disclm: no mine. D: would be gayer if mine,

a/n: this is horribly flawed. i know. that selloyd bug bit me late at night, and this resulted. i'm sorry for raping your fandom.

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Colette is the Chosen. Zelos is the chosen. Lloyd doesn't know if that's possible, but he figures it is, because they've both got wings and that's something otherwise reserved for angels. But sometimes, when he's tired and lying awake at night and his brain's even less there than normal, he compares them.

Colette, he reasons, actually is an angel, so it makes sense that she's sweet and trusting and ever-forgiving. His two a.m logic ignores her ditzy, klutzy self, which she is slowly shedding, anyway. He likes angels; he likes Colette. They smile and hold hands and are generally awkward, to the amusement of everyone around them. It aggravates him sometimes, because they read into everything so much, and Colette doesn't stop smiling.

Zelos is the same way, and it upsets Lloyd just as much. He wants to sit the two of them down and explain, slowly, that even he sees through it and that the façade doesn't work anymore. He doubts Colette would change anything, just brighten and harden until she's like a diamond. Zelos, too, will only harden the mask and add another coat of paint until he suffocates. No one will stop Colette, because everyone is waiting to catch her when she falls, and they all see through her; she is not made for deception.

But Zelos is someone to worry about. Lloyd knows that everyone is content to believe in him, too repulsed to dare to look beneath, or too angry to care. Zelos isn't an angel, by any stretch of the imagination, but he holds his own against Colette is Lloyd's mind. He uses his own standards and his own measurements and conducts this contest every sleepless night. It always ends the same way, because he knows who he loves and who he's supposed to love, and all the pieces fall nicely into place. As he drifts asleep he wonders when it will stop, if it will ever stop,

how many times he must compare those two and let her win, before he admits the truth.