When Harris woke up, he woke up because of a knock on the door downstairs. All he could think was, 'not yet.' He didn't know who it was or why they had come, but only Harris's coworkers ever came to his house, not that they knocked for any reason but politeness, so this- whatever it was- was what Venus had been talking about. He seriously considered pretending not to be at home, but he knew it wouldn't do much good in the long run. He disentangled himself from Joshua carefully, pressed a final kiss to his forehead, and went downstairs to meet his fate.
His fate turned out to be Amourt already inside and lounging in an armchair in Harris's sitting room with his feet up and a glass of scotch in his hand. When Harris glowered at him, he smiled back innocently. "You look good, Cionus," he said.
"Thank you," Harris replied. The words were automatic, but he was still annoyed, so they came out sourer than Harris had intended.
"Have a seat."
"Thank you," Harris repeated, taking a seat in his own house and entirely meaning the sarcasm that time.
"So." Amourt took a sip of his drink. "You're wondering what's going to happen to you."
"I'm wondering how you plan to keep me away from him."
"If you mean me, I don't plan anything. As for the organization at large, they don't. We're in the business of a great many things, but keeping two people who love each other apart is not, in fact, among them."
"But I'm not supposed to love him."
"Actually, Cionus, you are. If you could only see your aura right now, you'd know it."
"We don't have auras."
Amourt rolled his eyes. "Merlin's policy to tell us as little as possible so we don't upset the natural order of things is understandable, but it really causes trouble now and then. You do, I do, we all do."
"But I can't see yours."
"If you really concentrated, you would."
Harris concentrated accordingly, and after a while, he saw it. Yellow, so intense it was almost gold, surrounding him like a halo. He mentioned as much.
Amourt smiled. "You've never seen it before because you've never looked. Tresnal saw yours, but because he still believes in going through the proper channels his report didn't reach anyone until after your run-in with Venus."
"What-" Harris swallowed- "what does it look like?"
"It's yellow. Just like mine. Just like your boy up there's will be in not too long, though by then you won't be able to see it."
Harris's mouth was dry. He should have known last night that he wouldn't be green after all, but yellow. There would be no one else for him after Joshua, not ever. But if Amourt meant what he said about not separating them, why wouldn't he be able to see it when Joshua came to feel the same? "Why-"
"Do you know what happens, Cionus?" Amourt asked. "After we move on?"
"An afterlife, I suppose," Harris said. He tried to act more indifferent to the prospect than he actually felt as Amourt eyed him curiously. "I don't really think too much about it."
"You do!" Amourt practically crowed. "You think about hell."
Harris considered that. He remembered so little of his former life, but rosary beads and stern lectures about sin and the general sense that he had not always been a good man featured prominently. "Yes," he admitted. "I do."
"Well, here's something that you 'should' think about: more often than not, souls go back into circulation."
"Reincarnation?"
"Yes and no. It's complicated." Amourt rolled his eyes as if he felt personally victimized by the fact that he had to explain this. "The point is that some souls- not all, not even most- are tied to another. Destined, as it were. For one very particular person. But occasionally it goes wrong. Souls get born into bodies too early or too late, somebody dies before their time… it all depends. The point is, you end up anchored to the world in a way that people who finished everything they were meant to do aren't. That's what people like us are, Cionus. We stay because some important part of our lives has remained unfinished. Some people- like Percy and me- meet as cupids or in whatever job they end up being given. Some people- like you- meet the person they're supposed to be with when they're assigned them as charges. I'm sure you can imagine how dangerous it could be if we knew the truth, which is assumedly why Merlin doesn't tell us these things."
"And that's why Joshua could see me," Harris said as he realized. "Because we're... connected." It explained, too, why Joshua noticed things about him that no one else probably could have.
Amourt nodded. "That, at least, was news to Percy and me when Merlin explained it. We're only allowed to know because we're… out of the running, as it were. I trust you agree that you would have behaved differently if you knew it was possible. He felt it would be better for both of you if it happened… organically."
"I suppose he wasn't wrong about that," Harris admitted, annoyed anyway.
Amourt reached out and patted his knee.
Harris hesitated. "I can really… be with Joshua?"
"Oh yes," Amourt replied. "Merlin finished updating both your files this morning, though Venus officially kicked you out last night. You, sir, are matched."
"Merlin updated our files?"
"He passes out assignments," Amourt said. "But it's also his job to watch over our matches. You can think of him as your cupid, if you like."
Harris preferred not to, frankly. He was still trying to wrap his head around the thought that this… just happened sometimes. "But what does it all mean? How can Joshua and I really be together?"
