Work Text:
Badboyhalo sat cross legged at his desk, wings folded neatly behind him and pen clicking against the table in annoyance. In front of him lay a piece of paper- a letter from the boss.
He read the letter through just one more time, making sure he was seeing it correctly, and yes, it seemed he did, in fact, have to be on babysitting duty.
He groaned, leaning back in the chair and letting leathery black wings, scaly like a dragons, fall limp and rest on the ground.
Bad didn’t have time for this, he had a job to do, and babysitting some rebel child was going to be more of a pain than necessary. A rebel child who was here- all the way here- awaiting trial.
Where the kid came from, Bad wasn’t even sure they had problems, let alone problems that warranted a trial. And a babysitter.
Suddenly, curling in elegant gold ink that stood out on the red-tinted paper, the royal seal appeared, along with the kings signature. An official summons to the palace.
If it was possible, Bad sank even lower in his chair. But he sat up and stretched, letting his wings out to full extension in preparation for the long flight that awaited him.
Fine then. He would babysit.
Curving black horns that blended into his hair flashed red with anger in time with his eyes.
Fine. After all, it was just a child.
~~~
It was not just a child.
In fact, the angel standing in front of Bad was anything but a child. He was Bad’s age, and Bad was apparently extremely underprepared.
The angel smiled mischievously, grinning down at Bad from where he stood, at the right hand of the boss themself.
The king. DreamXD. Of all people, DreamXD allowed this pest to stand by their side.
“So, we have a deal?” DreamXD’s voice rang from behind the mask.
“I don’t make deals with the Devil… but yes, highness, I will return him unscathed when you so wish,” Bad replied carefully, avoiding getting his soul attached to the deal.
“Then go, child,” DreamXD waved the angel wearing the blue hoodie off the podium, and he stumbled to Bad’s side.
Bad shifted uncomfortably, tucking his wings in tighter to his sides.
“C’mon let’s go…”
“Skeppy, call me Skeppy,” the boy angel replied.
Skeppy fixed Bad with a cheeky grin, dimples shining in both cheeks. Babysitting. Bad couldn’t have been more wrong.
~~~
The flight home was… difficult, to say the least. The angel’s wings weren’t used to flying in such low altitudes, let alone with such hot temperatures, and the waxy feathers on his wings had begun to sunburn a soft pink in the bright light.
But they were home, finally. Skeppy was sprawled out over Bad’s couch, staring languidly off into space and looking as bored as could be.
He held a pen, stolen from Bad’s desk, and clicked it, filling the silence with the noise.
Bad flinched at every click of the pen, staring at the document in front of him and trying desperately to make it work, even with the intrusion of noise.
Click.
Click.
Click.
Click.
“Would you stop that???” Bad finally snapped.
“Stop what?” Skeppy inquired playfully.
“Stop- stop clicking that stupid pen!!”
“Jeez Bad who hurt you?”
“Don’t call me that.”
Bad sighed, reeling himself back into his body. He pushed his glasses back onto the bridge of his nose and went back to work.
Click.
Click.
Click.
Bad spun around in their chair, nailing Skeppy with a look.
“Ok fine. I’ll bite. I’ll make conversation. What the muffin did you do? What could you have possibly done in Heaven of all places, that got you sent here. To Hell.”
“Ooh!” Skeppy rubbed his hands together excitedly and sat up, obviously fulfilled with the sudden attention he was receiving.
“Well, I got involved in a drug deal with a gang that called themselves L’manburg, but it was literally just because I didn’t know what else to do and I couldn’t really say no.
“Long story short, I accidentally released power drugs to inmates in the biggest, most secure prison- Pandora’s vault- in Heaven and they used the drugs to escape jail and raised a mutiny for about a month before the guards- or guard really, the names Sam he’s really quite a nice guy- reigned them back in.
“Then I was put on trial for treason and drug dealing, and sentenced to 10,000 years of reincarnation! But that hasn’t happened yet, and my friend Quackity- he’s a lawyer- is trying to get them to redo the trial so I don’t have to have a sentence, and now I’m here!”
Bad was speechless. This little muffinhead was an angel???
“So, let me get this straight, you agreed to several lifetimes of regret and ruin because you didn’t know how to say no?” Bad questioned, bewildered.
Skeppy shrugged. “Pretty much, yeah.”
Bad’s mind was reeling. How was he the demon in this situation? And so much information had been dropped so suddenly.
