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[b][u][center]Falling Angel, Rising Friend

Part 2

for AkimitsuSevecan

by Draconicon[/center][/u][/b]

Lykus dropped the unconscious lion against the side of the phone booth. Rubbing the sweat off his forehead, Lykus looked around, double-checked that there weren't any late-night walkers (or anyone else, for that matter) around, then stepped inside. He glanced back at his unconscious companion one more time, debating whether he needed to add one last bit of security with a spell-card, then decided not to. The hover-card should be enough, and he didn't want to split his attention any more than he already was. Keeping that one active for a two-mile trek out of the Dead Zone and into one of the safer neighborhoods had been bad enough.

As the wolf reached into his pockets, pulling out a pay-card and tapping it against the call-box, he wondered how he was going to justify this. The mystery of someone just falling from the sky and carrying angelic script was interesting enough to keep him involved, but would it be enough for his friend? He [i]needed[/i] help with this, and Drac was probably the best one for the job, but -

"Fuck it, you're not going to know until you call," Lykus muttered, holding his hand against the box. "Draconicon. Academia Draconis. Dean."

"[i]Who is calling?[/i]"

"Card Wolf."

"[i]Please hold.[/i]"

Nodding, the wolf leaned back against the door of the booth. Shouldn't take too long for the system to connect him to his friend, nor for his friend to answer. 'Card Wolf' was just the nickname that he knew Drac would pick up on quickly without giving himself away right off the bat. Silly, but fun. He would have liked something kinkier, he supposed, considering the things that they could get up to together, but -

Lykus groaned, rubbing his forehead. It was more than just random thoughts. He was deliberately doing his best not to think about what was going to come next. Oh, this was going to be complicated. This was going to be very -

Click.

"[i]Lykus. Why are you calling me at work?[/i]"

Anyone else would have thought that the dragon sounded annoyed. Lykus, knowing his friend for so long, knew that there was something else there: concern. Drac knew that he wouldn't be calling the office without good reason. Not with the way that things usually went with them.

"Found something in the Dead Zone, and I really, really think you need to look at this."

"[i]Which one?[/i]"

"It's not there anymore. I brought it - well, him - with me."

"[i]...Lykus. What did you find?[/i]"

"Wellllll, that's the complicated part," he muttered, looking out the glass side of the booth at the floating, snoring lion. "I think he's an angel."

"[i]...[/i]"

"Drac?"

"[i]I'll meet you at one of the safehouses. Draw a card.[/i]"

"Okay, which deck?"

"[i]Any.[/i]"

"Ooooookay. This is a new trick."

He picked the deck-box lying over his crotch, pulling out the deck and giving it a few shuffles. Over the line, he could hear Drac doing something, the headmaster probably pulling some sort of spell of his own. The wolf didn't ask, nor did he try and imagine; all he did was what he was told.

Three shuffles, then a five card deal before flipping the top card over. He blinked at the image of a waterfront warehouse, one that looked at least semi-abandoned. Not one of the cards that he remembered having in the deck-box, either, and -

And then it shimmered, turning back to a card with a simple horse-cock on it. Lykus lifted the card, staring at the original art, then chuckled.

"Oh, you gotta teach me that."

"[i]Later. You saw it?[/i]"

"Yep."

"[i]See you there in ten minutes.[/i]"

"Wait -"

Click.

Lykus stared at the buzzing box, shaking his head. So much for getting anything else out of the magic dragon. He stepped out of the phone booth, looked at the floating, snoring lion, and rolled his eyes.

"Well, at least I don't have to lug you around the way that normal people do..."

#

Lykus made it to the safehouse in decent time, though it was closer to fifteen minutes than ten. Some of the streetlights really didn't want to cooperate, and then there was that one limo-driver that was pissed off about the naked lion at his side. That argument had stretched out for a good five minutes before Lykus flashed the capybara with another magic card, blanking the driver's memory before running off. Not something that he needed reported to some of the higher-ups in Docetri. Not that the nudity was a problem, but someone just 'immigrating' into the city without a word or warning would get someone pissed off enough to start making waves.

Hopping the fence and floating the lion over, he dragged his sleeping companion to the front door. He cracked it open -

"Lykus?"

