Albaer emerged after throwing on some plain tan cargo shorts and a black t-shirt, and found the pair already seated, the table had only two chairs, and Lialah made a quick apology. “I’m sorry, I don’t know where the other chair is…”

“My father’s chair is downstairs… under the steps. Leave it there. It’s his, nobody sits in his chair…” Albaer said, blinking several times.

“Oh…” Lialah said, there were three plates on the small round table, and she stood up from her seat. “I’ll… I’ll move so you can sit down, I’m sorry, I didn’t know…” She jerked herself up to her feet and grabbed her plate.

“No, it’s fine,” Albaer said, and shook his head, “I didn’t think about it, I’m the one who’s sorry. Give me a moment.” He returned to his room, took the chair from his desk and brought it back, putting it into place where his plate sat waiting for him. The white plate was heaped with eggs and bacon and even some slightly overdone toast.

“Some things are similar at least.” Lialah said, slowly reseating herself when Albaer did, “Your milk makes the eggs fluffy, the same as milk back home.”

“Good.” Albaer quipped and took a bite. “It tastes great.” He added as the silence stretched.

“Thank you.” Lialah had a faint blush on her cheeks at the unexpected praise.

For a little while the only noise was the sound of spoons or forks scraping over the glass plates, and the awkward tension grew.

“I’ll get you some clothes today… but, I guess I can’t take you out to try them on. I’ll need your measurements and I’ll just have to do my best… I’ll let you pick what you want off of a website, just a few things, nothing my mother would notice.” Albaer said, and laughed, “If she sees me getting skirts and dresses, she’ll have questions. So get things that will kind of… look like they belong here, alright?”

Raziel couldn’t resist. It struck her as deceptive. She gripped her fork a little tighter, the steel began to bend. ‘No undergarments’, is what he’s really saying, and passing it off as funny…’ She knew from the various artistic works that male and female humans wore different things, including ‘support’ undergarments at the chest, and what she saw on the screen, from slutty to humiliated succubi, was burned into her mind.

Part of her wanted to shout, to yell, to rage at him and storm out. But the bruises she’d seen that covered him when he stopped them from leaving, and the injuries he came back with, told her he was truthful about the waiting danger. ‘I don’t know if we can handle that… and given that I’m a walking fetish… I don’t know how we’ll get by with nowhere to go.’ How strong humans were had yet to be tested, and Raziel wasn’t sure if she really wanted to know. ‘What if his wondering if we’re stronger is the only thing keeping us even this safe?’

So she didn’t yell at him. Or at all.

The dark and twisted things humans drew of her kind ran around in her head, and so she looked at Albaer and replied with a blunt, simple, “Fine. It’s your home, we’re just uninvited guests here.”

Raziel picked at her food, it was good, and that grated on her too. The words she hated most went around in her head, the ones that played at guilting her into compliance. Variations of the theme, “I bought you this… so you owe me,” springing to her mind from a number her past would be paramors.

She looked down at her plate, not really noticing or caring that she killed whatever mood was left. ‘Eating food he buys, wearing clothes he buys, using his sleeping bag in his bedroom, this is the kind of dependency my nightmares are made of.’

She let her fork drop with a clatter to her plate, “I’m going for a walk…” She stood, then stopped.

“No… never mind, I can’t.” She said immediately and looked at Albaer as if it was all his fault.

“Do you mind if I go use your console… I’d like to play some games, if that’s okay with you?” Raziel tried to keep the bitterness out of her voice when she said it, but she wasn’t entirely successful.

“Yeah, yeah sure, go ahead.” Albaer replied to her, ‘What did I say?’ He cast the silent questioning look at Lialah, who looked with as much confusion as Albaer at the retreating back of her sister, the black bat wings shook with anger, and when she closed the door, she slammed it shut.

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Lialah put her hand over that of Albaer, “Don’t mind my sister. Demons are a passionate people, hot blooded, and hot tempered. She’s probably just feeling trapped a little bit…”

“Is there… other than you, family I mean, friends, back home, is that it?” Albaer asked.

