Shep immediately steps away, slowly at first but then backs away faster until he hits the wall and it starts to truly dawn on him.
“I’m-” Levi chokes out. “I’m sorry.”
All the anger he’d felt immediately disappears as he watches Shep. He wants to go over and tell Shep it’s alright, they’re safe, no one’s going to get hurt, but he can’t do that for Shep now. This time it's his fault.
In a way, this is worse. He’d hoped Shep would be angry and just fight him like angels do but he’s not angry, he’s hurt and scared and confused.
Shep doesn’t do anything but stare at Levi, and Levi doesn’t know what to do about it.
“Why?”
“I didn’t know how to tell you. I didn’t want this to happen.” His hands grip the carpet around him, and his magic leaks out into the threads, lighting them up in a blaze.
“Just- leave me alone.”
Shep turns to leave but a door slams shut and Chad comes strolling in, because Levi definitely needed someone else to come and make the situation worse.
“Sup, my dudes,” says Chad. “Who’s ready for a little bit of murder?”
Both Levi and Shep shoot a glare at Chad.
“Bad timing?”
“Yes!” Levi shouts, and fire shoots towards Chad until Levi sees the fear in Shep’s eyes again. The flames die down and Levi pushes himself backward into the wall.
This is his fault, and there’s nothing he can do about it. Shep is lost and scared and all Levi wants to do is to run over and help him and comfort him but at the same time that would make things worse. Because Shep feels that way because of him. It’s his fault that Shep is scared and lost.
If Shep just outright started shouting or trying to murder him, Levi could just run or project his anger onto Shep and the angels and move on. But now Shep is confused and there’s nothing Levi can do about it. Instead of anger he’s just feeling this horrible sick feeling that makes him want to die. Shep isn’t trying to kill him, Shep is the one that’s trying to run and Levi didn’t want it to be this way.
Chad doesn’t care. He steps toward Levi. “Y’know, I spent a lot of time wondering why Bantam hated you so much. She spent a whole lot of time getting angry about you. And scheming and shit. Who knows? I’m just glad that I’m the one that gets to finish the job.”
Levi’s gaze is fixed on Chad but he sees Shep flinch in the corner of his eyes.
“Unless, ya know, Shep wants to do it, ‘cause I’m all for that, brah.”
“What?” Shep holds his arms close to his body and shakes his head vigorously. “N-no.”
“No?” Chad laughs. “That’s a demon, Shep. You know the rules.”
“But-”
Chad throws a knife to Shep. Shep barely catches it, hands shaking.
“You know, if you can do it we can forget everything. We can leave it all behind us, you’ll be famous, everyone will love you. That’s what you want, isn’t it?”
“That’s...” Shep looks at the knife and then at Levi. Over and over again. “I can’t.”
“Alright.” Chad shrugs. “Your loss.” Chad grabs the knife from Shep and pushes him backward, then advances on Levi again.
Chad stabs at Levi, but Levi scrambles up just in time to avoid getting hit. Levi presses himself to the wall, trying to get away from the knife but Chad wraps a hand around his neck.
Maybe he deserves it. He probably does. He shouldn’t have hidden it for so long. He shouldn’t have let himself get attached to an angel.
Levi shoves Chad away and looks to the ground. Why is he fighting back? Why is he bothering?
This isn’t over.
This isn’t over, he tells himself over and over again even though he doesn’t believe it. The world is more than this, the world is more than angels and Shep, he has a kingdom that needs him-
Do they, though? Do they? They’ve survived well enough without him, the place isn’t in ruin, nothing bad ever happens when he’s gone.
They don’t need him. Shep doesn’t, either. Or Edward. Or anyone.
No one needs him.
“Step aside, Chad,” a calm voice calls.
For fucks sake, this couldn’t get any worse, could it?
“You obviously aren’t suited for this.” Bantam appears next to Chad and quickly uses some fancy hold to bring him to the ground.
“Aw, man.” Chad doesn’t bother to get up. Bantam approaches Levi.
“If you’re going to kill me, do it faster than I can do it myself.”
It doesn’t matter if he dies. He’ll just be reborn again. They can live without him in Hell. This was probably what they wanted. He wouldn’t be surprised if that was the case. It’s easier to get rid of him than have a King that keeps dying. He’s sick of being alive, he’s sick of being here, he’s sick of this and he just wants it all to end.
“Oh, don’t worry. I will.” Bantam holds up a hand and clenches her fist. A sharp pain floods through Levi.
He’d guessed that Bantam would be good at magic but he’d never really thought about the reality that one day she’d use it on him, and it hurts a lot more than he’d hoped it would.
“You know, the human body is an incredibly fragile thing, Leviathan.”
Levi doesn’t bother to move or strain against it. He figures that it’s probably better to just accept it and maybe he’ll die faster and god he hopes he’ll die faster because it’s spreading, everywhere, a burning heat spreads across his skin and he hasn’t felt heat at this intensity in forever.
“It’s quite a weak point, having that much water. And the temperature of water is incredibly easy to manipulate.”
