#Hazbin hotel belphegor | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

sissytobitch10seconds · 7 months ago

Text

The Morningstar's Rays: The Heir of Hell

Fandom: Hazbin Hotel Summary: It has been years and years since Lucifer gave birth to a child, so he supposes that means it's the perfect time for him to fall pregnant again. Lilith had been talking about wanting a child made from the two of them anyway. Warnings: Implied forced pregnancy, domestic abuse, mpreg, graphic birth, medical trauma, and implied child abuse Word Count: 13,384 Ship(s): Adam/Lucifer Morningstar (endgame), Lilith Morningstar/Lucifer Morningstar

Archive link!

A/N: Before we go into this, I just want to warn everyone to look at the tags and head this trigger warning. Lilith is massively abusive and neglectful of Satan and Ozzie, as well as Lucifer during his pregnancy and birth. The birth scene in this is very traumatic and not at all like the other ones I've written. If these things could trigger you, please proceed with caution. That being said, I do love the comfort that comes after this fic and it makes the entire thing feel softer for me. Stay sissy and bitchy everyone <3

Lucifer set the pen down beside the papers that he had been signing and looked out at the skyline of Hell.

It had changed so much since he had first come to the realm. Once it had been nothing more than a dark mass of trees in the furthest distance and tall grass as far as the eye could see. Now, there was a massive castle over the place where he had first landed when he had been tossed from Heaven and a sprawling city around it. There was still some amount of grasslands between Cannibal Town and Imp City, but none of it looked at all like it had when he first came. He found that to be both a good and a bad thing, mostly because it meant even more change even if it was in the direction that the land had wanted itself to move in.

Other changes had happened as well, one of which he had been thinking about a lot. His children were grown and had come into their powers. He would never forget the days when they had come into their powers, stepping into their realms and their bodies snapping and cracking as they acquired their demon forms. It left Ozzie as a rooster and fire inspired demon and left Satan with the fur of a badger and the wings of a bat. He was so proud of how far they had come, but they lived in their own palaces and didn’t contact him anymore. Lilith had assured him that was because they were so busy with their work, just as he was, and not because he was a bad father. Something inside of him knee that if he had been there for them more, had witnessed those important moments, had comforted them when they needed him as teenagers, then they would be more amicable to actually being with him.

He supposed that he was getting another chance now, even if he wasn’t feeling the best about the idea of going through another pregnancy. A shiver ran down his spine as he remembered the massive fight that he’d had with Lilith over who was going to carry their next child. They both agreed that they didn’t like an empty nest, even if Lilith had been the one to encourage their children to leave before Lucifer was quite ready for them to be gone. She had accused him of being like Adam, of wanting her to do whatever he wanted simply because he was the man in their relationship. She had accused him of trying to destroy the body and career that she had worked so hard for.

Lucifer had quickly conceded and had spent the next several days trying to assure her that he didn’t want any of those things and that he loved her very much. She had agreed only when he had proven to her by letting her top in bed that he would carry their next child.

He had loved Lilith once, he was sure of that. He had once seen her as something beautiful and deadly, something that he wanted to cherish and treat properly. She wasn’t that person anymore, though, just as he was not the angel that he had been when he was in Heaven. He had heard of other married couples growing old together, changing and shifting until they were mirrors or the same soul. He knew that wasn’t what was happening to him and Lilith, but he still wanted to try.

He hadn’t yet told Lilith about the babe growing in his belly, but he was sure that she knew. He slept more, ate more, and his maid was beginning to get rather fussy about his hair and claws. He also had the urge to build something soft and warm in the back of a closet or under their bed, away from all the danger of the world.

Lucifer sighed and picked up the pen from beside the papers, placing his signature on the laws that the Overlord Counsel had asked of him. It was an odd thing, to have laws on the human souls that had done so wrong by God that they had been gifted to him. He knew, after all the time he had spent ruling this realm, that their sins could be anything from child sexual abuse to simply loving the wrong person at the wrong time. He was glad that he had the powers of the realm to help guide him through his rule, he knew he would have floundered already without it.

With most of his work done for the day, he checked the time and saw that his next meeting was in an hour, so he had time for a quick nap. He made sure that his meals were taken while he was doing paperwork in the hopes that it would both quell his morning sickness and allow him more time for himself. He had always thought that he would have less work to do when he had another ruler by his side, but he supposed that Lilith had more important things to do than help him sign paperwork.

He rose from the desk and swallowed hard as even the small amount of movement tried to make him vomit. He had brief bouts of morning sickness with both Satan and Ozzie, and had seen Adam overcome with it during his early pregnancy in the garden, but it was nothing like what he was going through now.

He stepped forward cautiously, humming low in his throat to try and keep the acid at bay. He was going to have to go to the doctor sooner rather than later, if just to get something that would settle his stomach so he didn’t feel quite so rancid throughout the day. When he got to his bedroom, he collapsed down onto the bed and breathed through the remaining pain in his chest from heartburn.

His eyes were just barely beginning to droop shut as the exhaustion clinging to him threaded throughout the rest of his body. He was good at fighting, he always had been, but this was one of the hardest battles that he had ever endured. He had been pregnant before, twice, and he had seen countless demons and sinners go through the same process. He wasn’t sure why this one was being so awful to him, but he wasn’t sure that he was going to make it to the other side in one piece.

Part of him wanted to laugh at the pun he had made in his thoughts, because he never came out of a pregnancy in one piece. After the birth had finished and the cord was cut, another piece of him had been severed from his body. That part of his heart would grow and develop, forming their own personality and likes and thoughts and dreams. The child that he had born was a part of him and always would be, but they had to spread their wings and fly. He would never try to lock them in a cage the way that he had been.

Sleep pulled at him a little harder than it had before. He could feel all of his tense muscles relaxing down into the bed underneath him as he let the sleepy haze of the candles from Sloth wash over him. He had told Bel that he was having trouble sleeping due to nightmares about a hundred years ago and now she sent him a couple of candles every other month so that he could burn the min his room and it would help catch the bad dreams and disperse them. It was working remarkably well with his exhaustion now because he was already slipping into a light doze.

He didn’t know how long he had been sleeping for when the door to his room opened and a pair of heels clicked across the floor. He felt a gloved hand brush over his face and then opened his eyes to see that Lilith was standing above him. “Now, now, Lucifer. Today is not the day to be lazy, we have quite a lot of work to do.”

“I wasn’t-” he began as he slowly shifted into an upright position.

“Dear, please do not argue with me. The preparations for the gala are already wearing me down so much and having you try to get out of the meetings with the Overlords that the secretary double booked me for isn’t going to help,” Lilith snapped back in reply.

He shrank down in on himself at the tone of her voice. At one point in their marriage, they had always been fighting with each other. He had learned that it was simply easier to agree with the way that she saw the world and keep his mouth shut at this point, though. The exhaustion he was battling with agreed with that course of action, the bed almost physically pulling him back down into the comforting warmth of the sheets.

