“Oh yes,” Brath replies. “He is too unpredictable for my liking, and that cherub has planted some thoughts in his head that I have yet to erase, but think of it as what it is. The only archangel capable of keeping you from seeking revenge: stuck on earth, no more special than any common person. This is going to be a walk in the park.”
“So optimistic? That doesn’t sound anything like you.”
Brath shrugs. “I’ve had a change of heart."
“You don’t have a heart,” Lucifer reminds him.
Brath feels his burning gaze digging into his chest. “I don’t. But I have found one I’d like to keep.”
His brother remains quiet for just a moment, then a cold laugh echoes around them and carries on to other parts of the chasm where it will undoubtedly destroy the hearts of many lost souls.
“Then I advise you to be careful, little brother. We wouldn’t want anyone to take it away from you.”
Brath can’t wait to watch the heavens fall. And take Mathieu away from this wretched place.
* * *
He keeps moving, fearing that too much time spent with Mathieu might cloud his judgment and influence his decisions and actions without him realizing it until it’s too late. These are delicate matters, and to be successful, he needs to place his words carefully. With Mathieu still present in his mind, Brath finds it hard to concentrate, so he rises from deepest corners of purgatory and lifts himself up into Heaven, softly and quietly treading, trying not to be discovered. He feels his form stripped and bared, Mathieu a soft flicker in the back of his mind, delicate like a crystal bell, sounding upon movement.
“I’m growing impatient, Andrew. I would have your choice sooner rather than later. For your sake,” he insists. “You see, humans are such fickle creatures. In time, Jakob might focus his affections on someone else.”
“Then I would be happy for him,” the cherub replies, holding his gaze steadily, unwavering.
Brath blinks at him. “Where did you learn to lie like that, brother? And without even the slightest twitch. I’m impressed.”
“You always assume I’m lying when I tell nothing but the truth.”
“It couldn’t be further from the truth,” Brath says and moves closer, pleased with the fact that Andrew doesn’t flinch away. “It would cripple your soul, dear brother. It would cripple it beyond recognition to see his touch on someone else’s skin. It would make you gain knowledge of the vicious beast called jealousy to witness him spending his life with another. To watch him fall in love; marry; perhaps raise a family. You might even get the pleasure of making acquaintance with anger. And hate.”
Andrew doesn’t have an answer to that. Brath can see through him, and he is perfectly aware of that. He knows his soul is already a shadow of itself and only Aleksander’s good will and charity have restored him to his former position amongst his fellow cherubs. But being forced to set eyes upon his love falling for someone else—it would disfigure him and make him unfit to serve, and his superiors would see him removed. And Andrew is a bright one; he knows that Brath is his best chance of getting out of the mess he got himself in. (Although Brath has to admit, he is partially responsible for that.)
Andrew swallows thickly. A trait picked up during his month on earth. “All right,” he says eventually. “I’m going to regret this, I know. I’m going against my better judgment. But…”
Brath smiles. “You’ve got nothing left to lose,” he finishes for his brother.
He almost feels sorry for him.
* * *
“I’ve got a sensitive nose, you know,” Keith tells him when he finds his way to the coffee shop after one or two days of absence (Brath doesn’t pay that much attention). “You’re like, an evil mixture of Heaven and Hell. You smell like burnt chocolate.”
“No he doesn’t,” Gareth calls from the kitchen. “It’s a mix of rotten eggs and lemon.”
Brath raises his brows at both of them. “You two smell like burnt sulfur. Go have a bath.”
“I don’t think it’d come off with water,” Keith says, downing a cup of boiling coffee without as much as a flinch. “But hey, maybe your boyfriend could volunteer to give me a good scrub.”
Brath throws an empty mug at him (luckily they’re past their closing time), Keith ducks his head, and it shatters against the wall.
“He’s not my boyfriend. Don’t call him that. It’s ridiculous.”
“Too human, huh?” Gareth comments, emerging from the kitchen, once again looking like he tried to turn himself into a pastry, and leans against the doorframe, frowning at the shards lying at his feet. “Oh man, stop breaking our interior. Crockery is expensive. I paid good money for that.”