"Glad that you beat me here," the wolf said, sliding around the corner and pushing the door open a bit further. "Sorry for being late."

"Figured you might be."

"Mmm-hmm. Mr. Teleporting Dragon."

"Hardly, these days. Anyway, bring him in. Let me - oh, damn..."

Lykus stepped out of the way as soon as the lion floated past him, knowing that his friend would step in and get right to the point as soon as he caught sight of his companion. And he was right.

Striding from the middle of the small warehouse, the black-scaled dragon almost seemed to have a double-pair of wings. His natural pair flared out and in again as he walked over, and the bottom of his golden coat flared out, making him look like some unnatural scaly butterfly for a moment or two. His white eyes were glued to the unconscious feline as soon as he came close, and he shook his head as he walked around their floating specimen.

The wolf stepped out of the way, giving the seven-foot-tall dragon space to work. Draconicon's clawed toes clicked on the concrete floor of the warehouse, announcing each step as he paced round and round the lion. The dragon muttered under his breath, and Lykus couldn't help but smile at the intensity on the dragon's face. It was the same as he always had when he was utterly focused on some lecture or academic mystery. He lost a great deal of his awareness of the rest of the world and only seemed to have attention for the thing right in front of him.

It was kind of hot to see, particularly when the dragon didn't even seem to notice someone staring at him. Lykus looked down at the dragon's pants, half-expecting to see a mystery-boner, but sadly, there was nothing to find. Must have been more focused on the important stuff, which was probably for the best, all things considered.

As the wolf got comfortable, Draconicon finally stopped behind the lion. He ran his fingers along the feline's back, stopping with them pressed on either side of the upper spine. He shook his head.

"This is an angel, alright."

"How can you tell from there?"

"There's little nubs left behind. There used to be wings here."

"Well...that would explain what was burning off him when he was falling," Lykus said, shaking his head. "But how the hell does an angel come here?"

"I don't know. Caelum doesn't just banish its people for nothing. Their biggest strength against the demons and devils of Desiderium is their unity, not their numbers. Kicking someone out is desperate for them."

"Do you think that he was a pervert or something?" Lykus asked, cocking his head to the side.

"Oh, that wouldn't have been enough," Draconicon said, shaking his head as he kept walking around the lion. "Angels aren't the same as they are in the stories around the world. Lots of them are at least a little compassionate, sure, but most of them? They're more...ugh, how do I put this?

"Demons are the desires that we have for big, vague things. Personal ambitions. Angels? They're more like the desire for other people. Demons are passion, angels are compassion."

"Isn't that a good thing?"

"Until your compassion, your external desire, is for the murder and torment of others."

"...Right. Murdering angels. Didn't think about that."

"Oh, it doesn't stop there," Draconicon said, kneeling and tilting the floating feline's head to the side. "Torture, obliteration, homogenation."

"Homo. Heh."

"Not so fun when you're talking about utter cultural homogeneity. No more diversity, just one big banner where everything is the same."

Lykus winced. He'd never thought about angels that way, but the more that he imagined the possibilities of 'external desires,' as the dragon put it, the more that he started to realize that there was a lot of potential for people to get pretty fucked up by a system like that. He just hoped that it wasn't so powerful and potent as it sounded.

"Care to tell me why you knocked him out?" Draconicon asked.

"Oh, right. Uh...probably best to start from the top," Lykus admitted.

And so, he ran through the whole story. Some very colorful blowjob details - most of which he was rather proud of - were brushed off by the busy dragon, but the fall and the burning wings and everything else was more or less an interrogation. He [i]did[/i] like the way that Draconicon gave him an approving nod for the shield spell, however, which made him feel better about managing that in the heat of the moment.

He hurried through the tracking part of the story, mentioning the feathers more than anything else. The white-eyed dragon nodded, crossing his arms over his chest as he leaned against the sleeping angel-lion as if he were a countertop. It was almost funny, in a stupid sort of way.

But when they got to the orgy -

"Stop."

Draconicon held up a hand, and Lykus clicked his jaws shut. The dragon looked over his shoulder, and the wolf could feel the annoyance bubbling up from his long-time friend.

