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Adam had said yes.
That should’ve been Lucifer’s first sign to anticipate trouble. Adam loathed him as water loathed fire, and the feelings had been nothing but mutual. But Lucifer had caught the man on what seemed to be a good day, because instead of swinging his axe right into Lucifer’s abdomen, he instead shot the fallen angel a dirty look as he listened to the proposal. He’d guessed his silver tongue had lived up to its fame — Adam had fallen for those same charming words once before — but there was still a chill crawling up his spine as he waited in the frigid meeting room of Heaven’s embassy.
Just a meeting to ensure the exemption was official. This was all there is to it.
Lucifer drummed his sharp digits against the table, the rap echoing off the gilded walls. It'll be over soon anyway, and he'll return to his duck collection — Charlie had accidentally sent away a shipment of exclusive feather-safe printing ink and he really had to talk to that courier to make sure his hyper-realistic horror rubber duck project didn’t hit any delays. That was the thought he soothed his prickly paranoia with. Sinners had little access to this chamber; towering well over hell meant it was spared the ugliness of society’s dredges lurking below, which was great when he knew privacy was wholly necessary here. Last thing he needed was yet another hit to his already poor reputation among those assholes.
Steps interrupted his train of thought, steady and light. He fixed the way his hat sat atop his head and straightened instantly from his bored slouch. Yes, Adam was a dickhead, but courtesy was a core part of a great presentation. It was odd he wasn’t using the hologram; a personal visit at this hour was nearly unprecedented, but hey, at least he was giving as much as Lucifer was willing to give for this bureaucratic bullshit. As the doors slid open, Lucifer slid into his best smooth-talker voice. "Seriously, Adam, I know you hate my guts but keeping me waiting like this is a bit cruel, even for you—"
He froze, the rest of his sentence forgotten.
Silver-blue eyes stared back, equally startled.
Sera.
Sera?!
"Sera." Her name feels foreign on his lips; that's because it's her title, not her actual name, but the last time you called her by her actual name she'd lost her shit on you and— oh shit she's staring at me. "I wasn't..." He swallowed nervous, a gesture more symbolic than necessary. Finding his voice alone was a feat after the full-body tremor that sent him into. He was so going to fucking kill Adam next time he saw him. "I didn't know you were going to... Is Adam not here? He said the meeting was just for the books but I didn't know—"
"Where's Lilith?" Sera’s voice came strangled, and she coughed once to clear her throat.
That rattled Lucifer out of his stupor. Guess the seraph didn’t miss him much, not that he blamed her. "She's not... She didn't come."
Sera’s face fell noticeably— to him anyway. He’d been close enough to tell the cracks in her dravite-like, impenetrable facade… once. Before the kinship between them had shattered at his feet. She drew out her seat and quietly took her place across from Lucifer, not meeting his eyes.
This was going to fucking suck.
Lucifer stumbled through his arguments as if he was making them for the first time. Sera’s presence had never failed to make him feel small, especially after everything that had come to pass, and he's forgotten everything he's already prepared. His plan had been foolproof when it was Adam at the negotiations table, not Sera. Not giving him any favours was the way she was choosing not to respond to him, just a silent nod whenever he pauses to make sure she’s following, or a tilt of her head in question whenever he stammered.
He hated it.
Something told him she hated it just as much.
"And I really, really understand the whole… sinner thing." He was mid-closing argument, talking faster now to reach his conclusion, noticing how Sera's head had drooped in disinterest as her chin rested upon her palm. "To be honest with you; they're all terrible people, I don't know what Lilith even sees in them that’s worth saving. They made their choices, they ended up here, and they never stop getting on my fucking case for it— pardon my french.” Sera merely waved a hand in way of asking him to continue, and he took the permission like a man drowning. As long as she was listening, he had a shot. As long as she merely nodded along and let this meeting conclude, he was going to get out of this with everything he’s wanted.
So why was his chest burning like he’d been struck across the face?
Lucifer swallowed the bitter feeling down, continuing on. “In conclusion, my people, the hellborn, they didn't ask to be roped into this. They're just trying to thrive and fulfil their destinies, same as every other living being in the Unseen, and I requested of Adam a pardon from the Exterminations as a result; one he was gracious enough to approve."
