Inky ^beta

“..et accorde-nous le pardon et la miséricorde, pour la-”

Brutal growled, the low warning sandwiched between the two pillows pressed to his ears. “Come back ‘ta bed, will ya?!”

The angel dared to glare, for once utterly appalled by the freak’s audacity. With his holier-than-thou attitude, he did not grace the other with a response, and instead went right back to reciting holy scripture like it was Easter sunday. The freak wouldn’t have that, chucking his spare pillow straight across the shack to pester Pure further; Brutal could see it, that it was getting harder for him to show restraint.

“How long have ya been up..?” He backtracked, trying to sweet talk the angel into shutting up; when he reluctantly sat up the sun appeared through the cracks, just beginning to peek over the horizon. “C’mon, quit it.”

“I apologize for waking you, but I must do this.” Pure rarely sounded so stern; with all the trouble Brutal was getting him into, it felt necessary. “Please, refrain from interrupting me!”

“‘N have ya slouchin’ all day? Nah.” The brute patted the mattress beside him, patience running just as thin. “Bed.”

“Non! I am almost done, I will join you-” The rough hands that attempted to draw him away from his prayers sent the angel into a spiral of panic. “S’il te plaît, you do not understand. I cannot..- I cannot continue like this.”

Brutal couldn’t help but pity him, the tremors in his voice and hands that shook enough to rattle his bones. “Like what?”

“I am weak, so weak.. Je peux sentir le pouvoir en moi diminuer.” It felt terrifying to confess, and pathetic to admit to someone so hard headed as the weapon wielding brute. “I must pray.”

Perhaps he was lucky that Brutal never bothered to translate. “..Whatever yer talkin’ about, it can wait ‘til mornin’.”

But Pure simply couldn’t wait; the weight of sin, like an itch he couldn’t quite reach, was too much for an angel like him to bear. “It is morning.. Allez au diable!” Once it was much too late he slapped both of his gloves over his own mouth, frozen in the shock of unintentionally adding another crime to his record. “Fine, I will entertain you.. If you keep your word. Let me pray once the sun rises, please.”

He hadn’t even noticed that Brutal had fallen back asleep.

The freak couldn’t remember the last time he awoke so suddenly. He couldn’t remember much of anything, really, let alone think straight when his throat felt like it was being ripped from his spine. Adrenaline sent him flying from the mattress and finding no angel in sight, practically tearing the walls of his shack down once more as he escaped the confining space just in time to see Pure’s wings fluttering in the distant cloudy sky.

It was clear immediately something had gone wrong. He’d not flown on his own; surely he wouldn’t flee his sacred mission, especially not to feel like this. Brutal broke into a sprint in the same direction, much as the lack of air in his lungs protested, spotting what he needed to piece the puzzle together as he flew past: craters, one by one, that could only be left by the BLU Soldier’s rocket launcher. Of course it was BLU.

The pressure squeezing the life out of his neck, the aches in his chest and the weight on his shoulders acted as his only guide. They tried to deter him, it seemed, by moving their base of operations; with the tether and the very slight ease it granted him as he got closer, their quick relocation mattered little. By the time Brutal could gasp for air the angel’s voice echoed in the distance, blood curdling screams carried by the wind.

“Stop- stop! Ça fait mal, repentez-vous ! If you repent, you could still ask the lord for forgiveness.”

Somehow, still begging for his poor excuse of a lord and ‘savior’. Brutal didn’t make for a good knight in shining armor, but he’d have to just this once.

Usually, he’d loathe the fact that BLU’s defenses were so poor; this time, he kicked through the makeshift base’s bolted door like it was nothing, not even considering how lucky he was that a sentry wasn’t rigged on the other side. He could hear the angel’s desperate breaths, deep and exasperated; his own gasps had been replaced with huffs of fury. The near debilitating pain that had made the journey there a struggle had been replaced wholly by rage, a thirst for vengeance, and- more importantly- a special abhorrence for whomever dared to take his angel away.

