Keep Your Friends Close... (iroleplayyaoi & woegman)

Started by woegman, June 25, 2010, 09:40:28 AM

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woegman

It was a beautiful spring afternoon.  The sun shone warmly, thought a light breeze kept the temperature mild and comfortable.  Oraxael smiled - he loved this time of year, this temperature, even if it was far and away from his normal home environment.  The thought of the lower levels of hell were enough to remind him, faintly, of the smell of brimstone and the wretched heat, and for a moment, his smile faltered.  It returned quickly as he turned the corner, and saw the small cafe that was his destination, Zen's Tea and Coffee.  A faded yin-yang symbol adorned the sign, and he chuckled softly to himself.  How apropos.

He gave a quick glance in a window as he passed, smoothing his immaculate suit jacket and taking a moment to tousle his hair and admire his appearance.  At 6'4", he was tall for a mortal, though his skin color, red, horns and tail removed any doubt that he was one.  At least, they would to another Eternal.  Mortals couldn't see his true self - depending on their sexual preference, they would see him as either a mortal male, a perfect Adonis (he had actual *been* Adonis, at one point), or a mortal female, tall and stunning, the very image of beauty, a regular Helen of Troy (he had not, however, been Helen.  She had been a coworker of his).  Satisfied, he walked into the shop, and after exchanging a few flirtations with the hostess, found himself seated at an outside table, beneath the shade of a flowering tree.  He inhaled deeply of its aroma - fig?  That also made him smile. 

The waiter came over, and the look of lust in his eyes was palpable.  Oraxael grinned and batted his eyelashes - the work of a lust demon is never done.  The waiter asked politely if she would be dining alone, and Oraxael feigned the slightest pout.

"No," he said in his silky baritone (the waiter heard a soft, feminine purr), "I'm expecting a guest today...but maybe later...for now, a pot of tea, Earl Grey, with cream and sugar?" 

He winked, and the waiter blushed before hurrying away.  Oraxael chuckled again, and leaned back in his chair.  He glanced down at his watch, noting the time.  Bloody angels.  Always late.

iroleplayyaoi

After watching over his human, the Guardian Angel wasn't paying attention to the time. Azriel nearly forgot about his usual meeting with Oraxael and it wasn't until he finally glanced over at the clock that he realized that he was late.

The handsome blonde angel took his eyes off of the human and ran as fast as his legs could carry him over to the cafe where Oraxel would be meeting him. He wore his usual white suit and told out like a sore thumb, but the angel was easy to his attire and wasn't about to change it either.

He spotted Oraxel and made his way over to the demon, frowning as he took his feet. "Forgive me for being late...again. I was watching John. My duties always comes first."

[ I'm so sorry that this post is SO horrible/short. I thought I caught writer's block or something. Let's hope it won't last too long.  :-) ]

woegman

((No worries! :) I am on the road - not driving - but will respond more tonight!))

iroleplayyaoi

[  :-) Alrighty and it's great to hear you're not texting and driving. ]

woegman

"Of course you were," Oraxael said with an easy smile, as he extended his hand in greeting, "Ever the slave to duty, my dear friend Azriel."

Oraxael shook the angel's hand warmly, then gestured to a chair at the table as he took his own.  The waiter, seeing that his guest had arrived, quickly came over with a pot of hot tea, a small pitcher of cream, a bowl of sugar, and two cups and saucers.  Oraxael bowed his head slightly in gratitude, and began to fix his own tea.

"I hope you don't mind that I ordered a pot to get us started," he spoke as he stirred his tea, "I assumed your tardiness, and figured this would save a little time."

Oraxael raised his cup and saucer to his nose, and inhaled deeply, enjoying the fragrance of his tea before taking a tentative sip.

"So, tell me Azriel...have you tired yet of being a slave to these mortals?"

iroleplayyaoi

Azriel placed his hand in Oraxael and gently shook the demon's hand. It was hard to ignore that comment, but he was doing a pretty good job at forgetting about it. He never lied the thought of being a "slave" to his job and often thought of it as more than a job. To Azriel, it was more of helping the humans and lending a helpful hand than some job or even a "slave" duty.

