Archive of Our Own

Humans are simple things. They cannot take care of themselves, they require guardianship to save the souls they have been granted. My Father had taught me that.

Humans have wants and they have needs and they have their blessed self-image. To produce the desired result, one simply must twist the three the right way.

The only problem is internal: the task must be approached with a clear mind. A conflict of interests can be disastrous.

But as I have never suffered from a conflict of interests-

Juno Steel would be simple.

“Who are you?” He asked, eyes wide with fear, teeth gritted and voice growling in a futile faux bravery.  I terrified him utterly.

Which was a problem for the plan. I spread out my new hands, I made my new face into what I’d practiced- the smile My Father had praised. (‘Most of you take longer to get that right.’) Friendly, but not so sincere that it could not be believed by a sceptic like Steel. An edge of sarcasm.

 “I’m the one who gripped you tight and pulled you from perdition, Detective.”

Steel answered by raising the knife in his hand. I waited for him to stab. Nobody had ever tried to kill me before, I wondered if it would hurt. But-

He didn’t. His eyes focused into a glare, sharp and dark and furious. “Well put me goddamn back!”

And that-

Well. I’m not so childish that I can’t admit when I’m surprised. I found myself staring at Juno Steel, looking for some human thing I’d missed. Something which would explain his request. He didn’t give me time to find it.

“If I’m out then the deal’s broken and Ben-“

Oh. “Your brother is fine. I assure you, we are more powerful than some little crossroads deal.”

I saw his face slacken with relief, but only for a moment. “What are you? What ‘we’ are you? How could you fucking pull me out of hell?”

I let him rush through his questions, I let him run out of steam. And then I answered.

“My name is Peter.” I pressed a hand against the chest of my new body. “I am an angel of the Lord.”

Juno Steel started to laugh.

It was a hopeless, choking noise. Out of practice. He hadn’t laughed in a long time. “Oh- oh screw you, buddy. You think I-”

I pulled my wings a few dimensions closer, kept the distance far enough that the sight wouldn’t blow his mind out. We needed his mind.

The wings had the desired effect. Steel stared, and he Believed. I felt it.

He looked at me, head shaking slightly. “… What the hell did you save me for?”

I didn’t understand, not at first. I know My Father- I know that he loves everything he created, that every part is worthy.

But Juno Steel didn’t.

He didn’t think he deserved to be saved.

Something sharp- unexpected, new. A pain. A sympathy. I wanted-

I straightened myself out and eyed Steel again. He was looking back at me with an expression I didn’t much like- a strange, soft, judgement- so I put back on My Father’s favourite smile. “We have work for you.”

My Father summoned me back not long after. He was pleased- he was delighted. “Great start, Pete.”

I shrugged. I didn’t need to be praised. It was enough, as always, to serve. “What next?”

“Keep working him. Shouldn’t be difficult. Not for someone with your skills.” He sighed and looked down at his hands. For a moment the façade dropped and I saw his fragility, his need, slip from behind the lie. “There’s plenty of time.”

My next appointment with Juno Steel came quickly. He was standing in the rain, lurking outside a nondescript apartment building and scowling half-heartedly toward one of the windows. He twitched as I materialised, and I found myself halfway between annoyed and impressed that he’d heard me.

“Here to give me some ‘work’?” He asked without turning around. “I sort of expected you guys to be faster with the orders. That’s what God does, right?”

“He deserves your respect.” I said levelly. “We-“

Steel scoffed and started to walk away. “Did you really come to lecture me?”

I had not. “A werewolf attack two towns over. If you leave now you can save one of the victims.”

He cursed, his glare hardened, but he didn’t argue. He was already leaving- rushing off to the rescue. I didn’t need to follow; I was already with the wolf, watching as it savaged one man and pounced on the next. This would be a good task for Steel- something he was used to, something to show him we were all playing on the same Big Friendly Team.

A door to the back of the room cracked, buckled, and Steel burst in. He launched himself at the wolf, already shooting silver bullets. It staggered back a few steps then collapsed over with a whimper.

The man on the ground shifted with a wince. When he sat up his eyes widened- in recognition. “Steel? You’re supposed to be dead.”

“Yeah.” Steel stooped, pulled him to his feet. “I know.”  

I watched them collect their dead and leave. Steel, moving with what was becoming his familiar brusqueness, till he hesitated. Hesitated standing over the body of the wolf. His companions had gone- running to arrange a funeral pyre for their dead in the way of their strange little sect- and he was left behind to deal with the enemy.

Or so I thought.

“I know you’re there. I can feel your- your goddamn angel eyes staring. So you may as well come out.”

Well. He’d have to be… perceptive. He fought monsters.

I showed myself. “You did well. You saved your friend.”

Steel ignored the compliment, his eyes didn’t leave the corpse. “What was this? What did you get out of telling me to come here?”

Being straightforward would be best. To a point. “My Father wanted to demonstrate that working willingly with us- trusting us- would allow you to do what you’re best at. You want to do good? Save people? This is how.”

He snorted. “Yeah? All right. This werewolf just got turned this month. You could have sent me to save them too. You didn’t.”

“One life is better than none. I would have thought a Hunter-“

“I’m not a Hunter.” He turned and glared at me, “You called me ‘Detective’, didn’t you? When you did that whole ‘pulled you from perdition’ thing.”

“Is the difference so important?”

“Yes! Yes it goddamn-!” but he broke off, scraped a hand down his face. “Fuck you. Go back to your dad.”

I left, but I didn’t leave. It didn’t feel right, somehow.

And later when he was driving back to his miserable motel, I returned to him. Right to him. Into the passenger seat.

Perhaps that was unwise- he cursed and sent the car swerving hard across the road. “What the hell?! You can’t just- what do you want now? Back to mess with me some more for daddy?”

“What’s the difference?”

“What?”

“Between a Hunter and a Detective. If we are to work together- and we are- I do need to know.”

