"I love you," Pavel's words were earnest and straightforward. Naïve. Deafening despite the way his mouth was so firmly glued to Azrael's clothed shoulder. His blood thumped in his eardrums, drowning out the world.
"No, you don't."
"I do." He sat up at Azrael's words. A piercing gaze bore into the side of his face, but he stared straight forward and refused to look at Pavel. The arms that wrapped around his torso loosened their hold but Pavel's fingers dug into the flesh of his waist that was free from his scaled armour. "How can I not, Azrael?"
"How can you, Pavel?" Azrael swallowed. He doesn't know what he's talking about. I shouldn't be loved. His hands curled into fists on his thighs, cutting his palms as Azrael pressed his talons into that fragile skin, slotting back into where faint scars had developed over the years. His brows furrowed as Azrael bit back the treacherous way his body tried to cry – he had spent many years emotionlessly, only now, only once Pavel had wormed his way into his personal life did Azrael feel so vulnerable again. So frequently did he allow himself to weep. It was uncomfortable, unpleasant and unwanted. He had to put an end to it. "You barely know me. You're just grateful that I'm kind to you and that is causing you to feel confused. It is not love."
The warmth of Pavel's body pulled away from him and he sat detached, staring at Azrael from across the sofa. It was like he was urging him to look back but he knew if he did, Azrael wouldn't be able to keep it together. To keep Pavel at arm's length.
"I'm not confused."
Azrael's tongue clicked.
"Have you ever been in love with someone before?"
Azrael's response was quick. It was harsh, he knew that, but if Pavel couldn't respond, that sealed the fate of everything between them. He didn't wait long before he finally turned his head and looked Pavel in the eyes when Azrael felt his faze beginning to falter. To catch him off guard was an act to get the truth out of him.
"Have you?"
Flustered by the question, or, realistically, by the sudden eye contact, Pavel's eyes darted away from Azrael's pointed, unwavering stare. He didn't blink as he watched the man squirm. Azrael garnered no pleasure from making Pavel uncomfortable but he had to do this. It felt like he could burn a hole in his cheek with the unending way he was staring.
"…No." Of course not. When would you have?
Azrael sighed. "I have." The final secret of his life. The last thing he had purposefully obscured from Pavel's view of his history. Azrael was now rending his bleeding heart open and he hoped it would make Pavel realise that nothing good would come from loving him. Pavel would come to regret even knowing him anyway, Azrael was sure. However, if this could prolong the time he could spend with him, he would nip Pavel's confusion in the bud and get rid of his own tangled feelings in one fell swoop. It was the only correct course of action Azrael could take.
Pavel swallowed before he finally met that unending gaze. His eyes were filled with curiosity. It was curiosity dipped in apprehension, his fear oozing from his pores, but Pavel wanted to know, nonetheless. Even if it hurt. Even if it ruined whatever image he had of Azrael in his mind.
"…Oh. I didn't… you have?"
Almost scoffing at the way Pavel said that, Azrael was unsurprised that he thought he had never had the chance to experience love but Pavel seemed overly shocked. Out of the two of them, Azrael definitely did not seem like the type that would fall in love at all, so, on second thought, it did make some sense. Azrael's face remained stony and serious. "Married, in fact."
"You had… a wife?" Pavel probed, in a way that was not as subtle as he thought it was. He leaned in slightly, on the edge of his seat, desperate to know.
"No." The corners of Azrael's lips curled slightly, imperceptibly. He knew what Pavel was doing, why he asked that question that way. If Azrael was to tell him this story, he couldn't lie, so he answered honestly. "A husband."
It had been almost a decade since he had admitted his prior relationship. Almost a decade since Azrael had allowed himself to even think of him as a person, not just an obituary in a newspaper. A picture on a funeral program. A name engraved on a plaque on an urn. Ashes scattered in a rushing river. Pain was pooling in his stomach, intoxicating and sickening. Ah fuck, why did I decide that it was a good idea to talk about this?
