They meet in an old city bar that’s been hollowed out and embedded with shiny new shackles and spattered with fresh blood. The demons are relaxing, for a moment, lounging against the cracked barstools when Samandriel walks in, more swagger than substance but nevertheless bent on his mission: Protect the tablet.
“Hey,” one of the demons says, nudging the one beside him. “Check out Feather-Brain.”
“I am Samandriel, angel of the Lord,” he announces. “What do you know of the location of the demon tablet?” His voice tries to demand respect despite his short stature. The throng of demons just laughs at him.
One mutters, “Looks like lunchtime came early,” moving towards the angel.
In one swift movement, he surprises them all, spinning the oncoming demon back with his palm and pinning him to the bar, light coursing through his arm and eradicating the demon. Before the others can organize he takes them all on, smiting one after the other like it’s some kind of game.
Thing is, these demons are foot soldiers, and Samandriel’s a specialist, young as he is.
When he pins the last demon to the wall, the one who’d been sitting back and keeping quiet prior to the attack, something stops him. Elbow crooked back, light gathering in his hand, Samandriel squints at the man in front of him, his rumpled hair and casual attitude even as he stares his own death in the face. There’s two faces there, always is with demons- the warped demon face and the human face that bleeds through. Bleeding through the demon before him are a pair of pale blue eyes and a twitchy grin.
“Adam Milligan?” he says in a low whisper, not moving.
Keep Yourself Alive
QueenBackwards Queen Songs || Keep Yourself Alive
((Quick prompt for miseradreamer while I work on my others; Rachel discovers a hidden talent of Santana’s.))
*
It was in the middle of a rather uninspiring lecture on The Great Gatsby that Rachel Berry, new captain of the New Directions under the direction of the Spanish teacher Mr. Schuester, noticed that Santana Lopez, first lieutenant to the head cheerleader Quinn Fabray, both members of the Unholy Trinity that also included Brittany Pierce, was folding a loose piece of notebook paper into an origami frog. Her pencil slowly stopping from where she had been bouncing it up and down on her knuckle, Rachel lowered her head forward to surreptitiously get a better look at the girl sitting two seats away from her.
Yes. Santana Lopez was folding origami. She finished the frog, sighed, glanced around (Rachel immediately making like she was studying her written words intently), then pulled out another sheet and, with one more suspicious sweep of the room, slowly crafted an origami unicorn. Her forehead eased, her lips smiled, and then she looked up and caught Rachel watching her. An ugly look slammed onto her face, and she violently crumpled her two animals together.
Flinching from her glare, Rachel sat back and told herself she’d probably benefit from never mentioning anything of what she’d seen. Probably better, she glanced at Santana’s burning dark eyes again, to forget it entirely.
So she did. For three years.
Until the day Santana Lopez, co-head cheerleader with Becky Johnson, walked up to her, now co-captain of the New Directions with Finn Hudson, a bright and shiny gold origami star in her hands. “Here,” she pushed the star at Rachel, leaning in, “Just in case you forget who you truly are.”
“What?” Rachel asked, staring at the gift, then up at Santana.
Turning, Santana stopped, then turned back to her. She looked Rachel up and down; thoughts moved behind her eyes, and she drew in a breath before shaking her head. “You’re more than a boy,” she finally offered as she resumed her walk, glancing back to meet Rachel’s eyes again, “You’ll always be more than anyone else.”
Sheets of paper
Soaked with salty tears
Surrounding you like the sea
A sea you wish you could drown yourself in
Those sheets
Are covered with the story
Of how your life could be
If things weren’t so bad
The story
Of how you could be
If that one thing
Hadn’t tipped the scales
Wet paper
Surrounds you
Like the sea
You dream of drowning in
