Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

As soon as the office door closed behind the last patient of the day, Linda collapsed into her chair and sank into an oddly comforting melancholy.  She took off her glasses, letting herself drift into the abstract image of her office, her eyes searching and straining to find a different interpretation of the familiar in the blurriness of the shapes.

She kicked off her shoes, resting her toes from the confines of her heels and pulled out a little bottle of vodka before mixing it with her tea. It was her ritual, her little trick to let go of other people’s tales and problems and woes. Linda had clawed her way through many stern academics to get where she was, but there were days when the gratification of helping and healing others was simply not enough.

And she was sitting alone, at the end of a day that differed from the previous ones and foretold the unexpected surprises of the days to come.

Behind the rhythmic flickering of the streetlights, far away in the distance she could feel the city and its nocturnal creatures getting ready for new adventures. She could feel the excitement, the desire for the unknown that might become intimate and for a moment she felt the urge to pour the cold tea down the sink and go find a bar with fresh cocktails, longing to get lost in a crowd and maybe find new friends and lovers.

She took a sip of her tea and sighed.

It wasn’t so bad.

Linda was used to doing everything by herself.

All her friends either got married or had kids or moved away—or all of the above. It was almost two years since her separation, since that day she decided she was not meant for all those things; the marriage, the husband, the kids, the nauseating faux postcard life filled with compromises, day after day till you drift into the nothingness of death. Some days she felt the crippling fear of ending her forties alone, but she was finally finding the sparks of her younger self.

That yearning to live stories worthy of being narrated for centuries to come.

No, it wasn’t bad at all. A little messy as all lives are, but professionally fulfilling, and she enjoyed the calmness of her stable, single life. Plus, it’s not like she couldn’t get laid if she wanted to.

She chuckled at the thought of the last man that flirted with her; a twenty-something year old USC student from the class she lectured every Friday. She found it cute, entirely inappropriate, and she would totally teach him a lesson or two if they met under different circumstances, but Linda was always capable of controlling her impulses and behaving in a professional and appropriate manner.

Well, that wasn’t entirely true.

Until the present day, that is.

Linda spent the entire afternoon trying to dissipate the memory from her mind to no avail. She struggled to sit still, crossing and uncrossing her legs, fussing with the hem of her dress, patient after patient, as it burned inside her inexplicable and all consuming.

It wasn’t her first time dealing with police matters.

But this time was different.

For a split second it felt like a farse.

Two detectives were seated on her couch, but neither of them looked the part. The female was beautiful, so beautiful it was almost annoying, the type that makes it impossible to not compare yourself to her and not get your ego hurt. She felt vaguely familiar to Linda, almost like she had seen her somewhere—wait… No, she couldn’t place her.

“Dr. Martin, I’d like to ask you a few questions about Delilah.” She sounded uptight, professional, her micro expressions betraying her eagerness to get this over with as fast as possible. That’s all Linda managed to notice before her eyes settled on the eccentric man at the other end of the couch.

She couldn’t really describe him in a way that would do him justice. That devious smile. His tall, lithe figure. The sly eyeliner shading his fiery eyes. Impeccably dressed in a Prada suit way too expensive for a detective’s salary. Linda wasn’t a law enforcement connoisseur but that man didn’t look remotely close to a cop; a degenerate bon vivant maybe if not Dorian Gray’s direct descendant. She felt his gaze lingering on her body and a suffocating pulse spread in her guts, compelling her to indulge in very wicked acts with him or touch him at the very least.

“You’re thinking about it, aren’t you?”

Ah, a British accent. Of course. Linda had a short but memorable track record with mysterious European men. Some accents should be deemed illegal when paired with such erogenous beings, she thought. His voice shattered her perception of reality, the memory now coming back at her fragmented; the details of their conversation still elusive, probably permanently lost. All she could think of, hear or see was him.

“Do you two know each other?”

“I know that look…”

There was a weird tension between the two that Linda didn’t have adequate time to analyze as his eyes fell on her, making her shift in her seat in a desperate attempt to create some friction between her legs. She tried—she really tried to control the remaining rational part of her brain and resist whatever it was that consumed her but failed miserably.

She vaguely remembered trading confidential patient information for the prospect of sex with him and… oh God. She demonstrated her hot yoga skills, performing a very ungraceful Basic Instinct reenactment to seal the deal.

The man’s eyes dropped between her legs and the look of pure horror on the woman’s face did not go unnoticed either.

Linda buried her face in her hands thinking about it and her embarrassed laugh crept into the silence of her office.

At least she wore underwear.

Underwear that now were very, very wet after thinking about him all afternoon.

She clenched her thighs again at the thought of him. She really needed to go home and take care of herself appropriately. And then maybe treat herself to a bottle of wine. Or an entire distillery. Nothing better than a couple of orgasms and a hearty dose of Cabernet Sauvignon to relax and go back to being a responsible professional the next day. It’s not like she was going to see him ever again.

Linda was so lost in her thoughts she almost missed the blinking red light above her office door.

What now.

With a heavy sigh, she put on her shoes and glasses again and walked to the door.

Exactly sixty seconds passed between the tick of the clock when she noticed the light and the moment she opened the door.

Eons later, Dr. Linda Martin would recount that point in time as her last minute of quietude at the end of an era.

Lucifer stepped into her office and her life, all devious charm, wicked smile, and a devilish deal that not a single part of her wanted to refuse.

And Linda stood in front of him, full of lust, passion and shame, ready to indulge in unfathomable hubris.

He shrugged off his jacket and deftly unbuttoned his shirt, moving closer, so close her breasts brushed against his body with every breath.

“So tell me, Doctor,” his voice was sultry and deep and struck a chord that filled her with wetness and heat, “what is it you truly desire?”

“I want…” Linda hesitated, feeling the waves of every arcane craving, aspiration and need crash against her chest and something that was telling her to run before it’s too late to escape the weight of her next words. “I want to feel free”.

Lucifer rewarded her with a kiss, finding her mouth already willing and open for him; his tongue searching for the truthfulness of her confession. When they broke apart she looked up at him and felt helpless, as if already naked and faced with her innermost desires.

“You are so complicated, aren’t you? So impeccably put together. Meticulously composed.” Lucifer leaned to her ear, his breath scorching hot on her skin. “I do like a challenge,” he added as one hand slowly traced up her spine to undo her bun. Blonde curls fell loosely on her shoulders, lifting from the back of her head that tension and weight that bothered her all day.

“But we need to free you from these wretched human trappings first”, he smirked, stepping slowly behind her, keeping his lips fixed on her neck. Linda let out a shaky breath, trying to relax herself as he undid the tie of her wrap dress, letting it fall almost weightless to the ground. One hand stroked up her back until it found the clasp of her bra, undoing it and tossing it out of his way. With every item of clothing removed, she felt freed from its little burden.

“Lovely,” he whispered, feeling the soft flesh of her breasts overflowing in his hands. “It’s such a crime to hide these, even behind that pretty dress of yours.”

Linda pressed her palms on the desk, shivering under his touch. His right hand trailed down her belly, into her panties, past short curls and then lower, gently spreading her apart. His thumb glided against her clit and two fingers slipped inside her with ease, filling the room with slow, wet noises as they explored, coaxing breathy whimpers out of her.

Lucifer growled in her ear. “You’ve been thinking about this all day, haven’t you,” he sounded pleased, “how I’m going to fuck you against your desk…” He pressed his hips against her ass, letting her feel his growing erection behind the soft fabric of his trousers.

Linda sank a little further into her desk. “Yes.”

“…until you stop begging me to continue and start begging me to stop.”

“Yes…Oh!” He withdrew his fingers and turned her around, pushing her ass against the desk. His motions felt deliberate, almost orchestrated and rehearsed a thousand times over. She caught his gaze, dark and hungry and full of arousal over her body, eyeing appreciatively every curve as he hooked his fingers to the sides of her underwear and pushed them down.

She was completely naked.

And then suddenly, something inside of her just snapped; something deep and primal that no science or literature could describe with words. A desire almost maddening that spread like wildfire, scorching and grazing her insides until her whole body was set aflame.

She reached and pulled him closer by the belt, tugging and tearing frantically to get him out of his clothes. Driven completely mad by his scent she raked her nails on his chest, leaving red marks all over for her tongue to follow the same path.

“Take your clothes off or I’m ripping them apart,” she finally managed to pull a coherent sentence together.

“Oh, will you now?” Lucifer chuckled and dropped his pants, happy to oblige her request.

It took every ounce of self-restrain Linda had not to audibly gasp at the sight. In the dimly lit room he resembled a satyr come to life, his cock huge as the rest of him, throbbing and pointing at the ceiling. He stroked himself and that single image was enough for her to understand what centuries of phallic worship were all about. She drunk in his form, her only thought how it might feel inside her. As if he read her mind, Lucifer grabbed her by the hips and pressed his body forward, letting her feel the erection between her legs.

Fuck.

“Lucifer…” she wrapped her legs around his waist, pulling him even closer. “What are you waiting for?”

“No need to rush this Doctor… Turns out solving a murder has quite put me in the mood,” he leaned into her. “We are just getting started.”

No. Lucifer was just getting started. Linda was almost ready to come apart.

He took his time to explore her with his hands and tongue, leaving tiny goosebumps on his path. Linda whined. It had been so long since she last did this. Way too long.

“Lucifer please.”

He tugged her nipple gently with his teeth, grinning at her pleading words. “Very well.” Linda felt a familiar burn spreading over her inner thighs as he forced her legs apart wider, settling between them.

Ok, maybe she exaggerated her flexibility just a tiny bit.

She bit her lips to stop a sharp cry as he pressed his tongue between her legs, dipping it in the wetness there and swallowing. His moan vibrated against her clit before he moved his attention there. Her whole body twisted in his hands but he gripped her hips tighter, holding her still. Linda’s hands desperately fought to find something to hold onto, knocking the desk lamp and client files on the floor before gripping his head, pulling it towards her and away in equal measure.

Linda was trying very hard to keep herself quiet, but if someone happened to pass outside her office – the whole floor really, maybe even the ones above- the inevitable crescendo of her moans would be very hard to miss.

