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All things told, a supernatural being shedding feathers on his couch wasn’t the worst thing that happened this evening. It’s third, though, following close behind “supernatural feathery being spilling wine on his favorite couch” and “the worst date of his life.”
Justin just wanted to watch Planet Earth, okay? Maybe order some takeout if that wasn’t that too much to ask. He drops his keys on the little table by the door and sighs loudly.
“This may as well happen,” he says. “Adult life is already so goddamn weird.”
The feathery being says, “Are you allowed to say that? I thought you’d get sued or something.”
Which is ironic, considering Justin really wants to sue this guy for breaking and entering. Or maybe throw him out himself. Justin crosses his arms and sizes the being up as best he can and then decides maybe this can be a freebie break-in. The heavenly glow surrounding and blurring the dude’s face, body, and wings is a big deterrent.
“Who the hell are you,” Justin says, “and why the hell are you in my living room.”
The feathery dude says, “I’m Cupid. Not from hell though. Wrong direction.”
Justin laughs. “No fucking way.”
“Fucking way,” Cupid says, frowning. “You’re gonna get my ass fired if you don’t fall in love by the end of the year, and this is the only job with wing maintenance benefits I’ve found in legit millenia, and you are so not fucking this up for me.”
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Justin settles on the shorter end of the L-shaped couch with a beer and some chips and a little bowl of guac while Cupid goes on about halo benefits and how they differ from harp benefits and how expensive it is to properly maintain wing tips. He’s floating a few inches off the cushions, Justin notices now. He is still too dazzling to look at properly.
“—so you gotta do it,” Cupid says. He pours another cup of wine and downs it in under two seconds before clapping his hands briskly. “What apps are you on? What pictures do you have? Show me what we’re working with.”
“Hold on,” Justin says. “Can we like. Back up to the fact that you exist and have wings and are in my apartment?”
A little puddle of feathers floats on an upstream Justin is fairly certain doesn’t exist.
Cupid huffs. His massive wings flutter above his head, almost touching the ceiling. “What about this is hard to understand.”
“All of it?” Justin waves his hand to encapsulate the everything about the situation. “Can you start with why I’m your responsibility or something?”
There’s a pause where Cupid’s wine glass refills without either of them touching the bottle or the glass. He kinda really wishes he could see Cupid’s outline; something about talking to a faintly human ball of light is difficult on both his head and his eyes.
“Let me start from the beginning,” Cupid says finally. His voice suddenly has an aura of importance about it. Justin sits up almost unconsciously. “So. Everyone has a guardian angel, right?”
“Naturally,” Justin says.
Cupid narrows his eyes. “For someone who believes in ghosts, you sure are making this harder and more annoying than it needs to be.”
“Ghosts aren’t—?”
“As I was saying,” Cupid says loudly. “Everyone has a guardian angel. It’s a perfect one to one ratio except when there are twins, and then it’s just a hassle for everyone involved, and it’s all long court cases and shit like that so really it’s lucky you aren’t a twin, there’s a lot more to it than that—”
Cupid goes on about logistical nightmares for twins for another five minutes. Justin accidentally yawns somewhere around the third example, leading Cupid to apologize in a very non-apologetic way, and then he goes on another tangent about the time he helped the writers of 30Rock figure out how to write Liz Lemon’s romance plots.
“But I digress.” Cupid steeples his fingers and levels Justin with a stare that he thinks might actually blind him if he stares back for too long, so he glances at one of his dying plants instead. “We ended up all pulling double duty because of the population boom, so I’m in charge of getting everyone to fall in love and of your sorry ass. And you’re making my bosses think I can’t do my job because all your dates recently has sucked. Like. Disastrously so.”
That stings. “Thanks for that,” Justin says. “That can’t be all my fault though. If you’re in charge of everyone falling in love you could’ve gotten my date to fall in love with me, right?”
“It doesn’t work like that,” Cupid says. His wings flutter. “I can plant a seed but I can’t make it grow. There’s gotta be some sort of common ground. You talking about biochemistry to a lawyer is not common ground.”
“Everyone says to talk about what you know—”
“Everyone says to write about what you know,” Cupid says gently. “In dating you have to learn what you don’t know about the other person.”
There are few things, he thinks, less encouraging than being explicitly told “you suck at dating” by an angel specifically in charge of dating and love. This is great. Definitely how he wanted to spend this weekend. Cupid observes him and it feels like a plant being examined by the fucking sun.
