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Avrin had gotten him the job. Or found it for him anyway. Being able to beat the s**t out of his interviewer had gotten him the actual job. Hadn't believed he could do it, despite Avrin vouching for him. So maybe people underestimated what he was capable of. They only did so until it was too late to revise that opinion safely.

He could deal with that.

He liked the job, for the most part. He liked it because it was physical, distracting, and it made him feel useful. He didn't like the drunks that tried to touch his wings. He didn't care for the meaningless fights. But throwing people out was entertaining, and he was fascinated by the music and the culture that surrounded him. It reminded him, in some ways, of his teenage years back home. They'd been different, of course. But there was an earnest sort of rebellion to the patrons that brought back memories. And ones that he didn't associate with the palace.

He was standing near the bar when Iamel walked in, but the other blended in so well with the patrons that he didn't identify him until he grew close. He took no real issue with the man, like the bar, he reminded Autsu of once beens. That didn't mean he liked him, though. But Autsu didn't like most people.

"Iamel, be welcome." Not that it was his house, but... father had trained him well. "A moment."

He gestured to the guard across the bar, a hulking panther humanoid in all ways his opposite, that he was taking a break. And then he returned his gaze to Iamel.

"Shall we go elsewhere?"

Autsu obediently stepped outside, and in this side of town, even the cool night air felt thick and filmy, clinging at his skin like a shroud. He could never be sure if it was the pollution or a strange sort of palpable despair.

He had, admittedly, no idea what Iamel wanted to talk to him about. Iamel had never sought him out in the past. He waited, respectfully, as he lit his cigarette, watched the smoke mingle with the air.

When he finally spoke, Autsu only looked at him, blankly. He hadn't expected anything, but this wasn't a possibility he'd even considered. As such, he didn't know what he was supposed to say.

Was Iamel Kian's messenger? Had Anne changed his mind, decided that the betrayal of his leaving was too much to forgive. But Anne would tell him in person. Wouldn't he?

Autsu adjust his wings, nervously. It was not a subtle thing.

"He sent you?" If Iamel was expect an angry or confrontational conversation, he wasn't getting it. Where Kian was concerned, Autsu was all to ready to fall to guilt. His words were heavy with it.

If Autsu made sense of what Iamel meant, and it was likely he did, he made no sign of it. Words he didn't want to hear were filed away in that part of his mind that stored those truths that could not be exposed to light lest they ignite and burn him. He focused, instead, on the last handful of words spoken.

"It is not yours to ask." The response was a reprimand, in a way, but the sort of reprimand one might give a small child who had forgotten to say please. He spoke mildly, and with a clear intent to say more. But it took some times for the words to form. He would not give to Iamel the words he had given Kian, those were Kian's alone, never to be spoken flippantly. Autsu understood something of the power of words, even when his grasp of language was not complete.

"My people have a saying 'Lamps are happiest after sunset'." Why was it that metaphor lost so much in translation? Nevermind, to Autsu it did not seem ridiculous. "It speaks of the importance of use to tools, and we are like that. We grow into tools as metal is forged into a gun, or a plow."

A pause, as he groped for words. This was clearly important philosphy, he spoke it with quiet sincerity, but it was equally clear that he was having difficulty translating it for Iamel.

"Tools need to be used. I need to be used." Were he a native, he may have said 'useful' but the nuance was lost on him. "Kian uses me. He is my purpose, here. I am his blade."

He ran his finger lightly, even affectionately, over the handle of the knife nearest at hand. "I feel for him as my knife feels for me. Without him, there is no meaning. I become... merely metal, again."

Autsu had retreated, physically retreated, from Iamel's words. He backed slowly, until his wings felt the press of the building's filthy walls against them, indicating that there was no more backing up to do. And then he was still.

Utterly, completely still.

Without a grasp of idiom he couldn't translate the meaning of being 'a crutch' but he was clear enough on the rest. He knew what love was.

It wasn't shocking. Those bright, dangerous thoughts were only buried, not forgotten. Hidden where they would not burn.

Autsu burned. It hurt. It hurt because Autsu, regardless of what else he was or wasn't, knew love. He had loved... like... well... like a tool crafted specifically for that purpose.

