Fallen

Word Count: 4,700
Notes/Warnings: Non-graphic sex scene.

“I don’t get it.”

I hung my head, shaking it a little. Patrick could be so dense, sometimes. “What’s not to get, Patrick?”

“Oh, I dunno. Maybe the part where my best friend tells me he’s a freaking angel, that I’m the anti-Christ, and expects me to believe him!”

I sat back in Patrick’s beanbag couch and nimbly took the joint from his clearly nerveless fingers before it fell and the whole fire-trap apartment building went up. “Well, it’s the truth. I’m an angel. I’m part of one of the choirs known as the Malakim. I am called Ishim.”

“Isham Malachim is your name, you choad.” Patrick made a grab for the joint and I held it out of reach. At nearly seven feet tall, I had the arm-length to do so easily . . . especially now that he was good and baked.

“No, Isham Malachim is my Earthly alias. In Heaven, Ishim of the Malakim is my rank and choir.”

“Uh-huh. Gotcha.” Patrick rolled his eyes and sagged back in the beanbag’s clammy embrace. “Okay, wing-boy, say I believe all the stuff you just told me. The whole Magilla. Why would you tell me, now? Or at all? Aren’t I the enemy of puppies and democracy and all that’s good and pure?”

I sighed and took a drag off the joint out of habit. Unfortunately, my angelic system was as immune to pot as it was to alcohol. The only thing that got me high was, literally, my Lord and Savior.

(And caffeine, but I’m not allowed to imbibe after a certain incident in 1917, Spain, in which I may have made a miracle happen on a dare from Uzziel. A miracle that was witnessed by about 30,000 people.)

“No, you’re not. You’re a Nephilim: a child of a human woman and an angel—fallen angel, that is. The fallen angel. And I was sent to keep watch on you till such a time as you come into your powers.” I paused significantly. “That time is now. It is time for you to choose a side in the eternal war between good and evil. That is . . . choose to fight on the side of the angels . . . or stand by your father’s side.”

“My father’s not evil—you met him! He owns a pet store, for Chrissakes!”

I shook my head. “Your true father: Lucifer.”

“Oh, that’s right. I forgot.” Patrick laughed, his glassy, amused eyes rolling toward a photo of us on his bookshelf. It’s from our freshman year in college, and in it, we’re glaring melodramatically at each other over a chessboard in our dorm room. It’d taken more computer work than I was comfortable with to make sure I’d gotten a room assignment with Patrick, instead of with Julian Yang of Redhook, New York. “So, you’re saying that for the past five years, you’ve been—what? Babysitting me, making sure I don’t stray to the darkside, and now it’s time for me to pick my colors?”

“Essentially.”

“Why now, though?” He didn’t believe me. Not at all. He was just playing devil’s advocate, philosophy major that he was.

“Because the legions of Hell are ready to wage their war on the Throne, and through you, they plan to win the Earth, first. The Earth and as many souls thereon as they can,” I added gravely. “This new arm of the battle is imminent. Hell will be sending an emissary to you very soon. That is why I’ve told you the truth at last. Because you need all the information you can get to make an informed decision.”

“By which you mean choose your side,” Patrick said wryly, his bleary eyes settling on me once more. But for all they were bleary, they seemed to be present, at last. He was listening and retaining what I said.

“By which I mean . . . choose the side that makes the most sense to you.”

“Your side, you mean.” Patrick asserted rather pointedly, and he was right. My . . . side made more sense for him than his father’s. Patrick was kind, good-hearted, and sensitive. The princes of Hell would have chewed him up and spit him out. “You’d probably do just about anything to get me on Heaven’s side.”

I frowned. “That’s not how Heaven works. You must choose your side for your own informed reasons. It’s not up to us to tempt you. That’s Hell’s job.”

For a moment, Patrick looked stunned. And stung. He even sat back, glassy eyes wide and hurt for some reason I couldn’t identify. Even though I’d spent most of my existence watching humans, specific and nonspecific, the particulars of their moods still sometimes threw me for a loop.

