Angel Dust by Aurora Morgenstern (summer beach reads .TXT) 📕

wonder wether it´s possible to teleport things? I mean Raphael teleported me and Shekinah on my first day here. When I come back to the library I try my best to ignore the shivers running down my spine. It only strikes me then...who put the images in the book? They weren´t in it the first time I looked at it. I make a mental note to check around for clues when Nathaniel is gone sometime the following days. My curiosity soemwhat wins over my fear, but why am I afraid? They´re only images, maybe they have nothing to do with my memories at all? It´s all long gone... I begin to question myself immensly, there is no reason to be afraid at all. And yet despite it being unreasonable, the feeling doesn´t go away. I shake my head and return ym attention to the task at hand. There´ll be plety of time later to question myself. Nathaniel has gone back into his trance like state of playing the guitar, completely absorbed. I begin to sketch and soon completely lose myself in it. Drawing is the one thing that always managed to get my out of my own head. I don´t even notice that he stopped playing until he clears his throat behind me and looks at the drawing. I quickly press teh sketch pad against my chest to obstruct his view. I don´t really like people looking at my art, it makes me uncomfortable and I always think taht they feel compelled to say something nice. 

"No need to hide it, it´s very good even though no drawing could ever do my good looks justice!", he laughs and snatches the sketch from me within the blink of an eye. Her examines it carefully and nods approvingly.

"Alright you got pretty close to it I have to admit", he smirks happily and I shoot him a glare.

"Give it back!", I demand but he doesn´t make a move to return it. I gather myself up of the floor and begin to chase him around the room. He lets me get close a couple of times but in the end he tackles me onto a sofa and I give up the fight when he begins tickeling me. 

"I surrender!", I shout inbetween laughs, my stomach hurts. Nathaniel has managed what doctors, friends and ym mother couldn´t do when I was a human. he got me out of my dark spot and got me to laugh, truely laugh like I mean it. There is an odd feeling in my stomach that is all too aware of how close he is, but I am quick tosurpress the feeling. Nathaniel must have felt it too because he stops tickeling me and looks at me for a long moment before leaning down towards me. My heart skips several beats, time slows down but my head doesn´t. Oh no...oh no...is he doing what I think he´s doing...shit what do I do....do I want him to?.... The thoughts race and I can´t decide what exactly I want. On the one hand I do feel a certain attraction towards him, but on the other he´s my friend. And do I really want to get into something like this at all? Nathaniel stops mere inches ifront of my fae, looks at me for a terribly long moment and kisses me on the cheek. I am caught inbetween relief and disappointment. 

Upon Return

 I barely sleep at all that night, all the sleep I get is two hours of tossing and turning in my nightmares. I feel like a child again with my heart racing whiel I hold my breath in fear. The moonlight coming through my window casts eerie shadows all aroud my room and I see demons in every single one of them. Ever sound the house makes sounds like low growls and ghostly wails. I wake from my short lives nightmare panting as if I had just run a marathon to the sound of the frontdoor slamming heavily. Glad to have an excuse to get up and to have a distraction, I hurry out of my room and rush down the stairs at a speed that nearly causes me to trip over my own feet. I managed to balance my weight enough to avoid falling on the last few steps when I finally see the source of the slammed door. Michael is leaning against the door, breathing heavily and looking beyond terrible. He is barely recognisable under all the dirt and blood that he is covered in and his long blonde hair hangs into his face in filthy strands. His face and arms are all covered in cuts that seem to be getting smaller infront of my eyes, which tells me something about his regenerative powers and also the fact that they must have been a lot deeper before he got here. He looks up at me and smiles weakly. Without a word from him I rush over and help him into a standing position. He leans heavily onto his right leg and I suspect he must have fractured or broken the left one. He points to the kitchen and somehow I manage to suppost him along the way despite his weight. His voice is hoarse when he does finally speak and he seems to have difficulty getting them out at all: "Could you get me some water please?" I turn to fetch him a glass and when I set it down infront of him he drains it immediately and I get him a second one. It takes three morse glasses until he looks a little better than before. I can´t hold teh question in any longer now that he looks as though he might answer me.

