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It started with his wings.
At least, that was the first thing Dalphon remembers noticing.
He isn't quite sure when he realized he wasn't supposed to be molting just yet. It was a few months too early, still only late spring.
His wings were already so itchy though, and his feathers kept falling out near-constantly. They always fell right behind him as he walked or flew, leaving a trail of pure white down in his wake.
It looked pretty, but it sure didn't feel like it.
It wasn't anything that strange though. Maybe it was just the stress, or the heat, or a million other reasons.
Molting a few months early isn't all that worrying in the grand scheme of things afterall. Plenty of birds and Angels molt early. Indigo Buntings, Scarlet Tanagers, Blackpoll Warblers, and American Goldfinches, among many others, tend to molt in the spring. Plenty of species even molt twice a year!
Dalphon very deliberately ignored the fact that he had only ever started to molt towards the end of the summer before right then. He's never molted more than once in a year. Not ever. That fact shouldn't change.
He just decided to take better care of them. He preened them daily, then twice daily, then kept them folded against his back as some of the stubby white feathers started growing back in.
He brushed it off.
One day, a few weeks later, while Dalphon was brushing his pure white hair, he noticed something off.
Are those…gray hairs? Is he getting old? He's only twenty-three. People can start going gray much earlier than that, yeah, but…most Angels don't get gray hairs. At all. At the very least, not before a few hundred years have passed.
Again, he doesn't recall being that stressed. In fact, he feels much better than years past!
He lives alone, away from his foster family, if they could even be called that, in a nice apartment. One he bought for himself, pays for monthly himself. He's painted the walls, huge gorgeous murals, styled like if in a cathedral. He's decorated everything, gotten vintage pink furniture, and made it perfect.
He makes plenty of money off his art, his life-long dream.
He's happy.
So why is he going gray?
He sits down the next night, and he plucks out every single one.
Soon after that, Dalphon is in the middle of working on a painting. A commission, art that will be sold for thousands.
His brush decides to flick a speck of red paint, right into the middle of his gorgeous clouded background. He huffs.
Then he goes to fix it.
It's still wet, no real harm done yet. It's an easy fix.
He scratches at the red droplet with the tip of his nail. It was supposed to scrape up, to be wiped onto the towel beside him. That's not what happened.
He went to scratch up the speck of red paint, and his nail stabbed right through the canvas.
Weird.
That's never happened before.
He looked down at his hand, looking at his nails. Hm, he thought he had just filed them down the other day. He usually pays attention to that. Now though, his nails are growing long, semi-sharp points underneath the baby pink polish.
Well that's…strange.
He had probably just…been rubbing them weird each day, so they got filed into a point as they grew. And he thought he had been eating healthier lately, maybe that's why they've grown so fast.
That…makes sense.
He files them down, shorter than usual, and he repaints them. A soft, pretty pink, the color of the tip of a rabbit's nose.
(He ignores them. Well, right after he screamed and cried and slashed at the painting he had been working on, that is.)
He takes to doing his nails each week now, instead of twice monthly. It’s fine.
Dalphon swears this must be the millionth time in this week alone, that he's bitten through part of his mouth.
He isn't sure what the reason is. Maybe it's bad luck or something. He needs the bad luck to go away, he can't keep biting himself.
His mouth tastes like blood all the time now. It's annoying! Sure the taste of the blood isn't horrible, but it's distracting. The sugar-sweet, coppery taste is nauseating. At least when that's all he tastes, near constantly.
His lips are chapped and bitten, his cheeks are raw, his tongue is swollen and sore.
He hates it!
He can't make himself eat when his mouth hurts. He tries to stick to smoothies and protein shakes, though he can't stand them. They make him throw up, the texture is foul. The taste isn't much better, mixed with his blood as it is.
He wants this to stop.
Whilst he brushes his teeth with his pink toothbrush one night, he realizes something. His teeth. His canines. They're…sharp. Sharper than they were before.
He won't deny his panic.
He fixed it. Right then, right there, he grabbed his nail file. He shaved down the tips, shaved away at the hard white enamel until they were normal, pristine.
If they're fixed, if no one can tell, were they ever really different in the first place?
(Yes. They were.)
The next thing was…a bit more noticeable.
Not to anyone else! He doesn't show…that off anyway, but to himself, he noticed almost immediately.
Dalphon awoke one morning, nearly two weeks after he had stopped tasting only blood. He slung his legs out of bed, then tucked Pinky, his pink bunny plushie, into the thick pink blankets, and made his bed.
He went to the bathroom, brushed his teeth, did his hair, and quickly preened through his wings. Then he went back to his room to get dressed. Everything was normal, he pulled on his jeans, buttoned up his shirt, and wrapped himself in his pink cardigan, careful of his wings, as usual.
