“Think we’ll find some demons here?” Levi asks.
Levi and Shep walk through a local park, a lake on their left and a field of grass on their right. Up ahead is a playground, though honestly, Levi is going to subtly leave the path before they have to pass the screaming child cage.
“I’m not sure. Demons like negativity, so it’s unlikely…” Shep looked around at the park. It was a nice place. It had trees. And ducks. And screaming children. “Then again, maybe if there’s an angry enough adult, there might be one.”
“Maybe there’ll be some drunken bastard who comes along and ruins everything.”
Why is it that when he doesn’t want to find a demon, it’s always right there, but when he’s actively searching to do some vigilante justice there is not a single demon around?
“Maybe,” says Shep. “I was thinking more along the lines of, let’s stop here and get some lunch, and then continue our demon hunt afterward.”
“Ah.” Levi was about to just start saying some real depressing shit to try to get a demon to swing by.
But lunch sounds good too.
“There’s a café near here I’ve been to before. They make good sandwiches.” Shep points down the path. To get to the sandwich place they have to walk past all the screaming childs and the adults watching the childs.
This is gonna suck.
He’ll do it for Shep.
And for a sandwich. But mostly Shep.
“Alright, sounds good,” says Levi, and he braces himself to walk past the playground.
It’s not even the fact that the kids are loud, even though it kind of is, it’s the fact that they’re people and they’re going to stare at him and it’s not just the kids. When kids are shouting, parents are watching and when parents are watching, parents are seeing Levi, being confused about his vaguely androgynous appearance and staring. Also sometimes hurling various slurs at him. Not always. But sometimes.
Why does he even leave the house?
As they get closer to the screaming, Levi huddles closer to Shep. It’s not even conscious. He’s just looking for somewhere safe to go and Shep is that at this exact moment. Shep is the only thing shielding him somewhat from the outside world.
It is now that Levi consciously notices he’s doing this. Oh, God, Shep hasn’t noticed, has he? He hopes Shep hasn’t noticed because he doesn’t want to be weird but also he’s terrified and he doesn’t want to be pushed away at this exact moment when they are walking past the screaming.
Shep does not push him away. Shep keeps walking forward. Shep even waves to a couple of the kids.
They don’t wave back.
Rude.
But a few more steps and it’s over. A few more steps and the parents will stop staring and the kids will keep screaming and Levi and Shep will have walked past the playground.
Two more steps.
One more.
And they’re out of view, they’re safe, Levi can say whatever dumb shit he wants without worrying about every bastard in a four mile radius eavesdropping. And as a bonus, he can actually see the sandwich shop from here.
It’s a normal looking shop. It has a black sign up the top saying “SANDWICHES” in a vaguely cursive font, and there are chairs and tables overlooking the lake. It’s a pretty nice spot.
The sign on the door says ‘OPEN’, which is convenient, because you can’t buy sandwiches at a closed sandwich store.
Levi tries to push open the door. It doesn’t open.
Shep pulls open the door and walks in.
God damn it, he’s done it again. He’s-
Shep walks out again.
“Why did you-“
“Old classmate,” says Shep. “Don’t want to talk to him.”
“Come on,” says Levi. “They’re probably friendly.” How bad could old classmates be? If it’s anything like Levi’s experience, they’ll just give an awkward ‘hello’ and stand around and then leave.
“They’re not,” says Shep, and right on cue, two dudebros walk out with sunglasses and tank tops. Levi can tell from Shep’s reaction that one of these dudes is the classmate.
“Shep!” he says cheerily. “How you goin’, bud?”
“I’m doing fine, thank you.”
Oh dear. That was much more of a cold reaction than he’s come to expect from Shep. Maybe they really aren’t nice people.
“Who’s your friend?”
“I’m Levi,” says Levi. Maybe he can direct the attention to him and away from Shep because that seems to be what Shep wants.
“Interesting name for a girl,” says the tank top bro on the left. “I’m Phoenix.”
“I’m not, but thanks.” There’s probably a stage when he should stop bothering to correct people. He’s never going to see these guys again, so there isn’t really much point, but he should probably try to make a decent first impression.
“I’m Chad,” says the one on the right who’s called Chad. “I’m amazed, though, Shep, that they finally found someone unimportant enough for you to be in charge of protecting them.”
Ouch. Okay. That’s probably why Shep doesn’t want to talk to them.
“Levi is just as important as anyone else,” Shep says, and tries to walk forward. Chad grabs his shoulder and pushes him back.
“Not as important as Phoenix,” says Chad. “No homo, bro. It’s just he’s the strongest. They think he could win it this year, you know.”
“…win what?” Shep is confused. Levi is confused. Everyone is confused except this dudebro here being a dickhead about it.
“You know. Everything.” Chad shrugs. “What about your one? What can he do?”
“He’s not ‘mine’, we’re-“
“I can set things on fire,” says Levi.
“Ooh, scary,” says Phoenix. “I can make knives from shadows.”
...Of course he can.
“Anyway, lovely chatting with you, but I’d better be off so I can go and buy lunch.”
“Not so fast.” Chad pushes Shep back again. “You’ve come at a good time. We’re here with a warning.”
Great, that’s not ominous or threatening at all.
“Bantam’s doing a routine check. Better make sure you have your teamwork working good because if she finds out about this-“ Chad points to Levi- “she’s gonna be pissed.” He puts his hands in his pockets and turns to Phoenix. “Come on, bro. Let’s hit the gym.” They punch each other in a very bro way - because the best way to show friendship is to assault the other person, apparently - and saunter off.
