stop. look. listen.
Slowest Burn
Brad can't quite remember when they met. Probably somewhere in the thirteenth century, but fuck, wasn't that a right mess. Brad hated the Dark Ages with vengeance. He was never so glad in his life, well, existence, as when the Renaissance rolled around.
Most demons loved the Middle Ages, but most demons were fucking retards and Brad wouldn't have anything to do with them. They loved the village idiots who didn't know their dick from a pitchfork and who did most of the demonic job for them.
Brad does his best to forget the sorry period existed. Except that he thinks he met Nate sometime in the thirteenth century, so there's a plus. He did also acquire Ray somewhere in the nineteenth century, which he actually liked, so it all evened out.
"What's the point of selling your ass at the crossroads if all you get from is is your girlfriend recovering from a fatal illness and then dumping your sorry ass for the hot doctor who 'cured' her?" Ray asks, shaking his head. "Mortals are retards."
Case in point.
They're sitting in a shitty bar in Tennessee. Ray's choice, and his excuse is that he has a soul to collect, a famous musician whose ten years are up today, but Brad's pretty sure it's mostly to fuck with Brad and make him listen to the fucking country music.
Even the Middle Ages didn't have fucking country music. It was just about the only point in their favour.
"I would drop this motherfucking business like a piece of shit it is if I didn't owe Poke a few more souls. Remind me never to play cards with the asshole ever again, he cheats, every damn time."
"Souls are not currency," Brad says with distaste and downs his whiskey. One of the few things humans actually know how to do.
"Where have you been for the last few centuries, homes? Souls are the only currency. Bought, sold, traded and stolen. Am I right, or am I right, Nate?" he asks, tilting his head to the left, where Nate seems to be comfortably seated in the chair that was empty a fraction of a second ago. "Souls are what makes this whole motherfucking hell business go around."
"Wouldn't know," Nate says, matter-of-fact and calm. "Don't have one. Brad, a moment of your time?" he asks and Brad nods instantly. It's been a while, a decade or two at least. London in the early 1990s, the small apartment in King's Cross. Brad misses it.
"Yeah, Ray-Ray knows when he's not wanted," Ray says without malice. "I'll go and see how my hounds are getting along. Bought them new chew toys," he adds with a grin that worried Brad just a little.
"Can we at least get the fuck out of here? My brain is dribbling out through my ears. I honestly can't believe the idiots downstairs didn't consider this as a suitable punishment for some of the worst sinners."
"Yes, I can't believe they prefer to actually torture people with iron and fire," Nate mutters. "I forgot how much you hate this stuff," he adds, almost fondly, like Brad's dislike of country music is something he enjoys.
They're in London before Nate finishes speaking and Brad wants to mock that, say that he didn't think Nate was such a sentimental pussy, except he can't quite make himself form the words. Nate's sitting on a a park bench, or rather, on the back of it, his feet on the seat. St James's Park, and the sun is just rising.
"It's going to be soon," Nate says and something about the tone of his voice tells Brad what he's talking about. It's the topic that comes up every fucking time two demons meet anywhere, everyone yapping on how great it will be, but Nate never mentioned it, not once.
"So, 2012? Fuck, the morons actually got that one right. They're going to be insufferable when they find out they called it."
"Insufferable and dead," Nate agrees. He sounds a little regretful about that, but then again, Nate always liked humans. It was one of the stranger things about him, and one that Brad liked about him, for some idiot reason. "It's a pity, there was a movie I wanted to see in summer 2013."
"Was gonna buy myself a new bike for Christmas. Not gonna bother now," Brad offers dryly.
"There is a certain irony in you celebrating Christmas."
"Precisely why I do. I like to fuck with everyone's expectations," he nods pleasantly and sits down on the bench, Nate's knee pressed against his shoulder. "Solid intel?"
"I have been assured of it. Godfather's gathering the armies, first seal has been opened already. Frankly, the entire commotion downstairs is a bit distasteful, if you ask me." The corner of Nate's mouth twitches a little. The armies of hell are, after all, composed of those who by definition don't follow any rules and rebel against the authority. Must be some awesome clusterfuck.
"And you want nothing to do with that," Brad nods, getting a smile in response, wide and brilliant and fake.
"Are you kidding? I am to lead the first wave of hell's soldiers."
*
It was 1984 or 85, a small town in autumn, one of those countries Brad could never tell apart, bad roads and nothing in the grocery stores but fucking vinegar.
