Work Text:
“You’re just an angel who goes along with Heaven as far as he can,” you say. It’s an echo of your earlier words; placing us both on a spectrum that, until yesterday, I had only ever seen as binary. There was Heaven and there was Hell; and however much I could stop myself from seeing the angel you were, however drawn towards you I felt, there was no middle ground upon which we could meet.
Until now, here, on this Earth that is neither Heaven nor Hell, the middle ground that we’ve stood on together all along.
“That sounds, um…” I hesitate, unsure of what to say. You rejected my sympathy earlier, denied it was needed, and I’m not sure how to ask it of you now. If that’s even something you’re capable of offering.
“Lonely?” I’d half expected mockery, that smirk that fits your face so well. But there’s none of that, only quiet agreement. “Yeah.”
“But you said it wasn’t!” I protest, although I hadn’t believed you at the time. You hide it well, but not well enough. Not from me.
“I’m a demon. I lied.” You say this as if it’s obvious, as if every word you utter is untrue, verity prohibited from your serpent’s tongue. As if I haven’t seen you making language dance, twisting it to your needs, turning truth into lies and lies into truth, making the humans you tempt believe whatever you want them to.
And not just humans. Earlier, in Job’s basement, you tried the dance with me. Angels can’t be tempted, can you? You’re free to try the food.
As if the food was the temptation. Do you even know what it was I really wanted, in that moment? Do you know?
Temporarily on the same side, you said before that. Not God’s side, not Satan’s, just…our side. The two of us, on that middle ground. Where we’ve been since the Beginning.
“Is there…” I stop, swallow down what I was going to say as you look at me like…like what I have to say is important. Like you want to know. “Is there anything that helps?”
“Sometimes…” you say, so quietly that I’m forced to shuffle closer to hear you. “...sometimes you can find somebody that you have something in common with. Even just the smallest thing…”
“Like…not wanting to-to kill innocent children?” I venture. I don’t dare look at you, focusing on the sun sinking under the horizon instead.
“Could be,” you say.
“And that…that stops it? The loneliness?”
“No.”
“No?”
“No. But it helps. To have someone…” You pause, and I can’t help but look over at you, your silhouette in the dying light, the ridiculous facial hair you’ve cultivated. I can never help it. Not since that first moment, when you brought a nebula to life. You’re not that angel anymore, you’ve been sure to tell me that; but some things are static, everlasting, though everything else moves around them.
“Someone?” I prompt after a moment.
“Someone you can rely on,” you say, and you look at me. As if I’ve ever done anything to deserve that. As if you’re scared I’ll look away. “Even if you go a hundred, a thousand years without seeing them. You know you can just pick up where you left off, like it’s only been minutes instead of years. And you know, as long as they’re there, the loneliness…it goes away for a little while.”
You’re right. You often are, I think, even when I can’t admit it to myself. Because I’ve been lonely a lot, here on Earth, the only angel in a sea of humanity. And even in Heaven, where such things shouldn’t be possible, where we should all be joyful and cohesive, I’ve always been an odd duck.
But those moments where our paths cross, even though the circumstances are not always ideal; on those days when I’m with you the loneliness fades away.
Just for a little while.