Reencounter
The surface of the ocean was still, without a single ripple on the water. The air was completely stagnant. It always felt heavy on the shoulders and cold on the face, weighing him down, an omnipresent discomfort. He stood on the beach for a moment, eyes straight ahead, looking for a disturbance. Humans had never come down the mountain before—had Charmaine pushed Aiden off the edge? His trial was only supposed to be tomorrow. Why had it been expedited? They could’ve just sent him to Earth.
Something surfaced in the distance, a curve on the perfect stillness of the water. He immediately took flight, crossing the ocean to inspect it; a black t-shirt, a human torso, no wings attached. Two arms hooked around the body and pulled it close, heavy against his chest, a firm grip that let him hoist the corpse off the water and carry it back to shore, chocolate brown hair dripping a long trail behind them.
Placing the body on the sand, he turned it over to confirm its identity. A breath caught in his throat, heart swelling when Aiden’s face came into view. He was completely passed out, most likely drowned. Kneeling next to him, Nathaniel pinched his nose and breathed into his mouth until he shook and coughed, turning aside to vomit black water onto the sand.
He touched Aiden’s head tenderly, fingers brushing some hair out of his face, curls much darker than before. Other than that, he looked the same. A feeling bloomed in Nathaniel’s chest, warm, filling his lungs with relief. Aiden retched and spat, shoulders bobbing.
“You’re okay,” Nathaniel reassured him, soft and caring.
His voice made Aiden turn around to look at him, brown eyes wide, lips parted with surprise. Leaning back on an elbow, Aiden reached towards him, a frail hand that came up to touch his chest, damp from the rescue. It touched him so lightly that he could barely feel it. “Nathaniel.” The name caught in Aiden’s throat, lips quivering. “Nathaniel, I—I’m so sorry; I shouldn’t have—I shouldn’t—”
“It’s okay,” he interrupted, stroking Aiden’s hair. “Everything’s fine.”
A scowl pinched dark brows together, tears dripping from his eyes. “You’re not angry?”
“Not anymore.”
The pain and confusion on Aiden’s face cut right through him, an ache in the dead center of his chest. Reflexively, he placed a hand on the nape of Aiden’s neck and drew him close, pulling him into a hug, arms wrapped firmly around him, face nestled in the wet curls of his hair. Salt water and cedar wood filled his lungs, a forest after the rain. He felt hands fist the back of his shirt as Aiden held him back, face hidden into his neck, nuzzling. His entire outfit was soaked, but he didn’t care; with Aiden safe in his arms, he could finally breathe.
“I missed you so much.” Aiden spoke into his neck, kissing it. His heart fluttered.
“I missed you too.”
“I’m such an idiot for letting you go. I’m so sorry. I should’ve—I should’ve jumped in with you.”
A smile threatened to break through, tugging onto the corners of his lips. “If you had, you wouldn’t have enjoyed Paradise for an extra week.”
Aiden scoffed, pulling away to look at him, eyes shining with tears. He wiped his face with a hand. “Paradise is a prison without you; that entire week was chaos. I thought...” He sniffled, rubbing at his own eye. “I thought I’d never see you again.”
That comment dropped like a bag of bricks on his chest, hard to breathe.
“What happened to you was wrong,” Aiden continued, firmer now. “It was all staged; we pushed you to do it. You’re not a sinner; you don’t deserve to be here.”
He shook his head, heart squeezing with every beat. “It doesn’t matter; we’re already here. Nothing’s going to change that.”
“It shouldn’t be this way. I thought the gods were fair.”
“The gods aren’t watching us. They never have.”
Aiden stared at him, a scowl on his forehead, brown eyes almost golden. It reminded him of the sunrise they’d watched together so many weeks ago now.
“Dark hair looks good on you,” he commented, changing the topic. “I like it.”
The scowl in front of him vanished, one eyebrow raising to illustrate Aiden’s friendly suspicion. He was back. “I could say the same back to you.”
“Then do it.”
Aiden’s lips tugged into a smile. “You’re handsome even with all that stuff on your face. I didn’t think wounds healed like that.”
“They don’t; I was caught in a weird transition. I was supposed to look like the other demons.”
Aiden promptly looked around, searching the empty beach. His eyes eventually fell on the mausoleum. “Are they all in there?”
