whispersoflove | Coby and Anael - Reunion

He wasn't watching, but he felt something as the flower in his hand faded, upwards into shimmering dust and floated away, then the world seemed to tilt and fall out from under him, tugging Jag and Curnen out of his arms.

The next minute there was a discordant sound as his hands came down on the keyboard, the clash of notes drawn out several seconds until it clicked the sound was because of him. He pulled his hands away from the keys, then looked around, blinking slowly.

"Ground control to Major Tom," Brion called out softly, as the rest of the band frowned in concern, the piece they were rehearsing paused to find out what was going on. "Coby. You all right, mate?"

Right. Rehearsal. They were working on a couple new numbers to try adding to the set list for Monday night at Scandals. Songs he... hadn't written yet. But that he knew he had. Okay. Yeah. This was weird. But not any weirder than all the other shit his brain tried to throw at him. Right?

And fuck. Emma'd done it. Somehow. He was home. Ish.

"Coby." Maire this time, coming over and turning him to look at her by a couple of fingers under his chin.

"Sorry. I'm fine. Well... not fine, my head's kind of. I'm going to head back to my place. Crash for awhile, yeah? Pick this up later?"

The rest of them looked like they weren't sure, and Maire was this close to suggesting she walk him back to his flat. But the rehearsal space wasn't that far from the church he called home, and a good look at his eyes told her he probably wasn't high, or coming down from something, and they'd known him long enough to know Coby got... odd sometimes.

He'd barely reached the street when Coby realized back if he was back in his home world, then Anael would be able to hear him again. He sent up a quick prayer of love and want to his angel, simple at first, but the short walk was long enough for him to start to worry. What if the lack of response wasn't Anael being busy? What if this was another fucking trick, like when the inn opened up on a Europe that wasn't any of theirs? He prayed again, the worry almost fear bleeding through, along with the need to see Anael.

He needed to check in on Jag and Curnen too. And he would. But he needed Anael first. The part of him that remembered holding his angel maybe a week before was there, but drowned out by the part that had been missing him for almost two years.

Anael could tell Coby's prayers among millions, and this one registered as it usually did. Echoing love and warmth bloomed inside Anael, and he resolved to come down to Earth soon. But then a new prayer came, this one wrought with worry, and Anael resolved to come down to Earth now.

It wasn't long at all before he was landing on Coby's rooftop, the icy tips of his wings and the frost still in his hair bearing testimony to how quickly he had flown down from icy heights, to be here. He hurried inside and knocked on Coby's door, heart hammering with the taste of Coby's fear, and gave him ten seconds before he used a minor miracle to open the door.

Coby hadn't been able to sit once he was back at the apartment. (Maybe there was something to the whole idea that pink was supposed to be calming? Nah, not the pink he was used to.) He'd been prowling through the rooms unable to settle, and he almost leapt towards the door when he heard the knock. Then Anael was there, he was really there, and Coby didn't say anything, just pulled him into a hug, Coby's wings coming out to wrap around them both as he breathed in the angel now he could finally breathe again.

Anael's arms immediately went around Coby, and his wings disappeared with a thought so Coby's could wrap around them both without Anael's getting in the way. "I'm here," he whispered, feeling the relief woven through Coby's love. A gust of wind closed the door behind them, and Anael pressed a kiss to the side of Coby's head. "I'm here, love. We're here."

He could wait to know what the matter was. Coby would tell him when he was ready.

The feel of Anael in his arms, and Anael's arms around him, Anael's love washing through him, Coby soaked it all in for a long moment, then straightened enough to kiss Anael softly on the lips. "I've been wanting to do that again for almost two years," he explained softly, even though it probably raised more questions than it explained.

And indeed, Anael frowned at the explanation. "I don't..." But he stopped himself, and cradled Coby's jaw gently before leaning in for a longer kiss, but just as gentle, reflecting their mingled love for each other back to Coby. Explanations could wait. First, this.

This, the kiss, the love shared between them, filled a hole Coby had had to try to ignore the entire time he was stuck at the inn. Not that he'd ever really managed to ignore it, but it had become a familiar loss. Now he felt closer to whole. One kiss led to two, and as he tried to lose himself in Anael, he backed them toward the bedroom, trusting whatever doubled memories that his feet hadn't forgotten the way. Anael had always said the bedroom felt more like Coby than the rest of the space, and they could be more comfortable curled together while Anael heard the story of his 'stay' at the Madonna Inn.

