He was pretty. A pretty human with a sharp smile, hiding so many dark secrets just below the surface.

 

At first, Lucifer hadn’t known what to make of Angel. He’d been around for a long time, but his encounters with humanity had been sparse, doing a terrific job at avoiding, well… his job.

He didn’t exactly want to be a guardian angel. Yet, here he was. And for the first time in several hundred years, he actually ventured down to Earth to do what he was supposed to. And even though Angel had seemed like a mess at first glance, with all the drugs, alcohol and being a part of the mob, maybe Lucifer thought he was kind of funny, and surprisingly sweet to the people he cared about. There were so many things hiding behind his layered masks that intrigued him.

Maybe he had grown fond of him, in ways that weren’t appropriate.

 

Guardian angels were definitely not supposed to fall in love with humans, yet here he was. Again. God knows that had ended terribly the last time it happened. But apparently, certain humans had a charm to them that Lucifer found hard to resist.

So he was pining, foolishly, for someone he could never have. He had learned from his mistakes, he couldn’t let the same thing happen again. He would smother his emotions to the best of his abilities, pretending like they didn’t exist.

Heaven would not take kindly to another one of his missteps. Not after there had been so many of them, earning him harsher and harsher punishment each time.

 

Unfortunate, then, that when Lucifer actually had to protect Angel for the first time, he fucked up so badly that it rendered him as good as visible to the one he was supposed to guard.

 

It had been an attempted hit from a rivalling family, and as the first gunshot rang off, Lucifer had reached out, pulling Angel back by the shoulder, striking him with the feeling of a rough gust of wind that knocked him out of the way, sending the bullet flying to the side by the power of his magic.

Angel only had the time to stare in shock in the direction he had sent the bullet flying in for a short moment before he was pulled out of the way of another bullet, back behind a wall.

Lucifer really was rusty at this, he knew he was being way too heavy-handed, way too obvious. But the last time he had been to Earth, bullets hadn’t been invented yet, and the trajectory of arrows had been so much easier to manipulate.

 

He cringed as he watched Angel pull out a gun of his own, leaning out from behind the wall to fire, the shots ringing loudly in his ears.

Angel certainly wasn’t making his job easy.

At least it was the middle of the night, few people out and about in the harsh winter cold. Small blessings.

 

He grasped the incoming bullets with his magic, this time only changing their path so that they just barely avoided hitting Angel, remembering to be more careful. He heard the shout of the assailant getting hit by one of Angel’s bullets, but could still see his lifeforce cling to him. That one shot wouldn’t kill him, at least not yet.

He watched the man targeting Angel stumble, then in a burst of adrenaline he rushed forward, gun raised, aimed right where he knew Angel was hiding. Lucifer felt his heart shoot up into his throat as Angel leaned out, gun at the ready, mere meters separating him and the other gunman.

Two shots rang, nearly at the same millisecond. Lucifer reached out, grasping the bullet headed for Angel tightly in his hand. He felt the bullet grow unbearably hot in his closed fist as it burst into tiny pieces, hit full force by holy energy as it passed through his palm into his fingers. 

If he had been obvious before, it had been nothing compared to this moment.

Fist closed tightly, he contained the shards as the bullet shattered upon entering his body. At this close a range, they would hit Angel without a shadow of a doubt if he didn’t.

 

He watched the assailant fall to the ground, his soul leaving his body, a gentle light snatched up by the guardian angel who had been in charge of him. Lucifer met their eye, pulling his throbbing hand to his chest, staining his robes with liquid gold. As they disappeared into a shower of sparkling sand he knew that he would be in trouble once he returned to Heaven.

It made him not really want to go back again any time soon.

 

He turned his eyes back to Angel. Golden specks of blood dotted his face, visible to no one but Lucifer. He was staring directly at the shattered bullet, still lodged in Lucifer’s hand, seemingly levitating in the air.

Shit.

He expelled the shards out of his body, the sound of them landing on the snow-covered ground loud in his ears, the quiet sound amplified many times over by his anxieties. He watched Angel’s eyes follow the path of the shattered bullet, before his eyes snapped back up, looking around, gun at the ready.

“What the fuck kinda demon shit- Who’s there?!”

 

He shouldn’t. He really, really shouldn’t. He should let Angel chalk it up to a hallucination or a dream.

But Lucifer had never been good at doing what he should be doing, from the moment he had been created.