“Well, whatever,” Patrick finally said, looking away then leaning forward and reaching for the box with his stash and his rolling papers. It held place of pride on his secondhand coffee table. “This is all bullshit, anyway. I don’t believe in Heaven or Hell, I don’t believe in the Devil, and I don’t believe in God.”

“Regardless,” I murmured, reaching out to put a hand on his shoulder. Patrick shivered hard and I let my hand fall away. “They believe in you. Very much so. And so do I.”

In the midst of fumbling opening his plastic baggie of kind, Patrick looked at me, his auburn brows raised and his dark, dark eyes wide in his pale, pale face. I smiled automatically. Occasional forays into mule-stubborn denseness aside, Patrick was my favorite human—well, part-human—ever. I did believe in him. There was only one thing I believed in more.

I tried to let my faith in him, in his mind and heart, shine through me so that he could see that in me—in my side—here, at last, was something and someone that would put complete faith in him.

Patrick stared at me, and swallowed. “You’re . . . dude, you’re glowing,” he mumbled, blinking like a man waking from a dream. “Like, literally glowing.”

Frowning again, I looked down at myself. There was, indeed, a mellow sort of glow emanating from my skin, just bright enough to shine through my plaid shirt and jeans, even.

“Huh,” I said, and look up, smiling again. Patrick still looked gobsmacked. But then he was reaching out to brush curious, hesitant fingers across my cheek. His touch was gentle, almost tender, and his fingers smelled of pot and mint.

Then Patrick was surging forward, making a soft, desperate sound low in his throat just as his lips touched mine.

“Patrick,” I started, about to add a no after his name, but he was already kissing me. And it was . . . interesting. I’d never been kissed before, but it’s . . . I liked it. Liked the way it tingled and teased and sent bolts of—something shooting throughout my body like urgent alarums. I liked the way Patrick’s hands were cupping my face, and the agile way his tongue insinuated itself between my lips, to tickle and tempt mine.

Then his hands were sliding down to my neck, then my shoulders, then my chest, and he was pushing me down to the beanbag couch, his body shifting and moving with mine so that he was lying on top of me. His weight felt . . . good and right. Warm and solid on my body, even though I could have easily lifted him off of me with one hand.

Patrick’s kisses wended their way to my neck and throat, interspersed with little bites that stung and felt amazing at the same time.

“I’ve been wanting to do this since the first time I saw you,” he was mumbling against my throat, between kisses and hickeys. “You were glowing back then, too, just . . . not literally. You were—and are—beautiful. The most beautiful person I’ve ever seen, inside and out.”

I leaned my head back against the couch as my arms wrapped around his neck of their own volition. “I’m not beautiful. I’m simply me,” I said, and Patrick sat up to look down into my eyes. His own were awed and molten.

“Just you is all I’ve wanted for the past five years.” Patrick cupped my face in his hand again and kissed me. It was so sweet I felt something in me shift and settle—like a compass finding magnetic north. Only . . . I knew what my magnetic north was: the Throne.

That was the only magnetic north I’d ever had or needed, right?

When Patrick let me up for oxygen I didn’t need, he balanced himself one arm, and shifted and wriggled around against me, looking into my eyes, searching them. My own widened, this time, when I realized that he wasn’t just wriggling against me, he was . . . thrusting against me, and he was hard.

“Oh,” I said, feeling quite naïve and lost, for some reason—two things I’ve never felt in all of my existence. Patrick smiled and leaned down to nuzzle my neck. “Don’t tell me angels don’t do this.”

“I—I’m sure some angels do,” I exhaled as Patrick began unbuttoning my shirt. And I was sure some angels had gotten a taste for it back in the day, when we walked freely and openly among humans. Back when we’d mingled with them and Nephilim were not so rare. I, however, observer and watcher, had never . . . mingled with humans in such a way. “I just wasn’t one of them.”

