#this got...vague and long and symbolicky whoops

[hollowfaith]

umbrella because Aury needs someone to be nice to him today :P

actions speak louder than words // umbrella, sender lets receiver under their umbrella.

Rain fell, sudden and sloppy, on the eve of one summer afternoon in Spirale City. It plunged the last light of the waning sunset to darkness, painting the skies gray and the air thick with the wet, humid gasps of a fading day still struggling to live.

There were still a good amount of pedestrians in the streets at 7PM on a Friday, but all of them had places to be and people to see. No one paid much attention to the blond man standing beneath the awning of a shuttered pawnshop, one hand stretched out to catch stray droplets. Or if they did, it was only to look at him and away again, with private thoughts wondering whether they'd seen him somewhere before.

Was he a model? He was tall enough, but not nearly so ostentatious. An actor? Yet he seemed too much at ease with his own obscurity. Maybe a businessman? Perhaps, though one ill-prepared to be alone in bad weather...in any case, some hidden sense of awe made them keep away from a place where they obviously didn't belong.

The mysterious man might have stood there all evening in his elegant coat (strange pick for summer, yet it suited him nonetheless), leather shoes, and blasé attitude if it wasn't for the appearance of a second man (equally tall and just as imposing) and his timely umbrella, which he extended to the blond in obvious invitation.

"Aurelius."

At last Aurelius turned, dropping his rain-soaked palm to his sides. He smiled and said back, in equally measured tones, "Legato."

"Are you waiting for someone? I have an umbrella, if you don’t mind sharing—though maybe I'm assuming too much for an angel to be trapped by rain."

Hearing that, the blond steps beneath the new shelter with no hesitation.

"You're halfway correct," he admits. "Though what traps me is less rain and more thought."

"By picking me up, you've become the very person I'm waiting for."

He begins to walk and Legato keeps pace without batting an eye, his body only a half-step behind the angel temporarily under his care. Someone else might've asked where they were going, but Legato is used to being told things in their own time, and so waits for the next subject to crop up.

It comes soon enough in the form of a question.

"Have you ever contemplated loneliness?"

Blinking, Legato tries his best to think of an honest answer.

"I...not recently, no." Though it's true that in his darkest hours, he had harbored fears of being left alone and forgotten—which in retrospect, was probably its own form of isolation. Obviously Aurelius isn't here to pry into his heart, but to share his thoughts with him, so Legato doesn't elaborate.

As expected, the angel soon resumes speaking.

"I had a chance to entertain the thought before you arrived. I saw multiple people pass me by, none of them interested in me whatsoever, and considered who conceivably would think to pick me up in this storm. By the time you offered, I could think of merely three—perhaps four—persons in total."

Besides the obvious gratification at being part of Aurelius' private shortlist, Legato is more surprised that the number is so low. "Surely there are more..."

"More people dislike me than you think," Aurelius said simply. "Those do not bother me. Instead, it was the idea of you four joining their ranks that troubled me more. It should not affect me so. It certainly wouldn't have in the past."

Legato stayed quiet this time, waiting to see where he'd go next.

"The thought of these people ignoring me, disregarding me—it rankles. Not at my pride, but something else entirely, a hollowness like a hole in one's chest. Within that I believe I've glimpsed a semblance of an emotion I've never had before. For while I was alone, I was never lonely."

"That," Legato tries slowly. "isn't necessarily a bad thing. Having people you care for, who care for you in turn..." he trails off, temporarily lost in the warmth of his own memories. "...it brings a special sort of joy, a kind of gift you don't know you missed until you have it for yourself."

"Do all your gifts come with such burdens?" Aurelius asks as he stopped—not from Legato's words, but because of the traffic light on the street corner. These little human restrictions were irritatingly quaint in their own way. "I cannot help but find it cursed—for in obtaining a blessing, one cannot help but imagine a future where it doesn't exist."

Legato suppressed a subconscious shudder at the idea. "That's a...surprisingly bleak observation from you, Aurelius." Although a part of him wondered if that statement was too blunt, the other was more curious to hear what the angel was thinking. After all, this was the same being who told him to keep walking and stop looking back. It was unusual to see the blond experiencing his own brand of hesitation now.

"Perhaps it is because I do not trust anything too human by default," Aurelius admitted after a while. "They are imperfect beings—and regardless of their virtues or vices, destined to wander as lost souls while fixing their flaws. To embrace their ways too intimately jeopardizes my position as their guide and better—don't you think?" He suddenly breaks off, fixing Legato with mute appeal in his eyes.

Legato isn't sure what he reads in those golden irises. He can feel a strong sense of conviction as well as the—not stubbornness, but purpose driving their owner. For a moment, he feels as if he understands the angel exactly: a soul cut to such precise proportions that even the slightest deviation would threaten the integrity of its facets. Like a diamond, Aurelius shone brightest when held at the perfect angles to fill himself with light. Tilted away, he was no different from glass: clean, pure, but ultimately empty.

Words rise to his throat, urging him to voice his thoughts. Yet before Legato can speak, a hand rests over his own on the umbrella handle and presses it down. Cool air washes over them both as the sky unfolds above their heads: clouds clearing after the storm, the horizon dyed a dark purplish-gray. Even the light's finished changing, filling the streets beside them with cars speeding through the intersection as 'WALK' flashes at them in bright white lights across the street.

"The rain's stopped," Aurelius remarked.

"So it has," Legato answered by way of reply.

Bereft of their shared space beneath the umbrella, a distance grows between them even though neither man has budged an inch. It becomes even more palpable after Aurelius lets go of the umbrella handle, severing their last point of connection. Legato tries the sentence resting on his tongue, almost tasting it as he wills it into form, and yet—

"I'm afraid I've been rambling," Aurelius speaks first, cutting off the man before he ever begun.

"Do think nothing of it—only a passing whim of an idle mind."

"Aurelius—," Legato starts, but pulls back before he ever starts to push. "...shall I escort you the rest of the way?"

“That’s kind of you," Aurelius begins, and Legato hears the rejection already, "but I'll be fine. My destination isn't far."

He graces the human with a nod and takes one step, two steps, backwards and up—

Golden wings appear in the dying light, eclipsing the sky with their twilight radiance, before Aurelius bids his final goodbyes.

"It is no fault of yours, of course," he adds pleasantly while hovering in the air. "But in the course of our stroll I have discovered how enjoyable agreeable company is—and in turn, how very new such sensations are to me at all."

"We can take another walk—in the future, when you're feeling up to it again," Legato offers simply. Another gift, with no strings attached. Now isn't the time to ask why and what.

"We will," Aurelius said in his curious way that turned suggestion into fact. "But for tonight, I aim to get reacquainted with my solitude. One wonders if absence makes the heart grow fonder, even in such a case."

Legato manages to smile at that. "An interesting question to consider."

"It seems the mortal realm has no end of them."

After a soft laugh, Legato managed to collect himself. The angel was still there, so he simply called out his name once more. "Aurelius."

"Yes."

"Your wings are quite beautiful."

Four golden ones glimmered as their owner gave them a languid flap. "Do they shine as they ought?"

"Yes, of course."

"...then all is not lost." Something small relaxes in Aurelius' expression—and then he's gone, a blur of wind and feathers ascending to the skies.