While not being an angel anymore had its potential benefits, it also came with one drawback I was unwilling to test- in all likelihood, my ability to absorb damage and forget pain was utterly gone. And it was just my theory, but I also had a nagging suspicion all the old damage I had sustained in combat- the bullets still stuck in my gut and the healed over cuts- were going to start hurting again.
Because Raphael was a healer who cured our scars. But he took away what little pain we felt with medication, not magic, and surely every wound I had taken was still buried under his skin thick layer of makeup.
Which meant, if I was correct, that my body was going to split at the seems unless I figured something out. Or was, hopefully, mistaken.
I was Graceless, but at least I found relief in the fact that I didn't have to choose a new name- Michael Castellano was already drawn with blood. If I was pressured to choose now, I'd likely end up naming myself Pebble or Cement and then I'd be stuck with that name for the rest of the eternity.
I was yet to bleed. I left the orphanage with one place in mind and Michael's last words entirely forgotten. Everything was dream-like and hazy, except I knew far too certainly I was awake.
Purgatory was at the other end of town, and I suppose I was a little too blood-soaked for the humans in town's taste. But it's not like they stopped me, and I suppose every angel makes this trek eventually. From Heaven to Purgatory, it didn't make sense to leave the flock.
So to speak.
The moment I walked through the door, a fallen angel looked me over, recognized my face, tapped my shoulder and ran off. He returned shortly with Luxury and-
I really, really want to say the angel next to him was Michael. But she wasn't. The pronoun there being the first hint. She was a woman I had never seen before, but she had the same sort of honey gold hair and dewy blue eyes and bone structure and height and-
Well. It actually stopped at physical. But the physical was damn close, so it's all I could focus on. She dressed sort of plainly, a sweater and a floor-length skirt, and her eyes were heavy and sort of bored.
Someone may have said something- at least, I got the impression someone had- but I had missed it.
The woman didn't laugh. "Lucky." She said.
"That's her name." Luxury said quietly.
"She looks like-" I started, pointing dumbly, but Luxury interrupted.
"Don't talk about it."
"So." Lucky said. "I've heard you're called Nichael."
I cringed hard and Luxury legitimately gave a tiny gasp. Was he shocked I fell or at the improper use of my name?
"Michael Castellano, actually." I said, and the both of them looked very confused. Actually, Lucky looked kind of angry and Luxury just seemed offended.
"You don't seem many fallen with last names." Lucky said.
"I'm not fallen." I sighed. "Just human. Michael ripped all my Grace out."
Luxury again seemed both shocked and offended, and I assumed he kept making exaggerated faces to convey his thoughts without interrupting Lucky.
"What did he hold against you?" She asked.
"Well..." I said.
And I just about told it all. There was plenty I left out- for example, most of Tegan could be trimmed out of the story, and it was still a sore subject anyways. But Lucky seemed quite interested in Michael's plans and happenings. She wasn't quiet though, just impressionless- her voice was soft enough to leave little mark, but she spoke enough that it should have been quite memorable. But it wasn't. She made me tired, and indeed, reminded me of Michael just enough that I would've been entirely willing to curl up in her arms.
That would have been entirely inappropriate though, especially with her husband sitting right next to her.
I ended the story with when Raphael threw me to this Earth, and Lucky paused for a moment.
"How is he?"
"Michael?"
"Raphael."
"He's uh... fine. Haven't seen much of him. He's busy."
"That's good." She said. She paused again. "Anyway. I will take you in here then. No reason to discriminate against people commonly antagonized. But please change your name. Human or not, it's silly and will probably freak out a lot of my fallen."
"It's my name. Call me Mick if you must."
"Fine. Mick. We can say you named yourself after a microphone."
"Please don't make up a backstory for me."
"No last name though. House rules are simple. Respect everyone, be nice, listen to me, forget about Heaven."
"You own the place then?"
"You thought otherwise?"
"Why did you choose the name Lucky?"
"What, you trying to ask every question you can think of?" Her eyes seemed to have a smart gleam to them, so perhaps she was just joking. "You're asking this in the presence of a man named Luxury."
