Chapter Text
No act of charity goes unresented
No good deed goes unpunished
That's my new creed
My road of good intentions led where such roads always lead
Prologue: No Good Deed
Until he heard the sound of thunder in the Garden, the first ever thunder in all of Creation, right after Adam bite into the fruit Eve gave him, Lucifer didn't even consider that maybe they made a mistake. The darkening of the skies, along with a clearly sensation of coldness that was never there before, made him shiver. In fact, everything was shivering. New words exploded inside of his head as they were being created Rain, storm, eartquake.
It wasn't supposed to be like this. When he and Lilith talked about giving the fruit of knowledge, it all seemed so simple. Once given the fruit, humans could go on beyond what was expected of them, could maybe even create on their own way if they wanted to. Lucifer could not wait to see what they would do, what wonderful ideas he could never conceive came out of them. Father only wanted them to be perfect little dolls to see them play by themselves, but they could be more than that. Lilith was happy going her own way. Why shouldn't they be happy too by doing the same? Surely Father was exaggerating when he forbide anyone from taking it. What could be so terrible about humans's capacity?
None of them understood what it meant. Adam and Eve were pulled aside by his siblings, to be expelled from the garden to roam the new Earth, while Sera descended upon him and grab him by his shoulders.
"What did you do?" She wasn't screaming, but it sounded like it. Lucifer flinched anyway. Sera was... well, nicer to him than his siblings. Where they rolled their eyes and ask him if he didn't have something better to do, Sera at least could listen to him for a few minutes before another task called to her attention. He had never seen her angry like this before.
"I... what is happening?" asked Lucifer.
Sera straightened up, a new expression that Lucifer did not understand. Lilith would tell him later, when they talked about that day, that she thought that Sera was going to slap him. That is why she had to grip his sleeve, in a feble attempt to protect him.
"You shouldn't have done that," said Sera and the profound dissapointment in her voice was almost as bad as what followed.
He was separated from Lilith as he got dragged back to the single castle that formed Heaven then, where everyone was talking, lots of confusion but mostly fear. They had no better idea about anything than he had. Lucifer could take notice of that, but also another important detail. Everyone was there, except...
"Alastor," he said and his stomach seemed to drop out of his body. It wasn't the first time he thought that name, but at the abscene of that familiar face it dislodged from his mouth. He was being put on golden heavy cuffs attached to the floor through chains, as if he were a dangerous animals that had to be restrained, but all he did was look up to Sera. That was the most important question for him right at that moment. "Where is Alastor? He is not here."
"I send him on a job to the mountains," said Sera, her bottom lips trembling slighty before she regained her composure, adjusting her new frown in her face. "He will be brought here later for his own interrogation. It's better this way."
"Interrogation?" Lucifer had never even heard that word before, but knew what it meant. Worse, he knew why it was being used. "B-but he didn't do anything! This was me, I swear! I never even told him about it! It was supposed to be a surprise!"
Sera scoffed and her eyes were so wide, her pupils stabbing him with his incredulity. She could not believe that he had reduced what he did like that. But he didn't know what he did, not yet, only that it was bad and they were going to blame Alastor for it too. All because he had the stupid idea of showing Alastor something, proof that he didn't need his siblings or be given a great task by someone else because he could do something great himself. He wanted him to be proud of him. That is why he kept the secret plan even though was burning him inside. It made him giddy to think about how impressed he was going to be.
"Please, just listen to me!" insisted Lucifer. "He didn't do anything! He didn't know! I made sure! Please!"
It was useless. It always was. When the Speaker came down, Lucifer had never felt so small before. She wasn't even watching him, like the mere sight of him was painful. He was told about the fate of Adam and Eve, about how neither of them was allowed in the garden again. About how both of them were going to go hungry and thirsty and suffer unimaginable pains they weren't prepared for. Some day they were going to die and their bones were going to be less than dust, not even a memory. Any other human that came after them was going to go through the same fate. Sin now lived among them and would never fully leave them for as long they lived.
All because of him and his companion.
