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The silence was overbearing.
Simeon tried to speak, tried to say something, but he found that words had deserted him. He couldn't bring himself to move, either. He could only see your figure out of the corner of his eye in his peripheral vision, and from the way your breath hitched, it was clear that you were just as terrified as the angel himself.
The only sound echoing through the halls was the steady rhythm of Father's footsteps as he walked away.
How? Simeon wondered, shocked tears building in his eyes. He couldn't even bring himself to blink them away. How could it have come to this?
His plan had been perfect. As perfect as it could get, really. The day the student exchange program ended, he brought you up to the Celestial Realm and presented you before Father in hopes that the god would be willing to make you an angel. Make you a part of the heavens. Give you both the right to love each other.
Or was that all just wishful thinking?
The angel let out a garbled sound, something halfway between a protest of anger and a wail of distress, but Father didn't even stop in his footsteps.
"I am sorry, my child," The god repeated. Yet Simeon could not detect an ounce of sadness in his voice. "But this human has corrupted you. Neither of you are fit to prosper in the heavens."
There they are, Simeon thought. Those words again.
He closed his eyes, remembering the first time Father had said them.
It was the night when Lucifer had lost the Great Celestial War. Father's final words to the seven remaining siblings, right before he banished them. And now, they had become the words Father was using to tell Simeon of his own banishment.
The angel would have remained silent had you not managed to squeeze his hand gently, brushing your thumb against his knuckles three times where your fingers remained intertwined.
Three taps. Three words.
The angel felt his heart further break, beginning to understand the severity of the situation.
I love you.
"F-Father," The angel began, trembling. It didn't sound like his own voice. He was so used to sounding strong. Confident. Brave. As he heard his voice, though, he sounded like a meek child. "Surely, you do not…"
"I do." The god retorted swiftly. "You came to me asking for my blessing such that you would spend the rest of your life loving this human." Simeon felt you flinch at the disdain in Father's voice, and he gripped your hand tighter. "And so the rest of your lives you shall spend together."
The god disappeared, fading into the air—and then the holy halls of God were no more, and you and Simeon were falling, falling, falling.
Instinctively, your bodies reached for each other, and Simeon held you close to him. He didn't need to try to know that he could no longer change into his angel form.
I'm falling, he thought, heart deflating. My holiness is gone.
He leaned back the slightest and gazed upon your face. The wind was beating at your bodies aggressively, and you were both falling headfirst, but he couldn't help but think that you had never looked so beautiful.
Perhaps this is for the best, he thought. The Devildom will treat us well.
But then a curious memory surfaced in his mind.
Slow, he recalled Lucifer saying once, as the demon described what his fall from grace had been like. Slow and peaceful and delicate. Like Father was trying to taunt us by forcing us to slowly depart from everything we loved, making it even harder to bear the sight of the Celestial sky fading away.
But Simeon's fall was hardly slow. Or peaceful. Or delicate.
Rather, as he held you close to his body, the wind around him seemed to be attacking him from all sides, assaulting his body in a hostile attempt to hurt him. He wrapped his arms tighter around your body in a desperate attempt to shield you from the pain.
The angel wondered for a brief second why his fall was hurting so much. Why it was so chaotic, when the demon brothers had recounted that it was anything but.
Simeon blinked for a moment, thinking.
And that was the moment his heart truly broke.
Whatever breath hadn't already been stolen from his lungs by the wind escaped his lips as Simeon cried out.
He saw you look at him, but he couldn't bear to return your gaze, and he stared numbly at the sky around you, shuddering in the horror of his realization.
Suddenly, the look in Barbatos's eyes made sense.
Lord Diavolo had been so optimistic about seeing the two of you again in the next exchange program. Everyone had looked so hopeful, so pleased. And yet, while everyone congratulated you and Simeon over your relationship, Barbatos never wished either of you luck when you both announced that Simeon would be asking Father to turn you into an angel, so that he could love you for all eternity.
Barbatos already knew, Simeon understood. The demon butler had seen the future, this outcome would befall you both.
It's not fair.
Lucifer's brothers had been so optimistic about seeing you again.
And Simeon had stolen that from them.
We're not falling to the Devildom, he forced himself to acknowledge. He turned to you, and it seemed that you understood it at the exact same time as him. We're falling to our deaths.
