the second day

*

I think I have a special kind of hearing tonight
I hear the neighbours upstairs;
I hear my heart beating
I hear one thousand hearts
beating at the hospital:

and one thousand hearts
by their bedsides, waiting
saying "That's my love
in the white gown."

- dar williams, "mortal city"

*

"... hospital doctors, including director Robert Fisher, have released to the public that Matthias Eisenreich Junior - though making a successful operation - is now in a coma level that implies heavy brain damage. Well-wishers are seen here leaving flowers outside the Eisenreich estate, home of archangel Gabriel."

Cut. People in coats to ward off the early morning chill, leaving bouquets as if the eight-year-old was already dead. Judging by the tone in the news anchor's voice, he might have well been. Cut. A rather blurry picture of Jibreel and Azrael hurrying from their car to the back entrance of St. Sebastian's. Cut. Duriel and Dr. Fisher addressing reporters. Duriel looking as if he would rather be murdering reporters.

"Thomas Kincaid, driver of the vehicle, has been put into protective custody after numerous death threats against his person; though he is currently under charges of reckless use of a motor vehicle and endangering life, doctors are awaiting further prognosis until Mr. Kincaide can be charged further."

Lawyers at a podium. "... Mr. Kincaide would like to express..." Flash, flash. Click. "... his deep regret and sympathy for the Eisrenreichs, most especially Ms. Eisenreich and Dr. Hawkesby. He is shocked and horrified at the accident, and his inadvertent injury towards an angel." Flash, flash.

Anchor. "And now, the floods in Jakarta."

Eden snorted at the television loudly, where it had been placed near the kitchen table; he was putting pikelets on Zadkiel's plate, dressed in his pink frilly apron with a black skull bandanna tying back his hair. It was early morning; the kitchen was unnaturally crowded, too many eyes glued to the television. He turned to put some more on Samand'riel's, judiciously; Eden was neurotic about feeding all of the children up, just like a fifties housewife.

"Fuck me if they ever christened him Matthias, they jus' don't want to call him by the good Christian name I gave him. Oy, Gabs, that Kincaide bastard looks like someone I fucked once when I was thirteen, should we trump up the charges to underage man sex?"

"It wouldn't matter." Lindy was chewing her toast, eyes still glued on the television screen, though they looked far-away. "Half the internet's claimed they shagged you back then, Edie."

"D'you think anyone would mind if I fucked him now? I think it'd be a nice little pressie. They put me in a sundress an' mascara, I waltz down to his cell, and make sweet love to him 'till he's got the H to the I to the V?"

Gabriel was herself seated on the back of the chair her youngest son tenanted, one finger to her lips as if she were deeply in thought. When she caught Eden's comment she briefly looked up, "I think it would take more than mascara and a sundress to convince him, Eden. Besides -- " she could not really bring herself to say besides, he deserves to go to trail, go to prison, he deserves a trial by his peers -- because although she had been raised to believe so, she could not make herself believe so, not when it was her grandson who lay a mess of fractures and contusions. There was a deep, still part of her that had sat council silently and handed down death warrants. There were times when the absence of an organization like the Habbalah in these golden days of peace scored her deeply. She closed her eyes briefly, reflecting on the irony that she was in fact no parts liberal and mostly all parts fascist, certainly when it came to her family. Well, at least she was a sweet fascist.

"To be frank, " said her middle son, leaning forward on his hands, "um. It would take more than a sundress. Or a wig."

"Aw, fuck you, Zads. I have hot hair." By way of emphasis, Eden dumped a pat of butter on the middle Eisenreich's food.

Amatiel, who was sitting in a chair that was slightly too small for him, rough braids cascading down his back like blood, set down his plate to crack his knuckles; it sounded like an ice floe breaking up. "Besides," he grunted. "That takes too long. Piece of shit needs shankin'."

Fingertips braced delicately around her teacup, Fremiel did not even bother to look in Amatiel's direction, instead keeping her eyes focused on his milky reflection in the silver teapot, "You always have such a poetic way of putting things."

"We could make it a date, Montgomery. You hold, I gouge."