“You- fuck.” Steel made an angry sound in his throat. “Fine. Hunter- Hunter was my Mom’s word. She was happy just blasting everything apart, assuming she’d hit the target. I want to do the right thing. I-,” his voice broke off with a frustrated hiss. “Why am I telling you anything?”

“I’ve been told I have an approachable face.” Not quite true. This body had been designed to have an approachable face.

Steel frowned. “Yeah. Your face. Your whole… holy high-fashion model shtick. Where’d that come from? Since we’re getting cosy.”

“There are some people still loyal to My Father on earth. And some in control of DNA banks. This body was grown for me.”

“Really?”

“In the past we would use devout hosts- but… that becomes complicated.”

“Uh-huh?”

“The host must be completely willing to be subjugated. Or our control fails.”

“Right.” He said again. “Great. So you’re easier to kick out than a demon.”

“Not at all. Not once we’re attached. We’re just polite about it.”

“Don’t-“

Steel stopped abruptly, swerved to the side of the road. I didn’t know what was wrong, not at first. He grasped into a side compartment and pulled out a plastic box. It was beeping. “Hell.”

“What is it-?”

But he’d already jumped the car abruptly backwards, swung it round and started driving the way we’d just come.

“Detective? Det-“

“My friend-,” he grunted under his breath, “She’s in trouble. That was an alarm beacon she gave me and- and dammit, I need to- to get to her. So leave.”

I looked at him and I weighed my options. We needed him. We needed his trust.

“Let me help.”

“Help? What are you going to do? Pray at her?!”

“I did save you from hell.”

He grunted.  When he didn’t ask me to leave again, I took it to mean he was conceding the point.

We found his friend in a barn besieged by zombies. Steel swore under his breath, swerved the car to a screeching stop and charged out. He already had a gun in his hand; he shot one, bashed another down, and I-

Was momentarily distracted by the sight of him. All fire and passion and blazing eyes and grimace. Sweat on the line of his neck, catching in the car lights.

And he needed my help.

Zombies smelled terrible. Something I’d never particularly considered before I’d found myself in a body. I fought my way through them with smites to the left and right, my knife flashing, always aiming to be closer to Steel. And then he was beside me, and he was staring at me and we were surrounded by rotten corpses with smoking brains.

“You…” His voice trailed off and I felt a sting of something I recognised academically as pride, followed by the necessary guilt. “You just- what was that?”

“Divine light, Detective. My Father’s will.” I gestured forward to the building to avoid his eyes, to avoid the pride I know they’d inspire in me again. “I am but an instrument. Shall we?”

“Yeah.” And he shook his head, hurried in at a run and shouting for his friend.

“Rita?! Rit-?!”

She shot him. With a water gun. Steel stopped. Looked down at his shirt and then up toward the figure who’d revealed herself in the shadows of the back room. A short woman, glasses huge and glinting in the half light. “You ain’t gonna be glad you wore that face.”

Steel raised his hands. “Rita- look, holy water didn’t hurt me. I’m not a demon. If you’ve got iron I can prove I’m not a ghost too. It’s me, and I’ll show that however you need.”

“I’m already scanning you! Whatever you are-,” She stopped. She looked from her tools to him, then back again. And then-

It wasn’t so much a hug as a body slam. Steel hit the floor, Rita on top of him and shrieking- all delight and questions and love. I decided it was a personal moment and left them alone to wander my way into the room she’d come from. And whatever I’d expected… well, it wasn’t wall-to-wall computers cannibalised into one terrible machine. My understanding of human technology was rudimentary, but I examined the thing and found it was hooked to the building’s security system, to a series of traps and alarms. This place was designed to lure monsters to it. And then once they were here, it was designed to kill them.

I looked back at them, reunited and delighted. Rita staring at Steel like he might vanish into dust and him regarding her much the same, even if he hid it behind a scowl. There was something light and bright between them. Something so very human.

It wasn’t for me. Steel was safe. He deserved… this. However small a moment it was. I left him to enjoy it.

“I have a concern.” I was thinking of Steel’s face when he had seen his friend. I was considering what the future held for him and it felt like pressure against my chest.

My Father smiled at me. “I understand. You’ve always had too much compassion, Pete. But you trust me. You know we need this. They need it.”

A day later I returned to Steel, found him brushing his teeth in rural bungalow. For a moment the surroundings threw me off: they were so different from his normal habitat of rundown motel rooms. The house was faded, yes, but still a home. 

“Hello Juno.”

He almost swallowed his toothbrush. Spun and stared at me. Glared, spat and threw water in his face. “Christ, Peter. You can’t just- just appear outta nowhere like that. Especially not here. Rita’s got all sorts of supernatural traps around. You’ll end up a angelic pincushion.”

Ah. “This is her home?”

“Can’t you tell with your- like halo powers?” Steel sighed. “Yeah. She insisted. She- well, she wasn’t happy with me. I should have told her I was back, but honestly I was sort of hoping she’d have got out of the life. Only got involved in the first place because of me. I needed someone to help me with some computer stuff, I hired her. Now she’s revolutionizing the whole thing- building traps, coming up with like cyber spells or whatever. She’s better at it than me but- well. The machines can still break, and then she ends up in danger. Like before. Hell.” He half turned, rubbing his chin with the edge of his hand. “I always end up saying too much to you.”

“I don’t think it was too much.” I hesitated. This felt like it might be overstepping, but it was so hard to judge with humans. “Did you tell her before you sold your soul to bring your brother back?”

Steel stilled. I had been right then. Too much. But after a moment he gave a hard little shrug. “No. No, I… she’d have tried to talk me out of it. She figured it all out- I mean, of course she did. She’s the one who took care of my body, after. She’s the one who helped Ben get back on his feet.”

His voice trailed off again, then came back with more purpose as he straightened and edged past me into the room. “I meant to say. Thanks. You vanished before I could, so. Thanks for helping me get to her.”

“It’s really not necessary.”

“You saved my friend. Saved me too. You get a ‘thanks’.” Steel was watching me from where he’d sat down on his borrowed bed. “Do you have another job for me?”