“You’re a virgin?” Patrick asked, sitting up, startled and smiling a little. I could feel a scowl forming on my face.

“I’m . . . yes, I am.” I tilted my face up proudly. My pride has always been my besetting sin. “But I’ve seen humans having sex before. I know what comes next.”

Patrick’s smile widened and turned wry and amused. “Do you, now?” He pushed my unbuttoned shirt open wide and bent to kiss my chest, his tongue flicking in and out as he kissed, licked, and nipped a trail to the place where my heart beat. He pressed kisses to that spot and nuzzled it, until I’d closed my eyes and was simply enjoying the most pleasurable sensations I’d ever known.

The most pleasurable, at least, until his teeth, playful and precise, closed on my nipple.

I threw my head back, a long, wavering cry on my lips as I shook and shuddered and more bolts of pleasure shot through me, straight from nipple, to my groin, and for the first time ever, I felt a . . . stirring there, the likes of which I’d never felt before. It tingled and burned, and urged and sought. Sought for what I didn’t know until Patrick started wriggling again and cloth-covered, hardened flesh came into contact with my own and I made that same wavering cry again, this time choked and stuttered.

Patrick was chuckling as he kissed his way down my chest and abdomen, to my waistband, and looked up the length of my body at me. My own felt like they were about to roll right out of their sockets, so wide-open were they.

Still grinning, Patrick began unbuttoning and unzipping my jeans. “Been wanting this for so long, I can’t believe I’m finally gonna get it.”

I swallowed and blushed, for the first time ever. I couldn’t believe he was going to get it, either. I mean, some angels may do this, but I . . . I don’t . . . right? No matter how much I might want to, I didn’t. And certainly not with a possible enemy—though it hurt me to think of Patrick that way—a Nephilim, and the anti-Christ. For all I knew such an act with Patrick could get me censured, or . . . or see me cast out among the Fallen. It could . . . it could have some dire consequences that I, low-ranked among angels, could not foresee.

But Patrick was smiling at me, his eyes warm with affection and heated with desire, and in that moment . . . I didn’t care. For the first time in my long existence, I let my mission slip and threw my caution, and years of planning and guidance fall by the wayside.

“Do you . . . should I . . . be on my stomach?” I asked, blushing again. Patrick took my hand and squeezed it gently, bringing it to his lips to kiss my palm—so tenderly, my breath caught.

“That’d make it wicked difficult for me to suck your cock, Isham.”

I moaned as that urgent sensation in my groin increased exponentially. I didn’t even care that Patick was still calling me by my human alias. I was shaking and moaning, trying to pull Patrick up into my arms by the hand that still held mine.

“Relax,” Patrick whispered in a puff of cool air that I felt even through the cotton of my boxer briefs. Boxer briefs which, along with my jeans, Patrick was tugging on. I took the hint and lifted up so he could drag the garments down my body—lifting them carefully over my erection then skinning them down my legs, stopping at my ankles.

Then he took off my sneakers, tossing the right, then the left shoe over his shoulders. One hit the wall, the other his bookshelf. Three books toppled off the over-burdened shelves and to the floor.

I laughed and Patrick laughed with me, before pulling my jeans and boxers the rest of the way off. They got tossed in the direction of the first sneaker.

Then Patrick was staring at me hungrily, almost worshipfully, which made me blush again.

“You’re so beautiful, that I can believe it, you know?” he murmured, glancing briefly at my eyes and smiling. “That you’re an angel.”

“I am an angel.”

“My angel?”

“Yes.”

Patrick’s eyes fluttered shut for a few moments, and when they opened again, he pushed my legs apart, so that one was pressed against the back of the couch and the other was hanging over the edge of it. Then he was lying between my spread legs and kissing the tip of my erection with teases of tongue and very gentle nips of his teeth.

