Chapter Text
His flesh seared deep with heat, and he was gradually drowning out in the white noise surrounding him. The blood spilled straight through him into the ridges carved with the floor. He could feel the small brat who stabbed him still on his back, readying for more strikes. The world around him was dissipating. Even so, Lute’s yells for him bellowed out. She rushed to his side despite everything, shoving that blood-thirsty sinner off of him.
Yet, this was it for him. Lute turned him on his back, kneeling over him, not even caring for her own lack of an arm, yelling for him. He couldn’t bear to let her see him go out this way. She’d been the only one to stick around him all this time—willingly, too; his fierce, steadfast, lieutenant. And now here she was, shedding tears over someone like him.
“ADAM!” Lute’s voice cracked in anguish.
Fuck, he really hated seeing her cry.
He couldn’t do a whole lot, but in the wake of it all, he still mustered all of his remaining strength to leave her with the only thing he could. He shot her one last small, reassuring smile which only seemed to break her even more. Even if it hurt like crazy, there was a kind of solace knowing he would die looking at her. He couldn’t fight it anymore, he was forced to welcome an abrupt end.
The light faded, and just as he’d finally accepted his fate, there was no full-stop as he thought there’d be. Rather, the opposite had happened. Though everything had gone black, and it having stayed that way for a bit, there were sensations drifting in.
They were foreign, and heavily contrasting compared to what felt to be moments ago. Every second that passed, they were becoming more filled out. Temperature shifts, muscle contractions, spasms. The switch-ups were becoming exhausting at this rate. Just then, he could make out some sort of touch on his skin. The whiplash of a cold fabric pressured down against where he got impaled. Sounds of shuffling and breaths started flooding in too, and not those of his own either.
To his disbelief, he found himself in a state of living. He was awake and breathing, lying bare-skinned from the top up. The blood was coursing through him, it felt as though it was everywhere, yet somehow contained. No longer was he ground down against the rubble of Hell’s floors. Below him, it was the cushiony soft of a bed instead.
Was any of this even real? He didn’t know.
He jolted upwards, “The fu—” he began, only to be met with the gaping pain in his abdomen that crunched him back down.
“Sir! Don’t move.” Lute’s voice cut through the disorient, firm as always.
“Lute?” Adam winced. “Agh, for fuck’s sake.” His eyes squinted against the change in atmosphere. They were in Heaven again, in his quarter.
“Is this real…?” He trailed off.
Lute was hunched over him, pressing down layers of damp cloth pads against his open wound. The pulsing was taunting, and yet it was mostly leveled from the back, only caving into the pit of his stomach now. She likely had already handled the piercing point, to which admittedly felt the pang of guilt biting him for. The very fact that he couldn’t handle these things himself made him feel like a total wimp.
“Yes, it is,” she affirmed.
“Uh-huh.” He said offhandedly, still trying to process what had happened between the time he collapsed and now. “There’s no way I almost died from that.” He started, struggling to prop himself up on his elbows. It stung to continue talking, but he couldn’t shut his own boasting up if he tried. “If it weren’t for that chump Lucifer, I swear I would’ve rocked that shit-hole upside down by now.”
“You did what you could, sir,” Lute replied sternly, before picking up again with a low-toned threat through the teeth. “They’ll regret ever trying to claim victory over us next time.”
If anything satisfied him most, it was a response like that. Lute always knew exactly what to say when it came to battle-talk.
He turned all smug. “Oh you bet they will.”
Still, the reminder of bringing back a result of ‘loss’ to Heaven against the pricks he sworn to attack mercilessly against nagged at him.
The silence that settled after made him weirdly tense. Usually he’d find a way to further ramble on about some stupid shit by now. But watching the intensity in Lute’s expression with her precision to him was unsettling. He hated how he couldn’t get why she insisted in caring like this. If she were Lilith or even Eve, he highly doubted either one of them would’ve struggled this hard to keep him alive. They’d get all weepy or dramatic, sure, more-so Eve than Lilith, but that’d be about it. Despite being Lute’s commander for centuries he had never seen her so tainted with concern when it came to him. Or maybe, he just hadn’t picked up on it in the past, all the worse.
