Nichael was never quite my friend, though not quite my lover, or an enemy, either. He was a toy and then he was a complication. He openly rebelled against me and I welcomed it, and then he had come back and I had accepted this too. He was a mirror of me, more sincerely loved, and there had been a few months where I had wanted nothing more than to be him- or be with him, perhaps.

His real name was Michael Castellano. Some angels remembered their pasts, even though they were supposedly lost in the messy soul deal that had created them in the first place. Some angels remembered advanced plumping too, of course, but it hadn't been as troubling to them as the memory of a proper home or a lost loved one.

My past with Nichael had started, subtly, at the very beginning of it all. Yes, I did vaguely remember him back when we were human. A pretty face, but back then he had been some older man, and I had merely been nineteen. Any love I had for him had been fostered in our ageless time.

When everything had gone to shit, when I'd woken up from death nineteen again, I was in a field, not a bunker. I was outside for the first time in fifteen years, and the sun was on my skin and I was healthy. I was as I had been at my very first death, lean but not skinny, unwell but not physically.

And the first person I'd seen in the field had been Michael Castellano, and he had said to me: "Michael."

And he knew nothing else but me, and for a moment I doubted I remembered anything else either. This was Heaven, and I had died, and together we walked through an Earth without people. There were thousands of them, my poor followers, born again.

They all knew who I was, vaguely. They knew I led them, and I did too.

Back then I had my wings, and I spread them, and I told them this:

We were angels. And here we would stay.

This Nichael was not mine. I knew it from the way he walked, that nervous and injured step. Nichael had lagged and dragged but never faltered, but this one would take two steps and then stop, like the pain had asked him politely for the time and he was obliged to check.

Oh right, I should probably have brought him to the hospital. At least he wasn't complaining.

Irem was a schoolteacher by day, a job which I had no idea how he'd happened onto, but seemed to suit him. He was quiet and dull, with a predilection towards ugly sweaters and a love of reading. Poor guy was still chaste long after I'd told the Host sex was totally cool.

We were good friends because he was there, I think. Back in Heaven he'd been high on my good list, a bureaucratically minded well wisher of the regime. He'd tattled on enough sinners that he wasn't well liked, but also was mild enough that even his enemies had trouble hating him.

It was, phew, seven thirty? Usually the gang broke up from the bathhouse when I'd had enough, and I was proven right by Irem opening the door promptly. He took in Nichael carefully.

"So you return."

Two things occurred to me, neither world-breaking, but of interest:

First, Nichael and I had been speaking in English to each other this entire time. Mind, English is my first language (well, some Italian too from my mum), but for the angels it was Angelic. Not speaking to another angel in it was a weird sort of power move, like a dare for the demons to overhear.

Second, I might've been the only person to know Nichael was supposed to be dead, not missing. It was good Irem at least recognized him, a nice affirmation of my sanity, but maybe...

Well, ok. I had gone to the pond I'd dumped his sister in (long story) a while ago, and in the murk there had been a body. Formally white cotton, a lot of mud- who else was I supposed to presume it'd be? Nichael had known about the place, known of his sister's fate.

But maybe it had been someone else on the edge of Heaven. We hadn't lost any angels in the move, not even after the battle were we missing one corpse... but humans did wander in, from time to time. There were tears in reality scattered all about my hometown, quick little portals to an empty Earth.

I looked to Nichael to see if he'd understood the Angelic.

"Hi," he said. In Angelic, but a different intonation than he'd had when he was alive.

Irem turned to me. "What's going on? Why are you here?"

"First, checking I wasn't hallucinating," I said, "So far... check? The only problem is, I don't think it's him."

"What do you mean?"

"I don't believe he knows what we're saying."

We both looked at Nichael, who was blank faced.

"Hey bud," I said to him, "How's your Angelic?"

"Spotty. I understood some of what you said, but I guess I've forgotten?"

"See, he thinks he's who he looks like, but he's not. I don't know who he is or why he..."

Irem interrupted me. "...Appears to actually be Nichael? Michael, I know you're fond of conspiracies, but look at the state this man is in. It's likely amnesia, and you ought to take him to the hospital."

"I heard my name," Nichael pointed out.

I groaned. "Nichael's dead! There's no way he's wandered the Earth for ten years and not... he'd come visit me, alright? He'd have come down to Hell a lot earlier. He wouldn't knock his head on a rock and track me down now."

"Do you want to come in?" Irem offered.

"Oh, gladly," Nichael walked past me, into Irem's apartment. "Could I have a glass of water?"

"You need a different name." I stepped inside. "I know something's wrong here."

"Michael." Irem came over to put a hand on my shoulder. How condescending. "Maybe something is wrong. But he still needs his water, vis?" 'Vis' in Angelic meant 'you see', a common sentence ender that was more often meant as a sound rather than a phrase. I'd even hear kids throw it around from time to time.

