Chapter Text
To be a guardian angel means to teach about what's right to those who seem to be blindly walking towards a path of bad decisions.
To be a guardian angel means to know and do what's best for the person in your care.
You may feel the weight of white wings being carried by your back but to be an angel you must remember:
Selfish feelings are out of the table.
A loud sigh came out of Isaac's mouth as he flopped down onto the sofa next to the girl sitting on one of the corners.
“Ooh, that doesn't sound good. All nighter today too?”
“We went to some party one of his friends did. God, being with so many people inside a house makes you get a headache. I don't know how he enjoys this.” He rubbed his eyes, hearing the brunette chuckle beside him.
Who was 'he'? You may ask. Well, you'll need to know first that, some years ago, Isaac had been a guardian angel "in practice", under the teaching of Mr. Spender, an experienced guardian angel. He shared his classes with Isabel, who had bonded with him over their shared hate for boring classes.
And finally, two years ago, after studying practically all their life to earn the title of guardian angel, they had been assigned a human to look over.
But the thing was, Isaac still was a teen who had to go to school, and have classes, which came with having tests, and exams, and essays. And sometimes Isaac couldn't handle everything.
Now, he didn't have any right to say how the head angels had to do their work and pick the guardian for each human. But if Isabel got a nice guy you would think they thought "well, let's give the other new guardian someone easy to handle too", right? Oh, no. Isaac had to look over him. Maxwell Puckett. Maxwell Puckett with his piercings, and know it all personality, and his bad habit of picking the worst friends to hang out with.
Well, maybe that was dramatic, but the first few months definitely weren't easy. He may had spent 18 years of his life studying on how to be a guardian angel but they never taught him how to start talking to the person under your care, specially if that person was one of Mayview's High School punks. Even before starting all this, Isaac had heard of the guy, he seemed to be in some of his classes too but he rarely showed up. Isaac was already dreading how he'll convince the guy to actually go to class. But first, he had to know where to find him.
Isaac soon realised he'll need to go to the parties Max never failed to attend and keep an eye on him while trying to look like he was there by his own free will. And he really wasn't keen on teenage parties, specially the one's that came with alcohol.
But then, one day, above all the music and through the figures of teenagers dancing to the rhythm, Max had caught him staring and Isaac didn't know what to do besides looking away from those grey eyes, quickly turning to his beverage, which was only carbonated apple juice. He didn't have a plan, he always thought he would be watching over the guy without the need to introduce himself.
He wasn't expecting Max to walk towards him and actually start talking to him. Sometimes he wondered if he looked that uncomfortable and out of place that the brunet decided to have pity on Isaac.
And Isaac didn't expect it but they clicked quite easily and he realised he shouldn't have felt intimidated by Max at all.
Since that day everything was more enjoyable and in the last two years, he learned that Max was the best example of the saying: 'you shouldn't judge a book by it's cover.'
Max was caring even if he tried to hide it, he cared about his family and his friends, which Isaac was happy to realise he had become part of, a lot.
Max was a nerd. He kept comic books all around his room and loved to play video games even though he would deny it if you mentioned it anywhere outside his room.
Max was smart when he actually decided to give his attention in class. Though Isaac still didn't understand how the guy's grades were so good while he didn't attend to class once a week. Well, he was proud that he at least attended now, before Isaac came into scene Max managed to be nearly a week without showing up to class.
Max was so many more things than part of "Mayview High School's punks" and Isaac was so glad he had this knowledge.
And now, here he was, back from a party he and Max had attended. Because even though Max didn't go to parties as much as he did since Isaac met him, he still needed to enjoy the night every once in a while. And Isaac couldn't say no when the brunet asked him to come with him. Yeah, maybe he spent too much time with the brunet but Isaac liked to think he was doing this because he took his duty seriously.
Isaac came back from his thoughts when he felt Isabel tugging the front side of his hoodie looking at the letters in it. 'Insolent Children' it said. “...And these clothes?”
He snorted and rolled his eyes reminiscing. “He pushed me into a pool.” The girl beside him cackled. “I stayed at his place so he lend me...” He looked down at himself, trying to restrain the smile that was growing on his lips. ”This.”
“Aww, that's cute.”
“How's Ed?” Isaac changed the subject before the girl could comment about the blush creeping across his face.
