Chapter 39 - Seal

Iris

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Valkyre blinked open his eyes to mellow golden sunlight streaming through the dusty windows, everything in the room cast alight and suddenly too sharp and too bright in his eyes.
The angel jerked awake, sitting up abruptly, hands touching nothing in front of him. There was a brief moment of weightless fear like a dropping stone, until Iris moved, cocking his head to the side, still sitting quietly in a mildly disheveled heap at Valkyre's side.
The angel breathed out a sigh, then shook his head. ...How had it gotten so late? Had he really slept right through the night and morning? The sunlight on the floorboards of the room were already bright and focused, narrowing as the sun passed slowly overhead. Too late, almost noon.
How long had he been asleep??
Valkyre sighed, raked a hand through his sleep-mussed hair, exasperated with himself for having let this happen. Why, who knew how many things could've happened while he-
The angel jerked into movement, snapped fully awake, staring down over the edge of the bed.
There was nothing.
Asher was gone.
Valkyre immediately whirled around, glancing quickly over the room, but already, his body told him that there was no danger here. He couldn't find the vampire's aura, not in the nearby proximity, anyway.
Then... Asher was gone. He'd simply left...?
He relaxed some, settling back, trying helplessly with his one hand to comb back his hair. The angel paused then, shifting his legs slightly, casting a quick glance at the boy. Iris blinked back, wordless.
"...Did you see him leave? ...Asher, I mean..."
Iris hesitated, then smiled softly. "Yes."
Valkyre frowned.
"Why... why didn't he... do anything? Why not... try to attack me, or something like that?"
The boy shrugged, looked away, staring at the dust motes that lazily swirled about beneath the windows.
"...He didn't hurt you," Iris murmured, "But he still said... he was going to follow you. ...To fight you again. Sometime."
Valkyre blinked. "Asher told you this?"
Iris smiled, looking back.
"...Some. Some things... you know. You can see them, right? You... can tell."
The boy shifted, moving forward, small hand reaching out, touching Valkyre on the arm, gripping lightly but tightly, his skin so cold, so lifeless.
The angel reached forward, touched the cool fingers, pulled them into his hand, hoping to feel them warm against his own fingers and palm. The aura on contact... it wasn't so different now. He couldn't even tell what the difference was. It didn't matter, did it? Iris, whatever he knew...
He stopped suddenly, abruptly.
"...Iris."
The boy blinked back at him, wordless.
"You..." Valkyre paused, feeling like it would hurt, not sure how he could say this.
"You... Do you know... where we.. you... where we're supposed to go?"
Iris stared back.
The angel took in a deep, slow breath, briefly closing his eyes.
"Do you have any idea where to go? What to do? ...All this time... don't you know?"
The boy looked down, looked away, brows furrowing, as if hurt, pained, making Valkyre immediately regret what he'd said, regret the harshness in his words. And yet...
He needed to know.
Iris gave no reply.
"Don't you know?"
Against his own burning ache, asking it again, his voice oddly still and emotionless. How badly he needed this.
The boy shook his head.
Valkyre's breath hitched, then he breathed out, slowly. No. No anger, no frustration. Why was he feeling this, then...?
...He needed it. He needed direction. He needed somewhere to go, something to do, needed to know what was required of him, what he existed for.
He existed for Iris, now. It was all.
But what did Iris live for??
The angel paused, leaned forward, tightly clenching the boy's hand, startled to see the other flinch, just slightly.
"I... I'm sorry," he muttered, pulling the boy's hand against him, reaching out and touching the shoulder, the cool skin.
"It... it's okay. Just... we'll find a way."
Iris looked up, lips parted now, breathing softly.
Valkyre paused, feeling caught between his emotions. He closed his eyes, breathing in sharply.
Abruptly, the angel leaned over, wrapping his arms around the boy, and pulled him over, pressing the thin, frail body almost fiercely against himself.
Everything he'd ever lived for was now suddenly in this singular form. How small his world had become. How many unknown things he'd run into. How much he'd learned, and how many more mysteries were opened to him.
So... small. Everything he'd ever wanted, all settled into one material, impossible form.
And so... frail. So brittle, like fine china or porcelain. How easy to shatter. How scared he'd been, so many times, how dangerously close he'd come to losing it all.
It... really did frighten him. If he lost it, if things changed in a way they couldn't ever be changed back... it scared him.