He wasn't quite sure what business Nate had in whatever buttfuck part of Europe they were in, but Nate's business usually fell into the don't-ask category. He didn't deal with the Faust wannabes or the whole sorry temptation business. Sometimes Brad caught a glimpse of the plan, the small choice Nate offered to a mortal leading into something massive, spanning continents and centuries.
"Never seen people so happy to stand in line for toilet paper," Brad observed dryly, folded into the small chair in a street cafe.
"Maybe you've finally found the right country for yourself. A nation that takes shitting as seriously as you do."
Technically, demons didn't need to shit. Didn't need to eat, either, but when you had the eternity you wouldn't deny yourself a pound of steak or a piece of chocolate cake every now and then. And Brad had always thought it was cheating if you did that and then didn't bother to shit.
"Pity about the roads, though. And the cars, fucking tiny tin cans. Can we go now?" he asked, drawing the words like a sulking child and Nate laughed, finally, the weight of whatever he had on his shoulders lifting a little.
"Yes, Brad. Let's go," he muttered, hand pressing against Brad's shoulder, grounding himself.
They went to Italy next, Brad thinks. He's not sure, they travelled a lot at the time, the five or six years when they were almost inseparable, following each other all over the world for no other reason than because they wanted to. No other reason than because it was them.
*
Brad had gotten his first bike in 1947. He has had seventeen bikes since then, four cars, one tank and one plane. He got the pilot's license in the 70s, the hard way, done the classes and the necessary flights. Created a whole identity just for this, because it was fucking fun.
He liked his third bike the best, it was the first one that actually let him feel the speed, the wind on his face.
"You're gonna kill yourself on that thing one of these days," Nate told him reproachfully. Like he worried.
"That should be fun, hadn't done that in a while." At least the seventeenth century. Dying was alright, the process of requisitioning a new body was a bitch.
Nate's thumb slid over the inside of Brad's wrist, slow and gentle. "I happen to like the body you have now."
You didn't get attached. Not to material things, not to anything at all. They have probably fucked that one up some four centuries ago.
*
Brad whistles, low and impressed. "Must have done something really right by the Godfather. Or something really wrong in general, as it is. Don't tell me, you made the last church scandal happen."
Nate rolls his eyes and shudders theatrically. "There are some things a respectable demon shouldn't get himself involved with," he says dryly.
He's watching the sunrise, head tilted upwards. Unlike most demons, Nate seems to prefer the day, likes the sun. Not the heat of the summer, Brad has heard him bitch about it a couple of hundred times, but the still warm sun of the fall and the fresh and crisp winter days.
"You're incredibly excited about it all, I can tell."
Nate shrugs. "You hate country music," he says, a non sequitur if Brad heard any, but he's not done yet, it's just a prelude to whatever he sought Brad out to say.
"Your insight into my psyche is uncanny. It's as if you actually knew me."
The corner of Nate's mouth twitches. "You love your bikes and you love jalapeno, you maintain that Apple must have been downstairs' invention and you don't like mornings even though you hadn't needed to sleep since the twelfth century."
"Is this a chick flick scene? I saw that one. And that was definitely one of our inventions, the amount of retarded, emotional drivel sponsored by the cosmetics and clothes lines that symultaneously promise to make a woman beautiful and work to destroy her self esteem must have originated with a bunch of demons getting really stoned."
"You like this world," Nate offers, and it sounds like an accusation and a question and a challenge.
"Can't leave it without going back downstairs and everyone there is just tragically devoid of sense of humor."
Nate nods. "Want to save it?"
*
They had fucked for the first time in 1632.
Brad's body had been virgin, he wasn't. It was an interesting experience, to say the least, to remember the way he had been touched before and yet have Nate to be the first to kiss him, to put his hand between Brad's legs and nudge them open, stroke Brad's cock slowly.
No one was tossing around terms like muscle memory back then, but everything felt new, strange.
He held on to that body, the one Nate had touched and kissed and came all over, time and time again. There was too much trouble in trying to get a new one, he'd rather save himself the hassle.
Brad met an angel once, a nice quiet girl with a head that was too big for her body. Then again, it could have been the 80s haircut. She told him that love and attachment were forbidden to angels. Twenty years later, he would have told her that so it was for the fucking Jedi knights and that obviously went well.
He wasn't quite sure what was the official position of hell on those subjects. They were fine with lust, at least. In fact, lust seemed to be one of hell's main exports. No one ever discussed love, Sixta wasn't going around and giving pointers on that one.
