Archive of Our Own

March, 2010

It would be a lie to say Chris formally moves in. It is more like he never really leaves. It takes Eduardo a while to notice that Chris’s belongings are slowly migrating to his kitchen, his closet, his bookshelves. If Chris had brought a house plant Eduardo would have noticed immediately, but of course Chris didn’t. Eduardo is the gardener in their relationship.

He doesn’t know how to ask Chris about it. What is between them is so new, despite Chris’s declaration, and Eduardo doesn’t want to scare him off. He is conscious in a way he hadn’t been before that he is not dealing with a human. Chris is something crafty and sly, something used to working in the shadows and nine layers deep, and Eduardo doesn’t know how to delve into those layers. He’s scared, too, that he has fallen for yet another man that will keep Eduardo at a distance, with him and yet not.

Eduardo’s  therapist, Dr. Kim, is unsympathetic, although he can hardly tell her the whole story. “You need to ask him what he wants, instead of trying to predict the future. Relationships thrive on honesty and communication. He’s a person like anyone else.”

No, he wasn’t. That was the whole point.

After therapy he goes out to brunch with Preeta to their favorite place in Queens, which Preeta had found for him. He had confessed to missing being able to drink a Bloody Mary and she had wrinkled her nose in polite judgment, but by the next weekend she had found this place, which served virgin Marys and a whole gamut of eggs benedict. Today after he orders his virgin Mary, Preeta does as well.

“You know you can drink around me,” Eduardo says once the waiter has brought their Marys. “I don’t mind.”

“I know,” Preeta says. “Maybe I just wanted to experience drinking soup out of a glass.”

They trade news, adhering to the strict No Work Talk policy that Preeta had put in place for her own sanity and admiring the blooming hanging baskets on the restaurant patio. Then Preeta asks about Chris.

“Is the sex still good?” Preeta asks.

“Preeta!”

She grins at him. “Aww, you’re blushing. You know I just want you to be happy, right?” When he gives her a look she laughs. “Okay, okay, Div and I are also a little...invested ever since that night.”

Eduardo, remembering the time he had been so maudlin over Chris that Divya and Preeta had taken him home with them one night and thoroughly distracted him, blushes. 

“Tell Divya that I have no complaints.”

“Ooohhh,” Preeta says teasingly as the waiter sets down their food. She looks longingly at his bagel and lox. “Ugh that looks so good .” But she shakes her head when Eduardo offers her a bite. 

“I don’t think he knows what he’s doing,” Eduardo says finally. “For the entire time I’ve known him he’s had a strict no boyfriend policy.”

“Until you?”

“I think so?”

“That sounds like something you should know,” Preeta says, picking at her salad. “But I agree with Dr. Kim. He’s clearly stupid over you, so he probably just doesn’t know how to talk to you about this.” At Eduardo’s inquiring look, she says “Hello? Songbird?”

“God, I’m sorry about that. I still feel so bad.”

“It’s fine. I told you, Songbird isn’t our real song.”

“Yes but you have yet to tell me what your real song is.”

“Well,” Preeta ducks her head and laughs. “I actually don’t think I’m allowed to tell you. It’s kind of…”

“Your song is totally a sex song! Wow. What is it?”

“No! The interns at work already have a betting pool on us having a threesome. I can’t give them more ammunition.”

“What will they do when they find out that’s already occurred?” Eduardo teases. “I wonder who won.”

“Does your man know about that, by the way?” 

Eduardo rubs the back of his neck. “No? I’m not sure how to tell him.”

“Okay, Young Padawan,” Preeta intones in a faux solemn tone, “that’s something you should probably tell him. He should not find out from the interns or from me or Divya. Then ask him if he wants to move in, and if he wants to be exclusive, and labels will come up. It’s like dominos. One topic leads to another.” 

“Some people think they know everything since getting married,” Eduardo sniffs, then catches Preeta eyeing his lox again. “Seriously, just have some--”

“No, I can’t. I mean, I don’t want to--”

“You can’t?” Eduardo looks from Preeta’s salad--uncharacteristically healthy for her for brunch--to the virgin Bloody Mary. “Oh my god, are you pregnant?”

“Shut up, you’re not supposed to know yet!” Preeta hisses at him, and then starts to laugh when he draws her into a hug. The rest of brunch is dominated by all things baby, but Eduardo is still thinking about what Preeta said about Chris when he gets home later that day. 

Chris isn’t there, but more of his books have stealthily migrated onto Eduardo’s shelves. Eduardo drags his fingertips along their spines and thinks about ciphers. If there was ever a word to encapsulate Chris, cipher is it. But he’s not thinking about decoding Chris; he’s thinking about whether or not he wants to. He is trying to be honest with himself about his wants and needs ever since what he wanted fucked him over so royally. And the answer is no , he doesn’t want to decode Chris. He wants Chris to meet him halfway. Chris began something when he came to Eduardo in the middle of the night with a declaration of love on his lips. It is only right that Eduardo finish it.

Chris gets home when Eduardo is halfway through cooking dinner: braised beef short ribs with horseradish. Chris is flushed, his top button undone and his tie loose in a way that suggests he went drinking with Leslie and Jamal. But he is still implacably put together in a way that makes Eduardo want to wreck him. 

He had planned to be careful, to take his time, but instead he sets his wooden spoon down and holds out his arms for a hug. Chris fits neatly into his arms the way he had always has, from hugs in the Kirkland Suite to when they had danced to Songbird to when they had first gotten together. Each time they touch something in Eduardo eases. He can tell Chris is relieved as well, because he smiles when they break apart. Eduardo is defenseless against it. Understanding little of love-- real love--he had thought perhaps he would build up an immunity. The reverse is true. Every moment they spend together they move deeper into a wilderness together, an adventure that exists only because it is shared.

“Chris,” Eduardo says gently, and waits until Chris looks at him. Chris’s expression smooths out again, becoming unreadable, and Eduardo is surprised to recognize that this is a form of protection. Oh, he thinks, shocked, but he of all people understands the appearance of polished neutrality as a kind of armor. 

“Do you want to move in with me?” Eduardo asks, stroking a hand through Chris’s hair. He has the heady pleasure of watching Chris smile, big and bright. 

“Is that what you want?” Chris asks, which is a real poker face of a question. 

“Yes,” Eduardo says simply, and watches Chris’s smile become something smaller but much more satisfied. It sends an electric thrill through him that he savors. Very few people are rewarded this way for emotional vulnerability, and he cannot help but luxuriate in the feeling. He runs his hand through Chris’s hair again and watches Chris’s eyebrows flutter closed, his face relaxing. Chris presses close, and then spreads his fingers over Eduardo’s ribs, beneath his arm. It’s a very specific touch, one that Chris does sometimes when they are especially close, and Eduardo has never minded. He thought it was one of charming little peculiarities that made Chris who he was, but now things begin to slot into place. 

“Can you see it?” Eduardo asks, glancing down at where Chris’s hand is, spread over what must be his soul. Chris begins to remove his hand and Eduardo holds it there. “Can you hear it?”

Chris is bright pink with the force of his blush. Ah, Eduardo thinks, and presses his smile against Chris’s temple. “I don’t mind.”

“I cannot hear it,” Chris murmurs against his cheek. “But I can see it.”

Eduardo glances at the timer for the short ribs and then takes Chris’s free hand. They sway there, in Eduardo’s kitchen, holding each other close against the chill of spring. 

“Does it look happy?” Eduardo asks. Chris gives him a searching look, but it seems Eduardo is right: Chris is covert because he is very bad at talking about feelings.

“I don’t know,” Chris whispers. “Do you think it is?”

Eduardo cannot stop his grin. “Yes, I do.” He is rewarded by Chris’s eyes shutting in relief. “You never answered me. Do you want to move in? Or, do you want to finish moving in?”

Chris laughs. “You caught me,” he says, then kisses Eduardo. He tastes minty, and Eduardo’s chest aches at the idea of Chris chewing on a breath mint in the cab back from the bar. “I do. I want to stay.”

Eduardo’s heart pole vaults into his throat, and there is an exquisite pressure in his chest; so keen and sharp he cannot tell if it is pleasure or pain. They all blur in the end. Chris’s eyes search his face, then train on his temple. From the way his face goes solemn Eduardo knows Chris is looking at his scar, curved like a crescent moon and visible through his hair. 

Eduardo remembers, clearly, the moment in his hotel room before they danced to Songbird, when Chris had seen his scar for the first time. He had worn the strangest expression looking at it, and at the time Eduardo hadn’t known or understood, but now he recognizes parts of it: pain, guilt, longing.

His own guilt lodges uncomfortably in his throat and he swallows hard.

“I don’t want to keep secrets from you,” Eduardo says slowly, glancing at the timer again. He has never had good timing and this conversation is no exception. When he looks back at Chris he sees that Chris’s expression has turned opaque again. “Preeta is my best friend, and Divya and I are close too.”