And based by the smile the girl quickly showed, she was more than happy to talk about the guy under her care. “He is fine! Everything alright except he had a history test to study for tomorrow.”
Isaac snickered. “So you helped him study history?”
She shrugged. “It was still a problem that I could help solve.” Her brown eyes glinted with amusement, giving even more life to the smile she wore. “Besides, that's what friends are for.”
“Isabel” Heavy steps hitting against hard wood was heard around the room, until an old man, Francisco Guerra, came into view. ”You should know by now you'll never be a head angel if you don't think of this as a duty. Being a guardian angel isn't a game. It shouldn't be fun.”
Isaac swallowed while Isabel growled at the man's words. That was another thing, if your superiors thought you were doing your job good enough, and your human started to show they didn't need your assistance anymore, they'd "promote" you. Isaac wanted to think he was doing as good as he could, but there were moments where he caught himself wishing he stayed like this forever.
He enjoyed himself when he was with Max, all the parties, every time it was just the two of them talking about nothing in particular, all the times he was the one learning something new from Max. Isaac cherished every moment with him, he wouldn't change any of that.
Isabel crossed her arms. “Grandpa, how am I supposed to look over Ed if I'm not his friend.”
“You studied for years to learn that. You and your friend better be doing your job right.”
Before Isabel could say anything, the doorbell rang and Francisco went to open it. A blond man in glasses stood in the other side of the door.
“Good morning, master.”
“It might be good for you. I am done with all of you fiddling around my house for years now.” Investigation day, as Isabel liked to call it. It was done once a week and it consisted in the angels around the neighbourhood, in this case: Isaac, Isabel, Spender, (and sometimes Zarei, an experienced guardian angel just like Mr. Spender, if she wasn't too busy with her actual job as a doctor) getting together in the head angel's house to talk about how their progress with the person they looked over was going.
The blond man scratched his cheek. “Well, there's nothing I can do about that as those are rules but-...”
“Do you really want to talk about rules with me, Richard?” The man hissed between his teeth.
The blond coughed and his head quickly turned to the pair sitting on the sofa. “Hello, students! How has your day been?” Spender nervously squeezed his way through the doorway and entered the living room, getting a greeting from both teens.
“Sir, you stopped being our teacher years ago. I think you can stop calling us your students now.” The girl said while the ginger scooted more over to her side to give more space in the sofa.
As he sat, Spender looked at Isaac and raised his eyebrows in surprise. “Isaac, you have big eye bags today.” The ginger groaned and covered his face with his hands as the girl laughed beside him. Spender smiled sympathetically. “I sure hope yesterday's work went well.”
“He is alive and well. Basically everything I'm not right now.” He said slightly moving his face from his hands to talk before going back to his defeated stance.
“Huh? But we aren't dead per se, we've talked about this.”
“Oh, I assure you Isabel, my soul says otherwise.” He answered, voice muffled against his hands.
“Enough. I'd like to finish this as soon as possible since you two have actual classes to attend to in a few minutes.” Francisco pointed at Isaac and Isabel as he positioned an individual chair in front of the three before walking towards one of the house's rooms and coming back with a red book in his hands.
The Eightfold, in it's first pages written every rule regarding the angel's world and as you kept reading, the history of every angel that has laid foot on Mayview. That was as much as Isaac knew about it since their superiors kept things mostly a secret to younger angels.
The man took a pencil from in the table between them and opened one of the pages, starting to write something in it, Isaac supposed it was today's date but then the man raised his gaze from the book and looked at him with his narrowed eyes before continuing, and the ginger hoped he wasn't taking note on his clothes. “You go first, boy. How have these last weeks been?”
Isaac swallowed. Right, what should he tell? “Max has been-... I mean, Maxwell Puckett has been keeping up his good progress so far.” Yeah, that sounded... Accurate.
“Do you count being surrounded with bad relationships and bad habits as progress?” The man asked lifting an eyebrow.
“No, I count being able to get amazing grades and actually caring about your studies a progress.” He answered imitating the man's expression, before going wide eyed realising who he just shot back to.
Francisco hummed. “Good job, then.” He commented an wrote down in the book as Isaac coughed in his hand and looked at Isabel who seemed to be way too amused with this. “Isabel.”