He sat down on the chair and simply nodded at this, "that's fine. I wasn't watching the clock. You know me by now." Azriel thanked the waiter and waited until Oraxael finished pouring his tea before he grabbed the tea pot and poured the tea into his cup. He set the tea pot back on the table and took a sip of his tea.

This wasn't a question he expected, he probably should have but he really didn't see it coming. Azriel's eyes narrowed and he avoided eye contact with Oraxael, staring down into his bitter tasting tea. "I'm not a slave. I don't have to be guarding them, I can take to another job. God wants me as a guardian angel and I was made for the job. I can take another job at any time though, but since I was made for this reason, I don't want to change it." With that said, he took another sip of his tea, the cup clanked as it hit the saucer.

"What about you? Do you ever get tired of damning souls?"

woegman

Oraxael chuckled lightly at his companion's discomfort.

"Not a slave?  Strange...from what I remember of heavenly service, one had little choice but to do and follow, lest one be cast down to wallow, wingless, amongst the mortal plane.  Granted, it's been a while, so I could be misremembering..."

He took a nice, long sip of his tea as Azriel filled his cup, and then smiled softly.

"I tease, well, mostly," Oraxael demured, "Though I do imagine how crazy it would drive me, trying to protect these...things...from themselves. As for damning souls..."

He paused, and caught the waiter looking jealously at Azriel, and again, Oraxael chuckled.

"I wouldn't have a clue.  They do well enough damning themselves on their own."

((Sorry for the delay in response, just got back in last night and was too tired to write!))

iroleplayyaoi

It was true, but Azriel would refuse to admit it. He enjoyed his guard of looking after the humans and stepping in when they were in need of an angelic hand. The angel never thought he was being a slave or what might happen if he suddenly became bored of this job. The very job he'd been created for. Azriel figured that if he ever wanted to "trade" jobs, he could always do so without a fuss, which was why he became annoyed and rather angry at Oraxael.

"You...you are." It was hard for him to lie and there were clear signs of it too. Azriel avoided eye contact and he bit his bottom lip in thought of what to say next. Nothing came to mind. He felt extremely embarrassed about it and felt like he was letting down God just with not able to tell the truth or came up with anything in their defense.

He leaned back in his chair and finally made eye contact with Oraxael. "Only when they go down the wrong path. My human has yet to do anything wrong." Not all humans were like that and Azriel wanted to make that clear to him.

The angel looked down at his watch and then back at Oraxael. "I don't have much more time here. I have to return to my human soon." These visits with Oraxael were short, but he was far too busy tending to his job to send much time talking with the demon.

woegman

Oraxael frowned slightly, sensing that he had overstepped his companion's boundaries.  It had not been his intent - well, not fully.  Yes, he often felt his angel friend naive for his absolute dedication to his service, but at other times, he was shamed to admit that he admired the angel for his purity of thought.  So many years spent surrounded by corruption had robbed the demon of any purity that remained to him...or at least, it felt that way.  He could not remember the last time he had experienced a truly pure thought or feeling.  It left him strangely empty.

"Must you leave?  Surely your mortal will manage on his own for a little while.  Please, at least finish your tea?"  Oraxael leaned forward, his eyes pleading for a bit more time.

iroleplayyaoi

Azriel nodded at this and poured another cup of tea. "I wish we could enjoy our talk more often, but things have rather busy...again." He was starting to calm down and feeling the anger start to fade away. He couldn't stand the thought of losing Oraxael's friendship, but the demon often pushed his buttons from time to time and it annoyed him.

The friendship was rather strange, but it was nice at the same time. Azriel wasn't sure how long it would last until one of them had to betray the other.

He took another sip of his tea and tried to think of something else to talk about. "The weather has been nice." Not the best way to start a new topic, but it was the only thing that he could think of.

woegman

"Indeed, it has," Oraxael acknowledged, "One of those things your side does manage to get right.  Hell is dreadfully uncreative, weatherly speaking."

