Work Text:
—
“An angel who did not so much fall as saunter vaguely downwards.” — Good Omens, Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett.
—
There weren’t many phrases in current colloquial use that really applied when it came to summing up their relationship. Sebastian wasn’t a being overly given to nostalgia, his own history was entirely too long to dwell on, but upon being pressed the most accurate description he’d ever been able to come up with had been, we have history.
They had history in the acrid scent of the air itself burning; lightning in the back of his nostrils, blood pooling black on the sand. Back when the other half of that ‘we’ answered to a name that was long forgotten by most. Barachiel. They had history in his name written in another’s ledger, a line to be crossed out, a sin to be cleansed from their creator’s playground. A name that mysteriously, repeatedly, refused to be eradicated. They had history in the first time they had crossed paths and Sebastian, the Sly, the Slitherer, Smythe as he now went by, had felt lightning crackle in the air but those eyes had turned aside, let him walk away.
“We have history, he and I,” Sebastian would say because he knew what temptation looked like better than any other being in the creator’s history (Sebastian knew a thing or two about the original sin) and his was wrapped with a great big bow of creator’s irony.
They had history together — and all the time in the world to end it.
—
They knew better than to consort too often. The creator may have left this particular playground hanging mid-experiment, his eyes drawn to new and exciting creations more interesting than the rats he left in this particular maze, but Heaven’s eyes were not so blind as to ignore the movements of the garrison left behind and Hell was forever looking outwards.
(Sebastian couldn’t blame them. It wasn’t the most scenic of destinations.)
The last time Sebastian had pulled up next to the tiny, dusty little shop, crammed in between two encroaching chain department stores at war, it had been crammed floor to ceiling with piles upon piles of books and the sign on the door that declared it a bookshop had been at constant war with it’s owner’s willingness to actually part with his collection. Sebastian had dared to utter the word gluttony once and his hair hadn’t sat right for almost a decade afterwards from the resulting static charge in that room.
Out of a pronounced sense of self-preservation, Sebastian had since decided not to mention it.
Apparently this time he wouldn’t have to.
His sunglasses dipped down his nose to peer at the sight that greeted him, taking in the change of signs with dubious eyes, resisting the urge to flick out his tongue in a long repressed instinct as he sniffed the air — caught the same familiar scent of burning and electricity and massacre beneath Eternity by Calvin Klein — and his forehead furrowed.
Sebastian ignored the closed sign on the door, pushing through it to the jingle of bells overhead and edging carefully passed a stand crammed full of old records, fingers reaching out to brush the plastic but they were swatted away before they could so much as make contact, plastic sleeves rustling with the sudden rush of air.
“No touching. You’ll smudge the plastic,” Blaine interjects, succeeding in that singular way he had of looking down on him from a significantly lower eye level. “Or steal it.”
“I resent that,” Sebastian cut back in, flicking the album he’d been reaching for as he replied, “For one, the implication that snakes are slimy is scientifically unfounded and two, why would I, or anyone, steal The Greatest Hits of Englebert Humperdinck?”
“Ask the hipster I chased down High Street last week,” Blaine replied through narrowed eyes and Sebastian hurriedly retracted his hand as the familiar smell of something burning hit the back of his throat. He’d rather like for that something to not be him.
He hesitated, rocking on his toes before breaking, “You chased a—”
“He had it coming,” Blaine replied, tipping his chin upwards with great dignity and gently swiping a thumb across the spot Sebastian had touched on the plastic of said record. “The sign said closed.”
“Are you telling me you actually turn it to open these days?” Sebastian asked curiously, leaning a hip against the corner of the stand and utterly ignoring the sharp look that suggested he shouldn’t.
A soft, indignant huff was closely followed by a mutter of, “They come in anyway. Much like you.”
Sebastian took care to hide the twitch of his lips, instead granting Blaine the dignity of a change of tact, “Careful, I might start to think you aren’t pleased to see me,” if only for the way it made Blaine’s shoulders tense, his lips purse.
Of the many forms that he had seen Blaine take, from gore-soaked and sword-wielding to glorified librarian, Sebastian had come to decide that this was one of his favourites. One of God’s very own avenging angels in a Brooks Brothers sweater vest. It had it’s own appeal.
“What is it you want this time?” Blaine asked, nudging another record carefully into perfect alignment with the others.
“The Greatest Hits of Englebert Humperdinck,” Sebastian deadpanned, the indignant huff he received in response failing to keep his eyes from fixating on where the hem of Blaine’s vest was tucked under itself, or his fingers from itching to correct the tiny imperfection in this carefully crafted new identity. Apples, sweater vests. “Why do you always assume I want something?”
He reached for it anyway, hooking a long finger beneath the hem to draw the fabric back into place and feels heat surge beneath his touch as he listened to the hitch of breath and the snap of electricity that sparked against his skin. Sebastian smoothed the material out anyway, buzzing from the contact and ignoring the storm that lingered in Blaine’s eyes.
“You always want something,” Blaine replied after a missed beat, words caught up in his throat.
