The night was quiet.
Not ``Hell'' quiet. Not the eerie kind where something terrible was about to explode.
Just... quiet.
Blaze and Loona sat side by side on their apartment rooftop in hell, a bottle of half-drunk whiskey between them and the gentle hiss of a shared cigarette trailing lazy smoke into the sky. The glow of Imp City shimmered below like molten glass - orange and sickly and kind of beautiful when you were too damn tired to care.
Loona let out a long drag, exhaled upward, and didn't say anything for a while.
Blaze just sat there. Shoulder against hers. Legs stretched out. Not trying to fill the silence for once.
It was Loona who finally broke it. Soft. Hoarse.
``...I didn't realize how quiet it'd be without you.''
Blaze tilted his head toward her, but didn't interrupt.
She tapped the ash off the end of the smoke, watching the ember crumble. ``I've always been alone. Even with Blitz and the office and all the dumbass jobs. I just kinda... was. Then you showed up. Slid into my life like a cracked sidewalk, annoying as shit, pink hair like a rejected K-pop idol...''
Blaze laughed, quietly. She didn't smile, not yet.
``...And then you weren't there. Not just out. Not just hurt. Gone.'' She finally looked over at him, red eyes tired but raw. ``It felt like I lost... me. Like someone found the one fucking thread I let go soft on and yanked it.''
Blaze stared at her for a moment, smoke curling from between his fingers. ``...I was scared too,'' he admitted.
She blinked.
``Like... actual scared. The moment those bastards chained me up, I couldn't stop thinking... not about death, or Hell, or divine politics.'' He turned, expression unusually serious. ``I was scared I wouldn't hear your voice again. Wouldn't feel you slap my arm for being an ass. Wouldn't get to hear you fake-snore when I ramble. Wouldn't get to lie here like this.''
A pause.
His voice dipped softer. ``I didn't want to die without saying goodbye.''
Loona's eyes shimmered just faintly. She took another drag to hide it. ``You ever scare me like that again, I'm gonna rip your ribs out with a melon baller.''
``There she is,'' Blaze whispered, smiling like a man who just got handed the world.
They passed the bottle back and forth in silence for a while. The moon rose sluggishly through the smog. A siren howled far off in the distance. Blaze leaned back on his palms, looking up.
``Still weird,'' he said. ``All that chaos. All those chains. All those eyes on us. And here we are again, doing the same shit as always.''
Loona flicked ash off the roof's edge.
```Cause this is how it's supposed to be.''
He looked over.
She wasn't teasing. Or snapping. Or rolling her eyes.
She was just... honest.
This was how it was supposed to be.
Not divine trials or hellish punishments.
Just her and him.
The pink-haired idiot and the hellhound who didn't know how to love until he made her want to.
Blaze nudged her. ``Hey.''
``What?''
``I love you.''
She froze for a second.
Then snorted, smoke curling from her nose. ``You're drunk.''
``I love you,'' he said again, louder now, arms spread wide. ``Like full-on, whole damn heart, metaphysical bullshit, cross-dimensional, rule-breaking, world-flipping love.''
She slapped a hand over his mouth. ``Shut up, you lunatic - ''
He licked her palm.
``UGH - GROSS!''
Blaze grinned.
Loona threw the cigarette away, tackled him into the roof, and kissed him hard enough to shut him up the right way.
They stayed like that.
Breathing each other in.
Stars blinking above, as if the universe had finally exhaled too.
Maybe the rules didn't apply to them.
Maybe they were too fucked up to care.
Or maybe...
They were just two idiots who found something worth fighting Hell itself for.
*~*~*~*~*~*
