#catherinethebold

It wasn’t often that Zadkiel found himself on water. Not many demons could cross running water, but perhaps the ocean itself was different. He was learning himself that demons had differences between them. The angel was still recovering from his recent regeneration after a particularly difficult battle with two Dukes of Hell; Barbatos and Amdusias. They had grown weary of Lucifer’s reign, and managed to escape their so-called prison in an attempt to corrupt mortality and rule the earthly plane. Whilst Zadkiel had defeated Barbatos, Amdusias broke free, leaving trails in the forms of thunderstorms as a map to find him. Zadkiel was chasing a storm, and was doing so on a ship, chasing down pirates. 

It was typical the two demons had chosen pirates as their bait -- soulless, lawless men who didn’t worship God but rather themselves or False Gods, using the power of storms and the hunger for treasure to cause chaos. As he got to work scrubbing the decks, and other menial work Captain Dougherty had him do, he listened out for rumbles of thunder, but was more interested in the whispers of his crewmates instead.

There was word that the pirate ship they were tailing had two female crewmembers, with one reported to be the First Mate. They were sirens, or witches, and convinced the crewman they had power over the sea. Zadkiel had scoffed at this, but kept his eye out. And that was when the battle began.

Amdusias must have been timing the moment perfectly, using the pirates to shield him from the angel. Rain began to pour, hard and uncaring, smacking on the decks and on the freezing bodies of the men on board. As Zadkiel was recovering from a nasty bite from Barbatos, he even wasn’t immune to the shivering of the cold sea air, the water below churning ominously below. He managed to evade cannon fire, sword fighting and more as the ships collided with each other, finding himself on enemy lines, curious to see if the rumours were true. And there was certainly some truth indeed. There was the sucreant, as if frozen in time from the last time he spared her, and he wielded Uriel’s sword of hellfire (his own daggers momentarily damaged and were being repaired by Raphael)  a manic grin on his face. Quickly, within this inane battle, was the perfect timing. He leaped forward, sword swinging haphazardly, straight for the sucreant’s throat.

The world was different now. The world was always becoming different, but the last couple of decades really changed before Zadkiel’s eyes. He was used to killing time by going back home, visiting Raphael who once again tried to heal his wing wounds to no avail, and coming back to the mortal plane to find that everything had changed from politics to fashion to lingo. 

But it was all another realm of different now. For the first time in his entire existence, Zadkiel watched with his own eyes the subtleties of change. Fashion -- well, he never understood that, not even back in the Garden of Eden, witnessing Adam and Eve fashion fig leaves into garments -- and the slang, he understood, but there was a new obstacle he had to face that he never thought he would. Technology. 

Televisions; great. Borderline magical. 

Phones; useful, if a bit excessive over the years.

The internet? The mortal plane’s answer to a genuine Hell on Earth. 

It was something Zadkiel couldn’t even fathom. A bet he made thirty years ago debating its existence would be futile within a decade proved false, and now he owed Catherine a sum of money he had no way of obtaining. Her laugh during this bet sang in his ears to this day, and he glanced over to where she was laying, back facing him, and grinned at the memory. Lost in the nostalgia for a moment, he barely registed when his iPhone pinged. He looked at the notification, frowned, and found himself hating the feeling he was experiencing; a complete lack of knowledge on something. Something he couldn’t be an expert in.

“What is a Zaddy….why am I a Zaddy….and what is the Renegade you should teach me on Tik Tok?” He asked Catherine, whilst glaring at his phone. It was her stupid idea for them to make an account, maybe as part prolonged game of Chicken they had going for the last few years, one always finding something the other one would hate enough to give up. But Zadkiel simply agreed and surrendered to this new craze, making an account and becoming surprisingly popular on it, for no reason whatsoever (apparently he was a snacc, and sometimes he felt like crying in frustration over what that even meant). 

