Chapter Text
The creak of the elevator as its skimmed up its vertical cavern was as distinct as ever; its muted screech of metal as moving gears pushed the box up and up was somehow no louder than usual even as it housed two travelers instead of the usual one. Alice considered, even, that maybe it was trying to be quieter in polite company.
And oh how nice was it to have such company.
To Alice Angel’s right stood a woman shorter than she- or maybe she was taller than the height Susie used to be when she was human. The seraph supposed it didn’t matter. An old life discarded entirely as Susie became Alice to persist through an existence of suffering; she had survived and evolved into something that could withstand the harsh winter of immortality.
But had she thrived?
Alice refused to let the mortal notice her staring, but it didn’t seem to be so difficult of a task. Francine was gazing forward with half-lidded- almost dreamy eyes- with the shadow of the elevator’s bars slowly rolling over her face and making her eyes glisten in the dark. They made Alice’s perfect eye shine, too, as her mind began to swim in the depths of beautiful mortality. The intruder had everything she wanted, everything Alice knew she deserved.
It was a magnificent, bittersweet pain to see someone with everything Alice ever wanted for herself.
Here it was, and she couldn’t have any of it.
…And yet she could have it all-
A strange hope was thrown aside as soon as its bubbling warmth crept into the angel’s heart, like taking a pot off the stove just as water began to boil. She didn’t know what she had meant by that, and yet it made her feel so much…and so it was terrifying.
So wonderfully terrifying.
If Francine had been watching back, she would have noticed her heavenly companion shift in discomfort as the mortal began to reach into the bag by her side and pull out a tube of pink lipstick. What a silly thing to do down here- to put attention into appearances where they seemed to matter none.
The thick blade of color lingered over her lips as the woman waited for the ride to end and for another peril to begin. They were safe- doubtlessly safe- for just a moment longer, and so this is how she chose to spend precious time. Alice noticed the way it got stuck on the middle of her mouth, that slight bump that the tube had to stretch in order to finally surpass and continue its glide to the corner of her lips-
Again- she let herself think about it again. But how could she help it? As light and dark took turns dancing on their faces as they ascended to cloud nine, the angel was helpless but to allow her inky heart to flutter in tandem- feathered wings of a dove soaring into complete and utter…elation? Delight? Fear?
And this feeling flew away as the elevator door opened, their cage releasing the women into a world unforgiving of the perfection they had.
Perfection amid the imperfect- Alice had always noted- brought wrath worthy of hell. And certainly, the demon and his minions had made it feel like such.
And now there was someone else to partake in this wonderful misery with. Francine somehow scraped into this inky purgatory with no damage to her marvelous humanity; a pristine flower merely stained with drops of ink where every other intruder had either their petals torn to shreds or for them to be poisoned until the black twisted through their veins…cursed to never wither, even if they wanted to.
Alice knew this, and so instead of allowing herself to crave for the rosy red that once flushed her skin, painted her lips, and coursed through her body, she embraced the ivory and sketched details of the toon she once voiced.
To be Alice, she knew, was to survive.
But again, did she thrive?
Francine had mindlessly dropped the lipstick back where she found it and oddly forgot the bag itself as she bravely stepped forward to face a life cruel to those who had the gall to stand up to its horrors. It made Alice’s expression soften, strands of shiny black hair falling over her shoulder and crossing over her face as a slight upturn of the chin accompanied a growing sense of understanding.
She knew oh so very well that it wasn’t appearances Francine cared about but her sense of humanity, of purpose, and of identity. Alice grasped this because she herself hoped for the same.
And so while Francine’s back was turned as she so boldly tried to embrace life amid everlasting death, Alice reached into the bag for the very same lipstick, twisted off the cap, and brought the woman’s pink to her own black lips and shredded flesh.
It touched them ever so gently, ever so lovingly, and Alice didn’t want to admit that she couldn’t say why it made her feel just a little bit more beautiful than she was before.