"With Feathers So Hollow" - AU, Adam/Kris, R
Title: "With Feathers So Hollow"
Rating: R
Pairing: Adam/Kris
Warnings: Religion? Unlikely to be your thing without temporary suspension of certain beliefs, if you hold those very strongly.
Word Count: 4,205
Summary: AU for plaguedbymen (original prompt: Adam/Kris, angel/devil AU, didn't quite turn out that way) about free will, temptation, and ancient beings.
Author's Notes: Many thanks to antigone921 for the amazing beta. I would highly recommend checking out the extended author's notes for my playlist and more information if you need more info about warnings. This is a repost - the original disappeared under mysterious circumstances and was no longer archived here. If you read it when it was originally posted in October, you can move on along. Many thanks to those who were able to help me recover this.
- - - - -
It was raining again, for the fourth time in as many days. Fat raindrops splashed down onto the street; within a few moments puddles were starting to form in the potholes in the asphalt. The gutters were already tested to their limits and another day of rainstorms wouldn't help. Kris was glad, and not for the first time, that the meeting wasn't on a hill, or anywhere near a hill. There were mudslides coming. He'd seen it before in different countries, places he'd gone to so he could offer assistance. There were always people with needs in disaster areas, and nothing made Kris happier than assisting people with those needs. A mudslide in this area - rich, bloated with money and power and fame - didn't quite have the same effect. Those people could simply buy their way out of trouble.
One of the perks of being not of this earth was that the rain didn't bother him. It was a benefit of the job, so to speak, to walk through a storm - through a hurricane, even - and come out of it no more than slightly damp. He wondered sometimes if this was an inborn skill, part of the standard package, if everyone originally made like him could do the same. Kris never thought to ask; his kind were solitary creatures, in both directions, and asking too many questions was never something that ended well. It was an answer he didn't want, not really. Some things were better left as little pleasures, without room for reason or explanation.
The walk to the meeting house was short; he always tried to locate the most optimal landing spot each time, but it wasn't easy. He supposed he could have placed his arrival directly in the living room of the house, though he'd never tried. He liked to see the world, didn't always have much time to observe, so showing up behind a coffeehouse or behind the shrubs of a local park afforded him a little time to look around.
This visit was different. Kris had a purpose this time - there was always a purpose, but this one was self-oriented, not quite as globally-oriented as his usual earthbound trips. He brought himself forward in the parking lot of a shopping center less than a mile from his destination and broke into a jog as soon as he crossed over to the other side of the street. He didn't have to completely deprive himself of people-watching, but it was best to keep the lowest profile possible on days like these.
The front gate to the house opened with one concentrated look from Kris - another perk, he thought, stepping onto the green grass of the front lawn instead of going up the driveway. The yard was slippery with the rain, and more than a little muddy, but Kris wasn't concerned; it wasn't like the mud would stick to his shoes, and he wasn't going to slip and fall, either.
Adam sat on the front porch swing, swaying back and forth slowly as he stared past the Greek columns that lined the porch and into the sky.
"You could have gone in," Kris said as he moved closer, climbing the porch steps before finally slowing his jog.
"I should have," Adam agreed. He stood as Kris pushed open the door - they didn't need a key because there was nothing that could keep them out - and stepped inside the house. "How do I know you're real about this?"
Kris looked up at the chandelier in the front hallway, lighting the flame-shaped bulbs with one small glance. "You should know better," he said. "I wouldn't come alone if I were going to try and corner you. How do I know you aren't trying to trap me?"
"Guess we'll both have to have a little faith," Adam murmured. He took a few steps forward into the doorway, coming forward to stand by Kris. "What do you think about faith?"
"I think it's essential, no matter what you believe in," Kris said, though neither of them had ever had to exist where faith was necessary. Faith didn't apply when there was knowing.
A wry smile passed over Adam's face. "That's a diplomatic thing to say, especially coming from you."
Kris shrugged as he made his way further into the hallway. He took a step onto the pale wooden staircase, plush red carpeting under his feet silencing any sounds his shoes might have made, before realizing Adam still stood in the doorway. "If you think about it, this is kind of a diplomatic mission. Or it will be, if you start moving."
"I wouldn't exactly call this diplomacy," Adam mumbled, but he started forward as Kris began to slowly move backward up the stairs. His feet touched the bottom step as Kris reached the landing, moving at the same slow pace.
At the top, Kris stopped to wait for Adam, still keeping the snail's pace on his way up the stairway. He looks like sin, Kris thought. Adam dressed like the most delicious creature ever; even on regular days he still didn't quite fit in with everyone else around him. Kris tried to imagine him wearing the type of clothes that he normally saw Adam's kind wearing when he spotted one earthside and he wanted to laugh out loud at the idea. Both sides wanted to blend in when they walked the planet; no one wanted to unnecessarily draw attention to themselves because it kept them from their real work. Everyone wanted to mesh with the rest of existence, except Adam, of course, in pants so tight Kris didn't even need an imagination to contemplate every muscle and line of Adam's body and eyeliner smudged like he'd just rolled out of bed after the best sex ever.