“And wait Heaven has jails? And criminals? And drugs??? And there was a rebellion????? How did I not know any of this?”
“Oh right- yeah I wasn’t supposed to tell anyone any of that. Could you just like… unhear for me?” Skeppy asked, a serious look on his face.
Bad was silent.
“Ok ok fine. Just don’t tell anyone ok???” Skeppy amended.
“You’re such a muffinhead…” Bad chuckled softly.
~~~
Obviously Heaven and Hell ran in different time zones, because 1 day turned into 2, then 3, 4, and soon four months had passed without much incident.
Skeppy was almost fully moved into Bad’s house, and had come home that night… intoxicated, to say the least.
Bad had never seen him like this, and had no idea what was happening.
“Where have you- oh my muffin,” Bad trailed off when the door opened.
Skeppy flashed Bad with finger guns as he toddled in through the door.
“Heyyyy cutie. You come here often?” He slurred.
“Well I- well- cute??? And yes, this is my home…?” Bad replied, flustered and red to a fault. He shuffled a bit and tucked his wings in.
“Oh. Well, maybe you can be my home too.”
Skeppy followed this strange statement with a flirtatious wink, holding his hand out to Bad.
“You’re… you’re very pretty,” he breathed out, staring into Bad’s eyes as he walked farther into the house, the door shutting quietly behind them and locking with finality. “Did you know that?”
Bad sat at his bed, staring baffled at his roommate, and fiddling with his hands in his lap to hide a cherry red face.
“I don’t… I don’t know about that.”
“Well,” Skeppy flopped down on the bed next to Bad, falling onto his back and reaching up slowly to play with a wisp of Bad’s hair.
“Someone ought to have told you that…”
“I- you- oh my,” Bad stuttered out.
“I think I want to kiss you. I think I have for… for a while,” Skeppy seemed to test the words out carefully, as if weighing how they tasted on his tongue.
The pair lapsed into silence.
“You do?” Bad asked softly.
Skeppy nodded, suddenly more confident. “I do.”
Bad pulled Skeppy up into a sitting position and folded his wings against his back as tight as they would go.
He glanced down at Skeppy’s lips before flicking his gaze up to their eyes once more.
Down, up. Down, up.
And the more times that went on, the closer the angel got to the demon.
Soon, as if in the space between a breath, lips had interlocked, and a soft, passionate kiss filled the space between time.
Bad pulled away first, hand cupping Skeppy’s face and breath spilling heavily from swollen lips.
“This is… wrong,” Bad frowned.
“Well lucky for you…” Skeppy kissed Bad’s nose, a red blush erupting from there and only spreading. “I’m quite good at being wrong.”
Soon, they were a tangle of lips on lips and interlocking limbs, wings shading their view of the outside world, and the outside worlds view of them.
The angel and the demon, a pause in time and a twist in the story. White feathers tickled black leather, but neither of them could care less. The only thing they knew was their hearts beating in time, and their hands crossed together.
And that’s all it was. A kiss. They shared their time, and soon fell asleep.
~~~
The next morning, Skeppy woke first, confused as to where he was and what the warmth he held in his arms was.
He looked around the room, squinting against the early morning light that could only serve to make his headache worse.
He looked down at the lump in his arms as his eyes adjusted to the dim lighting, and was shocked to find a sleeping Badboyhalo, breathing peacefully and evenly, and holding tightly to Skeppy’s shirt.
Glasses sat askew on his face, and it seemed like neither of them had moved all night.
As if a switch had flipped, Skeppy suddenly began remembering every detail from the last night, including the reason he had been out drinking in the first place.
The letter. Skeppy had received a letter, complete with the royal seal and a summons to the palace explaining that his 10,000 year sentence would begin when he arrived at the palace.
He had to leave. And he wouldn’t be back for 10,000 years.
He planted a soft kiss on Bad’s forehead, brushing brown hair out of his face. Bad stirred soon after, meeting Skeppy’s eyes sleepily with a small smile.
“Fancy meeting you here,” Bad’s morning voice broke the silence.
Skeppy cracked a sad grin.
“Yeah… unfortunately, I’m only passing through,” he cringed at how that sounded, unthought out and callous.
Bad cocked his head to the side, confused at the change in conversation. “What do you mean? Won’t you stay a while?”
Skeppy was quiet for a minute, before simply choosing to hug Bad close to his chest as tightly as he could, intending to never let go.
