#dont ask where his other hand is i hate drawing crossed arms despite literally drawing it all the time

[k8felge]

also zomg goro warmup thing idfk

[maandags]

Eidolon (Angel!Keith x Demon!reader) {part i}

OK HERE IT IS PLEA SE DONT KILL ME I DIDNT EVEN PROPERLY EDIT/REVISE BUT WE DIE LIKE MEN

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Summary: Keith is an angel, and he’s completed mission after mission for the Upper Hand, the organisation controlling all of the Above. He’s only failed a mission once: when he was assigned to kill you, a surprisingly charismatic demon. He roamed Earth--Middle Ground--for years before he was caught by the Upper Hand again, and things quickly go south. 

Word count: 5.5K

Genre: Angst --  CW: emotional manipulation, hallucinations

Notes: masterlist -- {next} -- why do i keep hurting him i love Keith so much

-- -- --

go ahead and watch my heart burn 

with the fire that you started in me

~ &burn, Billie Eilish ft. Vince Staples

-- -- --

EIDOLON (NOUN):

-- a spectre; a ghost.

-- -- --

Keith almost doesn’t remember the last time he’d been back home.

A guard leads him to the Castle, and Keith feels the sudden need to straighten his spine and stick up his chin–ages and ages of training and manners and etiquette hammered into his very bones fluttering to the surface again. He is suddenly very aware of the state his hair and clothes are in and desperately tries to smooth them down in hopes of looking a little less like he just came rolling out a dumpster.

The guard notices and glances over his shoulder, his own suit immaculate and quite literally sparkling, his wings folded in and the tips just barely grazing the ground. Not that it mattered–the Castle’s floors were always perfectly clean. Keith’s steps echo in the halls, and he grows more uncomfortable by the second. There was a reason he’d avoided the Above for so long, after all.

The guard halts in front of a door Keith knows all too well. He looks down to the ground in annoyance and bites back a curse, feeling his back muscles tense and his wings puff up. The guard gestures vaguely to a backless stool that sits next to the door and says in a clear voice, “Wait there, please.” Keith plops down and folds his arms, sagging slightly in the seat. He pretends not to notice the way the guard purses his lips in disapproval.

“Do you know how long the wait’s gonna be?” he asks and flinches at the volume his voice takes in the empty halls.

The guard shoots him a cold look over his shoulder as he starts to walk away. “It’ll take as long as it does.” And he stalks away, hands clasped in front of him. Keith stares him down, glaring daggers into his back and blowing a lock of his black hair out of his face. This is exactly why he hates it up here, he thinks.

He waits for what feels like ages. There is a big clock on the wall opposite him, but the arms don’t move–they don’t ever move. The clocks are decoration only. Time passes differently up in the Above, and it leaves him disoriented every time. Keith bounces his knee, shaking out the stiffness in his wings and heaving a sigh. It’s too silent. The halls are too silent. He hates it.

It feels like hours have passed before the doors finally open.

Keith leaps up immediately, eyes widening. “Shiro.”

The man in the doorway sighs and beckons for him to come inside.

Keith hasn’t seen Shiro in years, and the first thing he notices is that he’s hiding his wings. Why would he do that? It’s a trick angels use down on Middle Ground, as to not scare the mortals shitless. Up in the Above, it’s pretty much useless; it’s an angel-only space. Despite everything, Keith can’t help but feel the small burst of warmth in his chest, merely an echo of the friendship they once had, but enough to make him feel slightly more at ease in this familiar yet so foreign environment.

Shiro’s office looks exactly like the last time he saw it. The wooden desk, its surface littered with trinkets of gold and silver, the paintings on the wall, the glass sculptures on the windowsills. Everything is in the exact same place as it was when he left. It’s like no time has passed at all and it’s unnerving.

Shiro sits down at his desk and gestures for Keith to take place in front of him. He does, albeit a feeling a little nervous. “It’s been a while,” he says, trying to alleviate the tension in the air.

Shiro looks up, his grey eyes stormy. “It has.” He frowns, folding his hands in front of him. “And nobody knew where you were.”