"That's not fair at all," she glanced at him over her teacup as she brought it to her lips to sip, pinky raised, "I'm a liberated woman. You hold and I'll gouge -- "

"Children," hushed Gabriel fussily, because it was her place to hush fussily, even if she rightly wanted to ask if she might bring the rope, "The law -- "

"The Law is human law," Raziel said almost distastefully, as if he wanted the word out of his mouth, "And as such, hardly applicable to the situation. If the Unnamed remains a vegetable, then that man will serve a few years in a very pleasant prison with climate control and regular meals," he tapped his spoon against his glass, listening to the crystalline chime, "Fortunately, unless I am terribly mistaken, he gave blood in 1982."

"Raziel," Gabriel looked more than harried, "I will remind you that you are no longer Idumea -- "

"Names are curious things, Gabriel, and difficult to divorce oneself from -- "

" -- and furthermore, we currently choose to live in this human world. We were born into this human world, and as long as we choose to live in it, we are subject to their laws. It may seem like vigilanteism would make us feel better, but in the end, it will only make the situation worse -- "

" -- always were a little bunny, Gabs -- "

" -- and when I want your opinion, I will ask for it, Eden."

"Mama Demi's right. Let him go to prison."

It was Shaktiel, who was suddenly speaking up from her cottage cheese and celery sticks; she waved one around in her hand as she tossed her head disdainfully, bright locks of hair falling to her cheeks. Gabriel had been 'Mama' for a while now, rather than 'aunt', with the tranquil knowledge that Rachel was not going to bring home another daughter in law. "He iced Buboe. An eight year old. With a big dorky Colgate Superman grin. Am I the only one hearing the ding-dong of the bells of 'twelve hours of gang rape before choking on his own severed penis'?"

"Mia."

"I'm just saying, Mum. Kiddy-killers get sweaty man-justice. We don't have to do crap." She bit down on the celery with an air of slightly queasy finality. "Maybe if we bribe someone we can get a tape of it. Ten tapes. One for each of us with a couple spares. I can make it into a ballet. The Excruciating End Of Fuckface Kincaide. Kind of get it a little Western feel. The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance."

Samand'riel shook his head, poking his beans half-heartedly, "You always have been really creative, Shakti, but I dunno if you're being all that helpful right now -- "

"He needs us," his elder brother finished, folding his napkin over his plate and crossing his silverware, "Before anger, responsibilities must be considered."

"Thus spake the Wonder Twins," Eden drawled, leaning against the kitchen counter and tucking into his food. He was slightly muffled through butter, maple syrup and pieces of pikelet; "Buboe's beyond us. Some of us, anyway. I ain't got no bibbity bobbity boo that I can do on Buboe. Me, I'm worried about my stupid retarded son and Jibs - they're holding up like a chocolate condom."

"Called Rach." Amatiel shrugged, which was a tectonic movement all by itself. "He'll know how to handle his sister. Me, I can't do bullshit. Except beat up reporters."

"No beating anyone up."

It was Lindy again, pushing her food around on her plate. "No saying any death threats, okay? The last thing we need is a lawsuit. We'll be up crud creek without a paddle. I mean, okay, if you don't get caught..."

"Who's being illicit now, Mum?"

"Shut up. Anyway, Gabs, Linus says he and Ellie can cover the seniors for at least a week - we can always get a therapist in for the kids later and stuff - and I can do damage control."

"Thanks, Lindy," Demi said, her wingspurs drooping a bit as she considered the ramifications this might have at the school, even if everything uncoiled smoothly and evenly as pudding and her grandson was again playing left wing forward on the lower school's soccer team again before Christmas, "I have the utmost faith in them, and in you," she tousled her youngest son's hair, unsure if she wanted to muss it or straighten it, "As for Jibreel and Azrael, I think we should do what we can for them, the best that we can. You also mustn't mind them if they say anything that hurts you. They're under so much stress now, that I'm not sure they even realize half the things that they say."

"It's not good for them to spend so much time at the hospital," Orfiel added. "Lots, yeah. Buboe needs them more than any of us. But all the time? They're going to fall over. I think we should spend time watching Buboe. I looked up on the 'net about coma patients, and apart from fifty million newsgroups misspelling his name and one saying it's a conspiracy, he needs to hear voices."

