Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

𝐘ou were falling for a while—as if everything slowed down the moment you jumped.

At first, you had your eyes opened. The crisp late November air was cold but not unpleasant against your sweaty skin—invigorating even—and when you opened your mouth, it tasted of a faint hint of ice and stifling city pollution. You never felt so at peace as you did at that moment, so you allowed your tense body to surrender itself to gravity rather quickly and without much fight. 

It was only once you got closer to splattering against the pavement that you finally closed your eyes and, with a palpitating heart, braced yourself for the impact. But it never came.

You just kept falling.

And falling.

Delayed confrontation with your painful death not only confused you but also twisted your stomach in a suffocating swirl of anxiety-inducing inevitability and sick giddiness. Was this the moment I would see my life flash in front of me?

You wished—no—you needed to catch a vivid glimpse of your sun-drenched childhood days, unclouded by the passing of time. It wouldn’t have changed a thing. You already made your irreversible decision. However, it felt strange not to cry in this circumstance, and perhaps childhood nostalgia would have been able to squeeze a few drops out of you. 

To be honest, you didn’t know who you were trying to please with the waterworks, but after spending your entire life seeking approval from others, you wanted to end it the same way by showing off to the first responders your glossy, tear-stained cheeks while they scrape off your mangled body from the asphalt.

Yet, all you could think of was the ten-minute countdown toward the end, which played inside your mind on a taunting loop—ending the moment you hopped over the railing to your death and starting again the moment the door of the balcony clicked shut behind you.

Click.

Back pressed against the glass, you stand frozen in place for a moment, simply listening to the clamour of the city below. Icy snowflakes fall over your shoulders, creating a comforting blanket of pure white, but your body quickly melts it all away as if something as tainted as you didn’t deserve its biting solace.

You clutch your phone close to your chest like it is the only thing keeping you grounded at the moment.

Carefully and without loosening your deadly grip, you peel the device away until the screen senses your face and unlocks itself, presenting you with a lengthy list of contacts.

Thumb gliding over the wet screen as you scroll through hundreds of numbers brings you back to reality alongside a heavy feeling in your gut. You are reminded of just how useless the device is to you.

But your desperation has grown since the last time you contemplated reaching out for help. To the point you even consider setting aside any animosity you hold toward your mother. You could reach out to her, but, childishly, you have her contact listed under her name, and, well, her name turns out to be common enough to have three namesakes saved in your contacts, making it impossible to decide which one to call.

Yet, you don’t even try to call at least one of them. Your pride is stuck inside your throat—impossible to swallow. So you lock your phone and drop it into your coat pocket, substituting the device for a pack of cigarettes.

The filter sticks to your dry lips while you intensely watch the flame repeatedly lose the fight against the wind. Yet, with furrowed eyebrows, you refuse to let the fire die—rolling your thumb against the steel wheel of the lighter to spark it up again. 

And again.

The moment smoke hits the back of your throat, you release a sigh of contentment before taking a shaky lungful. All the tension leaves your body as you lean against the safety railing and shake the ash into the darkness below, watching it dance together with the falling snowflakes in one, harmonious rhythm.

"Tempting, isn't it?"

So much for peace and quiet.

You push away from the edge and twist your body toward the devil himself.

You just had to get in his way, had to catch his predatory gaze from across the room after one of the fashion shows you were modelling at. As if any of this was even my choice. Nothing was. I didn't choose him, but he chose me—to drug, defile, and pass around his pretentious, disgusting buddies.

Said man is leaning against the doorway, his dark hair blending in with the night. He turns his head toward the railing you are leaning against and follows his suggestion with a mocking laugh. "It’s not like you would be missed. After all, you are still here."

He leaves you after that, not bothering to close the door behind him. He knows you will come back. You always do.

Flicking the butt of the cigarette, you watch it free fall and just disappear into the pitch-black abyss below—used and discarded. You still remember how light the filter felt in between your fingers. I bet its fall is light too—

You take a step back as if the wet phone in your pocket has finally short-circuited and electrocuted you.

I am loved, you tell yourself as you push your freezing hand into your pocket until your bony fingers curl around the cell phone.

You haven’t entertained the thought of suicide until now. That should show that this isn’t your doing; these aren’t your thoughts. He is the parasite that infected yet another aspect of your life.

Pulling out the device with shaking hands, you stare at an empty lock screen.

He is lying, trying to get a rise out of you, your racing mind supplies as your grip tightens.

The screen turns dark, and the phone stays silent. You hold it for a while longer—your phone as well as your breath.

The air you exhale comes out as a puffy cloud. You look up at the sky and the falling snowflakes. They cover your face in small blotches, their coldness lasting a moment like a small, calming kiss against your burning skin. Then they melt and roll down your face and down your neck into the inside of your shirt.