“You didn’t pay anything for that,” Brath says and moves past the counter, letting his body fall into the armchair he usually occupies when Perry is visiting, their deck of cards still on the table in an unfinished game and—and it feels weird. There’s a shudder that grabs hold of him for the fraction of second and Brath blinks, shakes his head and shrugs it off.
Keith and Gareth wander over and join him, and Gareth gathers the cards without a second thought. He starts building something out of them, hardly taking his eyes off Brath.
Brath knows they want to ask questions, but they’re still afraid; of the answers, of him, he can’t tell. He’s sure they want to ask why he visited his brother once again. They’ve been at Lucifer’s mercy, and they trust him as far as they can throw him, which equals nothing at all. They want to know why he still takes on the equally dangerous journey to Heaven, although he hates it and wants to see it gone.
But Brath can’t tell them because he knows he wouldn’t like their reactions. He knows that they know anyway; that they’ve grown far too good at reading him, seeing through his façade and the little untruths he tells here and there to obscure reality. Maybe they’re not complete failures in their existence. They certainly don’t lack intelligence, even though there are moments Brath does suspect so. No, what they’re missing is cruelty. Malice.
So he continues to sit in silence, Keith’s eyes upon him, watching Gareth construct something that reminds him of the Eiffel Tower. Last week he’d made macaroons, so maybe that’s got something to do with it. It wouldn’t surprise him to find Gareth spying on French pastry chefs, stealing their recipes and spending days on end to copy them. Brath sighs and leans back, lets his head drop to the side and when a brief thought flutters through his mind, he has to hold his breath.
He thinks if Mathieu were here, and maybe Perry, it would almost be agreeable. He thinks that maybe this isn’t so bad after all.
Then he quickly discards that thought with a firm shake of his head, ignoring Keith’s questioning gaze, and looks out the window.
The skies open up, and rain starts to hit the cobbled pavements.
17
Mathieu
For a while, it’s easy. It’s so frighteningly easy to be with Brath, something Mathieu would have never, in a million years, assumed in the beginning.
But it is.
Brath is his morning and his evening and every minute of every moment in between. Everything else pales in comparison when he is sitting at the desk in his study, drafting and re-drafting ideas that float through his mind. The ideas constantly come these days and Mathieu guesses they are remnants from the dreams Brath sends him if he is indeed the one who does so. But they grow increasingly vivid each time he closes his eyes.
Quiet footsteps sound before he feels solid arms draped over his shoulders. He feels Brath nuzzling his neck, pressing lips to his hair and slowly but determinedly letting his hands trail lower and lower down Mathieu’s chest until he can do no more but open his mouth to the ceiling in a silent gasp.
The physicality of it all still baffles Mathieu from time to time; surprised by his wants and needs and desires and how he is never satisfied anymore, how nothing turns out to be quite enough, and he has to stay for more. The emotional force he feels gravitating between them is somet
hing Mathieu will never understand. Perhaps it was a slippery slope or a steady climb, or maybe Mathieu just saw Brath and fell so hard and fast he didn’t even notice hitting the ground, and he is already lying shattered on concrete, neck broken and heart blown into a million pieces by the sheer force of the collision.
But Mathieu doesn’t understand; he doesn’t understand Brath either. Not at all, in fact, which isn’t ideal, but he doesn’t let it bother him. It just makes him wonder about things; about Brath’s thoughts that he hides so well, about the way he is even able to feel, but mostly why he decides to stay.
Mathieu tries not to give Brath any reason to leave.
Small things occur to him, things that Brath might enjoy in some way, but he remains unsure and never suggests them; unfortunately, there isn't any section in the daily paper that lists recommended daytime activities for fallen angels. He doesn’t think that to ask Perry would bear any results because he is just an occasional visitor; asking Keith and Gareth whether Brath might have anything that could be considered a hobby, well, kindly put, it makes Mathieu feel a little queasy.
