XXX #2
The prince stepped back into the elevator and rode it up to Limbo.
He sipped his coffee as he exited the gilded box.
Limbo was as silent as ever, and Lucky felt like he stood out against all of the grey with his bright yellow dress shirt.
He started making his way through the foggy morning toward the gates, bypassing some new souls who were wandering aimlessly waiting for their appointments.
He looked around at the quiet chaos and exhaled a plume of thick, healthy smoke.
His tail whipped around with irritation.
He knew Limbo was messy but he hadn’t realized it had gotten this bad.
The circle was too close to the entrance to Earth, and it felt risky to both his own constitution and Charlie’s future to step near it, so he’d stayed away.
He knew the heirs got swapped out every few months due to bad work ethic, laziness, or failure to comply with the strict rules but the queues shouldn’t have been this long.
Souls shouldn’t have been wandering this close to the elevators without guides.
He had his work cut out for him, but he welcomed the challenge.
He waved down Bub. The demon lord waved back before returning his hand to the elbow that was currently in a sling.
Lucky turned his eyes to Gabe who stood nearby, looking as lovely as ever with a tablet in their grip and a designer cardigan over their body.
Their wings were wide open, so they must have only just arrived.
“Morning,” Lucky said.
“Morning! You excited about this new gig?” Bub asked.
“Yeah, I think so,” Lucky replied. “Hi, Gabe, what brings you here?”
“I’m a liaison for this project. Things have been so messy here in the past month or so that some of our souls are now in Hell, and we have a handful of yours,” Gabe explained.
Lucky furrowed his brows and took the tablet to look at the reports. “How is that possible? I’m so thorough, and nothing has been flagged.”
“We aren’t sure. Could be a troublemaker, a glitch in the system, angels on our end growing lazy due to…
” They blinked a few times and pondered, “Things that I signed an NDA about. It’s hard to say.
Thus this collaborative effort, I assume.
Seraphiel had informed Lucius of it during one of their odd meetings,” Gabe replied.
“This is going to be a mess, and I don’t even know where to start,” Lucky groaned as he handed the tablet back.
“That’s why we thought you might need some help. Someone who comes highly recommended.” Gabe folded their wings and shifted their tall body.
Lucky’s eyes drifted from their face to the person standing by the gates he’d somehow missed. The coffee slipped out of his hand, his heart raced, and tears immediately filled his eyes. That gap-toothed smile and freckle-dappled face couldn’t be real, could it?
“Charlie?” Lucky sobbed.
Charlie plowed into him, knocking him over with the force of his hug as they both fell to the ground. “You jerk!” the priest cried.
Lucky wrapped him up tight and held on with shaking hands, struggling to find a place to grab him without accidentally brushing his adorable little wings or knocking over his… halo. Wait.
The Prince of Hell gasped and shot upright. “Hold on!” He pushed Charlie away to get a good look at him. “You’re dead?!”
“Yeah,” Charlie said as he rubbed the back of his head.
“How? It’s only been a year!” Lucky shouted as he grabbed Charlie’s golden halo to look at it and make sure he wasn’t being pranked.
“You’re going to laugh at me.”
“What did you do?”
“It turns out Kansas has the highest car insurance rates for a reason.”
“A car wreck?! Are you kidding me?! I leave you alone for basically a second and you get into another car accident!?”
“Hey!” Charlie jabbed an accusatory finger into Lucky’s chest. “Neither of those incidents were my fault!”
They looked at each other for a second before both of them broke out laughing.
Charlie wrapped his arms around Lucky’s neck and held on tight.
Lucky buried his face into the priest’s shoulder.
His fingers brushed the soft feathers of Charlie’s tiny wings as he placed his hand against the small of his back.
“I’m so sorry, for everything,” Lucky whispered.
“So am I,” Charlie said quietly. “The good news is, we have an eternity to make up for it.”
Lucky smiled, but he felt conflicted about that statement. He didn’t have much time to consider it when Charlie started lightly slapping him on the chest.
“Guess what!” Charlie squealed.
“What?” Lucky asked, completely enamored and fully blinded by Charlie’s radiance.
“I’m a saint! A kind of dumb saint, but a saint! And a patron one at that!”
Lucky finally felt at peace hearing that. Charlie had gotten his wings, his halo, his sainthood. The prince’s sacrifice of a year of longing and worrying and wondering had been worth it. True, Lucky had expected it to be a longer sacrifice, but that didn’t matter right now.
“And! If we handle this project efficiently, I’m going to get a permanent spot at the Seraph’s Office as an admin!” Charlie added, fists clenched tight with glee at the thought.
Lucky grinned. He turned to Gabe and Bub who had been watching with soft smiles. He grabbed Charlie by the back of his thighs and hoisted him up in one effortless motion as he stood.
“Thank you,” Lucky told his ex, knowing they had something to do with this.
“Charlie is exceptionally talented. We felt he would be best suited to assist you while keeping our other agents free, and this is of the utmost importance. I believe the four of us can handle this situation in a timely fashion,” Gabe replied.
They then cleared their throat. “That being said, I am quite busy today since my buffoon of a boyfriend can hardly bathe himself—”
“Your buffoon of a boyfriend also won us the game, babe,” Bub corrected, wiggling his eyebrows as he did.
“Yes, well,” Gabe mumbled, a blush running over their cheeks. “I need to help him make some meals and tend to his chores this evening so I planned on sticking around for a while. I do believe it would be a waste to have brought Charlie all this way to simply return him to Heaven so…”
Lucky cocked an eyebrow with a knowing grin before he turned to his radiant Charlie in his arms. He planted a soft kiss on his human’s cheek before he threw Gabe a wink. “Golf?”