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“Are we done here?” Gabriel’s voice had broken out of its usual polished calm and Beelzebub couldn’t help but think of other times when he’d shed his conceit - his impeccable breeding falling away in the face of his need. Of him lifting them up, palms under their thighs, fingers gripping their ass, their pants rucked down around their knees as he pressed into them, his eyes wild in the dark alley. They remembered the feeling of cool air against the small of their back as their jacket slid up, leather catching against the rough bricks. The feel of him filling their cunt, sliding slick-smooth, how he breathed hard with exertion, but held them up with ease.
Beelzebub cleared their throat. “Yeah, sure. We’re done.” They honestly couldn’t say just then if they’d covered everything they’d intended to in this meeting, and it wasn’t until he stood up, dismissive and imperious, that they remembered they’d planned to have it out with him about the timeline between their last request to meet and scheduling this conversation.
“Fine. See yourself out.”
He was already halfway down the hallway by the time Beelzebub caught up to him, half-jogging to keep up with his easy stride. “You know what? No. We’re not.”
“We’re not what?” Gabriel asked, with an exasperated sigh.
“We’re not done talking.” As an afterthought, they added, “You prick.”
Beelzebub sucked in a breath as they plunged forward while Gabriel failed to slow down for them. They continued, “We have a contract, remember? And in that contract, you agreed to meet with the union’s designated representative within three business days of a written request to do so, with the exception of holidays, bereavement, or catastrophic illness.” They glanced up and to their left at Gabriel’s face, found his jaw set, his eyes free of the earnest, driving need they’d seen when they separated from each other last: panting, sticky and disheveled. When he walked off into the streetlight’s glow, leaving Beelzebub alone in the dark to catch their breath.
They tried not to care. He was just a fuck. Was only ever going to be a fuck, with an elitist prick like him. “And you don’t look ill to me. Or bereaved.”
“I have met or exceeded all of your terms but one. Why are you harping on this? Don’t you have places to be?”
“Somewhere other than doing my job, you mean? Which is making sure you fucking do yours and hold up your end of the contract.” Beelzebub did have places to be, but hearing him assume made their blood boil.
Everything about Gabriel made them simmer, or seethe, or heat. Beelzebub only narrowly kept their cool when they met together with him in public, thanks to his supercilious air, which pushed Beelzebub to the frosty side of fury.
But several weeks ago, that first time, Beelzebub had been two cocktails into their attempt to burn off the day, with the slow heavy fire of want weighing inside them. They had caught a glimpse of him and found him unexpectedly compelling. Even leaning across the bar to take his drink from the bartender, probably laughing at some stupid joke of his own, he looked massive. They’d never even imagined him laughing, how it would open up his whole body, gone loose with liquor and delight. They should have called a cab right then. Should have gone home and rubbed the sight of him off the backs of their eyelids with their fingers buried inside their cunt.
Beelzebub noticed the sound of Gabriel's and their footsteps had changed, no longer muffled on thick antique rugs. His steady footsteps made a neat clip against the marble, their own faster drumming of booted feet a staccato accompaniment.
They should have called a cab the next time they had seen him at the bar too, before he’d kneeled in the dust, amongst the litter, those fine wool trousers Beelzebub couldn’t dream of affording scraping against the pavement as he held them up, held them open, pressed his face to their cunt, humming in answer to Beelzebub’s muffled moans as he circled their clit, fingers slipped in before he flicked his hot tongue hard against their oversensitive nub. Beelzebub had come with a bitten-off wail. They'd glanced down as their shaking eased, catching something in his eyes that they hadn’t expected and, if they were honest, hadn’t seen very often from anyone. Like he didn’t want to let go, like he would rather stay there in the dirt, in the dark, both their faces aflame with liquor and desire.
Turning down yet another immaculate, high-ceilinged hallway, Gabriel snorted. “Yes, of course. Beelzebub Burns: the defender of the helpless. Sure, tell yourself that. It’s not that you get off on the power trip - it’s for the little people.” He stopped abruptly at a pair of heavy doors, jeweled light glinting through stained glass flowers entwined over the lintel.
Beelzebub pulled up abruptly behind him, relieved to spare themself the embarrassment of actually running into him. “Why the fuck are you stopping?”
“Because this is my destination. I don’t have time to just walk around all day giving you time to yell at me.”
The bastard didn’t even sound annoyed. Or winded. Beelzebub was both. And sick of his pompous smirk in the bargain. “Fine.”
“Fine?”
