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If he looked up, Sandalphon would see Lucifer shining above him. Once, he’d done so in awe. Another time, with spite. And yet another, he couldn’t see the primarch at all. But Lucifer was always there, an omnipresence more certain than any celestial body that traced eons in its path.
If the archangels were planets, then Lucifer was the sun they revolved around.
If the archangels were planets, then Sandalphon was not the smallest wink of a star.
He was a stray rock pulled in by an enormous force, helpless to resist until he was too close and the sun’s brilliance swallowed him whole.
Surprisingly, hellish incineration ended up looking far more like an idyllic paradise than Estalucia ever did. Sandalphon had considered his eternal prison preferable to his old home if only because it contained coffee trees.
As usual, his honesty ran late. It was with little doubt that Sandalphon now thought that place was idyllic because it had Lucifer. This world—Estalucia, reality, whatever it wanted to be called because a title didn’t matter anymore —had no such thing.
Sandalphon looked up, and a vast empty sky greeted him while the world weighed down on his back, light as feathers. He’d never experienced the view from the top.
His mind was hazy, the shock of his foundation shattering still fogging his thoughts, but grief didn’t settle into his bones like rage drove his very being. Prayers spilled from his lips without thought tied to them, and if there was life in his voice when he dismissed the girl in blue’s concerns, it was only because of anticipation for what he was going to do.
With wings of lead, Sandalphon flew and drove steel through flesh while relishing the sensation. Just because he was gifted with the primarch’s power did not make him Lucifer. This quiet thought, amidst the anger burning cold under his skin, rung clear in his head as he watched the demon’s body plummet. Lucifer in all his glory was a righteous, far-seeing being that less wore his pure white wings than he embodied them. They felt foreign on Sandalphon’s back.
“A front seat to the action is a voyeurist’s wet dream,” a voice cut into the air. It wasn’t obnoxious, because anyone could make Sandalphon feel the telltale prickles of irritation that used to guide him every moment. The pure and seething loath that crawled across his skin was reserved for vile garbage undeserving of every breath it took.
Sandalphon had yet to make his peace with the sky, but its molecules didn’t deserve to be wasted carrying Belial’s words.
“You’re next,” he replied, succinct and sharp enough to cut. When he lunged however, his swords— Lucifer’s swords, because the weight was still foreign in his hands—were met with air.
Belial whistled in appreciation, and Sandalphon already wanted to sever his head if only to shut him up. “For a newbie you’ve gotten pretty comfortable with sticking it in. No mercy, thrusting relentlessly with reckless abandon, just watching you gets me hot.”
Sandalphon decided he would forgo talking and go right to the thrusting.
Belial dodged yet again.
“I’m all for doing it hard and fast, but I wanna enjoy this moment with you, Sandy. Five minute break before we get down to it?”
His reply was another attempt on Belial’s life, which the other continued to avoid.
“Eager are you? Never woulda pegged you a virgin by your enthusiasm. Getting comfy handling Lucifer’s swords? Tainting them like this?”
It was an endless game of reflexes, Sandalphon appearing and disappearing in bursts of light and Belial jerking and twisting away with a hair between his flesh and a blade. Until Sandalphon froze and the air around him turned frigid.
“Keep his name off your filthy tongue,” he spat, and if words could kill then Belial would be a mess of fleshy ribbons.
The demon only widened his smile, flashed his teeth while his tongue darted out. “That’s it Sandy.”
Suddenly he was close, and Sandalphon hated how he flinched if only a fraction away. He masked it by using this opportunity to drive metal deep into and through Belial’s gut, but the feeling wasn’t nearly as satisfying when the target groaned.
“No prep, just forcing me to stand here and take it before I get a word out.” Belial’s voice was strained, but Sandalphon didn’t linger on whether it was from pain or not. “You’re the kinda guy I can get behind. The blood’s rushing all sorts of places, not just outta my chest.”
“Then bleed to death,” Sandalphon threatened, even when he knew such a mortal cause of death didn’t apply to primals. He jerked his arm back to wrench the blades from Belial’s body, but the demon seized his wrists before he could.
“You’re gonna pull out before I’ve even come? You’re crueller than I thought, Sandy.” Then he forced the swords deeper, an iron grip over Sandalphon’s hands. “I like that.”
Sandalphon’s temper flared .
“Let go of me.”
Some kind of wicked glee lit up Belial’s stare, and there were flavors of manic on his tongue when he revealed, “You’re nothing like Lucifer.”
Sandalphon grit his teeth, and for a moment he didn’t care that Belial would see because he’d thought the same thing himself. He wasn’t Lucifer, he would never be Lucifer, and everyone except Lucifer himself seemed to know that when Sandalphon had been given his powers, his role.
Belial continued on seamlessly however, unperturbed by the nerve he struck and far more engrossed in his own narrative. “You wear anger well. Your predecessor wore a serene face and glazed eyes, but you’ve got a fire he didn’t have.”
A snarl rumbled in his throat, and Sandalphon tried in vain to break free from Belial’s hold if only to extract the blades and drive them in again. But struggle as he may, the demon didn’t budge. His grip trembled, but it wasn’t out of fatigue.
“Do you know what you look like right now?”
Sandalphon only caught a glimpse of Belial’s face before he felt the demon’s breath at his neck.
“ Exquisite, ” Belial managed to whisper onto his skin before Sandalphon pulled his head back, shoving Belial if not completely away then far enough for there to be distance between them. Sandalphon’s wrists were still caught.
“ Ugh that’s it ,” the demon moaned, making Sandalphon want to wretch. “The way you wear your wrath on your face without a thought, how you can’t contain the unbridled rage the builds up inside you, it’s something else.” Belial talked like he was lost in a feverscape, and judging by the flush on his face maybe that was exactly what he was doing. Yet nonetheless, Sandalphon’s persistent efforts to break free were met with no weaker resistance. Belial hadn’t lost his sense of purpose in the slightest.
“You’re flawed Sandy, and that makes you interesting. I bet fucking Lucifer would be a snooze fest, vanilla as hell with nothing to spice it up. Since he was so pristine and righteous, y’think he’d have ever lowered himself to even get hot and heavy with anyone?”
Sandalphon saw red.
It was the color of his livid rage and Belial’s blood as he tightened his grip on the swords and drove them downwards, cutting deeper into the demon’s flesh. The pain made ther vermin falter, and that was enough for Sandalphon to break away.
In an instant, he was back and tearing a new hole in Belial’s body.
“You will never defile his name like this ever again,” he promised as he prepared to finish his opponent for good.
Apparently imminent death wasn’t enough to faze Belial in the slightest.
“The hardest orgasms don’t come from love y’know. It’s the passion that really lets it rip through you ‘til your spine tingles and your toes curl. Passionate love, passionate hate, it’s all passion in the end, and you’ve got so much hate that I’m shaking in excitement.” Belial had that look in his eyes again, a wild glow that still managed to retain a sense of clarity. Like even now, Belial was completely in control of himself and knew just what to do.
“Die.”
Then Sandalphon activated Ain Soph Aur.
It didn’t feel like enough. Even when he watched Belial’s body descend through the sky, so far down that Sandalphon couldn’t even hear the thud of his corpse contacting the ground, his fingers itched to do more. He wanted to tear out the tongue that insulted Lucifer, and personally flay the demon one limb at a time.
But then the sound of feathers sliding through air, treading gracefully through the sky and keeping him afloat, filled the silence that settled once perversities fled.
You’re nothing like Lucifer.
It was disgusting that he would ever agree with a demon.