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“And that is all that love’s about.”
“And we’ll recall, when time runs out.”
…
It was that first brush of fingers in the bar, really.
Skin against skin, corporation against corporation.
Angels didn’t spend a lot of time touching one another.
Demons spent…Far too much time touching one another. In both senses of the phrase.
Hell was small, and cramped.
But, nevertheless:
About the same time Gabriel was thinking “Why the hell is touch such a powerful thing?”
Beelzebub, a big, dopey smile across their face, was thinking something along the lines of: “Why the heaven did I enjoy someone touching me, at all?”
Now, there weren’t that many more little, accidental touches.
It could be admitted that most of them were purposeful.
There were some, a clandestine meeting at the park, where clandestine meetings so often met.
It was a nice little walk, with the dimming sun, sinking below the horizon.
A goose had hissed at Gabriel, and he had stumbled backwards into his companion.
Beelzebub had barred, ragged, maggot riddled teeth at the goose, hissing right back at it.
And that may have been the only goose on earth to ever truly know fear.
God did not build geese to know fear.
And if the archangel had not pulled away from the arm that had caught him around his middle, then, She didn’t need to know that.
Not that She didn’t have a perfectly clear view, looking down from the vibrant, pink sky.
Gabriel, was coming to find he didn’t care, he wasn’t sure he ever had.
There was another time, a bit into the future, when the goose incident was a well cherished inside joke.
It was on a crowded, sticky pier, the smell of pure sugar, and all things fried filling what little space there was in the air between the hundreds of pressing bodies attending the fair.
Beelzebub moved through, sure and steady as a cliff against the sea, they’d had to grab Gabriel’s wrist…Just for necessity, pulling him along as he struggled through the crowd, sounding less, and less angelic, each time someone trod on his shoes, or slung something dripping grease his way.
There was a little break in the crowd, a little section cleared away for a few rigged games, their twinkling lights drawing in what few bugs could brave the sea breeze for the delicious remains of human’s sugar sweet trash.
Beelzebub took a bite of what they insisted be referred to as “Candy floss,” but that Gabriel, strangely, found himself referring to as “Cotton candy,” instead, and their grip, that had never left his wrist, grew tighter.
They let out an undignified little noise, and did an undignified little jump of delight, pointing with their free hand at a hanging victim of a stuffed animal, hanging by its bulbous head from the prize rack of one of the games.
It was a cartoonish fly, with cheap shiny fabric for eyes, and bendy legs, all bent out of shape from getting bumped, and pushed around by a thousand hands, as every single one of them passed over it, picking out a different prize.
“Oh, Satan, I fucking love that” They said, laughing.
And Gabriel knew he had to win it for them.
Luckily for him, it was a test of strength, which he could not fail.
“One please,” he said, swaggering up to the carnie running the game.
Twelve human dollars seemed an outrageous price, even to him, but he paid up.
Up went the oversized hammer, and down it struck.
And up went the little dial, up, up, to a level on the scale that read: “Weak little cherub.”
Gabriel’s jaw dropped, then, set, as he grit his teeth.
“One more, please,” he said, having walked up, now avoiding eye contact with the carnie.
Twelve more human dollars.
Then, up went the oversized hammer, and down it struck again, twice as hard.
And up, up, up went the little dial, and if it stopped again, at the level just above “Weak little cherub,” only to keep going at the rise of an archangel’s eyebrow, then no one needed to know.
When Gabriel turned around to present his prize, the fly, of course, to Beelzebub, they weren’t there.
But, they were on their way back, walking away from a different game, holding something behind their back, looking tickled, and pleased with themself, a bit of cotton candy, and or candy floss, sticking to their cheek.
“What did you do?” Gabriel asked.
They thrust a stuffed goose into his arms, and snatched away the fly, straightening out its bent up legs, and shiny little wings.
Gabriel squeezed the goose.
It honked at him, a kinder noise than hissing, at least.
Beelzebub explained that they’d won it, for him, on a game where you threw a baseball at a stack of bottles.
And if a swarm of maggots had eaten away at the glue holding those bottles in place to let them win…Then, no one needed to know.
And if Gabriel took the opportunity to put an arm around their shoulders, then, no one needed to know that, either…
It was much, much, much, later after so, so, so much had happened, standing in a bookshop, that he was able to put his arm around them again, and realize he didn’t quite ever want to let go.
He said as much in that bookshop.
And off they went.
If there would be consequences, which, both of them had concluded, there likely wouldn’t be, then…They didn’t need to know.
All they needed to know was the beautiful, quiet, peaceful space before them.
All for them, now.
“Can you lean down, a little, my love?” Beelzebub asked.
Gabriel had done so, much to his strange, wonderous delight, putting himself within kissing range.
A new kind of touch, where their chapped, well worried lips pressed against his.
He smiled into it, and what did he care if anyone knew.
But if the way the stars, for just a moment, grew brighter, flashed purple, and flashed a lovely, soft teal, that was the color Beelzebub liked to wear, secretly, beneath all the black and red…
That they had flashed those colors, for just a moment, before he closed his eyes.
Well, then, he knew…
That maybe, She knew…
But, in that moment, it didn’t even matter.
…
“That it only took a moment to be loved, a whole life long.”
…
…
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