Archive of Our Own

“Are there any perks to sleeping with you?” Matt asks her, out of the goddamn blue one evening, after she’s just finished fucking his brains out.

She gives him a sidelong look.

“I mean, other than the obvious,” he hastens to clarify.

He’s not exactly fearful of her these days, which is actually even more annoying than having him cringe away from her every time he makes an obvious misstep. Though for some unfathomable reason, she still hasn’t seen fit to reinstate a healthy dose of mortal terror in him. It’s made him fucking insufferable. Any day now she’s gonna wing him with a bullet or something, just to keep him on his toes.

“I haven’t killed you yet. Does that count?” she asks, with false, sugary sweetness.

“Not really, no,” Matt replies, not even a little bit wary. “I mean, you wouldn’t kill any of the others, either. You could, obviously. But you’ve already made it pretty clear that you’re somewhat capable of a degree of human attachment, so you won’t.”

Fucking smartass.

“Then no, there are no ‘perks’ to fucking me,” she tells him.

“Not even one?” he whines. Fucking whines. Goddamn, she’s shacked up with some kind of cyberpunk puppy.

“You don’t want perks,” she tells him. “Fucking your way to the top is overrated. Besides which, you have these things commonly known as actual skills, so it’s not like you need to bother. If I give you a perk it’ll be because you’re fucking useful, not because you’re useful fucking.”

Huh. Fucking useful, useful fucking. She’s actually kind of proud of that one. She turns her head to look at Matt, pleased, only to find him giving her a weird look in return.

Ah, shit. She doesn’t know that look. What the fuck is that? Is that an ‘I didn’t know you could pull off clever wordplay’ look or an ‘I can’t believe you aren’t giving me top bitch benefits’ look?

“What?” she finally just asks, after it starts to drag on a little too long.

“Sorry,” Matt says. “Sometimes I still get a little bit taken aback when you demonstrate actual principles.”

“What the fuck does this have to do with schools?” she asks, deliberately obtuse, and he groans and flops away from her, yanking a pillow over his face.

“Aaand the moment dies,” he mumbles into it.

“Hey, don’t pin this on me,” she says. “You’re the tactful sonofabitch who asked his lover for career benefits in exchange for sex.”

He peers out at her from under the pillow, one eye and a shock of black hair visible.

“Lover?” he asks.

She stiffens, and then gives him a challenging look.

“Well. Yeah. What the hell else do you wanna call me?” she asks.

“Lover’s fine,” he mumbles. “Just… unexpected, I suppose.” What little she can seek of his cheek looks suspiciously pink.

She rips the pillow away from it, and he makes a grab for it, and oh, yeah, that’s definitely a blush. For a few minutes he looks all flustered and ridiculous, until he huffs and tries to play it cool. Shit. That’s fucking adorable. Why is that fucking adorable?

“Goddammit you’re cute,” she says.

He glares at her.

“I am not ‘cute’!” he protests. “I’ll have you know I am a paragon of masculine energy, thank you very much.”

Raising a skeptical eyebrow, she runs a thumb over some of the smudged eyeliner on his face, and holds it up for him.

“Just because I don’t fit into the definition of hyper-commercialized masculinity and have enough sexual security to wear make-up doesn’t mean I’m not masculine,” he sputters at her. “Warriors in ancient times wore make-up. They also wept as a sign of empathy and human emotion. The greatest of men were the ones who were able to show the most vulnerability, because they could back it up with actual competence and virility.”

“I’m guessing that speech saw a lot of mileage in highschool, huh?” she says, right before he jumps her.

He lets out an honest-to-god growl when he does, and it’s probably meant to be aggressive and sexy, but she’s still thinking about puppies, so it’s actually just hilarious. She’s smirking when he kisses her.

“Fucking adorable,” she says when he pulls back, and he glares at her.

“Fuck you,” he says, and sets about proving his ‘virility’.

She’ll give him this – he does have one hell of a short refractory period.

~

A couple days later, they’re going through the motions of recovering their scattering clothes from the cargo bay, when he blurts out his next gem.

“Am I your favourite?” he asks.

Oh for the love of…

“No,” she says, trying to get her boobs back in order. Space clothes suck. She’s starting to get a real sense of fellow-feeling for all those blue space chicks in movies that opt to run around in as little fabric as possible.

“No?” Matt sputters at her. “Just like that? You can’t just say ‘no’. Who the hell’s your favourite if it’s not me?”

She contemplates actually picking someone, if only to see how he’d react, but then just shrugs.

“Dunno.”

Her lips twitch as his sputtering intensifies, and starts incorporating some dramatic gesturing.

“You don’t know? So you don’t know who your favourite is, but you still know it’s not me?”

“Pretty much,” she agrees. Shit, did she lose an earring? She did. Crap. Where the hell did it go?

“Don’t try and tell me you don’t pick favourites, you’ve explicitly said that you do on numerous occasions,” Matt says.

“Have you seen my earring?” she asks, shaking out her jumpsuit front just to make sure it didn’t fall down into it.

“You’re insufferable,” he tells her. “It’s to your left, by the couch cushion.”

Aha! She scoops it up, grinning happily.

“Okay, now you’re my favourite,” she declares.

The sputtering reaches critical mass.

“Because I found your bloody earring?!” he demands. “What, that finally tipped me over the edge, did it? Got me those last few vital points to win the game?”

“Well, my favourite tends to change minute by minute,” she informs him. “So right this minute, yeah, you’re my favourite.”

He stares at her incredulously.

“You’re telling me I wasn’t your favourite right after we finished having sex?”

She shrugs.

“I really like these earrings.”

“Unbelievable,” he grouses, and stalks out into the corridor, muttering bitterly under his breath.

~

“If a supervillain tied up Johnny and I and you only had time to save one of us, who would it be?” Matt asks, in the middle of their poker game.

“You,” she says, not even looking up from her hand. To her left, Johnny just nods sagely, while Matt looks delighted and Shaundi looks appalled.

“What the fucking fuck?” Shaundi says. “How the fuck can you pick Matt over Johnny? No offense, Matt.”

“None taken,” Matt says, cheerfully rearranging some of his cards.

She sighs, and shares a look with Johnny.

“Simmer down, Shaundi. They’re both tied up, right?” she says. “Johnny’d get out of that on his own. Matt, not so much.”

“Oh. Yeah. That’s a good point,” Shaundi agrees.

