Cherub.

11

They settled for a speakeasy.

"I hit the earth hard, dazed and mouth full of soil, I think this is home." The old cherub cleared his throat into the mic as he nervously tapped his foot. All these eyes on him, all these thoughts about him and mouths whispering about him. He didn't feel the feeling of nervousness.

Just talk about your life, Ang. He recalled Gemini's words as he urged him to read his poetry aloud; Gemini was too shy to read his own so he helped Angelo create a poem. Gemini did 90% of the work as Angelo babbled about God and falling and Earth; Gemini never understood the obsession but he helped anyway.

"With it's glided mortality, and strawberry shortcake ice cream. With it's blood-soaked kisses, and barbed wire love, with it's sunshine lungs and radiation smiles, in it's imperfections," Various snaps startled the nervous angel as he fiddled with his fingers. They liked it? He thought. "This is home in the way the ocean stings against my cut skin, this is home in the way I have bled for it, this is home in the way I have won a war for it, this is home in the way it gave me shelter when my wings were gone. This is home in the way it embraced me when all I had was a cage on my back. Welcome back it says, welcome back."

This poem was about his fall from Heaven. He knew these humans wouldn't get it—they would deem these words as Art. But this was real life, for the cherub. This was his story. At least they listened, he thought. At least they hear me. "Thank you," he stuttered, watching Gemini stand up. The man vigorously snapped, his smile wide and pride evident in his eyes. "That is dedicated to my friend, Kahlo." With a wave, he quickly walked off the stage and made it toward Gemini's booth.

"Kahlo would've loved that." Gemini reassured, patting the cherub's shoulder. "Sorry for your loss again." The burden of Kahlo's return to Hell was weighing far too heavy for Angelo—he had to reveal his loss to the sympathetic mortal.

"Thank you," Angelo smiled, thinking that Kahlo would praise him for doing such an impulsive thing. He was starting to feel welcomed on Earth. "He was the wild one." The cherub added softly, with a smile. Tears welled in his eyes and his eyebrows lifted with curiosity—grief, he thought. That was one emotion he had grew to despise.

The celestial felt that one moment he was okay—content, to say the least and then he'd hear a joke or see a faint mortal face that reminded him of the demon. Then he'd be back into pieces, missing and longing for that friendship. Kahlo was the only one who seemed to understand his troubles and without him, he was alone. He couldn't tell Gemini about his true life and he would never understand it...but Kahlo did. With the weight of his concealed wings heavy on his back and the constant tugs for his angelic spirit to return back Home, he was growing homesick again.

His mortal coat was bearing the brunt of Heaven's unanswered calls. He was growing depressed. Angelo wouldn't eat for days, he would sleep for what felt like forever and sometimes he would forget that he had a mouth—feeling that these shells had no purpose, he began to feel careless towards it. Accidentally bruising himself all of the time caused him to remember that he was still a cherub and not a tainted human soul.

~

"Ah," Gemini groaned, flopping onto his mattress, fully clothed, as spaced out Angelo watched from afar. His eyes shifting to the lanky man stretched oddly on the peculiar piece of furniture that tended to knock him unconscious most of the time. "This bed feels like heaven." He whispered, his face shoved into a pillow. It still took a while for the angel to get used to sayings such as those, involving things they couldn't have began to imagine.

"This home is a better heaven that the one i've known." Angelo said aloud, causing the man to adjust his glasses and look over. His eyes glazed over him—Angelo stood with a leather jacket, plain white shirt and faded blue jeans and a pair of Gemini's lightly used converses to top it off. He held an iced coffee in his hand—a coffee that was mostly just creamer and sugar.

"Everything you say sounds like a poem." He chuckled and rose from the bed. "It's ridiculous yet I also envy it." The wild haired man joked, watching as Angelo carefully sipped the too sweet beverage.

"Sorry," He lightly apologized. Angelo looked down, feeling a funny sensation in his legs. Oh, he remembered. He hadn't taken a seat all day. These things tend to need breaks. He walked over to Gemini's bed and sat beside him, carefully leaning his head onto the man's shoulder while the coffee rested in his lap, tightly gripped in his hand. "Words are so...nice. I love the way they sound, and how they roll off the tongue." The cherub admitted. The human language was so interesting to him, so broad and endless.

"Never thought of it that way." Gemini admitted, looking down at his crocs. The pair were dressed quite casual. He wore a cardigan and a pair of sweatpants, accessorized with his grey crocs and a satchel. "I think I was a piece of grass in my past life, my brain isn't worth much of anything these days." He laughed at his own joke, watching as Angelo showed a smile. Laughter was always contagious to the celestial. "Just my one little brain cell running on  a hamster wheel chasing just a pinch of serotonin that's dangling infront of it."

"Past life?" Angelo questioned, ignoring Gemini's self deprecating humor.

"You've never heard of that?" Disbelief laced his words as he scrunched his face together. Realizing that he was telling the truth, he began. "It's like, your life before this one. I believe souls are constantly being recycled, like you keep living and living so I think before this I was something simple like a piece of bacon or a snail."

"Only lost souls are forced to reincarnate."

"You think so? So what do you think you were? In your past life, that is."

"An Angel."

"Oh pftt. That's nonsense." Gemini laughed. "No way an Angel would be on Earth. You're the religious type, Ang. You should know that angels have duties and such."

"You sound like my brother." The cherub lightly chuckled, watching as water beads rolled down the side of his cup.

"At the same time, you are really pure. Angelic is the word for you." Angelo cringed.

People call him an 'angel' as if it's a compliment but every time he heard that word, his stomach twisted and his breath hitched. Nausea wavered over him and he glanced up. Though all that met his eyes were the high ceilings of Gemini's studio apartment, he felt so much more up there.

All I know is that these veins are no longer glowing, this halo is broken, and that these wings cannot fly any longer. I'm not moonlight pure anymore, I am hazy with morals as frail as paper cranes. "That's not true anymore. It's too many numbers, too many ways to go wrong in this life." The angel's voice cracked.

a/n:
it's been a while ;-; hectic life lol