The muffled sounds only amplified Lucifer’s efforts to make her lose control. “That’s it darling, scream for me,” he chuckled and slipped two fingers deep inside her, finding the spot that forced the moans out of her, the unraveling edging closer with each movement of his hands and tongue.

Linda threw her head back, her hips shuddering forward, aching for more. The pleasure was so great it was almost torturous, building up fast to an explosion she couldn’t hold back for much longer. She clenched around his fingers and tugged his hair mercilessly, and the scream that followed as she came not even a deaf man could miss.

Lucifer swirled his tongue until her last tremor came and passed. He propped himself up looking at his work of art; Linda splayed on her desk, her hair untamed around her, her chest flushed and heaving as she tried to catch her breath. He licked his lips and kissed his way up, his fingers still inside her, moving slowly as she relaxed around them.

“You make such a pretty picture nice and spread on your desk, Doctor.”

Linda squirmed. Her first orgasm barely took the edge off and she was desperate for more.

“Lucifer…”

“Uh-hmm.”

“I need you to fuck me,” she said with her most I used to make people come only with my voice tone. “Right now.”

“Doctor’s orders?”

“Yes,” she managed to gasp out. “The couch is a pull out. We can—”

“Oh, my… So, is this a method of payment you regularly accept?” he teased. “I had assumed it was reserved exclusively for me.”

“Yes… I mean no…”

In truth, the pull-out couch was merely a remainer from the last months of her marriage, from when she preferred to sleep in her office than return to Reese, but she was so not going to get into that now that she had the literal manifestation of her sex dreams naked and almost inside her.

“The sofa can wait for the next round. This is so much fun,” he was still teasing her, circling the head of his cock in the epicenter of her arousal, coating himself. Every move measured, giving her no doubt over who was controlling the situation. Linda cried out, her voice unrecognizable as she begged for more. He acquiesced to her demands, the pressure and pleasure increasing as he slowly guided his cock inside her.

Oh.

He was stretching her obscenely, slipping deeper, and deeper still in masterful increments, until she was completely filled and quivering around him.

“More than you bargained for, love?”

Her body almost didn’t know how to respond.

For a moment Linda thought she would come again, only from his words. Linda had heard far filthier things, things that would make any woman blush and giggle like a schoolgirl, yet here she was, wordless for the very first time. Her body was tense and every shallow thrust made her fight for breath. She bit her lips in a desperate attempt to hold a bit longer, but no matter how much she tried, not even a minute passed before she lost control and came with a force she hadn’t felt in a very long time or possibly ever at all.

It was infuriating, how easily he pushed her over the edge. And it would have been embarrassing, except the sounds of ecstasy only made Lucifer grasp her shaky thighs harder and hold her in place through her orgasmic bliss. He leaned into her with a cocky smirk, biting into the soft flesh of her breasts and Linda screamed and squirmed under his weight from a pleasure that seemed to have no end.

“Lucifer, don’t… Oh, Don’t you dare stop.”

“Why would I want to?” he practically purred, only slowing down for a minute to bring her legs to his shoulders, “I’m not done with you.” He didn’t let her recover from the aftershocks before he increased the rhythm again. His thrusts were no longer careful or slow, the new wave of wetness from her orgasms allowing him to slide his entire length in and out with ease.

Lucifer groaned, plunging harder and deeper; the desk rhythmically crackling against the floor joining the frantic wet sounds in an odd symphony. Linda tried to wriggle her hips but he kept her exactly where he wanted her. She couldn’t move or reach him from her position, all she could do was take it and moan, and it was driving her mad.

She managed to slide her feet to his chest and forced him away. Lucifer was startled, the confusion didn’t have time to settle on his face before Linda leaped off her desk and pushed him to the couch with surprising strength.

It was as if someone else had taken over her body, except Linda was certain that the burning desire came from within herself.

Lucifer landed on his back, letting out a filthy laugh. He raised an eyebrow, impressed, or rather amused with her manic state. She was a mess, blonde curls falling wildly around her face, pink nipples turned red from the bites, her arousal dripping all over her inner thighs. He watched her approach, eyes spitting fires behind her glasses, feverish and catlike. Overtaken by the loss of being stretched and filled, Linda jumped on him, furiously sinking on his cock to soothe the burning ache. She rode him hard and fast, her nails and teeth digging deep into his skin, fiercer with every filthy whisper and groan she pulled from lips.

And just as she thought she had a simmer of control, Lucifer slipped one hand between them, drawing relentless circles over her clit, giving her no choice but to come again with a shout that sounded both a battlecry and a laugh.  

And then he turned her around and did it again.

And again.

And Linda had never felt as wild or free, almost convinced that at some point, orgasm after orgasm, she would reach a state of catharsis.

Time didn’t matter anymore in that eudaemonic place, just the waves of pleasure, never subsiding, everflowing towards the next orgasm and the next. It was hedonism in its purest form, straight from the time that humanity communicated without words. And Lucifer took her there, time after time, until she was laying under him on the verge of possible insanity, shaking violently in his hands as the last orgasm crushed upon her and subsided with great force. Only then he let go with one final, victorious thrust, grunting into her mouth in a climax that lasted inhumanly long.

Lucifer nipped at her lips before pulling away, and he didn’t look winded down the slightest, just satisfied, smiling at the look of pure destruction on her face.

Still hazy, still lost in the wilderness of her mind and the greatest pleasure she’s ever known, Linda laid limb and breathless, watching him as he got up to gather his clothes, treating her to a glorious look of his backside.

Really, how did a creature so perfect came to be?

In retrospect, she should have known the answer then and there, because no mortal could ever reach this level of perfection.

She stretched her body, trying to come back to herself. Just as he was putting on his shirt, the light from a passing car fell on his back, where the skin was not smooth and soft as she thought when she dug her nails there a mere minute ago; it was scarred, maimed by two deep, old wounds. An eerie feeling hit her hard, cutting off her smile, and she wondered what story his clothes obscured. She made a mental note to ascertain the importance of these scars during their sessions. Because apparently, he was her patient now. And she was getting paid with sex.

God.

Not without difficulty, she pulled her body up to a sitting position and crossed her legs, trying to tidy her glasses and hair to look even the tiniest bit professional—or as professional as she could look still nude and wrecked from pleasure.

Lucifer eyed her with a lavish grin.

“You really need to join one of my orgies, Doctor. I must admit I’m impressed. Not many humans can keep up with me.”

Huh, interesting. Not the orgies part, although it didn’t sound—

No, Linda, absolutely not.

He was finally dressed and her mind was capable of rational thought again.

“You don’t think of yourself as human?”

He scoffed, “I’m the devil, darling.”

“Right… But our name does not define us, Lucifer.”

“No?”

“No.” Linda pondered how many things eluded her. Despite the -whatever it was – they just shared, he was a stranger and very strange. “So… I have an opening tomorrow at 6. Does that work for you?” She probably just slept with a madman, but it only made her want to delve into his psyche even more. “Therapy first,” she added.

“Lovely. But really, consider joining the festivities after. I know for a fact my dear demon will be delighted with a naughty little maenad such as yourself.” He paused, as if unburying a memory from far back, “You know, the maenads… they too desired to be free, much like yourself.”

Linda laughed, amused but honestly whatever she just experienced could only be described as a maenadic trance. “And let me guess. You fulfilled their desires and then some.”

“How could the lord of desire possibly deny their wish? I would never turn down a good bacchanal. You modern humans cannot fathom those orgies in the woods, lasting for days on end; entire villages drunk on wine and lost in the ritual madness. They believed me to be a deity, it was quite entertaining really. The one you humans refer to as Bacchus. Dionysus. You know…”

“But I thought you are the devil.”

Lucifer seemed delighted to be called that. “I’ve been many things. Although I prefer scotch over wine these days.” With that, he walked to the door, unlocking it while his gaze wandered all over her body one last time.

He smiled. “You know, I already feel so much better, Doctor. If I knew therapy can be so fun I would have tried it ages ago.”

“Lucifer, that’s not how therapy—”

And he was gone.

Chapter Text

Linda spent weeks utterly lost in the duality of her new reality. In ecstasy and agony as her mind battled her heart’s desires.

It seemed so simple at first; therapy for sex, surprisingly common among the ethical lapses committed by therapists, yet she never expected to find herself part of this statistic. Or so she told herself, because not even psychiatrists are immune to the inescapable force of denial.

She couldn’t determine with certainty when this ephemeral fling stopped being so inconsequential. Not far along into their professional and unprofessional tête-a-têtes she began to wonder if Lucifer would still desire her if they'd met in another time or place. It was a subtle sting at first; one she categorically refused to acknowledge. She wasn’t handling the sexual politics as well as she had hoped. Perhaps that was her first mistake.

Lucifer was infuriating and fascinating in equal measure—both the man on her couch and the man on her bed. The line between the two grew faint and blurred, dissolving into a shape she couldn’t define, until the only thing that remained was an indefinite in-between, where all reason was eclipsed by desire.

Not love; not in the way love is counted or confessed. Only desire. Raw and unquenchable, stretched across the void.

This really hadn’t been what she intended. Linda foolishly convinced herself that she could maintain a shred of objectivity during their sessions, oblivious to the unseen threads of cause and effect.

Consequences. There are always consequences, born not in the moment of action, but in the stretch of time that follows. They move outwards, seemingly small and inconsequential, and return with a loud bang.

Like when you try to guide your patient towards a revelation yet his first ends up meeting the plaster on your wall.

There’s a fucking reason it’s illegal to sleep with your patients, she thought as she watched him storm out of her office, the weight of his pain still lingering in the room.

She was failing.

She cancelled the rest of her appointments, eager to go home, to finally strip off the therapist’s clothes and poise. She spent that afternoon buried in research papers and books, shifting through case studies and endless footnotes, convinced that her failure to help Lucifer—to help him truly—might bring consequences beyond her understanding. The bibliography once seemed so complete, but Lucifer didn’t fit in any neatly defined diagnoses; now it all seemed like theoretical nonsense and academic jargon.

Deep into the evening and as the bottle of tequila she called dinner drained, she was visited by the phantasm of her past self, still young and naïve and filled with hope. Past Linda had no insights to offer, no knives or swords to help her untie the Gordian knot; she was judgmental and kept reciting passages from the Hippocratic oath, her voice getting progressively harsher as she reached the critical verse.

