ATLAS

He didn’t sleep well these days, between the cold emptiness of the cell and the sheer intensifying of his dreams in the aftermath of interacting with Delilah and knowing she was possibly near at any fashion. He never fell asleep as deeply, never seemed to manage to stay asleep for an entire night - his own thoughts and the sounds of the prison disturbing him, for now he couldn’t help but wonder if every sound was her and what was he to do if it was. 

As such, it was no surprise that heavy footsteps in the distance brought him to the surface of superficial awareness from a sleep that was already troubled. Eyes fluttered open in the moments that followed, there was always that moment between awake and asleep that was perfect first before he blearily sat up, looking around with little curiosity and a rather frustrated demeanor at both being woken and of hopeless this all was. However, when he heard quiet speech that unmistakably belonged to her, he rose in a rather quick fashion, stepping to the edge of the cell quickly. What he intended to do wasn’t entirely clear, not even to himself, but yet, violence seemed to live within his fingertips, and all he could think of was doing harm if she passed by close enough, if only she passed by.

He only got the slightest of glimpses of her from the distance, before Gale’s wings entirely blocked his view. Irritated, he aimed a glare in Gale’s direction, ignoring the preemptive warning and the attempt to calm the rage and stop him from doing. After all, he wasn’t much fonder of Gale than he was Delilah in this moment. He held little fondness for any of the demons, Delilah was the only exception, emotions created before demons were ever a consideration in his reality. “Stay out of this, and move,” he uttered with barely suppressed rage simmering just under the surface in an audible fashion.

Gale was confounded by this wingless angel. It was clear ( to Gale, at least ) that he still cared for Delilah in some capacity, and yet here he was, eyes bleeding fury and hands shaking with anger. He wondered idly if, given the choice, Samson would sooner kiss Delilah or kill her. At present, it was hard for Gale to imagine Samson wouldn’t choose the latter.

Gale lifted a single eyebrow, obviously unfazed by Samson’s little outburst ( once you’d been privy to Alastair’s outbursts, little fazed you anymore ). “Or what?” he asked, voice bored and apathetic. The question was rhetorical, really, for there was nothing Samson could do—nothing except make a proper fool of himself and put an even bigger, redder target on his back for the other demons to take aim at. “What are you going to do, Samson? Pry these bars apart and chase after her like a lovesick puppy?” His words were icy and steely and they cut through the air with a bleak harshness, but this foolish angel needed steel and ice to save him from himself. “Don’t make this worse than need be, Samson,” he cautioned, voice gentler than it had been moments ago. “You won’t hurt her, you know. The only person here who will suffer from your actions is you.”

But outright asking the man if he remembered what it felt like to be human, or even if he felt as though he still was, was a bit too blunt for Wesley’s tastes, despite the fact that the demon beside him seemed to have no qualms about being strikingly forthright. The demons he’d met thus far were a motley bunch. Where some were subtle even in the way they breathed, others knew not what subtlety was; where some were avid conversationalists, others spoke as if every word was a BLESSING they weren’t willing to bestow on their unworthy captives; and where some were strikingly human, if only on the surfaces, others were harrowingly NOT.

They shared corrupt morals, if nothing else; their raven wings were merely a lagniappe, a symbol both of power and of unity he wasn’t entirely convinced they had. Even the DIVINE had their disputes.

Blue eyes holding the demon’s gaze like his father held a grudge, he wasn’t sure if he imagined the way the man’s likeness seemed to change in some small way when he spoke again, but regardless, he didn’t address it. Ice Prince seemed a fitting enough nickname for the man; the reason he’d been given it became more evident with every word he said, though Wesley couldn’t say he’d ever make use of it.

While he had been the first to observe (verbally, at least) the thin veil of restraint that cloaked the Louisiana doctor, he hadn’t been the first to point out that he didn’t say much. Wesley Hudson was by no means a talkative man; William Hudson had been equally quiet, choosing only to speak when he had something of value to say, and just as he’d inherited his mother’s kindness, the youngest Hudson boy had taken after his father in his tendency to choose his words with care or not at all. Still, he hadn’t expected the demon to ask him WHY.

Eyebrows and shoulders lifting in tandem, the dark-haired man’s shrug heralded his response. “I suppose I don’t see much of a point in talking if I don’t have much to say.”

He didn’t so much mind the mystery of this man, for he’d encountered other humans with mysteries far more complex than Wesley Hudson’s; he did, however, mind that Wesley’s particular mystery made the man seem—untouchable, like there was nothing Gale or any other demon or angel or human could ever do to get under his skin. And Gale didn’t particularly want to get under Wesley’s skin, but he wasn’t overly fond of being powerless to do so if he was ever so inclined. ( Maybe what he minded most was that he recognized with indignant familiarity many of his own qualities—faithlessness, introspection, a love of solitude—in this human. And what would that mean? What would be the implications of discerning kinship and sameness with this human? ) 

“Bullshit,” he repeated. “You’re trapped in a playpen with a herd of lost lambs. You’re a man of science living in a world that science can’t explain. You're at the mercy of creatures far more powerful than you.” His eyes narrowed on the doctor, pressing him with the demanding, unyielding scrutiny of someone well-studied in the art of truth-prying. “And you don’t have much to say?” 

