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“You made yourself hard to find.”
Adam grit his teeth and leaned back. He was rewarded by a layer of grime rubbing off on the black feathers of his already-filthy wings. He forced them to stay there, marinating in the muck, because like fuck was he going to give her the satisfaction of seeing his discomfort.
“Didya stop to think that maybe you weren’t supposed to find me?” he retorted.
She laid a hand on her hip and tilted her head with a curious hum. “That would be poor planning on your part.”
Adam leaned backwards with a dismissive scoff. He was rewarded by something thick and sticky pressing into his wings. A sharp spasm of a grimace seized his face before he slapped that shit aside in favor of his rightful smirk. “The fuck do you mean? I’m doing great.”
“You’re sitting on a pile of garbage, Adam.”
His smirk faded despite his best efforts. He looked down slowly, like if he only gave it enough time, his current perch would be replaced with his absolute throne of a chair in his office, or the couch in his living room, or literally anything else. It would be fucking great if that happened. He’d wake up back in heaven and this entire shitshow would be some fucked up dream. He’d have a halo, his feathers would be gold and only on his wings, and–
He’d be an angel. Worthy. Holy.
The problem with that was that it would be great if it happened. Only shitty things had been happening to Adam lately. Thus, when he looked down, he wasn’t greeted by any of the things that he wanted to say, but the exact pile of garbage that the demon before him had said he’d find. Sort of. It could be called garbage by a prissy bitch’s standards, but…
“Did you hit your head or something? They call this a chair where I come from.”
A chair with suspicious stains, peeling upholstery, a funky musty stink, and an array of garbage bags and broken bottles scattered around it, yes, but a chair. Being that it was a chair, it was an acceptable place for him to sit down without being completely, utterly, and irredeemably demoted to the status of disgusting dirt person. It technically wasn’t garbage, so she didn’t get to judge him.
…It would be easier if she was judging him. He looked into those cat-like purple eyes, so utterly devoid of the loathing that so many associated with the pair of them, and found himself forced to look away in a matter of seconds.
“What are you doing here, Lilith?” he muttered.
“I could ask you the same thing.”
“Isn't that obvious?” Adam met her gaze for the sole purpose of making sure she saw his joyless grin. He spread his arms out wide to gesture to the kingdom of filth and misery surrounding him. “I decided to take a little vacation of my own.”
“To hell?” A wry smile tugged at the corners of Lilith's lips. “That's not the destination I would have expected you to choose.”
It would be easy to say that she was playing dumb, but no. She was too proud of being smart for that. This was some sort of scheme to get information out of him. It wasn't even because she needed information. She was already well fucking aware of what was going on and they both knew it. The bitch wanted to make him admit it himself.
Well, she could keep wanting all she wanted, because it wasn't happening. Lilith may have been clever, but Adam was clever-er. He'd made his way around all her tricky word traps and would make sure this little shitfest of a meeting turned out the way he wanted.
What he wanted probably wasn't possible, but that was beside the fucking point.
“Yeah, well, heaven was all full up. Speaking of heaven…” Adam moved to point at Lilith, only to pull his hand back against his chest when he caught sight of the ugly black talons clinging to the ends of his oddly textured fingers. It was too little, too late. Her eyes followed the motion with such dedication that his scowl couldn’t pull it away.
At least the bitch got a clue when he cleared his voice. That or it had more to do with that horrible fucking look on her face, all soft and thoughtful and fucking…
No. He wasn’t going to think that word. He wasn’t going to say that word. It wasn’t on the table, it wasn’t going to be acknowledged, shit was normal between them, and he sure as fuck didn’t need her… whatever it was that she definitely wasn’t offering.
“What about heaven?” Lilith asked with a damning softness that she hadn’t addressed him since—
No. Fuck that. He was hearing things.
“That’s my line, bitch. What about heaven.” Adam straightened up, only to jerk sharply to the side when his chair lurched beneath him. He clenched his hands around its arms, gross-ass bird talons sinking deep into the disintegrating foam, and yanked it sharply to the side. Once he had it upright, he had to strain to keep it from slumping over again. Fortunately, he did so with an effortless dignity, no matter what Lilith’s small, reluctant smile indicated. “I worked hard to get you those reservations. Is there a reason you decided to spit in my face, or are you being an ungrateful cunt for shits and giggles?”
“Something more important came up.”
Adam scowled. “What the fuck could be more important than rescuing you from damnation?”
“Your lieutenant said that you died.”
Adam lost his grip on his chair. He wasn’t immediately sent tumbling into the garbage before. Oh no, that would be too kind for him. He might stand a chance of salvaging some shred of dignity if it happened like that. The chair tipped over in a matter of seconds, slowly enough for him to try to save himself, but too fast for him to have much of a chance. As he flailed and cursed, those seconds felt like they might as well have been passing in a state of slow-motion high-definition bright-spotlight brilliance that would delight everyone but the poor bastard made to live through it.
A slender hand grabbed his arm and yanked him up before he could fall onto a bed of broken glass.