“I swear, mortals can’t have always been this disillusioned. And as much as he would have loved being called “Daddy AF”, Da Vinci had some respect given to him once the Sistine Chapel was completed.” He huffed, throwing his phone down, collapsing against the pillows.

After their reunion at the diner, Zadkiel and Catherine seemed to be back on track, falling into the old routines they had six months ago. Before they knew it, it was 1986 and then, in a blink of an eye 1987. Soon, it would be time to move on. As much as they both loved New York, they knew they couldn’t stay there forever, watching their friends move on and have families and grow old whilst they stayed forever young. 

They had the rest of time, they deduced, to move back to The Big Apple if they really wanted. 

Instead, they spent a couple of years travelling, because Zadkiel needed something to do to fill the gaping hole in his schedule he had reserved for demon-hunting, and he made a promise he wouldn’t do anything without Cathy. They went all over the world, using different aliases, occasionally writing letters to their New York friends until they no longer were a regular occurence and the friendships faded away. It was a method Zadkiel had perfected during his existence, when the people he allied with over his centuries on earth aged and he had to move on before they grew suspicious, finding it easier to let the alliances naturally wither rather than harshly cutting them off. Less dubious as well, he supposed. To let them think that their lives just got busy. 

And they had. On their travels, they often detoured to pilgrimages to various holy landmarks or grounds. Visited churches and temples, all to seek an answer to find out what Zadkiel’s purpose was. They met and immersed themselves in all kinds of different cultures, but sadly didn’t seek the answers he was looking for. Eventually, Zadkiel and Catherine headed to Scotland -- both attached there for various reasons. For Zadkiel, he was here sometime during the Scottish Revolution, and met some wonderful soldiers on his hunt. And despite the circumstances, he was at a time where he was at his most happy. 

Until Cathy, that was.

They were sat now, in their cottage on the outskirts of Glasgow, where crime was at its peak (perfect when Cathy needed to feed) and he was just admiring the way she looked when she was reading. How her face scrunched up and her eyes darted from word to word, drinking every word. He leaned over and kissed her cheek, hesitant to do more. Not that he didn’t want to -- he did, he supposed. It was complicated. They never really picked up that part of their diner conversation, too busy soaking up all these new experiences and finding Zad’s purpose. 

But it seemed silly, how it was something they had put off for an additional four years. And it was something Zad wanted to try to initiate, but he paused because he had no idea how. So instead, he just tucked some stray hair behind Cathy’s ear, stroking her cheek, waiting for an appropriate moment to once-again bring up the subject of sex.

“Should we have sex?” He blurted out, not being in control of his words, and hating himself for choosing the least romantic or even seductive sentence ever. “I mean....I don’t know what I mean. I was going to try with a different way but, I didn’t even know where to begin on that.”

SEND A 🙌 AND I’LL INTRODUCE YOU TO AN NPC RELATED TO MY MUSE.

@catherinethebold

Raphael, one of Zadkiel’s many brothers. He is an Archangel, like Zad is, and one of the brothers he sees often when he goes Home. This is because Raphael is the angel of all major types of healing; mental, physical, emotional.

When Zadkiel was tortured by some demons resulting to permanent damage to his wings, Raphael managed to get him Home and heal him as best he could.

@catherinethebold

Zadkiel was never one to ask for help, especially when it came to his job, his one true reason for being on this eartly plane. Yet, even the angel had to admit there was just one too many demons this time around. They were incredibly strong, and if there was maybe one or two, Zadkiel could have easily taken them down, but there was a whole group of them.

He had managed to get a few of them, but it seemed to anger the rest of their group, and currently he was pinned down, just inches away from his celestial blade that had been knocked out of his hands during the struggle. He fought against them, but their combined weight was just too much. Grateful that he had told Catherine where he’d be when he did.

All he had to do was wait, he supposed.

Put a word in my ask and I will write a Headcanon about it for my Muse.

Put a word in my ask and I will write a Headcanon about it for my Muse.