No. It was her own voice that rang true, her own that she’d been right to listen to. This demon’s eyes held a pained gentleness, one that threatened to bring tears to her eyes. His hands were rough when they met hers, stilling them, but the touch had the opposite effect than the one he’d intended. His words were threatening on paper, but his hands were careful on her skin, and his voice was gruff but kind. Kid. Adelaide so often called her that when she was at her most vulnerable, when she was worried or feeling generous with her affection and trying to hide it; the feeling it inspired always made her want to grin. And how many times had her father called her that, telling her to beat it out of his office unless she wanted him to write his next novel on her face? How many times had she laughed and ducked away from the pointed nib of a pen? It was that, more than anything, that eased the tension from her shoulders. 

She took reminders of her family wherever she could get them. Lydia knew, more certain than she’d been about much of anything since entering this town, that this demon was worth giving comfort to. Worth taking a chance, worth reaching out to, worth trying to heal. She wasn’t sure she could forgive a monster, but she was sure she could forgive a demon for trying to survive, and for managing to be kind even in the face of Lucifer’s bleak orders. None of that mattered under the weight of human connection. And she was sure she could connect. No matter how hard and long she’d have to try.

Lydia certainly had enough persistence. One had to look only at Adelaide to see it.

She looked away, briefly, at the mention of Stella. Remembering Stella’s gentle hands braiding her hair and painting her nails and knowing exactly the right kind of tea for every single situation made her miss the woman so fiercely it was an aching in her chest. Still, Lydia swallowed and made eye contact, trying not to look upset, trying not to be scared. “If it wouldn’t make her and Adelaide miserable, I would trade places with Stella today.” She crossed her arms, still remembering his careful attempt to help her. What was a demon like that doing in this place? You’d think they would keep someone nice away from the humans, where he didn’t have a chance to feel sympathy. The thought that they hadn’t kept him away only gave her more faith in the world around her. “It doesn’t scare me to think about fighting for my friends.” Maybe some people wouldn’t think of that as fighting, but taking others’ pain and internalizing it was how she protected them. It was her best skill. Never mind that she’d never been seriously hurt in her life and couldn’t understand the concept of torture. She would always want to be known as someone unafraid to keep her friends from harm.

It was the truest way to be herself she knew.

His question caused her to look around; the wary look his gaze held was enough to let her know she’d messed up. But how? Maybe she’d spoken too loud? Demons probably had reputations to protect. She’d never had to think about the demon hierarchy much before, but she frowned, judging the distance between them and anyone else before shifting closer, just a little. “You were looking right past it.” Lydia wasn’t really sure how much she should give up; should she be totally honest, or was it right to hold back, even with a demon she felt she could trust?

He was worried about people looking at them; would they intercede if she seemed happy, or comfortable? She forced her body to carry some kind of tension, though she felt safe safe safe still, in a mix of naivety and blind faith. Him moving in front of her, a string of foreign words falling from his lips in consternation as he… blocked her from the post, was only further affirmation. 

“I’m sorry,” she said in a rush, deciding total honesty would be best. She didn’t mean to pry at his old wounds, but she couldn’t hide her worry any longer. “I thought you should have a distraction.” Her voice was a murmur, but Lydia kept her tone as earnest as possible. “I didn’t want one of those demons making sure we were watching to see how tense your shoulders were. I really don’t know if demons get in trouble or not. But… I don’t think you should be hurting by yourself.” He was so much taller than her that she felt childlike, but someone had to take care of him, and it was obvious no one else was stepping in just then. “Everyone’s always protecting me, but I can protect people too. You’re talking to me, now, so you can’t watch them hurt him.” She reached out, an abortive gesture, to touch his shoulder. She was a tactile creature, for whom it was instinct to soothe hurts with touch. Lydia pulled back, however, at the memory of how fast he’d dropped her hands, and settled for brushing her bangs from her eyes. “Your shoulders were tense.”

