Brody woke the next morning tangled in Aden, arms and legs entwined, faces together, cocks hard. There was no better way to wake. When he thought of how he’d nearly lost him, Brody’s stomach churned. He wanted to be there for every breath Aden had left to take, wanted to map every inch of his skin, listen to the beat of his heart and match his own to it. He felt as if the world was just the pair of them, and that was all that mattered. For the first time in Brody’s life he understood a fear in death that he’d not appreciated before. He was afraid of not seeing Aden anymore, not being with him. What he’d thought he’d had with Matt was nothing compared to this. I love him.

“Quit staring at me,” Aden mumbled without opening his eyes.

Never.

Brody let his fingers drift up Aden’s back. There wasn’t a mark on it which was impossible. Those scars couldn’t have disappeared completely but they had. Aden had healed Leah. Impossible. Made Odin and all those other pets better just by handling them. Impossible. Not died when Brody had hit him with his car, or when he’d fallen off the roof. Improbable.

“Stop thinking.” Aden rolled onto his side to face him, then dragged his hair out of his eyes.

Brody hadn’t asked questions since Aden had come out of the hospital. He had plenty of them, but it was more important that Aden got well. Now, he needed to know everything.

“What’s the trick with the feathers?” They’d been in Aden’s blood-stained coat which had been handed to him when he’d left the hospital.

Aden’s lips tightened. He turned away, pulled open the bedside drawer and handed a black and white feather to Brody. “I think if you toss them now, they won’t come back.”

“It’s not a magic trick you can do?”

“No.”

Brody frowned. “What then?”

“I told you.”

Was there some jump he was supposed to be making, some leap that would catapult him to the truth? He was seized with a surge of irrational anger that after all that had happened there were still secrets between them. Brody loved him, but he wasn’t going to tell him. Not yet. Not until Aden opened up.

“What bird did the feathers come from?” Brody asked.

“Not from a bird.”

Brody examined them, pulled his fingers along the shaft then rubbed the barbs. “There’s no other source of feathers. Unless you’re telling me they’ve been manufactured and are supposed to be from some mythical creature.”

“Not mythical. Not manufactured. They were pulled out of my back. That’s the third time I’ve told you.”

Oh Christ. What am I supposed to say to that?

“Why were feathers in your back? Had someone pushed them in there?”

“I had wings. They were yanked out,” Aden said quietly.

Why did Aden persist with that? Brody swallowed hard. Saying the word didn’t make it sound any more feasible.

“Yep.”

“Why were they pulled out?” Brody wasn’t sure why that was the question he asked and not—which mental health facility did you escape from?

It was on the tip of Brody’s tongue to ask him if he was joking, but the look on Aden’s face told him not to. Whatever this was, it was not a joke.

“I don’t understand,” Brody mumbled. The erection he’d hoped to make use of had gone. He’d wanted Aden to open up and now he wished he hadn’t.

“Can you take the truth?” Aden said in a whisper. “I tried to tell you before but you didn’t believe me. I’ve probably already told you too much, but I guess I’d have been stopped if they didn’t want me to say anything. They probably thought you wouldn’t believe me. Who would?”

“Tell me again.”

“I was shot in the Octoplex and I died.”

“You died? How can…? What the…? You’re not dead now.” Just sick. Oh fuck. I can’t deal with this. Not another guy who’s mentally ill.

“No, I’m not dead now.”

“Aden. You have to see how crazy this sounds.”

Aden stared at him. “You’re clever. Think it through. Open your mind to possibilities beyond sense, beyond the explicable.”

There was such hope and determination in Aden’s expression that Brody kept going. What was the harm in accepting something…magical had happened?

“You died and… You’d just saved lives at the concert, given a kid your hiding place, tried to defend yourself and were shot. You did something good, something heroic, but almost the first thing you told me about yourself was that you were bad. You stole, lied, fucked around. You killed your mother, but you were a kid, that—”

“I knew what I was doing. I wanted her to die more than I wanted her to live.”

“So you died and…where did you end up?”

“Some holding station where they judge you. An angel and a demon. But they couldn’t agree about me.”

It was suddenly as if a series of lights went on in Brody’s head. Electrical current surging, synapses snapping until one huge white ball detonated in his brain. But even as a voice told him Aden was telling the truth, another voice told him it was all a fabrication, that yet again he was letting his heart overrule his head.

“I came out as half angel, half demon. One white wing, one black. A dirty angel with a filthy mouth. They couldn’t decide what to do with me. I was an enigma. I was given a month to show what sort of man I really was. A month and they’d decide whether I went to heaven or hell.”

Brody wanted to pull him into his arms, kiss him, stop him speaking.

“You killed me when you hit me with your car. I had seven chances. That used one. Saving Jamie used another. Another went in the flood. Another when Twinkle threw me. I kept dying. I used up my last life when Matt stabbed me.”

Brody was having trouble understanding how a guy he thought he knew could sound so…not that guy. “You’re saying you’re an angel?”

Aden heaved a shaky sigh. “No, not now. I was a half-angel I guess. I was given another chance. You were my chance.”

No, no, no. Brody wanted to scream. How could Aden expect him to believe this? He could feel his future sliding away. Aden was ill. There was a logical, rational explanation for everything and it had nothing to do with angels and demons.

“I don’t believe in angels,” Brody said.

A muscle ticked in Aden’s cheek. “Neither did I.”

“Maybe you’ve imagined it all. You were concussed in the attack on the Octoplex, not shot.” That made sense.

Aden sagged against the pillow disappointment clear on his face.

“What were you supposed to do when you came back?” Brody asked.

“I had a month to learn about love, to believe in it, feel it, offer it. A month to earn respect and be the man I could be.”