Whatever Coby wanted in the bedroom was fine by Anael, whether it was simply a more intimate setting or further (re?)connection. The urgency was gone now, as gone as the frost in his hair and on his wings, both of them chased away by warmth. Anael's hands remained steady on Coby, an assurance that he was real, that he had him, that he loved him, as they shuffled towards the room without breaking the series of sweet, gentle kisses they were trading. Anael would take his cue from Coby; whatever he needed.

Coby got rid of his wings with a thought when they got to the bed, and dropped into a comfortable sprawl over it, ready for Anael to follow him. Touches and kisses and love, and he felt like maybe he could try to explain. He hadn't missed that he'd worried Anael with his own fear that the angel might not be able to hear him and come.

"Time doesn't work the same for everybody, as Curnen likes to say," he began between one kiss and another.

Anael hummed agreement into their next kiss; he would certainly know. If he didn't pay attention, years could be gone before he realised how much time had passed since his last visit. Of course, he tended to pay attention, but still more days passed, sometimes, than he had intended. However, he didn't think that this was what Coby was getting at. He'd been wanting to kiss Anael for almost two years, and Anael was quite certain it hadn't been two years since his last visit. He did pay attention.

"I remember being here. Rehearsals, regular gigs, being with you. But. There was this place, some kind of bubble space or pocket dimension or sci-fi shit. There was an inn, one I think I've driven past back in California. And however far you could get in four hours, without any signs of civilization." It still sounded nuts, and Coby'd lived it. "I've been there almost two years, along with a few dozen others. No idea how we'd got there or why, or any way out. I tried praying, but you couldn't hear. And I'm glad, 'cause you getting stuck there would've been hell. It was bad enough on all of us."

"I don't understand," Anael admitted after a pause. But if nothing else, he was holding Coby a little tighter to him. Whatever this had been, it had not been easy on Coby. "You were here, and there?"

"Fuck, I don't understand either really. Some kind of magic and nobody there ever figured it out." Coby ran a hand through his hair, but settled closer to Anael, taking a moment for another kiss. "It wasn't until I got back I remembered both. Jag found us, me and Curnen, and told us Emma'd made some kind of fairy deal, got us a way home. Next thing I knew, I was in rehearsal, with two sets of memories. Because that's exactly what I need. More memories floating around in my brain."

The more Coby talked, the less it all made sense. Anael smoothed over his brow, because attempting to make sense of something that didn't tended to lead nowhere good, and fast. He curled a little better around Coby, nuzzled at his cheek, and let some of his Grace seep out, all warmth and love. "What can I do for you, love?"

The warmth of Anael's Grace wrapped around Coby, and he took a breath just soaking it in, like standing in a sunbeam after too long inside or ducking down to let the ocean roll over him and wash away everything else. Nuzzling cheeks, he brushed a kiss to Anael's jaw and another a little lower. "Be here. Be with me." Like this, and because it was them, almost certainly with sex, whenever and however they got there. It was all good. So much better than good, when the memories of Coby's time at the inn felt somehow fresher or brighter than the ones of him here in London. "Help me make new memories. Ones that aren't split. Just be you, lovely."

"I'm here," Anael confirmed in between soft, slow kisses. "With you." His hand slid over Coby's heart. "Always."

He hated the thought that Coby had, in some form, been cut off from him for so long. Isolated and alone. Or perhaps not alone, given the names he had spoken and the way love had wrought around them. But Coby suffered now, and Anael wanted to ease away any past heartache until all that was left was love.

Coby's hand curled around Anael's, holding it to his heart, thumb brushing over the knuckles. "It wasn't all bad there," he admitted, easier now he was here, wrapped in and around the angel he loved so much, the long aching emptiness in his heart filling to overflowing as it so easily did with Anael around. "We didn't have to hide. I wasn't even the only guy with big, black wings around. And there were people I wished you could meet, who'd have loved you as much as you loved them." Corbie, first of all. Coby'd known it from the first time they'd been together. No, it hadn't been all bad. But it also hadn't been as bad for Coby as it had been for some people, including ones he loved.

"And Sunny was there, so I had someone I could remember you with." Jag had only heard of Anael, and Curnen who was at the inn hadn't known any of them to have even heard of Anael before then.

That made as little sense as Coby's absence, of course; Sunny had been here this entire time. But Anael took it in stride, and was glad that Coby had not been alone. "Tell me about those people you wish I could have met," Anael murmured encouragingly, fingers smoothing over Coby's hair. "Tell me about those who made your heart sing." He could feel the loss, masked as it mostly was right now by the surge of their shared love.

