Chapter Text
The last thing Lucifer Morningstar saw was the wailing face of his little girl, Charlie. Except, that wasn’t quite right, was it? She wasn’t so little now, was she? No. Somewhere in a time outside his reach, she’d grown into a fine woman. And with the holy sword burning him to ashes from the inside out, she’d soon become queen.
She’d make a wonderful ruler of Hell, better than he ever was.
He wasn’t worried for her. His fellow Sins would take care of her, as would her girlfriend and the friends she’d made at the Hazbin Hotel.
For the second time in his long millennia of life, Lucifer felt himself burn. But this time, he smiled as his world faded to black.
* * *
Lucifer felt himself floating in the endless sea of the abyss, his body weightless and formless.
He was sensationless; bereft of a physical body, but at least that meant he could no longer feel pain. He couldn’t hear anything either. There was no sound in this space, even his thoughts were muffled.
Lucifer’s eyes reflected the stars and the universes beyond them. Those little balls of gas and land he’d put in the vast space, decorating the night sky just as his dad had asked him to. His first creation, and the one he never saw again after his Fall.
They were as beautiful as he remembered them to be.
For a moment that could’ve been an eternity, his thoughts drifted away into those stars and the grand size of the universe, so utterly incomprehensible to mortal souls.
Absolute peace.
That was, until those thoughts that were so quiet before began to grow louder and louder, until he could ignore them no longer.
So much sorrow. So many regrets.
Was he really okay with leaving things as they were?
He’d made his choices, hadn’t he?
He could’ve made better ones.
He wanted to make better ones.
He didn’t want this to be the end.
He refused to let this be the end.
And so, he struggled in the abyss. Kicking and twisting. Flailing to grasp onto anything despite his lack of a body. Of a form. Of sensation itself.
Still, he fought. He pushed himself to keep fighting. To keep up the assault until whatever was keeping him here yielded.
He didn’t know how long he spent struggling. It could’ve been seconds, it could’ve been an eternity.
And then, he felt it. Just barely, but it was there.
The sensation of the very tips of his nails grazing along something.
Lucifer hooked his claws into it, digging his fingers and holding on with a vice grip.
Whatever it was lashed back at him, warning him of the consequences of his actions. That there would be a cost to tampering with time itself.
But he didn’t listen. He didn’t care.
For them, no cost was too great.
His nails dug in deeper, his very being straining at the seams to pull and pull and pull.
Ripping apart the fabric of time and space itself.
But he couldn’t do anything more.
He managed to open a hole, but he didn’t have the strength to pull himself through, and the hole was rapidly closing.
No no no-
He couldn’t lose this chance-
He needed to protect them-
He-
There was a push against his back, and then Lucifer was falling through the hole he’d torn open.
Tumbling back into the past.
The last thing he heard was familiar, faint whispering.
“Go with my blessing, my morningstar.”
Lucifer jolted up with a gasp.
* * *
Lucifer got a grasp of where -when?- he’d landed soon enough, and it hadn’t exactly been a pleasant discovery.
He landed right in the middle of his messy divorce with Lilith. Just a few days after she declared him a worthless coward and a pathetic excuse of a king, and then told him she wanted nothing to do with him any longer.
This is what it comes to, after several millennia of marriage.
Well, not that Lucifer was particularly surprised. And not just because of the time travel thing, no. The truth was that, deep down, he always knew his marriage with Lilith was falling apart.
Yes yes, a real shocker. Even he could admit that he was one hell of a ditz, with his head in the clouds even on the best of his days. He couldn’t pick up social cues to save his life and he was awful with names.
However, not even he would miss cues from someone who’s been with him for actual centuries.
The unease started a few hundred years after their Fall, when he noticed Lilith spending more time managing the sinners and less time with him. Sometimes, their one interaction in weeks would be just before Lilith came to bed, where she would spend a few minutes exhaustedly recounting her day and then falling asleep before Lucifer could have a proper conversation with her.
At first, it was easy to dismiss his concerns and make excuses for her. Their population was growing, so of course she’d be busier. But once the hierarchy in Pentagram city stabilized, everything would return to normal, right?
Wrong.
Things didn’t return to normal. It only got worse.
Lilith became short and snippy with him, like she couldn’t be bothered. What had once been delighted smiles and laughs at his jokes and inventions and music turned into dismissive eyerolls and sneers. She began to criticize him, telling him that he needed to behave as befitting his status as the King of Hell. She asked him to dress in the clothes she’d picked out. She pushed him to attend important events with her despite his discomfort. She kept reminding him to act a certain way. Talk a certain way. Stand a certain way. Sit a certain way. So many rules of etiquette that’d been so difficult to follow, and yet he tried to anyway, because that’s what you do for your loved ones.