A single tear slipped from his eye, sliding down his cheek slowly.
When he spoke again, his voice cracked with the weight of the words.
“Bad… I have to go.”
Bad tried to push himself away from Skeppy, wanting to look him in the eyes, but Skeppy was steadfast in his love and unwilling to let go.
“Go? Go where?” Bad settled on mumbling the words into Skeppy’s chest.
“I… I just have to go. I won’t be back for… I won’t be back for a while.”
“Geppy, you aren’t making any sense. Where are you going?”
That question started the flood, and silent tears cascaded down Skeppy’s face in a cascade. His shoulders shook and soon hiccups erupted from his mouth, but Bad couldn’t hear him crying.
He simply held on a little tighter, unsure of where this conversation was headed, but positive he didn’t like it.
“Bad… Badboyhalo I love you. I love your laugh and the way you push your glasses up fruitlessly even when you know they’ll just slide down again, and I love the dimple on the left side of your mouth and the way your voice sounds. I love your horns and your wings and I love you. Say you love me too, please. I just… I need to hear it.”
“I… Skeppy I- I don’t even know what to say…”
“Say you love me too. Even if it’s a lie, I just need… I need to hear you say it.”
“Well Geppy, you know I don’t lie.”
Skeppy deflated, sinking into Bad’s chest and sobbing harder, even if Bad still couldn’t hear them.
“I knew it. I’m sorry, I’m so stupid-“
“Which is why, when I say I love you too, it’s the truth,” Bad finished with a soft smile.
It was as if time froze again. All that was and has been and will be was Badboyhalo and Skeppy, holding each other in the early morning light and sighing in each other’s embrace.
And then Bad’s words sunk in, and Skeppy started sobbing.
Huge tears fell from his eyes, soaking Bad’s shirt and staining the sheets with salt. His body racked with heavy sobs, and finally, finally Bad could hear him. He screamed and cried and sobbed and shook, and when he finally calmed down enough to hear, the voice that cut through the haze like a knife was Bad’s whisper, I love you, I love you, I love you ringing in Skeppy’s ear.
They stayed like that for a long while, simply being, until Skeppy steeled his nerves to say what needed to be said.
But he couldn’t just tell Bad that his sentence was beginning, it would break the gentle demons heart. So he would lie… just a little.
“Bad… I do have to leave.”
“Hm.. and where to?”
“…they’re sending me back.”
Bad pushed himself away from Skeppy quickly, trying to make eye contact.
Skeppy averted his gaze, staring instead at the ceiling, the wall, Bad’s shoulder freckle, anything but those big shocked eyes that could see through his lie in seconds.
“Back… back to Heaven?”
Skeppy nodded. Bad’s eyes filled with tears, but he let none of them fall, instead opting to raise his chin and grasp Skeppy’s hand a bit harder.
“But I swear, I will find my way back to you, no matter how long it takes,” Skeppy whispered.
“Is that a deal?”
Skeppy quirked an eyebrow at Bad’s determined face.
“Well I’ve always been taught to never make deals with demons… but for you I think I can make an exception.”
The demon in question smiled tightly at his counterpart, tears sitting unshed in his eyes.
“It seems we have a deal. When do you leave?”
“Today…”
Bad nodded resolutely, albeit sadly, and stared at Skeppy for a moment longer, as if debating something.
His eyes glazed over, pupils dilated, and a moment later, lips connected and breath became one. It was a kiss of longing and passion and sadness and just the smallest hint of aggression. Bad pulled away first again, staring down at his hands.
“Come back soon, idiot.”
Skeppy smiled.
“I’ll see myself out then?” He offered sadly.
Tears streamed down Bad’s cheeks and he barely even nodded, hands in his lap and wings flopped down by his sides uselessly.
“I love you Bad, I’ll be back.”
The door clicked closed.
Badboyhalo dissolved.
~~~
The story of the demon and the angel was passed down through generations and generations to come, a story told to children to warn them of the dangers of straying from their path. But it was myth, a legend that no one knew had any truth to it. It was an open ended story, the only information known after the end of it that Skeppy served out his sentence, but who knows what came after?
Perhaps you should ask the angel and the demon sitting in front of the fireplace together, hands held tight to never let go again.
Or the young boy with fiery hands, babbling and happy, grinning at his parents.
You should ask the old gods, of blood and death and chaos, while they fight battles in the sky far from the peace in the warm house in Hell.
Stories are not always as they seem, you know.