And I . . . my head fell back and I didn’t say or think anything else for some time after that.

*

I didn’t usually sleep.

But this night was different for a lot of reasons, obviously. I woke up a strange bed, cuddled up to someone, a strong heartbeat under my cheek and strong arms around me.

For a moment I was completely disoriented. Then I remembered . . . everything. And I smiled, settling back in Patrick’s arms, back over his heartbeat, as he snored softly. I ran my hand up his chest, my fingers scritching through his auburn chest hair, and I decided to let myself go back to sleep. It was an indulgence I was unable to resist, especially since I’d be doing it with Patrick.

I think you’ve indulged yourself quite enough for one night . . . wouldn’t you say, Ishim?

At the feel of another’s voice in my head, I bolted up and out of Patrick’s arms, searching the darkness—which was not dark at all, for me—and drawing the covers up over Patrick and myself. Patrick stirred and complained, before rolling onto his left side and resuming his snoring. I, meanwhile, waited for the interloper to show himself.

How much trouble, I wondered, am I in, exactly?

However much it was, it was worth it. I resisted the urge, however, to look back at Patrick, who slumbered innocently on. I don’t regret what I’ve done, I thought into the darkness and at the entity I sensed only barely. Whichever angel it was, I knew it must have been a powerful one. Maybe . . . maybe even an arch.

“Fuck,” I muttered, in a moment of complete realization, no doubt transmitted by the angel or arch hovering so close to this plane of existence without quite manifesting. “Oh, fuck.”

Quite, the presence agreed, and before I could turn and look at Patrick one last time—before I could hug or kiss him good–bye, and feel his body against mine—the world went entirely white . . . before it was gone altogether.

But one thing became clear in that instant. Only one angel—one arch had the power to whisk another angel from one plane of existence, to another, without that angel’s permission.

Gabriel.

I was, in short, fucked . . . and perhaps mankind, with me.

*

Patrick Kennerly was sitting in his apartment, drunk off his ass, as usual, when there was a knock on his door.

This, in itself, was unusual, since most of his friends had despaired of him straightening out his life out months ago. No one knocked on Patrick’s door these days except Jehovah’s Witnesses, and word must’ve gotten around because even they’d steered clear of his door, lately.

But this knock—polite, but firm—spoke of someone who wouldn’t go away if Patrick didn’t answer. And he had the soccer game turned up so loud—all the better to drown out his thoughts—they had to know someone was home.

Levering himself out of the beanbag couch, Patrick put down the bottle of Beam on the junky, rickety coffee table, and shuffled to the door, one eye still on the match-up, which spun slowly, almost nauseatingly, along with the rest of the room.

You’re drinking too much, Patrick, he told himself, not for the first time, in a voice that sounded exactly like—

Before he opened the door, he leaned against it, trying to catch his suddenly lost breath. His mind went, for the first time in recent memory, to the night of which he’d promised himself he would never think.

To the name he swore he’d never say again, either aloud or in his head.

And yet it was the name his very soul cried out in a constant cacophony of pain, even as it offered up memories of that night—Isham’s face as he came, the scent and taste of his skin, the way he shuddered and moaned when Patrick made the first tentative, slow push in . . . the tigthheatflutterclench of Isham’s muscles around him in the moments of stillness between each thrust. . . .

No, Patrick thought, closing the door on those memories for the hundred thousandth time, knowing full well that something would, sooner or later, come along an blast that door wide open again, when he least expected it.

Wiping his eyes, Patrick unlocked the door and opened it.

On his doorstep stood . . . someone who must’ve tripped and fallen out of the pages of GQ, so stylishly dressed was he, wearing clothes that looked tailored, sunglasses that looked like they cost more than Patrick’s rent, and sporting Bulova time on his wrist.

A dazzling, self-assured smile parted perfect lips and revealed even, white-white teeth.