Into every house where I go, I will enter only for the good of my patients, keeping myself far from all intentional ill-doing and all seduction, and especially from the pleasures of love with women or with men.

Present Linda sat quietly, disarmed and wordless against the melodramatic diatribe and aphorisms of her past self. Instead, she poured another drink, squeezing lime into the glass. The sharp burn of the acid stung a small paper cut that she didn’t even realize she had, the pain pulling her back into reality.

She was about to delve into theological lectures and some books Dr. Canaan gave her when the doorbell rang.

The delivery boy on her doorstep looked barely past adolescence, and stood holding a bouquet of scarlet roses and a box of chocolates with a matching colored bow.  Linda closed her eyes and exhaled in frustration as the realization sinked in.

“Tell Mr. Getty this has to stop. I won’t be accepting any more of his gifts.”

The boy looked at her awkwardly, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. “Uh, no, ma’am. These aren’t from Mr. Getty.” His voice wavered slightly. “They’re from... a Lucifer Morningstar?”

“The... Lucifer?” She reluctantly took the roses, finding a small card nestled between the flowers.

Linda, forgive my earlier outburst. I trust our next appointment still stands? It will certainly be worth your time. Devil’s promise.—Lucifer.

She couldn't help but smile at the uncharacteristically gentle gesture. Lucifer Morningstar—Lucifer—apologizing? And with roses and chocolates, no less? The word “surreal” was probably invented only to describe this moment in time. 

“Well,” she muttered, more to herself than to him, “this is... different.”

The boy shrugged. “Guess he really wants to make it up to you.”

Linda laughed—a low, disbelieving chuckle. “I suppose he does.”

She closed the door behind her and returned to her desk, feeling oddly lighter. Linda set the bouquet aside, opening the box of chocolates and took a bite out of one of the dark truffles. And then another.

Suddenly none of this mattered anymore, the absurdity of the situation. It all seemed distant, irrelevant, the fog of craziness lifting from her mind as the rich sweetness melted on her tongue.

Unraveling the knots of the unseen and unmeasured existential questions is a noble quest.

But maybe desire is the only thing that matters after all.

Between every sob and the confession that follows there’s usually a silent pause.

Linda had treated sociopaths and psychopaths, machiavellian geniuses and men with mundane issues that in their minds felt sisyphean. She’d listened to confessions of murder told without remorse, and declarations of innocence that felt rehearsed. Some patients cried hysterically, some sobbed, and others talked with a calm, eerie detachment that filled the air of her office with a sterile stench. But still, time after time, the confession always came.

Lucifer was something else entirely.

There was no silence, just his usual banter and jokes—a barrage of effortless charm and wit, as though their last session hadn’t been the breakthrough it was.

Linda indulged him cautiously, determined to stay focused until the end of their session. The importance of playing her part correctly felt more pressing than ever and she anticipated the right moment to steer him inwards, towards that wound he could not see but felt deeply.

“That thing you mentioned that was stolen from you…” she began warily, probing at the fragile threads of their previous discussion.

“Oh my wings? Yes, sorted that, I got them back. No need to concern yourself over them.”

“Your… what?”

“Yes, Doctor, wings. Feathery things. Very majestic, if you’re into that sort of look. I cut them off ages ago—didn't really suit me, you know? So Maze took out her demon blades and—snip—problem solved.”

“You cut off your… wings?”

“Cut them, burned them, danced on the ashes of the pyre. And then I told my brother I’m never, ever going back to hell.”

Linda paused, her pen hovering over the notebook. She was tired of questioning everything she’d ever learned; tired of the way he clung to these metaphors, layering them into every conversation. Mid-thought, the scars on his shoulder blades flashed in her mind—those old wounds that seemed too deep to be incidental. Her throat tightened. Somatic delusions, she wrote, underlining the words. She looked at him deeply concerned.

“Is this the part where you suggest the good drugs?” Lucifer joked. “Because I’ve tried them all. One of your esteemed colleagues even swore by the ‘therapeutic properties’ of cocaine. Though, in my experience, nothing quite beats sex. Or sex on drugs. Which—” he leaned forward with a grin—“we could also try now if you’re feeling up for it.”

Linda shook her head, resisting the most tempting course of action. “Where did you hear that, Lucifer?

“Freud.”

“Oh?”

“It was 1884,” Lucifer continued, without missing a beat. “The man was utterly fascinated by cocaine—believed it was the next big thing in medicine. Naturally, I offered my assistance, strictly for research purposes, of course. We spent hours together, testing the stuff. He claimed it would cure everything from depression to indigestion, which, in fairness, after a few lines, it certainly felt like it might. I may have ‘encouraged’ some of his more… enthusiastic conclusions. You know, for science.”

“Oh…”

“Quite the character, Sigmund. Charming fellow. In fact, I have one of his journals in my library. You should stop by the penthouse tonight; I’m certain you’ll find his therapeutic methods rather fascinating.”

“Lucifer, I’m not sure this is a good idea. Maybe—”

Before she could finish, he was on his feet, closing the distance between them. He loomed over her, his fingers grazing the edge of her chair as he leaned in close. His hands slipped onto her thighs, fingers curling ever so slightly into the fabric of her skirt. Lucifer parted her crossed legs, smirking at how yieldingly they spread in his hands.

“You were saying?” Lucifer’s voice was lilting, slithering purposefully past her last defenses. “Bad ideas, my dear Linda, are always the most fun.”

She looked into his eyes and all she wanted was to be on her knees in front of him, on all fours, on his lap; it didn’t matter as long as he’d make her moan and sweat. Linda sank a little into her chair and took a deep breath, fighting her own body. “Do you feel like you have something to prove?”

Lucifer pulled back, visibly confused by her unanticipated reaction. “I don’t have anything to prove, to anyone,” he answered. “Come to the penthouse. Or don’t. It’s entirely up to you.”

Linda was left staring at the closed door behind him, exasperated but proud that she had made it through the session without faltering. Part of her brain was giving her a standing ovation, and the other half felt like it came crushing down from the high of an exotic drug.

“You’re not going,” she whispered to herself, as if the words alone could anchor her to reason. “Absolutely not.”

Barcelona, Paris, New York, Sydney, Athens, Istanbul, London, Bangkok.

Everywhere she’s lived or travelled, there is a place where the city's true heartbeat can be felt. Linda had seen many cities from above, some built on history and others crafted for the future, filled with old cathedrals or neon lights, their ancient stone, glass, or steel shooting up towards the sky. She had lived in LA for two decades without truly finding its heart.

Because it was here, in Lucifer’s penthouse.

“I knew you’d come.” He was taunting her, and it was so divine how much she wanted this and how she didn’t hate herself for wanting it.

He left the curtains open so she could see exactly where she was.

The sheets were soft beneath her hands and knees. She could see their reflection on the windowpane, blended with the city’s living map; the steady stream of cars, Lucifer lunged forward as he thrusted into her from behind, and herself, arched and spread out, her whole body moving wildly against his. The perfect picture of debauchery.

Both part of the city and far removed from it.

It was beautiful, it was all so fucking beautiful that took her breath away.

She gasped and closed her eyes, the tempest inside her seizing all sense of everything except his fire of lust; an exquisite surrender that fused body and cosmos in a single, trembling instant.

And the reason—or was it treason—that brought her there that evening, long forgotten.

The rhythmic clack of Linda’s heels echoed through the early morning stillness, amplified in the empty parking lot. Her mind was a whirl of half-formed thoughts as she walked the walk of shame with pride, her body still warm from Lucifer’s bed and his thousand touches lingering on her skin.

“You have to stay away from him.”

His voice stopped her cold. She knew it oh so well, that low, insistent cadence of it, so familiar yet completely out of place. She didn’t even notice him adrift as she was in her thoughts, lurking midway towards her car, the pale lights casting a weird shadow on his face.

“Reese.” The LUX parking lot was the last place she expected to see him. And yet, somehow, it made perfect sense. “What are you doing here?”

“You have to stay away from Lucifer Morningstar,” he repeated, stepping closer, wild and unfocused.

Linda took a step back, instinctively. She looked around, scanning for another presence. They were alone. “We’ve been over this, Reese. You need to let this go.” She foolishly thought him signing the divorce papers was the final act between them. “There’s nothing you can say that’ll make me change my mind,” she said sternly.

“No.” He refused to change his tone, his hands reaching out and grabbing her arms. The force of it took her by surprise. “You don’t understand.” He pulled her toward him, and his grip felt like iron, pressing her back against the car. “He’s the devil, Linda. The actual devil.”

The wild edge in his voice sent a chill through her.

“Right. Sure. He’s the devil. Now can I go?”

“He will hurt you.” His face was inches from hers, eyes wide and frantic. “He’s seduced you, I told you… This… this isn’t you. You’re not you anymore.”

His grip only tightened.

Trapped. That’s how he always made her feel. Well, not at first. There were flowers, soft laughter, the gentle warmth of his arms around her—it all seemed impossibly distant now, washed away by the suffocating intensity of his need to possess her. The kindness had faded long ago, leaving only this—this desperate, choking love that made her feel small, crushed. And the only thing that remains is the feeling of emptiness; that sadness when things that once were your entire world don’t matter anymore.

“You’re the only one hurting me, Reese.” Her voice was calm and austere, but she could sense his desperation slowly turning into something far more dangerous. “Let me go.”

“No.”

Linda heard a loud thud and closed her eyes, waiting for the stinging impact pain to hit her.

It never did.

The groan of pain came out of Reese’s lips instead. She felt his grip loosen and the weight of his body suddenly pulled away from her. When she opened her eyes, he was no longer next to her but a few feet away, pinned against a concrete column, his hands trembling at his sides, helpless. The woman holding him looked fierce and almost inhuman, dressed head to toe in leather.

“The lady asked you nicely to let her go,” the woman said.

“She’s my wife,” Reese rasped. His breath was heavy with panic, and Linda would almost feel sorry for him if she wasn’t so repulsed.

She turned her head, casting a shocked look in Linda’s direction. “You’re married to him?”

