A.K. Berry

Andrew snapped his portable phone shut after thanking T, a mischievous smile playing about his broad mouth, all the while dodging his opponent’s repeated – and failed – attempts to hit him. Drew clipped his phone back into it’s holder on his belt and grabbed the male’s leg, spinning him around and tossing him down the street, taking care that the Devil didn’t hit anything that would be overly expensive to replace.
The Rouge Devil bounced along down the street.
After the third bounce Drew grabbed him – halfway through the forth – by the shoulder and knocked him out with a punch. He let the Rouge drop to the ground.
“Now, as I said earlier; you’re coming with me.” He told the now-unconscious Devil, then dropped him on the ground.
He placed energy bindings on his capture’s arms, legs and waist; the latter to keep the Devil’s wings pinned.
Andrew looked down the street to see that his brother was finishing up as well, using special handcuffs to bind his wingless catch, his gun now hidden by his black blazer in it’s holster under his arm. At ruffly six foot with purple eyes – much like their father’s – green-black hair that reached the bottom of her shoulder blades and was held back in a very low ponytail and a serious demeanor reminiscent of their uncle he tended to intimidate most people who saw him, if only because of his subtlety different appearance. Most people didn’t consciously realize it but they tended to pick up on the fact that his brother’s changed shade depending on his mood, further adding to ‘creepy factor’ as their sister called it.
Drew, in contrast, looked pretty well normal, though distinctly far from average with his fashionable, short, red and gold highlighted hair and emerald green eyes that achieved what is considered to be the ideal shade for that gem. He was also a couple of inches shorter than his brother. And considerably better at public relations.
“Hey, Alex!” He called down the street, “Guess what – you’re never going to believe this! – Rosette Christopher works for us and has been for a while now! Who knew?”
Alexander paused for a moment, glanced at his brother, frowned and turned his attention back to his capture, picked him up and threw him over his shoulder and started towards his car. He tossed him in the trunk, closed it and called to Drew, “C’mon. We need to get these guys locked up.”
Andrew puffed out his cheeks in annoyance, grabbed his own catch by the energy around it’s ankles and started dragging it. Alex got in his car and started it up. The window next to him was opened halfway.
“Hey! Wait for me!” His brother called, starting to run.
“Then get your ass in gear.” Alexander called back very calmly.
“Bro, when are you going to get with the times and start using the right slang?! You should have said ‘then get a wiggle on!’, not ‘then get your ass in gear!’” Drew demanded and corrected as he jogged to catch up, heedless of the guy – as he bounced and was knocked around – he was dragging behind him.
“You’re one to talk.” Alex commented as his brother pulled up along beside him.
“Oh, shove it.”
“See? Case and point.”
Before Andrew could say anything to that Alex started driving. Drew followed, now irritated and yelling at his brother to stop as he – still – kept dragging the hapless Rogue behind him.
“Oi! Wait up!” He called, picking up speed until his capture was no longer making contact with the ground and was flying out behind him. He caught up with his brother, keeping pace with the car as it went about ninety miles an hour and asked if he was going to be let in the car, or if he was going to continue to attract unwanted attention. Alex’s only answer to this was to hit a button in the dashboard. A second later the roof broke up into segments that then retracted into the rest of the car.
Drew threw the Devil he had been towing behind him into the back seat and jumped in himself into the passenger seat upfront. Behind him the seatbelts wrapped around the Rogue, effectively keeping him from getting thrown out of the car as Alex expertly swerved through traffic. Like Drew he had taken the time out to learn how to drive from an Indy 500 racer in a previous timeline. Needless to say they drove Rosette style, but with a lot more finesse and a lot less risk to passengers, pedestrians and other drivers alike. Something they would have to teach her…
“So how do you think we should handle this?” Drew asked, the wind whipping his hair around and making a very good attempt to loose his brother’s from it’s white elastic.
Alex glance briefly at him, a thoughtful expression on his face. After a moment of more traffic swerving he – a bit hesitantly – said, “We… Could test her.”
Andrew regarded his brother in surprise for a moment before a mischief filled, catty grin spread across his tanned features, eliciting a groan from his brother who suddenly had to resist the urge to hang his head as wished that he had kept his mouth shut.
“That,” Drew decided, “Could be fun.”
I am very sorry Rosette… Alex thought, suddenly feeling sorry for her and sending up a silent prayer on her behalf that she would not die of a heart attack by the time his brother was done.
A Magdalene Order car bounced around a corner. Alex manged to get out of the way in time as did – luckily – everyone else.
“Learn how to drive!” He muttered fiercely under his breath, though his brother’s sensitive ears picked it up.
Both said nothing more for the rest of the trip, scowls on their faces. T was going to need some painkillers later.