“Mm.”
“And even if he didn’t, I don't think it's fair for them or me to be pulled into something that doesn't even concern us."
Sera's voice is quiet as she tried to interject, a clear stiffness visible in her wings at that last sentence. "Lucifer."
He'd already gotten into the groove of things, though, and wasn't hearing her below the sound of his own voice. "I honestly don't think we should've been involved from the jump— like yes, we gave them free will, but it was their choice to do what they did with it! Adam wants to rip and tear through them, he can be my guest. But keep my sins out of this shit. What's their blame in any of it?"
The seraph straightened in her chair, fixing him with a stern look. He could feel the room grow warm as her glow intensified, flooding the corner of his vision. "Lucifer."
"It's a chore if anything to exterminate everyone!” He threw his arms wide open, gesturing towards the windows by the table’s side overlooking Pentagram City. “Don't get me wrong, I love the idea of putting those losers in their place, but it's pissing people off and they hate me plenty already. I have to have those idiots tethered to my people and me at all times just because they couldn't be trusted to shape up and figure themselves out? It's not fair!"
Sera's chin left her palm, her eyes locking directly onto his as the past neutrality faded into something almost incredulous. "Not fair?"
There was enough ice in her tone to give him pause. Lucifer turned towards her, tilting his head. "Uh, yeah? What's my blame in any of it?" At his nonchalant reply, the seams of her many eyes slid across her feathers, but they didn't open yet. Still, the threat was there and he’d heard it loud and clear. Shit.
Her voice was deceptively calm, even as her body language told a completely different story. "You're smarter than this, Lucifer. We both know that."
The praise, even if meant to chide, went to his head a little. "I am, but I don't know what that's got to do with anything."
"You know hell is not meant to be a place of prosperity. It's not meant to be comfortable. It's not meant to bring you peace of mind."
He broke a sweat. Where was Sera going with this exactly? Had they not agreed this was his domain now? “Well yeah, but—”
Sera rose from her seat as if he hadn’t spoken, looking over the Pentagram now, keeping distance from him. “Not to mention, those sinners are there directly because of your actions, and now you want to decouple yourself from the situation? Need I remind you who was in Eden when everything came to pass?”
That was low, even for her. Lucifer bristled, the reminder hitting a vulnerable memory that not even Lilith could venture into. “Come on, you were there too!” Deflection was a slimy strategy, but it had served him well, and he wasn’t lying per-se. “Don't see anyone pointing fingers at you though, which is interesting considering how you hated Adam from the jump and then had to be convinced to respect him—”
Sera’s grip tightens on the windowsill. Got you there. "That's different.”
“—but I didn't love humans the 'right way' even though you told me to, and suddenly, every human’s instance of shitty decision-making’s my cross to bear now. Funny how that goes, Sera.” He crossed his arms, a smirk forming on his lips. Lucifer knew she had little way of retort against that, especially when he's been familiar with how her… what did Charlie call them… obsessions, kept her mind focused on fear of sin.
Much to his disappointment, Sera had tanked the hit. “I atoned for what I’d done. Did you?”
“I don’t need to, but I think I went through enough day in and day out when every one of those snivelling morons down in hell thinks they're so much better than me and my people,”
"Excuse me? They are your responsibility, Lucifer."
He scoffed. "Says who?!"
"Says God! Says the fruit you persuaded Eve and Adam to eat!” Sera's wings flared out, casting him in shadow as her eyes — just the two — began to glow brightly with the herculean effort of restraint. “Don't act an idiot around me, not now, not about this."
His voice went high the moment she’d brought their names into the mix, the protest squeaky and hastily thrown. "They walked to that tree with their own two feet."
Sure enough, it did nothing. "At whose suggestion?! Answer me, Lucifer!"
