Due to the fact that many people told me the last chapter focused more on thoughts than actions, this one focuses more on some rather unexpected actions. Or maybe they are expected. Either way, I do not regret the blatant blanket trick. And I love S. Tori and MooseDeEvita to death.

Warning: Shameless drinking and implied meaningless sex follows.

The sunlight that had lit their path for the former length of their journey disappeared within a few miles more, not to shine again so far from the Kingdom of Angels. It was a sure sign that they were getting ever closer to the underworld and the darkness that seemed to seep from every corner, and Bacchius, feeling old memories come back, shivered. Although they were still roughly two days away from the border between the angel kingdom and the underworld, the darkness was so much stronger than the light, thick gray clouds easily blocking out the color of the midday skies. Being so close to the underworld struck fear into the heart of every angel who had ever fought against a hell creature, and Bacchius was certainly no different, his old fears causing him to freeze in place when he found himself suddenly surrounded by shadows. Even the knowledge that somewhere in the emptiness of the underworld lived the light that was Aureus did nothing to warm him, and not for the first time he wondered what sort of love could have compelled an angel, a creature of light, to want to reside in such a clammy, cold world. Bacchius would liked to have thought that Aureus had merely been infatuated, but when faced with the harsh reality of the conditions he had chose, Bacchius had to face the facts. Aureus was in love, with a devil, and there was no changing that as long Aureus’ will stayed as strong as it had ever been.

With no warning or explanation, Bacchius sat down, resting on a strangely multicolored rock that only served to better emphasize the differences between worlds. Dark versus light, devil versus angel, clouds versus sunlight…it put him in an oddly reflective mood, and, for the first time, he wondered if there had ever been any truth in the rumors of the underworld being completely evil. Some devils were horrible, of course, the ones they had fought in the war to be specific, but there must have been some good worth saving that Aureus had seen while down here. There must have been. It was a reminder that Bacchius, as a generally suspicious person, would have to keep an open mind while he was there, if only to keep him from attacking everyone within reach. Aureus would appreciate the gesture, because, in a strange way, the devils Bacchius loathed so much were probably considered his friend’s new subjects.

"Are you ready to stop for the night, zarrah?" Aiss asked coolly from behind him, and Bacchius was pulled out of his thoughts with a brief, sudden smile. If there was ever a time when he needed to learn to be ‘open-minded,’ it was where Aiss was concerned. The demon was confusing and annoying as all hell, but, despite that, Bacchius felt a strange liking for him. A companionship of sorts, one might say, between people whose goals happened to mesh together.

"Nah. It’s not night right now, probably just barely afternoon, actually." He turned to look at Aiss, and found that the man had already set up a sort of mini-camp while he had been lost in his thoughts. Bacchius wondered if maybe Aiss hadn’t heard him, or if he simply didn’t care.

"I said-"

"I think we should stop now," Aiss said calmly, straightening what must have been some form of a tent, although Bacchius had no idea where it had come from. Aiss’ never-ending bag of supplies, no doubt.

"Huh? Why?" Bacchius questioned as he stood, stretching the muscles that protested from his continued occupation of a less-than-comfortable stone.

He had barely gotten the words out of his mouth when he heard it, a clap of thunder that sounded far too close for comfort, followed by a sudden attack of stinging raindrops. So this was what Aiss had meant. Damn demon: never mind Bacchius liking him. Bacchius despised know-it-alls, and Aiss was undoubtedly the smuggest egghead he had ever met.

Bacchius jumped as the first wave of cold water hit him, drenching him instantly while he scowled and shook his fist at the sky.

"What the hell? Five years with virtually no water, and then it rains twice in two days, when I’m outside? Who’s idea of a joke is this?"

