Author: Swythangel

Email: swythangel@hotmail.com

Title: Heaven in Your Arms

Type: 7/9 WAFF

Teaser: Happiness is relative just as heaven is. An angel finds out that heaven is more than just a place upstairs as he falls to Earth.

Rating: PG-13

Spoilers:

Warnings: Shonen Ai, Yaoi, definitely absolutely AU

Disclaimer: Weiß Kreuz is not mine…they're Koyasu Takehito's, Project Weiß, Kyoko Tsuchiya and whoever else ^-^ "Daniel and the Angel" is an anthology by Jill Barnett in the book "A Holiday of Love". Its not mine, the idea is certainly not mine. I'm just adapting it to fit my twisted sense of storytelling.

Keywords/Pairings: BradKen

A bit late coming out with this part. Gomen gomen.

*laughs* I just noticed that it says part Seven of Nine. ^__^ Wai Seven of Nine is a Borg on Star Trek Voyager. Ehehehe! Don't mind me I'm nuts.



Heaven in Your Arms

Part 7/9

Brad grabbed Ken by the shoulders. "Call it what you like, Ken, prostitute, fallen angel. I don't really care. Your past is not my concern."

"No." Ken shook his head. "I'm really an angel Or at least I was one."

One of Brad's elegant brows quirked up in skepticism, thinking that Ken was making a joke.

"I'm not kidding you. I had a halo and wings…molting wings to be sure but still…but I couldn't perform miracles so ---"

Ken was lying, he could feel it and it was a blow to his pride. He tensed and stood up abruptly. "If you aren't interested in me, say so. Don't fuck with my mind with these ridiculous excuses."

"It's the truth."

"Surely you don't expect me to believe you're an angel?"

"A fallen angel."

Brad crossed his arms in the time-old defensive pose as he leaned against one of the wooden bedpost. "Prove it."

"Prove it?" Ken blinked. "But I don't know how…I mean its…Darn." Ken sighed and lifted his chin to look directly at Brad. "You tell me how to make you believe me."

"I don't know. You're the heavenly being." His voice dripped sarcasm as he waved his arms in anger, running his hands into his hair roughly as if he meant to pull it out. Ken winced in sympathy at Brad's hair. "Ask for divine guidance. Make the burning bush appear. Hell…sprout wings and fly around the bloody room."

"Why are you so angry? Ken said quietly, tilting his head to look with confused brown eyes at Brad. "I can't help what I am."

"They why are you making up this story? I told you I don't care what you are or even what you've been. But don't," Brad pinned Ken with a glare, "don't lie to me."

"You won't believe me then."

A little voice inside Brad wanted to say yes. That Ken, innocent sweet Ken could never lie to him. But the logical part of his brain, the part which had always governed his whole life even when he had been small, objected. The notion was preposterous.

"You tell me you're an angel and then expect me to believe you? God, that's rich!"

Ken gave him a look, that look -- the one that made brown eyes dim. It conveyed more than any words from Ken could ever do just how disappointed the younger man was with him. How Brad had let Ken down. "I'm not surprised you'd use such a phrase."

He froze. "What's wrong with it?"

"Do you really want me to answer that? Honestly?"

"You're the angel." Brad could hear the cruelty in the laugh that he gave then, knew it was unfair but he couldn't help it. He was experiencing it too and human nature dictated he lash out. "You tell me."

"Ok. You want the truth? I'll give you the truth. The painful truth." Ken's chin jutted out. "You think *only* in terms of money. Everything is money with you. And power. What did you do when you wanted me to get into the carriage? You offered me money. You try to buy everything. Everyone."

Brad stood there, just watching Ken, listening to Ken tell him things he normally wouldn't have given a shit over if it came from someone else. But from Ken…he didn't care to listen to it at all.

"You can't even give a compliment without mentioning your power and wealth. Did you say 'Ken, you look good in that suit'? No. You said 'Wealth suits you.'"

Ken made him sound incredibly arrogant.

"Don't you know there are more important things than fortunes or money or power?"

He stood stiffly silent, shaking just a little with anger. /How dare he judge who I am, what I am. He does not even know me./

But inside he knew that Ken was sincere, telling the truth like it was and he was only rationalizing his actions. But they, like so many things in his life, were weak handholds in the rockslide that was truth.

/Leave me a little of myself left./

"Is it truly that hard for you to understand? You shouldn't expect all people to be lower than you just because they don't have your money. They're still People, Brad, and they, like you, should be respected. Even the most ragged and beggarly person in New York is still a human being. Can't you find it in your heart to help them, even just one of them, all on your own?"

Still Brad stayed silent, fighting himself just as much as he was fighting Ken, his jaws tight and his expression shuttered. Ken didn't notice, too engross in his own tirade. Ken's face was flush and his eyes bright with emotion.

"Just look at your house."

"What's wrong with my house?"

"You collect things."

"You make it sound like a criminal act. I assure you a lot of people do it."

"Not criminal, no." Ken shook his head. "Sad." He swept a hand to encompass the room. "Look at this room."

Brad gave it a cursory glance. There was nothing wrong with the room that he could see. It was, if truth be told, the best that his money could buy. "Yes?"

"It's filled with collections. Priceless objects d'art, Persian rugs, Chippendale furniture…but nothing alive. And the color."

