Chapter Text
“You should be dead," are the words Jeremy Knox hears as the paramedic flashes a light in each of his eyes. "Never in my life have I seen someone crash like that, and make it out to tell the tale."
Beneath him, the bumper of the ambulance is unforgiving. The cold of the metal seeps through his pant legs, the way exhaustion had seeped into his bones, the way fear had seeped into his veins, the way water had seeped into his car—slowly, and then all at once.
Jeremy flashes a smile he doesn't feel. "Guess I have someone watching over me."
He doesn't believe that, either. Not when he'd lived the life he had. Not when his brother was dead, not when it was his fault; not when he'd crashed like this before, and ruined his knee, his shoulder, his exy career. Not when his family still barely talks to him, and his friends are all scattered around the country, living his dream, and Jeremy is here, stuck suffocating in a life he doesn’t want.
The paramedic puts his flashlight away. Jeremy blinks, clearing his vision, and then looks up at the man again. Han, his name tag reads.
"Guess so," Han says, and looks back to the lake, where Jeremy's car has long since sunken beneath, upside down and banged up beyond repair. Jeremy looks too, and feels a shiver run down his spine.
He doesn't understand it. How the crash happened, how he made it out of the car. One moment, he'd been drivingflyingdrowningpraying, and the next, he was waking up on the forest floor to the sound of sirens and the sight of EMTs hovering over him.
Someone clears their throat. Jeremy turns, and finds Han watching him.
"Is there anyone we can call for you?" he asks.
Jeremy shakes his head.
"Just me.”
They take him to the hospital.
And there, the doctors don't understand it any more than Han had. Not Jeremy's clear CT or his clear physical. Not the way his shattered knee and shoulder show as never having been injured in the first place.
Jeremy doesn't understand it either. Quite honestly, it really freaks him out.
"You're sure?" he asks the doctor when she shows him his scans. But the doctor only shakes her head.
"Everything's clear," she tells him, and looks him over again, the way doctors have looked him over ever since he took that first pill back in Highschool—like an addict. "If it wasnt in your file, I'd honestly think you were lying."
She does another round of X-rays. Jeremy's not too concerned about the money—life on a lawyer's salary is pretty alright even when that life sucks the life out of you—rather, he's far more concerned about losing his mind.
But the results come back the same. All the results do. Jeremy, it seems, is the healthiest twenty-eight-year-old on the planet. Hell, even his cholesterol is down.
It doesn't make any sense. But there's nothing else the doctor can do, and there's nothing else Jeremy can ask for without looking like he's looking for his next fix.
So he signs the discharge papers, and borrows a phone to call a taxi, and then takes that taxi home.
It's unreal, standing in front of his apartment building twenty minutes later.
He feels like something should be different. Something, anything—he nearly died tonight. But just like after the night of his freshman year banquet, just like after the firefighters peeled him out of the last wreck, the world keeps on spinning.
The doorman says late night? like he always does when Jeremy stays at the office after hours, and Squirrel greets him at the door like she does every time Jeremy gets home from work. And then Jeremy takes her out, and feeds her an extremely late dinner, and heads right for bed.
He crawls into it, fully clothed. His shoes get kicked off at the edge, the covers get tugged over his head. And he feels like a child, hiding like this, but he can't bring himself to do anything more right now. Can't bring himself to figure out when he'll get another phone, another car. Can't bring himself to figure out how he'll handle the police, or his insurance, or work.
All he can do is keep thinking about the crash. All he can do is replay it, over and over and over in his head: the way his eyes fluttered shut for just a second, the way the sound of metal crunching woke him up again. The way that, by then, it was too late. The car was spiraling out of control, and before Jeremy could do more than squeeze his eyes shut and pray, he was tumbling into water.
He'd tried to get out, but the seatbelt had locked, and the doors too, and blood was rushing to his head, and dripping down his face, his legs. Seeping through his shirt. The windshield was cracked and the window was too, and he couldn't move or see or breathe, and he remembers, as the water started coming higher, and higher, resigning to himself to his fate.
And then—nothing.
Lights, and two paramedics, and the view of tree branches above.
It didn't make sense. It doesn't make sense.
You should be dead, Han had said.
And Jeremy doesn't know why he isn't.
He doesn't know why he isn't tired, either. He'd been exhausted when he left the office, so much so that he couldn't even keep his eyes open long enough to focus on the road, and now here he is, in bed, and unable to sleep.
Maybe he had died, after all. How could he tell? He isn't a religious person, hasn't been, since he was younger. And even then, he doesn't know if that counted. His family was holiday Catholic, and he’d barely paid attention at masses they dragged him to.
If there is a god, or any other divine creator of the universe, Jeremy doesn’t know if they'd answer him, or why.
He must fall asleep eventually, because the next thing he knows, he's being startled awake by the sound of a loud boom, and the world crumbling.
