„Are you brave?", the devil asks, the smell of freshly made spaghetti hanging in the air. The angel straightens his back, hair wet, muscles tense. "No", he says. "But I am alive."
"Because I taught you how to. I made you strong. I made you perfect." The devil's fingers touch runes, touch magic, touch bones and the angel wishes he had wings to curl himself into them, wishes he had lost his sense of smell in the fire that wasn't real, just another survival test. Can the tainted angel still fly?
"You made me sick", the angel says and thinks about blonde hair tainted red, thinks about a falcon and a child, thinks about a name that tastes vile in his mouth, and wrong. Emotions cloud judgement. You like her, don't you? Love her even. I wonder what happens to those you love. Just look what you did to that pathetic excuse of a parabatai, not even strong enough not to let a demon in. Do you think it's because they bound an angel to something so twisted, so sickeningly wrong?
"I've always protected you. Did I not take the arrow when your mother tried to shoot you?" The devil stops smiling. He looks worried and kind, nothing like the monster the angel once knew, is this even a monster, is this the devil? How can it be, a devil cannot worry or care. It's a demon. Demons do not feel compassion. It smells of spaghetti.
"Answer me." The devil's voice is soft and reassuring and, oh, he sounds like her. "My son, there is no need to be afraid of me." The angel stays silent, the stench of spaghetti in his nose, his hair wet and loose. There is, he thinks. This is not right, this is not right, do not trust the devil, he was an angel once, he remembers how to sing, remembers the time he had wings, still looks as if heaven could take him but he's tainted and twisted and wrong and there's the sound of a seraph blade searing through flesh and bones in the back of his mind, and the choked sobbing of a girl and a vampire's agonizing screams and this is not right.
Those tainted by demons are dangerous, are not to be trusted and that's a fact, that's right, it has to be, this is what life is, kill the demons, kill the monsters, don't stop to look back, you can do it, you're the best we have, do not question us. They are cunning, they lie, they kill.
But there's a man touching the angel he's bound to, there's a boy sick with demon venom comforting the girl who sounds so much like the devil sometimes, and there's a never lying being in his sister's bed, making her glow, making her risk her wings.
Those tainted by demons are dangerous, but not all are.
They are not to be trusted, but that's not always true.
That's a fact, and it is not.
That's right, and it is wrong.
It has to be, at all times, except when it isn't, when he runs from a girl with a scarred throat and it is not his sister who saves him, but the girl's leader, the alpha, whose veins are singing with demonic energy, when he gets blood from those who need it to survive, when the angel he's bound to is open and vulnerable and safe with this man, who touches him.
This is what life is, blood in his hair, pain in his lungs, apologies and death wishes spilling from his lips like a prayer, always running from something, always proving his worth.
Kill the demons.
Kill the monsters, and only them, do not let the devil confuse you, he's lying.
Don't stop to look back, except when your sister cries for the man who cannot, will not, shall never lie, except when there's the one who needs blood and he stands on sacred ground and he holds the innocent, the victim, safe in his arms, when he asks: "What should I do?". Examine your hands and the would-be blood sticking to them, look into the mirror, try to see your hair through all this red, through all this mess, through all this love, that destroys, except when it doesn't.
You can do it, except when you can't, when you leave a young girl behind and then she's dead and it is your fault and her kind is angry and blood thirsty, you can do all of this until you offer them your life because they are right.
You're the best we have, until you don't work anymore, until we disregard the law, until you do something you were never meant to do, until you spare a man's life, until you cannot pledge loyalty to us, until you speak the truth, until you break.
Do not question us, until you do and you learn that this is not safe, this is not home.
They are cunning, except when they aren't.
They lie to save their kind, to save their family, lie through gritted teeth and around a genetical disposition, lie for those they love, lie even when they're burning without having seen the sun again, lie so they do not have to touch something as sacred, as angelic as your weapons, they lie so others are not questioned, they lie because they do not survive stepping onto your burial grounds.
They kill, but so do you, they kill and they have rights, they are worthy, they deserve a fair trial and not a blade through the heart.
The angel does not pause in his thoughts, stares into the mirror, scrubbing his hands because this is just muscle memory, he is not here, the devil does not set foot into a church, his hair is not caked brown, it's just his mind seeing things that are not there, he is clean, he is alone, he is not wet.
The bottle of hair dye is heavy in his hands, the stench of bleech burns his nostrils.
"You need to get it lighter beforehand", his sister said, a sad smiles on perfect red lips. "Just a smidge." (He asks if she is alright and she nods as she beats her sparring partner into the ground)
So he lightens it, lightens it to get the blood out, to see something that has never been touched by the devil. He lightens it just so he can look at a mirror and see something that belongs to him.
Here is a list of the things that truly belong to him:
The angel he's bound to
The sister he trained with
The name he found for himself
Names are important, are inherent, belong to those who exist, to those who live. His name belongs to the devil, who takes each syllable and spits it out anew, twists it beyond recognition, swallows him whole. But this one, the one he chose, the one he will carry with him to his grave, this name is not for the devil to take.
But he did. The devil took the name and erased it from the face of the earth. "This is not who you are, do not chop me off, I am still a part of you."
He takes the sister, takes the angel in the same breath, sends a demon to sacred ground, a diversion, just a ploy, sends it to steal a sword and the demon slips inside them like an ardent lover, like breathing.
The angel he's bound to kills the mother who tried to shoot him, rips a hole into her chest and he consoles the girl whose friend will never see the sun again, consoles the girl who speaks like the devil, sometimes, like a deep sea fish who lures his prey with a light. She shares the light with the devil and he prays to God that she did not inherit his teeth.
The sister attacks, mocks, does not stop until there is a hole in her shoulder, until she's not vessel enough for the demon, the diversion, the afterthought, to take.
Here's a list of things the devil has not taken, has not tainted:
·
His hair is white. Like snow.
Like mourning.
Like standing next to a body under a sheer silk sheet, listening to his kind saying the names of those who have fallen, those who have left, pressing the girl who talks like the devil close to his chest and saying the name of a woman who tried to kill him.
Like wanting to say a different name entirely, like seeing his own runes through the white fabric, like crying for himself, for teeth kicked in, for feelings lost in a sea of denial and guilt, like looking at a falcon with its neck broken by the devil's hand.
Like crying for a bird that knew all the right spots and all the right noises to make him feel like maybe, somewhere, there are wings for him, like the bird cooing at him, trusting him and his muscles, and the blood on his hands.
He runs his hands through his hair, shivering and breathing heavily, his breaths fogging the tiny mirror.
"This is not who you are", the devil says as the angel mixes the dye, as he carefully brushes it into the ethereal, unblemished white. "You cannot be something you are not."
"I am alive", the angel says, as he stares into the mirror, as he stares at the white changing. "And this is mine."
The next demon Jace Wayland kills dies in a blur of pastel pink.
"Are you brave?", the devil asks. "No. I am alive", the angel says, pink hair dry and free of blood. "And sometimes, those two things are the same."