Chapter Text
It was a nice day.
All the days so far had been nice. There had been rather more than seven of them so far, and rain hadn’t been invented yet, but judging by the dark clouds gathering east of Eden, already dimming the sun, the first storm was on its way, and it was going to be a big one.
An Angel stood on the wall, His many eyes tracking the slow progress of a Demon that looked like a snake, but upon closer inspection was really more of an eel, slithering up the wall. Eventually the eel reached the top, a line of blood—was it his? did Demons bleed?— leading up to him like a long, grotesque extension of his tail. Suddenly, there wasn’t an eel next to him but a man(or at least something in the shape of one). He seemed to be missing his left arm, and was shorter than the Angel, whose name was Grace, though whether that was because of his kindness or a jab at his clumsiness was anyones guess. The Demons hair was long and dirty, and just as caked in blood as the rest of him. Though Grace barely had time to question where all the blood came from before the Demon turned to face him, and his attention was snapped swiftly to the other’s face.
For the most part it was normal enough, sure it was as red and dirty as the rest of him, but that was not what made Grace’s breath catch(or would have had he needed to breath). No, what made all of the Angel’s eyes widen in surprise wasn’t the blisters covering the Demons face, or the red eye that seemed to glow slightly, no, it was the second, much toothier mouth extending from his main one and branching out onto his left cheek. When Grace looked closer, because of course he looked closer, he was a curious Angel, for better or for worse, he saw that the mouth was so crammed with teeth, stretching out of the cavity as if they were yearning for a taste of the outside world, that it was slightly open from the sheer amount of them.
“Well that went down like a lead ballon” Grace said, trying to break the tension, or at least break the intense stare the Demon had fixed on him. To his dismay, it didn’t do much, the Demon just kept staring at him, in an almost perplexed way, like Grace was a puzzle he couldn’t find the solution to. Grace was almost tempted to say it again, as the Demon made no indication that he had heard him. He decided against it, maybe he should start with an introduction? Yeah, looking back that was probably a better choice than starting with a bad one-liner.
“Um hey! I’m grace, angel of the eastern gate. Kinda…in charge of looking after all of this.” He said in a clearly failed attempt at casualty, gesturing vaguely to the green oasis enclosed in walls. Now that he had introduced himself and his purpose, surely the stranger would do the same.
The Demon to his left kept staring at him, almost more intently than before.
Okay, fair enough, he thought, I guess I’ll have to ask him a direct question if I want an to answer
“Uh what’s your name? And what are you doing here, The almighty didn’t say anything about anyone here except for the first humans and yours truly” Grace said, using both his thumbs to point to himself, before immediately regretting it.
The Demon seemed confused for a second before responding, “Si-mon” he said, working at the syllables like it was a battle to get each one out, which grace supposed it could be, with his second mouth refusing to move. “I was told to get the humans to eat the apple”
“Why would they ask you to do that? What does Hell get out of that except annoying God? Did they tell you anything about why they’re doing this?”
“They…didn’t tell me” Simon struggled to say, fuck, this mouth was driving him insane. He still reeling from the last few minutes. he couldn’t believe this Angel was questioning the Ineffable Plan, no one in Hell did that, and though his memories of Heaven were foggy, he was pretty sure no one did it there either. Not only that, he had asked what Simon’s name was! No one did that, in Heaven nobody needed to, and in Hell they only called him The Butcher, if they called him anything at all.
“And why would She even put the tree here, why not put it farther away, on the moon or Tau Ceti or something,, and make it so that Demons could convince the humans to eat the apple? why have a tree they’re not supposed to eat from at all? Makes you wonder what the fudge She’s really planning!” Grace said, his voice raising as more eyes began to open on his skin, Simon flinched away, certain that Grace was angry at him, even if he hadn’t done anything except follow Hell’s orders. He knew from experience that Angels didn’t need a reason, they would do whatever they-
Did that Angel just fall off the wall? He was there, pacing a second ago, but he seemed to have tripped and fallen down the side. Simon heard the flapping of wings and watched as Grace sheepishly flew back onto the wall, a flush of embarrassment spreading over his face.
“Sorry about that, I-“ he was cut off by a loud rumble of thunder as the first drops of rain began to fall. As they hit his face, all Simon could think about was that blood, falling from the sky in a never-ending stream, though only on him, his attempts at escape proving futile when it followed him wherever he moved. He quickly became unable to even do that, in so much pain from all of the blood raining down on him, there was so much, and it was so hot. Hotter than even the hellfire he was used to. It felt like he was under that stream for an eternity, the bird must have fully pecked away the mountain by the time it was done, but when he could finally take stock of his surroundings it seemed that no time had past at all, and that he was mostly unharmed, sure his skin was pretty fucking burned, but he was in no pain because of it, and considering how hot that downpour of blood was, and how much there had been, he had gotten off easy. Really the only major change was his arm appeared to have completely disappeared. There was no blood, no wound, no pain. It was just… gone. it wasn’t until he went to find water to wash off some of the blood that he saw himself. At the sight of his new mouth and eye he fled, forgetting his original intent of cleaning himself.
Out of the corner of his eye he saw the Angel’s wing move. he knew it! The Angel intended to hurt him, just like all the others. Sure, they hadn’t used their wings, but considering his fall, Grace didn’t seem to be the most physically gifted, but Simon would still need to be ready, he-
The Angel’s wing moved up not to hit Simon but to…shield him? Yeah, the Angel was shielding Simon, a Demon! What the fuck. Did he want something from Simon? He didn’t have anything to give him! he tried to study the Angel’s expression, but he just smiled at him, all of his eyes crinkling in what , to Simon’s bafflement, seemed to be genuine kindness. His long blonde hair was already wet from the rain, but he didn’t even bother shielding himself, just keeping his white wing over Simon. Well, Simon supposed that as far as interactions with Angels go, this one wasn’t too bad, as long as he didn’t get used to it.