Welcome to Gaia! ::

Abel closed the door behind him and looked around the room. It was all black and white. And on top of the closed toilet was a set of clothes, waiting for Abel. A note was on them reading, "thought you would want these." Abel gave a smile and picked up the note, setting it aside. Mei had set out a pair of light washed jeans, a white t-shirt, and some boxers with small hearts and wings on it. He gave a raised brow and rolled his eyes at her strange humor.

Finally he pulled off his shirt and reached into the tub, turning on the shower. The water rushed out. As he waited for it to get warm he took the rest of his clothes off and examined himself in the mirror, making sure all of his wounds were healed, which they were. His shoulders ached though. He stood in silence for a moment, listening to the water, wondering if it was okay to let out his wings. He was in a safe house, with people who knew him. Deciding it would be best to let them out, instead of suffer the stiffness of his shoulders and back, he closed his eyes and let his wings out.

Spreading them out as far as they could go in the bathroom he smiled in relief. It felt wonderful. He remember the time when he wished he didn't have any, but now...he felt like he wouldn't be the same if he didn't. Finally he stepped into the shower and began to wash himself. He scrubbed harder than most people would, and the water was nearly scorching hot, but he felt more germs being killed that way.

It took about twenty minutes for him to finish. He stepped out of the water, the room as full of steam, the mirror foggy. Grabbing a towel of the rack he dried himself off, shook his wings, water dripping from them and then ran the towel over his head. After he pulled on his boxers and pants he draped the towel around his shoulder.

When he opened the door to the bathroom, he yawned, and then shuddered as the change of temperature hit him, from the hot bathroom, out into the cool hallway. When he was sure he wasn't going to hit anything he stretched out his wings to their full length behind him, feeling them loosen up and relax. He was first greeted by Hades who was trotting up to him and barking in a stupid kind of way. Abel laughed and rubbed his head, walking into the kitchen.

"Sorry if I was long...I just felt...grimy." He made a face and rubbed his arms. "And I hope it's okay if...you know...I keep these out." He looked to the side hesitantly and pulled his large white wings against his back. "So..." He began just as Zeus walked up to him, Hades wandered over to Saul and plopped on the floor next to him. "You guys never told me how things have been. You know, what you've done while I was gone. I want to hear all about it." He smiled broadly at them and rubbed his head with the towel, drying his hair out some more.

((Shirtless...yes. Hahaha. Man. Good thing they're all straight!

...yeah.))

Abel smiled a bit and sat down on one of the chairs. He used the corner of his towel to clean the outer part of his ears as Talen and Saul spoke. His blue eyes moved to Saul curiously when he rather bluntly said he made more money than Talen. Abel frowned and breathed out. "Money isn't happiness though..." He said quietly and looked back to Talen.

Raising his brows he looked around in thought. Zeus sat down next to Abel again and sprawled out on the floor. The angel looked down at him and up again to Talen, brows furrowed, trying hard to choose a good question. He stared at his friend intensely and rubbed at his chin, gnawing at the bottom of his lip. "Hmmmm..." Again, he looked away, this time to the ceiling, tilting back in his chair. "Mmmmmm."

There were no questions he could think of. He just wanted to know everything. His gaze fell back again and he straightened up in his chair, huffing a bit, like a frustrated kid. "Everything. I don't know. Tell me what you think I'd want to hear." He perked up again, smiling. "But you know...I'd want to hear everything. Or I can always ask Yanmei. She likes talking about people a lot."

((She does. She's a woman. A WOMANLY WOMAN.))

Abel leaned in as Talen began to spoke, genuinely interested in what Talen had to say. He got excited when he heard Talen played the harp and he grinned broadly. "Nice isn't it? You teach?!" He moved in his chair with a wide smile. "That's great! I bet it's really fulfilling." As Saul mentioned girlfriends, Abel made a curious face and tilted his head, but his friend sidestepped talking about the subject.

