Chapter Text
...
Hell had never truly wanted Abaddon.
What was presented as an honorable assignment—a calculated deployment of demonic authority to the human world was, in truth, an act of quiet disposal. One problem removed without bloodshed, without protest, without the inconvenience of open execution. The gates of Hell did not slam shut behind Abaddon in fury or fear; they closed with indifference. To the infernal courts, he was a liability wrapped in noble blood, an embarrassment made tolerable only by distance.
Abaddon had been born into privilege, the youngest child of Lilith and Asmodeus, surrounded by power he could never quite wield. In a realm that revered dominance and brutality, he had been too small, too slow, too prone to mistakes. Where his siblings learned to tear and conquer, Abaddon learned how to endure. His mother’s protection shielded him from the worst consequences, but it also marked him. In Hell, mercy was not mistaken for kindness, it was mistaken for weakness. And weakness invited cruelty.
By the time he was given the role of gatekeeper, the decision had already been made. It was a position of ceremony rather than influence, a task meant to keep him occupied and out of the way. Abaddon, for his part, treated it as such. He neglected his duties, wandered when he pleased, and relied on the certainty that no real punishment would ever come. That certainty, cultivated over centuries, would ultimately be his undoing.
Earth was never meant to be a refuge. It was meant to be a dumping ground.
Yet the world Abaddon fell into did not resemble the chaos he had been warned about. Instead, it was small, loud, oddly structured, and governed by rules that had nothing to do with power. The Freelings’ hotel creaked with age and stubborn persistence, its halls filled with human concerns that struck Abaddon as baffling and, against his will, fascinating. Katherine Freeling did not command him. She expected things of him. And worse, she followed through.
At first, Abaddon complied out of instinctive self-preservation. He ate when told, sat where instructed, mimicked the rituals of family life with the careful precision of someone waiting for the trap to spring. Meals were shared. Days followed predictable patterns. There were expectations, but also consistency, an unfamiliar concept that unsettled him more than threats ever had.
...
Slowly, imperceptibly, caution gave way to routine.
He began to understand the rhythms of the household: the way Esther’s curiosity bordered on recklessness, the quiet order Katherine maintained without ever raising her voice, the strange comfort of being accounted for. These were not infernal hierarchies. No one demanded proof of worth through violence or fear. No one laughed when he failed. And that, more than anything, left him unprepared.
Abaddon still missed Hell. He missed its certainty, its rules written in blood and ambition. But he also began to realize a harder truth, Hell had never missed him. No one had come looking. No messages followed. No summons echoed through the void. The silence was not accidental. It was deliberate.
By the time this realization settled in his chest, life on Earth had already claimed him in subtle ways. He was no longer merely passing through. He was integrating. And just as this fragile balance began to feel real, just as Abaddon started to believe he might be allowed to remain forgotten, fate intervened.
...
The evening had begun like so many others, quiet, ordinary, deceptively safe.
Dinner at the Freeling table was never truly silent. Plates clinked, chairs scraped, and the low hum of conversation filled the small dining room, weaving a sense of routine Abaddon had come to recognize almost without thinking. The smell of warm food lingered in the air, grounding in a way he still didn’t fully understand. Hell had never smelled like this. Hell had never waited for anyone to sit down before eating.
Abaddon took his usual place, careful not to crowd the edge of the table. He mirrored the others with practiced precision, folding his hands when Katherine gave him a look that meant not yet, reaching for his utensils only after she nodded. It was a choreography he had learned slowly, through observation and correction rather than command. Katherine didn’t bark orders. She expected compliance and somehow, that made it harder to resist.
Esther talked through most of the meal, enthusiasm spilling over itself as she recounted ideas that bounced wildly between hotel repairs, half-formed spells, and grand plans that clearly ignored the concept of consequences. Abaddon listened, occasionally offering a dry comment or a smug correction when she misstated something arcane. She scowled at him in response, but there was no real heat behind it.
“You’re not supposed to improve the wards without telling me,” she said, narrowing her eyes.
“You were going to mess them up,” Abaddon replied, unapologetic. “I merely prevented catastrophe.”
Katherine sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose. “You both need to stop experimenting in the hotel without supervision.”
“Yes, Mom,” Esther said automatically.