Lilith’s behaviour switched between cold and hot, harsh and soft. When he listened to her, she hugged him, complimented him, made him feel like he was on top of the world. But when he made a mistake or tried to refuse her, she’d give him such a harsh glare and frown, looking so disappointed in him that he’d immediately scramble to do whatever it was that she wanted. Anything as long as she stopped looking at him like that.
Like she didn’t love him anymore.
And that had been the crux of the matter, really.
She made him feel small and insignificant. She made him uncomfortable with her insistent demands disguised as ‘requests’. She made him heal more bruises and cuts than he’d ever had to in millions of years.
His family; the other Sins, did everything to convince him to cut her off before it was too late. They told him that she’d destroy him and break him to pieces. Asmodeus pleaded to him about how Lilith was making him reek of the horrible, rotten excuse of love and lust that went against his nature. Belzebub told him that he was always welcome in her Ring, and that he could stay for as long as he needed. Belphegor gave him concerned looks and tired sighs when her trained eyes scanned over his body, leaving him with medicine and herbs that he insisted he didn’t need. Leviathan gifted him the soft and colourful clothes that Lilith deemed unsuitable and threw away. Mammon tossed him more money than he’d ever given to another creature in Hell. Even Satan, the Sin he’d had the most friction with, set aside his animosity to sincerely ask him to just listen to them.
It became more and more difficult to deny what Lilith was doing to him. His self-esteem, anxiety and depression got worse and worse. His periods of dissociation and daydreaming grew longer and longer. His little moments of genuine cheer and happiness grew less and less frequent.
And yet, that hadn’t been enough.
None of it had been enough.
None of it could outweigh the fear of losing the one person he loved the most. The one person who shared his memories of Eden and the pain of the Fall. The one person who’d seen him at his worst, yet still took care of him and stayed with him.
The one person he’d given up everything for.
If he lost her, then wouldn’t it have meant that all the pain he went through was for nothing?
The longer it continued, the more that fear grew, and the harder he clung onto that lifeline.
But deep down, he already knew. He always knew.
Somewhere in those thousand years, he’d lost the woman he loved. He spent the next thousand years chasing after her ghost.
Having Charlie was his final desperate plea to save their marriage, but in hindsight, it was apparent that she’d just been the final nail to its coffin. He’d never regret having her, but she was never going to be the thing that brought them together again.
He’d always love Lilith.
But the person before him now was not the same woman he’d fallen in love with so long ago in that garden.
It just took him nearly two lifetimes to realize that.
And now, he was right back here. Right back at the moment Lilith had taken one look at his fragile state, and then proceeded to smash him into so many pieces that, even thousands of years later, he still hadn’t quite managed to piece himself all the way back together.
But things were different now.
He had a lifetime to process everything Lilith did to him, and what kind of woman was in front of him.
And he’s had enough.
* * *
The proceedings were still just as painful as last time. Time travel didn’t make it hurt any less, but at least it went by quicker since he knew what to do now.
Lilith Morningstar was to be stripped of her title as the Queen of Hell and the privileges that came with it. Lucifer would no longer hold any obligations towards her, and neither would the other Sins, but she would still be free to enter their Rings. Lucifer wasn’t sure that was actually a boon, considering how his siblings were all but frothing at the mouth to rip her to shreds.
He didn’t really care. He knew she wasn’t going to any of them anyway.
The biggest hurdle was the division of resources.
Or rather, just one specific resource.
Lucifer didn’t care about the money, the staff or even the palace. A compounding interest rate over a timespan of millennia meant that he genuinely had more money than he knew what to do with or was capable of spending. LiIith could take more than half if she wanted to and it wouldn’t do anything to him. Hell, she could take all of it and it still wouldn’t do anything to him because he had the power of motherfucking creation. He could just make whatever shit she took from him right back.
No no no. The real conflict was custody over Charlotte Morningstar. His little Charlie.
Just like last time, Lilith wanted full custody of her, with Lucifer getting the bare minimum of visitation rights and the ability to make phone calls.
The way she said it was just the same as last time too. With that sweet, honeyed tone contrasting with the words she was actually saying, calling him a pitiful excuse of a ruler and an inadequate father that Charlie didn’t need. She spoke as if this was a kindness she was bestowing upon him, that he should be grateful to have this much.
And he’d fallen for it once.
So completely beaten down and exhausted that he’d accepted her terms, despite everything in his soul screaming at him not to let his precious baby girl go.
Well, he wasn’t going to be ignoring his gut feeling anymore, and this time, he even had ammo.
