like when she opened the bathroom door I could just come out and say: 'Hey Nora, I'm a fallen angel. The only reason we met in the first place was so I could sacrifice you to get turned into a human, but I fell in love with you instead'. That would go over just peachy. I had to ease her into it, without putting words into her head. I wanted her response to be just that: her response. Usually Nora's mind being so open and unprotected was a good thing, but one day that's going to get her in trouble. Not that there would be anyone down here other than me who could influence her that way—besides Rixon—but still.
Speaking of Rixon, he was going to get it when all this was dealt with. When he jumped me in Bo's when I took Nora there a few nights ago, he'd torn my shirt up. I beat him, but I knew there was no way Nora had missed my scars. She didn't know they were where my wings used to be, but she definitely knew they existed. I wasn't ready to tell her then, and she wasn't ready to hear it either. I didn't want them to scare her away, and even more I didn't want her thinking about them and speculating exactly what I could have done in my past to have gotten them. I was pissed at Rixon, and it had faded a little; that is, until the other night when he made a comment that unsettled me a bit.
It's a good thing we've got a few months before Cheshvan comes around again. Because if you used your Nephilim's body to get with one of his descendants—that's just plain kinky, Patch.
I would never do it, obviously. Don't get me wrong, if it was Cheshvan I would no doubt be tempted, but I haven't told Nora any bit of this yet. Hell, I haven't even full-on kissed her yet. But I was hoping at least some of that was going to change tonight.
I heard the water in the bathroom shut off, and I practically leaped off the bed. I still had no thought as to how to approach my topic, and I was thinking about taking a shower to buy me some more time. It's not like I needed one. That's one of the benefits of not being able to truly feel anything physically: when you get rained on, you don't feel too cold, and the wetness doesn't bother you. And besides avoiding injury, that's the only benefit to that part of being fallen.
"Patch?" Nora whispered through the door.
"Done?" I was trying very unsuccessfully not to think of how much desire it gave me hearing Nora say my name like that, and how I could get her to say it again tonight.
"Blow out the candle."
"Done." I laughed quietly to myself. Nora was nothing if not dead-set against openly encouraging my advances. I knew under it all she had something for me too, but she had her principles. I blew out the candle in the main room right before she extinguished the one in the bathroom and came out. She stopped directly in front of me, not two inches between us.
"My clothes are soaked. I don't have anything to wear."
I was alone in a motel room, standing in complete darkness about an inch away from the girl I loved and desired beyond belief, who was wearing little to no clothing…
"Lucky me." I took off my wet shirt and dropped it on the floor. There was a pause.
"This is really awkward." A smile broke through on my face. The awkwardness depended on whose point of view you were looking through here. "You should shower. Right now."
"I smell that bad?" She didn't answer—disregarding the sound of her smelling the air at my comment—so I decided a shower would be a good idea. Hopefully by the end of it I would know how to proceed with the conversation.
I stepped around Nora and into the bathroom. I relit the candle there, and turned on the water to the shower. I left the door open a bit, hinting at the opening of an invitation I knew she wouldn't actually accept. A guy can dream though, can't he?
I let the hot water flow down my body and I washed up for good measure. The hot steam filling my lungs helped me clear my mind and think of some type of plan of attack. First of all, I'd have to go out there without a shirt on, since I left it on the floor in the main room. Showing Nora my scars, opening up to her like that, would be a good way to start. I had to relinquish my boundaries and trust her. That was the only way this was going to work. I thought of how I could tell her.
I could ask her if she believed in angels, what she knew about them.
I could ask her to think back to that night at Delphic Seaport, when we rode the Archangel together. I could ask her to think about the paintings on the front of the coaster, and wait for her to picture the one of a fallen angel, with scars exactly like mine.
I could just tell her, straight away. There really was no sugar-coating it, and dancing around it would just drag out the process.
By the time I came to this thought, it had been awhile. I shut off the water, dried off and pulled my jeans on. As I dropped the towel on the floor, I noticed the other towel plus a pair of jeans, a shirt, and a bra. I walked out the door, still unsure of what to do, and now unsure of what exactly I was going to walk out to. I guess I was just going to wing it.