Keith flinches. That’s the whole reason he’s here, after all–if he could have, he’d avoided the Above for the rest of his life, but he’s immortal, and they were bound to find out his whereabouts sometime. He’s actually quite surprised that he held out this long. “I’m good at disappearing.”

Shiro purses his lips. “Evidently.” He sighs again. “The big guys weren’t happy with you, you know. I just managed to convince them to let it slide.” He doesn’t name them. That would be a bad idea, especially up here.

Keith looks up, surprised. “You talked to them?”

“Of course I did,” says Shiro with a glare his way. “I care about you. They were talking about banishment, Keith. I vouched for you.”

Keith sighs, slouching in his seat. “That was stupid of you, Shiro.”

Anger sparks in Shiro’s eyes–and for a second, it’s like they glow. “No. What was stupid was you running off to play Big Invincible Immortal, Keith. You could have gotten in serious trouble, and I would have been the one to clean up your mess.” He slams his hand on the desk, a gesture that causes Keith to jump. Shiro always knows how to keep his cool.

“Whoa, calm down. I knew what I was doing.”

“You were purposely avoiding the Above and its angels. I get it, okay? And you’ve had your fun. It’s time to grow up and be responsible for once.” He sounds tired, Keith thinks. He’s probably rehearsed this conversation in his head more times than he can count.

Keith opens his mouth, but Shiro’s eyes flicker dangerously again and he clamps his mouth back shut. “I saved you from banishment, not punishment. You’ll stay in the Above until one of the big guys says so. Understood?”

“So–like house arrest?” Keith says, upset. He feels the resistance seeping from his bones and shakes his limbs, desperately trying to keep some of the energy of Middle Ground in his system, but it’s no use. The Above has a way of draining people–and angels–of their energy, transforming them into empty shells to be used and manipulated by the Upper Hands. No! Keith thinks, setting his jaw. Not again! “But I–”

“No.”

“You’re not even going to let me defend myself?” Keith says, waving his arms around. “I can’t stay here. I’ll go crazy.”

Shiro sighs, lowering his face into his hands, visibly pained. “Sorry, Keith. But it’s for your own good.”

Keith wants to shout, but what good would it do? He doesn’t want to be here–but it’s not like banishment is such a better option. He’d lose his wings, his halo… He glances at the faintly glowing golden braided bracelet on his right wrist. He draws a shaky breath through his teeth, forcing his voice to stay level. “Do I have to wear this too?” he asks, showing his wrist.

Standing up, Shiro reaches down and touches the halo. It starts glowing and growing and soon he’s holding a full halo–a ring of pure golden light, thirty inches in diameter. Keith has to squint to see anything through the bright light. His shoulders sag as Shiro places the halo around his head, and his vision is blinded by the light. “That’s better.”

That’s better. The words roll around in Keith’s mind. He knows he’ll be able to find his way around just as well if he hadn’t worn his halo–he still hates it. He hates not being in control. That’s better. It’s not better. Keith feels the familiar numbness crawling under his skin again and he breathes a sad sigh, letting his head hang. Shiro takes place behind his desk again, folding his arms in front of him. Keith vaguely catches a shimmer of what could be the outlines of Shiro’s wings. The conversation is over.

For the next days, Keith behaves exactly as he should. He is where he has to be at the times he has to be there and doesn’t talk about the Middle Ground anymore. Truth be told, he doesn’t talk much at all.

He’s curled up in an alcove when he hears the unmistakable sound of someone approaching and cracks open an eye. An angel stands over him, brown skin standing out starkly against the white of his clothes and his wings out and shimmering a dark brown. They’re well-groomed, and suddenly Keith feels self-conscious of his own dirty and crooked ones, but everything about this angel seems well-groomed and clean, his shorts and white shirt crisp and almost reflecting the light from his halo. It makes Keith’s skin crawl.

“Who’re you?” he says dryly.