Linda met her gaze. “Happily divorced.”

The woman punched him again before he had the chance to sputter another response. “This one is for the lady,” she said before punching him for a second time. “And this for Lucifer Morningstar. If you ever follow him again, I’m gonna cut off your balls and shove them down your throat. Do we have an understanding?”

Reese nodded through his pain.

“You’re safe now.” The woman turned towards Linda again.

“Thank you.” Linda approached them cautiously. “But I wasn’t in any real danger.”

“If you say so.”

She took a closer look at the strange woman. She had an otherworldly air, the grace and fire of a wildcat whose beauty is edged by a blade. Her tightly fitted leather dress molded to her body, most certainly not appropriate for chasing down prey. Yet she looked like nothing in the world would be capable of stopping her.

If demons forged in the depths of hell were real, they’d look exactly like her, precisely as Lucifer described.

“You must be Maze,” Linda concluded, and the woman raised an eyebrow. “Oh…” she continued, “Lucifer talks a lot about you. I’m Dr. Martin. Linda…”

Maze smiled, a slow, wicked curve forming on her lips. “Of course he does.”

Linda’s gaze drifted back to Reese, still slumped against the column and his breath coming in shallow gasps. “Will he be ok?”

Maze glanced at him dismissively, and shrugged. “He’ll live. For now,” she said casually with a wide, predatory grin.

Linda’s mind was struggling to keep up with the absurdity of it all. She finally moved towards her car, eager to get as far away as possible, and fast. As she slid into the driver’s seat, Maze’s voice followed her.

“He was right about one thing, you know. You have to stay away. This won’t end well.”

Linda paused. “Because he’s the devil?”

“He is the devil,” Maze’s response echoed in the empty parking lot.

Linda sighed. Great. Apparently, everyone was experiencing some kind of mass hallucination, and she was the only one left unaffected.

“Do you really believe in all of that?” Linda looked around the coffee shop to make sure no one was within earshot. Her voice dropped half an octave, just in case. “Angels, demons, heaven, hell…”

Dr. Canaan, seated across from her in his usual composed posture, seemed startled by the question.

“Where is this coming from?” he asked. He sounded…carefully measured.

“Please,” Linda said, leaning forward slightly, “just answer the question. Do you truly believe in the supernatural? That there’s something—anything—waiting for us beyond this life?”

He hesitated. When he finally spoke, his voice was soft but certain. “Without a doubt.”

Linda leaned back in her chair, exhaling slowly. “Huh.”

Dr. Canaan’s brow furrowed ever so slightly. “You don’t?”

“No, I mean… Believing in something greater than yourself can impact your life, your thoughts, emotions, and behaviors. It can help you navigate certain hardships—or it may also have the exact opposite effect and become a hindrance in reaching a coherent sense of self. Not to mention the unconscious significance…”

“Linda,” Dr. Canaan interrupted her gently, “I didn’t ask you what belief can do. I asked what you believe.”

She took the coffee mug between her hands, her fingers twisting around the calming warmth. She wasn’t used to being the one under the microscope.

“I don’t know,” she admitted. “I really don’t.”

“Is this about your patient—Lucifer it is? Maybe he’s starting to get inside your head.”

She wanted to laugh hysterically, but didn’t allow herself that simple pleasure. “Of course it’s about Lucifer! Ever since I met him, everything has been about Lucifer! I’m not even sure if he needs a therapist or an exorcist!” Realizing she raised her voice mid-rant, she took a moment to collect herself. “For the first time in my career—in my life—it feels like I can’t help him in any meaningful way.  It’s driving me insane. And I… The way I act around him…”

Dr. Canaan watched her carefully, his eyes narrowing in concern. “Is there something else going on?”

“No… no, there is not,” Linda replied quickly, a little too quickly. She blushed at the probability of her colleague hearing all those noises that should never come out of a therapist’s office. She averted her eyes, uncertain whether he noticed. He probably did.

“Are you trying to convince me,” he asked softly, “or yourself?”

The truth is, she wasn’t sure. Ever since Lucifer had walked into her life, the world—her world—the rational, explainable world of facts and psychology, had begun to crack. And now, it wasn’t just Lucifer causing the fractures—it was everyone around her, even herself. Especially herself. It was this gnawing doubt, this creeping suspicion that maybe, just maybe, the world wasn’t as orderly and comprehensible as she’d always believed.

It wasn’t many days later—but certainly felt like a century—when Lucifer showed up on her doorstep, cradling a red, velvety box that looked almost too luxurious to touch. She tilted her head upwards, her eyes alternating between his wicked grin and the gift, trying to figure out what kind of sex toys it might contain—knowing Lucifer it was probably something weirdly shaped, of Babylonian origin or invented by some other, equally mystical culture. And what annoyed her the most, was that whoever their contents were, she would let him—correction, she would beg him—to use them on her body in any way he wished. And it would be the best night of her life—until the next one would come along to surpass it.

Lucifer leaned towards her, his lips hovering over hers but not touching. “You’re not going to invite me in?” he purred, the vibrations of his voice barely skimming her mouth, and the heat from his breath spread through her body instantly.

Linda opened her mouth to say something, but a breathless gasp escaped before the words she meant to speak. She just opened her door in response, feeling her willpower fading in his presence. Lucifer handed her the box and stepped inside, moving as if the entire world belonged to him.

She placed the box on the dining table, trailing her fingers over its velvety surface, feeling the weight of it—not its physical heft, but the invisible gravity of whatever it contained.

Mystery, scandal, and sin.

Or, you know, a naughty novelty item of the exact variety that Lucifer was so fond of and that would make her both laugh and come. Sometimes simultaneously.

Lucifer moved behind her, pressing his weight gently against her body. His fingers toyed with the thin strap of her dress before he gently pushed it out of the way, kissing where it once laid.

“Open it, darling,” he whispered, and it sounded like something halfway between begging and a command.

Either way, she had no intention of denying him.

Excited beyond measure, Linda lifted the lid, and for a moment, she thought she might drop it. Everything dimmed.

Two Venetian masks stared back at her with hollow eyes, their exquisite detail both mesmerizing and slightly unnerving. They were beautiful, masterfully crafted, painted in a deep burgundy and white with swirls of red gold filigree along the edges, curling up into peaks. She couldn’t quite determine what they resembled—a clown, a jester or a creature with horns.

Linda could vaguely feel Lucifer’s hands reaching under her dress, the sensations muted from the sudden crescendo of her heartbeat.

She had seen those masks before.

Chapter Text

4^th March, 1989

The first thing she noticed about Venice was how it seemed frozen in time. A labyrinth of intricate alleys and arched bridges, winding canals, and palazzos with weathered facades; completely untouched by modernity. Linda marveled at how silent it was during the day, void of the urban sounds, the cacophony of cars, hurried footsteps, engines, and screams. If you stood silent and held your breath, you’d be allowed to overhear the conversation between the stones and water, sporadically interrupted by church bells or the occasional couple whispering naive declarations of love.

And then at dusk, Venice transformed. The whole city turned into a grand ballroom celebrating the night of Carnevale. The alleys and small piazzas filled with masked figures, and the sound of violins and accordions emerged from every corner.

She was traveling through Italy with her college friends, a trip they had been planning since their sophomore year—one last spring break before life would take them in opposing directions. Each one of her friends, it seemed, had their future figured out, content with their choices, traversing life with all the certainty that youth grants.

But not Linda. Clueless of what her destined place was meant to be, her future was defined by what she sought to avoid and not the other way around. Because the prospect of returning to her hometown in the middle of Michigan, in the middle of nowhere—a place just as remote as her thoughts—and teaching biology to high schoolers filled her with dread; an ever-present ennui, heavier as their trip drew to an end.

It would be a peaceful, calm existence, untroubled by complexity.

But Linda longed for more.

Setting aside the grand decisions and self-discovery for later, that trip was the perfect opportunity to make tiny, bolder choices.

They skinny-dipped in the turquoise waters of Cagliari and rode Vespas with strangers in Rome. They flirted their way onto a private yacht in Capri even though it probably belonged to someone from the mafia. And one evening in Florence, they found themselves up on a rooftop, getting high until they no longer knew where the city lights ended and where the stars began.

They made it to Venice just in time for the Carnival, where every desire seemed ripe and up for grabs.

The dress she chose that night barely covered her décolleté and got caught between her thighs as she walked. She completed the outfit with a columbina mask bought earlier that day and hit the crowded streets. She couldn’t really see without her glasses, but she figured that night was for feeling and not actually seeing—a world stripped down to its simplest, most elemental truth.

“Hurry up, Linda!” She was struggling with her heels to keep pace on the cobblestone and was falling behind, but her friend grabbed her hand and guided her through the crowded streets until they reached a piazza with a big party underway.

She found herself in the middle of the vibrant crowd, drinking and laughing until the collective euphoria lured her into a wild dance. The crowd seemed to pulse, the colors burned, and the numerous stars were threatening to tear apart the sky; everything in its superlative form. It seemed as if nothing would ever be this vivid again, so wild and unconstrained, rewriting the rules of society and maybe even of the cosmos.

Someone dressed as a plague doctor bowed dramatically in front of her before sweeping her away from her friends, until a different gloved hand stole her to twirl around and bring into his arms. Music surged from the accordions and heat from the bodies, until she had no more steps or breaths remaining. She staggered back, laughing softly.

She needed another drink.

A small, dimly lit bar caught her eye as she pushed her way through the crowd, exertion clinging to her skin, still trying to catch her breath.

“I’ll have what she’s having,” she said to the man behind the bar, nodding towards a girl sipping a cocktail with some sort of fruity liquor.

She sat in the corner alone, in the low light, carefully observing the hypnotic shift of the crowd. Without her glasses, the dancing lights and abstract faces made her mind wander places just as blurry as her sight. But even amidst the haze, she could so clearly see ephemeral flings starting to form under the moonlight, figures lingering closer and closer, neatly protected under the disguises.

And then she saw him emerge from the crowd; female and male hands all over him trying to sweep him back into the dancing horde. He moved like the water does, gracefully redirecting the hands towards each other, making his way towards where Linda was sitting. He was tall, cloaked, and wearing a horned mask with enigmatic patterns that concealed half his face. One single gesture, and the bartender slid a glass of scotch in front of him.