“Hi,” Mr. GQ said in a low, amused baritone that was nonetheless just slightly flame-y. Patrick’s brows drew together, but he said: “Hi,” right back. And as if a cue was given, Mr. GQ stepped into his personal space—into the apartment—and put his arms around Patrick and kissed him hard.

It was a good few seconds before Patrick’s pickled brain could even begin to process, let alone rally. He hadn’t been kissed in over a year, since Isham . . . disappeared from his bed after they’d made love for the first—well, technically the fifth time. (Angels, it turns out, had precious little in the way of refractory time and apparently didn’t get sore).

And in the year-plus since Isham disappeared, Patrick had only rarely been anything other than blind stinking drunk. He’d flunked his way out of his Master’s program, and out of his family’s good graces. Had lost most of his friends due to his own unwillingness to get sober and stay that way.

But he really couldn’t help it. Drinking was the only thing that made life bearable anymore. They just didn’t understand. None of them did. Patrick’d had Paradise . . . had held it in his arms . . . and then Paradise had abandoned him without so much as a: fuck you.

In light of that, was it an wonder he drank and secluded himself from anything and everything that reminded him of that which he’d lost? Including his friends and most of the outside world? Is it any wonder there hadn’t been anyone since Isham? Not even just a simple kiss?

“Get the fuck offa me!” Patrick growled, shoving the GQ motherfucker away from him hard enough that the other man—a good deal more compact that Patrick’s brawny six foot three—hit the wall opposite Patrick’s door.

Instead of an oof of suddenly expelled air, the other man laughed, and brushed off and straightened out his fancy scarlet suit.

“Ouch?” he said then laughed delightedly. Patrick glared, clenching his fists.

“The fuck’re you, bro?”

Mr. GQ grinned and removed his sunglasses. The eyes revealed were . . . goat’s eyes, yellow, with the same kind of fucked-up pupils. And the corneas of his eyes were a brilliant, bloodshot red, like the other man had smoked six bowls in rapid succession.

“My name’s Azazel,” he said, bowing slightly, his weird eyes never leaving Patick. “And I’m here to tempt you with everything you’ve ever wanted.” That smile turned ironic. “Take you up to the high places, as it were, and sheweth you the world.”

Patrick blinked. Then sighed. “You’re not serious.”

“Never, if I can help it. But I also never lie.” Azazel drifted closer to Patrick, till he was close enough for Patrick to get a whiff of him: expensive cologne and, ever so faintly . . . brimstone. “Not when the truth is so much more fun.”

“Isham said you’d come,” Patrick said, feeling surprised, but not. If there was a guy out there who might have possibly been an angel, what were the odds there wasn’t another guy out there who might—in light off those fucked up eyes . . . assuming they weren’t contacts—possibly be a demon?

Patrick stares down into Azazel’s creepy eyes for long moments before stepping back and sweeping a hand out in welcome.

“Took you longer than I would’ve thought,” he said as Azazel strolled in, already undoing his expensive leather belt and making straight for the beanbag couch. He looked both wrong and right in Patrick’s space. Though more and more right, the more clothing he shed till, naked, perfect, and smirking, he stood in front of the couch, patiently waiting.

Shaking his suddenly clear head, Patrick closed the door to his apartment and walked toward the couch, unbuckling his own belt. “But what makes you think I’m gonna fuck you?” he asked, nonetheless.

Azazel grinned. “Just a hunch I have,” he said, glancing pointedly at Patrick’s crotch, laughing when Patrick did the same. Despite all the Beam he’d had, he was indeed standing at attention and ready to rock and roll.

Huh, he thought bemusedly, wondering when that’d happened.

“At any rate, how else do you think we seal deals in Hell? A round of golf and martinis, after?” Azazel snorted. “Deals are sealed in flesh . . . and blood. And it’s a bonus for me, because I’ve never had a Nephilim, before,” he purred, as Patrick drew closer, stepping around the coffee table and reaching out to put a hand on Azazel’s narrow waist. The tan skin under his hand was smooth and hot. Not too hot to touch, but any human being with a temperature that hot would be very shortly dead. And certainly not in such blithe spirits as Azazel.

