The Waif and the Warrior
Nervously, Josiah fingers his glass of champagne, glancing warily about at the ostentatious crowd bustling livelily around him. As the sea of rich, conflating colors sways every which way in accordance with the music, he thinks wistfully back to the circle usually encompassing him devoid of any life, then chuckling grimly to himself at how the tables of his secret wishes had changed.
How many times had he longed for one to share conversation with?
Then again, he'd never wished to be surrounded by a pushy, demanding crowd; only ever for a simple conversation with someone that didn't mind his deformities.
An angel bumps into his elbow and causes his glass to wobble precariously, a woman's fairy wings brush up underneath his nose as she flurries by, and a busy servant hustles to and fro, his face screwed in concentration. It seems Josiah cannot even breathe without tickling someone's neck. Unfortunately for him, the relieving champagne is primarily being served in the center of the hubbub, the lonesome outer rim of angels scarcely visited by any servant carrying anything with good taste.
Plucking another glass from a passing waiter, Josiah glares moodily out at the crowd. At least with the silver-lacquered mask casting dark shadows around his eyes, the humans can't tell he's any different than any of the other perfect angels stirring around him with flawless bodies rippling with muscle. Not even the veil of darkness forged by the uncomfortable, itchy thing can hide his gruesome gaze from the angels, however – the clenching of their faces shows their abhorrence each and every time, their distrust in him and his demonic appearance.
Each and every time he catches an angel staring in blatant disgust of him, Josiah resists the urge to hang his head, instead drowning his sorrows in the tickling ecstasy of the champagne.
Dully, Josiah scans his eyes over the crowd, torturing himself for the sole purpose of feeling anything at all. The sensual dancing of women not yet with partners he does not bother to recognize. His gaze leafs over cardboard pals and the friends that'd abandoned him the moment Raphael had left his side.
Only one angel seems to grab his attention.
After centuries of fighting beside the lion-hearted archangel, of course Josiah would be able to catch sight of him in a crowd.
Sucking in a breath of alarm, Josiah studies his former partner in crime nervously, his hand strangling the neck of his glass. Glancing down at the remainder of golden liquid sloshing appetizingly around in his own hand and then at the amount of alcohol being consumed around him as other more jovial angels carouse with greater enthusiasm, Josiah wonders anxiously why he'd even bothered to come at all – the wing covers everyone had adorned in light of the party does hide the startling truth of his Fallen status, something Josiah had seen for himself, it only takes one lunatic to accidentally reveal the monstrous limbs underneath for hell to break loose on Raffe.
Josiah takes a step forward, unintentionally sending a small woman stumbling in her high heels, but pauses before he can progress towards Raffe any further, hesitating. He doubts that Raffe will greet him with anything but warmth after their extended time together, and, with complete truthfulness, so would Josiah, had the archangel's final hand not been so drastic. However, despite Raffe's rebuttals of Josiah's suspicions, he had succumbed to the power of the Daughter of Man and had carried her from the fires of the burning aerie.
And, though he dare not say it, not even think it to himself, the slightest sliver of resentment sifts in the pit of Josiah's stomach, like a lethargic snake slowly squirming from side to side. After all, his friends and his brothers, those he'd considered his family, hadn't truly cared for Josiah at all. They hadn't looked past his ghastly appearance, hadn't decided he was a good soul after all – they'd looked at him and seen Raffe's sidekick, a source of unavoidable socialization if they wanted to reach the famous archangel. Somewhere in some shameful part of his lonely mind, Josiah doesn't think of Raffe as the one angel who really did see beyond everything – he thinks of him as the bastard that set him up for heartbreak time after time.
It is this wretched, twisted part of the lonely angel that causes Josiah to halt in his tracks, to refuse to offer any signs of welcome to his old friend. Tipping back the glass and watching Raffe in the corner of his eye, Josiah watches him move, quickly drawing the assumption that he's tracking someone in the crowd.
Exchanging his empty glass for a cold new one, Josiah subtly scans the room until his eyes land on a tall angel with pale, pale skin. At first, as Josiah studies the angel, he can't figure out why exactly Raffe's tailing him so precisely, why the former archangel is intently imitating each and every movement of this powerful bodyguard. But, as the angel pivots and bares his back to Josiah, his heart skips a beat.
Raffe's wings.
Taking a deep breath, Josiah gulps down his champagne and already snatches another glass from another server. Still, Raffe's wings remain stitched to this other angel's back. He blinks, trying to dispel the illusion. For it must be an illusion, after all, a trick played over his eyes like on the desert sands.
But it proves to be real – as the angel prudently flexes his wings, he glimpses the exact notch battered into Raffe's feathers throughout the course of his great adventure on the road to the aerie. Searching for explanation desperately, Josiah whips his head back around to Raffe, only to find that the angel had halted with a dumbfounded expression plastered beneath his concealing mask.
Nearly growling with frustration, Josiah looks again to the angel with Raffe's wings, then back to Raffe. His heart clenches with something akin to sympathy, and his throat dries with something akin to dread. Casting uncertain glances around the room, not wanting to draw attention to the mismatched group, Josiah furtively tries to follow the former – or perhaps current? – archangel's flabbergasted stare.
Initially, Josiah does not recognize the Daughter of Man's painted face nor her coiled hair, not comprehending Raffe's fascination. Eventually, though, two and two connect, despite his alcohol-addled brain's difficulties.
The glass bursts in Josiah's hand, sending slivers through his flesh, a sharp, stinging pain, drawing him just barely from the world of swirling, nonsensical thoughts. At the explosion, a girl shrieks, clutching the angel who'd been unfortunate to be standing close enough to Josiah to get splattered with exploding champagne.
Casting Josiah a dirty glance, the angel shoulders past him, calling out towards a servant for a cleanup crew.
A masked, noble warrior in a pack of bloodthirsty savages, a once-dead street waif clothed in the garb of the beautiful, and a pair of stolen wings on the back of a giant.
Josiah's head begins to throb painfully, beginning as a sharp agony at his temples but then shafting through the rest of his brain like an infectious disease.
As the cleanup crew arrives, he slips off into the crowd and then slinks out into the quiet. Breathing in the crisp sea air and throwing his silvery mask down upon the sand, Josiah takes to the sky, homeward bound and looking forward to his lonely little bed to crash into, deciding that he'll sit out this chapter of Raffe's hellish life.
Happy birthday to me, happy birthday to me… happy birthday to me-ee, happy birthday to me!
There just isn't enough about poor Josiah in this fandom. Sorry if this was an inaccurate description of him by whatever personal preferences you have set – I think he's just sort of one of those characters that everyone has a different spin on. This is my different spin.
I hope you enjoyed!
Ciao,
~wolfluvermh