Deliverance [malexmale]

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Seven

"Are you sure this isn't an inconvenience? I can find my own apartment. I've been given my first week's pay and can afford to stay in a hotel for the night."

"I swear to the gods, Menoetius, if you say that one more time, I might actually spank you."

Okay then.

I sat back in silence, watching Arikos scroll through a listing of apartments available in the area with two bedrooms and a large kitchen, because according to Arikos, we were going to need a big kitchen. We'd been looking at apartments for almost three days, and not a single one suited Arikos's particular tastes, and I was getting antsy to get out of Lucifer's palace. I was tired of running into the demonic couple known as Hades and Lucifer, and even worse, running into the rest of the Luciferian family.

It wasn't that they were bad people. It was just their togetherness was off-putting. Seeing so many people who were clearly capable of all sorts of depravity behaving so naturally with one another was simply something I could not get used to. I was already wary of the way Hannibal had suddenly begun to warm up to me. He was still an asshole, still easy to piss off, and he clearly didn't want me near Akin too often, but he insisted things between us were different.

Not better.

Just different.

I suppose I could handle different, as long as different didn't mean sneak attacks in my sleep. I'd already dealt with enough of those from Atlas and Prometheus. Epimetheus had always been far too stupid to pull a sneak attack of any kind. The guy couldn't sneak through a deaf and blind ward.

I rested my chin in my palm, watching Arikos stare intently at his laptop screen, searching through the available options. His silver eyes twitched every so often, and he'd rub at his left eye in irritation due to the bright light of the laptop screen. He reached up to rake a hand through his black hair, making it stand up even more than usual, then fingered the silver hoop in his right ear.

"I don't like that kitchen," Arikos said after a moment, scowling as he flipped through the pictures, "I don't like the wood for the cabinets... Ew, or that stove. Why is this apartment so expensive for something so shitty? Do I look like a goddamn prince of Hell? You know, maybe I should just enlist in the military too--"

"No," I blurted abruptly, making him arch a brow at me, "No, please, don't. I get paid per week. We should be able to afford anything you want." The very thought of Arikos going out into battle made my skin crawl. While he had proven he was pretty handy in a tight spot, I hadn't seen him in a full on battle before and something told me Arikos wasn't willing to kill to win.

"Now you know how I feel," Arikos told me, making me frown.

"But I know how to fight."

"And so do the other guys," Arikos said, and when my frown deepened, he sighed and moved away from the laptop to face me, taking my hands in his, "And you're way more badass than they are, don't get me wrong. I have every faith in you and your abilities, but what scares me is the fact that you're going to be exposed to all of that. I don't want you to be forced to make a decision between life or death. I don't want you to be covered in blood, and I don't want you to feel cold and dark inside because of something you can't stop. Because as much as you deny it, I know it affects you. Something tells me that some of these," he drew his hands up further on my forearms to brush his thumbs gently over my scars, making me grimace, "Aren't due to just your own personal pain, but the pain you force on other people in order to keep yourself and those you love safe. It's a huge sacrifice, Menoetius, and I don't want you to have to sacrifice anything more. You deserve to hang onto everything you have." I tilted my head, staring at him in wonder.