The angel scoffs and crosses his arms, and Keith notices that he’s not actually standing on the ground–he’s levitating over it, bare toes hovering just a couple of inches above the ground. Keith slumps down further in his alcove, casting a wary glance up.

“I’m Lance,” the angel says, “and I’ve been assigned to guard you.”

Keith almost falls out of his alcove. “I’m sorry?” he blurts.

Lance sticks out his bottom lip, rubbing his calf with one foot. “You heard me.”

“I don’t need a babysitter,” Keith says indignantly, and he sits up, rubbing his hair out of his eyes.

Lance is unimpressed. “Upper Hand thinks you do, apparently.”

Shaking his head, Keith leaps up and tries to push past the other angel, muttering something under his breath about the Upper Hand he probably shouldn’t have, but he was so mad at that moment he found he didn’t really care. “Go away,” he yelled over his shoulder as he stalked off into the annoyingly perfect forest.

Lance frowned, stunned for merely a second before fluttering behind him, giving up the act of floating as he dropped to the ground and hurried after him. “No, but you–I have to guard you,” he stammers dumbly, obviously not having expected Keith to run off.

“I’d like to see you try.” Keith whacks a branch out of his face and grins to himself at the startled yelp Lance gives as he narrowly avoids it. “Don’t try and keep up. I’m good on my own.”

“The Upper Hand don’t trust you, you know,” Lance calls after him. Keith doesn’t turn around.

“Evidently, if they think they have to send a babysitter after me.”

Lance scoffs again. “They think you’ll run off again.”

This time Keith does turn around to give Lance the evil eye. “Well I can’t do that, can I? Wouldn’t wanna end up banished forever,” he says angrily.

“Listen, man, help me out here,” Lance pleads, struggling to follow Keith as he trudges deeper and deeper into the woods, slipping through the trees with a speed and an accuracy that can only mean that he’s done this before.

Keith whirls around, narrowing his eyes. “Help you out?”

Lance shrinks back. “I know, I know, I’m sorry, but I’m not about to go against direct orders from the Upper Hand. I don’t have to, like, stand by your side all stoic-like and in uniform all the time–we’re just two angels hanging out. I can even ask some friends over and we’ll just pretend like you don’t want to kill me, all right?”

Although that sounded like the last thing Keith actually wanted to do, he sighs and lets his shoulders sag, again. The Above was sapping all of his strength away and there was nothing he could do about it. Besides, he thinks wryly as he studied the other angel’s face a little closer, this guy looks so hopeful–even a little desperate, maybe–that he wants to help him.

It’s scary, getting your first assignment from the Above–and from the way this guy as handling it so far, Keith goes out on a limb and assumes it’s his first. He’d handled his fair share of them, and will never forget the first time he got sent down to Middle Ground armed with nothing but his black-bladed knife and the instructions still fresh in his mind, and an eagerness to please–to prove himself. He’s lost that desire since, feeling nothing but resentment towards the Upper Hand.

“Fine,” he finally says, rubbing a hand over his face. “Fine. Call your friends or whatever. I’ll just–I’ll stick around.”

Lance grins. “Cool. Thanks, man.”

Keith has to resist rolling his eyes, and he stuffs his hands in his jean’s pockets as he follows Lance out of the forest. “D’you know for how long you’ll need to ‘guard’ me?” he asks, air quoting the word “guard” with his fingers.

Lance looks over his shoulder and gives an apologetic shrug. “Sorry. They didn’t say.”

Scowling, Keith kicks a small rock out of his path. “Right. Of course they didn’t say,” he mutters.

Lance’s friends are, thankfully, less obnoxious and annoying than he is. An angel with soft golden-yellow wings introduces himself as Hunk, and a much smaller angel tells him her name is Pidge. They’re nice, albeit a bit loud, Keith thinks. He stays as much to the side as he can, dangling his legs over the platform they sit on and staring at the sky and twinkling stars that always seem present. He drowns out the conversation around him, closing his eyes and taking a deep breath, allowing himself for the first time since he’s here to relax.

