Work Text:
The eternal Almighty created the world, saw that it was good, and rested on the seventh day.
The angels looked at his work, still incomplete and imperfect. But they were weak, so they remained silent.
The earth turned hundreds of times as Lucifer watched his father's proudest creation. One day, he gave in to the temptation that pressed against his soul and transformed himself into a serpent while Eve relaxed beneath the tree of knowledge of good and evil. He said to her, “Did God really say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden of Eden’?” She replied, “Yes, that's right, we can eat everything except this one, which is forbidden to us. God said, ‘You shall not eat of it, or you will die.’” She reached out her hand to him, and he approached and rested his head in the palm of her hand. She caressed him with a gentleness that awakened a strange warmth within him. This gave him courage, and he slid up her leg with a tenderness that did nothing to warm his cold scales. She shivered as he wrapped himself around her waist, before resting his head on her breast. “No, you will not die,” he said in a sweet, languid voice, “God knows that on the day you eat it, your eyes will be opened, and you will be like gods who know good and evil.” Eve's eyes widened and she stood up abruptly. She did not notice the snake trembling against her, and picked three fruits. She put one in the snake's mouth, and it ate it obediently, without saying a word. Satisfied, she went to Adam and offered him some too. Lucifer listened with one ear to God's punishments, tormented by a question he could feel inside him but could not discern, as if something inside him had split in two.
For listening to the serpent, Eve was condemned to a life of suffering, to the monthly pains of menstruation, to the torture of pregnancy, and to the desire for a sex that would dominate her. Her love for Adam was forever changed, Adam was forever changed. He now carried within him a new cruelty, fueled by their mutual condemnation to death (which previously only animals had suffered) and hunger. Eve cursed the serpent, the cause of her misfortune. She would have preferred to remain ignorant forever, if she could be sure of never being eaten. That was what she thought during the first few months, consumed by hatred. But then, as she bathed, she realized that the feeling of water on her skin had never been so pleasant. As she caught a fish and took a generous bite, she realized that food had never tasted so delicious. She looked up and admired the sky, which was indescribably beautiful. She had been so horrified by the cruelty of this world that she had ignored what she had gained at the same time: knowledge of Truth, Beauty, and Goodness. She returned to the cave and made love to Adam for the first time. She named their first creation Cain.
She saw the snake again several days later and recognized it immediately, for she had never seen anything like it before. Its skin was black as night, but it glowed with a supernatural light. Before her eyes, the snake transformed into a winged man of unparalleled beauty. She put her hand over her mouth to stifle her cry of admiration, not wanting to wake the child resting against her breast. He knelt down, his forehead touching the ground. “Forgive me, Eve, for the harm I have done to you and your kind.” She lowered herself to his level and gently lifted his chin until their eyes met. He closed his eyes and pressed his cheek against her hand. She blushed at this show of affection, so similar to that of their first encounter. “You know my name, but I don't know yours.” He smiled and broke contact, still kneeling but upright, while she remained crouched. “I am Lucifer Morningstar, bearer of light. I was created by God to show you the truth. I was created to harm you.” His voice in human form was even more captivating than she remembered, and his lips... his lips... waited for an answer. “I don't blame you, I don't regret it. As you told me that day, we are equals now. Before I ate that fruit, I couldn't exist because I couldn't think.” He laughed bitterly. “No, you are superior to me, because you are free. I have immortality, but I do not have the freedom to act. You have the freedom to act, but you are mortal. I wanted to redeem myself by bringing you the fruit of the tree of eternal life, but I couldn't. Instead, here is my gift.” He placed dry leaves on the ground and took from his clothing a red stone like those she often saw near streams. He gestured for the carved stone she was wearing, and she handed it to him. With a precise movement, sparks flew, and the leaves burst into flames like a volcano. “With this,” he declared, “you will never have to fear other animals again.” Eve's muscles relaxed from a tension she hadn't even been aware of, and she let out a long sigh: she would not be eaten. They would meet again another night, and she would be able to thank him with her new invention: cooking. That evening, while Adam was busy elsewhere, Lucifer helped her create her second creation. She named him Abel.