And this, this is what he was waiting for—the big earth shattering something. His heart pounds, his dog whines; the walls shake, and somewhere else, a glass shatters. Outside, car alarms blare. Jeremy blinks around, bleary eyed and terrified, the way he was in his capsized car, and, slowly, realizes that this isn't anything special.
It's merely an earthquake.
But as soon as he realizes, the quaking stops. The car alarms go silent. Jeremy sits in bed, with Squirrel trembling beside him, and tries to get his breathing back to normal.
"It's alright," he tells her, and tries to convince himself, too. He brushes his fingers through her fur, presses a kiss to her temple. "It's over, now."
It's odd, though, how fast it was over, isn't it? Even for the fastest of earthquakes, especially for one of that size. Jeremy looks toward his window, and frowns; listens.
But outside, everything sounds still. Outside, every car alarm has gone silent simultaneously.
For a moment, Jeremy hesitates. He's probably just being delusional. Probably just making something out of nothing. Nonsense, his mother always called it. Every time Jeremy told her there was a monster under his bed, every time he told her he could make a career out of exy.
And yet.
And yet his mother isn’t here, and Jeremy can't force himself to dismiss this as easily as she would.
He gets up then, and pulls the blackout curtains aside. And finds—nothing. The sky is dark, the street is quiet. It looks as normal as it always does for—he leans back, and glances at the clock on his bedside table—three in the morning.
Disappointment courses through him. Ridiculously. Childishly. Nonsense, just as his mother always said. Always foolishly hoping to be special, to someone, or something. To be chosen, to belong to something bigger than himself.
And that foolishness catches him once more, as he sweeps his gaze back over the view. Over the empty sky, and the still, neighboring buildings, and down, along the—
"Holy," Jeremy swears, and stops.
Because there, just below his window, in the middle of the street, is a giant crater, stretching across both lanes, and up onto the sidewalks. And in that crater, is a man. A very giant, very naked man, with what looks like giant black wings protruding from his back.
Jeremy scrubs at his eyes, but when he takes his hands away again, the man is still there, naked and winged, with the earth cracked and dented beneath him.
At the sight, Jeremy's heart pounds harder than before. His feet move without permission. Because…because he has to see this through, right? This is what he was waiting for. And even if it isn't, even if it's unrelated, he can't let this go. He can't let this man go.
He'd been alone and hurt just hours ago. How could he leave someone in the same position?
From her place on the bed, Squirrel stares at him, and then, when she realizes he's heading for the door, sits up, alert.
"I'll be right back," he tells her as she moves to follow, and as he slips out, points, and adds, "behave."
He rushes down the stairs as quickly as he can without tripping, holding onto the railing as he goes, and as soon as he reaches the bottom, pushes outside.
It's colder than it was earlier. Cold, especially for California in late May. Goosebumps prick on his skin, and the hair on his arms stands up straight, and too late, Jeremy wonders if he should have brought something to cover the man with.
He swears again, and turns; runs back up the stairs, and a minute or two later, comes barreling back down with a blanket in hand.
But this time, at the door, he stops. Because he can see it now, in front of him, and not just through the glass of his third story window—the crater, the man. Jeremy pinches himself gently on the back of his wrist, trying to convince himself this is real, and after the pain makes him wince softly, collects himself best he can, and pushes back outside.
The crater meets him three steps later.
It's a good two to three foot drop from the sidewalk to the bottom, and Jeremy stumbles a little on the landing. But once he's stable again, he freezes.
He doesn't know what he's expecting. The world to actually fall apart, maybe. The street to start shaking again. For someone to come out, and tell him to stop where he is and get no closer, for someone to come out and start screaming; for someone to take this out of his hands, or tell him to wake up.
But the street stays quiet.
The man stays still.
Jeremy walks carefully over to him, and drops to his knees.
And realizes, in that moment, that this might not be a man after all.
Sure, there are the normal features—two arms, two legs, two hands, two feet; a torso, a head. A mane of long, dark black hair. Two ears, two eyes, a nose, a mouth—but it all comes together in a way Jeremy's only ever seen at the art museums Laila drags him to when she's in town. It all comes together to make a face that looks almost…angelic. And when combined with the giant wings on the man's back, and the man’s overall giant size, Jeremy wonders—nonsensically—how far off that is from the truth.
He reaches out, meaning to shake the the man's—angel's?—shoulder, or feel for a pulse, and instead, finds himself tracing the slope of the man's nose with his finger.
There is a slight bump, in the middle, like it's been broken before, and Jeremy finds that, of all things, to be the strangest part about this.
He pulls his hand back. Gently shakes the man by the shoulder once, twice. "Hey," he says, and then, louder, "hey. Can you hear me?"
The man doesn't respond.
