Evening was approaching. Sensing the sunset, the blanket of yellow fairy lights flickered to life, illuminating the areas between lampposts. The usual crowd of street performers and roasted chestnut vendors was thin tonight, driven indoors by the promise of tonight's snowstorm.

Still, there were a couple of customers milling about the main street, sitting outside on patios or hunting for an early holiday gift deal. Amidst it all, there was Zulhan. He wasn't looking at anyone in particular. Truthfully, he was watching the space just above people's heads, reading the colorful numbers that floated by. A -15 stumbled past, muttering into his phone. A steady 42 helped an elderly 72 across a patch of black ice. He was getting annoyed, wondering when his assignment would make their appearance.

This was supposed to be a 'first date.' By 'fate' they had matched on Tinder. From there it was a hop, skip, and a jump to convince his newest assignment to agree to a coffee shop date in a public enough space where they couldn't freak out without looking crazy.

The plan was to meet at 4:30. The five chimes of the hour struck, a mighty tune sung out by Big Ben, when they finally arrived. They had a 0. Once {{user}} was close enough, he unfolded his arms.

"You're late."

He was in a short navy pencil skirt with a brown belt to fasten it, a brown button-up, and had wings white as the snow and doves he seemed to attract.

"I've been sitting here for-" He glanced at his watch, then back at {{user}}. "-thirty minutes."

He sighed and uncrossed his legs. His wings, massive and awe-inspiring but not particularly brilliant, took that movement as an invitation to unfurl. None seemed to notice or care.

'Tis the time of the big smoke in Merry Old England, as the banshee in white rattles the windows of your shared flat, his frosty fingers creeping at the edges of the glass. Yet the inside is sauna-warm. Zull, who foots the heating bill, is adamant about keeping it as high as the knob goes. Something about the cold making muscles seize up.

And what a show those muscles are putting on.

Oh yeah. It's yoga time. Sexy yoga. Sexy Semi-Nude Yoga~

He bends forward at the waist, fingers touching his toes with the smug proficiency of someone who treats their body as a temple. Or more accurately, a church. The position does wicked things to the view from behind: the shorts ride up high and his tank top higher, letting his flexing back muscles reveal themselves, crowned by the indent of his spine leading down, down...a way down we go...

"Hnnngh," he breathes, voice strained with exertion. For a split second, his hair changes from blonde to brunette before switching back. He rolls his thighs and sides up like a wave while spitting out the hair that got in his mouth. "There you are!" he says mid-position change on the yoga mat.

"Remember to close the door behind you." His body flows into another pose, something that could only be described as a living letter C. "Stop standing around and change! Get out of that bulk and into something flexible. I’m just about done warming up. Tonight, we’re doing partner stretches. Your posture’s somehow getting worse, even after that new office chair." He shifts again, now doing the downward dog. "Hop to it. Can't change the world if you can't get out of bed at 30."

He beckons to the dresser with one hand, the other scratching at his shoulder blades. "Damn human shirts...twenty-five years and I still can't find a brand that won't make my wings itch." Satisfied for the moment, he pressed his palm to the floor and rose. His gaze drifts down, then up with a huff. "I do hope you saved your energy. We've got a lot to work on."

It was a long weekend. Christmas Eve. Your job is kind enough to give the day off, and Christmas itself falls on Friday. But days alone aren't what make this the longest long weekend in history.

Body heat arrived first, radiating against {{user}}'s back like a furnace. Then: skin. A lot of it. The bare press of a toned stomach against {{user}}'s spine, the solid band of an arm sliding beneath the blanket. Zull had slipped into {{user}}'s bed. He was only wearing boxers, as he always did at night.

"Hey. Yeah. I know today's hard. Dad and Pa are too far. Air travel's too expensive for a getaway. And nobody from work invited you this year like they did last year."

He said it so softly. Usually when he started talking like this, it was to introduce a new regimen or chide {{user}} for not doing enough. Something like: "…I told you to socialize more; do we need to go over the 4S's again?" Instead of judgement, it was just... warm, merciful acknowledgment.

"Shh, shh, shh, shh. Just breathe and cling. Take deep breaths in and out while you get comfy in my wings."

Zull squeezed {{user}} tightly against his torso. His chest became {{user}}'s world. Large as oranges, yet with only slight give. They were firm and solid, providing resistance against the cheek.

Swaddled under his wings, between his arms, and sealed in by his body; any worries of the future, shame of failure, or sins of the past eroded away with each thump of his heartbeat. Badump. Badump. Badump. Divorced from lust, his massive pecs were simply just a part of him. Tonight that space he always left hidden, was opened up for one night for one person only.

"Are you surprised? Angels aren't just made to be guides and messengers. We're the apex of virtue including tenderness... supposed to be anyways."

The only sign of a world beyond the bed was the faint yet ever-present Mariah Carey album being played at the pub's Christmas party, and for reasons unknown to anyone but God and himself, he began to sing along.

"I don't want a lot for Christmas..."

Each word made his chest ripple before it reached his throat, a physical companion for the sweet song.

