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Joel had never particularly wanted to meet an angel before.
Like everyone else, he'd heard the stories. The rumours, if you will. He'd have to be living under a rock to not hear anything about the angels (or the Otherworlders, if we're being scientific about it). They may be worthy of worship, but the idea of a meeting with one of them is enough to make most people flinch. After all, they are beings that are far removed from humanity, aren't bound to the universe's rules in the same way that the rest of them are. Of course people are afraid. And although Joel would usually scoff and reject the idea that he feared anything, even he couldn't deny that the angels were unsettling back then.
And then, surely enough, things changed.
It started exactly six months ago. It had been a thunderstorm in the middle of the night, and Joel had been walking alone in the rain and wind, headed home after an unfortunately late night out with friends. He hadn't had far to go, so he had foolishly declined offers for a ride — something that he had regretted in the moment, but now found himself thankful for. After all, had he hitched a ride with anyone, who knows whether he'd have met him or not?
(His name is Etho. Joel's only learned this recently, despite the fact that he's known him for a while by now.)
He had almost reached home — just a few turns away — when he felt, undeniably, a presence watching him. From behind, from in front, all around. Eyes. Hundreds, thousands of them, maybe more. He had stopped right in his tracks to whip around, but there was no one to be seen. Not a hint of activity in the entire area, not so much as a light in any of the houses. Although unnerved and slightly suspicious, he had continued walking, still feeling the eyes trained on him.
It hadn't been long before he stopped again, looking around once, twice. Straining his ears, and yet hearing nothing but the harsh pattering of raindrops on cement.
"Who's there?" he'd asked, voice loud in an attempt to sound brave and manly in hopes of scaring off whoever was following him. Now, he can look back and admit that was an objectively stupid decision, considering that you're never supposed to verbally acknowledge it if you suspect an Otherworlder's presence, but in the moment, he hadn't thought to think of it as anything more than a common thief or something like that.
Almost immediately, the energy in the surrounding area had changed. Joel remembers it vividly — thunder had gone off booming somewhere to the right, and a sudden chill had enveloped him down to his very bones.
And then: a low laugh.
Joel's head had suddenly begun to pound, worse than ever before in his life, enough to make his ears ring and cause him to press his hands to his head. Then, ever-so-slowly, one by one, eyes began to blink open. All around him, different sizes, not connected to anything that he can see, simply just... blinking into existence out of thin air. And every single one of them had been staring at him.
I should probably, he remembers thinking, feel more scared than I do.
"...Hi," he had said instead, coughing awkwardly to clear his throat. "I — uh... I like your eyes."
And the rest, as they say, was history.
It's a little strange, but that should be expected, considering Etho's nature. No one else can see Etho, though, or hear him, or sense him, or anything. Joel's not complaining (more for him, after all!), but when someone walks in on him speaking to what appears to be no one, he does get quite a few strange looks.
In the beginning, Etho had just followed him around, watching quietly, a constant silent observer. Even when he wasn't noticeably there, he was still there. Somehow. Joel knew it. Rarely, he spoke — only when they were alone, truly alone.
Things had changed since then, though. Etho likes to talk, Joel had learned. And that's a good thing, too, because otherwise that lovely voice of his would be going to waste. It's fun. Joel likes to chat, too, after all (probably more than he should, really), and he's interrupted friends of his far more times than he can count, but when Etho talks, all he can do is listen. What else is he meant to do? That voice, those stories of his from a world that he's only heard whispers about... Really, he should be commended for not begging for more whenever Etho stops talking.
To be honest, Joel still doesn't know why Etho didn't kill him back then, or take him back to his world, or do whatever Otherworlders really do to humans. There are the stories — don't get involved, ever, they're so powerful, they can make you do anything on a whim, they could kill us, hurt us, hunt us — but after that initial conversation, he was never once threatened. Never once even scared. And hey — he's not complaining.
Etho can shapeshift, he discovered eventually. It had been quite the scare when Joel first walked into his own bedroom and found a large, white mountain lion staring him right in the face. The memory may bring a laugh to his lips now, but it hadn't been very funny in the moment.
It's not always animals. Sometimes, it's more like what he saw that first day, tweaked a little bit to be "more comprehensible for that human brain of yours," according to Etho. Joel will take Etho's word for it, especially considering the first time he met Etho, it felt like his head was exploding from the inside out. There are less eyes now, usually. More wings. A white void, in the centre of it all. And it takes Joel's breath away every time.
Recently, though, Etho's been taking a human form.
Icy white hair that goes down to his waist, pale and flawless skin, long lashes and pretty lips. A wicked grin that's just a little bit too wide with teeth that are a little too sharp. Nails that are more like claws if you squint, a smile that could be almost predatory. Not quite human. You can always tell that something's off if you look too long (and Joel always is looking for too long).
The only thing that all these forms have in common are his eyes — a light grey, with a ring of gold as the inner circle. God, how Joel loves seeing those eyes.
