JEAN-PIERRE

“I don’t like to see you work in the field,” Jules said quietly, and pulled Jean-Pierre’s hands gently into his lap. It was late in the evening, and Marguerite was caring for the widow Boucher, who had hurt her back very badly this winter, and could scarcely be moved from her bed.

Jules and Jean-Pierre sat together on the bed pallet, cross-legged, Jean-Pierre with his wings around his shoulders, and Jules was delicately drawing circles on Jean-Pierre’s palms, soothing over the flesh that had been cut and caught at by the sheaths of wheat as they cut it back, tied it, and baled it aside.

“I like it,” Jean-Pierre said. “I do not like to be idle.”

“That is good,” Jules murmured, “but you’re a delicate thing, not made for this work. Look at the burn on your shoulders, your cheeks.”

“It doesn’t hurt me,” Jean-Pierre said, and hissed when Jules squeezed his hand.

“You oughtn’t lie,” Jules murmured, and Jean-Pierre slipped forward, sliding himself into Jules’ lap and straddling his thighs, his hands spreading on Jules’ chest, sliding over his shoulders.

This was new.

He had seen Paul, the farrier’s son, in the stable with Yvette Bisset, and had come home quite fascinated, although Marguerite had been scandalised when he had announced, with little compunction, that he had witnessed such an intimate embrace, and had remarked upon the colour of Miss Bisset’s nipples, and the difference between them and Jean-Pierre’s own.

He and Jules had kissed, once, some days previous – he had seen this in the village, too, had seen people press their mouths together as an expression of love or affection, and Jules had wanted him to kiss him, which was why he had done it – he could feel the desire, the want, that Jules felt.

He felt it now.

“Jean,” Jules whispered, as Jean slid his hands over Jules’ cheeks, their noses touching against one another. “We can’t.”

“Why not?”

“It’s a sin.”

Jean-Pierre tilted his head. “Am I not a holy creature?” he asked softly, breathing against Jules’ mouth as he curled his wings around the both of them, squeezing his knees against Jules’ hips and grinding his hips down against Jules’ own, listening to the hitched sound in Jules’ throat. “How can what I want be sin?”

Touching Jules’ skin, he could feel the aching want: touch his skin, feel the softness of it, the heat; kiss over those strong thighs; slide his fingers—

“You can’t use those wings as an excuse to take whatever you want, you know,” Jules said, trying to restrain himself, trying to keep his hands still, but his fingers were sliding slowly up Jean-Pierre’s back, underneath his shirt.

“Why not?” Jean-Pierre asked, and Jules laughed breathlessly. “Perhaps you are right. Perhaps I shouldn’t take anything – perhaps you should.”

“The world is not made better when you make a pun.”

Jean-Pierre grinned, leaning to slide his cheek against Jules’ own, mouthing at Jules’ neck when he felt the fleeting thought Jules couldn’t quite shove down again, and Jules hissed, taking a fistful of Jean-Pierre’s feathers and making him groan. “Shut me up, then,” Jean-Pierre said, tone only slightly strained, and Jules dragged his head back by the hair, and kissed him.

Jean-Pierre liked this.

He liked the warmth of Jules’ mouth under his tone, the wetness of his tongue, the touch of his hands as they pressed on the muscle in Jean-Pierre’s back, sliding up toward the base of his wings, and Jean-Pierre choked out a noise as Jules pressed on the muscle there, laughing when Jean cried out.

“Too much?” Jules asked: his cheeks were aglow with a hot flush.

“More,” Jean-Pierre said, pushing him back.

At the knock on the door, they both froze, and in a moment Jean-Pierre was on his feet and dragging his jacket around himself as his wings slipped suddenly from view, creating a strange, folding sensation between his shoulders.

It was Jules that stepped across the room, pressing the heel of his palm over his crotch, frustrated and ashamed – the former was useful, the latter a potential problem, and Jean-Pierre watched as Jules pulled open the door, looking up at the man that appeared in it.