She straightened her back from her position in the sofa and mocked a military salute. “Edward Burger seems to be starting to have more confidence in himself and keeps on progressing.” She grinned. “Of course, you shouldn't have expected anything else from me since I'm the best guardian angel in this place.” She snickered at Isaac who smiled back and rolled his eyes.
Guerra muttered something unintelligible under his breath as he wrote down on the book. Then he looked at the Spender and Isaac felt how the atmosphere changed, or now that he thought about it, maybe that was just him. He's been really nervous lately. “Spender” The blond quickly raised his gaze from the floor. “How has your human been?”
“He... Garcia's fine, as always. Didn't find any problems these past days.” He answered, his hands tangled while rubbing his thumbs together.
Francisco nodded. “Are you okay too?”
The blond smiled but Isaac could see his forehead beginning to sweat. The ginger raised an eyebrow. Something was up. “Why wouldn't I be?”
Francisco suddenly closed the book loudly, making all the people sitting in the sofa jump. “Well, all of you can go now. Have a nice day.” Isabel and Isaac got up, both walking towards where their backpacks were. “And take care of your wings.” Isaac did a quick turn, wide eyed. The subject about anything happening to an angel's wings was taboo. Angel's wings weren't supposed to break, they were a symbol, a mark that you carried to remember what you are. If even a single feather dared to start falling, it meant bad news for it's owner. Did he know-?! “Spender, before you go I need to talk to you.”
False alarm.
Sighing relieved, Isaac put his hands inside the pocket of his hoodie, clutching onto the feather he kept inside it.
The sound of water splashing everywhere brought back Isaac from his wandering mind. He raised his gaze from the floor without remembering when he had let himself get lost in his thoughts. Apparently enough to give Max time to take his clothes off, only leaving his jeans on, and jump into the big pool that was in the backyard.
“Max! What are you doing?!”
“Is that a rhetorical question or are you blind?”
Isaac sighed taking a couple of steps closer to his friend who kept calmly swimming around the pool.
It was just another night of partying, this time it was in the house of one of Max's friends, her name was Violet if Isaac remembered correctly. Apart of her name, the ginger didn't know anything more about the girl but apparently she didn't have any problem with him being there, so there they were.
It has probably been an hour or two since they arrived, and Isaac though he had this controlled. Of course, he didn't expect a party inside a house to be the same as one in the open air. But he wasn't expecting to feel as overwhelmed as he was feeling with a huge crowd of people and the loud music surrounding them either.
He didn't know when Max had guided him through the swarm of people to the house's backyard, but he sure felt extremely thankful for it.
“Get out of there. We don't even know if Violet lets us do this.”
Max scoffed. “Violet won't mind.” He swam to the border of the pool, resting his arms on them. “Plus she is in like, her fourth tequila shot so...” Isaac couldn't help but chuckle at that, he sat on the floor watching Max swim around the water for a while. “You're going to sit there all day?”
“Huh?”
Max rolled his eyes. “Get in here, you party pooper.” He raised his arms and splashed them on the water.
Isaac instantly clutched to the sleeve of his jacket, feeling the presence of his folded wings against his back. “It's too cold to be doing this, Max. I'm not taking off my clothes.” Well, he wasn't wrong. The weather had been really cold these last few days.
Clicking his tongue, Max splashed water with his arms to the outside of the pool, drenching Isaac right on one side of his pants. Isaac frowned at Max shit eating grin. “Oops.”
Isaac sighed and got up to take off his shoes hearing Max's cheers in the background. “I'm just going to put my feet in the pool. Don't get the wrong idea.”
“Yeah, yeah.” Max swam back towards the border of the pool, following Isaac with his gaze and snickered when the ginger sat quietly beside him, only submerging his legs enough to let the water touch around his calves and also wet the cuff of his jeans.
Isaac was calmly moving his legs around the water when he looked at Max who wore a mischievous smirk in his face as he swam closer to Isaac's legs. The ginger lifted an eyebrow, following Max with his eyes, not liking at all that look. By the time he felt Max's hands grip onto one of his ankles it was too late. “Don-!” Isaac held onto the floor, using all the strength he had in his arms to balance the force of Max pulling his leg, making him slide more and more into the pool. “I'm going to kill you! I swea-!” Isaac fell into the pool, hearing Max's cackles even inside the freezing water.