"You're staring," Adam said, meeting Kris's eyes as he crossed the top of the staircase and came to a stop, only inches between their faces.
"You're amazing," Kris breathed, and Adam's hands were on him then. He tugged at the buttons at Kris's shirt like they were the real enemy, popping one off in the process. It made a hollow noise as it connected with the stair railing and fell to the downstairs hallway.
"You didn't need that, right?" Adam asked. He slipped his hands under Kris's newly unfastened shirt, two black-painted fingertips rubbing over a nipple until it peaked and Kris wondered how he'd gotten by all these millennia without being touched this way.
"How much do you need this?" Kris ran his hands underneath the edge of Adam's black t-shirt, tracing vertical lines over Adam's lower back with his nails. He made his way up to the center, fingers dipping into the skin over the slight inward curve of Adam's spine.
Adam groaned quietly - a little bit of pleasure and somewhat out of fear, Kris will think later when he's alone, running the experience over again in his mind and mulling over the what-ifs. And then Adam ran his hands back, reaching around, trying to stop Kris from moving any higher. "Don't," he said, in a way that Kris could only describe as anxious, like Adam might be afraid of what might be found underneath. As if either didn't know what they were going to find below the outfits they wore to fit in on this plane. "Let's go to the bedroom."
Kris took Adam's wrist and pulled him to a bedroom, one he saw once before when coming to the house for much different reasons. The room was large; a gray stone fireplace was built into the far wall, as if a lost city of angels needed that kind of fire. As if either would ever feel weather or the damp or any temperature at all. Adam cast a glance at the hearth, and in a short moment there was a fire roaring behind the grate. Kris was impressed; it would have taken him a lot longer to make it happen, but then again, they all possessed different gifts.
"Adds ambiance," Adam said quietly, and then he turned, laying his hands flat on Kris's chest. He pushed him onto the bed with just enough insistence that Kris slid a little across the caramel-colored comforter. "We have to hurry."
"Why?" Kris asked, but he knew what the answer would be before he asked the question. "I don't have anywhere else to be."
"You know why." Adam straddled him, knees locked around Kris's hips, holding him in place. He leaned forward, and this was it, the thing they sought out for months, years, maybe even a decade or two, ever since they first moved into each others' awareness like sunrise on the horizon of the world.
This was Adam's mouth over Kris's, their faces pressed together, finally, and it was at first so sweet and gentle that Kris was a little bored, and he wondered why they waited so long if that was all there was to it. Adam's mouth tasted of the faintest hint of apple, something wholesome and sweet, nothing like what Kris imagined it would be like, but it made sense just the same. None of it was what he imagined kissing Adam to be like at all - and then Adam's tongue slowly found its way into his mouth and Kris's hands were over his own head without thinking about it. He felt a strong hand snaking around both wrists, pinning them lightly to the bed, message as clear as if Adam had said it aloud: you can dare to move, you can break free, but you don't want to, so you won't press back.
Adam slipped his other hand between their bodies, tugging at the jeans Kris came up with just because he thought Adam would find them to his liking. He pushed the zipper down slowly, having little familiarity with the mechanism; neither of them had spent a lot of time removing things like this. "Slow down," Kris whispered when their mouths separated. "This house isn't going anywhere. This bed's not going anywhere, either."
"We have to hurry," Adam said again, still pulling the zipper down so achingly slow that Kris wished he hadn't even worn pants, and he thought he could have made that work for himself if he had really wanted to.
All in all, though, he thought Adam was being completely ridiculous; he had lost his sense of reason and logic in the moment. Or maybe some of that faith they talked about earlier had slipped a bit.
"You know what they say," he whispered as they adjusted, chest pressed against Adam's and Kris's mouth so temptingly close to his face. Kris ran the tip of his tongue over the skin behind Adam's ear, hanging onto the sweet feeling rushing over him when Adam shivered under his mouth. He didn't want to stop, ever, but there were so many other things left to experience and he didn't want to miss out on those either. He wanted to bite down, to leave a temporary reminder of himself on the skin of Adam's neck, like the deep red marks he saw on humans sometimes even though he knew it would fade in moments because they weren't human and never could be. He wanted to lay claim to something he might never be able to keep for his own, however long it lasted.
"What do they say?" Adam pressed their bodies together even tighter, if it were even possible, and Kris felt him - he had doubts, as it wasn't something he was sure that could happen and it wasn't a subject that either one of them actually planned on experiencing, had any reference to discuss with anyone. But he could feel Adam through the fabric, a pulsing-pounding wave of desire shot between their bodies, so strong he had to shut his eyes for a moment. It ran through Kris's chest and spread all the way toward his neck, radiating down to his feet. He could almost see colors in the air when he opened his eyes, and when he shut them a second time and reopened them he did see colors, a deep blue ring of light with touches of shimmering purple surrounding Adam's face.
