Title: Roman Holiday
Characters: Lucifer, Jeshua
Rating: R (I mean it.)
Word Count: ~ 1900
Chapter Summary In which two gentlemen get to know each other better, including in the biblical sense.
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Chapter Four
Roman Holiday
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For as long as he can, he walks two steps behind him. His hands are jammed into his pockets. His mirth has evaporated, gone as suddenly and dramatically as it came. With hooded eyes, he watches Jeshua walking in front: as if he knew where they're going. Probably does, too. Annoyed, Lucifer hawks and spits and can't keep his eyes off Jeshua's easy gait, the rolling hips and jeans falling off his ass, arms swinging by his side, radiating energy. Comfortable in that body, aren't you. But I've seen you fall and weep, little one, Lucifer scoffs. I've seen your death throes and blood and piss running down your legs. No need to prance for me.
Under the arch by San Girolamo, Jeshua slows.
Lucifer almost walks into him. "What?" he snaps.
"You are having second thoughts," Jeshua says over his shoulder.
"And you have a remarkable talent for stating the obvious," Lucifer quips. "I am Doubt; I thought you knew that. Of course I am having second thoughts. And third, and fifth, and I would be insane if I didn't." After you've moved the game off the board? Does your father know? Or, more to the point: how can He not know? "Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes, remember?"
Jeshua squints into the sunset. His eyes seem to follow the arcs and dives of the swallows, nesting under San Girolamo's eaves. Then he moves on. After a few steps he placidly says, "This is not a gift, Morning Star."
The evening traffic on Via Tomaselli is ferocious but Lucifer doesn't hear. There's only Jeshua's lilting Aramaic, and it's filling his head. "Oh, I am quite aware of that," he replies, waving him on. And I know that you know what your not-gift entails. A theological quandary of major fucking proportions, with the potential for a very ugly fallout. Unless... unless the Name really has no truck with this. Sullenly, Lucifer starts kicking pebbles at Jeshua's heels - for, temptation and the imp of the perverse aside, how can one even contemplate bedding that... him... Him? Dead one moment, transcended the next? Coming to a backroom near you: the fuckable part of the Holy fucking Trinity. Yeah, right.
One in three. Three in one. The Doors song doesn't fit but Lucifer still starts to hum it. Would it put a huge dent in doctrine, he wonders, if someone from the Vatican saw them right now, the Son of Man with his jeans riding too low, soliciting rough trade, and the Adversary slinking behind him like a jackal? The image is... distracting, to say the least, until he bumps into him.
Jeshua has stopped and turned. "Via del Corso 166, correct?"
"Correct." Unamused, Lucifer blinks.
---
The ancient elevator creaks and it's too hot and everything is too close and Lucifer tugs down his tie. He stares at nothing in particular until the Fin de Siècle contraption shudders to a halt. "After you," he says, dipping into a bow. His deference lasts all of one second (or how long it takes to whip back up and smash Jeshua against the faded brocade in the hall) before it turns into a shove with hands and ribs and knees.
Jeshua' s lips won't part immediately. Lucifer has to bite and force them, but the struggle is brief (for show, all for show, you little cunt) and once he's in it's like hurtling through an open door. Hungry and helpless, Lucifer starts to mewl, for Jeshua's lips taste like wine and honey, the wine of life, sweeter than anything and strong enough to send him reeling. His fingers twist into Jeshua's hair. Drunk now, he laps at Jeshua's tongue like a cat, greedy scratchy tongue wanting more please more, a breathless litany whispered into the Mouth of God.
He is tumbling into a well, soaring into the sky - weightless, pure light again until he tears himself away. His hands slam into silk wallpaper, leaving dents and scorch marks. "Oh no," he growls, "stop it. Not like that. If we do this," - his breath comes in angry gasps now, "we do it my way. It's you who is asking a favour."
Lucifer jerks around and walks down the hall. Doors are banging. Wooden floors are creaking. Let the Nazarene follow; it's all one if he doesn't - nevermind that Lucifer's tongue still chases the ridge of his teeth for a taste of Him.
Yakking, he steps out onto the balcony and spits into the street.
It's better out here, in the breeze. The air is thick with honeysuckle and jasmine, and while he smells cooking and exhaust fumes and a clogged drain somewhere, nothing is as pervasive as the steamy, heady scent coming from the roof gardens nearby.
Eventually, he hears the pad of bare feet on tile, and when he turns there's Jeshua leaning against a wooden shutter, giving him a well what have I done?-look.
The paint peels and sticks to Jeshua's shirt and Lucifer disgusts himself by wanting to pick it off like lint. "Listen," he snorts, gripping the wrought iron railing. "Keep Him out of it. Keep Him out or we don't have a deal. This is between you and me and nobody else."
"Of course," Jeshua smiles and crosses his arms. "You think my father approves?"