"Holy shit, Sera, you sound just like them!” He threw his hands up, turning away from her disgruntled questions just like she’d turned her back on him so many years ago. “It can never be anyone else's fault, it's always mine to you all! 'He tempted me’, ‘he persuaded me’, ‘oh Lord, the Devil made me do it!'; I have never made any of them do anything, EVER. They lived their own shitty lives, and then they died, and they come here, and they want me to play their fucking game of pain and retribution— well I'm done with that! Adam gave me his word we'll be exempt and I'm not leaving until I get it!"
Sera glared him down, hand now resting atop the agreement Heaven’s emissary was supposed to sign. "You want your exemption?"
He glared back. She wasn't going to make him back down. "The one I'm owed, yes."
"You'll get it."
Lucifer’s bravado fizzled out at the speed of her concession. "…huh?" He blanked, not expecting those words to leave her lips when she was already this angry at him.
But Sera wasn't done just yet. "I'm not here to deny you something god has already ordained for you. Unlike you, I don’t enjoy sacrilage. You want my signature on the forms, here—" she signed her name, hastily, on the papers in front of her and slid them his way; far from her but still out of his reach. "Take it. Take, because that's all you're good at."
"For god's sake..."
Sera grimaced like she’d bitten through carrion. "Don't dare invoke God in front of me."
Lucifer’s teeth grit at her words. She dared deny him this mere phrase when he was an angel; fallen yes, but an angel nonetheless? "For god's sake Sera, how can you still blame me for shit you've had just as much of a hand in—?"
Her multitudes of eyes flickered open, blazing with light as her fist went down on the table. Steel shivered with the impact, quivering before the High Seraphim’s thinly-veiled frustration. "I asked you to see them as people, and you went and played with their fates! All I asked of you was empathy and you chose to blaspheme so do not pin this on me."
"I was giving them a choice!"
"You RUINED her life! Don't dare rope others into your sin when you fled the scene of your own crime and left me to pick up the shards!"
She? "Lilith? She's as happy as she could be!"
Disgust was a word too little to describe just what expression had come over Sera's face at those words. "Eve, you self-centred little reprobate! The woman you got cast out of Eden with your selfishness!"
"E-Eve's fine, she's got Adam!" Fuck, that one’s weak and you know it.
"After what? After years of suffering and torment and a betrayal she still hasn't recovered from? You think that's a state to leave someone in? She's not left Eden in aeons, may the lord ease her hardship, stuck trying to make things right because of you."
"If you cared about her, then maybe you should've never cast either of us out of heaven in the first place."
"How dare you? She trusted you. She was some years young, a being only a flicker next to your aeons of creation and she trusted you. You think you have the right to rebuke me? I would be doing the world a justice by turning now and leaving you to beg at our doors. When Adam told me we were going to meet with someone in the embassy I figured Lilith had knocked some sense into you. I figured wrong. You've not changed one bit."
He fought the urge to storm out, because she’d been right— and he hated it, hated how right she’d been. "You sure did."
Surprisingly, her voice wavers now. "Indeed I did. You taught me all about the sin of choice, Lucifer."
Lucifer had nothing to say to that, the wind fully knocked out of his sails.
Sera stepped away, returning to her seat; she didn't sit, not yet, just leaned on the arm and tried with every bit of strength she had left to not keel over right there and then. "Your people are exempt. All of them. Every imp, every succubus, every creature in your domain is exempt. Take it as a reminder that God is all-merciful, most forgiving, more than I ever can be. I leave your destiny in his hands, because it can't be trusted in mine."
Seeing her this defeated, even when she’d screamed him down, reminded him of the past he’d left behind. The seraph he’d befriended, the very same terrified angel that confided in him her love for God and fear of the duty bestowed upon her. Here, even as she stood over him as Sera, the High Seraphim, he still saw the Seraph of Destiny she once was. Little shy Isra who’d trusted him with the promise he’d hold her hand when she had to end the Seen world. "Sera..."
That angel had died in Eden. All what was left was Sera.
Her voice was low, leaving no room for contest. "Get out. You got what you wanted."
Lucifer hesitated at the door, his pride equal parts bruised, equal parts apologetic. He was just as conflicted over it as he's ever been, but to see Sera collapse in her chair right after those words just made it harder for him to go.
She looked up. He was still there.