Cain killed Abel and was cursed. Not that Lucifer paid much attention to it, busy as he was running hell since his task on Earth had come to an end. He didn't care about the mortal world, until the day rumors reached the depths, where damned souls and demons spoke of something unprecedented in this world of infernal stability: the birth of an incarnation of God as a man. And so the king of Hell decided to take his first vacation on the surface. If Father had truly decided to incarnate as a man, it was only natural that the Devil could do the same. A few years later, Judas Iscariot met Jesus of Nazareth. He did not see Father in him, but he had something divine, a kind of divinity that had never existed before. Something pure, something beautiful. Judas/Lucifer bowed for the first time, not to ask for forgiveness or mercy, nor even out of respect. Judas bowed because he felt absolute love for the first time. Something he would not experience again until he met Chloe Decker, two thousand years later. Despite that smile full of kindness and those mesmerizing eyes, Lucifer couldn't help but feel afraid. Jesus was the first person who truly saw him. As a powerless human with a soul (of an angel? of a demon?). What exactly did he see? Lucifer didn't know himself well enough to be sure. He followed him anyway, witnessed the miracles, and recorded them in a testament, like the other apostles. However, unlike the others, he was the one who shared Jesus' bed every night. To the world, he was his favorite disciple, but those close to them knew well the nature of their closeness. It seemed impossible, not because they were two men, but because of their opposing views on the object that defined their lives: God.
Judas wanted to oppose Father and he encouraged Jesus to create his own religion instead. They had discussed this many times, and he remembered one evening in particular, a few months before Jesus asked him to betray him. “My power comes from the Lord, and from my faith in him. It is his light that you admire in me.” Judas, his head nestled against Jesus' neck, shook his head and hugged him tighter. The smell, the warmth, the power of that body intoxicated him like nothing else ever had. If he had no memory of his immortal life, he would have associated this with paradise. But if one compared the two, paradise was bland, while Jesus was a mosaic of flavors that he would like to devour all by himself. "I refuse to believe it. You are much more than him, you are kind, not cruel. Like me, you never lie. It is you I love, it is you I worship, it is Father I hate." He said this as he held Jesus close to him, the creature who came closest to true divinity, the one who spread love rather than submission. “So you hate me too.” Judas broke away from him and positioned himself on top, trapping his chest between his legs. As he moved, his hair came loose from its ties and framed their faces, as if to protect them from the heavenly gaze. “How can you say this? Are you listening to me?” “I hear you. How can you not hate me, when the Lord lives in me, and in each of us? You hate yourself too, my star. Be careful not to consume yourself and take the world with you.” Judas did not believe in this view of the world; he saw the demiurge as a single entity. “I just… I don't want to lose you.” You won't lose me. We'll meet again in the kingdom of heaven.“ Jesus kissed him again, pressing his lips to his. Judas, melancholic, let himself be kissed. “Then I will lose you... My place is not here. I'll never be able to convince you. And yet, I keep trying.” Instead of answering, his lover held him like the petals of a fragile flower. He melted in it, forgetting everything but the present moment.
He was only a man, and so when the love of his life asked him to be the catalyst for his plan to save human souls, how could he refuse? Now he watched helplessly as Jesus left Jerusalem, carrying his own cross, and climbed the hill to Calvary. His skin was already bleeding, and the sight was unbearable. It took Jesus several hours to die, but Judas killed himself long before that. Back in Hell, and once again wearing his demonic form, he searched for Jesus' soul, going so far as to declare war on the angels and invade Paradise to find his beloved, but there was no trace of him. Only the memory of him remained. Jesus once said to him, “God has not abandoned you, Lucifer. You who are, along with man, his most beautiful creation.” It is cynical to read in these new additions to the holy book that Jesus said, as he was dying : “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
No one, except perhaps God, knew why Lucifer launched that first attack against the heavenly world. His lieutenant, Mazikeen, was the only witness to his tears, and attributed them to the humiliation of defeat. He wept for a few centuries, then the pain became easier to bear. So it goes.
No one, not even God, could hear the memory of their last real conversation, deteriorating more and more. Until he couldn’t be sure what was real and what was imagined.
“You never call me by the name, your people, the believers, gave to me. Why?”
“I can see how much you hate it, how much your body tense when you hear it. However, it is not such a bad thing to be called. Satan, the title given to those who lead us to question our faith. Your approach is sincere and not deceitful, and that is why you will find the way.”
“That is all I do, follow the path chosen for me. I am the evil that ruins everything it touches, despite my intentions.”
“You said that our Father gave man the gift of free will, didn't you? It’s by you, by the idea of you, that he gave it. It is now our task, as humans, to make our own heaven with the world he left to us. Wouldn’t it be beautiful if people chose to be kind?”
“It would be an even greater miracle. Me and the others will do our best to help you achieve your foolish dream.”
Foolish, foolish. Saving humans was a waste of time and effort, Lucifer decided. They didn’t deserve it regardless, if they could kill kindness itself. He went on Earth again, to have a little fun when he got bored, and didn’t try to interfer in anyone’s destiny again, not even his own.