oh honey honey [closed]

[has_a_horn]

Scout scrambles into the apartment when Gabriel opens the door, and heads straight for the water dish on the floor. Gabriel makes sure that the dish is filled as he walks past towards the living room. Maybe to read, maybe to watch some TV, but something on the kitchen table makes him stop in his tracks.

It's a jar of honey, simple and unadorned. The light from the window catches the edge of the glass, casting a yellow light onto the table. It's beautiful. He stares at it for a moment, transfixed. Then, he smiles, because he knows just what this is. Back when he'd been struck ill by the rift, he'd told Johnny about how when he'd been Loki, people would leave him offerings of honey.

Back then, it had been comforting. A nice gesture, and a meaningful connection to the humans that knew about him and wanted to please him or thank him. Now, it's a reminder about the good parts of what he used to be. It's easy to forget all but the bad, but this reminds him that he was appreciated then, and even moreso- that Johnny loves him now. Johnny had been joking when he asked if he wanted him to start leaving jars of honey around, but he really did want that. And Johnny remembered. Johnny may not know how much it means to him, or why, but he doesn't really need to. The gesture is enough, and that means a lot to him too.

He steps forward and picks up the jar, carefully turning it over in his hands. He doesn't know what to do with the feeling that this is giving him. How could he have ever thought that he couldn't fully love Johnny? His chest is full of it, his fingers tingling with the sheer force of the feeling. He can't stop grinning at the damn jar of honey, and by now, Scout has finished with the water and come over to investigate.

Gabriel bends down to scrub a hand through the dog's fur. "I'll be back. I have to go see Johnny." He straightens, and in the next moment he's standing in Johnny's apartment, the jar of honey still in his hand.

"...hey." He's not sure what he wants to say or do beyond kissing Johnny, but he's pretty sure that his plans don't involve Johnny being in the middle of tattooing some hot shirtless dude. He pauses for just a moment before he strides forward anyway. When Johnny turns to him, he leans down just far enough to lift his chin up and press a kiss to his mouth.

Comments

[has_a_horn]

It's only when Johnny speaks that Gabriel's attention is pulled back. He lifts his eyelids slowly and turns his head to find Johnny looking very nervous about a feather laying on the floor.

"If it wasn't normal I would have felt it getting plucked out. I was surprised you didn't get any of the little ones around my shoulders. Those're more likely to fall out." He smiles. "It'll grow back. Probably be itchy as fuck for a day or two, one that big."

Scout comes around and noses curiously at the feather, flipping it over with his nose before giving it an experimental lick. Gabe watches this for a moment before looking back at Johnny. "Do you wanna keep it?"

[johnny_truant]

Johnny nods softly, reassured by Gabe's explanation. He watches Scout with a little smile before Gabe's follow-up question hits him and he looks up sharply.

"I-" Yes. "Are you-" Yes. He swallows, not sure why he feels so nervous about this. Nervous isn't quite the right word anyway. It's a reminder that Gabe isn't human, which is important and difficult at the same time, and it's a reminder that Gabe loves him, which is the same. It's something special.

"Yeah," he says, warmth blooming over his cheeks and the back of his neck. "Yeah, I'd love to."

[has_a_horn]

"Might want to pick it up before it becomes a chew toy, then." He nods down at Scout, who hasn't seemed to think of the idea yet, still sniffing around the feather.

It's clear how affected Johnny is by the offer to keep it, and Gabriel is charmed by the blush creeping up over his cheeks and the nervous acceptance of the offer. He smiles fondly up at him as Johnny dips to pick up the feather. "You gonna make the world's biggest quill pen? You could start a roadside attraction."