 

“It’s not demonic,” he said, biting his tongue as soon as he heard the words leave his own mouth. But by then it was far too late. He’d spoken, in a voice he knew would be heard by Angel, and no one else. He had done something he had sworn to never do again.

The taste of his own blood was sweet on his tongue. He felt like he was choking on it, just as much as he had tried to choke back the words he had just spoken. He swallowed it down.

 

Angel stared in the direction his voice had come from, eyes wide. He held on tightly to the gun in his hand. If he made himself visible, would Angel shoot him?

Well, he would already be in enough trouble once he came back to Heaven, harm had already been done, so what difference would it make if he showed himself now? There would be hell to pay no matter what he did.

With a deep breath, he made himself visible, preparing to redirect any bullets should Angel try to shoot him.

 

As he truly met Angel’s eyes for the very first time, he watched them grow wide as saucers. Angel nearly fell over in shock at having someone seemingly pop into existence out of nowhere, and for a moment, Lucifer thought he would aim his gun at him. He certainly looked like he was considering it.

“Who… what the fuck are you?” Angel asked, voice quivering, his gun still clasped tightly in his hand. Then, his eyes caught on the clear hole in the back of his hand, the gold that stained his clothes, his skin, glowing in the cold winter night. He could hear the whispered ‘what the hell’ as clearly as if it had been spoken directly into his ear.

“Oh, uh.” Lucifer glanced down at his hand. “I uh. I’m your guardian angel?”

Angel squinted down at him. It was obvious that he didn’t believe him. “Why’re ya sayin’ it like it’s a question?”

“Well…” Should he admit that it took him more than twenty years to actually do any guarding? That Angel had been staying alive purely by sheer luck for the majority of his life? Would that make him hate Lucifer?

Absorbed in his own swirling thoughts, he didn’t notice Angel moving until he felt fingers in his feathers. He spun around, making Angel jump back to avoid getting hit in the face by his fluffed-up wings, holding up his now empty hands.

“Woah, Jesus, those things could knock a bitch out.” Angel came back in close, reaching out for his wings again seemingly without a second thought. Angel’s fingers were freezing to the touch from having been out in the cold for so long, but his touch still lit a warm, flickering light in the pit of Lucifer’s stomach. It had been so long since he had been touched in ways that weren’t meant to punish.

“Could ya kill someone if ya smacked’em hard enough with these?”

Lucifer blinked. “Excuse me?”

He had told him he was a guardian angel, yet he was being asked about his capacity to hurt others? His eyes drifted to the side. He might never have hurt a human, but he couldn’t say the same for other heavenly beings. He hadn’t exactly taken his punishments lying down, especially not in the beginning.

 

He jumped as a hand was waved in front of his face. “Hello? Ya still with me or did ya go back to Heaven without your body?”

“I, no, I just got… distracted.”

“Seems to happen a lot, if the last few minutes are anythin’ to go by. No wonder I’ve had so many close calls.”

It was said with a laugh, and it was clear that he was joking. It still made guilt tear at Lucifer’s insides, and he wished Angel would run his fingers along his wings again, missing that spark of warmth his touch had awoken, the way it had distracted him from all other thoughts. That dangerous, tantalising warmth that made him want Angel’s hands to touch more than just his feathers. That made him ache for more than just the touch of fingertips.

He shoved his longing down, trying to snuff it out even as he looked up into Angel’s eyes, making it that much more difficult. Especially when his eyes were filled with so much laughter, even if it was at Lucifer’s expense.

 

Fingers on his wrist made him flinch, but he allowed Angel to pull his bleeding hand closer. “What’d ya do to get this?”

Lucifer’s fingers trembled as Angel’s fingertips grazed his skin, careful not to touch the actual wound, but close enough that Lucifer could still feel the pain from it. The gentle warmth that had stirred inside of him flickered back to life, the pain and the exhilaration of being so gently touched mixing, making his head spin.

 

Angel’s laugh made him look up, not even noticing that he had been staring at their hands the entire time that they touched. Angel was smiling, amused.

“You’re lookin’ at our hands like you’ve never been touched before.”

Lucifer’s cheeks flushed a bright golden, lighting up the dark street. Angel’s eyes grew wide, his smile growing in size.

He leaned down, so close that the light of Lucifer’s blush reflected in his eyes.

“Hey, I can touch ya in other places too, if you’d like.”

