#i have no faith in marvel to do this with grace

[vivaentia]

“pembrook ,  my  lord.”  she  offered.  name  folded  neatly  between  breath  and  ribbon ,  as  if  it  too  had  been  tied  by  hand.  fingers  moved ,  reaching  for  a  box ,  then  further  still  to  draw  out  the  fine  tissue  paper  —  thin  enough  to  see  light  through ,  delicate  enough  not  to  rustle.  the  practiced  grace  of  someone  used  to  doing  things  in  quiet  corners ,  with  care  no  one  thought  to  notice.  “yes. they have a way of  slipping right  through  you ,”  she  mused.  no  edge  to  it  —  only  the  soft  truth  of  someone  who  knew  how  loss  behaved.  not  loud ,  but  constant.  “oh. she sounds like a marvel !”  her  gaze  rose  to  his.  not  guarded ,  not  exposed.  steady.  smoothing  the  tissue  with  her  palm.  “though if your opinions truly are out of fashion .. i fear fashion has simply lost its taste.”  something  steadier  blossomed  —  some  quiet  faith  not  easily  borrowed.  “you have  chosen  well ,  that  will  not  go  unnoticed.  even  if  she  does  not  offer  it  with  spoken  words.”  

charlotte  drew  the  box  closer.  not  her  most  ornate ,  but  just  within  the  tone  of  the  gift.  velvet  lining ,  gray  exterior  —  understated ,  dignified.  “not  all  of  them ,”  she  admitted  when  his  question  reached  her.  a  hush  of  something  like  fondness ,  softened  at  the  corners  by  absence.  “some  are  the  last  remaining  works  of  my  parents.  they  began  lady  may’s.  i  only  hope  to  carry  half  as  much  talent.”  the  ribbon  came  next  —  soft  gold ,  tied  in  a  way  her  mother  had  shown  her.  “your  appreciation  of  it  is  an  honor ,  my  lord.  i  only  hope  your  goddaughter  shares  your  admiration.”  her  eyes  met  his  again ,  something  tender  passing  between.  not  bold ,  but  sure.  “and…  if  it  displeases  her ,  i  offer  full  permission  for  its  return.  perhaps  a  hunt  of  her  own  might  remind  her  how  to  see  the  treasure  in  things  once  more.”

“No offence taken, Miss…” The title lingered — cautious — as though he might tuck a name into it later, should she offer one. His eyes returned to her, parting from the silks and trim, shifting to the steadiness of her hands and the ribbon they had left behind. Adrian’s expression softened with a touch of amusement. He was not in the habit of correcting others for speaking freely. Quite the contrary. One could hardly fault her for offering opinions during such an affair, all pomp and posture and noses held so impossibly high. But well — it was his cousin’s event. “Do not, I beg. We have quite enough unspoken things around here. It’s rare to hear something said plainly.” His voice was even, low. Not hesitant, but measured.

He straightened, his shoulders rolling back just slightly — an absentminded, habitual motion. One hand settled behind his back, the other lingered near the display as he considered the row of bonnets once more. “It is exactly as you say — a beginning in disguise. One moment, an ever chattering, content child, and then suddenly, the most indifferent creature. No matter the tale told, nor the ribbon offered… There was a time I could gift a leaf, and she’d declare it a treasure.” He breathed out through his nose — not weary, but thoughtful — before shaking his head in quiet fondness. “Now she keeps to her cousins, and thankfully, she has plenty. And I’ve been kindly informed my opinions are hopelessly out of fashion. I fear she is quite right.” And there it was — a smile. Fingers brushed the edge of the bonnet she’d chosen — light blue. His brow furrowed, gaze catching on the perfectly finished stitching. “This might do just so.” He said in agreement. “It may please her. Or it may not.” A pause. Then, he continued with just enough solemnity to mask the glint of jest. “But one must be brave, Miss.” He held it toward her, careful not to crease the shape. “Would you wrap it, please?” His head tilted to the side, gaze locking with hers. A faint curiosity where humour had lingered. “It’s a rather fine selection you have here. Is it your own work?”

[batcavescolony]

I just found out Tommy and David are breaking up off panel and honestly if this was done correctly I would have been fine with it (not happy but fine). Im not against couples breaking up, not every paring has to be endgame. But for Marvel to have done it correctly for me they would 1) have to have had the break up on panel and 2) have this be the beginning of some good character development for BOTH of them. I just don't think Marvel is gonna do that.

[bardicjustice]

Literally everything I hear about Sarah j maas makes me want to read her books less

[erosiism]

SACRED | YANDERE PRIEST X M!READER

prompt: yandere!priest x transmigrated!male!reader

character(s): priest (anton), you

warnings(s): mention of violence, god complex, religious imagery, dub-con, not to be glorified or romanticised

note(s): male reader, second person, past and present tense, not beta read. from twisted faith on my wattpad.

It takes a few moments for you to truly process what just happened. From the coarse sheets underneath your skin that differ greatly from the silken ones you have grown so accustomed to, to the air that smells like blood, you know something is terribly wrong.

Then you see a mural of a priest on the wall, and you remember where you are. A horror game.

Anton. It’s the name of the priest you need to find.

The first time you see the priest is the day after you transmigrate into a horror game. The said game, Spiraling into the Abyss features almost a cult like fanaticism with religion: you learn in the first few seconds of your time in the new world that they worship a priest like a God, and that they sacrifice humans to please the apparent gods of the heavens.

You’re a sacrifice. You know that. You are found to be guilty of some stupid crime you didn’t commit, and as far as you know, you are a worthless extra who will die by burning—you will do everything to prevent that.

To survive, you need to get into his good graces. You see him on the day or worship, when you come early to the Church: and his beauty astounds you. Symmetrical features—and the whole blue eyes and golden hair combination that is seen as rather cliche, in terms of beauty—but Anton doesn’t have a common kind of beauty; he is radiant. Benevolent. Ethereal. You marvel at him. His skin is without a blemish, and is fair, like he hasn’t gone out in the sun for a while...yet it has a healthy glow to it. His expression is serene. Anton's hair frames his face perfectly, and his eyes are expressive and rather captivating, with long, dark lashes that draw attention to it. His cheekbones are well-defined, his nose straight—and those only add to Anton's appeal.

He speaks to you in lilted tones, and immediately, you realize the priest isn’t just evil—he’s downright a menace.

"Sometimes I forget you are a new, naive believer. God is perfect, is he not? So his messengers, in turn, can do no wrong. He sends his messages through me. God is part of me. I'm merely ridding the world of evil."  He strides to where you are, and his hands touch the top of your head lightly. His fingers fall to your cheek, and he strokes it gently.

You can only swallow. “Yes, Father Anton.”

There’s one day where you ask him why he burns those bodies. He calls it “cleansing”, apparently.

“They donate to the church out of the kindness of their hearts,” you tell him, swallowing the bile down your throat as you hear more screams. “Is that not…a little extreme?”

“Extreme? Why, no, not at all.”

“You burn people alive.”

“That is the cleanest way to proceed. Their ashes tumble away, and it makes it much easier for the people, too. If we were to use magic, or beheading, or even hanging—it would be much messier, no? And I believe fire is such an awfully beautiful thing. It can make death look inviting; and even though the heavens might cast them away…in hell, all they will see is the fiery pits. This is their punishment. To feel sorry for them is strange, Y/n.”

Despite this, for the sake of your survival, you continue to visit him. Now, such visits are rare: Anton barely makes time for anyone. But he does, for you. 

Of course, this partial treatment doesn’t go unnoticed by you. He treats only you like this: it’s concerning, actually. His words are light and gentle, but the weight of it isn’t. In fact, he speaks of cleansing, he speaks of murdering in such a calm manner that you wonder if the devil truly resides in him.

But one thing is clear. 

To survive, you need to get into his good graces.

You feel your sanity slip each minute you spend in the game.

Anton kills. So does the Church. And you still can’t explain the goddamn obsession he has with you. Why has he not killed you yet? Anton is no saint, not at all.

Perhaps Anton was ensnared by the promise of Godhood—ensnared by the tendrils of his own self proclaimed grandiosity. Perhaps he had been idolized so much…worshiped by the devoted believers that he had simply been led to believe in his imagined divinity. Anton was a mortal who had dared to cast a shadow that eclipsed the very stars that he had reached for. Anton was simply adorned in robes of imagined omnipotence, and smelt of the fragrance of narcissus.

Here, he was god, but Anton was completely alienated from empathy. For what was a god in isolation but a sovereign ruler over an empire of one, ruling over a realm devoid of the richness of God’s grace?

You can’t deal with him much longer. He keeps murdering: he murders those who come to you under the guise of the silly notion of cleansing, he finds it amusing to see you sob and cry…and he has no qualms about drugging you. If not for the items you have stored in your inventory, warning you of drugs, you would have succumbed long ago.

Anton is no priest. 

And now he stands before you, his lips curling into a smile when he sees the look of despair on your face. He has just killed a friend,

You have to. You have to fight Anton…you have to…

Anton leans forward. You two are a hair’s breadth away.

God. Is God real? Is the devil real—has he taken form in Anton himself, twisting, persuading, begging, tempting people to court evil, to withhold the stench of death? The crimson flames have not faltered for long, and have only seemed to welcome him with fiery contempt, only surrendering when everything has been destroyed in its wake.

You long to spit curses towards Anton. You long for your limbs to connect with his face, and leave a mottled bruise there. You long for your twitching fingers to wrap around the priest’s neck; watch as oxygen slowly slips from his lungs out of your throat. You long to see his body grow limp.

“You are so perfect,” Anton murmurs, “so, so divine. So perfect…”

You don’t get why he says this. He’s been telling you this for ages: it’s the reason why you’ve been treated well. He claims you are some savior from an oracle ready to save him, he claims you saved him.

And now in this scenario, where his fingers are grazing your cheek?

You swallow. There was no way, right? No fucking way—

“I want to kiss you.”

Your heart drops. “…If I say no, you wouldn’t listen.”

A kiss. It would just be a kiss, right? That was okay. It means simply brushing your lips against Anton’s…yeah, that was possible.

You want to cry. Anton presses his lips on yours—it’s a mixture of heat and warmth; the way Anton ravages your lips has some sort of twisted hunger to it, craving and craving and craving. There is an obscene sheen of saliva coating your lips when you part.

The kiss tastes just like the forbidden fruit, plucked from the tree of desire. It is the same way that Eve sinned—eating a fruit that had belonged to the serpent. It was as if you had forged a pact with the devil himself—that in kissing Anton, it was like sealing your fate in the molten wax of sin, staining the canvas of your soul. Had matted it black. 

It was shameful. So utterly shameful that the kiss…

Once Anton fully lets go, he smiles, and you collapse on the ground, tears running down your face.

He needs you, Anton thinks, he needs you. You are the savior who has brought him from the depths of hell. You are his miracle. You are his little pet; his little divine sacrifice, the white sheep with the white wool. You are the one who will follow him guiltlessly. Untouched, untainted, clean.

You are shaking like a newborn lamb.

He presses another kiss on your forehead.

[ before, Anton’s pov ]

The world was dirty.

It needed a savior. Someone to bring them out from the depths of hell—to cleanse them. After all, was that not what the texts read? Was that not what he had learnt, ever since young? Was that not what had been instilled in him since his very birth? Luke 15:11-32. The wayward son who squandered his inheritance but was welcomed back by his forgiving father—Anton had marveled at it when he was young. To think someone would have such boundless grace; such forgiveness for a foolish person…

The oracle. Anton saw the oracle as a gift—a symbol from God. It had been delivered to him when he was young, naive, and careless. 

Anton remembered very little about his childhood. Extremely little. He remembered his mother, his father. But that was it—but oh, how he hated them. Anton did not remember why he hated them, why the portrait of his family had been torn out. He regarded life then, and now, as the beginning of the end.

Something fleeting, something ephemeral. Something tragic. Life was a wonderful tragedy.

People look at me with such endless wonder; such spellbound eyes and widened mouths. They see me as God—they see me as a deity above them all.

And that was true, Anton thought. That was very true. Sinners. Wretched, dirtied, horrid sinners, all of them! Anton despised humankind; they were worthless—made of brittle bones with flesh. He did not even see them as humans. They were just mere vessels in need of salvation.

“Father Anton!”

“Father Anton, would you please help me?”

“Bring me to the path of salvation!

He was anointed by a divine purpose to purify the soiled souls of the world…

Yes, that was his purpose.

It was relieving and calming to have a purpose. To drift in the vast expanse of the world; the universe without a tethering purpose is akin to being a feather in the breath of the wind. Useless, damaging, lonely. Anton could see—it was very easy for him to see who were those who were aimless in life, compared to those who had the bright, bubbly life shining magnificently in their eyes.

Oh, Mother. Anton would stand before her grave. Again, he did not remember much of what he believed was to be a mundane, boring childhood, but his mother’s name left a bitter taste on his tongue, horrid and painful. Somehow, he did not feel a single bit of…remorse, or guilt when he gazed at her tombstone. He expected to feel guilt for something he was quite sure he didn’t do.

But his lips would always curve into a smile when he saw the words etched on the grave. She was dead, he would remember. Dead. Occasionally, snippets of memories would come to him—her shrill voice, her messy, jagged hair, her crazed, crazed eyes. The way her fingernails felt on her skin when she scratched at him wildly.

Clearly, she deserved to die. How did she die, though? What exactly transpired? What kind of person was she, and what kind of person had she tried to make Anton into?

Anton found, to his surprise, that he was bothered about this. Detachment was something he prided himself on: he would never venture too close.

To have attachment with someone would be detrimental. Annoying. Haunting.

There were times—many, many times when Anton had awoken, hollow and void. 

The oracle.

The oracle.

When is it coming? When is it coming? Have the gods lied to me?

The oracle—his lifeline since he was young—was the very proof that this world had a chance, to live on, to heal.

A savior.

There were times Anton would grow impatient. He needed to do something about the state of the world. It would be easy, wouldn’t it? Why did people falter in front of flames? What did people shun away from blood? Was the sight not wonderful, not enchanting? The heat was welcoming—a gentle caress. Those who ventured in, would have their faces bathed in mesmerizing glow. Nevermind their screams, nevermind their bleeding, rotting flesh. 

The fire illuminated the world before it dissolved like nothing. Like it hadn’t existed. 

“Horrible! Horrible! You’re fucking horrible!” Then the stinging of flesh. There was something piping hot, something burning him.

“Why won’t you even flinch, you monster?”

Anton smiled loosely. Another memory. They came into his mind occasionally and quickly. He never pondered over them—it was useless to; for he already had everything he wanted.

The day you came into the world, was the day he felt alive. Waiting had become a bore to him—it was the same routine over and over again, with the same stupid, foolish people—

Something extraordinary had graced his reality. The oracle. You were the chosen one. The chosen one. The chosen one. The one he yearned for; seeked for; the change in the world.

“Dear God,” You had said the first time he saw you. “I confess I have been impure in my holy spiritual presence…”

Anton had seen you before the mural; your head lowered, your words soft and quiet.

Anton had stepped before you, tilting his head to the side as he observed you. In fact, you seemed to be struggling.

“You have to be sincere. You can’t just read off the mural.” Anton sighed.

You seemed to look at him with flickering recognition.

“Forgive me, Father Anton, for I have sinned.” You appeared shocked for the words to even slip past your lips; and oh, you were beautiful. Lovely. Innocent. Anton gazed at you—this was the person he had been waiting for his whole life—fervently, impatiently, silently. 

“You don’t seem to be used to this,” Anton said at last, as he took off his hood. He had not meant to come to church today—he was aware the crowd was growing more stifling, more crazed by the minute. The women of the church reminded him of his mother. There were times he wished he could draw a blade to their throat, and watch the blood spill out in a wonderful crimson.

“I’m afraid it’s been long since my last confession.”

Anton couldn’t help but smile. You were lying. 

“That’s alright,” He said calmly, “you have come now. Is there something in particular that’s troubling you, perhaps? To bring you to confession?”

“I…”

Anton could read human beings exceptionally well. From the way their eyes narrowed, the way their pupils widened marginally, to the gap of their fingers…you were trembling. You were thinking of what other lies you could say.

An adorable fool.

“You…?” He prompted. “You must not feel self conscious in the eyes of God. He already knows, Y/n. He is only waiting for you to confess.”

I am only waiting for you to confess. To tell me that you are from the oracle.

“I cannot even recall it.” You admitted.

You cannot recall it because it is not true.

“What do people come here for, Father Anton?”

Many things.

“The ones who have sinned so awfully they are made to be sacrifices.”

Oh. Sacrifices. Anton did not even—

There were times he would stand before dead bodies, blood in his hand, blinking slowly. When? When had he killed them? It all happened so fast, he wasn’t even aware of the blood staining his clothes, the bodies riddled on the ground.

“You tell me, Y/n.”

“Murder…?”

Anton wanted to laugh. A textbook answer. You had much to learn, didn’t you? It was alright. Anton could teach you. Teach you from ground zero, till you would become who you were supposed to be.

“Mostly, it’s their lack of faith. Rebelling against us. It is their perceived lack of loyalty, and their utter ignorance and disregard for God that leads us to take drastic measures.”

“But that’s…that’s killing isn’t it?”