He almost immediately regretted dropping Pryce’s name when Lydia’s face twisted with sadness at the sound of it, fear casting shadows over the planes of her face. It was strange for Gale, for a black-winged beast, to regret anything, much less something as trivial and harmless as upsetting a human; but there he was, clenching his jaw with remorse and biting his tongue so as to prevent further foolishness from springing from it. He heaved a weary sigh at her next words—words that all but confirmed his suspicion that she’d be dead if not for her enormous lucky streak and Burke’s protection. “That kind of selflessness will get you killed, kid,” he told her matter-of-factly, his words absent of any ill intentions. “Self-sacrifice and martyrdom are horribly foolish practices, you know.” He pressed his lips into a hard line, finding himself once more at the mercy of that nagging feeling of remorse. “But admirable ones, too, I suppose,” he quickly ( begrudgingly ) added, finding himself incapable of squashing every stupidly sweet piece of this girl ( but not entirely resigned to the idea of squashing a few stupidly sweet parts of her if doing so meant giving her a better shot at survival ). It doesn’t scare me to think about fighting for my friends. How—well, he wanted to say it was an incredibly stupid sentiment for a girl as small and human and weak as she was to have, but he could muster only admiration for her fearlessness when it came to protecting those she loved. She was frightened, yes, and he suspected that she’d been frightened many a time since she’d arrived to Paradise, but she was brave in spite of that fright—and that was a thing to be admired, surely. And that’s not to say her bravery wouldn’t get her killed, because he was sure it would, but if it was her willingness to protect her friends that finally removed this stupidly sweet girl from the realm of the living, her death would, at least, be honorable; it wouldn’t be for naught. 

She was observant enough to note that he’d been looking past the whipping post, that he was profoundly unsettled ( to put it lightly ) by Abel’s maltreatment, which, by consequence, meant she wasn’t quite as stupid as her sweetness would have people think. And in the brief interludes between her words, when she wasn’t speaking, her eyes burned with shrewd, active thought. Perhaps she was much smarter than he’d first perceived her to be. Smart or not, though, she was certainly, unquestionably endearing. He should have been disgruntled with her, should’ve been irritated by her confessional apology, but he was instead wildly endeared by the way 'I’m sorry’ poured from her lips in a panicked rush, as if she couldn’t bear the burden of dishonesty for more than a few seconds. What a very human human. 

That endearment, however, soon gave way to bewilderment. His eyebrows knitted together in confusion as he crossed his arms over his chest, head cocking to the side with plain curiosity. Who was this girl to try care for a demon about whom she knew absolutely nothing? For her, this small, weak-boned, breakable girl, to try to heal him, this depraved, black-winged torturer—it was... He didn’t know; he couldn’t put words to it. He was moved by her in a monumental way that left him speechless—in a way that make him feel how he imagined Apollo’s priests felt when the sun gold descended from Olympus to pay homage to his acolytes: divine and humbled and celestial. He was much, much taller than her, but she was so steadfast in her quest to heal and to care that he couldn’t help but feel small and powerless ( is this what being taken care of felt like? ). When he’d first met her, he’d thought her more human than any of the Paridisians—the most human human. Oh, but how wrong he’d been, for his human wasn’t human at all—she was angelic; never had he met a soul more deserving of a pair of white wings. 

“I...” he trailed off unceremoniously, still tremendously moved by this girl and far too confounded by what had just transpired to conjure any proper response. Clearing his throat, he fixed his eyes on hers, peering at her not with the demanding scrutiny of an interrogator, as was customary for him, but with plain sincerity. “Thank you,” he muttered gruffly—and he left it at that, for he could offer her no more than his gratitude; he didn’t know how to offer her anything else ( and he felt horribly inadequate because of this shortcoming ). 

He looked past the girl before him to see a few of his fellow black-winged companions herding the humans, for it seemed that today’s show was drawing to a close ( Lydia’s talent for siphoning pain was so illustrious that she’d seamlessly managed to pry his focus away from the whipping post and push thoughts of poor Abel to the less active chasms of his mind ). The humans would soon return to their side of the fence, and while Gale usually took great comfort in the absence of company and in the pleasure of solitude, he felt strangely uneasy at having to part ways with this stupidly sweet girl ( he told himself he was uneasy because Lydia would surely get herself killed without a well-intentioned demon around to stop her from doing stupid things like wringing her hands, but another part of him wondered if maybe her departure made him so uneasy because he’d gotten a taste of what it was like to be cared for again and didn’t want to depart from that feeling so soon; because the nightmares had finally ceased, if only for a few moments, and he was loath to see them return ). 

A dangerously hysterical laugh leaped out of Josephine. “Everything is a game, and I’d rather be an active participant than some pathetic idiot. Maybe it is a mistake to try and tempt demons. But playing it safe has never moved me anywhere. Besides–are you saying you are beguiled by my charm? I just need one to set me on fire.” 

Her eyes burnt bright at the thought of forever damnation. But if she maintained her looks, grew wings, and became even more powerful, where was the downside? Gale, even with all of his perception, could not know just how badly she needed to become something more than a pathetic human that needed to beguile demons. If Josephine had it her way, she wouldn’t be needing to sweet talk anyone. She would already be Queen. She would have gladly traded power and prestige for all the cocks she sucked, and every time a man put his hands on her before she ever said yes. Life was not so kind as to provide that sort of option for her. So she bore it all. Every touch, every dirty finger that acted as if it knew her, and every eye that moved its way down her body as if she was something to be owned–that was Josephine’s life. And she was willing to accept those fates if the end result was more than just being a prisoner in Paradise. No. She would not let her lifetime worth of pleasing men instead of herself get in the way of the true end goal. Failure just wasn’t an option. Not when phantom touches still made their presence known in the deepest darkest part of her pretty little head.