He needs to get groceries so his…tail…has to be put away. It's usually easy. He either wraps it around his legs or his waist underneath his pants. He didn't think that it would be any different this time.
His white tail pokes its way into the waistband of his jeans, and he yelps. He grabs it in his hands, pulling it up towards his face. The tip is speckled with dots of his red blood, glimmering golden in the lighting.
What…happened?
He pokes at the tip with his finger, then yanks it away in shock. Blood bubbles up from the tip of his finger, dripping down the pale skin of his hand.
He doesn't…know what to do.
Panicking would be stupid, but that's exactly what it is that he does.
He didn't make it to the store that day. Or the next.
He laid in bed nearly catatonic, not wanting to think, not wanting to feel.
He thinks what he ended up coming up with is a decent fix. A sock wrapped around the tip of his tail, tied on with a ribbon. That should work.
He keeps it wrapped around his waist at all times. He doesn't want to look at it.
He doesn't like to think about the implications.
Lately, when Dalphon looks into the mirror he doesn't recognize himself.
He stands in front of the mirror nude each morning.
He spreads his wings to pick through the feathers. They don't fall out quite as often, which is good. He uncoils his tail from around his waist to poke himself with it. Still sharp, nothing new. He stares at his face. At his pure white eyes, sunken in and tired. His pale, nearly white skin, marred only with a few scant white freckles. His lips, chapped and bitten. His teeth, perfect, white, unremarkable. Not pointed. He looks at his body, long and thin, bones sticking out much more than usual, due to his recent lack of appetite. Then the red scratches trailing up and down his arms and legs, the fist-sized bruises along his chest and thighs, the bite-marks scattered across his arms.
He isn’t…coping very well.
Coping from what, though, he doesn't even know.
He brushes his hair, checking for any that don't belong as he goes. That's when he sees it.
There in the mirror, he sees his ears. He sees the usual small golden hoops sticking through the bottoms of both.
Unremarkable.
Aside from the fact that the tops have become pointed.
He doesn't know what to do.
About anything anymore.
He’s…scared.
He finishes brushing his hair, for once glad that he had skipped his latest hair appointment. The feeling of his hair curling over his ears is horrible, it makes his skin burn, but he needs to cover them.
His hair, and later his pink headphones cover them just enough. Enough so he doesn't have to see them. The headphones help too, especially when he realizes just how much louder everything has become.
He can't think.
The next time Dalphon does his nails, he doesn't like what he sees.
He wipes away baby pink polish, leaving the smell of acetone thick in the air. Underneath, the beds of his nails are black.
He sucks in a breath, nearly choking.
Maybe, maybe he um…got black nail polish on himself? Somehow?
Does he even own black nail polish?
He scrubs his hands with acetone, until his skin is red and dry and cracking.
His nails stay black.
He files them down, where the tips of his nails had sharpened again, and paints them. A brighter pink should cover it enough.
Near hot pink is pretty anyway.
Dalphon wakes up for the day, and looks in the mirror. His new regular.
Something is wrong. Again.
Maybe he's just tired (he is).
The edges of his white eyes are gray.
He punched the mirror so hard that it broke. Then he laid down on the cold bathroom tile, curling into himself. He clawed at his eyes, and cried until he passed out.
When he awoke next, he checked his eyes in the scattered shards of glass. They were still turning gray.
He found some sunglasses. Just so he doesn't have to catch a glimpse of them.
He's grateful he did, he found that the bright light of Outside stung.
Dalphon wakes up.
Wishes he didn't.
He can't see anything amiss, but he can tell that something isn't right. Nothing ever is right anymore.
He gets up, makes his bed, and goes to the bathroom. He brushes his teeth (normal), brushes his hair (plucks out the not-white strands), covers his ears (pointy and sensitive), puts his sunglasses back over his (gray, rotting, stinging) eyes, then starts on preening his wings.
Ah. That's what's wrong.
He's growing new feathers to replace the ones that still fall out. They had been falling out less, he thought that it would be okay.
The feathers at the base of his wings are gray.
The soft, fluffy, downy feathers are nearly black.
He plucks out every single one. Every single feather that isn't pure white.
His floor is covered in gray and black.
He leaves them nearly bare around the skin of his back. Mostly his flight feathers remain.
He Folds his wings away. He doesn't want to see them anymore.
If they're not in this Plane, if he can't see them, then it's fine.
Right?
Dalphon has to go to the store.
He ran out of the paint he was using, right in the middle of a commission. He needs to finish it, he's behind on everything right now. He needs the money.
He gets dressed for going out into public.
Light jeans, white button up, pink sweater, pink jacket, white shoes.