It’s why he remains mostly quiet when he finds himself at Jakob’s, flicking through a magazine. Of course his friend notices, and he doesn’t have the tact not to point it out.
Mathieu doesn’t want to tell Jakob, mainly because Jakob doesn’t want to know. They have reached a silent agreement to refrain from mentioning Brath when they’re spending time together, which has been a rare occasion as of late. If Mathieu is not working, not sleeping, he is with Brath and Jakob—well, Mathieu doesn’t know what’s up with Jakob these days, and he realizes now that it’s an unpleasant feeling.
So he says, “I’m just wondering what Brath might like to do.” The truth, straight out, and Jakob pulls a face.
Mathieu stills and feels his insides go quiet and solemn as he keeps his eyes on Jakob, sad and cumbersome with thoughts and memories and who knows what he’s got going through his mind and to hell with Mathieu for being selfish and thinking only about his own problems. He’d been a prick and a fool at the same time, not paying attention to the fact that the best friend he’ll ever have has lost the love of his life.
“Maybe he’s done all there ever is to do on this Earth,” says Jakob.
“Yeah,” Mathieu says because it is probably true when he stops and thinks about it. “I don’t think there’s anything Brath’s never seen. He’s got a few thousand years of a head start, you know?”
“What about a game?”
“I’m sure he—” and Mathieu breaks off. “Oh, no way, Jakob. I am not taking him to a football game on our first proper date."
Jakob shrugs innocently, “Just an idea. It’s sure to be a good game.”
“Jakob,” Mathieu insists, “I am not taking him to watch football."
“Listen Mathieu. Just stop thinking about it. I doubt there’s anything you can do to impress him. And I can’t believe I sound like some middle-aged agony aunt, but I think spending time together will do the job.”
“Oh,” Mathieu says. “Maybe you should be a guide to successful relationships.”
Jakob laughs dryly. “Sarcasm is noted, but not appreciated. I’m just saying, take it or leave it. Don’t overdo it. You tend to be dramatic.”
Mathieu tilts his head, and with a skeptical glance, he fixes on his friend. “Says the one who managed to fall in love with an actual cupid.”
“Touché.”
* * *
They go for walks. When the apartment or the coffee shop starts closing in on them, shrinking like a jumper washed too hot, tight and weird to the touch, they walk out the door.
Sometimes even in the middle of the night when Brath’s eyes seem at their darkest, and he glances up at the stars with such disdain, Mathieu wishes he could paint them black.
They don’t run into many people when it’s late, and for a while, Mathieu guesses that Brath dislikes large crowds. But perhaps he doesn’t mind them that much after all, he realizes; Brath seems intrigued by their behavior, like it’s a wildlife show on TV, only with humanity serving as bait for some invisible, lurking predator. But it’s more intrigue and curiosity than pleasure, which is fine by him.
Perhaps it is also that they can so seamlessly disappear amongst them, hidden from any curious eyes watching them.
It’s still something Mathieu has to grow used to; the thought that they are in fact being watched, perhaps at all times, and it makes him wonder if there is such a thing as blasphemy, if Mathieu is committing it and whether he is going to go to Hell for it. Well, even if he does go to Hell—he’s had a pretty good run so far, and if the creatures down there are anything like Keith and Gareth...
Sometimes only their shoulders bump every few minutes. Sometimes Brath takes his hand and doesn’t let go for hours.
It’s so easy, and Mathieu asks himself how easy it could be if they could do this forever.
* * *
It’s a quiet morning in February, early enough for the streets to be deserted on a Saturday. The cobbles are almost white with frost, but there are soft touches of light hitting the stones, making them sparkle. It feels like the first rays of the sun breaking through the clouds in months. It’s been a long winter. It’s been an unusually long and dark and cold winter, but now the few blue patches peeking through feathery masses tell of spring. The light is breaking, diverted by the windows and reflecting off some metal frames adorning the walls. It catches in his eyes, blinds him momentarily, and he has to lift a hand to his forehead to shield it off, adjusting his position on the worn armchair so that he can see the people (or not people) gathered around the table.
