There is to say, that people desire riches. That they desire the things that pour wealth within our pockets, pluck fruits from giver's hands and show down upon the glorious false smiles and eagerly rubbing hands that seek to please us, yet here she laid. In all her beautiful glory. Jamie. The fallen little 'bird' he had plucked up from the ground in her singsong sorrows, the one that had foolishly invited him into her home.

His cold, ocean blue eyes stared down at her sleeping form, casting a hand over gently to brush her hair back. How could she be so foolish? How naïve. Naïve indeed. Curly locks brushed over his forehead, his golden hair looked nearly perfectly crimped, as if he sat beneath a ribbed iron to make it so, but no. That was the way it grew. He had sucked the very life from her, the burning blue essence that was so calm and resolute that he had tasted the sorrow of her soul on his lips.

'I lost my husband and son in a car accident,' she had told him before. She had found him in the cemetery, draped over that moss ridden statue in his fallen state, sleeping off what blood he had poured down over the ground like red rain before collapsing there.

What had she been doing at the graveyard, wandering on past her family's graves? He hadn't a clue, nor did he bother to ask. Would he? Possibly not.

"You're no angel," Daemon said from behind him, crossing his arms.

"You followed me again. Daemon." Micah answered, a scowling turning up over his beautiful full lips.

"Of course I did. Did I not say, I would devour you."

"I told you, that's not how it works!" Micah turned, snapping at him. The fire lit up in his eyes as he stared at the ruby-eyed man before him.

"So you say, but here you stand. Where is Fae? Cael?" he asked, stepping forward. "We were meant to be. You... consumed within me."

"You're a real sick fuck, you know that?" Micah was jerking back, glancing to the sleeping woman. Jamie would not wake, no. Taking her life force from her, would keep her body heavy and far from consciousness for a few hours. His arms stretching out, making him look larger as the white dripped down, forming into the soft feather down that lined from his wrist to his ribs in a set of beautiful white wings. He would fly from this place, escaping Daemon’s grasp again. He just had to get past him back to the bedroom, to leap from the window.

"You said that before- I bore with the antics." Daemon's eyes flicked up from his hand to his rival, jumping at him as Micah dodged. He jerked out of the way of his would-be captor before snatching the knife from the kitchen block to point it at him. "I ought to stab you with this, carve you up into smaller bits for consumption." Daemon laughed, waving the thing at him.

"You can try, but you won't lay a hand on me tonight. Daemon." Micah snapped, grabbing the poker from the fireplace as he edged back towards the bedroom. "I'll run you through tonight. We are brothers no longer."

"We were never brothers," Daemon scoffed. "Only in your sweetest fantasies, where we stood in arms under the Chernobyl, like wanton soldiers ready to burn up in the lights to satiate his sick need to rule us."

"He is ill. He believes we are angels!"

"We are no angels! We are things, cast aside by the sun goddess to meander about this fruitless land, perspiring under her gaze like candles! She doomed us! But I will not fear the heat any longer, Micah. No. I am done with it," he laughed, giving him a sideways glance as he edged towards him. He stepped closer. "I will kill your savior if you do not come."

Micah cursed, watching him step up to Jamie. Sure, he had stolen her essence without her knowledge. He had taken it into himself to ease his wounds that Daemon had inflicted, knowing that it made him vulnerable, but at her own cost despite her lack of knowledge of what danger he was to her. It was a weak stance on his part, but she was mortal. If he took enough. All of it, he thought regretfully before blinking back to reality. He dropped the poker, stepping closer as Daemon cockily grinned at him, laughing and tipping his head from side to side in glee.

The man was a demon, but he did not have to be.

"Yes." Daemon sang, stepping closer, dropping the knife to hold his arms out. "You finally accepted me! We shall be one, together Micah. You will live on in me and we shall be immortal. Immortal and free of that damnable woman we supposedly call 'Mother' and roam the Earth as a god among our lessers."

Micah stared at him, curling a lip as he stepped closer and right as Daemon went to wrap his arms around him, he was grabbing the glass encased candle from the dining table and threw the melted contents at him. The glass was hot in his hands, but the moment it hit Daemon's face, he was screaming. He was crying hotly, howling so terribly that even Micah couldn't help but flinch back.

Daemon couldn't touch his face, but his hands were shaking before it as his closed eye drooped down, melting from his face and his lip started to lose form and the shape of it became no different than the wax that had been splashed on him that was quickly drying. His bones were revealed, white teeth shining before his one good red eye was staring at Micah as he lunged at him.

Micah dove out of the way, rolling over the floor as feathers flew up behind him, making the room alight with their glow and dance as Daemon batted them away to come rigidly grabbing for him again as Micah picked up the poker and ran it through him.

There was a moment when it all stopped. Daemon was turning to look down as blood poured from the wound, the black poker sticking from his back as he grabbed at it, trying to free himself but the hook caught on his back and he gasped.

Micah stared at him in equal surprise and shock. He had run him through! He really had done it!

"Brother." Daemon started.

Micah was staring at him, the realization coming over him as he glanced behind him at the fire.

"Don't." And Micah was tugging, swinging his weight as Daemon tugged back, trying to regain control of his torso, to use his limbs to try to resist the pull of his middle before Micah fell back with Daemon falling over him and he kicked him into the large mantled fireplace whilst on his back.

There was a mortifying scream, then Daemon trying to drag himself up as the flames licked at him. "My- My face! My beautiful face!" he screamed, grabbing at his hair and hands in shock as he began to melt. Like candles might melt under a flame, but he was falling to pieces over the hot orange. He was trying to shove himself back, but Micah was shoving him in as the flames licked at him, searing his shoulder and back, making the toned muscle slump before he shoved him all the way in and closed the glass doors with his back pressed hotly against it before grabbing another tool to shove it between the handles, locking it shut.

"AGH!" Daemon screamed in terror and frustration, turning to slap his melting hand onto the glass, the fingers oozing down and forming a puddle that nearly snuffed the fire out. His eyes were staring, two dazzling rubies almost like blood, melting from his very eyes like jewels till the golden hair fell from his head. "Micah! Micah help!" he screamed, slapping his now nub of an arm against the glass, the puddle of him oozing out from beneath the doors. "-ELP!"

Where his voice was even coming from, Micah wasn't even sure. All that could be said was that the fire turned blue for a moment, like magic ignited. A whisper of souls and then a burst of them as the fragments of men and women alike came further, pressing against the glass and then shooting up the chimney in desperate escape. Micah flinched back, shielding his face as the blinding blue light flashed, nearly burning his retinas as he fell back to the ground before it faded and all that was left was the sinewy remains of his once friend, dripping down wetly of blood, flesh, wax and crisped feathers. One single piece of white stuck out of the fireplace. A rib of Icarus. Gleaming white in the returning red.

He had killed him. He had killed Daemon. Micah shoved his hand up into his tightly crimped hair. "I killed him! I can't believe I killed him." He was laughing, sobbing almost as he closed his eyes. "Damn you. Damn you, Daemon! It didn't have to be this way!"