Chris nods; he knows this from consulting for Lakshmi Ventures part time.

“After we danced to Songbird, you disappeared. No, hey, it’s okay,” he says to soothe Chris’s expression, which has turned pained and apologetic. “I understand you were processing stuff.” He has intuited this, anyway. Chris had told him that very visit that demons and humans were not supposed be together. It hadn’t been difficult to understand why Chris had done what he did; the difficulty had been in living with it. 

“Yes,” Chris agrees. “I was...there was a lot going on at the time.” He does not expand on this. Eduardo decides to let it go for now.

“So I was upset,” he continues. “I didn’t know how I felt until I saw you again, and I thought you knew and were rejecting me.” He swallows hard.  “One night Divya and Preeta took me home with them to distract me. But it was just the once.”

Chris is not looking at him; he is looking at Eduardo’s hands. Eduardo is wringing them. He cannot help himself. He watches his traitorous hands give him away and is at a loss to quiet himself. He is so nervous that Chris will--what? React badly? The ‘badly’ is the scariest of unknowns. It reduces his kitchen to a lightless, airless void. He feels like he is gargling acid, like it is dissolving him from the inside out. 

“Alright.” Chris reaches out and covers Eduardo’s hands with his own, gently. His thumb strokes the back of one of Eduardo’s hands. He is still not looking at Eduardo. “I cannot say it is a surprise.”

“What? Because of the betting pool?”

When Chris looks up at Eduardo he is smiling ruefully. “The other day Divya kissed Preeta on the cheek and then did the same to you. This isn’t the first time this has happened.”

“Oh.” This did explain why there was a betting pool. “You aren’t mad?”

“No. We weren’t together. I wasn’t under the impression you were living like a monk and pining away for me.”

That’s it? Eduardo cannot bring himself to trust Chris’s equanimity. Is he paranoid or wise? Eduardo cannot say. He busies himself with pulling the ribs out of the oven and preparing the horseradish sauce. They eat on the couch, sharing a blanket and watching Breaking Bad. March is ostensibly spring time but the chill in the air bites like a wolf. Eduardo watches Chris out of the corner of his eye and tries not to be so contemplative that he doesn’t track what’s going on in the episode, although of course the only thing happening in the episode is Walt trying to kill a housefly. Chris catches him watching and pauses the episode to kiss him.

They have sex. It is not so straight forward as a claiming, but Chris is strangely intent, his hands on Eduardo’s skin, his mouth on Eduardo’s throat. He performs every action like he has a list of things he has wanted to do for a very long time, and it scares the fuck out of Eduardo. Is this a goodbye? His throat squeezes tight and he spreads his hands to span Chris’s back. 

Chris draws back to look at him, and with the shadows in the room Eduardo cannot tell if his eyes are blue or black. He expects fear, not the strange thrill that runs through him as hot and sensual as wax dripping on his skin. Is this the top layer or the ninth? He wants it all.

Maybe his expression gives him away because Chris runs his fingers up Eduardo’s arms, across his shoulders, down his chest, and it is slow and careful and very thorough.

“I was thinking about this,” Chris tells him, tucking his face out of sight again. “During Songbird. That entire time, you had no idea, and I wanted--” He breaks off. Eduardo waits but Chris does not finish the thought. He blows Eduardo instead, as if his silence cannot be trusted to hold. 

Afterwards they lay in bed and listen to the world outside, the eerie screaming of the gulls and the bustling of the streets. Eduardo forces himself not to wonder about how Asia’s closing. He will see the numbers soon enough. Instead he looks around their room: linens he picked, furniture he picked, the rug his parents gave him. Him, him, him. Maybe they should redecorate. But then he sees traces of Chris, smaller but still present: his button downs hanging in the closet, his loafers tucked against the wall, his reading glasses, his Rolex on the nightstand. Each thing is a trace of a man used to hiding himself among the world. Eduardo is startled by this thought. Each thing Chris has brought over here has been a tiny declaration. 

“I want to be exclusive,” Chris says, staring up at the ceiling.

“Yes,” Eduardo agrees, looking from the watch to Chris’s profile. Chris side eyes him. It’s like watching a toddler learn how to run, because he lumbers on. 

“I want us to be…” a pause. The possibility of same sex marriage becoming legal soon twirls and twines around Chris’s infamous no boyfriend policy. Eduardo realizes with some embarrassment that this is a conversation they should have had a long time ago. They are doing it all backwards.

“Boyfriends?” Eduardo says. They smile at each other from beneath the covers, furtive like a secret, like a crime.  

“Yes,” Chris says. He rests his head on Eduardo’s shoulder and shuts his eyes. The strange tension in his body eases. Eduardo feels tenderness blossom inside him and kisses the top of Chris’s head. Each breath Chris takes in their apartment, in their bed, feels as monumental as a space walk. His heart is unbound by gravity. It feels so good he falls asleep like that. When he wakes up the next day Chris is still there, radiant in the watery light of dawn, each freckle on his back perfectly placed. Eduardo has made this observation countless times over the short length of their relationship and yet it is strangely and intensely new. 

As if Chris can feel Eduardo’s gaze he stretches, cosseted like a spoiled cat, infinitely wonderful among the thousand thread count sheets Eduardo spent too much money on. Stay here forever, Eduardo thinks. As if Chris can hear this thought he opens his eyes and smiles at Eduardo. There’s a pillow crease on his cheek. Eduardo feels his heart rate accelerate and feels like a fool. It is only a pillow crease. 

Preeta is going to lose her mind. It is extremely possible he has already lost his.

*

April, 2010

Eduardo puts Chris’s name on his lease and utilities and tries not to be unbearably smug. The apartment morphs like it’s shedding a winter coat, until it is theirs . Everything about it begins to remind him: Chris’s cologne next to his, Chris’s cast iron skillet, Chris’s vintage maps on the walls, Chris’s wingback armchair near the fireplace. Their decorating styles are not exactly complimentary, but Eduardo takes this as an opportunity. What strange alchemy a relationship can be, transforming a living space he once found hostile into something as homey as a patchwork quilt.

Preeta has now acquired the pinched look of someone who is nauseous all the time. Eduardo can only listen to her puke so much before he is emailing his mother to ask what she did to deal with morning sickness.

Potato chips and ginger tea. isn’t an answer he was expecting but he’ll take it. He buys chips from the bodega on the corner and gives the bag to Preeta like he has brought her a priceless jewel. He cannot help but smile, watching Divya fuss over Preeta even while on a conference call. His vow to never mix business and pleasure again is so shoddy in the light of day. Nothing is as he thought it was. This is a good thing. He thinks this over and over again, going to the movies with Preeta or visiting Max and Deidre or calling his mom. Nothing can be predicted. They are all just stumbling around in the dark.

Things with his family are...good enough. They are trying. Sometimes it is like trying to walk across a booby trapped floor. He doesn’t know which flagstone can take his weight. Other times it is easy enough that he feels ridiculous for expecting it to be hard. But almost dying can transform a relationship like that. His hospital stay was enough to broker an armistice, and then a peace treaty, and now what feels like genuine healing. He has performed the ultimate miracle.

He thinks about how Tan would laugh if she could hear this thought. Perhaps she is laughing right now.

A few days later he comes home to find Tan standing in his kitchen talking to Chris as if his thoughts have summoned her. Tan is in her neutral form and Chris is not Chris at all but Cristoforo: black eyes, inhuman teeth, strangely pale and gaunt. It’s shocking to see him like this after so long, but it is not like Eduardo forgot who or what he was dealing with. His memories of Hell have been carved into his bones. 

Chris sees Eduardo and immediately turns away; Tan embraces him. 

“Darling,” Tan says, smiling. “I see you’ve redecorated. Show me around?”

So she has been keeping tabs on them. He is comforted by the thought. He had worried that their friendship would end once she gave him back his soul but that is not what has happened at all. Now she flits in and out of his life just as she used to, regal as ever. He shows her a painting his father gave him and tries to ignore the strange tension that is vibrating in the bright air. 

Chris is not with them, has in fact disappeared into a different room.  Eduardo is conscious of this the entire time he talks to Tan about the disastrous BP oil spill that happened only days ago. She looks older than he’s ever seen her, but her eyes are still warm when she looks at him. He isn’t sure what they’re warm with. Pride? Amusement? Love? All of these things seem too good to be true. Her arms around him are not; they are solid, despite the fact she is dainty and petite in this form, her face made for smiling. They speak of world news, of the markets, and he cherishes her scorn for the disrupters in Silicon Valley. They cannot possibly compare to the original disrupter. No rule is safe.

“Is this a social visit?” he asks her, voice low. Chris is still absent, tucked away in the study. Eduardo thinks that if it wasn’t a social visit then Chris would be here, but there is still so much he does not understand.

Tan wears a familiar expression, like she knows something he doesn’t. “Oh, yes,” she says. “Cristoforo is bad at keeping in touch, and I can’t exactly send him a fruit basket.”