I almost stopped in my tracks when I saw her. The candle in the bathroom was the only illumination, but I could see perfectly. Nora was sitting on the bed in a thin black tank top and panties. I caught her glance fix upon me, scanning me head to toe, focusing on my middle. One more benefit to having been an angel: a body that stops women in their tracks (even if it is just for show).
"What side of the bed do you want?" Nora blinked and shook her head slightly before she answered.
"Uh…" I smiled slightly at her reaction.
"Nervous?"
"No." I could tell she was lying though; her voice was a little too high when she said that, for one.
"You're a bad liar. The worst I've seen." She put her hands on her hips as if she was challenging my accusation. My smile grew. I couldn't help how I felt around her. I was acting purely on instinct now, all thoughts of any previously plan thrown out of my head by this girl and how much she amazed me. "Come here" I said as I pulled her off the bed and close to me. She looked into my eyes briefly before her gaze traveled behind me. Her eyes widened and I felt her go still. I vaguely remembered there being a mirror on the opposite wall. I thought my scars had scared her for good this time, until she took her hands out of mine and touched my chest, ever so lightly. She ran her hands up and over my shoulders to my back. Before I could stop her she touched one of my scars. I froze. Shit. This was not good. Nora started shaking before she was fully taken into the dark recesses of my memory. Her body went limp for what, to me in the real world, was just a few milliseconds, and when she came back I acted quickly.
I pushed her flat on the bed and pinned her wrists above her head with one hand. There was no telling what the hell it was she saw, and I didn't need her to run away screaming or try to attack me. Now I didn't need an opener to brush the subject—this was it. Now was the time to talk about it.
I had to work to control my anger and anxiety over what she might have seen. "You weren't supposed to do that. What did you see?" She kneed my in the rib. It didn't affect me, but that didn't bode well.
"Get—off—me!" I straddled her hips. With my weight on her like that she could barely move, forcing her to stay and talk to me. "Get—off—me—or—I'll—scream!"
"You're already screaming. And it isn't going to cause a stir in this place. It's more of a whorehouse than a motel." I smiled, half at the dark humor which presented itself in both my words and our relative positions at the moment, and the other half I'm sure showed my anger. "Last chance, Nora. What did you see?"
"You make me sick! Who are you? Who are you really?" Whatever she saw, based on the information she was giving me, dealt with supernatural forces she'd never seen before. But I still needed to know what she'd specifically seen. My smile faded almost completely.
"We're getting closer."
"You want to kill me!" My face was blank, and I disconnected from the situation for a minute.
How could she have known that? I was trying to sift through my past and select a time I actually vocalized 'I want to kill Nora Grey', but I was having a hard time finding it…
"The Jeep didn't really die tonight, did it? You lied. You brought me here so you could kill me. That's what Dabria said you want to do. Well, what are you waiting for? You've been trying to kill me all along. Right from the start. Are you going to kill me now?"
"It's tempting." I was so pissed at myself. For not stopping Nora's wandering hands. For not having this conversation with her at an earlier point. I knew it wasn't real, but thoughts of killing her crossed my mind, just briefly. Now how the hell was I going to explain all this?
From what she let out, Nora saw Dabria. The only time I had ever seen Dabria after I fell was…eight months ago. She had walked into Bo's and told me if I wanted my wings back I had to save a human life, and she gave me Nora's name as the one. She had also said I was also the one who was going to kill Nora. But Angels of Death don't really know anything for sure; details change, as I was sure they did in here in my situation. I tried to think of what else happened that night. Oh crap. Dabria kissed me—with tongue. I felt like smacking myself in the head. Why of all my memories did Nora have to go back to that one?
I felt Nora squirm underneath me, and my attention was brought fully back to her. She tried rolling left, then right, to no avail. After a few seconds she realized she was getting nowhere and stopped.
"I bet you like this."
"That would be a smart bet," I answered, fighting a smile.
"Just do it." She sounded like she was daring me.
"Kill you?" She nodded.
"But first I want to know why. Of all the billions of people out there, why me?"