He was looking for orders. That was good, I thought, My Father would be happy to know about it. It was good. It was good.

“A vampire two hours away. She hasn’t killed anyone yet, but she will tonight. You can save her.”

Steel nodded slowly. “Vampires and werewolves. The classics, huh? And you’re telling me in time to turn her back. Because of what I said last time.”

It was suddenly hard to meet his eyes. He smiled and pulled on his socks, stood and headed for the door. “Thanks. Again.”

I listened to him leave before I turned around and watched the door close after him.

It was good. It was all very, very, good.

My return to earth was scheduled for two days later. Then, instead-

I had been prayed to, I had spoken into minds and across continents. I had never been summoned. I wasn’t even aware that it was possible.

And yet, here I was. Standing trapped in an intricate chalk and ash circle. A weight in the air heavy on my shoulders, a headache crushing my skull. Steel’s friend looking steadily at me from a computer, the screen reflecting in her glasses.

She smiled. “I wasn’t sure that was gonna work! Hello Mista Angel.”

“Ah, yes. Hello.” I swallowed, found my throat dry. “You-“

“Summoned you!”

Well. “May I ask how?”

“Oh, I took some energy readings off you when you landed here before. After that it’s all about matching the wavelengths, backtracking them into a bio-signature, writing a translation code for ancient Sumerian. Computer stuff!”

“Ah.” It is something to have intimate knowledge of the atoms of one’s own psychic shadow and to still find oneself confused. “Why?”

“Oh, ‘cause of how you’ve been stalking Mista Steel. I figured I oughta check up on you and make sure you’re not lying to him.”

“I’m not.” Technically true.

“And that’s all good that you’d say that but the thing is that Mista Steel has already died once.” She slipped out from behind the computer, walked lightly over to the chalk line boundary. “So I’m just maybe a tiny bit protective.”

“He would still be dead if it wasn’t for me.” I answered, trying not to be intimidated by a tiny figure with glasses twice as big as her face.

“Uh-huh so you can send him on some werewolf hunt? Seems kinda small fry for an angel.” She leaned back on her heels. I felt suddenly microscoped. “I read about you. ‘Peter, the Angel of Brahma’. It’s not in the Bible- strictly heretical texts. Something like God told you to destroy a city and you said no?”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Maybe it’s just a story then.” She squinted at me. “If you hurt Juno, I’ll kill you. Don’t say anything! I’ve already figured out a way to trap you. If I need to kill you, I’ll kill you.”

I found myself believing her.

“Saying that out loud sounds kinda mean.”  Rita frowned, like she’d only just heard herself. But then she shrugged. “Guess someone actually dying makes you realise how far you’d go to stop it happening again.”

“I can imagine that it would.”

“Just keep imagining it then. And we won’t have any problems! Oh wow, I sound like some movie crime guy, huh?”

She grinned at me and tapped something on her computer. Whatever had been holding me in place, weighting down the air around me, vanished. I flexed my neck and looked back, found her watching me warily. 

“You are…” I struggled for the right compliment. “A good friend.”

“Nah.” Rita’s expression turned sad and hollow. “If I was, I woulda stopped him making that dummy deal.”

My Father was concerned. “I lost track of you. That shouldn’t happen, Pete. Is she a problem?”

“No.” I wasn’t sure of that. My Father wouldn’t be either. “If she’s removed, Steel will become suspicious. I can avoid her.”

“And once we have him some little human isn’t going to matter anymore.”

Once we had him. Those words were beginning to weigh differently.

As it stood, there wasn’t time to rethink our plan. To withdraw, to be more careful, would only make the task of luring Steel impossible. So I went to him again at the planned time.

He was where I’d found him before, outside the same apartment building and watching a window. He must have sensed me there; he turned to me before I could even open my mouth.

“Your tip with the vampire. Worked out. She- hell, she had kids. She was going to stake herself, was scared she’d hurt them. Now they get to grow up with a parent who loves them.”

Mothers and children. Clearly a hole in Steel’s armour. I wondered if My Father had picked his vampire deliberately.

“I’m glad.” I told him, and when he smiled back at me, I realised that it was true. He cleared his throat, broke the gaze, scuffed his shoe.

“So? What now? Another job?”

“Demons.”

Steel rubbed his forehead. “Crud. How many?”

“Lots. I-,” I found myself hesitating, “I’ll help. If you want me.”

He did. We drove to the old school the demons had holed up in, the smell of Steel’s car familiar enough by now to have become a strange sort of comfort.

Parked outside we could see human shaped shadows pass across the windows.

“What are they doing?”

“Preforming rituals. It’s a minor hellhole. If they can open it, well, there will be a lot more of them.”

“Your dad- he can’t just… I don’t know, put a sacred cork in that sort of thing?”

I glanced across at Steel. This was an opening. What I’d been looking for. “Demons are an abomination. My Father can’t control them, not without being present on Earth. And he… he finds it difficult to leave the Celestial City.”

“Not much of a God.”

The slight stung, but I ignored it. “He’s too powerful to exist on this plane. He burns through lab grown vessels in seconds. He needs a body with a soul- a willing soul. A special soul. Something for him to… anchor to. To sustain him. His last body failed recently. Since then he has been confined.”

“God’s a picky eater, huh?” And he must have known. He was too clever not to. Why wasn’t I speaking plainly already? Why was I keeping up a shallow, stupid little façade?

Because so long as it stayed unsaid, I could pretend it wasn’t happening.

Steel clicked his tongue and reached for the salt. “Let’s go.”

I had expected something crude. The pair of us running inside, his guns blazing, my knife cutting. All of this ending in blood and carnage. But Steel had a plan. Of course he had a plan. He was a Detective, not a Hunter.

“Building’s too big to put salt all the way round. But we can do the doors. That’s your job.” He handed the sack of grit salt to me, shaking a cannister of paint in his other hand. “I’m doing the trap.”

“You want to lock them in? Then what?”

“Then a hell of an exorcism.”

I almost laughed- not spitefully. Some sort of delight at him, at his mind. “Will that work?”