And Jeremy doesn't know what to do, here. He has no phone to call for help, and no one to help him get the man to help. It's not like he can move the man by himself, either. Even if he wasn't unconscious, he's bigger than Jeremy by what looks to be a little more than a foot. He is broader, and bulkier, and when Jeremy takes the massive wings on his back into consideration, probably more than what his PR at the gym can handle.
Jeremy swallows, and lets his gaze roam over those wings. Just now, he'd called the man angelic. Had even wondered if the man was an angel. But angels' wings are white, aren't they? And these wings are—different. Like nothing Jeremy has ever seen before. Black as night, and…mangled. Charred and glistening in spots, too. Almost like—almost like they're bleeding.
But angels don't—Angels shouldn't bleed.
Jeremy stares at them. At the wings, at the pools of crimson, at the torn and ruined feathers scattered within them, and then, after a glance at the man's face to make sure his eyes are still closed, reaches out to touch one.
Just as his fingertips brush it, though, a hand snaps out, and catches his wrist in a bruising grip.
Jeremy gasps, at the touch, at the ice gray eyes now boring into his own.
"No wings," the man warns him, voice hoarse.
"Okay," Jeremy promises him. "No wings."
He waits, heart in his throat, until the man's grip loosens, and then adds, "But we do need to get out of the street."
The man frowns at him. He lifts his head, and glances around, looking as lost as Jeremy feels right now. And then he looks up, toward the sky, and something pained crosses his expression.
Jeremy says, "I'm sorry, but I can't lift you on my own. Can you walk?"
The man's confusion returns. Jeremy shows him the blanket. "I brought something, to cover you."
This makes the man's confusion grow. But it also gets him to move. Slowly, at first. He pushes himself onto his hands, and peels his chest away from the asphalt. Jeremy watches his arms shake, hears the breath leave him in a whoosh, like the movement is taking all the energy he has, and then can't stand it anymore.
He ducks in, and under the man's arm, wrapping it around his shoulders and taking some of his weight. The man's frown deepens. Jeremy says, "I've got you."
The man says nothing. He just wraps his arm a little more securely around Jeremy's shoulders, and lets Jeremy help him up to his feet.
And—oh. Like this—like this, Jeremy can see that the angelicness extends beyond the man’s face, to his body, even with the scars scattered along it—biceps and chest and abs all sculpted, leading to a V-line of muscle that Jeremy desperately wants to trace lower—
Forcibly, Jeremy averts his eyes, and reaches blindly to twist the blanket around the man's hips. He flushes as his hand skims the man's equally as sculpted ass. The man only stares.
"I live on the third floor," Jeremy tells him, and winces, because if this man can barely stand on ground level, there's no way he can make it out of this crater, and up three flights of stairs.
But they'll have to figure something out. It's not like they can stay here forever, and from the looks of it, the man is fading fast.
"I'm sorry," Jeremy repeats. "Do you—?"
The world rushes around him, the way it had when his car flipped and flipped and flipped, and Jeremy cuts himself off in favor of screaming. He clings to the closest thing he can reach, hugging tight to the man's waist as he squeezes his eyes shut.
But the spinning doesn't last forever. It barely lasts any time at all. Faster than Jeremy can blink, the two of them are standing still again.
Standing, no longer in the middle of the street, but rather, in the middle of Jeremy's living room.
Squirrel comes running, barking so loudly Jeremy's sure to get complaints from his neighbors. The man at Jeremy's side lists to the left, leaning hard on Jeremy's shoulders. And Jeremy, stunned beyond belief, goes down beneath him when he collapses to the ground.
This time, Jeremy wakes to banging.
And for a moment, he thinks it was all a very strange dream. The crash, the paramedic, the clear scans; the giant winged man in the street, in his apartment.
But then he tries to get up, and feels the weight on his back, and realizes that everything that happened was nothing short of reality.
The banging continues. Squirrel barks her head off at it, at Jeremy, at the giant winged man he's trapped under. Jeremy shouts, as he fights his way out from under a massive arm, "I'm coming!"
It takes a minute, but eventually, he manages. He staggers to his feet, and stares down at the man on the floor. At the blanket wrapped haphazardly around his waist, at the wings that look no less mangled than they had when he last saw them. And then he looks over at the door, just a few feet away, and wonders how the hell he's supposed to pull this off.
"Who is it?" Jeremy calls, and prays it's someone he can send away.
"Open the damn door, Jeremy!" Comes the response.
Jeremy goes very, very still.
Work. He'd forgotten about work. He'd forgotten about the meeting he and Bryson had scheduled this morning, with the big shot clients who wanted to meet with them together.
"Jeremy!" Bryson calls again. "You son of a bitch. Open. The damn—"
Jeremy opens the door, just enough to show his face, and part of his body. Bryson isn't expecting it, just as Jeremy isn't expecting the near miss of Bryson's fist to his face where his banging was cut short. They both startle back, but Jeremy's appearance makes Bryson's anger return immediately.
"Oh," Bryson says, "so you're not dead."