“Are you ever going to let that go?”

“No,” Tan promises, and Eduardo finally has to laugh. It is a bit humiliating, to look back at the fruit basket and see it was a childish bid for attention. But what is between them is something still new and inexplicable.  He is still trying to untangle it.

“I think you will enjoy your summer,” Tan says, not ominous so much as amused. She looks around the apartment, her eyes taking in his wall of plants, and her eyes soften. “I will tend to your plants while you’re gone.”

“Gone?” Eduardo asks, but she only smiles and kisses his cheek.

Tan takes her leave and Eduardo stares blankly out the window and tries to figure out the thought nagging at him. He knows that there is no use in trying to guess what Tan meant. He will find out soon enough. Instead he goes to find Chris and finds him human again. Chris does not turn around when Eduardo comes into the study, apparently absorbed in his work. 

Even a month ago Eduardo would have felt rejected but now he looks at the curve of Chris’s back and realizes Chris is embarrassed. “You didn’t have to leave. I know what you look like.”

Chris glances at him and shakes his head. Eduardo tries to figure out how to address this. But he doesn’t know what to say, so the moment passes. He leaves Chris to his work.

The next few days are uneventful. Eduardo watches Chris, or rather he watches Chris and then watches Chris pretend not to notice. Instead Chris practically models for him: blue eyes, freckled face, straight and even teeth that suggest a high school spent partially with braces. Human, human, human. Ordinary. Non threatening. Is it the truth or a lie? 

He lays awake one night and watches the thought nagging at him materialize in the dimness of the room. Why the fuck had Tan said that Chris was bad at keeping in touch? Didn’t Chris work for her? Did it bother Chris that Eduardo called him Chris instead of Cristoforo? From the way Chris talked on the mountainside, it’s like he thinks of Chris and Cristoforo as two different people. Would it bother Chris if Eduardo told him they were one and the same to him?

There is still so much he doesn’t know. 

Eduardo turns over and looks at Chris, who has thrown off the blankets in his sleep. He sleeps shirtless because he runs hot, and Eduardo has spent enough time looking at him that he could point to the five moles on his abdomen even without turning on the lights. The horrific burn of the cross on Chris’s chest had disappeared, like it hadn’t happened at all.

What did it mean? 

He tries to imagine asking Dr. Kim and actually laughs out loud. Chris shifts in his sleep, restless, and cuddles close. His hand slots over Eduardo’s ribs and he quiets again. Thank god it’s dark so Eduardo doesn’t have to hide his smile. 

Yes, there is so much that he doesn’t know. But that didn’t mean it was automatically bad. So many of the things Chris did were loving acts wrapped in secret, like no one had told him it was safe to be gentle. Perhaps they hadn’t.

“Huh,” Eduardo says to himself. He cuddles close to Chris and hears Chris sigh in his sleep. He is still thinking about it when he drifts off.

*

May, 2010

Eduardo lives suffused with questions and finds it is not a bad way to live. Every day there is an answer, and then another question. He wonders if Chris feels the same way about him. He dreams of Hell still; not just the Wastes but the mountain, Chris demonic and strangely honest. He had never told Chris how much it meant to him that Chris had seen Eduardo’s great vulnerability, the nakedness of his soul, and answered with his own vulnerability. His history had been the greatest gift. 

Eduardo wants to know more but doesn’t know how to ask Chris about it. His own memories are so painful, even when taking on the dull gloss and shine of the past. He has always found it strange that people say memories cannot touch you, that they are firmly in the past where they belong, when his memories have such a great hold on him it feels almost physical. He cannot imagine asking Chris to relive the catastrophic loss of losing an entire world centuries ago, or asking him to relive his own death. The phrase I would not rise out of Caravaggio haunts him still. And he doesn’t want to remind Chris of his last visit to Milan: the dead priest, the livid burn, Chris’s sentences reduced to fragments as he sat on Eduardo’s bathroom counter in nothing but a towel.

When Chris had disappeared for a month to do god knows what, Eduardo had been stranded. Not physically but mentally, continually bumping up against the shoals of his realization that he wasn’t alone in this. It had been the most bittersweet thrill, the realization that Chris felt a tug towards him the way Eduardo did. When he looks back at the winding road of their history, in Hell and beyond, he is so thankful they are here that he has to reach out to find Chris every time he thinks of it.

Eduardo ends up ordering a book on the Sforza dynasty in Milan and reads it covertly when Chris is away on business trips. He is not covert enough though, or maybe Chris is just made for sniffing out secrets, because Eduardo comes home one day to find Chris holding the book with a perplexed look on his face.

Eduardo feels his face heat and tries to figure out what to say. In the end Chris doesn’t say anything, just tugs Eduardo over to him by his tie and kisses him deeply. They have sex and Chris scratches down Eduardo’s back, murmuring words against his skin in a language that sounds both archaic and familiar. It is only afterwards, when they are in bed and Chris’s head is on Eduardo’s chest, that Chris addresses it.

“You can ask me about it. You don’t have to read it from a book.”

“I didn’t want to hurt you.”

Chris’s arm around him tightens. “You don’t have to tiptoe around me.”

Is that really what he thinks Eduardo is doing? Eduardo feels the hot, painful squeeze of embarrassment and opens his mouth, to say what he doesn’t know, but Chris isn’t done. “I’m never going to yell at you for asking questions.”

“It’s not--I wasn’t--”

“There is no one else I can really talk about it with,” Chris confesses. Eduardo’s embarrassment begins to abate slowly. “I haven’t shared my past with anyone else.”

Eduardo goes through a list of Chris’s friends. Leslie, Jamal, Mark, and Dustin don’t know who or what Chris is. Amy, a woman in Chris’s phone under the ominous contact name ‘Hellraiser,’ clearly does, but she seems to be an anomaly. 

“I haven’t wanted to,” Chris says after slow minutes of silence. “Just you.”

Eduardo runs a hand down the curve and dip of Chris’s spine. “Tell me about it,” he requests. 

Chris does: what Francesco Sforza was like, what Bianca Maria was like, the slow grueling march to forge a republic, and then what working in the shadows to ensure Sforza became Duke of Milan was like. Eduardo is conscious he is being given a gift and stays quiet. His dry history book on the Sforza dynasty doesn’t come close to the way Chris is bringing it alive for him. Chris traces the line of the Sforza dynasty through history, dragging his fingertips across Eduardo’s skin and narrates countless wars and cities lost and won, Europe busy trying to consume itself like the ouroboros and the Catholic Church rising and falling and rising again. He talks about what it was like to return to Milan and see it as it is now, a city of culture and fashion and renown. Francesco and Bianca would be proud, he says. This was what they wanted, and 600 years later it has come true. 

In return Eduardo tells him about what growing up in São Paulo and then Rio was like, about the kidnapping threat and the way his family had moved to Miami to protect him. He tells Chris about their German heritage and the way World War II had driven his grandparents across the globe out of sheer preservation. He tells Chris about what life at Harvard was like before meeting him and Mark and Dustin, before Facebook. He talks until he goes hoarse, and Chris listens with his hands on Eduardo’s skin, as if to say you are here, you are here with me. 

“I did research on you,” Chris admits. “Because of Facebook. I was trying to figure out why Tan had sent me to Harvard. You were the most interesting by far.”

“Even more than Mark?”

“No competition,” Chris says. He drags his hand across Eduardo’s chest and over Eduardo’s side. It’s been months since they got together but Eduardo still feels a bloom of warmth whenever Chris does this. He can’t say why. Perhaps it is the idea that Chris is so drawn towards Eduardo’s soul that he can’t stay away. “You have no idea how long…”

“How long?”

“When we met in Economics 101 I didn’t know what to think,” Chris says after a long silence. Eduardo wonders what his face looks like. Maybe one day they will get to a point where Chris can tell him these things without hiding. He can be patient for Chris. “I couldn’t stay away from you. It was very...new.”

But then you met Mark, goes unsaid. Eduardo hears it all the same.

“Maybe it had to happen this way,” Eduardo says. Chris finally shifts and looks at him. He traces Eduardo’s scar gently with one careful hand.

“Tan must have known,” he muses. 

“That we’d end up like this?”

“That I wouldn’t give you up for the world. It figures that she knew before I did.”

In mid May Eduardo comes home to a wedding invitation from his cousin Rachelle, who lives in São Paulo. She’s getting married in June, in one of the largest Ashkenazi temples in São Paulo, and she has generously invited him and a plus one despite the fact that they haven’t seen each other since Eduardo was in college. Eduardo thinks absently about what it would be like to plan his wedding to Chris. He already despairs of the guest count.

He shows the invitation to Chris over breakfast the next morning. It’s already light outside and they’ve taken to drinking coffee on the balcony, surrounded by Eduardo’s plants. So maybe Preeta was right: Eduardo’s plant collection is out of control.

“How long do you want to stay in São Paulo?” Chris asks, looking at the calendar on his Blackberry. “I don’t have any trips lined up in June. I think we could stay the month if you wanted to, even if you wanted to work remotely.”