“I’m not murdering twenty people because it’s the easy option.”

“I don’t know if it would be.”

“Then I’m not doing it because I’m lazy.” He shot me a dark sort of smile. “Sue me.”

It wasn’t flawless. No plan is, certainly nothing as complicated as this. We were spotted- we were spotted three times. Each one ended with Steel cursing, shooting a blast of salt and us throwing the unconscious demon back into the building. Steel spray painted the familiar demon’s trap as we went, counting his steps to measure the proportions. I wondered how long it had taken to perfect the technique.

“All right…” Now he was messing with his car, plugging a wire into the dashboard. He smiled at me. “Modified speaker system. Rita’s idea. Something like- she converted the words used in exorcisms into sonic waves? Too high for us to hear properly- like dog whistles. They carry further than sound would and it takes like a tenth of the time. She’s a freaking genius.”

It wasn’t like hearing, not normal hearing. More of a vibration in the air. It rather made me want to flee my body too. But it didn’t last, not longer than five seconds.

Steel toed open the nearest door and aimed his flashlight inside. Slumped bodies, some of them stirring. He sighed, a soft, relieved sound. “All right. We should still check it out, see if anyone needs help. But-“

The shadow came from behind the car. How they’d got so close without us noticing, how they’d survived the exorcism- my only guess was that they’d been far enough away, that they’d been smart enough to wait. It didn’t matter.  

They were already here, already raising something sharp and brutal to stab into Steel. I did what I could: I put myself between them. Shoved Juno back with one hand, shielded him with my body.

The impact knocked us both off our feet, the attacker still on top of me, their breath foul and rotten in my face. Steel shouted something- he was dragging them away. Some sick, violent, sound cracked out from between them as Steel finished the rotten body. I shook my head, forced myself to sit up. Oh. They’d stabbed me. The end of the rusted metal bar was sticking awkwardly out of my chest.

How ridiculous.

I grasped it, two handed, and started to pull. Steel’s shout stopped me, his shout then his hands on mine.

“Peter-! How- don’t fucking take it out! It’s probably stopping you bleeding out- Christ, how are you not dead?!”

He was fussing around me, over me. Putting pressure around the wound in a way that really wasn’t necessary, telling me to breath and stay calm. I tried to say that it was okay, that I would be fine. But his hands on me, his worry, his care all aimed at me… it was momentarily overwhelming. Intoxicating.

“Hell. Okay, okay. We’ve gotta get you to a hospital- no. Fuck, we’ve gotta call 911- we can’t move you, we can’t-“

I found my strength. “Juno. Please. I’m fine. I can’t be killed like that.”

His eyes widened in realisation, in recognition. I smiled in as comforting a way as I could manage and pulled the bar free. Steel stared.

“… You’re okay?”

“Completely.” To illustrate the point I moved my shirt a little, undid a button so the flesh was visible. It was already healing. “I wouldn’t be of much service to my father if a demon could end me with a nail.”

Steel was still staring. First at my chest, then my eyes. His own were large and dark, wide with adrenaline. Adrenaline released because he’d thought I’d been hurt. It occurred to me suddenly, all at once, all the pieces of thought coming together, that Juno Steel cared about me. For myself. Whatever self I had, it mattered to him.

What a wonderful, wonderous thing. How little I deserved it.

He licked his bottom lip, and something else occurred to me- how close he was. Barely two inches between us. That was- that was very close. Close enough to feel his breath against my face.

When had I stopped thinking of this body as separate from myself? I hadn’t noticed. It hadn’t mattered, not till now.

Steel sat back very abruptly and cleared his throat. “Yeah. So. Let’s. Are you, uh, going back to Heaven? I mean- I mean.  I could- drop you somewhere?”

“… On the ground?”

“In my car.” He smiled stiffly. “I know you normally just do your teleportation thing, but…” Steel glanced away, he seemed to make up his mind and blurted, “Or if you weren’t leaving right away then we- ah.” The steam ran out. He winced. “No. Look, sorry. That’s a really bad idea. We work together. And you’re like a- a celestial entity. You probably don’t even-“

I don’t have much experience with impulse control. I don’t have much experience with impulse. Does that make my giving in to temptation better or worse?

It certainly felt better.

Kissing was. Not what I’d expected. Had I been expecting something? I was very aware of my hands, how they grasped at Steel’s shirt and arms. The scratch of his face against mine, the bite of his teeth, the smell of his sweat, the tang of blood in his mouth. He’d been hit by the demon- I remembered that. And the thought of him, of him injured- of him injured protecting me-

That made me cling all the tighter. That made me pull myself into him and hold on.

In the first moment he’d felt surprised. Then he made a noise, breathed into me in a soft laugh and he was smiling. I could feel his smile, his hands warm and scarred at the back of my neck, his words coming out in a throaty breath.  “I’m not gonna like- like corrupt you or something, right?”

I gazed at him, overwhelmed by a deep, deeply human, warmth. “You could never.”

“Well, good. Because-“

“Hey. You feeling better?”

I was, though I wasn’t sure when I hadn’t been.

My Father smiled at me. It was gentle and Good. “That’s great. The thing is that you’ve been going off script a little, kid. Got me worried. So I’m going to take you out of play. It’ll knock the project off track, but that’s better than everything ending up in the trash.”

The shame hit like a brick. I winced, horrified. “Father- what did I do?”

“Really doesn’t matter. Corruption happens to the best of us, Pete. I burned it out. It’s in the past now.”

But it wasn’t. I needed redemption. “Whatever I did- please. Give me a chance to fix it. Father, I beg you- please.”

“It’s more complicated than that.”

I fell onto my knees, eyes downturned. “Please. All I want is to serve.”

He let out a sigh. His heavy hand stroked my head, and I knew I was forgiven, that I was Loved.

“You really are my favorite. I wouldn’t do this for anyone else.”

I found Steel in his car. He was parked, glaring through the windshield and surrounded by paper- old books and loose pages. I realised I was sitting on a few, moved over so I could collect them in one hand. “Hello, Detective.”