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Rosette stepped out of the wonderfully warm shower somewhat reluctantly. Her apartment’s heat was, at beast, intermittent and at worst not there at all. Right now it wasn’t there. Although it was the middle of summer – and by proxy should be a comfortable temperature at this time of night – she had just gotten out of the shower and the small window set above head height was rather drafty. She shivered and grabbed the towel, wrapping it around her thin body. At the age of eighteen her body should have been filling out, but her body was continually rejecting something so violently that she was perpetually put at Death’s door. Her continuing bouts of depression weren’t helping either.
She refused to let the former of the two stop her from finding Chrono and her brother – at which point she would kick both their rearends from wherever they were all the way to Pluto and back again for leaving her alone for so long – though the latter tended to make her stumble and fall. But she always picked herself back up again and kept on going forward, no matter how tempting it was to just give up and make the pain stop.
At least not since the first try.
The blond picked up her clothes from the floor and, draping them over one arm, opened the bathroom door and walked out, closing it behind her with her heel or elbow – she wasn’t sure which since they connected at the same time. She went down the hall to her room, where she dumped her clothes on the floor and went to her small dresser to grab a nighty. She paused as she reached for the dresser drawer. The moonlight had caught on the strange six-sided scales that adorned the underside of her wrist. She looked at her other wrist and saw the same thing.
Rosette still had no idea why they were there, just that they had appeared a week after Joshua had been taken and nine days after Chrono had left. She had discovered in those black days that no matter how hard she tried to reach out to others it was like trying to reach across a bottomless chasm with the people on the other side looking at her with fear and sadness in their eyes. When Chrono and Joshua had been there and she had reached out to either of them she always found that they were already holding her hands and walking beside her. There absence was – and still is – like a black void that she was teetering on the edge of, almost falling over backwards into it.
She remembered having a bad dream about falling into that blackness and trying to take her own life in a moment of utter loneliness. But she had been stopped when a tall and imposing demon that she couldn’t see in the dark of the forest near the lake by clenched his fists until they bleed, then covering the vertical slashes on her wrists with his bleeding palms. She remembered thinking in her dream that he felt – and that was the only way she could describe it – shocked, scared and consumed with guilt.
That had been the first dream. All of the preceding ones were similar, but each uniquely different. And he always talked to her. In the mornings after the dreams she always felt more like her old self again, but not fully. Sometimes the scales on one wrist would fade a few days after a dream in which only one wrist was covered by his bleeding, clawed hand. It was obvious that the scales have something to do with the dreams – which Rosette was certain actually happen – and the blood the demon gives her, but she couldn’t, for the life of her, figure anything out beyond that. Which was really frustrating.

I wish I was as smart as Joshua… She lamented with a sigh and went back to pulling out a nighty.
The drawer glided open with the distinctive sound of rollers sliding along on their tracks and she pulled out the needed garment. She placed her nighty on the end of her bed and dried off her body. Dropping the towel on the floor she put the garment on and pulled out a pair of bloomers from her dresser and donned those as well. She pulled her nighty back down and picked the towel up to put it away, but instead just dropped it near her clothes, feeling to tired and depressed to really bother with it. She hadn’t felt as bad while she was at work because she had been clinging to the illusion that she was making progress towards finding her brother and then – hopefully – Chrono, but at home she couldn’t hold on to that quiet so easily.
Rosette padded over to her bed, pulled the covers back and crawled under them, snuggling down and burying herself under the quilt damp hair and all. Five minutes passed and then ten. She couldn’t get warm and her wrists were throbbing. Ten minutes and then thirty. Her blood was screaming and she couldn’t scream; her voice only rasped out a shadow of what she wanted to voice. And somewhere in the back of her mind Rosette knew that the Demon would be visiting her again.