He shook his head to try and dispel some of the exhaustion that was clinging to him. It was as if he were wrapped in a cloak made of the stuff, something that was smothering the fire in his chest that held the energy he had once had. He knew that it was for a good reason, the energy now feeding the lifeform growing larger and larger in the depths of his belly, but that didn’t stop him from feeling quite so poorly.

He knew better than to argue with Lilith after how long they had been married. So once he was no longer feeling like any amount of closed eyes would send him into a month’s long sleep, he began to move towards the end of the bed. He had shed his jacket upon his arrival, so now he reached out to the chair beside the table next to their bed and put it back on. “You wanted me to meet with some of the Overlords, right?” he asked.

“Yes. Unfortunately, the secretary that you hired has decided that my entire day is going to be overbooked. I had a spa appointment for my nails and horns at the same time that I’m meant to be meeting with Zestial. I assume that you can handle something that basic?” she asked. Her eyes were hard as she looked over him, like she was trying to pick him apart without having to touch him. He knew that was only because he had upset her, he should have worked harder to make sure that she had the happy life she deserved.

“I can do that,” he replied as he righted his suit jacket over his top. He knew that soon it wasn’t going to fit, if how large he had gotten with Satan was any proof.

He wondered how his daughter was doing, his heart aching in his chest as he thought about what it had been like to happen across her room when she had left. She and Lilith had apparently gotten in an argument about her training and she had decided that she was ready to rule her own ring, far before Lucifer had thought that she was ready. He had left his meetings a bit early when one of the servants told him about the yelling. When he finally got to his daughter’s room, the entire thing had been emptied out of all her personal belongings so that the only thing remaining was furniture and the bedding that the castle technically owned. It broke his heart, but he left it like that just in case she ever wanted to come back. He knew that the chances of that were unlikely, especially with how much time had passed, but he had always been a dreamer.

He cleared his throat when he heard the heels his wife was wearing clicking across the wooden ground as she got closer to the door of their bedroom. “Lilith? Do you have a moment to talk?”

“I suppose,” she replied as she turned around. “It’s not like I just finished telling you how busy I was or anything.”

He flinched back when she said that and realized that he had been rather foolish in asking at that exact moment. He hadn’t meant to be disrespectful to her time, he just wanted to let her know the good news before he forgot to tell her or before something happened. He didn’t think that it would, in all honesty. He’d never even had a premature labor with the pregnancies that he’d carried, but there was a chance that his body would see the new baby as a risk because of how sick it was making him.

He took in a deep brath breath to soothe the worries that were plaguing him. He wasn’t going to lose his baby, he was far too powerful for that. “Lilith, I think that I’m pregnant,” he finally admitted. They both wanted another baby, but he was still somehow more worried than he thought he would be for what her reaction was going to turn out to be.

Her face split into a wide grin, her golden-red eyes sparkling with the love that he had wanted so badly. She walked back over to him and placed her hands on either side of his face to bring him in for an adoring kiss. “I knew that you could do it love, I’m so proud of you. You’re going to be bringing our heir into the world and that’s just wonderful.”

“Our heir?” he asked. As soon as she had said that, the hazy adoration that he had for her snapped. He had just been thinking about his adult children, the ones that had been borne before the one in his belly was going to be by nearly eighteen hundred years. “We already have two children, Lilith.”

“Well,” she dropped her hold on him and then stepped away. Her long hair was flowing gracefully down her back as it always did, which made her look more ethereal than many of the angels that Lucifer had to deal with when he was in Heaven. “I wouldn’t expect either of them to be able to rule Hell if either of us ever ended up dying. They have their own rings to run.”

“I ran three rings and was king for the beginning of our reign and I still serve as both king and Pride,” Lucifer objected.

“I suppose,” she sighed. “I just don’t think that either of them are nearly as competent as you are, dear. If they were to juggle both of those things then it would cause turmoil for them and their rings would surely suffer for it. That’s not very fair to the demons that reside there, is it?”

Despite the fact that he knew better than to argue with her, despite the urge he had to just fall back into bed and sleep with the bit of goodwill that he had earned by carrying their child. His Pride wouldn’t allow that though, it was his fatal flaw and what had gotten him tossed from Heaven. The angels had referred to it as arrogance in the face of their creator, but he knew that he was simply confident in himself to the point that authority figures saw him as a threat.

Once upon a time, he had gotten in trouble for trying to make a family and tempt the humans in Eden so that they would understand the true being that God was, but now he knew he was getting in trouble for a different reason. Lilith had insulted his children, the ones that he had fought tooth and nail to be able to protect and raise in a world that none of them truly understood. “Ozzie’s ring involves more demons that go up to the surface so that they can tempt humans than literally any other ring. Not even the nightmares in Bel’s ring go up more than the succubus do and they can only inhabit people’s dreaming bodies. He could definitely handle running our kingdom. Satan has completely turned around her ring from the dwindling wasteland that it was when we found it to a thriving culture full of agriculture and ranching, it feeds most of the other rings entirely independently.”

“Lucifer,” Lilith said, her voice dark with danger. She was standing with her back to him, but he could see the way that the bridge of her nose was pinched and the scowl that had already taken over her soft lips. He wished that she would smile shyly at him more often, as she had done in the garden, he wished that she still regarded him with something more than the contempt one felt at a misbehaving dog.

“Lilith,” he replied. He wasn’t backing away this time. He had something that she wanted deep inside of him, something that wouldn’t be able to be taken from him for another eight months at the least, so he had something that he could use to bargain.

“I want an heir that is part of both of us. It hardly seems fair that you want to pass our kingdom over to children that were borne from other beings and not even in this realm in the first place,” she said, ice cold and detached.

He had seen the way that she had interacted with their people before. She sang to them from a high, gilded stage where she looked like a glowing purple and gold star in the sky. He knew the way that she warped the magic she had been given as the first Sinner, and an Overlord at that, so that people would listen to her. He hadn’t understood why humans had been able to tap into abilities that the native demons of his realm didn’t have, but perhaps he would have understood it more if Lilith had let him watch her more often. She prevented him from attending many of her concerts, probably so that she could do something like this. If Lucifer had been completely unaware of how her power worked, then his mind would have been entirely wiped instead of him simply fogging over.

She was using her abilities on him in an attempt to get her way, the same way that she had when they were talking about who was going to carry their next baby. It meant that most of the thoughts other than one had lost, leaving him with the singular thing that he was about to say next and nothing else. “Satan was born here.”

“Satan is volatile and not to be trusted with anything fragile. I’m surprised that she hasn’t broken most of the demons that are sent to her for army training,” Lilith sniffed. She brushed some of her long hair over her shoulder and then stepped out of the room with the same grace and power that she had entered with. When she got to the doorway, she said, “I expect you to keep the pregnancy a secret until after we’ve confirmed that you’re going to be able to carry to term. And I want you to attend all the meetings that I’m not going to.”