He was staring at me.

I offered him the paper. He accepted and finally found his words.

“You’re okay.”

“Why wouldn’t I be?”

“You vanished in the middle of us making out. Which either says you went without wanting to or- well, fuck, is kind of harsh.”

I blinked mildly, remembering what had happened. It didn’t matter. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

His stare hardened. “… Fine. Fine.”

A piece of paper drifted from the dashboard onto my foot. I leaned down, picked it up. The subject caught my eye as I returned it to its place: Angelic lore. And what he’d said- ‘are you okay’. He’d been worrying about me.

How strange.

“Did you come with- with another mission for me?” Steel was back to looking out the windshield. I followed his eyes and recognised the building- the same one I’d found him at before. Twice.

“What is this place?”

“Doesn’t fucking matter. What do you want?”

I tilted the head of my body to examine him. He was angry; hands clenched hard into fists. It seemed unlikely that he’d listen to me, not while he was so angry with me. Misguided human minds are so easily confused. But then-

Perhaps that anger could be twisted.

Surprisingly that impulse felt unpleasant. The thought of manipulating Steel was unpleasant. But I had promised My Father I would succeed. I would, therefore, succeed.

“Why do you keep coming here?”

He flinched. “What?”

“I’ve already asked twice now. I could just look into your mind for the answer. I’d rather you told me.”

Steel looked… I suppose the best word is ‘betrayed’, though I couldn’t understand why. He knew where my loyalties lay. Beyond that- surely, he knew what was important, what had always been important; our service. “What are you doing?”

“I’m trying to work out what’s been distracting you. You have a duty, Detective. To God. And yet you come here and watch this building and you mope. Must I take it from you?”

A dark expression passed over his face, fear. As though he had suddenly realised how very small the car was. I didn’t understand that. We were on the same side.

I watched the cogs turn further in his mind, and I waited because I knew where his decision would fall.

“… It’s…” He let out a deep breath. “It’s where Ben lives.”

Something sharp, something familiar- a stab of unwanted sympathy. It didn’t matter. “You haven’t told him you’re alive, have you?”

Ah, he hadn’t thought I’d guessed. Steel’s eyes narrowed. Hardened. His lips pressed into a line, teeth clenched behind them, and he said nothing.

“Is it because you blame yourself for his death? But perhaps that’s a little obvious. You do blame yourself- but it’s worse than that. You don’t just fear what you’ve done to him. You’re scared of what you might still do.”

As I spoke Steel hunched his shoulders, his breaths came slow and careful and painful. Sandpaper on rock. He could have interrupted me, but he didn’t. He Believed me. He didn’t even have the strength to push back.

“You’re a corrosive. If you touch a life it rots and rusts. For all your talk of being a ‘Detective’ and not a Hunter, you want to be a Hunter. You want to be a blunt instrument. You want to be capable of doing simple good, but there’s something so fundamentally broken in you that no matter how hard you try- well. It goes wrong. First your mother. Your brother. Perhaps Rita next. You’ve already got her lying to Ben.”

I let the words sit between us. I could almost feel his pain vibrating in the air. I-

I hated it- I did hate it. I didn’t want this, I didn’t want to be saying these things. Why was I doing it? Why didn’t I want to be? I knew it was right- I knew it was-

“What do I do?”

The question was childish, his voice was childish. Small. Simple. Desperate. The anger had fizzled into acceptance. And a calm came over me; I was but an instrument.

I told him.

“Oh, well done Pete!” It came with a handslap against the back of my body, against my back. Loud and warm and Loving and everything I wanted. “Good, good, job.”

My Father towered over me. I was safe, basking in the light. I was filled with that same light.  I had broken Juno Steel and sent him marching to his doom.

“I did something terrible.” I had. I felt it, lurking on the edge of my perception. “What did I do?” Because I had Obeyed. So that was wrong. The memory was wrong. The action had been Right.

“Hey! Hey, kiddo.” My Father snapped his fingers and I could focus on him again. “You all right?”

I didn’t know. “Must it be him? Steel?”

My Father frowned and it was watching clouds cover the sky. “After all that work you did to get him ready?”

“He deserves his life.” I said hopelessly. I wasn’t sure what the words meant.

“Pete, everyone deserves their life. But the world needs a God who can do what needs to be done. And to be that God, I need a body.” He spoke slowly and carefully and it should have made sense. It didn’t.

“They need someone to steer them. Control them. Put them on the right path and punish when they stray.”

“… But-,” I struggled, I pushed and finally, I grasped what was lurking on the edge. What I’d been seeing, unseeing. “But do they?”

And it was Wrong, it was blasphemy, and saying it cracked open something across my skull and I could see what I’d done to Juno.

The pain, the guilt- oh the bone aching guilt! I pressed my hands against my head, I needed to find Juno, to stop this, to save him. It was cruel, I had been monstrous, I had-

“You always pick at things. No matter what I do to set you right. Brahma, Steel.” My Father sighed. “It’s all right. I do forgive you. But I can’t have you around right now. Don’t worry, Peter. It’s not forever. I just need to put you away for a little while. To keep you-“

Safe.

Safe. Somewhere. Loved. Preserved and kept warm and still. It felt like sleeping, deep in the dark. It was familiar. I’d been here before. I-

And then it was dragged away. No- no, worse! I was dragged out.

I struggled, I fought. I dug in my heels- did I have heels?- I wouldn’t leave, I didn’t want-

Rita stood over me. Her gun was as big as a cannon and aimed perfectly to blast my skull to pieces, but she would only needed her expression. The rage in her eyes could have flattened cities.

“What did you do?”

What had I done?

Oh god, what had I done?

“You need to shield me! Whatever you did before- whatever you did to hide me- do it again! My Father can’t-“

Rita bristled. “Hey, Mista Traitor! You’re not in the ‘ordering Rita around’ business! You’re in the ‘doing what you’re told and telling me where Mista Steel is’ business! And- and- this ain’t some kinda amateur hour, I’m not gonna kidnap an angel without blocking every signal you’re giving! So! So!”