When Saul spoke, Abel looked at him with a softer smile and said, "That's great though. I'm glad you've gotten..." He paused, but Talen continued his story, and he looked back again. "Out of the country?!" He exclaimed, this time even more excited. When his friend mentioned German and French, his eyes lit up and his mouth opened. "Sie können Deutsches sprechen? Das ist wundervoll!" He laughed a bit as the words rolled off his tongue. "Francais aussi? Tres bien! German was my native language. Then when we moved to France for my father's job, I learned French fluently as a kid...English was my least used actually...I had to learn it in school. Especially when we ended up moving to London..."

He became serious when Talen lifted his shirt to show him his large scar. "You need to be more careful! You could have died! Yanmei told me once that those gas powered bicycles are some of the most dangerous vehicles." He rubbed his mouth and glanced to Saul as they said they were all done with the days when Abel had originally found them.

"I'm really happy to hear that, guys. I worried about you...especially you, Saul..." He said, looking quite sullen. As the two of them turned the questioning into the questioner, Abel shrunk back a little with a smile. "I'm boring. That's why I never talk about myself. There's nothing to say really. Nothing that would be as fun as yours." He put his towel over his hair again and rubbed.

"I've just been staying around Gabriel a lot. He taught me stuff. I learned things from other people too. But that's it. I don't think we're allowed to talk about it to you guys...Gabriel said details aren't to be shared or...you know." He fidgeted with the towel, wrapping it around his hand, brows quirking in his unsure manner. "Mei visited every now and then, to talk to Gabriel about certain jobs of her's and she'd talk to me a bit. But she never brought you up. I never asked. I guess it was kind of that silent agreement. But when I wasn't with Gabriel or the others...I really didn't do anything exciting." It was obvious that he was uncomfortable talking about himself, his eyes looked around the floor, and he shifted the towel into different positions, fingers playing with it nervously.

"Boring. Like I said." He laughed. "I'm thirsty." He got up suddenly and moved to the wine rack, eyes roaming it with interest. "Wine is good for you. Red wine anyways. In Europe, kids have a bit every day, as does everyone else. It keeps your blood pumping strong." He slid out a dusty wine bottle. "You two want some?" He smiled over at them, hoping their attention would stay on wine instead of the person behind it.

((I feel like an old lady. My back hurts like heck. I guess from bending over all day...but STILL.))

Abel smiled when Saul brought over the wine glasses. "Thanks." he said appreciatively and removed the cork from the bottle. He slowly poured the wine into the glasses before returning the wine bottle to its rack. Taking one of the glasses from Saul he wandered back over to the table and sat down again. Zeus raised a tired head to examine the movement and then settled back into his nap, the other two were completely out.

He took a sip of the wine. After he drank a bit more he was about to say something when the front door opened and a loud slam followed after, cursing proceeded.

All three dogs jumped up and scattered to the door, claws clicking on the tile. "Evening. Evening. UGH. Control yourselves men!" Came Mei's voice and then she emerged from the hallway, stopping when she saw the three men in her kitchen. She had looked better. There were three deep scratches across her face, starting from her forehead and stretching to the opposite cheek. A sleeve was torn off from her shirt and her skirt was dirty. Blood stained her clothes, blotted her hands, and dripped from her face.

Even so, she seemed completely unaffected, if but just tired. Abel was the first to react. He jumped up, wings nearly colliding with the people at the table. "Yanmei! What happened!" He exclaimed. He moved to her and she laughed, pushed him away, and looked to Talen and Saul.

"Having a slumber party? Without me? Abel, I'm ashamed." She frowned playfully. "Hercules, go get the first aid kit." She opened up the fridge, grabbed a beer, and started to drink without hesitation.

When Talen got up and asked her what happened, she shrugged, half the beer gone when she pulled it from her full lips. "It's not out of the ordinary. You guys act like I'm...oh wait." She laughed and then bent over to grab the first aid kit from Hercules. "Well I have to admit, lately it HAS been out of the ordinary. They left when...well I thought they had no business here, except for the occasional one trying to do damage to some life. But normally the strong ones aren't here...unless they have serious business." She raised a hand and finished off her beer.