He didn’t object with her, the exhaustion and her magic making his mind too cloudy to think of something that he could say.

---

The morning sickness only worsened as time went on. Soon, Lucifer found that he could only keep a handful of things down. He ended up eating more apples, chicken broth, and leafy greens than he ever thought he would in his entire life. He had always enjoyed trips down to Gluttony so that he could try the new foods that humans had come up with, indulging in the things that his Heavenly counterparts had likely already been able to eat with the guilt that came each time one neared a sin. Lucifer was glad that he was free of that now, but he would almost take the guilt back if it meant that he didn’t turn a little green every time someone with a full plate passed him by.

He had always heard that with standard demonic and sinner pregnancies, the morning sickness would be bad when the pregnancy began to release a certain hormone but would decrease when the second trimester started. For Lucifer, it seemed like it was just wearing him down enough that he was too exhausted to use his magic to heal himself. He had heartburn and acid reflux almost constantly, which made his stomach hurt something fierce. He had actually begun vomiting when he smelled certain foods or when he ate something that particularly didn’t agree with him.

Sea food was out in its entirety, which meant that the meeting they’d had in Envy was near unbearable for him. He wasn’t able to eat a lot of meat now, which made him feel so lightheaded when he stood due to the lack of iron. That was what had actually spurned him into trying the leafy greens after Bel had mentioned something off handedly about what the demons in her own ring used to supplement their needs. He found apples helped him the most, likely because they were tied to his power and thus allowed him to heal himself enough to handle other foods as well. Chicken broth was something that the cook had suggested when he had rejected lunch for the forth time in a row because it was light on the stomach and something that was full of vitamins to help him recover.

Now, though, he didn’t have his own staff that already knew that some of his habits had changed and what they were meant to do now. No one other than himself and Lilith knew about the pregnancy before yesterday, when the doctor had confirmed that everything was looking good and he was on the right track to having a healthy baby. Lucifer had been very relieved to hear that, but the relief had been short lasting because now he had to tell the rest of the sins that he was expecting a child. He was sure that Lilith was also going to announce it at her next show, which meant that he would have to deal with the nightmare that was the paparazzi, which had gotten even worse now that the sinners were the ones that were controlling it.

That was the least of his worries in that current moment, though. He had taken the medication that the royal doctor had provided him to try and help with some of his morning sickness, but that was struggling to stay in his system with the wafting smells coming from each plate that the other sin’s were holding and the massive buffet along the wall. Lucifer had tried to tell Lilith that it was a bad idea to announce his pregnancy at the meeting that Bee was holding for this very reason, but she had dismissed him.

The meeting was called to order as Bee bounced over to the table and said, “Thank you everyone for coming. I know that the meetings aren’t allowed to be parties anymore, but I thought that it would be fun for everyone to eat while we talk. Then maybe afterwards we can drink and people can come back to my place for a real rager,” she grinned.

“Pass,” Bel yawned into the strawberries and cream that she had been munching on since she had returned from the table.

“We know,” Ozzie rolled his eyes. “I would love to come to your party, Bee. Especially if that cute Hellhound you’ve been playing around with is going to be there.”

“You can’t just steal my girlfriend like that, Oz,” Bee laughed. She then settled down in her seat and said, “Now that we’ve established that I’m going to have fun after this meeting, does anyone have personal business?”

“You’re so nosey,” Levi complained as he picked over his own food. An oyster shell skittered down the table a little too close to Lucifer and he had to resist the urge to put a hand over his mouth.

He knew that he had gone at least somewhat green when the food was moved closer to him because he felt Lilith’s hand move from her own lap and squeeze his leg. For any other couple, that would have been rathe romantic. It would have been seen as a wife checking in on her husband when he was sick before they both did something scary. With their relationship, a marriage of half-love and mostly convenience, it was her telling him to not step out of line. Lilith cared greatly for how she was seen by other people and always had, so she didn’t care for the idea of Lucifer rushing out of the room so that he could vomit his guts up because of something as stupid as a shellfish being too close to him.

“We do, in fact, have a bit of information that we would like you all to be the first to know,” Lilith said. She dropped her hand from where she had been warning Lucifer and then rose so that she could speak to them from above. She towered over even most of the largest sins with her mere presence, her voice dragging their attention away from each other and their food and over to her. “I know that there have been quite a few questions and rumors from other members of the upper class, such as the Goetia, but we are happy to be able to put them to rest. Lucifer and I are expecting our first child together and the royal heir,” she declared.

His stomach sank low down in his body, plunging his entire body into the icy darkness of his mind again. He had been too tired to look through the note cards that Lilith made herself before she made any kind of declaration. He knew that he should of, for this exact reason. He usually picked through what she was planning to say and then changed it a bit so that she might change her mind. It had worked for a lot of the official announcements that they had given to their people before, but he had forgotten for the meeting. It had entirely slipped his mind that she might say something stupid when they were announcing his pregnancy and now he was regretting it terribly.

Lucifer could barely even remove his eyes from the table so that he could look at his friends and children to see what their reactions were. Bee’s smile was already strained, mostly focusing down at her plate of food. Levi was bearing his teeth at the royal family but that could have meant a number of things given that he was the hardest sin out of them all to read. Bel’s eyes were wide as she looked over the rim of her glasses, her eyes boring hard into him. Ozzie had leaned back into his chair and slammed his fork down onto the table, though his face had a pleasant smile plastered over it that spoke only of political politeness. Mammon was staring at them both with a bewildered expression and his eyes kept flickering to the two sins that Lucifer had birthed with very little subtleness. Satan was staring down at her food, the tips of her short blond hair beginning to flicker with fire as the blazing orbs at the tips of her horns grew hotter with the intensity.

“That’s wonderful news,” Bee forced out.

“What the everloving fuck do you mean first?” Mammon blurted out. He was going to make the same arguments that Lucifer first had when he had told Lilith that he was pregnant. He hoped, for the safety and sanity of his friend, that she had come up with a better argument than she had back then.

“We’re going to be naming her the Heir of Hell and Crown Princess when she’s born, I don’t see what’s so confusing about this,” Lilith said. Her voice was sickly sweet, like she was talking to a particularly petulant child that had been giving her difficulties for the better part of an hour. The fact that she was speaking to the Sins of Hell, who had more raw power than she did as an Overlord Sinner, was not lost on any of them.

“You have two other children who are already grown and very familiar with the legal system. Why are you trying to pass that on to a new baby?” Bee asked cautiously.

Lilith chuckled, “Well, none of you are parents so I know that you wouldn’t understand. It’s very important to me that someone of my own flesh and blood manages to succeed me in the unlikely event that either of us are deposed from the throne or we decide to step down. I think that it would also mean quite a lot to our people if they were able to see one of their own on the throne, a child born of a sinner and a sin instead of just another angel in power.”

