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Harry hadn’t meant to die.
Harry hadn’t meant to die, but he was quite delighted by what he found – at first.
Heaven was a beautiful place, towers of shining silver, bright light everywhere, nothing cluttering up anyway, with fountains placed at each intersection. It was also cold. Every surface a gleaming white, white windows revealing more on the outside, everything so sparklingly clean.
Harry had been gifted the most beautiful pair of white wings, taught how to fly. He’d been taught how to manipulate stardust on the tips of his fingers and how to light suns, to blow away negativity in humans and to guard and protect and to serve God.
It had been wonderful, at first.
He grew bitter with time, the delights he’d once been faced with a dull monotony, feeling more like a servant than the angel he was. He wanted to be free.
***
Tom hadn’t meant to die.
Tom hadn’t meant to die, and he hated death.
He’d fallen straight into a gaping pit in the ground, full of writhing bodies and great plumes of fire. The screaming was nearly unbearable, and as he rolled over, he grasped the first thing he could, which turned out to be a curiously shaped piece of metal on what seemed like string. It would be easy enough to hook it into the rough wall surface; easy enough to pull himself up.
It turned out that, whilst the pit was reserved for the greatest of sinners, they didn’t plan on the sinners being smart.
Tom was out of the pit, and he managed to set off every single alarm in the process.
“Attention all demons! High profile sinner escaped! The pit has been broken out of! Human number twenty-seven billion, nine hundred and forty-eight is on the loose. May be armed.”
Oh, Hell no.
***
Harry flew out of his window, avoiding the flight tracks and heading for the gates.
He was almost immediately greeted by a hyperactive angel, nudging him back to where he came from.
“Hey there, newbie!” They greeted. “Pleasure to meet you. Just a little reminder – try to stay on the flight tracks! They’re there for a reason.”
“Sure,” Harry responded.
“Pretty sure it’s not your flight schedule, either. You should stay and rest – I’ll personally take you to the Hall later. You’ll love it!”
Startled, Harry nodded. “Uh- thank you?”
They gave a cheerful grin, opening his apartment door for him. “Have an enjoyable day!”
Well, that was a thing.
***
Tom was left hiding behind a set of rocks, demons scouring every visible surface for him. The weapon he had was unlikely to be effective against the sheer number of demons, and he didn’t have anywhere to run.
Unless…
He could always kill a demon and take their identity. What was one more life?
***
The angel had, in fact, come to collect Harry after yet another dull day trapped inside, taking him down several identical shiny corridors to a much larger room, hundreds of angels packed inside.
“You should fold your wings away, now,” they said, nodding at Harry’s outstretched wings. “There are a lot of people.”
Harry blinked. He hated folding his wings away, the claustrophobically tight wings pockets far too uncomfortable to use for more than a few minutes at a time.
The angel looked at him, patiently.
Harry folded his wings away.
The angel smiled. “Shall we go, then?”
***
Tom awkwardly clambered into the dead demon’s armour, giving the blades a spin. They were nice enough and would do decently alongside his makeshift weapon. He could probably walk out completely with the Gatekeeper’s Key – which was the only form of identity they seemed to have – as soon as he buried the corpse.
He did have some decency.
And really, he just wanted to stop them finding the corpse.
***
The Hall was a tightly packed room with some sort of light display, the sorts Harry had already seen a ridiculous number of times as he tried to find something to do in this empty goddamn place. Stars jumped at each other, ducking, and swirling around the room.
Harry slipped out the back door, diverging from the tracks but keeping low to the ground, wings still pinned in.
Perhaps there was an escape, after all.
***
“Oi!” a particularly brutish demon yelled. “Get back over here and keep searching, Marchie!”
Tom was not going to be talked down by a thug. “I was going to look for the human down by the gate,” he said coolly. “If it’s smart it will try to flee.”
They blinked at him as he left.
They didn’t try to stop him.
***
Harry had crawled through Heaven’s silvery grass for a while now, and they hadn’t caught him. The Pearly Gates were guarded by six angels from the inside, and Harry couldn’t help but wonder if they were keeping sinners out or keeping angels in.
It didn’t matter either way. A nifty handmade stardust bomb and they all came running, Harry flying over the gates and to freedom.
To Earth he came.
***
Tom unlocked the gates, sliding through and shutting them behind him. The demons didn’t even notice, focused as they were in the search for the sinner.
Tom was the greatest sinner, and no Hell would hold him.
To Earth he came.
***
Earth was a treasure, a true delight. He’d gone and dyed each feather on his wings a different colour of the rainbow, and the gentle pleasures he had never bothered to appreciate before he now indulged in, relaxing and enjoying being on Earth once again.
He wasn’t technically sinning, right? Just breaking a few small rules.
If I was ever meant to be an angel, Harry thought, I was always meant to be a broken one.
***
It was nice to step away from the fire and brimstone, to unbuckle the too-small armour and breathe in air that wasn’t poison. Earth was a far kinder place than Hell, and Tom would easily admit that he had missed it. Death was a problem he had now solved, and nobody could contain him any longer.
Tom picked up the knife.
There were people to kill.
***
Harry had never been happier walking out of a supermarket and slipping into the back alley as he had today, the sounds of Earth fresh around him and the freedom of being allowed to go anywhere at all.
He’d been on the verge of singing when a blade hit his throat.
***
Tom had been lurking in the alley, waiting for some unsuspecting human to come along, and become his latest victim.
He’d pounced on a pretty, green-eyed boy, knife curling around his neck, when a huge pair of white wings swung out and threw him against a wall.
A feat which attracted both demons and angels.
Tom was so screwed.
***
Harry watched the seraphim descend from Heaven, eyes focused on him and scowls on their faces. He almost accepted his fate when the scent of sulphur found its way to his nose and he realised that the would-be murderer was escaping, too.
He held his hand out for a blade and hoped he didn’t miscalculate.
***
Tom pressed a dagger into the angel’s hand, hoping he hadn’t miscalculated.
They both lunged at the same time.
***
The demon closest to him collapsed, blood dripping onto the grimy cobbles. The seraph at the end of his blade was still staring at him in shock, an expression that would be permanently carved onto their face.
There were many angels, many demons.
Harry knew they would die here.
***
Tom felt the angel hesitate but lunged anyway – if he was going down, he was going down swinging.
The angel seemed to get the memo.
***
Harry didn’t know whether to feel sickened or delighted by the dead bodies around him, bloodied blade clutched in his hand.
The sinner clearly chose delighted, pressing warm lips against his.
***
Tom hadn’t expected the angel to kiss back when he’d kissed him.
***
They’d left hand in hand, bloodied bodies and bloodied knives behind them. There had to be something beyond the human realm yet not governed by Heaven or Hell they could escape to, somewhere they could rest.
Tom loved flying, especially when wrapped in Harry’s arms.
Harry might have been broken, and Tom might have been great, but they fit perfectly against each other, and would forever.