Matt’s good cheer evaporates.

“Well what if we were tied up over shark tanks?” he suggests.

“Then I’d shoot the fuckin’ shark,” Johnny says.

“You don’t have any guns,” Matt tells him.

“Then I’d punch the fuckin’ shark,” Johnny says.

“Your hands are tied up!”

“So?”

Matt lets out an aggravated sigh.

“The shark has lasers!”

“What, like it’s a robot shark?” Johnny looks intrigued by this prospect.

“Yes, covered in poisoned spikes,” Matt says.

“Huh. Sounds fun.”

“See? Johnny fights his robot shark, I fight yours, everybody has a good time,” she says.

“I fold,” Shaundi declares.

“You can’t fight it, it has an indestructible outer shell that your fists can’t penetrate,” Matt tells them.

“What about on the inside?” Johnny asks.

“I’d pick mine up and use it like a club to beat the supervillain to death,” she says, triumphantly.

“Shit. I shoulda thought of that.”

“It’s too heavy to wield like a club!” Matt tells them.

“What, even in power armour?” she asks.

“You don’t have power armour!” he huffs.

“Why the fuck not? What happened to my power armour?” she demands, angrily.

“Alright, forget about the sharks.”

“How far can the lasers shoot, anyway? ‘Cause they might just fry both of you while you’re dangling if they’ve got any range.” Shaundi suggests.

“There are no sharks and no lasers anymore!” Matt snaps. “It’s just acid. Just a big, huge vat of acid, and the villain has suspended Johnny over one vat and me over another, and he’s about to drop us into it and you have to choose who to save.”

“I’ll go save Johnny,” Shaundi volunteers.

“You can’t, you’re not there,” Matt tells her.

“Well where the fuck am I, then?” she demands, angrily.

“That’s not important, you just aren’t there,” he insists.

“Why the fuck not? What’ve I got to do that’s more important than backing the boss up when some fucking asshole’s kidnapped two of our guys?”

“You’re dead,” Matt tells her.

“Whoa, hold the fuck up, who killed Shaundi?” Johnny asks.

“It doesn’t matter!”

“Thanks a lot, jackass,” Shaundi snaps, reaching over to smack him across the side of the head.

Matt yelps and flails away from her. “No one killed Shaundi! It was – it was a virus, alright? She just got very sick and died. We were all extremely sad.”

“What kind of virus?” she finds herself wondering. “Like a contagious zombie virus or some shit?”

“No, it’s not a contagious zombie virus. But Shaundi is still dead, so she can’t go save Johnny,” Matt insists.

“That’s bullshit,” Shaundi objects.

“It’s not bullshit it’s just a very specific, increasingly complex hypothetical scenario,” Matt says, sulkily.

“You’re cutting me out of the game! This is – y’know – oh, what the fuck’s it called? Railroading! That’s it!”

Matt looks appalled.

“I would never!” he declares.

“Wait, there are trains now?” she wonders.

“I’ll jack the train,” Johnny immediately declares.

“There are no trains!” Matt shrieks.

“Bullshit. You just said there was a whole fuckin’ railroad,” Johnny objects.

“No I didn’t! And even if I had, you’re still tied up and dangling over a vat of acid!” Matt insists.

“So?”

“I’ll jack the train,” she offers. “I can send it to knock over Johnny’s acid vat while I rescue Matt.”

“There’s no – argh, fine, but even after the acid spills out Johnny would still be dangling over all the spilled acid, and he’d be dizzy from the fumes, so it’s hardly a viable solution,” Matt insists.

Johnny looks highly skeptical of his claims.

“Okay, so Zombie Shaundi can go and get him,” she decides. “She’s not gonna be bothered by any fumes.”

Matt stares at her.

“Where the flaming hell did you get Zombie Shaundi from?” he demands.

“Well, you just said it wasn’t a contagious zombie virus. I naturally assumed it was still a zombie virus of some kind.”

“I better be a fuckin’ good looking zombie,” Shaundi says. “None of that face-torn-to-ratshit crap.”

“Of course. I paid top dollar to have you well preserved,” she assures her. “You look good. I mean, creepy, but that’s pretty much unavoidable when you’re a reanimated corpse. But nobody can even tell if you’re under the right lighting.”

Shaundi accepts this with an approving nod.

Matt bangs his head against the table.

She takes the opportunity to try and look at his cards, hurriedly leaning back in her seat when he looks up again.

“But Zombie Shaundi would just attack Johnny and try to eat him, so that wouldn’t work, either!” he says, a little manically.

“Why the fuck would I do that?” Shaundi demands.

“Because you’re a zombie! That’s what zombies do!”

“That’s fuckin’ racist,” Johnny says.

“Yeah, I wouldn’t try and eat Johnny. Boss’d keep me well fed.”

She nods in confirmation. Matt makes a sound like a kettle going off.

“You’re all hopeless!” he says. “Remind me never to DM a tabletop RPG with any of you, ever!”

“Is he actually speaking gibberish now?” Johnny asks, blinking.

“Nah, that’s just nerd-talk,” Shaundi says. “One of my exes used to do that.”

With a huff of frustration, Matt folds in a flurry of hand-slamming, and then stomps away from the table.

“Thank fuck,” she finds herself saying. “He had a royal goddamn flush.”

~

It culminates at Kinzie’s birthday party, of course, with the fucking Ouija board.

“Will the president-slash-god-emperor-for-life ever choose a partner to reign alongside her?” Matt asks the stupid thing.

“Psh. No,” she immediately scoffs. Holy fucking shit, she hates to say this, but he’s probably been spending too much time with Jane Austen. When did marriage enter into this procession of madness? And who would even think of putting her and marriage in the same field of concepts with one another? That’s like asking a zebra what its favourite brand of beer is.

The stupid arrow thing moves over to ‘yes’ and Matt squeals like a goddamn school girl.

She’s giving him some serious side-eye when he asks for a name. If he fucking pushes this thing towards the ‘M’, she’s gonna kick him under the table.

Fifteen minutes later, she’s trapped inside a giant purple crystal, listening to the devil try to play matchmaker between her and his daughter, and contemplating doing much, much worse things to Matt as soon as she gets out of this.

~

It’s possible she might be freaking out.

Just a little bit.