Adam stumbled as he tried to regain his footing. Footing. He was pretty sure that he still had feet. The things at the ends of bird’s legs were feet, right? It was the sort of thing that people would expect him to know, given his whole history with being there at the beginning of the world, but he honestly didn’t know. He’d probably be able to figure it out if he stopped to examine them, but that would mean looking down and seeing those bird things where his feet were supposed to be, which… fuck that.
It was bad enough that the arm in Lilith’s grasp was coated in a fine layer of feathers. The way she took in all the rest, from the ones woven through hair that was darker than it should have been to the ruff lining his throat to his beady black eyes and ugly talons and sleek, black, wrong wings was already fucked as all shit. If there was something that he could avoid, then he was going to avoid it until the end of time.
Even if ‘something’ ended up being all of him. He didn’t know how he planned on doing that without doing something that he couldn’t quite stomach the thought of yet, but he’d figure something out.
“I knew better, of course,” Lilith said.
Adam yanked his arm out of her grasp with a grumbled, “I don’t need your help.”
“You’re welcome,” she said, sweet and polite in that special way that someone was when they were trying to hide that they were actually a mocking know-it-all bitch. Like there was any point in trying to hide that shit from him. He already knew how much she sucked. She knew how much he kinda sorta maybe sometimes sucked. It was their entire thing.
Then again, it would stop being their thing if they acknowledged it, so. He supposed this was just how they went about their whole little song and dance.
Adam didn’t feel like dancing right now.
“I didn’t ask for your help,” he growled. He tried to step back; keyword being tried. The glass, needles, and who knew what else scattered across the filthy alley ground forced him to step carefully. He didn’t know how hard it was to cut freaky bird maybe-feet, but he didn’t want to find out.
One step. That was how far he got. One goddamn step and Lilith was looking at him like she was getting ready to jump in and save his pathetic ass once again. One step and he stopped, because every option may have sucked, but he was still smart enough to choose the lesser evil.
“You didn’t have to,” she said. “Hell runs on contracts. You helped me, now I’m helping you.”
“Nice, cool, love that. Same question as last time: did you hit your head or drink stupid juice or something? This wasn’t part of our contract, Lilith.”
“No, Adam, it wasn’t.” She took a step forward, elegant heels crunching the glass beneath them easily. Everything about her was elegant and queenly and shit. Adam, meanwhile, was dressed head to toe in rags. “Our contract was that you let me into heaven, and in return—”
“—You don’t need to fucking remind me, I know what I—”
“—I gave you someone to talk to who wouldn’t judge you.”
Adam let out a hissing exhale through clenched teeth. Looking up at the hazy purple-red sky, he said, “It was a shit deal. You always judge me.”
“I judge you for you.”
“I don’t know what you’re implying.”
“I think you do.”
“You’re avoiding the question.”
“I don’t recall you asking a question.”
Adam shot her a narrowed-eyed glare that she met with a genuine smile. “You think you’re so smart.”
“One of us needs to be.”
“Fuck off.”
“I don’t plan on doing that. Disappointing for both of us, I know.”
“If it’s disappointing for both of us, then what the fuck are you doing here?”
“How about this. I’ll answer your question if you answer mine.”
Lilith took a step forward. There was intent behind it, enough so that Adam moved to step back, glass be damned. He didn’t get anywhere close to making an escape before her hand was on his shoulder, anchoring him in place.
He probably could have broken away easily.
That didn’t make an ounce of difference.
A hand on his shoulder did nothing to force him to look at her.
He couldn’t have torn his gaze away no matter how hard she tried.
Soft and relenting, forgiving and damning, Lilith said the thing that they had, without a single word exchanged, agreed to never speak of. "I’m the queen of hell, Adam. I asked for you to break every rule and allow me into heaven. You could have asked me for anything, and for all you know, I would have given it. So why did you ask for my company?”
“I don’t need to answer that,” Adam growled.
He still couldn’t pull away from her.
“Then I don’t need to answer you, either,” she said simply.
Lilith wasn’t judging him. Yet the longer he looked at her, the more he began to suspect that she wasn’t actually pitying him, either. She was…
He didn’t know. He didn’t care. This was dangerous, confusing bullshit that he needed to end sooner rather than later.
“The fuck do you mean when you say that you’re going to help me?” he growled.
“That depends.” She pulled her hand back slowly, brushing her fingers over the feathers on his arm as she did so. She frowned at the way he flinched at the contact. “How would you like me to help you?”
“I don’t want your help.”
Lilith sighed. “No. You want something that isn’t possible.”
If it were anyone else, he would have made some excuse, lie, or whatever else it took to restore his rapidly-degrading dignity. With her, with this, there was no point. She knew him in a way that no one else ever would. They would alway know each other, no matter how much they wished they didn’t, and he…
Was he even himself anymore?
Could Lilith really be said to know him when everything that made him Adam had been torn off and thrown in the trash? She thought she did, but she had always been prone to delusions. What about someone more realistic? If the person who loved him most saw him, would she still see Adam, or would she see just another—
His hands clenched into tight fists. They stopped just short of the point where his talons would have broken the rough flesh, not because of the pain, but on account of the disgusting color he would see if he were to bleed.