The waiter returned, and Oraxael ordered scones, buttered, with a bit of brown sugar.  He waited for Azriel to place his own order, then returned to the conversation.  He furrowed his brow for a moment, trying to think of how to phrase what was going through his mind.  There was one subject, a particularly heavy one, and he needed to feel the angel out before he could reveal it.

"Azriel, would you call us friends?  I mean, we've been meeting for tea and chatting now for what, two millenia? Three?  I remember there was that time in Rome..."

Oraxael smiled at the memory of it - Rome had been his favorite assignment.  Rare were the empires as lusty as she; his job there had almost been too easy.

iroleplayyaoi

The comment could've been taken the wrong way and it nearly did, but Azriel rather not get ito a fight about this. It was best to just leave it be and hope that their next topic change wouldn't clash.

As the waiter returned and took Oraxel's order, Azriel thought about what he would be interested in having. Nothing really sounded good to him, so he deny anything else and simply drank his tea.

He finished up his tea and sat it back down on the table. "I...I don't remember Rome." That or he didn't want to remember what happened.

Azriel cleared his throat. "Well...I think of yo as a friend. Probably an odd thing to say, but yes...I would call us friends. Why?" There had to be some reason Oraxael was asking this in the first place.

woegman

Oraxael's smile faded almost immediately.  He studied Azriel for a moment, noting the softness of the angel's features, the almost innate sense of goodness and innocence that radiated from his form...and seeing it, Oraxael desired it.  Almost unconsciously, he leaned across the table, placing a hand gentle on the angel's cheek, and then kissed him, softly, unexpectedly.  When he pulled back, he was surprised to find that tears had formed in his eyes, which he blinked away hurriedly.

"I...I'm sorry," he stammered, uncharacteristically startled by his own actions.  Had this friendship grown to mean so much to him?  His heart hammered at his chest, and he quickly averted his gaze.  What had he been thinking?  He knew the answer almost immediately.  He knew that what he had to tell Azriel would likely end things between them, forever.  The pain of that thought must have driven...

He tried to catch his breath, and he feared to see what Azriel was going to do next. 

iroleplayyaoi

The angel was rather confused when Oraxael leaned over the table. "Oraxael? What a--" his eyes went wide at the sudden kiss and that was the last thing that he'd been expected from the demon. When Oraxael pulled away, his hand went up to his mouth, his cheeks turned a deep red and his mind began to race.

How could he do something so horrible!? He tainted him!

Azriel stood to his feet and narrowed his eyes at him. It took courage for him to speak to him now, but he had to. He moved his hand from his mouth. "You...you should be. I'm no longer pure because of you...I should've known a demon would try to tempt me. After all this time I never though of you like that and now I have to face my God and explain to him why I am no longer the pure angel I once was...your simple kiss...it..." his hand at his side turned into a fist, "it ruined me!"

woegman

"I know," Oraxael whispered softly, and now the tears flowed freely from his eyes.  It had been so long since his heart had truly felt anything, that the sudden, aching pain within it threatened to overwhelm him.  Was this the fault of the kiss? Had the angel's goodness somehow purified a part of him, just as his lips had tainted the angel?

"My orders...my objective..." Oraxael swallowed, then looked the angel in the eyes, "They said I had grown too complacent, tempting and tainting mortals.  Asmodeus said it was time to try my hand at...other targets."

A sad smile crossed his lips.

"I suppose I am as much a slave as you ever were, old friend."

iroleplayyaoi

The anger in Azriel’s eyes began to soften to see tears in Oraxael's eyes. A demon crying at all was a surprising thing to him and he couldn't keep from feeling rather sorry for him. Perhaps that kiss did something for the demon, just as it had for himself. He was still filled with rage, but at the same time...his anger softened to see the true feelings behide Oraxael's words.

He stated down at his empty cup, wondering if this was a setup from the very start...was this friendship nothing more than a setup or was his friend forced into it?

"I...I see. Tell me..." he stared back at the demon again with slightly softer eyes than before, "how long were you planning this?" There was another thing that Azriel wanted to know. "And...why are you crying?" That could just be another trick, but there was something different in Oraxael's eyes...not something he would see in a demon that was able to taint an angel.

woegman

"I never...never planned this," Oraxael admitted uncomfortably.  It was a hard thing to do - as talented as he was at lust, he was also brilliant at pride, and it stung his pride to admit that he had been forced into this situation.  He wiped away the tears, ashamed of them, then continued.

