by Aya DeAniege
“Mine,” I said, not meeting his eyes.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t hear that, whose job is it?”
“It’s mine,” I snapped at him.
“Good, deal with it.”
“That’s not helpful at all,” I said. “He’s the one—”
“No more of that. No more about how Ralph is the one at fault. I’m done with this. You’re the one who just antagonized him. You had plenty of opportunities to sleep with your date. Just because you have your holdbacks doesn’t mean that he has to do or be the same thing. You aren’t asexual, I’ve caught you masturbating more than once, and I know you’ve had women before for a reason besides getting rid of possession. And if you didn’t want him doing that, then you should have said so before, but I know for a fact that you were fine with it. So get your ego out of the hole you’ve dug because you aren’t a victim here, you’re a moron setting yourself up to look like the poor, pitiful guy. None of us are falling for it.”
“I’m not—”
“If you want attention so much, go find Sera, or go to Ralph and apologize. They’ll give you plenty of attention. I’m done.”
Sam caught himself and reached up, pinching the bridge of his nose as he muttered a curse under his breath and corrected himself, after the fact, on Raphael’s name.
“Why? Just because Grace is calling the shots?” I demanded.
“You’ve never loved anyone or anything but yourself, Michael. You couldn’t possibly know what it’s like to have someone who you rely on and who relies on you. I’m not the only one in the relationship with Grace and I’m doing whatever I can to make her happy because making her happy makes me happy. It’s just too bad that you’re incapable of emotion beyond hatred and disgust for everything that exists.”
“That’s not true at all,” I protested.
“Actions, brother, actions speak louder than words.”
His tone of voice told me that that was the end of the lecture. If I spoke up again, he’d strike out at me physically. I could take a beating, but I didn’t want to. Without Raphael to heal me, I would have to take my time and care for myself as a human might.
I did the smart thing. I kept my mouth shut and averted my eyes.
Sam left.
I huffed out a breath and looked around the room. I huffed out again and left in search of Gabe. He had been sent to watch the women and Raphael. I knew he would go to do as he had been told. He would also find a safe place to watch from, where I could also sit and watch out of sight and earshot of the three who were grumpy with me.
I found Gabe on the second floor in an unoccupied room, sitting on the balcony with a beer and a blanket across his lap. He glanced up at me and raised his beer bottle slightly. His eyes were half-closed, obviously sleepy, but he didn’t seem disturbed in the least. Like he was just enjoying a beer before bed.
“You cold?” I asked.
“It’s a comfort,” he said. “I wouldn’t expect the man who shamed the Spartans to know the purpose of comfort.”
“That was centuries ago, before Egyptian cotton sheets and silk underwear,” I muttered as I stepped further onto the balcony.
I looked over the balcony ledge.
Gabe had positioned himself in such a way that he could see the hot tub, which was occupied and on. Ralph sat with a full bottle of vodka, the end of it sitting in the bubbling, steaming water. Everyone knew warm vodka burned something terrible. He was making a bad choice there.
Grace was sitting across from him, Lillith beside him with her arms stretched out.
Lillith was naked. Full on, entirely naked. Neither of her companions seemed to notice that she was naked, though breast down was in the water, so she wasn’t exactly flaunting anything to the other two. Grace was wearing a bra, likely underwear as well. Raphael would have been dressed somewhat similarly.
I turned to Gabe. His eyebrows rose, then he motioned to the cooler beside him. I went and grabbed a beer and opened it as I returned to my place. Leaning against the railing, I took a sip as I looked down on the hot tube.
I didn’t know why Lillith was naked and I didn’t want to know, I certainly didn’t want to look at it.
“Sam thinks I’m a homophobe,” I said, to which Gabe made a grunting sound. “Says if Ralph decides to change gender, he’s forcing me to change too.”
I turned, placing my hips against the railing as Gabe refused to look at me. There was something about him that spoke of amusement.