So pure. So untainted, so innocent. 

The oracle. The person from the oracle. 

“But that doesn’t matter,” Anton said softly, “you show a desire to learn. And that is always very splendid, always welcomed.”

Anton would morph you and turn you into something splendid, divine.

remember to reblog and like! comments are always appreciated

[evenyvn]

GUILTY

devil!reader x (fallen)angel!seonghwa

summary : through whispered temptations, you lured seonghwa into your sinful arms, making him fall not by force, but by choice. when his halo cracked and his wings dimmed, you should have felt victorious. but guilt cut deeper than sin.

cw : gn!reader, yandere!reader, reader is very manipulative, kissing, seonghwa is a victim but he likes it tbh, classic fallen angel troupe, the whole thing is just a word vomit tbh, lmk if there's something that i missed bcs I'm shyt at writing tags.

someone pls tell seonghwa to stop being so majestic so i can write for the others as well smh. inspired by guilty by taemin and so beautiful by drp ian.

There had never been a more perfect angel than Park Seonghwa.

The heavens sang his name, the stars bent toward his light, and even the gods marveled at his grace. His fluttering hair white and pure as his wings stretched across the sky like beams of the sun, his voice carried the weight of divinity itself, and his touch was said to heal the wounded. He was untouchable, untainted, sacred.

And YOU wanted him.

You wanted him the way mortals craved salvation, the way sinners begged for forgiveness. But you were no fool begging at the feet of a saint. No, you were a devil, a ruler of the underworld, a master of manipulation. You did not kneel for angels; you made angels kneel for you.

And so, you set your plan into motion.

At first, you only watched from afar. You sat at the edges of the heavens, between hell and heaven, hidden in the places where light did not reach, studying Seonghwa with a fascination that bordered on obsession.

He was everything the scriptures promised—kind beyond reason, beautiful beyond compare, good in a way that made you ache with something you could not name.

But goodness could be twisted. Purity could be tainted. Even the holiest of creatures could fall.

And Seonghwa… Seonghwa soon will too.

It started with whispered words, planted like seeds in his mind.

"Do you ever wonder if there’s more than heaven?" you said under the shadow on the edge of the heaven were you finally catch seonghwa wandering alone.

"Is it not lonely, being so perfect? Do they love you, or do they love what you represent?" you make your voice soft and as innocent as a child with their curiosity.

"Do you ever tire of belonging to them?"

Seonghwa resisted at first. Of course, he did. He was an angel, a being of unwavering faith. But you were patient. You fed him doubts laced with honey, dripped temptation into his ear like a gentle lullaby. And slowly, so slowly, Seonghwa began to listen.

The first time he sought you out, it was with guilt weighing heavy in his eyes.

"I should not be here," he had said, voice barely above a whisper.

And yet, he stayed. He stayed, and even come again and again.

You did not touch him, not yet. You did not rush. You let Seonghwa come by himself, let him wade deeper into your world, let him take one step closer every time you met.

You never forced him.

Seonghwa choose to fall.

The first time Seonghwa touched you, it was a hesitant brush of his fingertips against your cheek, as if seeking proof that you were real. The heavens did not tremble that day, but you swore you felt the shift in the universe.

And then, one night, where the heavens and hell unaware, Seonghwa kissed you.

It was soft, hesitant, the touch of someone who had never known sin. But the moment both of your lips met, Seonghwa broke.

You could see it in the way his breath hitched, in the way his hands fisted into your dark clothes like a drowning man clinging to salvation. But you knew better. Seonghwa was not drowning—he was burning.

And he liked it.

That was the night Seonghwa fell.

The moment your lips parted, the heavens screamed. The white glow of his wings flickered, his halo cracked, and a terrible silence followed. The kind that only came before ruin.

Seonghwa staggered back, horror dawning in his eyes as he clutched his chest, as if trying to hold onto whatever grace he had left.

"What have I done?" he whispered.

But you only smiled, cupping his face with a gentleness that no devil should possess.

"You are mine now."

Seonghwa did not return to heaven. He could not.

His wings, once white and pure, were now dusted with the faintest trace of shadow. His halo, once blinding, had dulled to the dim glow of a dying star. He was still beautiful—of course, he was—but he was no longer perfect.

And yet, to you, he was even more divine than before.

You worshipped him as if he were a god. You built him a throne of midnight and fire, adorned him in silks that shimmered like the cosmos, kissed his knuckles like he was the ruler of their world. You whispered prayers of devotion against his skin,

"my love, my angel, my everything."

Seonghwa was yours.

But then why… did victory taste so bitter?

Late at night, when Seonghwa thought you were asleep, he would pray. His hands clasped together, his head bowed, pleading to a god who no longer answered him.

"Forgive me."

"I was weak."

"I loved where I should not have loved."

You never let him see the way those words destroyed you.

Because for all your clever tricks, for all your manipulation, for all your power, there was one thing you had never accounted for—guilt.

Not just Seonghwa’s. Yours.

Because Seonghwa had fallen. And you had pushed him.

And now, you both trapped.

A sinner and a saint, bound by love.

Bound by ruin.

divider by @.aquazero | likes, reblogs, and comments are very appreciated ♡

[evanhereonearth]

They have both known the terror of disappearing in plain sight.

With every eye on them, with upturned faces watching them in hope, pleading with them for deliverance. With the ferocity of enemies turned upon them, with everyone certain they know exactly who stands at the forefront of the revolution, the movement, the breaking wave of history—they have both been caught by the riptide and dragged under where there souls can no longer breathe.

“You came here to help, Solas. I won’t let them use that against you.”

“And how would you stop them?”

“However I had to.”

The simple first moments of seeing and being seen. A spirit long since wrenched from the Fade and given physical form he didn’t seek, waking in a world where no one sees him as a person. A prisoner turned religious icon looks him in the eye and says she agrees that spirits are people. And he recognises the spirit in her for as rare and marvellous as any he’s seen.

Quiet curiosity. Trust. Patience. Love.

The brutality of trauma. The bonds of desperation. The self-rejection of long-festering shame. Sowing seeds in the hopes that they will not die, that something of the truest self will remain no matter the tales the world tells of either of them. Murderer. Traitor. Heretic. Hero. Harellan.

This is the journey. The paths had to diverge, had to give time to those seeds to sprout and bear fruit.

But love. Oh, love, building back self under the weight of the world. Stretching out roots that allow a spirit to grow.

Acceptance. Grace.

He is still Wisdom. He knows the burden of a wound that turns septic; he remembers the regret of his own naïveté and will not take advantage of hers no matter how healing her heartbeat against his.

And she learns.

She learns as he walks away twice. As she feels him in the Fade, returning, always returning. To her. To her heart, where he hides his truest self.

“Tell me you don’t love me!”

“I cannot do that, vhenan.”

She learns the weight of his regrets and the wisdom of his reasons. She seeks out the din’an shiral not to blindly follow but to walk beside; she gives him the space he needs.

She knows the paths cannot help but converge.

She finds those seeds sprouting in her heart, the truest knowledge of seeing and being seen—that he trusted her with himself because he knew the world would wound him from Wisdom into Pride anew, and he needed the shelter of her heart of Grace. So someone would remember Solas instead of Fen’Harel.

When she finds her understanding, she tends to the vines that grow between their hearts. She does not sever them. She has planted seeds of her own in his; her faithfulness and her compassion, her ferocity in believing he is worthy of being saved.

She knows his deepest fear, and she watches him face it on that fateful day when their paths converge once more, watches him walk towards an endless future of being alone until his death. The finality of forever.

Her power, her Wisdom, her strength to take up her path by his side.

“I will go to seek atonement.”

“But you do not have to go alone.”

So much love in simple words. So much truth beneath their surface.

You are worthy of healing, she says.

You are worthy of forgiveness, she says.

You are worthy of grace, she says.

And we have waited long enough.

[geminiagentgreen]

Obedience to God is something we all should WANT to do, yet our still very rebellious nature coupled sometimes with poor or intentionally misleading church leadership will have us seeing the Law as an archaic punishment that Jesus abolished.

Neigh, neigh, I say! While I have a very, very, very, very, very, very, VERY long way to go, I want to know God's law and I want to be obedient to it. I, at least, want to want to be obedient. I praise the Lord even more, then, that all the gospel requires of me is repentance and faith, and both come from the Lord as He seeks and brings in His own.

This fact, though, still has me pondering just why I am so impersonal with my faith. I have the light of Christ in me, He has done MARVELOUS things in my life, so WHYYYYYYY am I not sharing? Many of you are annoyed aware of my on/off worries with this, so I won't say more.

ANYWAY, God is good, He knows what He's doing, and I'm His because of grace by faith in Jesus Christ. May my heart and mind forever shut up from the loss of salvation fears.

[jackdaw-kraai]

I've been a Guides fan for years but sometimes I still marvel at what an amazing character your Luke is. A character that is undeniably capable and dangerous, and who has a fair amount of darkness inside of him, who chooses to go about his life being not only kind, but friendly and warm in personality. As a trans guy I sometimes struggle with feeling like my demeanor isn't very masculine because I also like to be friendly and approachable, but having a character that walks that line (though obviously his cultural perceptions of masculinity are wildly different than mine) has really helped me.

Do I ever understand how you feel. Luke, when I’m writing him, has a few hard-and-fast rules, but one of the most important ones is that he is, always, on the side of the common people and the downtrodden. It’s, quite literally, what he was made for, and he takes it extremely seriously. So his commitment, however difficult, however inconvenient, is to be kind. Not necessarily nice, or sweet, or pleasant, but always kind. And yes, sometimes to be kind, he has to be cold and harsh and dangerous, but crucially, it’s only sometimes. The most common, effective, and easy way to be kind is often to be warm, respectful, and as open as one can be. Not a doormat, not a yes-man, not a fool, but simply kind and with a willingness to extend the grace of trust to almost anyone he meets. He trusts other people want to be good, to be kind, to have a pleasant interaction with him, and to not be needlessly cruel. He trusts other people on a vital and visceral level, not with his most inner secrets, not with his life, but with faith in their intent and desire to be good. And in acting on it, more often than not, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Another important one is that Luke, always, knows who he is and what he is. If he ever doesn’t, expect it to be a major crisis and not easily swept aside. Luke knows who he is, knows what he is, and in knowing, denies others the power to define him. He doesn’t care if he’s seen as more or less of a man, if he’s seen with respect and deference or scorn and hostility. Heck, he doesn’t even care if he is a “man” at all! He’s a Raqkesh, a Runner, a being made and not born, a purpose made manifest! What does he care if he obliges to some kind of arbitrary idea of gender? It’s not even his own! The Children have such a vastly different concept of gender to us that “manliness” isn’t even something that Luke fully understands. He goes by “he” because that’s what he was taught was his pronoun in Basic, and by now, he’s attached to it and regards it as his own, but it doesn’t mean the same thing to him as it would to you or I. Gender, to him, is what you do. You are the gender you are because of the role you decide to play in society, the functions you choose, and the affinities you have. You are a “woman” if you decide to dedicate to the ways of water and foraging, and a “man” if you dedicate to the ways of the sky and the hunt. Your pronouns aren’t who you are, but what your relationship is to the person you’re currently speaking to. You are “ach/ache” when you are speaking to someone innately more powerful to you, a spirit or other powerful individual. You are “kai/kair” when addressing your Home, your Kamir, and being addressed by them. You are “zar/zara” when being addressed by entities far more powerful than you. Your parents, guardians, or mentors are “sha/shara.” Who you are, who you are said to be, changes with the situation, and pronouns are as static as a person themselves.

Luke isn’t a man as we understand, he is, in his own mind, a myriad of genders and roles and purposes that make up him in his entirety. What does he care if others think him less of a man? He doesn’t even put value in that idea to begin with, or for that matter understand it. It’s not his purpose to be a man, not as far as he’s concerned. It’s not who he is, and no matter what other people may insist, he knows himself true. He knows who he is, what he is, what he’s here for. He knows, down to his bones, what his purpose is in the world. Nothing can shake that from him, or deny him that knowledge. So he acts, knowing who he is, and thus has an identity that cannot be taken from him or denied. And if that isn’t manly, well... what is?

[petaltexturedskies]

How I love your moonstones, those jewels that fall on your breast like tears of light. Beneath the folds of your silver-gauze gown I divine the beauty of your naked body. Everything to which you have lent your enigmatic grace enchants me. I adore your mysteriously pale hair. I shall be whatever you make of me. For you are the marvellous Priestess of some faith I do not yet know.

Renée Vivien, A Woman Appeared To Me

[rainforestakiie]

hello!

this is a short AU! expect part 02 in a few hours! i have mostly gotten it fully written, i am just playing around with it a little. the idea behind this has been on my mind for a while now!

Frozen Out

Part 01 - Part 02

Everyone has a breaking point…

It just took Adam centuries to reach his.

In the dawn of creation, Eden pulsed with an ethereal beauty, a masterpiece painted by divine hands. Each blade of grass shimmered like emeralds kissed by sunlight, and the golden apples hanging from the Tree of Knowledge swayed lazily, their surfaces glinting with the secrets of the universe. The air itself carried the scent of blooming flowers, crisp water, and a whisper of something ancient, something eternal. It was paradise, perfect in every way. And yet, Adam was lonely.

Adam lay beneath the sprawling shade of the tree, his gaze fixed on the heavens. He traced the shifting clouds with his eyes, hoping one of them might shape itself into the figure he longed to see. His heart fluttered at the thought. Lucifer. His guardian Archangel, the one who had brought him into this garden and promised to watch over him. His protector, his light, his... everything.

Lucifer often visited Eden, descending from the heavens with the brilliance of a falling star. His presence filled the garden with an otherworldly glow, as though Eden itself bent to welcome him. To Adam, Lucifer was more than just a guardian; he was the embodiment of perfection—graceful, radiant, and untouchable. Adam adored him, though he could never find the courage to say so.

"Adam," Lucifer’s voice was soft yet commanding, like the first notes of a hymn. "Have you been well?"

Adam always nodded eagerly, stumbling over his words in his haste to please. He would recount his days, describing how he had explored the rivers, befriended the animals, or marveled at the endless beauty of Eden. And Lucifer would smile, a faint, fleeting curve of his lips that made Adam's chest tighten with something he could not name.

But those moments were rare. More often than not, Lucifer would leave, his duties in the heavens calling him away. "I must go," he would say, his hand brushing lightly against Adam's hair, a touch so brief it left Adam aching for more. "But I’ll return soon."

Adam clung to those words, even as he watched Lucifer's wings unfurl in a cascade of light, carrying him beyond the clouds. Each time, the garden felt a little dimmer, a little emptier. Adam would return to the apple tree, his only companion in Lucifer’s absence.

Now, as he lay beneath its branches, Adam reached out a hand toward the golden fruit, though he did not pluck it. His fingertips grazed the air just beneath the apple's smooth surface, as though by reaching for it, he could somehow grasp the knowledge Lucifer carried—the wisdom, the grace, the infinite love Adam longed to share.

He closed his eyes, letting the warmth of the sun seep into his skin. In his mind, he imagined a world where Lucifer stayed. Where they could walk together through the garden, laughing, talking, simply being. A world where Lucifer saw him not as a charge to protect, not as a creature to guide, but as an equal, as someone worthy of his love.

But reality was far less kind. Lucifer’s affection, while sweet and gentle, was distant. He patted Adam's head like one might a faithful dog, praised his obedience, and marveled at his innocence. To Adam, it felt like being both seen and unseen, loved yet overlooked.

"Do you think about me when you’re gone?" Adam whispered to the empty garden. His voice was swallowed by the rustle of leaves, a question cast into the void.

He imagined Lucifer in the heavens, surrounded by celestial choirs and the splendor of God’s light. Did he ever think of Eden? Of the one who waited for him beneath the golden tree? Or was Adam just another part of the garden—beautiful, yes, but ultimately forgettable?

Tears pricked the corners of Adam's eyes, but he refused to let them fall. Crying would solve nothing. Instead, he curled into himself, resting his cheek against the soft grass. "I’ll wait," he murmured, his voice barely audible. "I’ll always wait."

Time passed. The sun dipped lower, painting the sky in hues of orange and pink. Still, Adam waited. His heart ached with the weight of unspoken words, of feelings too vast to contain. He longed to tell Lucifer, to say, “I love you.” But how could he? Love was a gift, and what did he have to offer an Archangel who already had everything?

The sound of wings broke the silence. Adam’s heart leapt, his breath hitching as he sat up. There, descending from the heavens, was Lucifer. His light bathed the garden in gold, and Adam’s chest filled with a bittersweet joy.

Lucifer landed gracefully, his expression calm and unreadable. "Adam," he said, his voice like the soft hum of a lullaby.

Adam’s smile was bright, though his eyes betrayed his longing. "You came back."

"Of course," Lucifer replied, his hand resting briefly on Adam’s shoulder. "I always do."

But even as they spoke, Adam could feel the distance between them—a chasm carved by divinity and duty, by the unbridgeable divide between mortal and celestial. He wanted to hold on to Lucifer, to beg him to stay. But he knew that love, if it was real, could not be chained.

So, Adam smiled, even as his heart broke. Because even if Lucifer could never love him in the way he wished, he would take what he could get. A touch, a word, a fleeting moment.