"Get out!" Her scream echoed off the walls, and he fled, still nursing his bleeding pride, "get out, get out, GET OUT! I DON'T WANT TO EVER SEE YOU AGAIN!" She was still yelling, even after he'd left, even after the room had darkened with the absence of life in it, even after the only sound echoing off the walls was her own, until those screams faded into cries, faded into sobs. He'd got what he wanted and left, as God ordained for him so many years ago, and as god destined for him so many years after.
It was her mistake to think her choices ever mattered.
Eden hadn't changed.
She'd found Eve beneath the shade of a tree, a half-wound flower crown in her lap. She’d been surrounded by the flora of the garden; tamed, yet still passionate in its growth, where roses and safforns bloom in abundance. "My, Sera! It's been forever since I saw you last. To what do I owe the honour?"
Sera always felt so out of place here.
"I thought I'd stop by."
Eve saw right through her. "Nonsense, you don't just ‘stop by’ for no reason. You've never been like that." She walks up, gathers Sera’s hands in hers all too fondly. “Tell. For me?”
Those words undid her, as they oft tended to. Eve had a place in her soul by Lilith, closer to her than her jugular vein — if she’d had one. "I missed you."
"Isn't that awfully human of you, thronebearer." Eve wags a finger, like she's scolding Sera, but the smile on her face never fades. She plants a kiss on one cheek, then the other, her way of greeting that Sera had never gotten used to. "I missed you too."
She doesn't wait for the seraph to speak, instead pulling her down into the shade. Sera sits by Eve, shoulders nearly touching, more than she'd ever allow back when she watched over Eden. But that had been a lifetime ago — literally in Eve's case... She'd died and lived and bore more than a soul was ever required to bear. Sera didn't want to add more to her hardship.
The dappled sunlight makes Eve's skin glimmer even in the shade. She was beautiful as always, even as the years scarred beneath her eyes and the sin brought a tremor to her ashen hands. She must've felt Sera's eyes on her, because she turns towards the angel, her smile turning somewhat sad. "You wear your hair differently, now."
"Do I?" The question need not exist, she'd been waiting for Eve to notice for seventeen thousand years.
"I liked it more when you let it down."
"You know Adam, and his whims." The seraph sighs, recalling how handsy he'd been when he was first created, staring at her curls with awe. "I had to swat his hand away like he were a child, once."
That gets a laugh out of Eve. "He's always been curious." She says, a soft whisper betraying a longing that's bone-deep. "But it's not just the hair, is it? You wear your wings different, too." She gestures towards Sera's left eye — the one closer to sin, the one she'd had covered out of habit when she'd sat by God's throne and dutifully ascribed every creature's fate, the one she'd stopped covering the day Eden had been struck by divine punishment, the one she'd stared at Lucifer with, hoping she'd seen wrong. Sera wants to say something, but words fail her. It's hard to talk about it, about the day Eve lost her place in Eden, the day Sera witnessed the cruelty the world had to offer under the hand of an angel. She'd stopped covering that eye since, because god forbid it be blind to the treacherous whims of an angel any longer. God forbid she be blind to the sin her brethren carry within their souls. God forbid she be tricked by yet another Lucifer—
No.
A weary sigh leaves her. God, I seek refuge in you...
She barely notices Eve's hands until they've already cradled her face. "Don't hide, now, let me look at you."
...from the whisperings of an accursed devil...
Sera's voice quivers, as if it were struggling to pry itself from her throat. "I'm sorry. I didn't know he would... I didn't know."
...who whispers into the hearts of men.
Eve wants to say something, but Sera doesn't wait before pulling her into an embrace tight enough to crush any lesser being. She can feel those downy feathers under her fingers as Eve's wings startle. Can feel hands carding through her hair, her own tears as they fell against the first woman's shoulder. It was not enough to make things right. It could never be enough to make things right.
God, bring ease to her through her hardship…
"I don't blame you, Sera."
…and grace her soul with your mercy,
Eve's grip on her is loose, but her embrace is warm either way. "I don't think I can… blame anyone, really."
...for you are the most merciful of all.
Of course she couldn't. Lucifer had taken even that.
Amen.