Moving her hand forward, Josephine was just about to touch the side of Gale’s face before he continued question her and she snapped her hand to her side. “I’ve done just fine for myself,” her voice was strong with little reflection of her trembling underneath. The only people that had sacrificed anything for her were her parents, and how had she treated them? She left them as soon as she could. Everyone else in her life had been temporary stepping stones, as they used each other to reach their goals. The most permanent fixture in Jo’s life was Patrick, and even with him, what had he sacrificed for her? Year after year, Jo had sacrificed dignity, brain cells, stolen kisses, and her pride, all in order to boost herself above the fray. She had always been a solitary creature, no matter how extroverted. 

Josephine’s eyes stayed level with Gale’s as she heard him speak  words that truly did not seem right with his nature. But she stayed silent, and instead merely questioned him for his name. “Since you already know by now not to call me Mrs. Whitley, what should I be calling you? Master?”

He clicked his tongue as he considered her words, weighing each syllable that spilled from her lips with care and caution. “Are you so disenchanted with humanity that you’re eager to see yourself into the afterlife to spare yourself the boredom?" He couldn’t quite pin her, couldn’t quite figure out what her endgame was here. He was a knower of people by trade, and as an interrogator, a prier of secrets, unraveling and solving all the riddles that made up a person was a his forte. What usually came so easily to him, however, seemed to be thwarted by this little butterfly, for all of the riddled parts of her seemed to be so at odds with one another that he couldn’t figure out which parts were really her and which parts were part of her facade ( which parts of her were poison and which parts of her were wings ). Gale knew, though, that if he had any shot at all at solving at least one part of this girl before she and the rest of the humans were ushered back to their side of the fence, he’d have to do what he did best: interrogate. “Would you have won the game, then, babochka?” His native tongue spilled from his lips unthinkingly, more so out of habit than conscious choice. “If you trade humanity for a place among the ranks of the immortal, will you have won this game you’re playing?” He peered at her with the unyielding scrutiny of an interrogator, his gaze all at once unyielding and demanding. “Or will you count that as a loss?” 

I’ve done just fine for myself. The corners of his lips twitched upward at her evasion of his question about self-sacrifice, light amusement banishing the shadows from his face. “I’d wager you’ve done more than fine for yourself, yes,” he agreed quietly, lifting a brow. “But that wasn’t the question.” He supposed, though, that her evasion answered the question as much as any words ever could, for ‘I’ve done just fine for myself’ was the answer of a solitary survivor, of someone who’d never known what it was like to be on the receiving end of self-sacrifice ( it was the same answer he would’ve given ). 

Under different circumstances, she might assume that this was what Limbo might have felt like, but it was doubtful that someone such as him would be there – Adelaide was still unconvinced that the sheen of his wings was not a rather convincing coat of raven paint. For what demon would save a breakable, worthless human while risking his own station and reputation? Would would they do to him if they found out that he’d saved her ( for that was what he had done, despite her harried reaction and insistent protests; he had saved her soul, for she was a sinner and he was something divine ) and forsaken his post? Would his head join hers upon the pikes that Abaddon favored so dearly? The thought made Adelaide feel as if she might be sick, the mere idea of Gale coming to any harm ( with the exception of the scratches that her own mortal hand had befallen him ) turning ash to bile at the back of her throat and frustration to hysteria. Hysteria and incredulity at the fact that she was so worried for someone other than herself. Sure, she had orchestrated this ridiculous plan for Stella, but that was in the name of allegiance at its heart. This, this panic, this red-tinted idea of Gale in any sort of peril was not in the name of anything tangible; it snapped her hands to her sides again, made her look for a moment quite like a child who was moments from blowing her lid. 

But then worry turned to momentary resentment, both at the truth of “I think you’ve done enough” and at the fact that she had not done enough – not by a long shot. Worried, pinched, visage went slack, hot and angry tears welling behind her eyes before she bit down viciously upon the inside of her cheek, for she refused to let her anger make her cry. It was a ridiculously human thing to do, and it was all she could do not to let it show – though he seemed to be able to read the planes of her face and the tics of her body like bold print on clean, white paper despite her years of practice at keeping the mask impassive and without blemish. What was it about this, now, that made it so easy to crack? Was it the desperation? The exhaustion? The fact that the sound of footsteps had so acutely faded on the other side of the wall that she could no longer determine who was there and who wasn’t ( had Stella been snatched up? had Lydia? had the angels taken the fall for her failed attempt at reconnaissance? ) and whether or not escape was something viable. “What else was I supposed to do?” she snapped, the desperation in her voice making purchase in the form of crackling after every syllable and an awkward pitch, “I could care less what happens to me; I was supposed to take care of her and I didn’t.” No one had explicitly made it her job to care for Stella, and yet here she was. No one had explicitly asked her to let it all spill to Gale, desperate and pitifully human when she should have been fighting her hardest to free herself from within his wings, and yet here she was. “Gale, I…” she sighed, voice breaking once more in a long-suffering sigh; it sounded like resignation. 