It was nothing he'd ever seen before, and it overwhelmed him; the feeling was too distracting, a revelation of things to arrive. "Your people," he finally said, licking his own lips, a weird human-like habit he picked up over the years. "His eye is on the sparrow, isn't that what they say? Not one of them forgotten. Not one of them out of sight. No exceptions."
Air that Adam didn't need caught in his throat, and he looked down at Kris with something like hate from underneath his lashes. "Don't do this," he said softly, stilling all his movements in a way only otherworldly beings could. "We can't go back from this if you start."
"We can't go back from this anyway," Kris said. A wave of something - joy, he thought as he turned his face upward, catching Adam's bottom lip between his teeth and tugging, or maybe just a brighter shade of the spite he usually spread around - passed through him like a current. He kept going even though he knew it hurt, even though he knew it wouldn't make a difference in the end because this was a win, at least for the moment. He let go of Adam's mouth only long enough to speak, to spit out a few more words that neither of them really cared about hearing. "You think there's not an eye on you right now? He knows, Adam. He knew before you did. We're only reacting to the plan. Everything we do, only a reaction."
"There are things that you can't -" Adam tried to say, but Kris cut him off, kissing him again, really kissing him, with lips and teeth and tongue and feeling, and it was a tangled mess, but astonishing and erotic and desperate all at the same time, one of the only things Kris ever found beautiful in its own right since his fall.
"I'm going to take off your shirt now," he said carefully when they finally parted, raising the edge of Adam's shirt, and when there was no resistance, he kept going. "I want to see."
"You shouldn't want that," Adam argued, but he let Kris pull the shirt over his head anyway.
"You shouldn't want this at all, but you do," Kris said. "Now turn around and let me see."
The moment it took Adam to show his back was slow, even to someone to whom centuries were like days, so painfully slow that Kris wondered if there was something unexpected that he missed. But there wasn't and Adam finally turned and Kris saw the roots - the lines of Adam's back, two tiny rows of rounded, bone-like ridges rippling, one on each side of the spine and visibly pressing against the skin, one of the ways they were created different from humanity, alike and yet so different, such a very long time ago.
He reached out to touch each swell of skin and bone and Adam shivered under his touch; he trembled so that Kris wondered if it would be over before it ever even started, not that either had much of an expectation, but still, if it was going to screw things up on multiple planes, he wanted it to at least be good.
They undressed each other quickly then, Kris being almost too careful in hiding his back from Adam's sight; he wasn't ready yet, not after seeing the way Adam was so carefully created, still perfect and whole the way he was intended. He concentrated on Adam entirely, making contact with every inch of skin before him, kissing him in places he'd only seen humans in compromising situations take their mouths. A lazy swipe of his tongue behind the knee made Adam call out in a language Kris no longer held as his own and hadn't heard in centuries, and he did it again just to see if Adam would repeat the noise. The second time the sound was louder, frantic, and Adam clutched at the sheet underneath him as Kris grinned against his skin and moved up, looking for new territory to conquer.
"I want to touch you," Adam said, voice low as Kris bit at the smooth skin of his wrists.
I don't want him to see, Kris thought with no small ounce of panic, but before he could shift to dodge Adam's hands he found himself sitting up, an arm wrapped around his body holding him in place. The fingertips of Adam's other hand ran over the hard, shattered fragments of what used to be the origin of wings, once upon a time when Kris held his own set, before he was cast out and sent to the edge of darkness without grace.
"Why didn't I know you then?" Adam mused, turning Kris slightly to look at the scars where wings once waited to be released before they were taken away. "I could have done something. If we're infinite beings, then why didn't I know?"
"You couldn't have saved me, even if we did," Kris said quietly. "I wasn't sorry then." I'm not sorry now, he finished in his head, not saying it aloud because he turned to see Adam's face and Adam was most definitely sorry. Kris thought it was mostly for himself, about what they'd lost out on, but he knew that it was a fallacy; even if he had remained good and pure and perfect, they wouldn't have had this. Not there, because it wasn't what angels were supposed to do. Angels were supposed to be selfless, without their own motivations, and that had never been Kris. He suspected that had never been Adam, but that he had managed self-control better than Kris was capable of. "It's not like it's some sort of big unending network, not like humanity thinks it is."
"It is nothing like humanity thinks it is," Adam agreed, and then he practically picked Kris up and placed him across his lap. "Wrap your legs around me. Do it," he urged when Kris hesitated.
