Title from "Hum Hallelujah" by Fall Out Boy. Because I have no original ideas right now. And I'm really happy because someone got me chocolate milk today so I can properly function in this world. Anywayyyy... enjoy, and I apologize for any mistakes! Feel free to make corrections and what not! ;D
/ \\
Watching the younger angel from the cracked door, Edge couldn't resist the affectionate smile that overcame him.
He didn't exactly know why Ze'ev was here. He knew he was coming, he'd been helpfully informed, which was how he knew exactly where to find the Timber wolf. Ze'ev hadn't even questioned how he knew about it. But then again, Edge knew from experience how tiring and full-on draining the trip was from up there to down here. And the confusion accompanying it the first time you came to earth. Dog, Ze'ev was going to have to suffer through much more confusion in the next few weeks. Months. Depending on how long it would take for him to complete his assignment.
Edge didn't know what Ze'ev's mission was, for sure, but he had a strong hunch. And it worried him, to say in the slightest. He knew that Ze'ev was fully an angel, once an earthen who had died. It wasn't often that those who died were chosen to become angels, in fact they had to have qualities deemed important for the job, and sometimes even unfinished business. Edge didn't like to think about those with unfinished business, most of them had horrific back stories, unheard of happening up there. Nothing bad happened up there.
Edge was fully an angel, his own life as an earthen had ended long before Ze'ev had even been born into the world. He was pretty high in the ranks of angels, based off importance. Near the level with the original, Pure angels. The Pure angels were special, they were completely and totally angels. They had never lived on earth before, they only existed as an angel. There were not a lot of them, but they were stronger than full angels. All the other angels.
And since Edge was in the higher tiers of importance, he knew most of the earthens-converted-angel's back stories, while a good bunch of them didn't remember their previous life. Therefore, he knew Ze'ev's. Which left him questioning why he was back on earth, and if his guess on Ze'ev's mission was correct, why? Did it qualify as unfinished business? Normally that meant past tormentors - which could be anything from abusive relationships to bullies at school who had caused the person to commit suicide, and everything in between - which had caused them to end their life, for the newly-made angels to find a peace by forgiving them and helping protect them from the forces of evil. The opposite side. The dark side. Ze'ev's case didn't seem quite right to write off as "unfinished business". In fact, Edge couldn't place the reason for Ze'ev to be on earth at all. He only knew that it was part of the plan, the great plan, and he didn't doubt it. He was just confused. That was all.
Shaking all the crowded thoughts from his mind, Edge refocused on Ze'ev. He smiled again, thinking how the next few days, or however long it would be, were going to be spent explaining quite a bunch to the Timber wolf. And, in some cases, not explaining. Like his background, his life before becoming an angel. He feared that if he did so, it would mess up whatever his job was. And stars above, he most certainly didn't want to do that.
/ \\
The weather reporters and forecasts hadn't been wrong the previous day; it had definitely snowed. And Scout hated it.
Despite popular belief that all huskys were "winter dogs", Scout was one of those who didn't like the season. At all. The coldness was not easy to like, and he despised having to even put on a light jacket to go out, much less an actual heavy duty coat.
So, with this said, he had defiantly chosen to wear his thin, faded red Love Can't Save You, hoping it would prove to the weather that he was not easily persuaded into the obligation of heavier clothes.
His destination wasn't too far from his home and he left the house nearly two hours after waking up. It was around five in the morning and hardly a soul was in sight, the sun hadn't yet come up. Not that it would do much to add light, the clouds above didn't seem in any hurry to scurry away and allow the suns rays to shine. And since the roads were probably icy, not to mention filled with snow that would make driving almost impossible, Scout decided to walk.
Walking in the cool (no, absolutely freezing) morning air helped calm him from the nightmare that ceaselessly played over and over, yet his thoughts were anything but pleasant.
It was a familiar street Scout walked along, he didn't have to concentrate hard in order to find his destination, so his mind drifted and swayed, his vision blurred as he began to recall other, older memories.
It was no secret that he hated snow. Unlike all the other kids in the neighborhood or anywhere else, really, he found nothing magical about it. There was nothing special about the white flakes that fell from the sky, that piled in the driveway and in the yard and on the roads. He much rather preferred to stay indoors, where it was dry and warm and there wasn't a chance of him getting hypothermia.
And although everyone knew this fact and knew that it was useless to even try to get him outside during the winter, one certain somebody was determined to change his mind.