Lucifer knew that had to be hard for his children to hear. Ozzie had told him that he had a couple memories of their time in Heaven, but nothing to feel like he was really connected to it. Satan had been born in Hell and it was all she ever knew, so the fact that she was hellborn and an angel wasn’t something she had ever really thought about. It had also never been used against her before, Lucifer could plainly see that by the shock and anger that was covering her features.

“Um, well, that’s great. Let’s get started with the rest of the meeting, shall we?” Bee asked.

They had all been integrated into the cultures of the realms that they had fallen into, so Lucifer knew how easy it was to forget that they weren’t technically hellborn themselves. It had to be painful to be reminded that they were born in a realm that decided it didn’t want them simply for them being themselves. Lucifer had never brought it up or held it against them when it came to their ruling over the lands they currently presided in, it would make no sense seeing as that was himself as well. Now that Lilith was bringing that up as a point towards why they were making the new baby their heir, it made him look like an absolute hypocrite.

He wished that he was able to scream that wasn’t him, that it wasn’t his choice. He would fight tooth and nail for Ozzie to be named his heir, or for any of his children that had already been born fight for it in some way instead of it just being handed over to the first child that Lilith had contributed to genetically. That meant so little to him, especially after he had witnessed the way that the imps in the original tribe he had fallen into loved the children that weren’t theirs biologically.

He was too tired to fight against her, though. The pregnancy was draining every bit of his energy and then some, which left him as a hollow shell. He had no way to stand up for his children and give them what they needed, he had no way to say that she was being unfair and rude to his friends. He had nothing.

---

His belly began to swell after they announced it at the meeting. He had been right in thinking that Lilith would also want to declare it to their people in some grand party. She had forced him onto the stage and then made him sing with her despite his exhaustion and nausea. He would have enjoyed that special moment shared with her during any other situation, but it was barely tolerable with how run down he was feeling during the pregnancy.

Now that the people knew that their royal family was expecting another addition, one that would eventually become the ruler of Hell, Lucifer could barely go outside without being swarmed. He had already decreased the amount of time that he spent wandering around amongst his people due to his decrease in magic and general unwellness, but now he barely went out. It was hard for him to lock himself away in his home and only come out when he had meetings or when Lilith asked him to. It left him feeling like he was something shameful again, the same thing that Heaven had cast him out for being. There was no way for him to explain that to Lilith, though.

He lived through his pregnancy like he was a ghost, to the point where he was forgetting most of what happened during it. That made his heart ache because he treasured each of those moments with his other two children.

He only noticed that he had begun to show because his clothing was getting tighter and tighter until he couldn’t make his pants closed. Instead of worshiping his belly by always having his hands on it after that point, to acknowledge the little life growing inside, he simply called for his tailor and had maternity clothing for his entire pregnancy made in a single afternoon. Even once his stomach had grown so big that he had to support himself with both hands, he barely even thought about it like it was a pregnancy.

The baby began to move exactly on time with the books that Lilith had been reading through. Lucifer insisted that they didn’t need those, he had been through two pregnancies on his own and one of those had been the first humanoid being to ever be born through the conventional methods. Still, she had insisted that she wanted to be informed about her baby was developing since Lucifer always just assured her that things were good. She had only laid hands on his stomach once, when the babe inside of him was flipping over so that her head was engaged towards the end of his pregnancy.

He didn’t mind, he wasn’t really feeling the need to connect with Lilith that he had used to. He spent most of his time sitting in the uncomfortable chair in front of his workbench so that he could create something for the baby when they were born.

Each of his children, at least the ones he knew for sure were his own, had gotten a little stuffed toy when they were born to comfort them when he was rushing to get them at night. Ozzie had gotten a parakeet because they were the animal that Michael most resembled at that point, something soft with a beak that had been mostly chewed off by the time they fell to Hell. Satan had gotten a little cat creature that was now missing an ear and had remained in her bedroom when she had left. He was stumped on what to give the next baby that he was bearing, though, all of the animals that he came up with were associated with some other Overlord or sinner that he had interacted with over the years. Eventually, he settled on an animal that he had never really thought about before. Yellow wings and an orange beak, made of rubber instead of cloth so that it would be easier when the teething stage rolled about and possibly even used in the bath.

That item sat on the top of his workbench, ready to be passed on to his baby whenever they decided to make their appearance. That appeared to be sooner rather than later, as he had been cramping in his back for the better part of the day. He had woken feeling rather tense and uncomfortable but that was common now that he was in his third trimester. It was only when he stood from breakfast and his entire back seized up with pain that he realized things might be on the move.

It was a familiar sensation, traveling up his spine before it spread out around his hips. When it wrapped around his stomach, it felt like the tendons were growing so taut that they snapped when they finally released and all the pressure went away.

He knew that it was a contraction before the pain had even finished. That combined with the burst of energy that he’d had earlier in the day had him convinced that he was in labor. He had once again forgotten how bad the pain could get, the actual contractions never once mirroring what he had recalled them feeling like during his preparation for that moment. He knew now that it was an evolutionary benefit, to try and make him have more children despite how painful it was to bring them into the world.

He glanced at the calendar that he had hanging next to his desk and saw that he was scheduled for the monthly sin meeting that day. He knew that he wouldn’t be any good to anyone if he was contracting every five minutes and leaking various, fluids, however, so he embarked on a journey to find his wife so that he could let her know that he would be staying home.

He walked down the long hallways, moving past the servants that were bustling with activity. Lucifer had no idea how much upkeep went into something like a palace, especially one as grand as the one that Lilith had asked him to make her, but he had no idea how they managed to find enough jobs to keep themselves that busy. It was hard to be around people that refused to look him in the eye and never spoke to him outside of saying a quick ‘Yes, Your Majesty’ whenever he asked something of them. He wished that he still had his friends, that they didn’t resent him for bringing another child into the world with a woman that none of them cared much for. He missed his children too, they were so kind to the staff and compassionate to the people that moved through the palace to do odd jobs.

Eventually, he managed to find Lilith in the stage that she had made herself in the throne room under the one that they used for their personal courts. She was dressed in a slim black dress with her hair styled back and up so that the length of her neck and high cheekbone were fully on display. She was practicing one of the songs that she was going to be performing later that night, swirling and belting out the notes with everything that she was. She looked truly happy, like she was doing something that she enjoyed.

Lucifer wished that he was able to see her like that when she wasn’t performing. Something inside of him shattered into a million tiny pieces that would never have a hope of being put back together when she caught sight of him and then her smile dropped completely off of her face. She placed her microphone down into the holder to the left of her and stepped off the stage so that she could speak with him.

“What do you want? I’m practicing.”

“I didn’t know that you were until I opened the door, I’m sorry,” he apologized quickly. He knew that he shouldn’t have, he didn’t need to say that he was sorry when he was trying to tell her that the baby was coming. No one had ever made him feel quite so guilty for being in labor before.