He lifted one leg and hooked it around Adam's hip, sliding the other around to meet it and locking his ankles as Adam kissed his neck, still running his hands over the ruined formations on Kris's back. "It's beautiful. You're beautiful," Adam said. The tip of his tongue ran over Kris's collarbone, up and over the swell in his throat to the edge of his chin and then Kris was the one shaking and on the edge of losing control. "It doesn't matter to me, not the scars or the fall or the history, Kris."
He moved his hands then, gripping Kris's hips and lifting him up and over and then - he was slow and careful and it was too much for Kris to handle, except it was all he wanted to take ever again. He closed his eyes and leaned back a little as they moved together and it wasn’t like Kris had done this before but it still felt right, like everything he'd done in the service of the dark was leading up to a single, defined point. Adam dropped his head onto his shoulder and Kris could feel his mouth, voice moaning through kisses, through the energy in the air and it was so good, the same kind of static electricity he felt whenever his path crossed Adam's in the world.
"Belfast, it was Belfast," Adam said desperately, and Kris opened his eyes to see those lights again, blue and lavender and specks of gold circling around Adam's form, and something rising from behind. The very tips of Adam's wings - he can't control them very much at all, Kris realized, feeling a twinge of something like elation as he realized that yes, this was something he could manage better than Adam back when he had the chance - began to ascend and swell, barely visible over his shoulders. "You were talking to those kids and I had to do what I was supposed to, and then you were just… you were you, and I didn't..."
Kris remembered it vividly; they’d slipped into a twelfth-century castle and had talked about beautiful things that Adam associated with miracles and Kris connected with corruption and they’d watched the sunrise silently before they had to go their separate ways. "What about Barcelona?" he murmured, slipping his fingers into Adam's hair near his neckline and pulling gently with his fingers.
Adam moved faster underneath him, fingers digging into scarred skin as he buried his face in Kris's throat.
"You were incredible that night." Kris kept talking, beginning to babble as something foreign started to build and tumble, a low, intense pressure that made it hard to speak or think or do anything but feel. "That café… we danced all night, until the musicians had to go home and we both had other places to be and I didn't want it to stop and you were so -"
"I'd do it again." Adam cut him off, tilting his head back to look Kris in the face, and Kris ran his hand down lower, from the hairline down between Adam's shoulder blades. They were almost completely out now, the most prominent evidence of their differences, and Kris could feel the edge of something soft slip over the end of his fingers. "Belfast, Barcelona, all those Greek islands, Düzce and that family we argued over, the mountains in Argentina."
"I know," Kris said; that was all that could be said as he moved against Adam, and he couldn't speak anymore, only nod his head as he thought, it was worth it. Whatever happens, it's worth it, though maybe just to me.
He reached out then, hesitantly running his fingers over the silky-soft feathers, golden and shimmering in the dim light from the fire, but then Kris didn't want to bring his fingers back out; he couldn't even if he wanted. Adam pushed closer and cried out and it was warm and it was fine and everything that Kris had hoped for and still nothing like he imagined, and he couldn't help it, he was broken, gone over the edge, never making his way back up again, and that suddenly seemed like the best thing that could ever happen.
He untangled his legs as he finally began to recover, collapsing back onto the bed and looking up at the carved indentions at the top of the bedposts. Adam remained sitting at the foot, staring out the window to his right, his back to Kris as his wings slowly disappeared back from where they'd came. The rain had picked up again and there were dark clouds in the sky, hovering over the neighborhood threateningly. "A real storm," Adam said quietly, standing up and going out to the curtains. "Not just rain."
"What are you going to do?" Kris asked, as if there was much of a choice.
Adam shrugged and rested his head against the window glass. "He's waiting for us," he said simply, and Kris knew they weren't talking about the one who ruled over Adam. It wasn't a surprise - he could feel the energy too, a gloomy, determined pull from the earth letting him know that he was no longer as in control of the situation as he’d anticipated. "He wants me to come with you, I think, to join your side."
"Is that what you're going to do?" Kris asked. The idea excited him - Adam at his side as they did their duty, unraveling threads over the stretch of time, waiting for the end to come. He wasn't sure of how it would work or even that it would, but what he did know was that what he felt wasn't born of rivalry or some sort of malice. Maybe it came from the last pure feeling he held onto over his existence, before the darkness took over and shifted his being.
"I don't know." Adam shook his head and looks around the room, picking up his discarded pants and contemplating them for a moment before tossing them onto the floor again. "Maybe this all works out, maybe it doesn't. I can't just do something, though. I have to see it all the way through. But I don't think there's any coming back from this."
"I don't think there is, either," Kris said. There never was.
Adam moved away from the window then and leaned over him, kissing the top of Kris's head before crawling back onto the bed. He pulled Kris close, nestling his face into his neck before draping an arm across his chest. "I want to stay here for a while," he said, and his mouth was so close that Kris could feel the words coming out on his skin. "Just you and me, until we don't have any other choice but to go."
"We can do that," Kris agreed. All the planes could hold off on their master plans and the battle for souls and winning the war over the angels, at least for a little while longer.