Bacchius couldn’t hear anything over the pounding of the rain, but he could have sworn Aiss was snickering at him and his annoyance from the warm safety of the little tent. He scowled at the dark canvas, tempted like nothing else to keep walking, stopped only by the fact that he didn’t know where he was going and that he absolutely refused to get hypothermia simply to spite Aiss. As it was, Bacchius had already started sneezing, and he dove for the shelter of the tent, disappointed to find it was only a slight relief to be out of the rain when his clothes and hair were already soaked. Aiss, on the other hand, was perfectly dry, having managed to make it inside before the rain hit at all, and he looking, if possible, more superior than ever. Bacchius glared at him, daring him to say something, but Aiss was blissfully silent, doing nothing more than toss him a blanket and turn his back on him while Bacchius stripped and tossed his sopping wet clothes, his only clothes dammit, into a corner of the tent. Bacchius wasn’t really sure why Aiss had shown him the courtesy of privacy, since it was a small tent and turning was somewhat of a hassle, and he could only decide that it was one of Aiss’ habits. It was curious: did that mean that Aiss could get…embarrassed? It was something to think about, because Bacchius was, in all honesty, running out of things to think about that weren’t depressing, and Aiss just happened to be an interesting subject…

Bacchius shook his head and wrapped the blanket around himself, flicking water from his hair as he cleared that thought from his mind, sensing that it would only lead to trouble. Nope, never mind, Aiss wasn’t interesting, he just happened to be there and on his thoughts because Bacchius had nothing else to think about. Yes, that was exactly it. Or at least he could convince himself of that until he could get the hell away from Aiss and all his oddities. A few days was all that was left, after all, and Bacchius, although he had never been truly good at keeping his mind off things, could manage a few days. It wasn’t like Aiss was that interesting.

Bacchius sighed, and pulled the corners of the blanket closer around himself while Aiss sifted through his bag, seemingly searching for something, before pulling out a highly decorated flask that Bacchius had never seen before and removing the cap. Bacchius watched in slight amusement and curiosity as Aiss sloshed the liquid inside with a twirl of his wrist before taking a sip. When he did nothing but put the cap back on the container and replace it in his bag without so much as a smile, Bacchius couldn’t help but question:

"Isn’t it any good?"

Aiss tilted his head, seeming curious as to why Bacchius would bother to ask something like that.

"Of course. I wouldn’t drink it if it wasn’t."

Bacchius shook his head, smiling wryly. He should have expected such an answer from Aiss: pure, simplified logic was the demon’s only influence, it seemed. Such knowledge made him appear so easy to predict, to understand…but still Aiss always seemed to surprise him.

"Have you ever had whiskey before, zarrah?"

Bacchius looked up to find Aiss considering him with the same stare in his snake eyes one might have when observing the antics of a particularly amusing animal. A kitten, perhaps. Bacchius had no idea what he had done to deserve such a stare, but it made him feel strangely like a little boy again. Back before he had become the bitter, cynical smartass he was today.

"I don’t even know what it is."

Aiss removed the flask once more, and sloshed it again before offering it to him with nothing other than a warning.

"Don’t chug: sip slowly, or you’ll regret it."

Bacchius accepted the container with a nod of thanks, and sniffed at the liquid cautiously. Whiskey…what the hell: it’s worth a try.

Bacchius didn’t sip, an error that he realized as soon as he felt the burn of the drink down his throat. He coughed, realizing, somewhat late, that ‘whiskey’ happened to be a form of alcohol, much stronger than those types he had had before (which was pretty much limited to wine and champagne, really.)

Bacchius looked at the silver flask again, and took a considering sip, noting that the ‘whiskey,’ when sipped, wasn’t half bad at all. He deliberately ignored the buzzing of his thoughts that warned against drinking such a clearly strong alcoholic beverage after he’d been drinking wine all day. Aiss had some strong fondness for alcohol, it seemed, but it didn’t appear to be effecting him much at all. Bacchius, on the other hand, was beginning to feel strangely lightheaded. Determined to keep trouble at bay (although what sort of trouble he really couldn’t guess) he pushed the flask back at Aiss.

Aiss handed the flask back with a barely noticeable smile.

"Keep it. I’ll get another the next time I’m in Ireland."

Bacchius sighed, and nodded, accepting the gift with just a little enthusiasm and a whispered ‘thank you.’ Well, so much for that plan.