It happened during one of their shouting matches, which was actually something unique to this timeline. In the first one, Lilith had always gotten her way. She’d snuffed out his fire so he wouldn’t fight back. But here? Ohoho, that fire was back and blazing. Lucifer was practically reveling in Lilith’s stunned expression, she probably never expected him to actually fight back.
They were arguing about the yearly Extermination again. Lilith seemed to love using this topic as an argument as to why her husband was a horrible person.
“They’re still our people! I’m a sinner too, what about me?!”
“What about you? What about you?! What about our daughter?!” Lucifer felt his temper flare, flames licking along his cheeks as he yelled. He stood up, his eyes turning a glowing blood red as his horns sprouted from his forehead.
“She’s a Hellborn, Lilith! She didn’t ask to be here, just like every other Hellborn! If I didn’t accept their terms, they would’ve gone after her without a second thought! For fucks sake, she’s just a baby, Lilith! Our baby! I would’ve gladly given my life to Heaven if it meant protecting her, what is wrong with you that you’re thinking of yourself right now and not her?!”
Lilith stood her ground, glaring at him defiantly just like she always did, but he could see the cracks. The sweat running down her face and her hands shaking by her sides.
She could deny his words and claim her love for Charlie all she wanted, but Lucifer knew exactly which one of them had dived in front of a holy sword for their daughter, and it certainly hadn’t been her.
Lucifer growled.
“I am not going to let you put our daughter’s life in danger for your rebellion against Heaven.”
Never again.
An infant Charlie was shoved into Lucifer’s arms by a furious Lilith. He cradled her close to his chest as he watched his ex-wife storm out of the palace in an absolutely livid state, taking most of their gold and palace staff with her.
The door slammed shut with a deafening bang, leaving the father-daughter duo in complete silence.
Lucifer stood there, frozen for one moment, then two.
And then, like a puppet cut from its strings, he collapsed on his knees, gasping for air with tears leaking from his eyes.
He-
He did it.
He actually did it.
He managed to wrestle Charlie away from her.
He managed to change the future.
It was possible.
Lucifer’s gasps turned into giggling, and then a laughter full of utter relief and euphoria.
Despite the way he stood up against Lilith, the fact was that you couldn’t shake off several centuries' worth of conditioning so easily, not even through death apparently. It’d been a constant battle to push down the overpowering fear he felt in her presence and not give in to her demands. He only barely made it through sheer bravado and righteous fury towards Lilith for everything she’s done, as well as a clawing vice grip on his knowledge of the future and the reason he even came back in the first place.
He looked down at the baby in his arms.
Porcelain white skin, rosy red cheeks and a bob of golden hair.
At her father’s attention, her eyes lit up. She giggled and cooed, giving him a gummy smile as she stretched her hands up towards him.
Lucifer’s expression softened. He lifted her up to eye-level, nuzzling his forehead with hers as she squealed in delight.
His baby. His daughter. His precious Charlie.
Smiling at him with such adoration and innocence, so utterly clueless on the family drama that just transpired right in front of her, as well as the pains and struggles in the previous timeline. The thought made his hold around her tighten.
“Don’t worry,” He swore, “Things will be different this time, I promise.”
Never again would his daughter doubt how much he loved her. Never again would their people doubt her place as the princess of Hell.
“I love you, Charlotte.”
* * *
Okay. Lucifer now had official confirmation that he could actually change events in the timeline and that this wasn’t some sadistic Hell 2.0 from the Man Upstairs.
(And thank fucking everything for that, because if it turned out that this was actually just another punishment where he’d be forced to watch and be unable to act, Lucifer might’ve actually gone insane and self-implode. And then actually explode as a massive holy nuke that would’ve taken out just about all of Hell, as well as part of Heaven and Earth, destabilizing the balance enough that all three realms would be taken out alongside him.)
(Yikes.)
Ahem.
Anyway, it was time to start planning. Which…wasn’t something Lucifer was actually all too good at.
Uh oh.
Well, one comfort he could take was that he’d had a good headstart.
Aware of how forgetful he was, the first thing the fallen angel had done was write down everything he could remember from the previous timeline into a special notebook, conjured specifically for this purpose. The numerous spells interwoven into its pages ensured that nobody but him, not even Charlie or the other Sins, could open it. It was also spellbinded to check if Lucifer was in any kind of non-lucid state, so even if someone tried to force him to open the book through mind control or anything like that, it wouldn’t work. And even that wasn’t enough, because he truly pulled out all the stops for this. Knowing how dangerous and valuable the power of foresight was, he couldn’t afford to take any chances.