"What do you remember?" I asked Nichael. Irem's apartment a featureless and small clone of my own, but actually clean. Seeing this dining table free of stuff was like gazing into an alternate dimension.

"My name's Nichael. You're Michael, the leader of the angels." He took a long gulp of water. "Is today your birthday? May fifth?"

"Angels don't have birthdays." And I certainly didn't remember telling Nichael any such thing.

"You used to be human. And I did too."

Irem looked uncomfortable. I'd been dancing around the truth for a long time among angels, though admitted a little to some of my friends. They were vaguely aware they hadn't been wished into existence, but anything more than that had gone unanswered.

"What was your old name?"

Nichael was silent. "I'm not sure I know. All I can think of is you." Or, maybe, all he could think of was 'Michael', his name. I was not going to correct him.

"What... what do you remember of our time together?"

"Should I leave the room?" Irem asked. Evidently trying to lighten the mood with the weakest scrap of a joke, but he was a humorless creature.

"You called me a galaxy."

"I called you a sun, Castellano. And I still think we need a new name for you."

"Do you still think he isn't real?" Irem asked me.

"I am upset by his presence and existence, but will tolerate it. We're heading to Heaven to locate his body after this anyway." I watched Nichael, or at least a facsimile of one. He was so real, and he so clearly remembered things no imposter could... but I still couldn't bring myself to accept him alive. "Do you have any absinthe?"

"This is no time to be drunk."

Nichael raised a finger as to draw our attention. "I don't know any other names but yours and mine."

"Troubling." Irem had his hand on his chin. "Well, I'm Irem, sorry to not say that earlier. And I suppose we can name you anything, if that's what Michael wishes- though it will be quite confusing to those who meet you. Something angelic, perhaps?"

"Guilherme," I blurted out.

"Excuse me, what?"

"Sorry. First one that came to mind. Gaylord. No."

"How about 'Jack'?" Suggested Irem.

I snapped my fingers. "Halfdan. Or Jack. Jack is good."

"My name is Nichael," Jack sounded somewhat deflated over this decision.

"Just let Michael do this. It'll make him feel better until he believes you," Irem said. Major pet peeve of mine: people talking about me like I'm not right there. Major theme in my life: people doing just that.

"Well it's been fun," I got up, went to where Irem stored his wine, and took a swig of a bottle at random. Not a great way to drink, but a pretty good power move. Jack watched me, half stunned. Irem was used to it. "We need to get going."

"Are you sure?" Irem said. "Maybe you should sleep on this."

"It's also... night," Jack pointed out. "We're not going to be seeing any possible submerged bodies this time of night.

"Oh, fuck you." I returned to the wine collection and took another sip. "First thing tomorrow morning, then."

Clearly, probably aware I could hear him, Irem leaned over to Jack and said, "Sorry. He should wake up in a better mood, at least."

"We're sleeping in your house!" I announced, and just to try and get a rise I put my wine down and went to Irem's bedroom.

I curled up in his bed and remained there for the rest of the night, awake for a frustratingly long time. Of course I felt immediately stupid to have overreacted, but by the time I'd thought of it I'd committed myself too far. Getting up would have been defeat, so there I stayed. His room was a tidy mirror of my own, his bed a little small, but he crawled next to me some hours later.

And when my stomach growled- as it had been, as it would after twelve hours without food- he climbed out of bed and brought me a slice of cake.

I don't know if it was still before midnight, but I started to feel right again on his bedroom floor. One year older, and I didn't need to know where this chocolate cake came from to feel it was for me.

Starving myself was a sort of punishment. Obviously, I'm a bit of a narcissist. I have mood swings and mental illness up the wazoo. And being unable to die leaves my occasional suicidal bouts tragically unfulfilled. So I don't eat- that's the one thing I feel like I can control, and if I ever get too ill, I can...

Well, I can kill myself again, and I will be okay again.

Thinking about all this didn't feel right tonight. My thoughts swirled, and I tried to think mostly of cake, not dead boys and countless bodies.

The bed lamp was on, but Irem was curled away from it, his pale purple wings out. I could hear his neighbors moving, slightly, but nothing more than that, and from the other room I heard a light click.

Happy birthday to me.

Maybe this year something would change.

The next morning I was only half bothered that I was in a better mood. Jack did look an awful lot like Nichael, but I was getting better at separating the two- the Nichael of my past was gone no matter who Jack turned out to be.

I'd woken up before Irem, held gently in his embrace. Not in the funny way. This was another of those overly touchy platonic gestures I'd introduced the angels too, and honestly? Good on me.

Irem took awhile to get up. It was Saturday morning, after all. I was comfortable in his arms, but the moment he he was awake he pushed me away from him. Then he crawled out of bed without a word.