[johnny_truant]

Johnny sets the brush aside and picks up the feather carefully and with clear reverence, holding it gingerly like he might damage it somehow. Gabe's jokes barely scratch the surface of his thoughts. Gabe has given him many things - a home, to start with; furniture, clothes, and food, a means to practice his craft, trust and support and love and protection like he's never known, and an espresso machine. In his old life gifts were rare and possessions meant little to him, less and less as the book wormed its way into his life and ate it from the inside out. It's been easy to coast along with this new status quo; Gabe makes it easy. It would be ludicrous for even his hardened rat bastard ass to resist stability handed to him on a platter, something he once mocked as an absurd improbability in his additions to the book. Berated any readers who were taken in by it, that imaginary dream life of being rescued and healed by sudden do-gooders dropped into his story like a weak trope, the hand of god. An irony he tries to avoid. Generally he avoids all of this introspection.

The offer to keep the feather is somehow apart from all that, a proverbial spanner in the works of his carefully cultivated avoidance. His life was forfeit and now he's here, caring for and being cared for by an actual hand of god. Gabriel's wings have always been a bit of a wake-up call for him, he can never look at them as casually as he looks at the rest of his life, and now, being able to keep a piece of that with him always - it's too much.

He doesn't want to let go of it, but he forces himself to set the feather down gently, resting it on the couch with a pointed glance at Scout that implies his old dedication, this is not for you. More affectionate now than it ever was.

He turns back and steps over to Gabe, leaning down to kiss him, hands cupped warmly around his cheek and the back of his neck. The kiss lingers, and he corrects his position accordingly, settling instead onto Gabe's lap, curling around him. He filled his corners of the book with lurid descriptions of his trysts, all those women dispassionately, anonymously fucking him, women he didn't know how to talk to, how to treat, who were never going to fill the hole in his miserable life, and if someone had ever accused him of a future where he would give his heart to a celestial being wearing the body of a charmingly ordinary man he'd have punched them.

But this is it, all of it, right in front of him. He breaks the kiss and wraps his arms around the archangel, resting his chin on Gabe's shoulder.

"Thank you," he whispers.

[has_a_horn]

When he kisses him, Gabriel's wings fold closed a fraction, a subtle move towards Johnny that might be more pronounced if he had enough room to bring them to his back again. He feels comfortable and relaxed and also happy to have done anything that makes Johnny act like this. He lifts a hand to Johnny's hair and, once he settles into his lap, drops his other hand to Johnny's hip. It's a gentle kiss, a loving kiss, and for a moment Gabriel finds himself in awe of just how far Johnny has come since they first met.

When Johnny wraps his arms around him, Gabriel rests his head against his temple and just enjoys Johnny being close for a moment. He sighs out a breath and the hand that was in Johnny's hair drifts down across his back. This reaction from Johnny could be all about the feather, but he doubts it. It seems like Johnny's thank you's always have an undercurrent that's less about any one particular thing and more about a broader gratitude. He doesn't completely understand it, but he assumes that it has a lot to do with how little Johnny thinks of himself.

"I wanted you to have one." He smiles softly. "I had something smaller in mind, but that'll do." He chuckles a little, envisioning Johnny standing with the feather tucked into his belt and hanging down like a scabbard. "You can have a smaller one too, if you want. That'll be more useful. You can keep in in your pocket like a lucky charm."

[johnny_truant]

"I'd like that," says Johnny a little shyly, closing his eyes and just resting peacefully against Gabe. This is nice. He could stay here for a while, for as long as it remains comfortable for them both. Gabe has a whole other wing to brush but Johnny needs full contact right now, as if to make up for an entire lifetime without.

"Sorry," he murmurs. "I guess I, uh, needed a break." He glances at the wings without moving his head from Gabe's shoulder. "You want me to make the ceiling taller?"

[has_a_horn]

Gabriel shrugs to Johnny's question, but he's happy when the ceiling does extend enough for him to close his wings and let them hang in a more neutral position. "No need to apologize. You took a break from paying attention to me to pay more attention to me." He smiles and tips his head to kiss to the closest place available, which turns out to be Johnny's hair. "Any time you wanna sit on my lap it's alright by me."

