Knights of Hell

In his boredom, Azure went to his best friend’s house. The priest lived a short ten-minute walk away from him. Dull yellow lights lit the dark street, trying to illuminate every possible nook and cranny of the road. A gust of wind blew past; no car drove by as he shivered. A few people were lurking, but everyone kept their distance, afraid of who they could interact with. He paused to look up at the dark sky. It was a clear night, and both moons shone brightly. His eyes lingered on the smaller moon, the one that had graced the sky after the split almost fifteen years ago, and with the blue tint it held, looking much more fragile than the previous one, he nearly believed the myth of it being an angel. Despite the visibility of the moons, no matter how hard he tried to spot them, he couldn’t see a single speck of stars. When demons first emerged, humans believed them to reside in the shadows, and with their best interest at heart, they tried to light up every street on this side of the Inbetween. Still, in doing so, the light pollution had gotten rid of the few stars that had been visible before. “Azure!” The man snapped his head toward where the voice came from, his shoulders tensing, brow creasing, but he relaxed when he realised who it was that had called him. Kai, his best friend, a priest with a license to kill his species. Kai walked over with a gentle smile. His medium-length blonde hair had been tied up, and he wore his usual attire: a pair of black pants, a black shirt and a necklace. Though a necklace was used warily in this instance, it was much more similar to a choker, a two-inch piece of black material that Kai had been wearing one day and, ever since, had refused to take off. “What are you doing out so late?” Azure asked, frowning as the two began to make their way over to his apartment. Why was he out so late? Didn’t he know it was dangerous? Even if he could kill demons, something not many priests could do, it was still dangerous, and he had to see that. “I could say the same for you. I can protect myself, you cannot.” Azure ran his tongue across his lips and wanted to laugh at the statement, but he held it down. There was no need to create any suspicion. He was fine, and Kai was fine, and everything was okay. “-killed a demon.” That snapped Azure out of his thoughts as he froze for a second before he continued walking, frowning a little. “Wait, what?” “And you claim to listen to what I say,” Kai muttered, rolling his eyes a little. “I do, I do, but repeat what you said.” “I was out so late because I had been called. Some demons were causing some trouble,” “How many?” he asked, trying to keep his heart from racing. Kai would mention that the demons he had caught had been knights of hell. That would have been a pretty big thing. “Two.” Azure tried to contact his friends. Just to be on the safe side, it was a mental link of sorts, and the more power you held, the more people's minds you could essentially invade, but since he and the knights were in the same class of demons, they had needed to accept one another. Now, they could contact one another whenever needed. It had weirded Azure out for the first one hundred years, hearing someone else speaking in your mind, but now he had gotten used to it. “Cedar, Nether, reply. Tell me you’re both alive,” he said, his heart racing. Azure was still following Kai. He had slowed down a little as he had essentially knocked on their mental barrier, and anxiety crept up through his throat when he realised the two were taking their sweet time in answering. “Someone reply now!” Azure hissed, digging his fingers into his palms to help calm him down a little. “Sorry, sorry,” Cedar responded, his deep voice easing some of the tension coursing through Azure. “I was a little busy, I’m fine.” “Nether,” Azure snapped when the man hadn’t replied, and a few moments later, they had the groan. “What? I’m here. Why are you screaming my name for? Can a demon not sleep in peace, f*****g hell.” Azure relaxed when he heard both of his problems, alive and well. Then, he relaxed and stared back at Kai, who was talking about his interaction with a father and his daughter earlier in the day. He smiled a little as he focused back on the two idiots. “Be at my apartment in thirty minutes,” he said. He heard Nether scoff, and Azure sighed. He always had to be the problematic one. “Not if that priest is going to be there.” “He will not.” Azure was not stupid enough to have Kai meet the knights; he kept Kai, and the boys separate from the knights, hell even though Mint was half demon, he still hadn’t met them, and he would keep it that way for as long as he could. Cedar may have been a possibility, but Nether would never be one. He shut down the line and did not need Nether yelling at why this would never work or why it wasn’t a good idea when he only wanted to spend meaningful time with Kai. Kai had managed to create a decent distance, and once he realised Azure had fallen behind, he turned and waited for him, and Azure froze for a second. The way Kai stood, the yellow lights hitting his features, his blonde hair almost looking golden, there seemed to be something so ethereal about him. If he didn't know any better, he could have said angelic, and then he realised something: Kai was his and Kai’s, and he would do everything in his power to protect the man before him from everything that could harm him. Azure smiled as he caught up with the man and shook his head slightly as he placed his hand on the small of Kai’s back, and he instantly regretted it. He often forgot that Kai had blessed his work clothes; they would burn whenever a demon touched them. Before Kai could realise this, Azure used energy to heal his hand. “Let’s go,” Azure whispered, smiling. “I’m walking you home.” Kai frowned and turned to stare at Azure. “Is this why you’re here to walk me home? I thought you were coming over. You do realise I am a grown man, I can walk myself home.” “You’re fifteen years too late,” Azure deadpanned, nudging him forward with his elbow. “I hate you,” Kai muttered as he continued the walk. Azure grinned. “I love you too.” Kai sighed as he muttered something under his breath and waved his hand. “Yeah, I love you too.” Azure often wondered how Kai would react if he found out that Azure didn’t just love him but was instead in love with him. It was something he let himself think about on the rare moments when he let himself overindulge in his fantasies. Would he accept him? Or never want anything to do with him again? While the former was the dream, Azure knew the chances were the latter would be the reality, and that is why he would never outright admit to his feelings. He did not want the status quo to change. Azure knew his desire to be accepted was a delusion created by the human ideals of love and would never appeal to him because he was not a human. Kai would, one day, settle down with a woman, a human, and they would have children and Kai would get to have the family he had always dreamed of, the one he would always talk about, and Azure would be on the sidelines, watching the entire thing, He would watch the love of his life marry another because that is what he wanted, and he would not ruin Kai’s chance at happiness. When the duo reached Kai’s apartment complex, he approached the door, and then Kai paused. The shoddy lighting from the lobby illuminated him from behind, giving him an almost angelic glow. If Azure’s sworn enemies weren't angels, he would have thought Kai looked beautiful. That was a lie. Even with angels being against demons, Kai looked beautiful. “Woulds you like to come in?” Kai asked, smiling. Azure hesitated. This was the first time in a while that Kai had asked Azure to come in after work. It had become some sort of unspoken rule that Azure didn’t come over when Kai killed some demons; he would be there in the morning but never the night off. But something in the glow of the yellow and the smile on Kai’s face told him to accept, to let this one time pass, so he tried to speak, and when no words came out, he nodded. He walked up the stairs and sent a message down the line. “Change it. Come in an hour. I’m busy.” “Trying to get into the priest’s pants,” Nether snapped. “Piss off.” ~*~