It does something to his chest to hear Chris automatically assume he and Eduardo will go together. ‘We’ is the best word in the English language.

Eduardo tries to imagine staying a month with his family and practically breaks out in a sweat. “Only if we stay at a hotel.”

“Fine by me,” Chris says. He taps the name of the venue. “This is a temple?”

“One of the biggest in São Paulo. Oh,” Eduardo realizes. “Will you be able to come?”

Chris nods. It is stupid o’clock in the morning but he is beautiful and composed. The lizard part of Eduardo’s brain wants to drag Chris back to bed as if it is a survival mechanism. “There are protocols in place for this,” Chris says, and disappears inside to make a phone call.

Divya and Preeta are very supportive of Eduardo working remotely for a month because of a wedding, probably because they are still recovering from their own. 

“Take some time off,” Preeta orders him while reviewing research notes on a start up. Eduardo tugs on the end of her ponytail gently. 

“I don’t think we can afford to.”

It is the grim truth: the market is still bad and every start up is desperate for cash. Obama is doing his best for the economy but recessions take time to recover from. Every day Eduardo checks the news and watches Congress argue over safety measures and health care. The congressional hearings for those partially responsible for the recession are terrifying. It’s unnerving to see people held responsible still working on Wall Street after paying fines, still making trades. At least AIG doesn’t exist anymore. 

Divya looks up from his computer, face easing out of his scowl of concentration. “I think it will be fine,” Divya says. “Besides, you need to take vacation now so you can cover for us on paternity leave in September.” 

“True,” Eduardo says; so maybe they’ll take vacation after all. “I’m telling you now, you’re going to call me up in the middle of the night suggesting trades and I’m going to ignore you because you will be sleep deprived.”

Preeta rests a hand on her stomach. “I have so many aunties already clamoring for babysitting duties that we’ve practically had to draw up a custody agreement. I’m going to be begging you to let me come to work.”

“And I’m going to say no,” Eduardo says, having shared an office with Max right after Helena was born. “Jamal, Leslie, and I can handle it. You’re going to be so tired. I’ll steal you away for a massage instead.”

It says something about the strength of his friendship with Preeta that when they had lied about being a couple to use a couple’s massage coupon, Divya had only pouted and demanded they invite him next time because his neck was stiff. 

So maybe Eduardo understands why there’s a betting pool. 

“We’ll look after your plants,” Divya promises. “Or work with Max and Deidre to do so, anyway.”

“Speaking of custody agreements!” Preeta says, and Eduardo laughs.

Chris comes by to take Eduardo out to lunch. He does this sometimes, like he just can’t stay away, and it makes Eduardo feel ten feet tall. They order gyros to go and walk through Battery Park. The wind off the bay is so cold that it stings and Eduardo tips his head back and relishes the feeling, the briny smell of the sea enveloping him. He watches Chris stare out at the water and cannot keep from smiling.

Chris catches him staring like a creep and rolls his eyes, implacably put together as ever. It is the most beautiful of illusions. Eduardo sees the trick of it now. If you do not want anything, nothing can be taken from you. But that was not how Eduardo was. He had always wanted everything. It was only now that he might have it. 

This thought makes him smile wider. As if to prove him right, Chris smiles back.

*

June, 2010

To São Paulo they go. The plane ride isn’t too bad; from New York to Miami, from Miami to São Paulo. Eduardo’s parents are not attending the wedding due to his father’s work, so Eduardo’s mother had asked him to bring gifts from her and his father. He cannot say no to her, but between his parents’ gifts and his and Chris’ gifts the baggage claim is a nightmare.

Chris is very patient even when Eduardo is as cranky as a child from not being able to sleep on the plane. They take a cab to the hotel and Eduardo presses against Chris as Chris unlocks their room, not amorous so much as exhausted. They only have a few hours before they have to meet with Rachelle and Eduardo’s aunt and uncle and he wants to take a nap.

It takes him a second to understand why Chris has frozen in the doorway.

There’s an older woman sitting on the hotel bed, knitting. She looks up as the door opens and smiles widely, showing teeth. “Cristoforo,” she says, and a chill runs down Eduardo’s spine. “How nice to see you. It’s been so long.”

After a moment, Chris walks inside; Eduardo follows and shuts the door behind him. He doesn’t want to deal with the Supernatural Welcoming Committee with the entire hallway listening in.

“Aline. Nice to see you.” Chris says this through gritted teeth. “I thought we were meeting elsewhere.”

“Don’t be cross,” Aline says, but she’s not looking at Chris. “I’m not here for you.” Eduardo startles at this, and Chris stiffens. Fear begins to zip through Eduardo’s bloodstream, heralding adrenaline, and it zips faster when Eduardo realizes that the reason Chris is still in front of him is because he is shielding Eduardo with his own body.

“It’s nice to meet you.” Eduardo says automatically. 

“Is it really?” Aline muses. “Cristoforo, stop acting like I’m going to eat him.”

“You showed up uninvited,” Chris tells her.

“It’s a hotel room, darling. I don’t have to be invited.” Aline’s eyes bleed from brown to black and Chris stiffens further as if he has been insulted. Eduardo suddenly understands that they are about ten words away from a pissing contest. 

“Is our passage assured or did you just come here to gawk?”

“Is gawking forbidden?” Aline is eyeing Eduardo with frank interest. “The first human to ever win his soul back...well. Everyone’s a little curious. You know what they call him. And you know what they’re calling you.”

“Do you know what would happen to you if you got your soul back?” Chris asks her this with grim pleasure. “You would cease to exist. You would become dust.”

“And what would happen to you? You were dust long before I was born.”

Chris’s hands are white knuckled on their luggage. “I do not need a reminder,” he sneers. 

“Can you blame me for wanting to see you happy?” Aline asks, her knitting needles clacking. She suddenly looks very sad, but her face is so mobile that Eduardo wonders if this is her true form or not. Chris looks ageless in a way that makes him pass for Eduardo’s age, just shy of thirty, but Aline looks like she’s in her sixties. 

Perhaps she prefers being middle aged. Eduardo’s heard from his mother that being older can be very freeing for a woman.

“Blame you? No. But I’m not so stupid as to think you only have one reason.”

Aline is silent for a long time. Chris seems to relax enough that he moves away from the door. Eduardo, completely at sea, follows him. They sit down in the arm chairs across the room from the bed and listen to Aline knit. The room is lushly accommodated and the furnishings are comfortable; Eduardo tries not to look too longingly at the bed. 

“We are the only two left,” Aline tells him. “And now I hear you’ve retired?”

The only two left of what? Chris has retired? Eduardo stares at him. Chris ignores him. His armor is on, but this is the first time Eduardo has felt shut out. 

“Time’s running out,” Chris says. He’s barely moving his lips. “Has Tan--”

“Yes. She’s told me all about it.”

About what?

“So then you know why.”

Aline cocks her head. Her eyes flick over to Eduardo. “Two reasons, I think.”

When Eduardo glances over to look at Chris he sees Chris is barely human, eyes black, pale enough that his freckles seem to have disappeared. He’s holding himself like he’s been shot. 

“Is our passage assured or not?”

Aline waves one hand impatiently. “Yes, yes. You can visit the Temple for the duration of your stay.” She looks from Chris to Eduardo and back again. “I can see myself out.”

“Aline,” Chris says this when the door is already open. Aline pauses and looks over her shoulder. “I hope you are happy too.”

“Not everyone is as lucky as you,” Aline tells him.

“Do what you can,” Chris says. It is not a request, it is an order, and Aline laughs.

“You sound like Tan,” She tells Chris. “She told me to make the most of it.”  

Make the most of what?

Aline glances at Eduardo. “It was nice to meet you.”

“Perhaps we can talk more another time,” Eduardo says politely, and watches the door close.

Chris sags as soon as Aline’s footsteps fade away. He looks as exhausted as Eduardo feels, and he’s still in that stage between human and demonic: black eyes, but human teeth. Inhumanly pale, but with a human body. 

“What’s going on?” Eduardo asks. 

“You’re a celebrity,” Chris tells him. “I should have known Aline would want to meet you. I’m sure she’s not the only one.”

Eduardo waves a hand impatiently. “Fine. What did she mean, you retired?”

Chris rubs his eyes and doesn’t answer for a long time. Instead he crosses to the mini bar and helps himself to a bottle of water as if it holds answers. Eduardo watches him pace and then crosses his arms, desperation and frustration rising inside him. It feels like it’s clawing its way up his throat, like he’s going to turn inside out. “Tell me what’s going on. Please.”

“Technically I haven’t retired,” Chris says, as if Eduardo cares about technicalities. “Technically I’m on vacation.”

Cristoforo is bad at keeping in touch, Tan whispers in his memory.

“From working for Tan?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

Chris crosses to the window and stares out at São Paulo, with its skyscrapers and its bustle. “Because of you,” he tells the glass. 