Isaac felt the weight of his drenched wings in his back, luckily they weren't as heavy as he expected, he just hoped Max didn't notice him struggling to carry them. He swam back to the surface, taking a deep breath as he did and hearing Max's laugh non-stop.
“Oh god, you look like a cat that just had a shower.” The brunet said between laughs, putting his arms around his stomach.
“I hate you, I hate you, I hate you.” He kept repeating that mantra as he tried his best to swim towards Max who, still laughing, raised his arm as if keeping him from doing his murderous act. It didn't help much since Isaac managed to get a grip on his shoulders which he pushed with all the strength he could, immersing the brunet completely into the water.
Isaac smiled victoriously until he felt Max hold onto one of his legs again to mess with his balance, making his feet slip in the pool's floor and fall back in the water as he tried not to laugh.
For some minutes it was just that, a party going on barely thirty feet away from them, the music and the sound of the people inside could be heard even from the backyard that only the two of them were in without a care in the world, fighting between laughs to submerge each other inside a pool that didn't even belong to them.
Isaac impulsed himself out of the pool, holding onto the border and he let his back hit the floor. He stayed there, panting and looking at the starry night sky. He heard Max swim towards him and he dreaded he might feel the pull on his leg again, he sighed in relief when saw the brunet getting out of the pool too and lay next to him on the floor, with a smile on his face.
They stayed like that, in silence for just a moment.
“Have you ever been to the beach?” Max had asked out of nowhere, breaking the silence. Isaac shook his head. He has never left Mayview, wasn't thinking about leaving either. “We have to go to one someday. Without drenching our actual clothes this time.” He said and Isaac smiled, he couldn't help but feel happy every time the brunet added him to his plans. Going to the beach would be impossible for him, this time in the pool was already challenging enough. But it was nice to dream.
“You owe me new clothes.” Isaac commented, without moving his gaze from the sky.
He heard Max snort. “If you had gotten inside the pool like I told you to, it wouldn't've come to this.”
“You're impossible.”
Max propped his head in one hand and Isaac couldn't help but notice how the water droplets that covered his body made his skin shine under the moonlight with every move he did. “You love it.”
Isaac smiled and jumped when he felt a slight tug on one of his wings. He pretended to be scratching his back, trying to feel what had happened. His heart skipped a beat when he felt a loose feather inside his jacket. Angel's feathers weren't supposed to fall. Long time ago Spender taught them that angel's wings were extremely resistant and in rare occasions anything would happen to them, occasions the teacher didn't tell. "Because guardian angels wouldn't have their wings broken if they know how to do their job right."
So then why...?
“You okay?”
Isaac discreetly hid the feather inside his pocket. He'll need to ask Mr. Spender later.
“Yeah, it's just freezing out here.”
Max snickered and got up from the floor. “Yeah, we should probably go now. You want to go to my place? I could give you dry clothes.”
Isaac groaned as he walked towards his shoes, the only thing that he saved from getting wet. “I hate your clothes. They're full of band names I don't recognise.”
“I hate that you've never been to an Insolent Children concert live and you don't see me whining about it.”
Isaac's complains followed Max as they walked towards the fence they'd have to jump over to get out of the backyard. It wasn't really a good idea but Isaac didn't think the party people would like them to get inside the house drenching the whole place anyways.
Isaac knew eavesdropping wasn't a good idea, and it became a horrible idea when it was his superiors he was eavesdropping. But in his defence, he needed to talk to Spender, he wasn't expecting for Francisco to close the door behind him as he and Spender entered the room. So the ginger waited for Spender to come out... While having his right ear pressed against one side of the door.
“I would be grateful if you restrained yourself from making your comments about... My condition with other people present, specially in front of my students.”
“Good, you should be ashamed of yourself.” Then, there was a long silence and for a moment Isaac dreaded the door in front of him might open. “Have you made your decision yet?”
“I don't think I can-”
“Have you made your decision yet, Spender?” Isaac frowned. He wasn't understanding a word. What were they even talking about?
“...I have.”
“Isaac!” The ginger nearly jumped out of his skin, hearing Isabel's call a few feet away from him. “You comin' or not?” Oh, right. High school awaited.
Isaac gave one last look at the door before running to walk beside his friend. He'll find time to ask Mr. Spender later.