"Don't touch her!" he demanded, for the first time ever. Lilith had been his friend from the start, laughing with the names of the stars and teasing him on a daily basis. Lucifer didn't have any close relationships with any of his sisters, but if he did he imagined it would be like what he had with Lilith. Her laughter was never malicious and she listened to him with genuine curiosity. He never said that to Charlie, though, because what kid wants to hear the great love story of her parents never started like that, that for a long time Lucifer couldn't even see her mother and not feel sick with himself. But the part about how he did his best to try to save her, that was always the truth. If only his best didn't always turn out one way. "Don't hurt her! It was my idea, just mine! She had nothing to do with it!"
"He is lying," said the Speaker and the entire council of angels seemed to gasp at the same time. The first lie that ever got told in her presence.
That is why some called him father of lies. Because now he realized the weight of consequences and needed to spare someone from it, but it wasn't enough. It was never enough.
"Please," he pleaded, crying. He had cried before, but not like this, an uncontrollable, overwhelming desperate cry that felt like it was going to hollow him out to leave a angel shape empty. He could barely speak or think. "Please!"
The words of the Speaker were clear, even though they were softer than any feather there, delivered after a few seconds of asking for silence.
He was no longer welcome in Heaven. He and his companion couldn't be trusted to live on Earth either. Too dangerous. His punishment was going to be lower than that. Irrevocable. Permanent. Condemned to contemplate that which his little plan birthed into the universe.
Alastor. He was never going to see Alastor again. The thought cut through him like knives. As he was escorted outside of the castle, Lilith also chained at his side, he looked at Sera. None of this felt real, but he didn't know how to wake up.
"I-I need... Alastor. Let me see him, he has to, I can't..."
"Enough already!" snapped Será, as if she could barely control herself too. Her hands were shacking at her sides, water gathering at her eyes she was doing her best to contain. "Do you not realize how selfish you are? If he has nothing to do with this as you claim, then he can be spared and live among us. But if he were here he would feel the need to either defend you or condemn himself to follow you. Is that what you want? Are you ready to carry his falling too?" Her lips closed in a severe line and Lucifer shook his head vehemently, before he could even order his mouth to make the words. Alastor shouldn't have to be punished for his choice.
"No-no."
That seemed to soften Sera, just the slightest touch.
"He will understand," she offered and that felt like the only kindness she was willing to give him. "And he will do it here, where he belongs. You have no reason to worry about him anymore. He will be fine."
She was right, of course. Lucifer knows that she was, even back then. It was still far more easier said than done. That selfish part of himself never truly shut up, Lucifer just learned to drown it out. That was part of his punishment too and all he could do was accept. He accepted it through it all, the formation of Hell, the first sinners who distrusted him or each other, who taught him all the ideas only free humans could have, through the painful long nights in which he couldn't breath, through the first time he saw Lilith, noticed she was beautiful and it didn't hurt at all, not even a little, and there was relief and later desire and then love. As much as Lucifer was able to give, even as a part had to remain locked away.
Whenever a memory of pink hair flashed through his head, whenever a image of soft pink eyes escaped, when his voice, his laugh, slipped through, Lucifer pushed it down. He smiled bigger, became louder, found a new thing to do.
Very few people appreciated how productive he was on those first few thousands of years. It was like Lucifer didn't even slept (who needs sleep anyway, when he wasn't going to wake up next to... ), that is how dedicated he was to his work.
He got tired of it eventually. But by then his damned world was so full of distractions, Lucifer had no issue avoiding thoughts he didn't want. With time it became easier, like muscle memory, almost automatic. Persistence was the key.
That is how, when Lucifer heard a new voice in the radio, his first thought wasn't "that sounds familiar", although it was, under the distortion. A voice pulling at everything attached to his bones, finding all his secrets to slash him across the face with them.
He just said out loud "huh" and turn it off, to never turn it on again.
Letter to No One
(This letter was found crumbled and shoved violently against the others. There is a faint smell to an alcoholic beverage, probably from Earth. Whiskey.)
Darling:
When they ask what went wrong, I think I know now exactly what I am going to tell them.
It started when I couldn't find you at the entrance of our cave, as you usually did to see the sky turn from blue to orange to pink and then just a darker blue. You were endlessly enterteined by it, no matter how many times I told you that once you see a sunset you have seen them all. You insisted that wasn't true, that every day there could be a little more of orange, a little more of pink and maybe purples and other colors if you were lucky. You never missed them, and yet there you weren't, doing exactly that.