"That's the part you need me to fix?"

"Well, that and what we do after, but...yeah. Presence-magic isn't something I really get. It's not the same sort of 'fun' as mind control stuff with Perception-magic."

"Yeah, it's...definitely a little different. And now that you mention it, I can feel it wrapped all around his brain. I trust that you taught the people involved a lesson?"

Lykus nodded.

"Good. There's good mind control, and there's the shitty kind, and that was the really shitty kind."

"So...are you going to -"

"Already done."

"Hehehe, I knew you'd be awesome about it."

"Yeah, yeah. That still leaves us a bigger problem, though."

"And what's that?" the wolf asked.

"How are you going to tell Azorious about this?"

"...Riiiiiiiiiiiight."

Lykus rubbed the back of his head, looking past the dragon to the still-snoring lion. He'd been trying not to think about that part, but there was no way that he could just dump the angel on Drac. That was asking someone that had a genuinely stressful day job to take on something huge, particularly with the implications of an angel being booted out of their heavenly realm and being put to the same place as other mortals.

And considering the fact that Azorious was a demon, and one of those that was already straddling the line about whether or not he was even allowed to be in the mortal realm in the first place, that had all kinds of potential for problems. As far as he knew, his other half didn't have anything against this one, but angels and demons had the same sort of ring to it as cats and dogs: you expected them to fight, regardless of whether they had anything personal against each other.

As he rubbed the back of his head and neck, Draconicon continued to move around the lion. He would poke, prod, or nudge different parts of him, and each time he did, he seemed to find something new. Lykus tried not to get distracted by that, knowing that the other question was more important, but -

"What are you doing?" he asked.

"There's something else on this angel," Draconicon said, shaking his head. "Something that made that whole mind-control problem possible in the first place."

"...Are you saying that angels can't be mind-controlled?"

"Not that easily, at least; they're very powerful, normally, but that does require a certain amount of focus. And yes, the trauma of being kicked out might have distracted this one a bit, but it shouldn't have been enough for some random asshole to take control of his brain and hijack his thoughts."

Now that Drac said it, it made sense. The creatures of Caelum and Desiderium both were creatures of power. They were beyond the average lay-person, and certainly strong enough that Lykus wouldn't have tried fighting most things of Azorious's strength or higher. The idea that an angel, something that his demon would have been a little cautious in fighting, had been overcome by some rando...

"So, what do you think happened?"

"Well, there's a few possibilities," Draconicon admitted, shaking his head. "But we won't know until he wakes up. But my guess is that he's had certain things forced out of his head, or bound up so that he can't remember all his old skills. Probably to make sure that he doesn't just come flying back up his old realm."

That made sense. He opened his mouth -

"But now, Azorious."

"...I guess...we need to figure that out, yeah," Lykus muttered, sighing. "Fuck. I don't want to lie to him."

"Neither do I. I can only imagine that's going to end badly, particularly when it fails. Because it inevitably will, no matter what I do to make the lie more convincing."

"So...what do we do?"

"Well, that depends. How bad do you think him finding out is going to go?"

"Pretty bad; he's never told me much about his personal feelings with angels, but...he is a demon, and there's never going to be happy memories there."

Draconicon nodded, tapping his chin. Lykus looked back at the lion, wondering just what sort of person was under the layers of heavenly memories - or lack thereof - and what kind of person they would be when they woke up. Someone strong, he imagined, but would they be a good person? Or just someone that had been formed out of...a different sort of compassion?

Lykus sighed. He liked puzzles, but he didn't like trying to figure them out blindfolded, and this was some way worse than that.

"What do you think we should do?" he asked.

"My best guess? We put a thing like 'Witness Protection' on this guy. We make it so that it's more like protecting someone that other people would try and hurt. That way, we don't make it look like we don't trust Azorious, and we can explain it better later."

"...Not a bad idea, and it's not as insulting, I guess," Lykus admitted.

"And it's less of a lie. We're not just hiding this guy from Azorious; we're hiding him from [i]everybody.[/i]"

"Right. Right. Yes, that's good." Lykus nodded, a small smile forming. "And I know just the place to keep him."