“Yeah. Fine. I’ll yell at you here. Are we going in?”
Gabriel pinched the bridge of his nose. “I do have things to do, you know?”
“Oh, other than get richer by sitting on your sculpted ass while your investments fuck like rabbits?”
Gabriel raised an eyebrow.
Shit. They hadn’t meant to call it sculpted. It was, though. You could tell. It was the tailoring. And Beelzebub had felt it, hard with tension and with muscle, against their fingers, their nails grabbing at his trousers for purchase as he’d sunk his cock into their mouth only days ago, as they had relished the feel of their lips stretching to take him, had been surprised by his evident restraint. His hips had stuttered once or twice, clearly yearning to thrust but holding back. Beelzebub knew they shouldn't be touched by that.
Now, standing outside the door, Gabriel was staring down intently at them. Fuck. They'd called his ass sculpted. To his face. Beelzebub couldn’t help it. They actually winced.
Gabriel’s mouth quirked, but he didn’t quite smile. “I have to see to the birds. Their caretaker is away. A funeral or something.”
“Oh, you sound so sympathetic.”
“I employ her. It’s not my role to be sympathetic about Aunt Edna or whomever. I am meant to pay her for her expertise and respect her privacy.” He looked down his nose at them, the barest glint of humor behind his superior facade. “You wouldn’t know anything about that, apparently. Respecting one’s privacy.”
His condescending tone washed over them, kindled feelings they knew had to stay bottled. The same feelings that had stirred in them last time. Before they’d stumbled to the alley, wine-flushed and fumbling, desperate for touch, finding lush friction until they’d both cried out, nearly at once. How moments later, half dressed, still feeling unhinged, they'd sucked their breaths back in when someone at the mouth of the alley hollered “Oi! Did you hear that?” Whoever it was had been, mercifully, dragged away by their friend with a tired complaint.
Beelzebub tried to find their way back to solid ground. “Yeah, sure. You’re an expert on respecting people. You respected the hell out of your workers - so much so that they had to organize, had to reach out to my NGO to help because you made it so difficult.”
Gabriel grimaced, stepped to the side, and pulled open the door. He stepped back and just stood there, his arm held out in an ushering gesture.
“What are you waiting for?”
“Well, you’re not leaving. So you might as well come in. But keep your voice down? Loud sounds upset them.” Beelzebub stared at him, unmoving, and he shrugged, dropped his arm, turned and walked into what Beelzebub could see was a room full of… plants?
Feeling resentful about his cavalier dismissal, Beelzebub paused, wanting to leave him, to leave his stupid fancy fucking door hanging open, to know he’d turn and see them gone, maybe even call out for them and hear nothing in response.
Beelzebub walked through the door, closed it behind them. The humidity hit them first. The air outside was dry and bitter, and even indoors their nose itched, even stung. They absorbed the smell of growing things. The scent of turned earth and the feel of moisture on their skin, in their lungs, felt like rolling into bed at the end of a long day - a soft landing for their senses. They thought they heard the clucking and twittering of birds, but who kept birds in a greenhouse?
And oh, the light. The wan light of the winter sun gleamed in through the glass of the conservatory, softly reflecting off the glossy, green-leaved plants that filled the space, some reaching almost to the roof’s peak, others trailing over stone planters, or out of enormous terra cotta urns that sat at the edge of a fountain, trickling softly. They took it in, stunned into absorbing it all before they realized that this beautiful thing was a part of what Gabriel stood for. Why they had to fight for the people his company used - the ones whose labor paid dividends that Gabriel used to keep this palatial home running smoothly.
And where was Gabriel, anyway? They called out, “Gabriel?” They’d meant to shout, to bark, but in this space where they were starting to feel warm all the way down to their toes for the first time all day, it came out as a question. Sharp, but not harsh.
Beelzebub didn’t know what it was about Gabriel. Around him, they always felt like a cat who’d had their fur brushed the wrong way. Or just the right way. Never in between. And they reveled in the biting, in the hissing, as much as they did the purr. Even if they would never admit it.
Gabriel called, voice gentler. “So you decided to stay? I’m over here, Beelzebub.”
They hadn’t heard him so tender-voiced since their first time: in the dark, in the chill, up against the wall of the bar, a flurry of fumbling fingers and bitten-off moans. After, he had hugged Beelzebub to him briefly, asking them, “You OK?” They’d made it clear his concern was neither needed nor welcome, and he hadn't made the mistake of holding them since then. They kept wishing he'd fuck it up again, so they could bury themself in his arms.