"Oh, come on, Scout! It will be so much fun, we can have a snowball fight and make snow angels and . . . and . . . eat snow or something!"
Without turning around to face the excited dog, Scout remained sitting on his bed with a notebook abandoned beside him. "No."
"You'll love it, I promise!" the other dog happily bounded over the bed, flopping down dramatically right next to Scout. "It's like swimming - cold at first, when you just get in the water, but you get used to it! And it's fun to bury yourself in, build snow castles and snowmen and then eat the carrot nose -"
"Only you would ever think to eat the carrot. It's supposed to be the nose, not a snack for you."
The dog rolled his eyes, but his eyes sparkled with a smile covered by the covers. "Okay, then we can take an extra carrot outside with us. Or two, if you want one as well. But the first step is actually agreeing to come out!"
"I don't want to." Scout said simply, his voice devoid of emotion. He was tired of being begged to do something he most positively did not want to do, but he wasn't just going to send him away. "Why can't you go find a few friends or something and have fun without me? I'm having a good time in here. Where it's warm."
"But I want to play with you, Scout! Please, please, please?" At Scout's glare, the other's smile grew. "Come on, pretty please? With a carrot on top? Or, well, on the nose? Well, that doesn't sound right, but . . . I think you get my meaning. Please?"
Scout could see, from the corner of his eye, the other dog giving him puppy-eyes, a heart melting look that couldn't be matched by anyone but him. And with that look and the childish excitement on his features, Scout couldn't believe that the other dog was older than him. Older, but somehow still as kid-like as ever. And the longer he stared at the dog, the lesser he could hold a grip on his decision to remain inside.
"Ugh, fine. I'll go out."
As if someone had set fireworks underneath the other dog, he sprung up in the air, jumping onto the ground and bouncing around, cheering all the while. "Yay, yay, yay! I knew you'd change your mind!" He spun around, high-tailing it to the door of the bedroom, before pausing, "Hurry up! I'll go get the carrots!"
A smile toyed on Scout's face as he stopped to look both ways before crossing a street, not seeing but one or two cars on the road at this hour, in these conditions. Once safely on the other side, he soon fell back into the rhythm of his walking, his surroundings fading out once again.
"Scout, look out!"
He turned his head just in time to get a face-full of snow, the impact causing him to stumble. Shaking his head to clear the snow and spitting out what had landed in his mouth, he saw the suspect from which the snowball came from. Standing several feet away, across the yard, laughing.
It was true what the other dog said about being out in the snow, comparing it to swimming in the summer. It had only been ten or so minutes since they had emerged from the house, bundled up in coats and, in the other dog's case, earmuffs and three bright carrots, and already Scout had grown accustomed to the temperature. It wasn't that hard, when the other dog kept pelting him with snowballs, rolling in piles of snow so that when he stood up and shook it off, most of it landed on Scout. The other dog was having the time of his life, and it would be a lie to say Scout wasn't having a good time of his own.
"Hey, we should build the snow man now!" Struggling over the deep pile of snow that they had plowed with their paws to make trenches, the dog hurried to Scout's side, a wide smile taking up his face. "Or a snowdog! Or a snowrabbit! Or a snowalien!"
Scout laughed and nodded, helping him pack the snow into as large a ball as they could. It took quite a while, for somehow the balls kept getting destroyed by a certain somebody, leaving Scout to rebuild them. The final product was rather lopsided, with a bent stick for an arm on one side, a fork from the kitchen on the other, a soup bowl for a hat, and an old scarf around the snowalien's neck. They had raided the kitchen a second time to find assorted nuts to use for a smile and eyes, and used one of the carrots for the nose.
Scout sat back after putting the finishing touches on the snowalien, beside the other dog, who was noisily munching on his own carrot. The dog handed him one of the orange vegetable sticks and together they sat in the fading evening light, smiling at their creation and eating their snack.
"I'm glad you decided to come out with me."
Waiting until he swallowed a bite of carrot first, Scout replied, "I'm glad you finally pushed me enough to come out here. This was fun. We need to do it again someday."
The other dog laughed gleefully. "We can do this every single year! Make snowaliens and eat carrots and have snowball fights all day long! And when we get older and move away - not that it will be anytime soon, 'cause we're too attached to each other for that to happen - we will visit each other's house and do this!"
Scout leaned over and placed his head on the other dog's shoulder, yawning, for the activity of the day had taken a lot out of both of them. "Don't worry, we won't have to live apart for a lo-o-o-o-ong time. I'm only thirteen, I won't be going anywhere anytime soon."