“The alternative being you went to hell.” Jesus, listen to me!

“I didn’t want you to love me. I thought after a month I’d be gone and that wouldn’t be fair. But I couldn’t leave. I was frightened of what Matt might do.”

“So I was your opportunity to get into heaven.” Brody felt he had no choice but to go along with this though he didn’t believe a word. “You let me knock you down knowing I couldn’t kill you. You made me think you were walking away, but that was never your intention. You’d baited the hook and I swallowed it. Do you care for me at all? This is some fucked up elaborate charade!” Brody knew he was shouting but he couldn’t help it. He sat up and glared at Aden. “Tell me the fucking truth.”

“I have.” Aden exhaled. “The irony of that hasn’t escaped me. I lie all my life and get away with it, now I’m telling the truth you don’t believe me. I didn’t set out to ensnare someone into loving me. That wasn’t going to show I was a better man. I felt…adrift when I came back. Like they’d put me in a lifeboat but given me nothing to survive with. I’d got off a train in Caterham the night I met you. I begged food from the supermarket and I walked out of the town. I had no idea where I was going.”

“You were in the middle of the road.”

“I was confused, depressed. I didn’t know whether I’d dreamt it all up, but two feathers in my pocket that I couldn’t throw away told me I hadn’t. And when you hit me, I got up and walked off and yet I knew I’d died.”

Brody’s heart was hurting. How could Aden expect him to believe any of this?

“I…I’ve never felt for anyone what I feel for you,” Aden whispered. “Is it love? I don’t know. I just know I don’t want to carry on without you. I feel a better person when I’m with you. I’m happy with you by my side. What I’ve realised is the only thing that matters is loving someone and being loved in return. But it’s something you have to work for, something you have to deserve.” He exhaled. “Maybe I don’t deserve it. Maybe letting me tell you the truth is what will drive us apart. I wish I’d not told you but now I have. You know everything. All my secrets.”

“Except one. Why are you here now? Why did they let you come back? Why would they do that?” Not that you were ever anywhere other than here.

Aden opened his mouth but didn’t answer.

Brody stood up. “I wish you hadn’t told me.”

Aden threw his arm over his eyes.

Brody went into the bathroom and closed the door. He slumped onto the floor. He felt as if all the lights in the world had just been turned off. The same feeling he’d had when he thought Aden was dead.

He couldn’t do this. Matt had gone a long way toward wrecking his life. Brody wasn’t strong enough to go through it again with another mentally unstable person. Unless…could heaven and hell, angels and demons, possibly be true? It’d explain why Aden seemed impervious to death…right? Explain those miracles? What if Aden was telling the truth?

 

Aden slipped out of bed, quickly pulled on his clothes and went into the hallway to get his coat and boots. He needed air. All that had been his fault. Why had he opened his stupid mouth? How could he have expected Brody to be anything but angry and confused? He closed the front door and heaved a sigh of frustration. He wasn’t sure there was any way to mend what he’d broken.

The snow hadn’t melted but the sky was dull and grey, a monochrome world yet things weren’t black and white. He hoped Brody would be able to think things through and accept them but if not, maybe it would be better if he left. He’d give Brody time to think. Maybe he’d make that leap into the unknown.

Aden headed to the stable. He picked up a carrot from by the door and Captain snaffled it from his palm, then bit his shoulder.

“You need to unlearn that bad habit.” Aden stroked the horse’s neck.

He had a sudden urge to get on his back and ride away but this wasn’t a film. It was real life and he had no money to feed a horse, no place to shelter it. Plus he’d never been on Captain’s back. But even more important, he wanted Brody to come and tell him he believed him.

“See you later,” he whispered and left the stable.

He’d not said the words to Brody that bubbled in his heart. Why not? What was he afraid of? That it wouldn’t have made any difference to the way Brody felt about him?

The field next to the paddock was covered in undisturbed snow and Aden began sliding through it. He stamped out I LOVE YOU in big letters, made two little snowmen standing side by side next to the U, then brushed the snow from his gloves. When he turned to leave the field, Brody was leaning against the gate watching him.

“What are you up to?” Brody asked.

“Leaving a message for passing aircraft.”

Brody climbed up the five bar gate and stood on the bar next to the top to look into the field.

“Oh yeah, and a message for you,” Aden added.

When Brody had climbed down, Aden levered himself over the gate and jumped down next to him.

“Aren’t you going to say it?” Brody asked.

Aden opened his mouth and closed it again. He seemed to be doing that a lot. “Is there any point?” he finally asked.

“We had our first fight. Now we have to make up.”

“Is there any point?” Aden repeated, his heart beating a frantic tattoo.

“Yes, because you were right and I was wrong. What you told me sounded so incredible I slid straight into disbelief. But I have no explanation for so much of what’s happened. Why should I assume you’re lying because what you’ve said is outside the realm of my knowledge? I don’t know how the universe was made, but I know it’s there. I saw those scars on your back. I felt them under my fingers and now they’ve gone. You did miraculous things. Healed those animals. Made Odin well. Cured Leah. You got up and walked away from things that should have killed you. And maybe the biggest miracle of all is that you love me.” He glanced into the field. “Well, me or the next plane that passes.”

Aden dragged a laugh from somewhere. “I do love you. You don’t have to say it back. I find I’m happy to love someone without asking for anything in return.”

“Fleeting happiness.”

“Why?”

“Because I love you too.” Brody took his hand. “And I’m going to show you how much.”

“I was counting on that.”

They walked back to the cottage hand in hand.

“Can I have triple cooked chips for lunch?” Aden asked.

“If you’re very bad.”

“I can be as bad as you like.”

Brody turned to him and smiled.