Linda couldn’t stop staring intensely at the masked man. He noticed and looked at her, making her avert her eyes quickly toward the floor, but seconds later she met his gaze again.

The man lit a cigarette before sitting right next to her, the swirling smoke hiding the unmasked portion of his face.

“Your desires,” he said, in a staccato tone that shot right through her like electricity, “they radiate off of you. I can’t resist that, I’m afraid.”

“Damnit.”

His lips parted in surprise. “What?”

“Nothing, I… I was hoping you were Italian.”

“I can be anything you want.”

It made her smile.

“Hi, I’m Linda.”

The man didn’t respond with a name. He simply extended his cigarette case, offering her a smoke. Linda graciously accepted, placing it to her lips as he held the lighter for her, despite the wind sweeping the flames towards his hands.

She inhaled deeply, letting the smoke linger before exhaling along with all her thoughts.

The man whispered something in Italian. She didn’t understand a single word, but she nodded.

He reached up and tucked a rebellious curl behind her ear, fingers tracing along her jaw as he leaned in for a kiss.

Oh, she understood that alright.

It was hot and demanding and made her blood pump in tune with the music in the background.

They separated only when the heat from the cigarettes reached their fingers.

Linda pulled back, her hands fumbling for the ribbon on her mask, eager to remove it, but the mysterious man gently stopped her wrists. The bartender, watching them all this time from across the bar, let out a laugh.

“You’re missing the point, signiorina,” he called loudly in broken English, and her mysterious kisser nodded, agreeing.

He stood up and extended his arm, wordlessly inviting her to follow him. Linda took it, flushed and eager to get closer to him on the dance floor, with lowered inhibitions this time.

But he led her away instead, towards the street and out of the crowded piazza.

Oh.

Fuck.

She followed him without another second of hesitation, as the decadence of that night demanded. Later, much later in life, she would call it the naivety of youth, but at that moment she was certain, absolutely certain, that nothing could harm her, not here, not with him. 

Her heart started beating faster; she counted three beats for every step she took, every click of her high heels on the cobblestone sending her closer to the unknown destination he had in mind. 

And with every step she shed a piece of herself, until she wasn’t Linda anymore; she was someone else, bolder, braver, more beautiful, ready to be baptized in unholy absolution. She could be anyone. He could be anyone. A gentleman or utterly depraved, rich or poor, with an angelic or monstrous face hiding behind that unsettlingly sexy mask. She didn’t know nor want to know anymore, and that excited her.

They walked arm in arm through the crowds and the serpentine streets until they made a right turn into a narrow alley, and then another, until the crowd dissipated and they reached a small square nestled between palazzos. She could still hear faint music and laughter; they weren’t far from the piazza, but they were now alone.

The masked man led her to one of the arched gates and into a hidden courtyard. Linda looked around, intrigued by the remnants of a grandiose architectural past; walls covered in vines and moss, smooth marble flooring, ornate columns, and some terracotta pots next to a staircase overflowing with vibrant bougainvillea and other lush plants. And, at the center of the courtyard, a fountain with a sculpture of a horned creature in the middle, limned in the moonlight, bearing a striking resemblance to the mask worn by the stranger.

Was this even his house or…

Did it even matter?

Linda found herself seized and pinned against the wall, flushed and quivering in between the cold stone and the man’s warmth. There was a guttural groan against her lips before he claimed them with a kiss all tongue and teeth; the kind of kiss that can only be claimed knowing that the encounter won’t survive the dawn, when the emphasis falls not so much on the elapsed time, as on chemistry and its derivatives.

Linda relinquished herself to the onslaught of hands and lips and their delightful eagerness to learn the topographies of the flesh before the night was lost to memory. Touches and breaths lingered hither and thither; the cheeks, neck, collarbone, inside and under her dress, pushing it down to expose her breasts. Icy air and heated fingers commanded her nipples to harden, and it was unclear who won in this race.

Everything was happening faster than her mind could process; she felt his hips shifting, his weight trapping her, a hand cascading down her leg until it found the hem of her dress, and then back up along her thighs, yanking the underwear to the side until he changed his mind and ripped the lace apart, to spread and slip inside her with ease and a ferocity she wasn’t used to. 

Linda reached between them amidst whimpers and the chaos of grappling hands, right where his pants were stretched taut from his erection, feeling quite clearly that he was as hard as she was wet. There was a brief fight with the zipper and buttons, movements clumsy and hurried to get his pants off and down his ankles.

He said something as she stroked him; from the tone of it, it sounded a lot like approval, with every vowel and grunt sending anticipatory tremors up Linda’s spine.

A surprised gasp escaped her as he grabbed her ass and lifted her up as if she were weightless. Linda wrapped her arms and legs around him, needy and yielding to the delicate balance. Without any struggle, he reached one hand between them, guiding his cock into her; he was thick and hot and hard and pushing deep inside her, so deep she never thought possible. He gave her a second to get used to the sudden invasion; only a second before he pulled his hips back and thrusted.

Linda closed her eyes, giving in to him.

And she had so many curses on the tip of her tongue, but all she could gasp out was in the universal language of moans.

The statue in the middle of the courtyard watched the scene unfold, seemingly indifferent, perhaps too numb from the hundreds, or maybe thousands of illicit encounters it witnessed through the centuries. But for Linda it was a first, or better a first in a series of firsts, because, just as her youth discovered, what seemed out of character was in fact very much her character.

As they say, you can only find yourself far away from home, far away from the outline of a life that others created for you. 

And there she was, legs draped over his elbows, her breasts crushed against his chest as he fucked her against the wall. It was quick, and rough, and dirty, and made her feel so powerful and vulnerable and everything in between; both like a cheap whore and a fucking queen.

Her senses faded, one after the other, until the only thing that remained was the present moment, each touch, each thrust, each kiss, driving her moans relentlessly to their zenith. She heard the tune of the music shifting on the horizon, a church bell striking midnight, a firework exploding in the sky, people passing by from the other side of the wall.

And then came her scream, its echo shooting down the street.

His voice rose and joined in the apogee of ecstasy, and for a while, it seemed that moment would never end, that they would stay there, intertwined and suspended in time, just like Venice around them.

Her legs were still trembling as they met the ground again. Linda tried to steady herself against the wall, overwhelmed by the lassitude of release. The heat faded slowly as he pulled away, but a faint burn remained. She watched him curiously; instead of pulling his pants back on, he took them off entirely, folding them with dexterity as he hummed in rhythm with the music that reached them from far away. Completely naked from the waist down, still hard and gorgeous and entirely unashamed of it. He turned around and stepped towards the house, looking at her over his shoulder with a salacious grin, nodding for her to follow.

And she was ready, oh, so ready to do just that, when the creaking sound of the steel door that led into the courtyard opening sobered her up.

The woman who entered had two men beside her, one at each side, her arms splayed across their shoulders. The three of them laughed and talked loudly, some hands already hidden under each other’s costumes.

The trio paused.

“Well, well, who do we have here? Excellent choice, boss,” the woman spoke, addressing the masked man. “I expected nothing less.”

Linda squinted, trying to make out more details as far as her vision allowed. The woman approached her, moving seductively along with the shadows. Her mask was different than any other Linda had seen that night. It covered half her face, coming right down in the middle. It looked oddly intriguing, almost demonic, resembling those masks of voodoo deities worn by their worshipers in New Orleans; a mask you would expect to encounter at Mardi Gras but seemed out of place halfway around the world in this little Venetian palazzo.

“Will you be joining us? The more the merrier…” the woman continued, licking her lips.

It was then that Linda realized her dress was still disheveled, leaving her thighs and breasts exposed. Blushing, she quickly tried to fix it, noting how her companion didn’t make the slightest move to cover his nakedness.

In Carnevale, it seemed, the only true nudity was showing your face, Linda noted for future reference, even though the probability of finding herself in the same situation ever again was highly unlikely.

For now, she felt all eyes focused on her, trying to guess her answer before it was voiced. Her body yelled yes, but her mind screamed that this was a bit more than she had bargained for.

“I… I’m sorry… I have to go,” she said at last.

“Whatever,” the woman replied. But just one scolding look from the masked man was enough to change her demeanor and make her lower her head.

The three newcomers disappeared into the house just as suddenly as they appeared, and she was alone with the masked man once more. Respecting her wishes, he accompanied her to the edge of the courtyard, kissing her one last time before opening the gate.

“Arrivederci, Linda.”

And as the gate creaked shut behind her, the night already belonged in the past.

And here they were, decades in the future, the same masks presented to her as a gift by Lucifer.

She wondered how many years had elapsed. Two and a half decades or maybe three—it’s hard to determine for events that happened on the edge of dreams, but Linda was certain that night came and passed long before the first lines of time appeared on her face.

Because that night existed beyond and above the opposition of dreams, in the direction of every wind; like a smell or taste from your childhood that you still carry in your chest, with a desperate certainty and sadness that it will never be experienced again.  

But Lucifer somehow knew; he always knew, so wise in his immaturity and sincere, laughing his defiance at society’s face, like a true herald of freedom.

A hand slid up her spine, and either by instinct or by memory, she curved to the touch. 

He reached over her, picked up one of the masks, and placed it on her face, gently taking off her glasses and shifting her hair out of the way to tie the bow, and then did the same with his. Linda turned around to face him, drawn inexorably back toward him, her desire stripped down to the bone and molded to her skin. And in the glint of Lucifer’s gaze, she saw the reflection of herself—both the young girl and her older self, masked and vulnerable, reliving the beginning from the end.

Lucifer lifted her in his arms and carried her to the closest wall.

And then a strange thing happened; it was as if time folded on itself, past and present colliding in the space between breaths, searching in the perishable gestures for the youth she left behind.

Until that tragic moment, when two bodies are separated for the very last time.

Inevitable, final, and absolute, rarely recognized as such.

Her head still buried in Lucifer’s chest, she gave herself a moment in the aftermath of passion, enjoying the sated desire, feeling the glow settle and shift. The satisfied smile that Lucifer painted on her lips abstracting as something unnamed pressed against her thoughts, changing their form and place.

