Outlaw Blues: Methyphobia

“I cannot believe that she thought you and I were lovers,” Reuel said with a growl as he left the apartment building late that evening with the demon shadowing him.

“You mean that you cannot believe that was the excuse that the boy chose to tell her,” Reven corrected with an impish smile on his face. His words earned him a fierce glare from the fallen angel, and he chuckled in delight. “Would you rather she heard the truth? I’m sure it would be no problem to tell her, but I’m not sure how well she’d take it.”

“No, I don’t want her to know that you’re trying to get me to commit suicide! Of all the moronic…”

He broke off rubbing the tattoo over his right eye. Sighing heavily, he shook his head and started paying attention to the road they were taking. He doubted that he could travel to his normal haunts any longer. The few angels there that might feel enough pity for him to speak with him surely would not if they saw he was being tailed by a demon, if for no other reason than fear for their wards. In his heart, Reuel couldn’t blame them. He was a fallen and thus to the angels, he was less than alive. They were not supposed to even acknowledge his existence, and he was very grateful for the few that had taken the risk to do so.

Glancing over at Reven who was strolling causally at his side, Reuel shook his head and muttered, “It’s no wonder fallen angels have such a bad reputation if all the demons who hunt them are as impudent as you so obviously are.”

“What do you mean?” Reven asked in his silkiest voice. With a smirk, he arched one eyebrow over at his prey.

“It’s broad day light, and you’re walking by my side as if no one will care!”

“No one will care, idiot,” the demon reminded him with a cold smile. “You seem to forget that you are fallen on occasion. I could take you amid a group of hundreds of angels and torture you, and their only thoughts will be that their own wards are safe.”

Reuel’s face turned a pale red. He did forget occasionally, but that was because of the recentness of his fall, or so he told himself on occasions when it was made as obvious to him as now. Being an angel had been drilled into his head since he was born, but there were no instructions to being a fallen angel. There was no one at his side to guide him, and there were times when he felt too alone to cope with it all.

Reven’s voice suddenly broke into his thoughts. “You know, you’re very different from the other fallen that I’ve hunted before.”

Raising an eyebrow in mild curiosity at this unusual turn of subjects, the blonde asked in a droll voice, “Am I supposed to be complimented or insulted by that?”

“Hmm? Oh neither. I was just merely commenting. Most of the ones who have fallen before you--and there have been a lot to fall in the recent years—are cowards and swine. Their reasons for being cast out were so paltry as to be laughable, but you are different. You, I think, were meant to do great things in the heavens.”

Lowering his head, the fallen angel sighed heavily before glancing away down a side alley. He startled slightly to see a young demon there in the shadows, and he halted. As Reven’s catlike eyes fell on the boy, he bowed low and disappeared in the darkness without a word. Uneasily, Reuel looked up at the demon at his side, but nothing had changed on his face. It still portrayed his thoughtful musings of a moment before. As soon as their walking resumed, so did the demon.

“I have to wonder what in the name of the fates the demons were thinking when they attacked your human…”

“Do not speak of her. She was too good for your wretched tongue to tarnish,” Reuel hissed softly.

“Precisely my point…” Reven smiled as he raised his golden eyes to study a street lamp above their heads. “You obviously loved her too much. You would have been chastised eventually for that love, but why go through the trouble of having you kill a human? Or the effort? There are so many more easily destroyed angels in the heavens.”

“You are a very depressing man,” Reuel muttered speeding up a little to get a small distance from Reven. The effort was in vain, however, and the demon kept pace with him easily. Since running would have drawn an unwelcome amount of attention from the few humans walking the streets with them, and probably have be just as equally useless since the demon seemed to have no shame and was unlikely to let him run away.

Eyes dancing with masked delight, Reven jerked his chin towards a small bar up the street to their lefts. “Why don’t we stop in there and get a drink?”

“I’m not here to drink with you!” The angel made no attempt to hide his disgust or contempt. His upper lip curled slightly as he glanced at the bar. “You are not even worthy of conversation.”

“Yet you still are talking to me,” Reven pointed out. When Reuel attempted to move away from him, the demon grabbed his arm digging claws into the soft flesh of his biceps. His voice was a low snarl as he spoke. “Drink with me, or I will kill the next human you lay eyes on.”

Tensing violently at the threat, the fallen angel stared blindly ahead of him as his footsteps slowed to a stop. A young woman stepped around them hurrying down the sidewalk with a nervous expression on her face. She kept shooting glances at her watch and would occasionally break into a near run but fall quickly back to her fast walk.