And as Lucifer left once more, Adam returned to his place beneath the tree, his silent companion. He gazed at the stars, wondering if somewhere beyond them, Lucifer was looking back.

But he knew the truth. Lucifer belonged to the heavens, and Adam… Adam belonged to Eden. And though his heart yearned, his love would remain unspoken—a quiet, eternal flame burning in the depths of his soul.

If only it was that easy…

Pain. Heart break. Horror. Only followed…

~#~

The first thing Adam felt was light. Not the harsh glare of the sun that he’d toiled under on Earth, nor the pale glow of the moon that had witnessed his quiet prayers at night. This was different. It was warm and all-encompassing, wrapping around him like a soft embrace. For the first time in what felt like an eternity, Adam was no longer cold.

He opened his eyes slowly, blinking against the brilliance of Heaven. The sky was not a single hue but a shifting cascade of colours—gold melting into silver, blue blooming into shades of pearl. The ground beneath him was soft, like the petals of a flower, and the air smelled of something faintly sweet, something he could only describe as home.

But his body—oh, his body ached. Soreness clung to his limbs like a shroud, and he winced as he shifted. His hands, calloused and cracked from years of toil, trembled in front of him. Scars crisscrossed his skin, pale reminders of the battles he had fought against the earth itself—ploughing rocky fields, hauling water across barren lands, building shelters to keep his family safe.

His family.

The thought of them made his chest tighten. Eve. His children. Every wound, every bruise, every moment of exhaustion had been for them. He had pushed himself to his limits and beyond to keep them fed, to shield them from the unforgiving world they had been cast into. And all of it—all of it—because of a single bite of forbidden fruit.

The weight of that mistake had pressed down on him every day since they left Eden. Adam had carried it without complaint, without faltering, because someone had to. Someone had to bear the burden. And now... now he was here.

He barely had time to process where “here” was before he saw her.

A figure stood before him, radiant and awe-inspiring. Her six wings shimmered like molten gold, each feather catching the light and scattering it in a thousand directions. Her face was soft yet commanding, her presence both overwhelming and soothing. She was beautiful, yes, but more than that—she was holy, a being of divine grace.

“Adam,” she said, her voice melodic and laced with something tender, something almost like sorrow.

The sound of his name on her lips was his undoing.

Adam crumpled to his knees, a broken sob tearing from his throat. His shoulders shook as tears streamed down his face, hot and relentless, as if the floodgates of his soul had been thrown open. He wept for everything he had lost, for everything he had endured. For Eden, for his family, for the weight of years spent trying to atone for something he could never undo.

Sera—he didn’t know how he knew her name, but he did—was startled for a moment, her serene expression flickering with surprise. But then she moved toward him, closing the distance in a heartbeat. She knelt beside him, her wings folding around them both like a cocoon, shielding him from everything but her presence.

“It’s alright,” she murmured, her voice gentle as she pulled him into her arms. “It’s alright, Adam. You’re safe now.”

Adam clung to her like a child, his tears soaking into the fabric of her robes. “I tried,” he choked out, his voice raw. “I tried so hard. I did everything I could. But it was never enough. I—I lost Eden. I lost everything.”

Sera’s arms tightened around him, and she rested her cheek against his hair.

“Hush, my child,” she whispered. “You did more than enough. You gave all of yourself, and Heaven has seen your sacrifice. You are not lost. You are home.”

At her words, something stirred within him—a warmth, a light, something long buried beneath years of pain and struggle. It began as a flicker, a faint glow in his chest, but it quickly grew, spreading through his body like wildfire. Adam gasped as he felt it surge outward, his back arching as the sensation intensified.

And then it happened.

With a sound like thunder, golden wings erupted from his back. They unfurled in a blaze of light, each feather shimmering with an otherworldly brilliance. The pain of their emergence was sharp but fleeting, replaced almost instantly by a sense of overwhelming freedom. Adam let out a cry—not of anguish, but of release—as the wings stretched wide behind him, catching the light of Heaven and casting it in every direction.

Sera pulled back, her hands covering her mouth as she gazed at him in awe.

“Adam…” she breathed, her voice trembling. “Your wings. They’re… they’re glorious.”

Adam looked over his shoulder, his breath hitching as he took in the sight of them. They were unlike anything he had ever imagined, a reflection of the strength and resilience he had forged on Earth. For a moment, he was speechless, overwhelmed by the sheer beauty of what he had become.

Sera reached out, her hand resting lightly on his shoulder. “You have done all that was asked of you,” she said softly.

“You bore the weight of your family’s survival, of your own exile, with grace and humility. And now, Adam, it is time for you to rest. You have earned your place in Heaven.”

Adam’s eyes filled with tears once more, but this time they were tears of relief. The crushing weight he had carried for so long was gone, lifted by her words and the gentle light of his new wings. He looked at Sera, his voice trembling as he asked, “Will it truly be better now?”

She smiled, a motherly warmth radiating from her. “Yes, my dear one. You are home, and you are loved. The darkness is behind you now.”

For the first time since Eden, Adam believed her. He closed his eyes, letting the light of Heaven wash over him, and for the first time in a long, long time, he allowed himself to hope.

Adam worked. He worked until his hands trembled and his wings ached. Heaven’s orders were absolute, its demands endless, and Adam gave everything he had. He gave and gave, offering up every ounce of his strength and will because that was what Sera wanted. That was what Heaven needed. And if he could not make others love him, if he could not bring back what was lost, then at least he could be useful.

“Adam,” Sera would say, her voice laced with that motherly warmth he craved so deeply. “You’re doing so well. Keep going. You’re Heaven’s pride.”

Those words should have comforted him, but instead, they weighed on him like chains. He nodded each time, his golden eyes bright with the fervour of someone desperate for approval.

"Yes, Sera," he’d say, forcing a smile. "I’ll do better. I’ll be everything Heaven needs me to be."

But inside, Adam was crumbling.

More souls arrived every day, their faces filled with awe and wonder, and Adam was there to guide them. He was there to smile, to reassure, to lift them up. His wings, once radiant and proud, sagged under the burden of expectation. The weight of his endless labour, of his duty to Heaven, was crushing him. But Adam refused to falter.

He had no one else.

Lucifer had shattered his heart and left him behind, stealing Eden—the only place where Adam had ever felt whole. Eve had betrayed his trust, her bite of the forbidden fruit unravelling the world he had tried so hard to keep perfect. And Lilith, the woman who had once stood beside him as an equal, had lied to his face, leaving him with nothing but bitterness.

No one had stayed. No one except Sera.

She was his guiding light, his only anchor in the vast expanse of Heaven. He clung to her approval like a lifeline, pouring his entire existence into pleasing her. Even as his wings burned with exhaustion, even as his body screamed for rest, Adam persevered. He would prove himself. He would be the golden boy Sera believed him to be.

But it was breaking him.

~#~

One day, after what felt like an eternity of serving, Adam found himself alone. He sat on the edge of a cloudy hedge, his golden wings sagging behind him. The feathers, once lustrous, were dull and trembling from the strain of holding themselves up for too long. They finally collapsed, spilling over the clouds like a crumpled halo. His chest rose and fell with laboured breaths, and his hands trembled as he rested them on his knees.

His mind, unrelenting and cruel, drifted back to Eden. His Eden. His home.

Adam swallowed hard, the memory of Eden gnawing at him like an old wound. The garden had been a paradise—lush, green, and perfect. A place where every moment felt eternal, where the air itself had been sweet with the promise of peace. But Lucifer had taken it from him.

Why? Adam had never understood.

"Why did you do it?" he whispered to no one, his voice breaking.

His golden eyes, now dulled with exhaustion, stared into the endless expanse of Heaven. His eyelids grew heavy, the dark circles beneath them deepening like shadows carved into his skin.

He missed Eden so much it hurt. The earth had been nothing like it. Earth was cruel, unforgiving, tearing at him with jagged claws. It had stripped him of everything—his comfort, his innocence, his sense of belonging. Even now, surrounded by the splendour of Heaven, Adam felt the ache of loss. Eden was the only place he had ever felt truly alive.

Tears pricked at his eyes, but he was too tired to cry. Instead, he rested his head in his hands, letting his thoughts swirl in an endless storm of longing and regret.

And then, it happened.

A faint warmth bloomed between his fingers, pulling Adam from his haze of despair. He lifted his head, blinking in surprise, as he felt something soft and delicate pressing against his palms. Slowly, hesitantly, he opened his hands.

There, growing from his touch, was a flower.

Adam’s breath caught in his throat as he stared at it, his heart pounding in disbelief. It was a flower he hadn’t seen since Eden—a small, radiant bloom with petals that shimmered faintly in the light. His fingers trembled as he jerked back, startled, but the flower remained, swaying gently as though cradled by an invisible breeze.

For a long moment, Adam just stared. Memories of Eden surged through him, raw and bittersweet, as he reached out again. His fingers brushed the petals, and a gasp escaped his lips. The flower grew brighter, its stems stronger, its colours deeper. Two more blooms sprouted beside it, unfurling in delicate perfection.

Adam’s golden eyes widened. His heart thudded painfully in his chest as he looked down at his hands. The realization came slowly, almost too heavy to bear.

This was him.

With shaking hands, Adam pressed his palms against the clouds beneath him. He closed his eyes, his thoughts a swirling tide of Eden—its beauty, its peace, its promise of love. The ache in his chest grew sharper, but he pushed through it, pouring everything he had into the memories.

When he opened his eyes, he let out a sharp breath.

Nature had begun to grow around him. Flowers, vines, and lush green grass spilled from his hands, spreading across the clouds in a radiant bloom. The air filled with the scent of Eden, that sweet, familiar fragrance that had haunted his dreams for centuries.

Adam’s breath hitched as he stared at the life flourishing beneath his touch. For the first time in what felt like an eternity, something inside him stirred—a flicker of hope, of purpose. This was new. This was powerful.

But even as he marvelled at the beauty he had created, a shadow lingered in his heart. He thought of Sera, of Heaven’s expectations, of the endless giving that had nearly destroyed him. Would this new power be a gift? Or would it be yet another burden to bear?

Adam clenched his fists, his jaw tightening. It didn’t matter. He would give everything—his strength, his heart, his very soul—if it meant he could finally belong. Even if it destroyed him.

Because that was all he had ever known how to do.

~#~

Adam had done everything. He had bent himself to the will of Heaven, poured every drop of his strength into its gardens, and sacrificed his own dreams for the sake of their commands. When they asked for beauty, he gave them flowers. When they demanded glory, he painted the skies with life. Adam had filled Heaven with blossoms, vines, and trees, his power bringing Eden to every corner of paradise.

Yet now, they turned their backs on him.

Why?

Why were they betraying him? Why were they leaving him to rot in his failure, to suffer in his disgrace? His mind reeled with questions, but no answers came. The betrayal burned through him like wildfire, threatening to consume the fragile remnants of his faith.

The memory of Lucifer’s cruel laughter rang in his ears.

It hadn’t started this way. Once, there had been Eden. Once, there had been the quiet, sun-dappled days beneath the apple tree, where Lucifer’s presence was warm and protective. Or so Adam thought. But the Eden he had clung to, the Eden he still mourned, had been torn away. Lucifer had ripped it from him, and Adam couldn’t even understand why.

But understanding hardly mattered now.

What mattered was the humiliation.

Lucifer had dragged him through the mud—literally. The archangel’s blows were unrelenting, knocking Adam to his knees before all of Heaven. Every strike, every mocking word, every sneer had landed like a blade, cutting deeper into his soul than any physical wound. And then, when Adam was at his weakest, humiliated and broken, the final insult came—a one-eyed sinner who caught him off guard, a dagger slicing through his side.

The pain was excruciating.

Adam remembered falling, his wings folding like broken glass behind him as light bled from his eyes. The agony of his death was unbearable, but the agony of being abandoned was worse.

No one came for him.

No divine hand reached down to save him from the darkness. The heavens left him to rot in Hell.

When Adam awoke, he was something else. Something unholy. His golden wings remained, though they were battered and dull, and his eyes still shimmered faintly with the light of Heaven. But his halo was gone, replaced by horns that twisted above his head. Adam stared at his reflection in the jagged surface of a Hellish pool, his chest tightening with despair.

He was a sinner now.

He was nothing.

The voice that broke the silence was sharp, mocking, and familiar.

“Well, well, well,” Lucifer purred, his crimson gaze glinting with amusement. “Look who’s come crawling back from the grave. Fallen from grace, haven’t we?”

He stepped closer, his smirk cutting like a blade. “How the mighty have fallen. Tell me, Adam—how does it feel to be one of us?”

Adam said nothing, his jaw tightening as he lowered his gaze.

“Oh, don’t look so pathetic,” Lucifer continued, his laughter echoing like thunder. “You didn’t honestly think Heaven would take you back, did you? You’re a sinner now, Adam. You don’t belong to them anymore. You’re mine.”

The words hit like a hammer, but Adam refused to react. He kept his head down, swallowing the bitterness that clawed at his throat.

Lucifer tilted his head, his expression shifting from amusement to feigned pity. “Oh, come now. Don’t tell me you’re still holding out hope. That’s adorable.”

His grin widened, sharp and cruel. “But let me save you some time, pet. Sera doesn’t want you. She never did. You were just a tool, a pretty little puppet to do her bidding. And now?” He laughed, the sound dripping with venom. “Now you’re nothing but trash.”

Adam’s chest tightened, his mind flickering back to Eden despite himself. He remembered the way Lucifer used to smile at him, the warmth in his voice, the rare moments of kindness that had felt like sunlight. Or had they? Had Lucifer ever truly been kind? Or had Adam been a fool all along, misreading the disdain in those crimson eyes as something more?

Lucifer leaned closer, his voice dropping to a whisper. “You were always just a pet, Adam. A pretty, obedient little thing.”

The realization struck Adam like a physical blow. He had looked up to Lucifer, adored him, loved him with a desperate, one-sided passion. But now, the truth was undeniable. He had been nothing to Lucifer. Nothing but a dog on a leash.

Lucifer’s laughter broke through his thoughts, loud and biting. “Don’t worry,” he sneered, stepping back and gesturing toward the red building at the centre of Pentagram City. “I’ll take you to the Emberley—our charming little meeting point between Heaven and Hell. After that, though, you’re on your own. Sera won’t let a sinner like you back in. You’re done.”

Adam said nothing. He followed Lucifer in silence, his wings dragging behind him, the weight of humiliation and heartbreak pressing down on his shoulders. The streets of Pentagram City were filled with jeering sinners, their sneers and laughter cutting into him like shards of glass. But Adam barely noticed. He was too numb to care.

Lucifer glanced back at him, a cruel smile curling his lips. “You’ve really let yourself go, haven’t you? No wonder you couldn’t keep a wife. Not that I blame her.”

The words were meant to hurt, but Adam didn’t flinch. He kept his gaze fixed on the Emberley’s doors, the only thing that stood between him and whatever awaited inside.

Lucifer followed his gaze, his smirk widening. “Good luck in there,” he said, his voice dripping with sarcasm.

“You’ll need it. And just so you know—when you come out, you better get running. No one here is going to be kind enough to give you a head start.” He laughed harshly, the sound grating against Adam’s ears.

Adam’s hand trembled as he reached for the door.

Before he could open it, Lucifer’s clawed hand clamped down on his forearm, the searing heat of his touch making Adam wince. Lucifer leaned in close, his sharp-toothed grin gleaming in the dim light.

“Oh, and one more thing,” he purred, his voice low and taunting. “If you want to save your pathetic little life, if you really want my help…”

He paused, savouring the moment. “I’ll give it to you. In exchange for your soul, of course.”

Adam’s breath hitched, but he said nothing. He stared at Lucifer, his face unreadable, as the archangel chuckled darkly.

“Think about it,” Lucifer said, stepping back and gesturing toward the door. “Go on, pet. Your destiny awaits.”

Without another word, Adam turned the handle and stepped inside, his heart heavy with despair. Behind him, Lucifer’s laughter echoed like a cruel song, the sound following him into the darkness.

Adam’s steps faltered as the doors to the Emberley closed behind him, sealing him into the dim, suffocating space that seemed to hover on the edge of worlds. A strange, otherworldly hum filled the air, pressing against his skin like static. The golden light he had once associated with Heaven was faint here, weak and struggling against the blood-red glow that seeped in from Hell.

At the far end of the chamber stood Sera.

Adam’s breath caught at the sight of her. She was as radiant as ever, her six wings shimmering with divine brilliance. But there was no warmth in her presence now, no trace of the maternal kindness that had once cradled him in his darkest moments. Her expression was cold, her eyes piercing and unrelenting as they raked over him.

Adam felt his heart sink further, the weight of her gaze unbearable. He wanted to speak, to explain, but the words died in his throat. He didn’t know what to say.

Sera took a single step forward, the sound of her heel echoing sharply in the stillness. Her wings shifted behind her, their feathers gleaming like blades. When she spoke, her voice was sharp, devoid of the gentle cadence he had clung to in the past.

“Adam.”

The way she said his name made him flinch. It wasn’t the way she used to say it—soft and full of quiet pride. Now it was cold, distant, almost like an accusation.

