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[dontcallmegabby.livejournal.com]

Date: December 25, 1999
Setting: Manor Library
Status: Private - Belial and Gabriel (Complete)
Summary: Belial makes his decision.
Rating:



The yellowing pages and musty smell of old leather reminded him of nothing so much as Aziraphale's bookshop. The memories seemed tarnished now, tainted around the edges with the garish haze of Hellfire, but still he could not help but remember his occasional teas with the other angel fondly. His eyes trailed over the chocolates Aziraphale had left him before settling instead on the glass of brandy at his side.

He flipped the page with shiftless thoughts.

A puff of dust, and a familiar passage: 'But for corruption thou hast made Belial, an angel of hostility. All his dominions are in darkness, and his purpose is to bring about wickedness and guilt.'

Well, he'd certainly been doing well enough on that account.

Gabriel sipped again at his drink, staunchly ignoring the warmth in his stomach that stemmed partially from the alcohol and even more from the intrusive memories of Belial's lips on his skin. He skimmed over the words analyzing the passage from the Dead Sea Scrolls, grew suddenly bored, and turned the page once more. Hundreds of scholars and theologists, believers and disbelievers alike, had spent centuries of man trying to describe Belial, and none of them seemed to have been able to pin him down any more easily than Gabriel could in his befuddled thoughts. They called him Lucifer's Crown, detailed how he was a seducer with a smile like poison for the soul or a fierce warrior with the head of a bull.

Not a single entry mentioned glitter.

He turned to another page, his gaze wandering idly over the faded text as he sifted through the words of others as well as his own reeling consciousness.

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[lordofthesouth.livejournal.com]

Belial could feel sadness brimming his own eyes, and let himself drown in it. The library was a distant thing, books and musty corners far away, all taken away by Gabriel's simple admission.

Each word hooked in his gut with curved barbs, catching him between the curves of syllables and the spaces of breath as his heart tripped and fumbled about.

Love, unrefined and wild in him, was unlocked with the touch of Gabriel's lips against his, with the heat of his breath. It grew until he felt it might nigh burst through his chest, unfettered by doubts and the fear of being scorned.

Still, he kept his body in check. Lust could do him no good with the angel weeping so prettily beneath him. His pulse stuttered, overwhelmed by sensation.

"What do you want? Anything," he gasped against Gabriel's soft mouth. "I'll give you anything."

He knew what his decision would be when Crowley asked.

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Gabriel shuddered, one hand reaching up to stroke Belial's cheek, as though cautiously reassuring himself that this was real and not some flight of weary, half-drunk fancy. He had said more than he should, he knew blearily in the back of his mind: the admission seemed to tear him in two, the sinking feeling in his abdomen in sharp contrast with the dizzying lightness in his head.

"Why?" he asked suddenly, countering the demon's question with one of his own. "Why do you ask this of me above all others?"

The salt of Belial's kiss mingled with the taste of brandy on his lips, and Gabriel did not pull away.

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His hand came up to hold Gabriel's touch to his face and he turned into the angel's grasp, nuzzling wrist and palm with broken tenderness. Gabriel's simplest touch tamed his fears, soothed the dark wounds in him. There was no rescinding his adoration, no taking back his decision to bind his heart to Gabriel's visage.

Lucifer's cruel eyes looked down on him from a throne of twisted bone. He could feel them on his back, pressing him to the floor with nothing more than the madness that they held. Fear roiled his mind; would he become like this? To look upon so much madness would surely beget it in his own mind.

Belial thought of Gabriel when Lucifer reached down and touched his shoulder with leering intent.

"You've been my greatest downfall and my only savior," he whispered. It was his hope that Gabriel would not puzzle out the entire truth of the matter until the spell had been completed.

He kissed Gabriel until he felt breathless, though he needed none. His tongue slid against the angel's lips, begging entrance with the tip. Kept both of his hands in Gabriel's, letting the angel set the pace of this, content with losing himself in Gabriel's mouth.

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Gabriel's brow furrowed at the words, but though he did not fully understand them, their meaning thrummed deep in his core, an unidentified but powerful urge resonating in his chest. He gripped Belial's hands as though the demon's hold on him could save him from his own hectic thoughts, could soothe the guilt that surged in him alongside his desire.

Could make sense of all that had come to pass.

His lips parted beneath Belial's without a second thought, and he wanted it, could no longer deny wanting it. Drawing the in the gently probing tongue, he wondered how such a creature as this could have learned to touch with such tenderness, to kiss as though...

