Outlaw Blues: Philophobia

“Dinner’s ready Kenneth, Ki,” Reuel called as he moved about the kitchen. He had taken a liking to cooking and had begun preparing all of the Maccrea family’s meals. His favorite ones were dinners when they could all sit down and share their days with each other. His first attempts had been hesitant, but over the last week, he had improved greatly, and with great relish, he set the beef stroganoff onto the table and bustled about pulling the bread rolls from the oven.
“Re-Re, what are we having tonight? It smells good!” Kiaria said bouncing into the room. Her long brown hair was damp from the shower she had just taken, and the water dripping from it darkened the pale yellow and gray pajama top where it rested against her shoulders.
Kenneth, following her, smiled as well as he pulled back one of the chairs and sat down across from Reuel’s seat. “Yes, it smells delicious. Is this a new recipe from the land lady?”
“It’s stroganoff, and yes, it is. I thought it smelled wonderful when she made it the other day, and I just had to try it. It’s really simple to make actually, and it’s quick,” Reuel said brightly as he sat down with the rolls. “How have your classes been going?”
“The semester exams are going well,” Kenneth said, smiling at the turn of topics. “I had my English and Algebra tests today, and I think I did pretty well on them—at least, my teachers didn’t look too upset with me.”
“I had a test today in PE!” Kiaria sang out as she leaned forward to get a roll.
Serving out the casserole, Reuel arched an eyebrow delicately down at her. “Oh, really? How did you do on it?”
“Awesome!” The little girl bounced in her chair before she started to eat and talk at the same time. “I ran the mile in eight minutes and fourty-two seconds!”
“Ki—“
Kenneth’s voice held a gentle rebuke, and she stopped for a moment to finish chewing her food before she began again. “Tylanni is amazing! She ran in a different group than I did, and she was fast! I think she ran it in six minutes and fifty-six seconds! It was so awesome! She was even faster than the boys. Our teacher thinks that she should start training to run cross-country and track in middle school. I hope she does it would be so great!”
“Wow, that is fast,” Reuel said as he finally began to eat his own meal.
“How did you sleep today?”
“Pretty well,” the fallen angel replied with a small smile. Kenneth and Kiaria were eating their supper, but for him this meal was his breakfast. While they were away at school, he would curl up into the bed he had on loan from Kiaria and sleep until they arrived home again in the afternoon. “It was very quiet today. Thank you for picking up the groceries for me.”
The three of them went back to eating quietly, and the silence was peace unto itself for the angel. These quiet moments alone with the children were things that he wouldn’t pass up for anything. It felt so wonderful to be a part of their family and to relax for a moment away from the driving pressures of trying to protect unguarded humans from the threat of demons.
“When’s Reven coming back?”
Startled, the angel looked up at Kiaria. The little girl was worrying at a piece of bread and refused to meet his eyes, but the drawn and concerned expression on her little face had him smiling kindly down at her.
“I don’t know,” he said truthfully. A couple of weeks had passed since the demon had disappeared so abruptly.
Truthfully, when Reven had so abruptly disappeared from the park, the fallen angel had been overjoyed with the hopes that he might have disappeared for good. The hours of freedom had slowly turned into days, and Reuel had found himself checking over his shoulder to see if the demon had returned as he made his rounds of the darkened streets in the chilly nights of late fall. The prospect after the first week that he actually missed the obnoxious demon unnerved Reuel, but the fact remained that he woke up seeking the demon and spent a good deal of his nights discreetly checking the shadows for any signs of him.
Softly, Kenneth cleared his throat, and Reuel blinked up at him before blushing lightly. “I’m sorry. I… I’m worried about him.”
“That’s good to know,” came a wry voice from the doorway to the kitchen.
Reuel cursed spinning his chair out of the way as he came to his feet and raised his hands defensively. Energy glowed around his fingers as he faced the demon in the doorway.
“Lovely….”
“Reven!” Kiaria cried happily as she turned around in her chair and beamed at the demon.
The fallen angel’s ire fell away abruptly as he caught sight of the limp human form in Reven’s arms. Although the black hair hung over the boy’s face, from his clothes and his slight build Reuel recognized him immediately.
“Oh, gods!” the fallen said dashing forward to check Ashantii over. The boy’s face, once turned away from the demon’s chest, was bruised and bloodied, and his clothing was torn in places showing even more abrasions on the youth’s body. “Take him into my room. I’ll get bandages for him. Where’s Michael?”
“I’m here,” the angel’s soft voice said as he hovered behind the demon’s left shoulder, wringing his hands anxiously as he shifted from foot to foot. Reuel nodded his acknowledgement of the faded presence before pushing on Reven’s shoulder.
“I said go now!”
Brushing by them, the fallen angel went into the bathroom where he had begun stocking his own first aid kit. He had needed it several times over the past few months, and it was well supplied with numerous bandages and ointments. Picking up the box along with a basin of warm water and towels, he moved towards his bedroom.
