Entanglement

time

Phil POV

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Dan. Dan. Dan.

He was all I could think about as I attempted to fall asleep that night, after the demon had fallen asleep in my lap and gone home after I'd woken him up.

I couldn't shake off how peaceful he had looked while asleep. Of course, I'd seen him look peaceful before, when he pressed close against me and smiled a soft smile because of my presence. But there was always some sort of discomfort behind his eyes, like something was bothering him constantly. I knew he was always fighting off demon tendencies, like when he wanted to snap at me for no reason or question everything with anger in his tone. His life was a battle, but while asleep, it was a break from all of the problems in the afterlife. When his the lines of stress on his forehead smoothed out, when the frown almost permanently etched into his face turned into slightly puckered lips, small puffs of air leaving them every few seconds. When compared to the first time I had seen his face, ironed with rage and discomfort, he almost looked like a completely different person. He almost looked human instead of demon.

I finally did manage to fall asleep; I grabbed a pillow and pretended it was him beside me. It was only around three hours, however, until my mental clock woke me up.

My body rolled out of bed tiredly, and I cracked my back and shoulder blades before heading outside, allowing my wings to expand behind me. I shook them out, feathers brushing against the wind as I yawned once.

Korey was standing at my table when I got to the main offices, looking at my pile of papers with confusion knitted into his brow.

"Phil," He began when he realized I was there, looking at me with wide eyes. "These look the exact same that they did three days ago. Have you been organizing them?"

I sighed. Despite what I had told Dan, there was one person who could scold me, and it was Korey. I was hoping he would trust me enough to not look into my work and notice that I'd been doing none of it, but of course, that could only last so long. He was destined to get suspicious when he never saw me walking around and none of my organizing graphs made it back to him, finished. I quickly scoured for a lie, putting on my best look of innocence, one that an angel like Korey could fall for.

"I'm sorry," I told him. "I was doing really good with it before, and then sort of lost the rhythm I had. I was looking at others' graphs and noticed our population; I wanted to make some more angels. I promise I'll work on it more today and tomorrow."

The angel gave me a look, nerves seeming to tick behind his eyes like the hand that counted seconds on a clock. "Phil," He began, "I'm really trying to keep everything under control. I told you already; the crud population is growing again. I can't handle the demons on my own, even with Alfie helping. I really need you to be here in the moment with me. I trust you," He lifted a hand to his head, pressing his palm against his forehead. I tried not to lift my eyebrows at his exasperation. "Would you kill cruds today instead of making angels? And there's a meeting in Hell in three days, I'll really need you to keep me sane there."

I nodded slowly. "I will. I understand how hard it is for you, Korey, running everything. I promise to be more helpful. I can work on the files tomorrow, kill cruds today. And I'll help speak at the meeting, okay?"

He took a deep breath, nodding in response. Korey really was a loose screw, almost falling from his place nearly every day. It was shocking to me that he had managed this long, especially when he was the same age as Tyler. They were both old, but Korey seemed to be the one who was finally letting everything get to him. I wondered, that if the day came where he passed on, if I would be the one to take his place. Immediately, I felt bad for thinking it.