“That wouldn’t be smart. Raphael being a woman and you being a man might end the fight,” Gabe said as he raised the beer to sip.
I scowled at him as he smiled, but kept his eyes on the hot tub. He sipped his beer and continued to watch the hot tub. I did the same, sipping my beer and casting a glance over my shoulder toward the tub. Then I turned back to Gabe.
“What are you going to do?” he asked.
“I’m going to call Sera and set up a time for a picnic tomorrow,” I said. I hesitated, turning the idea over in my mind as I wondered if it would be smart to say. In the end, I spoke my mind rather than hold it back, “He’s strongly suggested I bone Raphael.”
“Little brother would follow you around like you were connected at the hip,” Gabe said.
Gabe had always teased me. He was the only one who could get away with it because he did it in such a light-hearted manner. Throughout the ages, he had giggled like an imp over the fact that Raphael wanted to play with my flaming sword. I had never understood what he had meant by that, but suddenly I was wondering.
“Wait, is that what you all meant about him wanting my flaming sword?”
“No, I said he wanted your sword. I said he is flaming. Are you going to do it?”
“Do what?” I asked.
“Throw him down and have your way with him,” Gabe said. “I could walk you through the way to do it super awkwardly so that you never have to do it again.”
I was willing to admit that the idea entertained me for a brief second, but then I dismissed it. Especially doing it awkwardly, especially doing it awkwardly on purpose. No matter what fight I might have with Raphael, I would never do something that would cause long-term harm on purpose.
“And scare him off pleasure in Heaven? No, but thank you.”
“Well, you two have been fighting since we came to Earth. In Heaven he was always watching you and, blushing, I guess is what humans would say. Once we came down, all of a sudden you were picking on him. For the first little bit, he just went with it. Then Lillith told him about abuse and manipulation, and the fight started. Frankly, I prefer the fight to that awkward bullying.”
“We talked to him just the same in Heaven,” I said with a shrug. “It wasn’t a problem then.”
Gabe winced.
“What’s that for?” I asked.
“Sam just kept telling you guys to stop it, so it got more and more passive aggressive,” Gabe said. “I mean, he’s the end of all fighting, so there’s that. But he’s been very much about just getting through the day. He’s got these blinders on and never sees beyond the immediate. He’s always just thought that this is the blink of an eye or something, or like we can go back to the start of time once we have our graces back. Not going to happen.”
“And?” I asked.
“Do you remember Heaven?” Gabe asked. “Like, really, remember Heaven?”
“Yes, of course.”
“You and Sam spent a few centuries together. I had my lovely little cherubs.”
That made me chuckle as I brought the beer to my lips. Lillith and I had had a conversation with Grace about angel rankings one day, and Gabe mentioning cherubs made me think of that.
He raised an eyebrow in question, and I shrugged at it.
“Humans think cherubs are baby angels,” I said.
“I know, so don’t say that to Grace,” Gabe said. “Do you remember what Raphael used to do? He’d crawl between you and Sam. When the fights started, I’d always find him hiding in your rooms. You w
ere the bad guy to the rest of Heaven, but he still hid in your rooms, not Sam’s. Sometimes I wonder if Raphael would have left Heaven if you hadn’t.”
“What? Of course, he would have, we all left as a show of solidarity.”
“Fuck no. Sam left for Lillith, or because he got dragged to Hell depending on who tells it. You left because you slept with a woman and as you slept she stole a feather, which gave her access to your grace until you cut it out. Once you were down on Earth, I broke into Hell, wedging open the gates by accident in a bid to get Samael out. Raphael followed behind. I don’t even know why he’s here. He’s done nothing wrong. Heaven still talks to him on and off.”
“He’s an innocent,” I said. “He’ll never understand what it’s like to be one of us, unable ever to return home. Or what it is to sin in Father’s eyes. He hasn’t done anything wrong.”