I stared at her. I’d never been so happy to be locked in a magical trap. My mind was shadowed, the memories clouded but rapidly clearing. I had Questioned. My Father had removed me. Put me- I didn’t know where, though the dark emptiness of it left me shuddering when I remembered it.

And Juno-

“Hey! Stop doing an internal monologue! I watch the movies, I know that expression!”

 “It’s too late.” I said softly. “My Father won’t have waited-“

“Waited for what?”

I couldn’t hide from it. I couldn’t pretend that this hadn’t been what I’d wanted and worked for all along. I looked at Rita and shook my head. “God needs a body to intervene directly on Earth. That’s why he has me- why he has any angel- he can’t do anything himself. But he’s sick of it. He wants to be here. But he needs- he needs someone special. Someone desperate enough to welcome him, to want to be what he’s offering so- so wholly-“

“You gave him Juno.”

I stared hopelessly at her. “I’m so sorry.”

Rita’s hand went for the trigger. I waited, unflinching. This was what I deserved. But she stopped. Screwed up her mouth, shook her head. “No. We’re getting him back- and since you know all about this god junk, you’re gonna help.”

It was hard to see her and not hope. She looked like she could take down galaxies. But-

But that didn’t matter. “It’s impossible. My Father- he made good and evil, anything you use, he built it to work the way it does. And even- even if there was a way- we’d be going against God. We can’t-”

“Jeez, you talk a freakin’ lot for someone who was so taciturn last time we met. Fine. Don’t help! ‘Cause it just happens I’ve gotta ton of books right here on angels and angel lore.” She spun, grabbed the said books. Thumped them onto the ground. “I told you I was researching your lore! And I am real good at research.”

“God isn’t an angel.”

“Yeah, well, we’re gonna have to work on that part. Or I am.  You can work on…” She was thumbing through pages, “You can work on your negative attitude.”   

I watched her for a moment. This was pointless. This was so, so pointless. It all was. These people, Rita, Juno, they fought and fought to save a handful of lives, they hurt themselves, they struggled and they hurt and they cared so fiercely-

And it was pointless. Because My Father had decided it all already. Nothing they did would ever matter.

And they did it anyway. In the face of everything. They mourned werewolves, they saved lives and they worked out ways to do it better and they helped each other. They cared. Juno cared. I’d seen how deeply a thousand times, just looking into his eyes.

He deserved his life. He deserved to be cared for, too.

I made up my mind.

“Rita?” She didn’t look up. I cleared my throat. “Rita. I have an idea.”

It was raining again. Rita rang the bell, stepped back and shuffled her feet to keep herself warm. She shot a semi-anxious glare at me. “You still feeling solid? Not about to vanish on me?”

“Not so far.” I rolled up my sleeve, looked at the runes she’d sharpied onto my wrist.

“Don’t mess up the ink!” Rita jabbed her finger at me. “Blur them and your dad’ll whoosh, suck you up into the sky! Don’t say he won’t!”

“I wasn’t going to.” I put the sleeve down just as the door finally opened, and, well. There he was. Juno-but-not. Juno but younger, in the eyes as well as the face. Benzaiten Steel.

“Rita? What’s happened?” He edged back from the door, maybe to let us in, and I caught a glimpse of the gun he’d hidden in his other hand. Hunter instincts dying hard.

Rita wilted slightly, shame faced. “We can’t come in- it’s- aw, Ben. I should have told you. He got me to promise not to and I figured he’d come around eventually and- hell. Juno’s alive.”

I watched his eyes widen; I watched the same clockwork I knew from Juno turning in his mind. “And he’s not here. So he’s in trouble.” Ben reached back, grabbing a coat. “Save the apologies for later, don’t care, tell me what I need to know. Who’s this?”

The last part was addressed to me. Ben’s attention was like a laser beam. I wilted weakly under it. “I, ah- I’m the one who gripped your brother tight and… raised him from perdition?”

“Yeah.” He clicked his tongue, a smile flickered across his face. “Yeah, that sounds like the sort of thing that would happen to Juno. This is going to be a long story, isn’t it?”

Luckily we had a long car journey ahead of us.

“So- so explain to me again why God decided to use my brother as a Halloween costume?”

It was four in the morning and we were approaching Santa Fe. Rita’s tiny car hadn’t been a comfortable way to travel; she’d shoved both Ben and myself into the back, him to ‘keep an eye on me’, though I can’t imagine she was really expecting a betrayal. She would have killed me already if she had.

I could betray them. Go back to My Father. Serve him and forget all of this.

I couldn’t.

“There are requirements. God needs a willing body, but that’s not all.  The willingness must be tied to a desire for good. And they must have… proven their worth. Through sacrifice. Sacrifice of their soul for another.”

Ben’s face pinched. “So I’m why?”

“Oh no- we’re not getting into a pity party in my car! Juno’s mistakes are Juno’s mistakes.” Rita’s foot hadn’t left the accelerator since we’d started driving and her voice sounded thin, wearied with the travel. “And just ‘cause we all freaking love him enough to save him from anything doesn’t mean we’re not gonna be real mad with him once we do.”

“Uh- we ‘all love him enough’?” Ben eyed me. “Are you guys like…?”

I frowned at him.  He, apparently having expected me to understand, sighed and shrugged. “Are you together? Dating? Married? I mean, I’m hoping not the last one since I called dibs on his Best Man, but hey. Apparently nobody tells me anything.”

“Ben-“

“Rita, I’m joking. I know how Juno is.” He sighed, closed his eyes- and there it was. When he was tired, Ben looked very like his brother.

“We aren’t.” I answered finally, quietly. “We- My Father suspected I was becoming too close to Juno. He… he stopped me. And sent me back to tell Juno to give up his body to him. Which I did. Very cruelly.” My reply was as crisp as I could manage: the thought of what I’d said to him-

I was glad that this plan would end with me annihilated. That guilt wasn’t something I’d enjoy living with.