Amatiel shrugged. "I got a voice."

Demi sighed, "Well, you ought to be pleased, Eden. If there's one thing you're unmatched in, it is the running of your mouth."

"I'll go today," said Raziel, pushing back his chair and standing, "To the hospital, now that he's allowed visitors. I'll bring Harahel. We'll read -- "

"Raziel."

" -- something clean, I assure you, Gabriel. I only have to see to some things first." No one in the room really wanted to reflect deeply on what sort of things Raziel was planning on seeing.

"I'll do it tomorrow morning," Shaktiel volunteered, charmed. "Of course, he'll wake up for me."

Eden guffawed. "Who could sleep with your bloody shriekin', anyway?" Everyone ignored him.

"I will do the night shift," said Zadkiel, rubbing the back of one hand across his forehead, "I'll make time."

"I'll go too," agreed Samand'riel, "It's just a shame that I know that they won't let me bring in Freckles after hours, even if he is a licensed therapy rabbit."

Zadkiel gave his brother a tired look, "Freckles will come to terms."

"Tomorrow," said Fremiel, "We'll come by to see him today, if we won't be upsetting him with a crowd, but we'll sit with him later tomorrow," she glanced at the butterfly, who was still munching away on a celery stick, as if it might have been the skull of Thomas Kincaide, "After Shaktiel."

"I can go on until about midday," said the butterfly, satisfied with the outcome. "I'll do practice in the afternoon. Sorted. All for one and one for all!"

"And I'll just sit in when everybody else is stuffed," added her mother. "We can do this. There are a lot of us. Oh, Demi, I'm going to freeze a few meals for Jibreel and Az, I don't know if either of them are going to have time or inclination to cook."

Amatiel sighed deeply. "No shanking?"

Demi stood, hugging herself tightly and steeled herself into what amounted to being their general and their mother, "No," she said with an easy measure of weight, "No shanking."

Unless I'm the one doing it.

*

"Doctor Hawkesby, in light of recent events, do you think that Mr. Kincaide should be served with a manslaughter charge?"

"Doctor Hawkesby, do you think this is a governmental anti-angel conspiracy?"

"Doctor Hawkesby, can we take this to mean that you and your partner are on closer terms?"

Azrael closed his eyes momentarily, rubbing his face, feeling the thin sheen of stubble on his chin; the cameras flashed again, eyes dancing with headlines of Azrael Exhausted After Ordeal. He'd thought he'd be safe in the staff carpark; he'd been desperately wrong. "Can you leave me alone?"

"Doctor Hawkesby, do you think that Thomas Kincaide should fear for his life?"

"Doctor Hawkesby, how are you feeling in light of this tragedy?"

"He's feelin' like fuckin' crap 'cos his eight year old got mowed down," came a voice from behind them. "How the fuck d'you think he feels?"

The cameras turned, flashed. "Samael - !"

"Don't 'Samael' me, you pieces of shit." Deeply disgruntled, Eden Ardith reached out for the arm of his trapped son and started dragging him through the small mob of people towards the hospital entrance. He apparently thought very little of shoving, scratching and biting, and did all three in copious amounts. "Come on, boy. Christ, I need a ciggie after all that."

Azrael gave one last look at the flashing cameras and the notebooks, the grim faces of the reporters who knew they'd get a story eventually; then he looked back at the thin hand on his arm, punkband-wristed, pulling him through the doors. "... I didn't need your help."

"Like hell you din't. S'pose you were getting gangbanged there for fun, huh? Hell you doin' out there anyway?"

"I was having a cigarette."

"Don't start, kid. Dreadful habit. Fuck, I want one even worse now." Eden leaned against the cool walls of the hospital corridor, eyeballing his erstwhile offspring, raising one caramel eyebrow at him. They were starting to match; both gaunt, with Azrael slightly ashen underneath his usual warm tan. "Don't fuck yourself up, you emo arsehole. Jibreel needs you."

"Are you lecturing me - "

"Don't pull this shit, right? I changed that girl's nappies, you bastard."