“We are opening another portal to Hell,” she says. It’s been fifteen minutes and Johnny still hasn’t appeared. They should’ve known Satan would try and double-cross them. He’s fucking Satan, of course he would. Or maybe it was Dane. She’s still having trouble wrapping her head around the idea that he was actually, apparently, helpful, and didn’t even try to double-cross them once. But she’s got the feeling that yanking someone out of an interdimensional portal is slightly above even his paygrade.

“I don’t get it, he was with us right up until the last second,” Kinzie says. She’s still looking around, like maybe Johnny’s just caught behind a plant pot or some shit.

“Um, welcome back…” Matt tentatively says, shooting uncomfortable glances between her and Jezebel.

“Shut the fuck up,” she replies. “No, wait, get the fucking Ouija board – get it right now!”

Matt’s scrambling to comply when all of a sudden a bright, golden-y light fills up the ship. It’s warm and kind, like a perfect summer day, but times a million, and it somehow makes her nerves tingle and her skin crawl at the same time.

“Fear not,” a voice says.

“Is that Morgan Freeman?” Shaundi asks.

Sure enough, the light dims somewhat to reveal Morgan Freeman standing on the deck, dressed in gleaming white robes, with feathery white wings sticking out of his back. She gapes at him for a minute.

“Yes, I’m Morgan Freeman,” he confirms. “Newly appointed messenger of God. It’s a small role, but one I find fulfilling.”

“Holy shit,” Kinzie says.

Yeah, that’s great and all, but there’s business to attend to.

“Where the fuck is Johnny?” she asks.

“Your friend is in conference with God,” Morgan Freeman says. “A choice awaits him – one only he can make. His fate, and yours, and perhaps that of all mankind rests upon his decision.”

“Oh no,” Matt says, horrified.

“Um,” Shaundi interjects. “Look, I love Johnny, but I’m not sure he’s really… y’know… like, maybe someone should help him decide?”

“No, no,” Kinzie says. “I think it’ll be okay.”

Everyone turns to look at her incredulously.

“…Yeah, nevermind. Is there a way we can talk to him before we all end up fighting like an eternal war with Godzilla or something?” she tries instead.

“I’m sorry,” Morgan Freeman says. “But God has found him worthy, and you must trust in His divine judgment.”

Matt lets out a hysterical sounding giggle.

“What exactly is Johnny choosing between?” She tries asking, feeling her admittedly scant patience getting thinner by the second. Sending fucking Morgan Freeman – that’s cheap. She can’t threaten Morgan Freeman. God must know that, the cocky son of a bitch.

“I don’t know,” Morgan Freeman says. “But this is the man who stormed Hell itself for you, after all. Hasn’t he earned your trust?”

Okay, fuck it.

“Don’t you dare,” she snarls, as Shaundi, Matt, and Kinzie all simultaneously leap at her to hold her back. “That’s my best fucking friend you’re talking about, I will tear you apart if you ever imply that I hold him in anything less than the highest goddamn regard, you hear me?!”

“For godsakes, get a hold of yourself, woman!” Matt cries, from where he’s flung himself around her legs. “That’s Morgan Freeman!”

A sound like chiming bells fills the air.

Morgan Freeman looks kind of relieved.

“It’s done,” he says. “The hero is reunited with his lady love, allowed entry to the Kingdom of Heaven by leave of God Himself.”

In a rush of celestial energy, the light sweeps out of the ship. Once it’s gone, so is Morgan Freeman. Everything looks grey and artificial again, and no longer like it’s been put underneath a really fancy photoshop filter.

Johnny’s still nowhere to be seen.

The silence lingers for one long, shocked moment.

“Holy shit,” Shaundi says, eventually, the first one to break it. “Johnny went to Heaven?”

Fuck, Johnny.

~

She’s not really sure how she gets to her room.

She remembers Shaundi swearing and Jezebel saying something about romance and Kinzie being weirdly quiet, and her own vocal chords shutting down, going stiff and rigid like they hadn’t been since she was a terrified recruit working for Julius. She remembers Pierce running in and asking what the hell was going on, and then… boom. Bedroom. Stiff bunk, grey walls, and she must’ve grabbed a bottle of booze on her way out, because she’s clutching a half-empty one in her fist.

Shit, fucking shit, that fucking crystal, if only she could have figured out how to get out of that thing, she could’ve killed Satan her goddamn self and had her own little private chat with the man upstairs. Fuck knows she has plenty she wants to say to him right now.

It’s like he’s died all over again.

Because he has.

Johnny’s gone to Heaven. Got his golden ticket, and shit, she can’t even blame him. How else was he ever gonna get past those pearly gates to see Aisha again?

She’s not going to Heaven, though. The woman who has caused more chaos and human suffering than any other? Fuck no. It doesn’t matter how many times she saves Christmas, there’s only one place she’s headed for when death actually comes to claim her.

Someone knocks at her door.

She throws the bottle at it.

“Go the fuck away,” she snaps.

Whoever it is does.

Ten minutes later, there’s another knock.

She opts not to answer.

After the third knock, it opens from the outside.

Matt steps into her room.

“Unless you’ve got a fucking death wish, Miller, leave. Now,” she snarls.

“Well, I don’t. But I won’t,” Matt replies, closing the door behind him.

Before she even realizes she’s moving, she’s got him pinned up against the wall, her hands twisted in his collar, white fury burning under her skin.

“This is your fucking fault!” she shouts at him. “You and that fucking Ouija board! I should crack your goddamn neck, I should rip out your spine and feed it to you, you worthless, fucking shithead!”

“I didn’t know that would happen, I swear!” he protests, but it sounds weak, and he’s not fighting her off and barely cringing even though she must be bruising him. She thinks he’d let her hurt him right now, if she tried. He’d let her beat the shit out of him. Hell, he’s probably expecting her to. But her arms are shaking and she feels… too much.

Just way too fucking much.

“Fuck,” she says, “fuck.” She leans forward, until he forehead is resting on the wall next to him. What happened to the days when she could just feel numb about shit like this? She thinks Johnny maybe put the first dent in them, back when she’d lost him before, and now she suspects he might have hammered the final nail into that coffin. Shit. Couple of fucking criminal psychopaths, and now one of them’s bargained his way into heaven to be with his dead girlfriend, and the other one’s two seconds away from fucking weeping into an MI6 agent’s collar.

Matt hesitantly puts his arms around her back.

“I’m sorry,” he says, again.