"What happened to you?", I burst out, my voice full of concern and worry for him.

"I probably shouldn´t be disclosing this information to you but to hell with it. Knowing you you´re not going to give up so I might as well tell you. I went to take care of a bigger demon summoning, some fools summoned a greater demon and set him loose by accident. I went to take care of the situation and instead of one greater demon found a horde of over a thousand lesser demons and three greater demons. I fought them off but on my way back I heard that Gabriel had run into a similiar situation and things got pretty bad, I was already in bad shape after the first battle but we drove all the demons back to hell", he smiles grimly as he says this and I can hear a sort of pride in his voice. 

"Is there anything I can do to help?"

"There´s a medical kit in the cupboard over there, get me that and a bowl of water with a towel. I just want to get the deeper cuts clean before they close over with flith and demon blood in them. They would only get infected at a later stage and let me tell you going through demon detox is no fun at all", he smiles weakly as he says this. Dutifully I retrieve the medical kit and the bowl, but instead of handing them to him I wet the towel myself and reach for his arm. He pulls away immediately and looks at mequestioningly.

"Let me help you, we´ll get it down faster this way. I did a first aid course when I was human and I can reach most of the cuts better than you could", I explain to him and with a sound of disapproval he puts his arm back out on the table. He seems more than reluctant to accept my help. And yet he expects me to trust him, trust goes both ways buddy!, I think to myself. I quickly and efficiently clean his wounds and put bandages on the really bad ones that might result in bigger bloodloss. We don´t speak while I clean his wounds and I have to say he is by far the toughest patient I have ever had, he doesn´t even flinch when I disinfect the wounds with alcohol. He seems to have a very high pain tolerance. He seems even more reluctant than before when it comes to cleaning the cuts on his face. He grips my wrist with one of his hands and holds it about an inch away from him. 

"Just let me do this", I say softly and he lets go of my wrist surprisingly. I attribute his lack of argument to the high bloodless and the fact that he took a pretty bad beating. I have to change the water in the bowl multiple times, there is that much filth and blood on him. I don´t ask questions about the nature of both, btu I notice that the blood acts like an irritant on the skin. I can´t imagine how it must have felt running into his wounds and drying on his skin. After over an hour he is completely patched up and remotely clean, at least less filthy than before. 

"Thank you, you did not need to do that. But thank you for doing it anyway",he says and looks at me for a long moment before returning his attention to removing his armour. I would help him, but I have no idea how armour works so I decide it is best to just stay out of his way. 

"You were hurt, it was only natural for me to help", I reply as I watch him get rid of the breastplate. His armour is made out some sort of metal like material, that glistens unnaturally in the light and looks almost too thin to be metal. I feel the curiosity burning inside me but I postpone asking him about it to a later date. He has enough on his plate for the moment.

"And yet you wonder why you were made an angel, not many would have found it a natural thing to come and clean a man´s wounds at six a clock in the morning. I am going to go for a shower now, I´m sorry if I woke you up", he remarks and begins to drag himself down the hall. I begin to assume that his bedroom is somewhere on the groundfloor. I go for a shower myself and when i come back downstairs I see him sitting in his usual chair looking pretty much his usual self, the bandages and the dark circles under his eyes the only proof of what happened. His hair is still damp from the shower and he brushed it back so it won´t fall into his face. He is wearing ripped jeans and a baggy black t-shirt. 

"Do you want some breakfast Michael?", I ask as I open the firdge to examine the contents to narrow down possible food choices. 

"You don´t have to nurse me you know? I am just fine, Felice. I´m an archangel, I have fought greater battles than this", he sounds as though I hurt his pride. I roll my eyes when he can´t see me behind the fridge door. 

"Don´t roll your eyes at me. It´s not very polite and I don´t appreciate that sort of disrespectful behaviour!", he instructs and I turn around in surprise. How did he know? 

"Were you reading my mind again?", I ask