There was an illusory spell cast so that, even if someone somehow managed to sneak a peek, all they’d see is nothing but a long string of ancient-looking hieroglyphs, typical of a grimoire. Interesting, but not especially strange in the hands of the Devil himself. His original plan had been to scramble the letters or use ciphers, but he realized how that would only make it more obvious that the book was hiding something, and he couldn’t have that. So, this was his solution. Let them think it was just an ordinary spellbook if they needed to satisfy their curiosity that badly, and once they were done, they wouldn’t look any further and Lucifer’s secret would be safe.
With that security in place, the next biggest hurdle was actually figuring out when events would happen. There was no official day and night cycle in Hell, so the only real indicator of time passing was the grand clock tower in the middle of Pentagram city, counting down the days of the year. Counting down to the next Extermination.
But that wasn’t enough. Unfortunately, Lucifer had never been very good at keeping track of the passing of time. Days, weeks and even months blur into each other when you’re an immortal being who’s existed before its dawn. A decade was quite literally less than a blink of an eye from his perspective. Not to mention how his dissociative episodes, periods of depression, frequent daydreams, and hyperfixations, all made it even more difficult for the fallen angel to remember that keeping track of time was actually something important that he ought to do.
Which was very not good when the events that would alter the very balance of Heaven and Hell itself happened in the timespan of less than 5 years, and every day counted.
Lucifer may have had a little mental breakdown about that, but he was totally fine now.
There was one silver lining here, which was that he knew he had a couple hundred years to prepare.
One of the few elements of time he’d made sure to keep track of was Charlie’s birthdays, so with that as a starting point, he managed to get a rough idea of how much time he had until the events of the Hazbin Hotel.
Charlie aged much slower than most other Hellborns, but certainly much faster than Lucifer himself, so while she had the physical and mental age of someone in their 20s, she had actually been nearly 260 years old by the time Lucifer died. It’d only been a few years after her 100th birthday when the Radio Demon made his debut, followed shortly by the Vees around 40 years later. He wasn’t sure exactly when Charlie began thinking about redemption as a possible solution to Hell’s overpopulation problem, but he did remember her asking him for funding for a special project of hers some time after her 248th birthday. He hadn’t asked many questions then, simply ecstatic that his daughter was reaching out to him, even if it was just to ask him for money, but with the benefit of hindsight, that was probably when she got serious with her hotel idea.
So, he had around 200 years to prepare, and then give or take 7 years before shit truly hit the ceiling fan.
Being unable to zoom into the timeline past that point was a real problem, what with every day counting and all that, but there was nothing more Lucifer could do. He didn’t know the exact date of a lot of events, just that they would occur some time after this or that. And he knew damn well he’d been left out of the loop for a lot of the shit that was actually going on, so his lack of context just made everything worse. Not to mention, given his goal of changing the future, that little thing called the butterfly effect was undoubtedly going to kick him in the ass eventually, so he couldn’t rely on his knowledge of the other timeline forever.
So everything was just dandy and he was totally not about to lose it and go off like the universe’s deadliest hand grenade.
Honestly, all Lucifer wanted to do was curl up on his bed, drape his blanket over his head and surround himself with his rubber ducks. Block out the world and silence his spiralling thoughts.
But he couldn’t.
Charlie needed him. He promised that he’d protect her, so he couldn’t afford to fall apart.
Lucifer looked down at the latest entry in his journal.
200 years to prepare.
Deep breath in, deep breath out.
“Okay then. Let’s do this.”
* * *
Raising Charlie as a single father while trying to run Hell was tough.
Unfortunately, when Lilith abdicated her throne, that also meant she’d placed all her queenly burdens on Lucifer’s shoulders. So alongside managing all the paperwork that needed his direct approval as Ruler of Hell, he was now also responsible for socializing with demons; the other Sins, the Ars Goetia and the other influential rulers of Hell, which was something he was terrible at and also very much did not want to do, all while also ensuring that Charlie was safe, healthy and happy.
Yeah, it was a lot.
Thankfully, he had help. The other Sins were more than happy to assist the angel. They’d attend the bigger, more stressful social events in his place, and spend time babysitting Charlie when he was forced to deal with something outside the palace. Belphegor even recommended an imp; Ms Dahlia, to serve as Charlie’s nanny, for when none of them could attend to his daughter. She was the perfect fit; she was a mother herself to two children, knew emergency first aid, and had an endless well of activities and patience for the excitable toddler.