They followed the sound of Gabriel’s voice. With each step, Beelzebub felt more like they’d walked into a different country, or even a different world: one that was succulent, verdant, softer. As if they had gone back to some earlier time, when ferns and palms still lived here in this grim, winter-locked nation. They found Gabriel behind a partition composed of several plants covered in large, deep green, broad leaves. He was unlatching a door into a screened in enclosure.
He turned his head at Beelzebub’s footsteps. "If you come in, you can't yell. They don't like it."
"Who is they?"
"The birds, of course. Have you even been listening? You're usually sharper than this."
"Shove it."
"Well, do you promise?"
"To what?"
"Not to yell. Really, if you'd been like this during negotiations, think of the poor workers."
The bastard had the gall to joke about it. Of course he did. "Yes. Fine."
"Yes, what?"
Was he teasing them? Or just being a prick? Not fully intending to, Beelzebub said, "Yes, I promise."
His lips broadened into a full smile, the first time they'd seen it sober. Then he said, "Good."
He sounded so pleased, so smug, and something resonated inside them in response. Gabriel held the door for Beelzebub, who slid in past him, acutely aware of his proximity.
He shut the door behind them and at first Beelzebub couldn't see how the space was any different, but then Gabriel crooned, only a step behind them, "Where are you, my beauties?"
Their insides clenched. Focus, Beelzebub. Focus.
An enormous bird poked its head out from behind a plant pot, and another, and a few utterly ridiculous specimens followed.
"Gabriel," they said, "are those chickens? Do you actually have… very weird looking chickens in here?"
"Rare chickens," he corrected smoothly, “among other species. Aren't you all beautiful today, mm?" He opened a latched cupboard, birds trailing in his wake. "Let's get you something to eat," he said, and with a stream of soothing, soft-voiced nonsense, he set out food, cleared water bowls of debris, scratched at one bird’s neck, its eyes closing in evident delight. "Oh yes, you're so lovely," he purred at the stupid bird.
If Beelzebub was feeling jealous of a bird then they really were in trouble. Time to make their point and get out of here.
But then they felt a gentle tap on the toe of their boot. One of the larger birds was nosing at their toe.
Beelzebub said, "Ah. Hello?" It cocked its head to the side, curiously, and Beelzebub bent, held their hand out.
From several paces away, they heard Gabriel say, “Wait! Not Carmine!”
But it was too late. Beelzebub had already reached out their hand. The peahen’s imperious, curious scowl had appealed to Beelzebub, and it pecked at their incoming hand, hard. Beelzebub pulled back with a yelp. "Fuck!"
"Honestly, Beelzebub. I told you."
They rested the finger in the palm of their other hand to examine it, saw blood welling up. They'd never liked blood. Bit of a problem given how much they picked fights. They swayed a little, and then Gabriel's own hand had closed carefully around their wrist, pulling their hand to rest in his own palm.
He tsked. "We're going to have to clean this up."
"It's just a scratch."
"From a bird. They have all kinds of germs that don't exactly get along with human immune systems. Trust me, you're not going to want to leave that until you get home."
It was only a little blood, making them a little woozy. It was only the feel of their knuckles nestled against his palm and the way the warm, moist air made them feel loose-limbed, and the way their heart pounded to have his shadow fall gently over them.
So they let him usher them to a counter set over top of cabinets that presumably held whatever these stupid birds needed. Beelzebub waited with their hand resting once again upon their own, pushing down the feeling rising in their throat, while he washed his hands, collected a small bottle of disinfectant, a band aid.
He turned back to face them, held out his hand. "Give it here."
They reached out, rested the back of their hand against his.
"This will sting a bit."
It did, and they cursed, and he laughed. "Like a sailor, over such a little thing." Efficiently, he applied ointment, wrapped a bandage neatly around the finger, smoothing the sticky edges to seal around their finger.
"If you'd listened to me, this wouldn't have happened, you know."
The critique jolted them out of the ease they'd been sinking into. They snapped, snatching their hand back. "If I'd listened? What about you? You could have listened to me. I wouldn't even be here if you'd listened to your employees, the ones paying for all this off their own labor--"
"--All this? This is paid for by investments from before I was born. And these birds are part of a breeding program for rare species. Not that you care. Not that you asked. No. Just blame me for being born into this family."