He was dark-skinned, some sort of Moor, tall, broad, impossibly handsome, and dressed in well-made travellers’ clothes, and good shoes. There was a strange familiarity to him, and Jean-Pierre stepped slowly toward the door even as Jules said, “Can I help you?”

“I’m not here for you,” he said, using the informal pronoun, and Jean-Pierre saw the curl of Jules’ lip, but reached out and stopped him before he could respond, his fingers splayed on Jules’ shoulder.

“You’re— you’re here for me,” Jean-Pierre said softly, and then touched the stranger’s chest. Four months on Earth had been a slow and strange adjustment, and yet…

He felt the sudden cold temperature, the complete lack of feeling – he felt the distance, impossible, overwhelming. This was the sensation of the Host, from which Jean-Pierre had Fallen so completely, and he was surprised to find he didn’t belong to it, in the way he remembered.

“My name is Asmodeus,” the stranger said. “We’re brothers, you and I.”

*     *     *

JEAN-PIERRE

Jean-Pierre pressed his palm to the centre of the warding wheel with a flare of power burning the base of his palm, and he didn’t flinch as every wall in the cellar flared bright white with the thousands of symbols painted over their surface, the beams in the ceiling following with a white flare a moment after.

Against one wall rested a row of carbines – they were old-fashioned weapons, centuries old, but over the years, Jean-Pierre had rebuilt and modified them over and over again, and they were more than fit for purpose. Every weapon in the room had been intricately enchanted, to turn on any hand that was not an angel’s, and with a fair few other features besides.

Blades and axes hung on one of the other long walls, with armour and warpaint stored in neat lockers: there were two chambers to the cellar, and Jean-Pierre – acting on the hard lessons learned from past experience – had stored Colm’s explosives in the secondary chamber, and primed the stone inside to withstand the force of anything short of a nuclear blast.

Dropping himself to sit on the central bench, one leg folded underneath him, his other hanging down, he began to pick up the pieces of his plate armour, which he’d brought down from the box in his wardrobe, to set on the mannequin beside Colm’s own.

Jean-Pierre didn’t usually wear armour.

He tended to paint his own, painting the right symbols on his body before priming them for wherever he was going – it was ideal for stealth, allowed him to move unencumbered and still fly, and it was ordinarily safer – but he kept it in good condition.

It was gold-plated, made for ceremony – it made him look like Saint Michael. He smiled slightly as he looked at his reflection in the breastplate, feeling the cool of the metal under his skin. It always looked so different, once there was blood on it.

“Are you going to wear that to dinner?” Asmodeus asked, descending the steps into the cellar.

“No,” Jean-Pierre said. “It looks silly when I wear it without my wings out, and I can’t fit at the dining table like that.”

“Because that’s the only reason you wouldn’t,” Asmodeus murmured, leaning to press a kiss to the top of Jean-Pierre’s head, and then he walked past him, dragging the mannequin closer on its rollers and taking the breastplate when Jean-Pierre gave it to him, sliding it around the mannequin’s carved torso, over top of the mail already settled over its shoulders.

For not being any sort of warrior himself, Asmodeus knew how to handle armour. Colm had modern things, Kevlar vests and such, and he was always mystified watching Jean dress himself when he wore this set – Asmodeus knew how it was worn, and how to treat it.

“Are they here yet?” Jean-Pierre asked, strapping his greaves into place on the mannequin, and Asmodeus shook his head.

“They’ll be here soon – Colm’s already put the fish in the oven. The armoury looks good. Complex work.” Jean-Pierre looked up at Asmodeus’ face as he pushed the mannequin back to its place in the corner of the room, at the grave expression there.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” Asmodeus said softly, and reached for Jean, cupping his cheeks and tilting Jean-Pierre’s head up for him to look down at properly. There was an ever-so-slight smile on his face, distant but genuine – as genuine as Asmodeus’ smiles ever could be – and Asmodeus’ thumb stroked over the side of Jean’s jaw. “I just love you and Colm very much, that’s all.”

“Why?”

Asmodeus laughed. “Why?”

“Why now?” There was suspicion in Jean-Pierre’s tone, but worry twisted in his gut, and Asmodeus chuckled, patting his cheek.