In the doorway, Kenneth and Kiaria stood watching Reven—the girl with wide eyes and the boy with narrowed. Clearing his throat, Reuel nodded towards the kitchen. “Go on and finish your dinner now. I’ll take care of him.”
With a slight nod, Kiaria turned around and walked back to her food occasionally casting unhappy glances back at the door. Reuel’s thin eyebrow rose beneath his black tattoo as the golden haired boy turned to stare at him.
“I couldn’t feel them,” Kenneth said in a soft but tense voice. “Before he spoke there was nothing—not even the boy. Now though, I can sense them all. I want to know how they got here, and I need to know if any others can do it as well.”
Reuel nodded shortly. “Alright. I’ll ask him, but let me tend to Ashantii first. You go keep Kiaria occupied in the kitchen okay? I think some hot chocolate after dinner would be a good idea, okay?”
“Huh, yeah, okay,” Kenneth said turning away from the fallen. “Hey, let me know if you need anything alright?”
“Thanks. I will.”
As the boy walked back to the kitchen, Reuel entered the bedroom and walked across to the bed. “What happened here?”
His voice was cold, and it was readily apparent whom he blamed for the boy’s condition. The demon growled as he was brushed aside so that the fallen could more easily tend the boy. Reuel dipped the rag into the basin and began to gently wash the crusted blood and smears of dirt from Ashantii’s face.
“It was my fault.”
“Oh?” The fallen lifted his head to look directly into Michael’s violet-red eyes. “Really. Now explain that one to me.”
The angel actually blushed as he continued to fidget with the hems of his sleeves and looked away shifting nervously from foot to foot. “I wasn’t paying attention. About a month ago, Ashantii started going to a different club. There were other angels there, and one of them…. I hadn’t seen her since we were in training. There weren’t that many bad people at the club. I wasn’t thinking last night, and Ashantii got away from me when he started home.
“Before I could catch up to him, a group of men grabbed him and threw him into a van. As soon as they touched him, I took flight, and I was able to follow them to an upscale hotel. They took him in a back entrance and up to one of the rooms.”
Michael hesitated then. His hands were tightly fisted one within the other as he stared at his ward’s beaten face. The damage was less than Reuel had feared, he found as he cleaned the blood away. Most of the blood came from a small crescent moon cut on the boy’s right cheek just beneath his eye. From the looks of it, it had been a man’s wedding ring.
“And?” The fallen prompted gently as he moved down to start cutting away the torn shirt the boy wore.
Sighing heavily, Michael lowered his head and closed his eyes briefly. “They took him to a room, and he struggled.” There was a small note of pride in his voice. “He fought them beautiful, but compared to them, he was just a child throwing a tantrum. They locked him in a bedroom and left him alone for most of the morning and well up until a few hours ago.
“Then another man came. I had been trying to calm him and help him think of a way out, but when the man came, there was no more hope for suggestions saving him. He used a whip and his fists. I don’t know how long I stood there helplessly, but then he showed up, and—“
The angel’s voice faltered, and a shiver raced over his body. Reuel looked up from the large welts on the boy’s torso and frowned.
“’He’?”
“Me,” Reven said with a coldly pleased smile.
“You did this?”
“No,” Michael said steeling himself to suppress his tremors. “He saved him.”
“What?”
“It’s true. He… saved Ashantii,” Michael repeated turning his head away to stare out the small window overlooking a darkening alleyway. “He protected him as I could not, and he led me to you.”
Narrow blonde eyebrows drew together as Reuel considered the angel’s words. Then without preamble he stood up and glared at Reven as he demanded, “You killed them?”
“Yes,” the demon answered without remorse. “I did.”
“Reuel?” Michael said suddenly recalling the fallen’s attention. “I have something I need to ask you.”
Seething with anger at the demon, Reuel nodded. “What is it?”
The guardian angel hesitated with a short glance at Reven. “Alone….”
“Go on, prey. I’ll look after bandaging his wounds. Talk with the angel,” Reven said turning his back on them to bend over the bed. He gently lifted the boy’s body and began to clean the youth as carefully as Reuel had.
Sighing heavily Reuel nodded towards the door as he faded from the human realm of sight. Silently, Michael followed him into the living room and then down the small hallway past the kitchen. Inside, Kenneth and Kiaria were putting the food onto the stove while they talked quietly. The golden haired boy froze for a moment as he wiped the table and looked towards the door.
Smiling slightly the fallen angel glanced behind him towards his bedroom and then nodded briefly to the boy. As he and Michael moved out into the hall, he heard Kenneth say, “I’m going to go see if they need anything. Do you think you can make everyone some hot chocolate, Ki?”
“Of course! So there is Re-re and Reven and you and me and Reuel’s friend,” Kiaria replied brightly. “So that’s five.”