"What happened?" Abel asked, brows furrowed as Mei walked away from them and sat down at the table, opening the first aid kit. "Mei! Who did that to you?"

"Oh Abel. It's so obvious. What can scratch this deep and what can not allow me to heal as fast as normal?" She raised her brows, pulling out some butterfly stitches. Abel moved swiftly over to her side and took the stitches from her. "Fine. Since you're so wanting to help. I can't say no."

Abel sighed and started to patch Mei up. "Demons?" He asked, voice soft and somewhat rough. His blue eyes looked up from his kneeling position. Mei smiled and licked her busted lip.

"Aren't you smart! It's okay, they look worse than I do. I can kick a demon a** pretty damn hard. One of my specialties." She flexed an arm and winked at Abel who seemed unamused. He took a peice of cloth and poured some alcohol on it. "Whatever, sour puss. It was exciting. I hadn't had that kind of action for...well...since you left. It was exhilarating." Abel continued to have a straight face, concentrating on cleaning her wounds.

"Are they here because of me?" Abel asked, straight forward.

"PHSH. No. No. Normal demons are too busy messing up people's lives, that's what they are made for. The lower class ones. These ones are higher class, and they usually don't come out unless there's serious business...they also could care less about angels, unless they get in their way. Not your fault."

Mei looked up at Saul as she saw his expression change. Her face twisted in a grimace and she groaned, forgetting that he had been there. "Oh man...Saul...it's not what you are thinking. I...I shouldn't have said anything. s**t." She grumbled.

When Saul stood up, Abel twisted and stood up as well. He frowned as Saul left and he glanced at Talen. Without a second thought he walked after the man, not knowing what he'd say...but feeling like he just wanted to say something...anything. He walked out the door, wings against his back, hoping no one would be walking around so late at night.

"Saul! Wait..." He said, rubbing his mouth anxiously. "Um. I know it means nothing. But I'm sorry." He sighed softly and rubbed his arm. "It's something that doesn't really mend...your heart. And if only I could have stayed...tried harder to convince them to let me stay back then, maybe it would have turned out different. I wish I could have helped her. I didn't know her well...you know...I didn't know she was..." He paused and rubbed his arm some more. "Mei told me what happened. It was the only time she ever spoke of you guys. But she said she wanted me to know. I know what it's like...in a sense I guess..."

His brows furrowed and he looked up again. "I'm sorry. You can go if you want. Work is important, I suppose. But I just wanted to tell you that. It makes nothing easier...but maybe you'll feel like you can come to me...if you ever want to talk. I understand, more than you probably know."

Inside the house, Mei was touching her face, feeling the cuts and stitches. She gave a snort and looked over to Talen, smirking slightly. "If I had known YOU would have been here I may have tried to look a little presentable." She frowned and pulled her shirt over her shoulder which had been sagging. "We're all alone in my house. The kids are away, the dogs are asleep..." She raised a single brow and leaned over the table. "You know what that means."

She let a dramatic silence fall over the room before she hopped up and wandered to the refrigerator. "More beer!"

Abel stood silently as Saul looked to him and told him what he was thinking. Abel's eyes never fell away from Saul, he was attentive, and listening with everything he could ever listen with. His heart ached at Saul's words, because they reminded him so much of himself. It was in those few moments as he listened to the man, he realized why he felt so protective of this person, because it was like protecting himself.

"I don't care." He said of the wings. "No one would believe they were real. They'll ride it off as a costume or something. Preparing for Halloween. I don't care." He shrugged, spreading his wings a little, for the first time, speaking the truth of what he felt, he didn't care. All he cared about was trying to help.

"You aren't an idiot. It's amazing how you can miss things. There are things that I'll always miss, things you can never get back. That's life though...but it doesn't stop the pain. It just numbs it until you remember it again, and then it hurts all over. It comes in waves. One minute you forget how pained you are...how empty you feel..." He still looked at Saul, a hand moving through his hair. "You forget it because you are concentrated on just living, trying to live through it, forget it and move on, that's what people say. But it's always there. When you are alone, it comes up again like a tide, something you can't control." His eyes darkened and he dropped his hand, breathing out heavily.