Their efforts definitely helped, but some days were easier than others. He still had to deal with mountains upon mountains of paperwork, attend social events filled with a bunch of kiss-asses that drained his patience nearly as quickly as a certain smiley Bambi, and mediate between some very delicate Hell politics that would inevitably turn into a metaphorical -and on one memorable and horrifying occasion, literal- dick-measuring contest.
Sometimes, all Lucifer could do when he returned to the palace was collapse onto his couch, poof a hot towel on top of his eyes, and then deflate into the cushions, trying his best to recover.
Still, all the shit he had to do as a ‘proper’ ruler of Hell was nothing compared to the internal battle against his desire to dissociate into the clouds, if only for a moment of peace.
During the darker days, when he could feel the tendrils of a literal lifetime of self-loathing breathing down his neck, he’d even chuckle to himself, thinking of the irony of his situation.
He was becoming the ‘proper’ ruler of Hell that Lilith wanted him to be, had tried to beat him into that mold through her words and her fists, and then it actually happened only after she’d finally given up and left. Hah!
But always, right before he could spiral any further, he’d hear the pitter-patter of approaching footsteps and be reminded every time why he was doing this. Why all his pain and frustration was worth it.
Charlotte Morningstar would burst into the room and race towards her dad at full-tilt sprint, squealing as he scooped her into his arms and set her down on his lap. She’d excitedly recount her day, telling him all about what she did with ‘aunt Dollie’ or ‘unka Ozzie’, or whichever Sin was looking after her for the day, while swaying back and forth as though she couldn’t contain all the energy inside her body and had to release it through motion. She’d show him the pictures she drew of him, her and the other Sins, show off the new hairstyle her nanny did for her, and endlessly babble about this and that.
This was what he was fighting for. Her beaming smile, her shining eyes, her excitement at seeing him. The reason why he was willing to smile through conversations he didn’t want to have, wrestle with the dumpster fire that was Hell’s bureaucracy, and battle through a flood of paperwork armed with nothing but a pen and a dad damn prayer. The reason why he fought the very fabric of time and space itself to come back.
This.
“C’mere, you little sugar apple pie you.” Finally unable to help himself, Lucifer pulled Charlie close, peppering her face in millions of kisses as she shrieked with laughter. “Oooh you’re so cute I could just eat you up!”
“Noooo!! Silly daddy, I’m not a pie!”
He pulled back with a playful hum, smiling down at his little princess. “Hmm… Really? But you’re so sweet! Are you suuuure??” He sing-songed.
Charlie nodded so seriously that Lucifer had to bite the insides of his cheeks to stop himself from laughing. “Yeahhh, I’m sure! Daddy’s just huuuungry!!” She giggled. The angel raised an eyebrow, his daughter’s innocent smile not fooling him for a second.
“Oh I’m hungry?” He asked, standing up with Charlie in his arms as he made his way to the kitchen. “What should we have for lunch then, my little princess?”
Her answer was instant, cheering. “Pancakes!”
For the first time in centuries, the palace was filled with genuine, light-hearted laughter.
* * *
“Daddy?” Lucifer hummed, tearing his eyes away from the proposal in front of him to look down at his daughter. She insisted on staying in his office for today, even though he warned her that he had work to do and needed to concentrate, so she had to play quietly if she wanted to stay. Charlie seemed perfectly content with that as long as it meant she could spend some quality time with him.
The thought almost made him burst into tears. Almost.
But now, Charlie was breaking their peaceful quiet with a question, and Lucifer would be remiss if he didn’t respond to her.
“Yes sweetie?”
“What do you do all day?” She asked.
Lucifer hummed, stroking a gentle claw through her hair as he thought about how to answer her.
“Well, you know how daddy is the king, right?”
“Mhm!”
“Being the king means that daddy has to take care of our home and our people. I have to make sure they’re doing well and taking care of their home too.” There. That should be a good enough explanation for a child who hadn’t been exposed to possibly the worst thing that came out of humanity’s free will - politics.
Lucifer watched as Charlie’s face scrunched up as though she was thinking deeply about something. “Is that why you’re always so busy? Is it hard to take care of Hell?” She followed up.
Excruciatingly so.
“Mhm. Yup. That’s correct.” Lucifer’s smile was stilted as he nodded, doing everything in his power not to reveal his true emotions on the matter.
“There’s a lot more of them, and they’re not as sweet as you.” That wasn’t even half of it, but his darling apple really didn’t need to know her father’s more unsavoury thoughts about the other residents of Hell, especially the sinners. Dad damn especially the sinners.
“Can I help take care of our people too?” Charlie sounded so excited at her idea, clambering onto Lucifer’s lap to look at the stacks of papers scattered on his desk. “Uncle Mammy’s been teaching me! I can read Little Red Riding Hood aaaaaaall by myself now!”
