“Don’t forget Grams,” Gabe chuckled.
“Yes, thank Lilith, your meddling grandmother, as well,” Az smirked. “Perhaps we should gift her with something. She already has a big dildo, but does it vibrate?” he asked, all seriousness.
Gabe laughed and shuddered at the same time. “Don’t you dare! I’ll never hear the end of it!”
They laughed together softly, and Gabe reached his face up for a kiss from Az, then he leaned back down into Az’s chest, content to just lay together as their laughter died off and a gentle peace settled on them.
Tomorrow they would deal with family, and figure out work, and perhaps find a mate for Mr. Frog, but today… for today, they only needed to enjoy the blissful moment in each other’s arms.
It was more than Gabe could have ever hoped for.
Epilogue
Yah sat in the glowing, white room in a simple white chair and contemplated the cracks that had formed.
Some of them were hairline cracks, spiderweb thin, whereas others gave glimpses of darkness, or fire, or thick, red blood running in a river. It looked as if the blood would run right through the wall and drip onto the pristine floor, but it did not.
With a wave the cracks would disappear, but they would be back.
They always came back.
Yah remembered the vastness of being one with everything, of knowing everything, past and present, with time having no meaning.
Yah also remembered the loneliness.
It had been a simple thing to break off a little piece of themselves and form something else from it. It had been simple, and infinitely satisfying. So they had broken off even more little pieces of themselves, and eventually they had created beings, but still something was missing. They had wanted to give others choice. They had wanted to let people have their own free will. So it had been done.
Eventually, Yah was all that was left of that infinite being before time. Yah knew they were the only ones to remember time before it became time; they were the last tiny piece of that infinite essence.
They also knew that this… experiment, this creation—the infinite being who had begun it all had not intended it to last forever. Things that were ripped asunder were meant to be joined together again.
Light could not exist without darkness, and darkness was nothing without light. There was no heaven without hell, and no hell without heaven.
Yah was not that infinite being anymore, though. They had seen all the good and the evil in mankind, and in angels and demons, and they were not ready to see the experiment over with.
They felt the pressure change slightly, and with a wave of their hand, the cracks disappeared so that only a pristine, blindingly white room remained.
The dark figure who appeared amidst the light made Yah’s chest ache.
“Ah, my love, are you counting cracks again?” Luce asked, and Yah merely sighed.
He walked over, and a chair appeared for him to sit in. They could not touch; the cracks would more than likely fracture all the afterworld were that to happen, but they could be near each other, at least. A few more cracks would not matter.
“Let us see them, then,” Luce said, smiling a bit.
Yah waved a hand, and the wall in front of them became an image of Limbo. Adam and Minos were laughing with Pandora and Arioch. Adam sat on Minos’s lap, and after they finished laughing, Adam tipped his head back for a kiss, which Minos gave. The grumpy look never left his face, but there was a softness to it now.
Yah waved a hand again, and there was Gabriel and Asmodeus. They were in a high school classroom, with Gabe standing at the board pointing at a character list and talking while Asmodeus stood in the back, watching him with rapt attention. When an errant student happened to pull out a cell phone, Asmodeus casually strolled over and tapped the desk, which had the student sliding the phone back into their pocket. Yah saw a look pass between the two, even as Gabriel never broke from his lesson to the students.
“They are happy,” Luce stated.
Yah did not need to answer. Luce knew the answer.
“How many cracks are there now, my dearest and oldest friend?” Luce asked softly.
Yah almost didn’t answer, but eventually they said, “Three hundred and eighty two.”
“Well then, it seems to be working.” Luce paused then before continuing. “However, that was the Divine Weapon of the Almighty in Michael’s hand,” Luce said softly.