"Oh, sure. The noble aristocrat. The guillotines are gone, you can put away the long suffering act. If you didn't need the money, then what excuse did you have to treat them that way? To put them at risk, to incentivize longer shifts?" Beelzebub stepped up to him, hating that they had to crane their neck to look into his eyes.
"I didn't know, ok, I didn't know-"
"No. Not ok, you fucking prick. It's your responsibility. They're your responsibility. Your moral obligation. You profit: they're your responsibility. Not to swan around here playing Cinderella with--"
"--Quiet, Beelzebub, the birds. You promised."
And then he shushed them. Actually fucking shushed them.
Their voice rose even higher. "Until Dean lost a finger, had you even been reading the incident reports? Did you even fucking care?" They heard birds starting to squawk in protest, raising their own discordant voices.
He was so close, so close they could reach out and grab his lapels. No. No. That's not what they were doing here. They scraped in a breath. "Three fingers, Gabriel. He's not getting those back, is never going to be able to have full use of his hand again. And it’s because of your negligence, your failure to take resp--"
"--Shut it, Beelzebub. Shut up!"
Rage flared in them, they reached out to push him, but he was too fast, grabbing their wrists, pressing them into his chest, pulling them closer.
He kept his voice low, when Beelzebub hadn’t, but the intensity of it was more shocking than if he was shouting. "You're right. You're right about me, and you're right about my duty. I failed. I should have known better, should have taken better care." He was breathing hard, they could feel it in how their palms rose and fell on this broad chest. "You were right about the workers, right about how my power blinded me, right to tell me not to hold you, right every time you said we shouldn't speak again except for work, shouldn't touch each other at that fucking bar. Shouldn't have been so fucking stupid, because now I have these…" he trailed off.
Something in Beelzebub rose above their fury to ask, whisper-hoarse, "These what?"
He closed his eyes, kept their hands pressed against his chest, and groaned.
"These ‘what,’ Gabriel?"
"These feelings, Beelzebub. I don't even know if you--"
Beelzebub pulled their hands out of his grasp, reached up to take hold of his lapels, pulled him down, his lips against their own, and took his bottom lip into theirs. He moaned, wrapped arms around them, licked into them, pressing and biting, the sense of fullness evoking Beelzebub's own answering sound, pushed back against them by Gabriel's mouth. They felt his hands slide down along the curve of their back to cup their bottom, felt their insides turn molten under his touch, under the relentless invasion of his tongue.
Suddenly in midair, Beelzebub cursed briefly, only for Gabriel to say, “Shh, I’ve got you,” as they automatically wrapped their legs around his waist. In three strides, he paused, and Beelzebub heard him push several small objects out of the way, before setting Beelzebub down on the counter, their hips spread wide, him settled in between their thighs. He leaned in to kiss them in earnest and Beelzebub felt his cock through his trousers, pressing up against them, sending a thrill through their belly, feeling heat rush between their thighs, where they had already started to throb in time with their heartbeat. He pulled back a moment, and they drew in a ragged breath to object, but then he’d cupped the outline of their cunt in his whole hand and the air in Beelzebub's lungs rushed out again in a breathy moan.
Gabriel said, “Fuck, I could listen to that all day.” He tugged at the waistband of Beelzebub’s trousers, close to the button. His knuckles brushed against their belly, and their insides quivered. He smiled, blinking slowly, and leaned into their ear with a gravelly whisper. “Let’s get these off, shall we?”
Beelzebub moved their hands to undo their button, and fumbled. When did their hands start shaking? Beelzebub was not a hands-get-shaky person. They were a stand-tall-at-the-microphone person, a born leader, an organizer, but Gabriel dropped his cultured tones and touched them with his soft, deft, simply enormous hands and they wanted to dissolve into him.
He must have noticed them fumbling because his hands were nudging theirs away, unbuttoning, unzipping, and sliding his palm down past the waistband of their pants to touch them, dipping into where they were already growing slick with want. His fingers parted their folds, dragged along either side of their clit, while they fisted his lapels. Beelzebub loosed a moan, and his free hand came up over their mouth.
They opened eyes that had fluttered closed at his touch, looked up at him for explanation as he said “You promised to keep quiet here.” But he kept on stroking their cunt, kept his hand on their mouth as they moaned into it, their breath catching, wanting to find it offensive, but their desire only grew.
“We’re not in an alley, you know. The staff might hear.” His thumb almost reached their ear, his fingers tucked around their whole cheek, under a stray lock of hair that had fallen out of place.
