Dante stared back, and some seconds ticked by, before he nodded his chin.“Why are you looking at me like that?”A grin was beginning to bloom over his own mouth too.
“No reason.”Tadeo lowered himself to peck Dante's lips, then he sighed against him.Pointedly, he ignored the fact that their groins were pressing together, already both firm from the sensation of their bare skin over each other — their legs, chests, bellies.“Hm.”He eyed up Dante's body — stout but strong, his stomach lean but not too defined.He wore his dog tags, still, though he'd defected from the army, and Tadeo wore his rosary, still, though God had abandoned him.Humans are creatures of tradition, unfortunately.‘I'm going to keep praying every night, aren't I?If not for me, then for you.’Slow, Dante's hand crept over the back of Tadeo's neck, and he tugged him forward to deepen the kiss.
The soldier grunted in encouragement after that.Shuddering, Tadeo felt himself twitch between his legs.It wasn't entirely pleasant; his heart stuttered and stung.But he wasn't scared.Dante was patient, understanding.‘A bit different,’ he'd said in the middle of the night, ‘but in the military college, one of my superiors fucked me.I didn't want it, I think, but they do it to new guys all the time and— I'm sorry.I'm trying to say that— I don't want to hurt you.I don't want to be hurt either.’
‘I'm sorry for hurting you,’ Tadeo had whispered.‘God, I'm sorry.’
‘I'm sorry too.’Neither really forgave the other, but neither of them needed that.
They were friends now, Tadeo supposed — romantically friends, if that made sense.He wanted to go out with Dante to get drunk and do something stupid, wanted to play games with him, wanted to wheeze in laughter with him, wanted to call him his friend as much as he wanted to call him my love, my life.Never would he have thought that learning to love could be this easy.Tadeo had expected suffering, trial and error, hurting over and over.He hadn’t known romance could feel like friendship, like there was hardly a difference between playing dominos and having sex.
“Hm?”Dante fluttered open his eyes when Tadeo breathed out shakily.“What's wrong, buddy?”
Shaking his head.“Nothing.How are you?Are you hungry?”He went to touch Dante's scalp, run his hands through the black hair.They both smelled of sweat again, and faintly of semen, but there was no running water and so the most they could do was dampen a cloth with a water bottle and scrub themselves off.For now, Tadeo just lowered himself to lay over Dante, who wrapped his arms around to squeeze him comfortingly — mutual arousal simmering down.
“Not really.”Dante reached across the mattress for his phone, then checked it over Tadeo’s shoulder.“But I could go for…” His voice trailed off, and Tadeo felt the arms around him go rigid.
“What is it?”Tadeo turned his head, brushing his nose against Dante’s neck, and he tried to see the phone screen that his friend had been staring at, but he’d just exited an application.“Do you have signal?”He supposed he'd heard Dante mention how soldiers could connect to satellites for service earlier, but hadn’t Dante defected?
“Nothing.”Dante’s voice was tight.“I was just checking the time.”But his heart was pounding; Tadeo could feel it against his chest, like Dante’s heart was his own.
Outside, Joana had just left her mother and siblings when she heard something thump behind her on the street and a flutter of feathers — an angel landing.She was crouched, fiddling with a discarded bike, trying to dislodge a twig from the front wheel.A familiar shadow shaped in front of her, someone standing close behind, but she merely said, “I didn’t think you were going to come back.”Then — a hand over her face, streaking across it cold and wet.Joana jerked upright, twisted around, and stumbled back, the bike clanging to the ground.“Ah!What the Hell?!”
A helmeted Michael stood there, gauntlet dripping blood; he'd smeared now, across her eyes, her nose, her jaw.Marking her.
“What—” Joana touched her own face, and her fingertips returned crimson “—the fuck is this?”Just as she lifted her sleeve to wipe it off, Michael’s hand shot out again, grappled her wrist.
“Don’t,” he warned quietly.“The mark of the Beast is on all of humanity.When the devil bore his child, all of the living souls were marked with the Beast, and any one of them could become the anti-Christ.It is only the blood of the Lamb that can purify you and bring you to Heaven?—”
“Shut the fuck up!”interjected Joana, pulled her arm away, then lifted her shirt’s collar to dab at her face.The blood smeared down her neck, then she wiped more excessively, more furiously.“And get the fuck away from me.”Michael tried to speak; Joana yelled out in frustration to silence him, released her shirt, and kicked a rock in Michael’s direction, only for it to bounce off his silver armor without harm.“Why won’t you listen to me?!”She didn’t care about raising her voice, about anyone that might hear.“For fuck’s sake, Michael, what’s wrong with you?!Why won’t you listen to me?”
