Endlessly

It's the smell of coffee that wakes Alex in the afternoon. As he stretches across his mattress, his eyebrows draw together. His parents have never been fond of coffee - in fact, he didn't even think they owned any. It takes his brain a few seconds to find the memories of last night, and with that recollection, he realizes his bed is not where he fell asleep last night, and these were not the bloodied mess of clothing he wore when he passed out.
"It's about time you woke up. I've been up for hours." Jack speaks from the plush chair that usually resides in the corner of Alex's room. Today, however, it is seated in front of the window, where beams of sunlight enter and warm the room. Jack is sitting cross-legged in it with a rather large book in his lap. He's wearing glasses but is shirtless, allowing his wings to fall off the sides of the chair, shining and fluttering contentedly in the sun. He didn't even glance at Alex when he spoke, eyes still scanning whatever text he was reading as he sipped at his coffee.
"Are those my pajama pants?" Is the first thing Alex can think to utter. Honestly, he's glad Jack is still engrossed in whatever he's reading. If he's looking at the book, he can't see Alex's blush, the way Alex is staring at him. Maybe it's just the way the light glimmers off his wings and how Alex's pants ride low on Jack's hips, but for the first time, the word beautiful flies across his mind at the same time as Jack does.
A soft smile graces Jack's face. "Yeah. I'll wash them before I give them back. My clothes were just really uncomfortable with the dried blood and all and I didn't think you would mind given the circumstances."
"Why am I in bed?" Alex asks next. His blush intensifies as he thinks that he couldn't sound any more stupid.
"When I woke up, I was pretty sore from the hard tile in the bathroom. Your neck was at a really weird angle, so I carried you to bed. You'll probably be a little sore, though."
Alex sits up and rolls his head, wincing almost immediately. It would probably take days for him to work out the kink in his neck. "Thanks, I guess."
Jack finally lifts his head, sitting his book on the ground and turning so that his entire body faces Alex. "How are you feeling?"
The angel shrugs. "Physically, I'm okay besides my neck."
"And mentally?" The question is a mere whisper, delicate with worry.
In response, Alex throws the covers off of him and stands. "I need a shower."
Jack sighs, but doesn't stop him from passing by and entering the bathroom, closing the door tightly behind him. Promising himself he'll ask again once Alex comes back, he retrieves his book and his eyes return to the text.
Jack tries really hard to not count the minutes Alex is in the bathroom. He tries not to imagine Alex looking himself over in the mirror and agonizing over last night, blaming himself for the way things turned out. Death took a particularly nasty toll on angels, so Jack shouldn't have been so surprised when he just barely heard a short sniffle through the door right before the shower was turned on. And as a demon, Jack definitely should not have felt like crying himself at the thought of Alex trying to hold tears back as he washes off the remaining filth from last night.
Before he can think better of it, Jack finds himself at the bathroom door. "Alex?" He calls softly.
"What?" Alex tries to snap at him, but the tears in his throat make him sound more whiny than anything.
Jack struggles in the silence for a moment, trying to find a way to express himself without sounding like a pervert (to Alex, at least). When he finds none, he takes a deep breath and tells himself to man up. "Can...Can I come in?"
"Why?" This time, Alex is able to push more malice into his voice, but he has to admit, he still sounds pretty pathetic.
"Alex," Jack's voice is soft. "Can I come in? Please?"
When the angel says nothing, Jack turns the doorknob quietly and finds that it's open. Steam rushes to meet his skin and mists across his wings. There's no way Alex isn't burning himself in the shower; Jack hasn't even taken a step inside the bathroom and he's already finding it difficult to breathe through the heat. Everything is concealed in fog, so Jack relies on the sound of water running to lead him to his target.
When his fingers brush against the vinyl curtain, Jack calls out again. "Alex, turn off the water." Jack tries.
"Go away! I need some time alone." A sob makes his words louder than he intended them to be.
Jack scoffs. "No. Not while you're like this. Turn off the shower, or I'll turn it off for you."
"Like 'this'? What the hell is that supposed to mean?"
"It means that you're crying and trying to hide from me and you're clearly hurting yourself with how hot this water is. Seriously Alex, turn off the goddamn shower."
"I'm not hiding from you! I told you I needed time!"
"Yeah, you 'needed time' to take a shower and burn off the top few layers of your skin!" When Jack snaps at him, there's more fear than anger in his voice.
There's a second of silence, and when Alex speaks again his voice is almost a whisper. "It makes me feel clean." With a sigh of resignation, the sound of water on porcelain comes to a halt. "Can you hand me my towel?"
With no clever retort, Jack does as Alex asks and grabs him a towel. Opening the towel and holding it out across his torso, he covers his eyes. "You can come out. I'm not looking, I swear. Just let me take care of you right now."
The curtain rustles as Alex peeks his head out in confusion, but when he sees Jack holding the towel open for him, all the fight leaves him. He scampers out of the shower, praying his doesn't slip, and in a few steps he finds himself in a warm towel, being embraced by Jack. "You're clean, Angel. This wasn't your fault." Jack whispers against Alex's forehead.
"I know it wasn't. I just...I can still feel the blood, their blood, and the screams, and-and the fighting, and," his voice cracks, "They were gonna hurt me, do stuff to me, you know? If you hadn't shown up exactly when you did, I could be dead, defiled, ruined." A tremor racks his body, and Jack holds him tighter. "And fuck, I don't deserve you doing this right now. The whole reason I went out and got stuck in that mess in the first place was to spite you!"
Jack quells the heat in his gut before it has time to fuel his emotions. "Spite me? Were you jealous or something?"
"Of course I was. You think I didn't know what you were doing with other people? I was so angry, I swore the next time I saw you I would break your nose."
Jack tries to hold back his laughter until he feels Alex's smile against his chest. "I can't even imagine you trying to beat me up."
Alex giggles, sniffling. "The feeling is mutual. One can dream, though."
Keeping a tight hold around the angel, Jack pulls his head back so he can look Alex in the eye. "Can we just agree that we were both idiots and stop fighting? Because I really want to kiss you right now, but not if you're still angry."
And after everything Jack has done for him, who is he to not lean in and kiss his boyfriend?