Abaddon hesitated—just a fraction too long—before echoing, “Yes, Katherine.”
She glanced at him then, sharp-eyed but not unkind. “You can say it the first way too, you know.”
He shrugged, pretending indifference, though something tight eased in his chest. He focused on his food instead, chewing carefully, methodically. Rituals mattered here. Not magical ones—mundane ones. Sitting together. Finishing meals. Clearing plates. Being counted.
Later, when dishes were stacked and the day wound down, Esther lingered near him, fingers tapping restlessly against her arm. Her excitement had that familiar edge Abaddon had learned to recognize: the precursor to a bad idea.
“I’ve been thinking,” she began.
“That alone is concerning,” he replied, dryly.
She grinned. “What if we did something small? Just a tiny ritual. Nothing flashy. Something helpful.”
Katherine’s footsteps paused in the hallway. “Helpful,” she repeated, tone skeptical.
Esther waved a hand. “For the hotel! Nothing dangerous. I promise.”
Abaddon should have refused. He felt the prickle of unease even then, a faint echo along his spine. Earth magic was sloppy. Human intent was imprecise. And rituals—true rituals—had a way of answering questions no one meant to ask.
But Esther looked hopeful. Katherine looked tired. And Abaddon, despite everything, wanted to be useful. Wanted to prove he wasn’t just passing through.
“Fine,” he said at last. “But we do it properly.”
That was how it began. Not with fire or screams or prophecy but with a shared meal, a cleared table, and a demon who had grown careless enough to believe he might be allowed to stay.
By the time the summoning circle burned itself into the floor, dinner already felt like a memory from another life.
The ritual was meant to be harmless.
A small spell. A practical solution. A desperate attempt to bring financial relief to a struggling hotel. Esther’s enthusiasm and Abaddon’s misplaced confidence combined into something neither of them fully understood. Circles were drawn. Words spoken. Power answered.
But not in the way they expected. The air changed. The familiar gave way to the suffocating presence of something old, vast, and deeply personal. Hell did not arrive with fire and spectacle, it arrived with recognition. With bloodlines awakening. With names spoken that Abaddon had hoped would never reach him again.
Instantly, the Earth that had begun to feel like home slipped from his grasp.
And Hell, patient and unforgiving, finally came to collect what it had cast aside.
The summoning circle burned itself into the floor like a brand, lines glowing with a heat that had nothing to do with fire. Abaddon felt it before he understood it, a familiar pressure curling around his spine, tugging at something ancient and unwilling inside him. His breath hitched. The air tasted wrong. Too sharp. Too clean. Too much like home.
“No,” he whispered, the word tearing itself free before he could stop it.
The room seemed to fold inward. Shadows stretched where none should have existed, peeling away from corners and walls as though the hotel itself recoiled. Esther stumbled back, her excitement draining into pale horror as the symbols they had drawn pulsed brighter, responding not to intent but to lineage. This was not a spell that could be reasoned with. Blood had answered blood.
Abaddon dropped to one knee, claws scraping against the floor as memories surged, iron gates, echoing laughter, the weight of countless eyes measuring his worth and finding it lacking. He had worn bravado like armor for so long that even he had begun to believe it. But here, stripped bare by recognition, there was no room left for pretense.
The first presence arrived without ceremony.
Power pressed down like gravity, cold and absolute. A voice followed, layered and impossibly calm, carrying disappointment sharper than any blade.
“So,” Asmodeus said, his tone devoid of warmth, “this is where you vanished.”
Abaddon could not look up. His body refused, muscles locked by instinct older than fear. He knew that voice. He knew the judgment woven into every syllable. His father had never needed to raise his voice. Authority radiated from him effortlessly, crushing in its certainty.
Then came another presence, softer, but no less overwhelming.
Lilith.
Her power did not weigh; it enveloped. A familiar, suffocating warmth wrapped around Abaddon, and for a brief, treacherous moment, relief flickered in his chest. Her voice trembled when she spoke his name, and that alone was enough to undo centuries of practiced defiance.
“My child,” she said, stepping closer. “Look at you.”
She reached for him without hesitation, fingers brushing his cheek as if he were still small enough to be hidden behind her skirts. Her joy was immediate, fierce, and painfully genuine. To her, nothing had changed. He was still hers. Still precious. Still something to be retrieved.