Amourt looked thoughtful. "There's a… missing piece, as it were, in all of us. A kind of… humanness. Not having it allows us to see auras and manipulate whatever circumstances are in our particular purview- and of course the fact that we aren't mortal means that we don't need to eat or sleep. But that little bit of humanness and mortality go hand in hand. We lose it when we die, but it doesn't just disappear. It goes to a kind of... vault somewhere."
"I could… have it back?"
"You already do," Amourt said, smirking. "Teresse delivered it last night. It'll take a while for it to settle, as it were- so your powers will leave you slowly as your mortality returns."
"And then what?"
"Have you thought much about the people who work in the shop? Or who help us buy houses and rent cars and do all the things that aren't exactly easy when no one can remember who you are? The people who can see cupids and remember us but also live as part of the world?"
"I suppose I haven't," Harris admitted. "Thought about it much."
"Those are people who have met their match and been sent back into the world. You will lose your ability to see auras and most of your other powers. You'll never be quite a normal person, Cionus- Harris- but you can have a life with Joshua. A full one."
~oOo~
Amourt left to allow Harris to process what he had learned in peace. He half expected Joshua to come down looking for him at some point before he was done, but he never did. Eventually, Harris went upstairs to him instead, and found him still in the bed. He wasn't quite asleep, though, judging from the way he mumbled, "Harris?" softly as entered the room.
Even not fully awake, Joshua turned his turned his face up obligingly for Harris to kiss, and once he started Harris couldn't seem to stop.
Slowly Joshua woke properly. He gripped Harris by the shoulders and looked him over, reading Harris's elation in seconds. "You can- you can stay?"
Harris kissed him hard. "I can stay."
~oOo~
Harris went back to HQ the next time he was willing to let go of Joshua for long enough to do so, and Joshua went home after securing Harris's promise that he would come by as soon as he was finished. Harris didn't plan to be there any longer than he had to be to get whatever his new job was in his new capacity, and he didn't expect it to take too long.
Harris had worried, faintly, that he wouldn't be able to maintain the standard of living to which he had become accustomed, and to which he would very much like for Joshua to be able to become accustomed to as well- but only faintly, because he would live anywhere if he could live with Joshua. But on his way out Merlin had passed him his first paycheck for his new job as a tailor, and if those were the starting figures Harris needn't have worried at all.
He was at Joshua's flat in just a few hours. Joshua was packing a few things to leave at Harris's house now that he probably would be there much more often. Scott was there too, having a conversation with Joshua as he flitted around the flat packing.
Joshua looked between them and smiled just a little tightly. "Scott," he said. "You remember Harris, right?"
Scott looked at Harris vacantly. Merlin- after Harris had told him that he understood why he did what he did but reserved the right to be annoyed about it- had told Harris that people would be able to see him now, remember him now, and that for those who had met him before it would be a little disorienting as they tried to figure out why they had never paid him much mind before.
"My boyfriend?" Joshua added.
Scott's frown deepened. "Yeah," he said at last, looking Harris over. He was still trying to figure out why he hadn't given more thought to Joshua's boyfriend before now, and searching for something to say at the same time. "Thought you was older," he said at last.
Harris glanced at Joshua, whose aura seemed to be getting greener by the hour. When it settled it would probably be the last aura Harris saw before he became fully mortal again. According to Merlin, when that time came his body's age would also settle, probably at about thirty- he would still be the older of the two of them, but he would be at a good age to spend the rest of his life with Joshua and vice versa. Until that happened, however, the people in Joshua's life would justify it the way mortal minds typically justified magic- by assuming that they had just been mistaken. It would be Harris's job to help them come up with an explanation. "It's the suit," Harris said. "I gather it adds years."
"Talking like that probably don't help."
"I'll take that under advisement."
Scott rolled his eyes but looked amused. He leaned close, again talking to Joshua like Harris wasn't there, but this time it was on purpose. "You really like this guy, Joshua?"
Joshua didn't once take his eyes off Harris as he smiled and said, "Yeah. I really, really do."
"Right," Scott said after a moment. "I'll just…" He pointed at the door, and Joshua saw him out. Harris lingered in Joshua's room to give them some time alone, and when he made him way out Joshua had closed the door behind Scott and was leaning his back against it.
"So is that gonna be it?" he asked Harris. "You're just always gonna be my weird boyfriend who no one paid any attention to for the first six months we were dating?"
'No,' Harris thought impulsively. 'Eventually I'm going to be your weird husband.' He didn't say so though; there would be plenty of time for that. There would be time for everything. "I suppose it is," he said, crossing to Joshua and then resting a hand next his head on the door. "Regrets?"
Joshua shook his head, eyes glittering. He reached out, gripping Harris by the lapels, and pulled him even closer. "No. I am thinking it's gonna be awkward when you properly meet my mum, though."
Harris laughed quietly, touching Joshua's neck and pressing their foreheads together. "You're not wrong."
Joshua laughed.