"I'm feeling rejected," I said

"Consider if that was intentional." Irem got dressed, and then watched me as I stretched out in his bed. "How are you doing? Are you okay?"

"I'm better."

"Lie?"

"One hundred percent not."

Irem smiled at me, and it was a good smile. I waited a minute before I got up and dressed.

"Morning," Jack said. Sleep had truly changed how I viewed him. For one, he looked like a mess, not a long lost angel. A pile of trash, honest. His two black eyes were half-way healed, his scars were scabbing and his skin was pale and yellow-ish. He had a beard coming in, and even his hair was longer and shabbier than I was comfortable with.

"You should take a shower. How long has it been since you showered?"

"I don't remember."

"You look like you smell."

Irem was in the small kitchenette, cooking eggs. "He's trying to be helpful."

"Am I not being helpful?"

"I... guess I can shower. Irem, is that okay?"

He shrugged. "You do look like you just crawled out of a lake."

"Okay."

Jack went off to shower, and I leaned over the counter to watch Irem cook. "He's very passive."

"He does have amnesia."

"Does amnesia prevent you from having a personality? To be honest I thought it wasn't even real, just like, a thing people had in TV shows."

"Have you brought him to the authorities yet?" Irem asked. "Christina messaged me over Dacebook asking if I knew where you were."

Dacebook was, of course, 'demon Facebook'. Someone had imported several human sites over to the Hell intranet a while ago, but post peace they'd really started stacking up. I myself was quite fond of 'Dumblr'. Adding 'D' to any old human website was fairly pointless, and borderline unfunny.

Dumblr did, however, make me giggle sometimes.

"Oh yeah. I threw my phone at the wall." I'd forgotten it, as I had a lot of the events of the previous day. "I'll talk to her after I take care of this. She wouldn't want me on Earth again."

"Christina's usually right about these things, Michael." Irem finished breakfast and and brought three plates to the table. I didn't move. "Jack might benefit if you two take it easy- maybe go to the bathhouse and practice his angelic? And I'm sure the demons will know what do with him."

"It'll only take an hour to check for the body," I said, stalwart, "Then I'll talk to Chrissie."

"Okay." It was hard to tell if Irem was concerned with me or not.

After Jack was done showering, we left. He carried his fried egg on a napkin without complaint, and followed my footsteps doggedly.

On the streets I did sometimes have an angel stop to look at me, but less and less did they say anything. I kept out of the demon's attention as much as I could on orders from The Few, meaning I could nearly walk to Heaven without incident. Like many things, this either delighted or horrified me, depending on the day.

The entrance to the real world, the elevator out of Hell, was guarded these days. It used to be a bit of an on/off thing- during the war I'd slipped into the city every now and then as a tourist. Last year, however, a kid had wandered their way out of the city. Now a hellhound with coiled brown fur growled at my approach.

"Michael Lexington, you pleb," I held a hand up, the other reaching for my ID.

The hellhound became a woman. She walked forward to check my ID. "This doesn't look official."

"It's beyond official. I'm not a government employee, only the leader of Heaven. I have business there."

"Lexington?" The hellhound raised an eyebrow, handing my ID back.

"The fact it isn't a noun should inform you that I'm real deal." I rolled my eyes. "I will find a way to fire you if you don't let me through."

She didn't respond, but rather went to a nearby desk and picked up the phone. Dialing up the authorities, it seemed, able to see through my petty threats. Eventually she nodded.

Great. Now The Few were surely to know I was up to something. If anything I was surprised they'd let me leave.

Jack had been entirely quiet on our walk over, and when I looked at him he just smiled slightly.

Weirdo.

The elevator took... quite a while to arrive. Two chairs had been placed inside, and we sat next to each other in the dull grey box.

"I'll be nicer to you after this," I said.

"Have you been rude?"

I couldn't tell what that was, joke or quip or worrying sign of memory loss. "Just get ready to see some bones. I'm going to drag you- it out of there." I sighed. "If its there at all."

"Just watch out." Jack popped some gum in his mouth from his dirty jacket. "You need to kill... Michael, I don't know much, but the man who did this to me is still out there."

"Vague, but okay." Nichael had known I was immortal. Another tack on the wall of differences between the two, and honestly, I didn't care if Jack died.

"Did you bring a weapon? He'll kill you if he can." Jack sounded absolutely nonchalant about this. Not that it was highly scary dialogue, but he spoke as if he was reading it to himself from a textbook.

"Why are you still alive then?"

"He thought I was dead." Jack swallowed his gum and put another piece in.

"He did a shitty job of checking that, then."

"So did you."

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Sorry this chapter is... exceedingly boring? 

IS IT?

Next one will have action and more substance, probably. Well, yes, action and happenings and more plot set up, etc. I usually figure these things as I go along.