"Sorry. Just wondering."
"I know what you're wondering." She said with a dry smile. "Everyone does, the moment they see me. Even the humans sometimes get us confused. Michael is my brother, yes. Twins."
"And the other brothers too?"
"Doubtfully. But yes. And I chose Lucky because- well, it was chosen for me. I tried to get people to call me Lucy, but it never quite stuck." She laughed. "Sort of ironically, I suppose."
I felt uncomfortable among my would-be brethren, mostly because I kept thinking how all of this should have gone down. Few angels think to themselves 'eventually, I will fall', but the thought crosses our minds at least once in our service. And certainly I had it on my mind more than anyone lately.
I always thought when I came to fall- well, I didn't know about Purgatory back then. There was no way we could have known. Before I had just assumed fallen angels were stranded from each other, wandering the earth pointlessly. Once I had learned this was not the case, however, I started thinking when I fell, I would end up here quite comfortably. It was a homely sort of place.
But with the difficulties I had created my first visit, my new brothers were not ready to be warm with me. Conifer, my old friend, tried to be friendly. But I couldn't help but recall how he had cut off my wing, so it was sort of awkward.
My shoulder was starting to hurt, too, and I clutched it while listening to Conifer speak to another fallen named Interstate.
"What is an interstate anyways?" I interrupted their conversation to ask, as I hadn't really been listening in.
"I dunno." He said. "It was one of the first things I saw on a sign when I got up. Not the first, obviously, or most of us would be named pine tree." He gave a sort of glare at Conifer, who shrugged it off.
"Well, mine's still pretty unique." He said.
"We have twenty eight different Pines. They're like a plague." Interstate said.
"You've been on this Earth for a while then. Most of the signs have rusted at this point. You'd think you'd have learned what your name meant."
He shrugged. "I suppose I could guess the meaning by now. But I like the mystery. Besides, I don't leave this place very often anyways. There's no point to the humans. Nothing unique to take interest in."
Conifer elbowed him. "He's a human!"
"Sorry." Interstate said. "Anyway, are you still traumatized or what?"
"I mean, I couldn't move for maybe twelve hours after being felled, but hopefully I'm good now."
"Yo! I didn't mean that. Though that's a bit messed up, sorry. I just heard you got trauma from watching Michael actually fight, and if you're over it yet, you should totally tell me what that was like."
"Oh. Yeah. No."
"Was it like... too brutal for you?"
"No. It's- it's just something I try not to focus on." Of course, with my Grace gone, it wasn't like there was any reason for my silence. But still, I held.
"When you're over it, tell me." Interstate urged.
I yawned, covering my mouth with a single hand while still gripping my shoulder. "Anyways..." I said, and Conifer immediately changed the subject.
Fallen angels were notably flighty.
Lucky came to join us, though of course, whenever she began to speak to someone she was essentially isolating them. No one cared to interrupt.
"Mick. You mentioned you found files with information on my family. Where are they now?"
"...Heaven, I believe." Tegan had left them in her bag, and I suppose they were still there. Either that or the Arch-angels had censored them with fire.
"Lost, then." She said.
"What would you have done with them?"
She seemed surprised by the question. "Keep them. I suppose Michael may read them, and perhaps that would do him some good- but I'd much rather own them for myself."
And-
Well. Sometimes I wish to say 'speaking of', but something about that phrase seems remarkably casual. Sort of a relaxed change in conversation topic, as oppose to a scream as a fallen was thrown at a table.
And then another one was flung back with really more force than should have been possible. He just barreled onto the floor, away from the entrance to Purgatory.
Because in the entranceway, of course and absolutely obviously, was Michael.
His blade was drawn, and I heard a fallen behind me start to cry- out of fear or out of happiness, I could not guess. He didn't use his blade to attack, however, instead shifting it to a harmless rounded tip and shoving away any who tried to stop him. Though those numbers were few.
No one was going to bow before him now, but we all knew who he was, and often that felt like enough.
"Nameless!" He called, walking towards me. The fallen had begun to part instead of fight. "Or is it honestly, honestly and really, Michael now?"