“I--you don’t have to retire for me.”

Eduardo really doesn’t appreciate the sigh Chris heaves. He paces like a caged animal. Eduardo, exhausted, crosses to the bed and sits on the end, where Aline previously sat. He watches Chris rub the back of his neck like a child caught in a lie and feels dread prick at his fingertips. “Chris, what is going on?”

“Tan had me get involved with Facebook for a reason,” Chris says this so reluctantly that Eduardo’s heart drops. Whatever Chris is about to tell him is bad news. “She wanted to see how fast human technology was progressing, because it’s a threat to us. Christy got involved for the same reason.”

“What do you mean, it’s a threat?”

“You cannot possibly imagine what it’s like to be as old as I am,” Chris says. Eduardo bristles, but Chris’s tone isn’t condescending, just honest. “I am almost 600 years old. I am...the oldest demon alive.”

“What Aline said, about you two being the only two left--”

“Aline is the second oldest. She turned in the 17th century, if memory serves.” 

“What happened to the older demons?”

Chris glances at him. “They’re asleep. We don’t die unless murdered or Tan wills it...instead we fall into eternal sleep when it gets too much. There are tombs in Hell’s mountains.”

“But why--”

“Not everyone can handle immortality.”

Eduardo absorbs this in silence. He tries to imagine being immortal: watching the world change, watching new technology roll out, civilizations rising and falling, history passing him by. His loved ones dying. Losing everyone he knows.

Chris looks at him with such naked grief that Eduardo’s throat aches. His eyes are hot, and he has to blink rapidly so he won’t cry. “I don’t understand,” he admits. “How does this relate to technology being a threat?”

“When you are as old as I am, you need an anchor to survive. My anchor is my face. I’ve always used it, though I’ve changed little things. It’s very traditional,” Chris admits. “But it reminds me who I am. I think--I know that if I changed what I looked like I would forget who I was or when I was. I would be lost. But facial recognition technology is evolving so quickly that soon we’re not going to be able to do that anymore.” 

Chris stands right in front of him. If Eduardo crossed the room he could touch Chris, or feel the steady beat of his pulse. But he is paralyzed by grief for something he hasn’t even lost yet, pressure and pain swelling inside of him. How stupid he was, to think he could have this happiness forever. How stupid he was, to think the unknown could possibly be good. He is a fucking moron.

“Tan told me after--after Songbird,” Chris continues. He sounds detached, like this doesn’t actually affect him. “She knows the cost. She told me to take a vacation and enjoy what I had left.”

“How long?”

Chris turns away. “I don’t know. Until Chris Hughes is dead, certainly.”

That’s right. He’s not dealing with Chris. He’s dealing with Cristoforo, demon, the thing that works in the shadows and doesn’t tell Eduardo anything.

“I can’t believe you kept this from me,” Eduardo chokes out. His voice is so thick that he feels humiliated. Here he is, falling to pieces when Chris sounds cold and detached. Self loathing pulls him down like quicksand. “You just weren’t going to tell me?”

Chris glances at him. “I didn’t want to upset you.”

“You’re my partner!” Eduardo stands. “If I was in your place, I would have told you. Do you want to know why?”

“Eduardo,” Chris says.

“Because I want to share everything with you. That’s what it means to me. To share the good and the bad. I thought…”

“Eduardo,” Chris repeats, crossing the room to him. “I do want that, of course I do. But it’s not going to matter for decades. Please,” he adds desperately. “I should have told you. I know that now. But it’s hard for me to talk about.”

“What else haven’t you told me?” Eduardo demands. Chris just stares at him, and he looks so unhappy that for a minute Eduardo wants to say nevermind, it doesn’t matter, I love you. This treacherous part of him doesn’t care about his own happiness, it just wants things to be easy; it says the truth matters less than keeping him. 

He is so weak for Chris that he has to look away before these words come flying out of his mouth. He was stupid once, but never again. His eyes land on the clock and he realizes they’ve run out of time to have this argument.

“Nevermind,” he says. “We have to leave to meet my family.”

If pressed for details, Eduardo wouldn’t be able to recount meeting his aunt, uncle, Rachelle and her fiancé for dinner. He knows they go to a fancy restaurant where meat is carved for them in front of their table; he knows that he eats familiar food, tastes familiar spices, and tries to draw comfort from that. He watches Chris turn on the charm, which his family cannot resist despite Chris not being who they were expecting. Chris Hughes, the secret weapon.

God, Mark had no idea.

His family doesn’t press him about the fact he’s not drinking and Eduardo doesn’t share. Rachelle is beautiful and radiant and in love, and her fiance--José--looks at her like he knows exactly how lucky he is. Eduardo likes him despite himself. He gives her a subtle thumbs up when Jose excuses himself to go to the restroom.

Rachelle jerks her chin at Chris and raises her eyebrows, then winks. 

“He’s handsome,” she says to Eduardo in Portuguese when Chris is busy talking to her parents about the strength of the Brazilian real and modern currency challenges. He is doing an excellent job of pretending they are not fighting.

“He can understand us,” Eduardo tells her and she throws back her head and laughs. It is like looking at himself in love, if he were a woman: all that shiny joy that is so infectious it cannot stay hidden.

“I want to know your story,” Rachelle says. She has always been intent, dogged in a way that made her career as a journalist inevitable. Even now she trains her brown eyes on him expectantly and it is hard to resist. She has the kind of charisma that sucks you in. 

“We’re here for you,” Eduardo demurs. He could not afford to tell her about Chris: she would tease the story right out of him, and he would barely know it was happening. He needed a cover story, a strange version of the truth, because he didn’t want to lie to her. He had missed her when he had moved to Miami at 13. They had lost contact when Facebook had happened, pushing everything to the wayside, and had only reconnected after the car accident. He hadn’t known what to tell her or anyone, so he had given them an abridged version of the truth. He was like Chris, Eduardo realized with sudden clarity: at times he could only give people the first layer.

To distract himself from this revelation he seizes on the topic at hand. “Tell me about the wedding.” He is an expert at weddings now, and he listens to Rachelle tell a very funny story about her madrinhas fighting over who gets to wear what color. 

After dinner he and Chris go back to their room and get ready for bed in silence. They lay between the sheets and stare at the ceiling. Chris doesn’t even pretend to be asleep. He waits instead.

Well, Eduardo isn’t going to give him the satisfaction. They lay there in stony silence. Finally Chris sighs. 

“How do I fix this?” he asks, and he sounds so unhappy that Eduardo aches. He wants to draw Chris close so badly his fingers twitch.

“I don’t know,” Eduardo admits.

“I have never done this before,” Chris says. “I don’t know what I’m doing. I don’t know what I’m supposed to tell you when. I don’t want to…”

“Tell me?”

“I don’t want to scare you away.” 

Eduardo, shocked, turns onto his side to look at him. Chris stares at him, and there is no armor left. The dull orange light pollution of São Paulo still renders him beautiful and miserable, his face drawn, his lips pressed together. 

“Did you really think you would?”

Has Eduardo not been transparent enough? Here he was, walking around and hating himself because he thought Chris didn’t care enough. But apparently Chris was doing the same thing.

“Yes,” Chris says. “I always think that.” He swallows hard and looks away. “I know what I am. I know it’s...a lot.”

A lot? Eduardo stares at him blankly. “It’s not a lot.”

Chris shakes his head. “You don’t have to--it is, alright? I know it is.”

“You’re the man who walked through Hell with me. Who washed my feet. Who I love. That’s what matters to me.” Eduardo’s voice is thick with emotion. “I love you, and I want to give you everything, but I need the same from you.”

“But not all of it is good,” Chris says. “I only want to give you what you deserve.”

“Why don’t you let me decide what I deserve?” 

Chris searches his face, and despite the gloom Eduardo can see his eyes are troubled. Chris doesn’t have to explain, because Eduardo has the same fear: what if he gives Chris part of him and Chris decides he doesn’t want it? But Eduardo has tried being patient. He has tried accepting the unknown. He wants to know everything right now.

“I’ll try,” Chris whispers. “I’ll try, just don’t leave. I’m sorry,” he adds, and draws Eduardo close. “I’m sorry. Just don’t--”

Eduardo wraps his arms around Chris and feels Chris shudder. “I’m not,” Eduardo promises him, kissing the top of Chris’s hair. “I’m not going to leave.”

Chris presses his face against Eduardo’s chest and sighs. Eduardo feels the tension begin to drain out of him. He’s suddenly exhausted, too tired even for sex.

They fall asleep holding each other, and when Eduardo wakes Chris is still wrapped around him. There is no armor. He is no longer polished or implacable. Eduardo looks at him in the rosy halo of dawn and feels his chest tighten to the point of pain. 

Had he really thought he would become immune to Chris’s face? Immune to this feeling? Every time he looks at Chris he feels like he’s falling in love all over again. His entire body sings with it.  Had he really been prepared to walk away from this if he had to?

