Sucking in his breath, it took everything for the demon not to yell out in anger. His best friend was god knows where, and instead he had to sit at a table with the Bishop. If Makai hadn't exposed him, Azaiah knew full well he would have made Ivan feel like shit while keeping his indiscretion secret. He would have happily made himself out to be a saint while trashing Ivan, and obviously, it didn't sit well with the demon too much. However, he wasn't Makai. He could sit back and hold his tongue (to an extent), and he did so
specifically to keep Ivan happy.
And throughout the following year, it was all Azaiah tried to do. Makai didn't return which, for a solid month or two had genuinely irked Azaiah. He had been abandoned by his friend twice in the past, and for it to happen a third time hurt far more than the others-- but the bitterness didn't last all that long in truth. This time, he wasn't left to recover from it alone - he did have Ivan, and he did prove to be a
great distraction. Sure, they couldn't exactly go waltzing about the town hand-in-hand. Just because Arden was aware of their relationship didn't mean that everyone else could be. Their relationship, therefore, was constrained to the privacy of the house, and even then, it was constricted to a kiss here and there. Hell, if the demon was lucky, he'd get a shower with Ivan.
He had, for the first few months, tried his hardest to approach the topic of sex-- but ultimately? He decided to give up that and just enjoy the relationship as it was. He respected Ivan far too much to force the issue, and if he wasn't comfortable, then Azaiah was happy enough to forget it.
On the whole, though, the year had gone
incredibly smoothly. The town had recovered surprisingly well, given the horrors that taken place. Aesthetically, things were back to normal. There wasn't a blade of grass out of place in anyone's garden and neighbours chatted over their fences again about anything and everything. Of course people remembered the odd week or two where everything went hellish, but nobody talked about it. It was never mentioned; simply brushed under the carpet and forgotten about.
Azaiah was no different. He was more than happy to forget about it, even if he selfishly didn't regret it at all. If it hadn't happened, he would never have found Makai-- and then he would never have met Ivan, who, if he thought he loved him a year ago, he now more than
adored.
Currently, as most days were when Ivan wasn't at the church, the demon was sunbathing outside with a glass of iced tea. There wasn't... really much Azaiah did. He didn't have a job, and he didn't have any friends to socialise with. His life was always spent with Ivan - he accompanied him to church, and he stayed at home with him when he had a day off. However, that wasn't to say he hated his life. On the contrary, it was easily the best year of his life so far, simply because he was
happy, genuinely happy, for the first time.
"Are you gonna come and sunbathe? I mean, fuck, nobody's gonna peek over the fence, Ivan. There's nobody with binoculars peeking through cracks in the fence, either. We're in private. You can come get topless and lay with me, pick up a nice tan," drawled the demon as he pushed his sunglasses over his eyes, his hands resting behind his head as he briefly eyed his nearby boyfriend. "Can you just come relax? Honestly, you've worked, like, every day this week, haven't you? Don't we deserve a break~? Ooh, go fetch that apple pie in the fridge, and the clotted cream. We'll share it~"
