#fallen.

(absolutely lovely psd by @pilipalea​ with my edits)

working title: downcast eyes → when francis falls genre: urban YA fantasy/paranormal with heavy religious overtones setting: a small city in the western united states pov: third-person limited with three pov characters status: first draft

synopsis: “an angel falls from heaven into the waiting arms of a prophet and a criminal” so a fallen angel, a modern prophet, and a mob daughter walk into the greenhouse behind the high school... wait, no, that’s not how the joke begins. is there a joke there? Or: i'm an angel cast out from heaven, he whispers, as if it matters. not falling, no, jumping.

EXCERPT:

when francis first fell, he tried crouching behind churches and in pews. he’s lost another feather. it was probably, he reflects, the fifth round of shots, or the woman he’d kissed outside the bar, her mouth hot on his. then the man he’d kissed after, this one closer to his age. kissing felt right, but not holy. nothing feels holy, anymore, and francis aches for something. it just feels wrong, when he’s here. it’s not as though he could be anywhere else, though. he’s not really human, of course, not born of mud and his father’s hands. no soul, and that’s the rub, isn’t it? soul? “i’ll live,” he says, and this, this, is almost unbearably human.

wip #3: an angel falls from heaven, into the waiting arms of a prophet and a criminal.

SACRED. BEAUTIFUL. CALAMITOUS.

xander is a prophet, touched by the divine, or something like. god or angels or... or... he isn’t sure. something. something touched him. something puts these visions in his head, makes his head feel as though it is splitting open with the force of his migraines.

“i told him,” tasha says. “i told francis you get migraines.”

“you’ll burn it out of you eventually,” francis says, “they all did. once God is done with you. i know that doesn’t sound very holy, but i could make up something about temples if you want. try not to die before you’re done being god-touched or whatever, though.”

“i thought prophets have to die in jerusalem,” xander says, frowning a little. “that was in... the gospel of luke, wasn’t it?”

francis frowns at him. “you say that like there are other cities.”

wip #3: an angel falls from heaven, into the waiting arms of a prophet and a criminal.

TRAGIC. PROUD. WANTING.

tasha is the daughter of a russian mob boss, the pretty princess of the family, spoiled rotten and underestimated and kept well away from what really goes on.

(not that she doesn’t know. of course she knows. she’d have to be stupid not to know.)

her friends (yes, she has friends, two of them, francis and xander) tell her that there’s nobody with eyes like tasha, who looks right into your soul like tasha does. they’ve never met anyone like her, or that’s what xander says. there’s something clinging to her edges that francis says looks like divine imperfection, looks like monstrosity, looks like hope.

she takes whatever compliments she can get.

tagged by @akingsleywriter, thank you so much!!

Rules: Go to your current WIP. Find the seventh line in the seventh page and copy and past seven sentences below. Then tag seven other writers to do the same.

okay, this will be from my fallen angel wip because it’s the last document i had open!

“Nice to meet you, too, Francis,” Xander replied with a wink.

(A note on Xander: one time, when Xander was ten years old there was a man who appeared in his dreams and that man had said Be not afraid and Xander had read about Jeanne d’Arc in school, only very briefly, but he knew enough to know that she was not afraid and so he wouldn’t be either, but then the man had taken Xander’s father by the hand and walked away with him.

Time passed; there was a funeral; the angel was dismissed as a dream.)

“You sure this guy’s really an angel?” Tasha asked, wrinkling her nose.

“I know only what I’ve heard,” Xander said, tapping his temple, then he turned to Francis. “The dust is settling, new ash from a new fire, and Tasha and I are trying to keep afloat in the world but we aren’t perfect, we have faults and flaws and weaknesses like human beings do. The word in Greek could be asthenia; it could again be hamartia, you understand?”