Later, while he’s waiting for Chris to get out of the shower, he texts Preeta. Do you feel like you love Divya more every day?

Preeta is practically surgically attached to her Blackberry, and her reply comes within seconds. Babe you have no idea. I’m amazed I can still function. 

That makes 2 of us , Eduardo texts back. He is unsurprised to receive a middle finger emoji.

Rachelle and José are busy in the days leading up to the wedding, and when Eduardo is not being asked to help with wedding tasks like helping José select a tie to be auctioned off, he and Chris explore São Paulo. Eduardo’s earliest memories are of São Paulo before they moved to Rio, and he cannot resist returning to his former neighborhood and retracing steps from over twenty years ago. He looks for the familiar and the almost familiar, and it is a pain like going to press his tongue against a tooth and finding it gone. He is strange and not strange, tourist but not tourist. This pain is eased by Chris, who confesses to having been to São Paulo before, but not for at least sixty years. 

“I like coming back after so long the city I once knew is almost erased,” Chris confesses. “It’s less painful that way. Sometimes I turn it into a game.”

This is a good approach, Eduardo thinks, because he is given to being melancholy. After all, nothing lasts forever. But it is hard to be melancholy in June in São Paulo. It’s winter in Brazil but unseasonably warm and humid compared to New York, and the weather combined with the bustle of the city teases joy out of him. 

“Where do you want to go?” Eduardo asks Chris one day. They are staying in the Jardins, which is lush and luxurious, dotted with expensive restaurants and boutiques. But Eduardo is drawn to the hole-in-the-wall bakeries for espresso and quindim, to wandering the hilly streets beneath wide spreading trees, and Chris has dragged him to the MASP. He is finding Chris is weak for art, and Chris confesses to having spent a large part of what he derisively calls his Eat, Pray, Love Europe Trip the previous year in art museums. The way he spoke about Donatello’s homoerotic bronze David made Eduardo want to assemble a team out of Ocean’s Eleven to steal it.

“I don’t know,” Chris says. He looks around the street they’re on. “What about a different part of the city?”

“I have an idea,” Eduardo says. They end up signing up for a tour on street art and wander around with another flock of tourists, reeking of sunscreen and brandishing water bottles. São Paulo is derisively called a concrete jungle but here in Vila Madalena the winding walled alleys are covered by bright, electric colors and bold shapes. Eduardo doesn’t know anything about graffiti so the significance of the names are lost on him, but he loves the ephemera of it all. He loves the way different pieces speak to one another, the color stark against the black and white painting, the soft and sensual pieces that are even more powerful when contrasted with geometric designs on either side. He loves, too, the way Chris looks so perplexed by it all, delighted and confused and wondrous by turn. 

The tour ends, having taken them to several well known places like the Open Urban Art Museum, but in the following days Eduardo and Chris keep seeking out more street art. They get purposefully lost and wander through alleyways, dining at hole-in-the-wall restaurants.  Every day they pick a neighborhood to explore: one day Cambuci, the next Consolacao. It’s freeing to walk about the city with only this agenda, an agenda about embracing that which is temporary.

On the hottest day they go to Parque Ibirapuera--which makes Central Park look small and dull by comparison--and wander about the winding paths. They buy shaved passionfruit ice and Eduardo bullies Chris into putting on sunscreen. He was extremely amused to learn being a demon doesn’t prevent sunburns, and even with sunscreen Chris has gotten incredibly freckly since they arrived. They watch the feathery plumes of the fountains and listen to the sweep of the wind, hot and wet like the breath of a God. When it gets too hot to walk around they sit on a shaded bench and listen to the susurrating of the trees, and play Spot the Tourist. It’s not as easy as they thought it would be. 

“One day fanny packs are going to come back into fashion, and then we’ll be fucked,” Chris intones with the air of a seer. He brushes sweat off of his forehead and ends up giving himself a cowlick, and Eduardo cannot resist reaching over to fix his hair. He points out what can only be a young couple, perhaps fifteen and shyly holding hands for the first time, and after a moment Chris points out an elderly couple leaning on each other as they watch the fountain.

“Are you ready for the wedding tomorrow?” Eduardo asks. Rachelle is getting ready at the spa now, and has been texting Eduardo a play by play of the madrinhas drama, including how one was so hung over that she threw up during her manicure and how another has been secretly dating José’s younger brother this entire time, messing up the list of names Rachelle has to put on her dress’s hem. Normal wedding stuff, in other words, but Rachelle’s texts are so funny that he’s been doing dramatic readings of them to Chris just to watch him laugh. That was the other thing about Rachelle: she knew everything, and had always shown her love by sharing information. Eduardo could not count the number of times she had taken him aside when they were growing up and filled him in on what was going on despite only being three years older than he was.

“I brought my dancing shoes,” Chris said. “José told me the reception is going to go until dawn.”

“I promise not to step on your feet,” Eduardo says and Chris laughs, which makes Eduardo elbow him. “I haven’t been to a Brazilian wedding since I was a teenager so all of this walking up hills has been good cardio training.”

“I bet you were a little heartbreaker,” Chris says. 

Eduardo snorts. “Yeah, me and my pizza face. What were you like as a teenager?” he asks. “I know you joined the army at fifteen.”

Since meeting Aline he’s been loath to ask Chris about his past, scared to invoke their fight, but Chris looks so relaxed he cannot resist. He is rewarded with a crooked smile. 

“Scrappy,” Chris says. “I was used to fighting for everything because I had three older brothers. All I got were hand me downs. I wanted to be the first to do something, you know? I wanted something of my own. And I didn’t want any help, ever. I wanted to do everything by myself. I only stopped that and started listening to my elders when I almost got my unit all killed. What were you like? Other than breaking hearts.”

“Almost the exact opposite,” Eduardo confesses with a laugh. “Scared to make a mistake or do my own thing. I thought…” he trails off, focusing on the water in front of him. “I thought if I worked hard enough I would be happy. But I didn’t have a good idea of what ‘enough’ was, just that it seemed out of reach. So much of growing up is looking at life like it’s a ladder and you’re forever at the bottom. There’s always another rung. So I guess I’m glad to learn that happiness isn’t like that.”

Chris looks at him with a thoughtful expression, but it’s not the polished neutrality of his armor. Eduardo is inside his armor now, and this thought is so sweet he can’t resist smiling.

“I like seeing the world through your eyes,” Chris tells him quietly, as if this is one of his many secrets. “This entire trip has been really special.”

Eduardo feels his smile broaden and approach dangerous levels. He glances around but no one is paying attention to them, and takes Chris’s hand. Chris’s smile grows and blooms slowly and Eduardo almost feels it as if it were his own. 

The wedding is a beautiful blur. Rachelle and José are shining and elated beneath the chuppah, and they smile so brightly that Eduardo is moved to tears. Chris hands him tissues as if he had been expecting this. Perhaps he had. Eduardo has always been emotional, but it is no longer something he punishes himself for. While the ceremony is quick, the reception is not; the reception goes all night. It is what Dustin would call a ‘rager.’ Eduardo would be caught off guard, but Rachelle and José met while clubbing and have meticulously curated the reception playlist. In the living tangle of the dance floor they strip down to shirtsleeves and sweat, and everyone around them moves so joyfully that it is like being in a wave pool; something that has moved enough to amass its own gravity. It’s like living in a city, a semi anonymous harmony with your neighbors, and Eduardo leans his forehead against Chris’s and surrenders to the music. The only exception is when he gets to do his favorite wedding tradition: cutting up José’s tie and auctioning off the pieces to raise money for the honeymoon. Chris buys the skinniest piece of the tie and tucks it into Eduardo’s shirt pocket as if it were a pocket square, and Eduardo already knows he’s going to keep it forever.

At the end of the night the dawn snack, pamonhas, is brought out and served with cups of coffee. Chris clutches his to him with the air of a man who has nothing else. Tender footed, they eat while leaning on the balcony of the venue and watch the sunrise. Eduardo glances over at Chris to find Chris watching him, almost solemn. They’ve been together long enough for Eduardo to know Chris defaults to solemn, but there’s something about the way Chris is watching him that makes Eduardo’s heart speed up.

“What?”

“Do you ever think about it?” Chris asks, and Eduardo’s stomach somersaults. “Marriage?”

Sometimes joy is a happy, golden cliche and sometimes it takes a big bite out of you. But Eduardo is always rushing off ahead of himself, so here and now he just nods. Chris is watching him, not the sunrise, damp with sweat and still clutching his coffee cup reverently. “Do you?”

“Yeah,” Chris says. “I do.”

There’s a fizzing in his blood, and it makes his hands shake. That or the coffee, anyway. He wants to know what Chris thinks but he doesn’t know what to say or ask. Besides, this is a very old story. Every couple goes to a wedding and thinks, but what about us? 

The difference is that it’s them.