Rating: R
Pairing: Adam/Kris
Warnings: Religion? Unlikely to be your thing without temporary suspension of certain beliefs, if you hold those very strongly.
Word Count: 4,205
Summary: AU for plaguedbymen (original prompt: Adam/Kris, angel/devil AU, didn't quite turn out that way) about free will, temptation, and ancient beings.
Author's Notes: Many thanks to antigone921 for the amazing beta. I would highly recommend checking out the extended author's notes for my playlist and more information if you need more info about warnings. This is a repost - the original disappeared under mysterious circumstances and was no longer archived here. If you read it when it was originally posted in October, you can move on along. Many thanks to those who were able to help me recover this.
- - - - -
It was raining again, for the fourth time in as many days. Fat raindrops splashed down onto the street; within a few moments puddles were starting to form in the potholes in the asphalt. The gutters were already tested to their limits and another day of rainstorms wouldn't help. Kris was glad, and not for the first time, that the meeting wasn't on a hill, or anywhere near a hill. There were mudslides coming. He'd seen it before in different countries, places he'd gone to so he could offer assistance. There were always people with needs in disaster areas, and nothing made Kris happier than assisting people with those needs. A mudslide in this area - rich, bloated with money and power and fame - didn't quite have the same effect. Those people could simply buy their way out of trouble.
One of the perks of being not of this earth was that the rain didn't bother him. It was a benefit of the job, so to speak, to walk through a storm - through a hurricane, even - and come out of it no more than slightly damp. He wondered sometimes if this was an inborn skill, part of the standard package, if everyone originally made like him could do the same. Kris never thought to ask; his kind were solitary creatures, in both directions, and asking too many questions was never something that ended well. It was an answer he didn't want, not really. Some things were better left as little pleasures, without room for reason or explanation.
The walk to the meeting house was short; he always tried to locate the most optimal landing spot each time, but it wasn't easy. He supposed he could have placed his arrival directly in the living room of the house, though he'd never tried. He liked to see the world, didn't always have much time to observe, so showing up behind a coffeehouse or behind the shrubs of a local park afforded him a little time to look around.
This visit was different. Kris had a purpose this time - there was always a purpose, but this one was self-oriented, not quite as globally-oriented as his usual earthbound trips. He brought himself forward in the parking lot of a shopping center less than a mile from his destination and broke into a jog as soon as he crossed over to the other side of the street. He didn't have to completely deprive himself of people-watching, but it was best to keep the lowest profile possible on days like these.
The front gate to the house opened with one concentrated look from Kris - another perk, he thought, stepping onto the green grass of the front lawn instead of going up the driveway. The yard was slippery with the rain, and more than a little muddy, but Kris wasn't concerned; it wasn't like the mud would stick to his shoes, and he wasn't going to slip and fall, either.
Adam sat on the front porch swing, swaying back and forth slowly as he stared past the Greek columns that lined the porch and into the sky.
"You could have gone in," Kris said as he moved closer, climbing the porch steps before finally slowing his jog.
"I should have," Adam agreed. He stood as Kris pushed open the door - they didn't need a key because there was nothing that could keep them out - and stepped inside the house. "How do I know you're real about this?"
Kris looked up at the chandelier in the front hallway, lighting the flame-shaped bulbs with one small glance. "You should know better," he said. "I wouldn't come alone if I were going to try and corner you. How do I know you aren't trying to trap me?"
"Guess we'll both have to have a little faith," Adam murmured. He took a few steps forward into the doorway, coming forward to stand by Kris. "What do you think about faith?"
"I think it's essential, no matter what you believe in," Kris said, though neither of them had ever had to exist where faith was necessary. Faith didn't apply when there was knowing.
A wry smile passed over Adam's face. "That's a diplomatic thing to say, especially coming from you."
Kris shrugged as he made his way further into the hallway. He took a step onto the pale wooden staircase, plush red carpeting under his feet silencing any sounds his shoes might have made, before realizing Adam still stood in the doorway. "If you think about it, this is kind of a diplomatic mission. Or it will be, if you start moving."
"I wouldn't exactly call this diplomacy," Adam mumbled, but he started forward as Kris began to slowly move backward up the stairs. His feet touched the bottom step as Kris reached the landing, moving at the same slow pace.
At the top, Kris stopped to wait for Adam, still keeping the snail's pace on his way up the stairway. He looks like sin, Kris thought. Adam dressed like the most delicious creature ever; even on regular days he still didn't quite fit in with everyone else around him. Kris tried to imagine him wearing the type of clothes that he normally saw Adam's kind wearing when he spotted one earthside and he wanted to laugh out loud at the idea. Both sides wanted to blend in when they walked the planet; no one wanted to unnecessarily draw attention to themselves because it kept them from their real work. Everyone wanted to mesh with the rest of existence, except Adam, of course, in pants so tight Kris didn't even need an imagination to contemplate every muscle and line of Adam's body and eyeliner smudged like he'd just rolled out of bed after the best sex ever.