“You’ve disgraced yourself,” she said, her tone cutting. “Look at you.”

Adam hesitated, his hands twitching at his sides. “I… I didn’t choose this,” he said softly, his voice trembling.

“No,” she snapped, her wings flaring slightly. “You chose to fail. You chose to fall.”

Her words struck like a whip, and Adam recoiled. He wanted to protest, to remind her of everything he had done for Heaven, everything he had sacrificed, but her gaze silenced him.

“You’re a sinner now,” Sera continued, her voice unyielding. “A creature of filth and corruption. Do you honestly think you can return to Heaven like this?”

“I… I didn’t mean to…” Adam stammered, his golden eyes filling with tears. “I tried, Sera. I did everything you asked. I gave everything I had—”

“And yet, it wasn’t enough,” she interrupted, her voice as sharp as glass.

“You failed. And now you wear the mark of your failure for all to see.” Her gaze flicked to the horns curling from his head, her lip curling in disgust.

Adam’s wings trembled, the once-glorious golden feathers sagging under the weight of her disdain. He felt the tears spill over, streaking his face as he fell to his knees before her.

“Please,” he begged, his voice cracking. “Please, Sera. I’ll do anything. Just… let me come back. Let me prove myself again. I’ll work harder, I’ll—”

“No.”

The single word cut through him like a blade.

“There is no place for you in Heaven,” Sera said coldly. “You have fallen, Adam. You are no longer one of us.”

Her words crushed him, the weight of them stealing the breath from his lungs. He stared up at her, his vision blurred by tears.

“You said… you said I was your son,” he whispered. “You said you loved me.”

Sera’s expression didn’t soften. If anything, her disdain deepened.

 “I loved the Adam who was pure,” she said. “The Adam who obeyed. The Adam who belonged to Heaven. That Adam is gone.”

Adam’s chest heaved as a sob tore from him, raw and broken. He clutched at the hem of her glowing robe, desperate, pleading. “Please, Sera. I don’t have anyone else. I don’t have anywhere else to go.”

She stepped back, pulling her robe from his grasp. “You made your choices, Adam. Now you must live with the consequences.”

Her words were final, her tone merciless.

Adam’s hands fell to his sides, trembling. He lowered his head, his tears dripping onto the cold, unyielding floor. The golden light that had once flickered in his chest felt dim now, as though it would extinguish entirely.

Sera turned away, her wings folding gracefully behind her.

“You will leave this place,” she said, her voice echoing through the chamber. “Do not return. You are no longer welcome.”

As she began to walk away, Adam reached out one last time, his voice barely a whisper. “Sera… please…”

She didn’t look back.

The sound of her footsteps faded, leaving Adam alone in the dim chamber. His sobs echoed around him, raw and desperate, but there was no one to hear them. No one to comfort him.

He was nothing now.

A sinner.

A failure.

As the last traces of Sera’s light vanished, Adam knelt in the darkness, his wings trembling and his heart shattered. The thought of Eden, of what he had lost, flickered weakly in his mind. But even that memory felt tainted now, distant and unreachable.

For the first time, Adam truly understood what it meant to be alone.

~#~

The door groaned as Adam pushed it open, stepping out into the suffocating, sulfureous air of Hell’s streets. The eerie red glow of the Emberley behind him cast long shadows on the cracked ground. For a fleeting moment, he dared to hope that maybe—just maybe—he could walk away unscathed. But then he saw them.

The sinners.

They were waiting.

Their twisted forms lurked in the shadows, their eyes gleaming with malice. Adam froze, his wings trembling behind him. He recognized some of them—souls he had been forced to slaughter in the name of Heaven, their faces twisted now with a hatred that seemed to pulse in the air around him.

“There he is,” one of them hissed, stepping forward with a jagged grin.

“The First Man,” another sneered. “Heaven’s golden boy turned to trash.”

Laughter erupted around him, sharp and cruel.

Adam stumbled back, his body already weary and broken, his golden wings sagging. The sinners closed in, their voices growing louder, more taunting.

“Pig.”

“Failure.”

“Couldn’t even keep a women.”

The words sliced through him, each one sharper than the last. Before he could react, one of them shoved him hard, and he fell to the ground with a grunt.

“Let’s see how much gold is left in those wings,” one snarled, grabbing a handful of his feathers and yanking.

Adam cried out as the sharp pain shot through him. They laughed louder, their hands tearing at his wings, ripping feathers out in clumps. The golden light that once shimmered in them dimmed as they shredded his dignity piece by piece.

"Look at him," one jeered. "The mighty Adam, grovelling in the dirt where he belongs."

Adam tried to stand, but they pushed him down again. His knees hit the ground, his body shaking. His mind screamed at him to run, to fight back, but he didn’t have the strength. He was too tired, too broken.

And then he saw him.

Lucifer.

The King of Hell lounged lazily against a jagged rock, his crimson eyes half-lidded as he watched the scene unfold. His smirk was slow and smug, a cruel twist of his lips that sent a chill through Adam’s battered frame.

Adam’s breath hitched. He knew what this was. Lucifer had told him, warned him, but he hadn’t wanted to believe it.

Lucifer was waiting.

Waiting for him to break.

“Help me,” Adam rasped, his voice weak, barely audible over the sinners’ taunts.

Lucifer’s smirk widened.

“Help you?” he drawled, his tone dripping with mockery. “Oh, Adam. Why would I do that?”

Adam flinched as another sinner kicked him in the ribs, sending him sprawling. He looked up at Lucifer, his golden eyes swimming with desperation.

“Please,” he whispered. “You said… you said you’d help me.”

Lucifer tilted his head, his grin turning sharp. “I said I’d help you in exchange for your soul. Did you think charity was one of my virtues?”

The sinners laughed, their jeers growing louder. Adam’s hands clenched into fists against the dirt, his chest heaving. He didn’t want to do it. He didn’t want to give Lucifer the satisfaction.

But he couldn’t take this anymore.

“Say it,” Lucifer purred, his voice a low, mocking croon. “Beg me. Prove to me how low you’re willing to go, Adam.”

Adam’s lips trembled. His pride, what little was left of it, screamed at him to hold on, to fight. But his body—bruised, battered, humiliated—couldn’t endure it anymore.

He fell forward, his forehead pressing into the dirt as tears streamed down his face. His voice was barely a whisper, choked with despair.

“Please… Lucifer. I… I give you my soul.”

The sinners froze, their laughter dying in the air. A heavy, suffocating silence fell over them.

Lucifer’s eyes gleamed with triumph.

“Oh, Adam,” he murmured, his grin splitting wider. “Say it again. Louder this time.”

Adam’s shoulders shook as he forced the words out.

“I give you my soul,” he repeated, his voice breaking.

Lucifer’s laughter echoed through the space, cruel and victorious. He stepped forward, his black boots crunching against the dirt until he stood over Adam’s trembling form.

A golden collar materialized around Adam’s neck, glowing faintly before solidifying with an ominous snap. A heavy chain extended from it, leading up to Lucifer’s outstretched clawed hand.

Lucifer yanked the chain, forcing Adam to lift his head. The fallen man’s golden eyes were dull now, lifeless.

Lucifer’s grin was wicked as he pressed his boot onto the back of Adam’s head, shoving him back into the dirt. “I own you now,” he said, his voice laced with smug satisfaction.

He leaned down, his sharp teeth gleaming as he whispered into Adam’s ear. “You’re mine, body and soul. A dog on my leash. A pet.”

The chain rattled as Lucifer pulled it taut, laughing as Adam remained motionless beneath his boot.

“Welcome to Hell, Adam,” Lucifer said, his tone dripping with mockery. “You’ll find it quite… accommodating.”

And as his laughter echoed, Adam closed his eyes, the last remnants of his hope shattering like glass.

~#~

The mansion was deathly quiet. The kind of quiet that pressed down on Adam’s chest and made his breathing feel shallow, uneven. Lucifer had left hours ago, his departure marked by a cruelly cheery announcement of his plans to visit his “precious little darling.” His voice still echoed in Adam’s head, mocking and sharp.

“I’d bring you along,” Lucifer had said, his grin wide and wicked, “but I think we both remember how well that went last time. Wouldn’t want another little incident with dear Maggie, now would we?”

‘Vaggie’ he would have said…

Adam had flinched at the memory. The cold rage in her eyes. The sharpness of her blade as it sliced too close.

And now, he was alone again.

The grand halls of Lucifer’s mansion, with their dark, gothic splendor, swallowed him whole. It was too large, too empty, and too suffocating all at once. Adam sat curled in a corner of one of the vast, echoing rooms. He pulled his knees to his chest, his golden wings drooping behind him.

Except… they weren’t quite golden anymore.

The once radiant feathers had dulled, the sheen long gone. They looked almost… tarnished. Adam tried not to think about it. He tried not to think about the way his own reflection in the polished floors didn’t quite look like him anymore.

His trembling hands hovered over the cold, flat patch of marble in front of him. There was no soil, no dirt, but there had never been a need for that before. Once, he could summon life itself from nothingness. In Eden, his hands had been a force of creation. Flowers, trees, lush green growth—they bloomed effortlessly at his touch.

He closed his eyes and focused. He could still feel the memory of it, the warmth that used to radiate from his palms, the way the ground would respond to him as though it loved him.

Adam’s breath hitched as he poured all of himself into the attempt. His fingers trembled, his body aching, but he didn’t stop.

Nothing.

The marble was cold and lifeless beneath his hands.

“Come on,” he whispered, his voice shaking. His golden eyes, dimmed and hollow, filled with desperation as he tried again.

Nothing.

“Please,” he choked out, his hands pressing harder against the ground. His tears began to fall, splashing onto the marble, but he didn’t care.

Still nothing.

Adam’s breath came in shallow gasps as his composure cracked, his chest tightening with the weight of failure. His whole body shook as he tried one more time, pouring every ounce of energy, every last scrap of hope he had left into the act.

Nothing.

His hands fell limp to his sides, his head bowing as a sob tore through him. The sound echoed in the empty room, raw and broken.

“I can’t… I can’t even grow a daisy,” he whispered, his voice cracking as more tears streamed down his face.

His shoulders shook as he curled into himself, his sobs coming harder and louder. It was too much. All of it. The humiliation, the pain, the loss. He had given up everything—everything—and this was all that was left. He couldn’t even find comfort in the one thing that had always brought him peace.

As the despair consumed him, his tanned skin began to change. It grew ashen, a sickly grey spreading across his body. The glow of his once-golden eyes dimmed further, flickering like a dying flame. Even the tips of his fingers, the hands that had once brought Eden to life, began to bruise, the vibrant warmth of creation replaced by cold, lifeless decay.

Adam buried his face in his hands, his muffled cries filling the room. He was breaking. The cracks in his spirit, the ones Lucifer had so carefully cultivated, finally split him open.

And still, no one came.

~#~

The mansion was silent, uncaring. The world around him had abandoned him, just as Heaven had, just as everyone had. Adam was alone. Utterly and completely alone.

And as his sobs echoed into the emptiness, he wondered if this was all he was destined to be now: a hollow, broken remnant of the man he once was.

The sound of crashing doors shattered the suffocating silence of Lucifer’s mansion. Adam, curled up in his corner, startled at the noise. His ashen skin, bruised fingertips, and dim eyes reflected the exhaustion in his soul. But his head lifted weakly as he heard a voice—bright, insistent, and filled with conviction.

“Enough, Dad! Enough hiding him away like this!”

It was Charlie.

She stormed into the room, her golden hair ablaze with determination, her fiery resolve lighting up the otherwise cold, oppressive halls. Behind her, Vaggie followed, clearly displeased, her sharp gaze darting to Adam and then back to Charlie. Lucifer appeared moments later, his expression an infuriating blend of amusement and exasperation.

“Charlie, my darling,” Lucifer drawled, leaning casually against the doorframe. “To what do I owe this… dramatic intrusion?”

Charlie ignored him, her bright crimson eyes landing on Adam. Her heart broke at the sight of him—this hunched, trembling man who seemed to be shrinking under her gaze. He looked nothing like the figure she had imagined, nothing like the stories she’d heard of the first man.

“Adam deserves a second chance,” she said firmly, turning to face her father.

Lucifer raised an eyebrow, his smirk widening. “Oh, does he now? And what exactly makes you think he’s worth it, my sweet girl?”

“Because I can’t claim to believe in redemption for sinners if I can’t even help the one person who’s already given up everything!” Charlie’s voice cracked, but her resolve didn’t waver. “He’s suffering, Dad. You’re letting him rot here, and for what? To make a point? To punish him?”

Lucifer chuckled darkly. “Punishment builds character.”

“Enough!” she shouted, surprising even herself. “He’s coming to the hotel. I’ll take responsibility. I’ll help him.”

“Charlie, no,” Vaggie interjected, stepping in front of her. “This is a terrible idea. He’s not like the others. He doesn’t belong there.”

“Exactly!” Lucifer chimed in, his grin widening. “Listen to your girlfriend, my dear. She’s got a good head on her shoulders.”

But Charlie wouldn’t budge. “How can I ask the sinners of Hell to trust me, to believe in redemption, if I turn my back on someone who needs it the most? Someone who’s already lost everything?”

The argument stretched on, voices rising and emotions flaring. Adam sat silently through it all, his head bowed, his hands limp in his lap. He didn’t dare look up, didn’t dare hope.

Finally, with an exaggerated sigh, Lucifer threw his hands in the air. “Fine! Take him. But don’t come crying to me when this all blows up in your face.”

Vaggie glared at him but reluctantly grabbed Charlie’s arm, pulling her toward the door. “This is a mistake,” she muttered, her frustration palpable.

As they left, Lucifer’s jovial mask dropped. He crossed the room in a flash, his sharp claws digging into Adam’s arm as he hauled him to his feet.

“Listen closely,” Lucifer hissed, his voice low and venomous. “Charlotte sees something in you. Something good, apparently. She’s willing to give you a second chance. But if you screw this up, if you fail her, I will make your afterlife so much worse.”

Adam nodded mutely, his throat too tight to speak.

At first, Adam thought things might get better. Charlie greeted him warmly, trying her best to make him feel welcome. But the others weren’t so kind.

Husk, the bartender, sneered at him over the counter, his gravelly voice laced with disdain. “So, you’re the infamous Adam, huh? First man, biggest failure. Fitting.”

His words cut deep, wrapped in riddles that danced around outright cruelty but still hit their mark.

Angel Dust was worse, his jabs sharp and relentless. “What’s the matter, Goldilocks? Can’t hack it in Heaven, can’t hack it in Hell? Guess you’re just useless everywhere.” He laughed, his high-pitched cackle echoing in Adam’s ears.

Niffty, with her manic energy, would chase him through the halls with a knife, giggling as though it were all a game. “Come on, Mr. Perfect! Let’s see if you bleed gold!”

Cherri Bomb acted like the mean girl Adam had never encountered but somehow felt all too familiar. She whispered behind his back, her laughter ringing out with Angel Dust’s as she made snide comments.

And then there was Alastor, the Radio Demon. He didn’t need to say much; his presence alone was oppressive. But when he did speak, his words were cruelly calculated to strip Adam of what little dignity he had left.

“Oh, how the mighty have fallen,” he’d say, his grin sharp and sinister. “You’re a relic, a failure. A hollow shell of what you once were.”

Even Vaggie couldn’t hide her disdain, her glares cutting through him like knives.

Adam tried to find solace in the quiet moments, tried to use his ability to grow things. But no matter how hard he focused, nothing came. The dark bruises on his fingers spread further up his hands with each failed attempt. His once-bright golden wings grew duller, the light in his eyes fading into a murky haze.

He was crumbling, piece by piece.

~#~

One evening, after watching Adam retreat to his room for the third time that day, Charlie pulled Lucifer aside.

“Dad, what’s wrong with him?” she asked, her voice tinged with worry.

Lucifer raised an eyebrow, surprised. “What do you mean?”

“Haven’t you noticed?” she pressed. “He’s different. His skin, his wings, his eyes—they’re all fading. He’s… he’s breaking, Dad.”

Lucifer frowned, his smirk faltering. He hadn’t noticed. Not really. He thought back but couldn’t recall when the change had started.

“Do you think I did something to him?” he asked, half-joking but with a hint of genuine curiosity.

Charlie’s frustration boiled over. “Maybe you should stop tormenting him for five minutes and actually look at him! He’s barely holding on.”

Lucifer waved her off, but the seed of doubt had been planted.

Later that night, Charlie gathered everyone in the main lounge.

“This stops now,” she said firmly, her voice carrying an authority they rarely heard from her. “The bullying, the mocking—all of it. Adam deserves better.”

The room fell silent, the weight of her words sinking in. Adam, hiding in the shadows, didn’t dare hope that things might change. Not anymore.

The silence that followed Charlie’s declaration was thick and uneasy. For a brief moment, Adam thought perhaps the tide would turn, that the words of the princess of Hell might carry enough weight to protect him. But then came the pushback.

Angel Dust was the first to scoff, leaning back lazily on the couch, his legs draped over the armrest.

“Oh, come on, Charlie. You really wanna waste your time defending that?” He gestured toward Adam with a dramatic flourish. “Dude’s a total wet blanket. Can’t even take a joke.”

