Work Text:
1.
In the year 1320 AD, Dante Alighieri, an exiled poet from Florence, completes his greatest opus, the Divine Comedy.
He describes Hell, rather vividly, as some sort of funnel made of concentric nine circles; each ring increasing in sheer wickedness, culminating at the very centre of the Earth, where Satan lies bound by freezing ice.
The depiction is very rich and intense, and no doubt used to strike fear into the hearts of sinners back in the merry days of the Middle Ages, but it does have one, little flaw.
It’s completely, and utterly, wrong.
There are no circles in Hell; no wretched wrongdoers entombed for eternity in flaming sepulchres, no vile outlaws baptised in boiling blood for their earthly sins. There are no hybrid monsters that rove the barren plains – no monsters at all, apart from those that the condemned souls make for themselves. And the Devil? The Devil is free to roam as he pleases, for no ice can bind him in his own kingdom.
No, Hell looks nothing like a gaping, condemning funnel; if anything, it carries a striking resemblance to some deviant 19th-century mental institution, with its rattling doors, bound in rusty chains.
So, Dante is wrong – very wrong – but he does manage to get one thing right, and this little thing dampens the Devil’s spirits and sours his days – for Hell reeks to high heavens of sulphur.
*
Once, long before the first errant soul was thrown into its pits, Hell was riddled with rivers and pools and lakes, all overflowing and snaking around the terrain in muddy serpentines. And they were born not of the nature of the underworld, but rather of the deity that governed it; for after the archangel of light fell from the heavens and hit the ground as a burning ball of scorching fire, the earth shook and bled and vomited brimstone on the wretched soil. And as the angel cried, so did the earth.
It didn’t take long for the first demons to rise from the very foul bowels of Hell and climb from the lakes of sulphur to serve their reluctant master; it didn’t take long for the dead souls to huddle at the brinks of the rancid rivers in anticipation of their punishment – and so, Hell had to be remodelled.
The first doors grew like toxic weeds from the sickly ground; columns rose from the depths of the rivers and lakes. Hell now had a new face.
*
Hell has no rivers; not any more.
The sweltering pools of sulphur are long gone, but the wretched stench remains.
2.
The first thing that greets him as he enters the precinct on a Tuesday morning in early November is the distinct, sour-sweet smell of citrus fruit. The sharp scent hangs in the air, heavy and pleasant, engulfing the entire floor in the unmistakable aroma of a thousand orchards.
Lucifer sniffs the air carefully and tries to locate the source of the delectable smell as he goes down the stairs. After a quick survey of the room, his wandering gaze lands on his partner’s desk and hits the jackpot.
The detective sits in front of her computer, her nose practically touching the screen in her intense reading; a few tangerine slices lie in wait to be eaten on a napkin by the black computer mouse. Lucifer can see that whatever she’s reading has her undivided attention, so much so that she doesn’t even notice him until he’s standing before her.
“Hi, Lucifer,” she smiles when she lifts her eyes from the screen at his throat clearing, “come, pull up a chair and help me look through this site. Our suspect claims to work for this company, and their employee's list is as long as my arm.”
Lucifer lowers himself unto a revolving chair and slides closer to the Detective. Some lovely smelling peels are sulking at the bottom of the tiny waste bin by the desk; his eyes move to the juicy slices soaking the napkin. He takes a deep, sucking breath and leans forward.
“Oh, I think I found him!” the detective exclaims suddenly, and reaches for her little orange note stickers, “let me just write down the address, and we can go.”
She moves past him to grab a pen from the hideous pencil cup she keeps on her desk, and Lucifer gasps unbiddenly. She looks at him inquisitively, but his eyes are locked unto the half-eaten fruit on the table.
The smell of fresh tangerines sticks to her fingertips – heady and sweet, as thick as custard and just as luscious.
The detective follows Lucifer’s eyes and looks at her desk. After a moment, she nods in understanding and dives for her bag, rummaging through it with great purpose. A few seconds later, with a look of triumph on her lovely face, she pulls out a fresh tangerine.