I found you wrapped in our blankets. Well, your wings to be exact. Under your feather I could see more fabric gathered so I knew you were also covered underneath. A preventive flash of anger rang through me. Did any of your siblings say anything to leave you like that? Was that why?
I ran my fingers down your spine. You know well how sensitive is the spot near our wings. I felt you shiver all over and your brown eyes peaking through your feathers, pouting. I was ruining your little pity party with my esplenderous presence, poor you, but I still had to ask.
"Dear, what happened?"
Your look changed, ever so slightly. You closed yourself again. I knew that you were going to talk to me sooner or later. I still took joy in teasing that sensitive spot again, letting my claws slide over so gently, until you couldn't resist any longer and had to open your wings, and you second blanket, just to hold my arm and stop it. I smirked.
"Oh, but look who it is! I thought maybe a newborn angel just wandered here and made himself a caccoon hoping to become a butterfly. I was so ready to dash their dreams," I said dramatically, satisfied only when I saw you snort, before quickly deleting it from your face.
That is when I knew, this was serious.
"Do you... Do you think I am a bad angel?" you asked, holding the blanket to your shoulders again.
"The worst I have seen. Can't even remember to pick his own robe off the floor. Absolutely dreadful," I answered immediately. Bobbing my head up and down, so you could see exactly how serious I could take such question from you.
This time you pushed me and I caught your hand, kissing the back of it.
"Don't say such ridiculous things, dear. Tell me instead what happened."
"I think something is wrong with me," you said, something I tell you in the regular but I thought you understood already I never meant it. You were still holding to my hand, so I took that as permission to sit next to you.
"Why do you say that?"
"Because I love you," you said, shrinking yourself on yourself. It was the first time you said it, but I knew already. It was as clear to me as how you see the colors in the sky every sunset, just like I was sure it was clear for you my own position in the matter.
"How does that would mean there is something wrong with you?" I asked, baffled.
You looked at me then and it was such an intense look that now I was the one to shiver without any touch. As if your gaze wanted me to cage me, frame me, hold me. The fear behind it only made it more intense, more desperate.
"Because I think I love you more than anyone. Even more than..." you whispered the last part, so low as if speaking to yourself, "Father. Or the Speaker. That is wrong, isn't?"
"How could that be wrong?" I said, holding your face on my hands so you would see me smiling. "My silly darling, I feel the exact same way about you. And isn't that just the most normal thing when we see each other every day and rarely or never see them?"
"Really?"
"Of course. We get constant reminders of what we like of each other. I don't really think you can love something that is not there, not really. If anything, is their fault for not being around you so you can love them. So I would say your feelings are perfectly normal and understandable."
You came closer to me and rested your forehead against my chest.
"Do you really mean it?"
"I do," I told you, because I did, kissing your crown. I truly did thought that. I knew you so I loved you. I didn't know Sera, Speaker or Our Father like I knew you, so I couldn't love them. I thought love was like a baby animal and it will just die without food, left to rot.
But I was wrong. I was so wrong.
If I didn't, then this baby should have died centuries ago. His bones should poke through the floor where no even worms have something to eat. And yet, it still walking, it's still talking, it's weight is heavy and I can't kill it, I can't destroy it, no matter how much I want to. Even if you are not here to feed it, it still feeds off me. It's worse than a parasite and I fear that this curse will manage to go on even if I stop existing. If that is the case, then I hope itgoes out to hunt you, to chase you down, so you can never even blink again without knowing that is there. Maybe then, only then, you will have just the slightest idea of what you did to me, you fiend.
When they ask me what went wrong, that will be my answer. You loved me first, more than God himself, and left me with no other choice to love like that in return, no matter the realm I am. It's not my fault. I didn't ask to meet you. I didn't ask to exist in a universe where you do. You were thrust upon me, and what else was I supposed to do after you were gone?
When everything becomes clear, you will find out. You made me do this.
Let all Oz be agreed
I'm Wicked through and through
Since I can not succeed, Fiyero, saving you
I promise no good deed will I attempt to do again, ever again
No good deed will I do again