“Yeah,” Cherri Bomb chimed in, her tone dripping with derision. “It’s not our fault he’s such a buzzkill. He just… doesn’t belong here, Charlie. You’re trying to shove a square peg into a round hole.” She snickered, elbowing Angel, who laughed along with her.

Vaggie crossed her arms, her glare sharp enough to cut glass. “Charlie, you’re not seeing this clearly. He’s a liability. He doesn’t fit into this place, and he’s dragging everyone down. You’re letting your emotions cloud your judgment again.”

Niffty piped up, her voice sickeningly sweet but her words laced with venom. “Maybe he’d be happier somewhere else, princess. Somewhere far away.”

She giggled, the sound sending a shiver down Adam’s spine.

Husk grumbled from behind the bar, not even bothering to look up. “Kid’s not cut out for Hell. Or Heaven, apparently. Maybe he should just… I dunno, disappear.”

His words stung, their nonchalant delivery only making them more painful.

Even Alastor, who usually revelled in chaos, seemed unimpressed. His ever-present grin widened, but his tone was icy.

“Charlie, my dear, you’re fighting a losing battle. Redemption is your dream, yes? But some souls are simply too far gone.” He glanced at Adam with thinly veiled disdain. “This one is... cracked beyond repair.”

Charlie’s face fell as her friends, one by one, dismissed her plea. Her gaze turned to Lucifer, her last hope for backup.

“Dad?” she asked, her voice soft but pleading. “A little help here?”

Lucifer, lounging lazily in the corner with a glass of wine in hand, shrugged helplessly, a small smirk playing on his lips.

“Sorry, darling, but you know how stubborn they can be. And, well…” He gestured vaguely toward Adam. “They’re not entirely wrong.”

Charlie’s eyes narrowed, her frustration bubbling over. She puffed out her chest, straightened her shoulders, and cleared her throat. When she spoke again, her voice carried the kind of authority that made the room fall silent.

“I don’t care what any of you think,” she began, her crimson eyes blazing with resolve. “Adam has been through Hell—literally—and he’s still standing. He’s still trying. Do you have any idea how hard that is? After everything he’s lost, everything he’s been through, he hasn’t given up. That’s more than I can say for most of you!”

The room bristled at her words, but Charlie pressed on. “Angel, you came here because you wanted more than to just be some toy for people to use and discard. Cherri, you came here because you wanted to prove you were more than just destruction. Husk, you’re here because you’re tired of drowning your pain in booze. Vaggie, you’re here because you believe in me, in what we’re trying to do. And Alastor…”

She hesitated but forced herself to look him in the eye. “Even you came here because a part of you wanted to see if redemption was possible.”

Her gaze swept the room, daring anyone to interrupt. “How can we call ourselves a place of second chances if we’re not willing to give him one? How can I stand here and say I believe in redemption if I turn my back on someone who needs it the most?”

The silence that followed was deafening. For a moment, it seemed like her words might have reached them. But then Vaggie shook her head, her expression hard.

“It’s not the same, Charlie. Adam’s not like us. He’s not one of us. He doesn’t belong here.”

Charlie’s heart sank, but she refused to back down. “He’s not one of you because none of you are giving him a chance to be. He’s trying, but you’re all too busy tearing him down to see it.”

Adam, huddled in the shadows, felt a flicker of something he hadn’t felt in what felt like an eternity: hope. But it was fragile, delicate, and he couldn’t bring himself to believe it would last.

Lucifer watched the scene unfold with mild amusement, swirling his wine in his glass.

“Well, Charlie,” he drawled, “if you’re so determined to play saviour, I won’t stop you. But don’t come crying to me when it all falls apart.”

Charlie ignored him, her focus entirely on her friends. “This is my hotel, and I’m telling you all right now: the bullying stops. Adam is one of us now, whether you like it or not. And if you can’t accept that, then maybe you’re the ones who don’t belong here.”

Her words hung in the air, heavy and unyielding. One by one, the others looked away, grumbling but offering no further resistance. Charlie turned to Adam, her expression softening as she extended a hand toward him.

“Come on, Adam,” she said gently. “Let’s get you out of here.”

Adam hesitated, his dimmed golden eyes searching hers for any sign of deceit. But all he saw was sincerity, and for the first time in a long time, he allowed himself to hope.

As he reached for her hand, Lucifer chuckled softly from the corner, his voice barely above a whisper. “Let’s see how long this lasts.”

~#~

Everyone was trying. Really trying. Adam could feel it. Husk would make small talk with him, Angel Dust would occasionally flash him a grin, and Niffty would clean around him with an overly bright smile. They were trying so hard to be nice to him, but Adam could tell it was all for Charlie’s sake. There was an air of forced politeness, a tightness in their voices and movements that Adam couldn’t ignore. It all felt... fake. Like the way a person tries to smile when they don’t really want to. He saw their relationships—the way Husk and Angel Dust seemed inseparable, the way Niffty gazed at Alastor with starstruck adoration, the way Alastor himself only seemed to genuinely smile when Niffty was near. And Charlie was the only person who could make Vaggie’s lips curl upward in a rare, hesitant smile.

But Adam saw through it all. They weren’t doing it because they wanted to. They were doing it because Charlie asked them to. Adam couldn’t help but feel like an outsider. It reminded him of the angels back in Heaven, how they’d always been kind to him, but only because it was expected of them. They never really cared.

And then, Adam thought of Lucifer. Eden. The way Lucifer had never really liked him, not the way Adam had wanted, the way he had convinced himself he could be loved. It hurt. The realization stabbed at him, deep and brutal. Lucifer never cared. He had been just as fake as the others. And that... hurt the most. Adam’s hands trembled as he realized, more clearly than ever before, that he had wished for something that had never been there. A lie he had told himself in Eden, that he could be loved. A part of him still wished for it—just one person, anyone, to truly like him.

Adam pulled his knees to his chest, huddling in a corner of the empty hotel. He clenched his fists, forcing all his energy into his hands. If he could just make something—anything—grow, maybe he’d feel better. A flower. Just one. But nothing happened. Nothing at all. His shoulders slumped as the weight of failure pressed down on him. He closed his eyes, feeling the coldness seep deeper into his bones.

 What was the point?

A voice broke the silence, cutting through his thoughts.

“What are you doing?” it asked, low and unexpectedly curious.

Adam jerked in surprise, his heart leaping as he quickly looked up. Lucifer was standing there, leaning casually against the wall, his eyes fixed on him. There was no cruel smirk, no mocking stare—just genuine curiosity in those fiery eyes. Adam’s breath hitched as Lucifer crouched beside him, inspecting the ground with a frown.

“If you're damaging Charlie's hotel,” Lucifer added, raising an eyebrow, “I won’t be happy.”

Adam swallowed hard, shaking his head. “I’m not,” he muttered, voice small. “I wasn’t—”

Lucifer’s eyes stayed on him, his expression still soft. “Then what are you doing?”

Adam hesitated, his gaze falling back to the empty space in front of him. “I... I was trying to grow a daisy,” he said quietly, the words feeling hollow and stupid as they left his mouth.

Lucifer’s eyebrows shot up in surprise. “What?”

Adam sighed deeply, the weight of everything pressing in on him. His wings fluttered weakly behind him, their gold dimming, almost silver in the fading light.

“Back when I was in Heaven... I could grow things,” he explained, his voice breaking just slightly. “Things from Eden... and they always made me feel better…when I was sad I mean. Like... like I was still part of it, you know?”

Lucifer didn’t speak for a moment, staring at him with an unreadable expression. Adam glanced up, catching a flicker of something soft in Lucifer’s gaze—something almost... tender. Adam flushed, suddenly embarrassed by his vulnerability.

“If you're just gonna make fun of me, just do it already.”

Lucifer opened his mouth, but instead of ridicule, he closed it again, shaking his head slowly.

“I’m not going to make fun of you,” he said, his voice quieter now. “I’m just... surprised.”

Adam’s face twisted with confusion. “Why? Because I’m not worthy enough for nature to like me either?”

Lucifer looked taken aback, his gaze softening. “What? No. That’s not what I mean at all.”

He hesitated, then sighed, a deep, almost nostalgic sound. “Look, Adam... I get it. Okay? I miss Eden too.”

Adam blinked, surprised by the admission. Lucifer, of all people, missing Eden? “You do?”

Lucifer nodded, his eyes briefly distant as if remembering something painful. “Every day. I still dream about it sometimes. The way the trees... the way everything felt. Alive. Like nothing could touch it.” He glanced at Adam again, his voice quieter now. “I never could make things grow like you could. I used to try... but it didn’t work for me. I was always just a little... too far gone.”

Adam’s heart gave a painful lurch. He couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Lucifer—King of Hell, the fallen angel who had ruled over so many—admitting he missed Eden, admitting that he couldn’t do what Adam could? It was a side of Lucifer Adam had never seen, and it left him at a loss for words.

Lucifer’s eyes softened, and there was a quiet, almost hesitant energy between them. “Look, Adam...”

Lucifer trailed off, his voice laced with something close to sincerity. “I’m sorry for all of it. The way things have gone... it wasn’t supposed to be like this.”

Adam looked up at him, still processing his words. “You... you really miss it?”

Lucifer’s expression tightened for a brief second, but it quickly relaxed as he gave a small, wry smile. “Yeah. I miss it. A lot.”

Adam blinked, his tired eyes fixed on Lucifer as the King of Hell rolled up the sleeve of his jacket, exposing his pale arm adorned with faint scars and tattoos that seemed to shimmer faintly in the dim light. Lucifer smirked faintly, though it lacked his usual malice. There was an unusual softness in his expression, almost a flicker of nostalgia that Adam hadn’t seen before.

“Watch this,” Lucifer said, his voice low but not unkind.

His sharp claws extended, and with a graceful motion, he dragged them through the air above the ground. Gold light sparked and swirled from his fingertips, pooling into the floor like liquid sunlight. The energy pulsed, then shimmered before something began to rise from the cracks in the floorboards.

At first, Adam’s heart jumped. The glow was reminiscent of Eden—golden vines, delicate petals, and the pure vitality of the paradise he’d once known. But as the plants fully emerged, his expression twisted into a mix of awe and horror.

The flowers were... wrong. They had teeth—sharp, jagged ones that snapped aggressively. Their petals curled in unnatural spirals, and their vines writhed like snakes. One particularly bold flower lunged forward, its snapping maw aimed directly at Adam’s face.

Adam yelped, stumbling backward just as Lucifer’s hand shot out, gripping his shoulder and yanking him out of the way.

“Whoa, careful!” Lucifer exclaimed, his grin spreading as he moved a clawed hand to restrain the offending plant. The flower hissed—actually hissed—before retreating, sulking back into the ground.

For a moment, there was silence between them. Then, unexpectedly, Lucifer started to laugh—a genuine, hearty laugh that echoed through the quiet hallway. It wasn’t mocking or cruel; it was warm, almost boyish in its condor. Adam stared at him, wide-eyed, before a reluctant chuckle escaped his lips. Soon, the two of them were laughing together, the absurdity of the situation washing over them like a tide.

“Well, that’s new,” Adam muttered, brushing himself off as his laughter died down into soft chuckles.

Lucifer’s smirk lingered, but there was something different about it now—something less guarded.

“Yeah, not exactly Eden, huh?” he said, gesturing at the chaotic plants that were slowly retreating back into the floor. “It’s... a work in progress.”

Adam hesitated, still processing what he’d seen.

“Wait,” he said quietly, looking at Lucifer with an unreadable expression. “You mean to tell me... you’ve been trying to grow things, too?”

Lucifer glanced at him, the sharpness in his gaze softening ever so slightly.

“Of course I have,” he admitted, his voice uncharacteristically subdued. “Do you think I’ve forgotten what Eden felt like? The smell of the air, the way the sunlight filtered through the trees? The way it... made you feel alive, like you belonged?”

His voice faltered, just for a moment, before he continued. “I dream about it sometimes. About being there again.”

Adam blinked in surprise. He hadn’t expected that level of vulnerability from Lucifer. “You miss it,” he said softly, more to himself than to Lucifer.

Lucifer chuckled dryly, his gaze distant. “Miss it? Adam, I ache for it. Every damn day. I don’t care how many eons pass—I’ll never stop craving what I lost.”

He glanced down at his clawed hand, flexing his fingers. “But Eden doesn’t want me anymore. I can try to grow things, but... well, you saw the results.”

Adam’s brow furrowed as he watched Lucifer, his own sense of loneliness momentarily overshadowed by an odd sense of understanding. “I didn’t know,” he murmured, his voice quiet but sincere. “I thought... you were just okay with all of this. That you didn’t care.”

Lucifer snorted, a hint of his usual arrogance creeping back into his expression. “Oh, I care. But caring doesn’t change the fact that I’ll never step foot in Eden again.”

He tilted his head, studying Adam. “What about you? Do you still dream about it?”

Adam swallowed hard, his fingers curling into the fabric of his shirt. “Every night…I used to take comfort in it. Growing things, I mean. It made me feel... closer to it. Like I hadn’t lost everything.”

He looked down, his voice trembling slightly. “But now... I can’t even do that anymore…”

Lucifer’s gaze lingered on Adam, and for once, there was no mockery in his eyes—just something akin to understanding. He reached out, placing a clawed hand on Adam’s shoulder.

“You’re not the only one,” he said softly, his tone carrying a weight that Adam hadn’t heard before.

Adam looked up at him, startled by the sincerity in his voice. For the first time in what felt like forever, he felt a small flicker of warmth—like maybe, just maybe, he wasn’t completely alone.

Lucifer smirked again, though it was softer this time.

“Don’t get used to this,” he teased, his tone light. “I’ve got a reputation to maintain.”

Adam chuckled weakly, a faint smile tugging at his lips. “Wouldn’t dream of it.”

As they sat there, the tension between them seemed to ease, if only for a moment. For the first time, Adam felt like he wasn’t just a pawn in someone else’s game. It wasn’t much, but it was a start.

~#~

As the days turned into weeks, the small moments between Adam and Lucifer began to feel like something more, something real. Adam had always known that Lucifer was dangerous, unpredictable, and cruel. But lately, Lucifer’s presence seemed to carry a different weight. A weight that wasn’t just about power or dominance, but something deeper, something more complex. It was as if, little by little, Lucifer was thawing—letting himself soften around Adam in ways he hadn’t with anyone in centuries.

Adam could feel it, too. Though he was still struggling to grow anything, despite his best efforts, there was a shift inside him. He no longer felt as desperate. Instead of the crushing disappointment he would have felt before, when his powers refused to work, there was a quiet acceptance. A sort of understanding that maybe the things that had once come so easily to him were no longer in his grasp—but that didn’t mean he was without value. Not anymore. And that was something he had Lucifer to thank for.

One evening, after another failed attempt at coaxing life from the barren earth beneath him, Adam slumped to the ground in frustration. His hands were covered in dirt, his wings drooping heavily behind him. He had been trying to grow a single flower—just one—but it seemed as though the magic that had once flowed through him so easily was slipping further away each day. He was just about to give up when he caught a glimpse of something out of the corner of his eye.

A small yellow rubber duck sat in the dirt, perfectly positioned in his line of sight.

Adam blinked, rubbing his eyes in disbelief. He hadn’t seen it before—hadn’t noticed it anywhere nearby. But there it was, so innocently placed, as if it had appeared just for him. His first instinct was to laugh, a soft, bewildered chuckle escaping his lips. It was such a random, out-of-place object to find in the midst of his failure. But somehow, it didn’t seem out of place at all. It felt... comforting. Like it was meant to be there.

Before he could contemplate the oddity too much, he heard a voice, low and teasing.

“What’s this? A rubber duck in a garden of death?” Lucifer’s voice carried a hint of amusement, but there was something else beneath it. Curiosity, maybe.

Adam looked up, a small smile tugging at the corners of his lips. “I... I don’t know. It just appeared, like magic.”

He picked it up, turning it over in his hands as if it might somehow hold the answers he was searching for.

Lucifer crouched down beside him, his golden eyes gleaming in the dimming light of the evening. He reached out, brushing a strand of hair away from Adam’s forehead—a surprisingly gentle gesture.

“Seems like someone has a little sense of humor,” Lucifer mused, his voice softer than Adam was used to hearing. He was staring at the duck with an odd fondness, almost as though it reminded him of something—or someone—long ago.

“You’ve been trying to grow things, haven’t you?” he asked, his tone more careful than usual.

Adam nodded, his fingers tightening around the rubber duck. He didn’t want to admit how much it had been weighing on him lately—not just the inability to use his powers, but the ache of knowing that something so fundamental to who he was seemed lost to him now.

“I’ve been trying,” Adam said quietly. “But... nothing works. It’s like I’ve forgotten how.”

Lucifer’s expression shifted. He tilted his head, watching Adam with a quiet intensity. “You haven’t forgotten, Adam. Sometimes, things just take longer than we want them to.” He paused for a moment, considering. “Maybe you’re not meant to grow flowers right now. Maybe... maybe you’re meant to grow something else.”

Adam didn’t answer right away. The words lingered, reverberating in his mind. He hadn’t considered that—hadn’t thought that maybe this struggle was part of something bigger than just his powers. Maybe it was something about him, about his journey, that he hadn’t yet understood.