Azrael was silent for long, rebellious moments, eyes dark, pushing the white forelock out of his eyes as they stared each other down. It was hard to stare down Eden; he always had the most unnerving smile while he eyeballed you, velvety-violet, laser-vision. Samael crossed his legs over; his combat boots and chains jangled gently with the movement.

"Buboe's lookin' good, ain't he?"

"Of course he damn well doesn - "

"No, I meant it. I thought he'd be fuckin' mincemeat. He looks good, I swear. An' I swear often." Eden tilted his head. "Sometimes I wonder how he came from you'n her."

Azrael's eyes closed. "... I wonder that all the time. For me, at least."

"Jibs, too. Depressing little bitch she is."

"No." The angel of the apocalypse shook his head. "He's all Jibreel. He's her smile."

Eden looked at him for a long while. Then he sighed, deeply, and banged his caramel head back against the wall so that the wall clattered and all of his earrings sounded like tiny angry bells. "It'd be easier if you weren't so much in love with her."

"I - "

"Like. Vomitously. Even with Chichi around."

"She - "

"You gotta take care of her, okay? And it's gonna be hard. You can't be weak. Slap her 'round if you gotta. Make her your bitch. Boom boom boom boom. You have to hurt her, Lion-O. You have to do the tough thing."

This time, Azrael didn't protest; just sagged, less the Holy Highlander and more a very tired man. "with... With Buboe, and with her being so tired, and with me, it's just... Hard. It's hard to say yes. It's hard to say no. It's hard to do anything. I just want to go to sleep sometimes and not wake up."

"Not you, too. Look. Don't do the deathy thing. Think happy thoughts, Tinkerbell. Think about when he wakes up. Think about you and Jibs lookin' into each other's eyes all melodramatically. Think about hot sex, I bet you never got laid since she left you on account of you bein' you."

He struggled to keep himself composed. "Is that all?"

"Yeah, I'm done being Yoda." Eden cocked his head, pushing himself off the wall and into standing again. "Me, I'm here to see Ol' Humbert Humbert, so you jus' run along now. Happy, kid. Happy happy happy."

Azrael watched as his father, jauntily whistling, disappeared down another corridor. He watched for a long while after he was gone; and then he put his fingers against his temples, and rubbed, and quietly left to go and sit the vigil beside the shell of his son.

*

It was hours of sitting, speaking until her throat was dry and scratchy about Christmas and Easter and birthdays and soccer and dancing lessons and the park and swans and mice and stuffed rabbits and anything else she could think of to go on about, until she couldn't speak any more, had worn her voice raw, and he was pressing another cup of juice into her hands. That morning she'd eaten six blueberries, had half a cup of milk, and one wheat biscuit. It had seemed like a great deal at the time, and later it had been when she'd vomited it up in the washroom, quivering and heaving and a mess of despair and useless rage. She took a swallow of her juice and it was citric, burning, and then she looked down at her empty hands and briefly wished she'd taken up knitting or needlepoint or something as equally calming, so she had something to do with her trembling fingers. She balled her fists and looked at Azrael. He was staring sightlessly ahead, lost in some inner reflection. She tugged at his arm, once, as if she were a run-over kitten and said, "Maybe tomorrow you should bring your guitar. I think he would like that."

It was only her who could bring him truly out of his reverie; but even then he blinked, wavered, had to pull himself down before he could look at her. His hair was wet from his shower; it was plastered back over his head, making all his bones stick out. His cheekbones were like bull bars. His lips were not red. "... I'll have to make sure it won't upset anyone else in intensive care. I didn't think about the guitar. I'm not... Good at speaking."

Her fingers were like the tines of a fork, working themselves against the sleeve of his shirt, a strange expression flickered across her face, "You're better at it than I am," she looked down at the floor before explaining further, still grasping his sleeve, "Mum mentioned that music therapy is popular in Holland for people with severe head trauma and I thought -- well, your music is always so soft -- but if you don't want to, then I understand, if you don't want to sing. It's very hard," she turned to look at the bed, sterile white so hot it hurt your eyes, "To sing or play at a time like this."

"You don't have to be happy to sing." He was quiet again, both of them looking. "You know that."

