Hellsfire

Chapter Two

"What do you mean, they said no?" Levi speedwalks in the direction of his house, but Shepherd follows him. Levi has decided that Shepherd isn't hot any more. He's just frustrating and annoying and he keeps using those puppy dog eyes and Levi feels bad about trying so hard to get rid of him.

"Well, the Registry wants you to have a guardian angel, even if you don't want one."

Levi groans. Time to find that cliff.

"You must have something bad after you. I'm not sure what it is, but you must be a special case, because it was a quick and immediate 'no'."

Levi keeps walking, avoiding eye contact or even looking at the guy. He doesn't want to be part of this garbage.

Shepherd obviously notices this because he pulls on the bottom of his shirt and looks at the ground again. "...Sorry."

God Damn it, this isn't Shepherd's fault. He's just doing his job. Levi can't be this much of an asshole to him.

Don't hate a single person for the actions of their group, or whatever the poetic way to say that is. Don't hate the player, hate the game.

"No, don't apologise." Levi stops walking. Hopefully this won't make Shepherd sad again. "I just- I'm a little frustrated and overwhelmed right now, and this new guardian angel thing isn't helping."

"Oh. Of course. That's..." Shepherd looks like he wants to apologise again, but he can't, because Levi told him not to.

Levi rubs the bridge of his nose. He really doesn't want a guardian angel, but he doesn't seem to have much of a choice here.

The best thing he can do is work out some kind of compromise. "Are they listening?"

"What?"

"The Registry. Are they listening right now?"

"No." Shepherd frowns. "Why?"

"Here's what I think should happen. I think we should be friends. You can stick around, we can hang out, but no hovering around and telling me what to do and 'protecting' me or whatever, because I can do that myself."

"But won't the-"

"We'll tell the Registry you're my guardian angel. And we'll just be friends."

"You're not supposed to know about the guardian angel thing, though."

"Then we can stick with the friends thing, you can pretend to do your job, and everyone will be happy."

"But I want to do my job."

Jesus Christ, this is impossible. This is why he doesn't want to work with angels.

"Meanwhile while we're being friends we can go around doing guardian angel-ing for people who actually need it."

Shepherd sighs, and then nods. "Okay. But you'd better be good at pretending to be friends."

"By the time your boss comes around, we won't need to pretend." He says it with enough poison in his voice that he doesn't realise that actually maybe that was a kind of nice thing to say and-

This isn't what he wants. He doesn't want to be friends.

But, at this point, it seems like it's the best option he's gonna get.

It takes a while, but Levi finally gets rid of Shepherd, using some excuse about needing to go home and take a nap. Obviously it's not going to be the last Levi sees of him, but he's free for now. At home. In silence. Binge watching garbage on Netflix. Regretting his life choices.