The way Anael asked, those who made your heart sing, of course it was Curnen who came to the front of his thoughts. "I'd been leaving rehearsal here, getting ready to travel some, write and record some songs, and all the sudden I was on a desert highway, and it just... smelled like home. California. And then I heard singing. Curnen's voice is fucking magic. Like a bell." Coby caught Anael's eye and winked. "Or an angel. Except she's really not one. Anyway, I joined in, and... wasn't long before we figured out that I knew her, but she'd never met me. Didn't matter, though. She's used to weird shit, and our – how'd she put it? – something like our songs harmonized. We both had music, needed it like breathing even, and we were both broken. I can't imagine what it would've been like without her there."

"I'm glad that you had each other," Anael replied softly. Love never came without heartache, but he was always thankful for it. This was no different, only even more necessary, by the sound of it. "Did she return as well?"

"I," Coby started, voice soft like he forgot to take a breath before speaking, "don't know. She had one of the flowers, but there were supposed to send us home, whatever that means in fairy magic. She's probably back in Tennessee. I'll have to call her. Or email." And he would, soon, wanting to hear her voice and know she was okay and here. But, "I got back, and all I could think about, other than trying to figure out what the fuck?, was how much I needed to see, hold, be with you."

"I'm sorry," Anael whispered, quiet and full of love. "That I couldn't be there for you. In that place. Do you want to reach out to her now? I'm here, I'm not going anywhere unless you want me to." Anael trusted that Coby did not, but would comply all the same if he was wrong. He would do anything to ease the ache in Coby, and he trusted, too, that his love for Curnen would help.

Yeah, Coby wanted to, to know Curnen was okay, wherever she was. But first. He pulled Anael into another kiss, slow and deep, and let the love he felt wash over both of them. "Have I mentioned lately how much I love you?" he asked, both because he did love Anael, so much, but also poking some fun at himself and the current tangle of doubled memories.

Anael smiled, acknowledging the humour, but mostly his focus was on the emotions between them, and his eyes shone warm and soft with all the love he felt for Coby, and Coby felt for him. "With every breath you take," he answered, stroking the side of Coby's face before giving him another soft, deep kiss.

"Every move you make," Coby sang softly, because he couldn't resist, then instead of continuing the too stalkery song, finished with another kiss, like he couldn't get enough of them. It would have been so easy to lose himself in those kisses and Anael's love, and he would, probably soon, but now the possibility Curnen hadn't made it back had slipped into his mind, he needed to know. Coby could just reach the phone on the nightstand without leaving Anael's arms, which was more than good with him. He pressed another kiss to the underside of his angel's jaw as he unlocked the phone, then before he let himself get distracted, thought about what to type, starting, deleting, and starting again before coming up with something.

Reading over it again, he wasn't sure, but he hit send anyway. If Curnen didn't know what he was talking about, that would be something too. And if she didn't answer... eventually, either she wasn't around, she didn't have the same number that was in his phone, or she went back to before and had no idea who he was. At least he had Anael with him, while he waited to find out.

With Anael there, Coby couldn't dwell on how long it might take for Curnen to answer, or what she might say when she did. But it was still a relief when his phone buzzed with a reply almost right away. "She's here," he told Anael, in a mix of that relief and happiness. "In London even," he added after a couple more texts back and forth. "She's with a friend, and she's okay... for suddenly being here with weird memory stuff going on." Curnen's brokenness wasn't the same as Coby's, but they were enough alike sometimes he felt like he could understand how it must have felt when the spell pulled her out of the inn's bubble and left her here.

"She's okay."

Relief and gratitude mingled through Coby's love, and Anael knew, even before Coby spoke. He sent a quiet prayer of thanks to God, fingers still stroking Coby's hair gently. "I'm glad. Do you want to go to her?"

Coby shook his head. "Maybe tomorrow, she says. She's okay, and with a friend. Knowing that's enough." Besides, Coby was okay and with a 'friend' here, and as much as he loved Anael for understanding if he'd wanted to go to Curnen now, Coby was happiest right here, right now.

Anael pressed a tender kiss to the corner of Coby's lips. "All right," he murmured. "We stay here, then." There was a hint of an inquisitive tone to his voice, in case there was something else Coby wanted to do.

Staying here and with Anael was just about perfect. Their love was so steady and settled, and the part of Coby that had been trapped in the inn, still so fresh in his tangled memories, drunk in every moment of it, every facet of the love they shared and how they shared it.