With one hand easily covering half their face, his other on their cunt, his hips keeping their thighs wide, they felt entirely held by him, entirely at his mercy. And being here, sober, with daylight streaming in, they couldn’t pretend any longer what they wanted, who they wanted - that to see his eyes dark and heavy with lust as their moans were stifled against his palm was what they craved every time they flung coarse insults at him and he replied with his disdainful, immaculate enunciation.
He crooned, breath catching a little, “You’re so wet for me. Your pants are soaked. I know you didn’t get this wet just this minute. I’ve barely touched you.” He dragged his thumb to just graze over their already swollen clit, pulling a whimper out of them to collect in the hollow of his hand. “So slick for me. We’ve barely even kissed. I bet you’ve been thinking about me this whole time, about having me. In my office, maybe?” And he leaned his head down, pulled his hand from Beelzebub's lips and replaced it with his mouth, their moans escaping into it as he cradled the base of their skull, weaving fingers in between their hair. His kiss was a hungry thing - but a slow devouring, not the hasty, frenzied joining that they’d learned from him outside the bar.
He leaned away, Beelzebub following him for a moment, neck reaching until they heard his soft huff of a laugh.
“Greedy, mm?” He nipped their ear, asked “What is it you need, my little hellion?”
Beelzebub’s breaths were coming shallow and fast, their thoughts as liquid, as uncontainable as the heat welling up within them. They rocked their hips, a substitute for words that wouldn’t come. He’d called them “little,” which nobody did without consequences, but the ache inside them was so much louder than the objections in their faraway thoughts.
His voice dropped into a growl that spilled into their ear and all the way down the length of their spine, Gabriel asked, “Do you need me to fuck you?”
Beelzebub loosed a desperate sound, cut off when Gabriel’s hand returned to their mouth. And oh, fuck, they wanted that too. Wanted to be encompassed by his hands, wanted to have him buried inside them, to yield to the feelings growing within them.
They wanted to have him, to be had by him, somewhere without strange smells, without trash and rough bricks and interrupting drunks. A delirious vision rose in Beelzebub's mind: laying on a bed of leaves in the humid conservatory, viridian light painting both of their exposed skin, sweat shining like emeralds.
But their need to be filled up by Gabriel broke through the static that had displaced their thoughts. “Yes, yes, yes,” Beelzebub hissed against his hand, the last “s” stretching out into an incoherent buzz as his hand found an angle to slip two fingers inside them.
Beelzebub rocked forward on the table, would have tipped off if it weren't for Gabriel's steadying hand, followed by a chuckle that bubbled up from deep in his throat, the satisfied superiority of it unhinging them further.
“Remember to stay quiet for me or I'll have to keep you quiet myself, mm?”
With every movement, his fingers slid deeper, reached further, stretching them open. Beelzebub braced their hands behind them on the counter and consciously sucked back moans into soft grunts, anxious for Gabriel to keep going, the movement of his fingers setting nerve endings alight all through them.
“Oh you do need it, don't you?" he crooned. "Need me inside you, hmmm? Maybe right here?" With that question, he curled both fingers upwards. Beelzebub hadn’t noticed his other hand come to press just above the thatch of hair at the crux of their thighs, until they felt the exquisite pressure set their nerves on fire, felt their muscles bear down on his fingers. They wrestled their urge to cry out into a ragged sob.
“That’s it, that’s it,” he said, “just like that, just like that, fuck.” And even with the sensation building to a peak underneath his persistent fingers, Beelzebub realized it was the same fond voice he’d used on his ridiculous birds. He slid an arm around their arching back, pulled them forward onto his hand, the unexpected shift of his fingers within them scraping out a whine. But it wasn’t enough. It wasn’t enough.
Their breaths rattled out of them, rasping, and they gasped, “Gabriel,” a plea more than anything. He pressed harder, dragging his fingers along that tender pad of flesh that sang with sensation, but they needed, needed… “Please,” Beelzebub asked. “Please. It’s not enough.”
Gabriel, a teasing note in his voice, still curling his fingers inside them in an even rhythm, as if entirely unaffected by all this, asked “Another finger, then?”
It was already too much, so much, and still not what they needed, but they couldn’t make the words form. Only to implore him, again, “Please, Gabriel, Please.”
Hand on their back, he tugged them forward just as he leaned in and they gasped as he breathed across their ear, “Tell me what you need. Only use your words and I’ll do it. You’re usually so clever. So articulate.”