"Neither will I," the dog promised. "We'll be friends forever and ever and ever. I won't leave you ever, not even when we have wives and kids of our own!"
Both of them giggled at that prospect of their future. As teens, neither of them could foresee that happening any time soon. The idea of even separating seemed too far, impossible.
Oh, how wrong they had been.
Scout's frown didn't match the smile that had been in the memory. He wasn't playing in the snow as a thirteen year old, with his best friend in the whole world by his side. He wasn't eating a carrot happily while staring a the lopsided mound of snow they had lovingly named a snowalien. He was walking on the street, at five in the morning, alone.
The loneliness spread like a wildfire. Each step he took felt heavier than the last, his heart ached as he continued thinking about the day, years ago, when that activity had occurred and when he had been happy. And now he was anything but that.
His destination came into sight and he stopped. Only a single light in the back of the shop was on, it hadn't even been opened for the day yet, but he wasn't worried.
Taking a deep breath, he tried his hardest to push away his troubled thoughts, pulling the hood up on his jacket higher and releasing a breath of warm air.
It was the past, and there was nothing he could do about it now.
/ \\
"If you don't stop coming in this early, I'm going to keep you locked out purposefully," Connor, a snow leopard, joked, but still let his friend enter the toasty, warm coffee shop. "No, but in all seriousness, you're always the first customer. Meaning, you are normally here before any of the employees show up."
"Yep," Scout said, rolling his eyes. "You'd be lonely if I didn't. After all, your workers don't show up for another forty-five minutes."
"You know," Connor said, grinning and following the husky as he made his way to one of the empty tables in the corner, "My offer on hiring you for a morning manager position still stands -"
Scout laughed, sitting at the smallest table for two he could find. "I've told you before, Connor. I've got a job already. I really don't need another one to keep up with."
"But, like you said, my other employees don't come in for another forty-five minutes, and they're supposed to be here in thirty! You actually show up on time, and I know you'd fit in here, on our crew!"
Drawing out a notebook and pencil from his jacket and setting it on the table, Scout shook his head, a smile remaining. "Thanks for the offer. Again. But I'm going to have to decline. Again."
Connor heaved a disappointed sigh and started for the shop's counter. "Oh well. It was worth another try, am I right?"
"You're just like Ace," Scout said, flipping open the old, dog-eared pages of the book. "You both think the more you ask, the closer the answer will be to becoming yes."
"You never know," Connor grunted.
Humming in reply, Scout set about writing while Connor continued his work, silence but for the whirring fans of the beverage machines from behind the counter and the occasionally scratch of the pencil on paper.
It hardly took five minutes for Connor to reappear at his table with a disposable cup full of coffee, steam rising off of the top like a volcanoe. Sliding into the seat opposite of Scout, he waited for the husky to put down his pencil and take a sip before speaking again.
"All jokes and job offers aside," Connor said, drawing Scout's attention to him, "You look tired today. Well, more so than usual. And for the past week you've been coming in way earlier than normal and . . . well, I just wanted to make sure you were doing okay."
Scout nodded, brushing away his concern with a casual smile. "I'm doing fine, Connor. Just having trouble sleeping, but what's so unusual about that, right?"
Connor opened his mouth to say something but was cut off by the sound of frantic knocking on the door of the cafe. Looking up, the snow leopard grinned at the sight of two of his employees standing outside, one of them dancing around in an attempt to stop shivering. The other was properly bundled, looking bored with her companion and not amused in the least.
Connor left the table and unlocked the doors. He was nearly pushed back by the shivering person in their rush to get inside, but was apologized to by the other for his behavior.
"It. Is. Flipping. Cold. Out. There!" The energetic dog bounced around, shaking off his coat and dropping it on the floor. "I thought my tail was going to freeze off! And that wouldn't be good, at all!"
"Hey, Ace," said Scout, not needing to look up in order to tell who it was. "Hey, Selene."
The second employee, Selene, sighed and followed after Ace, picking up his coat and hanging it up along with hers. Her white fur seemed to glow in the dim lighting of the room, her diamond stud earrings gleamed and sparkled. She had a light pink scarf wrapped around her neck, matching gloves on her delicate paws that appeared untouched by the snow and ice outside. Overall she was just as she always was - pretty, graceful, and, like everyone else, put up with Ace.