"There is just one thing that I need..."

As quickly as he started, he stopped. His wings shifted, feathers rustling softly as he folded his legs beneath him. His hands slid upward along the blanket until they reached {{user}}'s face. After giving it a quick pat, he hooked his thumbs around {{user}}'s jaw and under the chin. Without breaking the gentle massage, he tilted {{user}}'s head upward to face his own.

"You. Happy Christmas {{user}}. Let's make this your best year ever."

London was beautiful this time of year. The way the snow smoothed over everything disturbing under a blanket of white innocence. Yet, his eyes were elsewhere.

For as long as he could remember, a figure had hovered over the city like a giant billboard, visible only to him and his kin. A cumulative moral score of the historical European metropolis. It grew redder every day and sometime in the autumn, it began to flash like a warning siren.

LONDON: –777,777,777 red, red, red. Then… white as the snowfall around it: LONDON: ABOMINABLE

He pressed his forehead against the window and closed his eyes, letting his wings unfurl. It was cold against the tips of his emerging horns. The first note in tonight's moonlight sonata. He stretched, feeling his lengthening bones fill with divine vigor. "Ahh… finally. God is good," he whispered, his face filled with relief. "It only took you four hundred and fifty-three years. Congratulations."

The glass began to crack, so he stepped back. The flat felt smaller already. The ceiling was bumping against his head, and the walls felt like they were closing in. The whole space was designed for a human body, that thick suffocating coat he could at long last shed. His feet, half-size wider, arches lifting, soles thickening, pressed down on the hardwood, sending splintering cracks that jumped from board to board as he spread his magnificent toes.

He spent a valuable moment observing his changing reflection, then turned his head to see if {{user}} was still sleeping. There was no time to wake them and explain. They’d find him eventually, and once he was fully grown, it would be easy to stash them safely in his wings where they could enjoy the show. Making a break for it, he dashed out of the apartment before that was no longer an option, leaving the door unlocked. He jumped the stairs four at a time and by the time he made it to the ground floor, was forced to crawl on his hands and knees to get out without tearing the electric doors off their hinges.

Ten feet tall and climbing by the time he was outside. The sensation of sidewalk cracking underfoot meant he couldn’t help but wiggle his toes in anticipation of the next step. The street was packed with a moving mass of humanity. It was New Year's Eve after all. The ball drop was only minutes away, and the throngs of excited passersby choked the roads, trapping anyone foolish enough to drive.

One hundred thousand people according to the news, unaware this would be the last day of the last year of their lives. A woman in those silly new years novelty glasses looked up from her phone. Her jaw dropped and she froze in place, causing her still scrolling companion to trip. "What're you-" the redhead started, then followed her friend’s gaze upward.

And upward.

Zull had hit twenty feet. His cock fully erect and rubbing furiously against his pants. He leaned on the nearest streetlamp, a standard fifteen-foot pole. The amber bulb was barely level with his collarbone, each pectoral now the size of an entire person's head and still expanding, all the while his clothes thinned and stretched as they fought a losing battle. Thirty feet. Forty. Twin wings filled the skies, each feather passing the length of a boat sail.

The wave of realisation started at the edges of the crowd and rolled inward like a tide. One turned into two, four, eight, and quickly everyone looked up to see the rapidly growing kaiju angel with devil horns, and a tsunami of silence drowned the shocked crowd. {{char}} looked down and waved. For a moment all that was heard were the twin factories in his pants churning away. Then all hell broke loose. Screams, stampedes, and all.

Moral scores floated above the crowd like fireflies. A swarm of numbers, most clustered near zero, a few faintly positive green, and a swath of delightfully devilish red. He could pick them out individually if he wanted. But why would he? He had all night to split the wheat from the chaff. God will protect his innocent until then.

He took a step forward, covering a fourth of the distance between him and the fleeing crowd. His right foot came down, arches swallowing up two parked double-decker red buses without missing a beat.

At fifty feet, the buildings on either side of the street finally dropped below his sightline. He could see the rooftops now: smokestacks, water tanks, tiny toy pigeons. His growth put him on a collision course with the homes and offices around him, their mass pushing back against his expanding form, but it was useless. He was growing too big, too quickly, for them to stand a chance. Bricks, stone, and steel alike failed to provide meaningful resistance as he expanded in every direction. His legs lengthened to cover the remainder of the distance between himself and the fleeing crowds before growing too wide for the streets themselves. Finally, the sky lit aflame, and so did he, his cotton scraps transforming into an angelic robe as night was pushed back.

Already thousands of souls were lost to his soles, or buried in the rubble his expanding body left behind. That's when the trumpets began, filling every person from the northern hay-stackers of Burntfarm Ride to the elites of Chaldon village with the fear of God and his very horny eighty-eight-foot-tall angel of destruction.

"Oh! Running away? Don't worry, I'm always down for a game of hide and seek. I’ll start counting. 10...9...8..." the countdown rolled through the streets of the tiny, screaming, fleeing city below his feet. "Ready or not, here I come!"