Before, he'd cared for nothing, only petty material goods, only for surviving until the next morning. Now... there was something more to it. It was so much different, this feeling, this need, this living he was carving out of the unforgiving brittle earth.
And yet...
Iris. The boy in his arms, so still, so unmoving. Like none of it mattered.
Iris had wanted to die. He still might.
So empty to all those around him, hollow, uncaring.
Iris...
Valkyre felt his fingers tighten, listening to the slow, soft heartbeat against his body. The cold, cold form resting against him, pulled tightly to him.
"Iris..." His breath stirred the pale gray hairs next to the boy's ear, the angel's head tipped down to almost rest on the other's shoulder.
"Iris, do you... really need me?"
Valkyre pulled himself back upright some, staring at the boy, Iris' face was turned away, pressed against his shoulder.
"Do I mean... anything to you? At all?"
The angel hated himself for this, but now, with Asher gone, with his ribs and body still aching slightly from his fight with Corryn, with the day already gone so far... he didn't know where to go. Didn't know what to do.
How long would they go on running? Forever? There had to be an end to all this, and desperately, feebly, Valkyre was searching for an ending that wouldn't lead to nothingness. Something that could end with him alive, with both of them alive.
"...Yes."
Sort whispered voice, a small hand working its way up to tangle itself in the angel's sleeve, gripping tightly.
"You're... here for me. You... don't just want... to use me."
Valkyre let out a long, slow breath. His fingers worked their way through the boy's light gray hair, stroking. Iris relaxed, grip loosening just slightly, weight resting on the other.
"You're..." The boy paused, then looked up, a small, almost timid smile on his face. "You're my guardian... guardian angel."
Valkyre stared back in surprise, then smiled. ...So he was.
"And you and I... we're... the same. Right? We... need each other."
The angel blinked, hand hesitating. Again, speaking of how they were the same. Same...
Of course, he was... right.
Alone... but together.
It was okay.
As long as they were together, he could do it. They could... survive.
Iris' fingers were thin, slender, lightly wrapping around Valkyre's shoulders, held close against him, the soft smell of the boy and the light, sighing breathing warm against the other.
The angel leaned close, closing his eyes. He thought of the kiss. What did Iris... mean by that? Why... had he done it?
Valkyre had rarely ever been touched like that, been so intimate. It was something alien to him, and something he'd never dared to trod on before.
And yet, here he was... And somehow, nothing at all felt wrong about it, only, perhaps, reluctance to cast himself into the unknown... afraid he might do something wrong...
Iris was leaning against his shoulder, lips just barely touching his neck, making the angel's entire body shiver, the small hands brushing at his shoulder blades through the fabric of his jacket.
"Valkyre?"
The other 'hm'ed softly, eyes still closed.
"...Who drew your wings?"
The angel's eyes snapped open, body going rigid. Valkyre paused, blinking, then sat up straighter, the boy's hands slipping away from his back.
He touched Iris' shoulder, meeting the soft gray eyes, nothing more than mildly inquiring, like he was hardly interested.
And yet, he knew, Iris only spoke thoughts that mattered...
"...Why do you want to know?"
Too sharp, too harsh.
The boy didn't look away, but didn't reply either, simply staring back at him.
Valkyre sighed, finding his own gaze drifting apart, glancing down at the rumpled sheets he suddenly found his hand curled around.
"...It... was Camael. Back... when he first found me."
Dark rooms. A single candle, casting his lone shadow against a dark, dirty wall. Somewhere cold, underground. Empty rooms, skeletal remains of chairs, tables, splintered into the hard stone floor.
"I'm not sure why he did it... but all he told me... was that it was to help me. ...Somehow."
The rough hands on his bare back, fingernail tracing the contours on his skin. He couldn't... remember it too well... he'd felt different then, something about the dark... an awarenes...
And then, the pain.
"I think... it was probably... more something... mental. Something to materialize what I felt... to help me through... the time."
No. Camael had helped him.
It'd hurt, but it had all been to help.
...Had it? Had it even really hurt? He couldn't remember.
Something dark had been dripping down his back, down to the ground, dripping quietly, something warm... something dark...
"I don't... hate him for it. He always told me, it was something he had to do... I had no reason... to hate him for it."
Harsh, sharp words. Telling him to keep his mouth shut, remembering the taste of his own blood from where he'd bit down too hard on his own lip... fingers dug in, clenching, so tightly. Pain... had it really hurt... that much?