She refused to shrink as his hands planted firmly on either side of her face. Oddly enough, it was even more comforting to behold his face so close to hers, so open and full of emotion that she’d never thought a demon to be capable of. It made her trust him even more than she unwittingly had before; something about the gentility of his tone, in stark contrast to the anger he’d displayed before, made her knees feel weak, as if they might buckle underneath her, sending her sprawling for Gale to pick up like a pathetic human doll. Absently, her hands rose once again to cling to his forearms, which kept her barred against the wall, holding onto him as if she expected her knees to truly collapse at any moment. Desperate eyes danced from his pleading gaze, to the scratches upon his neck, and to his lips, watching as every word formed in perfect time with the frantic thrashing of her heart against the cage of her ribs. “Gale, please…” a prayer, a plea, a display of muddled gratitude; Adelaide tightened her grip upon his forearms, the stark memory of her trust being laid honestly between them one she could not bring herself to regret. If she thought that she was damned before, she was thoroughly fucked now. 

( a canary trapped in the claws of a hawk – and feeling much safer than in the cage ) 

“I trust you,” she muttered, head nodding stiltedly for her gaze refused to break from his, “I – I do; I trust you.” Was she signing her soul away, or was she merely ensuring another day of survival? This felt more dangerous than any feat of escape she’d managed to pull off. Dangerous and safe, and stupid and divine all at once; Adelaide nodded again, fingers tightening around his forearms once more. She could think of nothing else to say, nothing to utter in the wake of such a plea that felt like the earth itself shifting beneath the punctuation. If any of them died while she was here, while she was trapped ( willingly ) beneath Gale’s gaze and Gale’s commands, Adelaide would never be able to live with herself. But if she died, from guilt or grief or anger, wouldn’t she be with him? Wouldn’t she still be so willingly hooked by raven wings and strong hands? 

When hysteria crept into the rounded edges of her eyes and her face paled considerably, the only color in her cheeks a sickly green, his eyebrows knitted together in confusion. He was both unsettled and entirely befuddled; unsettled because the sight of fear painted plainly on the face of this fearless girl made her look doubly small and doubly human and made him feel doubly helpless; befuddled because he didn’t know the source of this sudden rupture of fear that had her looking quite like a firightened child. Was she afraid for Stella? For herself? For the other humans? Was she afraid because of him? Because he was so near to her? He didn’t have time to further examine the matter, for his attention was demanded by the tears ( tears that he certainly did not mistake for sadness; tears that he knew came from a well of hot rage ) that sat unshed on the rims of her eyes. Guilt ( guilt—how fucking human ) ate like a parasite at the pit of his stomach, and he felt more in need of repentence at having very nearly made Adelaide Burke cry than he ever had when his hands were slicked with the blood of yet another innocent victim or when he tucked his cross beneath his shirt and entered the interrogation room to do the Devil’s work in the most literal sense. What was this woman doing to him? 

He didn’t begrudge her anger or the fury-laden whip of words she cut him with, for he deserved as much for having just moments ago cut her with words that carried equal fury. What he did begrudge, though, was the self-depracating ‘I could care less what happens to me’ that poured from her lips like an afterthought, like she’d been valuing her life as a thing of such little worth for so long that the confession wasn’t a confession at all, just a very plain statement of fact. “I care,” he snarled, the two words delivered with much more force and with much more emotion, much more humanness, than he’d ever intended. He wanted to grab her by the shoulders and shake her—shake her until she forfeited this admirable but damning selflessness through which, it seemed, each of her thoughts and actions filtered; he wanted to shake her until she understood that there were other people who cared very much whether she lived or died—people who would follow suit without pause or hesitation if that damning selflessness set her tumbling down the path of the latter. “For fuck’s sake, Adelaide, I care,” he hissed, furious that her selfless love for Stella had nearly gotten her killed and even furiouser that his this little bird had to live with clipped wings in a cage where loving someone could get her killed. ( Anyone who loved with a love as holy and relentless and seraphic as the kind of love Adelaide’s frayed heart produced deserved deliverance, not damnation. ) His own heart, just as frayed as Adelaide’s but half as capable as producing that kind of love, twinged with empathy at the heavy weight of responsibility and guilt and helplessness that made each of her words sound like snapping bones. He knew that kind responsibility and guilt and helplessness intimately; he’d known it with Petra ( and he’d failed her ) and he knew it now with Adelaide ( he would not make the same mistake twice ). She was supposed to take care of Stella and she felt that she'd failed—but he was supposed to take care of her, and if he folded up his wings, released her from the cage of his arms, and let her traipse around the prison in search of Stella, he’d fail ( he would not make the same mistake twice ). 