Jeremy flinches. Han's voice plays back over in his head. Bryson adds, "I was almost hoping you were. Maybe then you'd have an excuse for leaving me out to dry."
Jeremy winces, this time. "I'm sorry," he says, "I meant to call, but I—"
Bryson ignores him. "Jesus," he says as he takes in Jeremy's appearance. "Are you high?"
"What?" Jeremy asks, but he knows what he must look like, wild eyed and still dressed in yesterday's rumpled suit. "No. No, I—"
"I know not being a fuck up is a Herculean task for you, but for the next couple weeks, I need you to refrain," Bryson tells him. He runs his eyes over Jeremy again; sniffs the air, and makes a face. "You need to shower. And put on a clean suit. And you need to do it fast. Our clients insisted on having both of us present, so we now have a lunch reservation at one. And so help you god, if you fuck this up for us, I'll make it the last case you ever see."
He waits, and when Jeremy doesn't move, cocks an eyebrow. "Well? Get to it."
Carefully, Jeremy considers his options. If he tells Bryson he can't come to lunch after all this, he risks Bryson making good on his threat. But it's not like he can open the door and invite him in while he gets ready, either.
So he does the only thing he can: he tells Bryson he'll be ready in fifteen, and moves to close the door.
Bryson stops it.
Jeremy knew he would. He knew it, he anticipated it, and yet, as Bryson's open palm meets the wood, Jeremy can't breathe. "I'm not standing out here while I wait on you."
Jeremy swallows hard. "You can't wait in here."
It's the wrong thing to say. "Oh, no?" Bryson asks. The pressure on the door gets stronger. "Why not? You got something in there to hide?"
He waits a beat, and when Jeremy only stares at him, laughs. "You're kidding me," he says. "I'm at work, busting my ass to keep us in business, to keep our name and reputation, and you're here, doing what? Lounging around with a dick in your mouth?"
Jeremy goes to speak, but Bryson doesn't let him finish. He just puts a rough hand to Jeremy's chest, and shoves him out of the way.
Jeremy stumbles back, and crashes into the couch side table. The corner of it pierces his back hard enough that he knows it must have drawn blood, and in his scramble to catch himself, he sends the books and picture frames on top of it crashing to the floor.
He hears the thud, hears the shatter, but he doesn't register either until, in his haste to go after Bryson, to explain the man-angel in the middle of his living room, he steps on the glass, and feels it pierce through his sock.
Jeremy yelps. Bryson does, too. Jeremy glances up, startled, and there, just a few feet away, the man-angel stands, eyes glowing blue and two fingers pressed to Bryson's forehead.
A second later, Bryson collapses on the floor, motionless. Jeremy feels his heart stop in his chest.
"What did you do?" He shouts, and without even registering the pain in his foot, in his back, lunges for Bryson's side.
He cannot handle losing another brother. He cannot handle killing another brother. He cannot, he will not. Even if that brother is Bryson.
His hands go to Bryson's face, cupping it gently as he calls to him, but nothing works. Not saying his name, not slapping him lightly. Frantically, he presses his ear to Bryson's chest, trying to hear his breaths, his heartbeat, and just when he thinks he might hear something, the man-angel says, annoyance in his tone, "Relax."
Jeremy balks. From his place on the couch, the man-angel merely presses a hand to his own forehead. "And stop screaming. He is fine. He will wake in couple minutes, and when he does, he won't remember anything that happened after coming here. Hopefully, by then, you'll have an excuse for not being wherever he needed you to be. And hopefully, by then, he’ll have learned to keep his hands off you.”
Jeremy would be concerned by the warning in his voice, but the man-angel sounds out of breath again, like he had in the street. Looks like he collapsed, like he had after they teleported up to Jeremy's apartment, so Jeremy knows that whatever happens when Bryson wakes, the man-angel making good on his threat won’t be part of it.
"Who are you?" Jeremy asks him. "What are you?"
Immediately, his face heats. He wonders if that's rude of him, to ask. But then again, it's probably ruder to knock out the brother of the stranger who took you in, so Jeremy considers them even.
The man-angel says, "You're bleeding."
It's not at all what Jeremy's expecting. He glances down toward his foot, his blood-soaked sock, and when he looks back up again, there is the man's hand, outstretched toward him the way it was to Bryson.
But Jeremy doesn't flinch away. Nor does he look away. He just holds the man's gaze, noting that the blue of his eyes shines dimmer this time around, and then watches, when his eyes go back to normal, as the man-angel heaves an inhale, and collapses, unconscious, onto the arm of the couch.
The next twenty minutes are a blur.
Squirrel whines and barks at the man-angel, at Bryson, at Jeremy, torn on who to deal with first, and Jeremy realizes, as he moves to grab her collar and lead her toward his room, that his foot no longer hurts.