"Your place?"

"Mmmm-hmmm. Gonna need a bit of supplies, but I think we can just about manage it."

"Alright. Well, in the meantime, I'm going to get to work on the spell for hiding this guy, and you can call Azorious and figure out what to tell him."

"...Right. Yeah, uh...any tips?"

"You're the wolf that lives with him. You'd know."

"You'd think that. Oh, you'd think that..."

#

Sijashi groaned as awareness crept back into his noggin. The lack of that horrible guilt that he remembered feeling just before conking out was a relief, though he still didn't know what had caused it in the first place. Something...something golden, something powerful -

[i]Magic.[/i]

A flicker of something, like a book turning in his mind, brought more concepts with it. Presence-magic, the charisma, the power of place in a hierarchy, the general need to listen to someone higher up -

Sijashi groaned again, the lion shaking his head as he opened his eyes. He had...he felt something on him, now. Looking down, he saw a pair of loose pants. Something baggy, something that flowed over his hips and down to his ankles before coming to a bit of a raggedy stop. Not very warm, but at least they were comfortable, open and flowing in a way that his old clothes hadn't been.

Old clothes. He tried to remember what they had been, but that, too, was gone. Whatever he had been was locked away, and -

"He's awake!"

He whipped his head up just in time to see a black and white wolf with the biggest grin in all of creation zipping toward him in a blur of motion. The lion barely knew what was going on as the strange canine leaped through the air at him, and his body reacted out of pure instinct. He thrust his arms forward, grabbed the wolf by the shoulders, and spun him around, slamming him against -

Couch?

Mattress?

It was something soft, covered in blankets, and the wolf hit it and bounced. Rather than yelping in pain or shock, the dog laughed, giggling as he bounced twice before coming to a stop.

"Wow, never seen someone react that quick. You're good!"

"...What...how..."

"Oh, sorry. I was just going to give you a hug to welcome you back to being awake, but, uh...might have been a bit much."

"...Who are you?" Sijashi asked, slowly pulling his hands back from the wolf's shoulders.

"I'm Lykus. I'm the one that, uh, found you in the...you know, orgy?"

Memories came pouring back in. Cock, cock, cock, so many cocks, all of them stained in pre-cum and sweat, all of them salty and thick and pressing down into his mouth and throat. He remembered the hands on his head, the pressure to keep sucking, the throbbing stiffness pressed against his face again and again and again. Each time they had come closer, nudging at him, making demands for more and more service. His hands twitched, his eyes flickering as the memories pulsed away in his mind's eye -

"Whoa, whoa. Come here. Come here."

Lykus was sitting up now, and the wolf pulled him close. He let himself be hugged, and he hugged the other man in turn. The hug turned into a squeeze, and the squeeze turned into a desperate hold, pulling himself back from memories that were too perfect, too intense to live with for long.

"Sorry. I knew it was bad, but I didn't know it was that bad."

"It...it wasn't bad...not when they were doing it. But thinking of it now..."

"Yeah...well...I took care of them for you," Lykus said, patting his back. "You're okay now. You're going to be okay. We'll take care of you."

"I - thank you, but...who is we?"

"Him. Me."

Another voice. Sijashi lifted his head, turning around -

His eyes fell on two figures. The first, black-scaled and gold-coated, was a dragon. He remembered what dragons were, remembered the power of the species and the way that they were constantly greedy for more. No, not greedy; that was what others felt, he remembered in vague fashion, but not the way that he had felt. It was not greed, but the desire to grow, and the fear that they were never enough without help that pushed them to be what they were. They were not the rampaging, greedy monsters that some stories told, but merely creatures that needed to be understood, encouraged, and they were some of the safest beings in the world to trust with a treasure, if you had a bond with them.

"And me," a third voice said, leading Sijashi's eyes to the other figure.

His eyes went wide as he saw the red and black-furred wolf, one that stood several feet taller than the black and white one on the couch - yes, couch - with him. He had deep red eyes, and his head was topped with black horns that curled toward the back of his head. He had the power of something bigger, something more potent than anything that was supposed to walk this earth, but -

But he couldn't call the word to mind. All he knew was that the mere sight of the other wolf set his teeth on edge, and he could feel a heated prickle running up and down his back, reaching for something inside of him.

