Khalid added the final period to his current paragraph, then scanned the pages heâd just written. When he was satisfied with it for now, he closed the leatherbound cover of the journal and stood from behind his desk, shelving it alongside a line of identical tomes. Actually, there was an entire room full of floor-to-ceiling bookshelves that held nothing but these books, all scribed in his hand, covering millennia of history, through the lens of his own life. The majority of them were filled with anguish and pain and confusion, or else apathy and fatalism, and he would admit that he still retained his belief in the inexorability of fate. Heâd just given up knowing what it really dictated ahead of time.
His fingerâbare, for she had somehow convinced him that the gloves, that layer of protection between he and the world, were not necessaryâbrushed the spine almost tenderly, and why should he not? This journal was the conclusion of the last twenty-some years, and they had been, without question and beyond the shadow of a doubt, the best ones of his entire miserable existence, precisely because they were not miserable at all. Her doing, always her doing.
Sometimes, Khalid wondered if Cassiel really understood just what sheâd done for him. Try as he might, even his gift for words and elegant phrasing could not express it adequately, and this frustrated him from time to time. There was nothing, in English or his mother Arabic or any other of the dozens of living and dead languages he knew, that could convey what he felt, every single time he laid eyes on her face. And so he tried as hard as he could to be worthy of those things sheâd done for him, been to him, and though there was simply no way he ever would, he at least would have forever to continue trying.
Maybe, somewhere along the way, it would feel like enough.
Even if it didnât, though, it was fortunate for him that she seemed happy, just as they were. Their sons were a troublesome trio at times, but he loved them deeply and fiercely, though nothing could ever hope to match the love he bore for Cassiel. It didnât have to, thoughâthey were his children, and he was devoted to them in the way only a father could be. He found that this part of his life had allowed him to understand Caspar much more than he ever had before. Feeling that love, being on the other side of the bond, had cemented for him once and for all that though Lucifer was the father of his blood, Michael was his father in every way that mattered. He knew that he could be a father more like Cass than like his sire, and that was a great relief to him. The one thing he still feared was becoming as the devil had been, but so far, though learning to feel safely again had been rocky and he still wasnât very expressive, he hadnât felt the temptation to be anything remotely like Lucifer.
His eyes closed for just a moment, his hand still raised to the shelf, and a tiny little smile quirked his lips. Thousands of years of life, and at last, he finally lived. That was what she had given him.
Cassiel stared at the empty space between her and the home she shared with her family. A smile, one gifted to her by her mother, spread across her lips as she shook her head. It was a small family, though not nearly as small when she considered the type of family she had. Twenty and some odd years came and went, and they felt like a blink of an eye. After the apocalypse ended, she was happy, thrilled that the fighting had finally come to an end so that they did not have to lose any more of their family. So that other families no longer had to share that burden of losing those they loved to things they could not simply comprehend. But it was over now, and Cassiel couldn't have wanted more.
She had three sons, all three, triplets, born to her and the one she loved. She smiled fondly at the memory, of being told she was going to be a mother, and the look on Khalid's face when they were told it was triplets she was bearing. She chuckled softly to herself, allowing her fingers to glaze over a photo, framed in a simple wooden frame. It took a lot of convincing, but somehow she managed to get her three sons to sit still for a few minutes to take the thing. She loved her boys, she really did, however; she wasn't oblivious to their little crimes. It was a good thing Khalid was around, otherwise, even if she wasn't known for a violent or tempered disposition, Cassiel might not have had three sons.
Leaving the room, she allowed her legs to carry her to where one of the four men in her life was currently at, smiling when she entered the room and spotted Khalid still standing by one of the shelves. She glanced at the vast collection, frowning only slightly before it quickly disappeared. He had been writing his memoir for the past, countless, years. She'd never read them, because she didn't need to. She didn't need to know who he was, what he was, what his crimes were, because she did not love that man. She loved the one standing before her, hand raised to the books and eyes closed. She could never explain why she loved him, but what she did know, was that she had loved him from the very beginning. And that had been enough for her.