"Mick?" I offered, though of course this answer meant nothing to him. "Like mick-rophone?"
"Mike?" He said angrily.
"Y-yeah. Mike."
He flashed his blade restlessly as he approached, letting it freely change shape. Then he leapt at me with more force than needed, and toppled me to the ground.
His hands pushed onto my chest, keeping my breath short. He drew his blade to my throat, and with a small flick turned it to a razor's blade.
"What?" I said. "I'm fallen! You don't hurt me!" The key word was don't and I hadn't even made the conscious thought to say it. It was simply true. Michael did not harm his fallen.
"I do not make errors." He said, not even in angelic. "I only learn new things. I do not harm my fallen children. But you're no longer a child."
He still had to take a pause, and I liked to imagine it was hard for him to do this, to finally cave in and admit I had been a failure of a project.
In his pause, he had the sense to look around him. And then up.
"Michael." Lucky said.
"Luke." He replied.
Then he jumped off me and onto his sister, cutting right through her gut with his blade and leaving her immediately dead.
He checked her pulse, correctly this time, just to be sure, and I used this opportunity to flee. To again- again- Hell. It was the one place I was sure to be safe.
Safer, that is. I had been lent a simple long coat while my other clothes were washed, and now I fled in it, running right out the door in pure desperation.
Michael had yet to make note of pursuing me, but then again, I was not looking back. My time of being physically fit had left me with some muscle my two weeks of leisure had recently begun to ruin, and I was sore the moment my feet hit the dirt.
Running right into the woods was safer than taking the route I actually knew to Hell- Michael would have an easier time finding me in the open air, and I doubt he would hesitate to kill in front of a few humans.
But heading into the forest also meant brushing my bare legs against the underbrush bushes. I tripped as I tried to run down the hill, smashing my face against a fallen tree branch and scratching my cheek.
I got up in a hurry and kept going. Every time my breath left me I tried to remember I was literally running for my life here. This was it. Now or never. I had to run. Even if I couldn't.
I started hearing the sounds of someone else- Michael, obviously- a short way into my flight. He was running too, and somehow I very much doubted he was slower than me.
I dared myself to look back, nearly running into a tree in the dizzying process, and I didn't see him. So I had some hope then, a physical one that was barely alive compared to the audible reality of snapping branches.
I saw the hellmouth, and I couldn't believe it. My first thought was not relief. It was just confusion on how I had reached it so fast, and how close it had been. I collapsed on it's roof, halfway on and letting my legs dangle. Now that I had reached my goal, my body had given up on running without energy. I had to rest for as long as I could afford.
It had been a number of minutes, the chase, and I guess I realized that the moment I thought back. But it had felt instant and momentous.
Michael was then behind me, and I was panting so heavily I was afraid I wouldn't be able to hear him. He had a hand on my leg, and he ran his fingers up and down it repeatedly. It was kind of weird, now that I thought about it. He always had to touch me.
I was too dead to feel fear, so I just shuffled on my stomach until I sat in front of the entrance to the hellmouth. Then I looked behind me. Michael had climbed up as well, silently, and was crouching with his blade drawn.
I really, really couldn't speak. I just pointed at the hellmouth.
"If you flee to Hell, I can simply kill you there and leave."
I tried to sign out hopeful disagreeance and a sad emotion.
"It's dumb to think I'll let you live." He laughed. "First your girl sister knew too much, now you do. It must run with your blood."
I didn't make any sort of movement to that statement.
"Do people in Hell like you? Then why did you come running back to me? I never meant to ruin your Grace. But it happened, and now I get to kill you."
"Yes." I croaked out, but I had no way to indicate it was to his first question only.
"Yes? You agree then? It will be a friendly killing then. An agreed to death." He was still holding back though.
I climbed onto the Hellmouth again, letting my feet dangle into the entrance, and Michael laughed. "How about a day then?" He said. "About a day. Then I'll come to get you. In Hell, yes, don't worry. I have my angels. You have your demons. We're nothing more than warring brothers- except, of course, that I still have a family."
I swallowed my spit as I fell through the rift.