Lucifer throws his hands in the air. "What do I know. Why should I care? You keep trying to convince me He loves me still, but I'm afraid we can't have that, rabbi. I find it most unpalatable." Seriously, how can one contemplate bedding that, now that they're One again? "Between you and me," he repeats with the slightest inflection.
Jeshua nods, slowly at first, then firmly.
"Very well." Lucifer snaps his fingers and holds out his hand and, without looking, catches whatever it is that uncoils itself from the air.
---
Face buried in Jeshua's hair, chin digging into his shoulder, he closes his eyes. He savours the cramp shuddering up Jeshua's thigh, savours those mute grunts of discomfort, the twitches and twinges and little evasions.
Human enough to feel pain, powerful enough to stop it... this they already have established. "But isn't it funny," Lucifer croons and kisses the top of Jeshua's ear, "how we all want a little dissolution? The promise of nothingness? Come, rabbi, try it - you know you want to. Let me help you from your shell."
Something black and scaly rustles past his cheek, made curious by the slump in activity. The snake's tongue flickers, tasting the air, before she tightens around Jeshua's throat again. The heavy coils of her midriff lie across eyes eyes, making him blind, while her long, tapering tail still ties his wrists. She's not poisonous (not that it matters) but she is nervous, and the closer she can hold onto something, the safer she feels.
Breathing must be difficult.
And yet, Lucifer doesn't understand. What Jeshua does - or allows to be done - has neither rhyme nor reason. Juda, yes, I heard you. I'm not stupid. His fingertips flutter over Jeshua's flank. But why now, after all this time? Has he suffered enough? Has his sin paled, compared to those committed in your name? Why now, of all times? What do you know that I don't? "Here," he pants, "lift your leg a little. I don't want to hurt you."
But of course he does, and he will: the options that intercourse offers are too interesting not to be employed. And whom is he fooling, anyway? Should he pretend they're on a romantic getaway? Close his eyes and tell himself he is loved and cherished, and that Jeshua wants him near? Not bloody likely.
Well, he thinks. Where there is no love, force does quite nicely.
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Mornings make him philosophical; probably the clarity of first light. Studying last night's ruined sheets, he won't deny that carnality has its purpose, but... oh, had mankind ever got it wrong. Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it. They had liked that, hadn't they? Especially the last bit.
"I mean, when Lilith wanted to be on top, what was so terrible about that?" Lucifer mutters. "They were meant to take delight in each other," - he rolls over and looks at Jeshua's lips, parted in sleep, "not butcher each other at the first opportunity. And that's another deed I had nothing to do with. Wasn't my fault the Name liked mutton better than the fruit of the field." He traces those lips with his eyes. "But forgive me, here's the Messiah, a noble fool with his feet in the dirt and his head in the clouds. Such nice things you offered... Were you very surprised they did not want them?"
Don't answer me, my lord. It's not worth waking up for. Lucifer sighs and pets the snake that has curled up under Jeshua's armpit. It's warm there, and she has worked hard; why not snuggle up to him?
Simple pleasures. Animal instinct.
Human bodies on the other hand... created in His own image, but addled with urges so base Lucifer couldn't have invented them if he'd tried. The poor things want to have their itches scratched, and as soon as someone turns blue or the stains won't come out, they wail and repent and blame him. As if their pitiful convulsions meant anything to him.
He's given up trying to destroy them. He's convinced they'll manage on their own.
When he gazes around, the apartment suddenly resembles a tableau - a somber, lost Vermeer with motes of dust floating around. But it gets better: by his side lies a true fucking Caravaggio, a masterpiece with impossible rays of light on blood-smeared thighs. Delight. Lucifer's thoughts ring gently. You are a delight, even with your hands tied and your eyes bound and your mouth taped shut. Why do you let me defile your temple, Jeshua? Laying yourself bare again, for what? Juda, really?
The question disturbs his peace, so he gets up and gets dressed and walks into the morning.
He meanders past churches and drowsy Tabacchi owners who slosh soap-water all over the sidewalks. He steps around last night's stragglers and evades the first groups of tourists. He walks into a bar for coffee and cigarettes and scans yesterday's papers. Aimlessly, he wanders the entire length of the Pincio before he can bear to return.
When he comes up, breathless and swinging a bag of cornetti, he finds the bed made and a damp, freshly showered Jeshua dozing on the couch.
"I brought breakfast," Lucifer says. He cannot think of anything else.
"Mmh." Jeshua is not paying attention. Coiled on his stomach lies a big black lump that he shelters with one hand.
Lucifer feels tempted to grind his teeth. Instead he sits and starts eating one of the sticky, jam-glazed croissants. "Listen," he chews energetically, "about Juda from Kirjath..." He licks his fingers and lets the pause hang to better deliver the blow. "Truth be told, I don't have him."
With a soft, sleepy sound, Jeshua digs his toes into the armrest. "But, Morning Star, I knew that. " He stretches until a joint pops. "I knew that all along." When he cranes his neck to look up at Lucifer, his eyes are unpleasant. His voice is still friendly, though.
"I guess that just means you'll have to find him for me."
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