"What about the color?"

"Everything is gold, Brad. As if gold was the most important thing in the whole world. This is not a home a person lives in, this is a shrine to the almighty dollar!"

Brad didn't even look at the room. He looked at Ken. "You criticize my house because I don't believe that you're an angel."

"No. You don't understand."

"You're the angel. Work a miracle and make me understand."

Ken began to pace the room, a bundle of nervous energy. As he passed the bedpost, he suddenly stopped and grabbed onto it like a lifeline as he looked at Brad again. "It's Christmas. What's the first thought that comes into your mind when I say the word *Christmas*?"

/Tipping./ The thought immediately sprang to his mind but Brad would no sooner be dragged across Hell and back before he'd admit it.

"AH-Ha! Ken pounced on him. "You thought of money just then."

"You're guessing."

"I'm sure! The gleam of rapacity in your eyes was too hard to miss. Which just proves my point. Nowhere in this house is there a sign of Christmas. No tree, no mistletoe, no stockings…no nothing! And what about your servants?"

A headache was starting to throb between Brad's eyes at Ken's mercurial changes in topic. He rubbed the bridge of his nose where the throbbing seemed to have taken up residence. "What about them?"

"Did you give them a special holiday to be with their loved ones?"

"They'll be more than amply compensated."

"Money again." Ken walked over to him and placed his hands on Brad's chest, looking up at Brad as if he expected Brad to be something he wasn't…something he couldn't…or didn't want to understand.

And Ken must have read that in his shuttered eyes. "Can't you understand? Can't you at least try?"

The velvet brown eyes were pleading, soft like melted chocolate and no less sweet. When Ken looked at him that way, he almost thought he could be different from what he was. But he didn't know if he could give Ken what Ken wanted, what Ken asked. Because it scared the hell out of him.

Brad's gaze moved to Ken's mouth, because he had to look at Ken. His look wandered slowly down the silk shirt and to legs that peeped out beneath them. His anger turned to want. The need, the obsession that seemed to want to consume him since the night they first met when Ken had caught him looking, returned with full force.

He wanted Ken but his pride reminded him that for all his life he had had everything on his own terms. He always made the rules.

"Don't look at me like that!"

"Why not? I paid for the privilege."

Ken flinched and backed away from him with a look in his eyes…like Brad had hit him.

Brad stood unflinching and unmoving. Part of him wanted to take the words back but another part of him, the part that seethed with the anger, rejection and pride, did not allow him to move or speak.

Everything was mixed up in his head…and in his heart.

Ken had his hands raised as if to fend Brad off, the expression on his face unchanged, and he was muttering something under his breath, almost unconsciously. "I can't do this." Ken shook his head. "I can't"

Ken looked ready to bolt.

Brad's heart seemed to stop beating for a second with those words. He grabbed Ken's wrist then, staring at it in surprise as if he couldn't believe he had done it. Then in a strained voice he said "Don't leave, Ken. Don't leave."

Ken watched Brad for a long time. "Brad," Ken said. "What is it? What are you so afraid of?"

Brad didn't even blink. He held on to Ken's wrist like he was on the angry sea and Ken's wrist was his only lifeline. "Promise me. You won't leave like you did before."

"Why?"

That one word seemed like an electric jolt as Brad let Ken's wrist fall from his hands like it was a burning brand. He turned away…an alien feeling of vulnerability on him…making him feel naked before Ken's eyes. Brad didn't turn back, he left Ken standing there.

He needed to think and he couldn't do it with Ken standing there and looking at him like that, He crossed the room briskly and opened the door.

"Brad?" Ken's voice was so soft Brad wasn't so certain he'd heard it. He paused though and took a deep breath, as if to reinforce himself.

"I'll stay."

His deathgrip on the door handle loosened and he almost buckled as legs turned nerveless with relief. He nodded once because he couldn't find his voice, then he left, closing the door behind him.

With the door closed, he let his tight control on his emotions go. /Just for a second./ And he leaned at the wall for a moment, then had an insane thought. /Perhaps Ken really *was* an angel./

***

Ken stood at the window and watched the limo Brad always used pull away from the house. He'd left later this morning than he did normally. So today all of Schwarz went to the office together, an event that only happened…well a first, actually.

It had been accompanied by much bickering and glares from the rest. Schwarz being not the perkiest bunch in the morning. It had afforded Ken a few chuckles before they left the house as he waited and watched.

As soon as the limo disappeared around the bend, he threw on a brown leather trenchcoat and belted it on.

He walked to the bedroom door and stopped suddenly, snapping his fingers as if he had just remembered something. He ran back and grabbed a small pouch that was sitting on the chair, then went back to the door where he listened to make certain no one was in the hallway.

He slowly opened the door, just a crack, and peered out. When he was sure the coast was clear, he crept stealthily out of the bedroom and hurried to the smaller stairway near the gallery. He looked down.

The foyer was empty.

Ken exhaled a sigh of relief and straddled the banister, sliding down as silent and quiet as a cat, landing perfectly on the foyer. A minute later he was running down the steps and away from the house.

He never looked back.

***

TBC I thought I could finish part 7 but I couldn't so this is part 7a. ehehehe ^__^ Evil to hang it there ne?