Daring a glance over the railing, you slowly become mesmerised by the serenity and tranquillity that darkness provides.

And you can’t help but believe him.

No one would notice if I just disappeared.

With that last thought, you finally hit the ground with a jarring slam. The impact knocked the remaining air out of your lungs, paralysing your body with the most overwhelming pain and making any kind of movement impossible for a short moment. A bloodcurdling scream pierced right through the ringing in your ears, and only when you felt your throat burn did you realise that the screaming belonged to you—not some kind of wounded animal.

Pain was the clearest indication that you were still alive, and fearing that you had somehow managed to survive your attempt, you opened your eyes only to be confronted with a reality that was even worse than that.

The air around you was heavy like lead, crushing your whole being to the ground and filling your lungs with sour and bitter fumes. Everything around you was drenched in red. It was as if you fell through the earth's crust all the way to its magmatic middle. The seemingly impossible scenario would have provided an explanation for the long fall and seemed much more plausible to you than what the pentagram above would imply.

However, before you could comprehend your current predicament to the full extent, the dainty silver cross that you always wore around your neck began to burn you through your clothing, causing you to grip it without a second thought and frantically tug on the chain to take it off. It scorched your palm, filling the air with the nauseatingly sweet smell of burnt flesh.

If asked, you wouldn’t have been able to say for certain how long it took for it to finally break—you still don’t know—you just remember the short-lived relief, which quickly got overshadowed by the heavy implication of the aftermath.

There was an ugly taste in the back of your throat as you watched in horror how the precious metal melted in front of your eyes, becoming so hot that the silver puddle turned red and blended in with the ground beneath your feet. You wanted to scream in horror, but all that left your throat was a pathetic whimper. 

Not only were you in Hell, but this gesture felt like the God you prayed to your whole life just slammed the door of His home right in front of your face.

At some point, you had managed to drag yourself into a nearby alley to get your bearings. But the moment your heavy head hit the wall, one of the back doors opened, and you saw a demon being tossed out, their bones cracking as they rolled down the steep flight of stairs, landing right by your feet.

That's how you met Isaac—a sinner whom you genuinely considered a friend, even though you sometimes wondered if he was real or merely a figment of your imagination, given how he made your afterlife a tiny bit more bearable. His optimism was infectious, yet you couldn't miss the way his smile always hinted at the regret he never fully expressed to you. But it wasn't like you divulged much about yourself either, as fear always held you back despite your longing for connection.

That’s who you were—a coward. And you stayed true to that title, remaining hidden in the shadows even while Isaac was being butchered by an angel from Heaven.

You physically couldn’t move. Instead, you attempted to justify your cowardice by reminding yourself how agonisingly painful regeneration is for sinners. If you also got hurt, no one else would take care of your friend, so you stayed in your hideout until the early hours of the morning when the flock of angels finally retreated back into the sky. 

Once you approached the scene, all you saw were the fleshy pieces scattered on the brimstone. If you hadn’t witnessed the slaughter for yourself, there would be no way for you to put a name to the innards that were left behind. 

You sat there, cradling the wet chunks of meat in your frail hold, until night fell. It wasn't until the end of the next day that it finally dawned on you that Isaac was not coming back. 

And for the first time since your arrival in Hell, you smiled.

In your despair, you had forgotten that when God closes the door, He opens a window. And as you hugged the rotting meat closer to yourself until the mince spilt out of your embrace, you thanked God—in the form of a little prayer murmured under your nose—for showing you that window of hope.

Since then, the only thing on your mind has been the next year's extermination.

» » »

It was definitely suicide that earned you a one-way ticket to Hell, yet sometimes you can't help but wonder if it's modelling.

It's a stupid thought, and it’s not like it matters that much now anyway, but being stuck in Hell—a place where sinners endure repetitive and eternal punishment tailored to their sins—and doing the same thing you did in life... damn it, you just can’t help but wonder if that’s what got you here in the first place.

After all, it seems that everything went downhill in your life and afterlife once you signed your modelling contract—both times signing away your soul.

Even so, you wouldn’t have it any other way. Your eyes never squint when the stage lights cut you out from the surrounding darkness. And the rush you get—it’s almost worth everything unpleasant that comes with it. It’s your Achilles heel and the only thing you can still enjoy down here.

You also used to love the mirror and how it reflected your carefully crafted image, but now it mocks you. Your reflection is mostly blurry, and your features look so warped that it’s as if your mind can’t fully comprehend your new appearance. Guilt. Maybe this is your true punishment—not the eternal flames of Hell, but the torment of your own gaze.

So you meticulously navigate the house of mirrors that is Velvette’s studio, your head downturned in sorrow and shame like a wannabe penitent Mary Magdalene.