Brutal bursting into the infirmary caused the whole room to quake, sending the Medic hunched over the operating table off his bearing. The freak managed to catch him by the hand; not to help, of course, but to slash it clean off with his machete as the BLU collapsed into the floor. He sank down on one knee to follow, gripping the front of the Medic’s jacket before he could scramble away.

“You tell yer mates when ya respawn.. If any of ya ever touch my angel again, yer gettin’ shipped ta hell in pieces. Got it?” With the doctor’s nod and blown wide eyes, Brutal’s blade dug into his chest, once and then again; nothing could’ve been brutal enough to satisfy him. There was no joy in this kill. He’d usually murder for sport, maybe even the hunt; there was something much more morbid about acting on emotion.

It couldn’t have been that long. The BLU couldn’t have done much damage in such a short amount of time, he believed- no, wanted to believe. As he turned around, he realized Pure was doing much worse than he could’ve fathomed. He tore the angel free from the table’s straps with no time to waste, stepping back and expecting him to heal on his own. Yet all Pure could do was cry, tears that sparkled like the moonlit sky dripping onto his splayed open gloves that trembled in disbelief.

“Pourquoi? Mon Dieu, guérissez-moi..” The angel murmured weakly to himself, before glancing up at the healing contraption overhead that most definitely wasn’t helping. With the realization Brutal swiftly struck it down, gently scooping Pure off the bed and away from its rays.

Taking in the state of his own body only sent him spiraling; even as it healed, and even as Brutal held him close, blood continued to flow. His suit was torn open where the Medic’s blade sliced into his chest, and every inch his wings flapped felt like terror on its own; he was at least lucky they hadn’t been ripped off completely, though the BLU had come close to doing so. The blood pooling beneath him shimmered, a glittering mixture of what trickled from his wounds and tears that wouldn’t end. Soon enough he’d devolved into screams once more, clutching the agonizingly slow healing gash down his chest and sinking into Brutal’s arms for support.

“My lord, the pain is unbearable.. Please-”

“Just breathe, angel..” Brutal held him tighter, the angel nearly pressed to his chest as his own voice wavered. “Your god ain’t comin’, just worry ‘bout yourself.”

Blood and guts had never bothered the freak quite like this. Pure couldn’t tell from his own unraveling that Brutal himself was trembling, even more shaken than the first time he’d unintentionally put the angel in the line of fire. He was sure Pure deserved much more than this, much better than to blindly do the lord’s dirty work and protect someone who certainly didn’t need it. This would’ve been much easier if the angel despised him, or ridiculed him constantly for how unholy he was; instead, he just kept getting sweeter.

“Thank you. You saved me..” Pure sniffled, and finally hugged the horrified freak back. “Je te suis éternellement redevable. Merci..”

Brutal considered himself to be a quick thinker; even still, he stammered well before he could come up with a response. “Nah, it’s nothin’.. If I hadn’t, well, we’d both be sufferin’, wouldn’t we?”

The brute’s bewilderment only made Pure squeeze him tighter. "I understand your anger, your frustrations.. but constantly committing these- murders solves nothing." He didn’t seem to listen.

“They got 'ta ya, probably were gonna experiment on you. I ain't lettin' them off the hook of my scythe for nothin', love."

Though Brutal didn’t think much of what he’d said, Pure was completely awestruck; his facade of selfishness had crumbled quickly, true to the angel’s belief that there was in fact a heart beating somewhere in the freak. That made his own heart race, poorly written off as excitement that Brutal did, in fact, care about him.

“I apologize, I am a horrible guardian angel.” he admitted bluntly, expecting the other to agree or even berate him for it; Brutal did not so much as entertain the confession.

“..The Medic will tell ‘em we’re here, let’s get outta this dump.” Pure wasn’t very difficult to carry, so the freak didn’t think twice about carrying him as they raced out of the base and out the busted door. “How’d the Soldier get ya?”

