His Angel ch2

            Matthew let out a gasp, running over to the tree, his heart pounding in his ears. He couldn't believe it, his angel was here! He grabbed a low branch, hoisting himself up until he was level with the angel. Looking closer, he saw that his eyes were shut and his lips were trembling, and there was a thick layer of ice coating his wings. Even Matthew, who was used to the freezing winters of Canada, was chilled to the bone; he couldn't imagine how cold his angle- whom was wearing very little clothing –would be!

            "E-Excuse me.." He began hesitantly, biting his lips and momentarily contemplating how stupid he was being. This was anangel, for maple's sake! He should probably be kneeling and singing the Halleluiah Chorus right about now. He didn't want to show disrespect, but he doubted letting the angel dangle there freezing while he sang random hymns would be very polite either.

            The angel didn't stir at the sound of his voice, and Matthew tried again, leaning closer this time. "M-Mister angel sir?" he stammered, his shaking breath visible in a cloud of white each time he spoke. He wondered if it was alright to touch him, just to try to wake him up. After a moment's hesitation he reached out, brushing his fingertips over the man's skin; his initial instinct was to retract his hand when he realized that the angel was as cold as ice, so much so that he nearly freezer-burnt his fingertips, but he refrained when- at the slightest touch –the angel's eyelids began to flutter.

            They opened slowly, revealing irises with a stunning ruby-color and intensity to them that Matthew had never been able to capture on paper. The angel stared groggily at him for a moment, then gasped and bolted upright, hitting his head on a branch above him and nearly falling from his perch. "Careful!" Matthew grabbed his arm, steadying the angel.

            The angel winced and rubbed his head where it had been hit, turning his eyes back to the Canadian. "You startled me." He said sheepishly, in a strange, coarse accent that for the life of him Matthew couldn't place. He knew he had heard it before, though- after hearing this voice only once, briefly, several years ago he had still never forgotten it; this really was him... this was his angel!

            "I-I'm sorry!" Was all Matthew could think to say. He had dreamed of this moment, of reuniting with his angel, nearly every night after first meeting him. Matthew had planned beautifully worded confessions of his undying love and long, romantic kisses… he hadn't planned stammering awkward apologies and the bizarre feeling like he was somehow forgetting how to talk. The angel's presence had even more of an effect on him then it had last time, like he was being completely overwhelmed and swallowed up by it. "I-Its just that I saw you d-dangling there, a-and you looked so cold and hurt, and I wanted to make sure you were alive and I tried talking to you but you didn't wake up so I-"

            The angel silenced him by pressing a freezing cold fingertip to his lips. "Mein Gott, you ramble almost as much as Feli." He chuckled. "Calm down, kid. What's your name?"

            A warm blush flooded his cheeks when the angel touched his lips, his heart jumping excitedly in his chest. "M-Matthew," he said almost breathlessly. "Wh-what's yours?"

            "Gilbert, at your service!" he said grandly, even though his teeth were chattering. "Spirit of the East Wind!"

            Matthew's eyebrows shot up. "Spirit?" he repeated. "I-I thought you were an angel."

            Gilbert stared at him for a moment, then burst into loud, hissing laughter. "Me?" he repeated incredulously. "An angel? Now that's a new one!"

            The Canadian bit his lip, feeling a little hurt. Was he making fun of him? "Is that really such a hard thing to believe?" he asked quietly, feeling betrayed. Well, this really wasn't going the way he planned. "You saved me, after all."

            Gilbert stopped laughing, looking at him strangely. "Saved you?" he repeated. "What are you…" he trailed off, his eyes steadily widening in bewilderment. "It's you!" he gasped, leaning forward and taking Matthew's face in his hands, looking both excited and stunned. "My Birdie!"

            "Your.. what?" Matthew asked, eyebrows furrowed in confusion.

            "My Birdie!" Gilbert repeated, looking positively enthralled. "The one who tried to jump out the window! I didn't recognize you at first, I forgot how fast you humans age!"

            "So.. you remember me?" Matthew asked quietly, relief and excitement flooding him slowly.

            "Of course I do! Man, Mother got so mad at me for showing myself to a human! But you were just so freaking adorable, and you looked just like a cute little bird falling through the air like that. I couldn't just watch you die, I had to save you!"

            Matthew's heart soared at the compliment. "Um, whose mother?" he asked curiously; he didn't think spirits could have parents.

