Veni Veni ✝ Vincent/Kuja

[igrab]

title. Veni Veni
pairing. Vincent/Kuja
written for. hey_giffy
wordcount. 3,194


Have mercy on me, God, in your kindness.

The roped burned his wrists and ankles; his chest bled freely, for the knife they'd carved with had cut deep.

In your compassion, blot out my offense.

He'd passed through this square on his way into town. It had seemed welcoming, despite the frigid air, the locked doors, the villagers who peered suspiciously through their curtains. A village that needed the grace of God, he'd thought. He'd been calm, accepting, and full of optimism for the task ahead.

The calm, at least, had not left him.

O wash me more and more from my guilt and cleanse me of sin.

Now, at the center of the square, a cruel post stabbed skywards, straight and true. His aching feet stumbled on the steps; his captor jabbed at his ankles with a sharpened stick.

O purify me, then I shall be clean.

He did not cry out. He did not cry. He was not angry.

O wash me, I shall be whiter than snow.

He had always encountered trepidation towards his looks - the 'demon eyes', they said, for no man of God had eyes the color of blood. He had never heeded them. He could not change the color of the eyes that God had given him. They would learn.

But not here. Here, their belief was a blindfold and a crutch and a whip all in one, and their fears were too deeply rooted.

From my sins turn away your face and blot out all my guilt.

They saw only the demon and none of the man.

A pure heart create for me, O God, put a steadfast spirit within me.

He was sin in their eyes; and in failing them, he had failed God. This was his, now: this post, this punishment.

Give me again the joy of your help; with a spirit of fervor sustain me, that I may teach your transgressors your ways and sinners may return to you.

They pulled his hands back until his shoulders popped; stood him on piles of sharp, dry tinder. They bound him with rope. They threw more wood at his feet. They lit the fire.

O rescue me, God, my helper, and my tongue shall ring out your goodness.

Their hatred cut him deeper than their knives. He wanted to believe this was just a test, that God had a plan, that there was meaning to their madness.

But he couldn't understand. He didn't know why. It wasn't about saving his life or not saving it - he knew his life was worth little.

O Lord, open my lips.

This town was a town of lost souls.

Open my lips and my mouth shall declare your praise.

He prayed for them, for their fear. He prayed for their salvation. He prayed, for if God loved this world, he would love every one of His people.

He believed in God's love. He did.

And if God loved him, maybe he was worth something.

Lord Jesus Christ, son of God.

Vincentius lifted his head to the sky and felt his skin begin to ripple and singe and only then, at the end of everything, did he cry, and it was with a voice cracked and raw that he uttered the final words of his desperate plea.

"Have mercy on me a sinner."

A light sparked in the corner of his vision.

He blinked, pushing away the tears that curled to steam from the heat. He wasn't dreaming. Against the heavy storm clouds, a bright white point shone out from the sky, and as he watched, it drew closer and closer. He was fascinated; enthralled. The more he watched it, the further away the pain seemed.

The headman of the village - Jean-Paul Moreau, Vincent remembered dimly - saw the direction he was looking and whipped around, shading his eyes.

"Holy Chri-"

But he never finished the name, for at that moment, the point of light burst into a thousand white feathers, and an angel appeared.

He was tall and graceful and shining all in white, with four wings - cherubim? dominion? he couldn't remember exactly - and a long wave of white hair, whiter than his skin, whiter than snow. He floated on the air, drifting slowly down to a sudden clearing as the villagers backed away. He was far, far too beautiful.

"Come now, we cannot have this."

His feet did not touch the ground; he stepped up to the platform but his feet still hovered, and Vincent could not look up. He could not look at his face.

Where he stepped, the fire died, and the closer he got, the more Vincent's heart threatened to give out. He was a meter away - half a meter - and then there was nothing but centimeters between them, as the angel's body kept the flames at bay.

Fingers touched him, light pressure under his chin. He felt like starlight. Vincent looked up.

One might have expected an angel's face to be perfect; Vincent never had. No one was perfect. No one was the same. He saw, now, the minute details of how this angel was distinctive - his thin, curved lips just barely parted in the sweetest of smiles; the small, pointed nose; overlarge eyes and long, dark eyelashes that curled like a girl's. There were two freckles, right on his nose. Imperfect, yes. But beautiful. Terribly beautiful; disastrously beautiful. Eyes the deep blue of the night sky and just as mesmerizing; and Vincent found, once he'd met them, that he could not look away.

"Yes," he murmured, and his voice was for Vincent alone. "You are more than worth saving."

✝
The angel personally oversaw things as the villagers, in daze of divine revelation, doused the fire and untied their pastor from the post. He personally saw Vincent led all the way back to the church, and once, as he stumbled over a rock, caught him and held him up with one arm around his waist and one wing curled protectively around his shoulders. Vincent was still not all there; he understood and believed what was going on, he just didn't know what to do with himself. The pain was returning. But also, too, a warmly intimate feeling - a shivery close feeling, every time the angel came near. He didn't know what to think. He didn't want it to end.