Something seemed to spark in Pavel, even though it was improper to be so excited for the coming story. It didn't take much thought to know what it was – now Azrael had admitted he was gay, it confirmed that Pavel had a chance, logically. He knew he wasn't being rejected on the grounds of being a man, which did mean Azrael lost a means of making Pavel see that his feelings wouldn't work. That didn't matter; he would stop 'loving' him once Azrael told Pavel about what happened to the last man he loved. He glanced down now, not able to think about him while looking at the man he now loved. The man he loved who thinks he loves him back.
That man he had to convince to stop.
"Why aren't you together anymore?"
There it is. The guillotine is falling.
"He died, eight years ago." Azrael spat out those words. His language had never been flowery when he spoke, but the bile he was fighting back made it hard to be gentle at all. His stomach churned as he thought about him again. "…My fault. It was my fault."
Pavel gasped sharply. "What happened?"
His question fell into empty air. Azrael sucked in a harsh breath and swallowed. An image of that coffin slowly sliding out of view burned into his eyes while a song he'd forced himself to forget echoed around his skull. Formless words and a rhythmless tune looped in his ears.
"Do I… do I have to say?" Any resolve Azrael had had deflated at Pavel's question. His shoulders collapsed and his face crumpled. A cavity was torn through his chest, the place where his heart had been, the wound that had been a healed hole for so many years, was now weeping. It was an agonisingly slow implosion, crushing and tearing him apart from the inside out. Azrael could feel every wretched second of it; he yearned for it all to end.
A hand on his thigh, grasping tightly at the dense musculature there. If Pavel had Azrael's claws, he was sure he'd be bleeding right now. "At this point, yes. You cannot tell me that I am confused and not give me a good damn reason as to why I can't love you!" Azrael jolted slightly at the way Pavel almost shouted at him. His actions contrasted with how he had previously behaved when it came to Azrael's confessions. Pavel was not so forceful or demanding, even when he was displaying the blood on his hands; this was personal. He enunciated his words, each one harsher than the last. "It'll hurt but you must bear it. What happened, Azrael?"
Blinking lazily, Azrael focused on the hand on his leg. If this was any other time, he would grab it, hold it, and curl himself into Pavel's warm, welcoming arms.
Not now.
"I've told you about when I escaped from Master Lynch? Well, a few years after, once I had… once I had started doing minor crimes so I didn't starve, I managed to scrape enough money together to live in a rented house in a little village in the countryside. Remote and safe. As soon as I had a constant home, I managed to get some proper work around that town – mostly hard labour that the human population couldn't get done safely." Azrael was stalling, telling Pavel all this backstory, but it felt necessary for him to understand why he ended up allowing himself to fall in love. It was a period of Azrael's life when he had stability and relative normalcy – something Pavel does not and has never had. "Well, when I was 21, I think, I was shopping at the local farmers market and I stumbled across a butcher's stall. As I was looking at their wares, the man running the stall called out to me and… in a fit of youthful innocence, I was instantly fascinated by him. 'Love at first sight' is that romantic human expression he always loved to use. I suppose… I suppose it's true."
Azrael still stared at Pavel's hand on his lap and was taken aback slightly when it clenched into a white-knuckled fist. It took all his strength to not try and soothe him but, right now, he knew he had to hurt Pavel's feelings so he didn't fall into the same fate as Azrael's late husband. He bit back his concern, pretended not to feel it, pretended not to see Pavel's hurt.
"I didn't know how to cope with those new feelings that suddenly appeared. While I was an adult, I was… not the best with emotions." Nothing has changed really. "I was nervous but I asked him his name – Clay – and began to visit his stall every Saturday the market was open. He was a human so it took him a bit to pick up on my natural courting rituals. It felt, at times, like my baser instincts took over in my desire for a 'mate'. When he finally picked up on it, Clay was very receptive. He had been flirting with me in his human way the whole time, it seemed."