Chris seems to know Eduardo doesn’t know what to say, because he comes close and kisses Eduardo’s temple before snagging Eduardo’s cup of coffee. “I need this more than you do right now.”

They reclaim their suit jackets and shoes and take a cab back to their hotel, intent on sleeping the day away. The A/C of the hotel is a balm after the sweaty jungle of the dance floor, and Eduardo shucks off his slacks and shirt and collapses onto the bed. He listens to the familiar sounds of Chris getting ready for bed, and then Chris turns out the light and climbs into bed with him. 

“What do I have to do to you to get you to give me a foot rub?” Eduardo asks without opening his eyes.

“I’ll do it for free,” Chris says.

“Mm,” Eduardo says, too tired to make a blowjob joke. “Love you.” 

Chris runs a hand through his hair right before Eduardo falls asleep. When he wakes up at some point in the afternoon, Chris is still right next to him, snoring lightly. 

Chris is still asleep when Eduardo is done showering and dressing, so he leaves Chris a note and ducks out into the city to get them coffee and brunch.

Tan finds him in line at a bakery, in her neutral form and dressed more casually than he’s ever seen her: shorts, a bustier, and almost purple lipstick. It is so easy to buy her a coffee and they stroll arm and arm down the shady street the bakery is on. It is just like old times, and Eduardo feels the weight of the years that have passed since he met her. Sometimes they’re weightless, and sometimes--usually during a migraine that is left over from his skull fracture--they’re heavy and aching.

“You look happy,” Tan tells him, and it occurs to Eduardo for the first time that she’s in a rather complicated position.

“I am,” he says. “Are you worried?”

Tan shrugs.

“Can I ask you something?” Eduardo asks after a few minutes of silence. He can no longer hold his question back. It feels intensely urgent.

“You just did.”

“Why did you give me my soul back?”

Tan hits him with a sidelong glance that would make Chris proud, and Eduardo realizes with a start that Chris probably learned it from her. There is nothing better than uncovering the layers between people he loves like this.

“My role is changing,” Tan says after they walk in silence for a few minutes. “Chris told you, didn’t he?”

“He told me about the facial recognition part, but I didn’t think that was a problem for you since you take different forms.”

“Yes,” Tan agrees. “But if we don’t figure out a way around it, we may not be able to remain in the shadows for much longer. Perhaps that’s for the best.”

“You’re trying to figure a way around it?”

“I am duty bound to do so,” Tan said. She runs a hand over her close cropped hair. “Have you met Amy? Chris’s friend?”

“The one he calls Hellraiser? Only on Skype.”

“Does he?” Tan laughs. “She’s helping me. We have some ideas, but nothing has panned out yet. And even if it doesn’t...Heaven and I have reached an understanding.”

She says understanding so delicately that Eduardo grins. “I bet you have.”

Tan winks roguishly at him, but after a moment her smile fades. “All love is predicated on loss. I don’t think I understood that the way mortals do. God certainly thought so, but then again we have different roles to play, different eternities. What happens to people in Heaven is not what happens to people in Hell.”

“What would have happened if you had kept my soul? To me, I mean?”

“When you died?” Tan sighs. “You would have remained, but in soul only. Everything that made you who you are would have faded. It is the same for every soul I take, and I suppose it is inevitable. God says I didn’t understand, but I think I did, it was just different. Sometimes I think the three realms are just an experiment in how to remain, and my conclusion was that it is impossible. Even demons, who are supposed to be immortal, cannot remain entirely. Now more than ever, when everything is on the brink of change, well…” she looks at Eduardo so fondly that he has to smile back.

“You found the final rule to break.”

She laughs again. “You always understand,” she says, and squeezes his arm. “I didn’t want to watch you lose you. Maybe that is selfish of me, but in a way you were my first true friend. I have always held myself apart, at a distance. And I knew for you to be truly happy I had to let you go.”

“Like Chris?”

Tan nods. “Like Chris,” she agrees. “He is what he is, and I am what I am, just as you are what you are. I do not think it is cowardly to try and find happiness within that set of constraints.” She watches Eduardo carefully. “Do you resent me for it?”

“No,” Eduardo says. He does not even have to think about it. “I want...to be happy. It’s all I’ve ever really wanted. I just didn’t understand, you know? I had an itinerary. I thought if I had a wife and had a fancy job then my father…” he cannot continue. He thinks of how the itinerary had shifted to include Mark and Facebook and mentally substitutes ‘happy’ for ‘loved.’  he cannot bring himself to regret it. “I thought life was a list of bullet points--what to do, how to act--and the list kept blowing up in my face. I would work so hard and it felt like I would get nowhere. I thought that was all life held for me, and that it was my fault. And then the blowing up became...safe, and I sought it out. But everything that I have now, I have because I stumbled off that path.”

“You’ve always fought hard for it.”

“When my therapist found out I was an economist she went ‘ oh, you like data! ’ and it’s been the foundation of our strategy. She always tells me to look at the data.”

Tan seems to know what he’s going to say. Her mouth curves in a smile. “And?”

“If I’m happy because I fought for it, because I did the scary thing of forgetting about my list and embarking on what is unknown, then I have to keep doing that, right? I can’t choose the safe option anymore.”

“Brave Eduardo,” Tan says with a brilliant smile, and kisses his forehead. It burns as if purifying him, making his eyes water, and Eduardo understands it is a blessing. He is not surprised to find himself alone when his vision clears. 

But the thing about Tan is that she’s always listening, so he responds to her anyway. “You’re brave too.”

Chris is in the shower when Eduardo gets back, his latte long since cold. Eduardo, feeling guilty, nukes it in the kitchenette’s microwave and stares blankly at the display. Tan’s words echo in his mind. When he checks his phone he sees Preeta and Divya have been blowing up his phone; their group chat has 17 messages and they are all about baby names.

Eduardo texts them I think Jesminder is a beautiful name in hopes of negotiating a peace treaty as Chris emerges from the shower in only a towel. He raises his eyebrows at Eduardo. “You have a lipstick print on your forehead.”

“I ran into Tan while I got you coffee.”

“Ah,” Chris says. He comes over and swipes his hand over Eduardo’s forehead; his touch tingles and then burns, and Eduardo knows the lipstick print is gone. Being a demon has its perks. “How is she?”

“Philosophical.” Eduardo hands him his latte and muffin and grins at Chris’s look of relief. He got into terrible coffee habits working on Obama’s campaign, and now gets bitchy without his caffeine fix.

It is a pleasure to watch Chris get dressed, everything perfectly in its place, the warm notes of his cologne clinging to his skin. They eat together while looking at the stock market numbers. Eduardo means to email Divya back about what angel investment crowdfunding could mean for their business but keeps getting distracted by what Tan said. The tenth time Chris catches Eduardo looking at him he sets his laptop aside and looks expectant.

“Tan said something really interesting to me,” Eduardo says slowly. He isn’t certain he wants to return to the scene of their fight, so to speak, but the words come out  anyway. He recounts his conversation with Tan and watches Chris’s face change, the layers shifting, the armor going up. It’s not as scary as it was before the trip. “Do you agree?”

“That love is predicated on loss?” Chris looks solemn again, and his eyes trace over Eduardo’s face carefully. “Yes.” He sets his coffee down and scoots his chair closer to Eduardo. “Amy told me I was being really stupid about you, before I told you how I felt. She gave me an earful several times. But she was right. Either I have you and I lose you, or I never have you and I lose you either way. The loss is inevitable.” The way he’s looking at Eduardo is almost furtive. Eduardo realizes with a start that it is shy. “I am...unwilling to part with you without having had any time with you at all, unless you wish it.”

There’s that big bite of joy again, sharp like a knife’s edge and so, so sweet. Eduardo meets Chris’s gaze and tries to remember to breathe. Chris is giving him the same look he gave him this morning when he asked about marriage, and Eduardo wants to hold him close and never let him go.

“Do you think it’s selfish of me?” Eduardo asks around the ache in his throat. “To put you through this?”

“No,” Chris says, his voice very low. “Do you think it’s selfish of me to do the same to you?”

“If it is, don’t stop,” Eduardo whispers. Chris kisses him, and it is a delicate thing, as gentle and shy as this thing between them. Eduardo draws him closer, unable to resist him. He scratches his nails through the short hairs at the base of Chris’s skull just to watch Chris shiver and move closer; he does it again and Chris ends up half in his lap.

The chairs at the kitchenette are not made for this but Eduardo cannot resist kissing Chris harder, rougher, rucking up Chris’s stupid button down to get his hands on Chris’s skin. When the chair squeals in complaint Chris draws back, panting and tugs Eduardo to bed. 

They’ve had sex before, had it often, but this feels new. The blinds are open and the sunlight splays across their skin as Chris kisses him. He keeps coming back to these small details: the feel of the sheets on his skin, the way Chris cups his face, the delicate fan of Chris’s eyelashes. He kisses Chris’s palm and is conscious of what he’s doing, of the mysterious things that these hands have done, good and bad, known and unknown.