Ben was still watching me, head tilted, eyes narrowed. It was so close- a hair away- from how Juno looked when he was solving a problem.  But it suddenly softened in a way his brother never did, and Ben smiled. “Don’t be so hard on yourself.”

I stared at him. For a moment I was certain he must have been talking to Rita, even while his eyes were focussed on me. He knew what I’d done- what I’d done to his brother. And yet:

“Your dad used you. Speaking as a guy who, well, gave his mom a lot of leeway- I get it. It’s hard to see through someone’s crap when you care about them. Even if you shouldn’t care about them. Probably especially if they’re literally pulling you back to heaven every time you try.”

“That is a kind sentiment-“

“Screw sentiment. It’s true. Your dad’s a dick.”

“He is God. He’s everything.”

He rolled his eyes. “Juno always used to say I forgive people too easily. And he was right. Last thought I had before I died? I was already forgiving mom. Which is totally screwed, I know.”

“You seem to me making the same mistake with me.”

“I’m not forgiving you. I’m relating to you. You’re blaming yourself because you don’t want to blame your dad because, even if he’s fucked up and abusive- he’s still your dad and that means you think you owe him like love, or obedience, or whatever. You’re seeing his gigantic mistakes as human and forgivable and you’re doing it at the expense of forgiving yourself.”

“Well. I’m not human. Neither’s My Father.”

Ben laughed, shaking his head. The expression was so completely not-Juno that I found myself staring. Ben was open where Juno was closed, and that wasn’t good or bad- Juno had scar tissue where Ben had wounds.

Juno’s eyes would see things Ben wouldn’t, Ben would see things Juno couldn’t.

I hadn’t really thought about that; all the differences locked into their bodies, into their minds. The vast wealth of variety and potential.

Humans are astounding.

 “Dude, if you made out with Juno you’re human enough to have issues. Trust me. Issues are catnip to him. He’s never looked twice at anyone who wasn’t a little messed up.”

“I didn’t say that we-“

Ben grinned at me. “I’ve known every time Juno’s sucked face since we were twelve. I’d call it ‘twin senses’, but it’s more like ‘everyone who makes out with him gives me the same weird look’. Like they’re freaking out about how we look almost the same but not entirely?”

I closed my mouth.

“You dang Steel kids and your dang bad taste.” Rita muttered from the front, “Shouldn’t be a surprise that he went for Mista… Sad Eyes Angel Traitor.”

“Hey, one of those Steel kids is in therapy!” Ben said back, mock-offended. “And currently dating someone who’s not even sort-of a trashbag! Oh- no offense, Peter.”

“And you had to die first!”

I looked between them. The energy in the car was… strange. Fond and loving and under it, tense enough to cut with a sharp look. They were terrified and hiding it to protect each other. Ben hadn’t even known Juno was alive till we’d come to get him, and here he was forcing out jokes and pep talks.

Humans are astounding.

But we were too close for it to last.

The San Miguel Mission Church is the oldest Roman Catholic Church in mainland America. I can’t truly say why my father had chosen it, why this sacred place mattered more than any other, but perhaps the age was enough. He has always liked things to seem important.

Oh. That last thought had been almost sceptical. Was this rebellion?

“All right.” Rita parked a street away. “So we’re good on the plan? I’m the brain, Ben’s the heart, and Peter-“

“Is the battery.” I finished with a nod. “Though that doesn’t really tie into the rest of the metaphor.”

“So you’re the stomach. Or the muscle, or you’re another symbolically different heart. Doesn’t matter.” Rita jumped from the car; she had enough determination for fifty giants crammed into her tiny body. “Let’s go get our Juno.”  

Rita signalled for us to pause on the street across from the Mission. It was a stark building; yellow stone, roughly shaped, but I could feel the power radiating from it. So could Rita: her eyes were wide as she stared at her phone. She made a hissing noise under her breath. “Okay, my Weird Stuff app is picking up something real big in there. I don’t know if it’s God-“

“It’s God.” I shrugged under her scrutinising look, “I can feel him. It’s- it’s strange with the runes, it’s like seeing through fog, I suppose, but I can feel him.”

“Which means he can probably feel you.”

I hadn’t thought of that.

Ben winced. “There goes the element of surprise.”

It wouldn’t have mattered. We could have dropped out of another dimension and the sight which met us inside the Mission would still have proven too much.

The chapel was simple, lit warmly by candles. The pews sat empty. And at the head of the room, dressed in a well-cut suit and Juno Steel’s body, stood My Father. He smiled and I remembered seeing Ben smile- how it had been Juno’s face moving in ways that weren’t his. But that had been natural and warm and kind and this-

I could see My Father under his skin. His movements in Juno’s flesh. There was no light in his eyes.

“Heya, Pete. I was wondering where you’d got to. And how you got there. Breaking out when you’re grounded is bad behaviour.”

“Father.” And I wanted to talk to him. I wanted to convince him to give Juno back, to leave, I wanted-

My Father smiled again. He glanced down at Juno’s body, flexed one of his hands. “I don’t know why you’re doing this, Pete. This body- this guy. He’s fine. He’ll last me a good century or so, but he’s nothing special. He’s not any different from the rest of them. He’s one little life, and if you could just do what you’re told, we’d be steering hundreds of them toward being better. Don’t you want that?”

I wanted him to be a person he wasn’t.

Rita jabbed me in the ribs. “Right about now would be great, angel.”

She was right, and I was grateful that she’d pulled me back from my thoughts. I put my hand on her shoulder, I closed my eyes-

And I filled her with enough holy power to bless the whole fucking ocean.

Her eyes went wide, her mouth opened and let out a tiny gasp- but this was Rita, and even if we’d only had a handful of conversations I knew she wouldn’t get distracted by a sudden brush with omnipotence.

“Yeah. Okay. I can work with this.”

She started to speak. The sound-

I couldn’t even understand it as a sound. The first syllable stabbed into my brain, it knocked me onto the floor with pain spasming through every molecule of me. My hand dropped from Rita’s shoulder- I grasped madly for her wrist instead. Found it. Held on. I wanted to scream, I wanted to run, I really wanted to let go and withdraw the power I was charging her with but- but I wouldn’t.