You conceal this weakness in character under the guise of being for others' eyes and not your own—a product of the Vees for the masses to consume. The self-effacing slogan is intriguing and seems to work for Velvette. You are a mannequin for her pretty clothes, and that’s it. She cares very little about your inner demons.

But nothing matters anymore, as you make your way down the hall for one last stop before you go to find yourself an empty spot somewhere in the streets. You doubt it will be difficult to do that. It shouldn't be crowded. Not tonight, at least.

For a year you suffered through Velevette’s verbal and physical abuse, avoided Vox’s reflective screen, and tried to stay away from Valentino. He was the most difficult of the Vees to avoid. And that is saying much, as even now—as you make your way down the hall—you keep pulling onto the silk lapels of your robe in a desperate attempt to hide your exposed skin from the blinking cameras seemingly at every corner.

You wanted to escape Valentino. You really did. But you were dependent on the overlord.

The pain from your fall never left you. It weighs on you like a heavy burden of sin. It’s Hell—you are supposed to suffer—yet coming to terms with it doesn’t make it better.

The drugs do. They placate the pain for a short while, but it all comes back sooner or later. Bit by bit, it returns slowly, like some sick joke. But it’s bearable at first, and it tricks you into thinking that you can manage it on your own. You don’t need the drugs. You don’t need him. However, then it comes back just as unbearable as it was before, and your resolve gets crushed, allowing Valentino to play a saviour again.

Your footsteps are quiet. The magenta carpeting below muffles the clicking sound your high heels make, and the further you venture away from Velvette’s side of the building, the sparser all the mirrors become and the higher your chin raises.

Finally, you come to a stop in front of the double door.

With your arms at your sides, you try to remind yourself of the shame you feel every time you leave his penthouse, that it’s not worth it. Valentino’s smoke made you retch, and his touch made you sick, but it all also reminded you of the time when you were alive. The most horrible parts of it, but for you—someone who is desperately clinging to the last remnants of their humanity—it was a comforting reminder.

You open the door to what can only be described as a sanctum of vanity. You step into Valentino’s carefully crafted reality, an empire built on charm and exploitation, bleeding hedonism from its every crevice. The air is clouded in a thick mist of smoke, hiding the true danger within. Yet even if you can’t see him, you can sense his presence and feel his invisible gaze undressing you from afar.

And suddenly your surroundings become insignificant.

"Ah, I was wondering if you would show your beautiful face tonight. Are you done playing hard to get?" A voice emerges somewhere from the thick, pink cloud of smoke. Valentino shifts from lying back on one of the opulent loveseats into a sitting position, legs spread apart, inviting. Coincidentally, he has also exchanged his usual attire for an old Hollywood-style robe, befitting his role as a film director, you suppose. It has flowing sleeves adorned with fluffy trim around the edges that Velvette would most likely describe as tacky and cheap-looking. "Come on, don’t keep me waiting, muñeca."

You don’t say anything as you step further into the room, the door closing shut behind you. Valentino already has you in his trap, ever since you took your first breath in this room. Your eyelids feel heavy until they drop to cover half of your irises, mirroring your body as you subserviently lower yourself onto your knees before the tall, hulking moth overlord and crawl closer to him.

You hear Valentino chuckle as he exhales another puff of smoke that caresses your skin with a featherlike softness and wraps around your ankles like chains, slowing down your movements by weighing down your limbs. The bliss you feel—as you inhale more of the vinaceous and just as intoxicating smoke—is overwhelming.

Your robe creeps up with every move, exposing your bare calves. Another move and it’s your thighs on display.

Valentino extends his hand to you like salvation—like a lifeline to which you can’t help but cling every single time, even if you say to yourself it’s the last time. Even if right now you feel utterly humiliated and disappointed with yourself.

Once he wraps his fingers around your wrist, he drags you like a ragdoll until you are kneeling between his spread-out knees. With your arm still in his bruising grasp, you support your weight on your free one, pressing your palm into a velveteen cushion beside his leg. Now that both of your hands are occupied, you lower your face towards his crotch, gazing up at him as you do.

As you are about to reach and lift the thin layer of his robe with your teeth, Valentino tugs your pliant body on top of his until you find your place in his lap instead. A startled gasp followed up by a little whine leaves your mouth—he caught you off guard, and the way he forcefully pulls you up hurts, but the little sound might as well be interpreted by the man as disappointment towards him taking away a sweet treat from you.

"Eager little thing you are." His tone is teasing and overlaid with his smooth, saccharine-sweet accent. But that is only the surface level. You can’t help but pick up a tinge of surprise in Valentino’s voice, like he is surprised by your audacity to try and avoid him and then attempt to suck his dick, the action that he regards as a prize rather than torment to your jaw.

A shiver runs down your spine, and your empty stomach swirls with unease as all you can do is go along with whatever he has in store for you, even if it feels like being accompanied on a walk and seeing a guillotine at the end of the trail.