He wants his Halo to be less obvious, he doesn't deserve the Claim. He wants it just as his nose ring, how he usually wears it. He grabs his Halo from where it sits, floating atop his head. Well.
He tried to.
The moment his hand closed around the Holy metal, he felt it.
It's usually warm, warmer than his natural body heat, but comfortable. Cozy.
Now?
It Burns.
If you've never been burnt by Holy Fire, you wouldn't understand. You couldn't understand.
It burns away at your Soul, not your skin. Well, it burns that too, but that's not what you feel first.
First you feel the Heat, burning and tearing, intense in every meaning of the word. Next there's the terrible pulling, metal and fire trying its best to suck in your Soul. Then this terrible emptiness surrounds you, the absence of your Soul, filled only with burning Fire. There's pain too, of course there's pain, and it will likely be the worst you ever have and ever will experience. Pain not just on your body, but your Soul. It’s torture.
Dalphon barely grabbed onto his Halo for a second before ripping his hand away.
He screamed. Then he stopped.
He doesn't actually need any new paint.
He can find a similar color in his studio, surely.
It's fine.
He's fine.
He just won’t look up now.
He felt sick.
Dalphon barely made it to the toilet in time to throw up into it.
He sits, kneeling on the tile. He lays his head down onto the white porcelain. He is so tired. His skin feels hot, he's sweaty and itchy. His stomach is roiling, twisting and turning, begging to be purged. His head is pounding, nearly throbbing within the confines of his skull.
He gags again, then retches into the bowl.
He wants this to be over, whatever it is that’s wrong with him, he wants it fixed.
He stays in the bathroom all day. Knelt down, sitting on cold hard tile. Then, when his headache gets to be too much, he lays down.
He passed out.
Sleep is not kind to him.
He doesn't quite remember what he dreamt of, but he remembers how he felt. He was scared, terrified, and the only thing he remembered was falling.
He felt weighed down, suffocated. He couldn't get a breath in, he was choking.
He was going to die.
He knew that with certainty.
Then he woke up.
Luckily he was still in the bathroom, his retching just barely made it into the toilet.
Dalphon is frustrated.
He's running out of nearly everything he needs to work now. He has got to go to the store.
Every time he's tried to leave the house lately, it's ended in a day-long meltdown or shutdown. There's always something wrong with him when he checks.
He just…won't check.
Sure. Yeah. That works. Has to.
He gets dressed.
Jeans, button up, thick sweater, wait no scratch that, the button up is fine, he's much too hot, then his shoes.
He wraps his tail around himself. Then he keeps his wings put Away, and he thinks of discorporating his Halo too, but people would think something of that.
He fixes his hair, making sure it covers his ears, then puts his pink headphones on top. He puts on his sunglasses next, covering up his eyes.
He double checks his nails, filed and pink, and his teeth, dull and white. Okay. Good.
He gets on his way.
His first time leaving his apartment in months is stressful.
Everything is so loud, even with the headphones. (Was it always this loud? No it couldn't have been.) Everything is so bright, even with the sunglasses. It’s so hot, bright sun shining down harshly on his sensitive skin.
There's so many people, so many Angels.
He tries his best to ignore everything.
He makes his way to the store. He gets what he needs. He checks out.
The cashier asks about him, they hadn't seen him in months, what's been up? He doesn't know how to answer. Vacation he says, though it sounds like the lie that it is. The cashier thankfully lets it drop.
Dalphon makes his way back home. The trek is slightly more cumbersome, arms laden with heavy bags.
He trips on an uneven stone. He falls, only just managing to flail his hands down at the last second to keep from landing on his face.
Stop, stop, stop! Don't cry, don't throw a tantrum. Get up. Go home.
He does. He stands up, on his long shaky legs, and collects his bags. He doesn't think to look at his hands or knees, but they sting, definitely bleeding. He'll deal with that when he's home.
It doesn't take much longer until he's opening his front door.
He drops everything down immediately, uncaring of where the tubes of paint roll away to. He locks his door.
Then he brings his hands up, looking at the blood dripping from them. Oh the stones scraped him deeply. Ow, ow, ow.
He goes to the bathroom, turning on the dim overhead light. He grabs his box of medical supplies, overflowing with his cute bandaids. He pulls out the antiseptic and a roll of bandages, then gets to work.
Well…wait.
Wait a second.
He brings his hand right up to his face, tilting it back and forth to catch the light. It's…red. Just red.
There aren't any golden specks.
He's just missing it, surely.
He needs to see.
With a detached sort of interest, something he never used to be capable of, he grabs his scissors. Pink, like nearly everything else he owns, used only for when his bangs grew long enough to drive him nearly insane.
He brings the sharp point to the inside of his arm, and slices a line straight down.
He watches as the blood bubbles up, watching for anything.