In 1872 Nate was spread on their bed, eyes half-closed and mouth parted, his chest rising with unnecessary breaths, and when he rolled his head to the side he had this look of utter amazement on his face. "I've always thought you'd need a soul to love anything," he said and Brad closed his eyes.
*
Brad's not sure how old Nate really is. He wonders if Nate really knows, if it's possible to know, to remember, after such a long while. Maybe it's like with humans, who can't remember the time they were four, can't remember their first steps or words. Maybe it's the same.
Brad's own human life is a hazy dream, one he's not sure he actually lived through. He made some bad decisions, made a pact he shouldn't have. Same old story. He can't remember the demon who met him at the crossroads.
Nate speaks Latin, not like most demons do, a tool and a necessity, but like he heard it spoken when it was still used to profess love and talk about the weather. He speaks Ancient Greek like it's ash on his tongue.
The first time they went to Greece together, Nate stood on a hill, eyes closed and breathing steady, hands at his sides. Calm and relaxed, beautiful. Brad didn't even feel him shaking until he wrapped his arms around Nate.
*
"So, you're going to rebel against your superiors?" Brad asks. He's just making sure, it's unlike Nate. Except that in this, it's exactly like Nate.
"I'm a demon, Brad. Disobedience is inherent in our nature."
"Yeah, I don't think Godfather will see it like that. Okay, how many do you have on your side?"
Nate smiles, his eyes shining like the sun itself. "So far? Counting you and me?"
"Two, then," Brad guesses.
"Two."
*
Brad has an old sword, hidden in a safety deposit box. It's old and comfortable like a part of him. He doesn't remember ever using it, but he must have.
It would be just about as useless in a fight with another demon as a child's toy. It doesn't bother him in the slightest.
Brad likes this world. He hates it, too, the country music and the neverending retardation, and the fact that you fucking can't smoke in the bars anymore. Not that he smokes, but he liked the fog. He likes jalapeno and cheese and all Bruce Willis movies, including the sucky ones. Including the fucking Moonlighting, but he'll never admit to that.
He wants to stay here, forever.
"Nate," he asks and Nate looks up from the pond. Nate used to come here and feed the ducks, for whatever insane reason. "Do you remember when we met for the first time?"
He doesn't even pause to think it over. He sounds as if he's been waiting for that very question. "The autumn of 1238, in Italy. It was early morning."
"How can you be sure?"
Nate laughs. It feels nice, warm. "I remember feeling like I was waking up."
Most demons loved the Middle Ages, but most demons were fucking retards and Brad wouldn't have anything to do with them. They loved the village idiots who didn't know their dick from a pitchfork and who did most of the demonic job for them.
Brad does his best to forget the sorry period existed. Except that he thinks he met Nate sometime in the thirteenth century, so there's a plus. He did also acquire Ray somewhere in the nineteenth century, which he actually liked, so it all evened out.
"What's the point of selling your ass at the crossroads if all you get from is is your girlfriend recovering from a fatal illness and then dumping your sorry ass for the hot doctor who 'cured' her?" Ray asks, shaking his head. "Mortals are retards."
Case in point.
They're sitting in a shitty bar in Tennessee. Ray's choice, and his excuse is that he has a soul to collect, a famous musician whose ten years are up today, but Brad's pretty sure it's mostly to fuck with Brad and make him listen to the fucking country music.
Even the Middle Ages didn't have fucking country music. It was just about the only point in their favour.
"I would drop this motherfucking business like a piece of shit it is if I didn't owe Poke a few more souls. Remind me never to play cards with the asshole ever again, he cheats, every damn time."
"Souls are not currency," Brad says with distaste and downs his whiskey. One of the few things humans actually know how to do.
"Where have you been for the last few centuries, homes? Souls are the only currency. Bought, sold, traded and stolen. Am I right, or am I right, Nate?" he asks, tilting his head to the left, where Nate seems to be comfortably seated in the chair that was empty a fraction of a second ago. "Souls are what makes this whole motherfucking hell business go around."
"Wouldn't know," Nate says, matter-of-fact and calm. "Don't have one. Brad, a moment of your time?" he asks and Brad nods instantly. It's been a while, a decade or two at least. London in the early 1990s, the small apartment in King's Cross. Brad misses it.
"Yeah, Ray-Ray knows when he's not wanted," Ray says without malice. "I'll go and see how my hounds are getting along. Bought them new chew toys," he adds with a grin that worried Brad just a little.
"Can we at least get the fuck out of here? My brain is dribbling out through my ears. I honestly can't believe the idiots downstairs didn't consider this as a suitable punishment for some of the worst sinners."
