19. Cassius

Cassius finished massaging Kushiel's scalp and directed him under the spray to rinse. He could tell that Kushiel was… processing. He would have been concerned with Kushiel's general spaciness after their encounter, except he could feel Kushiel, and he knew his angel was okay. His sweet angel just needed a little aftercare, and Cass was only too happy to provide.

He hadn't meant to push Kushiel quite so much, but Cass could admit to thinking with his dick instead of his head. But damn, Kushiel standing there all shy and offering Cassius anything was irresistible. The angel had looked like a kid in a candy store; he was full of want and need and desire, so Cass had taken charge, and he'd seen Kushiel's relief when he did.

The fact that he'd turned on Kushiel so much that his angel had come that quickly was so fucking hot. Then Cass had sharpened his sight without even really thinking about it, and he'd seen those gold threads connecting the two of them, with more and more reaching out and surrounding them, and that had pushed Cass into his own orgasm.

The fact that Kushiel had come again?

So. Fucking. Hot.

He knew Kushiel was an angel and all, and surely there were some sexual perks, but Cass still felt vaguely smug about the fact that the experience had been worthy of two orgasms for Kushiel.

"You're so sexy, my sweet angel," Cass murmured, and Kushiel opened his eyes, staring at Cassius. Cassius smiled at him, running his hands down Kushiel's chest.

Kushiel stepped out of the spray and leaned forward, but he didn't quite kiss Cassius. That was ok, Cass didn't mind bridging the distance until their lips were pressed together. He was all too happy to guide Kushiel. He'd always been the take charge sort, and he enjoyed being that way in the bedroom. Still, he could sense that Kushiel wanted something, and they had to be able to communicate, because he didn't want to push Kushiel out of his comfort zone, and he wanted to give Kushiel everything his angel needed.

"What do you want, Kush?" Cass asked, and he noticed the tiny shiver at the nickname. Good to know that Kushiel liked it. "Tell me, my sweet angel. You have to promise to tell me when you want something, or when you don't like something, do you understand? That's the only way this can happen again."

"Again?" Kushiel asked hoarsely, his face lighting up like he'd been given the best present ever.

"Oh yes, definitely again. I'm not done with you, Kush. I will never be done with you, do you understand?" Cass asked, looking into his angel's eyes.

Kush ducked his head and nodded, but Cass could feel the uncertainty. Kushiel couldn't accept eternity yet, but Cass was confident he would be able to eventually. He could give his sweet angel time. After all, they had all the time in the universe now. Cass knew that soulmates were forever—he could see that with his vision, and suddenly forever seemed like the most beautiful gift.

"So you have to be honest with me, and that means not holding back things, either, ok? So what do you want, my beautiful angel?" Cass questioned.

"I want… Can I touch you, Cassius? Can I take care of you like you've taken care of me?" Kushiel asked.

Cass groaned at the thought of Kushiel's hands on his body. "Yes, please, K. I'd love that," he answered.

Kushiel proceeded to take the soap and leisurely rub him down, and Cass had never felt so worshiped before. K's hands were gentle and slow, and when he reached Cass's dick, they clearly hesitated, but Cass only groaned his approval.

Kushiel's touch was so tentative, his exploring fingers so soft, yet Cass couldn't help getting hard again. He moaned, and Kushiel simply whispered, "Please."

"You want to make me come, Kush? Is that what you're asking?" Cass clarified. Because fuck, he certainly wouldn't complain.

Kushiel only nodded in response, and Cass said, "Go ahead, baby, you do whatever you want with me."

He was totally surprised when Kushiel dropped to his knees, placed his hands on Cass's hips, and swallowed his cock down in one swift move.

"Fuck!" Cass cried out, trying not to punch his hips forward. "K, that feels so fucking good. Your mouth, holy shit."

That only seemed to spur Kushiel on, and his angel began bobbing up and down on his cock, moaning like he was the one receiving pleasure from the experience. His tongue was somehow wrapping around the head of Cass's cock while his mouth sucked on the shaft and his lips provided pressure as they moved. It was unlike anything Cass had ever felt.

Cass stared down, putting his hands gently on Kushiel's head, and the angel moaned.

"So fucking beautiful. Touch yourself, K. I want you to feel the pleasure you're giving me. Make yourself come while you suck me, Kush. Please," Cass ordered through panting breaths. Fuck, Kushiel's mouth felt so good on him.

One of Kushiel's hands left Cass's hips and reached down, and the long, low groan could only mean he was following directions.

"Fuck, yes, baby. Make yourself come. You're making me feel so good. You're so sexy, so beautiful. Your mouth is going to make me come," Cass whispered hoarsely.