“Shut up,” she tells him. She will not fucking cry on Matt Miller’s shoulder. There are limits. She’s just finished playing the fucking damsel in distress, for chrissakes, her credibility can’t afford to take any more hits.

Sex. Sex will distract her.

She pushes back and kisses him, roughly, swallowing the surprised noise he makes. When he finally gets around to responding, it’s tentative, like he’s not sure if he should.

Without loosening her grip on him any, she takes a step back, dragging him away from the wall and towards the bed instead.

“Are you sure-” he starts to ask, but she shuts him up with a look.

“Either fuck me or get out,” she says.

He swallows, hard, and looks at her for a minute. She’s almost expecting him to opt out when he leans in and kisses her.

Fucking bastard.

She shoves him onto the bed. Hard.

~

“I didn’t go with them,” Matt says, after, when she’s pushed away from him and turned to glare at the wall instead.

“Why the fuck would you?” she asks.

“Because, you’re my… and we’re…” he lets out a frustrated breath. “You got kidnapped by Satan to go and get married in the underworld! There is a whole subplot about that in Nyte Blayde season two!”

“Fuck Nyte Blayde,” she says.

Matt gasps.

“I realize that you’re in a bad place right now, so I’m going to let that slide,” he eventually says, although it looks like it pains him. “The point isn’t Nyte Blayde, anyway. It’s…” he sighs. It’s gusty enough that she actually musters the energy to turn back towards him. But he’s not looking at her. He’s staring at her oh-so-fascinating ceiling.

“Are you in love with Johnny?” he asks.

She freezes.

“Why the fuck would you ask me that?” she demands, angrily.

“Oh, I don’t know,” he replies, voice dripping with sarcasm. “Maybe it’s the fact that he went to Hell for you, and when you found out he wasn’t coming back, you looked like someone had just torn your entire world apart! Maybe that put the idea into my head! Or, maybe I got the impression even earlier, when you were willing to risk all of our lives just on the off chance that you could drag him out of the simulation!”

“Fuck you!” she snarls.

“Just did, thanks,” he sneers back.

She lashes out and hits him, hard enough to send him toppling off of the bed.

“Violence! What a surprise!” he says, from the floor.

She grabs the hand gun she keeps under her pillow, and cocks it. There’s a moment of gratifying silence. But then Matt just glares at her, and there’s only the barest glimmer of his usual fear in his eyes.

“You’re not going to kill me,” he says.

That moment is, honestly, the closest she ever comes to actually killing Matt Miller. Her finger twitches on the trigger, and his eyes widen, and she realizes that he wasn’t afraid before because he really didn’t think she’d do it. As surely as, once upon a time, he never would have doubted it. It’s a strange moment. Particularly because she’s not sure if he’s right, and he looks like he might be having some second thoughts on the matter himself, too.

“Now’s not a good day to test me,” she says.

Matt clears his throat.

“Yes. That was… incredibly insensitive and remarkably ill-advised,” he concedes.

After a solid minute of glaring, she lowers the gun.

“You should leave, before I change my mind about this,” she suggests.

“I… yes. I suppose I should.”

He goes, quietly.

She waits until the door closes behind him before she starts unloading shots into her pillow.

~

She doesn’t explain the Johnny Thing. Not ever, not to anyone. Not even to Johnny, though that’s mostly because he doesn’t need it explained.

She knows Shaundi’s wondered, on and off. Pierce, too. Though they’ve never had the balls to actually just ask. And if they had, they probably would’ve asked if they were fucking, not ‘in love’, because both of them are a hell of a lot smarter than they look. Most people, though, just jump to whatever conclusion makes the most sense to them, and that’s that.

Fortunately, she doesn’t need to really explain the Johnny Thing to Matt, either. And not just because she can tell him to go suck a bag full of Zin dicks for even asking.

He shoots her a nervous glance when she walks into the cargo bay, and then focuses intently on the screen of his handheld game.

“So here’s the thing,” she says. “I don’t think you care if I love Johnny.”

Matt shakes his head.

“No! I mean, yes. That’s right. We should just forget that that conversation even happened.”

“Yeah,” she agrees. “Because what you really want to know is if I love you.”

Matt fumbles with his stupid game thing and almost drops it. He looks at her, shocked, and she rolls her eyes.

“Oh come the fuck on!” she snaps. “I’m not completely blind! You’ve been ‘fishing’ for ‘hints’ for weeks, and it’s not like you’ve been fucking subtle about it. I kept having flashbacks to grade school. Any minute I figured you’d break out with a hand puzzle or start up a game of Fuck, Marry, Kill, and then you went and found the fucking Ouija board and asked it who I was going to marry, so get that stupid look off of your goddamn face.”

Matt dutifully exchanges it for one of embarrassed irritation.

“I was not that obvious!” he protests.

“Fuck’s sake, Matt, no one on this ship is subtle!” she snaps. “Even Asha isn’t and she’s a goddamn spy!”

He subsides, sullenly, and after a minute she shoves his legs over on the couch and drops down onto it. When did everyone start talking shit out? How did that even become a thing? She lets out a growl of frustration, and ignores the niggling suspicion that it might somehow be her fault.

“I’m not good at… feelings,” she says.

Matt opens his mouth to speak and then, wisely, bites back whatever comment he’d been about to make.

Then he waits.

And waits a little longer.

After a few minutes, he nudges her shoulder very tentatively.

“That’s it?” he asks. “You just came to tell me you’re not good at feelings? Because if we want to talk about people being obvious…”

She shrugs.

“Look, I’ve spent most of my life listening to people tell me I was a sociopath, and about half that time just assuming they were right. The handful of professionals I’ve actually consulted never agreed once on a fucking diagnosis, so after a while I just figured, fuck it. Maybe I’m incapable of normal human emotion. Maybe what I feel is just, like, some weird offshoot of emotion that’s the same as what large jungle cats have or something. How the hell would I know? I work with what I’ve got,” she explains, and god, it feels weird to say this shit out loud. “That’s how it is. If that’s not what you’re looking for, I get it. You can get off this crazy ride. No hard feelings.”

Matt stares at her for, like, a solid fucking minute.

“I think you have normal human emotions,” he says. “I think you’re absolutely terrible at dealing with them, however.”

“Nah, I’m pretty sure that’s you,” she replies. “My money’s on the jungle cat thing.”