“Can I ask you something,” Justin says.
“Technically you just—”
“Please.”
Cupid says, “Of course,” and Justin asks, “Can you turn off the glow?”
Cupid doesn’t respond, but the light gradually seeps away from his body. Some of it seems to crash into the ceiling, the walls; other bits soak into the cushions and the floor and the throw blanket draped on the back of the couch. As he watches, a little bubble of light shoots up from the bottom of his beer, turning the whole thing golden yellow. The room slowly absorbs the excess, patching up tiny scrapes in the paint and dings in the floorboards. Justin’s just about to ask if his beer is still drinkable and whether or not the light will stick around like the best kind of stain when he sees Cupid.
Without his glowing outline, Cupid looks like just a guy in jeans and a Golden girls t-shirt with wings. He looks like any of the white male celebrities Justin had a thing for growing up, all chiseled jawline and blond wavy hair and blue eyes. The Golden Girls shirt is just too small so it hugs his biceps in a way that affects Justin dearly. Maybe he doesn’t hold a candle to Idris Elba, but Cupid is hot.
And staring at him. Justin shakes his head.
“Uh,” he says. “Thanks, Cupid.”
Cupid waves his hand like he’s saying it’s nothing. “An easy request,” he says. “And really, Cupid is more the job description than anything. Call me Adam.”
“Okay.” Justin reaches across the couch for a handshake and Adam takes his hand, turning it over in his own and tracing the calluses on Justin’s palm. Through a very dry mouth, Justin says, “Thanks, Adam.”
His name feels good on his tongue.
“Don’t mention it,” Adam tells him. “Now. About these apps.”
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Over the next three hours Justin learns his Tinder pictures are lacking, his Bumble “looks like you were just throwing random words on the screen,” and Adam had taken one look at his Grindr and handed the phone back, shaking his head.
“What’s wrong with the dog pictures,” Justin asks, scrolling back to his Tinder. “It’s a good picture. People like dogs.”
Adam gestures at the otherwise empty apartment and takes the phone back. “Do you see a dog?”
“No, but it’s my friend Jack’s, I watch her sometimes, so—”
“Shush. Do you have a dog?”
“No.”
Adam taps the “edit profile” button, thumb hovering over the “delete” X on the picture in question, and says, “Do you volunteer at the animal shelter?”
“No,” Justin admits.
“Okay.” Adam taps the X. The picture whisks away. “We’re not dog-baiting, okay? We’re past that.”
And so too goes the picture of him holding the giant fish he caught visiting Shitty at Massachusetts — “Do you fish often? No?” — and one of him in his Samwell gear after winning the Frozen Four — “It’s been a few years, are you still playing hockey? Huh? Oh, Justin. You really do need my help.” They debate one of him at Niagara Falls for a little while until Adam says how much he wanted to see Niagara Falls and how glad he was that Justin went so he could look over his shoulder and also stop him from falling in because “you know you have shit balance. I got your back.” The picture stays.
“You need to beef up your bio,” Adam says, tapping through his profile. He has a habit of biting his tongue a little when he’s thinking. It takes Justin a few seconds longer to process what he said because he’s stuck on Adam’s mouth.
He says, “You said no bio on dates.” Adam rolls his eyes.
They work on that for a little while longer and it almost feels like hanging out with Jack and Bits and all his college friends. Which makes sense, he supposes. Adam’s been there every step of the way. They’re supposed to be close. Something slots into place every time Adam laughs.
Justin starts yawning somewhere around 10. At 10:30, his eyes are watering too much for him to focus on whether or not this picture is better than a nearly identical one. Adam doesn’t look tired, but he does jump a little every time Justin yawns. Justin yawns with a little more exaggeration after that.
“I need to go to sleep,” he says, rubbing his eyes. “Long day tomorrow.” Adam looks around the couch and a thought strikes him. “Are you — I can get sheets, a pillow? Are you staying the night?”
Adam looks a little sheepish. “I’m on probation unless we figure this out,” he says. “I thought, you know. If you don’t mind, I could crash here?”
“Of course.” Justin opens the coffee table and pulls out a blanket with the Parks and Rec cast on it. Adam’s eyes literally light up when he hands it over. “I have Netflix,” Justin says hesitantly. “And Hulu, if you want to watch anything.”