Kushiel moaned steadily now, and Cass could feel the reverberations in his dick. It was like he was being sucked and jerked and a vibrator was pressed against his flesh as well, and it was too much.

"I'm gonna come, Kush," he ground out, and Kushiel did something with his tongue—Cass couldn't even describe what—and stars exploded in his head, making him close his eyes. His dick pulsed out jet after jet of cum, and Kushiel's moans reached a fevered pitch as Cass felt his angel's orgasm splatter over his legs.

When he was empty, Kushiel moved his head to rest against Cass's thigh. Cass slid down to kneel and wrap his arms around his sexy angel, just holding him.

He had the random thought as they were splattered gently by warm water that he was really glad he had a tankless hot water heater, because he didn't think he could've moved at the moment even if the water was ice cold. His brain was also looping on the fact that sucking Cass off had made Kushiel come.

So. Fucking. Hot.

How was it that Cass was so damn lucky? How did he deserve to have an eternity with Kushiel? He didn't know what he'd done to deserve it, but he was going to take it.

Kushiel was giving and selfless and generous to a fault, so Cass would be selfish for both of them if he had to be. Kushiel was his, and he wasn't giving his angel up.

Cassius wasin a black room with a window looking out onto what appeared to be a red waterfall. There were cracks in the wall, and as Cass watched curiously, a few of them seemed to edge backwards and disappear. There was a man in a dark suit standing and looking out the window.

Cass had no idea how he'd gotten here. He thought back. Sex in the bathroom. Sex in the shower. Then he and Kushiel had dried each other, and Cass had led Kushiel to his bed, where they had wrapped around each other and snuggled in. Cass had been exhausted in the best way after two orgasms, and he didn't remember much before darkness had pulled him into sleep.

"Ah," Cass murmured, and the figure turned around. It was a demon that Cass had never met before, but in order for an angel or demon to call on his oracle powers, they had to be amazingly high up on the food chain. After all, an oracle was a communicator with the "gods," so no lesser afterlifer could have called him. He'd only ever had one angel speak to him as an oracle before, and he'd never had a demon call on him.

"Cassius Priam," the demon smirked. "A pleasure to meet you!"

"I would say the same, but I'm not really sure if it is a pleasure yet," Cass responded drily.

The man laughed, not at all offended. "Oh, you are a pleasure. Just perfect for our Kushiel."

"He isn't ‘our' anything," Cass snapped, losing his patience a bit. Why was he here? Was this the demon who was responsible for the lost souls?

The demon sat down, facing him, and smiled indulgently. It kind of pissed Cass off. If this was the one responsible for all that pain Kushiel felt… Well, he was only human, but he'd figure something out to deal with this demon.

"Oh, such lovely murderous thoughts. So protective, too. Quite lovely. No less than Kushiel deserves, of course. And no, he isn't technically one of mine, but he's spent so much time here that I think of myself as having joint custody, so to speak," the demon commented.

"Who are you?" Cass asked suspiciously. It couldn't be…

"You may call me Luce. I think we'll be friends, after all," the man replied, and Cass tried not to show his surprise. Because yes, apparently it could be.

He was serving as an oracle for the devil, and he wasn't sure that was a good thing.

"I am not involved in afterlife politics. I am of the mortal plane, and the only way I can be called by afterlifers is if I am to serve as an oracle," Cass said slowly. He didn't know why he was here, but best to set some clear parameters.

"You are correct," Luce admitted. "And let me tell you, it took some definite bending of the rules to figure out how to get you here, too. Luckily, bending the rules is a specialty of mine."

Luce winked at him, but Cass only stared back, making Luce laugh.

"You are a delight! I love that backbone—our Kushiel needs someone with grit, and you've certainly got that. You have to in order to deal with ghosts though, don't you?" Luce commented.

Cass sat up straighter. Angels and demons were not supposed to know about ghosts.

Luce just waved his hand in a leisurely manner, though. "I am not simply a demon, as I'm sure you've gathered," he responded.

"You removed the souls from Erebus?" Cass asked. If they were up against the devil himself, he kind of thought he and Kushiel were probably fucked.

Luckily, Luce looked more than a little offended at the suggestion.

"I should say not!" Luce protested. "I would certainly not interfere with the grand design in such a way as to make souls who might find reincarnation into ghosts!"

Cass didn't think he was lying, but there was something off about his response at the same time. He didn't trust the devil, which was probably wise.

"You know who did," Cass guessed.

Luce shrugged a bit at that, turning his chair to face the window again. "I generally love my job," he commented.

"Okay," Cass answered, more than a little confused at the change in topic.

