"Really?" he asked. "I thought you were ok with this."
I shrugged. "I was raised to grow up, date one man, get married, and have babies. I mean, that's all changed since I'm going to live forever now. Or at least I hope the changes we made mean I will, but still. I was taught to feel guilty about this stuff, and I dunno. I think it worked, because I get it, but I still feel guilty. Kinda like how you're not jumping on all their dicks. Bel keeps checking you out, so why aren't you flirting back?"
He opened his mouth to say something, paused, closed it, then decided to try again. "If I say it's because I'm the cripple, you'll tell me I'm wrong, but that's only half of it. It's also, well...." He looked up and met my eyes. "Luke."
"Luke doesn't want you to date anyone else?"
Ron made a noise that could've meant anything. Just a little mumble. Then, "Angels get married. They invented the idea of it. Marriage is a deal to them, and that's how their entire society works. Someone gives up their freedom to care for the other. Now that they have women, it's often a slave they bought, but for those women, it's a pretty good deal. Better than feeding the trees, at least. Sometimes it's a man - and it always was before the other sentients evolved. So he's fighting millions of years of thinking that I'm his possession, and the truth is that I don't mind. I kinda like being the center of his world."
"Which means you understand where I'm coming from," I pointed out.
Ron huffed one single laugh. "Yeah, I guess. I'm also not really in a rush, and he treats me better than anyone ever has before. He also says it's ok for me to be with someone else, but he does get jealous, and I don't want to be the thing that causes him to feel that way. He ignores it, but that doesn't mean it doesn't happen. See, the only time he shared a woman, it went badly."
"Firiel," I breathed, knowing he was talking about the wife Luke had married to get close to Nick. The one he'd accidentally fallen in love with as well. "Has he said anything to you?"
"Nothing like that," Ron promised. "He says he loves me, though, and that's enough for me. No one ever has before."
"Yeah," I said. "So it sounds like both of us are in the same boat, huh?"
"What boat is that?" he asked.
I chuckled once, all too aware of the insanity of this. "We're allowed to mess around but don't want to because we're scared we'll hurt the people we care about most if we do."
Ron just nodded his head. "Yeah, pretty much."
"But," I went on, "if Nick, Sam, and I are together, and you, Luke, and Bel get together, then that means none of us are lonely, right?"
"Not quite." He thrust a hand out toward the cottage. "What about Sam's feelings for Nick? You made it clear that you don't want them together when you aren't around. Is that really fair?"
"No," I admitted, the word barely spoken.
"And you think it's sexy," he reminded me. "So why do you keep worrying about it?"
"Because!" I snapped, then shut my mouth to find a better tone. "Because it's a lot easier to know that this is ok than it is to make myself stop freaking out about it. So many things keep making me second guess all of this. Like that old saying about if it seems too good to be true, then it probably is, you know? I mean, Nick keeps saying he's straight, but he's more than willing to... do things with Sam."
"He's a demon. He's not straight," Ron assured me. "He may prefer women's bodies, but there will always be some part of him that is attracted to other things as well. Like Sam's generosity. I've been reading about Earth concepts of sexuality, and I think Nick falls for someone's mind more than their genitals."
Yep, that sounded like a quote he would've read somewhere. It also made me smile a little. Just enough to stop feeling so guilty, confused, and anxious about the best thing that had ever happened in my life. Well, things, if I counted both of my boyfriends.
"So how do I get over this?" I asked. "I'm honestly trying, but it's hard."
Ron huffed at me. "You think I know? Luke's my first boyfriend in four and a half billion years. I'm not exactly an expert on this!"
"We're so fucked," I laughed.
But Ron sobered. "Um... I'm really not."
"You and Luke haven't?"
He shrugged. "He lets me fuck him, but he's never... you know."
"Crammed it up your ass?" I teased.
That got a smile. "I like it, but I don't know how to ask him if he would. I think it would be better with him than the last guy."
"Have you tried ripping off your clothes and bending over?" I leaned to bump his shoulder to show that it was mostly a joke.
Ron's lavender cheeks turned slightly pinker. "I prefer it with the lights off."
Because of his scars. My dear friend's body had been formed incomplete, with his entire right side deformed, weakened, and scarred as if he'd been burned. When I'd made his new skin, I'd fixed the painful part of his deformities, but his right side was still weaker, and always would be. Where his left thigh and bicep were strong and muscular like a swimmer, his right side was lean from disuse. And those scars bothered him. A lot.
They didn't really bother us, though. Like intricate swirls, they changed the texture of his skin, but his features were all recognizable. To me, it looked like some kind of body art. Luke said it was gorgeous. Even Nick had commented that he couldn't understand why Ron was so sensitive about it, but I knew it had more to do with the things others had said. For millions of years, he'd been called "the cripple" in Hell, and that would be hard to forget.
"Just talk to him," I said gently. "Tell him you want to see what it's like with him. Be open and honest, and that usually works."
Ron smiled down at the table. "Then I'll make you a deal?"
"You've been spending too much time with that angel," I grumbled playfully, "but sure."
"I'll talk to mine if you talk to both of yours. Talk to them about why you're scared of them being together alone, and let them know you want to try it - because it sounds like you do. You want to see if you can handle them loving each other when you aren't there. If you can do that, I'll ask Luke to... um...fuck me."
"We have a deal," I promised. "This week, we're both going to demon up and figure this stuff out, ok?"
He nodded. "Thank you. You're amazing, Sia. I'm so glad you came to Hell."
"Yeah, me too."
2
Sienna
From there, Ron and I went back to lessons on his theories about aether. The little demon had spent his entire life thinking about the logistics behind weaving, smithing, and manipulating aether. If there was a master in any of the five planes of existence, it should have been him. Granted, he'd spent so much time thinking about it because he couldn't do anything else.
Ron's malformed body made him weak, and on Daemin, weakness was bad. The world was a harsh one. Nothing could die, but that didn't mean my friend hadn't been food for a few things, healed from it, and then repeated the process. Once he'd moved into the demonic city of Hell, he'd been safe from the rest of the world - and at the mercy of the demons around him.