“That does sound much cooler,” he concedes.

“Fuck yeah it does.”

She leans back, and after a minute he starts fiddling with his game thing again. She listens to the beeps and bings and whistles, and wonders why the fuck she gave up smoking. She could go light up in the simulator, where it totally doesn’t count, but she doesn’t really feel like plugging herself in right now. It’s not the same anyway.

“Alright,” Matt says eventually, like they’ve been talking this whole time. “I think I can live with this arrangement. For the time being.”

“Careful with the smooth talk there, Matt, you don’t want my panties combusting on the spot.”

“I was trying to match the tone of the conversation!” he protests, and she laughs.

“Relax. I’m just fucking with you,” she says. “It’s all good.”

“Really?” he asks, obvious in his relief.

“Sure,” she says. “Why the hell wouldn’t it be?”

~

“Hey Jezebel, how does someone get into Heaven?” she asks, in the middle of lunch.

Awkward stares all around.

“Please don’t tell me we’re gonna start doing a fucking church service or some shit,” Shaundi says.

“It’s a basic point system,” Jezebel tells her, still in the process of organizing her food into smiley faces. “A person’s crimes earn them a certain sentence of however many thousands of years of suffering, with the possibility of shortening the number of years based on the degree of suffering involved. Once the sentence is served, the soul is free to ascend.”

“So, sooner or later, every soul in Hell is going to end up in Heaven,” Matt realizes. “That must be why Satan was so desperate to mount his assault quickly. With the Earth gone, his supply of souls can only deplete from this point on – assuming that we don’t succeed in setting up a new colony, of course.”

“Obviously,” Kinzie says.

“Also my father is a pigheaded, impatient idiot,” Jezebel adds. “Some souls don’t even want to go to Heaven. If he just made Hell less unpleasant for everybody, I’m sure there would be plenty of people who were happy to stick around.”

“Who doesn’t want to go to Heaven?” Asha asks, incredulous.

“Oh, murderers, psychopaths, deranged lunatics, serial killers, rebels – all types,” Jezebel says, cheerfully upending an entire bottle of ketchup over her smiling meal. “Heaven has a strict ‘no violence’ policy.”

“Wait, what?” she blurts, looking up in disbelief.

“HEAVEN HAS A STRICT ‘NO VIOLENCE’ POLICY,” Jezebel repeats, louder.

“She’s shocked, not deaf,” Matt helpfully informs her.

“Oh. Sorry. I’m still getting used to this whole ‘talking to real live humans in physical bodies’ thing. It’s kind of new for me.”

Pierce shakes his head.

“Well, Heaven’s in for a big surprise with Gat there, then,” he says.

“Nah. They let in violent people all the time,” Jezebel assures him. “Maybe not as creatively or thoroughly violent as Johnny Gat, but it happens. You don’t actually have to repent to get in. You just have to finish your term. God just doesn’t let any violence happen.”

Varying levels of appalled silence follow this assertion.

“How exactly does God stop anyone?” Kinzie asks.

“I don’t know,” Jezebel admits. “I’m Satan’s daughter, I’ve never been up there. My father used to talk about it all the time, though. No violence means no combat training or drills, after all, so only the angels ever defend the gates. Usually that doesn’t matter, because angels are much, much stronger than demons or mortal souls, but there’s only so many of them, so Father was always plotting about how we could ‘overwhelm’ them with sheer numbers or the right strategy.”

A numb sort of horror settles into her bones.

“No violence,” she murmurs, aghast. Of course, there’s Aisha, but even when she was alive Aisha hadn’t exactly done a helluva lot to curb Johnny’s enthusiasm for kicking ass. Did he know? Did he willingly give up… pretty much the key defining characteristic of his identity to be with her? Sure, he loves her. But he’s still Johnny Gat, isn’t he?

Fucking hell.

She reaches out, blindly, smacking the side of Matt’s arm before grabbing him.

“Matt,” she says. “Get the Ouija board.”

“I don’t think it can open portals to Heaven,” he says.

She gives him a hard look.

“Then it’ll fucking learn,” she hisses, and, wisely, he goes off to retrieve it without further comment.

~

The Ouija board has a bullet hole in it.

It could be her imagination, but she thinks it looks… nervous.

“I see Johnny has already introduced you to some basic forms of persuasion,” she says, slowly cracking her knuckles over top of it. “Johnny’s a pretty effective interrogator. Creative, too, when he puts his mind to it, but he tends to favour a straight-forward approach. You know? Pretty simple. A few holes here and there. Nothing a durable board like yourself can’t recover from, I’m sure.”

The little looking-lens thingie just keeps sliding back to ‘no’ over and over again.

“I feel bad for it,” Jezebel says.

“You might wanna leave the room, then, princess, ‘cause this shit is about to get inventive,” she announces, and pulls out the Twilight stickers and the glitter glue she’d retrieved from 2009 specifically for this.

“Holy mother of god,” Matt whispers, appalled.

The lens starts repeating ‘no’ at record speeds.

With a grin and a dark laugh, she gets to work.

“I’ve already been on one of these adventures,” Kinzie says meanwhile, clustered behind her with the others. “Clearly, with my expertise, it only makes sense for me to go on another one. Plus, Johnny and I totally bonded last time.”

“Yeah, no,” Shaundi replies. “I’m not sitting out another rescue operation. Especially not when we’re rescuing Johnny.”

“Yes you are,” Matt tells her. “Look. It’s reasonable to send one walking embodiment of human destruction and one intellectual mastermind on these kinds of trips. You’re neither, and as Kinzie has pointed out, she’s already gotten to go once, so it’s my turn.”

“Excuse you, I am both a walking embodiment of human destruction and an intellectual mastermind,” Shaundi says.

“You two just want to go because it’s Heaven!” Kinzie snaps.

“What, are you saying I wouldn’t go to Hell for Johnny?” Shaundi demands, angrily.

“Well you didn’t go for the president,” Kinzie replies, and then has to dodge a punch.

“You fucking bitch! Say that again!”

“Try and hit me again! I’ve just spent my weekend punching out demons!”

“Everybody shut the fuck up!” she finally shouts, as she carefully affixes Edward Cullen’s chiseled visage to the middle of the board. “No one’s coming with me.”

“You’re not going alone,” Matt says. “What are you even planning on doing? There’s no violence in Heaven, so that puts about all of your usual solutions to problems right out of the window.”