"I suppose I owe you the truth...our friendship...what it was anyway, deserves that much," he started, then paused briefly, gathering his thoughts.

"The truth is...you were not initially my assignment.  The target I was first supposed to tempt...was your mortal, John.  When I realized who he was, and who was watching him...I...I refused.  I lied...I told Asmodeus that John was too easy a target, that he was beneath my skills, that he was not worthy of my efforts because he would be too easy to sway."

Oraxael paused again.  Hearing himself speak the words made him realize how ludicrous he must sound.  A demon, refusing to tempt a mortal?  Ridiculous.  Even he didn't understand why exactly he had done so, save for the one small fact that John had Azriel as a partner.  Azriel, who was, perhaps, Oraxael's only friend.

"Asmodeus smiled at me then.  To be truthful, I think he knew what would happen and set me up for it.  He said that normally, he would compel a lesser demon to his will; he could do that, and I would be helpless to resist.  I would have been forced to use all my guile to seduce John.  But instead, Asmodeus said he agreed with me, that my talents had grown beyond mortal temptations.  And then...then he compelled me with a different target..." Oraxael gulped back his emotions as best he could, before continuing, " And that target was you.  As for why I am crying?  By the light of the Morning Star, I wish I could answer that.  I haven't cried real tears since...faith, since the fall, I think."

iroleplayyaoi

Taking back his seat, Azriel listened carefully to what the demon had to say about this. He felt foolish to have thought of this as a friendship, foolish to have thought that Oraxael wasn’t planning anything and foolish that he fell right into the palm of his hands.

How could he ever explain to God that he wasn’t trying to betray him and was caught completely off guard. Would he still be loved even for being tainted by a demon’s…a male demon’s kiss? It was hard for him to think about. He no longer held that angelic pure nature and if God could look past it, could other angels?

He listened to him explain and frowned, trying to find something in Oraxael’s eyes that would tell him it was all a lie too, but nothing…just tears. Azriel’s heartstrings pulled to hear the horror of what he must have went through. It was odd that a demon would refuse and probably enjoy butting heads with an angel while trying to seduce their human. Their friendship had been going on for a long time and he actually believed that Oraxael would refuse.

After he finished, Azriel nodded and then stood to his feet again. He held up his hand and a golden light suddenly appeared, forming into an angelic sword. No humans would even be able to see it, only those immortal could see the blade. “I see. There is only one way to gain forgiveness.” Killing Oraxael would be too painful and he wasn’t the one that went through with this in the first place. It was Asmodeus. “Where is he, Oraxael? This has to be the only way to return into God’s arms. I will kill Asmodeus.”

woegman

Oraxael paled.

"You aren't strong enough!" he protested, rising from his chair, "Asmodeus is a Lord amongst the damned - he is near as powerful as Lucifer himself.  Doing this will mean death, permanent, for any angel that attempts it."

He looked then at Azriel, and saw the faith in the angel's eyes, the pureness of his resolution.  He bit his lower lip, and suddenly, knew what he must do.

"Yes...Asmodeus is too strong for any one angel to tackle...but, perhaps..." he paused, then smiled darkly, "Perhaps one angel and one demon, working together...?"

His hands flashed with hellish fire, and in his hand, a razor-tined trident appeared to immortal eyes.

"If this is how it must be, let me stand with you, Azriel."

iroleplayyaoi

“I would die for the embarrassment he put us both through. I can take care of myself. I am the highest ranking guardian angel. I know how to protect myself.” Azriel wouldn’t let this go and there was just one way to settle this entire problem.

He was taken back by this and a light smile spread across his features. “I would like that. Together we can defeat him.” Why should he be so willing to trust him after that stunt. It wasn’t until Azriel thought more about it that the smile faded and he shook his head. “No…he could control you again and I couldn’t attack you. I would…I just couldn’t. I think it’s best that you just stay here.”

