Warning: This chapter has the most unusual pairing of Astaroth/Raphael.
It's rather disturbing, though : violence, a lot of blood and non-con.
***
2 White World
Gore. He wondered how much of it was actually the angel's own blood. No one, especially not a one so thin and lightly build, could ever bleed that much. But he was still breathing.
"Out! All of you! Out! I need to concentrate!"
The Archangel Raphael shooed them out and slammed the doors shut. This one needed his full attention. He bent over the angel's stretch, inspecting his face. It was the only part of him that wasn't sliced into pieces from the battles. Still, the crimson liquid painted the features of the young angel. He looked no older than the Wind Angel himself, about sixteen, and his unconscious features appeared pure and innocent.
He was extraordinarily beautiful, the face of an elegant doll, the blood- laced lashes long and feathery, arched brows and high cheekbones. The face of a prince, framed in silky crimson strands of long, long hair.
Raphael raised his hands and fulfilled his duty, healed the angel from his otherwise fatal wounds. They closed and the flesh was unmarred. Still, there was blood all over. He considered calling a nurse. There were other wounded soldiers from the ongoing battles. He needn't carry out these lesser tasks himself.
But instead he took a basin of fresh, rose-scented antiseptic water and a towel and slowly, carefully started washing the soiled angel. The water, already smelling of roses, took on the colour of roses as well, as it ran over the skin in bloody droplets. He unbuttoned the torn uniform and discarded it. Underneath the coating of blood a skin the colour of snow showed. It was cold, too...
Raphael felt watched. He looked around. The ward was empty. Of course. No one was watching him. No one was sneaking behind his back. But still... ever since that woman, that monster, that abnormality.. had touched him with her tainted lips, her hands, he could not help it. They were there, always, always, behind his back, inside his head, pointing at him, whispering.
The Archangel Raphael had always been a virtuous, perfect angel. His healing abilities and his model life and work had brought him admiration from many angels. Of the four Elements he was at that time the second most loved, only Jibrill was more favoured by the angels. He had never questioned his existence. He had loved God, he had loved Heaven, he had loved life, whose guardian he was, whose healer. And then, he had met her. Belial...
From the first moment on, the first glimpse he had got of that woman, he had felt insecure. She was only a woman, inferior to him by Heavens holy rules - yet he felt humiliated. And then... he had seen 'it'. Two Angels, one of them Belial, committing the sin. The sin of all sins, the original sin , beneath the ever-watching, uncaring eyes of God. Why didn't he interfere? Why was this possible? And why... felt he so afraid of himself?
He was an angel. Pure. Innocent. Chaste.
She was an angel. Spoiled. Desecrated. Impure.
Where was the difference? Why had she become like this? What kept him from becoming her?
He should leave. His work was done. Why was he lingering? This angel was no one he knew, he was unimportant...
Beauty... yes, you dreadful woman... he is beautiful. He is beautiful because of his purity. Pure... pure beings... we are pure... you are nothing... he winced and wanted to curl into a heap on the ground.
The figure on the stretch stirred and raised his head. He took in his surroundings calmly, finding that he was not dead, as expected, but indeed in one of the hospitals of Heaven. Heaven still. He turned around. A boy was sitting next to his stretch, with pale blonde hair and a doctor's uniform. He was hiding his face in his hands, breathing shaggily, looking tense. Astaroth smiled. Pain...
"Healer," he rasped, his voice the brittle hiss of a snake. Raphael raised his head in shocked surprise, looking young and innocent, with wet blue eyes. Spring sky met icicle stare.
"I..." Raphael stammered. Quickly, Astaroth moved his right hand to cup his face and startle him into silence.
"Hush... ," he rose from the covers, his bare body smelling of roses and coppery blood. "My name is Astaroth. And yours is...?" he asked with a chilly smile.
"....Raphael.." the blonde angel gasped barely above his frantic breath. He felt glued to his seat like a little animal staring into a snake's eyes.
"Raphael..." the name lingered on his tongue in a delightful sigh.
Another arm wrapped around Raphael's rigid shoulders, pressing him close to the cold body. His eyes widened in fear.
"Thank you... my saviour..." the hissing voice muttered into his ears and a fist crashed into his back in a skull-shattering blow. The air was knocked out of him, and before he was able to even so much as gasp, he was pushed on the ground, slithering over the white tiles. He crashed into a cupboard. Shards of cutting glass rained down on him.
Astaroth swung his legs gracefully over the edge of the stretch, and with a swish of his hair stalked over to the angel on the floor. His boots clicked on the floor. Slowly he went down, sitting on his heels before the doctor, who was panting and bleeding from where the glass had cut him numerous times. Astaroth bend forward. He dipped a finger into the blood, smeared it on his lips, tasting it with a pleased sigh.
"Sweet... so sweet... the last angelic innocence..."