"I can't tell you that you aren't miserable. I'm sure you are. I've had people tell me that I'm not bitter, I'm just holding onto things. But they don't understand. It's easy to tell someone to just move on, it's another thing to DO it." He became quiet, finally looking away from Saul. His face was strangely placid and blank. "Even having forever doesn't make it all right. It doesn't become right. It just...becomes natural. Something that you just understand and live with it. You concentrate on things around you instead of on what angers you, what you miss, what you wish you had, what you've lost, who you've lost. You just concentrate on something besides that. It just becomes you."

He returned his gaze and he nodded. "If we were all happy all the time, there wouldn't be much to do. We wouldn't have any wise people, no one to learn from, no one to teach. And then...this whole messed up thing would be pointless, now wouldn't it?" After a moment of silence again, he took a step back. "You know what's interesting...to me anyways? I feel like myself when I let that pain become who I am...instead of trying to ignore it. It feels natural. That's why it's nice to be with you...because you know who I am."

((Hahaha. They're like twins from different times.))

Mei was turning around with a bottle of beer when she nearly collided with Talen. "THE HELL. You're gonna break my nose. Lord knows I'm already..." She stopped when he pushed her against the fridge. Her brows skewed up in confusion. "Uh. If you want more beer...you can just ask you know." She smirked but it fell at his words. "Sorry?" She said and then was about to duck from under his arms when he kissed her.

Her eyes widened and she clutched tight onto the beer bottle, a small crack forming in the glass, and beer dribbled down the bottle. She pulled her head back, taking a breath and staring at him with a disbelieving face. "Is that what you do to everyone when you get nervous? I'd be scared of you giving a speech..." She switched the beer into her other hand and flicked beer from her fingers. It seemed like she wasn't affected by the sudden kiss, but her heart was thudding and her hands were clammy. She had a good way of hiding things that diminished her strong disposition. "Do you want another beer?" She finally asked, looking up at him with a curious glance.

((Hahaha she really wants to kiss him back...but she feels like it's a girly thing to do.))

((I got a massive headache from driving for like three hours. UGH. But it was beautiful...))

Abel laughed a bit when Saul grabbed his shoulder. His darkened eyes studied Saul and he nodded. "Thanks. But just keep this between us. I don't really like people seeing this. I hate when people feel sorry for me or worry about me. It's just...bothersome and makes me uncomfortable." After another moment he started back towards the house.

"I'm really tired, and you need some sleep too. Just be careful. And, Saul?" He had a hand on the door and he smiled slightly at him. "If you ever need me...I'll drop whatever it is I am doing, without a second thought. So don't hesitate." Slowly he pulled open the front door and raised a hand.

"Good Night." This time he smiled fully and walked inside, closing the door behind him.

Mei laughed as he backed away, opening the beer bottle and grabbing a glass. "I have that affect on people. When I come around everyone gets nervous or scared...or both..." She shrugged, pouring the beer into the glass so it wouldn't leak everywhere. As she walked back she saw Abel walking into the kitchen. "Hey."

Abel smiled his usual smile and looked over to Talen with a curious face. "What's going on?" He asked, glancing at Mei who was laughing, a little too much. "Uh...well I'm tired..."

"You should get some sleep. The room is down the hall, second left." Mei said, sitting across from Talen and taking a drink.

"Okay." He looked at Talen, wondering if he should say something else. "You should stay. Tomorrow morning we can do something...I dunno..." He laughed and started out of the kitchen. "Good Night everyone." He called out. Zeus had awoken and started following Abel down the hall. The angel walked into his room and closed the door.

Mei's brown-yellow eyes moved back to Talen, a strange silence surrounding them. Without much warning she set her beer down, stood up and moved to Talen's side of the table. She then put herself on his lap and grabbed his face. It wasn't like she had any doubts anymore about him not wanting anything from her. And no one was around to witness. A smirk played on her lips before they were pressed again Talen's.

((Dirty.))