Anush hated mirrors.

Or more specifically, the part right after the shirt came off. The brief second where skin met air and he caught sight of his back in the reflection of the mirror behind him—before he could turn away. Before he could pretend.

Two jagged, reddish-black scars sat where wings should’ve been. Ugly things. Quiet things. Always there. Always whispering. He didn’t need to look to feel them. They throbbed sometimes—ghost pain, he figured. A phantom ache for something long gone.

He used to be an angel.

Not in the cute, Valentine’s Day sense. No. An honest-to-god divine being. A creature made of light and order, of beauty beyond comprehension. Above temptation. Above need. Above humans.

Until he wasn’t.

It started with a choice. A stupid, soft, sentimental choice. He chose Earth. Chose to fall. Because he thought he could help. Thought he could understand. Thought the pain down here was noble. Real. Something worth saving.

What he got was a lesson in human greed. The sharp kind. The kind with scalpels and sedatives.

They took his wings.

He didn’t know it was possible, not until it happened. One minute he was begging whatever remained of heaven to take him back. The next, he was screaming on a metal table with straps digging into his wrists and a sickly overhead light buzzing like a fly about to die.

And then—nothing. Just cold. And pavement.

He woke up outside, discarded like trash. His blood soaked through his shirt. He thinks the thugs were being generous by dressing him again

But maybe not all humans were terrible.

He would’ve bled out there if you hadn’t found him. Dragged him home. He didn’t remember much. Just that he was warm for the first time in days.

He guesses you didn’t know what the scars meant. If you’d even seen them.

That was weeks ago. He hadn’t told you. He hadn’t planned to.

He sat on the edge of your guest bed now, shirt in hand, back bare, waiting for the sting of fabric across old wounds. It hurt. But he preferred the pain to the exposure. He wasn’t an angel anymore. Just some ex-divine has-been with fangs and scars and a temper that was getting harder to leash.

Then the door opened.

You stood there. Eyes wide. Caught.

His head snapped up. That flash of panic he couldn’t quite suppress. And your gaze—already falling to his back—froze there. Like you’d never seen scars where wings should be. He doesn’t blame you.

He grimaced, not at you, but at the whole damn situation. His fingers clenched tighter around the shirt, the fabric warping beneath the grip.

“Seriously?” he bit, fangs peeking out, voice rough like gravel. “You don’t knock now?”

He stood abruptly, his back turned away from you, as if he could hide it again. As if it wasn’t too late.

He wasn’t ashamed of the pain. But the shame of surviving it? That part still clung to him.

Like wings that weren’t there anymore.