londoncallingrpg | Gathering Post

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Gathering Post

The Queen's official birthday celebrations might wait for the better, brighter weather of June, instead of the actual date just passed, but there was no lack of things to do in London this week, even if it was cooler and damper than the week before. St. George's day festivities were scattered throughout the city, competing with celebrations of the four hundredth anniversary of Shakespeare's death. Getting around the city could be even more difficult than usual on Sunday, with multiple streets closed off for the London marathon.

There were exhibits - everything from graphic design to a survey of Sicilian history to the influence of underwear. And the same level of diversity could be found whether you were in the mood for music, theatre, good food, or late night fun. There was something for everyone, and no matter your plans - or lack of plans - you never quite knew what you were going to find, or who might find you.

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Coby bit his lip, not breathing at all. The wing pushed up into her hand as her touch became less cautious, and when her gaze found his again, his pupils were larger with the first hints of arousal.

"Mysterious ways," he said, not as surprised by her talk of fairies as he maybe should've been.

The cigarette abandoned in an ashtray, Vanessa cupped his face with her newly freed hand, searching his eyes and his soul for more. "You still hold the Divine in you," she told him, unable to look away, unable to stop feeling, her pupils blown, her lips parted around an awed breath. "It's beautiful."

Anael probably would've said there was something of that Divine in Coby's sudden urge to back Vanessa into the nearest wall and having each other. The hand not holding his cigarette moved to rest on her hip, and he could feel his weight shift about to take that first step.

But he closed his eyes, inhale and then exhale slowly, and then a second time. His voice huskier with more heat. "You should... let go if you want to stop." Another breath. "Sensitive."

Part of Vanessa wanted to stop, now, and part of her wanted to take that final step, the dynamics so different now than the last time - but for better, or for worse? "Is it wrong?" she asked, frozen in place, her words barely above a whisper. "For one of the sort you used to be?"

"It doesn't have to be," he told her, warming at the thought of Anael, then setting it aside to keep his attention fully on the woman with him. "And I'm not what I used to be."

Vanessa finally pulled her hand back, her gaze heavy and solemn as it held his. "What happened?" Traditionally, former angels were supposed to be demons, but he did not feel like one. Could she trust herself, though, and could she trust him?

Coby shrugged a shoulder, the wing rising and falling along with the motion. "Curiosity killed the cat. I wanted to be human. So I have been. Many times. I think that counts as mysterious ways."

"But it doesn't count as falling," Vanessa stated, a small knot on her brow. She hadn't stepped away, for all that she'd dropped her hand, but she wasn't stepping closer yet, either. Instead, she remembered the cigarette in her hand and turned her head away to take a drag.

"It doesn't." There were nuances involved Coby didn't understand, and probably couldn't as long as he was human... or mostly human. "I've been reliably informed there's some tiny spark of what I used to be inside. There's a lot I don't remember and can't understand, but... I think my mortality was supposed to be... a gift."

"God is not always merciful," Vanessa told him with a hint of a sad smile. She took that step closer then, and touched tentative fingers to his cheek, rather than his wing again, before pressing her lips to his in a somewhat chaste kiss. She was so attuned to him then, from the tarot, from her need to be, that she had another flash of what it had been like to be him - or rather, them. Her breath quickened, and her eyes fluttered open again to find his. "This is not wrong, is it?"

"That depends." He paused for one more pull on his cigarette, then leaned away just long enough to leave it in the ashtray. But his eyes never left hers and most of him didn't move.

"Do you want this, Vanessa?"

"That depends," Vanessa answered, holding his gaze as well, although her hand had drifted down to his chest. "Is this - a sin?" The words were difficult enough to get out, like having to ask made it automatically one.

It would be wrong if she didn't want it, and while Coby always looked for consent – although on occasions he didn't mind not being able to give it – with Vanessa he'd been very deliberate in waiting for her to say yes to his invitations. Today wasn't any different in that regard. But it didn't really get to her question.

"It's not a sin. It wouldn't be for what I once was, unless the intent was wrong, and it isn't for us now. As long as it's what you want."

"I don't always want what is right," Vanessa told him, her gaze troubled as the memories pressed in. "Those things I told you..." Not her, but she had let him in.

It hadn't been her, but they'd been through that already. "That's part of being human." Coby cupped her jaw, thumb brushing lightly over her cheekbone. "If it helps, God has faith in you too. An angel told me so."

Vanessa looked nearly broken with that remark, and her breath came out shakily, her hand tensing on Coby's chest. "How...?" How might not be the right question, but in the knowledge of that revelation, it was difficult to find thoughts and words.

"We're lovers." Loves might be more accurate, but also harder to explain and complicated with angels. "He knows what happened the last time. I needed him after."

An angel. Lovers. It oughtn't be that surprising, given what Coby was, and yet Vanessa felt so out of her depth that she took a step back. "I think that I need a drink." After a beat, she raised her eyebrows at Coby, to ask him if he would join her.

"Please," he said in response to her unasked question. It was easier than all the other things she wasn't asking or wanted to ask.

"I feel like I should apologize."

Vanessa paused on her way to the liquor cabinet, and looked back at him, surprise evident on her face before she schooled her features, and shook her head. "No, of course not." Her eyes were again drawn to his wings, and she forced herself to look away and finish walking over to the cabinet. "Is brandy all right?" she asked as she opened it.

Self-conscious again about the wings, it took a moment for Coby to answer. "Brandy's fine. I'm not picky. About some things."

Maybe he should hide them away again. He thought he could now. On the other hand, he remembered how her hands had felt tracing over feathers, and a shiver ran through the wings. He twitched them into place so they settled again.

Vanessa picked up the bottle, and the appropriate glasses, cigarette stuck at the corner of her mouth as she poured. She took one last drag and put it out in a nearby ashtray, then picked up the glasses to hand one to Coby, catching his eyes again. But instead of saying anything, she looked away again, taking a welcome sip of brandy.

Yeah, time to put the wings away. At least for now. Manifesting them again was always easier than hiding them. Coby took the glass, but then concentrated his will until the wings went wherever it was they went, with no sign they'd ever been there.

With them gone it felt safer moving around without knocking into anything and everything, and Coby took a seat before sipping his drink. "How are you doing?"

Vanessa looked possibly even more startled by their disappearance than she had been by their appearance. It took her a few seconds to collect herself, and then she brought her cigarettes, and the ashtray, over to the coffee table by the sofa, to join him on it with them at hand.

"Rattled," she answered honestly, as she took a seat, glass in hand. Her fingers were tense on the fine glass. "As if I were on the edge of some precipice, and you were going to lift me up, or damn me to the abyss." More truth than he might have wanted, perhaps, and not the exact truth, anyway, so she shook her head minutely. "As if I might be about to do either of these myself."

"Rattled's fair. I'd be more worried if you weren't, I think. It's a lot all at once." It had been for him, not that he'd gotten all the revelations at once that she got today.

"But you and I've been on one edge or another since we met. I don't feel like damnation's at the end of this one, though."

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