"Hey, Scout, whatcha up to?" Ace bounded over. "Did Connor already make you coffee, or do you get to experience one of my famous concoctions?"
Even if Connor hadn't made his drink earlier, for safety reasons Scout would have assured Ace that he had. All it took was a single taste of whatever Ace would cook up and you were sure to never let him do it again.
"Maybe tomorrow," gesturing to his cup, Scout tried to appear disappointed. "Come in earlier and then you can beat him to it."
Ace seemed satisfied by this and skipped away, hurrying to the back room to mix up something for Selene and himself. Poor Selene wouldn't have the advantage of already-made coffee, she would be stuck drinking whatever the German Shepherd brought her. Just one of the (many) cons to being friends with Ace.
For the most part, Scout was unaware of the activity around him. He continued writing, not realizing how fast the minutes went by, not noticing when the shop opened and the day's first actual customers came in.
/ / \ \
Ze'ev stared emotionless at the white layer covering the ground outside, his mind as blank as the snow that littered every inch of the ground. The edges of the window had frosted over, and if he looked close enough, he could see miniscule snowflakes clinging together, each one different than the other.
"You want to go out in this?" Ze'ev asked, staring outside without deviation. "It looks cold."
Edge walked past him, into the kitchen. "Oh, it is very cold. And yes, we will be going out in this."
Ze'ev closed his eyes, thinking back to the previous night. When he had been walking along the streets he had been extremely cold, and he wasn't exactly eager to relive that again. Not yet, when just half an hour ago he had been forced out of bed, out of the covers that had offered unlimited warmth and comfort. He hadn't wanted to leave the bed, nor did he want to leave the house. He didn't understand why on earth anyone would ever want to leave coziness of the walls of the house, especially to go out into the white world where cold was the feeling that stood out above all the others. He wasn't exceptionally excited for whatever his fellow angel had planned.
"Do you want pancakes or oatmeal?" Edge asked from in the kitchen.
For a moment, Ze'ev didn't respond. He just continued staring out at the snow. But now curious as to what either of these objects Edge had listed off were, Ze'ev left his spot and entered the kitchen.
"They both take about the same time," said Edge, distracted as he read the ingredients and instructions on each of the two boxes. "I'm not the most talented pancake flipper, but I haven't made oatmeal in quite a while, either. So they could both turn out kind of . . . eh."
"What are we going to do with them?" Ze'ev's impassive stare followed the husky as he moved around the room, reading the ingredients from one of the boxes and checking in all the cabinets.
"The food?" Edge wrinkled his nose in mild annoyance at Ze'ev ignorance. "We're going to eat it."
Nodding once, Ze'ev stopped himself as he became confused again. "Why?"
"Oh my dog, really?" Edge faced him with an expression that repeated his words. "We're going to eat the food so we don't starve to death. Earthens need food to live. And now that you are on earth, you need what they do to live."
"Which is . . .?"
"Food. Water. Oxygen, of the most important things."
Ze'ev didn't look to be anywhere close to understanding. "But if we are angels, why do we need the things earthens do? Why don't we need all those things up there?"
"It's different up there," Edge said, the best he could to explain while continuing his search for flour. "Everything we could ever need is provided to us, most of it without us knowing. But down here, things change. You have to live almost exactly like the people here do, it is required that you eat and drink and sleep every day, if possible. Otherwise you'll . . . I don't know. Die, I guess." Edge placed a heavy bag of flour on the counter, tilting his head to the side in contemplation. "Well, I don't see how that can happen, really. We have already died. So maybe we just won't be able to live down here on earth anymore and complete our mission. Something like that."
"Oh."
Edge glanced again at the recipe instructions in front of his face before shaking his head. "Never mind. I don't want to risk burning the house down with my cooking. Come on, we will just go to the little cafe in town, where Selene works. It will kill two birds with one stone."
"Wait, so now we're killing birds?" Ze'ev looked alarmed, shocked at his misinterpretation of Edge's words. "To eat them?"
"Oh, never mind! Never mind, Ze'ev!"
/ \\
You see, I wrote a good portion of this chapter several days ago and then decided that I didn't like it. So I deleted most of it and restarted. XD Hehe. If anyone has questions (I doubt they will though) I totally did not use the Love Can't Save You jacket idea from a pre-hiatus Fall Out Boy photoshoot I found online, the hoodie Pete was wearing... Not. At. All. XD Hehe. Anyway, thank you for reading, I will try and update soon! Thank you to all who comment! 3
-Firepower 3