His lower set of arms brushes up and down along your thighs, eyes never leaving your body while you take that time to work on tugging and tearing at the silky fabric to expose more of your skin for his enjoyment, bearing it all to his hungry gaze. He hums in approval, moving his hands upwards from your thighs until his palms rest on your ass and hips, nudging you to get closer to him. 

Your knees tremble from the force and from having to support the weight of your body, so you sit down, feeling him already hard underneath the thin layer of his robe. You sigh, unable to suppress the involuntary throb between your legs which spurs you into grinding against Valentino just to feel some kind of relief for the itch you can’t seem to scratch on your own.

"I knew you would be back. There’s no way a little dependent slut like you could get away." His hands, still resting on your backside, take a firmer grip on the plump flesh, helping you move faster, harder. The friction sends pleasant tingles across your whole body, and you close your eyes, greedily enjoying the pleasure while it lasts, which you know won’t be long. You are so lost in it that you don’t even notice when one of Valentino’s hands from his upper set of arms roughly grabs you by your jaw, bringing your face in line with his. "Even if you try."

Valentino’s palm unassumingly rests on the column of your neck for a bit, until his grip tightens and he forcefully hoists you up till you are back on your knees. You roughly swallow down your answer and simply nod. If you weren’t Velvette’s prized model, Valentino would have snatched you for the studio a long time ago.

His lips stretch into a satisfied smirk, but it doesn’t bring you much comfort.

For a second your gaze flutters downwards, where you notice that his other hand has moved to grab his cock that already has beads of precum spilling to the surface of the tip. He smears it with his thumb and gives his whole length a few languid strokes with little amusement.

Finally, he lets go of your face and this time brings his bruising touch up to your waist while he aligns his tip with your dripping folds.

Valentino is not gentle, and he doesn’t waste time on anything apart from his own pleasure—pushing his cock inside you with no care for your comfort. The stretch, as your bruised inner walls try to accommodate him on such short notice and with no preparation, is excruciating.

You grab his shoulders and try to slow down the painful descent while taking deep breaths in order to relax your muscles before Valentino loses his patience.

Speaking of the man—he leans back to watch over the stiff, trembling mess that is you with a bored yet contemplative expression. One of his upper set of hands rests comfortably over the backrest of the loveseat, his fingers drumming against the velvet upholstery. The other brings the cigarette holder closer to his lips.

"I—ngh!" can’t is what you want to say but are unable to through gritted teeth. It was a mistake to come here, your inner voice screams at you, and you scream back, I know that!

Your cunt clenches around him as your body naturally tries to push him out of you, but then he blows another plume of the headily noxious smoke into your face and smirks as he watches how your pupils instantaneously dilate. 

What you inhale knocks down your defences and allows Valentino to forcefully thrust the rest of himself into you. All you can do is dig your nails into his shoulder blades and throw your head back in relief that the worst is over.

The force is a silent threat that you understand clearly, so before he gets angry, you pick yourself up on shaky legs and lower yourself down his throbbing cock, adopting a pace you know he enjoys while bouncing through the pain.

Desperately searching for a way to take your mind off the situation, you peek over his shoulder at the window walls that provide you with the sprawling skyline of Pentagram City. But not for long.

As the sky behind the glass slowly turns into a slightly deeper and darker shade of vermilion, the outside vanishes, leaving you to stare at the reflection of the room, which makes Valentino’s penthouse look isolated and endless. 

You can see the outline of your figure reflected in the glass like your body is still there; you can feel it mounted on Valentino’s cock, but your consciousness is back there by the window, akin to a frigidly indifferent onlooker watching from a distance, judging.

The ache from the overlord’s bruising touch is gone, as is the excruciating pain lingering from your fall to damnation. You just feel numb.

The face of your reflection is a swirl of colour—a mix of your skin tone, the tint of your lips, and the hue of your irises—as if the image is so unrecognisable to your brain that it cannot even generate the most basic human features. You hardly remember what you look like as is; it would not matter if the reflection is accurate either way.

Valentino grabs you by the hair and brings your attention back to the present moment by aligning your face with his own. You could see yourself reflected in his glasses if not for the tears glossing over your vision.

Both of your lips are parted and inches away—his hot breath mixes with your own to the point you can taste the sickly sweet remnants of smoke on your tongue.

With half-lidded eyes, you pant out breathless little ah ah ah’s every time his hips meet with your own, and a little shudder accompanying his every exhale is the only indicator that he somewhat enjoys this and isn’t just doing it as a humiliating punishment.

Valentino is close. His thrusts have become more erratic, chasing after his own need for release.

You whimper when he lowers his head and, with hot lips, grazes the dewy skin pulled taut over your collarbone—not yet kissing it but close. Oh, so close. 