“That’s amazing, sweetie! I’m so proud of you!” He celebrated with a shower of golden sparkles that made Charlie giggle in delight.
Of all the things Lucifer hadn’t expected to come from the other Sins babysitting Charlie, Mammon being a damn good teacher was by far at the top of that list by a longshot, but he wasn’t complaining at all. His little girl was thriving!
But he wanted her to stay his little girl for just a little longer, there was no need for her to grow up so fast.
With a smile, Lucifer set Charlie back down onto her playmat with her dolls and books. “Sorry sweetie, but this stuff’s a little harder than your storybooks.” He said. “Daddy can handle it on his own. Maybe you can help me when you’re older.”
“Aww…”
Despite her pouts, it seemed like Charlie was able to let the matter go quickly, to Lucifer’s great relief. He wouldn’t know what to do if she’d started crying. Probably burst into tears alongside her, which would just be kind of sad.
The fallen angel peeked up at Charlie, watching her play with her dolls. Innocent and sweet.
No matter how much he despised his position, knowing it was a prison and not a throne, no amount of denial or dismissal would change this fact.
He was the king of Hell, and his Charlotte was their princess.
In the previous timeline, he’d neglected his duties so thoroughly that ambitious demons dared to violate treaties and set off large fires that nobody but him could put out. They lost respect for him and in turn, lost respect for his daughter. They underestimated her, belittled her and mocked her. He left her to fend for herself while he wallowed in despair.
He couldn’t allow that to happen this time.
Maybe he couldn’t rule over the sinners directly, but he could give a firm reminder to the smarter ones about who was actually responsible for the relative comfort they were able to live down in the depths of Hell.
Most sinners didn’t even think about the inner workings of Hell, nor what went into its maintenance, but those that did would quickly learn that the Pride Ring wasn’t built solely on the backs of other sinners. There were thousands of hellborns and imps responsible for the city’s electricity and water supply, as well as an entire trading network spread across every single Ring, supplying the sinners with whatever food and resource they needed, including the alcohol, smokes and drugs that so many of them enjoyed.
And all of it passed through him.
They’ll know damn well who’s keeping the entirety of Hell in running order from behind the scenes. Who’s the one providing them with the necessities they needed to live a relatively comfortable afterlife considering where their souls ended up, and who could easily snatch it all away with a single command.
This was how he’d earn the respect of the sinners as the King of Hell.
And that meant paperwork.
Lucifer groaned, resisting the urge to faceplant onto his desk in front of his daughter.
* * *
“Sorry Char-char, but this is really important. I can’t stay.” Lucifer was fighting with all his might to resist Charlie’s puppy eyes as he struggled to pull her off his tail coat. He was being serious, this was an important court case that he couldn’t afford to delegate to someone else. Where the fuck was-
“Charlie!!” Mammon appeared in the doorway, rushing to grab his daughter and spin her around in the air. She squealed in delight, quickly forgetting about how she’d been trying to prevent her father from leaving. “How’s my favourite niece doing, huh? You been practicing your ‘don’t fuck with me’ face?”
In response, Charlie gave her best frown, but it just looked like she was trying desperately to hold her breath. Mammon chuckled awkwardly. “Aha… We’ll keep working on that.” He said, ruffling her hair.
Sighing in relief, Lucifer patted down his coat, smoothing out any wrinkles. “Thanks again for agreeing to look after Charlie for today.”
“Yeah yeah, I got this Lu. Now get the fuck outta here.” Mammon made a shooing motion, his other hand on Charlie’s back, nudging her out of the room.
With a roll of his eyes, Lucifer turned around to do just that. He leapt off the highest balcony in the palace, all six wings outstretched as he took flight. The Sin watched him go until he was out of earshot before leaning down to whisper to the princess with a tone of utter glee.
“Wanna learn how to put a bitch in her place?” Her responding giggle was answer enough.
High above, Lucifer relished in his flight across Hell. Yes, teleporting would be faster, but he needed to make a show of his presence to the sinners. Remind them whose roof they were living under. Display his power, status, yada yada yada, all that dumb shit.
But aside from that, he really did genuinely enjoy flying.
The rare occasion to stretch every single one of his wings, the fun he got to have spinning, gliding and doing somersaults in the air, the pleasant wind on his face that was a break from the humidity of Hell, he loved it all.
But above all that, the best was the feeling of freedom he got to experience while high above the clouds. Far away from the overwhelming noises and smells of the land of his punishment. Far away from his responsibilities and stressors.
Nothing could touch him up here, not even his spiralling thoughts.
For once, his mind was quiet.