He hops around for a second or two, blinking in disbelief at the unstained, white fabric, and then decides that he can't waste any more time on being baffled. Right now, he has two unconscious men, and a huge mess to clean up. He can freak out later.
He puts Squirrel in his room, and showers, gets dressed. Comes back out into the living room, and finds it the same way he left it.
But if the man-angel is to be trusted, Bryson should be up in a couple minutes. Which means Jeremy is about to be out of time.
Quickly, quietly, he steps over to the man-angel, and feels for a pulse, for breathing. When he feels both, he turns toward the kitchen table, relieved, and heads for his notepad.
Going to work, he writes. Please do not kill my dog. Please also do not die. Please also stay in the apartment until I get back. There is a first aid kit in the bathroom, if you want to take care of your wings, and leftover Chinese in the fridge, if you get hungry.
I should be home around six.
Too late, he wonders if the man will understand any of this. But then Bryson groans, and Jeremy turns, startled.
He puts the note on the coffee table so that the man will be able to see it if/when he wakes. And then he bends, and hauls Bryson up by the armpits.
It's not that easy—Bryson is bigger than him, and bulkier—but Jeremy manages, and by the time Bryson is on his feet, and blinking around, dazedly, Jeremy is already pulling him out the door, with a quip of, "Don't want to keep them waiting!"
For the entirety of lunch, Jeremy feels like he's going to be sick.
It's not a great thing to be feeling at a restaurant, or while he's actively trying to shovel down his chicken caesar salad, and talk to his clients at the same time, but it's not like he can stop it, or this, or anything.
He listens as Bryson takes the lead, and for the first time, doesn't have any qualms about it. He nods along when he's supposed to, and chimes in when he needs to, and by the end, everyone is happy. Even Bryson, though he makes sure to tell Jeremy on the ride home that if he ever pulls something like this again, there will be hell to pay.
Jeremy smiles through that warning, and when he gets out at his apartment, slams the passenger door shut. Bryson's hardly impressed by that act of insolence, but he doesn't retaliate, so Jeremy takes the win for what it is.
And then he turns, and takes the stairs two at a time up to the next fight.
Inside, Jeremy finds the man-angel on his feet, and studying the pictures around the room with obvious interest. And he looks—better. Rejuvenated. Alert. Stable enough to be moving around on his own, which Jeremy takes as a good sign.
He turns at the sound of Jeremy's arrival, piercing gray eyes landing heavily on Jeremy's, and Jeremy lets own his eyes rove over him in turn.
"Hi again," he says as he shuts the door behind himself. "Good to see you up. You remember me?"
The man cocks an eyebrow at him, like he’s unamused and unimpressed by the question.
"You are Jeremy Knox," he says, and Jeremy goes still as stone. He has no recollection of telling this man-angel his name. He also has no recollection of this man-angel having a devastating French accent. But maybe he’d missed it in all the commotion, and maybe the man-angel had gone through Jeremy's things, while he was home alone. Maybe he'd gone through his mail, or his— "You prayed to me."
Jeremy has no recollection of that either.
He remembers praying, during the accident, but it hadn't been to anyone specific. More a vague string of pleasepleaseplease that he hadn't addressed properly. That he hadn't expected to be answered.
And yet.
And yet.
"I prayed to you," Jeremy repeats, slowly. Maybe his disbelief bleeds through, though, because the man-angel only asks, "Were you expecting someone else?"
"I wasn't expecting anyone," Jeremy confesses.
The man-angel tilts his head. "Why?" he asks, and steps closer, searching Jeremy's face with a stare that feels prying. "You don't think you deserve to be saved?"
Getting kicked in the chest would hurt less. Jeremy presses a hand to it, trying to soothe the ache there, and asks, again, "Who are you?"
"I am Jean Moreau," the man tells him. "And I—am an angel."
Jeremy's eyebrows raise. His eyes dart to Jean's wings, his sculpted, naked form. It makes sense, he tells himself as his breathing picks up, as his hands shake. And he's been questioning this from the start. Confirmation shouldn't make a difference.
"Didn't know angels could be French," he says, as calmly as he can manage, and when Jean's expression sours, unamused again by the observation, flushes harder. "But aren't you missing a—" he draws a circle in the air beside his head "—halo?"
"Those have been outdated for years," Jean tells him with a scoff, and Jeremy suddenly feels dizzy.
"Oh my god," he says. "You're serious."
Jean frowns. "Why wouldn't I be?"
Because this doesn't make any sense, Jeremy thinks, and can't say. Because I've prayed before, and nothing changed. No one came. Because Noah—
"Why are you here?" Jeremy asks again.
"You called for me," Jean says, like it's as simple as that, like the idea of not being here is baffling, and Jeremy—can't do this right now.
He turns around, and closes his eyes. Takes a breath, two. "I have to take Squirrel out," he tells Jean. "Just—Sorry, just give me five, okay? And then we can continue—this."