A shadow ahead- My Father, stumbling. The pain wasn’t as bad for him, he was so much stronger than me, but it still hurt him. “Pete- Pete, what the hell are you doing?”

I couldn’t have told him even if I’d wanted to. There were needles behind my eyes, acid in my throat. My body and soul were breaking under the sheer and terrible wrongness of what we were doing.

My Father had created the universe and he had created Good and Evil. He had ordered everything and planned it perfectly, he had put the world and all its people on neat little train tracks. And here we were- Rita and I- me using every particle of holy power he’d gifted me to supercharge her while she sang demonic chants. It was the opposite of everything his world was supposed to be, and very soon it would kill me. But until then, for as long as I was alive to keep Rita charged, it would weaken him too.

And that was all Ben needed.

“Hey, Juno.” He took a hesitant step forward. Juno- Juno’s body- was holding itself up with one hand on a pew, shaking and convulsing. “Yeah. This isn’t the reunion either of us wanted. I don’t know if you can hear me, but-“

“This is your plan, Pete?” The voice coming from Juno was grating and painful, half-shriek. Ben froze, looked back to us for support but we were doing all we could already. It had to be enough, it had to be. “You- you hate me this much? You’re turning what I gave you against me?!”

My Father laughed, it turned into coughs and then he was on his knees. The pain hit me too- a wave of blood-on-fire bone-grinding nausea. Ben took another step.

“Come on- Juno! You went to hell for me- you can’t make me the brother who couldn’t even talk you back into your body-“

“He can’t hear you! I won’t let him-“

Another spasm. Black was creeping around my eyes. I couldn’t breathe, I couldn’t feel my fingers, my arms.

Ben was beside Juno on the floor. I could see, somehow, that he’d lifted Juno into his arms, that his body was too weak to fight him away- he was scratching weakly at Ben’s face, but he just smiled back.

“You idiot. Your life is worth so much more than this. You’re worth so much more than this. Stop throwing yourself onto fires so everyone else can walk over you and keep their shoes safe.”

I was gone. I didn’t have the strength to close my eyes. It didn’t matter, it didn’t matter at all. Because as I watched, as the greyscale of the world turned to black, I saw Juno blink and shake his head and heard him mutter; “Ben?”

A different pain, now. Not the soul-sickness of before. More physical. Across my chest, in my head. I needed to breathe-

And when I tried, I almost threw up. There was a hand on my back, pushing me into a sitting position. Light around me- too bright- and voices swimming in and out of my understanding. I needed oxygen, I needed it like I never had before, so I kept trying and trying and trying to swallow it down.

“Yeah, like that. Come on.”

Oh. I knew that voice.

“Hello, Juno.” I managed to croak. He was crouched beside me, leaning down to meet my eyes. When I spoke, he smiled, and it was so gentle and relieved that it hurt to see. “I’m… not dead? I take it?”

“Not yet.” He smiled, just barely. “I’m the one who provided CPR and raised you from perdition. And probably broke your ribs, so don’t move too much.” He sat back a little, still crouched.

“My ribs?” I tried to move, to touch them. Juno caught my hand.

“Yeah, no. Broken ribs could mean punctured organs.”

“But I should be healing.”

“And you’re not. Got a graze over your eye. Still bleeding. Rita thought maybe doing what you did just like- killed the God out of you? She made it sound smart. Anyway, she and Ben have gone to call an ambulance. Apparently holy-demonic chants fry phones.”

None of it made sense. Disparate information, disconnected. “What happened? My Father- you were able to-?”

“Kick him out? Yeah. I mean… with help.”

Juno pulled at the tie around his neck- it had already been loose, now it came completely away. He’d undone shirt buttons too. The suit My Father had dressed him in was rumpled, dirty, and Juno himself-

It was him. It was truly him.

That realisation felt like breathing. And then it reminded me what I owed him.

“What I said to you- those terrible things- none of it was true. I am so, so sorry. It was- it was a script. To manipulate you. My Father wanted your body, he told me what to say and I said it- I didn’t- it doesn’t matter that I didn’t know what I was doing. I did it, and you listened and if I hadn’t-“

He was looking at me. Head tilted. Smiling crookedly.

“I knew you didn’t want to say it. It didn’t… sound like you. I didn’t say yes to your dad because you said it to me. I said it because I thought it was true. Which is a whole other box of issues. And they’re not your fault.”

“And you only had the opportunity because of me.”

“Yeah, and you got me out of hell too. It all fucking balances out.”

It didn’t. But I couldn’t find the strength to argue with him looking at me like that.

“Rita and Ben-“

“Went to get an ambulance.”

“Are they hurt? Are you-?”

“What? No. It’s for you. You had a- a holy aneurism or something. Also there’s the ribs.”

I stared at him.

“… They’re doing that for me?”

“Yeah. You’re sort of on our team now.” When I just stared blankly at him, Juno straightened up. “You’re kidding- Peter, you defied God for us. That’s a big deal. What, you thought we’d just… throw you out?”

“Maybe not with those words.”

Juno sat back, leaning on the nearest pew. He watched me over his raised knee. “Well. We won’t.”

I had no idea what to say to that. Juno seemed to understand.

“Thank you. It’s a big fucking deal to go against your dad for someone- and that’s like triple for when your dad’s god. Guess I’ve got to officially welcome you to the ‘Upcoming Awkward Family Conversations Club’. Hell- I guess you’ve even got me beat. Ben can’t be too angry with me for not telling him I was back, not after the whole ‘went to hell for him’ thing.”

“… My father. He’s going to want revenge for this.”

“Let him try.” Juno closed his eyes and smirked. “But like, hopefully not for a couple of hours. I don’t think he was feeding me. I need a burger or- or pie, or something.” One eye opened and he looked lazily toward me. “Have you had pie?”

I shook my head. Juno laughed.

“Yeah. We’re going to fix that.”