“I just think about it when I see you enchant like this. There was a time when you never would have been able to so much as enchant a candle, and now, it feels like you could ward palaces.”

It was the sort of thing Asmodeus said, at times, the sort of thing that only sounded slightly off when you interrogated it, and Jean-Pierre felt himself frown, his brows furrowing, as he reached up and touched his hand to the back of Asmodeus’ own. He hadn’t learned to enchant until after he’d left France – Asmodeus had taught him bits and pieces, at first, but then he’d learned from every enchanter he could find, always took enchantment tutelage where it might be offered, and then performed his own experiments, trying different modes of enchantment against one another, seeing if they complemented or worked in opposition to each other’s effects. Jean-Pierre’s style was eclectic, layered, and complex – it was almost impossible for anyone to untangle without harming themselves in the process.

“Before I left France, you mean?”

The hesitation lasted less than a second. Asmodeus thought quickly on his feet, and was rarely caught out, but after so many years as he’d known him, Jean-Pierre flattered himself that he could see the catches from time to time, and he was certain he saw one now – it was usually on matters of the Host, on what had come before the Fall, that Asmodeus almost stumbled.

“Of course,” Asmodeus said smoothly, raising his eyebrows, his smile widening. “What else?”

Jean-Pierre could press on it, if he wanted. Asmodeus sometimes gave him answers – Jean-Pierre was special, even to him, and he could sometimes get Asmodeus to answer questions he wouldn’t answer from any other angel, even Colm.

He knew some things.

He knew that Asmodeus had some connection to the Host, that he’d never Fallen, like most other angels had – and he knew what other angels said about him, had heard some of the more ridiculous rumours that went around. Asmodeus was old, and he knew things no one else knew—

But Jean-Pierre knew better than most that it wasn’t always best to know things.

Ignorance was kinder, sometimes.

“Am I your favourite?” Jean-Pierre asked.

“You and Colm are.”

“But me first?”

Asmodeus leaned in, pressing their foreheads together for a moment, his nose touching against Jean-Pierre’s own, and Jean-Pierre groaned, but it didn’t sting, not really, and he let Asmodeus lead him up the stairs and out of the cellar.

Colm was in his favourite apron, the one that Jean-Pierre had made for him a good sixty years ago, now, from fabric printed all over with yellow roses. It made Jean-Pierre smile, until Colm leapt for him and grabbed his cheeks with his hands clad in oven gloves, beginning to layer kisses over his face, and Jean-Pierre shouted out and shoved Colm off him, pinning him to the kitchen floor when he didn’t give up.

Asmodeus re-entered the room to the sight of Jean-Pierre straddling his brother, his forearm shoved against Colm’s neck until he nearly choked, unable to push Jean-Pierre off of him – Colm was stronger than Jean-Pierre was, but that didn’t matter, when Jean-Pierre was the better at hand-to-hand.

There was a rumble of an engine outside.

“Go invite them in, Jean,” Asmodeus said mildly. “Stop strangling your brother.”

*     *     *

JEAN-PIERRE

That night, Jean-Pierre and Jules lay down in the wood, laid down in a field of flowers. The moonlight shone strongly through the gaps in the trees above their head, and laid down on a spread blanket, Jean-Pierre’s skin glowed with the creamy shine of it, the feathers in his wings asheen with a golden glint.

Jules had pulled his breeches back on, couldn’t stand to be naked like Jean could, but Jean-Pierre did not believe he was opposed – he kept staring at Jean-Pierre’s body, his gaze roving over Jean-Pierre’s chest, his thighs, his arse, between his legs, and since they’d laid down together, Jules hadn’t drawn his fingers away from Jean-Pierre’s wings, stroking through the feathers.

Jean-Pierre slid to straddle Jules, sliding his hands over Jules’ breast where he lay on his back, and Jules slid his hands gently around Jean-Pierre’s waist, his fingers sliding over the smooth skin before sliding up higher, and dragging his fingers through the feathers at the base of his wings, and Jean-Pierre shivered, curling his wings in around them both.

“He’s an angel, then?”