Just one moment for himself.
Now then, where the hell was that stupid courthouse.
By the time Lucifer was finished with his necessary business, there was a twinging bone-deep exhaustion in his limbs. He wanted to fly back to the palace as another show of his presence in Hell, but there was an instinctive warning that he’d either dive bomb into the ground or crash face-first into a building if he did, so portal back home it was.
And yet, the moment he stepped through, it was like all the fatigue in the world suddenly slammed into his core. Before he could even register what was happening to him, Lucifer found himself crashing to the plush carpets like a puppet with its strings cut. He collapsed on his hands and knees, slamming his chin into the ground, but the pain barely registered in the face of the overwhelming sense of dizziness that enveloped his head. There was no warning, no grace, no ability to even catch himself.
What…?
What was-
Before he could even attempt to push himself back up, get his bearings, or even begin to question what this was; a spell, an ambush, whatever, he was out like a light switch.
Lucifer was left lying on the floor, unconscious in a way he’d never been before in either of his long long lives.
Charlie tried her best to hide her snickers as she trotted through the hallways. In the distance, she could still hear her uncle Mammon counting to 100, readying himself for their game of hide and seek. She needed to find a good place to hide before he was done counting!
With that goal in mind, she raced past an open door, before suddenly stopping herself at the bright white on their red carpets. Curious, she turned around and peeked into the room, eyes lighting up at the sight.
Because that was her daddy! Daddy was back from his important stuff!
But it was weird. Instead of standing up or sitting in one of the armchairs, he was lying on the ground. Did he fall asleep on the floor? He was so silly!
Her little feet pitter-pattered into the room as she made her way to her father, pulling at his coat and shaking his shoulders to wake him up. “Daddyyy!!! Wake uuuup! We gotta hide from uncle Mammy!” When that did nothing, she pouted, shaking him harder and calling for him in a louder voice.
And yet, still nothing.
Playful excitement changed to nervous confusion.
Because Charlie knew her daddy.
He was never still. Any time she saw him, he was always moving in little ways. Running a hand through his hair, adjusting his coat or his hat, bouncing his leg, all the motions and twitches that indicated life. Even in sleep, his chest rose and fell, he rolled around, his eyes darted around under his eyelids, all signs of a living being.
There was none of that here. He was completely and utterly still.
Something in Charlie screamed.
“UNCLE MAMMY!!!!!”
* * *
Lucifer’s eyes opened slowly, everything around him covered by a blurry sheen as he tried to blink the fatigue from his vision. As his consciousness gradually returned to him, he was able to register the soft texture of his mattress and pillows beneath him, the blanket on top of his body, and a recognizable mural on the ceiling.
He was in his bedroom.
“Finally! Jesus fuck Lu, you scared the shit out of us!” Lucifer winced, flinching away from Mammon’s grating yell. Still, it was effective in jostling the exhaustion from his body. He pushed himself up from his bed, looking around.
“What happened?” The Sin of Greed threw his hands in the air.
“Uh, you almost gave me a fucking heart attack is what happened! Charlie starts screaming her head off and then I come to find you passed out on the floor! What the fuck man!” Okay, Charlie being the first one to find his collapsed body was terrible and he was definitely going to need to comfort the traumatized girl later, but more importantly, passed out? How?! How in the name of his father did he pass out?!
Not noticing Lucifer’s panicked confusion, Mammon continued, “She couldn’t wake you up, I couldn’t wake you up, I had to call Belphegor! Speaking of, Belphegor! Get your ass in here, he’s awake!” Lucifer’s eyes followed him as he stomped out of the room, presumably heading off to fetch the aforementioned Sin of Sloth. It didn’t take long before he came back with Belphegor in tow.
Straight to business as always, she wasted no time in making her way to Lucifer’s bedside and pulling out one of his arms from beneath the covers by the elbow, tapping along specific arteries and veins with a medical precision expected from an experienced doctor.
Belphegor specialized in sensing the energies that ran through the bodies of all creatures; angelic or demonic, angels, Sins, sinners, hellborns, even humans. If you were alive, then she could feel the energies that constituted your body, mind and soul. If anyone could explain the reason behind Lucifer’s collapse, it was her.
She seemed satisfied with whatever she saw, nodding in approval. “Alright, your energy levels have recovered somewhat. Now,” And there was that disapproving stare. “What in the nine circles of Hell were you doing that drained your reserves that much?”
Lucifer blinked. Once, then twice.
“Wait wait wait, my energy reserves were drained?!” Belphegor rolled her eyes at his flabbergasted look.
