"Even if tears are about to spill

If it were the two of us together

I'm sure mundane happiness could be found"

YORU NI KAKERU/RACING INTO THE NIGHT - YOASOBI

Since being rescued from the crucism cult and starting his life living with Amanda and her family, Abel was complete silence. His laughter. His cries. Just air passing through his nose and throat, never seemingly coming close to actually making any sound. Except for when he had nightmares in the middle of the night, sometimes he would scream in those. But it was such an ear-piercing scream that you couldn't actually make out what his voice would sound like. And even with all the crying that came after these episodes, just silent sobs escaped through his lips.

Incidentally, although, on paper, Amanda, as the head of the family temple, was the one responsible for Abel. But because his room was right next to Cecil's (they shared a wall), in the end, it was him that had to check up on the angel when he woke up crying and screaming. To Amanda's defense, she also came running in to help the first time she woke up to the sound of a wailing Abel, but in the end, she was relieved of the duty. Cecil was going to be jerked awake anyway, so no reason to bother her to come from the other side of the house, especially because she never even woke up in the first place.

At that moment, he was trying to get Abel to calm down a bit. His cheeks were wet with tears and despite the fact that the room was dimly-lit, he could see that the angel's eyes were bloodshot. There wasn't much Cecil could do other than assure him that he was safe, that he was okay now and that whatever was seen in those nightmares wasn't real. That and holding his hands. For the most part, the angel was very skittish and tended to recoil at the slightest touch, but in these situations, he felt calmer with the other's hand wrapped around his. He still had to be careful with Abel's hands, though. He was missing nails in most of his fingers, the wounds left behind still raw, the others had the tips amputated due to septic shock. The wounds at his palms had been mostly healed by now, at least, so he could safely hold him there.

He finally got Abel to lay down again. He was still sobbing and trembling.

"Abel, are you in pain?"

He nodded. Of course severe ptsd and agoraphobia wasn't enough, he also had to deal with pain that came and went. He hoped it was just Abel's wounds healing and not a permanent consequence of sepsis.

"Do you want me to get you some pain meds? I'll be right back"

Abel tightened his grip on Cecil's hand. He barely had any strength, but it was enough for the other to understand that he didn't want to be alone.

"I'll stay but...can you sleep like that?"

He nodded again.

"Want me to put some music on?"

Another nod. Abel was a bit weird in that sense because it wasn't calm music that made him sleep, but instead it was some very specific death-doom metal bands. He didn't think anything of it when he showed the songs to the angel and he happened to enjoy it but he did think it was weird that he liked to listen to it to fall asleep.

"Close your eyes, ok? I'll be here until you fall asleep."

Waiting for him to sleep while listening to songs about tragedy, death and loss was certainly an experience, but at this point, he was used to it.

Considering he was pretty much tasked with doing most of the physical caring for Abel, this was already the second guardian duty that ended up on his lap. He laughed when he remembered how Amanda insisted that taking the angel in would barely affect him. Pfff, right. Cecil's mind wandered to the memories of how they both arrived at this situation.

Something important to mention is that all angels must have legal guardians. Cecil thought the whole system was sort of weird, but they live in a country where most of the people are followers of Rectam, and according to them, angels should be protected at all costs, after all, they are divine beings that filter impurities from human souls. At least that's what they (and his sister) believed in. It's not like this is a huge deal for most angels nowadays, after all, it usually just defaults to their parents or a sibling. And for the last 20 years, when a law giving adult angels the most of the same rights as adult humans passed and they could finally get married, then their partner would be defaulted as a guardian. Unless they married another angel, of course, then each of them just had guardians of their own. It was the sort of an archaic tradition that was held together by nothing but stubbornness.

For the angel, having a respectful guardian that allowed them autonomy, as most do nowadays, doesn't really change their lives very much, however, for the guardian, well, if anything bad should happen to said angel and that thing could be blamed on neglect or something similar, they would have to respond criminally. Because of this, being an angel guardian isn't something people are lining up to do.

In cases like Abel's, where he had no family to look after him. In these instances, the responsibility is given to the head of a temple. In theory, it could be from any faith that had legalized practices (which already put crucists out of the pool) but everyone knew they just sent them to Rectam temples. Of course, Amanda was a follower of Rectam, otherwise she would probably not have been given the guardianship of Abel.

To be completely honest, it was pretty weird that he ended up with them at all. His sister's temple was old and established, but extremely small and preference is usually given to the big ones. He suspected that Abel was just too much trouble for people to actually care. After all, with the religious trauma he had, the hospital therapist recommended that he be kept away from any temples or rituals until he felt better, which meant he would be useless to those big places. Which just further proved their hypocrisy. They never cared about angels, they just liked looking like they did.