Bacchius pulled the blanket around him tighter, just listening to the sound of raindrops hit the canvas, noticing that not a single drop of water entered the tent, the seam perfectly sealed with the kind of quality work he would expect of Aiss. He closed his eyes, breathed in and out, and thought of how much he wished he knew. Did Aiss have any hobbies, any talents other than fighting? Was Aiss a content man, willing to continue on with his life without change? For that matter, was Aureus happy? Who was this devil Aureus loved anyway? Mysteries seemed to surround Bacchius whichever way he turned, and it was starting to make him tired in a way he hadn’t been for many, many years.

So he slept. Not much, and not very deeply, but he slept the sleep of the elderly, those whose souls were weary and worn by stress, with neither dreams to comfort nor even a true sort of peace. When he woke up, he was more fatigued than before, but at least he was calmer and, with the addition of a long sip of whiskey, he even relaxed slightly.

It was darker than when he had originally drifted off to sleep, he noticed, meaning that sometime during his absence from reality it had turned into true night, and the rain that had pounded their shelter before had ceased as well. Bacchius sighed. Thanks to the rain and his little nap, they had lost traveling time, and would arrive even later than Bacchius had reluctantly accepted. It put him in a somewhat foul mood, a mood only worsened by the alcohol in his system. When Aiss asked if he had finally awakened, Bacchius couldn’t help but snap out his answer.

"Yes, I’m awake, no thanks to you. Why didn’t you tell me the rain had stopped? We’ve lost valuable time."

"You needed to rest. If you had tried to keep going, you would have collapsed and I would have had to carry you. You are much too heavy for me to carry, zarrah."

Bacchius glared at him, and moved to smack him upside the head for stating that fact like an insult, hinting that, although Aiss was quite a bit taller, due to his general leanness, chances were he weighed less. Bacchius’ somewhat excessive intended movements (which were not going to get the best results in any case and so it was probably for the best that they didn‘t come into effect) were stopped in the mid-smack when he caught his forgotten blanket underneath his knees, and the fact that he fell face forward and nearly left his blanket behind as a result…despite the fact that Aiss was very nearly within arm’s reach. He froze, realizing abruptly that he still had nothing on underneath the blanket, and color flooded his cheeks before he gathered his wits enough to pull it back up. This embarrassing ordeal was only made worse by the fact that Aiss had watched the entire spectacle with a smile on his face, a smile which was gone by the time Bacchius had managed to right himself. Instead, Aiss had a look on his face that Bacchius could only describe as…stunned. Stunned and interested. Bacchius’ cheeks turned cherry red, the first time he had blushed since he was a teenager, and heaven knew he didn‘t want to remember that event.

"So I’m clumsy sometimes. Stop staring," Bacchius commanded, his face still flaming and his hands clutching the blanket like a lifeline.

"…You’re really very attractive. I’m surprised." Aiss said, shrugging as if he had not just made an entirely backhanded compliment. Bacchius’ embarrassment turned into much more convenient irritation.

"And what is that supposed to mean?" Bacchius’ voice was deadly, but Aiss bravely, or stupidly, ignored the warning.

"Simply that I’ve never found anyone even remotely attractive before in my life."

Bacchius wasn’t sure he entirely believed him, but it was a smooth way to settle Bacchius’ ruffled feathers, and it had the nice benefit of putting his embarrassment into the furthest reaches of his mind…only to be replaced with a discomfiture of an entirely different kind, the kind that impeded his speech in the worst way. Such a statement demanded saying ‘thank you’ or something similar, but all Bacchius could even think to say was something along the lines of I’m not as attractive as you are, you idiot and Bacchius absolutely refused to say something like that, to Aiss of all people.

After stuttering for a few hopeless moments, he simply gave up on any kind of reply and made a noise like an accepting grunt before sipping his drink.

"Speechless, zarrah? Surely that wasn’t such an odd statement…unless angels only fall into infatuation once. Humans tend to become infatuated multiple times, and I am not sure whether the same applies to angels."

"I’m not really sure either," Bacchius said with a sigh, wanting to ignore the other implication of that statement, and finding he couldn’t. "But I severely doubt that you are by any means ‘infatuated’ where I’m concerned. You seem remarkably solid on that count." Not to mention frozen, unapproachable, annoying…

"You’re right in a normal sense, of course, but there is a demon equivalent."