Reven moved closer to the platinum blonde and leaned in close to whisper in his ear, “She would do just fine, and I know exactly how I’d do it, too. The skin would come first, pealed from her flesh with a red-hot dagger so she couldn’t bleed to death before I’m through with my fun. Then removing the fingernails and toenails one by as she screamed and pleaded for mercy that I will never give, but I love to hear—“

Swallowing hard, Reuel closed his eyes. “Don’t… Shut up already!” He turned and grabbed Reven by the black whip wrapped around his torso. “Shut up, and I’ll drink with you!”

A triumphant smile spread over the demon’s pale ivory face. He waved a hand towards the bar and followed Reuel inside.

The bar was dark, and the air felt heavy with distrust and pressed close to Reuel in a manner that left him shivering for the warmth of daylight. The clientele differed from the clubs he had frequented as well. There were no angels here at all as the grey-violet eyes scanned the room filled with older men and women whose eyes either followed them with malicious gleams or avoided settling on them as though they did not even exist. The very aura of the room had the fallen angel feeling cold.

Reuel took a step backwards intending to turn and leave the bar as hastily as he could, but he came up sharply against the demon behind him. He was allowed no further thoughts of flight when Reven placed his hand in the small of the angel’s back and pushed him towards a darkened corner of the establishment.

“Were you going somewhere, angel?” Reven’s lips curled into an almost catlike grin at the other’s furious glare. “You wouldn’t want that little girl to be injured now would you? I’m sure it would devastate her family…”

Gritting his teeth the blonde turned his head to the side to keep from having to look at the demon. A young waitress came to the table wearing a skirt that was too high, a shirt that was cut too low, and enough perfume to make Reuel gag. The demon ordered two glasses of brandy and the waitress left before the angel could protest.

“I don’t like brandy!” Reuel hissed, leaning forward over the tabletop.

“I don’t particularly care, and since you’re here as my guest, I am ordering your drink for you,” Reven replied, resting his chin on his palm as he propped his elbow up on the table. “And you will drink because I hate drinking alone.”

Rolling his eyes in irritation, Reuel looked out over the bar. His back went rigid at the sight of two demons speaking with a man who was well into his drinks. Although he couldn’t tell exactly what was being said, he thought he caught the words ‘kill’ and ‘end it’.

Noticing where his companion’s attention had turned Reven waved negligently at the man and demons. “He finally caught his wife cheating. He’s suspected her for several months, and as it turns out, it was his closest childhood friend and his best man from his wedding. Apparently, their second child isn’t his either. So they’re giving him his options: he can let it continue, go though a nasty divorce and lose his children anyway, or he can kill her. From the looks of it, he’s seriously considering the third option.”

“That’s not right!” Reuel said in a loud voice gaining glares and stares from the patrons around them.

The two demons looked up as well but quickly returned to their discourse with the man as Reven waved at them to pay no attention. When the waitress brought the brandy, Reven quickly downed his shot glass and asked her to bring a bottle.

“Drink up. It’s actually quite good here,” Reven said pointing at the glass in front of the fallen angel. “Oh, and don’t raise your voice about it. There’s really nothing you could do to help him. She won’t be the first person he’s killed. He lost his guardian angel when he was fourteen by killing the priest who raped him.”

“It doesn’t matter about that!” Reuel said vehemently. “There is no reason for him to kill her too!”

“Drink,” Reven ordered, pointing at the glass again and then smiled as the angel irritably tossed back the brandy and gagged.

“That’s terrible!”

“Well, if you don’t like our drinks, darlin’, pay for that one and get out,” the waitress said shooting the blonde a cold glare as she sat the bottle of brandy down on the table.

“He’ll learn to like it. It’s his twenty-first birthday, and the poor sap has never had anything to drink before,” Reven lied with ease and sent the woman on her way with a cheerful smile.

“How can you stand that crap?” Reuel hissed staring at Reven as he poured both of their glasses full again.

“Because it’s good, and I’ve decided that we won’t leave here until you can drink it without gagging.”

“So if I drink it and don’t gag, I can leave?”

Reven nodded agreeably, and the fallen angel lifted the glass to eye level before hesitating. He swallowed hard and knocked the amber liquid back. The demon laughed loudly as he choked again getting tears in his eyes.

“Well, it looks like this is going to be a long night,” Reven chuckled, pouring another glass.

“God, that stuff is atrocious,” Reuel muttered softly as he stared at the glass that was once more full. “I don’t know how you can drink it so easily.”

Lifting one shoulder in a shrug, Reven smile and drank his own brandy. “I like it. Anyway, where were we? Ah yes… We were discussing that man’s options, but it seems that it is no longer an issue.” He nodded to the empty table across the room. “Apparently he’s made his decision already.”

Startled, the platinum blond angel swung around in his chair. “No!” He started to rise to his feet, but Reven grabbed his arm and jerked him back down. “Don’t stop me, demon. I have to help him!”