“Chris,” he whispers, and Chris holds him tight. But it’s not enough. He doesn’t want the first layer, he wants the ninth. He kisses Chris’s palm again to watch Chris’s eyelids close in pleasure and whispers, “Cristoforo.”

Chris’s eyes snap open. Eduardo has never called him this, and at first he thinks he’s made a mistake. At any moment surely Chris will withdraw and the armor will go up. But Chris does not. They are frozen in a tableau of intimacy’s dance, and Chris’s gaze is intent on Eduardo’s. There is something hot and vulnerable in it, and it fits like a vise around Eduardo’s heart. 

When had he fallen in love with Chris? Had it been when Chris walked with him through the Wastes? When Chris had washed his feet like he was something sacred? Or had it been when he had touched Chris’s chest on the mountainside beneath a dying sun? In all of these memories Chris had worn his true form. Looking back Eduardo has forgotten to be scared. In his memory, Chris tells him all legends are true, and Eduardo thinks of the legends about true names.

“Cristoforo,” he repeats: an incantation, a summons, a ritual. “Cristoforo.”

He never looks away from Chris’s face, but he still misses the moment of transformation and unveiling. One moment Chris is human and the next he is demonic: black eyes, pale and gaunt, inhuman teeth. They are frozen again, Eduardo looking his fill, and there is a roaring in his ears as Chris lets him. 

When Eduardo kisses Chris in this form, Chris takes a shuddering breath and pulls him closer, until Eduardo is pressed against him. It is not close enough, and the sounds of São Paulo’s bustle fall away as they press closer still, burning so hot Eduardo half expects them to burst into flames.  If they do, that is alright; for Chris, he would not mind becoming ash. 

“I’ve never done this before,” Chris tells him, low. “Not like this.”

It is slow, gentle, and the feelings of Chris moving inside him are second to the way Chris is looking at him. Direct eye contact is almost unbearable but Eduardo cannot look away. He can tell Chris is searching his face for signs of fear or revulsion, but Eduardo doesn’t feel those things. There is only wonder, tenderness, curiosity. Love says embrace the temporary in a world that sings for the permanent, embrace me and feel the shadowy prophecy of loss . Love says embrace the unknown , and he is no longer afraid. He welcomes it.

There is something so naked about Chris’s expression it leaves Eduardo without words, and the way Chris is touching him is both new and familiar: with a great gentleness.They press close, Chris’s movements becoming a sensual grind, but Eduardo is not satisfied. He doesn’t want to be skin to skin, he wants to be bone to bone, his hand on the meat and muscle of Chris’s heart. Instead he traces the livid scar of Chris’s burn, the cross clearly delineated. He covers it with one hand as if to erase the hurt. He wants Chris safe and loved here with him. Chris’s hand drifts down to spread over his ribs and it is such a great intimacy that Eduardo thinks he understands how Chris feels right now. Chris has his layers, but so does Eduardo. Does Chris feel outside of them? Eduardo shifts and watches Chris’s eyes drift down to focus on where his own hand is, unquestionably looking at Eduardo’s soul. Eduardo luxuriates in the feeling, the sensation of Chris’s fingertips pressed against his skin, Chris’s mouth against his own. Two become one, and for a long while there is no more talking, just sensation and the cascade of sunlight across the bed.

Much later they lay on their sides looking at one another. Eduardo traces the lines of Chris’s face in this form, and then the lines of his body. It is new, but it is not displeasing. 

“Does it hurt?” Eduardo asks. “Turning into this? Or does it feel good?”

Chris hums thoughtfully. “I’ve never thought about it like that before. It feels like stretching, or scratching an itch.”

Eduardo examines his expression, looking for discomfort, but it seems he has forded every river that would keep him from Chris’s true nature. “Does it bother you that I call you Chris? Would you prefer…?”

“No,” Chris says.

“Sometimes you talk about it like you’re two separate people.”

“That is how I think about it, I suppose. Chris Hughes never existed--or didn’t used to. He unquestionably does now. I have changed so much from who I was when I was Cristoforo that I do feel completely separate. Cristoforo would have never confessed to you, for example.”

Eduardo props himself up on his elbow and slings an arm over Chris’s waist. “You were so scared?”

“The harder I ran from love the faster it found me,” Chris muses. Eduardo’s heart skips a beat, the way it always does when Chris says ‘love.’ Will he ever get used to it? He hopes not.

“I thought you had never done this before.”

“I haven’t,” Chris says. “I never--every time I began to have feelings for someone I ran. I ran a lot. That’s partially why I joined the army.”

“Because you had fallen in love?” 

Chris looks so serious that Eduardo regrets the question. “You don’t have to tell me, if it’s painful--”

“What you said the other day, about being partners and sharing the good with the bad…I want that,” Chris says. “I don’t mind telling you.”

Eduardo lays back down and Chris wraps an arm around him and pulls him close enough that Eduardo rests his head on Chris’s chest. For a long while Chris is silent, stroking Eduardo’s back almost absently.

“My family was well off. Well off and respected enough that although I was the fourth son and unlikely to inherit anything, they set about finding me a wife. But I knew I would never love her. I would have been a terrible husband. And there was no explaining how I felt. People like us have always existed, but I didn’t know of anyone like us in Sondrio...They must have existed. But it was also illegal, and I was scared. Florence in particular was active in prosecuting ‘sodomy,’ though of course it was a haven for gay artists.”

Chris doesn’t do finger quotes, but Eduardo hears them all the same. “So I ran, and the army was...where I belonged. And then, after I turned, every time I met someone who I had a certain fondness for I just ran away from them. It worked until you.”

“You never avoided me in college,” Eduardo muses, and Chris laughs. He pulls back to study Chris’s face.

“Because it was instantaneous. I saw you and I was finished. I even knew it at the time. It scared the shit out of me, but I couldn’t stay away. It was miraculous...and here I was, thinking demons had no business with miracles.” He strokes a hand through Eduardo’s hair, and then his face grows serious as he traces Eduardo’s scar. “I was wrong.” 

Eduardo touches Chris’s scar, the lines of the cross a horrible reminder of what Chris had survived last year. He mentally compares Chris’s chest in this form to the one in his human one. “Can I ask you something? Your other form will age with me, right? Or will you still look young when I’m sixty?”

Chris stares at him for so long that Eduardo mentally rewinds, and then realizes he’s implied they’ll still be together in thirty-two years, which is longer than plenty of marriages last.

“Yeah,” Chris says, grinning. It makes him look softer. Demonic or not, Eduardo would recognize his grin anywhere. “I’ll age with you. I promise.”

*

July, 2010

They depart São Paulo after a goodbye dinner with Eduardo’s family. Rachelle and José are absent, having snuck away to their honeymoon in Naples. The plane ride is long and arduous, and Eduardo is overjoyed to finally get home to his apartment. Chris faceplants into bed.

“I missed you,” he hears Chris telling the mattress, and has to stifle a laugh. Instead he goes out onto the balcony and watches New York at night, the sea of lights. His plants are all around him, thriving now that it is warm enough to be outside. He checks them over carefully, feeling their leaves between his fingers, and clucks over dry soil. Mark had once told him he was a mother hen, and Eduardo has to admit it is true. His plants are his chicks.

They sleep tangled together that night, Chris snoring with abandon, and Eduardo feels the familiar fluttering sensation in his chest. He loves Chris, loves him so much, and he has been wholly unprepared for Chris to love him back. It’s so easy with him--even when they were fighting it was easy--and he wants Chris here with him forever. 

He wakes up too early, disoriented by the time change. Chris is still fast asleep beside him, as he will sleep like the dead when permitted to, and Eduardo kisses the freckles crowding the top of Chris’s spine and watches the sun rise through their bedroom window. He remembers doing this only a few months ago and wondering if he was being kept at a distance, if Chris would give him what he wanted or if this would be a lonely relationship like all the rest. Because while Chris and Tan are right, and love and loss are intertwined, that’s never what it’s been about for Eduardo. For him it’s always been an interrogation of the self. Who am I? How much of me do you want? How much do you get to have? And how much of you do I get to have? He spent so long feeling almost suffocating shame for how he approached life: voracious, wide open, wanting. But when he thinks of Chris and Tan and his family and his friends, Preeta’s laugh, Divya’s smile, Helena’s scribbled art hung up on their fridge, Max’s invitation to go snowboarding, his art gallery trips with Deidre, even the dry humor of the emails he’s exchanging with Mark, he cannot bring himself to regret it any longer. Here he is, the flung open doors of his self. Take it, take all you wan t. But that is the thing about his little family: they like to give in return. How many visitors did he have at the hospital every day until he was released? How many emails and texts does he have waiting for him? How many friends drop in to check on him, to water his plants, entrust him with their children, ask his opinions on his latest book on meteorology? How many people get to have this? Just, this--Chris warm in bed beside him, in their apartment, in their bed, and outside, the world happening all around them.

He is so lucky; he has so much to give.