He relaxes into Johnny's embrace and stretches his wings out again before bringing them back in. "The feathers have some properties that stick with them once they leave me. They're still sort of connected." He rubs his thumb at a spot on Johnny's back, wondering if Johnny will realize just how much trust he's putting in him by doing this. "You need me and prayer isn't working for some reason, you burn the feather. It'll summon me." He chuckles, half nervously, half happy that he has a reason to explain this. "Forcibly, so you might get me half dressed and eating Cocoa Puffs."

[johnny_truant]

He raises the ceiling without confirmation, because why not, and Gabe seems content with the option to fold his wings in. Johnny settles in cozily, resting his head on Gabe's shoulder and enjoying the gentle pressure of his fingers on his back. It's only when he starts in about burning the feather that he sits up again, looking at Gabe in surprise.

"What, really?" It's a rhetorical statement; there's no reason Gabe would just say something like that, it's still just kind of alarming. "Does that ever happen? Prayer not working?"

He can't keep a little hint of concern out of his voice. He doesn't like the idea of being able to force Gabe to show up anywhere, even under emergent circumstances. And if he's really in a bad situation, thinking is always easier than setting something on fire. This almost seems like it would be more useful if Gabe were somehow incapacitated, and he doesn't like that thought.

[has_a_horn]

"If you prayed an I couldn't find you...or if I couldn't get to you." He doesn't say that it might also be useful if he gets trapped somewhere dangerous again, but he knows that Johnny can figure as much. He doesn't want to worry him by voicing it as a possibility. "Prayer works. This is more like insurance."

He lifts a hand to the side of Johnny's face and leans up for a kiss. He's seen the concern on Johnny's face, and that's not where he wants this to go right now. "Don't worry. I'm not expecting the worst. I just-" his eyes scan over Johnny's face as if he's memorizing it, and his hand shifts back to push his fingers into Johnny's hair. "-wanted you to have a part of me. More than the part you've usually got."

There's a pause while he smirks. "My penis. That's the usual part. Not my heart or anything like that. I wanna be clear here."

[johnny_truant]

That doesn't do much to temper his anxiety about whatever potential situation would require feather burning. He chews his lip nervously, but endeavors to relax when Gabe draws him in for a kiss, tries to reassure him. He manages a little smile and a nod. He just won't think about it. It'll probably never be something he needs, right? Hopefully. He's not succeeding at not thinking about it.

Finally, Gabe's closing zinger startles a laugh out of him, dispelling the tension nicely. He leans forward and rests his head on Gabe's shoulder, snickering softly. "Got it," he says, lifting his head back up and grinning down at him. "Thanks for clearing that up."

He leans in for another kiss, his hand drifting slowly and not at all subtly down Gabe's stomach. "So, I know we're sort of in the middle of something here, but..." he murmurs, leaving the rest of the thought to suggestion.

[has_a_horn]

"But-" Gabriel smiles. It would be impossible to miss what he's getting at, but he feels like playing around. That, and he likes to hear Johnny say what he wants. He drops his hands to Johnny's hips.

"You have a date and they'll be here at any moment? No? Buuuut-" His hands trace down the outside of Johnny's flannel-covered thighs, then back up to his hips. "You were going to ask me to take you to the zoo?" His smile widens into a grin. "Tooo the skating rink at Rockefeller Center? Y'know I've never done that. Always seemed too gimmicky."

[johnny_truant]

Johnny smirks faintly, taking a moment to study Gabriel's face, that spectacularly dorky grin, the crinkling around his eyes. "But I kinda want to feel you up instead," he says, lifting his hands to cup around Gabe's cheeks and leaning in to kiss him again. "Then again, might be nice to make you wait."

He slides back off Gabe's lap, keeping one hand on his cheek, rubbing his thumb gently over his cheekbone. "I do kinda like to finish the projects I start."

Would he have ever been capable of making such an innocent joke about his 'projects' before he'd met Gabriel? God, he wants so badly to give himself over, show him some proper gratitude, and at the same time he wants to keep brushing his wings, caring for him so closely and tenderly. He brushes some hair behind Gabe's ear, actively stalling.