The church doors fell shut behind them and all the villagers melted away; they were alone.

With a light sound, the angel pulled all four of his wings back into a solid folded mass of feather behind his back. He looked so human, all of a sudden - a rather contrite and hopeful human, with this odd smile in the corner of his mouth that seemed to speak of a wicked pleasure. Vincent fixated on it for a moment. It was very fixating. He realized that he was probably delirious.

"Do you have any medicinal supplies in this place?" the angel said, a light note of teasing in his voice, as if daring him otherwise. Vincent nodded; of course. This was a church.

It was like he blinked he was sitting in the first pew, and the angel was returning with clean cloths and a half-full bucket of warm water. Vincent stared at it. There was something, well. He didn't know. There was an angel carrying a bucket of water in his church. He didn't even know his name.

"You - what do I call you?" he asked, as courteously as he was able. The angel cracked a small grin.

"My name is Kushiel. Shhh." He dipped the cloth in the water, crouched before Vincent, and slowly began sponging the blood from his chest. His wings lay behind him, trailed over the dusty church floor.

Kushiel. It sounded like starlight.

"Your hands are warm," he murmured, because he was definitely delirious.

Kushiel smiled quite delightedly to himself. "Yes. I know. Didn't I tell you to shush?"

"Not in so many words." Vincent raised an eyebrow and watched, still fascinated, as his wounds were cleaned and bandaged. Kushiel refused to talk more, but there was a sort of sparkle in his eyes, and a smileon his lips, that Vincent perhaps thought that he might like to, if he could ensure that Vincent wouldn't respond.

He was still beautiful, and Vincent didn't know why he was still here, but he could stay as long as he liked. Vincent would not complain.

✝
Three days of bed rest later, and Vincent refused to stay put anymore. It was a Sunday, but too late for Mass, and Vincent was not pleased that no one had woken him. Still, he had needed to recover. He understood that.

He came out into the church proper and saw, in the apse, a very strange sight indeed. The angel Kushiel was standing at the altar with his hair tied back in a loose tail, wings folded, hands raised and small flames licking from the tips of his fingers, drifting to light the altar candles. He was, once again, too beautiful. Only this time, Vincent wasn't delirious, so he had no excuse.

"Kushiel," he murmured, and the angel started - turned with a twitch in his shoulders and his eyes wide, but when he saw Vincent, he smiled like he could not be happier.

"Vincentius," he murmured, and when he held out his hands, Vincent stepped forward and placed his own in them gladly. "The villagers tell me that's your name. Vincentius Valentino, from Corsica. What brings you to France?"

There was a wry humor in Kushiel's tone; Vincent responded in kind. "Does God not inform his messengers about their missions?"

He dipped his head and touched his nose to the side of Kushiel's neck, on impulse. The angel, an eyebrow cocked and that grin on his mouth, seemed about to respond - but at the touch he stopped, sighed, in something like surprise. His hands held on tighter.

"I went from Corsica to Ivrea, from Ivrea to Rumilly, Rumilly to Viriat to Marcigny. Then I came here, to Mercy." Every word was spoken as a liquid whisper to Kushiel's ear; every word made him shake a little more. "I go where I'm needed. I leave when the villagers stop trusting me. And they always stop trusting me."

He was shaking harder than ever now. "I'm sorry," Kushiel whispered.

"They stop trusting me," and Vincent twisted his hands until Kushiel's were trapped within his own; he brought them together and gathered them tight against his heart, so he could reach around and hold Kushiel's head in place. "Because they believe a demon to be within me. And my question to you is - " his lips were brushing the angel's ear with every motion, he was shuddering in Vincent's grasp, but made no move to get away. " - Is there?"

His eyes - his red eyes - were fierce and intense, burning into Kushiel's blue. He was not afraid, no. He was shivering from proximity, shaking out of pity. There was sadness in his eyes, even through hope. Sadness and hope, for him, Father Vincentius.

"Is there?"

His lips moved, and for a moment, he did not speak. But the words finally did come.

"...Yes," he whispered.

Vincent's hands tightened.

"Yes."

✝
With that revelation, Vincent experienced a certain kind of freedom. His life had been built on uncertainty, on not ever knowing whether the accusations - running the full gamut from 'he doesn't look right' to 'he's the Devil himself' - had any truth to them. He knew, now. He understood.

What he did not understand was why he was still alive.

After that, Kushiel disappeared. Vincent carried on preaching to the town of Mercy, but his heart was only half there, and the other half seemed to have gone on holiday. He found himself drifting off, thinking of the strange angel who saved him, who cared for him, who was inescapably human and all the more endearing for it. And the bigger question still continued to plague him:

Saved, but for what?

✝
It was the eve of Christmas. A busy time in any church, to be sure, but that night after the late mass, Vincent found himself in his small chamber, dressed for bed, one lone candle lighting his nightly reading.

