#devilscratch

Harvey’s smile was slow, expression completely devoid of any humor he reached up to grasp at Nick’s hands as they pressed against either side of Harvey’s face. His fingers wound around the warlock’s shaky wrists, head bowing to press their foreheads together. The sensation of Nick’s breath fanning against his skin had been a comfort lately, but now it just made him hurt. Like his heart was trying to beat itself out of its rib cage and his bones were so heavy he’d sink into the ground if Nick weren’t holding him up.

“Heaven’s never something you wanted anyway, is it?” In normal circumstances, it would have been a joke. But not today.

His voice was thick with unshed tears, and he shut his eyes so he didn’t have to see the devastation in Nick’s. 

“You have to do it, Nick. If I keep my memories, I -” His hands tightened on his wrists, and he forced himself to meet his gaze. He deserved more than Harvey being too chicken shit to look at him while he broke his heart.  “If the demon gets into my head, it’ll be able to see everything. And it’ll use it to destroy everyone. And you. I’m not going to let that happen.” 

Harvey’s hands slipped up to Nick’s hands, covering them with his own. His voice cracked then. “I don’t want to forget you.”

And maybe for the first time in years, Harvey was honest with himself. But it didn’t even matter anymore. “But if anything that happened this year ever mattered, you’ll make me. I’m not going to be the reason you die.”

“Triple threat, you a boss, you a bae, you a beast.”

        “Are you?” Lilith’s gaze is steady on his face. She knows a warlock when she sees one, of course--there’s no mistaking one of His creatures. “And you often... Hover around high schools, waiting for... Someones, do you?”

        She steps a little closer, holding Mary Wardwell’s folders of to-grade essays and rubrics against her chest, between them. He’s not bad-looking, groomed and young and handsome, but he’s a man. Mortal students flow past them, out the doors of Baxter High after the dismissal bell, talking and laughing, and she can see them all through his eyes; surely he looks at them just as she does. Like prey.

        “You might be careful,” she says. “Strangers lurking around children can look rather... Suspicious.” Meaning: no hunting on my turf.