A girl can dream about a tender little kiss, and in a momentary lapse in judgement, you allow that possibility to hang heavy in the air like the cloying smell of sex as you tilt your head slightly sideways and lift your chin, leaving your neck vulnerable to him to do as he pleases.

But Valentino doesn’t do sweet little kisses, and if that well-known character quirk of his did not clue you in, then a gust of breath over your pulse point should have been a warning.

"Ah!"

Valentino sinks his teeth into the juncture where your neck and shoulder connect. The pleasant pressure in your lower stomach gets replaced with a sinking feeling as the sharp pain locks your whole body with excruciating pain.

He spills himself into your trembling body while you weakly push against him in an attempt to get away, but all it does is help him tear the chunk of meat and tendons out of your body.

Valentino growls into your open wound, and you stop resisting. His hot cum flowing down your legs is as uncomfortably hot as the bile rising up your throat.

You hear him loudly gulp down the bloody chunk and chuckle, "It doesn’t matter that I don’t own your soul on paper. You will always be mine. Even when this heals up," he licks a long stripe against the pulsing wound, making you gasp and squirm. The deceptively charming tone of his voice is gone just like that, replaced by one with a warning undertone exhaled right into the bloody injury. "There will always be a piece of you missing. Don’t make me wait for you next time."

Like a child hiding a broken vase before your parents even notice the glass shards, you smile at him, knowing that after tonight you will have nothing to worry about. You could make any promise; it won’t matter.

You exhale contentedly, "I won’t, Valentino. Never."

Valentino hums, stroking your upper arm with soft, sensual caresses, none the wiser to your plans. The unusual gentleness, alongside lightheadedness from blood loss and rhythmic throbbing in your neck, begins to slowly lull you to sleep. Your eyelids grow heavier with every touch that Valentino spares you, and unconsciously you begin to negotiate with yourself, only for a little bit… I will close my eyes for a moment… Hell knows I deserve it—

Doubtful that sinners have guardian angels, but unable to explain the sudden need to meet Valentino’s palpably piercing gaze in any other way, you cannot do anything but thank God that you do before you succumb to the temptation of sleep.

The terror in that moment is greater than exhaustion. You quickly scramble to your feet, swaying to the sides like a sapling trying its best to hold up against the wind. 

Your arms are shaking and going numb; you can’t even feel the piece of clothing in your hands. A thin layer of fresh skin has already stretched over the wound at the base of your neck, but as you tug your robe back onto your shoulders, the thin layer rips, blinding you with pain until the black spots in your vision grow bigger.

Gentle, the man is not, and still knowing this, you almost fell for the trap. All this time, he has seen through you and almost ensnared you. Shame on you for thinking yourself to be wiser.

Valentino hasn’t made a move to drag you back. He… just smiles, while one of his many arms is twirling the cigarette holder between long, dexterous fingers. The fresh smoke hits your nose, and you feel your mouth start watering.

You don’t play with untamed fire for any longer than you already have, quickly making your way on wobbly legs towards the door. It slams shut with a resounding thud, but not before Valentino’s mocking purr slips through the crack and hits you on the way out.

"Better hurry, muñeca."

Hyperventilating, you stumble into a wall. The stale smell of smoke permeates the air even outside Valentino’s room in the hallway. There’s a taste of bile in the back of your throat as you feel it coming up, but all you can do is lean your forehead against the wall, close your eyes, and ride it out without, hopefully, regurgitating the stomach acids on the carpet.

With an exhale, you will yourself to open your eyes, afraid of falling asleep. Not here, not now.

Your wounded arm hangs limp beside you as the drops of viscous blood drip from the tips of your fingers onto the carpeting below.

Finally, you push yourself to stand straight, and with an ungainly walk, you exit the tower.

You look back only once.

Lost in a trance-like daze, you don't know how long you wandered the streets or when you managed to doze off in the spot you ultimately decided to pick as your final resting place. When you jump awake, all you know is that you eventually did.

The first of seven loud, steely bell rings echoes through the air, symbolising the start of the extermination. It is soon followed by the second and the third one.

In the rubble and decay left over from the last extermination, desperate sinners get ready for a new one—scrambling to hide against the inevitable.

Feeling indifferent towards their plight, you hug your knees closer to your chest, take out your last cigarette, and press the tip against the ground to light it. You take the first puff and close your eyes, exhaling the acrid smoke through your nose with a shaky breath as another loud chime rings through the air and sends a shiver down your spine.

You are ready to die, your inner voice tries to placate you as you subconsciously dig your heels into the ground with an overwhelming want to flee. You never wanted to die—not in life, nor the after. All you wish is for the pain to finally stop. And if this is what it’s going to take…

Another inhale.

You flick the ash, some of it falling on the tip of your stiletto. You don’t bother brushing it away. Instead, you raise your gaze to take in your surroundings and can't help but feel something swirling inside your stomach. Is that... longing?