Simeon saw it first. The tremble of your lower lip as pain filled your eyes. The wind kept whisking them away, but the tears never seemed to stop flowing as you wrapped Simeon in a desperate embrace for the last time.
It's not fair.
Against Simeon's will, he saw flashes of his time with you. Kisses stolen under the moonlight, between quiet laughter and gentle hand-holding. Embraces shared in the halls of RAD, between classes and between tests as the two of you bonded over your shared struggle for memorizing demon history. Snacks shared behind closed doors during study sessions turned snuggle sessions.
He wanted to tell you how much you meant to him. He wanted to tell you that you were his world, that he was never truly living until you walked into his life. He wanted to tell you how fucking sorry he was that he wouldn't get to love you for eternity like he had promised.
But the wind made it impossible to speak. The wind made it impossible to move. The wind made it impossible to do anything but think about your impending death, about the love story about to be cut short.
Damn it, he cursed. Simeon wanted to kiss you. He wanted to hug you, whisper sweet nothings into your ears until your tears were gone. He wanted to fuck you, and make you forget how cruel the world was.
He just wanted to make you happy one last time.
But he couldn't.
Damn it all.
Never had Simeon hated God so much. Never had he resented anyone with such an ardent passion.
You were so young compared to him. Too young to die.
Would it have been better if Simeon had never fallen in love with you?
Indeed, everything about this situation was a product of Simeon's own impatience. He shouldn't have brought you to the Celestial Realm. He shouldn't have allowed himself to love you in the first place. He should have maintained his distance, should have—
You squeezed his palm. Three times. Three words.
I love you.
The angel opened his eyes, and with a single glance, you pulled him from all the self-deprecating thoughts swirling around in his mind. You fought the wind to raise your hand and press it to Simeon's chest, forcing him to look at you.
And for the first time, Simeon understood the words you spoke in your eyes.
He understood that you were happy to have been with him. Happy to have felt his touch, his warmth, his love.
But it wasn't enough.
Simeon held your hand to his heart, your warmth calming its fast beating as he slowly numbed himself to everything except the calming sensation of you. For the first time, he allowed himself to close his eyes. To stop mindlessly trying to memorize every detail of your face, and to simply bask in the feeling of your touch.
Simeon never wanted to let go.
And he never would.
In the short second his eyes fluttered to a close as he pressed his forehead against yours, the two of you collided with the ground.
A massive boom could be heard throughout the continent, at that moment. Every human in the area paused what they were doing for the briefest second, and even the angels and demons swore they heard a sound.
Yet only Barbatos knew the truth.
The demon quietly excused himself from Lord Diavolo's presence, slipping out of the Devildom and into the human world before anyone could question him. He was hardly surprised when he found himself in the middle of a deep crater in the middle of an empty desert.
Fitting, he thought to himself.
He'd always believed craters to be among the most beautiful things in the world, because they serve as an eternal reminder that something was once there. A huge, astronomical force so great that even time has honored its impact.
Quite like your love.
Fitting indeed, the butler mused to himself, bending gently to inspect the hard earth. There wasn't a single trace of either you or Simeon, and yet he could still sense the remnants of emotion in the air from your final moments.
It would have made him sick, had he not grown used to it in all the realities where the two of you shared each others' companionship. Realities that had always resulted in death.
The next time will be different, he resolved to himself. He had worked from the shadows in each timeline, trying to pull strings so that you and Simeon would truly be able to live happily ever after. And yet something had always gone wrong.
But Barbatos would not hold back any longer.
He would make it his personal mission to ensure that this next reality was one where you both found happiness, one that was not fleeting.
He was giving himself one last chance to perfect the tale of your love. One last chance to help you and Simeon out.
The demon sighed to himself, trying to determine how far back he would have to turn back the tides of time to achieve the already-forming plan in his mind. He was about to leave. About to return to the past, and to the Devildom where you and Simeon would still be.
Yet, something compelled him to stay.
Barbatos studied the hollowed-out ground, standing in the center while gazing at the rocky surroundings. And with two steps, he moved forward to collect a small stone: the source of the lingering magic in the air.
He closed his eyes, fingers wrapped around the small rock as he pocketed it. But nothing else drew his attention, and nothing else told him there was any purpose in lingering.
And with nothing holding him back, Barbatos turned back time.