“Yes.”
Aiden stared at it. The ocean lapped their shoes.
“What happens next?” The question was small, almost scared to come out.
“I don’t know,” Nathaniel answered. “I’m completely useless here. I’ve done nothing this whole time.”
Aiden cocked his head a bit, eyebrows furrowing. “I think your head is still in Paradise. I think…” Aiden trailed off, a pensive look on his face, eyes reflecting the ocean. “You probably don’t need a job to be relevant here. If Paradise values merit and productivity, my guess is that those things are completely worthless in The Abyss. A pristine reputation is the angels’ currency, right? So a bad one is probably the demons’ currency, which means… you’re a rich man, I think. You’re the most famous person in all of Paradise; I’m sure The Abyss knows about you too.”
That tracked with what Victoria had told him earlier, so maybe he really had been going about this all wrong.
“So being completely useless is notable.”
“Yes. You have the privilege of only doing what you want to do. Who wouldn’t dream of that?”
“That’s the privilege of every human in Paradise; it’s not so outstanding.”
“It is down here, where I assume everyone is working their asses off all the time.”
He had a point.
“You sure you haven’t been here before? You know an awful lot about it.”
“I climbed the corporate ladder, Nathaniel; I know what hell looks like.”
His eyebrows bounced in acknowledgement. Had Zea experienced this culture shock too? In a place where the values they’d internalized their whole lives meant absolutely nothing. How long had it taken him to embrace sin?
“What’s gonna happen to me?” Aiden asked.
“You have time to serve. Your soul contract says you’re looking at thirty years as Zea’s subordinate.”
“What does that mean?”
“Whatever he says it means.”
Aiden’s concern grew, bottom lip seized in between his teeth. “I hope he doesn’t keep you away from me.” That comment was a whisper, spoken absently as Aiden stared at the ocean.
“He won’t do that.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I won’t let him.”
Squinting up at him, Aiden dropped the subject.
“Aren’t you cold?” Nathaniel asked. A brief memory of his own fall surfaced with the glacial touch of the water.
Aiden simply gave him a look. “I’m dead; I don’t feel anything.”
Only half of that logic held any water, but he decided against arguing it.
“Why don’t you come to Dolion’s place with me? That’s where I’ve been staying. You’ll meet the others, we’ll see if Zea is there, and if he isn’t, I’ll show you around.”
Despite the concern on the crease of Aiden’s eyebrows, he nodded.
The size and general presentation of Dolion’s penthouse rose Aiden’s eyebrows, impressed. Everyone had gathered at the head of the table, so focused on their hush-hush conversation that they barely noticed the other two walk in. That behavior struck Nathaniel as weirdly conspiratorial, since they loved to make their affairs public. He’d never seen them so secretive.
As they approached, the group finally turned to look at them, surprised. A hint of relief loosened their shoulders—strange. Aiden fell out of step for a moment, stumbling behind. If Nathaniel had to guess, Seraphina must have spooked him. Notably, Zea was missing. The realization brought wind to his lungs.
“Holy shit, he made it,” Dolion commented as soon as their eyes met, eyebrows up to his hairline.
Victoria held her palm up. The expression on Venn’s face was of resigned displeasure while taking out his wallet. So they did have money in The Abyss, Nathaniel thought, just as Venn pulled out a golden ticket, the kind used at carnivals. She snatched it with a wicked grin.
“Welcome to the worst time of your life,” she added, pocketing the ticket into her skirt. So far, that had been the biggest revelation yet, that her skirt had pockets in it.
“What did you do to meet us so early?” Seraphina asked, her voice low like tumbling rocks. Aiden shuddered. “Your trial was supposed to be tomorrow.”
How did she know that?
“Not everything works out the way it should all the time,” Aiden explained, without really addressing anything.
“So what happened?”
Aiden stared at her. His eyes took her in from head to toe, or as much as they could, considering she stood behind a chair.
“Why are you so… different?” he asked.
She grinned, sharp teeth glinting under the dull yellow lights.
Dolion touched her arm. “Don’t hurt him.”
“I’m well aware of your negotiations, Dolion, and I haven’t forgotten ours either. I’m not the one you should worry about.”
