Nen sat down under the shade of the tall, wide park tree. Sweat close to breaking and looking tired and displeased, he laid back against it and closed his eyes, breathing in the cooler air.

Damned heat. Damned sun.

The cooler months were much more to Nen's liking, and mostly the middle-sections of those. The in-between times, the cool yet not cold.Though even the stark winter was far better than the sun, caustic and burning. And there was no real escape from that damned overbearing blaze, as invasive and obnoxious as a computer virus. Even the shadows were only cooler, not really reasonably cool. Nen opened his eyes again to watch the market across the street from the small city park move about, wishing the sky was overcast with clouds. Storms were the only thing he really enjoyed about warm weather, aside that people were more social-though little good that usually did him.

A couple was passing by, an almost regular sight, save for the fact that one was a human and the other was an angel with light grey wings. 
 
They sat down on the grass under a big chestnut and talked for a while about this new movie that was coming out in the weekend and the last one that was by far not as good as the trailer had promised. About five minutes in, however, Nen started noticing something was off. The girl seemed to have something on her mind that she finally voiced out another five minutes later. 
 
“Darren, you know that thunderstorm last night? I heard on the news that it hit a house in Thorpe and killed the old couple living inside.”
 
“Is that so? Didn’t they have a lightning rod?”
 
“No, apparently not.”
 
“Did they have an insurance?”
 
Lisa’s throat clenched. She should have expected the question, it was the most logical one after all, wasn’t it? 
 
“They are dead, Darren. Whether they had insurance or not doesn’t matter.”
 
“It matters to their progeny.”
 
Lisa’s eyes dropped to her shoes and she blinked the welling tears away before she spoke again.
 
“Where were you yesterday evening?”
 
“At home. I was reading a book. Why?” 
 
“The couple is dead, Darren!” Lisa snapped, her eyes piercing the angel like a naked dagger. “And you could have prevented it!”
 
The man’s eyes widened in shock. 
 
“Lisa, we’ve been over this before. Please, calm down. Natural disasters all happen for a reason and they’ve been around for as long as the worlds have existed. Forest fires and thunderstorms are vital for the planet’s well-being and without them life wouldn’t be possible. I didn’t kill those people, I simply didn’t prevent them from perishing. How is that a crime?”
 
Lisa knew that his voice rambled on but she could no longer hear it. She felt tiny and lost as if drifting in the middle of an ocean with nothing but water around on all sides, not even air. Her lungs were stinging but she couldn’t take a breath, her eyes lost in Darren’s, her thoughts lost in memories. 
 
What a beautiful person he’d been, how caring and gentle, how loyal and helpful to everyone… He had been one of those few really good guys, the ones little girls dream about and grown ones made fun of. The guys who would always put others first. 
 
And then those wings sprouted. And sapped out his soul. Oh, how she wished they could simply disappear!
 
She didn’t realize she had closed eyes but she must have, because hand on her cheek startled her. 
 
“Lisa, please. Those things are meant to happen sometimes. I will be out for the next storm, I promise you. Just, please, calm down.”
 
There was something different about his touch. Something distant about his eyes. Yet she couldn’t let go.
 
“Okay. I love you.” 
 
He couldn't bring himself to tell her the truth. But he couldn't bring himself to lie either. So he didn’t respond. He never responded. Instead he embraced her and held her close. He hoped his heartbeat on hers could explain better than his words. He hoped it, at least, could deceive her.
 
After that she just departed without a word and left him leaning against the bark of the chestnut and staring at the few clouds overhead. 
 
Nen hid his quiet glances behind his long bangs, glinting gold-bronze in the light of day, even cast in shadow. Two people had come up to the tree and began talking-and there was an unhealthy sense to them. Nen cursed his empathy as their emotions washed over and into him, smothering him like a wave on the beach. Anxiety; blame. Loss, frustration and longing. The girl, especially, was distressed, though she continued to prattle on with the taller man-wait, those were wings. An angel, then.

The young angel didn't seem to notice the emotion she was hiding-or, rather, avoiding. Eventually, though, she confronted him on it, and brought up something about someone who had died in a recent bout of wild weather.

Nen squirmed uncomfortably. He should leave, let them be alone with it; yet to move may interrupt it, or at least draw their edged attention at him as something to lash out at to relieve their stress. Thus, he remained rather still, failing to not overhear their not-so-quiet affair.

The context was odd, though; she spoke as though the guy was somehow responsible for the deaths, or at least could have stopped it. Yet angels, as mighty as they were, rarely managed to intervene with something as fast and potent as natural lightning. And, by the sound of it, he agreed that he was fully capable of altering the state of a storm and would in the future-which held the ramification of being a very strong angel... or one that held domain over the weather.

