So I FINALLY listened to Skyjacks (I had to make myself accept the end of the Star wars campaign... still not quite there enough to listen to the last episodes but I’m getting there)
And To absolutely NO ONES surprise I am head over heels deeply in LOVE with the 7 feet of gentle, dumbass, androgynous angel that IS Gable Skyjacks (I may be somewhat heartbroken that I came into the show post the loss of their long flowing locks BUT that wont stop me drawing SHORT flowing locks)
We need to talk. Same place, Tuesday, 8am. I will bring bread if you promise not to yell at me about the type of bread I bring.
T
P.S. Have you done something different with your hair? I’m not asking because I care, I’m begging you to do something different with your hair. It’s been literal millennia.
#
Much to Travis’s disappointment, Gable’s hair is still in that hideous Greek braid crown thing that they’ve always done. They also seem to have a loaf of bread with them, which is kind of insult to injury. Or it would be, if he actually cared about Gable’s hair or their bread. As it is, he’s just disappointed that they still haven’t changed it up.
He intentionally makes his footfalls heavier as he approaches the bench in front of the duck pond, because a startled Gable is not a Gable that he wants to deal with today. They’re already sitting, and it’s not often that he gets the novelty of being taller than him, so instead of sitting he leans over the back of the bench, plopping his messenger bag down next to them. “Fancy meeting you here.”
“Travis,” Gable says curtly. “This had better be good.”
“Oh, had it?” Travis drawls as he unbuckles his bag. He brought cinnamon raisin bread, because he knows how to butter Gable up, and because he was all but daring them to bring their own bread to the duck pond with that message. “Well, I’m here to-”
“Not whatever you have to say.” They give him the most unimpressed side-eye in their arsenal - and Travis knows their full arsenal, at this point. “The reason I haven’t heard from you in over a hundred years.”
“You need a reason?”
“I’d like to be sure that the only person I’ve known this long isn’t dead.”
Travis shrugs. “Here I am, not dead. It takes a lot to kill me, you know.”
“I know.” Gable tosses some bread towards the ducks. “But humans can be determined. Sit down, you look like a jackass.”
Despite his best efforts, Travis snorts at that. “I got pulled away for business for a little while,” he explains as he goes to sit down next to them. “You know how it is.”
“You mean you weren’t on earth?”
“I mean I-” the words stick in Travis’s throat. He complains about Earth a lot, and it’s easy to, but he’s a little bit fond of it. It’s the way a dog loves a flea, sure, but it’s a real fondness, and he hadn’t loved the century or so that he spent… back home.
Gable is looking at him. And they look - ugh - sympathetic.
“I was otherwise occupied,” Travis says at last. “And then I was recovering. You need time to decompress after being home with the family for so long, you know how it is.”
“I don’t,” Gable says, and if it weren’t Gable, Travis would feel like an asshole for saying that. Gable doesn’t get to go home. Their people aren’t nearly so accommodating as Travis’s. “Are you well?”
He waves them off and pulls out the cinnamon bread. “You still like that place in Toledo?”
“That place in- do you mean the bakery that was founded a hundred and fifty years ago?”
“Yes, they’re closed now, but this is the closest I’ve ever found to that bread.”
Gable rips off a chunk of the bread in Travis’s hand, looking completely bemused. “So you found something similar to something I liked a few years back-”
“Do you ever get confused talking about time with humans? They experience it so differently than we do.”
“Stop distracting me.”
Travis grins. “Who’s distracting you?”
“You wrote to me for a reason,” Gable says testily. God, Travis missed this. It’s just so easy to get under their skin. “I would like to know what’s so important that you broke your vow of silence, or whatever you were doing.”
Travis rips off a hunk of Gable’s bread, crumbling it in his hand as he tries to figure out the best way to say this. Gable rolls their eyes and eats a piece of the cinnamon bread, not really reacting at all as they eat it. Which is ridiculous, because Travis tracked it down specifically for them, but it’s not like Gable has ever been transparent about what they enjoy.
He tosses the breadcrumbs towards the pond. Some of them sink into the water, and some of them scatter on the bank, and Travis watches the ducks as he says, “I have an update from down under.”
“And?” Gable says, with a magnitude of put-upon patience that Travis can barely handle.
“And,” he says carefully, “it sounds like things are coming to an end soon.”
Gable frowns. “You don’t mean-”
“I mean a premeditated end.”
“You mean the end of days.”
“I do.”
“After all this time?”
“It had to happen eventually.”
Gable’s frown deepens, but they don’t say anything. Travis turns away and eats a piece of the cinnamon bread. He hates it, of course. It’s too sweet for him. Gable has the most damned sweet tooth he’s ever encountered, and he can’t abide nearly as much sugar as they can. Never could.
“If it has to happen,” Gable says at last, “how are we going to be involved?”
Travis arches an eyebrow. “You think we’re going to be involved?”
“We’re the representatives, aren’t we?”
“We are,” he agrees. That’s the way it’s been, since more or less the dawn of time. Heaven and hell both decided they needed a player in this particular game, and so they sent Travis and Gable to Earth to be their most direct influencers. Sure, there are other angels and demons and beings who have yet to make up their minds, but Travis and Gable are the originals. The ones who have been there for everything.