Joel was never really the religious type. He hated going to church, hated having to kneel down and bow his head and pray and follow rituals and whatever. He hated it all, even despite his curiosity revolving around the Otherworlders. But this was one deity that he wouldn't mind getting on his knees for. Take that sentence as you will — Joel really doesn't care what people think anymore. He's never had a sense of self-preservation, and he sure as hell isn't going to develop one now.
Today, Joel is laying in his bed, Etho snuggled up next to him as a small white wolf, head resting on his chest. Snow is falling slowly outside and Christmas music is still playing quietly on the TV in the next room over. He's running a hand softly through Etho's fur, listening to him make those soft whining noises that wolves are wont to make.
It's peaceful in a way that Joel's never known before.
He blinks sleepily, letting his eyes stay blissfully shut for a second or two. When he opens his eyes again, in the place of the wolf is Etho's familiar, not-exactly-human form, watching him carefully with a hand resting on Joel's chest where his head used to be.
"Hi," Joel says, grinning. The sudden shift doesn't startle him nearly as much as it used to, and he lifts Etho's hand so that he can press a kiss to the back of it. "Feel like talking again?"
"Not really," Etho admits, curling up next to him closer. "Just wanted to hear your voice."
And oh, something warms in Joel's chest at those words. Look, Joel is not an idiot, contrary to popular belief. He's not dumb enough to forget who, exactly, is in his bed right now. An Otherworlder, something probably powerful enough to wipe out this whole city and more on a whim. But with the way Etho looks at him... well, Joel would be happy to stand with him in the burning ashes of the world.
"What are you thinking about?" Etho asks him suddenly, eyes squinted like he's studying Joel.
Joel snaps back to attention. "Huh?"
"That look on your face," he clarifies, as if that helps at all. "What are you... what are you thinking?"
"Oh, nothing," Joel says, waving it off. When Etho looks disgruntled by this, he adds, teasingly, "What, you can't read minds? C'mon, I thought you were supposed to be all-powerful."
Etho pauses, as if he's deciding whether or not he should say something. Joel waits patiently — Etho's gotten better at communicating regularly over the months, but there was a time where silence would stretch on for long whiles before Etho replied to questions that Joel had all but forgotten he'd asked. Otherworlders, he'd gleaned, just work very differently compared to humans. "I could," Etho says finally. "If I wanted to."
At this, Joel's interest is piqued. "And you don't? Are my thoughts too boring for you, Mr. Otherworlder?" he asks, poking him in the chest.
For once, Etho actually looks uncomfortable. "I didn't want to... uh, intrude. Don't," he coughs, clearing his throat, "don't humans like their privacy?"
Joel blinks. That's an impressive level of restraint that Joel can't imagine ever having personally. If he had the option to read anyone's thoughts, he'd do it in a heartbeat. He's a curious guy! "Wow," he says. "Look at you being so thoughtful. Didn't know you could do that!"
Etho scowls, a flash of those unnaturally sharp teeth just barely visible for a brief second. "Shut up," he says, which is a phrase that he had quite literally learned from Joel and is now using against him.
He mimes zipping his lips closed. "Shutting up."
Etho's eyes light up in amusement and something akin to curiosity. "What was that?"
"What?"
"That... motion." He copies the movement, albeit hesitantly, dragging his fingers across his lips. "I've never seen it before."
"Oh," Joel says, smiling faintly. Right. "It's a thing. Like, zipping your mouth shut? Like a backpack or something, I dunno."
Etho shakes his head in something that could probably be called wonder. "You are amazing."
It's embarrassing, the speed with which Joel's face turns red. "I didn't come up with it," he tells him, but Etho ignores that, still looking at him with that expression that Joel thinks probably mirrors his own whenever Etho does... well, anything, really.
It's quiet for another heartbeat or two, before Etho wraps an arm around Joel's waist and lays his head on his chest. Joel's heart stutters.
"I'm tired," Etho yawns, and Joel can feel his breath on his neck. It is very distracting. "Talk to me?"
Joel frowns slightly, mind flickering back to a conversation the two of them had a week or so ago. "I thought you didn't need sleep."
"Sometimes I do," Etho says, and doesn't elaborate further. "Talk."
And, well, who is he to deny Etho? He doesn't know what Etho wants him to say, so Joel settles on rambling about the little things. After all, there's not much that Etho doesn't know about his current life at this point. He talks about his favourite kind of tea, the annoying run-in he'd had with a rude customer once a few years ago that he still thinks about to this day, his best friends, Grian and Jimmy, what he wants to do when he graduates university next year, how annoying his seventh grade teacher was, so on and so forth. If the thought occurs to him, he tells Etho.
And as Etho's nodding along and softly responding as his breathing slows, that's when Joel realizes: this is the happiest he's been in a long, long time.
That realization isn't nearly as scary as it ought to be.