She shouldn’t feel so comfortable with the human, Serenity thought, but she was. Oh, she was. There was something so strange, so different about Wrath, and she wanted to know exactly why she felt this way about him.

He showed up at her apartment right at 8:00. He was prompt, and she respected him for that.

“Please come in,” she took his jacket from him and hung it up.

“Still wearing the long sleeves, even inside,” he commented. She glanced down at her sleeves. She never took them off. Never. There were things Wrath didn’t know about where she’d come from, and these sleeves protected her.

“I get cold easily,” she said. A practiced lie.

“Got it. What’s for supper?” He rubbed his hands together. The gesture looked strange, like so much about John Smith. It seemed practiced, like he had trained himself to learn the gestures that normal people used, but he wasn’t quite comfortable using them yet himself.

“Fish,” she told him, and his smile dropped. Serenity laughed. “Don’t be stupid. I made steak and mashed potatoes.”

“Every boy’s favorite,” he said, and followed her over to the tiny kitchen table. She had just finished cooking when he arrived, and the table was already set. They sat down across from each other and then paused. “Do you pray before your meals?” He asked.

“That’s a personal question.”

“Sharing a meal is a personal situation, especially in your home.”

She watched him for a moment, and then nodded. She always prayed. There was never a time when she didn’t. She wasn’t sure what to say in front of Wrath, though. She didn’t know how to explain this situation to him.

“A moment of silence, then,” Wrath said, saving her the trouble of having to figure out how to act normal around him.

She nodded and bowed her head, folded her hands, and closed her eyes. She prayed, and then she just sat there for a moment. This entire situation was too strange for her. She shouldn’t have invited him over. It was inappropriate. She was his teacher, after all, yet it didn’t feel wrong.

Serenity looked at Wrath and he smiled, and then motioned to the food.

“Shall we eat?”

They started eating quietly. She looked up at him and watched how carefully Wrath cut his food. Although he’d said the meal was “every boy’s favorite,” he didn’t look like the kind of man who had grown up eating this food. He looked like he knew what it was, but he’d never tried it himself before.

He made noises of appreciation as he ate, and when he was finished, he set his silverware next to his plate. Everything he did was so…normal. He didn’t have any weird quirks. He didn’t blink too much or sniffle too loudly. He didn’t fidget. He didn’t do anything.

And that’s when it hit her.

“What are you?” Serenity asked before she could stop herself. She cocked her head and looked at him.

“What do you mean?” Suddenly, he looked a little nervous, but only slightly. “You mean, where am I from? That’s easy, I-”

“No,” she shook her head, interrupting him. “I mean, what are you? You aren’t human, are you?” She whispered because she was so shocked he’d gotten past her for so long. Her defenses really were down, weren’t they? How could she have missed this?

He wasn’t human, and that’s why everything about him was so particularly perfect.

He was trying to blend in.

“Serenity, I don’t know where this is going, but I don’t like it.” He said all the right words, but he was lying to her. She knew it. Suddenly, it all became so clear.

“Fuck me,” she muttered, pushing away from the table. She got up and started clearing the dishes from the table. She ignored Wrath as he sputtered different semi-coherent sentences. Was this for real?

“Serenity,” he began again, but she just shook her head.

“You must think I’m a fool,” she said. “It took me weeks to realize there was something strange about you. Weeks,” she repeated, shaking her head. She was so stupid. How could she not have noticed that Wrath was otherworldly? There was no way he had grown up on Earth. There was simply no way he could have dressed in this way, behaved in this way, and been a normal person on Earth.

No, he was from somewhere else, somewhere she’d never been. Maybe he was from somewhere she’d never even heard of.

The biggest problem was that Wrath looked normal. He didn’t have angelic scarring. He didn’t have scars from horns being cut off his head. He didn’t have anything. He just looked like an ordinary guy who wanted what every good, hardworking person wanted: a normal life.

“Serenity,” he tried again, and finally he sighed. “I know you’re a lost fallen, okay?”

She dropped the plate she was washing so suddenly that it landed on top of another dish and cracked. She turned around, her heart pounding in her chest. How could he know? She hadn’t heard that phrase in ages, not since she first realized there were people who hunted her kind. After Oliver’s death, there had been magic users lurking near the church where the funeral was held, and they’d been ready for her.

She had escaped, but only barely, and she’d learned quickly to hide who – and what – she was.

“Who sent you?” She asked. Was it the magic users? Were they going to capture her, once and for all? Were they going to hurt her? She didn’t have any power! There was nothing special left in her blood. The only thing that ran through Serenity’s veins was normal, average, ordinary, run-of-the-mill human A Positive.

That was it.

“Nobody,” he shook his head. “Look, I’m exactly who I said I was. I’m just a normal guy. I’m a cook, okay?”

“But you weren’t always a cook.”

“No.”

“What were you?”

“A demon.”

She gasped. It wasn’t possible. Wrath couldn’t have been a demon. It was impossible.

“You don’t have scars on your head,” she pointed out the obvious, but he just shrugged.

“I do. They’re small. See?” He tilted his head forward and shifted some of his hair out of the way. Sure enough, two small, round scars were visible beneath a mop of brown hair.

“How are they so tiny? Why are you human now? Where did you come from?”

“I came from the demon realm,” he said. “And if we’re going to have this conversation, then I’m going to need some ice cream.”