And then he goes cold, in seconds the searing heat turns to a numbness throughout his entire body and he’s pretty sure he’s succeeded in letting himself die but the burning comes back seconds later.
He doesn’t give her a reaction. He’s used to this, at least. He’s had practice dying. And he knows how to die without giving Bantam what she wants.
“You’re not going to fight back?” The pain subsides. It’s not going to last long, he knows that, but he takes the slight relief where he can get it.
“I guess not.” He shrugs. He knows she’ll make it longer if he makes it obvious how much pain he’s in.
Something about that pisses her off. She growls and pushes him against the wall.
“I thought you said you wanted to do this quickly.”
“I lied.” She presses harder on his neck. It hurts. It’s harder to breathe.
This is taking forever.
Levi lights his hand up, letting the flames lick up his arm. He grabs Bantam and pulls her off.
“I’ll just do it my god damn self then,” he says, and starts to walk out.
“Chad,” says Bantam, and before Levi can react, Chad has grabbed Levi and thrown him to the ground. It’s pretty similar to what Bantam did to Chad before. Probably something they teach in angel school.
Bantam kicks Levi in the ribs. Fuck, they’re really just going to subject him to every kind of pain they can think of, aren’t they?
Levi is...tired. He’s tired of pain and hurt and thinking and worrying. He’s sick of it. They’re not killing him, they’re not letting him die, and he doesn’t care about anything any more. Bantam closes her fist again and he feels the heat all over his body again and he cries out, not as a conscious decision any more but as his body’s reaction to everything that’s happened.
He closes his eyes and he doesn’t process anything else any more, all he can feel is pain and heat and his death wish calling him. Why can’t it just end already?
“S-stop.”
Shep’s voice cuts through the pain. Levi doesn’t know why.
“Why are you doing this? You’re hurting him, you’re angels, you’re meant to be guardians, not-”
“He’s a bad person, Shep. He’s done nothing but bad things.”
“You’re wrong,” says Shep, even though it doesn’t entirely sound like he believes it.
Levi only half understands what’s happening, but the sound of Shep’s voice is making the fuzz in his head feel less horrible.
“Come on, Shep. You know it, we all know it, demons are bad. Angels are good,” says Chad. “Why don’t you come and kill him yourself? Prove yourself. Prove it to yourself. Everyone will love you. Despite everything, they’ll love you anyway.”
Shep stands up and walks towards Levi. His head is feeling horrible now. Fuzzy, dizzy, slowly blank. He can’t focus on his body and Shep at the same time.
“But I don’t need everyone to love me. Because I have Levi. And I know that Levi loves me despite everything. And I didn’t need to prove it to him, I didn’t need to show I was worthy of his love, he just…”
Shep kneels down and holds Levi’s hand. Everything stops hurting a bit less.
“I don’t need to prove anything, not to myself, not to you, not to anyone. I’m done with this.”
“You don’t mean that,” says Bantam. “After all we’ve done for you?”
“After you’ve done nothing but tell me how useless I am for twenty years? Tell me how pointless everything is? You told me I couldn’t feel love. But I know you’re wrong. Everything you say is bullshit. And you know how I know that? Because I watched an angel beat the shit out of my friend while he refused to fight back. And I watched a demon be the nicest person I know. I watched him tell me that I wasn’t hopeless, or useless, or weak and that I was just me. And if you’re an example of what an angel is meant to be, then I give up. I’m not an angel any more.”
Levi feels his head become less foggy. Less pain. He opens his eyes and sees Shep’s hands glowing with a white light.
“You almost had me convinced. I was going to leave him, I was going to let you kill him, but the more you tried to convince me the less convinced I was. And once I realized that I already had everything you were promising me, that’s when you lost me.” Shep pulls Levi into his lap. “Even if he’s a demon, he’s far more human than you’ll ever be.”
Levi wraps his arms around Shep. Shep puts a hand on his forehead.
“Suit yourself,” says Bantam. “Go with him. See what it’s like. But when you come crawling back, we’re not opening the door for you again.”
“I’m not coming back. I’m never coming back,” says Shep. “And I’m leaving now.”
Shep starts to stand up but no, no he can’t do that, Levi needs to get back to Hell, or Edward, or something or somewhere quiet. He holds Shep’s hand and with the other lights a fire and ignites the floor in flames.
They are surrounded by a bright flash of white and then the nothingness.
Shep takes a deep breath in and then out. “Levi, what the fuck.”
“Levi,” comes another voice. “What the fuck.” Edward steps into view. “What have you done now?”
Levi groans. He doesn’t want to move. Or speak. He’s not going to.
Everything hurts.
“Who are you, Levi? I don’t understand, one day we’re just normal friends and then the next day you’re the king of Hell and everyone wants to kill us and I defected oh god.”
“Yeah,” says Levi. “It happens.” It probably doesn’t happen to Shep that often, though, he should say it better, probably. “Sorry.”