To see defeat written on the planes of her face pained him in a way that was far more agonizing than a good portion of his torture methods. He’d always resented his talent for torture, but that resentment suddenly became very personal, for in that very moment, he would’ve traded his soul ( if he had any soul left to trade ) for Raphael’s gift of healing pain if it meant he could siphon Adelaide’s guilt and sadness and anger and helplessness. He was surprised when she wrapped her fingers around his forearms ( his arms still acted as bars that kept her caged between him and the wall she was pressed up against ) and clung to him desperately, still pleading, this time with gesture instead of with word; he was even more surprised when, almost absentmindedly, he turned his head to the side, his lips touching the back of her white knuckles as her vise grip tightened considerably. 

Releasing her from the cage of his arms ( arms which couldn’t go far, for her hold on his forearms remained steadfast and unmovable ), his hands fell away from the wall and moved to either side of her face, creating a careful cradle as his fingers captured her jaw. He held her still, his hands gentled with caution but firm and unyielding, allowing no opportunity for her gaze or attention to wander. “Then trust that I would never hurt you,” he pleaded quietly, the pad of his thumb sweeping across the sharp angle of her cheekbone with the intent to comfort, to soothe. “Trust that I would never do or allow anything that would hurt you. I know you love her, little bird; I know that losing her would hurt you in an unfixable way.” He paused, his head dropping another inch so as to bridge the gap between their height differences and put them at eye level. “I would never let that happen, Adelaide.” And he wouldn’t. He didn’t know what it was, exactly, that tethered him to this human, and he didn’t know why he felt so compelled to saefguard her, but he did. He knew well that loss could ruin a person, could turn them to stone and ash and hellfire in one fell swoop, and he would not have his own two hands be responsible for turning this woman who, to him, bled sunshine and stars and beauty, turn into a monster of loss ( a mirror image of what he’d become ). Rational thinking told him that if Lucifer or Judas wanted Stella dead, they’d have taken the necessary measures to ensure her extermination when she’d been trapped in the confines of a cell. As it were, though, Stella yet breathed and her heart yet beat, and while Gale wasn’t certain she’d make it to the other side of the fence, he was certain she’d make it; she would survive this night, surely, and if she didn’t make it to her side of the fence, Gale would just as surely pry the bars from her cell at dawn, return the girl to Adelaide and Lydia, and reprise Abel’s role as whipping boy just to spare himself Adelaide’s hatred. His muscles froze at that last thought—at his sudden willingness to so humanly martyr himself as Abel had in the name of love humanity; to defy orders as no proper soldier ever would ( and he’d always been a proper soldier ). What the fuck was this woman doing to him?

“Stella will be fine,” he promised, voice uncharacteristically soft. “As will Delgado,” he added, aware of Adelaide’s affection for the small girl with raven hair who was always smiling and hugging and being so human. “But,” he began, any and all softness now replaced by the steely ice for which he was notorious, “if you don’t let me take you back to your side of the fence, you won’t be fine. And I can’t allow that.” Hands falling from her face and back to his side, he straightened to his full height, his face shuttering with an apathetic mask of composure as he folded his wings neatly behind his back. “I’m taking you home.” A statement, not a request. “Whether you comply or not matters little. You can make this easy and take my hand and follow me, or you can make this harder than it needs to be and I can throw you over my shoulder and bring you back home kicking and screaming.” He had to turn himself to stone, had to steel himself ( if only for a moment ) against this woman who made him soft and human and weak. Humans operated under a control panel of emotions, and right now, for Adelaide’s sake, he needed to be logical and rational; he needed to eliminate humanity and emotion from the equation. “It makes no difference to me.” ( He would not make the same mistake twice. )

The answer was a sudden one, an easy one, and unexpected one in how candid and strange it was. Adelaide was not used to giving straight answers; she was the master of dancing around questions, subverting and redirecting them into something that was inevitably different from what had been originally asked. But he’d asked a question that had, perhaps, been meant to be purely theoretical, and she’d given him the most honest answer she’d given anyone in quite some time. It was startling; he was startling. She’d not felt this sort of immediate kinship with anyone in ages; she felt something similar to understanding with Alastair, for he was convinced that they were made of the same stuff ( and perhaps they were – she was not as kind as humans were supposed to be, by angelic standards ), she felt a strange feminine obligation to Eve, for they both had suffered scrutiny and adversity. But the strange tug that she felt in the pit of her chest as he looked her over was not the same sort of obligation, or the same breed of kinship that she felt with Alastair. This was the sort of strange tug that made her want to stand closer, that made her want to touch his wrist and feel of his pulse, to let him know the truths to all her lies and the secrets of what made her uneasy and confident in the same breath. She could still feel his fingers on her wrist; the mere thought of it made her heart jolt into her throat. 