Not for Hell, that’s for sure, but rather resurfacing memories that this part of Pride Ring brings to the forefront of your mind. You are in the industrial area of Pentagram City, nestled somewhere behind the Carmine factories. Maybe it’s weird to find nostalgia in concrete, but as you remember yourself, you were always the sentimental type, especially before dying. And looking at the sculptural, dilapidated buildings—that are only good at serving a functional purpose—reminds you of your home before you got swept up in the fake glamour of the fashion world.

Concrete’s grey colour gives off a cold feeling to many, but you harbour a different kind of sentiment towards monochrome structures. You rarely visited your childhood home after your career as a model kicked off, so the memories you have of it are saturated with the dreamlike wonder of a curious child whose mind worked tirelessly to supply colour to even the most drab parts of suburbia.

And in her youthful eyes, the concrete was never cold—not in colour, and most definitely not in feeling.

Be it the sunset, painting the walls of a concrete-panelled five-story apartment building in the warmest of colours, or your little self trying to climb on top of the concrete tunnels at the playground that had been exposed to the sun all day—your palms firmly pressed against the warm, rough surface as you pushed yourself upward, straining to lift your body on top, and painfully scraping your bare knees until they were stained with warm blood and throbbed with hot pain. To you, the concrete was warm and felt like home.

Until it didn’t.

You grew, and the oversaturated lens through which you used to gaze at life began fading out into an all-consuming fog of depressing grey. You wanted more from the miserable existence, chased unreachable dreams and that childhood high, substituting the lack of colour in your life with artificial big city lights.

Simultaneously, your ambitions got bigger, but no accomplishment could replicate the youthful optimism you once had, and no drug could synthesise it. 

You pursued the unattainable until you burnt out.

Casting your gaze at the filter between your fingers, you are taken out of your contemplative haze by another ring of the bell. You have gotten so lost in your own thoughts that you are unsure if it’s the fifth or the seventh ring.

Cries of murder have become white noise after two years of living in literal Hell, but these screams now are different. Sinners yell for others of their kind to hide, and at first, only the distant echoes of their desperation reach you. That is until the nearest sinner to you blocks your line of vision and screams into your face.

"Don’t just sit there! Hide—"

Just like that, an angelic steel-edged axe, bearing a close resemblance to a musical instrument, cuts the sinner obliquely through. His mouth doesn’t have time to even have time to close properly as the top half of his body is already sliding off to the ground before he can finish the sentence. His lower half follows soon after and crumbles down in the same spot he once stood.

Slimy, black intestines, like live eels, slither near your feet, angrily hissing at you as the hot ground underneath sizzles them. You attempt to dodge them with your feet, letting out a petrified squeal as one of them bursts open and the fountain of blood sprays along your skin and the silk fabric of your robe.

That last ring of the bell you heard a second ago was indeed the last one.

The sinner is no longer blocking your view, but before you can take a good look at who dealt them their final blow, you are being kicked in your chest, causing you to tumble backwards and your head to hit the ground with a sickening crack. Your eyes snap shut from the force and pain. And you keep them that way.

Your ears prickle at the sound of sandy gravel crunching underneath his steps until you feel the heavy-duty combat boot press into your chest cavity with a weight and hardness akin to that of metal.

Exorcist angels, like true bringers of death, pierce the congealed blood skies with their scythe-like wings in unparalleled grace and speed. Monochrome in their colour scheme, they remind you of a more hellish version of a common swift. They are small yet lethal, but the angel on you, digging his boot into your barely covered skin, is bigger and heavier, and, most importantly, set on making the punishing pain last.

Just your luck.

You try to breathe, but the pressure on your ribcage constricts your chest. The feeling is soon followed up by a sickening crack. And you couldn’t be happier. You have never felt as close to salvation as you did in this moment. The pain is almost euphoric. 

Then, you feel the cold lick of the angel's blade against your neck, merely ghosting your skin. You arch your back in an absolutely sinful manner so the sharp silver edge of his weapon would glide against your skin, inviting him to slice it through.

"What the fuck is wrong with you?"

You open your eyes to look at the demonic face of an angel, hm… ironic.

He doesn’t suit his surroundings. Be it the incandescence of a halo above his head, casting a saintly shine over him, or the soft pastel colour palette of his robes sticking out amidst the eternally burning inferno, like the whiteness of Heaven in the bloody sky.

Even the red blood of the sinner, running down his weapon and dripping near the angel’s feet, doesn’t seem to ruin his sanctimonious image. Filthy—yes, as it stains the pristine visage of something sacred, but spilt righteously.

The angel’s pitiless eyes glint like his unfurled, golden wings.

"Are you deaf?"

His voice is spiced with mockery, like an action of spitting on someone but expressed with words.