He realises the severity of his punishment. As much as they tried to, the Above wasn’t the paradise that people made it out to be. There were strict rules and punishments if you didn’t follow them–it had always felt more of a prison to Keith than anything.

But that was when he had been able to leave whenever he wanted. When it got too much, he could just leave to Middle Ground and clear his head while the familiar rush of energy lightens his very being and adds a spring to his step.

Now, as he sits there, dazedly staring at the eerily similar but yet so different world around him, he knows he’s not going to last long. He’s going to go crazy–and probably sooner than later. He takes a deep breath, squeezing his eyes shut and lowering his face into his hands. Come on, man, keep your thoughts straight.

“Whoa–where do you think you’re going?” Lance’s voice pulls him back to the real world. Keith turns, only then realising his wings are out and he’s crouching as if he’s going to jump.

He manages to cover his surprise almost immediately and scowls. “I’m going to go to bed. Are you gonna watch me sleep, too?”

Lance hesitates, casting a look at his friends. Hunk gives Keith a sympathetic smile. “You’ll get used to it, don’t worry. Angels who’ve spent a while on Middle Ground are often a bit disoriented for the first few days they’re back.”

“Thanks,” Keith mutters. He spreads his wings.

“I’ll be there as soon as you wake up!” yells Lance cheerfully, and Keith shoots him a last glare before taking off.

Instead of going to the room he’s been assigned he seeks out a comfortable spot in the forest to rest. As he lies on his stomach on a thick branch high up, hidden by the canopy, he ponders the prospect of a life in the Above. The Upper Hand can’t keep him here forever, right? They’ll have to let him go sometime. Right? Keith has a vision of himself walking down the streets on Middle Ground with Lance, Pidge and Hunk by his sides like bodyguards. He shivers.

Besides, he’s managed to stay out of their vision long enough. He would have hidden for longer–but he made a stupid mistake, and it was that which had given the Upper Hand the ability to locate him.

The mistake had been you.

A rogue demon whom Keith had been supposed to kill–his last assignment. The only one he hadn’t completed.

A few run-ins and the same number of fights to the death with you had left Keith disoriented, bleeding and limping, retreating to his apartment with one single thought in his head: he couldn’t do it. He hadn’t been able to finish the job the first time and he wouldn’t be able to do it any other time, simply because you were you.

He’d killed demons before. Why should you be any different? He’d had countless opportunities to get rid of you, and yet he didn’t. It was infuriating.

It had been something in your eyes, Keith ponders as he rolls his head to the other side, gazing into the darkness of the forest below him. The night air had started to cool down drastically and nips at the bare flesh of his arms. He barely felt it. It had been something in your eyes that had radiated fear and anger and determination–he’d seen himself in those eyes the same way he’d seen himself in your fighting stance and the defiant snarl on your face.

Why hadn’t he killed you?

Maybe you reminded him too much of himself.

Whatever the case: he had hesitated and you had gotten away, and he’d spent his days wandering the cities and avoiding the Upper Hand ever since.

But he’d gotten curious, and he’d returned to where he saw you last and had taken to observing you whenever he could. It was like a magnet pulled him back to you at all times; as if he was walking in circles and you were at the centre of it all. He had stayed in one spot too long, grown careless in his attempts to catch glimpses of you wherever you went. For a demon, you didn’t seem to do very demon-like stuff, he remembers thinking.

He had always been taught that demons were–well, demons, in everything they did. Evil through and through. But the way you acted and led your life didn’t strike Keith as particularly demonic–in fact, you were nice to the people you encountered. You smiled. You looked everything opposite of what Keith had been led to believe his entire life, and maybe that’s why he’d been so intrigued by you.

It had resulted in his being tracked and coerced back to the Above (read: threatened, Keith thinks bitterly), of course. And here he was, thinking about the demon that had landed him in this very situation. He groans, covering his face and letting his wings droop down. Sleep, he commands himself. Sleep.

The next weeks are spent by Lance’s (and, inevitably, his friends’) side, and Keith seriously begins to regret having accepted to help out the guy with his assignment. It’s not so much the company itself he despises; it’s more the fact that none of them seems to be able to shut up.