It’s disarming how ordinary Blaine can make himself appear these days, how unassuming this identity is that he’s crafted for himself. Sebastian remembered him most vividly with blood streaking his face, terrible, beautiful — he remembered the way the ground trembled at the mention of his name. He’d made a good study of humanity, this angel. Entirely too good.
Not nearly so chaste as he once was.
Sebastian couldn’t help but wonder which other flaws Blaine had picked up in his studies.
“It’s been a while,” Sebastian replied with an evasive shrug of his shoulders, peering around at the crowded store with vague interest as the smell of burning gathered thick in his nostrils. It smelled a little like home.
“That’ll be my toast,” Blaine gasped suddenly, horrified, shaking his head as he turned on his heel and disappeared with only a rush of air in his wake. Blaine had always liked a good exit, all the better if it meant avoiding conversations he didn’t want to have.
Sebastian followed after at a lazier pace — not before switching the order of a few of the closest albums for good measure.
“Sh— shoot, bother. Bother, bother.”
“I’m not going to report you if you swear,” Sebastian offered as he followed the noise through a crammed little hallway behind the front counter, past a narrow flight of stairs leading upwards and into an equally tiny back room where Blaine was fanning a piece of smoking, blackened toast in either hand.
“That’s what you want me to think,” Blaine replied distractedly as he paused in his fanning to peer down at the toaster with a frown, reaching out to poke it with visible irritation. It sparked ominously in response and he sighed. “I don’t think it agrees with me.”
“It’s an inanimate object,” Sebastian pointed out slowly, narrowing his eyes in bemusement, “I don’t think it has the capacity to disagree with you.”
“That’s what they want you to think,” Blaine replied, obviously perturbed as he regarded the toast in his hands with decided dismay. “I’m being punished.”
“By a toaster.” Sebastian whistled low beneath his breath, eyebrows inching upwards. “Your boss has really stepped up his game.”
The look he was granted told him his commentary wasn’t appreciated, but Sebastian edged in through the doorframe anyway and into the office, squeezing around a table Blaine had jammed into the corner next to the door and flicking a hand boredly in the direction of the toaster until it smoked in earnest, metal grinding loudly in the empty office as it clattered into pieces.
“Fixed it,” he offered lightly, knuckles nudging lightly at the underside of Blaine’s chin until he looked up, lips set in a scowl.
“You broke it,” Blaine replied.
“Can you break something that’s already broken?” Sebastian asked, the pad of his thumb tracing the angle of Blaine’s jaw. “I just hastened the process. It was a mercy killing, if you think about it.”
There’s a small, sick thrill to seeing that shred of doubt in Blaine’s eyes; to acknowledge just how much of that unshakable faith has been chipped away by the millennia. By him.
“You own a record store.”
That stony composure that Blaine is given to, that he still wears as a second (now imperfect) skin, gives way in favour of the smile that used to accompany the mention of his books. He changes more quickly these days, it seems.
“Do you know they have audiobooks now?” Blaine replied, seemingly unconcerned by Sebastian’s continued contact in light of their new topic of conversation. “I could listen to Samuel L. Jackson narrate the entire Chronicles of Narnia, if I wanted to.”
Sebastian wasn’t sure whether he should find the fact that Blaine knew who Samuel L. Jackson was endearing or not. (It still wasn’t clear on if he was supposed to find avenging angels who were contractually obliged to kill him before the world ended anything but terrifying.)
“Not that I’m bragging, of course, but I have the best collection in the city. I think that’s why the hipsters keep coming back even though I won’t let them buy anything. Or touch anything.”
Definitely endearing.
“You missed me,” Sebastian cut him off, because it was a far less embarrassing statement than I missed you.
Blaine’s nose wrinkled and against his better judgement and reason, Sebastian ducked forward to kiss it away.
His lips tingled, burned.
“You missed me,” he taunts in spite of the dangerous gleam in Blaine’s eyes and the way the hairs on his arms stand up on end.
“You broke my toaster,” Blaine replied, forehead furrowing at the hands that slithered down his ribs to bracket his hips. “And messed up my records.”
“Demon,” Sebastian countered with a pointed raise of his eyebrows, digging his thumbs into the pockets of Blaine’s chinos and tugging him in closer. “For what I am about to receive I am truly—”
The rest of his words were muffled, laughed into Blaine’s mouth as hands fisted in Sebastian’s shirt, like he could sweep the blasphemy right out of Sebastian’s mouth if only he tried hard enough.
Sebastian had always enjoyed letting him try.
—
postscript;
—
“Since you’re the expert now, perhaps you could help me,” Sebastian hums, sweeping his fingertips lazily across the pronounced angles of Blaine’s shoulder blades and watching his spine roll beneath the touch.
A tousled head rolled towards him, still too far beneath the thrall of pleasure to begin the process of tallying up how many sins he was committing.
“Why does every song I play sound like a Taylor Swift song in my car?”
Blaine stretched lazily, spine popping as he yawned and burying his face into his arms. “Angelic interference.”
Sebastian rolled his eyes.
“Of course it was you.”
It always had been.