But instead of letting his mind spiral into doubt and frustration, Adam found himself simply appreciating the moment. For the first time in a long time, he felt like he wasn’t completely alone. The duck, the conversation—everything about it felt... small, but important.

Lucifer, noticing the shift in Adam’s demeanor, smiled faintly. It wasn’t a mocking smile, but something more real, something softer than Adam had ever expected from the King of Hell.

“I know it’s not easy,” Lucifer said, his voice quiet now, almost tender. “You think you’re the only one who’s lost something? That you’re the only one who’s struggling?” He paused. “I miss Eden, too. I miss what I used to be. But we’re here now. And... maybe that’s enough.”

Adam glanced at Lucifer, surprise flickering in his eyes. For a moment, their gazes locked, and Adam saw something in Lucifer’s eyes—a kind of sadness, a rawness that mirrored his own. It was fleeting, but it was there. And in that moment, Adam realized just how much they had in common. How much they both carried, how much they both missed.

“Maybe,” Adam murmured, his voice soft. “Maybe we’re both just trying to figure out how to be... okay.”

Lucifer didn’t answer right away, but when he did, his tone was uncharacteristically warm. “Maybe you’re right.”

They sat there for a while, neither of them speaking. Lucifer leaned against the tree, and Adam cradled the rubber duck in his hands, staring at it like it held the key to something he couldn’t yet understand. It was a small, silly thing—but to Adam, it felt like a symbol of hope.

As the silence stretched on, Lucifer shifted, his wings rustling slightly as he stood up. He offered a hand to Adam, who took it after a moment, letting Lucifer help him to his feet. It wasn’t the sharp, commanding gesture Adam had expected. Instead, it was gentle, steady.

“You’re doing alright,” Lucifer said, his voice quieter than usual. “Better than I thought you would.”

Adam met his gaze, surprise and something else—something warmer—flickering inside him. For a moment, he wasn’t the fallen angel. He wasn’t the broken soul who had failed. He was just Adam. And in that moment, he felt like maybe—just maybe—he wasn’t as alone as he had thought.

Lucifer gave him a small, genuine smile—nothing grand, but it felt like a small victory. Adam smiled back, feeling something inside him soften, just a little. Maybe this was the start of something new. Maybe, for the first time, he wasn’t just clinging to the past. He was building something for the future.

And that felt like enough.

~#~

As the days passed, the connection between Lucifer and Adam deepened in ways neither of them had anticipated. It started with little things—small conversations, stolen glances, moments where their laughter rang out in sync. They were bonding in a way that felt more intimate than either had expected. What had begun as a slow thawing of walls soon became something more. Something that neither could quite name, but both felt.

Lucifer was not often one to show vulnerability, but there was a subtle shift in his demeanor when he was with Adam. It wasn’t just about the playful jabs or the moments of sarcasm; it was the way he listened, how he’d catch Adam’s eye just a little longer than necessary, or how his voice would soften when speaking to him. His presence felt more than just a force of power—he felt, for the first time in centuries, like a person. And that person... cared about Adam. In ways that both scared and thrilled him.

Adam, on the other hand, was far more cautious. The walls he had spent so long building were cracking, and with each passing day, he felt them crumble further. He would catch himself in moments of quiet, just staring at Lucifer, his thoughts wandering to places he didn’t dare to go. But every time, he pulled back. He couldn’t—he wouldn’t—let himself fall again. Not after everything that had happened. Not after Eden.

He had loved Lucifer once, in a way that was pure and innocent. But now? Now, it was complicated. The anger, the hurt, the betrayal—it was still there, even if he didn’t want to admit it. He couldn’t forget what had happened in Eden, how Lucifer had cast him aside, how everything had changed. The love he had felt had turned to dust, a painful reminder of a time long gone.

Yet, despite all the distance Adam tried to put between them, despite the walls he erected in his heart, he couldn’t help but feel the pull when Lucifer was near. Lucifer’s smile, the way his eyes softened when they met Adam’s, the quiet moments when they’d sit together in silence—those things still made Adam’s heart ache. But each time, he pushed those feelings down. He couldn’t allow himself to fall back into that. Not again.

One evening, as the two of them sat in a dimly lit corner of the mansion, Lucifer was telling one of his stories. His voice was smooth, effortless, but Adam found his thoughts drifting. The warmth in Lucifer’s words, the way his eyes seemed to shine as he spoke—it was hard not to feel something. But Adam quickly snapped himself out of it, forcing his attention back to the conversation.

Lucifer glanced over at him, his eyes searching Adam’s face as if trying to read something beneath the surface.

“What’s on your mind, Adam?” Lucifer asked, his voice quieter than usual. There was an edge of concern in it, a softness that Adam wasn’t used to hearing.

Adam flinched slightly, caught off guard. He shook his head, forcing a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. “Nothing. Just... lost in thought.”

Lucifer didn’t seem convinced. He leaned in slightly, his gaze never leaving Adam. “You know, you don’t have to lie to me. Not anymore.”

Adam’s chest tightened, a pang of guilt washing over him. He didn’t want to let Lucifer see him like this, didn’t want to let him know how much he still felt. He took a deep breath, trying to keep his emotions in check.

“I’m not lying,” Adam said, his voice strained. “I’m fine.”

Lucifer didn’t buy it. His eyes narrowed, but instead of pressing further, he simply nodded, though there was something unreadable in his expression. He leaned back in his chair, folding his arms across his chest as he studied Adam.

Adam couldn’t shake the feeling that Lucifer could see right through him—that, maybe, Lucifer could see the part of him he was trying so hard to hide. The part of him that still wanted to reach out. The part of him that still cared.

But the fear was there, too—the fear of getting hurt again, of being abandoned. The fear of giving his heart to Lucifer and having it torn to shreds once more.

A silence stretched between them, but it was a comfortable one—unlike the awkward pauses that used to fill the room when they first started spending time together. It was as if they had both accepted that there was something unsaid, something lingering, but neither wanted to push it. At least, not yet.

After a while, Adam stood up, feeling the weight of his thoughts press down on him. He couldn’t stay there, not with Lucifer watching him like that. He needed to be alone. He had to clear his head, to stop this cycle of feelings from taking hold of him.

“I think I’ll take a walk,” Adam said, his voice low as he turned away, his wings brushing against the air.

Lucifer didn’t stop him, though Adam could feel the King’s gaze following him as he walked toward the door. He wasn’t sure if it was concern or something else, but either way, he couldn’t bear to be around Lucifer right now. Not when the temptation to give in to those feelings was so strong.

As Adam stepped out into the cold night air, he tried to push everything aside. The ache in his chest, the longing for something he wasn’t sure he should have, the fear of falling into something that could never work. But as he walked down the garden path, something caught his eye.

A single flower, blooming impossibly in the cold, dark soil.

Adam stopped, staring at it, his breath catching in his throat. It was small, delicate, but it was real. A real flower, growing against all odds. For a moment, he just stood there, mesmerized by its simple beauty. And then he realized—he hadn’t planted it. It had just appeared.

His hand shook as he reached down, gently brushing his fingers against the petals. It was a sign. A sign of hope, maybe. A sign that, just like the flower, there was still something inside him that could grow, something that wasn’t broken beyond repair.

But as he stood there, his mind wandered back to Lucifer. Back to those soft smiles, those fleeting moments of kindness, and the way Lucifer looked at him sometimes, as though he was seeing something Adam had long since buried.

It was almost too much.

Adam closed his eyes, willing the thoughts away. But it was too late. He couldn’t stop it anymore.

He wanted Lucifer. In a way that scared him, in a way that he couldn’t deny. But he wasn’t sure he was ready to face that. Not yet.

When he returned to the mansion, he found Lucifer sitting near the window, his eyes distant but his posture relaxed. Lucifer didn’t look up when Adam entered, but he spoke anyway.

“You didn’t have to go,” Lucifer said, his voice quiet, almost knowing. “You’re not alone, you know. I’m not going anywhere.”

Adam froze, his heart stuttering in his chest. He wanted to believe it. He wanted to lean into the warmth of Lucifer’s words and let himself fall. But something in him still held back, still fought against it.

He sighed, rubbing the back of his neck. “I just... I needed some space,” he said, trying to sound casual, but the lie hung heavily between them.

Lucifer didn’t push. He just nodded, and for a long moment, they stood in silence, two souls adrift in a sea of uncertainty.

Adam didn’t know what to do, but he knew one thing for sure: he couldn’t keep pretending that he didn’t feel what he did. And that terrified him more than anything else.

~#~

Adam sat across from Charlie in her bright, sun-filled office, the soft hum of her voice buzzing in the background as she spoke with enthusiasm. Her words were warm and encouraging, and her eyes shone with pride as she talked about his progress. Adam forced a smile, nodding occasionally to acknowledge her, but inside, his mind was elsewhere—far from the cheerful praise she was showering on him.

Charlie was talking about how much he’d improved since arriving at the hotel. How he’d taken to his tasks, how he had made an effort to change. She spoke of how proud she was of his work around the hotel, how the guests and staff had noticed the difference in him, how much more comfortable he seemed.

"Adam, I can’t tell you how happy I am to see the growth you’ve shown! You’ve really come so far. It’s honestly incredible! The way you’ve been helping with the garden, the little touches around the hotel, your willingness to pitch in… it’s all so amazing." Charlie’s voice was full of genuine excitement as she gestured toward the door, as if everything about Adam’s presence in the hotel was a small victory.

Adam’s gaze shifted to the window, his mind drifting off again, away from her words. He wasn’t listening fully. Not really. His thoughts were tangled up in a storm of emotions, spinning around a singular, complicated person—Lucifer.

Every time he caught himself thinking about Lucifer, a knot twisted in his chest. The warmth, the care, the way Lucifer’s touch lingered in his memory, always accompanied by that cruel smirk that had once sent him spiraling. But now—now, it was different. There were moments when Lucifer's eyes softened, when his tone was gentler, when Adam felt like maybe... maybe Lucifer wasn’t just toying with him. Maybe there was something there, something real.

But then the fear would set in. Adam wasn’t sure he could go through that kind of pain again. Loving Lucifer had once been his everything, and when that love had been ripped away in Eden, it had broken him in ways he wasn’t sure he could ever repair. To love him again, to feel that warmth, would mean trusting him all over again. And trusting Lucifer had never ended well before.

Lost in his thoughts, Adam absentmindedly rubbed his shoulder, feeling the unfamiliar weight of the silver feathers along his wings. He frowned. When had they changed?

The golden feathers, the radiant glow that used to shine so brightly, were gone. Replaced by the dull, muted sheen of silver. He hadn’t noticed until now, but the transformation seemed so subtle that it made him wonder: when had his wings shifted? And when had they become... so lifeless?

"Adam? Adam, are you listening?" Charlie's voice broke through the haze of his thoughts, and he blinked, trying to refocus on her.

"Sorry," he muttered, shaking his head slightly. "I—I was just thinking."

Charlie smiled, oblivious to the storm brewing behind his eyes. "That’s okay! I just wanted to make sure you know how proud I am of you. You’ve really come a long way, and I think—"

Her expression softened, and she placed her hands on the desk, leaning forward as her eyes sparkled. "I think there’s so much potential in you. You're really making a difference here, Adam. I’m so happy to see you improving."

Her voice was full of warmth, full of sincerity, and it made his chest tighten. He couldn’t help but feel a pang of guilt for how little he truly felt like he was progressing. Charlie saw him as someone who was moving forward, growing into a new version of himself, but Adam didn’t feel that. He didn’t feel like he was growing—at least not in the way she thought.

The silence between them stretched out longer than it should have, and Adam was finally forced to pull himself from the depths of his thoughts. He gave her a small, strained smile, one that didn’t quite reach his eyes.

"Thanks, Charlie. I... appreciate it."

Charlie’s smile widened, oblivious to the turmoil brewing beneath Adam’s surface. "Of course! You’ve worked so hard, Adam. I just want you to know how proud I am, and I really believe you have what it takes to make it here. You’re doing great."

Adam’s fingers twitched, and for a moment, he felt the urge to flee. He wanted to be anywhere but here, sitting across from Charlie, hearing the things he knew he should feel grateful for but couldn’t. There was something missing, something that he couldn’t quite put into words.

"Yeah, I’m trying my best." Adam said quietly, his voice almost distant as he stared at his hands, fingers trembling ever so slightly. They were bruised from the constant use, worn from trying and failing to do what he once could do so effortlessly.

But the truth was, he wasn’t just trying his best to improve at the hotel. He was trying his best to hold it together, to pretend that everything was fine. That the silver feathers on his wings didn’t feel like a symbol of everything he had lost. That the distance between him and the one person he wanted most didn’t tear him apart a little more each day.

Charlie’s voice brought him back once more. "You know, I’m so glad you’re here, Adam. It’s like you’re meant to be a part of this place."

She paused, tilting her head slightly. "You just have to believe in yourself a little more. I know you’re capable of amazing things, Adam."

Adam nodded, the words swirling in his head as his heart grew heavier with each passing second. He wanted to believe her. He really did. He wanted to believe that the person he used to be—that the person who had been capable of bringing life and beauty to the world—wasn’t gone for good. But when he tried to reach for that part of himself, it felt like something was missing, like the wings that had once been so full of light were now tarnished, just like the man who wore them.

"I’ll try," he said, his voice quiet, almost defeated.

Charlie beamed at him, clearly satisfied with his response. She didn’t know how much those words hurt, how much the hope she gave him only seemed to highlight how far he’d fallen.

But Charlie didn’t see that. She didn’t know the secret ache he carried inside. She couldn’t see the loneliness in his eyes, nor the way his heart longed for something that felt unreachable.

As Charlie continued to talk, her voice a steady stream of praise and encouragement, Adam’s mind wandered once more. But this time, instead of focusing on his failures, his mind drifted to Lucifer—the one person who had always been there, and yet, had never truly been there for him. A bittersweet yearning tugged at him, pulling him toward the man whose presence both comforted and terrified him.

The only question was: Was Lucifer just as lost as he was?

~#~

Later, Adam stood in the garden of the hotel, his eyes tracing the edges of the flowers, watching them flutter in the breeze. He couldn’t grow anything. Not even the simplest flower. His fingers twitched, but the soil remained untouched by any kind of magic. The golden light of his wings had dimmed so much over the weeks. It seemed like he was fading. He hated this feeling—the sense of helplessness, the constant reminder of what he'd lost. And all he wanted was to escape into the solace of his thoughts, to forget about everything around him. But no matter how hard he tried, Lucifer was always in the back of his mind.

Just as he was about to turn and retreat inside, a voice cut through the air, smooth and almost too calm. "You’re always running away from something, aren’t you?"

Adam stiffened, recognizing the voice immediately. He didn’t need to look up to know who it was. He was used to the sound of Lucifer’s footsteps, the way they echoed in the quiet of the hotel’s garden, the air thick with tension every time they crossed paths.

Adam swallowed hard and slowly turned around, his pulse quickening despite himself. Lucifer was standing by the stone archway that framed the garden, the faintest of smirks playing at the corners of his lips. His red eyes glinted in the pale moonlight, his presence all-encompassing. The way he looked at Adam sent a shiver down his spine.

"What do you want?" Adam muttered, his voice not quite steady. He was trying so hard to keep his emotions in check, to keep things from spiraling.

Lucifer stepped closer, the air around him crackling with something dangerous and enticing. "I want a lot of things, Adam. But tonight... I want you to stop running from me."

Adam's heart skipped a beat. He knew what Lucifer meant. He wasn’t stupid, and he wasn’t blind to the moments they shared—those moments when their gazes lingered too long, when their words were layered with something unspoken. But Adam didn’t know how to deal with it. He couldn’t. Not again. He had already given up so much of himself in the past, and he wasn’t sure he could survive losing himself to Lucifer once more.

Lucifer took another step forward, and Adam’s breath hitched. "Why do you keep avoiding this?" Lucifer’s voice was low, almost like a whisper meant only for Adam. "You’ve been pushing me away, and I don’t understand why. You think I don’t know what’s happening between us?"

Adam felt a pang in his chest, something between hope and fear. His heart was fighting against the pull of Lucifer’s words. It would be so easy to fall back into what they once were. It would be so easy to let Lucifer back in, to let him take all of Adam’s pieces and make them whole again. But there was too much pain, too many memories of betrayal.

“I’m not… I’m not running from you,” Adam said, though his voice cracked slightly, betraying the lie.

Lucifer raised an eyebrow, as if he’d heard the lie for what it was. "Really?"

He was close now, close enough that Adam could feel the heat of Lucifer’s presence, the magnetic pull of his aura. "Then why is it, every time I look at you, I see that little flicker of hesitation? Why is it, when I reach out to you, you flinch?"

Adam took a step back, trying to put distance between them, but Lucifer moved faster, catching his wrist in a vice-like grip before he could even process the movement. Adam’s pulse thudded loudly in his ears, his breath coming faster, his body reacting against his will.

"Lucifer..." Adam breathed, but his words felt hollow.

Lucifer’s gaze softened, his expression unreadable for a split second before his face hardened once more. He leaned down, his lips dangerously close to Adam’s ear.