“He doesn’t want your help,” Reven said coldly. “Haven’t you figured it out yet, fallen? You’re not necessary. The humans who are pure already have angels to protect them, and the ones that don’t have made their own decisions not to follow their angels’ advice. There is no role in this world for an outcast like you.”

Eyes wide, Reuel stared at the demon. “How can you say that?”

“Because it’s true. You’re of less use on this Earth than the mosquito,” Reven said nudging the glass at the angel. “Now drink and don’t even think about leaving again.”

Falling into a sullen silence, Reuel lifted the drink. Within half an hour, his head was spinning in a nauseating fashion from the alcohol in his system. His cheeks were hot as he pointed at Reven with the hand holding the seventh glass. “How can you stand this stuff?” he asked in a slurred voice.

“Hm…?” Reven lifted his glass and drank it in a single gulp. “Well, one, I like it, and two, it doesn’t bother me.”

“Are you shitting me?”

Laughing, Reven reached out to brush a long lock of blond back away from the flushed face. “No, I’m not ‘shitting you’. You sure do develop an interesting vocabulary when you’re drunk.”

“I’m not drunk,” the angel protested. He lifted his glass and drank it without a flinch. “I’m just not used to this stuff.”

Grinning, Reven filled the glass again. It wouldn’t take much at this point to get the angel to throw himself from a bridge or even cut his own throat. He had been lost in his own thoughts, egged on by the demon’s earlier comments. At first, he had been furiously denying his own worthlessness, but with a small mental prodding, Reven had sent the angel’s contemplation on a downward spiral.

This was almost too easy, Reven thought with a fond smile at the angel. Sighing, he toyed with his own glass of brandy as he watched the drunken blonde. Normally, he wouldn’t mind allowing an angel to die like this as long as he accomplished his own goals, but for some reason, perhaps his long months of eager hunting, he didn’t want it to be this easy.

Shaking his head, Reven rose to his feet leaving some cash on the small table before he took the glass out of the hands of the fallen angel. Reuel raised dilated eyes to look at him, and the demon looked away from the innocence he could so easily read there.

“Come, it’s time for us to go home,” he said in a quiet voice.

At first, he thought that Reuel might protest, but the blonde finally rose unsteadily to his feet and moved away from the table. The demon wrapped an arm around the narrow waist to help keep the angel from stumbling as they made their way out of the bar.

“I never thought I’d live to see an angel get as drunk as quickly as you do,” he muttered as he lead the way back towards the Maccrea apartment.

“So damned sorry,” Reuel muttered, leaning heavily against the demon. “’S not my fault that you took me to a bar. Tol’ you I didn’t like brandy.”

Grinning mischievously Reven took a small detour into the park only a short distance from the apartment. He stopped by the fountain and stood Reuel at its side. “You have two choices. Promise to kill yourself or take a bit of a cold shower.”

Turning his fuzzy gaze onto the icy water, Reuel ran his fingers though his hair. “Fine, I promise to kill myself.”

Not expecting that particular response, Reven reached out and pushed the angel hard on the chest sending him stumbling back into the marble base of the fountain. With a yell, he fell backwards landing hard into the water. Crossing his arms he raised a hand to touch his chin with a grin as the blonde head broke the surface.

“Oh, sorry about that,” he said about as sincerely as a viper.

Coughing, Reuel managed to get his head and shoulders over the marble edge before he threw up just beside Reven. Stepping away from the angel, he started laughing hard. The blonde heaved twice more before he sagged back into the water miserably.

“Holy shit,” he muttered though a sore throat.

“Quite a vocabulary,” Reven laughed. “Are you feeling better now?”

“Go to fucking hell,” came the irate reply.

Reven grabbed Reuel by the back of the shirt and lifted him from the water. “Let’s go, fallen. You don’t want to keep your children waiting.”

Grunting noncommittally, the blonde angel got his feet under him and jerked away from the demon. He headed towards the apartment holding his aching head and fighting back another wave of nausea. Whistling happily as he followed, Reven thrust his hands deep into the pockets of his leather pants.

“I really hate you,” the angel muttered as he opened the apartment door and stumbled up the stairs, leaving a trail of water as he went.

When Reuel reached the correct door, he opened it and stepped inside shedding the frigid tee shirt. He slung it back over his shoulder at the black haired demon, who caught it easily and grinned watching him struggle to pull off the drenched denim.

“You’re really rather pretty. I don’t mind the boy’s excuse so much anymore… You’d make anyone a fine lover,” Reven said thoughtfully.

Gritting his teeth, Reuel grabbed his kimono and jerked it on before retreating to his couch. He laid down with a furious glare at the demon.

“Don’t talk to me,” he muttered before closing his eyes and passing into a drunken sleep.

***
End Chapter Methyphobia
***

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