“I’m creative!” she objects, gesturing pointedly to the Ouija board, which is now spelling out ‘please’ before spamming ‘no’. She applies a sparkly glitter heart around the ‘E’.

“Perks!” Matt shrilly intones.

“Oh fucking hell,” she groans, rolling her eyes.

“No, no, I’ve been thinking about it, and if there ever should be a perk that I should get, this is it,” he insists. “It’s even – you know – sort of noble of me.”

“What the fuck are you talking about?” Shaundi asks.

“You don’t get to go just because you’re sleeping with the boss!” Kinzie snaps.

Shaundi laughs.

“Matt’s not sleeping with the boss,” she says.

There are a few seconds of awkward silence, permeated only by the sound of stickers being ripped off of their backing.

“Oh my god, I thought you were fucking Asha,” Shaundi says. “You told me you were fucking Asha!”

“I did not,” Matt says. “You assumed, I simply didn’t bother to correct the assumption.”

“Jesus. Boss, I know there’s not exactly a huge field to choose from since the Earth blew up, but what the hell? Matt?”

“I think there’s a phrase for this situation,” she replies. “Something about stoned houses and glass or some shit?” Where should the half-naked werewolves go? Ah, yeah, there’s a good corner.

“Oh, but that’s so sweet!” Jezebel declares. “You’re like star-crossed lovers, living in the stars!”

“Yes, completely,” Matt says. “Which is why I’m going with her to Heaven.”

“But you’re fucking useless unless you’re in front of a computer!” Kinzie objects.

“Excuse me, I am an MI6 agent, I have other skills!” Matt protests. He then proceeds to turn around and use one of them on her, making his eyes go all huge and beseeching and… and… shit, when did he learn to do that? No. No fucking way. This is a solo operation. Who knows what kind of nightmare is waiting for them in a land of peace and perpetual non-violence? There’s no chance she’s exposing any of them to that, or to whatever effect it’s had on Johnny. What if it turned him into a Care Bear or some shit?

No way.

~

Fucking Matt.

~

The tiny golden portal that the Ouija board had, at length, managed to wrench open – before promptly bursting into flames – dumps them out onto a field of golden clouds and perpetual sunrise, filled with gleaming white buildings and harp music.

It’s even worse than she’d imagined.

“Oh god,” Matt says, in a tone of mingled horror and disgust. He picks himself up off of the cloud he’d face-planted onto during their landing, spitting bits of fluff and trying desperately to bat them off of his clothes. They seem intent on sticking to everything, though, clinging to his jumpsuit, his hair, his gloves, even his eyelashes.

For some reason, she doesn’t seem to be having the same problem. The little cloud puffs seem repulsed by her instead, as if she sprayed herself with cloud-be-gone before they left.

Eh. Maybe it’s the alien power armour.

“Would you stop dicking around? We’ve got shit to do,” she reminds Matt, hauling him up to his feet and beating the puffballs off of him. They all but flee at her touch, and he lets out a relieved breath, before he looks around again. His nose wrinkles.

“Why is it all golds and pastels?” he asks. “This is hideous. I already feel like we’ve been here too long. My psyche might never recover. Who would want to spend eternity with this?”

“Got me.”

Something that looks like a fat, naked baby with wings zips by overhead, giggling to itself.

“What is that?! I take it back, I don’t want to be here,” Matt says, gaping at the thing.

“Man up. We gotta find Johnny,” she says. But where the fuck to start looking, that’s the question. Normally she’d just follow the trail of destruction to its inevitable source, but the whole point is that a trail of destruction kind of isn’t an option here. Still, she keeps a look out for any signs of it, just in case. Maybe a plume of smoke somewhere. Distant sounds of explosions. Whatever Heaven’s equivalent to police sirens might be.

Nothing. Just a bunch of fucking rainbows in the sky.

It’s making her trigger finger itch.

And that fucking flying… baby… thing is still giggling.

Shit that’s creepy.

She draws her pistol. Matt gapes at her.

“What are you doing?” he asks.

“Testing shit out,” she replies, and fires.

Fucking bubbles erupt from the muzzle of her gun, all shiny and perfectly round, and pop harmlessly against the freaky angel baby’s wings. She glares at the weapon, feeling deeply betrayed, and then, after a moment’s consideration, she chucks it at her target instead.

The gun explodes into confetti long before impact, sparkly ribbons and bits of pastel pink paper raining down on them.

“Damn,” Matt says.

She forces herself to take deep, calming breaths.

Okay. It’s okay. They’ll figure this shit out.

There’s gotta be some way they can work around this.

~

After twenty minutes of wandering around the fluffy clouds, they’ve gained three more flying babies, one of which is constantly playing soothing harp music.

She tries to punch it, but for some reason every time her fist gets close, it just turns into a gentle pat instead.

~

After an hour, Matt is humming along with the harp music.

~

“This is fucked up,” she says, two hours later, as Matt sits next to a rainbow fountain, smiling placidly while he listens to the winged babies’ harp music and lets two of them braid his hair. The puffy clouds have affixed themselves to him pretty firmly, now, and have somehow replaced his usual jumpsuit with a flowing white toga. There is a rosy colour to his cheeks, his nail polish has inexplicably turned pink, and his eyes look glassy and serene.

She gently grabs one of the flying babies, and gently starts trying to drown it in the fountain.

It splashes and giggles and somehow twists out of her hands before she can get its head under the water.

~

“I like you,” Matt says, swinging their hands together.

Normally, she’d object to this, but if she lets go of his hand then he just wanders off and starts petting unicorns and shit, and she’s getting sick of dragging him back every time that happens.

“You are so fucking high right now, you’d like anybody,” she tells him. And he is tripping balls. She suspects the little poof balls might be to blame, because they’re still avoiding her like plague, and she isn’t showing any symptoms herself. Yet.

But she kinda wants to hurry this operation the hell up anyway, just in case.

“That’s probably true,” Matt says, agreeably. “But I still like you. Your eyes are so pretty.”

“Jesus fucking Christ,” she mutters, and then stops and takes a look around, just to make sure she didn’t just accidentally summon the son of God or some shit. She doesn’t see any suspiciously divine-seeming dudes with hippie hair come out of the clouds, but she does spot what looks like a huge set of gates in the distance.

And hovering over top of them are adult-looking figures with wings, and what, at a distance, appear to be lightsabers.