At that, Lucifer’s blush grew so bright it could nearly rival the streetlights lining the streets nearby. His eyes snapped down to Angel’s lips, then back up again, to his eyes. Angel wasn’t slow to take notice.

“Oh, ya would like. Wouldn’t ya?”

 

Leaning closer, so close that he could feel Angel’s breath on his face, Angel’s hand gently held on to his, pulling him even closer by it. Lucifer’s eyes were wide, Angel’s eyes the only thing he could see in his field of vision.

He felt his heart beat in his ears, loud, fast. Angel’s hand was cold around his own perpetually warm skin. He’d been thinking constantly, while he watched Angel sneak around with various men, about what the touch of his lips might feel like.

 

Just as Angel’s lips were about to brush his, Lucifer felt his chest fill with panic, and he pulled his hand out of Angel’s grasp, raising his hands to cover Angel’s mouth, pierced palm pressed to his lips.

No matter how much he might want to, he couldn’t. It killed him not to let him kiss him, but he couldn’t face Heaven’s wrath again. Not now that he knew what would happen, both to him and the human he had fallen for. He couldn’t bear to watch the same fate befall Angel.

 

Angel blinked in surprise. As he spoke, his voice was muffled by Lucifer’s palm, the movement making his wound sting. “Too shy?”

Lucifer shook his head, pressing his hands tighter against Angel’s mouth, despite the pain. “We can’t. The last time- I can’t let it happen again. I won’t.”

Raising his hand, Angel pulled Lucifer’s hands away from his lips.

“I’ve got no idea what you’re talkin’ about, but ya look like you’re about to cry, so I’ll back off for now.” He licked his lips, stained with Lucifer’s glowing blood. “Huh. Tastes like candied apple.”

Lucifer was just about to pull his hand back to his chest, when Angel took it in his, pulling him back toward him again, Lucifer having taken a step back just a moment earlier.

“If ya won’t let me kiss ya, will ya at least tell me your name?”

 

Lucifer bit his lip, considering it. Then, he shook his head. “It’s safer if I don’t.”

“Safer for who?”

“Both of us.”

 

“Ya know if there’s someone you’re scared of up there I’d be happy to shoot’em. I always enjoy a good shoot-out.”

Lucifer couldn’t help but laugh, despite himself. “There are no ‘shoot-outs’ in Heaven, I’m afraid. And your bullets won’t kill anyone.”

“But it can hurt them. That’s what happened to you, right? That bullet earlier, it hit ya.”

“You’ll just make them angry. But thank you. For offering.” Lucifer looked down at his still-bleeding hand, dripping gold into the snow, turning it into water as it melted. “I appreciate it.”

Though he really shouldn’t, violence was very much frowned upon in Heaven, unless it was to punish unruly angels of various kinds. But he didn’t want to lie right to Angel’s face, after he offered to help him out, no matter how violent. He knew Angel had his own demons, human as they may be, that he had no easy way to deal with, so he knew that the offer meant something to him.

It meant something to Lucifer too.

 

He smiled, squeezing Angel’s hand in his, staining his skin with his blood. He withdrew it, pressing it to his chest, his healthy hand cradling it. “It was nice to finally meet you properly.”

“You too. I hope you’ll let me see ya again some time.”

Lucifer chuckled, a tiny, quiet thing as he shook his head. “Don’t hold your breath.”

If Heaven found out just what Lucifer had been doing after the other guardian angel had left, they probably wouldn’t let him return to Earth before Angel passed.

He could only hope that they would at least let him continue to watch over him from afar, if they did find out.

 

“Once I leave, my blood will become invisible to you, but it’ll still be there, so I suggest you wash yourself and your clothes once you get home. Angelic blood is just as prone to staining as human blood is.”

Angel laughed. “That’s what you’re gonna leave me with? Cleanin’ advice?”

“It’s sound advice.”

As Lucifer lowered his hands, Angel snatched one of them, one final time. Holding it tight, squeezing, before finally letting go. “I’ll see ya later.”

He sounded so sure, certain. That Lucifer would eventually cave and make himself visible again.

It made Lucifer’s smile grow, even as he swore he never would.

“Bye, Angel.”

In a flurry of golden sparkles, he let himself fade to dust, bracing himself for his return to heaven.

 

He could never let himself show his face to Angel again, not if he wanted to keep him under his protection. He would go back to watching him, pining over him.

 

Forever wondering what Angel’s lips tasted like.

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