“It makes me uneasy because,” she began again, clearing her throat as she absently rolled her shoulders, only to wince in response to the feeling of the displaced joint crackling in protect, “I feel like if I lie you’ll see right through it.” Or perhaps he’d put a surprisingly gentle hand upon her again, and would feel the lie spelled out in the erratic thumping of her heart between barely healed ribs, and she’d be given away twice over. Adelaide had worked so diligently to become and remain something inscrutable, something unreadable, for what she had become ( liar, murderer, bitch ) had become something entirely unlike what she’d started out as, unlike what she was always meant to be. But perhaps she’d always been meant to become this; perhaps she should have believed in divine fate earlier – then she might have seen this coming. Then she might have known not to feel sorry for killing her step father, for missing her mother, for killing the boy on the farm in a freak accident born of a need to run and a refusal to face up to what she had truly become. She’d not been seen by anyone in ages – and yet here she stood, feeling more naked than she’d felt since the fire had eaten her father alive. 

But she couldn’t help but laugh and avert her gaze at his cynical prodding; there was no doubt that apologies did not exactly sound natural upon her lips, but she had meant it all the same. Why she’d felt the need to apologize to a demon in the first place was beyond her – and yet here she was. “Not the first, no,” she couldn’t help but grin, tentative and careful, “Third time, maybe. Fourth, if we’re being generous.” Her lips twitched upward by just a margin more, the urge to clarify that her apology had been wholehearted strangely strong and strangely true upon the tip of her tongue – had she become soft so quickly, as he said? Was she, perhaps, never as horrid as she might have thought? Anyone who felt such a desperate need to repent at the feet of a demon could not be as unapologetic a beast as she thought herself to be. “You don’t know anything about my soft spots,” Adelaide smirked, implication and truth mingling in an uncharacteristic crimson spread across her cheeks and over the bridge of her nose, “Gale. If you’d like to, you’ll have to accept my apology.” It was strange – was she flirting with a demon? And if so, why did it feel so utterly strange? 

But strange could be good. 

Glossing over his rebuttal of her observation, Adelaide stiffened as he moved to her side, eyes following him intently, for no matter how much she instinctively trusted him, she could not help but note the ostentatious black feathers just over his shoulders. And yet, despite it all, she felt herself remaining rooted in place; fight or flight had suddenly turned to a fluttering at the pit of her stomach. Her gaze followed his fingers as he loomed over her shoulder, worn, strong hand hovering tentatively over her collar. Never had she seen a demon hesitate; upon first arriving in Paradise, she had been tossed about between guards like a rag doll, and that was what she had come to expect. The others had no trouble and no qualms with putting hands on the humans as if they were pieces of property to be used and abused. But Gale was careful. He asked for permission; and it startled her more than any harsh touch ever could. Wordlessly, carefully – with gaze never breaking from his face, which betrayed no discernable emotion – she reached up to tug the loose collar of her shirt over her shoulder, revealing blooms of green and purple, reaching from her collar to her ribs. With as much care as she could, a pale grimace flitting across her pinched features, she pulled her sleeve away and left her shoulder bare; she could only hope that no other lecherous eyes would gaze upon her suddenly bare form. 

His lips tilted upward into a crooked grin at the sound of her laughter ( it sounded like silver bells and he wondered if she gave that sparsely, too, or if she was more generous with the joyous sound than she was with her secrets ) and he felt a strange ache in his cheeks, as though the effort of smiling so much in such a short amount of time after having smiled so little for so long was strenuous for the muscles of his face. You don’t know anything about my soft spots. “Not yet,” he amended, the two words sounding more like a promise than a casual statement. He was of two minds, really, for one half of him wanted to navigate her mind and body until he knew all of her spots, hard and soft and everything in between; the other half of him, though, wanted to spare her soft spots the agony of being known by a man who was bred and trained to exploit softness, to ruin it. He turned away thoughts of the latter and focused on the former, on the sweet spice of implication that spilled from her lips at the mention of soft spots. And then, just like that, he was drowning—drowning—in the temptation of finding her soft spots in the most literally way; drowning in the temptation of tasting the slope of her shoulder and the hollow of her collarbone and the backsides of her knees and the insides of her thighs and determining which of those holy shrines made her knees buckles and which invoked the plea of his name from her lips and which tethered her to him permanently. He suspected, though, that if he succumbed to this temptation, if he allowed himself to be drowned in it as he’d allowed himself to be drowned in those California waves all that time ago, he’d be delivered to a much sweeter hereafter than Hell ( and one twice as damning—and perhaps three times as redemptive ). “Are you extorting the acceptance of an apology from me, Adelaide Burke?” he asked, eyebrows raised and lips twitching with barely repressed humor.