Behind her, other figures coalesced from shadow and fire.
Baal’s gaze cut into Abaddon like a knife, lips curling in open contempt. Azrael stood silently at his side, eyes cold, calculating, assessing weakness the way one assessed prey. Neither looked surprised. Neither looked relieved.
This, Abaddon realized dimly, was not a reunion.
It was an audit. Katherine’s voice cut through the infernal tension, sharp with alarm. “Get away from him.” The command was simple. Human. Defiant in a way Hell did not recognize. Asmodeus turned slowly, his attention settling on her with mild curiosity, as one might regard an insect that had dared to speak.
Abaddon flinched before he could stop himself.
He knew how this ended. He had always known. Hell did not forgive abandonment, even when it had been engineered. He was property reclaimed, a mistake corrected. Whatever fragile life he had built here—rituals, routines, belonging—was already slipping through his fingers.
Lilith’s hands tightened around his shoulders. “You don’t belong here,” she murmured, not unkindly. “You never did.”
And for the first time since the ritual began, Abaddon felt something colder than fear take root in his chest.
Because she was right.
But so was the part of him that didn’t want to go.
...
The hesitation was brief—but it was enough.
Abaddon felt it then, sharp and unmistakable: the fragile imbalance holding the door open. The circle was no longer Esther’s spell. It was his. Blood had answered blood, but blood could also refuse.
Lilith’s hands tightened on his shoulders. “Abaddon,” she warned softly, sensing the shift. “Don’t be foolish.”
For once, he didn’t flinch at the word.
He looked down at the glowing lines beneath his feet, at the geometry that bound worlds together with symbols older than language. He had spent centuries pretending rituals were beneath him, letting others believe he was careless, incompetent. It had been easier to be dismissed than to be measured. Easier to survive as a joke than to fail as a prince.
But this—this he understood.
“You taught me one thing,” Abaddon said quietly, voice steady despite the tremor in his hands. “That doors only matter if someone guards them.”
Asmodeus’s gaze sharpened. “Step away from the circle.”
Abaddon smiled, thin and humorless. “No.”
He moved faster than anyone expected—not toward the edge, but inward. He slammed his clawed hand down, dragging it through the burning sigils. Pain exploded up his arm, white-hot and immediate, the magic biting deep as it resisted being undone. Esther screamed his name. Katherine lunged forward—
“Don’t!” Abaddon shouted. “Stay back!”
He tore through the circle with brutal precision, smearing symbols, breaking symmetry, severing intent from structure. The air screamed as the spell destabilized. Shadows convulsed. The pressure reversed, pulling inward instead of out.
Lilith recoiled, shock flashing across her face. “Abaddon, stop—!”
Too late.
The circle shattered.
Light imploded, collapsing into itself with a sound like glass breaking underwater. The pull vanished all at once, replaced by a deafening silence. Candles snuffed out. Frost cracked and melted. The infernal weight evaporated, leaving the room trembling but intact.
Hell’s door slammed shut.
The figures remained.
Asmodeus stood rigid, eyes blazing with fury not born of loss, but of realization. Baal swore under his breath. Azrael’s hand twitched toward a blade that could no longer answer him. Lilith stared at Abaddon as if seeing him for the first time—truly seeing him. “You...” she began, then stopped, voice breaking. “What have you done?”
Abaddon sagged, dropping to one knee, breath coming hard. His arm burned where the magic had scored him, skin raw and smoking faintly. He laughed once, hoarse, incredulous.
“I closed the gate,” he said. “Just like you did to me.”
Asmodeus stepped forward, rage radiating from him in waves. “You dare imprison us?”
Abaddon looked up, eyes bright with pain and something dangerously close to resolve. “Imprison?” he echoed. “No. I dared to make it fair.”
Silence fell heavy and stunned.
Katherine crossed the room at last, kneeling beside him without hesitation. She didn’t ask permission. She didn’t wait for explanation. She simply placed a hand on his back, steady and solid and human.
Esther hovered close, eyes wide. “Are they… stuck?”
Abaddon nodded slowly. “Just like I was.”
Lilith’s expression fractured, shock giving way to something raw and unguarded. “You would do this to your own family?”
Abaddon met her gaze, exhaustion settling into his bones. “The realization hits like a brick, doesn’t it?”
