AN: This has not been edited. I offer it to you as is. I am trash, forgive me.
"What is heaven, when compared with a woman's love?"
AO3 link
A demon's first day on earth is learning to breathe.
learning to breathe...
Breathe!
He thumped his fist against his chest, jolting the muscles in his chest into their proper rhythm and taking a deep inhale that scratched at his throat and made his lungs ache.
This was, wrong, this wasn't supposed to happen to him. He remained on his knees, one hand steadying him on the ground in front of him and the other still pressed against his chest. The feeling of his ribs cracking and expanding beneath his fingertips was unfamiliar and disturbing. As he stood there, breathing, focusing on the contraction and movement of each individual muscle, something else touched his fingertips. A small thing, a thump, a flutter, and it was gone. Then again, thump, flutter, gone.
Thump, flutter, still.
Thump. Flutter. Still.
Thump. Flutter. Still.
It was involuntary. It happened without his control. He sat back on his knees, resting his weight on his feet with one hand still pressed against his chest as he felt the soft touch under his sternum.
He sat there for what felt like hours just feeling the movement of his chest. It was foreign to him. He realized, as he sat, his fingers were warming. He felt the same heat that used to radiate from his halo now emanating from his chest.
That had been years ago. Ten, to be exact. Ten years ago the guardian angel who fell in love with his charge had broken his halo from his head and learned to breathe. For the first time in the lifespan of the universe he had seen things.
And now as he rolled over in the bed he shared with her, listened to her soft breathing, felt the warm puffs of breath flutter over his cheek, he knew once again it was worth it.
She stirred slightly, letting out a quiet hum the way she did every morning. She rolled over and stretched the way she did every morning, and just like he did every morning, he reached out and brushed his knuckles softly over her cheek before leaning in and pressing a kiss to her shoulder.
Every time he touched his lips to her soft skin he felt a jolt of electricity shoot through his body. It was the closest he had felt to God since he fell but that's not why he did it. He did it because to be near her, to touch her, feel her warmth, was the most intoxicating thing he had ever felt.
Being loved by her was sweeter than the breath of God had ever been.
"Good morning." She whispered quietly, reaching over to run her hands through his teal hair. He wrapped an arm around her midsection, pulling her against his bare chest and feeling his skin burn as she pressed against him.
"Good morning." He responded. His voice still rasped and had a slight reverberation to it, reminiscent of every time he said "be not afraid" when tasked with appearing to people. She always said she felt it rattle her bones when he laughed.
She continued to brush her hands through his soft hair and he leaned in closer to her. She was holy, she was human. From the first day he heard her voice ring clear and true through the static of God's voice he had loved her more than anything else in the world.
He jolted as her hand brushed over the cracked and broken base of the left side of his halo. She immediately moved her hand away and pressed her lips to his cheek, an apology, asking for forgiveness, conveying her love, all without speaking. He didn't know how humans could say so much without ever opening their mouths. He hummed in response, it's ok, I forgive you, "there's nothing you could ever do that I would not forgive you for."
"Why?" She asked. It was the first time in ten years of togetherness that she had asked him that. He knew immediately what she was asking. Why would he leave heaven, God, infinite pleasure, for a life on earth.
"Why did Adam bite the apple?" He asked, taking her confused pause to press a soft kiss to the bare skin of her collarbone. She rested a hand on his shoulder and he looked up at her, staring into her (e/c) eyes.
She furrowed her brows and looked to him for an answer. She wasn't the most religious person, he never took offense to that.
"He did it because Eve told him to." He answered. She scrunched her nose and tilted her head.
"But I didn't know you before," She paused, looking back above his head to where his halo should be, at the small white spots in his hair where the horns that joined to create the holy circle should have grown from.
"That's not what I mean, I mean," He paused and made an uff sound as he thought. A small exhale of breath, a harsh puff, something so uniquely human.
"I mean, he loved her, he trusted her. No matter the laws of heaven, the rules of God, he loved her. That was the first sin, to love. Eve trusted the snake, Adam loved and trusted Eve, and I love you." He said, ducking his head to nuzzle his nose against her neck, inhaling the soft scent of her soap.
"What's God to your wife? What's heaven to your love? There is nothing in heaven, that I cannot find lying next to you right now." He whispered against her skin oh so gently. He rested comfortably against her as she traced the scars on his arms from years of working, running her fingertip over the freckles exposed by the sun, every mark that made him human.
"You gave up heaven because you loved me." It was a soft statement. Not really a statement, not really a question, not something that needed a response. But he gave it one anyway.
A kiss, a kiss against her neck right beneath her ear on that soft spot just behind her jaw. A gentle kiss, a feather light touch of his lips to her skin to convey his feelings.
Yes, yes, because I love you, I'd do it all again if it meant a life with you.
And he knew, when she turned her head to catch his lips in a kiss, when she tangled her fingers in his hair and pulled him closer to her, as if the two couldn't possibly be close enough, he knew that she loved him too.