“C’mon,” she says, tugging Matt along.

~

They aren’t lightsabers.

They’re flaming swords.

Kind of a letdown to be honest.

~

She sits Matt down at another fountain, this one in view of the gates, along with their giggling and cooing entourage.

“Okay,” she says to him. “You’re gonna stay right here while I go and take care of some shit.”

“But I want to come with you,” he says, reaching out to touch her helmet. She bats his hand away.

“Nah, see, I’m gonna go try and mug an angel, so actually you really probably don’t,” she assures him.

He sighs.

“Oh, fine,” he concedes, just a hint dejected, but then two seconds later he’s humming along with the fucking harp music again, so whatever.

“Right. Good Matt. Stay,” she says, taking a few steps away. “I’ll be back soon.”

When Matt shows no immediate interest in either following her or running after the nearest shiny thing like a kid on a sugar rush, she turns and heads towards the gates.

Beyond them, it just seems like there’re more clouds, and she thinks she can maybe make out the distant sight of indistinct figures lined up in a long queue. Hints of blue peek up from below, and up above, a plethora of model-esque figures clad in gleaming armour patrol the perimeter like the world’s gayest medieval prison guards.

In fact, she’s starting to get a real unnerving ‘prison’ vibe from this whole setup anyway.

One sure way to test that theory.

She walks up to the gates, and, after a moment of consideration, starts squeezing her way through the nearest gap.

There’s a loud flapping sound, then a whoosh of air as something big descends from the sky. This guy – chick – ah, fuck it, whatever – has wings like the ones Johnny had been sporting when he’d rescued her, only not perpetually burning. Which kind of makes them a little bit lame, by comparison. Just in her incredibly unbiased opinion and all.

“What are you doing?” the angel asks.

“What’s it look like?” she replies, as she finishes pulling herself through.

“You must return to the safety of the Celestial Kingdom,” it tells her.

“Nah,” she says.

The angel blinks.

“But you must; it is where you belong.”

She snorts.

“I sincerely fucking doubt that,” she says. “Look, can I borrow your sword? I want to test some shit out.”

The angel’s expression gradually shifts from ‘shocked’ to ‘wary’. It eyes her up and down, and then purses its lips like an unimpressed kindergarten teacher.

“Who are you?” it asks.

“Saints Boss slash President of the United States of America slash God Emperor For Life of the Universe,” she says, extending one hand and flexing it meaningfully. “Now are you gonna give me that sword, or what?”

Its expression goes hard, and it pulls out some kind of horn from its robes, and blasts a breath of air into it. The sound it makes is like something outta Lord of the Rings.

“Back, fiend!” the angel says, brandishing the sword towards her.

“Oh, goodie,” she replies.

~

So, turns out the ‘no violence’ rule doesn’t apply when you’re standing outside of the gates.

~

She saunters back to where she’d left Matt with two flaming swords and three cracked halos strung around her belt, while the remaining angels scurry around the gate, still trying to figure out what the fuck just happened.

There’s no sign of him.

Well, shit.

She scans the area for a while, calls his name a few times, even whistles for him like he’s a stray dog, but no dice. The little naked flying babies have all fucked off, too. Freaks. They probably fucking kidnapped him or some shit, she should’ve tried harder to drown them.

For a minute she resentfully contemplates the unoccupied fountain. Where Matt was supposed to be waiting for her. And isn’t. Then she glances at the flaming swords in her hands. Angel weapons, angel rules – will one of them turn into confetti if she gives it a swing?

Welp, here goes nothing.

She jabs at the thick stone. The blade hits with a jarring clang, pulling at the bruise one of the angels managed to land on her shoulder, and then splits through it like a bullet through a windshield. One solid swing, and half the statue comes down, knocking against the rim and sending spurts of rainbow water streaming down into the clouds. 

~

Turns out the head of Heaven’s armies is some asshole named Michael. No last name. Pretentious motherfucker. He’s got way more going on in the wing department than seems strictly necessary, even for a pimped-out military angel, and absolutely no sense of humour. Apparently, he doesn’t come out to play very often, which would definitely explain the stick up his ass. But he’s willing to make an exception for someone who keeps beating up his subordinates and vandalizing their statuary.

She calls him ‘Mike’.

He calls her ‘Fiend’.

It’s their thing.

“You have brought discord to the house of my father!” he bellows. Like, really bellows. Guy could give Satan a run for his money in the drama queen department.

“If you ask me, this place could use a little discord,” she replies. “C’mon, Mike. You strike me as a man of action. Be honest – it’s boring as fuck here, isn’t it?”

“The glories of the Celestial Kingdom are unmatched!” he says.

“Really?” she asks. “You mean the rainbow fountains and the clouds and shit? This is unmatched? Have you ever even, I dunno, eaten a pizza, or fucked somebody, or watched three helicopters crash into one another like a bunch of flaming sky dominoes? Shit, I mean, I’m pretty sure an episode of Nyte Blayde’s got this place beat for basic entertainment value. I haven’t even heard anything other than harp music since I got here.”

“I will not be tempted by your base lures, Fiend!” Michael bellows. Again.

“Why not?” she asks, but then he starts raining Holy Fire down on her, which is really goddamn unpleasant, so the conversation kind of grinds to a halt.

For a guy who claims not to be bored, Michael seems really keen on kicking her ass. He takes out three shiny white buildings all by himself while he’s trying to land a hit on her. She figures he might level the whole damn place if she dodges just right, and after a second she decides to test that theory, and leads him on an elaborate chase through Heaven. He brings down another four buildings before he wises up and starts being a little bit more judicious in the use of his blasting powers, but even so, that’s plenty of chaos to introduce to a place that has – ostensibly – seen precisely none since Satan left town a fucktillion years ago.

Of course, there’s only so much she can do with the power suit’s speed boosts and a couple of cool swords.

Okay, so there’s a lot she can do, but even so her range is kinda limited and after about two hours, Michael and some of his pals manage to corner her next to some huge building that sorta looks like a bank. Or a town hall. It’s probably just the pillars, though, fucking everything in this place looks like it belongs in an issue of Pretentious Douchebag Architecture Monthly.

Michael punches her in the head. A lot.

“Where are Satan’s armies?” he demands, after he gets sick of that.

She gives him a bewildered look, which is probably lost on him because, y’know, close-faced helmet.