She pulled away to find her robe, wrapping it tightly around herself—the fabric so cold against the fading heat on her skin—and reached for her glasses from the table where she hastily had left them.

Lucifer was lounging, still wearing his mask, rushing yet motionless as he retrieved his scattered clothing from around the living room.

Between them stretched a silence—not warm or awkward, but the stillness of impending loss.

Linda sensed Lucifer’s lightness, how he was ready to crack a joke. A breath and an exhale later, courage scraped from every iota of her being, she voiced the imminent question.

“Where did you get those?” she asked, her voice more harsh than she intended. Linda took her mask off, replacing it with her glasses. She could see more clearly now—still not clearly enough.

“Oh, a trinket from one of my many escapades,” Lucifer replied, and a nonchalant chuckle followed. Pants now zipped, he sat on the couch, fidgeting with the cigarette he pulled out of his pocket. “I thought they might add a certain...je ne sais quoi to our evening. Did they not?”

His figure looked alight, almost self-luminous amidst the shallow darkness of the living room. His face was still unreadable behind the mask, driving her mad with its stubborn opacity. Almost desperate, she took a few steps closer and straddled his lap.

“If you’re ready for round two, all you need to do is ask,” he teased, hands slithering down her backside. “I can’t deny a lady’s desires, especially one so adept in the amorous arts.”

Linda ignored him and quickly slapped his hands away and tied a second knot in her robe, just in case. She reached towards his mask, brushing her fingers lightly over its cold, unyielding surface.

“Take it off,” she pleaded softly.

Lucifer didn’t falter. “What, this mask?” he said, pointing to his face.

“There’s another?”

“Only my devil face. But trust me, darling. Some things are better left unseen.”

She gave him a look, one that apparently worked, because Lucifer acquiesced. He untied the mask, and it fell straight into Linda’s hands. She gripped it tightly, as if it were the only thing tethering her to reality.

Linda let out an exhalation of relief.

She wasn’t quite sure what she expected, what the masks signified, or what the unmasking could unveil. But it was just Lucifer—just Lucifer.

“It wasn’t you,” she concluded, forcing a laugh, brittle and defensive.

Because if it was—no. She slammed the door on that thought, tossing the key and the passe-partout somewhere in the ocean of her mind. A Pandora’s box she wasn’t ready to open, not now, not ever.

“No, it couldn’t be you. But… how did you know? About the masks, that night in Venice…” Uncertainty crept into her voice again. “Was it a friend of yours, or brother, or—oh God—was it your father?”

Lucifer lit his cigarette with steady hands, offering no answers, and simply raised an eyebrow. In an ironic twist of roles, he waited for her to figure it out.

“No, it…” Linda’s voice faded suddenly.

It is said that most realizations hit in waves, but this one felt more like a tsunami, the surge in the depths of her body before she even saw it coming before crashing through her blood without any warning. It tore through everything, leaving her breathless and scared against a current too vast to fight, too undeniable to ignore; consuming, unstoppable, and in its overwhelming force, she was left exposed and drowning.

She stole Lucifer’s cigarette and inhaled deeply before returning it.

“It was you,” she said at last.

“Ah, finally. You remember.” He grinned. “I was beginning to worry."

It took her a second, but eventually she pulled back and away from him. “You knew,” she said, pacing in the tight space between her couch and the fireplace. “All this time, you knew it was me.”

“Well, of course I knew. It’s rather difficult to surprise me. Even the Detective worked it out—don’t you recall?”

“Right…” Linda had a vague memory of Detective Decker asking them if they knew each other upon their first meeting. 

“I have mentioned how utterly brilliant she is, haven’t I?" He added, and then the strangest thing happened as he spoke of her; his smirk faded into a tender smile, truly unguarded, for the first time.

Linda stopped pacing and looked at him wistfully. It was in that moment that she decided where her true purpose lay, so clear now in her mind. Behind the mask, the eyes, the scars; across her own secrets, and even beyond the infinite quadrangles of morality, fixed by an ancient stupidity and its mighty durability.

“The Detective. I’d like to hear more about her. It sounds like she’s quite special to you.”

“Are you going to turn this into a therapy session?”

Linda sat down on the armchair, crossed her legs and adjusted her glasses—all her therapist power moves. “Yes. And I believe”—her breath caught a little—“it would be better if we stopped seeing each other. Intimately, I mean.”

Lucifer looked offended. “You’re breaking up with me mid-swoon?” It wasn’t really a protest.

“I’m simply reverting this relationship to what it should have been originally.”

“There was a girl I met in Venice who would disagree.”

“There’s a difference between correlation and causation, Lucifer.”

Linda noticed how Lucifer’s hands stiffened. He put out his cigarette, as if holding it was suddenly painful.

“Coincidences aren’t real, Doctor. That’s what you mortals don’t understand. Everything that happens, happens because my father willed it so. Every coffee mug shattering on the kitchen floor, every cockroach being stepped on, every child born breathless.” Lucifer’s vocal cadence shifted mid-sentence from pain to arrogance, to anger, and to pain again. “There are no blind spots in his master plan. I don’t blame you. It’s a logical fallacy to be mortal and to be able to comprehend.”

“I would like to try.”

“You can’t.”

“Then explain it. In layman’s terms. Why do you think your father holds so much power over us—and over you?”

“Because I’m the Devil.” Lucifer leaned in the brief syncope. “My father is none other than God.”

Linda exhaled her frustration, not knowing what else to say. She wished she had her notebook on hand, because what started as a feeble attempt to make him open up about the detective was quickly taking a turn.

“See, you still don’t believe me.”

“I don’t want to believe; I want to understand. What I’m thinking is irrelevant. It’s not like I can ask for ID verification anyway—I’d wager a bet they don’t make those in Hell,” she joked.

“Well, not for lack of trying. It was Metatron’s job,” Lucifer wasn’t joking, “but the lazy bastard preferred to play backgammon with Plato and Emperor Claudius instead of—”

Linda raised her palm, stopping him. Totally unprofessional, but then again, none of this was.

“Lucifer, enough! You know what? You’re right. I don’t—I can’t understand. Not unless you drop it all; the hiding behind metaphors, the biblical trivia, the charm offensive.” She stopped to breathe, in fear that she crossed a line—another one—and then continued, in a calmer voice. “All I want to know is you. The real Lucifer.”

Lucifer leaned back again, disarmed. When he spoke, his voice was small, uncertain. “Are you sure?”

“Very much so. Help me understand.”

He looked straight into her eyes, still skeptical. “No words will make you believe.”

“Try me.”

Linda held her breath.

“I can only show you…”

And he did.

He removed the final mask.

There was no storm of fire, no biblical thunder.

Lucifer, just like the poets had imagined him. The face of the Devil, red eyes and charred flesh, chthonic and grotesque, as if made by phosphorus that catches fire and ignites. Heat radiated off him, not like the heat of fire, but that of a star—a dying supernova, moments before it violently collapsed on itself. But instead of an explosion, his face simply shifted back into its previous beauty. A faint, hopeful smile formed at the corners of his mouth.

Linda couldn’t look away, unbearably confined, lost at the edge where the calamities of her own curiosity pushed her. Every second leaped slower than decay. Every breath felt like shards of glass in her lungs. The Devil—the actual Devil— was sitting on her couch. In the middle of her living room. The same man—the Devil!—with whom she laid with time and time again out of her own volition.

There was no scream, no gasp, no tears of fear.

Stillness.

Absolute desolation.

The smile faded and disappeared.

Lucifer stood up and walked towards the door, each step interrupting the silence like a laceration.

When Linda dared to look up, he was standing at the door, hand on the knob, his profile illuminated at the corner.

“Lucifer…” she managed to choke out, still uncertain of what her next words might be.

His knuckles stiffened against the brass.

“See you next week?” Her whisper carried at the end of a broken breath.

Lucifer’s faint smile was back.

“Deal.”

Eternity is such a long time, you see.

Lucifer and Linda slept together precisely one more time, when they spent a few boring years in hell, briefly apart from their lovers, and then pretended it never happened for the rest of eternity.

Chapter Text

The day Linda Martin died, the earth stood still.

No, not in the poetic sense—not the way time collapses for hours or days or weeks when someone you love no longer belongs to this world. No.

The earth literally stood still, slipping—just slightly—out of sync with the other celestial bodies.

No one noticed at first.

A few hours later, observatories in Chile and Hawaii lit up with chatter. Files were pulled, and trajectories were recalculated. The numbers didn’t make sense. It remained one of the greatest scientific mysteries of the 21st century.

The Vatican issued a brief statement, then redacted it. Politicians called emergency conferences. There were debates, deadlocks, and dramatic resignations. Adjusting global time forward is a logistical nightmare.

For 14 minutes and 35 seconds.

The exact time needed for the demon Mazikeen to carry Linda, bloodied and burned by the Goddess of all creation, from her office to the nearest hospital.

The exact time Amenadiel, the firstborn of angels, froze the earth. In his weakened state, he couldn’t hold the moon, the stars, the cosmos.

Only this small, spinning world.

Only for her.

Not that it mattered anyway.

In that frozen moment of time, Linda had taken her last breath.

“Linda.”

There was a hum in her ears. Her mother’s voice. She almost didn’t recognize her own name.

“Linda.”

The sterile smell of hospital. Antiseptic in generous doses, to mask the stench of decay.

“Linda!”

Her eyes opened, but only because her body was trained to obey that sound. The fluorescent hospital lights buzzed, flickered once, and held. Too white. Too clean. The kind of clean that never feels clean.

Her mother sat in the chair by the bed, a handbag resting stiffly on her lap. Beige. Practical.

Linda moved her head and felt the pull of stitches along her scalp. The inside of her lip was split. Dried blood tasted like copper pennies.

“You’re lucky,” her mother said, not quite looking at her. “Edwin could press charges.”

“You found him in Clara’s room.” It wasn’t a question. Not even anger. Just an arrangement of facts.

Her mother didn’t react, almost as if she already knew. Like she knew that time she saw uncle Edwin come out of her room. But she was 17 now. That’s too old.

“And you hit him with your grandmother’s brass lamp.”

“I’m sorry.”

