________________________________heaven goes visual kei - by adire___

"........and on the pedestal sat the Angel of Death, and in his hand was a stylus, and he fell unto his Holy task: forever writing in a large book and forever erasing what he writes: what he writes is the birth of man, what he erases is the name of the man at death."

Guitar. Lights.

Fire, and a screaming voice throbbing in ecstasy, rising to the heights of Heaven, plunging to the depths of Hell, carrying everyone, everything with it, defying the cadence of the slowing drum.

They all died together.

The music ended, and his throat was raw; the taste of blood was in his mouth, hot, familiar, as salty as the liquid breath filling a drowning man's lungs. He'd bitten the inside of his mouth without even realizing it again, and it made him laugh, and he knew the sound was brittle and bedroom-dark and maniacal, even if he could not hear it over the roar of the crowd.

"Thank you!" he screamed into the microphone, and they went insane, black-clad girls sobbing, tearing at their velvet dusters and net shirts, jumping and waving their arms as though a single one among the monochrome crowd might catch his sole attention, while boys in lipstick and fishnet roared and yelled, pumped their arms, shouted cries of conformist anarchy. I love these kids....they're so easy. Glaring his stage-glare, smiling his insane, false-blood-smeared stage-smile, he flung his guitar at the milling throng just as the smoke exploded, watched them dive and claw and murder for it even as the boiling cloud obscured him along with the other performers that were already bored with the routine, unable to see the beauty of those mindless souls, the amusement in their witless obsession.

"I....am....God, " he whispered into the smoke just before it captured him, carried him away to his dressing room.

"You know it aggravates the He--ah, you know it aggravates Him when you say things like that."

Azrael nearly groaned at the quiet, lofty voice that nearly assaulted him upon his arrival in the small, dark room, draped with all manner of outlandish costumes left behind by previous occupants--though it was no worse than the near-blinding radiance that scored at his eyes the moment that his "guest" stepped into sight. Rubbing at his eyes, he turned away, scowling at his reflection in the large, scratched mirror of his make-up table; over one sweat-cooling, strong shoulder of milky white touched in gold, half-obscured by Azrael's tangled tumbles of shoulder-length hair in inky, wave-rippled black, the other male's mirror image was much easier to tolerate, the holy "glow" surrounding him dimmed enough that he could focus upon his slender, only too-aggravatingly-perfect form. "Bloody 'ells, Baradi'el, tone down the flash bulb, you sanctimonious prick. You know I can't 'andle that crap anymore."

Thin hands steepled, barely visible within the draperies of shining white robes as the being stepped closer, smirking smugly. "I will damp my halo when you drop that pathetic farce of an English accent."

"Kiss my ass, glowworm."

"All in due time, brother dear, all in due time." As though it might bite him, Baradi'el settled into one folding metal chair delicately, folding his hands in his lap, his blue eyes piercing and shrewd as they bored into the other male. "You haven't changed a bit. Are you ready to leave this ridiculous game and return to work?"

Violet eyes of unnaturally intense hue made even more vivid by thick linings of deliberately-smeared kohl rolled as Azrael turned, propping one narrow hip sheathed in torn leather against the edge of the bureau as he folded his arms over his chest, rumpling the unbuttoned black blouse that stuck to his heated, sweat-slicked skin.

"What, is Tariel bitching about doing my job again?" Disdain colored his voice thickly as he waved a scornful hand. " 'e's got nothing to do until summer anyway; let him fill in for a while. I'm sick of that effin' Book--day in, day out, scribble scribble scribble--it'll drive an Angel mad, I tell you, mad!"

"You don't say." A weary, patient sigh like desolate desert winds escaped the seated male's lips, stirring a few strands of shining golden hair that should have been impossible to manage considering that the silken cascade tumbled to the floor--but, of course, it remained perfectly in place. Perfect. Always so friggin' perfect. I'd punch him if I didn't know my fist would go right through his pretty little face. "Come now, Azrael, must you be so difficult? You know Tariel's got no experience with The Book, and Father's getting a bit impatient with all the misdirections--sinners running amuck in Heaven, the righteous suffering in Hell until we get the paperwork straightened out and relocate them, and Uriel's been run ragged chasing down the ones that get lost after death and never go in either direction, wandering around Earth like frightened children--and do you know that just last week nine children weren't even born because he forgot to write them down?"

"Oh, please." Snorting, the darker one tipped his head back, fixing a glare upon the ceiling; unlike most, he could turn his eyes heavenward in exasperation and make his gaze quite easily felt....and so just for spite he threw a little extra oomph into that vicious stare. "How 'ard could it be, Bara; I've been doing it since mankind was created! Write down each name in the book, erase it when the bugger croaks, and make sure you use the right color Magic Markers when you're circling the sinners and saints! Can't that hyperactive little twit do anything right?!"

"It's not his job, Azrael. It's not what he was created or appointed to do, and you are shirking your duties." Baradi'el's voice was stern as he rose, crossing the small, dim room, his presence like a sun gone nova within a tiny gift box, making Azrael's eyes blur at the edges with stinging tears with each step closer even if he refused to flinch, even if it was only by Baradi'el's grace and good favor that he was even alive, for that holy light could incinerate him more quickly than the sun should his brother choose to release its influence. As it was, his skin reddened as the Angel paused a mere foot before him, eye to darkened eye, the two of matching tall, willowy height and graceful, fine-muscled build, one of dark beauty, the other light, cut from the same mold and Creation and only their color marking them apart....their color, and bearing, Azrael's casual arrogance and sinistrata sharply contrasted by Baradi'el's hauteur and elegance...and sense of responsibility that made his voice frosty as he spoke with dire warning. "Father is very displeased with you, brother."