He sneezes when some dust rises.
“Bless you,” Keith tells him from across the room, and winks, evicting a snorted laugh from Perry, shuffling the deck of cards and dealing them out with practiced ease.
They all seem very much at ease right this moment. It’s an unusual sense of calm, of peace; only Jakob looks like he’d rather be somewhere else, but Mathieu hadn’t given him a choice in the matter. Jakob will get over it, eventually, and Mathieu has learned that the best way to make him is by throwing him into the deep end and making him deal with it.
Dragging him into the coffee shop before opening hours (Jakob was appeased by the promise of caffeine) had earned Mathieu a few raised brows, but now they’re all leaning back around another round of cards, a stack of plates dusted with crumbs discarded on the side.
A socked foot brushes up his calf, and Mathieu finds himself momentarily distracted. He looks to his left. Brath has one leg tucked under his chair while the other is touching Mathieu’s, not sparing a glance into his direction, yet there is a thin smile playing around the corners of his mouth as he arranges the deck in his hand.
Mathieu returns the nudge with a smile, and that makes Brath raise his eyes. He is not that big on PDA in general, but at that moment, Mathieu can’t help but lean in, tug on Brath’s jumper, and briefly kiss him.
A soft sigh stutters between them and Mathieu can’t tell if it’s risen from his throat or Brath’s.
When they part, Mathieu notices Keith and Gareth pointedly looking the other way, and Perry is so engrossed in his cards that he doubts the cherub noticed at all. But Jakob returns his look dead on, and then Perry kicks him in the shin because it’s his turn; he keeps forgetting about the game.
At one point Jakob lets out a breathy laugh and says, “this is the most surreal moment of my life,” but Mathieu supposes that by now, they all have their stories to tell. When it comes to that, he doesn't want to get into the deep end. He already has enough obscurities stored in his head that will let the writer inside of him never come to rest.
He notices that the clock goes past eight, and past nine, and a few people walk past the windows, and a handful comes to a halt in front of the door to peek inside. Neither Gareth nor Keith nor Brath bother to get up and unlock the door or flip the sign from Closed to Open. With every round they play, Brath shifts imp
erceptibly closer until, around ten, he’s draped over the armrest of his own seat, head resting against Mathieu’s shoulder and his breath penetrating the thin fabric of Mathieu’s shirt.
At one point, Gareth disappears into the kitchen for a while and comes back with a batch of brownies that virtually crush the last of Jakob’s miserable mood.
It’s not entirely perfect, but Mathieu feels like this is his; like this could become his life, and it sends an odd sense of calm through his body, down to his bones. It’s perfect for him, for them.
Suddenly, it’s quiet, and then there’s a sound that echoes endlessly, full-bodied and hollow like someone had taken the largest metal bell in the world and dropped it in the middle of the street.
Mathieu would have assumed for the sound to be nothing more than—well, a sound. It is loud, but not painfully so, not piercing and eardrum shattering. But then he sees Perry and Brath freeze with wide eyes; then he sees Gareth and Keith recoil, covering their ears and tumbling to the ground, bodies curled and arms firmly wound around their heads. And then Keith lets out a scream that, never in a million years, he would mistake with a human’s. It digs right into Mathieu’s chest and chills his blood, and there is a shiver crawling up his spine and—
Brath is already halfway across the room. Only once he’s torn open the door and stepped out does some sense of motion and capability return to Mathieu. He clambers to his feet, and suddenly, multiple chairs scrape over the wooden floor, and he finds himself closely followed by Jakob as he runs after Brath and out onto the street. Stuttering to a halt, he sees Perry is already out here. Brath is not too far away, standing in the middle of the road, only wearing his socks, his shoes forgotten, a bright red contrast to cold, gray concrete.
Then he startles. His brain takes a moment to catch up with his eyes, but he hears Jakob gasp next to him and it hits him.
The World Before: MM Romance Page 11