"Bad genes," I said in a low voice.
"That's it? That's the only explanation I get?"
"For now."
"What's that supposed to mean? I get the rest of the story when you finally break down and kill me?" Her voice got louder as she voiced the thought.
"I don't have to break down to kill you. If I'd wanted you dead five minutes ago, you'd have died five minutes ago." I heard her swallow loudly.
I thought about what I was saying. This wasn't how I had imagined it going at all. Well, I had thought about her reaction being bad, but I never thought when I'd confess who and what I really was that we'd also be discussing why I had originally wanted to kill her before I met her. I took my thumb and brushed it very softly over the birthmark on the inside of her wrist—the clear-cut evidence of why I'd ever want to kill her. The only reason, now that I knew her.
"What about Dabria? She's the same thing you are, isn't she? You're both—angels." Her voice cracked on the last word. I had kept my eyes locked with hers this entire time, but now I gazed into them even more deeply.
"If I ease up, are you going to hear me out?"
"What do you care if I run? You'll just drag me back in here." I cared a whole hell of a lot if she ran, more than she knew. I tried to lighten up the mood a little.
"Yeah, but that would cause a scene."
"Is Dabria your girlfriend?" I could feel Nora's pulse get faster as she asked this. It took me by surprise that she was so forward with it, but I was secretly hoping she would care enough to ask.
"Was. It was a long time ago, before I fell to the dark side." I smiled, hoping the Star Wars reference might get something out of her. "It was also a mistake." After a pause I slowly lifted myself off of Nora's hips, testing to see if I could let her go without her running away from me. Honestly, I didn't think I could bear it if she tried to. She didn't move, so I released her hands too. She propped herself up on her elbows, took a deep breath, and then she lunged at me. I stayed still, lying on my side, as she started punching my chest. She lasted almost a minute before she slowed to a stopped, shaking out her hands.
"Done?" I was trying to understand, but much more of this would be a waste of time and energy. I wasn't done talking, either.
"No!" She elbowed me. "What's the matter with you? Don't you feel anything?" She stood up on the bed and kicked me in the stomach. Her jaw almost dropped when I didn't even flinch.
"You've got one more minute. Get your anger out of your system. Then I take over."
Nora surprised me by attempting to leap off the bed, headed for the door, but I was faster. I grabbed her midair and pinned her back against the wall, tangling her legs with mine so she couldn't try and escape again. She was mere centimeters from me now.
"I want the truth. Did you come to school to kill me? Was that your aim right from the start?" It was time to be completely honest, no matter how it sounded. I needed her to trust me, and that couldn't happen if I didn't tell her the truth. The whole truth. I unhinged my jaw.
"Yes." As I was looking into her eyes I saw a tear threaten to drop, but Nora brought a finger up to wipe it away before it could do so.
"Are you gloating inside? That's what this is about, isn't it? Getting me to trust you so you could blow it up in my face!" It was all about trust, but not for that. I wanted her to trust me—I needed her to trust me, like it was a fiber in the core of my being. I needed her, period. And earning her trust is the only way to get her.
"I get that you're angry—"
"I am ripped apart!" she shouted. In that shout, in those four simple words, were all that I needed to know. That emotional outburst, straight from her soul, told me how she truly felt about me.
Very slowly and gently, I moved my hands up her neck. I used my thumbs to tilt her head up towards mine, and I surged forward, crushing my lips to hers, hard. I kissed her passionately, putting all that I felt for her, all of my emotion, into this kiss. I felt her hands grip the back of my neck, and I slid my hands down her to the small of her back. There was just the two of us. Nothing else mattered right now. Every other thought but Nora and how she made me feel exited my mind, and I pulled her closer against me, never breaking the kiss. Until she bit my bottom lip. Hard. She let go of my neck and I pulled away from her. I licked my lip to see if I was bleeding.
"Did you just bite me?"
"Is everything a joke to you?" I licked my lip again just to make sure.
"Not everything."
"Like what?"
"You."
'Relax. Trust me', I pushed into her mind.