“Why don’t you make enough for six?”
“Okay!”
In the hallway, Michael glanced back at the closed door. “He knows I’m here?”
“He can’t see you if that’s what you mean, but I believe he suspects.” Reuel smiled briefly, but after a moment, it faded away. “You said you had something to ask me?”
The angel was silent for a few moments after the gentle prompt. He walked over to lean back against the wall across the hall from the Maccrea apartment door, and the fallen waited patiently for him to find whatever courage or words he needed to express himself. Finally the almond shaped eyes swept up and focused narrowly on Reuel.
“I have been with Ashantii for twenty years,” Michael said softly. His violet-red eyes softened as he smiled warmly. “I watched him grow up, and I guided him as a guardian in making choices that would keep him safe from harm and allow me to stay by his side. “
When he hesitated again, Reuel tilted his head to the side and crossed his arms over his chest. Down below, two neighbors passed in the hallway and greeted each other brightly. Their warm voices echoed up the stairwell and filled the silence as the angel once again gathered himself.
“Twice now,” Michael started turning his gaze upon the ceiling. As his hair fell away from the side of his neck, Reuel caught sight of his angelic markings for the first time curling up just barely from beneath the collar of his tunic. “Twice now, I have been unable to protect him. The first time you were there, and I was forced to be grateful to a fallen for saving the life of my ward when I could not. After that, I listened to the stories about your own fall. They talk about how you loved your guardianship so much that you showed yourself in order to kill her attackers….” He hesitated. “I really admired that, but I laughed and agreed that you were foolish to break the rules for such a short lived creature.”
Reuel’s jaw tightened as a fury swept through his heart, but the angel continued to speak. “I had begun to admire your courage though. To give up everything to save someone you loved, it was a great thing you did, and eventually, I stopped laughing.”
Sighing heavily, Michael closed his eyes and a tear slid slowly down his cheek. “Today—I nearly lost him today. I never thought I could be so scared, but my fear also held me back. I wanted so desperately to unfade and stop them from hurting him, but then I remembered your scars. I could see them though your fishnet shirts, you know. I remembered the words of the other angels. How you foolishly showed yourself to save her, and how she was killed anyway. I kept thinking, even as I watched him get hurt, that there must be someway to help him—to stop them—without showing myself.”
With a bitter laugh, the guardian angel wiped his tears away with an angry swipe of his hand. “He was saved twice by someone who could take solid form—first you and then by a demon no less. God, how I felt mocked then. The love that I claimed in my heart to feel for my ward shunted aside by my own cowardice leaving him to be rescued by one who should by rights have attempted to kill him instead.
“So, fallen, I allowed the demon to gather him up because he said he knew you and that he would bring him to your care. I followed him as he moved though the shadows in silence and arrived at your door, and do you know? I came to a decision during that time….”
Michael’s words trailed off, and he fixed Reuel with a steady gaze despite the occasional tear that slid from his eyes down his cheeks.
“I have decided that I love him. I love him more than I could even imagine loving someone. It took nearly losing him twice for me to realize it, and it’s not just because he was my ward. I’ve lost them before and nearly lost them before also.” The angel pressed his hand to his chest over his heart. “I’ve changed in here. In here, I love him dearly, and though I’m terrified, I want to show myself to him.”
Tense and guarded, Reuel’s eyes narrowed as he watched the guardian angel. “If you show yourself, you will fall and he will die.”
The angel flinched at his cold words, but clenched his jaw for a moment and straightened from the wall. “I know. That’s why I came here. I want to ask you to help me protect us from the angelic council.”
If Reuel had decided to place bets, he was sure to make a winning wager on the fact that he probably looked really stupid with his mouth hanging slackly and his eyes nearly popping out of his head. The black haired angel’s expression remained earnest, however, and after a moment of stunned and utter disbelief, he shook his head.
“Why?”
“Because I cannot bear to have them kill him just because I love him!”
The fallen’s expression softened slightly with compassion. Sad eyes held Michael’s steadily across the narrow expanse of the hallway.
“Right,” he said in a quiet voice, “ but I don’t know if I can protect you if you aren’t willing to protect him yourself.”
With a faint blush turning his cheeks pink, Michael nodded. “I understand,” he said shakily. With a deep breath, he unfaded in the middle of the hall and straightened his back with pride. “I am his guardian. I will protect him.”

In the bedroom, Reven straightened up from tucking Ashantii in beneath the soft comforter. A broad smile crept across his face baring his fangs into the semi-darkened room.
Looking up from where he was gathering first aid kit and the basin of dirty water, Kenneth frowned at the demon. “What’s so funny?”
With a slightly chuckle, the black haired demon finished smoothing the blankets over the human and glanced down at the blonde. His black eyes twinkled with his own inner amusement as he answered, “The fallen.”

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End Chapter Philophobia
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