“Do you really?”
“Yeah. Here—” Justin digs around for the remote. This time when he passes it off, Adam’s fingers brush his. He thinks a little flicker of light blossomed up from the contact. “Knock yourself out.”
Adam burrows so low into his blanket that only his nose, eyes, and hair are visible. “That sounds unpleasant,” he comments.
Justin considers him out of the corner of his eyes. “Are you chirping me?”
Adam grins. “I’ve been to so many hockey games,” he says. “Been dying to try it out.”
“Could use some work,” Justin says, and, laughing, he dodges a pillow and heads off to his room.
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Living with a Cupid takes a little adjusting.
For one, Adam really, really likes long showers, and singing during those long showers, and is apparently incapable of cleaning up his feathers before they get stuck in the drain. He uses up all of Justin’s conditioner in one go. Justin is not amused, but Adam does refill the bottle with such a sweet smile that it’s difficult to stay mad at him.
For another, mealtimes skew toward the afternoon because Justin has a job that starts at ass o’clock and Adam rarely gets off the couch before 1:30 PM. He appears to be watching several different shows at once, too; the third day after he materialized, he’d asked to borrow Justin’s laptop and has since had 30Rock on the TV and Parks and Rec streaming from GoogleChrome.
“I can multitask, okay,” Adam says when Justin asks about it. “I never got to watch these, you never put them on. My ‘to watch’ queue is over one thousand.”
He comes home one day to Adam rummaging through his closet for clothes and surprises them both by saying, “Keep it,” when Adam pulls out a dark blue sweater. It looks better on him anyway.
In the evening they get takeout so Adam can replicate it a dozen times over, stock the fridge, and idly swipe through apps. For all his talk about “you need to find love or I’ll be fired,” Adam doesn’t really press on the dating apps. He throws out a comment now and then about Justin’s potential matches, how he would’ve changed the order of the pictures or how terrible a certain photo is. One guy has eight pictures and they’re all group shots. Adam cries a little when Justin shows him.
So Justin gets used to it. He gets used to finding stray light clusters in his cereal and feathers poking out of his blankets and Adam in his sweater the way the electricity sometimes goes haywire when Adam’s laughing. He gets used to Adam laughing. He kinda likes it.
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Friday three weeks after Adam arrived, Justin’s just started buttoning his jeans when Adam calls, “Justin?”
Justin finishes, threading his belt through the loops as he heads into the living room. “What’s up?”
“Do you wanna watch—” Adam breaks off when he steps through the archway. Justin thinks he’s frowning a little; he gets this line between his eyebrows sometimes, when he’s thinking hard about something. His wings are definitely drooping. “Those are your best jeans.”
“Do they look okay?” Justin asks. “I, um. I have a date.”
Adam’s face changes almost imperceptibly, and Justin’s stomach drops as if he was on a rollercoaster. This feels like something’s about to change.
“They’re great,” Adam says. His eyes scan Justin’s body, and his gaze feels like a physical weight. “You look great.” He cracks a smile that looks painful. “About time you got someone to fall in love with you, yeah?”
A whole host of images flood through his mind. Adam teasing him that week he had a cold, a shitton of tissues in his hand. Adam, face aglow from his many screens, excitedly reciting the plots of all the shows he’s watching and all the different ways the characters have grown, or how they haven’t and all the ways he wants them to. Adam sipping wine and reading the engagement announcements in the paper, tongue sticking out just so slightly. The way he isn’t floating above the cushions anymore.
“About time,” Justin repeats softly. He feels like he’s still on that rollercoaster except upside down, seeing everything that was familiar from above and now backwards.
Adam all but shakes himself and his wings perk up. There’s still a shadow over his face, but he says, “Have fun. Use protection.” He drags out the n sounds, turning back to his screens.
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How had he missed that? Justin asks himself over and over, closing the door softly behind him. How had he missed it?
He doesn’t go on his date, typing out a message from the parking lot about having realized feelings for someone else and not wanting to lead them both on any longer. His erstwhile date sends back an eloquent fuck you. Justin doesn’t really blame him. He deletes the app.
After an hour of sitting in his car, he goes to the supermarket. He stares blankly at a few different selections before the saleslady asks him what kind of vibe he’s going for.
