( continues...) attractive too,” interrupts Bernard. “The angel could have his pick of the ladies, if he felt like it. If he weren't busy being an angel, and trying to make the world a better place.”
Manny doesn't seem to have really registered the interruption. “Well, whatever. They end up getting a bit too friendly. You know.”
“Say what you mean.”
“They become... more than friends.”
“What?”
“Look, they get too close, all right?”
“If you're trying to say that they fuck each other's brains out, then just say it, will you?” Bernard yells, suddenly furious. “The angel and the demon have hot monkey sex in the angel's bookshop, and knock down half the shelves, and little flowers spring up out of the floorboards beneath their bare arses, and fluffy little white feathers get caught in the pages of dozens of books, and the angel's best teacup gets smashed into powder, and it's absolutely perfect, just perfect, just the most blissful, filthy, fabulous thing ever...and then they get busted by their bosses and everything goes to hell in a handbasket, literally, and they're both turned into humans and it's all the demon's fault, okay? It's all his fault, with that flickery thing he could do with his tongue and the way that he could twist a person's words around and trick them into wanting something they never thought they could possibly want in the first place.” Bernard is panting and breathless by the time he has finished this little rant. Manny stares at him. “So it wouldn't be the angel's fault if they got turned into...if their bosses punished them by turning them into the opposite of themselves. Like some stupid celestial joke. White hats turning into black hats. Black hats into bianco. Immortal beings turning into stupid little powerless lumps of flesh. If the demon lost all his, his savoir faire and his sneaky manipulative skills and turned into, into some chubby hippy accountant with no spine or dress sense. And if the angel got all, all unwashed and, and weird and bitter and twisted and turned into a bit of a drunken, misanthropic bastard. It would absolutely positively definitely not be the angel's fault. Even a little bit.”
“Oh,” says Manny, softly, and they stare at each other for a very long moment. “Oh.”
“Not my fault,” finishes Bernard, feeling a little like someone has just smashed him over the head with a piano. It's not...it's...he must have read it somewhere. Or seen it on the telly. Or...but...and Manny is looking at him now, a speculative look, a very odd, un-Mannyish look, and Bernard has the strangest sensation in the pit of his stomach.
“I see,” says Manny. He licks his lips, and something about the movement makes Bernard catch his breath and stifle a moan. “Right.” And then Manny is getting up, and striding over to lock the door, and then he's marching purposefully through the maze of unshelved books with his eyes fixed on Bernard and an expression that is, ridiculously, almost predatory. Possessive. Dangerous. Bernard can't remember standing up. He can't remember feeling so terrified in his life. He can't remember...he can remember...he...
The kiss feels like coming home.
The sex feels like – well, the sex feels like two horny men fucking on a very uncomfortable floor, getting splinters in unfortunate places and getting cramp at unfortunate moments, and both wishing they were younger and fitter and that they had a nice, clean, comfortable bed to hand. And maybe fewer spiders, less dust, and no dead mice being slowly mummified beneath the desk. The earth does not move, no feathers get caught in the bookshelves, and the fabric of the universe is not suddenly rent in twain by a vengeful and terrible god.
But it's still great.
“I love you,” says Manny, some time later. “You do realise that, right? This is forever. In sickness and in health, in heaven and on earth, whatever you look like, whatever you do, whoever you are, whoever I am. It's the two of us. Always.”
And Bernard Black, who was once an angel called Aziraphael, who had once guarded the garden of Eden and given away a (continued...)