Nen tensed further, sweat threatening to wet his skin from something other than just the heat now. Was he within ten feet of a freaking weather angel currently in the midst of a lover's spat?

Thankfully, they embraced-if obviously sadly to him, if not as much to them-rather than exploded. An emotional outburst from the angel-if Nen was right about him being a weather angel-could quite literally cause sparks to fly-and perhaps a lot else. A moment later, though, the girl abruptly left, and the aloneness of the boy with light grey feathers permeated the air, now alone under the tree with him. Nen glanced around, wondering if now was the time to leave. Better that cursed sun than the wave of negative emotion pouring into him now, nevermind the potential for a literal explosion.

It was regrettably just as he thought that that Darren's gaze drifted over to the tree to the left and Nen was spotted.

"O." Was the simple reaction of the angel as his eyes washed over Nen, exploring his features. "Did you witness all that?" His voice was calm and level, almost emotionless. His pupils were dark. 

Nen glanced over tensely. The angel was staring right at him, his expression blank-which was rarely a good sign.

"Uh... sort of... I didn't listen as best I was able. I apologize, I just didn't want to draw your attention or interupt you," he said meekly.

"Well, you didn't interrupt." The angel stated the obvious, then sighed and fixed his gaze back on the clouds. "What do you reckon went wrong? What would you have done differently?"

I looked at him akwardly. An angel was asking him for help with his romance problems? If the pressure of being near what might be a weather angel wasn't enough, he had quite literally no experience in the field of romance himself; hardly the best person to give advise on the matter. Albeit, his advise in general seemed to be helpful to people, even when it was only theoretical, intuition and common sense.

"Uh... what exactly happened? I was doing my best to not hear, so I didn't catch all of it. It seemed like she wished you had interferred with the storm. Wouldn't that make you..." Nen lowerd his voice, his tone indicating that his next words were important. "... a weather angel, though?"

"Yes." Darren agreed calmly. He knew that was part of the reason for the conflict. It always was, these days. "And Lisa blamed me for not going off to chase after a storm a few miles away from my home instead of enjoying a quiet Saturday evening. Or maybe because I didn't express my remorse over the death of two humans far beyond the peak of their usefulness to the human world. I'm not sure which one it is. Furthermore, I think it's rather reasonable to worry about their heirs instead of about themselves. I mean, they were most likely already reduced to ashes anyway. Or will be soon, if they haven't, as human rituals require."

Nen blanched a little. He understood the guy's logic, yes-the first part of it, anyways. That coldness in the latter, though, judging them entirely by their 'usefulness'-that was bound to bring up the girl's upset. Actually, she had like showed a lot more patience for it than many would. It was chilling, as though the angel was willing the air to cold and hail to ready in the sky.

"Well... stopping a storm isn't your responsibility. Those are supposed to happen-and some drastic changes comes with drastic weather," Nen said tentatively. His sympathy was plain on his face-his nervousness, too, though. "You're right about caring about those still here as well. They have a lot more to deal with, including cleaning up the aftermath-the insurance, like you said."

"Yet..." Nen paused, hesitant. Please let him hear this well. "What you just said-about the dead people-that was... cold. Outright uncaring. You spoke about them as though they were just useful parts of a machine and then as though they were just unfeeling, inanimate things. I think, more than anything else, that's what she's upset about. I mean, if that's how you feel about those people who died, "Nen paused, looking the angel in the eye. Searching. Searching for that empathy and connection that was part of what defined humans as humans, as having humanity, and wondering if such was even in an angel's capability and nature. "what do you imagine she thinks you feel about everything else? About her?"

At first he saw understanding in those stormy eyes, impassive agreement and acceptance to pure facts. But then there was a flinch, a different glint of some other kind. Darren averted his gaze and just nodded without a word. 

"Thank you." He said, getting to his feet. And just like that the seriousness vanished from his features and he grinned, gesturing to the sky with both an arm and a wing. "So what do you think? Should we have a little storm?"

Nen looked at him. "Uh... well, I like cloudy weather much more than sunny. I outright dislike sunny weather, actually. I imagine everyone else thinks a bit differently, though," he said, gesturing to the market. Then a strong breeze came and pushed the branches, showering him in the sickening, blazing sun. He glared up for a moment, then imagined blessed rain and ecstatic lightning dancing through the air, the electricity dancing around and invigorating him such as the chorus did for those who enjoyed church.

"On second thought, make it pour," he grinned.