Tobias watched the calculating look on Azrael’s face as he gazed down the incline of the mountainside below them. They took a detour from their trip westward for a side trip north, to the snowy mountains. Azrael had been so adamant about seeing snow and ice up close that Tobias hadn’t been able to deny him the experience.
Seeing the snow led to the idea of going skiing. That had then turned to snowboarding when Azrael had seen Tobias select a board, though there was a trace of trepidation in his face as he picked his own. The next hitch was convincing Azrael to get on the ski lift to take them up the slope to where they could board down. Apparently, Azrael was uncomfortable with being dangled above the ground. Tobias found the idea of an angel with a fear of heights hilarious, though Azrael didn’t seem to appreciate his humor.
Now, they had met their final hitch, which was convincing Azrael to use his board to get back down the mountainside. Tobias had figured that this might become an issue after the trouble with the ski lift. Although he had hoped Azrael would be less hesitant since it wasn’t a terribly steep incline and it wasn’t really that high up, at least in comparison to some of the other slopes. Yet, Azrael was gazing down the slope as if he were being asked to dive off the side of a cliff.
“Az?”
“I am simply working up the courage to attempt this. Just give me a moment.”
“Any longer and Judgement Day might come first, sweetheart.” That earned him a dirty look, though Tobias returned it with a winning smile. “Look, you did alright in the lessons didn’t you? This is just like the practice area, but longer.”
“I fell.”
“It happens.”
“I fell twenty-two times.”
“You counted?”
Tobias hadn’t thought it had been that many times, but then again, he wasn’t the type to count the number of falls, unlike Azrael apparently. The fact he had more experience probably wasn’t helping Azrael much, either. He had insisted that Tobias join him in the beginner’s lessons, only to seem a little crestfallen when Tobias didn’t fall on his ass repeatedly. Tobias had tried to explain that David used to take him boarding all the time, but it hadn’t done him much good.
“I am…rethinking my decision to do this.”
“Uhh, bud, there is no rethinking this. The lifts only take people one way, so there’s only one way down this mountain.”
Azrael’s frown deepened, and Tobias guessed the words about to come out of his mouth before they left Azrael’s lips: “Perhaps I could walk down instead?”
“Carrying a board and dodging a bunch of awkward teenagers almost hitting you on the way down? Let’s not risk your life.”
“Says the one who wishes me to fly down the side of a mountain on a piece of wood.”
Tobias sighed. “It’s not that bad, I promise. You just need to be less nervous.”
“How does that affect my balance?”
“It’s not your balance. You’re graceful as hell, man. Your nerves just have you all over the place, instead of in control.”
“Hell is not particularly graceful, not to my knowledge.”
“Now you’re just being difficult on purpose. Do I need to push you?”
Azrael looked alarmed, turning to glare at Tobias so quickly that he almost fell on the spot. He managed to regain his balance though and Tobias pointed at the board, where Azrael’s feet were bound to it. The former angel had nearly fallen loads of times from over-thinking it. But when he was actually faced with falling, he had regained his balance instantly.
“Uh huh,” Tobias grunted, motioning to the slope. “Now, try that going down.”
“Fine, I will go down imagining you will just terrorize me if I do not.”
“Hey, motivation is motivation.”
With an annoyed huff, Azrael finally scooted forward to hit the incline. When he began to actually move down the slope, Tobias could have sent a thank you heavenward. The air wasn’t that bad since it wasn’t the coldest part of the season yet, but after almost twenty minutes, the chill was beginning to really sink into his bones. He might have been genuinely tempted to give Azrael a push if it had been much longer.
At first, Azrael moved down the hill with all the confidence and speed of a nervous child on their first trip on a board. Once he managed to keep his balance on the first part of the slope, he allowed himself to go a little faster. Seeing that he was going to stick with it, Tobias slid himself forward and let gravity pull him down the slope.
Tobias’ gaze flicked to the path ahead of Azrael, and he frowned as he realized that only a few feet in front of Azrael was a strange hump. His mind flashed to a few of the teenagers who had been loitering about, some of them had even been near the queue for the safer slopes like this one. It dawned on him that it was a jump that some teenagers, too nervous to go on a bigger hill, but still seeking a challenge, had built on the slope. Tobias had seen them before, but hadn’t thought to look for them on a bunny hill, of all places.
“Az! Look out for the jump!”