"Yes, I can't believe they prefer to actually torture people with iron and fire," Nate mutters. "I forgot how much you hate this stuff," he adds, almost fondly, like Brad's dislike of country music is something he enjoys.
They're in London before Nate finishes speaking and Brad wants to mock that, say that he didn't think Nate was such a sentimental pussy, except he can't quite make himself form the words. Nate's sitting on a a park bench, or rather, on the back of it, his feet on the seat. St James's Park, and the sun is just rising.
"It's going to be soon," Nate says and something about the tone of his voice tells Brad what he's talking about. It's the topic that comes up every fucking time two demons meet anywhere, everyone yapping on how great it will be, but Nate never mentioned it, not once.
"So, 2012? Fuck, the morons actually got that one right. They're going to be insufferable when they find out they called it."
"Insufferable and dead," Nate agrees. He sounds a little regretful about that, but then again, Nate always liked humans. It was one of the stranger things about him, and one that Brad liked about him, for some idiot reason. "It's a pity, there was a movie I wanted to see in summer 2013."
"Was gonna buy myself a new bike for Christmas. Not gonna bother now," Brad offers dryly.
"There is a certain irony in you celebrating Christmas."
"Precisely why I do. I like to fuck with everyone's expectations," he nods pleasantly and sits down on the bench, Nate's knee pressed against his shoulder. "Solid intel?"
"I have been assured of it. Godfather's gathering the armies, first seal has been opened already. Frankly, the entire commotion downstairs is a bit distasteful, if you ask me." The corner of Nate's mouth twitches a little. The armies of hell are, after all, composed of those who by definition don't follow any rules and rebel against the authority. Must be some awesome clusterfuck.
"And you want nothing to do with that," Brad nods, getting a smile in response, wide and brilliant and fake.
"Are you kidding? I am to lead the first wave of hell's soldiers."
*
It was 1984 or 85, a small town in autumn, one of those countries Brad could never tell apart, bad roads and nothing in the grocery stores but fucking vinegar.
He wasn't quite sure what business Nate had in whatever buttfuck part of Europe they were in, but Nate's business usually fell into the don't-ask category. He didn't deal with the Faust wannabes or the whole sorry temptation business. Sometimes Brad caught a glimpse of the plan, the small choice Nate offered to a mortal leading into something massive, spanning continents and centuries.
"Never seen people so happy to stand in line for toilet paper," Brad observed dryly, folded into the small chair in a street cafe.
"Maybe you've finally found the right country for yourself. A nation that takes shitting as seriously as you do."
Technically, demons didn't need to shit. Didn't need to eat, either, but when you had the eternity you wouldn't deny yourself a pound of steak or a piece of chocolate cake every now and then. And Brad had always thought it was cheating if you did that and then didn't bother to shit.
"Pity about the roads, though. And the cars, fucking tiny tin cans. Can we go now?" he asked, drawing the words like a sulking child and Nate laughed, finally, the weight of whatever he had on his shoulders lifting a little.
"Yes, Brad. Let's go," he muttered, hand pressing against Brad's shoulder, grounding himself.
They went to Italy next, Brad thinks. He's not sure, they travelled a lot at the time, the five or six years when they were almost inseparable, following each other all over the world for no other reason than because they wanted to. No other reason than because it was them.
*
Brad had gotten his first bike in 1947. He has had seventeen bikes since then, four cars, one tank and one plane. He got the pilot's license in the 70s, the hard way, done the classes and the necessary flights. Created a whole identity just for this, because it was fucking fun.
He liked his third bike the best, it was the first one that actually let him feel the speed, the wind on his face.
"You're gonna kill yourself on that thing one of these days," Nate told him reproachfully. Like he worried.
"That should be fun, hadn't done that in a while." At least the seventeenth century. Dying was alright, the process of requisitioning a new body was a bitch.
Nate's thumb slid over the inside of Brad's wrist, slow and gentle. "I happen to like the body you have now."
You didn't get attached. Not to material things, not to anything at all. They have probably fucked that one up some four centuries ago.
*
Brad whistles, low and impressed. "Must have done something really right by the Godfather. Or something really wrong in general, as it is. Don't tell me, you made the last church scandal happen."
Nate rolls his eyes and shudders theatrically. "There are some things a respectable demon shouldn't get himself involved with," he says dryly.
