DISCLAIMER: All this belongs to Kevin Smith and View Askew-- and bless them both. Hey, Patsy Cline.
NOTES: Thank you to Brad, who brought these fine gentlemen to my attention. And then bought me the poster. Darling.
Human Things
Water trickles from the grand fountain in the middle of the floor, bouncing stuttered and roiling light off of the walls and the rows and rows of books. Also, the smell of coffee. The great marble doors hang open, and I hear the singing voice coming down the hall.
"Stand by your man, give him two arms to cling to . . stand by your maaaannn."
I sigh and slide the great tome in front of me shut. Equal parts relief and dread; fear and shame and laughter. Also, the smell of coffee. The angel with whom I spent eternity, the man into whom I slid a knife-- a half-smiling, immaculate face in the doorway, watching me gather myself.
"Loki."
He saunters into the library and plops down in the chair across from me.
"Well, man. Look at you."
I smile cautiously and shrug. "Yeah. Old familiar haunts." He says nothing, just glances around the room with casually pursed lips. I think, Fuck. This is going to be bad. After a few moments, I ask, "How do you feel?" His gaze shoots back to me and he smiles his very best Wrath of God smile.
"Human. You?"
I swallow. "Yeah . . that's going to take some getting used to." I pause. "Loki . . " He brushes me off with a laugh.
"C'mon, B, what are you expecting? Me gettin' medieval on your ass?"
"Well," I say, "You *are* the embodiment of divine retribution."
His smile locks. "No, I *was* the embodiment of divine retribution. Somebody convinced me to give that up. Now . . " he leans forward, voice dropping to a whisper, "I'm a fuckin' janitor."
I wince. "Hey, man-- you're not the only one. And you're *not* in Wisconsin." He slams his hand down on the table, but the violence of the act is cushioned and absorbed by the serenity around us-- only adding to his frustration.
"No, I'm not in Wisconsin. Your little plan worked out. Not because you didn't make every fuck-up possible-- if God hadn't pardoned you, you'd've been in fucking New Jersey forever. And me?" He allows his face to roll into a full snarl. "I would've been in fucking Hell."
I look down at my hands clenched across the heavy leather book in which all the sins of mankind are written. I killed him before he had a chance to be cleansed of his sins-- but for God, he would've been sentenced to an eternal existence of torture. There's no way I can apologize. I shrug. Best not to try. Instead, I say, "But s/he did pardon us, and we aren't in Hell, and we would've been human anyway. The plan did work out, and we're home at last-- so let's just be happy about it."
Suddenly, he is over the table and on me, his hands around my throat, his snarling face inches from mine. It doesn't hurt-- this is Heaven-- but I am shocked. Angels attack with weapons, never with their bodies. He's attacking me like a human.
His muted barks are shoved through clenched teeth. "'Just be happy about it'? Oh, that's great. Good idea. I'll just be HAPPY. I'll just forget about my wings, and Hell, and you FUCKING me over. And you can just forget all those innocents you killed."
"God--"
"Restored them to life, yeah! That doesn't mean you didn't fucking kill them! You think just because you don't have to deal with any of the consequences, we can just forget about it all??" His grip slides away from me, then, and he pulls back, impossibly slumped. "Man . . you *hurt* me."
I sink back into my chair and I feel something decidedly human burning the backs of my eyes. There's no way I can apologize.
"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."
As I go to him-- pull him to me, wrap my arms around him-- I feel a shuddering sob throughout him. He is doing what I am doing, crying unangelically. He speaks gaspingly into my shoulder.
"Even . . even when we were kicked . . out of Heaven . . it was your fucking fault, your stupid fucking . . philosophy . . but you had this . . stupid *innocent* face . . that said, said that you were just . . looking out for me . . and it was okay because . . hhuhh . . because you loved me, and it was okay . . and then all that SHIT we went through . . fucking WISCONSIN . . and all of it was okay . . and then . . oh, fuck . . you killed me . . oh, FUCK."
He's shaking against me, and I think, God, of course. When we were banished from Heaven, it was absolute rejection from the source and focus of our love, torn away from us. I replaced that focus with humanity. He replaced that focus with me. When humanity let me down, I went insane-- I let him down, ripped through him with a knife . . and he's crying.
"Oh, God-- Loki, no, shh, listen to me . . I never stopped loving you, shh, baby, no-- I never-- I didn't-- I lost myself. It was like you said, millenia of denying how I felt about everything, it bottled up and I went crazy. I thought-- I don't know what I thought, but I hurt, and I wanted everyone else to hurt, and you--" My voice catches, then stoops to an urgent whisper. "I never stopped loving you. Even then, when everything was red and broken, when I . . hurt you-- I knew I was destroying myself." He's gone calm in my arms. I continue, softly. "I'm sorry. Baby. I'm sorry, for everything. I love you, okay? You know that. Always."
After a few moments of silent breathing, I pull away slightly to look at his face. The red and tear-swollen eyes lift to mine and he sniffs. I smile. The dishevelled golden hair and flushed, streaked face are wholly un-immaculate. Beautiful. He wipes his nose with the back of his sleeve. "What're we gonna do now?"
I shrug and let go of him. "Well, we're janitors now, so we're going to clean. And we're humans, so we're going to . . do human things, I guess."
He smirks and sniffs again. "Human things?"
"We should know what those are," I reply, "We lived among them for years."
"All we ever saw humans do was fight and cry and fuck and complain."
I grin. "Well, we already fought and cried, and considering we were just allowed back home, we probably shouldn't complain yet . . so . . "
He snickers mischeviously. "You think we should?" He runs a hand through his hair and leans back against the table.