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Chrono woke suddenly, but without giving a start. He glanced around the room for whatever had roused him from sleep, but found nothing and turned his attention to the woman sleeping on his arm, her crown of curly black hair tangled and mussed from their earlier activity. Aion had sent them both to investigate a rumor of an ‘angel’ and his red haired companion that, judging by the description of him, was a demon. So far he and Neona had only managed to get some fleeting glimpses of the two, much to their vexation. Though, from what he had managed to see, Chrono was fairly certain that he knew who the mystery angel was.
The only reason that Aion was trusting Chrono at all was because he had an almost literal knife hanging over Rosette’s head. Joshua had dropped off Aion’s radar a couple of years after the Magdalene Order had taken him, so at least his brother couldn’t use the young Apostle against him as well anymore. As it was he was afraid of getting to close to Rosette again for a protracted period; Aion had made it very clear in the past that he didn’t want Chrono near her.
His bed companion was sleeping quite soundly – she didn’t even stir when he pulled his blood-deprived arm out from under her head, wincing as it tingled painfully from blood and feeling returning to it – but perhaps she had stirred and that had been what had woken him… He had never been a very deep sleeper. Or maybe –
He searched out Rosette through his Legions and cursed silently. It was happening again. Her body was rejecting his Legions. Violently. He still didn’t know for certain why it always happened and could only guess that it might be due to an incompatibility between the Legions and her Human anatomy.
It was a very frustrating and frightening situation.
Chrono threw the covers off of himself and towards Neona, scooting down to the end of the bed. He needed to go see Rosette in Manhattan, and quickly. His partner and lover cracked an eye open just slightly and watched as particles appeared around him from his waist to his feet and solidified into his pants. For some reason he wasn’t bothering with the rest of his clothes. Then again he wasn’t bothering to make himself look Human either.
A second later he teleported out of the room in a whirl of shadows and power. With a sigh Neona decided that she would try to go back to sleep, knowing full well that when he returned he would never tell her where he had gone or why. She had yet to earn that trust.

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Chrono arrived in Rosette’s bedroom to find her awake and staring at him with pain glazed eyes, a hand outstretched to reach for him as her eyes and mind pleaded in desperate fright for his help, knowing instinctively that he could and would give it. He went to her side immediately, taking her hand in his own. It tore his heart apart every time he saw her like this. He remembered when she was still a child and innocent, when she was strong, boisterous and plucky. Not weak and terrified, begging for help. It wasn’t right – it shouldn’t be this way! And yet there she lay, just as she had every other time he’d had to do this.

Her body was shutting down and she could feel it. There was absolutely nothing he could do… Except what he’d been doing since she had first tried to take her own life six years ago.
Chrono punctured his palm with his claws – he had to stop his Legions from sealing the injuries up – then, gently, opened her wrist just as she had once done. He layed his large, bleeding hand over the wound and waited. Usually he had to speed the process up by applying the same treatment to the other wrist as well, but he had gotten to her faster than normal this time so the scales/plates would fade on the other wrist this go around. He new that she must wonder about them, but didn’t have the courage to face her the next morning. Not when he would have to hurt her again by leaving.

But he always talked to her until it was done; the time he spent with her in quiet conversation as she drifted between sleep and wakefulness was the time he cherished most.

Chrono glanced at Rosette’s face and found her eyes closed. Silently, he looked away to stare at the wall. She whispered his name, bringing his attention back to her, fondness in his eyes and a gentle smile on his lips.

She often called his or her brother’s name when she drifted off while he sat with her.

“I’m right here, Rosette.” He had murmured in answer.

Her eyes opened and she stared at him drowsily, her gaze strangely knowing. It was Rosette staring back at him, but not. The stare was…

Apostle! His brain yelled at him.

He had known what she was even before she was born, but before it had only been a potentiality, not an absolute. Now it was becoming active, which was going to make her a target.

Damn!
“I know…” She whispered to him in a voice that echoed strangely, just as a Devil’s does when they’re in their true form.

To hear her voice echoing meant that her power was barely staying hidden under her skin, but that would mean that she had already awakened… When…? When did that happen?

“Please don’t leave this time.” She pleaded, “Please stay, I’m begging you!”

“I’ll just have to leave you again Rosette.” He murmured, his voice pained.

She was the one person that he wasn’t able to ever hide his feelings from. No one else could effect him so strongly.

Then again, just as he had known what she could potentially be, he had known her. But that was his little secret.

“I know.” She whispered again, her voice breaking his heart as her eyes began to tear.

She was very lonely, having no one she loved with her, being all by herself as she slowly traveled to Manhattan to start looking for Joshua. As strong as she was he had since learnt that being alone was the one thing she couldn’t take.

Emotional isolation was something that even his kind couldn’t take.
He gasped suddenly, his eyes going wide and fogging as they started to sting. Somehow she was conveying through his Legions what she could not put into words. Since when had she been able to manipulate them? But that question went on the back burner – so to speak – as he closed his eyes while her thoughts, emotions and memories flooded into him. This was the kind of connection that every Demon had from birth with at least three other people, Pandemonium guaranteed to be one of them. This connection was why they couldn’t stand being away from their own kind, often becoming unstable and angry when they were.