Amethyst eyes narrowed.....and then Azrael smiled slowly, lips dusted in a strange shade of shimmering red-black parting to barely allow a glint of razor-edged teeth to catch that angelic light, tempting, alluring.....deadly. "Then, "brother dear", " he breathed in open mockery of Baradi'el's speech, the mock-accent vanishing to melt into something smoother, colder, more sultry, touching like the fingers of the dead as he leaned closer, risking his eyesight, his heating, uncomfortable flesh, "Father can spank me soundly and send me to bed without dinner. One less human for Tariel to erase."

"You're sick, Azrael." The hiss escaped in venomous tones, turning that smile into a sneer that Baradi'el nearly flinched from, although he did not withdraw. "So you're happy like this? Living as one of the Fallen? You're no better than a blood demon, preying on vulnerable humanity."

Smirking casually, Azrael tossed his head, sending his sweat-dampened and tangled hair bouncing about his sharply chiseled, almost malevolent features of dark, compelling beauty. "I am a Blood Demon, you just don't want to admit it. It was better than choosing mere mortality and losing my power altogether. Not a bad consolation prize in this stupid game show of a holy war."

"But you serve the Betrayer!"

"No, I serve my own hunger. And myself." Grinning, he flicked his fingers in a lewd gesture. "Look at me, Bara. I'm living in a hedonist's dream, and the records I've sold this past month outweigh the number of souls Daddy dear saves in a year. Looks like you--" and now he poked his brother in the chest with a black-chipped fingertip in a blatant gesture of disrespect, making him scowl, "--could use a little help from my PR agent. I'm bigger than Satan, bigger than Britney Spears, bigger than God. And right now, I'm riding the rush, so the whole bloody lot of you can just shag off; if Father needs a new Angel of Death that badly, then 'e can effin' well shit a new one out."

"Azra--"

"Ah-ah-ah." A devilish smirk touched dark-rouged lips just as a black-polished fingernail touched to the tip of Baradi'el's nose, making the Angel cross his eyes in a manner most comical and most damaging to his dignity. "You really should stop calling me that, you know. It's Scorn now."

"Don't be preposterous!" Wrinkling his nose, he swatted a gold-edged hand at that offending finger, brushing at it irritably and sputtering, "Your name is Azrael; it has been thus since the Dawn of Creation, and will remain thus until its end--or until Father gets tired of this fiasco and turns you into a pillar of salt."

A bitter snort of brittle, harsh laughter escaped Azrael's lips, nearly evincing another wince from his brother/companion as the Fallen threw his hands up in the air, radiating cynical amusement like some rotting and cloying-compelling, sick-sweet scent of blood. "Pillar of salt? I thought that old rag went out of fashion with Sodom and Gomorrah. How is old Lot doing these days, anyway?"

"Enjoying his retirement, " Baradi'el snapped rather huffily, drawing himself up with offended pride. "And I imagine, " he added on with a snide hauteur, "that He would be only too happy to reinstate that punishment in your case."

"Why? Just because I fuck little boys?" Azrael's pleasure in the Angel's reaction to that deliberately crude statement could not have been greater as Bara blanched, paling and shuddering in distaste and averting his eyes with a gasp--and yet whatever litany of censure might have spilled past his lips was silenced as the Serpent in the Garden of Eden struck.....Azrael's tall, wiry body suddenly standing close, too close, in less than a breath, his firm, strong hands, large and long-boned, gripping Baradi'el by the waist to spin him about in a shower of swirling golden strands that tried to cocoon them both, pulling him almost intimately against his "brother's" frame only to pin him between the make-up table and that perfect, perfect body of sleek corpse-coolness warmed only by the lingering exertion of performance and the rush of stolen blood.....the frozen Angel caught staring horrified and trembling into compelling eyes of perfect Sin, so fully steeped in the cruel and carnal that they refined that taint into its purest essence.

"You really should try it some time, Brother...." Azrael breathed, deliberately pressing his frame against that heated, singeing body, nearly shuddering at the pain that his aura induced when it tried to burn through his skin. Moving lips and satin breaths scalded, threatened parted and quivering lips with every word, daring Barad'iel to even move and make that contact complete, to indulge in the things that the rich and heady liquor of his throaty voice, the voice that had bewitched millions, promised. "....I promise you....it's an addiction that you'll never shake. Blood...." and now his head dipped to let his breaths, molten no matter the chill of his body, burn the Angel's throat, much as that Heavenly essence would burn him if he dared to partake of it, "Sex...." Fluid, leather-clad hips rolled forward, pressing against pristine robes, torturing the tensed body beneath him....and as he exhaled once more, his teeth just barely caught upon the outer edge of Baradi'el's earlobe, sharp, deadly, and bringing him a faint thrill of sadistic pleasure at the way that the other gasped in fright and horror, shuddering against him, squirming as though trying to escape that whisper that teased and tickled at him. ".....corruption. Do you....really think....that you or any of our Brethren or even God himself....might tear me from these pleasures once I have learned them?"

"Azrael....stop....."

"You're sinning right now.....Baradi'el." His brother would not speak, only quailed away from him, shivering, and Azrael smiled. "How does that....make you feel?"

"Sick....ashamed....disgusted...I....I....Father, forgive me...."

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