Of course it wasn't just Cecil, plenty of people questioned the need to the guardianship laws. In Abel's case, he could understand why he would need someone to be legally responsible for him, after all, he was severely traumatized and on top of that, he had to learn how to live out here in the world, after all, he spent the first 23 years if his life stuck underground being a victim of torture rituals. But his case was a huge outlier so you couldn't really use it to measure against the situation of most angels.

Not that it mattered now anyway. Although there were human activists in favor of angels' autonomy, he wasn't exactly one of them. Sure he supported their ideals at the core, but didn't go out of his way to protest, and at most, he would share stuff on social media.

Ironically, now that he had Abel in his life he sort of wanted to partake in those things, feeling almost like he had a duty to defend him by proxy, but of course, the responsibilities what were supposed to be his sister's ended up on him and between the angel and his job, he had his hands full. Not that he minded, he genuinely likes spending time with Abel and most of the 'caring' for him at this point just consisted of being there if he had a panic attack and explaining things he didn't understand. That and make sure his remaining open wounds didn't get reinfected. Even though it had already been almost two months, the angel's skin was healing terribly slowly.

He genuinely had fun showing Abel all of the things about the world, how to use the internet, playing games together or watching silly movies. In time, he even got him to leave the house for short periods of time, so he could show the neighborhood. He was also progressing in physiotherapy and he could walk very short distances without help.

When Amanda first showed up on their doorstep with Abel, he was holding onto her for dear life, limping and in obvious pain. Turns out, they just remembered to tell her about the atrophy on his legs the day he was leaving. And his feet also hurt when he walked due to multiple burn wounds. It was very nice to only give that information at the last possible second. In the end they just solved the problem by letting him use a wheelchair, but if at least they knew that beforehand, they could have maybe provided one before he got there or adapted the bedroom so he wouldn't have to get up. That was the first big annoyance he (and Amanda) had with how Abel's case had been handled.

The second one wasn't long after. His sister insisted that Cecil be the one responsible for cleaning and dressing his still open wounds because she couldn't stand the sight of blood and was afraid to do it wrong. She promised to take care of the rest by herself and that she would only ever ask this of him. At least she kept the second promise, as she technically never asked for her brother to do anything else.

At that time, he was mostly worried about trying to clean everything without causing Abel too much extra pain, but the further he went, the more pissed off he got. He thought it was absurd that they dispatched him without getting him to a psychiatrist first. Or that even with his wounds, still this ripe with inflammation and some even still infected, that still needed extensive, everyday cleaning, and they thought it was a good idea to just drop him at a random temple? They lucked out that he was there at least, because most people would not do it thoroughly enough and he would surely get hospitalized again. For fucks sake, he had just survived a septic shock, if he got a mildy out-of-control infection he would have to go straight to a hospital. Again.

The more he thought about it, the more he thought the whole façade of protecting angels was a huge joke. They just sent him to die at a stranger's house, out of state custody, so they could look good on paper. Their stroke of genius was to just throw all the blame on a random, clueless head of a temple for not caring for him properly, and his sister almost got caught in this mess.

It was a bit weird, but in the end, Cecil started really caring about the angel in front of him due to sheer anger. But all was good now, right? Abel didn't die, in fact he seemed to be thriving, especially given the circumstances. The only thing that bothered him a little was the fact that Abel was just so silent.

It made sense that he wouldn't use his voice much, after all, he couldn't speak, right? But it really wasn't just the lack or voice that bothered him. For the most part, Abel lacked any sound. He moved around the world always trying to not be noticed, never taking any space, but still hoping against hope that his efforts would be in vain and someone would actually notice him.

At least that's what Cecil thought. Abel was quiet, but if he gave him just a bit of an opening, he eagerly opened up. The reason why they became close so quickly was precisely due to this, because unlike Amanda and Micaela, who wanted to give him time to adapt and wait for him to come to of his shell on his own, Cecil understood that Abel felt like an outlier and would continue to feel this way unless it was made explicitly clear that his presence was not just wanted, but also valued.

He looked at Abel's face. It seems he had finally fallen asleep. Even if they try to help and send the angel to therapy, when it came to them, these things were a shot in the dark. How were they supposed to process trauma through it if the whole system was designed around speaking? In the end he could only really depend on psychic meds to improve his mental health conditions, but everyone knows that while it might help, it doesn't work miracles. At least in his sleep, he looked at peace.

Cecil was tired himself so he got up and headed back to his own room, giving one last look towards Abel before closing the door. If the letter that was left with when that girl dropped him at the hospital and ran was right, he should be around 23 years old, which meant that morifere could already start at any moment for him, after all, this was how most angels die. For some reason, this thought made Cecil shudder. He hoped that said angel would at least be able to feel a bit of happiness and freedom before dying, after all, destiny really hadn't been fair to him.

Broken people tend to stick together, sometimes for no reason other than mutual understanding, don't they?

"When you sleep you seem sad

It looks like you're having bad dreams

But I am here for you, at your side

I will never leave you.

How do I live without you?"

BIRD - YUYA MATSUSHITA