"No, I heard you. I’m just wondering why you haven’t killed me yet."

He looks at you and blinks twice, assessing the situation.

Then he gets up from you. 

You hungrily inhale lungfuls of sulphuric air once the pressure lifts from your chest. Gasping, you scramble to reach out for him, cutting the pads of your fingers against the sharp blade of his axe. No— NO!

Without mercy, he swats your hand away with so much force that it numbly dangles beside you, but that’s when you try again with your other one. This one he grabs in his firm hold, applying pressure until your bones scream for you to surrender. As if you care about anything that happens to your ugly sinner body. You welcome pain.

He keeps you at arm's length like a flea-infested mongrel, but his words are as clear as if he had somehow gotten inside your head and screamed them into your mind.

"Bitch, you just had to ruin it for me! It’s no fun if you want it!"

You don't manage to say anything. You just open your mouth, gathering words. Not the first time I’ve heard those words from a man. There’s a pang in your chest. You have managed to ruin this not only for yourself but for others.

You are so insignificant, even killing you is not worth it.

"Sorry."

"Huh?"

"Please… I just want peace." Eternal peace.

The holographic mouth curls into an ugly snarl as he growls a wordless, ‘How dare you want something, and how dare you expect me to oblige?'

That was not the right thing to say.

The angel tugs you closer till you lose your balance and fall face-first into him, but before you can collide with his stomach, he manhandles you, grabbing you by the jaw. Your head is firmly tilted, forcing your gaze to meet his. His hand feels huge; long fingers envelop the entirety of the right side of your face while his thumb is jabbed into your cheek on the left, pushing the tender flesh inwards until it painfully smushes against the sharp edges of your molars and draws blood. His palm covers your mouth and nose, not allowing you to breathe. One squeeze of his hand and he could crush your head like a rotten fruit that has gone soft.

Instinctively, your body’s natural reaction is to grab your executioner by the wrist to stop him from causing you more harm. However, before your fingers can make contact with his inky skin, you quickly withdraw and forcefully drop your hand beside you, digging your nails into your fleshy thigh and tensing the muscles in your jaw. You will endure this—anything—if only it means that you will be free.

But that does not mean that this is not excruciating. It takes a lot for you to cry, yet the searing pain from his rough touch is enough to wet your eyelashes. You feel the stinging in your eyes, and as much as you don’t want to break down, you can’t keep the tears at bay. 

So you cry.

Embarrassment ignites your cheeks as you feel the droplets wet your cheeks. The tears pool in the arch where his index finger and thumb connect, but it doesn’t repulse him away from you. Instead, it seems to pique his interest as he loosens his grip, allowing the salty droplets to roll down your skin.

Then he smears the liquid across your skin.

Time stands still in that moment. The screaming around you fades into nothing, replaced by the pounding of your heart inside your ears.

Adam was very much looking forward to this year’s extermination. 

His self-pity and feelings of loneliness have flared up these days, and not even a quick fuck with a beautiful winner did it for him anymore. So what better way to rid himself of misery than by glutting his soul with merciless slaughter?

Adam was a hunter all his life. At a time when the earth was bare and there was little to entertain himself with other than the pleasures of the flesh, chasing wildlife was as much a means to get food as it was a source of entertainment.

And habits are difficult to quit.

Zoomorphic amalgamations replaced wild animals in the afterlife—both more or less the same, but admittedly, humans warped by sin were much more fun to hunt and butcher because of their human-like cognition. They were the ultimate prey. 

As soon as Adam descended from Heaven, he swung his axe, slicing through the first deformed sinner with little thought or care put towards the action. He needed to get it out of his system, and fast.

Then why wasn’t he feeling better?

Deep down, he knew that he really needed to talk to someone. His reflection in the mirror wasn’t cutting it anymore after millennia. But he could not trust anyone enough to open up. Who could fault him for that? Every time he dared to open his heart, he got played.

He would never repeat the same mistake.

But then the sinner crumbled to the ground, revealing you.

Adam was taken aback at first. You didn’t look the part.

And that made him livid. Was his mind messing with him?

He felt the anger boiling in his veins as he kicked you to the ground. Feeling the impact against his foot when it collided with your body, hearing your bones crack, and smelling your blood only reiterated that he was not hallucinating. You were real.

And on top of everything—you wished for death.

Who, or more precisely, what were you?

He watched you struggle in his grasp like a fish that he plucked out of water with his bare hands.

When he saw those tears rolling down your cheeks, he couldn’t help but feel that surge of authority flow through him. That’s how you were supposed to look from the very first second of you two crossing paths—trembling, crying, and pleading to spare your life. Now you weren’t so brave, shaking like the last yellow leaf, barely holding up against the autumn wind. Pathetic.