"You're staring," Adam said, meeting Kris's eyes as he crossed the top of the staircase and came to a stop, only inches between their faces.
"You're amazing," Kris breathed, and Adam's hands were on him then. He tugged at the buttons at Kris's shirt like they were the real enemy, popping one off in the process. It made a hollow noise as it connected with the stair railing and fell to the downstairs hallway.
"You didn't need that, right?" Adam asked. He slipped his hands under Kris's newly unfastened shirt, two black-painted fingertips rubbing over a nipple until it peaked and Kris wondered how he'd gotten by all these millennia without being touched this way.
"How much do you need this?" Kris ran his hands underneath the edge of Adam's black t-shirt, tracing vertical lines over Adam's lower back with his nails. He made his way up to the center, fingers dipping into the skin over the slight inward curve of Adam's spine.
Adam groaned quietly - a little bit of pleasure and somewhat out of fear, Kris will think later when he's alone, running the experience over again in his mind and mulling over the what-ifs. And then Adam ran his hands back, reaching around, trying to stop Kris from moving any higher. "Don't," he said, in a way that Kris could only describe as anxious, like Adam might be afraid of what might be found underneath. As if either didn't know what they were going to find below the outfits they wore to fit in on this plane. "Let's go to the bedroom."
Kris took Adam's wrist and pulled him to a bedroom, one he saw once before when coming to the house for much different reasons. The room was large; a gray stone fireplace was built into the far wall, as if a lost city of angels needed that kind of fire. As if either would ever feel weather or the damp or any temperature at all. Adam cast a glance at the hearth, and in a short moment there was a fire roaring behind the grate. Kris was impressed; it would have taken him a lot longer to make it happen, but then again, they all possessed different gifts.
"Adds ambiance," Adam said quietly, and then he turned, laying his hands flat on Kris's chest. He pushed him onto the bed with just enough insistence that Kris slid a little across the caramel-colored comforter. "We have to hurry."
"Why?" Kris asked, but he knew what the answer would be before he asked the question. "I don't have anywhere else to be."
"You know why." Adam straddled him, knees locked around Kris's hips, holding him in place. He leaned forward, and this was it, the thing they sought out for months, years, maybe even a decade or two, ever since they first moved into each others' awareness like sunrise on the horizon of the world.
This was Adam's mouth over Kris's, their faces pressed together, finally, and it was at first so sweet and gentle that Kris was a little bored, and he wondered why they waited so long if that was all there was to it. Adam's mouth tasted of the faintest hint of apple, something wholesome and sweet, nothing like what Kris imagined it would be like, but it made sense just the same. None of it was what he imagined kissing Adam to be like at all - and then Adam's tongue slowly found its way into his mouth and Kris's hands were over his own head without thinking about it. He felt a strong hand snaking around both wrists, pinning them lightly to the bed, message as clear as if Adam had said it aloud: you can dare to move, you can break free, but you don't want to, so you won't press back.
Adam slipped his other hand between their bodies, tugging at the jeans Kris came up with just because he thought Adam would find them to his liking. He pushed the zipper down slowly, having little familiarity with the mechanism; neither of them had spent a lot of time removing things like this. "Slow down," Kris whispered when their mouths separated. "This house isn't going anywhere. This bed's not going anywhere, either."
"We have to hurry," Adam said again, still pulling the zipper down so achingly slow that Kris wished he hadn't even worn pants, and he thought he could have made that work for himself if he had really wanted to.
All in all, though, he thought Adam was being completely ridiculous; he had lost his sense of reason and logic in the moment. Or maybe some of that faith they talked about earlier had slipped a bit.
"You know what they say," he whispered as they adjusted, chest pressed against Adam's and Kris's mouth so temptingly close to his face. Kris ran the tip of his tongue over the skin behind Adam's ear, hanging onto the sweet feeling rushing over him when Adam shivered under his mouth. He didn't want to stop, ever, but there were so many other things left to experience and he didn't want to miss out on those either. He wanted to bite down, to leave a temporary reminder of himself on the skin of Adam's neck, like the deep red marks he saw on humans sometimes even though he knew it would fade in moments because they weren't human and never could be. He wanted to lay claim to something he might never be able to keep for his own, however long it lasted.
"What do they say?" Adam pressed their bodies together even tighter, if it were even possible, and Kris felt him - he had doubts, as it wasn't something he was sure that could happen and it wasn't a subject that either one of them actually planned on experiencing, had any reference to discuss with anyone. But he could feel Adam through the fabric, a pulsing-pounding wave of desire shot between their bodies, so strong he had to shut his eyes for a moment. It ran through Kris's chest and spread all the way toward his neck, radiating down to his feet. He could almost see colors in the air when he opened his eyes, and when he shut them a second time and reopened them he did see colors, a deep blue ring of light with touches of shimmering purple surrounding Adam's face.