“Yes. There are many of us, he says – a nation of us.”

Jules’ expression tightened, and Jean-Pierre felt the fear come off him, the uncertainty, the pain. “He’s going to take you away?”

“No,” Jean-Pierre said softly. “But— but there are things I’m entitled to, he says. Things I could do.”

“Entitlements? Land?”

“Not land,” Jean-Pierre said, leaning in closer, his elbows resting either side of Jules’ head, his fingers curling in his hair. He looked at the expression on Jules’ handsome face, the consternation shown in his knitted brows, felt the affection rest within his breast – affection for Jean-Pierre, the second-hand feeling intoxicating. “But a stipend, if I wanted it. A house in Montmartre, he suggested. School, if I wanted it. I told him I wanted to stay here.”

“School?” Jules asked, and he sat up, dropping Jean-Pierre back onto his thighs. “You could learn to read, you mean? Like a noble?”

“More than that,” Jean-Pierre said. “He said I could go to school to be a lawyer, or a doctor, but I want to stay h—”

“You’re mad,” Jules said, and Jean-Pierre was silent, looking at Jules’ face, at the indignation there. “Jean, you can’t say no.”

“Yes, I can,” Jean-Pierre said. “I don’t want to go.”

“You could be a lawyer, Jean – you could help people. You don’t want to do that? You could be a doctor – you could heal the sick.”

“But I want to stay here. He said I would have to go to Paris – I don’t want to go to Paris. I want to stay here with you, and Marguerite, and Anicroche.”

“I’d go with you,” Jules said, sudden, impulsive, but even as he said it, Jean-Pierre felt the strength of his thoughts show through: he felt Jules’ imagination of the two of them in some small apartment together, sharing a bed, a home, of Jean-Pierre learning medicine, healing people… “I would, you know. Wherever you wanted.”

“And Marguerite,” Jean-Pierre said. “And Anicroche.”

“You want to bring my mother to Paris? You realise I am implying we should elope?”

“We could have separate beds,” Jean-Pierre suggested, in all earnestness, and Jules laughed, and from him, Jean-Pierre felt helplessness, and humour, and love. The last was his favourite.

“I would not abandon you,” Jean-Pierre said softly. “Nor Marguerite. Nor—”

“Nor Anicroche,” Jules finished for him. “You upon a stipend for your university, me working – Mother could make more money for her seamstress’ work in the city. We pay rent for this cottage, you know, from M. Metier, who owns the farm.”

“Marguerite would consent?”

“I don’t know. Maybe,” Jules said softly. “Only one way to find out.”

“Let’s go now,” Jean-Pierre said, standing to his feet, and laughing, Jules caught him by the wrist and tugged him down again, wrestling him into his back with his wings spread in the flowers.

“Not just yet,” Jules said, kissing the inside of Jean-Pierre’s thigh, and Jean-Pierre tangled his fingers in Jules’ hair as he dropped his head back on a pillow of forget-me-nots.

*     *     *

JEAN-PIERRE

Bedelia Ní Giolla Chríost rode a motorcycle.

It rumbled to a stop outside the yard, a gigantic machine that was black and shining in the dim light of the clouded day. Bedelia herself was only a little taller than Colm, plump, with tresses of black hair that fell in waves around her shoulders when she pulled off her helmet, colour matched as it was to her sky blue leather suit.

She suited the motorcycle, perhaps because of the exercise it was in contrasts: Bedelia, round-cheeked and pretty, and the machine, square and huge beneath her.

What didn’t suit the motorcycle was Pádraic Mac Giolla Chríost, who had been sat behind his daughter, and made the hulking machine seem ridiculously tiny. As he slowly dismounted, Jean-Pierre felt his mouth fall open, because Pádraic must have been six foot six at the shortest, and had the shoulders of a cart horse.

Where his daughter was beautiful, a pear-shaped girl with the loveliest pear-coloured eyes, freckles scattered on her cheeks, Pádraic was grizzled, and grim. A giant of a man, grey hair stubbling his cheeks and a permanent frown dragging at his mouth, he stared down at Jean-Pierre with cold, pear-coloured eyes, and Jean-Pierre stared up at him, struck dumb.

