He promised he’d try again. Once he was done with the dishes, he’d march into the living room and tell Nick whether he listened or not. In his mind, he thought if he got the words out he’d get over the fear of speaking out. There was a lot of fear under his usual face, a lot more than he was used to actually admitting was there.
That was his plan anyway. Thinking about it too much gave him a huge headache, but as time went on, it got easier. His mood brightened by the time he emptied the sink and dried his hands.
Nick walked into the room, holding his empty glass in one hand and something else that Adrian couldn’t see out of the corner of his eye.
“I’m going to be leaving in a few. Gonna have a night out with the boys.”
Adrian heard paper turning and light footsteps. An uneasy feeling rushed over him, grasping for his attention. Something didn’t feel right. It wasn’t the usual feeling like he’d forgotten something. He was sure it wasn’t that. He shrugged it off. It didn’t matter right now.
That’s what he told himself because he liked to lie to himself. Talking to himself was just another feature, another characteristic that his mother couldn’t force out of him. With Nick always with him, he didn’t have to worry too much about going insane. He was the one thing that kept him grounded most of the time, but sometimes...
“What’s this?” The question didn’t sound at all like it was meant for him. It was a hushed question, faintly louder than a whistle of wind or the brush of fingers on skin.
Nick straightened out the newspaper onto the table, the empty glass gone from his hands, setting neatly in the sink. Adrian hadn’t noticed Nick move from one end of the kitchen to the other. His mind was boggled at the lost time.
It took him ten seconds to realize what Nick was reading but by that time it was too late. He watched as Nick went rigid, the muscles in his back bulging and then releasing to an easy form. His hands tightened into fists, crinkling the paper.
“Were you even going to tell me?”
Adrian felt his heart drop. He swallowed and tried to think of something to do, but all he could hear were the voices telling him that everything was a mistake. All the things he did in his life were meaningless and that Nick would never want to be with him. These thoughts came out of no where, filling him with dread and longing for a life that wasn’t as messed up as his was now.
He licked his lips and stared at Nick’s face.
“What the hell, Adrian. I thought—do you want to leave? Do you not want to be with me anymore?”
The confusion turned to anger. Nick slammed his fist onto the table. The glass wobbled and Adrian jumped.
“Is there someone else?” Nick shook his head. He let out a shaky breath. “Are you cheating on me?”
All thoughts went out. The words that were there disappeared. Instead of seeing Nick now, he saw an old man crying while he slept, clutching the bedding. A woman around the same age slept beside him and on the nightstand was a picture of two young people, smiling at the camera and waving.
The picture was disturbed when Nick grabbed him by the shoulders and shoved him against the wall. He threw his hands up to steady himself, but was blocked by Nick’s arm. The picture of the old couple kept flashing through his mind and he couldn’t place where he’d seen such a thing. They weren’t his grandparents and the people in the photo looked like siblings.
“Are you? Tell me, goddammit!”
Adrian shook his head. “I’m not. I swear.”
He kept thinking about the girl and boy in the photo, the way they smiled and how their hair looked similar to Nick’s. None of what he had seen made sense to him and neither did Nick’s reaction. The circles in the newspaper, the one that was for a one bedroom apartment and the others for numerous jobs were evidence. When Nick saw those he thought of another lover, someone ripping apart their relationship, but it wasn’t that.
Tears stung Adrian’s eyes, but he didn’t give in to the urge to let them go. “I was going to tell you, but it didn’t seem right. You were watching TV and I—”
“You want to leave me.”
He sobbed. “No! I thought it would be better if I moved out, not leave you. I want to take care of myself for awhile.”
I want to experience new things.
I want us to get better.
I want the old Nick back.
He didn’t want to say those things. He didn’t want to distance himself, but even if he did want to say those things, he wouldn’t have gotten a chance.
The image that had flashed through his mind was like the ghost’s touch. It had been there, but he couldn’t believe that it had been.
Nick shook his head, his hands leaving Adrian’s shoulder. The warmth that had been there was replaced by ice. This touch had once made him moan and long to be touched.
Nick was his childhood love, the one person that had helped him face his demons. Nick was his savior and everything Adrian had wanted to be. The love he had for him was sometimes more than he could understand or handle.
Nick picked up the glass and threw it at the wall. The glass shattered into glittering pieces that fell to the floor. He stormed off to their bedroom. The door slammed and the pictures on the wall shook from the force.
For a few minutes Adrian was frozen against the wall. The glass beckoned him. Something about it looking familiar, but foreign all the same.
Glass coated with blood, tasting sweet and sour. The fog blocked his vision, blurry and the colors of the night swirled together, kissing and tempting him to follow it. Heaven was close and hell closer. Someone was walking towards him. They smiled and held out their hand. Their eyes glowed and their lips moved to form words that didn’t reach his ears.
The scene switched to another, to the old man and woman lying in their beds. The woman sat up, the sun hitting her cheek this time because it was no longer night. She turned to the man. The silence was overtaken by the woman’s cries.
The man did not stir as she shook him.
***
Lucas moved closer to the edge of Hell and peered into the realm of the middle world. Earth is what it was called; a world that was a combination of Heaven and Hell; a world that was birthed when the two realms had once come together. He hadn’t been there at the time of the Great Collision, but he had heard that it had been a horrible time for demons.
Demons were curious and troublemakers at heart. They lived off cruelty and the hate of others. Angels, on the other hand, were creatures that love harmony and beings doing good for others. When they had come together, united for what had been centuries, the two creatures clashed and made each others’ existence miserable. Demons loved misery but only when it was the misery of others.
He understood how that could be a problem for demons living in the pockets of angels. Personally, he hated angels. They were stuck up and liked to get into people’s business. From what he’d seen on earth, they liked to force couples together in ways that couldn’t be natural, causing problems—which helped demons—but then ending with the couple getting together. It was disgusting to watch from the sidelines.
Like cancer, they spread their goodness throughout earth, hoping that what they did would stop the bad from overtaking humans. But Lucas and the demons of Hell didn’t have to worry too much about the angels. Though annoying, they weren’t as effective as the high angel would have hoped. Humans were more like their demon sides, looking to put beings down and hurting others for the sake of laughing and feeling good.
That was Mathias’ favorite part. Humans tried to mask the evil inside of them, but eventually it would always win. For Lucas it was more about the the punishment the evil doers endured. Demons fed on agony and loved the worst of suffering. Black souls were the best to convert, more powerful than idle gray souls.
And of course there were the rare white souls that turned black. They were more powerful than most upper level demons, but there were very few chances of such a thing happening.
He watched as a man was stabbed to death and a woman smothered her child. There was a man cheating on his wife and a boy throwing rocks at another boy. To humans, these sins were on different scales, one always outweighing another. In Heaven and Hell they were all the same. The more a human did such acts, the darker their soul turned and when they finally turned the blackest of blacks or the whitest of whites, they were harvested. A good deed put a human one step closer to Heaven while a sin moved them closer to Hell.
The system wasn’t about equality or justice. It was all about balancing out the three worlds and keeping all creatures safe.
Lucas huffed. Demons hated to admit it, but angels were needed.
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