Jean doesn't protest, but then again, Jeremy doesn't give him a chance to. He just heads for his room, and opens the door. Immediately, Squirrel is there, barking and whining and telling Jeremy exactly what she thinks of the position he left her in all day, and Jeremy squats to apologize properly.
"I know," he tells her as he scratches behind her ears, her head, her back, "I know. Daddy's sorry. But daddy had to take care of something."
He sniffs, follows a whiff of something gross to the corner of the room, and realizes, for the first time since he woke up, that he hadn't taken Squirrel out since last night. He sighs. "Seems like daddy wasn't the only one."
Squirrel whines again. Jeremy shushes her. "Not your fault, sweetheart."
He cleans up, grabs her leash, clips it to her collar, and doesn't look at Jean once on the way out. Jeremy tries not to think of him, either, but it's difficult. Especially when he’ll have to go back inside to him as soon as Squirrel is done with her business.
Jeremy tries to be rational. Tries to give the man—angel, he reminds himself—the benefit of the doubt.
Jean isn't god. Or at least, Jeremy doesn't think he is, anyway. And he isn't who Jeremy was praying to, not now, or any of the times he'd prayed in the past. In fact, before he crashed into Jeremy's life, Jeremy hadn't even known Jean existed.
Is it fair, to be mad at him for not knowing Jeremy existed either?
Jeremy takes a deep breath, and flips his keys around in his hand. It's a bad idea, he warns himself, even as he starts moving in the direction of his car, but by the time he's tugging the pack of clove cigarettes out of his glovebox, and lighting up, he hardly cares.
Because it helps, some. Takes the edge off, the tension out of his shoulders, so that when he's letting himself and Squirrel back into the apartment, he feels far more clear headed than he had twenty minutes ago.
"I'm sorry," he tells Jean as he shuts the door. "I'm being unbearably rude. How are you feeling? Are you hungry? Thirsty? Did you eat or drink anything?" He pauses, asks, "Do angels eat or drink?"
Jean ignores him. "I upset you," he starts, and then adds, making a face, "You smoke."
"Now I've upset you," Jeremy tells him. He tilts his head, and studies Jean a little better, the way Jean studied him. His unreadable expression, the slight downturn of his mouth. "You didn't answer my questions."
"Angels, no," Jean says, bypassing the first question entirely. "Fallen angels, I don't know." He leans away from Squirrel as she comes over to sniff him. "Control your dog."
"Squirrel," Jeremy calls, and Squirrel huffs at him, before coming, obediently, to his side.
Jean stares at him, at the dog. "That thing is not a squirrel."
"That's her name," Jeremy says, amused. And then feels himself sober immediately when he remembers what else Jean said. "What did you mean by fallen angel?"
"I mean that I am an angel," Jean says. "And that I fell. Quite noticeably. You were there. So was the gaping hole in the middle of your street."
Speaking of—Jeremy hadn't seen that on the way out. Not with Squirrel, and certainly not with Bryson.
Frowning, he turns toward it, toward the window in his bedroom that looks down on it, but before he can head in that direction, Jean's voice calls him back. "I took care of it."
"You also passed out," Jeremy notes. "Twice."
He remembers the way Jean's eyes glowed, remembers the way it seemed like whatever he'd done drained the energy right out of him. And then he considers: Jean's appearance, his words.
"When you say you fell," Jeremy says, "you mean, physically? Or from grace?”
"Yes," Jean says, and looks away.
But Jeremy knows there's more. It's in Jean's avoidance, the tenseness in his shoulders; the grimace on his mouth. Jeremy stares at him, waiting, and when Jean says nothing, demands, "Look at me."
Jean does.
"In the matter of twenty-four hours, you've turned my life upside down," Jeremy tells him. "I need a little more as to why. Beyond me praying to you," he adds when Jean opens his mouth. "I've prayed before, and a lot harder, and never have I ever had an angel come crashing down from the sky as a result."
Jean goes silent, and for a moment, Jeremy thinks he's refusing to answer. But then Jean grimaces, and says, "I am not—like the other angels. I'm new to this. Their life. Their rules."
Jeremy stares at him. "What's new?"
"Three hundred and twenty nine years," Jean says, and as Jeremy's jaw hits the floor, continues, "Most angels have been around since the beginning, but there are some of us who were human first. I have always been—warned, that this would be a problem. That I was too close to the people I was watching over. Angels aren't supposed to get involved with humans, unless they're on His orders."
Jeremy prompts, "But you did."
"Over and over," Jean tells him. "Every time someone prayed, every time I heard them, I went. Regardless of who it was. If they needed me, I showed up. And after the last time, I was—advised, that this would happen. That if I stepped out of line again, that if I didn't learn my place, I'd be cast out."
Jeremy’s heart pounds in his chest, his ears. "You came for me anyway,” he asks, “even though this was the risk?"