"I can feel it too, you know. You think I don’t see how you look at me, how you still care?" His voice was a low rumble.

"I’ve waited, Adam. I’ve waited long enough."

Before Adam could react, Lucifer pressed his lips to Adam’s, a slow, deliberate kiss that sent a shock of electricity through Adam’s body. It wasn’t desperate, not frantic, but it was heavy with years of longing. And it made Adam’s heart race, made the walls around him tremble and crack.

For a moment, Adam was frozen, caught in the undeniable heat of it, caught in the magnetic pull of Lucifer’s touch, the way his lips seemed to claim him. He had never experienced anything like it before—the weight of it, the depth, the rawness of it.

But then reality crashed back, and Adam pulled away, his body reacting instinctively. His hands shoved against Lucifer’s chest, pushing him away as he gasped for air, panic flooding him.

“No, no, no,” Adam whispered, his voice frantic. "I can’t... I can’t do this again, Lucifer."

Lucifer didn’t step back immediately. His gaze was intense, filled with something Adam couldn’t fully read—frustration, maybe, but also a twisted kind of satisfaction. "Why?" Lucifer asked, his voice soft, but the undercurrent of hurt was clear. "Why do you keep rejecting me? Why can’t you just let go, Adam? You don’t have to be alone anymore."

"I’m not... I’m not the person you think I am," Adam said, shaking his head violently. His wings fluttered, the silver feathers brushing against his back as he took another step back, away from Lucifer. "You don’t understand. I don’t want this."

Lucifer finally stepped back, his eyes darkening, but there was no anger in them—only quiet, haunting patience.

"I understand more than you think, Adam. And I’m not going anywhere."

Adam’s breath was shaky, his heart pounding, but he couldn’t look away from Lucifer’s piercing gaze. He wanted to stay, wanted to let it happen, to let himself be loved, to feel the warmth of it again. But he couldn’t. Not like this. Not when the scars were still so fresh.

Without another word, Adam turned and fled, his wings flapping desperately behind him as he ran into the hotel, his heart torn in two.

He didn’t know how to love Lucifer again. Not yet. And he wasn’t sure he ever would.

~#~

Lucifer threw himself onto the couch in Charlie’s office with a dramatic sigh, stretching out his long limbs and letting his head flop backward. The couch creaked beneath him as he stared up at the ceiling, his wings flaring out behind him.

“Dad,” Charlie muttered without looking up from her paperwork. “What are you doing here? This is my office, you know. Serious professionalism happens in here.”

Lucifer gasped as if she had just insulted him.

“This is serious, Charlie!” he insisted, his voice filled with mock indignation. “I need your advice.”

Charlie rolled her eyes but set down her pen, leaning back in her chair with an exaggerated sigh. “Fine. What’s going on now?”

Lucifer didn’t hesitate, his voice faltering slightly as he spoke. “I’m... trying with Adam.” He winced as the words left his mouth. “I think he likes me. I mean, I know he does... but he keeps rejecting me.”

Charlie’s brow furrowed, her gaze shifting from her desk to Lucifer, who was now dramatically sulking on the couch. “Wait. Hold on.”

She leaned forward, the chair creaking slightly. “You're upset because Adam keeps rejecting your advances?”

Lucifer nodded solemnly, his usually confident demeanor slipping just a little.

“Exactly,” he muttered, his voice a mix of frustration and genuine confusion. “I don’t get it, Charlie. I’m trying to be patient with him. I’m making an effort, but it’s like... nothing’s working.”

Charlie raised an eyebrow, tapping her fingers against the desk thoughtfully.

“Dad...” she started, a small, almost playful smirk creeping onto her face. “You do realize you haven’t exactly been the nicest to him, right?”

Lucifer’s eyes widened in disbelief. “What do you mean by that?”

He sat up on the couch, looking at her with furrowed brows. “I’ve been trying to change, okay? I’m being patient! I’m not the same person I was in Eden!”

Charlie folded her arms across her chest, giving him a knowing look. “You’ve made progress, sure. But that doesn’t erase everything that’s happened between you two. You can't just expect him to suddenly be okay with everything after all the things you did to him.”

"I...what?" Lucifer breathed out.

"I don't know what happened between you, Adam and Mum, but I can tell Adam got the short end of the stick." Charlie accussed. "And you haven't been nice about it at all. You've been down right mean."

Lucifer’s expression faltered for a moment, and he slouched back into the couch. His eyes dropped, as if the weight of her words hit him harder than he’d expected.

“I didn’t mean for things to get this way. I never wanted to hurt him... But I’m trying now. I really am.”

Charlie sighed, her voice softening as she leaned back in her chair. “I know you’re trying, but Adam... he’s been hurt. A lot. He can’t just flip a switch and forget everything you’ve done.”

Lucifer was silent for a long moment, looking down at his clawed hands, his fingers twitching slightly. “I don’t know how to make it right, Charlie. I don’t know how to get through to him.”

Charlie looked at him with a mix of frustration and sympathy, her eyes locking onto his. “Maybe you need to start by showing him that you’re really, truly sorry. That you’re not just doing this because you want something from him, but because you care about him. You have to earn his trust again, Dad. It’s not going to happen overnight.”

Lucifer’s gaze softened as he slowly nodded. “I don’t want to hurt him anymore, Charlie. I don’t want him to keep rejecting me... but maybe you’re right. Maybe I need to earn his trust first.”

Charlie gave a small, approving smile, before turning back to her desk. “Well, there you go. It’s going to take time, but if you really care about him, you’ll make it work. Just don’t expect it to be easy.”

Lucifer leaned back on the couch, his arms folded behind his head. For the first time in a while, his mind wasn’t consumed with anger or pride. Instead, he found himself deep in thought about Adam, about how to show him the truth of his feelings—how to prove to him that he was truly trying to be a better person.

“I’ll make it right, Charlie,” Lucifer muttered, his voice filled with resolve. “I’ll do whatever it takes.”

[jaywantstosleep]

tgcf, a reflection.

it's about opposite halves; "body in the abyss, heart in paradise" (Xie Lian, vol. I, ch. 1) had to be an oxymoron. i noticed how it manifests itself throughout the novel, both its sintactic structure and its semanthic implications; in my opinion, it's the essence of the story.

so, Xie Lian enshrines the grave of a ghost he himself struck down on a bridge with his reflection: body in the abyss, heart in paradise, or 身在无间，心在桃源. 无间 is the avīci or worst level of Buddhist hell: 无间 translates to no space/rest. hours before his death, the ghost had declared that such an abyss is none other than the human world. paradise or 桃源 literally means "peach blossom spring," which refers to a utopian, hidden land from a poem by Tao Yuanming. in the poem, a man comes to this land of peach blossoms by chance, marvels at the eternal peace that reigns there, and returns to share the location to the world, yet the place is gone.

my interpretation is as follows: while the physical body and everything tangible suffers incessantly, one's heart, 心 which is also the spirit/nature of something, has to reach, also incessantly, for such a paradise which is nowhere since it's not a real place but a state of mind we all develop individually and we call it freedom.

Xie Lian is condemned to live up to his own precept. the worst tragedy at one point is that he cannot die, so he's unable to escape the abyss of perpetual torture, a gradual one that is triggered by his first hubris. Xie Lian oscillates between being the sacrificial lamb of the Heavens (he does, indeed, share several characteristics with the messianic archetype) to the one who carries the axe as a result of the corruption of his body, soul and morals. and it's not only in him that the phrase manifests itself. other characters, such as Shi Qingxuan, Yin Yu, Xuan Ji, Jian Lan, the Four Calamities or Jun Wu become both victims and victimizers of their own 无间, carefully interweaving stories into a single work quite similar to greek tragedies of fatal destiny, such as Oedipus or Prometheus in chains. the author further plays with this dual and contradictory nature of the oxymoron in individual scenes, aided by visceral, folkloric and epic symbolism (i'll reflect on my favorite scenes in a near future). furthermore, a brilliant narrative parallelism is created between Xie Lian and Bai Wuxiang, whose mask is fittingly with one half smiling and the other half crying to project this madly antithesis onto Xie Lian, hiding any human traits he may still have.

to all this, the phrase raises the question of the paradox of Theseus; with so many irremediable changes, what makes you you? in the novel, more than 800 years pass since the death of the ghost on the bridge. Xie Lian and Hua Cheng are in front of a campfire on the seashore. Xie Lian tells him: "to me, the one basking in infinite glory is you; the one fallen from grace is also you" (vol. IV, chap. 63). Xie Lian doesn't mean that such opposites to which the self is deconstructed and subjected conform one whole exclusively, for that's but the result of the tangible 无间, but what we do with it. he, at the climax of his corruption, managed to remain true to himself and stop a catastrophe thanks to a small gesture of kindness that nevertheless describes something much bigger. "i want to understand your everything," Xie Lian continues; though transient, both opposing halves deserve to be loved equally. that man who handed him a bamboo hat loved him, for a few seconds, with wholeness. the 桃源 perchance can be found cathartically; the 桃源 is the eternal faith towards oneself. absolutely no one fought Xie Lian's battles but him, literal and figurative, nor did anyone had to. it was enough to believe in him, and to make him believe that he can believe in his own freedom again. suddenly, what's tragic transforms (again, a contrary) into a miracle: Xie Lian, thank heavens, cannot die. as for him and his shared fortune with Bai Wuxiang, they bifurcate in the end, both "endings" complementing each other, in spite of everything.

[rei-ismyname]

Hey hey hey!

So I saw this post: https://www.tumblr.com/isntverynice/778177063642415104?source=share

And I'm having brainworms. Sabertooth, right. Sometime last year, I finally got around to reading the AXIS event, and that's when I met AXIS Sabertooth. When I tell you I started hyperfixating over him, I'm not kidding. In his wikipedia page (yes he has a wikipedia page, I did not know that) apparently Psychologist Suzana E. Flores called him the incarnation of antisocial personality disorder. Which is like wow. Back in the, 90's? 80's? He had Birdy, a telepath help him manage his animal side and then she died. And then, he got WORSE.

Here's the thing right. I liked his AXIS version. It gave him some character imo. Other than the "I hate wolverine and everyone so I will just be the definition of a villain and selfishly do things which benefit me. Slash, slash, grr grr" thing that he always does. Hell, it gave him an almost heroine too (albeit Monet and him would have been a toxic pairing according to the writer, Cullen Bunn, would have been "torturous love")

I also liked the run he had in Weapon X-Men and the Hunt for Wolverine series. Neat.

The Krakoa arc? Good grief. They really unpacked a gold mine of therapy when keeping him in the pit. Douglas and Krakoa really gave him singlehandedly the best version of "Listen, you can change, why can't you change, please try" bit I've ever seen anyone give a marvel villain in the X-Men. And he said "nah fuck that imma do my own thing" and seemingly created hell?? 😭😭?? When he finally came to take revenge on Krakoa/Wolverine, I was like ??? Really?? Now is when you're pulling this card? To the writers. Why throw more stuff at this? We get it, Krakoa is falling to pieces but SERIOUSLY? The dismemberment of Daken is something that's going to stay with me as a genuine wtf moment.

It's just. I liked what he was in the Age of Apocalypse reality. He helped a child, and was a GOOD guy. He was his own person (somewhat) out of Wolverine. They're so perfectly a Ying and Yang that I want to rant to someone about it. (Will probably do so later if you're okay with it)

And his past as a kid? HOLY HELL. That explains a lot, but like, OOF. you know?

Sorry for rambling a lot if this is offensive to you. But if you didn't mind, give me your thoughts PLEASE.

Hey there! Thanks for sending this one in and apologies for taking so long to get back to you. I've had a lot going on but also it's a lot to think about. It's definitely not offensive to me, in fact I love asks like this :). Keep them coming! So, Sabertooth...

I share all of your thoughts on how fascinating Victor Creed is. I'm generally skeptical of pathologising comic book characters, just because there's so much content that it's unlikely anyone has read it all. That's just the comics too, no idea what he's like in other media.

He's often functioned as a dark mirror to Logan but their behaviour and history aren't that different in a lot of ways, especially if you zoom out and look at their entire history. Both have mutations that inform violent/antisocial behaviour, both have awfully traumatic childhoods, they've both been weaponised by governments etc and thrown away when they were too much trouble/no longer useful.

They both kill a lot of people and have dubious support systems. Logan has been given a lot of grace, faith, and love with the goal of rehabilitation, and I don't think Victor really has. Sure, he spent a bunch of time locked up in the mansion's basement as a project for Xavier. It's understandable given his actions, but treating someone like an animal generally inspires animal behaviour. Krakoa did an even worse job, inventing an ad hoc law to apply retroactively, voted on by Magneto, Apocalypse, Shaw, Mystique, Emma Frost, Exodus, etc. People who are taking advantage of the amnesty. Yeah, he disobeyed orders by needlessly maiming people, but he was working for a collective project greater than himself. That's a start, though we'll never know how it might have turned out because he was thrown in a hole explicitly forever. If you're trying to be better and you're rejected by your entire putative community, why even bother trying?

It's interesting and quietly awful to consider who is worthy of redemption or even help in Marvel. It's quite rare for bad guys to make a full face turn, and even rarer for the good guys to be open to the possibility. There's a very neoliberal attitude to punitive justice and the prison industrial complex, informed in part by comic book inertia. If all the 'bad guys' are reformed then there's nobody to fight, and even after AXIS, for instance - a literal magical inversion of moral compasses - the heroes never let Creed forget that they were watching him and waiting for the inevitable reversion. It's not exactly restorative justice; it's conditional tolerance that can be withdrawn at any time.

AXIS and AoA both do the same thing IMO - they highlight that under different circumstances Victor Creed can be a completely different person. Almost as if his behaviour is learned and a result of his experience and environment, not necessarily a personality disorder. As much as I despise punitive justice and institutionalised incarceration, I don't have answers for a better way, not fully. I do wonder what the point of these morality plays is if the pathway to reform is arbitrary and gatekept. Omega Red was dealt with in a fascinating way on Krakoa, but Creed never got that chance despite X-Force doing MUCH worse. It's certainly true to life - criminality is too profitable to treat as a social or health issue - and it doesn't feel right to ignore Creed's living and traumatised victims, let alone finding out who's willing to live next door to him.

Creed's relationship with Logan is especially interesting. I don't think Logan has changed all that much at the end of the day. Socially, he benefited from a lot of support and patience, but if you put their body count side by side what's the actual difference? Logan still gets to kill people while being very popular, whereas Creed gets villain work here and there and hates his guts. Obviously he makes his own choices, but his jealousy and hatred of Logan is something I find relatable. 'Why him and not me?' Doesn't seem very fair.

It's not as simple as that, but at the end of the day I think these kinds of questions are beyond the scope of Marvel comics in general. Or rather, the answers are. Sabertooth will always end up back as a remorseless bloody handed killer no matter what he does. Logan will always be a good guy, a moral paragon even, no matter what he does. There will always be variations on their eternal themes for us to discuss, and any answers come from outside the text. Sabertooth showed us him languishing in the hole, Sabertooth and the Exiles expanded on his choices and motivation, then Sabertooth War came right back to his psychosexual obsession with Logan in incredibly gruesome detail.

I'd love to see some What ifs exploring roads not taken with Creed, but I fear it's out of the scope of Marvel comics, especially right now. A 616 focus on how, if it's even possible, someone who's hurt so many might choose to be better/be allowed the choice would be delightful. However, I think that's in the hands of the fandom. In discussions like this, in fanfic, in revisiting old stories. Maybe it is true to life that reform is not for everyone, that society finds it as hard to trust as people find it to change. Creed doesn't spend all that much time in actual prisons but the serialised status quo is a systemic institution of inertia all of its own.

Maybe that's a little trite and prosaic, but I think it's no less true. The good guy/bad guy dichotomy in media and entertainment assists in normalising and perpetuating how we view criminality too. It gets easier to dehumanise and forget about the scary other, instead of viewing them as people who deserve empathy and help. Sabertooth probably seems like a bad example, but it's not hard to look at a traumatized child and see what the world did to him. Continues to do to him, as he expressed himself with the only avenue he has - violence.

Those are my thoughts for now, rambly as they are. Some really good food for thought there and I'm glad you brought him up.

[kumeko]

A/N: For the @getofamilyzine ! I wanted to basically go “Geto with his two baby ducks” (aka the early days of them becoming like family). I kinda also wanted to explore Geto’s…fall? From grace—there was definitely a ruination arc from “we must save” to “I’m killing a village”, but then that extra step from there to “screw the world, and bye parents” didn’t really get shown that much.

…

…

…

…

1. Sleep

There was blood on his hands. Suguru turned them over, surprised by the smooth red flecks that dotted his skin, the way they contrasted with his rough skin, the odd sense of stickiness it left. The blood had long since cooled and dried. A small scrape and it flaked off.

He had hoped that none of their monkey blood would have dirtied him, but killing an entire village took more work than he had expected.

A footstep. Suguru whirled around, his hand already drawn back. Two young girls stood in front of him, eyes wide, fingers trembling. They didn’t scream, just stared at him nervously with bruised eyes. The dirty doll in the dark-haired girl’s hands looked better than they did, despite its battered and torn body.