“I don’t know. Hell?” she suggests. “Shit. You hit like a truck.”

He kicks like one too, turns out.

“You are the vanguard of an invasion. Where are the rest of your forces?” Mike insistently demands.

“I don’t have any forces. Well, not here,” she replies. “I mean I have a whole intergalactic army, but I didn’t bring it. Thank fuck. I can only imagine what would have happened if I had. Fucking Zin making daisy chains or some shit…”

“You mean to tell me you came alone?” the angel scoffs.

“I did bring one guy, ‘cause he insisted, but I lost track of him somewhere,” she admits.

Michael looks confused. That seems to be a pretty common look on angels. Must not get out much.

“Look, Mike. I realize that you have a lot of pent up aggression, and normally I’d be all for helping you work that shit out, but I kinda just want to find my people and call it a day, okay?” she tells him. “I didn’t come here planning on any kind of invasion. I came here to check up on a friend of mine. Johnny.”

He narrows his eyes at her.

“There are many mortals by that name,” he says.

“Johnny Gat,” she clarifies.

Nothing. Not so much as a spark of recognition.

“Are you shitting me?” she asks. “Johnny fucking Gat, the guy who just tore Hell apart, decimated Satan’s forces and earned himself a bonus ticket to Heaven?”

Michael looks vaguely uncomfortable.

“I do not make a habit of keeping informed of the exploits of mankind, particularly not since the Earth was destroyed,” he says.

“Holy shit, man. I’ve known some shut-ins, but you really need to get out more,” she says.

“Silence!” he bellows.

Mostly it seems like he’s just embarrassed, though.

“Look, I’ll make you a deal,” she suggests. “You help me find my friends, and I’ll stop tearing shit up. How does that sound?”

He sneers at her.

“I do not bargain with fiends,” he tells her. Snidely.

She shrugs, closing her hand around the hilt of the sword she’d been reaching for since he stopped punching her.

“Well, I tried,” she says, and then stabs him in the face.

~

She finds Matt, finally, standing in the middle of some fancy courtyard full of delicate pink flower bushes that chime like bells when they’re touched (and clang like pots and pans when they get hacked to bits.)

“Oh good, you’re here!” Matt gushes at her with glassy-eyed adoration. He claps his hands together.

“Yeah, great. Now get over here. I need to tie a tether to you or some shit,” she declares, striding forward.

“We were waiting forever!” Matt tells her.

“We?”

A trio of stony-faced angels, each with almost as many wings as Michael, descend from the sky in a ring around Matt. He beams stupidly at them and waves a little bit.

“Well, shit,” she declares, with feeling, and hefts her sword.

~

“That was mean,” Matt tells her, after, while she steps over half a severed angel wing to grab his hand. He blinks at the dismembered pieces of the celestial guardians with mild concern. “Are they feeling okay?”

“…Sure. They’re just napping,” she tells him.

“Ohhh.” Matt drops his voice to a whisper. “Sleep tight, friends!”

Definitely gonna need some kind of tether.

~

Turns out halos make for kind of shitty tethers, but shoving one into Matt’s hand has the interesting effect of making him convulse, sprout enormous white wings, and stare at her in horror.

“What the fucking hell just happened?!” he demands.

Then he falls over, because wings are heavy and awkward, apparently.

She glares at the other halos she’s got, betrayed.

“They don’t do that when I hold them,” she mutters. “Why the fuck not? I want wings, too. Wings are cool.”

Matt flails, catches sight of his wings out of the corner of his eye, shrieks, and falls over again.

“Stop freaking out,” she tells him. Then she blinks. “Oh. Hey. You’re freaking out. Does that mean you’re back to normal?”

“This isn’t Heaven,” Matt hisses at her. “This is some kind of candyfloss mindrape nightmare. Why do I have wings? Why are they fluffy? That doesn’t go with my aesthetic! What have I been doing?! Was I singing hymns?!”

“Thank fuck,” she says, with a surprising depth of sincere gratitude, and drags him back onto his feet. He wobbles. Maybe she won’t begrudge him the wings after all, although she’s pretty sure she’d get the hang of them faster than he seems to be, as he takes a step and almost pitches forward instead. She gets a face full of feathers when the wings twitch and accidentally smack into her helmet.

“Walk normally!” she tells him.

“If may have escaped your notice but I have somehow manifested extra limbs,” Matt snaps back at her. “That kind of complicates things!”

“So fly instead, or hover or some shit,” she says.

“I can’t fly, there’s no possible way this wingspan could support my body mass,” he protests.

“Johnny could fly. So could Kinzie.”

Matt purses his lips.

“It shouldn’t work,” he insists.

“Matt. We are in the fucking Kingdom of Heaven. You just hijacked an angel halo and I stabbed the leader of Heaven’s armies with a magical flaming sword. And you’re getting testy about wingspan?” she counters.

“…Fair enough.”

He staggers back, nearly falls over again, but manages to right himself. She gives him a little more space. After a few awkward test flaps he jumps into the air and starts furiously pumping his wings, hard enough that a definite breeze kicks up and sends some nearby clouds swirling away. He barely manages to keep up off the ground before his face turns red and he gives up, and collapses to his knees.

“It doesn’t work!” he pants.

“Bullshit. You probably just need to think about happy thoughts,” she suggests.

“That’s from Peter Pan!"

“Fuck, really? Huh. Coulda sworn it was from the Bible.”

Matt drags himself back to his feet. His wings give a shake that’s probably fatigue but also seems kinda distinctly irritable. After a few staggering, awkward steps, he manages to get them sort of folded at his back, and starts walking… not like ‘normal’, really, but less like a drunken pirate.

“This is ridiculous,” he mutters.

“Bitch, bitch, bitch,” she mocks back at him, rolling her eyes. “It’s a couple extra limbs, not the end of the world.”

“I think the end of the world was actually less unsettling than the realities we’ve just discovered about the afterlife,” Matt replies, in his ‘oh god, I’ve just realized something horrible’ voice. “I mean, this is supposed to be paradise. This! I think I’d rather be in Hell, and by all accounts, Hell sucks. This is what’s waiting for us in the long stretch of eternity! Once our lives are over we either go down to a realm of constant suffering, or come up, to this. Doesn’t that terrify you?”

She considers it, and then shrugs.

“Screw it. We’ll just have to keep remodeling,” she decides.

~