For the first time, no one in Hell had an answer.
The hotel creaked softly around them, walls holding, world intact. Outside, the Earth continued on, blissfully unaware that Hell’s royalty now stood stranded in a place governed not by dominance or fear but by rules they did not understand.
Abaddon closed his eyes, leaning into Katherine’s support.
...
Lilith saw it the moment it happened.
Not the broken circle. Not the stunned silence. Not even the raw fury rolling off Asmodeus like heat from a forge. What caught her attention, what hurt, was the way Abaddon leaned into Katherine’s touch without thinking. The way his shoulders eased, just slightly, as if his body had made a choice before his mind could interfere.
It was instinctive. Trusting.
And it was not for her.
Lilith drew a slow breath, smoothing the flare of emotion before it could surface. Jealousy was unbecoming. Panic would only make this worse. She had ruled courts far crueler than this room, negotiated with beings who tore worlds apart for sport. This required none of that.
She stepped forward, placing herself deliberately between Abaddon and Asmodeus, one hand lifting—not in command, but in quiet restraint.
“Enough,” she said softly.
Asmodeus stiffened. “He has overstepped—”
“I said enough,” Lilith repeated, still calm, her voice carrying the weight of certainty rather than force. “Rage will not open the door he has closed.”
Her husband glared, jaw tight, but he did not advance. Lilith kept her gaze on him just long enough to make the message unmistakable: Stand down. Slowly, the pressure he radiated receded, contained but not gone.
Only then did she turn back to Abaddon.
She knelt.
The simple act sent a ripple through the room. Lilith did not kneel, never had, not truly. But here, now, she lowered herself to Abaddon’s level, her expression composed, eyes soft but searching.
“My child,” she said gently. “Look at you. You’re hurt.”
Abaddon flinched at the word, but he did not pull away from Katherine. Lilith noticed. She always noticed.
“I told you,” he muttered, exhaustion bleeding into every syllable. “I’m not going back.”
“I know,” Lilith replied, without accusation. “And I am not asking you to. Not like this.”
Her gaze flicked briefly, just once—to Katherine. There was no hostility there. No threat. Only assessment, and something far more dangerous: comparison.
“You have given him comfort,” Lilith said calmly. “Structure. Safety. I see that.”
Katherine didn’t move, but her spine straightened. “He’s not a possession,” she said evenly.
Lilith inclined her head a fraction. “Nor was he ever meant to be.”
She turned back to Abaddon, voice lowering, slipping into the cadence he remembered from childhood, measured, soothing, relentless in its reason.
“You were never discarded,” she said. “You were protected. Hidden away from those who would have destroyed you. From your brothers. From the court. From expectations you were never meant to carry.” Abaddon laughed weakly. “You call that protection?”
“I call it survival,” Lilith replied. “You lived. That mattered to me.”
Her hand hovered, hesitating, then she let it rest lightly against his arm, careful not to pull, not to claim. “You didn’t have to be strong,” she continued. “You didn’t have to prove yourself. I made sure of that.”
Abaddon swallowed. “You made sure I never had a choice.”
Silence stretched. Lilith did not deny it. “No,” she said at last. “I didn’t. Because I was afraid of what would happen if you did.”
Her eyes flicked again to Katherine, sharper this time, not hostile, but wounded. “And now you lean into someone else when you are hurt. Someone who asks things of you. Who expects you to endure.”
The jealousy surfaced then, subtle but unmistakable, threaded through her calm. “She makes you stronger,” Lilith said quietly. “And that frightens me.”
Asmodeus scoffed. “This is pointless”
Lilith lifted a hand again, never raising her voice. He fell silent.
She looked back at Abaddon, expression open, vulnerable in a way Hell would never forgive. “I can still take care of you,” she said. “You don’t have to be anything more than you are. You never did.”
Katherine felt Abaddon tense beneath her hand.
Slowly, he lifted his head. His eyes met Lilith’s—not defiant, not cruel, but resolved in a way she had never seen before.
“I know,” he said. “And that’s why I can’t.”
The words landed softly. Devastatingly.
Lilith closed her eyes for a heartbeat, composure cracking just enough to let the truth through. When she opened them again, she was calm once more, queenly, controlled.