"Omigosh. You're doing it again, aren't you? Messing with my mind. You can put more than words in my head, can't you? You can put images—very real images—there."
I didn't say anything.
"The Archangel." Understanding flooded her voice. "You tried to kill me that night, didn't you? But something went wrong. Then you made me think my cell phone was dead, so I couldn't call Vee. Did you plan to kill me on the ride home? I want to know how you're making me see what you want!" I thought a second on how to phrase my response correctly.
"I put the words and images there, but it's up to you if you believe them. It's a riddle. The images overlap reality, and you have to figure out which is real."
"Is this a special angel power?" I shook my head.
"Fallen angel power. Any other kind of angel wouldn't invade your privacy, even though they can."
Because other angels were good. And I wasn't.
I put my hands on the wall, one on either side of Nora's head. "I put a thought in Coach's mind to redo the seating chart because I needed to get close to you. I made you think you fell off the Archangel because I wanted to kill you, but I couldn't go through with it. I almost did, but I stopped. I settled for scaring you instead. Then I made you think your cell was dead because I wanted to give you a ride home. When I came inside your house, I picked up a knife. I was going to kill you then." I spoke softer now. "You changed my mind." She took a deep breath.
"I don't understand you. When I told you my dad was murdered, you sounded genuinely sorry. When you met my mom, you were nice."
"Nice. Let's keep that between you and me." She tilted her chin up and her eyes narrowed.
"Get out of my mind. Right now!"
"I'm not in your mind, Nora." I really wasn't, and I couldn't fathom what would make her think I was now. She bent forward suddenly, sucking for air with her hands on her knees.
"Yes, you are. I feel you. So this is how you're going to do it? Suffocate me?" She kept trying to suck in air quickly, but her breaths were shallow and weren't getting to her lungs. I started to panic. What the hell was happening to her? She threw her hand on the wall to steady herself. I moved toward her to help her, but she shot her hand out. "Get away!" I leaned on the wall, facing her, more concerned than I ever had been for anyone in my entire existence. "Get—away—from—me." It came out in gasps. I didn't move one inch. "I—can't—breathe!" She was choking now. One hand went to the wall and the other to her throat, clutching it. It was her anemia, it had to be. I scooped her up in my arms and raced her to the chair across the room.
"Put your head between your knees," I instructed as I helped move her head down. I kept my eyes on her, full of worry, for a few minutes. She finally seemed to be getting the air in alright, getting the oxygen she needed. "Better?" She nodded. "Do you have iron pills with you?" She shook her head. "Keep your head down and take long, deep breaths." She did just as I told her.
"Thank you," she said, her voice just above a whisper.
"Still don't trust my motives?"
"If you want me to trust you, let me touch your scars again." I looked at her a moment, studying her face.
"That's not a good idea."
"Why not?"
"I can't control what you see."
"That's kind of the point." I thought about it.
"You know I'm hiding things." I silently attached a question I hoped she would get unspoken. Her bottom lip quivered.
"Give me a reason to trust you." She had a point there. No matter how much I hated this, opening myself this way is how I could earn her trust. It was probably the only way, at this point. I hated that it had to be this way. I leaned forward on the bed, bracing my forearms on my knees. My back tensed and then relaxed, in anticipation of what Nora was about to do. My voice was very low and very quiet.
"Go ahead. Keep in mind that people change, but the past doesn't." I saw her look at my scars.
"I won't get trapped in there forever, will I?" I laughed a little, trying to make the best out of the situation.
"No." She came to sit next to me on the bed. She picked up her finger and touched it to the peaked ridge of my left scar.
When she came back, before she pulled away from my scar I felt her pulse quicken. I looked over to her, sullen; fearing the worst yet not knowing which of all of my past the worst could be to her.
"Then you're definitely not human. You really are a fallen angel. A bad guy." That made me smile just a bit.
"You think I'm a bad guy?"
"You possess other people's…bodies." All I did was nod. Succinctly. "Do you want to possess my body?" I laughed a little, on the inside.
"I want to do a lot of things to your body, but that's not one of them."
"What's wrong with the body you have?"