Lialah gave a slow shake of her head, denying his question. “No… I teased her about being a little ‘free’ when she was younger. But the truth is, for years, she barely spent time with anyone. We were the Potentials with the highest magic compatibility… the best chance to summon a hero to protect our world and… and keep the nightmare sealed. But doing a summon like that has a high risk of dying. So… so nobody wants to get too close to us. So there’s nobody to miss. We’re all we’ve got.”

Albaer’s heart went out to her, the melodic voice of the angel woman flowed as smoothly as moonlight over water, and in the depths of her sapphire blue eyes, he could see the aching want for something to just… not be, that she couldn’t change.

“I’m sorry… that was too forward, wasn’t it?” Albaer asked, and wrenched his face away from the eyes of the angel.

“We’re staying here, you’re helping us… we should know about each other at least. Maybe I shouldn’t talk about my sister, but I think this much is all right, this time.” Lialah said and looked in the direction the door slamming had come from.

“I’ll make this as comfortable for you as I can.” Albaer promised, “But just to be on the safe side, I’m going out, you two get clean and, I suppose you can borrow some of my clothes to change into while you wash yours.”

“But weren’t you-” Lialah asked, and Albaer shrugged before saying.

“Don’t worry about it. We’ll get some things ordered for you today when I get back, alright?”

“A-Alright.” Lialah answered, something about the way his brown eyes seemed ‘empty’ bothered her, but she was unable to put her finger on it.

“It’s fine.” Albaer promised.

He went to the door, put on his shoes, and Lialah followed him as he did so.

“Albaer… can I, at least hug you goodbye, is that okay, do humans do that?” Lialah asked.

The young man of youthful middle build gave a little nod, like he knew he’d been lying about things being fine, and let her arms enfold around him, and then her wings, soft as the feathers of the softest bird, followed, engulfing him in white as bright as daylight.

“You stay safe out there.” Lialah said, recalling the pain she felt ripping through him the day before when she healed his wounds.

“Yeah, sure, Lialah. Just… take care of the place for me.” Albaer promised again, though he didn’t return her hold, he did enjoy it when it was given, and headed for the door as soon as she let go.

The doorway had a few thin vertical windows around the frame, and from there she watched as he disappeared.

No sooner than he was gone and she was sure of it, then she stormed back to his room to confront Raziel. ‘What’s gotten into her…?’ She wondered while the game music and the noise of the shower both grew louder.

“Raziel… Albaer has gone out, he didn’t say when he’d be back.” Lialah knocked on the bathroom door, “Come on, Raz, it’s loud, but it’s not that loud. I know you can hear me.”

“I heard you!” Raziel snarled with the rough gravel voice of an angry demon. “Even a walking fetish has ears!”

Lialah stopped with her hand on the doorknob. “Come on… there aren’t even any demons in this world, don’t be like this now.”

“Maybe not!” Raziel’s furious voice came muffled through the door, “But go onto that computer, type in what ‘I’ am… and you tell me this isn’t home all over again, but worse! Worse because I’m trapped, we’re trapped, and there’s nothing we can do about it!”

“Raz, come on!” Lialah snapped and rested her head on the door to talk through it, “Everything is fine, Albaer isn’t a demon, he’s not an angel, or an orc or an elf or… just- just be reasonable!”

“You be reasonable! You walk around beautiful and innocent and people want to protect you, they want to be around you, perfect fucking angel. But one look at me and I’m just meat that makes them horny…! The first thing I thought when he said we don’t exist in this world… after realizing how screwed our world was, was at least nobody thinks of my kind like they do back home! But they do! That’s why he didn’t want to show me before! I looked last night after you were both asleep! I’m either evil personified or a plaything again!”

Lialah sighed, she opened her mouth to speak again, but as if she knew her sister was going to say something, Raziel barked back at her, “Just go look!”

“Fine!” Lialah said and moved away from the door, she went to the computer in a handful of steps, opened up a search engine the way she’d been taught, and typed in ‘Succubus’ and within a mere minute or so she muttered quietly to herself. “...Okay, maybe I was wrong…”