“Then,” she said, rising to her feet, “we will speak of what comes next.”
She turned to Asmodeus, her tone leaving no room for argument. “We are guests now. Whether we like it or not.”
The word tasted bitter.
Lilith looked back one last time at Abaddon, at the way he still leaned into Katherine, still choosing warmth over blood.
Her lips curved into a faint, sad smile.
“So be it,” she murmured.
...
Asmodeus’s restraint shattered like brittle glass.
He laughed, short, sharp, devoid of humor—and the sound scraped across the room. “Guests,” he repeated, eyes locked on Abaddon. “Is that what you think we are now?”
Lilith turned on him instantly. “Enough.”
“No,” Asmodeus snapped, the word cutting through her calm like a blade. “He deserves the truth. He might as well know why.”
Abaddon stiffened. Katherine felt it beneath her hand.
Asmodeus stepped forward, heedless of Lilith’s warning glare. His voice dropped, dangerous not for its volume, but for its clarity. “You weren’t sent to Earth as a test. Or a punishment. Or some misguided attempt at giving you perspective.”
Abaddon frowned. “Then what?”
Asmodeus’s mouth twisted. “You were sent because it was convenient.”
The words landed harder than any blow.
“You were an embarrassment,” Asmodeus continued coldly. “Not to me alone, to the court. To the hierarchy. A noble-born gatekeeper who couldn’t be trusted to guard a door without wandering off. A prince who inspired mockery rather than fear.” His gaze flicked briefly to Katherine, then back. “And mockery spreads.”
Lilith took a step toward him. “You will not”
“Rabisu,” Asmodeus said, cutting her off, savoring the name. “Your greatest rival. Assyrian demon. Older than our line. Stronger. And infinitely more respected.”
Abaddon’s breath caught.
“He hated you,” Asmodeus went on. “Not because you threatened him, but because you didn’t. Because you survived without earning it. Because you were protected.”
Azrael’s silence suddenly made sense.
“Rabisu was the one who suggested it,” Asmodeus said. “Earth. A long assignment. A door that would quietly close behind you. No trial. No spectacle. Just absence.”
Abaddon shook his head slowly. “You’re lying.”
“I wish I were,” Asmodeus replied. “But Rabisu didn’t act alone.”
Lilith went very still.
Asmodeus’s voice hardened. “Lucifer approved it.”
The name seemed to drain the room of warmth.
“The King of Hell himself decided he was tired of indulging you,” Asmodeus said. “Tired of the complaints. Tired of the whispers. Rabisu offered a solution that spared everyone the inconvenience of your execution.”
Abaddon stared at him, something hollow opening behind his eyes. “Execution?”
“Disposal,” Asmodeus corrected coolly. “Earth was never meant to be temporary. No one was supposed to come looking. No one did.”
Silence fell, heavy and suffocating.
Esther’s voice trembled. “They… they wanted you gone.”
Abaddon didn’t respond. His gaze dropped to the ruined circle, to the scorched floor where Hell’s door had once been. Understanding settled slowly, brutally, into place—every unanswered silence, every missing summons, every century of abandonment suddenly aligning with horrifying clarity.
Lilith stepped forward at last, fury bleeding through her composure. “You lied to me,” she hissed at Asmodeus. “You said it was only to give him space. Time.”
“I said what you needed to hear,” Asmodeus replied, unrepentant. “Just as Rabisu said, what Lucifer needed to hear.”
Katherine tightened her grip on Abaddon’s shoulder as his hands began to shake.
“So that’s it,” Abaddon said quietly. There was no anger in his voice now. Just exhaustion. “I wasn’t weak. I was inconvenient.”
Asmodeus met his gaze. “Yes.”
For a long moment, no one spoke.
Then Abaddon laughed, soft, broken, disbelieving. “And you wonder why I closed the door.”
Lilith looked at him then, truly looked at him, and for the first time since arriving on Earth, her certainty cracked completely.
“Abaddon...” she whispered.
The demon leaned back into Katherine, eyes burning, voice steady in a way that surprised even him. “Then maybe Hell shouldn’t have sent me somewhere I could finally learn the truth.”
Outside, the hotel stood silent.
Inside, Hell’s royalty realized, far too late, that the child they had tried to erase had survived.
And he remembered everything.