"My body is a lot like glass. Real, but outward, reflecting the world around me. You see and hear me, and I see and hear you. When you touch me, you feel it. I don't experience you in the same way. I can't feel you. I experience everything through a sheet of glass, and the only way I can cut through that sheet is by possessing a human body."
"Or part-human." My expression tightened.
"When you touched my scars, you saw Chauncey?" Just a wild guess.
"I heard you talking to Rixon. He said you possess Chauncey's body for two weeks every year during Cheshvan. He said Chauncey isn't human either. He's Nephilim." She whispered that last part.
"Chauncey is a cross between a fallen angel and a human. He's immortal like an angel but has all the mortal senses. A fallen angel who wants to feel human sensations can do it in a Nephil's body."
"If you can't feel, why did you kiss me?"
I'm glad she asked that. I traced a finger along her collarbone, and directed it down to her heart, leaving it there. I could feel her pulse beating wildly.
"Because I feel it here, in my heart. I haven't lost the ability to feel emotion." I watched her reaction, trying to think of exactly how to phrase this. "Let me put it this way. Our emotional connection isn't lacking." Her breathing sped up a bit.
"You mean you can feel happy or sad or—"
"Desire," I finished for her, with a ghost of a smile playing on my lips.
"Why did you fall?" I held her gaze before I answered.
"Lust." She swallowed.
"Money lust?" I brought my hand up to stroke my jaw, something I only did when I wanted to keep my mouth from opening so I couldn't blurt out whatever stupid thought was on my mind. I had to fight the smile that crept up though.
"And other kinds. I thought if I fell, I'd become human. The angels who'd tempted Eve had been banished to Earth, and there were rumors that they'd lost their wings and become human. When they left heaven, it wasn't this big ceremony we were all invited to. It was private. I didn't know their wings were ripped out, or that they were cursed to roam Earth with a hunger to possess human bodies. Back then, nobody had even heard of fallen angels. So it made sense in my mind, that if I fell, I'd lose my wings and become human. At the time, I was crazy about a human girl, and it seemed worth the risk."
"Dabria said you can get your wings back by saving a human life. She said you'll be a guardian angel. You don't want that?" She looked confused as to why.
"It's not for me. I want to be human. I want it more than I've ever wanted anything." Except for Nora.
"What about Dabria? If the two of you aren't together anymore, why is she still here? I thought she was a regular angel. Does she want to be human too?" I froze. What did she just say?
"Dabria's still on Earth?"
"She got a job at school. She's the new school psychologist, Miss Greene. I've met with her a couple times. After what I saw in your memory, I thought she took the job to be closer to you."
"What exactly did she tell you when you met with her?"
"To stay away from you. She hinted at your dark and dangerous past." She paused, but I needed her to keep talking now more than ever. "Something about this is off, isn't it?" Yes, something about this was very, very off.
"I need to take you home. Then I'm going to the high school to look through her files and see if I can find something useful. I'll feel better when I know what she's planning." I took the comforter and all the sheets off the bed and handed them to Nora. "Wrap yourself in these."
"She still has feelings for you. Maybe she wants me out of the picture." Our eyes locked.
"It crossed my mind."
While Nora sorted through the sheets and covered herself, I picked up my shirt and went into the bathroom. I put it back on and sorted Nora's clothes from the towels. I took a deep breath. I couldn't believe it. How did I not notice Dabria's presence at school? She did one hell of a job avoiding me; I had to give her that. But no more. I would not let her get in the way of Nora and me. I would not let her lay a finger on Nora. I vowed by every cell in my being that I would take care of Dabria once and for all. I emerged from the bathroom, carrying Nora's wet clothes.
"I'll go get the Jeep. I'll pull around to the back exit in twenty. Stay in the motel until then." Nora agreed. I just hoped Dabria wasn't anywhere nearby. For the first time in too long, I asked God the Almighty for something. I prayed that Nora would be safe, because I just couldn't bear it if she wasn't.
I hope you liked it. Please, if you have an account, review if it ain't too much trouble. This was my first story for Hush, Hush and if I get positive feedback I might consider writing more...
Thanks for reading ^_^