“Well, did you have a reason for interrupting me or are you just being a petulant brat that doesn’t want me to enjoy things?” she snapped.

It was almost as if he could feel himself shrinking down into nothing. He felt like he was facing God, the one time that he had overstepped his boundaries in front of the Almighty and had been shamed for it on the spot. His heart was hammering in his ears and he could feel another one of the pains creeping up on him. It had taken him long enough to get to Lilith that he’d had another one in the hall, but he had gone ignored by the staff that was meant to be serving him. “I don’t think that I’m going to be able to make it to the Sin meeting this afternoon,” he blurted instead of explaining himself. It hurt too much for his mind to be functioning properly.

“And why would that be? I told you that I wouldn’t let this pregnancy make you lazy. I don’t care if you’ve let go of your body and are ashamed, you’re not going to let me take over your duties just because you have no self control,” Lilith snapped.

Lucifer scowled. “I haven’t let my body go, I’m nine months pregnant with a child that you wanted. I didn’t look like this when I had Ozzie because Michael was the same size as me. You’re much taller than this form and that means that the baby is taking up more room inside of me. Don’t insult my appearance just because you didn’t get your way for once.”

“Don’t talk back to me when you’re trying to get out of your responsibilities! I didn’t come down here and marry you so that I could be tied to a man that thinks he can tell me what to do because God said that he could,” Lilith snarled back in reply.

Lucifer wasn’t scared of her power, he knew that he was more powerful than she was thanks to the connection he had to the land of Hell, but he wasn’t sure that he was going to be able to overcome her in that moment due to the contractions taking the wind out of him. “Lilith, I can’t go to the meeting because I’m in labor. I need to stay in our room and deliver our baby. Don’t you want that?”

“I think that you can make it through one measly meeting before the baby starts to come out,” she rolled her eyes.

“That’s- That’s not guaranteed and also not the problem,” Lucifer objected. “The problem is that labor is painful and I don’t want to be having to stop talking or going through all of that in front of anyone else. I would prefer to get to rest in my own bed so that I have plenty of energy for when the time comes.”

“Labor can’t be that painful, I think that you’re exaggerating it to try and get sympathy from me,” Lilith sniffed.

“How would you know, you’ve never gone through it,” Lucifer snarled. He didn’t like the implication that he had a low pain tolerance or that he was trying to wuss out of the things he knew he had to do. Labor was the most painful thing that he’d ever had to do, including falling all the way from Heaven down into Hell.

Lilith flicked her hair over her shoulder as she began to clean up the performance remnants that she would need to reset before she began her rehearsal again. “Do you even remember who I am when you’re talking to me? I was the other half of the couple that God placed in the Garden of Eden, the woman. I was expected to get pregnant and give birth for the entirety of my life, which would be far longer than the normal human’s.”

He had lost all of the energy that he’d had to argue with her moments before. “I’ll go to the meeting,” he mumbled as he turned on his heel and began to walk down to the massive meeting room two floors below Lilith’s rehearsal stage. It would be where they were holding the sin meeting, which he was eternally grateful for. It would have been a lot more difficult to battle through his labor if he was in someone else’s home and knew that there was a longer journey to head back to his home and bed when the baby decided to actually make her appearance.

This was something that he would rather not to, but he knew that he had to push through it so that he could get the reward of hiding away from the world by choice instead of force. So when he got to the doors that led into the meeting room, he paused and forced a smile onto his face. He pushed them open and stepped in, holding his head high and sucking in his stomach as he had been doing since he reached twenty weeks and popped. The comments that Lilith had made about his body had damaged his pride, but he also didn’t want other people to know how much he had changed. He was hoping that if he hid the bump to some extent then they would be less likely to comment on it.

He greeted each of the Sins like he always did and quickly made his way over to the chair. His ankles and calves were uncomfortably swollen with water despite the temperature in Pride being significantly lower than in Wrath during the summer. He hadn’t made a comment on it, though, too worried that it would be taken as more complaining and people on his staff or in his inner circle would begin to see lesser of him.

Lilith entered after him, grand and sweeping as she stood behind his chair, “It’s so wonderful to see you all again. I hope that you’ve all been productive during the weeks where we’ve been apart, we have a lot of space to fill.”

He felt his heart sinking at the mention of that. Just how long did Lilith want the meeting to go on for? Usually they only spent a couple of hours talking about how things were going in their rings and how they wanted to improve things across the board in Hell. The longest that they’d ever had a meeting had been five hours, which was plenty of time when he was as early in his labor as he was. If she was planning on pushing it past them or arguing with the sins to extend the meeting length then he was beginning to worry that his baby might be born on the chair he was currently sitting in.

Still, he kept the smile on his face. He listened to each person as they brought up their problems and possible solutions that they had for them. He helped them work through the laws and proposals and bills that they wanted to pass as he always did. Each contraction rolled through him like a storm through the deepest parts of Hell, making him ache something fierce.

Each time that he had been in labor, he had been allowed to pace. With Ozzie it had been in the small spaces of his Heaven-owned apartment, and then with Satan it had been the walking with Mammon to induce her labor. It had soothed the ache in his hips that always set in when he reached the thirty five week mark, as well as bringing their head down to exactly where it needed to be. He had been seated for almost the entirety of his labor this time and he could already feel the difference in the way that the contractions were grabbing onto him as hard as they could. It was hard to speak or listen to anyone when they were happening, but he pushed through so that the others wouldn’t see him as week.

When the five hour mark came and went, Lilith called the servants to bring in the meal. He knew then that she did have to be punishing him for his insolence against her wishes because the food was nothing that he could eat. While his morning sickness wasn’t as bad now that he had learned how to live around it, the scent of pork always set him off. When the plate of the stuff was placed down in front of him, it took all of his control to not immediately vomit onto the table.

Instead, he excused himself to go to the bathroom and then rose as gracefully as he could. He was glad that they had a multi-stalled bathroom in the lowest floor of their castle so that multiple people could be inside of it at once. It made Lucifer feel more like he was taking a moment to himself and less like he was hovering over the toilet so that he didn’t puke. He had spent too much of his pregnancy doing that and he was honestly completely sick of it.

He had reached the bathroom in just the right amount of time, placing his hands down onto the edges of the sink. He leaned down when he felt the next contraction beginning to curl around his spine and travel throughout his hips. It had been happening more and more frequently the longer that the meeting continued, to the point where he wasn’t sure that he was actually going to make it to the end. The cool porcelain against his head alleviated the fever caused by the pain when he first set it down, and the proximity to the floor muffled the sounds of his moans while he worked through the pain.

It was all so overwhelming that he barely even processed the sound of the door opening behind him and only clocked it when he heard his eldest ask, “Dad? Are you alright?”

“I’m fine,” he mumbled as he straightened himself out. “Just tough being in the last stretch of things, needed to take a moment to myself. Should we get back to the meeting?”