He pressed a kiss on the shivering pulse before him, flicking his tongue over the flesh, tasting fear, tasting delicious guilt. He edged a little closer, moving his weight from his heels to his hand, carefully and deliberately placed between Raphael's thighs, and rubbed his cheek against the bleeding skin. Raphael keened, flinching away. He was paralysed with horror, horror of the corruption he felt nearing, the corruption...
Astaroth picked up a fistful of glass, slapping him with it. Raphael cried out, more in shock than in pain, and tried to scramble away, but he was straddled, held in place by a brilliantly smiling Astaroth.
"Bleed... bleed for me my Angel...," and he sucked the torn lips, relishing the coppery taste of pain. A curtain of scarlet hair fell around them.
Yellow, warm sunlight flowed into the ward through white starched linen curtains, painting small rectangular spaces of light onto the tiled floor. Everything was pure and shining white. White, white world...
Raphael dared not make a sound.
***
Astaroth leaves the infirmary, closing the door behind him with a small 'click'. He wears a new uniform, his long hair braided into a unruly ponytail. A thin smile plays on his perfect lips, momentarily satisfied with the pain and fear he has left behind.
The long corridors are full of hurrying nurses, calling doctors, hurt, wounded, dead people. The sound of his shoes on the black and white marble of the floor is drowned by the noise and he slips unnoticed through the doors, into the wide, magnificent gardens.
Sunlight is dancing, golden, on perfect summer trees, green and gold, and glowing light, and singing birds and the humming and buzzing of hundreds of bees and butterflies, and underneath it all the soft whispering of a breeze in the long grass and the leaves. It smells of summer, of warm earth and of grass, and of flowers and of rain and of thousands of wonderful, everlasting dreams.
He wanders aimlessly, but drawn deeper and deeper into the gardens, by some invisible force. The only thing that ever attracted Astaroth's hateful little soul is pain and death and violence. But now there was something else. Something nameless, something new, something powerful.
Not even God was that powerful. God was far away, and faint, and he hated him with every fibre. He hated him as much as his sister and himself. But this thing was new, was drawing him closer like a magnet.
And there, amidst the lush beauty, under the heavy emerald twigs and branches, in the high grass, stood cold and black and alien to heavenly brilliance, his new master. He was tall, ever so tall, and beautiful as ice and just as sharp. His tremendous black wings seemed to absorb the light and to emanate blackness in return.
Astaroth came closer, entranced by the darkness and beauty and the promises of that frosty smile.
"My master," he said simply as he kneeled before him, looking up to the dark figure.
"My servant," said Lucifer.
***
2 White World
Gore. He wondered how much of it was actually the angel's own blood. No one, especially not a one so thin and lightly build, could ever bleed that much. But he was still breathing.
"Out! All of you! Out! I need to concentrate!"
The Archangel Raphael shooed them out and slammed the doors shut. This one needed his full attention. He bent over the angel's stretch, inspecting his face. It was the only part of him that wasn't sliced into pieces from the battles. Still, the crimson liquid painted the features of the young angel. He looked no older than the Wind Angel himself, about sixteen, and his unconscious features appeared pure and innocent.
He was extraordinarily beautiful, the face of an elegant doll, the blood- laced lashes long and feathery, arched brows and high cheekbones. The face of a prince, framed in silky crimson strands of long, long hair.
Raphael raised his hands and fulfilled his duty, healed the angel from his otherwise fatal wounds. They closed and the flesh was unmarred. Still, there was blood all over. He considered calling a nurse. There were other wounded soldiers from the ongoing battles. He needn't carry out these lesser tasks himself.
But instead he took a basin of fresh, rose-scented antiseptic water and a towel and slowly, carefully started washing the soiled angel. The water, already smelling of roses, took on the colour of roses as well, as it ran over the skin in bloody droplets. He unbuttoned the torn uniform and discarded it. Underneath the coating of blood a skin the colour of snow showed. It was cold, too...
Raphael felt watched. He looked around. The ward was empty. Of course. No one was watching him. No one was sneaking behind his back. But still... ever since that woman, that monster, that abnormality.. had touched him with her tainted lips, her hands, he could not help it. They were there, always, always, behind his back, inside his head, pointing at him, whispering.
The Archangel Raphael had always been a virtuous, perfect angel. His healing abilities and his model life and work had brought him admiration from many angels. Of the four Elements he was at that time the second most loved, only Jibrill was more favoured by the angels. He had never questioned his existence. He had loved God, he had loved Heaven, he had loved life, whose guardian he was, whose healer. And then, he had met her. Belial...
From the first moment on, the first glimpse he had got of that woman, he had felt insecure. She was only a woman, inferior to him by Heavens holy rules - yet he felt humiliated. And then... he had seen 'it'. Two Angels, one of them Belial, committing the sin. The sin of all sins, the original sin , beneath the ever-watching, uncaring eyes of God. Why didn't he interfere? Why was this possible? And why... felt he so afraid of himself?
