Staring into the darkness of the bedroom, tired eyes did their best to close but sleep had evaded him for a good portion of the night. What had started off as a wonderful day - he was allotted a goddamn wonderful day once in a while, wasn’t he? - had turned into…well, he wasn’t quite sure what it had turned into.

A wayward glance was directed towards the man in the bed beside him, a mop of bright, angry red hair splayed out over the pillow adjacent to his own. When they’d finally managed to crawl into bed, his husband had pressed up close and tight against him, just as he always did when he was feeling less than confident that everything was alright. He’d turned and took to the pillow only an hour or two after finally falling asleep, but Paul had yet to find the sweet embrace of sleep, himself.

Truth be told, he wasn’t sure if everything was alright.

Maybe if he hadn’t had chosen the bar for his afternoon excursion. Maybe if he hadn’t decided to be a horndog and lead his spouse into the alleyway’s entrance for a less than innocent kiss. Maybe there were a lot of factors that would have changed everything, had he just decided to go a different route on what was supposed to be his “special” day.

Christ, he tended to ******** everything up still, didn’t he?

First his own life, then Noah’s life…and now, even after everything had seemed to be going according to Noah’s meticulous plan, he’d managed to figure out another way to ******** things up to a royal proportion.

Go ******** figure.

And this...this new identity bullshit was something straight out of a science fiction movie - and Paul Jones didn’t do sci-fi. He liked nitty, he liked gritty, he liked down to Earth movies because that’s how his world was. Simple. Down to Earth. No goddamn sudden transformation into someone else, the haunting whispers that still lingered in the back of his mind.

Sodom. Sodom. Sodom.

One hand rose to rub against his face, the calloused palm brushing against the sandpaper sensation on his chin. Sodom and Gomorrah. He hadn’t been to church in… ********, fifteen, sixteen years? Back when his mother always insisted the family attend. Still, those names were names that every God-fearing child knew. The depraved, wicked cities that had earned God’s wrath to the point that he…

Paul couldn’t help but snort at the irony. His sins would be a shadow everywhere he went, apparently.

Knights. He didn’t know what being a Knight was, but judging at how the monster had reacted, Paul had a sinking feeling that the snake hadn’t been the only one out there. How many monsters roamed the city? Was he tasked to protect and defend against them?

No - were they tasked?

Eyes fell to Noah once again and he felt his heart twist within his chest cavity. A meaty hand moved to gently pull the younger man against his chest and Paul sighed into the sea of red resting beneath his nose. Noah and fighting went together as well as Paul did with gardening - it just wasn’t right. And now, Noah was going to be out there, possibly taking on actual monsters with nothing more than his snark and a goddamn stick?

Grip tightened around the ginger in his arms, his spouse’s only reaction to the jostling being to snuggle closer, murmuring incoherent sounds of disapproval over being manhandled in his sleep. The burly man tilted down to press a kiss against his sweetheart’s head, calming the murmurs immediately.

There wasn’t a doubt in his mind that their lives had been changed forever… and he could only lay there quietly as he allowed the waves of panicked, overwhelming dysphoria to crash over him as he dwelled on that particular realization.

What were they going to do?