“I… I don’t think that everything is okay, if I’m allowed to say that,” Ozzie replied. The Ram and Bull in his hair were sharing the same concern that he was, both of them locked onto

“You’re allowed to speak your mind, Oz,” Lucifer reminded him. He knew that Lilith had instilled a need for respect in their children when they were raising them, to try and teach them the hierarchy of Hell. Unfortunately, it meant that the relationship that they had with them now was a little stilted and awkward. Again, he wished that he could go back and change it so that he had the kind of loving fondness from his children that the imps had with each other back then.

Ozzie stepped forward and placed one of his hands down on his father’s shoulder, “Dad, you don’t look good at all. You look like you haven’t slept in weeks and I saw you wincing when you were in the meeting. Do you need to go back to your room and rest? Maybe the baby’s coming.”

He had struck the nail on the head because of course he had. If anyone knew Lucifer, it was his children. They were going to be able to see past the walls that he was trying to put up around himself to protect them and him in an instant. He recoiled back from the touch of his son and then gave a big, boisterous laugh. “I’m not in labor, Oz.”

“I think that you are.”

He scoffed, imitating Lilith simply so that he could get back to the meeting and end it as soon as possible. He knew that his baby was coming and he didn’t want to be actively giving birth in front of all his friends and family. “I’ve given birth twice, I know what it looks like,” he said as he pushed his way out of the bathroom.

He was glad that the door was between them now because he was already being overcome with another contraction. He forced one leg forward, and then the other, until he was finally back in the meeting room. The smell once again invaded his senses and made him feel absolutely sick to his stomach. He dealt with it well as he returned to his seat and brought up the last topic that they had been discussing.

It was harder to focus the second time, maybe because he had let himself think about the pain and actually feel it. Still, he was able to power through so that he was asking questions about proposals and vetoing things that would infringe on other deals that they had made in their time ruling Hell. He only went quiet when he felt something beginning to leak out of him. He knew the feeling in a slightly different way since the last time his water had broken, most of the amniotic fluid had come out at once. Apparently this baby was laying a bit closer to his cervix because now his water was breaking in the slowest trickle known to man.

Finally, finally, Lilith stood and said, “Thank you all so much for coming to this meeting and getting so much done. I trust that you will be able to find a safe way home and keep up the good work.”

Each of the sins chatted with each other for a while, catching up on the things that they had missed. Lucifer had his hands resting on the top of his thighs and was clenching the fabric so hard he was sure that he had ripped it despite the treatments it had gotten to be tougher. The pain was unbearable and almost his entire lower half and chair were soaked through with the amniotic fluid from the baby.

He tilted his head up just in time to see Ozzie and Satan talking with each other. They glanced his way and then walked over to him, Satan giving him a nervous smile. “Hey, Dad,” she greeted quietly. Despite her temper and power, she had always been quiet and hesitant when she was talking to people. She had never shown that towards him, though, so he felt like he was breaking even further than he had before.

“Hey, sweetie,” he replied with a strained smile. He wanted to talk to her, he wanted to have both of his children in the safety of his home so that he could feel whole again. Lucifer knew that he would have moments where that hollow feeling returned, but they always felt so much less when it was just the depression instead of the desperate missing of his children on top of that.

He felt Lilith move to stand behind him. He was always aware of where she was when they were in the same room together, his magical senses tuned into her own magic and her presence in general. She placed a hand down on her shoulder and he could almost hear that sickening smile spreading across her face as she said, “I think that it’s about time that non-family members go home. I would like to be able to spend some time with my husband and our child.”

He opened his mouth to tell his children that they were included in the family and he wanted them to stay. He wanted to tell them that the baby was coming and they needed to be there so that they could meet their sibling during their first couple minutes of life, but he was wracked with a pain before he had the chance. He had to place his hand down on the underside of his bump and the other on his pant leg as he tried to force himself to breath through the massive amounts of pressure that were plaguing him.

Soon, each Sin opened a portal and stepped through them back to their own realms. Usually they had a get together of some kind back at Bee’s ring since she loved throwing parties and getting them to indulge in their favorite things. This time, though, the meeting had gone on too long for any of them to want to spend more time together. So they each returned back to the rings that they felt most comfortable in and then Lucifer was left alone.

He felt humiliated as he rose to his feet with a small squelch. The water had created a pool on the seat that he had been sitting on before, but yet there was still more running down his legs and onto the floor. “Lilith, my water broke. I need to be checked by the doctor so that we can make sure the labor is progressing normally. May I please go back to our room?”

“No, you’re going to the birthing suite that I picked out for you. I won’t have you oozing blood and all other manner of fluids onto the mattress that I have to sleep on,” she replied with a click of her tongue. Her nose was wrinkled in disgust, the same way that it had been in the garden when she found out about the poisonous mushrooms. Back then, Lucifer had thought that it was cute that she was already so judgemental of things that had just been created. Now, he knew what it was like to be on the receiving end of her ire and he couldn’t help but feel bad for the poor fungi that she had spent hours sneering at.”

“Alright, fine,” he managed. He had wanted to give birth in his own bed, or at least his own room. He knew that he wouldn’t have managed to push his newest child out while in an reclined position, he was going to need all the help that gravity could give him. His room would have the things that comforted him, like his desk and workbench and the things that smelled of him and his wife. At this point in his labor, after a grueling eight hours spent trying to hide his contractions from his friends and family, he didn’t have the energy to argue with her.

He waddled from the room in the direction of the private suites, hoping that she would follow after him so that he would at least know where he was going to be delivering their daughter. He also wanted her present, wanted the support that he knew she could give when she was in the mood. He had never had the other parent of his child present when he was giving birth. In Heaven that was because his baby had been a secret, and in the caravan the space was too small and the father unconfirmed. Lucifer turned to look back at the space he had left once he got about three yards down the hall and saw that Lilith was nowhere in sight.

His heart aching as bad as his belly, he continued down the hall. He peaked into every single room that he passed once he was out of the meeting hallway. He eventually managed to find the room that was stocked for his delivery. The bed was narrow and had an uncomfortable waterproof mattress on it, along with a mattress covering sheet. There was a massive set of cupboards that contained a number of medical tools in case something went wrong and a sink to wash the baby, the little bathtub already placed inside.

Lucifer sniffled as he rang the bell that was labeled ‘in case of labor’ and then began to chance. He found a robe, thankfully, in one of the drawers and then wrapped it around his body. It would give the doctor easy access to check how dilated he was but wasn’t constrictive around his chest or belly to make up for the space at his legs.

By the time that the door opened and the hospital doctor entered, He was already bent over the bed and moaning with the pain. He had never had to endure such a long labor before, he didn’t know what he had done wrong to deserve that much anguish when all he wanted to do was bring his child into the world.

“Your Majesty, I must insist that you get up into the bed so that I can inspect you properly,” the doctor informed him. There was no greeting, no excitement about the baby that they were going to be able to meet. It was cold and clinical, which is what all of his appointments had been with the physician that his wife had hired to handle his health when they started trying for a baby.