Shep puts his hands in his pockets and looks at the ground as they walk away. When he’s finally sure they can’t hear, he looks up again. “Listen, Levi, I know you don’t want a guardian angel and I know we agreed for me not to act as a guardian angel, but…” He pauses. He looks worried “Bantam- my boss- I know she doesn’t sound scary but she’s terrifying- please just let me pretend, at least. She can’t know about any of this. I’ll- buy you a milkshake or something. I’m not sure. I’ll get you whatever you want.”
“Don’t worry about it.” It’s what friends are for, etc. You know. Levi has to cover for Shep here. And he’s doing the sad puppy face again. “She won’t suspect a thing.”
He can’t actually guarantee it but he’s gonna say it anyway to make Shep feel better. He’ll do his homework. Shep can’t hold it against him if he makes a genuine mistake. Shep’s too nice for that.
Shep grabs Levi’s hands and stares him in the eye. “You promise?”
Oh God, he just said he couldn’t promise but he can’t disappoint Shep.
“I promise.”
The lake is full of ducks. The lake is always full of ducks. People come to throw bread away, and so the ducks like to hang out near this particular bench.
Levi glares at the ducks as he tries to keep his sandwich safe. Those bastards aren’t getting any of it-
Shep takes a single look at the swarm of ducks and throws half his sandwich to them.
“Don’t encourage them,” says Levi.
“They looked hungry!”
“And what about you?”
“I still have half a sandwich. And I took out the lettuce before I threw it to the ducks.”
Oh yeah, and Levi has learnt that Shep is an abomination upon the earth and eats sandwiches with lettuce and nothing else.
“Want some of mine?”
“It’s alright. But if you don’t want it, you should give it to the ducks.” Shep leans forward and stares at the ducks. “They’re very cute.”
“They’re not hungry,” Levi says. “They’re lying bastards. And criminals. They do this whenever someone sits down here.” He leans back and watches as Shep sacrifices more of his bread to the ducks. “You’re too nice.”
“Being nice is my job.” Shep throws one last piece of bread before finally taking a bite out of his abomination sandwich. “This world is too beautiful to resist participation in. I’m sure my boss wouldn’t approve, I’m supposed to stay out of it, but it just works so well.”
What type of world do you have to live in to consider the human world functional? Levi refuses to believe it. This is a trash place. Wherever the angels live has to be better than here. After all, they’re angels. They’re supposed to be better, cleaner, superior to humans. They protect the heavens.
What on Earth could be better than that?
As if Shep read Levi’s mind, he continues his explanation. “The angel world…though it may seem perfect to outsiders, it’s not a very pleasant place to live. The only thing that lives there is angels, and any kind of difference is strongly discouraged. It was hard enough to get into a decent school with my terrible magic. Imagine anything…different.”
Shep is, of course, referring to The Gays.
“Angels don’t feel love. Not in the way humans do, at least. But the angels who do…” Shep stares at the ducks. “Well, it usually doesn’t end well. They end up as outcasts. Or kicked out. Up there, they don’t have time for useless emotions like love. It’s a waste of time.”
“But-“
“I love the human world, Levi, even though I’m not supposed to. Angels aren’t superior beings. We’re equal. I’m sick of looking down on humans. I want to protect this place. So I have to be a guardian angel.” Shep takes another bite of his sandwich and shrugs. “Sorry. I guess I got a little too into it.”
“No, it was cool,” says Levi. It was useful, too. Things really had changed up there. It was good to know what was different before he went and got himself murdered by them. “Do angels really think love is a waste of time?”
“Yep. As well as a lot of other things. That’s why I think this place is so much nicer. I don’t want to leave the angel world completely. It’s where my home is, my family, but…I don’t really have friends.” Shep looks to the sky. “Again, waste of time. But it’s what I’ve known my whole life. As horrible as it can be sometimes, I belong there too.” He finishes his sandwich and sits there for a while. They both do. Sitting. And contemplating existence. And stuff like that.
“You should try wasting time. Properly wasting time,” Levi eventually says. “Everything is a lot calmer if you waste time.”
“Is it?” Shep shrugs. “I don’t think my boss would like it much.”
“Your boss doesn’t have to know. You should come over to my house and we can waste some time together.”
Levi has lots of time to waste. He’s pretty much got nothing except time to waste. Wasting time is his one and only hobby. He has no job and no friends and nowhere to go. All he can do is waste time.
It’ll be more fun with Shep around. It’s more fun to waste time with someone else than sitting in a room by yourself watching Masterchef for the fifth time.
His sandwich is still sitting in his hand, uneaten. He’d better fix that.
Levi tears off some bread crust and throws it to the ducks. He’s given into them. The bastards have him now.
The crust doesn’t get the chance to hit the ground before it is devoured by swarms of ducks. They seem to have doubled in number as soon as he threw the bread. Maybe they multiply like bacteria.
The ducks look at him expectantly. Levi takes a bite of his sandwich, glaring at them.
“Come on,” says Shep. “Look at them. They’re adorable.”
“I’m not giving them any more bread.”
At the mention of the word ‘bread’, several ducks begin to flap around.
Levi sighs and throws another bit of crust at them. “Only because I don’t like bread crust, though. Don’t think I’m being nice to them.”
“Sure,” says Shep, grinning. “Whatever you say.”
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