“You must be Jean-Pierre,” Bedelia said after a few moments had passed, and she shook his hand, beaming at him. “I’m Bedelia, and this is my father, Pádraic – Paddy. Daddy, say hello.”

“Hello,” Pádraic said obediently, with a slightly wry smile: his voice seemed to come from somewhere in the vicinity of his diaphragm, so low in pitch and with such a rumble to it that it reminded Jean-Pierre of thunder, and when Jean-Pierre shook his hand, he was delighted by how gigantic Pádraic’s hand was in his own, almost twice the size of Jean-Pierre’s.

“Colm loves you very much – he says you’ve saved a lot of lives.”

Pádraic gave a nod of his head, withdrawing his hand, and after a little silence, Jean-Pierre looked to Bedelia, who smiled.

“Asmodeus was telling us you’re a doctor, that you’re going to be retraining in September,” Bedelia said as they stepped inside, and as Asmodeus led Pádraic through the hall, into other room, Bedelia drew off her jacket, hanging it up, before starting on the belt of her leather trousers.

She was wearing a pink floral dress underneath, and Jean-Pierre couldn’t help his smile.

“You’re a student at UCD?”

“Going into second year of radiography,” Bedelia said, nodding her head as she folded her trousers, putting them on the shelf under the coat rack. “I have a lot of anatomy modules this year – that must get old for you, after so many times doing it.”

“They learn new things all the time,” Jean-Pierre said, “and it never hurts to revise your knowledge in medicine. Your father encouraged you into the field?”

“He wanted me to be a vet,” Bedelia said, laughing as they moved into the other room. “When I was growing up, I wanted to be a doctor, and he tried to negotiate me down, but I wanted to help people.”

Growing up.

Jean-Pierre itched to ask, ached to – barely any angels could say that, could say that they grew up, but now wasn’t the time, he knew.

“I hope you’re hungry,” Asmodeus said mildly as Bedelia came in, and Jean-Pierre didn’t miss the way she looked at Colm, the slight widening of her eyes, the part of her lips, the way her gaze dropped to his body; he didn’t miss, either, the way Pádraic’s scowl suddenly deepened, or the way that Colm, evidently sensing the change of energy in the room, looked askance over his shoulder.

Jean-Pierre beamed.

He so loved family dinners.

*     *     *

JEAN-PIERRE

“You’re going to take them with you,” said Asmodeus softly.

He had organised transport to Paris, for all of them, for the dog, too, and now he stood before Jean-Pierre where he sat cross-legged upon a fence post, carefully balanced there.

Asmodeus was smiling – he smiled very often, and yet so empty as he was of any feeling, it was difficult to ascertain precisely what his smiles meant – and yet, it also meant that conversations with him were strangely free of expectation, or of stress.

“They found me,” Jean-Pierre said softly. “They took me in.”

“And the farmer boy,” Asmodeus said. “You love him?”

It was not a question, Jean-Pierre did not think, at the time or even centuries later, that was intended to undercut how he felt. It was a question asked genuinely, with curiosity, with focus – it was a frank question.

“I don’t know,” Jean-Pierre said – it was a frank answer. “What does that feel like, love?”

Asmodeus shrugged his shoulders, shaking his head to say he didn’t know, and although the expression on his face was quite neutral, in it, Jean-Pierre saw, for the first time, a catch. “I think that’s the difference, between you and I – you’re closer to them, to humans. You can feel things more like they can.”

“You can’t?”

“I don’t know,” Asmodeus said. “But I think I’d like to.”

Jean-Pierre tipped forward, off of the fence post, and against Asmodeus’ chest, letting the other man support his thighs and lift him easily, carrying him back toward the village, slung over one shoulder.

“Was it a choice?” asked Jean-Pierre. “When I fell? Did I choose to?”

“You don’t remember?”

“No. Should I?”

“No one does,” said Asmodeus softly.

“Not even you?”

A hesitation – the tiniest of hesitations, barely audible at all. “No,” said Asmodeus. “Not even me.”