“And I think that’s why you started to pick on him. You were jealous. He can still hear Father’s voice. Even without his grace, he’s blessed by the Heavens. You were meant to be the hero and protector. You were the one that the parades were meant to be thrown for, so to speak. But you’re nothing to Heaven except the dumbass who made dark witches.”
“I’m not jealous,” I said.
“No one believes that. You’re mean to him. Maybe you should change that. Maybe not be a dickbag all the time.”
“Dickbag isn’t a word, no matter how many times Grace says it.”
“Doesn’t matter,” Gabe said. “That’s what you are. And you need to deal with that because Sam’s always been right about one thing. Father will not accept you back in Heaven with that dark cloud of jealousy that you’re carrying around.”
I woke the next morning to a cool hand on my forehead.
For whatever reason, I couldn’t recall climbing into bed. It must have had something to do with the hot tub and vodka. I know some humans managed it just fine, but heat and alcohol always knocked me out faster than anything else.
I groaned as the hand moved, brushing through my hair. The motion caused me to roll toward the cool body as my body tried to explode outward. That wasn’t—I realized almost too late—my body trying to explode, that was my stomach trying to toss up its contents violently. I swallowed quickly, but thankfully my stomach was too tight to release anything.
A tremor of self-loathing came over me, and I curled into a tighter ball.
“Ralph,” Sam murmured as he lowered himself to the edge of the bed. “Raphael, I need you to sit up to take some pills and water. Your body will do the rest of the work. Come up.”
Silence predominated for several minutes as I told my body to move, but it refused to budge. All I wanted to do was close my eyes and go back to sleep. Sam reached for my shoulder, pulling me up as I groaned loudly, not wanting to sit up.
My head swirled, and my stomach tried to follow suit. When I swallowed again, I ended up with a hand over my mouth, desperately trying not to be sick. Sam allowed me that awkward moment of being half-upright and not moving. He knew what it was like, to be that hung over. We had helped each other more than once.
Sam pulled me upward, and I opened my mouth obediently. He flicked two pills into my mouth, then brought a bottle of water to my lips. When I swallowed the pills, my headache disappeared almost instantly. The pulsing of my heartbeat in my ears took another minute to vanish, as my body began to right itself.
The one plus side of being who and what I was. A healing ability meant that I needed the nudge in the right direction and everything else just happened.
The hangover lifted slowly, leaving in its place only the exhaustion that came from not sleeping properly the night before. I dragged my knees up, wrapped my arms around them and set my head on my knees. I couldn’t let go of the tension, despite hours of soaking in the hot tub.
“How much did Grace drink last night?” Sam asked.
I struggled to remember. All that came to me was the sound of a hot tub and us giggling like school girls over something that escaped me. I also remembered the warmth, the heat of the water surrounding me. I felt as if I hadn’t been that warm in years.
My head swirled. I groaned, giving myself a light shake.
“Nothing,” I said. “She didn’t even stay in the tub long. She wasn’t feeling well.”
“What she actually said was that you told her to get the fuck out and wrap up in blankets and towels,” Sam said. “Which is a strange thing for you to say to my wife. Lilly was still in the tub. She admitted to drinking at least the same amount as you and was perky enough this morning to tell Michael he needs to fuck himself with a mace and die slowly.”
“Lillith,” I corrected.
The image that popped into my head gave me a little laugh. Nothing came out of my mouth, just a motion of my chest as I chuckled at the idea of it. Not even about Michael doing something nasty to himself, but at Lillith saying that over coffee with out being perky as she usually was in the mornings.
“She’s also decided that he’s now Michael because fuck him. Her words, not mine.”
I made a little, desperate, sound and kept my head on my knees.
“Raphael, why did you tell Grace to get out of the hot tub?”
Sam had plenty of reason to worry. When I had made comments like those in the past to humans, there had been something wrong with them. I couldn’t just shut that part of me off, and sometimes the more I tried, the stranger I behaved on a whim, I suppose was the best way to put it.