It was nothing he'd ever seen before, and it overwhelmed him; the feeling was too distracting, a revelation of things to arrive. "Your people," he finally said, licking his own lips, a weird human-like habit he picked up over the years. "His eye is on the sparrow, isn't that what they say? Not one of them forgotten. Not one of them out of sight. No exceptions."
Air that Adam didn't need caught in his throat, and he looked down at Kris with something like hate from underneath his lashes. "Don't do this," he said softly, stilling all his movements in a way only otherworldly beings could. "We can't go back from this if you start."
"We can't go back from this anyway," Kris said. A wave of something - joy, he thought as he turned his face upward, catching Adam's bottom lip between his teeth and tugging, or maybe just a brighter shade of the spite he usually spread around - passed through him like a current. He kept going even though he knew it hurt, even though he knew it wouldn't make a difference in the end because this was a win, at least for the moment. He let go of Adam's mouth only long enough to speak, to spit out a few more words that neither of them really cared about hearing. "You think there's not an eye on you right now? He knows, Adam. He knew before you did. We're only reacting to the plan. Everything we do, only a reaction."
"There are things that you can't -" Adam tried to say, but Kris cut him off, kissing him again, really kissing him, with lips and teeth and tongue and feeling, and it was a tangled mess, but astonishing and erotic and desperate all at the same time, one of the only things Kris ever found beautiful in its own right since his fall.
"I'm going to take off your shirt now," he said carefully when they finally parted, raising the edge of Adam's shirt, and when there was no resistance, he kept going. "I want to see."
"You shouldn't want that," Adam argued, but he let Kris pull the shirt over his head anyway.
"You shouldn't want this at all, but you do," Kris said. "Now turn around and let me see."
The moment it took Adam to show his back was slow, even to someone to whom centuries were like days, so painfully slow that Kris wondered if there was something unexpected that he missed. But there wasn't and Adam finally turned and Kris saw the roots - the lines of Adam's back, two tiny rows of rounded, bone-like ridges rippling, one on each side of the spine and visibly pressing against the skin, one of the ways they were created different from humanity, alike and yet so different, such a very long time ago.
He reached out to touch each swell of skin and bone and Adam shivered under his touch; he trembled so that Kris wondered if it would be over before it ever even started, not that either had much of an expectation, but still, if it was going to screw things up on multiple planes, he wanted it to at least be good.
They undressed each other quickly then, Kris being almost too careful in hiding his back from Adam's sight; he wasn't ready yet, not after seeing the way Adam was so carefully created, still perfect and whole the way he was intended. He concentrated on Adam entirely, making contact with every inch of skin before him, kissing him in places he'd only seen humans in compromising situations take their mouths. A lazy swipe of his tongue behind the knee made Adam call out in a language Kris no longer held as his own and hadn't heard in centuries, and he did it again just to see if Adam would repeat the noise. The second time the sound was louder, frantic, and Adam clutched at the sheet underneath him as Kris grinned against his skin and moved up, looking for new territory to conquer.
"I want to touch you," Adam said, voice low as Kris bit at the smooth skin of his wrists.
I don't want him to see, Kris thought with no small ounce of panic, but before he could shift to dodge Adam's hands he found himself sitting up, an arm wrapped around his body holding him in place. The fingertips of Adam's other hand ran over the hard, shattered fragments of what used to be the origin of wings, once upon a time when Kris held his own set, before he was cast out and sent to the edge of darkness without grace.
"Why didn't I know you then?" Adam mused, turning Kris slightly to look at the scars where wings once waited to be released before they were taken away. "I could have done something. If we're infinite beings, then why didn't I know?"
"You couldn't have saved me, even if we did," Kris said quietly. "I wasn't sorry then." I'm not sorry now, he finished in his head, not saying it aloud because he turned to see Adam's face and Adam was most definitely sorry. Kris thought it was mostly for himself, about what they'd lost out on, but he knew that it was a fallacy; even if he had remained good and pure and perfect, they wouldn't have had this. Not there, because it wasn't what angels were supposed to do. Angels were supposed to be selfless, without their own motivations, and that had never been Kris. He suspected that had never been Adam, but that he had managed self-control better than Kris was capable of. "It's not like it's some sort of big unending network, not like humanity thinks it is."
"It is nothing like humanity thinks it is," Adam agreed, and then he practically picked Kris up and placed him across his lap. "Wrap your legs around me. Do it," he urged when Kris hesitated.
He lifted one leg and hooked it around Adam's hip, sliding the other around to meet it and locking his ankles as Adam kissed his neck, still running his hands over the ruined formations on Kris's back. "It's beautiful. You're beautiful," Adam said. The tip of his tongue ran over Kris's collarbone, up and over the swell in his throat to the edge of his chin and then Kris was the one shaking and on the edge of losing control. "It doesn't matter to me, not the scars or the fall or the history, Kris."