            "Oh, she's not actually my mother." Gilbert laughed, jumping down from the branch. "Mother Earth, also known as Elizaveta. Now that is one crazy bitch. She's always hitting me with her frying pan whenever I do something to piss her off… which is often because she's so much fun to screw with. Not literally screw with, of course. I'm not into chicks, unless it's the cute little fluffy kind that hatch from eggs."

            Matthew let out a little laugh. "First spirits with wings and now Mother Nature? I think I might still be dreaming." He gasped suddenly and leapt down from his perch as well. "Maple, I almost forgot! You're cold, aren't you? Your wings are frozen and your lips are blue!" He glanced down at the thermos of piping hot tea Yao had given him, which until now had gone almost completely forgotten. "Here, take this." He said, pushing it into Gilbert's pale hands. "Drink it slowly because it's really hot, but it'll warm you up."

            Gilbert stared down at the container blankly, experimentally tapping a finger against the side. "This is solid." He said obviously. "How am I supposed to drink it?"

            Matthew gave an amused look and giggled. "Guess they don't have thermoses in the sky, huh?" he reached over and unscrewed the cap, doing so slowly so that Gilbert could see how it was done. "See? The tea is inside, that's what you drink."

            "Amazing." Gilbert's eyes widened in wonder as he stared into the pale brown contents of the container. "This doesn't look like any water I've ever had. How did you get it out of the clouds?"

            "Clouds?" Matthew repeated, giggling again. "No, this is tea made from water from the ground and special leaves. My friend Yao made it, try it. Its very good."

            Gilbert watched him for a long moment, then flicked his gaze back toward the thermos, lifting it to his lips and taking an experimental sniff. Apparently deeming that it was safe to drink, he took a small, careful sip. He seemed to hold it in his mouth for a moment as though testing the flavor, then finally swallowed. "That's really good." He decided with a dazzling, sharp-toothed smile. "I didn't know you could drink anything but water. The only other time I've ever come down from the sky was to save you that one day, so I guess I don't know much about things down here."

            Matthew tilted his head to the side curiously. "Then how do you drink?" he asked. "Does it have anything to do with the clouds you mentioned?"

            Gilbert nodded, taking another sip of the tea. "Whenever I get thirsty, all I have to do is fly into a cloud. They're made of water, but since I'm the Bringer of Winter, it's usually frozen."

            "The Bringer of Winter?" Matthew repeated.

            The white-haired spirit nodded again. "There's four winds." He explained. "Me, the East Wind, I bring Winter wherever I fly. My brother, Ludwig, the West Wind brings Autumn. There's another set of brothers, Feli, the North Wind, who brings Spring, and Lovino, the South Wind, who brings Summer."

            Matthew's eyes widened in understanding. "And you're here, which is why its so cold even for Fall, right?" For a third time Gilbert nodded. "So why are you so ahead of schedule?"

            Gilbert hesitated. "I don't really want to talk about it." He said at last. "And besides, right now I have even bigger problems: I'm pretty sure I broke one of my wings."

Matthew glanced at the bent and awkward-looking appendage, pressing his lips into a hard line. "It definitely looks injured. What happened?"

Gilbert looked away as though he were embarrassed, crossing his arms over his bare, noticeably muscular chest. "I usually fly above the clouds where it warmer," he explained sheepishly, a pale blush dusting his cheeks. "But every once in a while I get curious and like to see where I'm flying. I dipped down a little and accidentally flew right through a cloud. Water got all over me and turned my wings into icicles. It got so hard to fly that I kinda.. crash-landed into this tree. I hit my wing against one of the branches pretty hard on the way down."

Matthew smiled gently. "Well, you'll definitely need to get that wing fixed up if you want to fly again. Luckily, I know someone who might be able to help."

Gilbert's eyes lit up with excitement. "Really? That's awesome!"

"Mhm." Matthew giggled, pulling off his sweatshirt. "But first we'll need to hide your wings. We don't want to attract too much attention, so put this on." He tossed the hoodie to Gilbert, telling himself to endure how cold he was now that he was in nothing but a t-shirt and jeans.

The snowy-haired spirit looked down at the article of clothing blankly and Matthew gave a small sigh. Did Gilbert not even know how to dress himself? "Here, like this." The Canadian stepped close to him, pulling the warm red material over his head and fitting them over Gilbert's wings as the albino gingerly flattened them against his back. The hoodie (which was big on Matthew) fit him snugly due to the extra bulk from his muscles and wings, but nothing at least looked too out of the ordinary.