"Demons are a good sort overall. Better than angels, I think, but perhaps I'm biased. Even so, every so often, a few millennia pass by, and a demon can go… a little off. Usually it's easy enough to set them straight again, but sometimes they just veer off the path a little too far. If they're lesser demons, it's handled easily enough. But when it's someone with power, with a following, with legions of lesser demons who support them…" Luce trailed off.

"You have a rogue demon?" Cass asked.

Luce shrugged again. "I could, of course, dispose of such demons. It certainly isn't beyond me to do so. But where one will fall, another will rise up with similar ideas. It is the nature of things. So sometimes they must be… permitted, so to speak, to carry out their nefarious plans. Those plans will, of course, fail, and then everyone will see how foolish it all was, and no one else will try something similar. Like a parent, sometimes I must let my children make mistakes in order to learn from them." Luce's voice turned hard then. "And sometimes I must let a child make mistakes to teach all the others an important lesson."

Cass thought that over, getting a little more pissed with each passing moment.

"So you're telling me that you let some demon remove all the souls from Erebus to teach him, or others like him, that it can't be done? But it was done! And it caused Kushiel pain!" Cass seethed.

Luce turned around and looked at him then. "Ah, but is that all it did?"

Cass was pissed. "You played god with Kushiel's feelings to teach some demon a lesson when you could have stopped it! What the hell did it accomplish?"

Luce only looked at him and smirked, which made Cass want to get up and smack him. And he wasn't a violent man.

"It brought you two together," Luce finally answered.

At that, Cass's anger deflated a bit. Still…

"Surely there were other ways to bring us together?" Cass asked. "Ways that didn't cause Kushiel such pain?"

Luce grimaced a bit at that, and for the first time Cass saw something resembling regret on the devil's face. "Kushiel does not deserve to suffer. He does a job that no angel or demon could do, and he has suffered for millennia doing it. He deserves peace and happiness, but his job gives him suffering, and he would carry it out no matter what the cost."

Cass pondered that. He knew Luce was talking around the issue, and he wasn't sure what the devil was getting at. "Are you saying that even with a soulmate, Kushiel will have to suffer torment for his job?"

Luce shrugged a bit. "Souls that are far enough along deserve redemption. Kushiel provides that in the only way he has ever known, which is at great personal cost."

"Does that mean there's another way?" Cass asked. Was that what Luce was hinting at?

Unfortunately the devil only shrugged again. So apparently if there was another way, the devil wasn't filling them in. It was enough to make Cass angry again.

"You can't help us anymore than that? You allowed someone to cause Kushiel great pain, and it's not like all those lost souls are suddenly redeemed—they're ghosts, and they're in worse shape than they were when they were here. How is that helpful?" Cass demanded.

"When there is a wound, sometimes it must be purged. Which is better, to cut it open every day, letting a tiny bit drain, only to have it seal up so the process must be repeated the next day? Is it better to do that over and over and over again, small hurts every day, or is it not better to slice it open and drain it completely all at once? An agony, perhaps, but then it is done and over, and the wound can heal properly," Luce commented.

"Yes, but the wound hasn't been healed. The souls are still lost," Cass insisted. He understood Luce's analogy, but it didn't apply here.

"Are they, though?" Luce asked.

"Of course they are! They aren't redeemed or whatever. Kushiel would drain himself, filling each one with his light in order to redeem them. What happens when he finds the rest of them? It'll be reopening the wound over and over and over," Cass protested.

Luce leaned forward, suddenly very serious. "Are they lost, though, Cassius? Or are they not now ghosts, something that is within your realm to understand? They have left hell; they are not lost souls on Erebus. They are ghosts on the mortal plane. Is that not your department? Is it not your job to help ghosts? And amazingly, you are now mated to an angel who also helps souls become whole."

Cass leaned back, thinking hard. Finally he muttered, "You're saying there's another way to make them whole again. There's something that I can do, or something that Kushiel and I can do together, to make them whole and redeem them."

Luce sat back, steepling his fingers together and smiling again. "There is much at stake here," the devil said, gesturing with one of his hands to the cracks in the wall. "You two shall set this to rights, though. We have faith in you both."

"Who is ‘we'?" Cass asked, perhaps a little late with that question.

Luce only smiled more broadly. "Now then, since I called you as an oracle, you must serve as a communicator for the gods to another realm. That is, after all, the rule. Since Kushiel is an angel, and I am technically not of his realm, being a communicator to him counts. Any more questions before we commence?" Luce asked.

Cass had plenty of questions, but he knew he wouldn't get answers, so he just shook his head. He really didn't love this part of things.

"Very well then," Luce replied, and the devil smiled gleefully before diving straight into Cass's body.