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"Eren."

"F-Father."

He wasn't kneeling anymore - he was groveling. They'd been brought to a pillar of light, where Marco had confiscated the knife from Levi's belt before shoving them in, in and they'd found themselves blinded. Before they knew it, they'd appeared before the Holy Throne, and Eren had dropped to his hands and knees before his father, pressing his face against the floor with his entire frame trembling. Levi was shocked at the cold distance radiating from the Heavenly Father, the indifference towards his son, towards one of his most important angels.

"You know I've always told you never to leave."

"I know. I-I'm . . . I'm sorry, Father."

Grisha sighed, massaging the bridge of his nose. Strands of gray tainted his rich brown hair and beard, and deep lines covered his forehead, surrounded his eyes and mouth. The definition of wise. The definition of old.

Snapping his eyes open, Grisha scowled at the demon. "And you. Be careful what you think when you're here. Nothing is secret from me."

He didn't comment on the pointed fuck you that Levi internally spat.

Turning back to Eren, who had dared to look up at his father, Grisha continued. "You know the consequences of going to the surface."

Eren's lip quivered. A sort of terror Levi had never felt before washed over him, and he did his best not to stagger. He could see the tears shining in beautiful turquoise eyes and had to blink his own. He already hated this bond.

"Yes, Father."

His voice trembled violently, and Levi's heart ached. Grisha sighed deeply.

"I'm going to be lenient because you seem to have been punished enough."

It was as though the Maker had struck his child; Eren cried out as if a whip had lashed his back, flinching violently, and Levi found himself protesting, blood pounding in his ears.

"What the fuck did you - "

Before the accusation could even come out, he realized he was wrong - Grisha hadn't hurt Eren. At least, not physically. Grief - gut-wrenching, twisting, tight, painful grief - wormed its way into Levi's vulnerable heart, and he gritted his teeth, willing it to go away.

"The better question, I believe," Grisha said coldly, dark eyes boring into Levi's as the demon dared to make eye contact, "is what did you do?"

Levi's blood ran cold. He knew. Of course he knew. The mark Levi's fangs left on Eren's neck were hidden away by his silky locks, but they all knew they were there. The deity stood then, towering, powerful, and absolutely terrifying, and he felt fear course through every nerve in his body and Eren's.

"You have tainted my son," Grisha rumbled, his voice taking on an otherworldly echo, eyes glowing with a radiance that nearly blinded the two cowering before him.

"I had to," Levi snarled, defiant in spite of the rising threat, and that was a fatal mistake.

Fury flashed over Grisha's features. He swept forward with more grace than Levi expected for someone so angry, and a swift arc of his arm through the air sent the demon flying, a burst of wind throwing him against one of the room's many pearly white pillars. A sickening crack accompanied the collision and Levi couldn't withhold the small whimper of pain elicited as he fell to the floor.

"L-Levi . . . "

He could feel the distress through the bond, disbelief accompanying it. Levi's own regret coursed through his veins. Spite overwhelmed it in an instant.

That fucking child, that angel spawn, that disgusting thing. Why had he saved him? He should have left the stupid thing to Kenny, let him die, or worse. It was none of his fucking business. What had his generosity gotten him? What kind of reward was this?

"Filth like you should pay for your crimes," Grisha said coldly.

This was it, Levi thought dully, closing his eyes against the pain overtaking his senses. An invisible force held him to the floor, preventing him from getting up - not that he was exactly trying, after that kind of collision. Marble floors cracked under him from the sheer pressure of the magic holding him, crushing his chest and making it impossible to breathe.

This was what he got for not doing the demonly thing and letting the kid die. What a merciful God He was.

"Stop!"

The thrum of malicious energy in the room that Levi hadn't even noticed dissipated then. Vaguely, he wondered what Grisha had been about to do, though there wasn't much other than (or worse than) death for a demon. His thoughts didn't continue after warmth enveloped him in the form of Eren's arms. The brat he saved, the one that put him through this, but Levi couldn't muster up any anger, could barely even open his eyes to see what was happening.