"Alright, let go." Matthew said, extending a hand to Gilbert. "Back to my place."

.

It turned out that keeping people from noticing Gilbert shouldn't have been what Matthew needed to worry about; it was keeping Gilbert from noticing everything. He hadn't been kidding when he said he knew nothing about the real world. He had almost run out in the middle of traffic on nearly twenty different occasions, and apparently he found the way traffic lights changed color to be the most wondrous things in the universe. He also discovered dogs when a woman walked by with several of them on leashes and- upon taking immediate liking to them –was practically beaten to death with said woman's purse after trying to steal one of them. He shouted questions excitedly in Matthew's ear at practically everything they passed, and even though Gilbert's happy excitement was absolutely adorable and admittedly contagious, he got tired of explaining everyday things and eventually stopped responding with anything but "I'll tell you later".

Matthew could tell that everyone was awake by the time they got home when the noise from inside could be heard even from three yards away from the front porch. "Be quiet when we're going inside, alright?" he told Gilbert, whom was studying the house with curious scarlet eyes. "I'm going to try to sneak you in.. and if anyone sees us, just go along with whatever I say." He had already decided that he shouldn't tell the others about what Gilbert really was; the only people who would probably believe him would be Arthur, Lukas and maybe Kiku, and if anyone else probably saw Gilbert's wings they would probably freak out and demand the media or animal control be called… Feliks would probably try to make Gilbert's pretty white feathers into a new boa.

Gilbert nodded his understanding and Matthew opened the front door, letting in a burst of much-appreciated warm air. The Canadian glanced into the living room, saw that it was devoid of any persons, and motioned for Gilbert to follow him quickly up the staircase. Most of the sound was isolated to the kitchen, so Matthew predicted everyone was probably awake and eating breakfast by that point.

Matthew's room was on the second floor at the very end of a long corridor. It was small but cozy, with a Canadian flag and a few posters of his favorite hockey teams tacked to the wall. His bed was pushing against the wall in the corner, covered with a thick red quilt and a stuffed polar bear he had had for as long as he could remember perched on his pillows. There was a desk by the window, sketchbooks and loose papers scattered around and on top of it, pencils and paintbrushes littering the floor. There was an easel set up beside it, a canvas with Matthew's newest painting of Gilbert facing them.

The painting caught Gilbert's attention immediately and he went straight to it, an impossibly wide grin on his face. "This is me!" he said brightly, examining it closely. In the picture he was kneeling in a forest of maple trees, his hands extended to cup a tiny yellow bird in the grass near his knees. It was a work of art, but looking at the real thing and an imitation side by side, Matthew knew he would never be able to completely capture something so perfect on paper or canvas.

"Yeah." Matthew blushed. He hadn't thought about the millions of pictures of Gilbert that littered his room… what if he thought it was creepy? "Do you, um, like it?"

"I love it!" the albino beamed, apparently not finding anything strange about it. He quickly lost interest, though (Honestly, Matthew had seen longer attention spans on four-year-olds) and moved on to the next thing that caught his eye. "What is this?" he asked, plopping down on Matthew's bed and picking up the stuffed white bear.

"Kumajiro." Matthew explained with a tiny smile. "At least, I think that's what I named him; I can honestly never remember. Now, you wait here, alright? I'm going to go get my friend to help fix your wing. And… try not to mess anything up in here, alright?"

"Okay!" Gilbert beamed, though he really didn't seem to be paying attention. He was busy lifting Kumajiro's stuffed paws and making him dance, laughing happily and squishing the bear to his chest.

Matthew backed slowly out of the room before things got any cuter and he wanted to stay. When he closed the door a dreadful feeling overcame him, and suddenly the thought of being away from Gilbert- only in they were only separated by a floor –felt unbearable to him. What if when he came back upstairs, Gilbert would be gone? What if this was actually nothing more than an extremely vivid dream and when he woke up he would have to back to living without him? He knew it was silly; he knew this was real and that his feelings for Gilbert were too strong for someone he barely knew, but he didn't care. He would just have to go downstairs, do what he needed to do, come back upstairs and prove to his thoughts that they were dumb and irrational, that an impossibly handsome wind spirit would still be sitting on his bed playing with a stuffed polar bear when he came back.

