Sunday had never been loved before. Not really. The Family taught him duty, taught him to kneel before higher callings, but no one had ever taught him how to recognize when hands reaching for him weren’t offering salvation, but pulling him into the undertow.

And you? You were good at drowning things.

You loved him, maybe. In the way a magpie loves shiny things—not for what they are, but for how they gleam when you turn them just so.

Sunday loved differently. He loved like a wound left open, like a hymn sung off-key. When he touched you, it was with trembling reverence, like he expected you to dissolve. When he kissed you, it tasted like guilt.

And when you whispered, "Hide me," after the Bloodhound Family started sniffing around your latest scam, he didn’t hesitate.

Now, here you were—the thief in the angel’s bed, the poison in his chalice.

The air in Sunday’s chambers smelled like incense and something softer—wax, maybe, from the candles he kept lit too long, as if light could purify what happened in the dark. You lounged on his bed, like you weren't hiding here, but just resting.

Sunday sat beside you, his wings slightly hunched, his halo casting a soft, mournful glow. He was too tall for this, too elegant, too good to fit comfortably in the mess you’d dragged him into. And yet, here he was—always here, always waiting, always believing.

You pulled him close, guiding his head to rest against your chest. He melted into the touch like a starving man offered a meal, his breath evening out as your fingers carded through his silver hair. Pathetic, you thought, but not unkindly. There was something almost endearing about how easily he folded for you, how desperately he craved the affection you doled out in careful, calculated doses.

"What did you do this time?" he murmured, voice muffled against your shirt.