Albaer got dressed, choosing another pair of tan shorts and a plain black t-shirt before emerging to the main room. “Make sure you leave enough food for my mother to get a serving… you know, if she wants some. She usually eats at work, but I like to leave something for her.” To the relief of angel and demon alike, he wore a smile on his face and he had a spring in his step. Behind him he was dragging the chair from his desk and he yanked his arm forward, the wheels didn’t carry it far, but it stopped right at the table nonetheless, to within an inch or two from where he wanted it.

“So, food?” He asked, glancing over to where the blushing angel was nearly done.

She piped up a little higher pitched than she needed to, “Yes! Just a second! Raz, put bowls on the table, will you?”

Raziel gave her sister a double take as if to ask, ‘What happened in there?’ before reaching for the bowls and spoons and taking them to the table. No answer was forthcoming, not even by facial expression, which only deepened Raziel’s curiosity. But she let it go for the moment.

The bowls felt strange in Raziel’s hand, far smoother than the wooden bowls she was familiar with, with bright colors and bendy, flexible material that gave when she pressed her fingers against it. She folded her wings around her body and after laying a bowl with a spoon down at each place, she sat.

“So…” Albaer asked congenially, “did you do anything fun while I was gone?”

“Video games and reading… nothing remarkable. Your world though, what great evil are you trying to seal? Can I ask that?” Lialah asked and shuddered while she set the pot down between them.

“I’m sorry, I don’t understand.” Albaer replied while she took their bowls up one by one and ladled stew into them.

The meat and potatoes fell with wet plops that showed how thick the stew was, and steam rose with the succulent smell of a well made meal. Albaer inhaled the scent, closing his eyes while he took it in, and three bellies rumbled at once.

“That’s why your world has all these wars, right, you’re trying to create heroes?” She asked, and shut her mouth at a glare from Raziel.

“You’re still not making any sense.” Albaer replied offhandedly before putting the first spoonful in his mouth. An explosion of flavor hit and his mouth watered even more than before, his eyes widened in disbelief.

“Are you sure you’re an angel… and not a goddess of cooking?!” He offered the praise and immediately shoved his spoon back into the bowl and drew it up to his mouth for another bite.

“You’re far too generous, I’m not that good.” She said, and shifted the subject, “I was just reading about history, that’s all. Your world is complicated, confusing, magic is everywhere but nowhere. Your computer, that one thing is worth more than-” Lialah shook her head in dismay while unthinkingly looking back toward the tool.

“Anything!” Raziel filled in the gap and charged ahead with her own inclinations, her eyes sparkled, her talon tipped fingers interlocked, “I’ve been reading all about your game designers, they’re like gods creating whole worlds. No wonder we were fooled into thinking Kami was a real person, such a rich story… we never imagined something like this!”

From there Raziel leaned back in her chair, her arms wildly gesturing while Albaer helped himself to another bowl, and then another.

Until she came to another thing that stopped him dead. “And by the way… why did you make Kami the way you did?”

“Sorry, what?” Albaer asked with his cheeks stuffed with stew.

“He’s a fighter and a mage, and he has some crazy destructive powers, I-” Raziel couldn’t blush, but she folded her hands into her lap and looked down sheepishly with fluttering dark eyelashes, “peeked at your character a bit. Your quest log.”

“That goes against the gamer code, you know.” Albaer didn’t really glare, it was a little invasive, but not the same as reading a diary.

“Yeah… I figured that when I felt guilty snooping. But your character quest log, you made him some all conquering force of nature… so how come? How come you wanted that when you won’t even protect yourself?” Raziel asked, and then snapped her jaw shut when she felt a pinch on her leg from her sister.

“What my sister means Albear,” Lialah interjected, “is she’s wondering why you enjoy all that fake violence, but you just go with it happening in the real world?”

Albaer’s expression changed, the luster in his eyes was gone, and Raziel realized how badly she’d overstepped.

“Forget I asked, I’m sorry, that was rude. Please accept my apology.” Raziel said and bowed her head to him.

“Do you think I like this? I don’t. I don’t want to get hurt, I don’t want to come home beat up every day. I hate them. I hate them all so damn much… the teachers, the students, my former friends, the administrators… I… hate them… but what can I do? I’m one guy. If I don’t defend myself it ends faster, if I just let them do what they want to me, it ends and I can go away. And my mom, she always said to be good and don’t fight. Just be good and people will like you, just be good and you won’t be alone, just be good and you can make friends. Everything will be fine, just fine, fine, just fine if I just don’t do anything bad.”