“I don’t think that I can move at the moment,” he gasped out. His entire stomach was in a vice and it felt as though it was trying to squeeze everything inside of him out. He could barely even breathe through the pain, the only way his body let him draw in air was so that he could moan in anguish when the next wave hit him.

“I must insist,” the doctor replied. They looked similar to Bel, squat and goat-like with soft pink fur. It was reassuring to know that the person that was going to be caring for him was a demon and not a sinner, since he still didn’t trust the people that had fallen to Hell when they had used their free will to hurt people. He knew some of them were good, such as his wife whose only crime had simply been trying to choose her own destiny instead of following what God demanded of her.

The pain eventually left him and he was able to turn and get on the bed. He put the pads of his feet together and then raised them up so that his heels were pressed against his bum. It opened up his pelvis so that the baby sat more comfortably inside of him for the present moment. “I do wish that you had called me sooner, it was incredibly irresponsible of you to sit through that entire meeting when you knew that you were in labor,” the doctor chided.

“I had to get it done,” Lucifer breathed. He knew that throwing his wife under the bus was only going to get him in more trouble. It was better to take accountability for something that she had done than try to explain what had actually happened.

“I suppose so, but you put the child at risk. What would you have done if you were more than eight centimeters dilated when I finally came to check you?” the doctor asked as he pulled his hand from Lucifer’s vagina.

Eight centimeters felt like a death sentence. He knew that he only had two more to go before he was fully dilated and would finally be able to start pushing, but he had already been in labor for so long. He didn’t want to have to wait a single moment more to meet his baby and finally be freed form the anguish that was childbirth. He let out a shaky breath and let his head fall back against the uncomfortable bed.

Once he had recovered from the emotional turmoil, helped by the pain and hindered by it at the same time, he moved to get off of the bed. “What do you think that you’re doing?”

“I’m going to get up and pace,” Lucifer replied. “It helped speed my labor along with the other two and I want this baby out.”

“You don’t get to make such decisions,” the doctor shook their head.

“What do you mean I don’t get to make those decisions? I’m the patient and the King of Hell!” Lucifer would have flared into his demon form if he had not been wracked with another contraction. His nails dug into the mattress protector over the pad and ripped some of the fabric with the force. He was glad that he hadn’t had claws when he was in Heaven or he would have had a lot of explaining to do when the cherubs found the sheets that Bel had taken from him.

“You’re currently carrying the Heir to Hell and Queen Lilith’s first child, which means that your body is not entirely your own. I have been given the legal right to order you what to do as this counts as a medical emergency,” the doctor informed him plainly. “Now I suggest that you return to the bed and lay still.”

Lucifer was seething with frustrated rage. He knew that there was a clause in the charter that stated members of the royal family and the Counsel of Sins could give medical privileges over to certain demons during emergencies, he had put it in there himself. It was supposed to be for moments when himself or another Sin was so out of their mind with sickness that they wouldn’t be able to make good decisions. It wasn’t meant to be used against him when he was giving birth to his third child, he knew what he was doing and was in his mind enough to not do anything stupid.

That wasn’t his choice anymore, he realized. In her desperation for control over her life, Lilith had become the very thing that she had run from all those years ago. She was demanding things of him that he wasn’t comfortable with, like carrying a child when he had so many responsibilities as the king that she wouldn’t take for herself and giving birth with someone that he wasn’t comfortable with in a room that was not his own. She had become Adam and God wrapped up in one, a woman that promised him the world only to provide him with nothing but pain.

He stayed on the bed like he had been told to. The pain of the contractions centered mostly in his back now, each one pressing the child against his spine and hips painfully. He wasn’t even permitted to get onto his knees or to squat with his hands on the bedframe, he was told that he had to lay supine on the bed with the doctor checking his progression every ten minutes, sometimes without warning or permission.

After what felt like another long eight hours, the doctor snapped off his glove and said, “Congratulations, Your Majesty. You’re finally far enough along to push. Now, I want you to take each of your knees into your hands like this and bend forward each time you push. Make sure not to make any noise, all of the energy needs to go down to the delivery of the baby.”

Lucifer wanted to argue with that. He wasn’t sure that he could make it through his contractions with absolutely no pain relief and no sound. He knew that giving opium to laboring people was standard on Earth, so part of his mind longed for the drug even though he knew it wouldn’t do anything for him. His body had a strong constitution, enough so that he couldn’t even get drunk without consuming three times the amount that would kill the common person.

He did as the doctor told him, reaching down to his knees. His hands were sweaty as he pulled the material of his robe back so that it fell in folds around his hips. He kept his feet somewhat down on the bed so that he had something to stabilize him. He could feel the way that the position was opening him up, but he couldn’t help but think that being on the edge of the bed or even squatting on it would be a better way to do the process entirely.

When the next contraction came, he bored own as hard as he could. His spine curved due to the position that he was in, his chin hitting his chest. He kept the noises as far down in his throat as he could despite the pain that was wracking his frame. When the contraction finally ended, he collapsed back into the bed and let out a panted breath that he had been holding while pushing.

“Is that really all you’ve got? I thought that you were supposed to be the great King of Hell,” the doctor nearly sneered.

“I’ve been in labor for almost twelve hours and I barely slept last night, I’m tired,” Lucifer bemoaned. He knew that Alafair and Bel never would have treated him this way, especially not after a couple pushes. When he had gotten to that stage in his delivery before, it had taken at least twenty minutes of pushing before the head was born and he had been doing this for only five.

“It doesn’t matter if you’re tired, this is the way that your baby needs to come out into the world. Now push,” the doctor commanded.

Lucifer did as he was told, despite the rage that was running through him. He wanted someone to speak tenderly to him, to wipe the sweat from his hair and hold his hand each time he pushed. He had another being in the room with him while he was giving birth and yet he felt more alone than he had when he was giving birth to Ozzie. He almost wanted the entire thing to never have happened in the first place, to settle with the two children that he had down in Hell and not focus on the idea of having the happy family he had always dreamed of.

It was far too late for that now, though, so he kept pushing. He strained and screamed when the head began to crowd, unused to the stretching and burning pain that came with it. He had prepared himself with certain exercises before he’d had Satan and had been in too much shock to feel it with Ozzie, but now he could feel every nerve in his vaginal opening screaming due to the stretch.

“None of that now, my liege,” the doctor replied with a dismissive wave of their hand.

“I’m going to rip you apart with my bare hands,” Lucifer informed him. Despite the pain that he was facing due to the baby crowning, he hefted himself onto his knees. He knew that he wasn’t going to be able to continue to birth his baby while on his back, not without one or both of them being killed in the process. He placed both of his hands a shoulder width apart and his knees on either edge of the uncomfortable bed, giving the baby plenty of room to move. He pushed and screamed and grunted with each contraction until the baby’s head and been born from him.