“Now…just where is he?”

woegman

"You cannot reach him alone, Azriel," Oraxael warned, "He resides on the eight level of Hell, a place no being of purity can penetrate without escort, save perhaps, the big guy himself.  You are right, however...he *could* just compel me to turn, and I would be helpless to resist.  However..."

Oraxael paused, considering what he was about to say.  Did this angel really mean so much to him?  Why?  What was it that made him need Azriel, that made him yearn for his friendship, his acceptance, his...love?  Was it worth what he was considering?

"...there may be a way," Oraxael continued, softly, "If I were to escort you, as a prisoner, we could both reach Asmodeus unharmed.  Once there, we turn on him and attack...and if he compels me..."

Oraxael paused once more.  What he was about to do could not be undone, could not be forgotten.  It was an act nearly unthinkable...and yet.  There was but a single way to truly end the life of a demon such as he.  It was ancient magic, designed by Heaven itself, to keep the immortals from going too stray.  Each had a secret that only he or she knew, a secret of destruction.  He gazed at Azriel a moment, then made up his mind.

"My true name is Mit'tuannin, and once I was an angel of song.  Spoken from the lips of an angel, it would undo my existence, forever.  If he compels me...speak my name, and you will be free to strike him down."

iroleplayyaoi

That would be difficult. Hell was the last place that Azriel wanted to go, but it was also the only place to find Asmodeus. The more that he thought about it, the more he was coming to realize just how much Oraxael would be in to do something like this. He went against God and fell, where would Oraxael go if he falls from being a demon? Oraxael…does he care this much about me? It was odd, but this friendship had been strange from the get-go.

He thought  this over and nodded. “That would be the only way to get there.” It would be embarrassing on Azriel’s part, but this was the only way and then…Oraxael did something that completely shocked Azriel. No…I couldn’t do that to him, but I have to agree.

He knew that doing anything against Oraxael, but he would pretend to agree to it. “Yes…I suppose that you should enter the portal now.“ Quickly changing the subject.

This was going to be…strange, but he still found himself trusting Oraxael, even after this betrayal.

woegman

"Yes...let us be done with this, then," Oraxael nodded.  Closing his eyes, he brought to mind the incantations that would open a gateway to the eighth level of Hell, his home dimension.  His hands moved fluidly, tracing arcane gestures in the air.  Power spilled forward from him, and in that power he had woven a spell that would erase the memory of him or his angelic companion from the minds of those mortals who had seen them here at this cafe.  It was very likely he would never see this place again.  Pity, he thought, they have such lovely scones.

Moments later, a portal to the abyss appeared.  Oraxael turned towards Azriel, and looked at him questioningly.

"Are you sure you want to do this?  It is very likely we will both be erased from existence, this day.  Think on it, Azriel...think on it hard.  Think on what you leave behind."

iroleplayyaoi

Azriel frowned at this. There was nothing to know about. He’d been tainted and there was only one way to be forgiven. This was extremely dangerous and Azriel fully knew that he too could be wiped from existed, but he was prepared. He didn’t want to be a tainted angel…he had to do this so God would allow him to continue being a guardian angel and an angel in general.

“My sin. I…I have to cleanse it. That is the only thing I’ll…” now that he thought about it he was going to leave someone very important behind. Oraxael. He tainted him and yet, he still didn’t blame him, it wasn’t Oraxael’s fault.

He let out a sigh, “no…I’ll miss our…friendship. No matter what happens, I’ll always think of you as a friend.”

woegman

"Our friendship will remain, no matter what happens, my friend," Oraxael smiled, "but I think of one other this may affect - what will become of John, without your guardianship?  If we do this and fail...he will not only be unprotected, he will almost certainly be a target of demonic retaliation.  Can we risk this?  is there no other way?"

Oraxael searched his mind for a solution that wouldn't cost either of them their lives, but in truth, he'd never even considered how such a scenario might occur, an angel and a demon mutually tainted by the touch of the other.  He remembered, vaguely, that such a thing had happened before...but he could not remember the outcome.

He turned to his friend, to await his thoughts.