Chapter Text
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“We all carry within us our places of exile, our crimes, and our ravages. But our task is not to unleash them on the world; it is to fight them in ourselves and in others.” – Albert Camus
-
Methos looked up sharply when he heard knocking at his front door. There was no sense of an Immortal and anyone on his team would have announced themselves or have simply broken in. He placed his gun in easy reach on the table in the hallway and opened the door to a handsome dark-haired, green-eyed man. Kronos was definitely getting predictable.
“Brother,” Kronos greeted, stepping into his space. Methos allowed himself to be backed into his apartment. With Kronos, he had learned to pick his battles.
“Needed a new suit?” Methos asked drolly, looking over the new body Kronos was inhabiting. If nothing else, he had good taste.
“Does it meet your approval?” Kronos asked, resting his hands on Methos’ hips.
“Does it matter?”
Kronos mock-frowned.
“And here I went through all the trouble of dressing up for the occasion. I even found one no one would miss.”
Methos raised an eyebrow, sure that there was more to it, some benefit to Kronos, and Kronos smirked.
“Trust me,” Kronos said, leaning in so that his breath ghosted over Methos’ ear. Methos closed his eyes – in capitulation, supplication, longing; he wasn’t sure. “I’m doing the world a favour.”
“I know better,” Methos replied as he kicked the door shut behind them.
-
Tony was relaxed back into the couch with Aaron’s arm settled across his shoulders and Jack seated between them. It was, Tony decided, quite possibly the most domestic he’d ever been. It was a little scary that he didn’t find the prospect utterly terrifying. Instead, he looked forward to these days in as much as he did whatever time he and Aaron could scrounge to be alone together.
Aaron glanced at Tony and smiled, even as he gave Tony’s shoulder a light squeeze, and Tony knew his thoughts were obvious to Aaron. But Tony was getting used to being an open book, both with his team and Aaron, and maybe it wasn’t so bad having someone know him, even the parts he didn’t want to see the light of day, and still accept him.
“You know,” Tony said softly so as not to disturb Jack, who leaned forward, eagerly watching the screen as Julie Andrews sang about feeding birds. “They didn’t tell the kids half of what they were going to do, just so their reactions would be genuine.” Aaron laughed quietly.
Tony was glad that this was something he could share with the both of them. Aaron, because he knew what it said about Tony’s childhood that the best thing about it had been films, and Jack, because it gave them a point of connection that Tony’s lack of proper childhood usually meant he lacked. Especially when the only other thing he had in common with Jack was losing their mothers at a young age. Despite all the grief Aaron gave himself, he was a good father.
“Something wrong?” Aaron asked when Tony glanced at his phone for the fourth time. Tony shook his head, unable to verbalise the feeling of nervous anticipation he’d had all day. It felt like there was some unnamed pressure bearing down on him, like the heaviness in the air just before a storm, and it left him feeling restless.
-
Lindsey shoved the Carnyss demon against the wall, smiling tightly in satisfaction when his head hit the brick with a resounding thud, even if the horns and ridges absorbed most of the impact.
“What do you want?” the demon demanded.
“Answers.”
“I don’t know anything,” the demon insisted and Lindsey shoved him against the wall again, hand at his throat.
“Then you’re not useful to me,” Lindsey told him, voice measured and eyes narrowed. He didn’t have time to do this with any finesse, not with the portents he’d been getting.
“Fine, fine,” he demon conceded, going limp in Lindsey’s grip. “I don’t know any specifics, just that there’s something going down.”
“What?”
“Something big. There’s tensions mounting on both sides,” the demon said, eyes darting around as though one of those sides was going to take him out just for daring to breathe a word of it.
“Slayers?” Lindsey asked, frowning. He tried to keep an eye on what they and Angel were up to, just in case, but he hadn’t heard anything out of the ordinary recently.
“Bigger than that,” the demon said, a shiver running through him. He glanced upward and looked at Lindsey significantly.
“Angels,” Lindsey said, deep in thought. He released his grip and let the demon run.
-
Dean kicked his feet up on the coffee table and settled back with a beer, still a little unsure about how he felt about having a place of his own. Even if it had been almost two years since he settled in. He’d just taken a swallow when he heard the rustling of feathers.
“Hey Cas,” he said without bothering to look. “What’s up?”
“The roof,” Cas answered automatically. Dean laughed. He really should know better.
“What’s going on?” he asked, turning to look at Cas who was now staring at the ceiling. Cas lowered his gaze to look back at Dean, expression serious.
“The angels seek an angel in exile.”
“Like Gabriel?” Dean asked, still a little down about his death, because even if Gabriel had been annoying and a dick, Dean had to admit he had style.
“No,” Cas said and paused. Dean wondered if that was all he was going to get before Cas took a deep breath and sat next to Dean, eyes wide and expression grave. “The angel did not voluntarily seek exile as Gabriel did.”
“He fell?” Dean prodded. Cas was usually reticent about business involving angels, but about this he was unusually so.
“No,” Cas said, shaking his head. “He was stripped of his power and cast down to Earth as punishment.”
“Punishment for what?”
“Choosing sides.”
“He chose Lucifer?” Dean asked, though he wasn’t entirely sure how he’d ended up on Earth if that was the case.
“No,” Cas said again and now Dean was beyond confused. Surely, choosing the side of the good guys, who won the war, wouldn’t have necessitated punishment.
“Who was the angel?” Dean asked, hoping to get some sort of information that would make this all clear in his head.
“Azrael.”