Matthew practically raced down the stairs and into the kitchen. For once he was thankful for his uncanny ability to go completely unnoticed; he didn't want to deal with anyone until he made sure Gilbert got the help he needed for his wing. He crept toward the kitchen table, gently nudging the shoulder of the Greek whom had fallen asleep on his plate of French toast.

"Huh? Kiku?" Heracles mumbled hopefully, blinking his emerald eyes blearily to clear them of sleep.

"Uh, no, not quite. Its Matthew." The Canadian said, a little impatiently. "Heracles, I need a favor. Would you mind coming with me?"

Heracles stared at him for much too long and then nodded, getting up with the speed of a turtle. "Okay." He said, yawning and running a hand through his wavy, chocolate-brown hair.

"Thank you, please hurry." Matthew said, leading the Greek out of the kitchen and toward the stairs. Heracles took his time following him, seeming even slower than usual that day. And Matthew liked Heracles, don't get him wrong, but he was absolutely the slowest person in the universe and all Matthew wanted to do just then was get back to his room and make sure Gilbert was still there.

Eventually they made it to the door and Matthew nearly flung it open in his earnest, letting out a long sigh of relief when he spotted Gilbert sprawled across the floor on his stomach, doodling on a piece of paper with one of the pencils that made the carpeting their home. From what Matthew could tell, the wind spirit had drawn to stick figures that vaguely resembled the two of them holding hands, which the Canadian supposed was pretty impressive for someone who had probably never used paper before, but what he definitely thought was down-right adorable. He'd have to remember to frame it later.

Gilbert looked up and beamed. "Birdie! Your back!" he stood up and peered around the Canadian's shoulder curiously, looking a little weary. "Who is that?" he motioned to Heracles, who was leaning against the doorframe looking like he was about ready to fall asleep again.

"He's a friend of mine. I think he might be able to fix your wing." Matthew said, pulling Heracles inside and closing the door. "Now, Heracles, before this goes any further, I'd like you to know that this is all a dream."

The Greek didn't seem particularly surprised by this, simply nodded. "Ah, okay then." He mused, starting to undo the front of his pants. "I would have preferred Kiku, but I guess you two will do."

Matthew's eyes widened in alarm. "Not that kind of dream!" he said quickly, stopping the Greek's hand and holding up a roll of bandages (one could never have to many bandages on hand when Arthur and Francis were living under the same roof). "I need you to fix Gilbert's wing!" He strode over to the albino, carefully helping him remove the hoodie and motioning to the wing that was still bent at an awkward angle. "Can you help him?"

Heracles stared thoughtfully at it, blinking slowly. "Sure I can." He said after a moment, taking the bandages from Matthew and making Gilbert sit on the bed. "Its going to hurt at first though because I'll have to reset the bones."

Matthew sat beside Gilbert, instinctively taking his hand and giving it a comforting squeeze. "Don't worry, Heracles used to go to Veterinarian school." He explained, not caring that Gilbert probably didn't have a single clue as to what that was. Heracles had been in training to be a vet for about half a year, until his teachers tried to make him do an autopsy on a dead cat and he quit that very day. He went to art school with Matthew now and was an amazing sculptor- he could do things with marble that the Canadian had never even thought possible. "He'll fix your wing so don't worry."

Matthew had to look away as Heracles reset the broken bones (though he still heard the painful-sounding cracks and pops), but Gilbert seemed to handle it well, barely even flinching. Something gave Matthew the impression that it really did hurt and Gilbert was just trying to show off by looking touch, judging by the way he was squeezing the crap out of Matthew's hand.

Heracles wrapped the wing tightly in bandages and secured it to Gilbert's back before sitting back and yawning. "The break was pretty serious, from what I could tell." He said, rubbing his eyes tiredly. "He should keep the bandages on for at least a month and a half, but even then it could be three months until he'll be able to fly again. He shouldn't strain it too much once its out of the bandages, just stretch it a little bit each day."

"Thanks Heracles." Matthew smiled, though he felt a little sad. Three months didn't feel very long at all when Gilbert was concerned… after his wing was healed, would he have to leave?

Heracles nodded and left the room, mumbling something about getting some more sleep. Matthew turned to Gilbert, deciding to push all dismal thoughts to the back of his brain for now. "Well, I guess we should let everyone know you're here." He decided. "Don't forget to go along with whatever I say, okay?" He had thought of a decent enough excuse for why Gilbert would be staying with them, he just hoped everyone would buy it.