He moved his hands then, gripping Kris's hips and lifting him up and over and then - he was slow and careful and it was too much for Kris to handle, except it was all he wanted to take ever again. He closed his eyes and leaned back a little as they moved together and it wasn’t like Kris had done this before but it still felt right, like everything he'd done in the service of the dark was leading up to a single, defined point. Adam dropped his head onto his shoulder and Kris could feel his mouth, voice moaning through kisses, through the energy in the air and it was so good, the same kind of static electricity he felt whenever his path crossed Adam's in the world.
"Belfast, it was Belfast," Adam said desperately, and Kris opened his eyes to see those lights again, blue and lavender and specks of gold circling around Adam's form, and something rising from behind. The very tips of Adam's wings - he can't control them very much at all, Kris realized, feeling a twinge of something like elation as he realized that yes, this was something he could manage better than Adam back when he had the chance - began to ascend and swell, barely visible over his shoulders. "You were talking to those kids and I had to do what I was supposed to, and then you were just… you were you, and I didn't..."
Kris remembered it vividly; they’d slipped into a twelfth-century castle and had talked about beautiful things that Adam associated with miracles and Kris connected with corruption and they’d watched the sunrise silently before they had to go their separate ways. "What about Barcelona?" he murmured, slipping his fingers into Adam's hair near his neckline and pulling gently with his fingers.
Adam moved faster underneath him, fingers digging into scarred skin as he buried his face in Kris's throat.
"You were incredible that night." Kris kept talking, beginning to babble as something foreign started to build and tumble, a low, intense pressure that made it hard to speak or think or do anything but feel. "That café… we danced all night, until the musicians had to go home and we both had other places to be and I didn't want it to stop and you were so -"
"I'd do it again." Adam cut him off, tilting his head back to look Kris in the face, and Kris ran his hand down lower, from the hairline down between Adam's shoulder blades. They were almost completely out now, the most prominent evidence of their differences, and Kris could feel the edge of something soft slip over the end of his fingers. "Belfast, Barcelona, all those Greek islands, Düzce and that family we argued over, the mountains in Argentina."
"I know," Kris said; that was all that could be said as he moved against Adam, and he couldn't speak anymore, only nod his head as he thought, it was worth it. Whatever happens, it's worth it, though maybe just to me.
He reached out then, hesitantly running his fingers over the silky-soft feathers, golden and shimmering in the dim light from the fire, but then Kris didn't want to bring his fingers back out; he couldn't even if he wanted. Adam pushed closer and cried out and it was warm and it was fine and everything that Kris had hoped for and still nothing like he imagined, and he couldn't help it, he was broken, gone over the edge, never making his way back up again, and that suddenly seemed like the best thing that could ever happen.
He untangled his legs as he finally began to recover, collapsing back onto the bed and looking up at the carved indentions at the top of the bedposts. Adam remained sitting at the foot, staring out the window to his right, his back to Kris as his wings slowly disappeared back from where they'd came. The rain had picked up again and there were dark clouds in the sky, hovering over the neighborhood threateningly. "A real storm," Adam said quietly, standing up and going out to the curtains. "Not just rain."
"What are you going to do?" Kris asked, as if there was much of a choice.
Adam shrugged and rested his head against the window glass. "He's waiting for us," he said simply, and Kris knew they weren't talking about the one who ruled over Adam. It wasn't a surprise - he could feel the energy too, a gloomy, determined pull from the earth letting him know that he was no longer as in control of the situation as he’d anticipated. "He wants me to come with you, I think, to join your side."
"Is that what you're going to do?" Kris asked. The idea excited him - Adam at his side as they did their duty, unraveling threads over the stretch of time, waiting for the end to come. He wasn't sure of how it would work or even that it would, but what he did know was that what he felt wasn't born of rivalry or some sort of malice. Maybe it came from the last pure feeling he held onto over his existence, before the darkness took over and shifted his being.
"I don't know." Adam shook his head and looks around the room, picking up his discarded pants and contemplating them for a moment before tossing them onto the floor again. "Maybe this all works out, maybe it doesn't. I can't just do something, though. I have to see it all the way through. But I don't think there's any coming back from this."
"I don't think there is, either," Kris said. There never was.
Adam moved away from the window then and leaned over him, kissing the top of Kris's head before crawling back onto the bed. He pulled Kris close, nestling his face into his neck before draping an arm across his chest. "I want to stay here for a while," he said, and his mouth was so close that Kris could feel the words coming out on his skin. "Just you and me, until we don't have any other choice but to go."
"We can do that," Kris agreed. All the planes could hold off on their master plans and the battle for souls and winning the war over the angels, at least for a little while longer.