Written for comment_fic on livejournal

With Nathan, it was so different. So fast. He expected it to be windy but Nathan moved so quickly that there was a pocket of air around them, and they always landed well-put-together, with perfect hair and clothes.

The take-offs were especially scary. Faster than a rocket launch. More like a bullet. Angel would cling tight to Nathan, keeping his wings close to his body to prevent drag. He wondered if this is what it felt like to the people he had picked up and flown around - if they felt this surge of exhilaration and fear and dependence.

It was always the same, though, with Nathan. After a few gorgeous, seductive words, would drip from his gorgeous, seductive mouth, Angel would indulge all of Nathan's wants, his quirky preferences. He made it a competition of course, convincing Angel that everything they did should be done twice, once with Angel carrying him, once with him carrying Angel. And Angel played along, allowed Nathan to make him feel like he had to live up to Nathan's standards. Because Nathan generally went from too-sexy-to-resist to asshole and back again, and though Angel knew it was manipulation, this knowledge was no real defense from it.

But occasionally Angel would get a smile out of him, and not the predatory kind (which Angel also loved) but a sweet one, a silly one even. When Angel would gently brush the edge of his panel of white feathers on Nathan's face, the sweet tickle would actually make the guy smile. For a second.

But Nathan was fast. Too fast for a pair of wings to keep up with. So when Nathan left for who-knows what reason and for who-knows how long, Angel would watch him take off and try to remember that jolt of how it felt when Nathan would carry him into the sky, the sudden unnatural swerve against gravity, the disorienting thrill of being mere cargo in another man's flight.