Peppermint

Interlude 14 - The Twin Thing

Michael wasn't twins with Josh, not even close. They looked like they could've been the same age, but Michael was at least a few millennia older. Or something like that. For a being of his lifespan, the eons really tended to blur together after a while.

That said, though, he did still feel close enough to Josh that he felt his death almost at the exact moment it happened.

And not from a silly little text alert like he almost always got whenever there was a new denizen of the Third 'Verse for him to watch over day after day. Speaking of which, Raffa was probably getting sick and tired of her substitute tank-watcher duty. Again. But then she was the only archangel left who wouldn't have stepped in without objection. The only one without prior obligations that absolutely could not be ignored. Though even with Raffa temporarily in charge, even down in Scoville's underground lair, he was still getting those preternatural texts from two universes away. Not too many, thankfully, but there was one that came in only a few minutes after Josh's death that had set Michael's alarms off.

The name of Thomas Grant, better known as TJ, was attached to that text.

Wasn't that one of the other twins whose bodies Michael's father had taken over? Yeah, he was the one currently in the Second 'Verse after his initial death here.

Well, not anymore.

Michael's lips tightened, and as he gazed once again on his brother's corpse, he held back a sob. Not entirely - a small squeak still passed from his mouth. Not a sound befitting an archangel, but who bloody cared? Archangels still mourned their dead like everyone else in God's creation. Except perhaps the Man Himself, who would only do so in the sort of absolute privacy he never allowed anyone else, not even his own kids.

But Michael didn't cry because Josh was dead. It wasn't the first time, and for sure Elliot wouldn't just allow it to stick forever. Maybe not for three days this time. Three weeks? Three months? Who knew. But Michael was convinced Josh would come back again.

Except that conviction was slowly slipping away as Michael kept on checking and rechecking his phone, waiting for a text with the full name "Joshua Christos Graziadei" on it.

So Josh wasn't going to the Third 'Verse. Which made sense, in a way. Josh was Jewish. Ethnically, not spiritually, but wasn't it true that Jewish people didn't believe in an afterlife? Messiah or not, Josh probably hadn't abandoned his native belief system entirely, so maybe that was Dear Old Dad's way of honoring that for him.

If not that, what? Where in the hell would...

Oh.

Oh no.

But now that the thought had entered Michael's mind, it wouldn't leave. Trust anything to do with Samael to parasitically incept him without warning.

All Michael could do now was pray that his one big brother hadn't gotten hold of Josh.

He wouldn't be able to check and find out for sure until he got back home, and of course by then it might just be too late.

Though who knew? Maybe this time, Josh would be better able to defend himself. After all, last Michael heard, Samael no longer had a stranglehold on all the resources of Purgatorio.

Especially the snakes.