Dolion absently glanced at his sister, whose eyes had been glued on Aiden this entire time. It made something in the pit of Nathaniel’s stomach harden.
“Are you the only real demon here?” Aiden asked, possibly unaware of the subtleties that surrounded him.
“I’m a different kind of demon,” Seraphina explained. “The oldest.”
“Are you single?”
The question shocked the entire room in vastly different ways. There was a sort of delight on Seraphina’s face, shared only with Venn; smiles on their lips, entertained by Aiden’s complete lack of knowledge on how to behave. On the opposite end of that scale was Dolion, outraged, jaw hanging open. Victoria found herself somewhere in the middle, almost fascinated.
“I’m not trying to pick you up; I just wanna know if there are others like you,” Aiden clarified.
“Yes, there are.”
“Aiden,” Victoria interrupted, circling the head of the table to meet them, “you have much to learn. You sold your soul without even reading the terms and conditions; you must be completely lost. Let me introduce you to The Council.” She sounded extremely disingenuous. A hand indicated whom she spoke of. “Venn and Dolion are administrators; they discuss a person’s character and decide a just future for them. Seraphina brings details to the discussion, while I handle the verdict. You’re speaking to the head of The Abyss.”
“Much like Paradise, they all have titles too,” Nathaniel jumped in. “Why don’t you tell him yours?”
Slowly, she smiled. “You can call me Princess.” Her voice was much sweeter now, like a snake trying to pass for seaweed.
Staring her straight in the face, he closed a hand on the back of Aiden’s neck. She watched it curiously. “If you excuse us, I’m going to show him around the house now.”
Her eyebrows bounced.
“Has Zea talked to him yet?” Dolion asked.
“He’s busy.”
With that, Nathaniel led Aiden up the stairs. There were no objections; Aiden simply took that in stride, as if being guided like a dog was normal. Maybe he just didn’t care. His hand left Aiden’s neck when they reached the top. Still, Aiden kept close, walking in his personal space.
“What’s going on with those guys?” Aiden asked. “The vibes down there are super weird. They freak me out.”
“They’re not good people,” Nathaniel answered. Then, as an afterthought, added: “No one here is.”
“No shit; that’s not what I’m talking about. The way they were looking at me… It was like they wanted to hurt me.”
“That’s because they do. You’re a commodity here, not a person. Stay vigilant.”
Aiden’s eyebrows furrowed, terrified. With an arm across his back, Nathaniel guided him to the bedroom where he’d been staying. The moment Aiden walked in, his eyes quickly lit up, the beginnings of a smile on his face. “Oh my god, this looks exactly like our room at The Resort.”
Our room. Hearing that made his heart skip a beat, hand closing the door behind them. “Yeah, even the furniture looks the same, only darker.”
Aiden crossed for the platform right away, eyes set on the bed. Nathaniel followed a few feet behind. His heart swelled, lungs breathing in deep. Up the two steps, Aiden peeled his shirt off, completely drenched. The muscles on his back moved with his arms, dropping the shirt on the floor. Then, he moved on to his pants. Black underwear hugged him, a warmth rushing down Nathaniel’s veins. With shoes and pants kicked aside, Aiden climbed into bed.
“This is better than anything I could’ve hoped for,” Aiden admitted, complete candor in his voice. “We had it so good.”
“We have it so good,” Nathaniel corrected, toeing his own boots off. A quiet tenderness smoldered within his chest.
Aiden watched him shrug his jacket off, eyes tracing the movement of his shoulders, memorizing the way light bounced off his skin, no longer bright. He pulled his shirt off and tossed it aside, wings slipping through the slit on the back, the ghost of a smirk on Aiden’s face, a dull fire in the warmth of his eyes. One knee pushed onto the mattress, his thigh pressed to the underside of Aiden’s own, and their bodies moved in rehearsed synchrony. As he approached, Aiden spread his thighs, allowing him to lie on top. A forearm rested on the mattress for support, enough weight on Aiden’s chest to almost crush him. Carefully, Nathaniel leaned down for a kiss, soft with sentiment but firm on Aiden’s face. In response, a hand touched him on the jaw. The other one was on his back, tracing the spot his wings sprouted from.