"Well . . " I shrug. "You always said you would, except that you didn't have the equipment. And now you do. We both do."
"Yes, I guess we do." His gaze falls from my face, travelling down my frame. "It's weird, isn't it, these new bodies? Stomachs, bladders, cocks." He gestures sharply backwards with his head. "No wings."
No wings. I smile sadly. "You think it's a fair trade?"
He pushes off of the table and steps casually toward me. "Only one way to find out." He sinks to his knees, then, and I think, of course. Also, I think, whew.
We've both witnessed this millions of times . . but as he lifts up my t-shirt and takes my zipper in tow, the amused detachment we felt then seems a lifetime away. Which I guess it is. He puts his mouth on me through the denim of the jeans, and my hips roll forward helplessly.
"ffffuck." His slow exhalation of breath, not mine. Muffled and hot, against my . . cock. My cock.
"Loki."
He nods and lifts his mouth to the zipper, catching it and dragging it down slowly; his hands curl around my hips. Also, the smell of coffee. I'm paying attention, cataloguing the details, because that's my nature. That's what I do; I'm Grigori, a Watcher-- at least, I used to be, before the banishment. So I'm paying atten--
"Hhh!"
Something angels never have to deal with-- the narrowing of consciousness to minute levels. Like when you concentrate intently on one single thing, and time passes without your awareness; or you're reading a book, and you don't hear the knock on the door. Or when you clutch the back of a chair as a beautiful man takes this newly formed part of you into his ancient mouth, and all you're conscious of is hot and wet and closer closer and a hiccupy moan that seems to be coming from you. Like that. Angels, that doesn't happen to them.
I asked him-- "You think it's a fair trade?" This was his answer. Where's mine?
It's boiling, I think, somewhere at the base of my spine, in the slope and pump of my hips. Coming closer. Almost there, and he raises his head. Loki does, I mean.
"Enough," he breathes roughly through a flushed and swollen mouth, eyes dilated, hand stilled curved around me, "I want some of this." He stands and shoves down his own slacks-- I nod dumbly and lower to my knees. He shakes his head.
"No," he says. He settles back onto the table, and props one leg on the edge of it. "Come here."
It takes a moment for me to get what he's wanting, and I when I do, it sends a jolt through me. Of arousal, of course, but also. I rememeber the salty warm swarm of my insanity as I sliced through his wings, staining the ground with his blood, the air with his scream. I am afraid of his trust in me. "Loki . . "
He jerks his head impatiently. "C'mon, Bartleby, we've seen this a thousand times." I remain where I am, and his face hardens into a look of determination that only the former Flaming Sword of God could pull off. He lifts his hand to undo the buttons of his shirt. "I *want* it."
Even if I were able to withstand that look, the sight of his naked human body does things to my human body that not even an angel's mind and well-developed sense of guilt could ignore. I swallow and nod, and move to stand in front of him. He leans back onto the table, still with that left leg propped up, and looks up at me.
On Earth, a big deal was made about lubrication-- about coaxing the passage into acceptance-- but here in Heaven, there is no pain. Still, I look down at him, and I don't know what to do. I mean, I'm ready as fuck, but I. He's my best friend. Then he pushes his hips up slightly and grins kind of lop-sidedly and sardonically, and I think, exactly.
I take his propped leg and wrap it around my waist, and slide my other hand around to his hip and-- lift, a little. We slide together, fitting just right, me positioned where I need to be. He is perfect on me. Not immaculate in that angel way, but in that looking up at me, mouth slightly open, nodding once, hand moving restelessly across his own stomach kind of way.
Pain is pain because an eletrical impulse in your brain tells you, hey, this is damaging to your physiology. In Heaven, there is no physiological damage, hence no such electrical impulse. That's why there's no pain. I just want to make that clear, because humans tend to equate the lack of pain with numbness-- and this . . this, as I slide into him, this is the opposite of numb. This is my head falling back, throat working soundlessly. This is his eyes-- god, his blue eyes-- just kind of filling as I lean over him. He laughs a little, startled wonder. I love him.
"Babe," he says, and I realize I'm staring, hypnotized, following the droplet of sweat as it glides down his chest to pool in the crease of his hard stomach. I look up. "Move." And, of course, I do. I move.
I move back a little-- my hand around his left thigh tightens and I rock into him. Some "unh" sound rolls out of him. Then I do it again, and the same sound is coming from me. And then, a third time, and I stop noticing anything but the suddenly fevered pitch of us, the bruising clutch of his hands on my arms, the, the.
Yes. A fair trade.
We just lie there for awhile, neither moving, only bobbing in and out of the realization that our breathing is slowly steadying. I dwell curved against him, I can feel the beat of his human heart beneath the flesh against which my shoulder rests. Also, I think, the smell of coffee.
After a moment, I lift my head and find his mouth, and we share a kiss. Not our first kiss, by any means, but new and different with these human spirits behind it. My hand moves through his sweat-pelted blond mop. His mouth is lazy and giving and loving against mine. I sigh into him, and I feel his grin.
I pull away from him (out of him) slightly, and something slides between us. He looks down. "Hey," he reaches down to my stomach and draws back a hand of creamy white lace. He holds it up to his face, gives it an experimental lick. "Cool shit." I chuckle breathlessly and roll off him, to lie on the table top. I look over at him. For all Eternity. I think, not bad, for every possible fuck-up.
Water trickles from the fountain in the library of God, and we sleep.
END
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