"Oh, introductions!" Lykus clapped. "This is my friend, Drac, the one that took that spell of guilt off of you. He's a seriously cool dragon, one of those guys that you really want in your corner when something big's going on. He just seems to know, well, almost everything."

"Definite emphasis on 'almost,'" the dragon said.

"And this is Azorious," Lykus said, pointing at the taller wolf.

There was something to the name that tickled at another memory, but the book that held that information was closed, locked tight compared to the other trickles of details that had come to him before. Yet, the lion still felt something when he looked at the taller, thicker-shouldered canine. There was something there, something that held his attention in a way that he didn't entirely know how to deal with, and...and he didn't know what to do about it.

"Nothing about me, Lykus?" Azorious chuckled. "Praising the dragon, but nothing for me?"

"Sorry!" Lykus chuckled, but there was almost a note of...almost something like nervousness in his voice. "This is Azorious, one of the best men I've ever met. And sexy, too, hehehe."

The way that the wolf looked down at the bigger male's leather shorts and the bulge there was enough to tell Sijashi what he meant. The lion cleared his throat, sitting up a little taller on the couch.

"So...I hate to be rude, or too direct, but...what is going on?" Sijashi gestured around. "I don't believe I know any of you, but...I hate to admit this, but I cannot really remember much at all."

"Amnesia; makes sense," Draconicon muttered.

"How does that make sense, pray-tell?"

"Let's just say that the way that you arrived, it was rather unlikely that you'd remember much at all," the dragon said, shaking his head. "At any rate, I'll be working on a way to get that information back for you, but in the meantime, we've got a few other issues."

"Yep." Azorious nodded. "From what big scales here says, you came in without any of the other legal checkpoints getting a chance to slow you down, heh. And this place? They don't like outsiders that much, not without all those permits and everything else that they like to slap on. So, they'll be looking for you."

"But...have I done anything?" Sijashi asked, cocking his head to the side.

"Not as far as I know, but that ain't gonna matter much to them," the big wolf said. "So, until wizard-lizard can get the magic going and fix up your memories, you're going to be staying somewhere safe. Namely, somewhere with me and Lykus there, just to make sure that nothing bad happens to you."

"...Would something bad happen to me?" Sijashi asked, cocking his head to the side.

"Wellllll, not from most people," Lykus said, patting his shoulder. "But with the way that you probably lost your memory, there might be some people that don't want you to get it back. And there'll be others that just don't like you being here in the first place."

"...Lovely," he said, his voice almost squeaking.

"Don't worry. You got us to take care of things. Come on. We'll take you to your new place."

#

The lion's discomfort eased as they reached his new 'home.' It was more of an apartment, not that far from the place where he'd woken up, and both Lykus and Azorious were friendly during the short trip back. The taxi was a little cramped with all three of them stuffed in together, but they made it work. Particularly the pair of wolves; he had never seen anyone that handsy with each other before.

Or at least, he didn't remember seeing anyone that handsy with each other before. Maybe he just didn't remember the people that were.

Once they were inside, he was a little surprised to see so many random pieces of art in the hallway. No less than a dozen rectangles, each one at least a foot tall and perhaps a bit more, were arranged in rows leading in from the doorway. They consisted of great battles and spells, and Sijashi stared at them, running his fingers over the borders of the paintings.

"Don't get too awestruck by those," Azorious chuckled as he walked by. "Pup just wanted to get big versions of his favorite cards."

"The cards are still art!"

"Yeah, yeah, sure."

"Besides, better than the porn that you have all over your walls," Lykus said, charging past and into the kitchen. "I swear, how many different creampied asses do you need on that?"

"At least a dozen more!"

"Then you'll be done by next week, right - oh hell. The fridge is empty."

Head still spinning from sheer disorientation, Sijashi didn't know what he wanted to ask about first. The cards? The porn? The fact that he was rooming with a pair of friends that clearly had been together longer and more intimately than most people that he imagined ever could be? The food?

The food. That was safest.