She closed her eyes and released his arm to wrap herself tightly in her own, pressing herself into the corner of her chair, "I know that," she agreed. She leaned her head back against the hard lip of the plastic, "I think," she said softly, opening her eyes the barest fraction to look at him through her lashes tiredly, "I wasn't only asking for him. I think that hearing you play would make me feel a little better too."

He nodded, tight and quick. God, like he could ever refuse her anything. Azrael's mouth quirked into something like a smile; "Maybe you could play the tambourine, Jibreel."

"Done for the night?"

It was Amatiel and Fremiel, obviously having stopped off at the cafeteria for some coffee before they made their way to wherever they were going; Amatiel's hands dwarfed the cup. He in particular carried the slightly uncomfortable glance that quite a few people had begun to make whenever they were around the ghouls of Azrael and Jibreel; he shrugged his massive shoulders.

"We're here 'till Zads and Sama get here," he grunted by way of explanation. "So you two can go home."

Azrael's hands were on Jibreel's shoulders, massaging softly, thumbs working the kinks out at the small of her neck. "... That's very kind."

Fremiel raised her pale eyebrows, "Don't worry, I won't allow him to teach your son any vulgar words. If he tries, well. Let's just say that he won't try. I hope Buboe likes poetry. I've brought Spenser."

Her boyfriend looked at her in deep disgust. "Great, Frem. He'll sink even deeper into that coma now."

She gave him a chilling look and brushed past him, sitting her small bag at the foot of the bed, Jibreel watched her thoughtfully, leaning into Azrael's hands, "It's very nice," she repeated his earlier words, "But you didn't have to come yet, I can still stay a while."

"No. Gabriel's orders." Amatiel leant against the wall. "You two are to get the hell out and get some rest, apparently. Hmph. S'not like I mind, but Gabriel'll cut you both the fuck up."

His fingers found the sides of the angel of mercy's neck, gentle, grinding out every knot. "... Want to go, Jibreel?"

Jibreel looked at the ground, unwilling to fight the clockwork giant that was her mother's familial control, "I suppose we've been dismissed."

"We can go home and glorify the late-night movie on channel five and eat dinner." Azrael had almost forgotten that Fremiel and Amatiel were in the room, feeling the knobbly bits on Jibreel's spine, the silk of her braids brushing against his fingers. "Feed your beetles."

Jibreel suddenly realized that Fremiel was politely averting her eyes and pulled away from him and rolled tiredly onto her feet, casting about for her coat, "I'll need to get some meal worms for them," she said, "Thank you for reminding me."

Azrael held her coat open for her as she slipped her arms into it, dark eyes on Fremiel. Both of them looked very tired, and perhaps in need of a dose of liquid holy. "Thank you, Fremiel. We appreciate this."

Not Fremiel. "Not like we have anything better to do."

The slim society darling rolled her eyes devastatingly, "That's Amatiel's way of saying he's very happy to oblige you and that it's the least we can do."

Amatiel made some sound that was between a wordless grunt and a snort.

"And now he's suggested you pick up some take-out on the way home. But don't confuse the cartons with the meal worm boxes, he warns."

"Frem."

"Eloquent as always, like a Kodiak grizzly."

It was very, very, very hard not to laugh as Amatiel rounded on Fremiel with a particularly sulky glare; Azrael pulled Jibreel's braids out of her coat, picked up her bag, and steered her by the small of her back out the room. "Let's leave the lovebirds alone."

"I'm with her for tax breaks and sex!"

"Congratulations, Mister Decker. You are getting neither tonight."

"I don't get sugar, you don't get sugar!"

They left.

*

He stopped the car - with their meal worms, with their take-out - on a little side-road close to her flat, with no warning; he leaned back in the car seat and his eyes closed very briefly. When he turned to look at her again, they carried the same practiced deadness he gave Duriel, he gave everyone else, to stop them from getting inside; he had gnawed on his lip, she could see the bleeding.

"Jibreel, I think there's something you don't understand."

She looked at the mat over the floorboards on the passenger's side as if it were deeply interesting. In a way it was. She had never made a close study of it.

"What do you mean?" she heard herself asking, her voice oddly high-pitched.