Right, the two girls. The reason he had killed in the first place. The reason his last straw had snapped. Suguru reached up to run a hand through his hair before stopping. There was no way he was going to get that dirty blood anywhere else on him.

“I won’t hurt you,” he said, his voice sounding far too loud and harsh in the now-silent village. Not even the birds chirped, as though sensing tonight’s massacre.

The girls didn’t react. Holding hands, they kept still and silent as the grave.

“I…” Suguru paused. What did he even want to say? Do? He hadn’t thought this far, his body had reacted before his brain had even processed the ugly feelings welling inside. His only goal had been to get rid of the chattering monkeys and break the cage. That was done. That was over with. Something in him uncoiled.

Now it was just him, a mountain of corpses, two little girls, and the entire exorcist community on his back.

Satoru and Shoko would be on his back.

His heart tightened once more.

Fatigue hit Suguru like a bullet. His bones were weary, his mind was blank, and he didn’t know what he wanted to do next, let alone what to do with two young children. There had to be a bed somewhere. A filthy monkey one, but a bed nonetheless.

“I won’t hurt you,” Suguru repeated as he turned around. “Do what you want, I won’t stop you.”

He all but dragged himself into the closest house, flopping on the bed like a spineless jellyfish. A year ago, he and Satoru had seen some, in Okinawa, had marveled over it during the vacation-that-shouldn’t-have-happened. Had watched those translucent bodies float like clouds in the water, aimless like a balloon whose tether had been cut.

His own leash had broken.

Suguru briefly wondered if that would have made Riko happy, or if just like Satoru, she would have hated it. Not that it mattered. She hadn’t come back as a curse and the dead didn’t have opinions for the living otherwise.

The mattress groaned and he turned his head slightly to find one of the girls hesitantly crawling toward him. When she noticed his stare, she froze, her eyes wide, her hand clutching her doll like a prayer. On his other side, he felt a weight as the other girl settled in next to him, not caring at all what his reaction would be.

She was warm.

Suguru lifted his arm slightly, an invitation the dark-haired girl immediately accepted.

They were both warm. He closed his eyes and drifted to sleep.

2. Name

It was surprisingly easy to get off the grid. To just walk away and disappear from it all. Even though this had all been spur of the moment, there wasn’t even a hint of a pursuer. If he had known this earlier, he would have left months ago.

Well, if he had, he would have been entirely alone. Suguru glanced behind him. The two girls were still following him down the highway, as faithful as a shadow. Holding hands, they walked as quickly as they could, their tiny chests heaving from the effort. Throughout it all, they remained silent, their dark eyes watching his every move.

No, if he had done this long ago, he would never have rescued them. And that would have been a tragedy.

Suguru turned around and waited for them to catch up. When they were only a meter away, the girls stopped as well, standing as still as statues as they waited.

He had never seen children so quiet. It unsettled him almost as much as their first meeting had. His left hand fisted, nails digging into his palm. “Can you speak?” he asked.

The dark-haired girl nodded shyly, her teeth gnawing at her lips. Meanwhile, her more outgoing sister cleared her throat. “Yes,” she replied, her voice cracked from disuse. She sounded like a rusted gate, like a squeaky wheel, like all the broken and abandoned sounds he’d heard in his life.

At least they could speak. He wasn’t sure how he’d communicate otherwise. “I’m Suguru.”

“Suguru,” they both repeated.

They didn’t say anything else. Satoru had always been good with children, despite his feigned disinterest. Maybe it had been his childish attitude. Suguru’s nails dug deeper into his palm. This wasn’t the time to think of him. “Your names?”

“Name?” the dark-haired girl mumbled, biting her lip harder as she tried to think of one.

“Garbage?” the other girl said at the same time, cocking her head as she contemplated.

It shouldn’t have surprised him. Something dark coiled in him once more, but the villagers were dead and there was no one left to take this out on.

“We’ll find new names. Proper ones.” Suguru kept his tone even and tried to smile as he held out his hands. “Come.”

Their hands were birdlike and bony as they slipped into his.

3. Memories

The second the door to their living quarters opened, Nanako made a beeline to the closet. She squealed in delight, her socked feet thumping against the hardwood floor as she ran from one corner to another, yanking open drawers and rummaging through their contents. “There’re pillows! And blankets! And is that DRESS??”

The more reserved Mimiko kept close to Suguru as he stepped in and closed the door behind him. Her dark eyes scanned their surroundings inquisitively. As usual, she held her doll with one hand, and with her other, she examined a side table with a stack of books. “This is all ours?”

Suguru nodded. A quick glance was all he needed to study the medium sized room, as big as two dorm rooms put together. Futons on the floor, a couple of cheap dressers and tables along the wall, and it was obviously a place quickly put together. At least it wasn’t another disgusting hotel. Despite this, the girls examined every square inch like they were detectives, waving around small trinkets like they were treasures.

A few months ago, he couldn’t have imagined that.

A few months ago, he couldn’t have imagined who’d he’d become.

“This is really ours?” Mimiko asked warily as she poked her head in a closet.

“Really,” Suguru confirmed as he leaned against a wall. “They can afford it.”

The they in question: other exiled and dangerous exorcists.  In hindsight, it was an obvious choice.  He’d heard about such people during his missions, though he rarely met them. What he hadn’t realized was that they’d have an entire compound set up and a long-running con. Or that they’d find him hiding in a seedy motel, an offer on their lips and aid in their hands.

An offer. Suguru pursed his lips. He hadn’t thought that far in the future ahead yet. The blood had been cold on his hands before he’d even realized he wanted to get rid of all the monkeys. Should he play along with these other exorcists? Should he go his own way?

Things had been easier when he’d had someone to talk to about this. He spotted white from the corner of his eye, an impossible-to-forget shade of blue, a cocky smirk. Breaking the rules now? Thought that was my job.

Shoko would have clicked her tongue, asking to keep out of it.

“Hey, uncle?” Nanako stopped inspecting the blankets and broke the illusion with a single question. “Are you leaving?”

Suguru could just imagine Satoru’s laugh if he heard that. “Don’t call me uncle, I’m not that old. What do you mean I’m leaving?”

“They said you might go back,” she replied. Uncharacteristically, Nanako fiddled with the blankets, smoothing out the wrinkles. Near her, Mimiko didn’t look at him, her gaze fixed studiously on a book she couldn’t even read.

“Go back?” It was a tempting thought. Back. Yet all Suguru could see was Satoru perfecting his skills, his expression tight as he swore to never let anything in again. Shoko closing her eyes as she feigned disinterest, already world-weary from it all. The two of them picking up the call whenever another mission came in, regardless of how they were used and abused.

They wouldn’t understand the village. They wouldn’t understand the monkeys. They wouldn’t understand this churning in Suguru’s gut whenever he thought of their work.

“There is no back.”

4. School

Nanako sprawled on her futon, her legs kicking through the air as she flipped through a cooking magazine. Her fingers traced each image as though she were going to replicate them, before she licked her lips and moved onto the next page. Reaching an image she didn’t recognize, she looked up to where Suguru was reclining on a chair, newspaper in hand.

“What’s this?” she asked, staring at him expectantly as she pointed at a picture of a crepe.

“A crepe,” he replied bluntly, skimming the headlines. “You should learn to read it yourself.”

“But that takes too long,” Nanako pouted. She pointed at another image. “What’s this?”

Suguru sighed. “Mochi.”

Mimiko leaned closer, her face all but touching the paper as she tried to read the characters. “Tabe…tabe…”

“That’s almost right,” he praised, glad at least one of the two was trying.

“Lemme see.” Nanako leaned closer, her shoulder pressing against her sister’s, their heads almost bumping. “That looks so weird.”

They were close, so close. He had been that close too, before. In classrooms with Shoko and Satoru, their knees bumping as they poured over fashion magazines and exam mocks. Shoko sighing as she contemplated cheating. Satoru trying to push a porn rag into the pile.

Suguru had massacred an entire village but it was the living that haunted him.

He tightened his jaw and got off the chair. Kneeling next to the girls, he pointed at the katakana next to the picture of the crepe. “Let’s go over this again.”

The two girls quickly rolled next to him, their tiny bodies pressing against his as they followed his finger. His friends were gone but he had these two now. It was enough. It had to be enough.

5. Parents

The door in front of him was as familiar as the back of his hand. Suguru stood in the twilight, watching as the sun painted the wood two different tones. It was easy enough to imagine what was going on behind the door—it was an image he had seen all his life. His parents, resting after dinner, the tv at a low hum as they quietly chatted about the day.

“Where are we?” Mimiko asked nervously, her hand gripping his tightly. Even now, she wasn’t used to the crowds of the city, and she kept peeking back whenever someone passed by.

If Nanako had any such reservations, she didn’t show it. Her eyes were wide as she openly gawked at their surroundings. Tugging his shirt, she asked, “Can we get crepes? And mochi?”

“We’re at my home,” Suguru answered their questions in order. “And later.”

“Your home?” Mimiko repeated, staring at the door now as though she were seeing one for the first time. Even Nanako grew interested, spinning on her heel to face the house.

“Well…” Suguru scratched his chin thoughtfully. “I suppose that won’t be true after today.”

“Why?” Nanako asked, standing on her toes as she tried to peek into the house. “It looks nice.”

“Because I’m living with you now.” It had been a surprisingly easy choice to murder his own parents. He had expected it to be harder. “I thought I should give them one last gift before cutting ties. Even if they are monkeys, they did raise me and love me.”

“Do you love them?” Nanako asked, blunt as ever. Maybe it was the fearlessness of a child. She was still on her toes, craning her neck as she pressed her face against the window. “I see stairs!”

Love. What a simple word. Suguru shrugged. “Once. Maybe even now. But I’m getting rid of all monkeys.” He paused. Perhaps it was love that had him visit them first. This would be a mercy compared to his future plans.

There was no point in delaying this any further. Reaching above Nanako, he rapped the door quickly. His mother had always wanted grandchildren.

Perhaps it was love that led him to this last, filial responsibility.

6.End

“You said you weren’t leaving us!” Nanako shouted, holding Suguru’s right hand tightly.

While Mimiko didn’t say anything, she grabbed his left arm with her whole body, trying to anchor him in their small room. They had been like this since he’d announced he would be taking a short trip, all but dogpiling him into submission.

“I’m not,” he reassured, trying and failing to wiggle his way free. When they first met, they had been too scrawny to try this.

“But you’re going!” Nanako glared.

“To say goodbye,” Suguru clarified, turning his hand awkwardly to pat Mimiko’s arm. She didn’t loosen her restraint either. “I will be back soon.”

“You already said goodbye,” Mimiko finally said, her grip tightening as she stared at him distrustfully.

“That was to my parents. This…” Suguru took a deep breath. Somehow, this hurt more than watching his mother die. “Suguru and Shoko, my friends…I need to say it to them.” The girls opened their mouths and he added, “By myself.”

“Oh.” Mimiko pressed her face against his arm.

“You’re killing them too?” Nanako asked, her grip loosening slightly.

“No!” Suguru immediately barked. He wouldn’t. He couldn’t. When the girls stared at him in surprise, he softly repeated, “No.”

They sat there in silence, simply breathing. Nanako let go of his hand and leaned against him. Mimiko leaned back slightly and asked, “You’ll be back?”

“Yes,” Suguru promised, ruffling first hers, then Nanako’s hair. “This is where I choose to be.”

[lawrenceop]

Parrhesia

HOMILY for 3rd Thu (I) per annum

Heb 10:19-25; Ps 24; Mark 4:21-25

Every morning we gather for Holy Mass, and whenever we receive Holy Communion, we “enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus”, through his flesh, we come before God, the Triune God. It may seem like we receive the Eucharist into our own bodies, and so God comes to us, or that we unite him to ourselves. But recall these words of the Lord recounted by St Augustine, “You will not change me into yourself like bodily food; but you will be changed into me”. The Eucharist, therefore, makes us like Christ, it unites us to him and so he is the Agent, it is Christ who changes us, elevating our relationship with God, so that together with him, “through his flesh”, through this “new and living way” that is the Sacrament of the Eucharist, we can enter into communion with the living God. And we do so with confidence. This word, parrhesia in Greek means, in the words of the Catechism, “straightforward simplicity, filial trust, joyous assurance, humble boldness, the certainty of being loved.” (CCC 2778)

How marvellous it is to ponder again this wonderful and beautiful truth: Because of Christ’s incarnation, and his coming to us in the flesh, in this Sacrament of the Eucharist; because Jesus unites us to himself in this Sacrament, so he has opened for us the way to God, and now we have access to God through him. Baptism into Christ has washed us and purified us of sin so that we can now come before God “in full assurance of faith”, and we come before God as his own beloved sons and daughters, with confidence, with parrhesia. Again, because I think we all need to hear this repeatedly, through Christ and with Christ and in Christ we can come to God with “straightforward simplicity, filial trust, joyous assurance, humble boldness, the certainty of being loved.” 

This certainty, this faith, this assurance of God’s loving mercy and the gifts of his grace to sanctify us and save us from sin is not the same as presumption. But rather, it is the lifting of our eyes and our hearts to God our Father, turning to him with “filial trust” so that we desire more and more to conform our lives to Christ’s, and show by our way of living and acting that we are God’s. As St Ambrose says, “Suddenly you have received the grace of Christ: all your sins have been forgiven. From being a wicked servant you have become a good son… Then raise your eyes to the Father who has begotten you through Baptism, to the Father who has redeemed you through his Son”. For we have been restored to his likeness by grace, and so we must respond to this grace. We respond by drawing near with confidence, with parrhesia, and asking the Father for his gifts, confessing our weaknesses and failings but so remembering our utter need of the Saviour. And “he who promised is faithful”, and so he acts through the Eucharist and the other Sacraments, and through the gift of his Spirit to save us, to change us into himself. We can hope in the promises of Christ. So, in this passage there is reference to the virtues of faith and of hope. 

And finally, in the final sentence there is reference to the virtue charity, to the works of love that we should find among us, within the communion of the Church: “Let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works [and] encouraging one another”. May this reminder from God’s holy Word of what God does for us daily, and may this daily Liturgy and our prayers together, and our fellowship in the refectory and elsewhere increase true charity among us. 

[roseverie]

HANNA; meaning grace

“Everything to which you have lent your enigmatic grace enchants me. You are the suffering that makes happiness contemptible. You are the marvellous Priestess of some faith I do not yet know.”

requested by anon

[002yb]

Runs to you hands you a note that says "dickjay kink praise" and leaves

Alright, so it's to be expected that I've got a strong hankering for Dick praising Jason and Jason being wrecked for it but like. Jason praising Dick? There's something here and like...it's super cute!! Hear me out:

Jason considering how Dick grew up with applause (at the circus) and how there's no such praise for Dick now, only an expectation to do and to do it without err

And it's not like Dick seems to mind, but Jason can't help but wonder if Dick misses it: the wonder, the awe, the reverence.

None of those things are lacking from Dick's life now, necessarily, but he receives them in different ways. More subdued, more conservative.

Gone are words of affirmation and shows of gratitude, replaced instead with implicit trust as heroes and colleagues and friends shift their burdens onto Dick's shoulders because they have an utmost faith that Dick will help them, guide them, save them

No one tells Dick that he does a good job or in what ways he's extraordinary. Maybe it's because heroes value action more than words? Jason isn't sure, but he thinks it might be a shame.

It's a great thing to know you're respected - to see that reflected in people trusting your skills and capabilities. It's wonderful to know you're well-liked - to recognize it in the way people flock to you, drawn in by some sort of gravity.

It's something else entirely to be praised.

It's on a whim that Jason says it. It's some inconsequential day during a patrol break or after a post-patrol debrief; it's out of the blue entirely - on a day where they happen to be in one another's space. Lounging before another grueling night. Or while Jason is dropping off lunch or a duffel of Dick's stuff at the station at Alfred's behest. An inconsequential day at an inconsequential time but Jason is curious and can't shake what a damn shame it is because Dick...

Maybe Dick doesn't want or need the praise, but he works damn hard and tries fucking hard to be good: a beacon to guide the lost, a hope for those that have lost the light.

So Jason considers Dick, marveling him and the way that Dick bears burden and expectation and is so frustratingly graceful despite the thanklessness of it all

(But Jason knows as well as any of them - they don't do all the shit they do for something as paltry as gratitude...though it is nice, sometimes. To be seen. To be acknowledged. To have someone recognize the efforts and sacrifices made).

But praise is - it's hard? So Jason's whim to praise comes out a tongue-tied mess that undermines his usual wit and eloquence, but Jason stands by it despite how the compliment might have been a little too honest and makes Jason's cheeks flush pink: 'you're really inspiring.'

And Dick is caught off guard by it, incredulous until he recognizes the sincerity in the sentiment and Jason startles a bit because Dick smiles and it's so heartrendingly genuine and breathtaking and Jason can't believe how damn devastating it is

Dick is gracious about it even as he ducks his head and carries on doing whatever he was doing. 'Thank you,' Dick tells him and Jason wants to say more. More and more because he thinks Dick needs to hear it; sometimes it's important to hear these things: 'i appreciate you,' and 'i see you,' and 'thank you.'

Also it's only after writing this far that I've remembered that 'kink' was supposed to be part of this, which uh. Whoops. Let this be wholesome praising praise kink.