"Do we need anything in the fridge?" he asked.

"With the way that we'll need to keep a lower profile, probably," Azorious admitted, shaking his head. "So, that means one of us has to go to the store."

"And by one of us, he means me," Lykus said, leaving the kitchen. "Not like you can hide Big Dick Wolf here when he's walking around, heh, and at least I can get back in just an hour."

"If you don't get sidetracked by a back-room gloryhole somewhere," Azorious teased.

"Oh, please. I can resist."

"I'll believe it when I see it, suck-wolf."

Sijashi's mouth worked soundlessly as he watched the banter between them. The prickling feeling in the air made him sure that a fight was going to break out at any second, but every time that he was sure that they were about to hit the boiling point, something shifted again. He didn't know what it was, he didn't know how the pair of them negotiated all this strangeness, but they did it with an ease that he envied. The lion was so awestruck by the way that they just were together that he barely noticed Lykus slipping past him to the door.

By the time that the black and white wolf left him alone with the red and black one, it was too late to protest. He turned to the shut door, his mouth opening and closing again, and he sighed.

"Something the matter?" Azorious asked.

"...Nothing that I can explain," Sijashi said. "Is there a place I can lie down?"

"Yeah, Lykus's room. This way."

"Thank you."

Despite everything in him screaming that the prickling feeling around Azorious meant something horrible, his experience was already arguing otherwise. Yes, the wolf was certainly crude, and there was a way that he took control of the situation and kept it that would have been almost concerning in other settings. Someone that craved power like that was someone that should be watched...but Sijashi saw him in a different way.

[i]He is someone that knows how the world works, and he knows that others will fall in line if he acts like he's in charge,[/i] he thought as he followed the wolf through the apartment. [i]And so, he holds that power to keep others safe, to stop fights before they start. He does not seek power, even if he enjoys it; he just knows how to use it in a way to keep everyone else happy, and to make sure that his friends stay safe.[/i]

It felt too deep to be a casual insight, but he was almost starting to get used to that feeling. Much like the sense of information that came pouring through his skull whenever some random concept seized him, this felt like a part of him, something that was just intrinsically a thing that he could use. He wondered how he had used it before he lost his memory. Hopefully in a good way.

Hopefully.

Azorious opened the door, only to groan under his breath and slap a hand over his face.

"Is something the matter?" Sijashi asked.

"Lykus left his cards all over the floor again."

"Surely it can't be that bad."

"...You know what? Take a look and you tell me."

The lion stepped forward as the wolf stepped aside, and he blinked as he saw the room.

It wasn't precisely unclean, though it was certainly more cluttered than he might have preferred. There was a computer desk at one end, near the closet, and there was a queen-sized bed against the far wall. A dresser could just be seen inside the closet beside a couple of jackets and folded pants, and there were several posters along the walls.

But it was the massive sea of cards that were spread out on the floor that really held his attention. Sijashi stared at them, feeling that there had to be hundreds, if not thousands of cards spread out, and many of them from different games and different styles. The sheer number was bad enough, but the fact that they were completely unsorted felt so much worse.

"He'll get that sorted when he gets back. Well, what passes for it," Azorious said, shaking his head. "If you want to sleep, I got some pillows for the couch, or -"

"I am doing this now."

"...Huh?"

"I am fixing this. Now."

The lion stepped inside, finding one of the few clear spots on the floor, and sat down. He reached out for a handful of cards and pushed others further away, clearing more space for himself. First, he would sort them by the system, and then by what they were for, and then - well, he would figure that out as he went.

A few seconds later, the other wolf sat down beside him. Sijashi blinked, looking up at him, and Azorious chuckled.

"Hey, if Lykus finds out that I left a guest to clean up after him and didn't help, he'd be pissed. Besides, I'm wondering if he's hiding any goodies in here."

"...Thank you."

"No problem."

[b][u][center]The End[/center][/u][/b]

Summary: Sijashi gets brought to Drac, and there's a whole debate about what is going to happen with the fallen angel.

Tags: No Sex, Examination, Docetri, Lion, Wolf, Dragon, Demon, Draconicon, Series, Getting to Know You, Insight, Amnesia,