A/N Spawned from reading too much Maximum Ride and the season being winter. XD For an enhanced reading experience, listen to "Little Wing" By Jimi Hedrix, over and over and over again. A/N

Gin was perched on a ledge of a crumbling apartment building when it began to snow. The young man held himself close to his thin sweater and ratty jeans, his head tilted up to the looming gray sky. The flakes of snow drifted down on his face. simple brown eyes scanned the skies for life, watching hopefully for anything to fly by, a Pigeon, a Crow, Even an airplane would've made the empty air a little more lively. But no. All the birds were tucked away in their cozy nests, or flying freely in the warmth of the southern sun. Airplanes stood frozen on the chilly runways, waiting to roll back into their hangars, bracing themselves for the incoming blizzard. Nothing was in the air but the bitter wind that slashed through Gin's skin. He shivered, his chest and breath shook madly with convulsions. He held his shaking breath and scrunched up his shoulders. After a little push on Gin's part, A pair of large, black feathered wings burst from his back, smoothly slipping through the slits in his sweater.

The Angel of Angel city was cold.

His wings embraced him, forming a makeshift canopy of feathers and hollow bones. Gin sighed, pulling his wings closer to him, trying to hoard more heat near his body. He knelt there, in his soft, somewhat warmer cocoon, thinking.

An angel, huh? Heh. That's what they called him. One blurry, misplaced shot in the sky, and the newspapers christened him an angel. He saw paintings of angels, with their perfect, white wings, blessing the innocent and striking down the damned. There was always more than one, literal legions of winged people, flying across the canvases of old paintings. They flew through clouds bursting with sunlight, always warm, always in the light, appearing as perfect, incorruptible bodies..

Gin wondered if anyone would paint him like this. A lonely "Angel" with black, soot covered wings, shivering on top of a decaying building while the cold winds turned his wings into icicles. Probably not. From what he saw, people preferred to see angels as pure and god-like, as if having wings automatically made him perfect.

The "Angel" didn't know what the fuss was about, the only power he ever had was to skip the crowded commutes between the streets of the city. Being able to fly wasn't going to keep him any warmer than he was right now. He wasn't blessed by God. He's never done anything good to the innocent, he's never struck anyone evil down... Gin wasn't an angel by any means. He was like any other child left in the streets, scared, abandoned, lonely. There was only one man who helped him through life, and now he was gone too.

That man's name was Whiskey. A black man with no last name. Gin owed that man his life. If anyone was an Angel, he was. Everything he knew was because of Whiskey, everything from reading and writing, to playing the guitar. God, how Whiskey played that guitar, he had the fingers of Hendrix and the oily, singsong voice that came with it. He never signed onto a record label or had any albums, just going by each day with a new gig in some fancy cafe or restaurant, getting barely enough to paying the rent. The man was amazing. Only reason he never went big was that he was a "True musician" that he lived to play music, he never lived to make money, or anything like that. He was happy with every chord he made, with every note he played, to be happy, he said, was enough.

But now he was gone. Dead. And now, Gin had nothing. He tried playing Whiskey's gigs, he just couldn't couldn't capture that magic the man had, and he was turned away for another show. With no money to pay the rent, he didn't have a home. With Whiskey gone, he had no one to talk to. All he had were the clothes on his back, a rusting mini-amp, and Whiskey's old Gibson with it's fraying strings. The remnants of a true musician.

He pulled his pale, featherlight body up, and unfolded his wings. Gin needed to move, or he was going to end up as an ice block.

Something in the sky caught his eye. Gin gasped.

"No way."

It seemed like a large bird from a distance, but as it got closer, Gin realized that this wasn't just any bird.

There was someone flying. Someone just like him.

His heart jumped. All the cold seemed to dissipate from his body, powered by the maddening desire to meet whoever was in the air, to know that he wasn't the only Angel in the city.