“Something bright,” he says, scratching his head. “Something yellow? Unless that’s just friendship, I don’t want him to think I want to be friends.”
“Is he very into the language of flowers?” the lady asks. She hums, picking out different flowers from various vases.
Justin says, “He’s a romantic,” and she smiles at him.
“That’s very sweet, dear,” she says, handing him his bouquet. “Good luck.”
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There are about a million butterflies going crazy under his sternum. Justin parks the car and rests his head on the steering wheel for one, two, three deep breaths before unbuckling.
“Alright,” he says to himself. He glances at the flowers in the passenger seat. They look somehow too loud now, like they’re shouting what he wants to say softly in Adam’s ear. Maybe he can do both. Alternate between both, just in case Adam doesn’t hear him. It feels like too little in the face of everything he’s realized, but if anyone will understand the nerves surrounding romantic gestures, it’s Adam.
He makes it up the stairs in something like a daze and nearly drops the flowers trying to open the door. Then Adam opens it, and he does drop the flowers, and Justin swears and Adam frowns, again.
“Your date brought you flowers?” Adam says lightly. “That’s cute as hell.”
“No,” Justin says. He kneels, trying to scoop them all up before accidentally stepping on almost all of them. “Shit.”
Adam slowly kneels next to him now, pinching the crumpled petals until they glow faintly and unwrinkle. He does it carefully, methodically, and Justin thinks the gentleness in his hands is something holy. Justin scoops up four or five of them and Adam heals them and once they’re done, Justin says, “Can I come in,” and Adam lets him.
Justin digs out a dusty vase from under the kitchen sink and fills it with water. His heart is going so fast, he thinks Adam might be able to hear it. Or feel it, possibly. Adam’s never really cleared up the whole guardian angel relationship dynamic.
“How close are you to me, since you’re my guardian angel?” he asks, gently setting the flowers in the vase.
Adam crosses his arms and leans against the counter. “How d’you mean?”
“Like,” Justin starts, then pauses. He mirrors Adam’s stance. “Can you read my mind?”
“Common misperception,” Adam says. He waves a hand like he’s dismissing the idea. “Intentions, thoughts, that kinda thing, that’s not my department.”
“What about—” Justin swallows, looking at Adam until Adam meets his eyes. “What about emotions? You’ve got to read emotions, right? Otherwise you wouldn’t have any evidence as to why you should keep your job.”
Adam uncrosses his arms. “I can sense emotional impressions,” he says slowly. “If I concentrate. Traces of feelings.”
Justin whispers, “What do you sense when you look at me?”
Adam stares at him as if he’s just gotten a puck to the jaw, stunned, before shaking his head. Justin holds still, thinking about Adam’s light and laugh and the way he looks in that sweater. He sees it when it happens: light blooms in three great, flowing waves behind Adam, illuminating his wings and blurring his face. Justin holds his hands in front of his face, eyes burning. Just as suddenly the light fades.
Blinking rapidly, Justin open his eyes.
And stares.
He’s alone in the kitchen.
He doesn’t move at first. He doesn’t fully trust this emptiness; it feels like Adam just went into the living room, or on the landing outside the door. He isn’t there when Justin looks. He isn’t there even when Justin calls for him, pleading, to come back, or when Justin yells at him, angry, that he’s going to reset all his accounts so Adam will lose his progress in his shows. But Justin’s never managed to figure out the DVR anyway, and it likes Adam more than him. He didn’t want to delete any recordings.
Justin sinks into his usual spot on the couch and tells himself Adam will be back. Maybe it’s something in his job description; he hadn’t even considered that maybe he wasn’t supposed to fall in love with Adam. Maybe it’s a conflict of interest, or Cupids can’t date because they’ll be distracted from everyone else, or maybe Adam just doesn’t want him back.
He doesn’t let himself believe that. Justin holds onto a throw pillow and waits.
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Adam doesn’t come back that night. Or the next, or one two weeks after, or a month later.
Eventually Justin has to move off the couch. He needs to shower and eat and there’s his job to worry about. Somehow he doubts “I’m in love with Cupid” would be a viable excuse. He briefly debates asking some of his doctor friends to forge him a sick note. Every day Adam doesn’t come back it gets more tempting.
