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Micheal was first. He was always first. And as the oldest he knew best.
It also meant that he had to make the hardest decisions.
Sentencing the niece he never knew he had to death is one of them.
Death by a thousand cuts.
She committed a heinous crime. She led an army against Heaven and killed the first man. She admitted it herself. (Because everyone else had already decided it, goes unsaid and unacknowledged). Sure she was family. But so was Lucifer. He still betrayed them all.
Lute is grinning like a maniac as she and the exorcist army aim their spears at The Anti Christ’s head.
She wasn’t even meant to exist in the first place. If anything, they had corrected a great wrong. (They had made everything so, so much worse).
In the stories it’s so simple.
Good wins over evil. The Devil is defeated. The anti christ is destroyed. The first man is avenged. Heaven is safe once more.
So why does Micheal feel like
absolute shit?
It could be twinstinct, that silly word Lucifer came up with when they were small. The reason he’s grieving is because Lucifer is grieving.
Any thought more complicated than that and he might have a panic attack.
The fact that Lucifer of all people was the only one amongst their siblings to have a biological child didn’t make him feel any better.
All they needed now was the confirmation from Azrael. Her troupe of failures brought the body back with them under some hope that she’d miraculously survived God knows how many spears puncturing her skin.
As for what to do with the body, the seven virtues were torn between two options: allowing the citizens of Hell and the Morningstar family to give her a proper funeral and burial, or go With Lute’s idea and take her body as a trophy for their victory.
(Why are they even considering this?)
Finally, Micheal’s phone rang. Azrael’s face lighting up the caller ID.
He presses the phone to his ear. “Does she live?”
He expects a definite no. That’s not what he gets.
“Yes.”
The first hour of surgery, Lucifer stared blankly at the wall.
The second hour, he cried.
The third hour, he screamed into his phone, begging for his ex wife to pick up.
The fourth hour, he was informed that she died on the operating table.
Not long after that he was informed that they got her back.
The fifth hour, Gabriel had the nerve to show up.
“What do you want?” Lucifer asks bitterly. His brother stands before him, diplomatic and cold. Vaggie raises her spear at the archangel. He doesn’t flinch. “You come down here to gloat or something? Fling spears at the rest of us? Finish Charlie off while she’s down?”
Gabriel sighs. “Lucifer, I have not come here to quarrel with you.”
“Is that what you think this is?” Lucifer snaps as his eyes start welling up, not for the first time that day and not for the last. “Just some petty
fight
? My daughter’s fighting for her fucking life in there and you think this is on the same caliber of fighting over an X-Box?” He pauses his rant and looks over to Vaggie. “That’s what those things are called right?” She nods. Lucifer focuses back on his brother.
“Look.” Gabriel began. “In the end, this is probably for the best.”
“The fuck did you just-“
“Vaggie.” Lucifer stopped her before she could continue to chew out the archangel, his voice still and low. “Can you leave us alone for a moment.”
“But-“ her eye widens. “But he-“
“Oh I know.”
Seeming to get the message that Lucifer was going to handle it himself, she got and left, side eying Gabriel as she left the waiting room.
Lucifer glared at his brother. “She’s your niece.”
“And she wasn’t supposed to exist in the first place!” Gabriel argued. “It shouldn’t even be possible for you and Lilith to reproduce in the first place! We made sure of it!”
Lucifer’s eyes widened. “You what?” He asked quietly.
Gabriel winced. “Lucifer you have to
understand…”
“We tried for years,
centuries…
” the Devil’s voice began to shake. “And when we finally did… that was all
you
?”
Gabriel stammered. “Well not me specifically but-“
“I knew you guys hated me, but I didn’t realize you hated me that much.”
Gabriel left not long after that. after all there was no point into in telling a grieving father that his potential loss was for the best.
By the seventh hour, they lost her again.
In the eighth hour, they got her back.
By the ninth hour he stopped counting, and all he could think about was of how little his child seemed to mean to anyone else but him.
They told Raphael that it was a bad idea.
He didn’t listen.
The Hospital of the sloth ring of Hell was a chaotic, unorganized space, full of little Baphomets running around pushing people on gurneys. Despite this, Belphagor was still awfully accommodating.
Threats aside of course.
“If this is is some secret attempt to assassinate her without notice I swear to your father I will rip off your fucking dick with my teeth-“
They’d cut off most of her hair by the time Raphael got to her. Raw wounds took up space around her torso and back from where the spears stabbed her.
She looked so still, so
lifeless.
It was in direct contrast to how she was at the trial, so exuberant and defiant.
And you are the reason why she’s not.
He tries to shake the thought away but he knows it’s true, somewhat. He could’ve done something to stop the Exorcists. He could’ve spoken up for her. He could’ve pardoned the red douchebag she gave herself up for, even if he didn’t deserve it.
He sinks to the ground, bleeding from the wound on his chest that his brother has just ripped open from its haphazard stitches. “Clearly, this sinner is lying about killing the first man. For he was struck down first.”
He’d healed the worst of it. It wasn’t perfect.She was still scarred and some of her nerves had to be flat out severed. She needed skin grafts and there was talk of her needing plastic surgery.
When she was finally stable enough to be placed in a proper room he sat by her for a good hour or so before a nurse arrived and told him to fuck off. Fair enough he supposed.
Still, as he exited her room he took one last glance at her.
He wonders if that’s what Lucifer looked like after the fall.
He wonders if Charlie really is the mistake the angels should be correcting, when they had been skipping over something far bigger that couldn’t be represented with a single person.
he wonders if there’s any end to this pain at all.