Azrael rested his head near the rest of the carseat, eyes still on her, as if peeling them off would be near to death. He was monotonic, just like he was back in the bad old days. "Jibreel, there's a chance that Buboe will never wake up. We both know that. But... The longer he stays in the coma, the longer his brain is getting damaged. He's losing brain mass as we speak. There's a ratio of decay - the first few days, it doesn't matter, not with therapy. But as time goes on..."

Her voice was very soft, disconnected, recorded playback, "What are you telling me, Azrael?"

"I'm saying he might never be who we knew him as again. I'm saying he might be brain dead, and that every day he doesn't wake up is worse."

She looked at her hands, she looked at the seam of rubber around the car door, she looked at the gear shift, she looked at her scuffed shoes, she looked at the seams on her a line coat, and then she looked out the window, voice trembling, "He'll always be my baby. He always will be. I -- he -- we'll get along all right, no matter what. I'd like for him -- " she blinked her eyes hard, trying to shut out the tears, "I'd like for him to remember me, but if he doesn't, I'll still love him. He'll still love me. He'll still love everything. Nothing in the world could change that about my baby."

One of her hands was gently taken in his; the fire in Azrael's eyes when she looked up again could have melted steel. "Then nothing matters. Then we'll hold on. It will be all right. He'll always be ours. We just have to fight, Jibreel, every day."

She moved to press herself against him all at once, her ribs digging into the seatbelt, eyes shut as tightly as she could force them, "I'll fight," she said, "I'll fight for my baby. I could never let him go. He's mine."

"If we fight nothing will happen." It was their mantra, their useless prayer: this rock will keep away tigers, this rock will keep away tigers. He held her until they were both suffering from it, pained, uncomfortable, and only then did he draw away. "We'll fight, Jibreel."

She slumped in her seat, worn and threadbare like the velveteen rabbit on the rubbish heap and again folded her hands quietly over her lap.

"We can't do anything else."

"No," he agreed quietly. "Which is why we'll do it together, as hard as we can. Let's go home."

She looked up nervously, eyes dark as blackberries and then smiled faintly.

"All right."

*

Amatiel, Adam Konrad Decker, fidgeted through most of Spenser and downright squirmed during The Faerie Queene; he sipped four cups of coffee, leaned his chair back against the wall, frowned for a very long while at the boy in the bed, and eventually openly interrupted his girlfriend's rounded vowels with a sharp, husky grunt. It had only been a matter of time, really. He looked as if his red braids were going to start to fray.

"Hey. Hey, Montgomery."

She paused for a moment before actually looking up, "That is my name, yes."

"Whatever, Miss Priss. Frem. Frem, do you - " His brow furrowed, hazel eyes bright and piercing in the dimmed light of the hospital room. " - Do you remember, way back when, when we bolstered up the fuckin' nursery door to keep the Dark out, when Jibs was kneehigh - when you and I - and she was a goddamn midget, and Gabriel - "

Her eyes were suddenly distant, like mist over the sea, "That nursery. I remember," her slim brows drew together, "How can you ask me a question like that? I think you must be the stupidest man who has ever lived. You took two pikes and a sword and a morning star to your goddamned hard skull. I had to carry Gabriel. She wouldn't -- "

"Two pikes and a sword and I still got up, it was three rounds of crossbow quarrels and by then you'd gotten out through the window, I couldn't see you any more. Stupid goddamn woman, too slow like always. Two pikes and a sword and a morning star and a club - "

"I hate you violently," she said, suddenly standing and moving to the boy's bedside, stark and white and empty save for the little bundle, like a limp rabbit, "I really do. You're an ox, not a charger. Don't talk to me about who's slow, Amatiel. If I hadn't been carrying Gabriel maybe I'd have lanced you myself just to stop the complaining."

"Oh, that would have helped, what with my mortal fucking wounds and all on the carpet. I hope they never got that stain out. Great plan, woman. Who'd you get that one from? Why did I marry you again?"

"Because your drinking buddies kept giving me looks when I answered your door in my underthings. Something like propriety. Or maybe sex and tax breaks. I took them to Maddock's Copse. We were followed, like rats under a hawk we were followed," her smile was thin and unpleasant, "But by God that's the last time anything will ever attempt to take a bite out of me or my charges. I wish you'd have seen it. It was almost beautiful."

