Work Text:
Nineveh, 689 BC
Azra stared around the gardens, his hand clutched desperately to Coriel’s sleeve.
“Oh, it– it’s–” he breathed.
Coriel grinned. “Got it right, then?”
“You did this?” Azra asked, his stunned gaze shifting from the vast, lustrous gardens to the angel standing beside him.
“I may’ve suggested some design bits to Sennacherib’s architects,” Coriel said. “Most of it was the humans, though.”
“It’s…” Azra took a few steps further into the gardens, his hand still clenched in Coriel’s robe. He could feel the tears building in his eyes. “Oh, Coriel, it’s so much like…”
“I know,” Coriel said, shifting to wrap an arm around Azra’s shoulders. “C’mon, bunny, they’ve got pomegranates deeper in.”
“Oh!” Azra breathed. “I haven’t had a pomegranate since...”
“I hear they’re all the rage in Greece,” Coriel said as he led Azra deeper in, amongst the trees and flowers, the late-afternoon sunlight glittering off of the artificial canals, the scents of the plants thick and heavy in the air, only highlighting the temporary absence of the stink of sin and pain. “Might be able to convince Gabe to let me head over there, once this assignment is done.”
“Are the Mycenaeans still in charge over there?” Azra asked.
Coriel frowned. “Don’t think so? Pretty sure they’ve got some sort of king situation.”
“Ah,” Azra said, then gasped again, tugging on Coriel’s sleeve to pull him over to a pomegranate tree. The fruit was hanging heavy from its branches, and Azra miracled one of them into his hands and open, offering half of it to Coriel.
“Thanks, bunny,” Coriel said with a soft grin.
“Do be careful you don’t stain your robe,” Azra offered, sitting down beneath the tree to eat. He glanced around briefly, then tugged off one of his gloves in order to eat.
Coriel laughed. “Got personal experience with that?”
“I‘m fairly certain that Gabriel did his best to make miraculously cleaning one’s clothes a Falling offence because of me,” Azra said with a grin before eating a small handful of the seeds. “Mm! This is just as lovely as I remember.”
“How long did it take Adam and Eve to figure out how to open it?” Coriel asked.
“Oh, by the time Adam got around to naming pomegranates, I was already spending time in the Garden itself with them,” Azra said, leaning up against Coriel’s shoulder, pressing into the pure heat and Seraphic solidity of him. “I showed Eve how to open them, and she managed to talk Adam down from his… fifth? Fifth attempt to name something a ‘rock-tree’.”
Coriel snorted. “Sounds about right.”
They sat in silence for a moment longer, polishing off half of the pomegranate seeds between them, before Coriel asked softly, “Do you… miss them?”
Azra sighed. “Yes. Yes, I… yes. And with how things went for them after we left, with poor Cain and Abel… I, well, I always wonder if… what might have happened had I stayed with them. Had we stayed.”
“Do you think we could’ve changed it?” Coriel asked.
“I can’t possibly say,” Azra said. “I think… I think that… in all likelihood, what happened to the poor dears was all part of Her Plan, and… and I’m not sure that you and I alone really have any ability to change that, should we want to. But… well. As I said, I can’t help but wonder.” Then he sighed again, tilting his head back against the trunk of the tree. “I suppose I could only have made things worse.”
Azra heard more than saw Coriel’s answering frown. “You don’t really believe that.”
“It’s true,” Azra said. “It is, after all, my job to make things worse for the humans.”
“And yet,” Coriel said, “here you are, sharing a pomegranate with me of all beings, not causing even a hint of mischief in one of the greatest human cities of the era.”
Azra snorted. “Well, no one ever claimed that I was good at what I do.”
“Ah, but ‘what you do’ and ‘your job’ are two very different things, aren’t they?” Coriel said. “You’re good at what you do, bunny, it’s just that what you do is protect and care about the humans and all the absolutely brilliant things they create. Your job may be to tear them down, but what you do? It’s the exact opposite.”
Azra’s breath caught in his throat, and he shifted slightly to be able to look at Coriel properly.
“That’s dangerous,” he breathed. “Saying that sort of thing about a demon.”
“Maybe I like to live on the edge a little,” Coriel said, a small smile playing at the corners of his mouth. His lips were stained red from the pomegranate, the pink of them deepened nearly to the same shade as the ringlets that fell like a waterfall down his back, and his gorgeous golden eyes seemed to almost glow as the afternoon faded slowly into evening.
Oh, dear Satan, Azra thought faintly. I love him.
Coriel looked away, then, and started talking, rambling on as he always did, the rapid-fire workings of his mind out on display, as though Azra’s entire world hadn’t just slotted into place beside him with three simple words.
I love him, Azra thought again, settling back against the tree trunk to listen to Coriel talk. I– I’m in love with him. I’m in love with the best angel that God ever created.
And then, the reality of the situation hit Azra like a brick to the face, and it was all that he could do to keep from reacting visibly to the feeling.
Oh, no. He can never find out. He can’t– there isn’t any way he could feel the same, is there? He isn’t– he wouldn’t feel anything of that sort for me. Not in a million years. He– he couldn’t. Not for me. He’s safe from that particular danger, Coriel is far too sensible to ever love me, but… well. So long as he never finds out, well, nothing needs to change, does it? He’s safe. He has to be safe.
“Bunny?” Coriel’s voice cut through Azra’s reverie. “You alright?”
“Perfectly,” Azra said, focusing on Coriel’s face once more in order to smile. “Don’t let me distract you, my dear, I like hearing you talk about their inventions. You were talking about the garden’s irrigation system?”
“I was,” Coriel said, looking warily at Azra for a moment longer before glancing skyward. “Y’know, I was thinking about maybe making myself a garden. A small one, just a couple plants, nothing fancy like this, something I could carry with me when I had to move. Y’know?”
“I think that sounds like an excellent idea,” Azra said. “But how would you do that, without stifling the plants’ growth?”
And then Coriel was off again, talking about indoor plants and sunlight rotation cycles, and Azra relaxed against him once more, the frantic fretting in his mind settling, just once, into a single, solid promise.
I’ll keep him safe. I’ll protect him, like I couldn’t protect them. I won’t let him be hurt, not if there’s anything I can do to prevent it.
Demon though I am, Coriel will always be safe with me. I promise.