#also gabriel is making some stupid choices but beelz isn't exactly making great ones either

[grifalinas]

Fic Snippet: The Imaginary Trust (bits and pieces from an Ancient History ineffable bureaucracy fic I might write) (Technically takes place in the same verse as the wedding fic hence some of the characterization)

-/-

Gabriel’s thumbs brush tenderly over closed eyelids until they open, boring into him, searing his soul. He smiles.

“There’s those eyes I love.”

“Szzhut up. This izzn’t love.” Beelzebub is smaller than him, but strong enough to shove him back onto the bed that only exists in this place for this.

He bounces a little when he lands and looks around, leaned back on his elbows in a way that could almost be called lazy. His plain cream and powder blue bedding has been replaced by decadent black and midnight silk. He looks back with an approving smile. “Nice.”

“I zzaid zzhut up.” Beelzebub follows him with a forceful motion that can’t really be called graceful and suddenly Gabriel finds himself with a lapful of Hell-Prince, straddling his hips and glaring down at him. He reaches up, needing to touch, and his wrists are caught in vice-like fingers, held in place, in midair between them. “Thisz iz phyzical. This is releasze.”

This last is punctuated by a grinding of hips against his that leaves no question of how much these actions are causing his blood to burn and sing in his veins, but instead of the hoped-for reaction he just smiles and surges forward, one hand freeing itself to tangle in matted hair while he claims the prince’s lips with his own.

“I won’t lie,” he says, moving to trace feather-light kisses along the space where, in hell, the skin has started to rot away. He always knows, can always tell, always finds it. “This is what it is, whether you accept it or not.”

This earns him a slap, and he’s pushed back down, body flush against his and a snarl buzzed into his ear. “I do not love you,” and, “You will not decide that I do,” and “Thizz iz the lazt time we do thiz.”

-/-

Beelzebub likes getting dressed the old fashioned way. Gabriel glances aside to the rack where his suit has been neatly folded (thoughtful), immaculate apart from the places where it was rumpled before being miracled away.

Beelzebub is wearing an undershirt now (no bra), and trousers (no belt), but doesn’t seem interested in much more. Gabriel feels underdressed now; he gives a lazy wave of his hand and is back in his union suit, but otherwise doesn’t move from the nest of pillows and silk sheets he’s been left in. He feels too good to move.

(Sore, aching in exactly the way he likes to ache when Beelzebub is done with him. One day he’ll return the favor: one day his prince will let him lavish all of his affection and adoration onto a willing recipient. Until then he’ll take this and enjoy the way his corporation thrums in delight whenever they’re together.)

“Come here,” he says, holding out one arm, and after a disgusted look Beelzebub joins him on the bed, sprawled out belly-down, arms curled around a pillow but face turned to him with a tenderness he doesn’t usually get to see. He ignores the apathy and slings one arm over the prince’s back, rolling to bury his face in one clammy shoulder.

The first soft kiss gets him a warning buzz; the second he’s shaken off and Beelzebub rolls away, back to him. He retracts his arm and sighs.

“I really wish you’d just let me love you like you deserve,” he murmurs, carefully not pushing any harder.

“I have no wizzh to experienze what the Archangel fucking Gabriel thinkz love iz. And I told you, thiz is the lazt time we do thiz.

For just a moment it seems as though there might be more, and then Gabriel is alone. He flops onto his back and burrows deeper into his nest of silk.

In a few minutes, he’ll miracle his suit back on and leave, and the little flat will return to being empty until the next time they meet, until the next time Beelzebub calls him from the pits of hell and demands his attentions. But for right this moment he cocoons himself in the bedding Beelzebub miracled up for them and surrounds himself with the warm lingering thrum of love his prince isn’t yet ready to speak out loud.