Pavel remained silent.
"It was a whirlwind romance; I can admit that. We moved far too fast but we were young and I… I loved him." Something about saying that felt undeserved. It felt wrong, like ashes in his mouth. "After 8 months, I wanted to propose but I felt some guilt that I hadn't told him about my life before him." Azrael's breath was shaky. He knew how this story ended but with every sentence that got him closer to the end, he became more and more afraid.
In an act that was mostly selfless but slightly selfish, Pavel wrapped himself around Azrael's body in a form of comfort. His arms enveloped him the best he could and he manoeuvred so that Azrael's head was as nestled into the crook of Pavel's neck as it could be with his horns. Azrael should have pushed him away but he couldn't.
He was warm.
He was safe.
Choking back his apprehension, Azrael let out an ugly, choking noise before he spoke. "I was convinced he would leave me and that he would be completely disgusted by me. Scared, really. It felt like it would make sense for me to be chased off or arrested. However… when I did tell him that I had killed people, it was like I'd just told him that I broke my arm as a kid." He laughed so he didn't cry. It was an aborted sound at the back of his throat, tapering out into a sob. Nothing he did could hide how swamped he was. "Clay suggested therapy and I tried but I… it didn't help. Either way, he accepted me. All of my mistakes."
Pavel shifted slightly. Azrael could guess why he was suddenly spurred into motion but he didn't want to. There was nothing in him at the moment that could care about it. Everything was just all too much.
"I proposed soon after and we wed in the winter when I was 22 and he was 25, very soon after it was legal for us to do so. A courthouse wedding. We… we were the first officiated same-sex, interspecies marriage in the county." Azrael remembered watching the news with Clay when the same-sex marriage act passed in England, how overjoyed they had both been. He shoved the memories of the wedding to the back of his mind. Azrael didn't want to picture Clay's smile, his big, crooked-toothed smile that was too wide for his face but was more beautiful than any classical painting. "Two years passed – it was perfect. Until I made a mistake. I… supplemented my income with commissions from 'clients' and one of them… I made the stupid mistake of wetting my hands with blood after I'd managed to scrub them clean.
And I fucked it up."
Finally, Pavel spoke. "How?"
"It had been a while since I had had to do something like that and I needed the money because we wanted to start a family. I… I left DNA and I was caught in the corner of a security camera." Tears pricked his ears and Azrael pressed his face into the warm, fuzzy skin of Pavel's neck. He couldn't help but give in to that sincerity he offered. "It… it turned out that the wife of the man I killed was a gang head who set about hunting me down but she- she decided that she wouldn't kill me – she would kill everyone I loved instead. An eye for an eye.
There was only one person that I loved."
"Azrael…" Pavel whispered into his hair and his fingers massaged his back, dancing around the joints of Azrael's wings. "I… oh."
"I came home-" Azrael's voice cracked, jumping up an octave as he did everything to keep his emotions in check but he couldn't stop the way it wobbled. "I came home and it… I can't- I can't even try to say what they did to him. Just… the worst fucking tortures in the world and mash them all together, over and over again." No matter how Azrael tried, blood filled his vision, torn open flesh and exposed bone. Eyes that would never see again peering out from a face that no longer looked human.
Azrael silently sobbed against Pavel's skin, mouthing soundless words against him. Tears dropped down his face, down his neck and Azrael's nose ran until he was a sopping, agonised muddle that could barely conjure up a thought. All his thoughts were stained red.
As he had done before, Azrael felt the feather-light touch of Pavel's lips against the skin of his forehead once he pried Azrael's face free of his shoulder. Azrael's vision was too obscured to see him but he knew Pavel was doing everything in his power to make him feel better. He cradled Azrael's face in his hands, gently rubbing tiny circles with his fingers on his cheekbones.
"It wasn't your fault." A barefaced lie.