His hand touched her back, slid almost-roughly up the curve of her spine underneath the shirt she was wearing; it was only after a shiver through his fingers that he took it away, withdrawing, a last caress. "It was fuckin' beautiful. Frem, Frema - why do I feel the same now?"

Terrible. Beautiful and terrible. She let her hands fall to rest on the metal rail of the bed and bowed her head so that her moon white hair fell into her face, "Because you've always been itchy," she said quietly, beautifully, terribly, "When there was a job to do."

Amatiel pushed her hair away and kissed down her neck; only a drop of eroticism that was something in a well of his deep and abiding frustration. "Look at him. Look. Rachel and me once babysat him for an hour when he was two and he escaped in the first ten minutes. We found him in a closet eating shoes. And making that face he always makes - I feel like I failed. I don't like it. Make it stop. What do we goddamn do, Montgomery?"

She shifted under his touch and raised one finger, slender and lean, gymnast and killer, "We clean up the mess afterwards, Mister Decker. We clean up the mess."

He looked at her in contented wonder, like his first ever dirty magazine. There was the quiet heat of murder in their eyes, fierce, frenzied; it was a wonder that neither had any criminal convictions. Or maybe it wasn't. "And people wonder why I hell of love you, lady." There was a pause. "Well, nah, people wonder why you love me."

"In case you were wondering," she said smooth and deep as milk, "It's not your taste in clothing."

"At least I don't look like I should be fondling some androgynous fagboy with no body hair in a Versace ad."

"No, you look like you should be fondling your best friend on the poorly rendered watercolor cover of a fanzine."

"Shut up."

Her smile twitched but then she shook her head as she took her seat again, pulling her book into her lap, "I can't, Conrad. Against my sworn duty," she lifted the book and began reading aloud again, "Dayly when I do seeke and sew for peace, And hostages doe offer for my truth: she cruell warriour doth her selfe addresse to battell, and the weary war renew'th -- "

"You suck."

*

There was a Movie. It was about Teenagers, and Babies, and being fifteen when one had them. Azrael watched it with pure puzzlement in his eyes and a bag of cheap store-bought nasty candyfloss beside them; they had flopped down on the couch, shifting position over and over like Tetris blocks until he was lying back with her spread out - head on his chest - like he was a mattress. He broke off some of the pink, and ate it.

Sometimes you did anything to numb the pain, to live inside another moment, to break your brain away and do something so mindless that you broke your own hurt; and sometimes you watched Fifteen And Pregnant at eleven o'clock.

'At least I'll have someone to love!'

"Did you ever say that?" He popped some more of the candyfloss into his mouth. "Please say you didn't."

She answered slow and sonorous, eyes glazed as she watched the shifting colorbox that was her small television, "Who would I have said it to? It doesn't really make sense in any kind of context. I mean, my father was a very real presence in my life. I think he'd have stepped in front of a train before leaving my mum. In fact, I think she's mentioned something about him stepping in front of a train for her, before, but I don't remember very clearly. In any case, it's very difficult to be accusatory on a question like that with my mother. Do you think I'd have said it to Uncle Eden? Maybe a bit more apropos."

"I think he would have liked the melodrama. Then possibly recounted all the times that he has ever been pregnant in his life. And mentioned his imaginary girlfriend." Eden Ardith had various and many problems, both which he and Jibreel knew intimately. Azrael squinted at the screen again. "I don't think this movie is entirely accurate. To anything. Having sex in a jacuzzi looked unhygeinic."

"I think this is a deeply accurate representation of the trials of a teenager's life," she said very seriously, "I think people are constantly faced with the problems of unhygeinic intimate relations in jacuzzis in their teen years."

"I never did." He ate more of the candyfloss, and added, thoughtfully, "Of course, the jacuzzi wasn't invented. It would have had to have been intimate relations in a wooden barrel. Or a goat."

"In a goat?" she asked dubiously, "Not with a goat?"

"No. These were primitive times." He chewed. "Why is she crying about her dead-end boyfriend leaving her? It's not like he would have been a good father. Also, I think that she is getting weirdly dowdy to try to warn other teenagers off teenage pregnancy. You weren't dowdy."