“Have I done the right thing?” Shep holds Levi’s hand. “I’ve just left behind everything I know. I- what if this was all a mistake? What if-“
Levi squeezes Shep’s hand. “If I told you now you could go back to living there and just forget any of this happened, would you?”
“Well…” He sighs. “Not any more. Now that I know what they’re actually like.”
Levi doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t want to tell Shep what to think, and Shep knows he’s right. They just have to wait for it to sink in.
“…So I guess this wasn’t a mistake,” says Shep. “But that doesn’t solve the problem that I don’t know anything about you!”
“Here.” Levi sits up. “What do you want to know? Ask away.”
“Who are you? What are you? Why were you in the human world?”
“I’m Levi. Short for Leviathan. I’m a human, but I’m a demon too, I guess. I was in the human world because that’s what my thing is. If I die, I have to start again, living as a human in the human world, until I start to remember and then I can go back home. Makes being a teenager ten times more confusing than it needs to be.”
“And you’re the King of Hell too?”
“Yep.”
“Okay.” Shep sits there and just stares, and waits, and works out what he’s just heard. “So you’re the King of Hell, who dies all the time, and comes back as a human, and then you go back to being the King of Hell, and you’re not a human but you’re not a demon and…” He sighs. “Sorry, there’s just so much happening at once and I just don’t know what to do.”
“You have all the time you need here. Just. Sit around, let it sink in, and then you can work out what you want to do.”
Shep lies back to stare into the white nothingness. Levi is going to leave him for a while. That seems like the best thing to do.
Besides, he needs to negotiate with Edward.
“Let me in,” he says. “I’m not leaving here until you do.”
“Alright,” she says.
Wait. Just like that? Really?
“After all this time, and that’s what it takes? Why?”
“You told me what you wanted instead of whining like a child. You took initiative. Solved your own problems.”
“God damn it was that really all it was? Would you have let me back in earlier if I had just said that?”
“Probably not, honestly. You’re different now. You won’t ruin everything by going back.”
“Thanks,” says Levi sarcastically. Shep is still lying on the floor. “How you doin?”
“I want to stay with you,” Shep says quietly. Levi isn’t sure if he’s meant to hear. Shep is very quiet. “I’m an angel, though, and you’re- you’re the King of Hell, right? How does that even work? Am I allowed there? Are you allowed to talk to me? You don’t worry about-“
“Of course you’re allowed,” Levi says. He looks at Edward and she’s looking at him and he’s looking at her and he sort of looks angrier and she sighs and nods. “There aren’t many rules. I think. I don’t even know how it all works. But there are definitely angels. You’re a legal person.” He needs to stop saying things. He is bad at word explaining.
Shep turns over and gets on his knees and then onto his feet and then he stands up. “Thanks,” he says.
“Do you want to come with me? Now? You don’t have to stay, you can just come and visit and see what it’s all like.”
“That sounds nice.”
Levi motions Shep to follow him and he walks past Edward. The white stops being so white, it turns darker and more colours like blue and green and grey and yellow and the floor doesn’t feel like nothing any more, it feels soft and it moves and it makes noise and then there’s the sky, the night sky and it’s dark but there are so many stars and they just light up the sky like when you turn the lights on when you come home after a very long time and they’re flickering and Levi just feels.
Safe.
He’s home, and he isn’t going to lose Shep, and no one’s going to kill him, and he isn’t being threatened or murdered or shot or stabbed.
“This- it’s- is-“ Shep steps onto the grass and looks up at the night sky. “That’s a lot of stars.”
“There are a lot of stars,” says Levi. Shep steps forward and takes Levi’s hand.
“I don’t want to leave you,” he says. “I don’t care where I have to go. I want to stay with you.”
“Me too.” Levi turns to face Shep. “I didn’t know what Bantam was gonna do. I didn’t know what you were gonna do. I was scared. You stood up for me anyway.”
“I- yeah, I, did, um-“ Shep is sort of flustered and looking for the right thing to say.
“Thanks.”
Shep nods and looks at the ground a bit and nervously pats his head and clicks his fingers a few times before he says,
“Levi, I love you.”
And then Levi kind of panics, because he’s been feeling this sort of thing for a while, he likes Shep, he didn’t think anything was going to happen, he just- oh man. Oh man.
He still doesn’t know what to say here so he looks Shep in the eye and then kisses him.
Shep puts his hands on Levi’s shoulder and closes his eyes and Levi puts his hands on Shep’s waist and closes his eyes and pulls Shep closer.
It’s. Good.
Not just the physical feeling but to be this close with Shep, after everything, when everything is out in the open and Shep knows it all but he’s still here. Shep’s still here, next to Levi, and he’s not leaving anytime soon. Shep has seen who Levi is as a person and knows everything but he’s not horrified or scared or anything.
Shep pulls away and Levi does too but neither of them open their eyes.
“I…love you too? Yeah. I do.” Levi wraps his arm around Shep’s shoulders and just rests his face there for a bit. Shep puts his hand on Levi’s head and pats him.
“Me too,” says Shep.
“Me too,” says Levi.
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