Every time they slept together was different in a familiar way, somehow. There was a tenderness to Aiden that didn’t show itself very often, buried in the grounds of his heart after so many had stomped over it. It was timid, a hesitant touch that revealed too much, afraid Nathaniel would stab him right there, one more scar amid the others. It was an exercise in trust. Nathaniel had long changed his mind about hurting him, though, disinterested since his own feelings had betrayed him. He was never supposed to feel this way about Aiden, yet here he was, kissing him and meaning it, pushing into him with his heart on his sleeve.
Aiden lay on his chest, an ear over his heart. The peace that surrounded him was so soothing that the passage of time halted, forgetting the two of them for a moment, safely enclosed within the confines of this room. A hand touched Aiden’s hair, fingers carding through the curls, palm resting on the shaved portion of his undercut. They breathed in silence; Aiden’s weight a comfort over him, secured by an arm that rested across the low of his back.
“I’ve never met anyone like you,” Aiden quietly admitted, speaking into the partial darkness of the room.
“There’s an explanation for that.”
“No, I don’t mean that you’re an angel; I mean what’s inside, the way you see the world. I think I’m starting to understand who you are.”
He smiled up at the ceiling. “What do you think you know about me?”
“Not much, but one thing I’m certain: that you care about me.”
The arms around Aiden squeezed him into a hug. “I’ve been trying to show that for so long.”
“I know. I believe you now.”
Aiden pressed a kiss on his collarbone. “Be with me,” he pleaded, burying his words into Nathaniel’s chest, against his skin.
“I’m your Guardian Angel, remember? I’ll always be with you.”
A smile glued onto his skin. He brushed some curls from Aiden’s face, damp with sweat. “I need you to be honest with me. I know you ended up in The Valley; Jean found you there, scattered to pieces.” He could feel the way Aiden tensed up on his chest, heart racing against his ribs. “Tell me what happened.”
Aiden leaned away, moving into a sitting position. “I told you Paradise was meaningless without you.” His words were spoken into the darkness, soft like silk. “I tried to move on, to fill the void with something else, but I couldn’t do it. I needed help. You said there was salvation in The Valley, so I jumped. I didn’t think I’d black out on impact.”
“You had to sleep in a bath for a week.”
“I know. It was weird, I—it felt like I’d been there before. It felt familiar.”
“Why was your trial expedited?”
Aiden turned away, shoulders raised up to his ears. “I was awake in the bath, you know. The floors and walls were white tile. My room had five other baths in it, but I was alone; I could see it through the water. I saw everything they did.” His voice quivered. “The nurses… Have you ever seen one of them?”
“No.” He’d never been down there. His skin crawled just thinking about it.
“They don’t have faces; they’re long arms in hospital gowns with hair growing out of their necks. I could hear them walking around… The slapping of their feet on the ground, wet for some reason. I watched them come to my bath and touch the water.” Aiden pulled his arms close to his own chest. “They put their hands in sometimes, and the way they leaned forward… I could see the scars on their necks, where the hair grew, long enough to float on the water. It was…” He swallowed. “I couldn’t move; I was just stuck there, watching them.”
“What did you do?”
“I freaked out; I was so fucking scared. My body came back piece by piece, like when you sleep on your arm and can’t move it for a while. I left the bath and slipped; my legs just couldn’t stand up, I don’t know. They trembled really hard and just couldn’t pull me off the ground.”
“Aiden, what did you do?” He sounded sterner now, voice low with his concern.
“I—I wasn’t thinking; I just—I grabbed the edge of the tub and got up, but I guess I made too much noise or something, because a nurse came in, and—” Aiden breathed in shakily. “I’d never been so scared in my life. They ran straight to me with their arms out, thin and sharp like their fingers were made of knives, and I just… panicked. I grabbed their arms and flung them into the bath. They thrashed and flailed but I just held them there.”
The room was still.
“I held them until they stopped moving. That’s why the trial was expedited.”
He sat up, pushing onto the mattress for support, heart stuck halfway up his throat. A hand touched Aiden on the shoulder, making him jump, jerked away from his memories. He ran a thumb over Aiden’s skin.
“You didn’t have to do that just to see me,” he clarified, voice soft in the space between them.
Aiden turned toward him, blind in the dark. “I missed you more than you know.”
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