The silence stretched until, finally, he gave in and said,”Alright. I’ll stay.”

His voice was hoarse and loud to his ears in the silence of the room.

Rosette relented and he opened his eyes to stare at her, his wavering vision clearing for but a moment before fogging again and then clearing once more. But he could still see that she was now more tired then she had been.

“Thank-you…” Her voice was barely audible, but his sensitive ears caught her words nonetheless.

He gave her a faint nod and, after a moments debate stood up and – somewhat awkwardly – climbed onto the bed, laying down behind her. Chrono closed his eyes as he anticipated an interesting morning. And likely a very loud if she didn’t remember clearly, which, unfortunately, was highly probable due to her condition.

His ears, among other things, were going to hurt. And then he was going to have to deal with Neona.

Painkillers, he decided, will be needed. As he drifted off he made a mental note to get some from Shader. A few seconds later his eyes drifted back open at the feel of Rosette’s hand on his cheek. She was facing him, her luminous, sky blue eyes difficult to read through her tiredness.

“You’re crying…” She quietly informed him.

“Am I?” He murmured.

“Yes.”

Silence stretched for several moments before he finally pulled her closer and told her, his voice still low and laced with pain, “It’s because I keep hurting you, despite how much I’m trying not to.”

He pulled her closer still – the arm he clasped in his taloned hand becoming pinned between them – and closed his eyes, pressing his nose to the top of her head and drinking in her scent until they both feel asleep.

—————————————————————————-

Chrono shivered as he stood at the very edge of a black void that radiated an absolute cold, a reflection of what lay in his own soul. Beside him Rosette stood with her back to it, struggling not to fall in. Like him she barely managing it.
All around them her memories and emotions echoed, calling out to him. His absence in each memory was like a jagged wound glaring at him silently, screaming in his head, demanding to know why he hadn’t been there.

He reached out to Rosette and took one of her flailing hands.

————————————————

And they were in the valley where they had first met, the void forming the lake at his back. The sunlight playing with her hair and dancing over the sparkling blood spilling from her wrists as he stood in front of her, the wounding knife in his clawed hand.

Kneeling down he set the knife on the ground beside him. She held her opened wrists out to him and he took them in his callused hands, his palms over the wounds. Their blood mingled as his Legions infused her body. She closed her eyes, her body shuddering, pain crossing her face. Her back arched and golden wings appeared in a shower of blood and light. On the top quarter of the left side of her face strange swirling markings appeared. Small jewels within the pattern glittered in the hazy, golden light.
“This…” She said in an echoing whisper-voice, “Is not what I need…”

“Then tell me what you need! Please.” He begged.

She pulled her wrists free from his grip and brought them up to the sides of his face in a way that reminded him disconcertingly of someone, someplace else and so long ago.

“I need,” She said, “You.” And pressed her lips to his.

—————————————————————————–

Chrono woke with a start from his strange dream. He couldn’t remember whether she had been her current age or a child in it. He hoped to Heaven and Hell that she had been her current age. His thoughts were cut short when he heard her whimper. Realizing that he was still holding her wrist he released it and tried to soothe her even as he checked how far the Legions in her body had spread while he was sleeping.

It quickly became apparent what his dream had been about. His Legions were prepping her body to have wings installed. How wonderful. It was no wonder she was whimpering; new bone, muscle and nerves were being grown from her shoulders to her hips to be able to support the wings.

Chrono couldn’t remember what it was like to go through the preparations anymore; it was a blank in his memory. Not very reassuring considering he remembered quite well how much it had hurt to have horns attached to his head when they wouldn’t grow in.

The second meaning of the dream was not lost on Chrono either. His Legions in her body linked them very powerfully; their minds had met as they slept. It had been Rosette he was talking to. She wanted him and it was stirring dangerous emotions and desires in his heart and body – and not for the first time. He half regretted now agreeing to stay with her until she woke up. He just prayed that he could get through the night without doing anything that he shouldn’t.
For now he could not afford to act on his emotions.

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A/N: Well, that was a bit heavy for the first chapter… Sorry ’bout that. Anyway I’m planning some fluff – hopefully with some humor in there as well – in the next chapter, so if you have some suggestions, please, by all means, send them in (I’m no good at coming up with fluff ideas; if you hadn’t guessed by this chapter, I’m kind of a serious person – though I promise that I do have a sense of humor! It’s just very dry).
Oh, and I’m sorry about the OOCness, but Rosette is kind of depressed at the moment. Don’t worry, I do intend to change this over time.