And now, it seems they’ll be there for the end. It’s fitting, and Travis hates it with a passion that he can’t articulate. His only consolation is that Gable feels the same way. He complains about them, because they’re horrible, but there are worse people to live with for four millennia.
Gable shakes their head, looking pensive. Travis can take a hint, so he takes more of the bread and keeps crumbling it in his palm. It’s good bread. Day-old stuff, but it’s probably from some private bakery and not a grocery store. Gable was always the type to spring for the nice bread, even if it’s just for the ducks. Travis has never understood, but he supposes he and Gable are from fairly different worlds.
After a few minutes, they start drumming their fingers on their knee. “So we’re going to be involved in the apocalypse.”
“We’re likely going to be responsible for raising the child.”
Gable shudders. “We’re going to be teaching-”
“As I understand, it’s meant to be a battle of wills. You and I are both going to try and persuade it, and we-”
“We can’t call them an it.”
“It’s not going to be a human.”
“But it’s still going to be a child. An infant.”
“Infants grow up.”
“Most of them don’t grow up to destroy the world,” Gable says. They’re doing that deep-voice thing that they think intimidates Travis, and even though he doesn’t want to admit it, it definitely works. “This kid’s life is going to be hard enough without us treating them like they’re a monster. We need to be kind to it.”
“Kindness is more your side of things than mine,” Travis mutters.
Gable snorts. “Because you know all about the endless kindness of divine intervention? The benevolent and warm machinations of heaven?”
They have a point, although Travis isn’t going to admit that. Heaven might be good, but that doesn’t make it any kinder than hell.
“The point remains,” he says, “that we’re going to have to deal with this.”
“How soon?”
“The child is going to be born within the next year.”
“The next year,” Gable echoes, sounding horrified. Travis understands. A year is nothing. A year is a finger snap, a blink, an instant out of millennia. “Travis, you can’t possibly want this.”
Travis finally turns to search Gable’s face. They’re still staring straight out at the pond, resolute, but he can see the distress at the edges of their mouth. When you know someone for millennia, even through different bodies and different names, some things don’t change. Gable still looks the same when they’re upset as they did in Eden.
“I wasn’t aware that wanting things made much of a difference,” Travis says carefully. “This is all fate, you know that. The kind of fate that we don’t get much of a say in.”
“But we can’t-” Their head drops so they stare down at their boots. “This can’t be how it’s supposed to end.”
“It’s been how it’s supposed to end since-”
“Don’t act like you care about prophecies or the past.” Finally, finally, they turn to glare at Travis, all blazing righteous fury. “This is about the fate of the world, and I don’t want it to be like this.”
“It took you long enough,” Travis says. Gable’s look turns thunderous, but he shrugs at them. “You know I don’t want this either. Of course I don’t. Have you seen Earth? They have all the animals, and Starbucks, and couture.”
“Out of everything,” Gable says, “is that really what you think is worth saving?”
Travis doesn’t answer, because it’s remarkably easy to lie to Gable, and because if he admitted that he would miss humanity they would absolutely never let him live it down. And because there are ears everywhere.
“We need to be careful if we do this,” he says instead, and Gable sits up a little straighter. “We need to be strategic about it. No paper trail, no digital trail.”
“So you have to talk to me in person,” Gable says. They’re deadpan and they are absolutely laughing at Travis, and he resents it with a passion. “Horror of horrors.”
“I can give you my address. And we can figure out a plan.”
“You’re committed to this?”
“To what, stopping the apocalypse?” Travis snorts. “Hardly. I’m committed to sticking around a little while longer, and if this is what we have to do to make that happen, then it’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make.”
Gable tilts their head, and for a horrifying instant, Travis feels like he’s being seen through. Like Gable is reading everything that’s in his mind, and it would be just like them to not tell Travis that they could do that.
“You missed me,” they say after a second, and Travis is so startled that he can’t even respond. “That’s why you brought the bread.”
Travis sniffs. “I brought the bread to get you to listen to me.”
“You said you would bring bread for the ducks, and instead you brought bread for me.”
“Because I knew you would bring bread for the ducks.”
“You are exhausting to spend time around,” Gable says, and Travis is certain that they mean it, and he’s also certain that they don’t really mind. They reach into Travis’s hands and take the cinnamon loaf, replacing it with their stale bread. “You’re lucky I want to stop the end of the world.”
“Lucky,” Travis repeats, as dubiously as possible. “That’s a word for it.”
Gable slants a smile at him. It’s barely a sliver of their full-force smile, and Travis has to avoid rolling his eyes. Damn angels. “I’ll see you around, Travis,” they say as they get to their feet. “More often than you expect.”
“If I wake up tomorrow and you’ve called me a day later,” Travis starts, with no intent to finish the sentence. Gable’s laugh rings out from behind him as he walks away, and he finally smiles to himself. He knew that he could call Gable about this. Not because he likes them, but because he trusts them.
Slowly, Travis continues crumbling the bread in his hand, until he’s leaving behind nothing but bread dust. The ducks are circling him, and he sprinkles the powder down on their heads, just to watch their confusion. “Demonic,” he says aloud, as if someone can hear him. As if he hasn’t just resolved to save the world with an angel. “Positively evil.”
The duck doesn’t look very convinced. Travis is inclined to agree.