“You should be. You tried to kill him.”

“No. I mean, I’m sorry I didn’t try hard enough.”

Her mother sighed. She set the bag on the floor. Adjusted her jacket.

“You’ve put us in a difficult position. There were ambulances and the police at our porch. It’s already made the rounds, I’m sure.”

Linda averted her eyes to the wall. A calendar with creased corners marked the day. August 1985. One more year until she’d leave for college.

“Where’s Clara?” she asked.

Her mother didn’t answer right away.

“Sleeping,” she said at last. “They gave her something.”

Linda closed her eyes. The light kept buzzing.

And then a voice again, quieter now, further away.

— — —

“Ms. Martin.”

Her legs were cold beneath the thin paper gown.

“Ms. Martin?”

Linda pried her eyes open and blinked, adjusting to the light.

The nurse set down paperwork.

“We’re almost done. You can leave in twenty minutes.”

She didn’t meet Linda’s eyes. She didn’t smile.

“You’ll have some cramping,” the nurse said. “Light bleeding for a few days. We’ve given you ibuprofen. Someone should walk you out.”

Then she left.

Linda sat up slowly. The pad beneath her shifted with a soft, wet sound. She reached for her clothes.

She thought she’d feel different afterward. But she didn’t. She didn’t feel anything.

She pulled her jeans on, wincing.

There were protesters outside the clinic. A woman holding a sign. Life begins at conception. Another one with the word murderer printed in red sharpie.

Hypocrites. This was their Sunday service, a casual liturgy—righteousness practiced like routine.

A news broadcast about the Soviet Union muted on the TV. June 1989.

It was three months already since she returned from Europe. Another three until she would start med school at fall. Ironically, a water stain on the wall was shaped like California.

She closed her eyes, breathed, and the lights dissolved along with the protesters.

Silence. Only a voice, far away in the distance.

— — —

“Mrs. Martin.”

The nurse at the desk hadn’t asked who she was. She’d just looked up, then down. That was enough.

“She’s in room 666.”

Weird. Usually hospitals skip that number. She didn’t think much of it.

She walked down the corridor. She saw some people, all of them silent. In this town people were too afraid to talk. Or rather, too afraid to talk loudly — because they only whispered behind your back.

Inside the room, Clara lay still. Tubes. A heart monitor ticking in slow rhythm.

She hadn’t gone in yet. She didn’t want her last memory to be the machine breathing for her sister.

Maybe if she hadn’t gone to med school, if she had stayed, she would have noticed the signs.

But Linda couldn’t save her because she needed to be saved first.

Her mother looked tired, old, much older than she remembered. Something had folded her in. The fatal question hung on her lips.

“Why?”

“You know why.”

“It’s been years.”

“Trauma doesn’t expire.”

She picked up the newspaper. The Maastricht Treaty came into effect. Giuliani Elected Mayor of New York. November 1993.  

A doctor passed. Another nurse. Someone pushed a cart that squeaked on one wheel. Useless, all of them. Maybe only a therapist could help Clara, but now it was too late.

The moment that thought crossed her mind, she knew.

She wanted to be the person her sister needed.

She couldn’t save her, but maybe she could save others.

The hallway was very still. Then a sound—barely. A hush inside a hush.

Not the sound of someone dying.

The sound of someone already gone.

A voice pulled her away before the tears had time to reach her eyes.

— — —

“Dr. Martin.”

She felt confined in her scrubs.

“Dr. Martin?”

Two more hours and she could take them off. One more year and she would finish her residency. Maybe she should do a PhD after.

“Dr. Martin, your phone is ringing.”

“Oh, right, excuse me.”

She picked up. Her mother’s voice on the other end of the line. It was five years since they last talked. She sometimes searched her name in the obituaries.

After all those years, her mother only had four words.

“Your Uncle Edwin died.”

“Good.”

She thought that moment would bring her peace. It didn’t.

She hang up. Next to the phone, the chart was still open. April 1997. 

She turned back to her patient.

All she could hear was the hollow chant of her name.

— — —

“Linda.”

The voice had worn smooth the grain of the world.

Again and again and again.

Violence she couldn’t stop. A choice she couldn’t undo. A death she couldn’t prevent. A death she didn’t mourn.

She didn’t notice the glitches at first.

A clock ticked backward.

A calendar flashed to 2017—just for a second, just enough to catch in the periphery.

Her own handwriting on the margin of a notebook. Patient insists he’s the devil. She hadn’t written it.

The mirror didn’t reflect; it remembered her wrong. Time pooled in her eyes, clawing its way through lines and wrinkles, under the tide of someone else’s years. 

The glitches multiplied, got longer, and then took root.

All dates stuck at 2017.

A door that hadn’t been there a breath ago.

A door.

The closer she got, the more the hospital dissolved. She ran. Or walked. Or floated—her feet didn’t agree on the verb. The lights above her dimmed as she passed, one by one.

She opened the door, and the light didn’t pour through.

It poured out.

Consciousness began as fracture. Then came the rupture—a decisive tear in the fabric of being, pulled at the seam.

She was Dr. Linda Martin.

And she was in hell.

The door behind her sealed itself, as the skin does after it forgets the wound. Next to it, another door. Then another. Then hundreds. Thousands. Millions—stitched into the rock, stretching upwards to that little sliver of sky that bled into itself, like the underside of a wound.

Below, the earth breathed. She felt the exhale against her bare feet. It was warm—the kind of warm that makes you shiver. A vast, barren, endless land where nothing seemed to grow—except asphodels next to her door, where roots sucked light and memory instead of water.

A stalactite close by dripped water onto the stalagmite below, in slow, terrible succession. It tasted like acid.

There were no signs. No paths. No guides.

Linda walked because she had nothing left to hide from.

A staircase of teeth spiraled up into the dark, vanishing into fog. She found a choir of jawless faces on top, singing not to music, but to the sound of regret.

Mountains in the distance pulsed, stygian and lung-like—folding and unfolding, exploding and reborn.

She passed a plain of salt. A lagoon of blood. A forest of empty cloaks hung from iron hooks. She picked one to wear, but it made her shiver more. 

Structures appeared—half-formed, collapsing in on themselves. Trees grew where people had been buried standing up—their shadows split in two, or three, or none. A single swing creaked in the breeze, hung from a branch made of ribs. No child. Just the indentation of joy long extinguished.

A table set for one, forks rusted into the wood along with her name.

Dr. Linda Martin.

50 years of age. No one’s daughter, or sister, or wife.

Not anymore.

She sat down to take a breath. A breath withheld across a thousand lifetimes, and then thought of Lucifer, of Amenadiel and Maze. Her unholy trinity. She laughed. The earth reacted, shaking viciously. And from the crack that formed, a sprout appeared.

She watched it grow until it bloomed.

Hope. Hope that someone would eventually find her. If not, she needed to find that unguarded gate of hell. She had hope now—and in hell, that was as dangerous as any plan.

-

He was embedded in the wall when she found him.

There were no chains or nails. The stone had grown around him slowly, cell by cell, until the mountain claimed him as its own, like a fossil trying to finish becoming.

Linda approached.

He whispered—not words, but fragments. “Her name was Elise,” he said. “Or Elira. No—”

Each word spiraled back into his mouth, looping endlessly.

“Tell me about her,” Linda said gently. “This... Elira.”

He choked. The stone shifted. A groan passed through the cliffs. “Was that her name?”

“What are you afraid would happen if you truly remembered her?”

“You think I’m afraid?” he said. “That’s sweet. That’s surface-world thinking.”

“You’re looping the memory. That’s repression,” she replied. “It’s trying to protect you. Even here. That’s the cruelty of it.”

His eye turned to her, clear now, sharp.

“No. The cruelty is you still think there’s something you can fix.”

-

There were others. 

A woman wrapped in wedding veils soaked through with tar. A judge hung upside down, blindfolded, with scales fused to his hands. A priest on his knees with pages of scripture and verses in dead alphabets nailed to his back.

She didn’t ask them what they had done. She asked them what hurt.

All her tools failed. There was no Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders for Damned Souls.

Maybe she should write one. 

-

“You stitch silence into your own skin and call it compassion.”

The demon stepped through a seam splitting open in the world. Her body was too precise to be flesh, too animal to be machine, walking almost in reverse. She circled slowly, and then hissed.

“You’re not from here.”

“No,” Linda answered. “But I think I’ve always been meant to come.”

The demon drew closer, curious. “Why aren’t you afraid?” she asked. “I’m a demon. I was born of entropy and the first scream. I remember when bones learned to lie. I used to carve names into my arms to remember the ones I broke—until I ran out of skin.”

“You remind me of someone I met in life. A friend. Mazikeen… I’ve seen a demon cry, the devil love, and was killed by the Goddess of all creation. So if you’re here to torment me—”

“No. I’m here to tempt you.” Her smile split wide. “Which is worse.”

Linda didn’t flinch.

“You can choose,” the demon continued. “You can turn back. You can climb into someone else’s door. You can burn the part of you that still believes there’s a way out.”

“There’s no turning back.”

“Then burn forward, friend of Mazikeen.”

-

Hell had no center or beginning or end. Only concentric wounds.

The wars happened again and again. First she would see the dead man, and then his murder took place; first came the blood, and then the loud bang and the screams.

Eventually, Linda returned to where she started. The stalactite and stalagmite outside her door had long connected. The lights from inside called her name, with the promise of Lethe. 

But she kept walking, in this hellscape full of cracks, and she walked until the ground changed. The sand and ash and pulverized bone felt more ancient there— a burial ground for the old gods.

At the delta of the rivers Acheron and Styx she came upon a ferryman.

His boat wasn’t made of wood but of things that refused to rot—bone and bronze and obsidian glass. A sail hung limp above, stitched from burial shrouds.

He didn’t look at her at first.

“Where can you take me?” she asked.

“Only where you were always going.”

“I don’t know where that is.”

“That’s why you’re ready to go.” He finally turned to face her. His eyes were blind but not empty. “The ones who know never make it this far.”

He opened his hand, palm up.

“The coin is beneath your tongue,” the ferryman continued. “It’s not made of copper or silver or gold. It’s the truth you haven’t told yourself yet.”