Bacchius mulled that over, even after Aiss slipped out the tent opening to supposedly search for dry wood. Bacchius, paranoid ever sense the explosion of the mine, had expressed his concern over lighting a fire when the council was out looking for them. Aiss had simply shot him a look that said that someone would have to be foolish to attack when Aiss was noticeably still awake, and the angel had left it at that, knowing that it was probably true. Bacchius, if he was ever foolish enough to attack Aiss in the first place, certainly wouldn’t, after all, because it would be as good as putting a bull‘s eye on your chest. But then again, neither Stallos nor Henrita had ever been known for their intelligence.

By the time Bacchius bothered to come out of the tent, his clothes were dry for the most part, and he supposed that sitting by a fire (which Aiss had miraculously gotten started, despite having only wet materials to work with) would only help. When he came out, however, he was somewhat surprised to see Aiss bent over the fire, practically in the fire, and he was using his hands to shift something around in the sort of heat that would have burned (or at least bothered) anyone else. Bacchius’ reaction, however, shocked him even more.

"Are you insane?" Bacchius exclaimed, yanking him backwards and scanning for burn marks. He must have surprised Aiss, if only slightly, because he dropped what he had been holding that required such close contact with the fire. A spitted, half cooked rabbit was lying on the ground, and Bacchius calmed somewhat, unreasonably relieved, as Aiss picked it up and dusted it off without bothering to answer.

"Is something the matter, zarrah?" Aiss asked mildly, resetting the rabbit on its stand.

"Not at all." Bacchius cleared his throat, both ashamed and shocked at his fast, almost panicked reaction. A one-time occurrence…that had to be it.

"Did we need a rabbit? I mean, don’t we already have food?"

"Not fresh. Most species tend to need fresh food, else they get sick. It is my duty to make sure you stay healthy, zarrah, as you are my Resistor."

Bacchius sighed, and sat down heavily on the ground. Again with the Resistor, and the duty which seemed to include protecting him, traveling with him, and feeding him. Bacchius was fairly convinced that there would come a time when he would sell half his soul to figure out what a Resistor was, just as he was convinced that Aiss would probably find someway around telling him if he asked. Aiss was cunning that way, seeming able to avoid revealing any real information…but maybe something minor would not be too big of a sacrifice to whatever secretive habit he had?

"By the way, what on earth does ‘zarrah’ mean? You’ve called me that almost every time I’ve spoken to you."

Aiss looked at him out of the corner of his eye, a brief glance that Bacchius couldn’t be certain had happened at all, and answered in that careful way, making Bacchius sigh a second time.

"It is merely a term. Most angels do not suit their names, and so I give them another one. Stallos’ term, for example, is zatk."

"And what does that mean?"

"The direct translation is somewhere along the lines of ‘pig,’ I believe. Not a pleasant man, dear Stallos."

"No," Bacchius said with a slight smirk at the understatement and the way Aiss had once again avoided his question. "That he is not."

And amazing talent, that was what Aiss had, to answer every question but not say anything useful. It was clearly a habit, a spy habit or an assassin habit, one that Bacchius himself had never gotten the hang of, either in this war or the ones before. But then, as Aureus had always told him, blunt honesty was one of his best qualities.

Bacchius closed his eyes against the wave of sadness that came with thinking about Aureus, and stood quicker than was wise. At the sudden onslaught of dizziness, he nearly fell over again, stumbling as he made his way back to the tent to retrieve the flask that he had left inside. Not being very fond of alcohol, Bacchius had never thought he’d be in this situation. However, there was no denying the facts.

Right then, he needed a good, strong drink.

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There was only so much time a day when Bacchius could think freely about Aureus, and, due mostly to the rebellion and the responsibilities that came with being a (somewhat reluctant) leader, he hadn’t had much time recently. Now, however, thanks to this trip and the inevitable destination, Bacchius found himself with more time than he wanted to think about all that he had never had and lost. Would things have been different if Bacchius had told Aureus that he loved him, at a time years before the devil had ever entered the blonde’s life? Somehow Bacchius doubted it; after all, you could hardly will someone to love you, and it was not something that could be controlled, especially not under the circumstances of war.