Azrael’s head whipped around to look at him. “The what?”
“The jump!”
Azrael turned, and Tobias could see the realization hit him as he spotted the hump in the snow. Yet, in trying to swerve around the makeshift jump, he turned the board too sharply, sending the bladed edge into the ground. Azrael flew forward, tumbling down, then sliding sideways over the small jump and disappearing out of sight into the hole that had been formed in front of the piled-up snow.
Wincing, Tobias slid to the jump, easing his speed until he could unstrap his boots from the board. With a faint whine, Azrael sat up, head just barely peeking over the edge of the small jump, looking utterly pitiful. Tobias didn’t know if he wanted to laugh or coddle the man.
“Snow is less pleasant when it is shoved down the back of one’s pants,” Azrael told him with a pout. “And ice, when scraped along the skin, is downright nasty.”
“Aw,” Tobias cooed as he crouched down and kissed the tip of Azrael’s nose. The once-mighty angel of the Lord was now covered head to toe in snow, with an angry red spot on his cheek where his face must have smacked into the ground.
A passing couple of teenagers slowed beside them, and the lead boy twisted his face at the sight of them. “Good job biting it, faggot!”
Azrael blinked, confusion crossing his face, but Tobias felt a white-hot rage flare up in his chest. The boys were old enough to know better, but they were so damn young and arrogant that they obviously didn’t care. They did, however, pause at the sight of a large and very pissed-off Tobias taking a step toward them.
“How about you get your scrawny asses down that fucking slope before you have to limp down it?” His growled threat, one he knew he wouldn’t follow through with especially on a pack of punk teenagers, was enough to convince them to move on. Grumbling to themselves, they slipped down the mountain to escape. Tobias was almost certain they would retell the story later among one another and with their friends, painting themselves in a better light, one that would make them appear far tougher.
“Tobias?”
Azrael pulled himself out of the small hole. With an annoyed sound, Tobias bent and helped the snow-covered man to his feet, brushing him off more roughly than he would have liked. Azrael’s searching gaze never left his face, and Tobias purposefully avoided looking into his eyes, not wanting him to witness the anger that was evident there, any more than he already had.
“C’mon, we can walk down the rest of the way. Screw it,” he grunted, picking up the board he had placed beside the man-made jump. Azrael said nothing, grasping his own board and following after him quietly. Tobias would have winced at Azrael’s silence if he weren't still brimming with an anger he couldn’t shake off. The teenagers looked old enough to be either young adults or just shy of that—legally, anyways—but Tobias couldn’t rid himself of the thought that he had threatened the lot of them in front of Azrael.
His temper had been his greatest weakness since he had run away from home years ago. The years of shit that he’d endured growing up had built up inside him to the point that when he was finally free, his ability to fight had found a way out in the form of rage and violence. His record wasn’t spotless because of his tendency to be hot-headed, but thankfully, it had never resulted in felony charges. A few choice interventions, attending college, and even meeting David had finally taught him some measure of self-control. Yet, after a couple years of living in isolation, one glimpse of the less palatable aspects of the outside world had unleashed his old temper.
His mood had worsened by the time they sat in a quiet corner of the resort’s cozy eating area. Their mugs of hot chocolate sat steaming in front of them, neither one of them drinking as they mulled over their own thoughts. The entire walk back to return the equipment they had rented had been filled with silence.
The silence was growing too long for him, but before he could open his mouth to speak, Azrael beat him to it. “I…apologize.”
Tobias blinked at him in confusion. “For what?”
Azrael looked ashamed of himself. “For embarrassing you like that.”
“Wait, Az. What are you talking about?”
A frown creased deeper into Azrael’s face. “That is what you are angry about, is it not? That I made such a spectacle of myself out there, causing those boys to mock us.”
Realization slammed home in an instant, and Tobias felt even more ashamed of himself than he had before. He had been operating on the assumption that Azrael would automatically understand what had happened, forgetting that this was the same otherworldly being that had once been utterly floored by the concept of porn.
The memory of Azrael’s face as he boggled at the blatant display of sexuality on the screen brought a smile to Tobias' face. “Az, no. I’m not angry with you about that. Why would I be?”
“Then what are you angry about?”