“So I took little Marco flying for the first time and he was so wobbly and awkward, but it was so cute and he did so well! I remember when I flew for the first time I crashed, like, five times before I could pull a straight take-off,” Lance chirps, his hands buried in Hunk’s feathers as he picks out the little branches and leaves that got stuck there during their morning flight. Pidge had threatened to bite his fingers off if he tried to touch her wings and was awkwardly smoothing down her own feathers. Keith suppresses a smile. He likes Pidge.

She sees him look and frowns. Eyes widening, Keith quickly looks away, but he’s already got her attention and she flicks him with her wing. “Hey.”

He shifts so he sits cross-legged. “Hey.”

“I had a question,” she says, leaning forward, a spark in her brown eyes that promise nothing good.

Keith immediately has his guard up. “Yeah?”

“Yeah. I’ve been wondering why Lance was assigned to babysit you ever since I heard,” Pidge says, ignoring Keith’s scowl and grunt of “He’s guarding me”. “So I did some research of my own.”

Hunk visibly pales as she says this. “Pidge, you know that’s not a good idea–”

“And then I found out that you were the one who disappeared on Middle Ground,” Pidge finishes triumphantly and crosses her arms. “So what’s your deal? Why were you so important that you needed a personal babysitter?”

“Guard.”

“Whatever. I mean, if the Upper Hand’s got its eyes on you anyway, there’s no way you can leave the Above without them knowing. A personal guard just seems a bit much to me, you know?”

Keith stares at her for a minute. “Well,” he grunts, “it’s not like I had a choice.”

Lance frowns and throws up his arms. “Hey. You could have gotten way worse than me.”

“I’d rather have gotten no one at all.”

“But you got stuck with me, so deal with it.”

Pidge clears her throat. “You still haven’t answered my question.” She scoots forward until she’s sitting only inches away from his face, and Keith automatically recoils. “What makes you so special?”

Pushing her away, Keith fights down the flush creeping upon his cheeks. Lance and Hunk are looking at him too, now, and he’s not used to this kind of attention. He opens his mouth, ready to retort with some witty reply about the size of his private parts but refrains from it at the last second. What is it that makes him so special?

He just shakes his head. “I don’t know.”

Pidge huffs, blowing a piece of hair out of her face and cocking her head. Her brown eyes bore right through him, and he could see that she wasn’t convinced. Hunk shot them cautious looks, fiddling with his fingers. “Pidge, maybe–”

“I heard you befriended a demon.”

The silence that follows the words is thick enough to cut through with a knife. Hunk buries his face in his hands, and Lance hisses a startled “Pidge”. Keith can’t help the tensing of his muscles–as if his subconscious preparing himself for a fight. But Pidge doesn’t take the hint, and continues pressing.

“Is that why you need guarding every second of the day? Because you’re a traitor to the Above?”

Her voice resonates in his ears and he opens his mouth, but no words come out. All he manages to do is weakly shake his head. “That’s not–”

“They don’t want to let you out again because they’re afraid of you. Afraid of what you’ll do, afraid of you selling your brothers and sisters out to the Below. What’d they offer you? Gold, riches?” Pidge’s words each feel like a punch to the gut, one right after the other, and Keith unwillingly shrunk back. “You’re dangerous. They can’t trust you. Frankly, I’m surprised they even let you back here–”

“STOP!”

The word is ripped from his lips in a voice he doesn’t recognise. Pidge shuts her mouth immediately, recoiling at the sound. His breathing is laboured and whistles in his lungs, and he squeezes his eyes shut, head spinning. He takes a deep breath, trying to keep the thundering of his heartbeat out of his ears. A violet haze falls over his vision.

“I didn’t befriend a demon,” he says quietly, the low rumble of his voice startling even him. Pidge’s face has gone pale. She’s leaning away from him, eyes wide, and Keith realises it’s because she’s scared of him. Lance’s fists are balled, and Keith doesn’t understand why they’re so hostile towards him all of a sudden. They brought up the topic. They’re the ones that kept pressing him. They should have seen this coming.