And then, just like that, he was drowning again, his eyes fixed on her now bare shoulder ( was she offering up a soft spot? ) and his jaw clenched with the tremendous effort of self-control. ( He was so lost in the sight of this soft spot that he didn’t notice the way he absentmindedly unfolded his right wing just a bit, just enough to block prying eyes; just enough to sate the sudden wave of possessiveness that had him grinding his teeth and clenching his fists. How curious. ) He didn’t expect her to reach out, not at all, and there was a strange tightness ( the kind of tightness you feel when something’s horribly tender and intimate in a way that makes you feel very human ) in his chest and throat when she when she took hold of his hand and guided it to her shoulder. It was a rather strange feeling, to have someone beckon for his touch when so many shied away from the bloodstained hands of an interrogator. He cleared his throat in hopes of clearing away some of that constricting tightness, but any hopes of severing ( or at least lessening ) the intimacy of the situation were crushed when from her lips poured a confession of trust. I trust you. He was all at once enormously bewitched by her confession and enormously frightened unsettled by it for reasons he couldn’t quite understand. ( The last time someone had trusted him—trusted him to keep her safe—she’d ended up dead. ) 

He scoffed, his suspicion of her feeble sense of self-preservation all but confirmed by her admission. What human girl in her right mind trusted a demon? And not just any demon, no, but a torturer, a Kill Club inductee. “A poor judgment call on your behalf,” he muttered, his focus returning to her shoulder in favor of the intimacy of her confession. He was surprised by the gentleness with which his callused fingers traced the slope of her shoulder and fluttered over the spots he thought too tender to touch, for the barely tethered fury that coiled his muscles at the sight of all those angry bruises of purple and yellow should have, in theory, had his hands shaking; he supposed, though, that his concern for her eclipsed his anger ( how strange ). His hands danced over her skin, the pads of his thumbs occasionally pausing to apply pressure to points that he knew would alleviate the pain, siphoning what he was sure was a tremendous ache with kneading motions that invoked small popping noises from sore, stiff bones. “What kind of worse have you had, exactly?” he asked curiously as his hands continued their idle exploration of her injured shoulder, the question meant to distract her from the pain and him from his indignant anger at Abaddon for her needless and excessive cruelty. 

Formal. Professional.

As he mulled over the man’s words (what had started out as some sort of backhanded compliment had evolved into something of a taunt, and he knew he’d have to pick his response carefully), the doctor’s light eyes wandered to the demon’s wings, and he couldn’t help but wonder what it would take to BREAK them, and — perhaps more importantly — what it would take to heal them.

More than popsicle stick splints; he knew that much.

Wesley wouldn’t exactly call his desire to help a hero complex, but he’d never been one to engage in fruitless, pointless arguments; thus, defending himself — trying to convince the man that he was wrong — was out of the question, and for good reason, because he wasn’t. Not entirely. Standing by and letting it happen was killing him, and even if the winged creature beside him regarded it as WEAKNESS, he wouldn’t deny it. Still, he was a bit bothered by the man’s assertion, not because he was right (Wesley was, in most cases, an open book; he had nothing to hide, after all), but because he was, because he was standing there, living, BREATHING.

There were very few things that could’ve slipped from the man’s lips that would’ve unsettled him more than his very being. “Go on and guess. You might as well.” He’d taken the liberty of assuming (correctly) nearly everything else in question.

But there was nothing malicious about Wesley’s caution or intellect or care with words—and that gave Gale pause. He’d only ever encountered such qualities in creatures that sought to use their minds of keen strategy to control and to ruin. Wesley, it seemed, had an appetite for neither control nor ruin, which, in turn, invoked a great deal of curiosity on Gale’s behalf. What, exactly, was the purpose of this man’s talent for caution? What were the intentions of his mindful practice of vigilance? Rebellion? Survival? Humanity? What a very human human. Far more human than the rest of the Paradisians. ( And that made Gale uneasy. )

“Hate to be the bearer of bad news, Doc, but I’m a detector of pain by trade, which, I think, gives me an unfair advantage, no? If we’re being very humanly honest, though, I could be blind and deaf and dumb and I’d still be able to put you at a hard ten.” Gale paused, hard, harrowing eyes softening just a very tiny bit at the edges as they fixed on the healer before him. “I wouldn’t worry too much about, though. Composure’s a tricky art to master. Couple more weeks and they’ll dub you the new Ice Prince. Figure it’s high time I find myself a successor, anyway.” Another pause, this one filled with a little less weight than the last. 

“You don’t speak much at all, do you, Ten?” he observed bluntly, genuinely curious but a bit off-base in his delivery. ( A creation of solitude, he seldom engaged in conversation and lacked much verbal finesse or awareness of conversational etiquette. ) The question wasn’t much of a question at all, really, and it spilled from his lips with the finality of a statement of fact, for it was clear to Gale that the doctor was stingy ( perhaps selective was a more appropriate descriptor ) with his distribution of words—and that wasn’t a bad thing, not at all. ( Hell, a man of few words was a man after Gale’s own black heart. ) But it was a strange thing; in this town full of humans that chattered incessantly and tossed around words carelessly, Wesley’s affinity for silence was strange indeed. “Why is that?”