another one goes off. loud and bright, crackling color across the dark night sky. there’s a heavy smell of smoke in the air, what dorian tells him is barbeque. there’s a lot of noise but not the sort that he had been expecting. there’s bloody kids everywhere, running around. people yelling, getting drunk and wearing some bloody ridiculous clothes. in fact dorian looked pretty ridiculous himself. and he kept telling him that this large display would open his eyes to the fact, the truth. only mat wasn’t so sure what that was. what was seeing this celebration going to do to get him back to his war? but they said this was new york, they said a lot of things that didn’t make any sense. maybe dorian and the whole bloody lot of them were red coat spies. maybe. 

but he has no choice. if he’s a prisoner. but light, mat doesn’t remember a bloody thing about before he woke up here. he knows that he had been in the trenches, with the loud sound of gun fire and canons in the air, the taste of blood and ash in his mouth, dirt and the men close to him dying. he knew that he had shouted some rambling encouragement to get his men up. one last bloody charge against the red coats, one last time to say they would not die without a fight, they would fight for their freedom. and if they fell other men would have it. he couldn’t remember the fight, he couldn’t remember anything else before opening his eyes here. and seeing dorian, who had looked almost annoyed? exasperated? 

“you keep telling me that it is the 4th of july as if that’s supposed to mean something to me.” he says, letting out a brath as another one of those fireworks go off in a burst of color. it’s some celebration. but this is not getting him any closer to going back to the battle or to his men. light, but he had never wanted that before, had he? running, they said he was always half way running out. “and you know...another thing i don’t know think i believe this place is really new york.”

YOU KNOW HOW IAGO DREAMING OF HIMSELF WEARING PANTS IS THE WORST IRONY EVER?

Cause as an angel, he would not know shame. Nudity would not affect him. But Milton’s touch left something, obviously. Something that destroyed the angelic “innocence”. These pants are not even a sign of decency, as one would assume from a human point of view. It only proves the first step of corruption has already started. The necessity to dream of pants to hide something that was once not occupied with shameful thoughts makes it all the more obvious that now there is something to hide. A shame for something that once was natural.

His innocence is gone.

how long until nat swats loki