“Joana—”
“I’m going to Hell!”she screamed now, feeling the words tear open her throat from within.“I’m amurderer!I’m aliar!Fuck God!”
“Joana!”Michael yelled at her, for the first time.And when the girl before him winced, his heart crushed as if in God's fist.Terror gripping it; he couldn’t explain why.Joana looked afraid of him, like he’d hit her.“Please,” he whispered now, pained.“Why won’t you accept Heaven?It’s for you.For all of you humans— Why won’t you take it?Please.”
But she shook her head, took some uncertain steps back, and Michael continued to ache and ache.When Joana’s face flickered again with exhaustion, betrayal, hurt — everything inside him seemed to crack open.“Go already.Finish the apocalypse, Michael.”That would be killing her.“Forget about me.”God was asking Michael to kill her.“And leave me alone.”
‘No,’ he thought.‘No.I can't.’
Softly, Dante whispered to Tadeo: “I remember always being surprised as a kid at how bad things get.You think all the bad things are over, and then worse things happen.All of my life it’s felt like the world ended before I was born.”
Tadeo swallowed, but he said, “I feel like that too, sometimes.”
“Back home,” Dante continued, “we still— We still have our traditions.”He said it awkwardly.“But sometimes it feels like we’re honoring a time that we’ll never have again.Our world ended a long, long time ago.”Swallowing, Dante felt the weight of the phone he set down on his lap, and he exhaled softly.“I’m sorry, again, Tadeo.I'm sorry.For— For everything.”‘That is about to happen.’He'd just wanted to protect his mother.
Michael surrendered, then asked Joana before she could run, “Tell me what it is you want.”
Disbelievingly, she stopped, turned back to the archangel, and then she forced a laugh as the prince removed his helmet, stared warily.“Stop this,” Joana said like it was obvious, and Michael supposed that it was.“The apocalypse.”
Michael didn’t reply, but he listened for now, and he saw softness pass over her eyes, and when he stepped toward her, she didn’t flinch again, nor did she turn around and run.“I must— I must go.”He had to find Gabriel, have the last trumpet blown; those were his orders.“Please be safe.”She sighed, tired, and she didn’t resist when he, with a trembling hand, reached for her shoulder, pulled her closer.In fact, she leaned her head against his chest quietly.“Please.If you won’t follow me to Heaven, then—” She was trembling too, and he clenched his eyes shut painfully.“I’ll still find a way to ensure you’re well.Even if it’s Hell that you go to,” he found himself promising, “I’ll make a place in it that is only comfortably warm; I’ll wash all of your burns; I’ll cover your ears to give you rest from the screams of all those who deserve to be there.”He’d kissed her forehead, slowly, painfully.“Wherever you go, I will go, as well.”Their embrace tightened.
Faraway, the Watchers left Satan’s tower and headed south again but settled over the tip of a skyscraper not long after.Seeing all that the Watchers had done to the nation — Azazel was surprised to see the silver birds flying out of Babylon instead of at the Watchers.‘They’re destroying one another — the humans.’It reminded Azazel of the weeks before the flood, how men and women had turned on each other.Instead of uniting against the demons and angels, their tribes had looked for differences between each other to blame for war.Instead of uniting against God, the angels and the demons had fought at God’s feet during the war for Heaven.‘Is this how it will always be?’
A grunt sounded behind Azazel, and he turned to see Samyaza on the corner of the skyscraper, scratching at his face, beginning the wheeze.“Samyaza,” he whispered, then walked toward him.“Breathe.I’m here.”He went for him, and took the old Watcher’s face gently, and when he heard the thumps of others landing on the skyscraper, he looked at them patiently.But Samyaza's brows furrowed — angry.
“Azazel,” said Kokabiel, his voice worryingly calm, and Azazel turned to see him; the star angel's red hair remained free from its old braids, fluttering behind him.“Revenge?Why revenge?The stars tell me…” And then he wheezed out a giggle.“That this dear Earth is already a lost cause.”