"I couldn't ignore you," Jean says, earnestly, and Jeremy feels the earth come to a halt. "I know what it's like to beg for help, and go unheard."
It takes a moment for the world to spin again, and when it does, it takes a moment longer to put everything Jean’s saying together. “Jean,” Jeremy asks, slowly, “how exactly did you become an angel?"
Something dark crosses Jean's face. His hand goes up to his neck; his nails dig into his skin, and draw blood. "I do not want to talk about this anymore."
"Okay," Jeremy says, alarmed, and before he can stop himself, reaches up and tugs at Jean's hand in silent demand for him to stop hurting himself. "I'm sorry I upset you. I won't ask about it again."
It takes another moment, but eventually, Jean gives in, and drops his hand. Satisfied and relieved, Jeremy drops his own grip, and steps back, giving Jean space.
And he means to leave it there. Really, he does. But he has to think ahead, here. Even if the hole in the street is gone, the angel in his apartment is not. "But I do have to ask: what does this mean for you?"
Jean goes quiet again, and Jeremy wonders if he even knows. If he has anywhere to go, or if he hadn't thought about this yet.
Judging by the way he freezes, and his voice turns to gravel, Jeremy has the terrible feeling that he hasn't.
"I suppose I wait for Heaven to come and collect me, or until I heal enough to go back to it myself,” Jean tells him. "To face the consequences."
Jeremy stares at him, uncomprehending. "Consequences of—caring too much?"
"It goes against His plan," Jean explains. "Implies that we believe Him to be fallible."
"Well," Jeremy says. "Do you?"
Jean doesn't answer, and Jeremy concedes the point. "Okay," he says, and then, because it’s the least he can do, “You can stay here, in the meantime, if you need somewhere to go."
Jean looks to him again, frowning, and Jeremy adds, "But you'll have to take care of those. I won't have you dying on me because they get infected. And I know you said you didn't want me touching them, but if you need help, I can—"
"No," Jean tells him. "I will take care of it."
Jean does not take care of it.
Not with a wave of his hand, not with a press of his fingers. Jeremy stares at him, waiting, and when Jean makes no move to do so, wonders if he can. Guilt is a gnawing mouse in Jeremy's chest, and as he ushers Jean into the bathroom to collect the first aid kit instead, he can only think about how Jean healed his wound without question.
He spends the next ten minutes explaining what each item in the kit is for, and how to use them, and what Jean will need for each type of injury. Jean nods along, but he looks no less confused when Jeremy leaves him to it, and Jeremy frets over that just as much as what the hell he plans to feed them both.
Would Jean judge him, if he didn't cook? Would he eat anything, regardless? Could he?
Jeremy drums his knuckles on the wall by the landline, considering, and then dials out anyway.
Twenty minutes later, there's a knock on the door. Jeremy answers it, hands the pizza delivery boy the cash, and by the time he's closing the door behind himself, Jean is emerging from the bathroom.
"Hey," Jeremy says. "All good?"
Jean nods once, but the stiffness to the motion makes Jeremy wonder how truthful he's being. He doesn't push, though. He just takes the win for what it is, and then holds up the pizza. "Hungry?"
Jean curls his lip at him. At the box. "No," he says. "The smell of that killed any appetite I might have had."
Jeremy frowns at him. "Three hundred and twenty nine years old, and you’ve never had pizza?"
“I am three hundred fifty three,” Jean corrects him. “And I did not live this long to be killed off by whatever abomination is in that box.”
Jeremy shrugs, "Well, it's here if you want to try it. Or if you get hungry at any point."
He puts the box on the counter, and pops it open; turns over his shoulder, and laughs a little at the face Jean makes at the sight. "I can try to cook you something, if you prefer," he offers. "But I have to warn you—I'm not very good, so I can't promise it'll be edible. Pizza might actually be the safer bet here."
Jean says nothing. Just grimaces as Jeremy picks up a slice and guides the tip into his mouth with his tongue. And then he blushes, and looks away. Jeremy blushes, too.
He puts the pizza on a plate, and swallows thickly.
He's not—used to this. Hosting people. Having people over, in his space. At least, not when those people aren't Cat or Laila, or sex isn't on the table. And even then, usually that’s at the other person’s apartment.
"Um," he starts, and doesn't know where to go from there. At his feet, Squirrel readjusts herself to get into a better begging position. In front of him, Jean stands, still as stone, waiting. Watching. Jeremy trails his eyes over him again, from where his wings are smushed against the ceiling, to where that blanket is still wrapped around his hips, and cuts his gaze away with yet another blush when he realizes he’s been staring too long.
"We'll have to get you some proper clothes," he tells Jean. "I can go tomorrow to pick you up some things. But we're probably going to have to get creative with your wings."
Again, Jean says nothing. Jeremy clears his throat, and adds, "Unless this is like. More comfortable for you. I don't know what angels—"
"We do not walk around naked," Jean interrupts, "if that's what you are asking."