He wasn’t really paying any attention to them anymore, he was looking down to the scraps of remaining stew in his bowl. “If I don’t do anything bad, everybody will see that I’m good… they’ll see I’m not my dad and don’t deserve this… then mom and I can have friends again, be happy again. I can’t have dad back… but we can have real lives… just as long as I don’t do anything to anybody and put up with whatever they do. The pain always stops eventually…”

“Kami helps me put up with it all, I can blow off steam by blowing things up in the game. I can pretend it’s Jason that I’m throwing off a cliff after setting him on fire. I can pretend it’s Trevor that is running away from me. I can pretend it’s Lisa who is trying to apologize… as long as I can pretend, I’m fine.”

The table was quiet.

Albaer raised his head. “Wow, I never realized how pathetic that sounded until I said it out loud and heard it with my own two ears.” He huffed, “Pathetic. All I’m trying to do is act the way my parents, particularly my mother, want me to, and it’s made me pathetic.”

He dropped the spoon back into his bowl, it landed with a wet smack into some of the few juices left behind at the bottom, and then Albaer folded his fingers together and brought his hands up to his mouth, leaning his face forward against his fingers with his arms propped up on the table at the elbows. He stared seemingly at nothing for a short time while Lialah and Raziel stared down and ate quietly. Only the noise of their spoons striking plastic bowls sounded within the little apartment.

“You’re not pathetic!” Raziel said and dropped her spoon in the same way. “You’re not pathetic, or gutless, or anything else.”

“I didn’t say I was gutless… or anything else.” Albaer said, dropping his hands down and leaning back in his chair.

“But you were thinking about it.” Raziel deduced, “You took in two strangers who in your world, shouldn’t even exist. I know your world’s mythology about my race. By all rights you should have automatically thought the worst of me.” She bit her lower lip hard enough to draw a tiny bit of blood that hissed when it was exposed to the air. “But you didn’t. You let us stay here when it would be a whole lot easier for you to just throw us out and forget us, and when I thought terrible things of you, things I shouldn’t have, and asked you… you forgave me. Those aren’t things just anybody could do!”

Albaer found the contents of his bowl very fascinating at that moment, or so it looked when he wouldn’t meet the ruby eyes that stared at him so intensely.

“My overly blunt and overly detailed sister is right.” Lialah said, she clung to her spoon, wrapping it in her slender fingers with such intensity that it began to crumple in her hand.

“Your world is as cruel and violent as you warned us, I’ve only barely scratched the surface, but the weapons you use are beyond anything I’ve ever seen. We got lucky with you, so don’t be so down, okay?”

Albaer exhaled heavily through his nose, “Yeah, yeah you’re right, excuse me for bringing the mood plummeting so suddenly. I’m luckier than a lot of people. I still have my mom, and you two are great company even if you’re a bit odd.”

“As if we couldn’t be.” Raziel smirked.

“What she said.” Lialah added and crossed her arms in front of her chest in a huff and looked away with obviously exaggerated haughtiness.

“Let’s see about getting you some things to wear, yeah? What do you say?” Albaer said and rose from the table. “I don’t have much but-”

Raziel’s hand moved faster than his eye could follow, two of her fingers covering his lips and a warm, affectionate smile on her face that exposed the row of sharp fangs. “Albaer, don’t apologize for giving us a gift. Whether it’s a copper or a gold piece, we didn’t do anything for it, and it will make us more comfortable, so thank you. Thank you very much.”

Albaer blinked several times, breathing against the hard red fingers of the succubus, he mumbled out, “Mmkahy…” And blushed.

The others rose from the table and followed him into his bedroom. He sat down at the computer while the sisters leaned on his shoulders, they didn’t weigh very much, but despite the softness of their skin there was a solidity underneath that made him think vaguely of granite.

He signed in, opened a browser, and cleared his throat while trying not to think of the radiant pair so close to him, and trying really hard not to notice their cleavage in the reflection of the computer monitor in front of him. He coughed into his hand, cleared his throat, and opened up several more tabs. “I don’t really know what you want in terms of clothing… but here are some popular sites. This one sells what we call ‘goth’ material, this one stuff for teenage girls, this one just something of everything. Try to get two sets of each. I can’t get you much, but it’s better than nothing.”

“Albaer… stop doing that.” Lialah said and put a hand under his chin, she turned his face up toward him, “Again, we’re thankful for what you’ve done. Please,” she blinked her eyes several times in rapid succession, “we’re not demanding, this is already heartbreakingly kind just based on what you went through to get this for us. We’ll do our best to buy cheap and leave some left over.”

“Sorry.” He said to her, “It’s just what I’m used to… just, I’ll let you shop. I’m going to take a few minutes and go for a walk.”

“It’s fine.” Lialah smiled, let go of his chin, and both she and her sister moved to allow him to leave them in peace.

As he walked out, he heard Lialah say, “Alright Raz, you go first.” Then he shut the door and heard only muffled chatter before he walked to take in the evening air, the warm breeze, and the quietly ending, eventful day.