He doesn't know when it started, but there is a hollow feeling in his chest that grows and grows with every side-comment Maze makes, with every disapproving glance his brother sends his way.
(And maybe he is paranoid, but it's almost the same one he felt in heaven before everything fell apart.
He can't stop the fear that rises with the thought.)
And at first it's nothing, easily pushed aside with sex and drugs and alcohol and fun things. But as time goes on it gets harder to ignore it, harder to mute it and push it back in the back of his mind.
So when someone steals his wings? It's exactly the type of distraction he was waiting for, but he is still reluctant.
He knows he should make an example out of this. No one steals from him and stuff like that. Hell he should do it because it's doing anything other than partying and drinking. Or because humanity and the divine are not a good combination.
He has so many reasons to hunt down these bastards, he feels like he is drowning in them.
But…
But every time he sees his wings he can still feel the phantom pain in his back, the burn of the fall on his skin, the smell of hell in his nose. He needs them and he doesn't want them, and he will get them anyway, because of course he will.
It doesn't go down the way he imagined, and by the end of it, the empty hurt in his chest doubles as he hits and hits his brother, blood dripping from his busted lips, wings burning on the sand.