They burned at the request, with the sense of exposure in the light, open room, and said with a voice that came from some other part of their mind, “I need you to fuck me,” before sliding directly into a guttural moan as he dragged his fingers up once more.
He stopped moving altogether. “I thought you agreed to be quiet, mm?” and they keened, wild for something, for anything more than the feeling of his fingers stilled inside them, but he was pulling out, pulling away, and Beelzebub shook with the loss of it. Birds objected loudly in the background, but Beelzebub barely registered them.
Panting, they looked up at Gabriel's face, saw his too-knowing grin--a grin that said he knew exactly what they needed, exactly what they wanted, and planned to give them exactly that. He undid his trousers, slid his cock out of his briefs, and for a moment it was all Beelzebub could see. He withdrew something from his pocket and Beelzebub's gaze followed it as he tore it open, smiling slyly while he slid the condom over his cock.
He had seen the angle of their gaze, of course he had, and Gabriel's smile grew. "This is what you need, isn't it?"
Broken sounds poured out of Beelzebub, transforming in their mouth to begging, as if the word "please" lived ready on their tongue, free to tumble out without any conscious impulse.
He gripped their hips, and a too-long moment later, they felt him press against their slit, parting them, the stretch as they took him in, the feel of him filling them, riding the edge of pain. Beelzebub groaned. "Fuck, yes, please, yes."
Gabriel sounded as if he too was coming undone. "Oh, Beelzebub," he said, as he started to ease into them. Beelzebub threw their head back, and through half-lidded eyes saw light filtering down through a canopy of green, of trees reaching towards the light above.
Beelzebub's thoughts grew ever wilder, more hysterical, as he thrust into them. They felt as if they would break in two with the feel of Gabriel opening them up, would break entirely if he stopped. He shifted their hips with his hands until he was seated fully inside them.
"Fuck, Gabriel, fuck," they said, breathing in panting gasps between each word.
"Yes, Beelzebub, yes, you're so…" he said, and he moaned.
Beelzebub felt a prickle of sweat break out, rising in response to their exertion, to the humid, lush air, to the feel of Gabriel pushing into the core of them in an easy rhythm. They moaned, full-throated, a lewd, unmistakable sound.
Beelzebub pieced words together, only to lose them again, managed only to say, "More, more, aaah!" Gabriel responded, sped up, half lifted them off the counter for a better angle. Distantly, they heard the clamor of the aviary increasing in pitch as Beelzebub's own feelings approached a breaking point.
Gabriel uttered their name, stuttering in time with the movement of his hips, and Beelzebub's eyes snapped open to see him, sweat beading on his temple. His eyes held a look of fierce concentration, as if he was barely keeping himself together.
He repeated, "Beelzebub," seeking their attention. He asked "Are you--Ah! Are you ready?"
And hearing his voice break, his smooth exterior cracking, realizing it was them them them that had cracked it, Beelzebub cried out, a wordless affirmation. Their world shrunk to the feeling of him filling them, sunk into the sense that he filled more than their cunt, had slid into some locked up part of them without their knowing. They gave into it, their whole body arching, shuddering with release.
Gabriel cried, "Bee..aaah!"and shook with the force of his own climax. He slumped forward, one hand pressed flat to the counter along Beelzebub’s thigh, the other still wrapped around their hip.
Leaned into Gabriel's chest, breathing hard, the world came back to them, luminous and alive: the sounds of the aviary, the green-glowing light, the pulse of both their heartbeats, the sensation of fullness slipping away. Enfolded in Gabriel's arms, Beelzebub felt somehow more unhinged than they had during their frenzied release. They sucked in a quick, anxious breath and Gabriel pulled away, pulled out. Beelzebub saw him piece himself together, sliding his usual careful expression into place, opening his mouth to speak.
Beelzebub did not want to hear whatever he was going to say. "Wait," they said, and reached for him, grazing along his forearm to curl fingers around his elbow, nudging him back towards them.
Hoarsely, Gabriel said, "But you said--"
"I don't give a shit what I said," Beelzebub replied, but kept their hand at his elbow, a persistent tug. Beelzebub willed themself to stay open, to stay with him, to ask for this.
He wrapped an arm around them, and they melted into his embrace, as he brought his other hand up to cup the curve of their head in his hand.
Around them drifted the heady scent of exotic flowers, the earthy tang of humus, as the soft light sparkled with the shifts of clouds and leaves. Their breath slowed, lulled by each other's touch. The chorus of the aviary subsided.
Gabriel bent his head to kiss the crown of Beelzebub's head.
And they let him.