Through a cope, he laughed lightly. “Didn’t realize you could be so damn worked up over me, Dangertits.”
She raised a brow and her hand pressed into the cloth pads against his skin harsher.
“Ow, quit it bitch! I didn’t mean it like that!” He recoiled at the sudden hurt intensity, though he saw it coming. Truthfully, he definitely did mean it like that.
“Right,” she spoke, rolling her eyes though easing off on him anyway. She took ahold of a gauze roll from the bedside table, welding it down on him. “You’re lucky we’re angels, meaning divine healing.” She lifted herself up off the mattress, hand rested on her waist as she scanned over her job. “This could’ve needed stitches otherwise.”
“Yeah, yeah, I get it. Don’t rub it in.” As he watched her, he still couldn’t shake off that powerless feeling. What made it even worse was knowing that Lute had done all this with one arm.
“This should suffice for now, but you need rest,” she proclaimed, setting aside the equipment. And yet, as she turned to face again, wholly seeing him rather than just the reddened depths of his injury, she paused and lingered a stare. It was like a fusion of poorly concealed worry and fluster.
“The hell’s that look for?” Adam broke out finally.
Lute turned her back seemingly trying to get out of view as soon as possible.“Nothing. I’ll be back in the morning.” She shut the bedside light off and made her way to the door.
Adam still sulked in hefty amounts of regret in the inability to be that indestructible leader he always boasted about. On top of that, he had to take that blow falling in the arm of his lieutenant. As much as he tried to hold his tongue, and just knock himself out already, he couldn’t. “Look, did you really have to—”
She halted. An “I had to,” snapped back almost instantly. “A retreat was our only option at that point. I— We couldn’t risk your loss. Goodnight now, sir.”
“Uh, wait, Lute.”
In all honesty, he didn’t really get why he stopped her again, but he went on anyway. “Can you uh… like, y’know.” His own sense pride was butting him in the head.
She stood still, waiting for a real request to be spat out.
He groaned, “Just… stay, alright? This is humiliating enough as it is.”
He could hear her gradually shifting back around, stepping towards him. What made it worse is that he couldn’t see the look on her face in the dark to try and guess how she’d react.
“There’s only one bed per quarter,” she noted.
“Yeah no shit! I’m not fuckin’ asking you to sleep on the floor.” He slumped back down, as it sunk it what he’d really been asking this whole time. “Oh, crap.”
Feeling like he’d just been caught in headlights, he struggled to find an excuse, failing miserably.
There was a sigh from Lute. And right when Adam thought he’d be hearing a door shut behind her, what followed instead were the sounds of sudden movements and a drawer being pulled open. Finally, “Put this on,” she demanded, tossing him a loose T-shirt.
Adam barely caught on to it, still resisting the strain from his gut. He was pretty damn lost on what Lute was planning. Though he was more so dumbfounded by how convinced he was that she would’ve brushed him off by now and left but, didn’t. Before he knew it, she’d ditched all her defense gear, and was drawn up close right beside him.
Shit. He knew Lute was bold on the battlefield but, not in this way too. She really just went for it. Admittedly, that and her sudden closeness was ruining him all the more so.
“Whatever you do, don’t pull any bullshit,” Lute warned.
“Oh c’mon, I’m not that much of a dud.” He managed, restoring his snark even through it all. “Besides, it’s not like I have enough damn strength to do anything right now, which totally blows by the way.”
“Are you saying you would if you did?”
“Uh…” Boy, if anyone knew how to shut him up it was Lute.
“Goodnight, Adam.”
He could’ve sworn he felt her smile. Since when was he even paying attention to corny shit like this anyways? He hadn’t been like that since Eden. From then, he’d been under impression that he’d always be resorting to a life of meaningless flings with groupies after being kicked out. Falling hard for his lieutenant was the last thing he expected. Or maybe it was only now that he came to face with those feelings.