Azazel’s freaky eyes fluttered shut as Patrick’s hand slid around to his ass to grip and squeeze.

“Who are you?” Patrick demanded in a hiss as Azazel leaned in to kiss his chest, one hand coming up to settle over Patrick’s heart.

“I told you: I am Azazel, first emissary of Hell. And I’ve come to tempt you . . . is it working?”

“Augh!” Patrick gasped when a hot, and almost cruel hand closes around his cock.

“I’ll take that as a yes,” Azazel smirked on Patrick’s chest and bit his left nipple hard enough that Patrick hissed in another breath. Hard enough that Patrick felt a trickle of blood run down his chest.

“Christ, not so goddamn hard!”

“Oh, you don’t have to play coy with me, my prince.” Azazel chuckled throatily, lapping at Patrick’s blood with obvious relish. “I know what you want. What you need, and won’t let yourself have . . . I know about desires you’d never share with your precious little angel.”

Isham. It always came back to godddamned Isham. “Fuck—where is he? Where’s . . . the other side’s emissary?” Patrick asked through gritted teeth as that hot hand squeezed and stroked him.

“You mean Ishim of the Malakim?” Azazel laughed brightly. “He Fell, don’tcha know? The arches—archangels, that is—voted to cast him out of their little club for consorting with the anti-Christ.” Snorting, Azazel’s strokes slowed, become a little more gentle. “That’s what angels get for fucking a Nephilim, let alone the Nephilim of all Nephilim.”

Patrick opened eyes he hadn’t even been aware of closing and looked down into Azazel’s, his mind whirling. What if Isham hadn’t left him that night? What if he’d been . . . summoned by his superiors and then . . . then cast out, whatever that meant. “And what do demons who fuck a Nephilim get?” he asked absently, pulling Azazel against him.

Smirk-smirk-smirk, went the demon in Patrick’s arms. “The fucking of their lives is reward in itself.”

Patrick smiled, but it was hard and mirthless. The foggy numbness of just a few minutes ago was gone like it never was. “So Isham—Ishim is . . . is on Earth?”

Azazel shook his head. “Nope. Your angel is in Hell: Every moment a lifetime, every hour an eternity.” He chuckled again, running his hand across Patrick’s chest, singeing cloth as he did. “The boys’re having fun with him.”

Bottom dropping out of his stomach, revealing a yawning pit of horror and fear—not for himself, but for Ishim—Patrick caught Azazel’s hot hand and squeezed. He looked the emissary in his goat-eyes. “You know what I want.”

“I do.” Azazel nodded obediently, and despite himself, a bolt of lust rocked Patrick to his core. But he tamped it down.

“Ishim of Malakim free and on Earth, with me. And in return . . . I fight in your war, on your side.”

Azazel blinked, and closed his eyes briefly, the lids fluttering as his eyes rolled behind them. Then they opened suddenly, and the emissary was smiling his dazzling smile. “Your father finds those terms acceptable.”

Shuddering, Patrick thought of his father—his real father, the only one he’d ever acknowledge as such—and looked away.

“Okay. So, is there a contract or something? Do I have to sign it in blood?”

Azazel turned Patrick’s face back toward his own and kissed him again, demanding and with more tongue than Patrick usually liked. “Wrong bodily fluid, baby,” he whispered, turning to lead Patrick to the beanbag couch. Once there he got on his hands and knees, legs spread as wide as the couch would allow. He looked over his shoulder, his strange eyes flashing, his pointed tongue coming out to swipe those perfect lips. “Though if you wanna make me bleed . . . I won’t complain.”

Pushing down his jeans and boxers—his poor, Fallen angel held firmly in his mind and heart—Patrick Kennerly approached his damnation with a grim smile.

END