As though it stemmed from something much more than lust.

Gabriel pulled away from that kiss with the faintest of moans.

"This," he whispered, gazing into the dark eyes, fearing what he might find there, "this is no game to you."

[lordofthesouth.livejournal.com]

Every sound Gabriel made left Belial straining to hear more, starved for this affection. Flowers left in the dark had no thirst for light aside his want for the briefest gasp from Gabriel's lips.

"No, it's not," he breathed. "It never has been."

Cupping the angel's hands together in his, he brushed his lips lightly over each palm, and kissed both wrists, inhaling deeply Gabriel's warm scent.

"Do what you will with my heart, Gabriel. Lucifer could not break it where you could make it into nothing more than shards of shaken glass with your kiss." He let himself languor in the angel's touch, so close to the warm body. The skin about his shoulders tingled, wings itching to be free in response to the adrenaline this crafted body pumped through him. Heart rushing.

This was the core of him. So in love. Pieced together awkwardly. So like a human. How could any of them be wrong, then, to want such a wonderful thing, if He had purposefully made Man this way?

Kneeling before Gabriel, stooped over, he pressed his face to the angel's chest.

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Thousands of years of sorrow and suffering, of elation and laughter, of rushing darkness broken by breathtaking light fell in upon him with crushing strength, and Gabriel was suddenly, painfully sober. He gingerly freed one of his hands from Belial's to bring the demon's face up to meet his own. For all he had never listened, never wanted to believe, he could see it etched in the very lines of Belial's countenance, ingrained in him. A part of him.

Love.

A hundred questions, worries, wonders vied for prominence in his mind as he gazed at the demon, but, carefully brushing a loose strand of the demon's dark hair from his face, his lips formed only a single word.

"How?"

[lordofthesouth.livejournal.com]

A choked answer bubbled on Belial's tongue, but he had no words to put to the meaning. His jaw ached with the overflowing emotion. It was a journey of footsteps, one after another, spanning the sandy, desolate wastes of his existence. A trail through the desert, droplets of water drying, clumped dun pearls, in the sand; he could hardly explain to Gabriel how each memory and hope had kept him sound and sane for so long.

"Gabriel," he said, a name more beautiful in their milk-tongue than any mortal language. It was painful to heave the celestial sounds from his throat, his body and being unable to grasp the task it undertook, but they were melodious and flowed like oozing honey. "The Father created hate, created avarice, created death. Lucifer did not invent sin."

Closing his eyes, he shook at Gabriel's touch. His knees dug uncomfortably into the floor and his mouth was dry. Shoulders hunched. "There can be no suffering that does not make the bite of happiness more keen."

Belial bit his lip, weighing his words carefully. "Love was the one balm granted to me for what pain I needed endure. Lucifer could not remake me, in that, no matter how he tried, with all his strings and wires and nimble fingers. It is my blessing and burden to know this love."

[dontcallmegabby.livejournal.com]

The celestial language on Belial's lips hurt, took hold in his heart and wrenched in ways that he could not have expected. Fresh tears stung his vision at the sight of Belial, lost to him for so long, with such Heaven in his eyes; the demon's words inspired in him such sweet madness, and Gabriel felt as though he was drowning in darkness and, with movements stiff and painful from inactivity, had only just taken the first, faltering steps towards an unknown light.

He placed his hand along Belial's jaw, sweeping a thumb gently over the lips that spun such words of silk.

"And how long - " he began, but found his voice too weak to continue. It felt childish, having no response but wondering questions in the face of such epic words, but it was too much to comprehend, too much to wrap his thoughts around so quickly. He took a shuddering breath, asked quietly, "How long have you felt this - this burden?"

[lordofthesouth.livejournal.com]

"Since Creation began," Belial gasped with the truth of it against Gabriel's hand.

He sounded as music, throat limbering as he remembered how to speak. "I have loved you since the first mote of light was spun from the Creator and all was bathed in its fair light."

His heart did not--could not--suffer spilling forth to Gabriel quietly. It thrummed in his ears, staccato, terrified that he might be cast down again for his sins.

Little kisses; he placed them all along Gabriel's hand. His emotions were surreal to him; six thousand years of desperation and denial had left him somewhat disconnected. Detached. Watching himself love through his own eyes.

Gabriel brought his mind hurtling back to where it belonged. Everything seemed brighter, sharper, and he groaned with it.