Bacchius had not heard the grim details about the devils’ assault on the Kingdom, but he had seen the remains, had given each and every one who fought and died a decent burial and a strong farewell after the survivors had returned from the pass. Bacchius had felt guilty like never before afterwards, knowing that he could have stayed and died as well, would have been glad to fight for his people, but also accepting the fact that he was no warrior, no scholar, barely even a decent leader. He had understood why Aureus had sent him away, and he had prayed for his friend’s safety every moment he could spare, only to have his prayers answered in the saddest of ways. Aureus was alive…and in love. It was enough, Bacchius thought wryly, to get a man drinking.

As if to emphasize the thought, Bacchius took another swig of his whiskey, a flavor that he found he was quite fond of when he started thinking about Aureus. He had been drinking from the flask all throughout their dinner of rabbit and dark bread, and he would freely admit that the alcohol was having exactly the effect he wanted, of dimming his mind and blurring his problems. While normally the mass quantities of drink would have made him sick, now it was a welcome feeling.

Of course, there were some side effects. He found himself laughing at random things, slurring his words, and he didn’t attempt to stand after the first time he fell on his ass. All in all, it wasn’t too bad…except for one thing that Bacchius noticed too late to stop, too late to even comprehend that it needed to stop.

Aiss, who had been attractive enough really, was starting to look like sex-on-legs.

It was a realization that didn’t exactly please Bacchius and, attempting to forestall any sort of action on his part, he took another drink. Not the wisest of courses, to be sure, and it did little more than momentarily distract him by blocking his view with gleaming silver. Unfortunately, when he lowered the then empty flask, Aiss was still there, reading silently, and looking gorgeous, soft dark hair and pale skin and snake gloves. Bacchius, who was fairly certain Aiss had been as such all along and he had simply never bothered to look, decided that, more than anything, whiskey loosened up the eyes. He found himself staring, and not caring whether Aiss thought it was odd or not. After all, Aiss was odd enough for both of them.

"Is something wrong, zarrah? You’ve been staring for a while now."

Bacchius smiled, resting his head on his hands and watching the world spin. If there was ever a time and place to be foolish, this was probably it.

"Everything’s fine. Wonderful. Perfect. Kiss me."

Aiss didn’t look surprised, or even interested, a fact which Bacchius would have noticed had he been paying attention. The demon simply stood up, walked mechanically to where Bacchius was sitting on the ground, and kissed him in exactly the same bored way one would expect of someone as anti-emotional as Aiss. Bacchius smiled a bit at the action, pushed the issue a bit, and somewhere along the way Aiss stopped being bored. By then, however, Bacchius no longer noticed that it was Aiss at all who he was kissing.

All he saw was Aureus.

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Bacchius wasn’t really sure what time it was when he awoke, if it was the afternoon or the morning, or even if he should care when he had such a splitting headache that so much as opening his eyes caused him pain. All he really knew was that he was lying on a soft sort of bedding, in the tent, and that he could remember nothing of the past night. As a result of this pain and his general confusion, it took him only a few seconds to realize that, sometime in the past few unremembered hours, something had gone terribly, terribly wrong.

It was due to pure flight instinct that he attempted to stand and flee the tent, an attempt which resulted in him collapsing again with a groan, and the vague wonder where Aiss had gone off to. His thoughts, however, disappear when a blast of cold air hit him, and he had the uncomfortable realization that he was as naked as the day he was born.

Bacchius knew there were rules for this sort of situation, a way to go about disentangling himself from the awkwardness that came with finding out that you had gotten drunk and slept with someone who you didn’t really even like. He searched his memory, every book he had ever read, and came up empty, and he had the vague notion that maybe, just maybe, he should run screaming in the opposite direction. Of course, he was still naked, and that would hardly result in anything except a cold and, at worst, getting blown up by another ‘mine.’ Other than that notion, Bacchius found he was fresh out of ideas, out of thoughts. So, naturally, he cleared his throat, and said the only thing he could think of.

"Oh hell."