Something... movement, his own hands beneath him moving... whirling around, something burning inside...
And... more pain. ...Worse.
And darkness.
Valkyre blinked his eyes, adjusting them to the brightness again, as if he'd really been somewhere dark, somewhere alone. Silence around him, suffocating, as if he'd really heard only the dripping...
Iris, staring at him.
The angel frowned, shaking his head. "I... what...?"
The boy only smiled, softly, almost sadly, and came up against him, leaning his light frame against the other's body. Valkyre slowly relaxed, finding the silence for once bearable, almost welcoming.
As for what he'd been thinking... no, remembering... It was rare for him to think back that far... but indeed... it was...
...Nothing. It was all the past now, and it didn't... matter.
"...Valkyre?"
Iris, fingering the fringes of his jacket, eyes cast low.
"...Yes?"
Instead of replying, the boy only pushed his fingers inside, then pulled them slowly out again. The angel already knew what the boy was holding, without having to see it.
The pen.
Valkyre stared at Iris, mouth set into a fine thin line.
"...Why are you doing this?" he asked, quietly.
"There's a reason, right? It's not just... a drawing." His voice rising, almost demanding. "There's something... more to it, isn't there? ...Iris?"
The boy was silent, bowing his head slightly. It set the angel on end, but then Iris lifted his gaze up again, and smiled.
"Yes, there is..." The boy's eyes dropped again, small fingers rolling the pen around on his palm.
"All of them... inside of me... this... makes it hurt less. All of them, they... they're..."
"They're sealed away."
Valkyre finished the sentence, studying the boy's face carefully for response. Iris looked up and smiled.
"...I'm not sure how you do it, but you somehow take the different bloods inside of you, and when a tattoo is drawn, the element- the species, they... are somehow... sealed away? In the image?"
Iris only tipped his head to the side, probably the closest he'd come to a shrug, and one that told Valkyre absolutely nothing.
"Well... something like that... right?"
The boy paused, then touched the angel's arm. Cool, soft, hinting at nothing.
"...It's not... me."
"...What?"
Valkyre binked in mild surprise, but the boy only ran his fingers down to the angel's wrist, then gently pushed the pen into his palm.
"Will you... do it? Now?"
Valkyre studied Iris for a moment, then let out a sigh of exasperation.
"...Okay. If only it's to help you."
The boy smiled in reply, then quickly pulled off his shirt, leaving it in a scrunched pile in his hands. Valkyre paused, gaze taking in all of the tattoos so far... bat, wolf, snake, hawk...
Yes, it made sense now. Opposite pairs... done quickly together, if possible, to keep both auras repressed, so neither could spark up too strongly... Vampires, weres...
What was there? The species...
Valkyre paused, then reached forward, touching the boy's bare shoulder, fingers purposefully avoiding the fluttering black wings of the bat tattoo. The angel closed his eyes, pausing, sifting through the auras he felt.
The demon aura stung through his palm as he concentrated it, swirling darkness that sucked at him, somehow oddly familiar... Valkyre winced, pushing it away, flitting on. Brushing over the soft, resonating angel blood, then searching deeper... dragon. Centaur... Siren...
The angel stopped, pulling his hand away.
"...Centaur... and siren?"
"...Okay."
Valkyre paused, then smiled, faintly.
"Fine. Afterwards, let's get something to eat... and then... get going."
The angel reached out, touched the boy's hair, brushing it from his face.
"It doesn't matter where we're going," he added, "As long as you're... with me."

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AN: Wow. Talk about a long chapter of nothingness. >>;
Okay. Lesse. Kinda cheesy ending, and for once, I didn't describe the tattoos! Why?? Because I'm tired and bored and this chapter's run on too long. Seriously, I need to figure out how to cut back on the excessive details. -_-;
Well, I've got more chaps plotted out, so if I can just steadily keep my butt in the chair, I can work on them. There should be more action soon too, so sorry for all of this nothingness... ::sigh:: Quite the pain, it is. Sorry.
Also, I realize that the chapters are really spaced out now and infrequent... I'm so sorry. Right back from Maine though, and I think I''m settling down, so if I can just stay focused, there should be more chapters soon.
Thanks a lot for the comments, and I'll keep posting! Try to cut out more of the crap-details too! XD ::bows::

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