"It is. It fucking is!" Azrael choked it out through his sobs. "I wasn't a child! I did it for money, I fucked up and it cost me the life of the only person I loved."
"You made a mistake." Pavel kissed his forehead again but left his lips pressed to Azrael's skin. He rocked them slightly, soothing him like a child. His words were meant to comfort Azrael but it just stung to hear. "Please don't torture yourself like this."
"I don't deserve anything else."
Pavel's soft palms felt too warm against his skin.
"I can't let it go."
Azrael's face became stickier with snot and tears.
"You can't love me. Don't."
"Azrael, please. Don't push me away."
His hands were on Pavel's shoulders.
Talons met soft flesh through fabric, maybe Pavel's skin broke, but Azrael couldn't tell and he didn't make a sound of pain. He just couldn't bear to have him so close to him. Azrael's vision cleared for a second and he couldn't take the way Pavel's face twisted as he looked at him. Eyebrows crinkled, eyes misted over with tears and a despairing downturn to his lips; such misery didn't suit Pavel's face at all. Especially not when it was for Azrael's sake.
"If you stay by me, you'll get hurt."
Pavel smiled, though it was more of a grimace.
"I've been hurt time and time again. A little bit more is nothing." His fingers caressed Azrael's cheekbones, dancing across the scars that marred his face as Pavel stared into his soul. Every time Pavel looked at Azrael, every time he touched him, it was almost enough to make him think he was worthy, that he was flawless. That Pavel's love could save him from the suffering Azrael deserved. "Even if I have to wait. If you'll have me, I will not regret loving you. You coming into my life is something I will always be thankful for."
Azrael wasn't crying anymore. His sorrow quickly became bitter, though it wasn't against Pavel, really. Pavel had not done a thing wrong. It was aimed at himself as Azrael finally spoke again. "You won't always think that. The day will come and you'll regret me."
"That's the future. Don't go predicting it." Softly Pavel rubbed his hands across Azrael's skin in an attempt to wipe away the fluids drowning his face. The unpleasant dryness that the tears caused on his scales made him wince but he allowed Pavel to do what he wanted. In that melodic voice of his, he soothed Azrael's aches and his agony felt lighter. "What we have right now doesn't have to change. Not unless you want it to. I just want you- no, I need you in my life, please."
I want you. I want you so badly I could die.
I don't deserve you. I don't deserve your love.
I don't deserve it. I don't.
I don't.
Tear-heavy eyes in a tear-streaked face. The damp spots on his shirt and the wet spots on Pavel's neck. His clammy palms held Azrael's sticky face.
Everything was too much, his senses overwhelmed.
The sun, his god, the centre of his universe was looking at Azrael so earnestly with his childish declarations of love and it rocked him to his core. It dissolved him entirely like he was swamped in lava. Painful and burning but a sweet release from the torment of everything else. It was the end of everything, yet it felt like the beginning.
"Please, don't go." Vision blurry, Azrael grasped his hands about until he found Pavel's. He held them tight as he did his best to look him in the eye. "I know I'm a monster, I know I'm weak. You should want to leave but don't go."
In an impulsive act, he leaned forward until his lips brushed the skin of Pavel's forehead between his cascading bangs. Azrael hesitated for a moment before he pressed completely to Pavel's skin and held the kiss there for seconds that stretched into infinity. Burning lips to burning skin, Azrael begged;
"Wait for me."
It was all he could as of Pavel, but it was so much to ask for. Azrael pulled away. He could finally see him mostly clearly, their faces still close enough this his lack of glasses didn't make much of a difference. They lay discarded somewhere, taken off by Pavel as Azrael had wept in his arms.
Despite the red rimming his eyes, Pavel's mouth was stretched into a grin so wide it almost split his face in half. It was quiet so Azrael used the silence to appreciate his oversized front teeth, the freckle below his lower lip and his singular deep dimple. Azrael couldn't smile yet, but he was smiling enough for the both of them.
"Why wouldn't I?"