He had known that one day he would need to address some of the less attractive traits of being human. Azrael was an incredibly intelligent man, and he was generally quick to pick up on so many things. Yet, when it came to some aspects of human existence, such as the concept of porn, Wi-Fi, or vending machines, he was lost, even more so on some of the nuances of society overall.
“I’m sorry, Az. I forgot that you probably didn’t know what they said. I guess slurs aren’t too big of a thing in the afterlife, huh?”
Azrael looked thoughtful. “Is ‘biting it’ a slur I am not aware of?”
Tobias could have laughed. “No, that’s just slang, not a slur. No, Az, ‘faggot’ was the word that pissed me off so much. You’ve never heard that before, like when you were doing your angel of death thing?”
“Well, sometimes, yes. I assumed it was a curse of some sort, as I have heard it from the enraged souls in Saul, but I assumed it was simply an expression of rage and grief, like ‘fuck’ or ‘bitch.’ I did not know it was an especially foul word. There is much I can learn from such souls, but they are not always the most thorough of teachers. Especially with words or social mores that can change between each generation.”
Hearing the polite and eloquent man say ‘fuck’ was a little unnerving. “It’s a foul word used against people like us…or me, anyway. Not really sure where you fall on the whole sexuality thing.” It was weird enough to think of angels even having sexualities in the first place. “But it’s used as a really nasty insult. You don’t hear it as much now as you did when I was growing up, but…it was the word my parents always used to describe me. It was the word I heard more than a few times trying to survive on the streets when I’d get jumped. Same fucking word people would throw at David and me.”
Azrael frowned even deeper, reaching across the table to take Tobias’s hand without a moment’s hesitation. Tobias had been bold on the slope because he felt they had been alone, but he saw how well that had worked out for him. In such a public space as this, he had to fight not to pull back, disentangle his fingers from Azrael’s, and hide his hand in his lap. It had taken almost two years of being together with David to break himself of that instinct, to be able to catch himself and stop it. The habit had been so instinctual, and it had never quite gone away, no matter how much the reaction sent a ribbon of shame slithering through him.
“So you were angry because of what they said, and you were quiet because it hurt you?”
Tobias gave a half shrug, averting his eyes from Azrael’s penetrating gaze. “Not really. I mean, yeah, it pissed me off, what they said. However, I was quiet because I thought you saw me overreact and were upset with me, or disappointed.”
“Why would I be disappointed?”
“You always made a big deal before about moving on from the past and healing. Then I go and almost flip out on a few punk kids who aren’t old enough to know better than to run their mouths off and don’t know when to shut up before it gets them into trouble.”
“Tobias, please look at me.”
He didn’t want to. The reality of his overblown reaction was sinking in. Not only had he made Azrael think he was mad at him, but he had managed to make himself look like a temperamental jackass who couldn’t keep his anger in check. All the times they had talked about Azrael moving on from his own past, and there he was, letting the past take him over in a moment of anger.
Yet, Tobias couldn’t deny Azrael’s command and he hesitantly looked up into his yellow eyes. Tobias’ gut squirmed as he saw the pure understanding and compassion in Azrael’s face, along with a small, almost sad smile. Azrael’s long fingers wrapped tighter around Tobias’ fist, squeezing in a comforting gesture as he said, “I’ve dealt with many kinds of angry spirits, Tobias. The angriest were not the evil ones but the ones who were the most hurt. I advocated to them the same thing that I have to you: learning to let go of your past, to move past your hurts, and to let hope and love back into your heart. I had done that for thousands of years, and the one thing I learned above all else is that the heart and soul can be healed from their wounds. Always. It simply takes time. I did not tell you those things because I expected that as soon as you were ready, you would be instantly freed of your past hurts, and that you would never again have to face it. Healing is a process, a long and often slow process, but one that I have seen through to its beautiful end, time and time again. I do not want you to think you must be healed completely by tomorrow.”
Tobias blinked in surprise, thinking dimly that it was perhaps the most he had ever heard Azrael speak in one go before. Yet each word was spoken with such a heartfelt honesty that Tobias never doubted Azrael’s intent from the moment he began talking. His words didn’t make the feeling of shame go away entirely, but it helped make it easier to bear.
“I just…” he began, sighing heavily and looking down at the table once more, “I want to be better for you, is all. You deserve better than some guy who yells at idiot teenagers over a word that shouldn’t mean anything.”