“Yes, Lucifer. Drained. Nearly empty. Your body had to go into emergency shutdown mode to recover, now spit it out.” She made a quick ‘go on’ motion, but the fallen angel was just left gaping at her, eyes wide as dinner plates.
Because there was nothing. All he’d done was fly across Rings, made a show of fire and light when the jury got a bit too heated for his liking, made the settlement contracts between the two parties magically binding, and then portal home.
Nothing out of the ordinary. This was his standard routine, a normal work day. He’d done this hundreds of times, using what was essentially a drop of water from the ocean; a mere fraction of a fraction of his full power. There’d been absolutely nothing about today that would warrant even dipping into his vast reserves, let alone consuming enough of his power to make him faint. There’d only been one sinner who’d managed such a feat, and that stupid boxhead hadn’t even been born yet in this timeline, let alone come into his domain. There was no angelic-powered cannon aiming for Heaven and certainly no burning wires stabbing into his form, sucking the life out of him.
Belphegor’s eyes narrowed at Lucifer’s headshake, but she knew his tells, and so she knew he wasn’t lying. The sheep-llama Sin squinted at him, before leaning back in her chair with a sigh, rubbing her temple.
“Well, if there’s nothing, then this might just be a case of an unconscious energy discharge, similar to what’s happened to Asmodeus and Beelzebub in the past.” She concluded with a shrug. Lucifer cringed at the memory of those incidents. A bit of indulgence in the spirit of gluttony or lust was all well and good until it got so extreme that it sent a wave of demons to the hospital, including two Sins who felt like they got hit with ten collective hangovers at once. In other words, complete shit.
Still, their symptoms didn’t really match his, making the king raise an eyebrow. “Isn’t that a bit of a stretch?”
Belphegor was already packing her equipment, letting out an enormous yawn which signalled that their little emergency checkup was well and truly over. “Maybe, but it’s all we have if you have no idea what’s caused it. Regardless, it’s really nothing more than an abnormality in your system. An extreme one, sure, but it won’t happen again.”
Lucifer nodded along, but despite her reassurances, a sense of unease lingered in his chest.
Unconscious energy discharge. Nothing more than an abnormality in his system. Won’t happen again.
Somehow, he seriously doubted that.
Lucifer nearly forgot about his little fainting episode, but nearly 3 years later, it happened again. One moment he was sitting in his office signing papers, and the next, he was lying in his bed with a worried Asmodeus and a tired Belphegor looking down at him. Once again, his collapse was due to a depletion in his energy, and once again, there was no clear cause to it.
Another 3 years later, it happened again. Fed up, Belphegor dragged him to her hospital in her Ring, with all her fancy heavy-duty equipment, in order to perform a full diagnosis of his condition and finally get to the bottom of this issue.
And what they found was…enlightening to say the least.
There was something attached to Lucifer’s core. It was neither angelic nor demonic, but certainly malevolent in nature, as it was constantly trying to eat away at his soul like a parasitic leech. His angelic core was able to suppress it, but it required a substantial amount of energy to do so. This destabilized the energy balance held between his angelic and demonic cores, which would lead to disastrous consequences if not rectified quickly. In order to fix this, his demonic core had no other choice but to lower its own energy levels, dispersing itself through the grounds and air of Hell until it was equal to his angelic core. While that did stabilize his energies, it also left him with very little energy left at all, leading his body to turn to sleep in order to conserve and recover.
That was the reason behind his sudden bouts of exhaustion and fainting episodes.
Belphegor was obviously horrified by this discovery. The fact that this was a foreign, unknown energy, especially to her of all beings, was enough to set off all the alarm bells. She ran many more tests on the fallen angel, but nothing seemed to work. No other scan, examination or look under the microscope revealed anything about his little leech to the sloth sin. They didn’t know what it was, where it came from or how to get rid of it, if that was even possible in the first place.
All they knew was exactly what they could see; it was doing damage to him that his angelic core was working overtime to prevent, leading to a destabilization in his energies that could only be remedied through sleep.
Contrary to Belphegor, Lucifer was oddly calm about his situation. No, perhaps the more accurate term would be that he was just…numb to it all.
Unlike everyone else, he knew exactly what his little parasite was, but there was no way he could actually say it. What, was he supposed to tell the Sins that his condition was due to some cosmic karma that latched onto him when he travelled back through time? They’d just list insanity as another one of his symptoms.
Besides, as far as cosmic retribution went, this was fairly tame all things considered. Sure, collapsing for a couple of hours every few years was certainly not ideal, and it was definitely inconvenient and annoying, but it could’ve been much much worse.
…
Oh if Lucifer could go back in time -again- and punch himself in the face.