“Would you like it?” she asks, offering him the citrus, “as you see, I already ate one.”
The irony of the gesture – her offering him, the Devil, a fruit - is not lost on him when she smiles and winks, no doubt enjoying this situation.
He takes the tangerine without answering, and brings it close to his nose, breathing in voraciously. Chloe’s eyes widen at the display.
“Aren’t you going to eat it?” she asks quietly after a few moments, looking at him in interest.
Lucifer takes another assuasive breath and closes his eyes. Vast orchards full of heavy orange trees sprawl before him, disappearing into the blue horizon.
“No, darling,” he says softly, and gives the bewildered Detective her fruit back, “I just like the way it smells.”
The scent of fresh tangerine sticks to his fingertips – heady and sweet – and lingers for the remainder of the day.
3.
“Is there any place or time in the past you’d return to?” she asks him quite suddenly one day as they sit in her kitchen, going through a particularly arduous pile of paperwork from their recent case.
She’d sometimes do this – ask him this sort of questions out of the blue; her curiosity regarding his extensive life overpowering her work ethics.
“Judea, first century BCE,” he answers promptly, without hesitation, “before the Romans had the chance to sink their dirty hooks into it.”
She stares at him, unblinking, and seems rather surprised at his swift response.
“Why?” comes the intrigued inquiry, and he almost smiles at how eagerly she leans in to catch the reply, her elbows propped on the cold counter.
He doesn’t have to close his eyes to imagine the green mounds of the Judean Hills, cascading towards the fertile plains, laden with fig and olive trees, and adorned with garlands of grape vines.
Could he tell her about the colonnades of palm trees, overflowing with ripe dates? The balsam groves, the oil that smelled sweeter than honey and cost more than gold? Could he tell her of the oil presses, and of the loveliest apples he ever tasted?
He looks at her eager face, at her bright eyes; those days are long gone, replaced forever by progress and industry.
“It smelled nice,” he says instead, and shrugs.
4.
They start dating sometime in June, once the fear of rejection – on both ends – evaporates into the air under the lurking shadow of death. An arrest goes wrong – Lucifer is somehow too far behind – and by the time he reaches the Detective’s side, the damage’s been done; a crimson stain, the colour of his Hellish eyes, blooms above her navel. She spends hours in surgery, then sleeps for a day. He tells her he loves her the minute she opens her eyes; her groggy smile is brighter than all his stars put together.
Their first steps towards a steady relationship are somewhat wobbly, but after a few falls, some bumps and bruises along the way, they hit the ground running and get on with it. They go on dates, solve murders, somehow avoid being sickeningly adorable, and shag like the world is about to end.
All in all, Lucifer thinks as they fall into bed, overcome with unbridled need, they are the perfect couple.
Later, once the arid thirst is quenched and satisfied, the lovers find themselves in the spacious bathroom in his penthouse, leaning lazily against the double sink. Chloe is brushing her teeth, Lucifer removes the eyeliner from his eyes; soon they will turn off the lights and the night air will be filled with soft voices and gentle laughter.
Chloe rinses her mouth and raises her head to frown at her reflection in the mirror when something behind her catches her eye.
She turns on her heels and heads towards the shelves that hang by the door.
“Lucifer?” she calls out to him, and he hums in response as he washes his face, “why do you need so many colognes? You can’t possibly be using all of them.”
He doesn’t lift his head from the sink; water drips down his face and neck, trickling all the way down to his naked chest. The smell of brimstone still rots in his nostrils, seared into his sensorial memory like an iron brand.
Sometimes, the smell is so pungent – so real - that he thinks he’s dreaming; he imagines he’ll wake up any moment and find himself sitting on his iron throne in his wretched kingdom, governed by fumes of everlasting stench. Sometimes, he wakes up in the middle of the night, drenched in cold sweat, to the stink of rotting eggs and standing water. And sometimes - when it’s really bad - he can’t breathe, and he feels like the air is being sucked out of his body, and he’s gagging on ash.
