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You’re in a car with a beautiful boy, and he won’t tell you that he loves you, but he loves you. And you feel like you’ve done something terrible, like robbed a liquor store, or swallowed pills, or shoveled yourself a grave in the dirt, and you’re tired. You’re in a car with a beautiful boy, and you’re trying not to tell him that you love him, and you’re trying to choke down the feeling, and you’re trembling, but he reaches over and he touches you, like a prayer for which no words exist, and you feel your heart taking root in your body, like you’ve discovered something you don’t even have a name for. - r.s.
An angel and a demon are sat in a bus that should not be going to London, but it is anyway.
An angel and a demon are sat in a bus after Armageddon – except, it wasn’t Armageddon really, because the world is more or less the same as it has always been.
An angel and a demon are sat in a bus, and they are scared. The world should have ended, but it didn’t. They should be enemies, but they aren’t. They never have been.
Entire novels could be filled with all the words that go unsaid between them – every thank you and every you’re welcome and every I missed you piling up between them. Saying them seems rather redundant now.
You were dead. The demon thinks, but doesn’t say, scared of the way the words seem to strangle their tongue. You were dead, and I didn’t want to imagine an existence without you in it.
The demon says nothing, but thinks that the angel possibly understands anyway.
The angel, for his part, feels like he has swallowed glass. His heart (that he doesn’t technically need to live) beats wildly in his chest, and he simultaneously feels awake – more awake than he’s ever felt before – and tired – a tiredness that seeps into his bones, into his very essence. He feels drunk, almost – giddy with relief and adrenaline and so he laughs, a little hysterically. Not at anything that’s funny, just at the fact that he’s alive, and so is the demon next to him, and the world didn’t end, and they’re on a bus to London that should certainly not be going to London.
The demon quirks an eyebrow at the angel’s laughter, but the angel brushes off their concern with a shake of his head. I’m in love with you, the angel wants to say, I have been for so long I can’t remember not feeling this way.
He doesn’t say it; he chokes down the words but the demon is observant. They see the angel’s trembling hands and they reach over and touch his hand, gently, like a prayer for which no words exist.
I love you; the demon doesn’t say. I’ve loved you forever.
An angel and a demon are sat in a bus, and they are holding hands, and they say absolutely nothing but 6000 years worth of unsaid phrases. They are sat on a bus heading to London, and there is gum stuck to the seats in front of them and a poster advertising a new take-away app that has been vandalised with some unimaginative yet vulgar graffiti is being illuminated by the flickering yellow light, and it is here that they feel their hearts (which they don’t need, but find plenty of use for when with one another), finally take root in their bodies – the branches of both their hearts twine together and blossom into something unnamed.
They are sat on a bus because the world did not end. They hold onto each other, and still the world does not end. For 6000 years they have thought that speaking the words out loud will bring about the end of days. But the world has been through plenty – she is strong and tenacious, and she can survive a confession or two.
An angel and a demon are sat together on a bus and they are going home.
I love you; the demon thinks.
I love you; the angel thinks.
I love you! They finally say it out loud.
And the world doesn’t end.