The first thing he saw was gold.

Brilliant gold, glowing, beautiful, swimming in an ocean of tears. Eren. A sort of fondness seeped through the guilt and anger and terror Eren was filtering through their bond, and Levi was almost content enough to close his eyes again.

Gold?

Levi jerked, heart pounding as their eyes met. This was wrong. He had to tell himself that, had to scream it in his head and will the warmth away. Gold was not a color for the innocent. Gold was fire, it was fury, it was greed and vengeance, and it did not belong where breathtaking teal was supposed to be.

"He saved my life," Eren whispered into the dead silence, and the thrumming of Levi's heart calmed somewhat. Despite the righteous anger radiating from Grisha, Levi's instincts promised him the immediate threat had passed. The gold was gone, back to that beautiful sea green, as if the lapse had never happened.

"He destroyed your life," the god corrected in a tone of eerie calm. Levi could see the muscles in Eren's jaw clench and could feel the struggle to control his feelings.

"He saved me," Eren reinforced strongly, and his father gave a short bark of a laugh.

"Look at him." Grisha glared down at the demon in his throne room, practically curled up in a ball in his son's lap. "Pathetic. A demon, daring to taint you, daring to step into our territory, daring to come into my realm and spew his venom at me!"

"Well maybe if you weren't such a royal prick all the time he would have been nice!" Eren's voice was rich and powerful, his voice raising into something almost regal, a stark contrast from the sort of high-pitched scratchiness it got when he was emotional. It was oddly humorous to Levi, aching body and all, that he was using that strong presence to call God Himself a prick.

Silence followed and tension crackled in the air like electricity. Levi closed his eyes against the hostility in the room, head pounding, and Eren's hand subconsciously went to the demon's forehead, pushing his hair away from his face. Grisha's voice was quiet when he spoke again, almost sad.

"Do you realize the extent of what he's done to you?"

Eren was too proud to shake his head. Grisha sighed.

"Show me your wings," he ordered.

In an instant, Levi's interest was piqued. His wings. Eren had been smart enough to hide them, and he hadn't shown them since they'd met. He forced his eyes to open once more, and saw Eren's troubled face staring back down at him. The angel exhaled slowly, squeezing his eyes shut, and it seemed that no matter how angry he was, he couldn't ignore a direct order from Grisha.

A golden light lit the room, not blinding like Levi expected, but soft. He still had to fight to cover his eyes, his head throbbing at the brightness. The light source was at Eren's back, between his shoulder blades, and before Levi's very eyes it molded and shaped itself into the outline of what was unmistakably a pair of wings. The demon was fascinated. Keeping his eyes open was suddenly a breeze.

The light got brighter, and in the same instant, it vanished, revealing a set of beautiful white wings, large enough to wrap around his body if he wanted them to.

Upon closer inspection, Levi noted that the root of each feather was a light seafoam green that bled into bright white about halfway up. The extra appendages curled protectively around Eren, and Levi noted with growing curiosity that the inside feathers closest to where the wings sprouted were completely green. Levi had never seen wings like these before. They were absolutely breathtaking.

"Stand." Eren did so without a word. "Turn."

He obeyed, and Levi's eyes widened a fraction in horror. A small spattering of black feathers, sprouting from between his shoulder blades - only six or seven feathers on each wing, but enough to be obvious. Grisha let out a weary sigh, and Eren took that as his cue to turn back around. It seemed that he somehow knew now, be it by the response or simply feeling it the moment he freed the appendages; his shoulders and wings drooped visibly, and shame spread across his features.

"Well?" Grisha spoke into the tense quiet. "What have you to say for yourself, demon?"

Levi had nothing. What was that? Black feathers . . . black feathers, much like his own, on an angel?

"I have never seen that before," Levi finally replied, voice much weaker than he wanted it to be, and he winced at the way his throat protested painfully. He propped himself up on his palms, heaving into a full sitting position, and tilted his head. He had lived a long time, and in that time he had seen spoiled angels, had met mated angel-demon couples, even seen the way innocents warped and changed when they were captured by the hunters, but never in his life had he seen this effect. Black feathers.