He finds little traces everywhere. Adam sheds worse than anyone he’s ever known or any pet he’s ever had. Feathers show up in his laundry hamper, in the fridge next to his bags of milk, stuck between the couch cushions where Adam liked to sit. After a few weeks Justin cleaned the whole place on hands and knees to find them all. More kept appearing.
His water bill goes down. His conditioner stays at the level he last left it.
Justin would still trade these things to have Adam back.
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He deletes his dating apps. He already found what he was looking for, hadn’t he? It’s fair to lead anyone else on. Plus they’re taking up too much room on his phone.
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After two months, Justin takes a sick day and drives to Niagara Falls. Part of him is thinking, maybe, Adam will show up there. He’d always wanted to go, after all. A larger part of him is tired of waiting. There’s no way he can drive to wherever Adam is, so. This is the next best thing.
It’s a seven hour drive. He spends half the time thinking of what he’d say to Adam, something about I’m in love with you, I’m not expecting anything, I hope you can keep your job, and the other half singing to a playlist he and Lardo had made for their college kegsters. He’d added some songs Adam had recommended. These songs Adam had sung from the shower, though, so Justin remembers Adam’s voice filling up his apartment when they come on.
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It’s even louder than he remembered.
Niagara Falls stretches before him out of reach like everything he’s ever loved. It dews so sweet on his face.
He takes a few pictures of the falls and the Maid of the Mist trucking along reliably. One or two capturing a rainbow at the bottom, so ever-present a miracle but still surprising. A few shots here and there of someone proposing, and someone saying yes, and someone in the back shouting happily.
Justin glances over this last picture before starting to put his phone away. Then freezes, eyes caught on a blond person just to the left smiling so wide.
His head snaps up and he scans the crowd desperately, but he can’t—
“Hey,” Adam says, smiling.
Justin opens his mouth and loses every word he’s ever known. Adam looks pleased with himself, thumbs hooked into the pocket of his jacket. Mist beads beautifully in the fibers of his beanie. Justin wants to see those beads in Adam’s hair, and as if he sensed his thoughts, Adam tugs off his hat. It’s as gorgeous a sight as he pictured.
That’s when he realizes.
“Your wings,” Justin says. Something like wonder rises in his throat.
Adam shrugs. “They got in the way.”
“Of what,” he says weakly. “Doorways?”
“No.” Adam places his hands on either side of Justin’s face, and suddenly it’s hard to breathe. “Of this.”
He kisses soft, sweet. Like light spilling under a door to welcome you home. He sucks Justin’s bottom lip and Justin pulls him in closer, hands resting easy on his waist and shoulder, and just about melts.
“Hey,” Adam says softly.
“Hi,” Justin says back. He ruffles Adam’s hair. Adam laughs a little, and it clears Justin’s head somewhat. “I don’t — I don’t understand, what happened? Why’d you leave?”
Adam steps back slightly so they can see each other easier. He looks a little embarrassed. “I got called back,” he says. “It’s kind of a long story. I fulfilled my task so they wanted to reassign me, but I quit. I gave my two months’ notice — we work on a larger time scale, usually,” he says, seeing Justin’s face. “So I got my humans in a row and helped those two propose and I was going to find you, when you found me instead.”
Adam stretches, now looking uncertain. “Feels kinda weird, not having wings. But I’m excited to get used to it.”
“I can’t believe you,” Justin says in a rush. Now Adam frowns. “I never even told you how I felt, and you did all this for us?”
“I wouldn’t have been summoned if you hadn’t,” Adam says simply. A tiny smile rests in the corner of his mouth.
Justin wants to taste it. “I’ve never really been good with words,” he says.
Adam shrugs as if to say he knows and expected this from him. He just says, “I know you.”
He does. Justin grins. “So if I,” he says, pulling him back in slowly, “do something like this, you know what I mean?”
“You might have to show me,” Adam whispers. His eyes are bright.
Justin slides his hands around the back of Adam’s neck and Adam’s already closing his eyes, leaning down. Justin kisses him again, and then again, and then once more. Adam smiles against his lips. Justin shows him a fourth time and then the reality of the situation sets in and they’re both smiling too much to kiss properly. It’s worth it. He can always show him later, if he needs to. They have a later to look forward to.
“What’re you smiling about,” Adam says, smiling himself.
Justin says, “I’m in love with you,” simple as anything.
“I love you too,” Adam says, and they both glow bright under the streetlights in the mist.
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