“And one day, it may have no meaning. But, it is one connected to some of your worst memories, digging at an old wound you have not healed from, not quite yet. But, you cannot shame yourself for that; first, you must address the problem before you can cure the symptoms.”
Tobias squinted at Azrael. “You’re starting to sound an awful lot like a shrink there, Az.”
“A…shrink?”
“Therapist. Psychologist.”
“Ah, well.” Azrael looked thoughtful, almost ready to tap his chin. “I suppose I might have made a fair one, with all the experience that I have had in dealing with the ills that have plagued many of the souls who have passed my way. Perhaps I should consider that as a job once I have learned a bit more about the modern world. Do they offer classes or training for learning how the modern world views things?
“I’d say college, since that’s how it works for us, but I don’t know about the modern thing.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning as far as the government sees it, you aren’t alive. You literally just fell out of the sky. You don’t technically exist.”
“How rude.”
Tobias snorted, hearing the subtle playfulness under the words and squeezing Azrael’s fingers in return. “I’ll write them an angry letter and make them apologize to you. Of course, they might have some really awkward questions for us. Ones that will either get you thrown into a lab, or the both of us in a psych ward.”
“I know enough about both things that neither sounds particularly appealing to me.”
“Me either,” Tobias sighed, looking at their hands. “So, where do you want to go next? Grand Canyon?”
“If I wanted to visit a graveyard, I would simply find one in a town or city.”
Tobias’ head jerked up. “Graveyard? The hell?”
Azrael looked embarrassed. “Ah, I apologize. Yes, there was a great battle there at one point in the past.”
“So…it wasn’t formed by…natural…whatever geologists or whatnot, say it was formed by?”
“It was…smoothed over by natural phenomena, of course, but it was formed by the forces of Heaven clashing with the forces of the assembled Nephilim. At least, that is how I remember it.”
“How you remember it? You could be wrong?” Tobias asked.
“It is possible. As I have said before, my memory is unreliable at best. I may remember a name, or an event, but not the context. Or I may remember the context, but not the details. I may remember a period of time clearly, but then suddenly forget the decades that follow it. My memory skips, or warps at times, and other times I simply remember something without even realizing I might have forgotten it in the first place.”
“But you remember a war that apparently caused the Grand Canyon?”
“I believe so, yes.”
“And that was between the children of angels and humans, right?”
“Correct.”
“Wasn’t the Grand Canyon formed before there were even…you know what? Never mind, because you’re going to give me that whole ‘reality existed in multiple planes’ or whatever it was speech that you did the last time I tried to ask about this shit. Here’s a question for you though: with Lucifer and the Nephilim, why didn’t God just wipe them out? Angel pissed Him off? Undone. Nephilim shouldn’t be? Undone.”
“Because it goes against His laws.”
“Okay?”
“Even God cannot undo the laws that He Himself created. Everything was crafted by His meticulous hand, and to undo even one law would unravel the whole tapestry over time. To undo such a grand creation, such as Lucifer, would have been disastrous, and no angel has been strong enough to slay him, so he was sent to Perdition. The Nephilim were able to exist because the laws allowed for it, as it allowed for the creation of other living things, but they should never have existed, due to one half of their parentage.”
“So the Big Guy can’t just…undo His own laws because it would screw everything up?”
“Yes, so to speak. It would create an imbalance, and what little balance is left in the world would crumble. The worlds would collide, and it would be the Judgement Day your doomsayers like to speak of so often, when the slightest disaster occurs.”
“Because the laws—that He made—are that inviolate, even to the maker of them Himself?”
“Yes.”
“Okay…so why doesn’t He just change a law instead?”
“Pardon?”
“Don’t erase a law, just…make it impossible for angels to become human. Or to make it so that angels could never disobey. Or to alter the DNA of humans and angels so much that they couldn’t have kids together?”
Azrael stared at him for a moment. “I…had not thought of that before. I assume He, in His wisdom, would, of course, know the answer to that.”
“The same ‘He’ that we’re currently hiding out from because our relationship is technically against the rules? That one?”
This time, it was Azrael’s turn to squint at him. “I feel we are journeying into dangerous territory, one that will involve you making a point, as you have done before, about how I do not follow the laws completely or some such.”
Tobias raised a brow. “Fine, then we both won’t ask or answer. How about instead, you tell me where you want to go next?”
“The city.”
“The city?”
“The one you ran to, when you were young.”
“Oh.”