He scrambles up and stumbles to the end of the platform, spreading his jet-black wings, ignoring Lance’s shout of “Wait!” as he jumps off.

He doesn’t know where he’s going, only focused on getting as far away from the others as possible. He shakes his head, trying to rid himself of the words, but they follow him as he zips through the trees, grateful for the coverage they give him. Traitor, a taunting voice whispers. They can’t trust you. You’re a danger; unreliable. Shut up, he yells back.

It’s funny how you can yell in your thoughts, shout your throat raw–the volume of them will never get any louder.

He flies deeper, deeper, deeper into the woods he’s ever been, and then he keeps going. He wants to be alone more than anything, and he promises himself he will keep flying until he’s outrun the wisps of thoughts still nagging at the end of his brain. He pushes himself faster than he’s ever flown.

A tear rolls down his cheek.

The deeper he dives into the forest, the denser the trees become, and after narrowly avoiding his left wing getting smacked against a thick trunk covered with lianas he’s forced to land and continue on foot, slipping out his knife and cutting his way through the brush, making himself a path to… where?

He doesn’t know. He hopes he finds something worth the journey.

As he walks he tries and banish every and all thought from his mind, focusing on the noises around him. Birds he’s never seen before zip past his ears, crooning their strange songs. Insects he’s only heard of float around his arms, curiously examining the halo he’s taken off and shrunk to its bracelet form again. It’s peaceful, he thinks, more peaceful than he’s ever experienced before. It’s almost too beautiful a place to exist in the Above.

For a while, the only sound to be heard is the crackling of branches as he forges himself a path through trees, bushes, other weird plants sticking up from the damp soil. His shoes are black with dirt and he stumbles every few minutes trying to keep up a fast pace. More and more animals gather around him and nudge him forward, beckoning him to keep going. Go on, they seem to whisper. Go ahead. Come with us. The light filters through the canopy in yellow-golden strips, illuminating just enough of his surroundings so that Keith can keep moving.

Soon the jungle grows too dense for him to continue and he finds himself getting tangled in vines left and right. He tries cutting them away–stomping them down into the ground–but they just keep coming, slithering around his wrists and ankles, pulling him in every direction at once and he can’t keep up. He tries to fight them off with a strangled scream, whacking them away with his wings. It does no good, and the vines wrap around his shoulders with terrifying speed, sticking his wings to his body.

The light dims, and the forest doesn’t seem so gorgeous anymore. The trees are covered with slimy leaves, rotting plants decaying on the forest bed, the soil blacker than a starless sky. The once-pretty insects come at every bit of exposed skin, nipping and stinging and biting until every inch of him feels like it’s being painted in flames. The birds’ songs don’t sound as enchanting anymore–but hauntingly morbid in an almost beautiful way.

The vines encase Keith’s legs, pulling at his arms. He loses his balance. Falls with a sickening crack and an arc of pain shoots up his entire right side, stemming from his wing. He screams. Absolute terror courses through his veins, his heartbeat racing.

White flowers sprout from the vines. In the back of his mind–the very small part of his brain that isn’t engulfed in paralysing fear–Keith thinks about how out of place these flowers are. He even recognises them, which is strange only in the sense that he’s positive he’s never seen them before, and certainly not in the Above. The white orchids bloom in seconds, wilting right afterwards, shrivelling up and falling off, only to be immediately replaced by another. They smell like everything flowers shouldn’t smell like. It’s suffocating, and Keith starts coughing when he feels something tickle at the back of his throat. He retches, managing to spit out the thing that almost choked him. It’s an orchid flower.

This one is black.

Keith wakes up with a scream, the memory of vines slowly strangling him fresh in his mind. It’s a scream of fear that almost immediately morphs into a scream of pain. His wing.

Twisting around, he awkwardly tries to examine the damage, but it’s dark and he can’t see a thing. He wipes at his forehead, hands trembling, and takes a shaky breath. He tries to move his wing and flinches: he can do it, but it’s stiff and painful. He’ll have to have someone look at it soon.