There could very well have been something wrong with Grace, and after all the drinking and smoking and the emotions of the night, it had simply come out. I had no idea what I had gotten worked up about involving Grace, I was drawing a blank on why I might have wanted Grace out of the tub.
We had gone in together to enjoy each other’s company.
Maybe she has a heart problem.
Heat could cause a human all kinds of trouble. Or, maybe, I was overreacting to nothing at all. Perhaps I was just worried because I knew one day Grace’s mortality would catch up to her and I knew how many germs a hot tub could harbour, the stuff that could happen in a tub because of the heat and bacteria. I knew those things. Grace didn’t.
Neither did Sam.
Not knowing what was wrong, however, I offered Sam no information.
“She should see a doctor, if you’re so concerned,” I said. “Maybe she caught a bug or something. From cleaning bodily fluids out of the bar. Actually, yes, get her checked out. Send her to a doctor today if you can. Remember, ugh, remember the last time I started doing that?”
“Black Plague.”
“No, I had that friend who had AIDS. Stupid doctors not even trying to diagnose it. He was a good friend. I miss him.”
Sam’s hand on my back did a little motion. For a long time he didn’t say anything, then he gave his head a shake and looked at me pitifully.
“Oh, you sound like you’re having one of your pity parties.”
“It’s not a pity party. I miss my friend. I’m sorry your friend is immortal, that’s not… I forgot what I was going to say.”
“You’re friends with Lillith.”
“Lillith was yours first.”
“She’s my ex, not my friend. She’s Grace’s friend, but, Raphael, you’re the only one she’s never been pissed at. Pretty certain when she forced us to be women, it was just so that she could go shopping with you and flirt with the lords.”
We had immediately done just that. We had also had a lot of fun doing it, owning the city like we were fancy ladies and I had ‘defiled’ more than one lord.
Though I think, given the century it had happened in, society would have viewed it as me being defiled instead of the other way around.
I smiled at the memory, longing for a simpler time.
“That’s true,” I said.
While Lillith and I had enjoyed ourselves, Michael, Gabriel, and Samael had struggled. In a month they had lost our home and fortune, been chased out of the city and got wrapped up in a wa
r that Michael tried to fight in but couldn’t succeed in because his breasts kept getting in the way.
“Exactly,” he said.
I lifted my head and sighed.
“I’m a being. I am allowed to have emotions about things that have happened in the past.”
“You aren’t constantly moping, but we had to have a name for it so that we could warn each other and prepare accordingly,” Sam said. “There are certain things we always have to do, to make things better for you. We know you’re an emotional being and we love you for it.”
His voice was gentle, but I didn’t believe him in the least.
“You’re mean about it,” I said.
“Okay, let’s work on that.”
“I’ve told you that you’re being mean about it before.”
Sam was quiet for some time. He seemed to be considering his words carefully. Maybe he was thinking about what he had done in the past, how he had reacted to my other ‘pity parties’ and how he had treated me when I had protested that he was being mean.
It did seem like he was thinking about it, which was why I didn’t interrupt him or add anything. I just sat there until he spoke.
“Grace says that I have a lot of problems. A lot of strong opinions that I like to push on others. She’s said that maybe I bulldoze over the opinions of others rather than face the fact that we’re in trouble and doing the same thing we’ve been doing since the beginning of time isn’t going to fix anything. Or something.”
“Is that why you didn’t come in here yelling and going on?”
He had taken to doing that in modern times. After we had bought the bar, we had indulged a little too much, too many times. Sam’s responses had started out gentle, then gotten annoyed fast. I had been greeted with a bucket of ice on more than one occasion.
“I wanted to,” Sam said. “What kind of moron gets wasted to the point of being that hungover just because… Mike’s always been like that Raphael. You drinking isn’t going to change that.”
“My doing anything doesn’t change Michael. I’ve tried everything.”
“I know. The only thing that ever stopped him for a little bit was your violent streak, which I pray we never witness again.”