He's watching the sunrise, head tilted upwards. Unlike most demons, Nate seems to prefer the day, likes the sun. Not the heat of the summer, Brad has heard him bitch about it a couple of hundred times, but the still warm sun of the fall and the fresh and crisp winter days.
"You're incredibly excited about it all, I can tell."
Nate shrugs. "You hate country music," he says, a non sequitur if Brad heard any, but he's not done yet, it's just a prelude to whatever he sought Brad out to say.
"Your insight into my psyche is uncanny. It's as if you actually knew me."
The corner of Nate's mouth twitches. "You love your bikes and you love jalapeno, you maintain that Apple must have been downstairs' invention and you don't like mornings even though you hadn't needed to sleep since the twelfth century."
"Is this a chick flick scene? I saw that one. And that was definitely one of our inventions, the amount of retarded, emotional drivel sponsored by the cosmetics and clothes lines that symultaneously promise to make a woman beautiful and work to destroy her self esteem must have originated with a bunch of demons getting really stoned."
"You like this world," Nate offers, and it sounds like an accusation and a question and a challenge.
"Can't leave it without going back downstairs and everyone there is just tragically devoid of sense of humor."
Nate nods. "Want to save it?"
*
They had fucked for the first time in 1632.
Brad's body had been virgin, he wasn't. It was an interesting experience, to say the least, to remember the way he had been touched before and yet have Nate to be the first to kiss him, to put his hand between Brad's legs and nudge them open, stroke Brad's cock slowly.
No one was tossing around terms like muscle memory back then, but everything felt new, strange.
He held on to that body, the one Nate had touched and kissed and came all over, time and time again. There was too much trouble in trying to get a new one, he'd rather save himself the hassle.
Brad met an angel once, a nice quiet girl with a head that was too big for her body. Then again, it could have been the 80s haircut. She told him that love and attachment were forbidden to angels. Twenty years later, he would have told her that so it was for the fucking Jedi knights and that obviously went well.
He wasn't quite sure what was the official position of hell on those subjects. They were fine with lust, at least. In fact, lust seemed to be one of hell's main exports. No one ever discussed love, Sixta wasn't going around and giving pointers on that one.
In 1872 Nate was spread on their bed, eyes half-closed and mouth parted, his chest rising with unnecessary breaths, and when he rolled his head to the side he had this look of utter amazement on his face. "I've always thought you'd need a soul to love anything," he said and Brad closed his eyes.
*
Brad's not sure how old Nate really is. He wonders if Nate really knows, if it's possible to know, to remember, after such a long while. Maybe it's like with humans, who can't remember the time they were four, can't remember their first steps or words. Maybe it's the same.
Brad's own human life is a hazy dream, one he's not sure he actually lived through. He made some bad decisions, made a pact he shouldn't have. Same old story. He can't remember the demon who met him at the crossroads.
Nate speaks Latin, not like most demons do, a tool and a necessity, but like he heard it spoken when it was still used to profess love and talk about the weather. He speaks Ancient Greek like it's ash on his tongue.
The first time they went to Greece together, Nate stood on a hill, eyes closed and breathing steady, hands at his sides. Calm and relaxed, beautiful. Brad didn't even feel him shaking until he wrapped his arms around Nate.
*
"So, you're going to rebel against your superiors?" Brad asks. He's just making sure, it's unlike Nate. Except that in this, it's exactly like Nate.
"I'm a demon, Brad. Disobedience is inherent in our nature."
"Yeah, I don't think Godfather will see it like that. Okay, how many do you have on your side?"
Nate smiles, his eyes shining like the sun itself. "So far? Counting you and me?"
"Two, then," Brad guesses.
"Two."
*
Brad has an old sword, hidden in a safety deposit box. It's old and comfortable like a part of him. He doesn't remember ever using it, but he must have.
It would be just about as useless in a fight with another demon as a child's toy. It doesn't bother him in the slightest.
Brad likes this world. He hates it, too, the country music and the neverending retardation, and the fact that you fucking can't smoke in the bars anymore. Not that he smokes, but he liked the fog. He likes jalapeno and cheese and all Bruce Willis movies, including the sucky ones. Including the fucking Moonlighting, but he'll never admit to that.
He wants to stay here, forever.
"Nate," he asks and Nate looks up from the pond. Nate used to come here and feed the ducks, for whatever insane reason. "Do you remember when we met for the first time?"
He doesn't even pause to think it over. He sounds as if he's been waiting for that very question. "The autumn of 1238, in Italy. It was early morning."
"How can you be sure?"
Nate laughs. It feels nice, warm. "I remember feeling like I was waking up."