He can’t tell Chloe any of this, of course; she must never know that his struggles to be free from his father’s chains did not end with his abandoning his Infernal home. She must never know that he can still hear the anguished cries of the damned and catch the battle drums, or the forging of the hellish blades deep in the pits of perdition. He will never tarnish her soul with the knowledge that he still breathes Hell wherever he goes.
Lucifer straightens and turns around, resisting the urge to retch as the stench of sulphur flares around him.
“it’s decadence at its best, darling,” he says instead, and smiles seductively at her, “I have so much money, why shouldn’t I enjoy myself?”
He’s not lying – not really – he owns so many bottles of cologne because he enjoys how good they smell when everything around him stinks of damnation.
Chloe gives him a good-natured eye roll and turns to pick one of the bottles up; it’s a tall, elongated phial of a bluish tint. Issey Miyake Summer Glimmer for Men. He bought it on a whim back when he first arrived because it reminded him of the ocean. Chloe brings it to her nose and inhales deeply, humming in appreciation.
“I love this one,” she sighs and returns the bottle to its rightful place, “wear it more often?”
He smiles at her as she throws her arms around his neck and presses her torso to his. His blood sings in his veins at her warmth, and he tightens his arms around her.
“Whatever you desire, Chloe,” he mutters softly, and her eyes light up. She kisses him soundly and buries her fingers in his curls.
He wears nothing else from that day forth.
5.
The first thing he hears when he wakes up with the late morning sun in his face is the sound of her humming. He crawls out of bed quietly so as not to disturb her, like a lithe hunter stalking his prey, and stands in the doorway to his bedchamber, appreciating the view.
She’s leaning on the bar, dressed in one of his shirts, her thighs deliciously bare to his admiring eyes as she does the crossword puzzle in the Sunday paper, humming a familiar tune under her breath.
He pounces then, his arms tugging her flush against him, the shirt she’s wearing bunching up in the process, and he feels the warm skin of her bare bottom against his thighs. She giggles in startled delight as he buries his nose in her hair and gulps the clean, pure scent of her into his filthy lungs.
She smells chaste, untouched, as fertile as the earth – like a sacrifice to a heathen God or a medieval bride on the night of her nuptials; she’s unsullied by sin, the scent of her skin as rich as honey, and twice as sweet.
“You smell so clean,” he mutters into her neck, quite overcome by this woman in his arms. Satan, bested by a mortal woman; who would have thought.
She whirls around in his arms, and takes his face into her soft hands, and kisses his parted lips.
“You have a thing about smells,” she says, regarding him with kind, inquisitive eyes, “don’t you?”
Sulphur lingers in his nose and coats the back of his throat; the pull of her skin and her clean scent is too hard to resist. He buries his nose in the crook of her neck and inhales greedily.
“I have a thing about you,” he murmurs against her skin and tastes sunshine.
+1
In the year 1320 AD, Dante Alighieri, an exiled poet from Florence, completes his greatest opus, the Divine Comedy.
He describes Heaven, rather vividly, as a magnificent circle, made of nine Celestial spheres; each increasing in goodness, culminating above the earthly planes in the Empyrean, where God reigns eternal.
The depiction is very rich and intense, and no doubt used to assuage the souls of the righteous back in the merry days of the Middle Ages, but it does have one, little flaw.
It’s completely, and utterly, wrong.
There are no spheres in Heaven; no harp-playing angels flying about the place, no division between the souls that spent their living days free of gut-wrenching guilt. God is not made of three circles that represent the Holy Trinity, and Christ? Christ was just a man who was trying to change the musty ways of an ancient religion.
No, Heaven looks nothing like a large circle in the skies with angels reaching towards God with open arms and splayed wings. If anything; it reminds the beholder of the Last Homely Home, with its silver walls and arching halls, and flowing streams. Greyish mist rises over the softly gurgling waters, light- everlasting shines upon the ancient stones.
They must have added some yoga classes by now.
So, Dante is wrong – very wrong – but he does manage to get one thing across quite well; Heaven reeks of myrrh and frankincense and servitude.
Lucifer would rather choke on Brimstone.