“This is entirely uncouth,” the doctor complained as he ran his fingers around the baby’s neck to check for the cord. “I must insist that you change position this instant so that I may catch the baby properly.”

“You can do it like this,” Lucifer snarled back in reply. He was exhausted and wanted nothing more than to snuggle up with his baby, even if it meant waking up to experience the full brunt of postpartum pain without the easing he had gotten with Satan from staying up for longer after her birth.

He huffed for a contraction before he pushed again, regaining some of his strength from the long stretch he had done before. He felt the widest part of the shoulders begin to crown before the baby slipped down into the waiting hands of the doctor. As soon as he knew that all of her had emerged from him, he collapsed down onto the bed and slowly turned around, careful of the cord that was still attached to him.

The little girl was cradled in the gloved hands of the doctor, covered in silver-white vernix and golden ichor from the tear that she had made while being born. Her skin was pale under the mess but he could already see the distinctive cat-like nose from Lilith and red cheek markings from him. She was screaming as she balled and released her fists, kicking her little legs with distaste.

The doctor placed her down on the edge of the bed and then clamped the cord in two places before he cut it and then turned away to the basin in the sink. Lucifer craned his head in the hopes that he would be able to see his baby, but it was obfuscated by the doctor. He had never given birth or seen a birth in which both the parent and child were healthy where there was no immediate skin-to-skin contact and he was beginning to worry for the health of his baby.

He watched the doctor clean the newborn and then lay her down on the counter. The clamp on the cord got changed out for a tiny string that would keep it closed by not get in the way of her movements. She was placed into a diaper, the pin shining pretty purple against the soft white material. He could see more what was being done now, so settled against the bed in his exhaustion so that he could supervise.

Adrenaline rushed through his body when he saw the doctor prick the bottom of her foot to get some blood before it was placed into a test tube. “Don’t do that to her yet, she’s barely even eaten!” Lucifer shouted. He wanted his baby properly in his arms so that she could eat her first meal and the two of them could bond.

“I am simply doing what is best for the royal heir,” the doctor replied as they continued to run the tests on the baby. He then dressed her in a black onesie that looked like something that Lucifer had seen Lilith receive at the baby shower she had thrown for herself, despite him being the one that was pregnant. When the babe was wrapped up in her blanket, Lucifer held his hands out for her but was passed by as the doctor lowered her down into a warming bassinet in the corner. “You need to deliver the afterbirth, Your Majesty.”

“I want to hold my baby first. It will help it come away if my body knows that she is here,” he tried to explain. He knew that there was some kind of component to the skin-to-skin contact that he got after his deliveries that had let his body know what had happened, even if he wasn’t knowledgeable enough about the medical field to be sure what that was.

“You will deliver the afterbirth,” the doctor said. He put on a new pair of gloves and then pressed his hand on Lucifer’s stomach, pushing the sore muscles in a downward motion while pulling on the cord that was hanging limply from him with the clamp on the other end. The Morningstar let out a gasp of pain and writhed on the bed while his body suddenly began to contract. The afterbirth came away in a big, bloody heap that the doctor placed into a bowl and examined.

“Congratulations on the daughter, Your Majesty. I trust that you can get yourself in a state of repair on your own,” the doctor gave a half bow and then picked up his daughter. She began to squeal for her meal, the cry of a baby that was hungry and upset at being handled in a way that she didn’t like.

Lucifer was in such shock that he barely even managed to reach for her. He was left laying on the bed, exhausted and covered in the fluids that came with birth, with absolutely no one to help him. His baby wasn’t even in the room any more and he didn’t know what he had done to forsake Lilith in a way that would cause her to take his child away so soon after delivery.

He knew that he wouldn’t be able to search the entire castle as he tried to find her, so he simply rolled himself off the bed and searched through the drawers and cupboards hidden in the room. He found another washcloth and used that to remove the gunk and sweat from on and between his legs, before he placed the period garments he had found next to the cloth onto him to track his bleeding. He washed off the rest of him with the edges of the cloth that weren’t covered in fluids. His robe was ruined, so he shed that onto the floor with his clothing from earlier.

He walked slowly through the halls of his home with his hand hovering over his stomach, soft and devoid of the baby that he had grown attached to despite his brain fog. He found an unused room and collapsed down onto the soft sheets to sleep away the remainder of his exhaustion with the determination that he would find his daughter and wife in the morning, no matter what.

---

He didn’t get what he wanted, he never did. A nursemaid found him and brought him to a recovery room down the hall from his actual bedroom. She checked over his wounds and then bound his chest. He took epsom salts to stop any milk production as Lilith had apparently determined that she wanted her daughter to be fed with the best that science could give them, even if what Lucifer produced had given them two healthy children beforehand.

He was a month post partum, not that he had really noticed any of that time passing him by. Each day he rose, ate breakfast alone, filled out the paperwork and read the minutes from the meetings he had missed, and then returned to bed after dinner. He barely slept at night and longed for it during the day. He sat near the door when he ran out of work and simply listened for crying, or cooing, or gurgling, or any noise that would let him know that his new darling daughter was alright.

Lilith came to visit him only when she was bringing him a special task. Eventually, she appeared at his door with a bundle of yellow in her arms. She asked, “Do you want to hold her?”

“I’ve wanted to hold her since I birthed her, Lilith,” he replied hoarsely. He hardly felt like himself and it was hard to be compassionate when his baby was so close to him and yet so far.

“Don’t be silly, Lucifer. You’ve gotten to hold her for the past nine months, so I thought that it was only fitting that she get to know me for her first couple weeks of life. It’s very important that she use this time to bond, after all,” Lilith replied. She stepped elegantly and gracefully into the parlor and then set the baby down in his arms.

He felt his breath catch in his throat when he looked down at the baby and barely recognized her. The features were still the same, but she had obviously aged and developed far more than he thought she would have in the time that she was gone. He began to worry that he had been locked away for longer than he thought that he had, before he reminded himself that he had to take this time to appreciate his baby since he wouldn’t get much time elsewhere.

He brushed his hands over her forehead and then leaned down to kiss her. She smelled like Lilith, the sweet scent of flowers and the gentle cardamom of her perfume. She used to smell like him, when she was drenched in the ichor from his body after she was born. Lucifer realized then, with a crippling bout of agony coming straight from his heart, that she was no longer his daughter. Perhaps she never had been, since Lilith had been the one asking for her the entire time they were discussing their family. She had all of his features taken from him, left with only the two red spots on her cheeks that might fade with time.

“What did you name her?” Lucifer asked.

“Charlotte,” Lilith replied as she leaned down and picked her baby back up. She kissed over the spot that Lucifer had, her dark lipstick smearing on the baby’s face. The little one began to cry and Lucifer felt like he was dying because he couldn’t quite recognize what was wrong with her from only that sound. He watched in near abject horror as Lilith turned and walked from the room again, leaving him alone.

7 notes · View notes