She walked up behind him, lacing her arms around his mid-section and laid her head against his back, embracing him from behind. "You know, we could just let the triplets go, and we could stay here," she murmured from behind his back. "They wouldn't notice us missing too much," she added, though she paused momentarily in that thought. "Unless Basil decided to burn down Kiki and Sephy's home. In that case, I vote we go somewhere far, far away," she continued, squeezing her arms a little tighter around him.
His hand dropped to where one of hers was wound around him, though for a moment, he didnât open his eyes, instead allowing himself to savor completely the sweet sound of her voice. The smile inched just a little wider at her comment, though, and he turned in her embrace such that he was facing her, his snowy eyelashes separating to reveal the glimmer of sapphire-colored irises. âIt is rather unfair of you,â he said quietly, resting a finger under her chin and using it to tilt her head gently upwards towards him, âto make such enticing suggestions when we really must go.â Ducking his head, he moved his mouth over hers in a slow, languid kiss.
Even after all these years, he could not claim to be used to being able to do that, though his shyness as such had evaporated in relatively little time. He felt a little safer to express himself with her than anyone else, because even though his emotions still sometimes caused unpredictable things, they never seemed to be bad, when they concerned her. He was still incredibly delicate with her, of course; he was too strong to be any other way. But it was no hardship, in the end. He would have done it even if it were.
He nuzzled her neck affectionately, placing another kiss there and wrapping his arms around her tightly, sighing softly into the juncture between throat and shoulder. âUnfortunately,â he continued, voice muffled slightly by her skin, âI believe we are expected.â And he would be the one who caught the flak if they werenât there. Not that it would concern him overmuch, of course, but he did generally prefer to stay on the good side of certain parties for his own health. Mostly Sephiriel, really.
Cassiel pursed her lips together, a frown etching along the pursed lines as he spoke. It, however, disappeared as she smiled into his kiss. She really didn't want to stay home, because then that would mean she'd be missing an important event with her family. Even if it happened once a year, or rather a few times a year, but once for each member of the family, she didn't want to miss a single one. She let out an exaggerated sigh, allowing most of her weight to be kept by him as she leaned against him, shivering slightly at the feel of his lips against her neck. She glanced up at him, mustering a set of eyes as her bottom lip quivered, just barely.
"You're no fun," she murmured, however; she smiled brightly up at him and tiptoed. She placed a chaste kiss upon his nose before falling back to the palms of her feet, lacing her hand with his as she began to swing it softly. "You don't play a fair game either, Khal," she responded, but the light playful gesture behind her voice was enough to let him know she was only teasing. She sighed softly in content and rocked a bit on her the heels of her feet. Closing in at almost fifty years of age, and she still felt like a teenager (and perhaps still looked a bit like one). She wondered, for a moment, what Khalid had looked like as a baby, and a grin spread across her lips.
"I bet you were a cute snow baby," she stated, tapping the tip of his nose with her index finger. "It's a shame that neither three inherited your snowy locks. They're pretty," she stated, running a hand through his mane of hair.
âIâm quite sure I have no idea,â he said, by this point somewhat accustomed to the fact that she occasionally allowed their conversations to be dictated by whimsy and random thoughts. He liked it, even, the way she found it a bit difficult to do the same thing the same way all the time. She was a touch of spontaneity in his life, and it was truly a gift.
He leaned just slightly into the hand in his hair, dropping another kiss on the crown of her head. Those eyes would undo him every time, quite honestly. She wanted to go, and he did too, for the most part. It was true that large groups were not his cup of tea, really, but it would be nice to see everyone together. His family was perhaps the only large group he could tolerate for extended periods, though they did still tend to exhaust him a little.
Moving his hand to the side, he caught a strand of her own hair and wound it around his finger before raising it to his lips. âIt is not shame as far as I am concerned,â he said truthfully. He preferred her hues to his, after all, and it wasnât like their sons suffered from any lack of attention. They seemed to soak in the fame that came with being a member of this family with a great deal more ease than any of their relatives, and had no few admirers. He caught himself thinking that he wouldnât really mind if they actually managed to settle, but it was unlikely in the near future, really. They werenât of the right frame of mind yet.
Stepping away from her at last, he slid his hand down her arm and laced their fingers together. âLetâs go; I do believe we have sons to organize.â
RPG