“The way I see it. I have two options. I could go back to heaven and tell your lieutenant—”
“No!” Adam snarled.
Irritation flashed across Lilith’s features. It was almost a relief with how long overdue it was. He didn’t like the reason it appeared.
“Did you know that I thought she was heartless?” Lilith asked. “Her reaction to your supposed death was what proved me wrong. She was heartbroken. Unless she learns the truth, I suspect she will stay that way forever.”
Adam shook his head firmly. “No. Fuck that. Lute’s a strong bitch, she’ll move on. But if she finds out that I’m some ugly fucking…”
He trailed off, at a loss for words for the abomination that he had become.
Lilith, crazy bitch that she was, looked at him like he was the crazy one. “You’re a crow sinner, Adam.”
That word. That fucking word. He flinched before he could think to stop himself. When Lilith’s expression softened in a condemning display of understanding sorrow that he’d tear his fucking wings off to forget ever seeing, he did the only thing he could and focused on the other word.
“Fucking garbage bird,” he grumbled.
Lilith let out a huff that, in another, kinder world, could have been described as amused. “Crows are handsome and intelligent. You should be honored that you get to take the form of one and not a dung beetle. It would be more fitting, considering how content you are to bury yourself in bullshit.”
“What the fuck does that—”
“Why do you think she would reject you, Adam?”
“She wouldn’t reject me. She would kill me,” he said with a world-ending certainty that she could never hope to understand.
Lilith looked at him like she really thought she did. “You didn’t see her the way I did. She wouldn’t.”
“I’m not gambling my life on your delusions,” he snarled. As if he was certain that he wanted to keep his life to begin with. As if he wasn’t fucking terrified of what might be waiting ahead of him if he did.
Lilith didn’t need to know about any of that shit. His pride had already been damaged enough without her fucking… doing and feeling whatever she’d do and feel if she knew that shit.
If she didn’t already know.
He didn’t want to know if she already knew.
“Very well,” she said. “In that case, come home with me. You can have the time you need to pull yourself together and come to terms with what has happened. Then, we can go to my daughter and discuss what to do going forward.”
“Fuck that!” Adam spat. “You have lost your mind, right? That’s gotta be it. You need to be completely fucking insane to think I’d—”
“Take the best option you have? Apologize and try to make amends under circumstances where you can retain some degree of dignity?”
“Nice fucking try, but you didn’t mention my third option.” It was worth having to see the gnarly black thing at the end of his finger to point right at her fucking face. “I walk away and we never fucking see each other again.”
It was worth it to see Lilith struggle to restrain the hurt that tried to surface.
It was worth it.
It was.
“You could,” she coolly said. “But someone will see you eventually. Are you willing to leave it up to chance who it will be?”
“I don’t care about hell rabble,” Adam sneered.
“Not even overlords?” she pressed. “You’re a new sinner. Each and every one of them would be stronger than you now.”
“You don’t fucking know—”
“Your face hasn’t changed as much as you seem to think. If someone with a big mouth recognizes you, all of hell could know you’re here within a day. What do you think will happen then?”
“I’ll—”
“You may be lucky enough to be found by someone who won’t wish you harm, but I can only think of a few people who would be merciful and are strong enough to protect you.” She tapped her index finger against her chin. “I wonder how unpleasant it would be if my husband found you. He wouldn’t beat you again, but I doubt he’d be a graceful winner.”
“Don’t you fucking invoke that!” Adam yelped, his wings puffing out behind him.
“Charlie would be kind, but you’ll probably dig a hole for yourself without me there to help you.”
“Why would I be talking to her in the first place!?”
“Of course, neither of them have an especially strong motivation to find you. Your lieutenant doesn’t have any reason to think you’re alive that I know of, but who knows how long that will last. Grief can push people to extremes.”
It wasn’t often that Adam was at a loss for words. He couldn’t help but be in that instant, for the picture that Lilith was painting made it harder for him to do much as breathe.
“You’re wrong about how she’d react, Adam. I’m sorry you can’t see that. Even so…” Lilith paused to look him over once more, still not quite pitying, but growing ever so slowly closer. “Would you want her to find you like this, broken and wallowing in the trash?”
He would have bitten anyone else’s head off for calling him broken.
She knew him too well for there to be any point in trying. He would only be making a fool out of himself by denying.
“What are you trying to get at, Lilith?” he asked. The question came out a little too softly to be the accusation he intended.
“Believe it or not, you haven’t hit rock bottom yet, Adam.” She held her hand out. “Let me help you before you find out what it’s like.”
He couldn’t bring himself to meet Lilith’s eyes for the next two hours after he took her hand.
It wasn’t rock bottom, or the end of the world, or any of the other shit that it could have been if she were anyone else.
They may have refused to answer each other’s questions, but they didn’t need to. Adam knew why Lilith wanted to help him, just as she knew why he had let her into heaven at such a low price.
Both questions had the same answer.