"No," she agreed, "I looked more like a cocaine addict who'd swallowed a bowling ball."

"But you weren't dowdy."

"It is difficult to be dowdy when one's maternity skirts are Dolce & Gabbana," she sighed, resigned, "I let my mother do my shopping."

"I'm sure you made being pregnant look very fashionable."

"Deeply," she said, "Everyone wanted to take me out. I made them stand in line."

That threw him momentarily and he struggled to look at her, craning his neck, falling entirely whether it was the truth or not. He looked almost comically horrified. "They did?"

"It went around the block three times," she said, propping her chin on his chest, "Jimmy Hoffa was there. Also Elvis Presley."

Azrael thought about this a moment. Then he ground the candyfloss into her face. This caught her very unexpectedly and she flailed like a turtle on its back and nearly succeeded in pitching the both of them off the couch.

"Don't shoot the messenger," she protested, "I'm just the truth teller."

"Angel of mercy like hell." Gravity was too late and this time they did pitch off the couch; they did it in a slow graduated slide like a glacier, both of them tumbling over each other like rocks in a mess of three braids and hands and the sticky remnants of candyfloss on them both. When they eventually came to a stop, she was half on top of him, the ends of one of her braids in his mouth. Very gently, he took it out; and then he looked at her for a long time, very quiet.

"I wonder if it's human nature," he said, but it was without sorrow; just quiet clarity. "To want to drown yourself in anything. Just to experience the drowning, rather than the suffering."

"If it's human nature," she began carefully, looking at him with eyes that were so dark-shiny they might have been faceted, "Then is such a question applicable to us at all?"

"Yes," he answered. "I used to think it wasn't. But we've lived as humans so many times. You with the reincarnations, me with the hiding. There's no - there's no angelic reaction we can look for here. There's no holy vengeance we can wreak. We can't act as angels, Jibreel, so we act as humans, which is why sometimes we act like we're both thirteen and then in the next heartbeat we weep like adults."

"I have never acted like I was thirteen," she denied mutinously.

"Fourteen, then. Like - like teenagers."

She made a resigned noise, "All right, you win. Like teenagers. If you want an answer to your first question, then I think that most people are trying to drown themselves most of the time. It's the grass is always greener. They always want something they don't have or aren't doing, and hop from thing to thing, drowning when their lives feel empty. This well is always deeper. Do I think everyone in the world, or the universe or the entirety of existence does this?" she paused for a beat, and then shook her head "No. I don't. But I do think a lot of people do, just because they don't know anything else to do with themselves."

"I didn't realize how green my grass was until it was all shorn short."

He sat up, in the glare and the wake of the pregnant teenagers, and he turned her television off until they were plunged into sudden gloom. There was only the light from her kitchen; the far-off roar below of cars moving on the London streets, shadows on them both, his eyes the last blackness as he looked out the window.

"I want to go to bed, Jibreel," he said, and added so quickly his words almost stumbled: "I want to go to sleep."

She settled against herself like a little bundle of sticks, "We can take turns if you want," she began, and then shook her head, "At the couch I mean. You can sleep in my bed tonight, if you'd like. I'll sleep out here. You need to get some rest. I don't know what I'd do without you," she stopped and then she started again, "To help me along."

"Jibreel." He'd gotten to his feet, all long legs and long arms, slightly clambery like a daddy-long-legs. "I'll be wearing all my clothes. You have a queen-sized bed. I want to watch to make sure you don't vomit. I won't bite. Let's go to sleep together."

She was so very tired she almost couldn't think. She was past fighting, limp and velveteen. She closed her eyes and thought of how warm he was, and how he smelled, and how what she wanted most in the entire world was to curl up next to him, knees almost to her chin, toes tucked under. She did not have the will left in her to resist, so she nodded weakly.

Then she was up in his arms, light and yielding as a feather; he held her slightly awkwardly, as if she was a sack of potatoes, and dumped her with equal and incredibly tender awkwardness down on her bed. Just like the night before, he closed the curtains, tucked her up in the covers, and turned down the light; and then he took off his shirt and lay beside her. And then it was dark.

*