The Mafia's Bride and Groom's (fxmxmxm)

Drowning in Star Light (Pregame-Steam)

Angel's hands shook menacingly as he dragged a paintbrush across a massive canvas. The sight of all the shaky strokes almost sent him to tears, but he swallowed them and snarled at the canvas instead, blaming the paint and the fabric for not doing as he'd asked. 

"Dammit," Angel growled, whipping around and managing to bump his messy work table. Jars of paint and brushes went jumping and rolling, creating a loud echo of glass and wood. He made a mess.  

There was a rush from the other room and Will came running in, his gun out and ready to aim at anything within the massive empty studio, but it was just the two of them. 

Angel snarled at him, mad at the soldier for being so hasty, and at himself for not being able to calm Will down. It had been like this for days. 

William was in full soldier mode. His back straight, face blank, muscles tight. Everything he'd been through in the last three years, and the years before with his terrible father, came rushing back. Flood gates of trama and rage were pushed down under his duties, under instinct. And there was nothing Angel could do about it. 

"Stop it!" Angel yelled when Will scanned the room efficiently, mechanically, for what felt like the millionth time. Will's eyes finally landed on Angel. The honey brown was empty and dull. "Stop doing that," the silver top snapped, growing more frustrated. His head was throbbing from sadness, almost as badly as his hands. "Snap out of it Will, no one's here! No one's going to hurt us-"

The soldier stiffened. "That's what we thought last week," Will snapped back, some of the few words he'd spoken in the last several hours. His voice was empty and mean, and there was no kindness or love on his face. He was like a machine. War machine. "Nya nearly dies four thousand miles away and we think we're safe just because we came home, but low and behold, attackers, come and go right under our noses. I'm tired of us all pretending everything's fine."

"I'm tired of you acting like this!" Angel hissed. In his famed black thigh highs, Angel strutted across the flat and stopped under Will's towering figure. Evening light's came through the large windows and skylights, and turned Angel's snarling face into an array of orange and purple from the sunset. "Snap out of it Will, we can take care of ourselves-"

Angel expected Will to yell back at him, but the soldier was stone silent as he surveyed Angel's face. Will's eyes slowly dropped to the bandages covering Angle's knuckles, and it was like a slap to the face. "Is this you taking care of yourself, Angel?"

"How dare you," Angel broke. He snarled and spit, his face burning as tears filled his silver eyes. Even angry and broken he looked like he'd just fallen from the clouds, his face just as beautiful crying as it would be smiling. "I can take care of myself, asshole. I think you're forgetting who went away for three years." A slap returned. The room fell into a gloomy silence but Will didn't react to the hurtful words. Angel finished, "We all had to take care of ourselves, so how dare you stand there and tell me I'm so incapable of it. You're home- Finally!- and yet you never change! You're still the scared soldier and I am so tired of it, It's like you didn't even come back completely. Like you're still out in battlefields and, and I- I want you back, I want my friend back." His words were sad and awful but they came out with rage. 

Fists shaking, Angel whipped around and strutted to the edge of the room where a mirror-lined bedroom awaited. His studio was a mostly empty workspace, but there was a small bedroom and bathroom prepared for the days he needed to sleep over in his studio. He'd done it quite a bit in the last couple of days. Will always on his heels like an animal. 

But not now. Now, as Angel ran away to collect himself in his room, Will stayed where he was, punishing himself for letting Angel down all this time. Sometimes they all forgot that Will had left for so long, that he essentially separated them all, because he thought he could heal himself. He always thought he could fix himself. He thought going to war could help him... forget his father. Forget the abuse and the trauma, or get over it somehow...Prove he was something more than whatever monster his father had bred him to be.