He was an angel. Pure. Innocent. Chaste.
She was an angel. Spoiled. Desecrated. Impure.
Where was the difference? Why had she become like this? What kept him from becoming her?
He should leave. His work was done. Why was he lingering? This angel was no one he knew, he was unimportant...
Beauty... yes, you dreadful woman... he is beautiful. He is beautiful because of his purity. Pure... pure beings... we are pure... you are nothing... he winced and wanted to curl into a heap on the ground.
The figure on the stretch stirred and raised his head. He took in his surroundings calmly, finding that he was not dead, as expected, but indeed in one of the hospitals of Heaven. Heaven still. He turned around. A boy was sitting next to his stretch, with pale blonde hair and a doctor's uniform. He was hiding his face in his hands, breathing shaggily, looking tense. Astaroth smiled. Pain...
"Healer," he rasped, his voice the brittle hiss of a snake. Raphael raised his head in shocked surprise, looking young and innocent, with wet blue eyes. Spring sky met icicle stare.
"I..." Raphael stammered. Quickly, Astaroth moved his right hand to cup his face and startle him into silence.
"Hush... ," he rose from the covers, his bare body smelling of roses and coppery blood. "My name is Astaroth. And yours is...?" he asked with a chilly smile.
"....Raphael.." the blonde angel gasped barely above his frantic breath. He felt glued to his seat like a little animal staring into a snake's eyes.
"Raphael..." the name lingered on his tongue in a delightful sigh.
Another arm wrapped around Raphael's rigid shoulders, pressing him close to the cold body. His eyes widened in fear.
"Thank you... my saviour..." the hissing voice muttered into his ears and a fist crashed into his back in a skull-shattering blow. The air was knocked out of him, and before he was able to even so much as gasp, he was pushed on the ground, slithering over the white tiles. He crashed into a cupboard. Shards of cutting glass rained down on him.
Astaroth swung his legs gracefully over the edge of the stretch, and with a swish of his hair stalked over to the angel on the floor. His boots clicked on the floor. Slowly he went down, sitting on his heels before the doctor, who was panting and bleeding from where the glass had cut him numerous times. Astaroth bend forward. He dipped a finger into the blood, smeared it on his lips, tasting it with a pleased sigh.
"Sweet... so sweet... the last angelic innocence..."
He pressed a kiss on the shivering pulse before him, flicking his tongue over the flesh, tasting fear, tasting delicious guilt. He edged a little closer, moving his weight from his heels to his hand, carefully and deliberately placed between Raphael's thighs, and rubbed his cheek against the bleeding skin. Raphael keened, flinching away. He was paralysed with horror, horror of the corruption he felt nearing, the corruption...
Astaroth picked up a fistful of glass, slapping him with it. Raphael cried out, more in shock than in pain, and tried to scramble away, but he was straddled, held in place by a brilliantly smiling Astaroth.
"Bleed... bleed for me my Angel...," and he sucked the torn lips, relishing the coppery taste of pain. A curtain of scarlet hair fell around them.
Yellow, warm sunlight flowed into the ward through white starched linen curtains, painting small rectangular spaces of light onto the tiled floor. Everything was pure and shining white. White, white world...
Raphael dared not make a sound.
***
Astaroth leaves the infirmary, closing the door behind him with a small 'click'. He wears a new uniform, his long hair braided into a unruly ponytail. A thin smile plays on his perfect lips, momentarily satisfied with the pain and fear he has left behind.
The long corridors are full of hurrying nurses, calling doctors, hurt, wounded, dead people. The sound of his shoes on the black and white marble of the floor is drowned by the noise and he slips unnoticed through the doors, into the wide, magnificent gardens.
Sunlight is dancing, golden, on perfect summer trees, green and gold, and glowing light, and singing birds and the humming and buzzing of hundreds of bees and butterflies, and underneath it all the soft whispering of a breeze in the long grass and the leaves. It smells of summer, of warm earth and of grass, and of flowers and of rain and of thousands of wonderful, everlasting dreams.
He wanders aimlessly, but drawn deeper and deeper into the gardens, by some invisible force. The only thing that ever attracted Astaroth's hateful little soul is pain and death and violence. But now there was something else. Something nameless, something new, something powerful.
Not even God was that powerful. God was far away, and faint, and he hated him with every fibre. He hated him as much as his sister and himself. But this thing was new, was drawing him closer like a magnet.
And there, amidst the lush beauty, under the heavy emerald twigs and branches, in the high grass, stood cold and black and alien to heavenly brilliance, his new master. He was tall, ever so tall, and beautiful as ice and just as sharp. His tremendous black wings seemed to absorb the light and to emanate blackness in return.
Astaroth came closer, entranced by the darkness and beauty and the promises of that frosty smile.
"My master," he said simply as he kneeled before him, looking up to the dark figure.
"My servant," said Lucifer.