Hellsfire

Chapter Nine

When Levi wakes up, he's staring at the roof of his apartment. He doesn't feel lightheaded anymore, but it's turned to sickness instead. Everything is so bright.

How did he even get here? He fainted, he guesses, and then- holy shit, did Shep carry him here?

Levi groans and forces himself upright. "Shep?"

"Yeah," he says. "I'm here."

Shep doesn't sound like he's doing great, either. He probably isn't, considering he got thrown around by a demon yesterday. Yesterday? He doesn't know how long he's been out, but it feels like yesterday.

Levi crawls out of bed and over to where Shep is lying. His clothes are torn, his hair is messed up, and there is way more blood than Levi thought there would be.

"Did you bleed on my couch?"

"I put a towel down first."

Oh, of course, how considerate, he put a towel down before bleeding everywhere.

"You could have used my shower."

"I was too tired. I got in here, dropped you on your bed, and then fell onto the couch. With the towel."

"I care less about the couch and more about the you." Levi gestures to Shep's...everything. He's still hurt from the fight yesterday.

Shep presses a hand to his face and winces. He's got cuts and bruises all over his arms, his stomach and one side of his face is red.

Even angels don't recover that quickly, obviously. Levi sits next to Shep, and touches his shoulder lightly. "Go have a shower now. Be clean."

Shep doesn't argue. He pushes himself from the couch and heads to the bathroom.

"Before I forget..." Shep leans against the frame of the bathroom door. "I didn't know you could use magic like that?"

Oh, fuck. Oh, god, now he has to come up with some kind of an explanation for how he can explode things sometimes but not always.

"I didn't either."

Maybe it'd be better to tell the truth here. Not the whole truth. But a bit of it. A little bit of the truth never hurts.

Just a little.

"Well. Not really. When I'm controlling it myself, the best I can do is..." Levi snaps his fingers and lights a flame in his hand. "Something like this. But when I'm angry, or scared, sometimes, it kind of...takes over." Alright, that's enough of the truth. Save the rest of it for a later date. "It's always been like this. I've never really been able to control it. No one ever taught me, I guess."

Yeah, that's a lie. Well, kind of. He's never been able to control it in this lifetime. Other lifetimes, he's done it perfectly fine. It's just that his emotions are a little more fucked up this time around and his magic just doesn't work. He knows what it feels like to use magic properly, but he just can't.

"It's frustrating." He doesn't realise that he said it out loud until Shep responds.

"It is," says Shep. "I get that. I try so hard all the time to get it to work but it doesn't. Every time someone says I need to picture it in my head I have to tell them I can't, that's not how it works, and..." He shrugs. "It really is frustrating." He closes the bathroom door, leaving Levi alone on the couch to contemplate his existence, and also how he's going to get all the blood out of this white towel.

Shep comes out of the shower a few minutes later.

"That was quick."

"Everything hurt," says Shep, falling back onto the couch. "And I didn't want to waste water."

"You need to clean everything properly." Levi sighs. He's seen his fair share of injuries and he knows how painful it is when something doesn't heal right or gets infected or-

"How?"

"Clean it. Cover it up. Be careful. I'll help."

"Alright." Shep takes off his shirt and Levi looks away because even though he's about to be staring at Shep half naked it's the taking-off-the-shirt thing that makes him incredibly nervous and kind of gay.

Shep is, as always, kind of hot, in the weird way that Levi doesn't want to find him hot but can't stop it. He's sick of being gay for people he just wants to be friends with. Particularly Shep because Shep is an angel and being gay for angels never ends well. He knows this from experience.

So, so much experience.

The whole time, Levi is closing his eyes and telling himself stop because he doesn't want to feel like this but it's getting harder and harder to push the thoughts away. It's too early to feel like this, it's wrong, he's only known Shep for a short time, he barely knows anything about him, he doesn't even know where Shep lives but every second he spends like this his mind keeps drifting to thinking about how nice it would be to-

Stop.

And he pushes the thoughts away again and again until Shep puts his shirt back on and Levi can stop feeling things. Stupid gay bastard. Why did it always come to this?

Shep yawns and leans back.

"You can have the bed for a bit, if you want," Levi says. Shep couldn't have got more than two or three hours of sleep, especially like that. He needs it.

"Are you sure? I mean I-"

"Go for it."

Shep doesn't bother fighting Levi and jumps on the bed.

"Wake me up when you need it."

"I won't."

Shep sighs, but he pulls the cover over himself anyway.

He knows. He's learned. He has to take care of himself. If Shep is going to be a guardian angel, he has to be able to take care of himself too. Like with the oxygen masks on planes. You have to help yourself before you can help anyone else.

Shep's so nice. Shep's too nice. He's always watching out for other people. He's always making sure Levi's alright. He's always looking for danger so he can stop it. He puts himself on the line for people he's never met or people he barely knows or people who treat him like shit.

He's with the wrong crowd, working under the angels. He'd fit in much better in Hell if he'd only understand that demons aren't all evil. The angels are too restrictive. They have expectations. And laws. Shep would be able to do what he wants to do in Hell. No one would judge him for his magic or his personality or anything. He'd be so much better off there.

...but hey. That isn't Levi's choice to make. Shep has to work that out for himself. The most Levi can do to help here is make sure Shep knows he has options. Angels aren't the only people with power. Or money.

Levi leans back on the couch and lets Shep sleep. Maybe another day. Another day soon he can show Shep what the world is really like, and not just what he's been told it is.