Linda hesitated. She got wrapped in the thymes of her memories. She thought of every session, every couch, every broken voice that had passed through her hands like water. Thought of the nights she whispered advice she herself couldn’t follow.

“I can’t help everyone.” She exhaled slowly. “Not really. Not always. And that’s not failure. That’s being human.”

The ferryman closed his fingers, satisfied, and lowered the oar.

“That will do.”

The river ended where the golden forest began.

Trees rose in slow spirals, not made of bark and leaf, but of threads—spun gold, silver, shadow and fire—woven into roots and branches and trunks. The threads crossed and re-crossed in patterns no mind could follow—veins of history, arteries of yet-to-come.

Each footstep sparked a flicker overhead; a birth cry, a gasp, a final breath, as if the forest were remembering the history of humanity forward and backward at once.

In the heart of the forest stood a loom the size of a cathedral. The three women who worked it did not look up, focused on their tedious, never-ending task.

One spun. One measured. One cut.

And then, someone was beside her. Without sound or warning. He hadn’t arrived. He simply was.

“Yours is tangled,” he said, lifting a luminous thread. “All those knots, that’s where human choices intertwine with the divine. My children tend to make a mess of things.” He smiled faintly. “So does my Wife.”

He looked like no one and everyone. He wore the shape the moment needed. Linda had expected thunder. A divine wind. Trumpets, maybe. The inherent surrealism of meeting God. But standing next to Him felt like standing next to a fire alarm that wouldn’t go off.

“Who are they?”

“They are the Fates, the Moirai, the Parcae, the Triple Goddess, and the Norns—nothing as old in the universe goes by only one name.”

She thought it would feel different, looking upon the face of God. She once looked upon Lucifer’s face with more reverence. More fear. More love.

“Well, they look miserable,” she muttered. “This is torture.”

“That’s their purpose. To weave the Plan.”

She tilted her head toward him. Not out of awe. Curiosity, maybe. The kind she used in her office, when someone’s words contradicted their eyes. But this was God.

This was her moment. She would either kneel, or burn.

“That’s an excuse,” she said, sharp. “Suffering isn’t sacred just because you assign it meaning.”

She didn’t kneel or burn. She stood. Transcendent, or holy, or already obliterated.

God didn’t react. Of course he didn’t. His silence was cavernous, almost architectural. Heavy enough to echo. He let it stretch.

“You could unmake their suffering,” she pressed. “You could unmake the loom. But then you wouldn’t be pulling the strings. So you keep your hands clean. Just close enough to call it fate. Just far enough to call it choice.”

The thread between his fingers vibrated. Somewhere in the golden canopy above, a child was born blind. A second thread tangled with it—someone prayed.

“Dr. Linda Martin, are you attempting to psychoanalyze God?”

He snapped his fingers.

They were in her office. With her couch, her bookshelf, her tea mug with the chip in the rim. Her outfit had changed—a dress, heels—but ash and blood still clung to her skin. Outside the window, the golden trees loomed where Beverly Hills should be.

Linda slowly took her seat. “Old habits,” she shrugged. “Even now. After all, you came to me.”

God sat across from her on the couch, perched. Patient posture. “I can see why Lucifer was always drawn to you.”

“But was it really a choice, or just the illusion of one? All of it, just part of a plan?”

“The Plan is the possibility. The threads can unravel, be rewoven, even burned.”

Linda studied his cryptic words. Machiavellian asshole, she thought. He smiled in response.

“But you don’t want that.”

“I want Lucifer to find his true purpose. Not in exile, not in shame. Willingly.”

Linda tried to breathe through her nose. Count the breath. Steady the room. But she could feel her pulse in her teeth.

“That’s monstrous.”

“That’s necessary.”

“That’s manipulation.”

His smile twitched. She noticed his eyes searching the corners of the room. There was no exit.

“Is that why you cast him out of heaven?” Her voice scraped her throat raw.

“To make him a king,” he replied. “To rule as he sees fit.”

“In hell,” she countered. “But you’re not asking him to rule. You’re asking him to choose damnation.”

“There will come a day when he’ll understand.  When he must make the hardest choice. For his child.”

“But angels can’t procre—” Linda stilled. Her throat tightened. “You designed them not to.”

“Did I?” he said, quiet. Ominous. “You of all people know that isn’t true.”

The room tilted. No—it tore.

The truth clawed its way up from memory, cold and screaming, in all its elemental brutality. That child. Twenty-something years and an eternity ago. Lucifer’s child.

“I don’t—”

“Fear not,” he cut her off, as if that settled something. “This child will be born. Others failed before you, and others after you will come, stronger, to carry celestial seed.”

“I wonder how Lucifer would feel about this.” Her whisper was poise laced with panic. “You know I’m not bound by client-patient confidentiality in hell or the purgatory or wherever the fuck we are.”

He smiled, wider now. “You won’t remember any of this.” His words were calm, designed. Designed to remind her of her own animal smallness, the futility of resistance, the deterministic nature of the universe.

Linda clenched her fists until her nails broke skin, to remind herself of why it all still mattered.

God stood up from the couch, still smiling down at her. The kind of smile worn by victors when they know they’ve won and no one even knows that they’ve lost.

“It’s time,” he said.

They were standing in front of the Fates once more. The Cutter lifted her shears. No emotion. Just rhythm. As if ending lives was just a metronome.

God meddled with some strings in the farthest reaches of the forest.

A woman screamed as pomegranate seeds stuck to her throat. A sailor teared out his own ears to silence the songs. A man walked backward out of a tomb, and then another, bled nailed to wood.

“See, you’re hardly special, Dr. Linda Martin. You’ve come far, but others walked this path before you. Persephone, Odysseus, Lazarus, the Nazarene. They all died and then returned.” He gestured toward the thread that was about to be cut. “You can stay. Or go back and forget.”

His smile was eerie and final. There was nothing important left to be said.

Linda looked at the shears. Then up at Him.

“Do I even have a choice?”

“There’s always a choice.”

“This doesn’t feel like choice at all.”

“Linda.”

Darkness, at first. Not peaceful. Dense—the dark of silence and endings.

“Linda.”

Just the cold of metal rails, the stiffness of synthetic sheets. A sharp pain beneath her sternum.

“Linda!”

A ripple of breath, curling close to her face. Her hand in another hand. Warm, warmer than a human hand, as if the blood was boiling underneath.

“Maze?”

Her eyes opened—some part of her still remembered how. The world came in sideways: sterile white, too much light. Maze was leaning over her, eyes too wide, jaw clenched against something she was feeling for the very first time.

“Don’t you ever—” Maze looked away to conceal the faint choke. “Don’t you ever do that again.”

“Do what—” Linda frowned, her brows drawing together. 

The last thing she remembered was the light, white-hot and hymnal, driven into her like a commandment by a Goddess not meant to create, only to end. Then came the red of blood. Then, dark.

She reached for the memory after that, but there was nothing.

“What… what happened?”

“They said you were dead. Gone-gone. Not ‘stitch-you-up’ gone. Not ‘we’ve-seen-worse’ gone.”

Linda’s hand curled inside Maze’s where it was cradled. Even that small motion sent a ripple of pain through her torso, sharp and chemical.

“But they fixed you,” Maze went on. “It was that or a knife through their heart.” 

“Sounds about right.”

Maze didn’t move, but her nostrils flared like she was trying very hard not to cry or punch something. Maybe both.

“I didn’t know it would feel like…” Maze looked scared, in ways she would never admit.

Linda gave her hand a small squeeze, wincing from the pain. “Hey, you didn’t lose me.”

“I almost did,” Maze said quietly. “And I—” She stopped again. “Don’t make me say it.”

“I won’t. But I heard it.”

Maze finally looked at her. “Good. Now go back to sleep. And next time, maybe try not dying.”

Maze didn’t leave her side. She stood guard in the chair beside her, boots kicked up on the foot of the bed, sharpening a blade that had no business in a hospital room and kept finding new ways to look furious that Linda wasn’t healing faster. Brought her coffee she wasn’t allowed to drink. Books that at least three of them weren’t porn. Stared too long at her face when she thought Linda was asleep, and whenever she saw her stir, she dropped the knife and shoved pudding toward her.

Lucifer arrived after dark, fragile with guilt for something that wasn’t his fault. He brought her flowers, a new pair of glasses and his most tender smile—very few things in the universe compare to the devil’s kindness. Linda didn’t forgive him; there was nothing to forgive. Linda would die for him a second time. A third.

Amenadiel came by one day, arguing with Maze over who had saved her. Linda wasn’t lucid enough to settle it, so she let them bicker over her with a smile. Then they vanished for a while, either to fight in the parking lot or potentially fuck.

The doctors did what they were trained to do: triage the inexplicable. They said the burns didn’t match any known mechanism; no fire, radiation, chemical, or electrical source. At the end they flagged it as “unusual etiology”.

The police came asking questions to which she couldn’t respond. Annihilation by divinity wasn’t something she could include in her statement. The case slid into the unsolved pile wrapped in euphemisms: “unidentified trauma event”, and “potential experimental tech involvement.”

The missing 14 minutes and 35 seconds spun endlessly on the news, but no one connected the dots. She watched it play out in fragments. 2017 wasn’t the best year for astronomers and physicists. The news anchors smiled and moved on to the next big thing.

The days passed with the mercy of nothing of cosmic importance happening. Mercy not as comfort, but as the absence of further breaking. A hush that settled between the machinery and the footsteps on linoleum flooring. No gods, no knives, no blazing light or holy ruin. Just pain, clean sheets, and Maze’s quiet breathing beside her.

Linda’s body belonged to gravity again. To breath. To blood. To life.

And for now, that was enough.

Eons ago, before the first stone was laid and the invention of clocks, the Fates stood over their loom, holding golden threads, and looked at each other for hours. An epic fight ensued, as it happened every time they had to weave for someone who was destined to play an important role in the history of the universe. In the end, they left tiny question marks between the threads, tiny question marks that not even God could see or destroy.

Until one such insignificant mark turned to spark and set the loom on fire. The golden forest burned red and continued to burn forever.

The Fates spent their retirement sipping cocktails next to a lake in Elysium.

Eventually, they even started therapy.