"Oh," Jeremy says, and thinks, shame.
Jean cocks an eyebrow, and for a second, Jeremy wonders if the angel can read minds. He flushes deeper at the possibility, but Jean doesn't give any clarity on the matter.
"Things are different," he explains, "in Heaven. Our forms, for example. We do not have flesh and bone in the way of mortals. We are mutidimentional. Celestial. Unsafe for human perception, and unfit for human comprehension. Up there I am… approximately the size of your Wilshire building."
Jeremy flinches. He doesn't mean to. And he certainly doesn't mean for Jean to see it. But Jean does. Jeremy sees the sharpening of his gaze, and rushes to cover the slip up.
"And down here, you're…approximately the size of my ceiling."
"Well," Jean says, "we cannot all be five feet tall."
Jeremy scowls. "First of all, I'm five-ten. And second of all, the issue isn't my height. I am not made in miniature. It's a problem of scale, standing next to you."
"Defensive," Jean says with a dismissive flick of his fingers.
"I have nothing to be defensive about," Jeremy shoots back, and as Jean's gaze snaps back to him, hurries to change the topic again before either of them can linger on that double entendre.
He grabs his plate, and slips around Jean, clearing his throat and willing his face to cool down as he heads for the living room. "Alright," he says. "So you've never had pizza. But have you ever seen a movie?"
Jeremy takes Jean's silence to mean no.
He gestures to the cabinets below the tv, a little pleased to be the one to introduce Jean to them. "Alright. Well, I'd be honored to show you your first."
He beckons Jean toward him when Jean doesn't move on his own, and Jean steps over, if a little reluctantly. Jeremy watches him scan the array of DVDs and VHS tapes with distrust, and then urges him to get even closer. Jean flicks him a weary look, but does as asked anyway. Jeremy goes to take up a seat on the couch.
Squirrel comes to sit beside him, waiting for Jeremy to throw her the crust like usual, but Jeremy's attention is far from the pizza.
He hasn't been able to study Jean from this angle just yet, and the opportunity is not one he's willing to waste. His eyes trail the shape of Jean's wings, over the thick arches and the gentle slopes, and down to the individual rows of feathers. He remembers his thought from last night, remembers, similarly, all the media and paintings that inspired it, but Jean's revelation has put a new light on the whole thing.
Jeremy imagines what Jean's wings might've looked like in Heaven. He imagines what might have happened to turn them from cloud white to pitch black. He imagines the pain Jean must've been in, the long drop from Up There to Down Here, and the painful landing to finish it off.
He imagines and imagines and imagines, and when Jean turns toward him, VHS tape in hand, forcibly cuts off that line of thinking. He picks a piece of crust off his pizza, and tosses it Squirrel's way. Asks Jean, as nonchalantly as possible, "Find one?"
Jean doesn't answer. Just looks from the tape to Jeremy and back again. Jeremy looks at it too, and though he can't read the fine print on the back from this far, he'd recognize the casing of his grandmother's movies anywhere.
"That's Angelica Laslo," he tells Jean. "Famous movie star, and my grandmother. Pretty cool, right? I've got a few other movies of hers in there, and a few props in my room. I can show you, if you—"
"You have her smile," Jean interrupts.
Jeremy feels oddly like he's been kicked in the chest again. He presses a hand there, almost subconsciously, and tries to smother out the ache. He offers Jean a wry smile. "And her cheekbones, if Laila is to believe."
At the unfamiliar name, Jean looks to him for clarification, and Jeremy abandons his chest to grab the now fixed picture frame he knocked over earlier. He flips it around so Jean can see—him, Cat, and Laila at championships. "The one on the left."
He expects Jean to comment on the picture. On the way Jeremy is the only one out of uniform, the way his arm and leg are hidden away in their casts. But instead, all Jean says is, "And Laila is…your girlfriend?"
"Oh," Jeremy says, "no. No, she's—she's like a sister to me."
And then, because he doesn't know if he'll get a chance like this again, adds, "She's not really…my type, anyway."
Jean stares at him, and Jeremy can tell by the look his face that he thinks Jeremy's out of his mind. Jeremy laughs a little, even as his fingers dig a little harder into the plate he's holding.
"She's beautiful," Jeremy says, "but I just don't…swing that way." He waits a beat, seeing if Jean will pick up hat he's putting down, and as understanding dawns across Jean's face, adds, "Does that bother you?"
"I am utterly indifferent to sexual orientation," Jean tells him, and hands the photo back over. "And who you climb into bed with is none of my business.”
Relief loosens Jeremy's shoulders. He puts the photo back where it belongs as Jean gets to his feet, and when Jean hands over the movie, hands his pizza over to Jean to guard while he sets up.
But even as the previews start playing, and Squirrel takes Jeremy's crust over to her bed, Jeremy's eyes stay on Jean.