It's red. He doesn't see any gold.
Maybe it's deeper inside of him, surely it can't all be gone, right?
He digs his fingers inside the long jagged gash, feeling the smushy mess of fat and muscle, the strange little strings of veins and his artery. The hard bone of his radius or ulna. He pulls his fingers out, and inspects them closely.
They're red. Only red.
He brings his fingers to his mouth, and he tastes only copper.
He cleans and bandages himself, and doesn't think about what this means.
He lays in bed in pain (It finally hit him how much all of that hurt), and tries to sleep.
He does.
Dalphon wakes up.
His head hurts.
He makes his bed, then goes to the bathroom to throw up.
He brushes his teeth. Wait. Shit. Again?
He files down his canines, then his lateral incisors too.
He brushes his hair, plucking out more of the strands that don't belong. He takes out his wings to preen, then after one look, decides against it. What's the point? They're a motley white and gray and black mess. He wraps his tail up, then around himself too.
Then he re-bandages his arm and hands. They haven't healed enough yet, despite being treated for nearly a week.
He puts on his headphones and sunglasses, then sits down to do his nails.
Sharp and pointed, despite the fact that he last filed them three days ago.
He cleans off the polish, files them again, then paints them back pink.
Does the same to his (newly blackened) toenails, then paints them pink too.
He goes about his day.
He makes it to the mid afternoon, before he has to stop painting.
Dalphon’s head is pounding.
He took medicine earlier, and he had some tea, but that only helped for a little bit.
He needs to lay down.
He takes a nap, right on the couch in his studio.
He wakes up.
It's the middle of the night now, he can tell by the lack of light shining through his curtains.
The ache in his head hasn't gone anywhere, but it's sure changed. Instead of the dull pounding thump, thump, thump, it's sharp and stinging, piercing now.
Slowly, he brings a hand up, feeling along his (wet?) forehead. He trails his fingers up further, up his hair line, up to the peak of his head.
He stops.
Please, please, please don't be what he thinks it may be!
He drags his hand, haltingly, up the protrusion of bone pierced through his skull. Pretty tall, with razor sharp tips, he finds out.
He pulls his bloody hand away. He sucks at the tip of his finger, where it was punctured on his horn.
He wants to sleep.
He wants to die.
He does the first.
Dalphon wakes up.
He's freezing, shivering on his paint-stained couch.
He had been burning up lately, he doesn't understand the switch.
He gets up, goes to the bathroom, and half-asses his morning routine.
Then he grabs every sweater and blanket he has and curls up in his living room.
He has a lazy day, though lately that's all it feels that he does.
He ignores how heavy his head is.
Dalphon wakes up sick.
Which isn't that strange, it's his new normal.
He barely makes it to the bathroom in time to throw up stomach acid. It's tinged pink, probably with blood, but who knows anything anymore.
He brushes his sharp teeth, does his (way too long) hair, and decides again against preening his wings.
He goes to put his tail away. Ah, great.
The tip, that's just been a tapered point (though newly sharp) his whole life, is now a heart-shaped pointed spade.
Still sharp, he finds out, but it's bigger, it's more obvious.
He doesn't bother reacting.
What's the point?
Dalphon wants to die.
That'd be the best course of action at this point. Everything is wrong, he's…he’s unGodly. He is a walking Sin.
It's obvious.
His skin is turning a pallid, sickly yellow. His hair is white and gray, unwashed, wavy and stringy, reaching past his shoulders. The tips of his long pointed ears stick obnoxiously through his hair, along with his new horns, golden Halo wrapped around them perfectly. His eyes look as if they'd been rotting for days, taken from a corpse. They're sunken in, surrounded in dark bags, reminiscent of a skeleton. His fangs teeth are sharp and pointed, sticking out from his pale lips. His body is long and lanky, and his bones are much more prominent than they used to be. He’s bruised and scratched, covered in bandaids and bandages. His claws nails are sharp, and the black is showing where the pink polish has chipped away. His tail is trailing on the floor behind him, heart-tip scratching at the tile.
He Pulls out his wings, spreading them, rousing them. Feathers and down go everywhere, coating the bathroom. He needs to preen them. He won't. He can't bring himself to.
He reaches up to his Halo, hesitantly, close enough to feel the Heat. He retreats.
He just doesn't know what to do.
Fix him. Please.
Dalphon dreams.
He thinks.
It was Heat, hot and burning everything. It was Cold, sharp and stinging, not soothing the Burn, but hurting alongside it. It was Pain, so much. It was Fear, it was terror, deep in his bones, his Soul. It was Guilt, so suffocating, he forgot the sensation of breathing, forgot the very existence of oxygen.
And, most of all.
It was Falling.
Dalphon woke up.
Betrayal woke up.