Then again, he had never seen wings like Eren's in general. An angel's wings were pure, snowy white, with the exception of vague purple tints for the archangels, and, when an angel was dying, they faded into a dull grey. But this natural, beautiful green . . .

What the hell was Eren?

"He is special," Grisha answered his unspoken question. He laced his fingers together and rested them on his stomach. "You have heard of him, have you not? The surface urchins may not care, but the rest of you are under very strict orders not to touch him. Am I correct?"

Levi's eyes narrowed, and he nodded mutely. Eren stood silently, but Levi knew he was listening carefully.

"What do you mean, they're under orders?" he asked shakily. Did he not know? How much did he know? Was he left in the dark as well?

"You are special," Grisha reiterated firmly. "The ruler down there also has motive to see that you do not come to harm. To do so would be worse than an act of war."

Eren and Levi looked at one another. Levi had guessed as much, but it was another thing entirely to hear it verbally confirmed by God himself. Eren, however, did not seem to have been aware of a single bit of this, as confusion swarmed Levi from the bond. He shook his head a few times and opened his mouth to speak, but eventually was quiet once more, simply settling on a shocked expression.

"And you, demon, have done worse than hurt him. You have tainted him." Levi's blood chilled. Eren looked confused, however.

"But . . . I've seen it before," he said slowly, looking lost. "Tainted angels. They've reverted. If you just . . . isolate me, and purify me . . . "

The lack of response was terrifying. Several emotions crossed Grisha's face at once - uncertainty, anger, loss, fury once more, and then sadness. He passed a hand over his face before speaking, and he sounded genuinely troubled when he did.

"Not you, my son. I cannot save you."

Shock, distress, anger, shame. A myriad of emotions struck Levi, both his own and Eren's alike. Why? Levi was an average demon, after all. His taint was not some powerful version of it, nor was it accelerated to anything past its basic state. It should have been easy to reverse the effects. Why Eren? Of all angels, of every living creature that Levi could have found that day, why did it have to be Eren? What was so wrong with them that he had to suffer this?

Grisha spoke once more, composure regained. He glared down at the pathetic form of Levi. "So you both understand why I must punish you severely."

"No!"

Eren's voice was forceful. It was astonishing how quickly his presence would change from a meek little boy into a defiant man. Not just anyone could challenge the Heavenly Father and survive, and Levi wondered how often he did it, or if he even realized the privilege he held. He was getting tired at this point, though, tired of the way his heart kept speeding up and slowing down, tired of the constant shift in mood, tired of his emotions changing every ten seconds, tired of the overload of wild information.

Was Grisha going to kill him or not? If he was, he should do it already.

"You've hurt him enough," Eren said firmly. He hesitated then, and more softly continued, "If I hadn't gone to the surface, none of this would have happened. If you never do anything else for me, at least don't hurt him."

The tension in the room was suffocating. This was it. This determined whether Levi would die at the hands of God Himself, or live to see countless more days with half a bond muddling his own emotions with someone else's.

"Then I shall not," Grisha relented. He didn't look very happy about it. The relief Levi felt through the bond was short-lived. "He shall return to the surface, and so long as I never see him again, he shall not be struck down by one of ours." God stood, and lifted a hand to point at Eren. "And you shall never see him again. You will stay on the surface, and so long as you never disobey me again, the taint shall not spread."

Levi didn't understand why Eren so strongly protested that notion, and it seemed Eren wasn't sure either. This time, however, he suffered silently. This was his price to pay. It wasn't as though anything could have come from this. They had met mere hours before, and Levi destroyed his life. There was nothing else for them. Eren was a special angel, protected by everyone, and Levi was a basic demon that royally fucked up.

Eren took a deep breath and nodded, casting his eyes submissively to the floor. "Yes, Father."

That was the last thing Levi heard from Eren before he was enveloped in blinding light, and dumped unceremoniously on his ass back into the dirty alleys from whence they had met.