The flightless angel made an extra effort to conceal his elation at being carried. “I only stepped out for a moment, not too far.. I was simply feeding the doves.”

“Damnit, princess. What’s next, ya gonna clean my shack?” Though Brutal teased, Pure never failed to amaze him.

“Oui, I could!” The angel chirped back, completely missing the punchline- even when his response managed to make Brutal cackle, nearly toppling them both over in the process.

Not long after, Pure’s thoughts started to linger again; he’d never failed to protect someone on such a drastic scale, never been such a failure. What if he was reassigned, or worse? What if he was doing everything wrong? He needed reassurance sooner than later.

“Brutal one, in truth..” He’d blurted, the arms wrapped around the other’s neck fidgeting as he collected his thoughts. Only then did his agony abruptly return, gasping and coughing despite how close the two of them were.

“Pure?!” Brutal needed to think fast, placing the angel on a close boulder and sitting beside him attentively. “What now? We’re close ‘ta the shack-“ He held his breath as blood started to surface with Pure’s coughs. “Jesus! Bloody ‘ell.. didn’t ya heal?”

The angel’s voice was hoarse as gravel as he made an attempt to answer. “Oui, I.. maybe it’s from that machine, or…” He didn’t want to admit it. Instead he stood, not quite walking but stumbling a step as he expelled what was left of the blood.

“Or?!” The brute prodded, offering his own glove up to wipe some red from the angel’s lips and his snow white suit.

Biting his tongue, the deity in white’s gaze locked to the ground anxiously. “My powers.. As of recently, they are dampening.” His demise was disgraceful, shameful, and now painful... all of which he had no desire to confess to Brutal. “Oh, mon Dieu.. parlez-moi, quel est mon problème?”

“I can’t imagine why,” the freak snorted to himself, though he did feel something unusual again- this time, pity. He relented to shoving a hand into a patched pocket, scooping loose pills from the very bottom and splaying them for the angel to take. “Here. I was gonna use ‘em for somethin’ else, but…” Brutal brushed over the explanation suspiciously fast. “I don’t need ta carry around an angel’s corpse.”

Though Pure took them, he did so more out of courtesy- and confusion- than anything. “What is this..? I am immortal, I have told you.”

“Painkillers, and besides- if yer powers’re all wack, how much can ya rely on bein’ immortal?”

Angels normally wouldn’t even consider mortality as their fate; for Pure, the future was starting to feel grim. “..Merci.” He swallowed them without a second thought- not that he’d wanted to think about pain, or vitality, or mortal quarrels in the first place. Brutal followed as he sat back down. “Please, may we rest? Only for a moment..”

As much as the other wanted to return to what was supposed to be a peaceful day inside, he felt a strange desire to comply with the angel’s wishes. “..Fine. Could use some more shit ta whittle anyway..”

Pure laid back towards the rocky terrain light as a feather, shuddering once an unusually cold wind brushed against his cheeks. It was much too difficult for him to curl up to trap warmth like this; luckily Brutal caught on quick, and he felt the freak’s bloody jacket wrap around him.

He glanced at Brutal as he stood, already retreating to scavenge before he could be thanked. “Aren’t you cold as well?”

With that the cold blooded killer paused, granting Pure a warm smile just over his shoulder. “Nah. I won’t go far.”

The angel didn’t let the offer go to waste; he snuggled as close as he could to the jacket, paying the fresh blood stains no mind and clearly enamored with the gesture regardless. It wasn’t long before the cold had subsided, though he was surely generating his own body heat with cheeks burning brighter than the sun overhead.

Even after Pure’s presence calmed his nerves a considerable amount, there was a tension that could only ever be eased by his innate habit of carving into anything he could possibly find. Still, this time in particular, he just couldn’t decide what to whittle. The terrain was bare, his thoughts were too much of a mess to convey on wood… then there was Pure, fast asleep and radiating peace in the face of the absolute discord surrounding him.

What a perfect muse he was.