And now, faced with this, his memories were full, not of Kian, or even Narin, but of himself. Of broken mirrors and nightmares.

When he spoke at last it was in a voice like space. Mostly empty and very, very cold. "And you will be his blade, if I do this?"

"Avrin will not take the position if I am not yet gone." Yes, he had planned for a successor. Of course he had. Someone had to stand at Kian's side.

Of course he wasn't fighting it! Autsu had fought once. Fought not to form any physical attachment to Kian, fought to keep what they had as it should be between two comrades. And he had failed. Repeatedly. Somehow Kian had always managed to push things one step further.

But Iamel was talking. And the words weren't what he needed to hear. Or perhaps they were exactly what he needed to hear. It depended on what outcome one wished for.

He still burned. Everything seemed to burn. He'd been almost happy, hadn't he? Since Kian had come back to him. Yes. Content.

It would all be ash soon.

"It does not work that way." He said at last. "I was willing to bargain with you. You claimed to risk death to say these things. I could admire that."

Fool. He had been a fool hadn't he? So caught in flame that he had been willing to run. To do as he was told for Kian's sake. And he did not want Kian's pain. But that wasn't how it worked.

He pushed away from the wall, walked back toward Iamel. His voice was still cold. His eyes were pain. But he was not hunched or retreating. No. He stood tall his wings half opening, his fingers twitching as if they ached to handle the weapons he wore. Angels killed. Mythology forgets that, sometimes.

"But you do not... you do not see him. He is not a boy, and I am not a babysitter. I am his blade. Not merely his protector, but the one who lights the pyre when he says he wishes the world in flames. And I would do so, if he asked it."

His words were hissing around the edges. Still in the correct language but aching to return to a more useful tongue.

"I am sorry that he loves me. I did not wish him to. It is you who wished to see him shamed. And I did not. And I failed." A brief softening of that tone. Regret.

But it didn't last. "And I will leave him. Alone. I have not been given a choice. But until that point, I am his weapon. If he wishes you dead when he hears of this conversation, as you say he will, we will speak again."

Iamel probably shouldn't have touched him. He was honed sharp with anger and still so lost in the whirl of ash and flame that he could barely see the Woodpecker through the haze. Perhaps, if he knew what Iamel was capable of he would be cautious. But... maybe not. He had not been so angry as this in a very long time.

His left hand found the nearest available knife, the hilt comfortable in his hand. And, were he any further gone, it would probably have been buried in Iamel's stomach.

No. He was Kian's. It was what he had been saying only a moment ago. If Kian wanted him dead, he would oblige. But he would not kill his comrade's brother in a knife fight behind a bar.

Instead, with his unarmed hand he reached up, grabbed Iamel's wrist, and roughly pulled the other man's grip free. It was... not a gentle grip.

Stepping back, to re-establish a level of space between them, he carefully put his knife away.

"I think we should not speak. I think, if you are concerned for your brother, you should speak with him of it." His voice was tight with the control needed to keep it in the right language, a low snarl of hissed advise.

"He may agree with you. I would not blame him. If you want me gone, Iamel, find him a better weapon. A better comrade. A better lover."

There then, that helped a bit. Turning anger inward. "Replace me. I would not stop you."

There's a thing about conversation. Namely, words only have as much meaning as the person hearing them is capable of giving them. The insults were true, of course. Right on the mark, really. But Autsu who didn't know what 'emo' meant and had no context for what a 'bipolar thirteen year old gay kid' might act like, just stared. He'd been hearing '********' a lot lately though. So that at least meant something.

The rest made sense, but again, the connections simply weren't the same once they reached Autsu. Why couldn't Kian find someone else while he was still there? He placed no exclusive demands on his affections. Autsu was generally speaking, monogamous by habit but he was clearly capable of--

stop that thought. No. Focus on the bright explosions of light and the death threats. Good. Yes.

So many of his careful fictions burned away. But he would cling to that one. He could keep it for awhile yet.

"My break is over. Lady guide your steps, Iamel." The habitual blessing was spoken with a slight quirk to his lips. He might have been smiling. A broken, bitter smile. He turned away then, pushing the door open and walking back inside.