Then he notices the hard surface digging into his back and he jumps up, ignoring the pain shooting up from his wing. Stumbling back, he blinks frantically, forcing his eyes to adjust themselves to the darkness. His legs hit another one of the hard things and he tumbles back with a scream, narrowly managing to twist in midair so he doesn’t fall on his injured wing. He scrambles up again, the only thought in his head a mantra of Keep moving, keep moving, don’t stop, keep moving, keep running.

He zooms in on the thing he tripped on, running a hand along its surface. He still can’t see what it is, but he feels a roughness that can only be stone and carved lines swirling across it. It’s a slab of stone jutting out from the ground. He blinks again. In the split second his eyes are closed there’s a weird feeling in his stomach, like he just did a backflip–and when he opens them again light blares at him from every direction and he yanks his head back from the rock. It’s a gravestone. His gravestone, he realises with a mounting feeling of horror as he reads the inscription, strangely ironic words engraved in a swirly font. Keith Kogane, Traitor. Around him, gravestones pop up from the ground, all identical, until he finds himself standing the middle of a graveyard.

He turns, his feet already starting to carry him to a place far away from gravestones and chocking vines but he finds himself face to face with a door. He whips around again, but the gravestones are gone. He’s in a narrow corridor. Blue lights line the stark white walls. There are no doors except for the one behind him. The corridor seems to go on forever.

Breathing hard, Keith reaches for the doorknob, half expecting it to come alive and try to bite his hand off, but it’s a regular stainless steel knob mounted on a regular stainless steel door. It’s square, sure, a rather odd shape for a doorknob, but there’s nothing inherently special about it. It’s somewhat warm to the touch–as if someone else had used it not too long ago. Keith grabs the knob. Turns. It clicks, the door inching open and a stripe of sunlight enters the corridor.

“Keith.”

His bones turn to ash and his blood turns to ice, because he recognises the voice, and it’s not one he wants to hear right now. He spins around, tears flooding his eyes, clutching the doorknob because he’s thoroughly convinced it will disappear if he lets go of it.

You’re standing right there. Only feet away from him, basking in soft blue light. You’re dressed in cleaner clothes he’s ever seen you in, and your hair is soft and brushed and flicking around your face as if you’re standing in a gust of wind only you can feel. That should have been enough for Keith to stop and think Something isn’t right here.

But his thoughts are sluggish and he's completely and utterly mesmerised by your appearance and his grip is slackening on the doorknob because you’re right there and you’re looking so hopeful, your smile very nearly begging him to join you.

And then he looks up, into your eyes–pitch black and devoid of any emotion, and he starts. This isn’t them, he forces himself to think, grip tightening on the knob once more. Ignoring your call–you sob his name, pleading with him to stay, please, Keith, stay--he throws his full weight into the door and stumbles out into a place he knows all too well.

Lights flash from all around him, hundreds of people talking into their phones or to the person they’re with, milling all around him. Buildings rise up around him, encircling the huge square he finds himself in the middle of. It’s the early evening, and street lights are starting to get lit. Billboards stand out against the darkening sky, advertising their respective restaurant, or grocery store, or tattoo parlour. No one seems to notice his sudden appearance.

Something tugs on his sleeve. Keith looks down. A small kid gives him a toothed grin, pointing at the wings--one crooked and hanging awkwardly off his frame--which Keith had forgotten to conceal. “I like your costume! You’re, like, a fallen angel, right? What with the broken wing, and all. ”

Keith nods, dazed, his eyes scanning his surroundings for one particular building. The one your apartment hides behind. He finds it. His eyes lock on it. In that very moment, he’s absolutely positive that’s why he managed to get out of the Above and to this square, of all places, knowing that it’s you who guided him here. Who guided him home, a small voice whispers inside him. His heart starts beating just that little bit faster.

The kid grins. “That’s awesome, man.”

He’s back on Middle Ground.