It was Christmas, and he was reading not of the birth of Jesus and the salvation of the world - he was reading about angels.

It was this night that he finally found it.

He'd known the name Kushiel was familiar; since his departure, he had taken to skimming as much of the text as he could to find the reference. Tonight, as it turned out, was the night.

He tucked black hair behind his ear and bent close to read.

"...I see you've discovered that Kushiel is not what you would normally expect of an angel," a voice called out, suddenly.

Vincent sat up so quickly his scars pulled. "Kushiel?"

Yes, it was - that familiar slim form, leaning against the doorframe, wings folded, glowing slightly in the low light. He looked very serious, and Vincent could not be happier to see him.

He reached out his hands and the angel came, slid his own neatly into palms that fit like gloves.

"There is something I must tell you," Kushiel whispered.

"You're an angel of punishment?" Vincent flicked his eyes toward the open Book of Enoch. "Because - "

"No, that's not it." He was so sadly beautiful. Vincent felt his heart melting, his full heart - and he knew then why it had been gone, why he'd only been half a person for so long. He swept his thumbs in soothing circles over the back of the angel's hands, and watched as he took in a deep breath.

"I'm not Kushiel. I'm not even an angel. My kind is called Nephilim, and we were spawned from the unholy union of angel and man." These sentences were spoken to the floor, muttered ina low, shamed voice. He would not meet VIncent's eyes. "I've lied to you, and I saved you selfishly - because I heard you call out and I did not wish to see you die."

For a long moment, Vincent said nothing. He, too, was looking down, but instead of the floor, he was making a study of the way their hands joined. They were both pale, both had long fingers and bony joints. They fit so well together.

"What is your name?"

The other looked up instantly, eyes blowing wide open. "What?"

"Your name," Vincent said. His voice was low, even, and warm. "I wish to know your true name."

He looked left and right; he stuttered. For a moment he almost looked as if he would pull away; Vincent tightened his hands, and he swallowed, finally accepting whatever it was he'd been afraid of.

"Kuja. Just Kuja."

The two syllables rolled like blessed fire through Vincent's head and it smacked of rightness, of an unearthly perfection. Kuja.

"And," he added, looking as if it pained him to do so. "This isn't my true form, either."

Vincent nodded and let go of his hands - not trusting himself to speak. Kuja took one, two steps backwards. He took a deep breath.

It started from his hair. It curled outwards first, then morphed - turned red and feathered and everywhere, striping down his back and replacing the quartet of folded wings. His skin colored to a pale purple, his hands twiched and nails lengthened, and the red kept on spreading. Red, red feathers, over his shoulders and chest and the curve of his hips. They grew from his skin, blended to it. Vincent could not stop staring.

He was beautiful. He always had been, but now even more so, his beauty lifting beyond the earthly resemblance to something purely arcane. His mouth was bone-dry, heart high in his throat. He stood; he had to stand. He had to come closer and take Kuja's hands in his again - how could he not? He had to touch him, to be sure he was real.

"Kuja," he said, and his voice sounded uneven and flatly awed. For a long moment, he didn't know what to say. "I... never did get a chance to thank you."

"There's one more thing," Kuja cut in suddenly, and it was with a returned fear and a sort of desperation. You won't be thanking me soon, his eyes seemed to say, but Vincent knew - had already decided - that nothing Kuja could say could ever be bad. He drew in a long, shaky breath, steeled himself. Vincent did not know what could be so terrible. He could not comprehend it. "I lied about one more thing.

"You're aren't a demon," he whispered. "You aren't a vessel, you aren't evil, there's nothing about you that's bad, nothing." He squeezed Vincent's hands as tight as he could; until they creaked. "You're Nephilim," he said, and his voice cracked. "Not all - it's several generations back. But you have the blood of the unwanted angels. That's all. That's the only thing wrong with you. You're..." but he couldn't finish it, couldn't say it again. He was looking down at their hands as well, biting his lip, and he was so broken in that moment that Vincent would have done anything, anything, to bring his smile back.

He pulled Kuja's hands up to his lips. He turned them over, held his palms up, and then he bent down and pressed his lips right at the center of his right hand, at the intersection of all those fine lines. He could feel Kuja jerk in surprise - heard him gasp, lightly, and a shiver crawled down his body.

"There is one thing you are wrong about," he murmured.

"I'm not," Kuja said, with a hint of that dry humor that Vincent had so loved on that first, fateful day.

He raised an eyebrow in return. "You did not save me selfishly."

Kuja's face snapped into a frown - quite wonderfully, as it was the first expression Vincent saw from him that seemed completely his own. "I did!"

"No," he said, and now he moved with a gentle familiarity - cradled Kuja's hands in his, pulled him close, held his head in one hand and leaned to whisper in his ear, though this time it was with a tenderness he had not thought himself capable of.

"You were sent by God, to show me what I truly am; to save me, and to prove to me that I am not worth nothing."