But as the first teardrop finally travelled the short distance from your eyes towards the sharp edge of your jaw and unceremoniously fell between you two, the damned ground let out a hiss as if sprayed with holy water, leaving Adam to stand there wide-eyed. No, it couldn’t be—

His wet thumb glided across your cheek with precision as, with each stroke, he hoped to remove more and more makeup, but all he did was knead the dewy skin.

The angel’s face glitches, and that’s when he suddenly lets go of you, allowing you to free-fall back to the ground.

"Okay, listen, here’s the deal. I hate giving sinners what they want, and death, well, it’s usually not their kink. But! I’m feeling generous and seeing how embarrassingly desperate you are—I have one condition." His voice takes a different tone, leaving you noticeably confused at the suddenness. "Listen to me vent, and I will slit your throat at the end."

On the ground, you prop yourself up on your elbows and look at him with your jaw slack. Splayed out with your legs bent at the knees, you stare at the angel unblinking.

After a moment of silence, you hide your face in your palm and mumble to yourself. "I really hit my head hard..."

"Whore," he warns, and your head snaps in his direction. You tug on the lapels of your robe, which, after everything that happened, barely covered your breasts, defiantly crossing your legs with furrowed eyebrows. "I will put a mark on you so no exorcist’s blade would ever touch your suicidal ass, and then you will spend the rest of your miserable existence—"

You contort your face into a forced smile.

"I will do it."

Chapter Text

𝐓o say that you stick out like a sore thumb in the pristine embassy would be an understatement, and as you and the angel enter one of the many conference rooms, it’s a wonder how the building hasn’t gained sentience and spit you out like something unsavoury yet.

The angel walks in first, quickly moving to his seat at the end of a huge oval-shaped table, while you slowly follow behind like a shadow. Without putting much thought into the action, you trace your finger across the smooth, oblong top of the aforementioned furniture as you pass by, but the moment you see that your pointer reflects in its surface, you press your hand closer to your chest as if you just got burnt.

You take a seat on the left, in the chair closest to his. The tension is palpable—viscous like phlegm in one's throat and easy to choke on, but sadly, not enough to kill you for good. It is merely uncomfortable, and you find yourself wishing he would just finish you off already. 

What is he waiting for?

You fidget with your fingers in your lap, your teeth gnawing at the inside of your bruised cheek to satisfy the craving for flesh around your nails.

The sole reason you are here is to listen, yet the angel is doing anything but talking. He seems to be looking around the place, his legs crossed, while long black fingers drum against the surface of the table. It’s as if he is carefully weighing his questions inside his mind, his face twisted in concentration. 

His eyes finally meet yours, causing you to quickly avert your gaze to the side. You can hear your heart drumming inside your head with a promise of a headache.

The angel loudly clears his throat, and you expect a 'not sorry, changed my mind' as a follow-up. 

You actually hope for that to be the case. Even if he does not kill you, you are sure to run into another exorcist angel tonight and—

"You ever feel like you're... stuck?"

You look at him, confused. Was this a question meant for small talk, or is he talking about himself? Surely not. Isn’t he an angel in Heaven—THE eternal paradise for all the upright souls? He has a life anyone in Hell would do anything for, but then why does he look so haunted when it is you—a sinner—who has been suffering this whole time?

All you do is hum, acknowledging his question so he can just keep talking. Even if it feels more insulting than if he were to spit in your face.

Of course, you relate to that struggle. But you do not think that he has the right to talk about facing any kind of hardship when, up in the clouds, he has everything you wish you had.

"You don’t want to die?" The angel raises a bright golden eyebrow while flashing a matching bared-teeth grimace.

"I do! I—" 

"You better start talking then."

You jump to your feet, about to beg not to dangle the sweet release of death in front of you. You will do desperate things for it. You are doing that now, by scrambling your brain for words to answer his previous question, "I am! Why else would I surrender my afterlife so easily?"

Now that you have made the gap between you two smaller by abandoning your seat, the angel has you within arm’s reach. He grabs your wrist and does not waste an opportunity to pull you closer.

You stumble over your feet, supporting yourself by planting your free hand on the desk while your right one is at the mercy of the 'merciful'.

He observes you with a little tilt of his head while you assiduously avoid his gaze by casting your eyes to the side without actually moving your head.

"Judging by the quality of your outfit, I would say you are doing just fine in this shithole." While his left hand still has a firm hold on your frail wrist, you feel him idly move the unoccupied one lower down your body to grab an errant thread sticking out from the hem of your robe. He twirls it between his thumb and index finger, all focus now directed on what he is doing. You find it impossible not to be a tiny bit intrigued by the action, to the point you go back to unashamedly observing him while he continues his musings, "Not an overlord by any means, but you have found a comfy place down here." You visibly jump when he meets your gaze suddenly, smiling teasingly as if to say, 'caught you'. "Why not give in and enjoy all of the depravity that Hell has to offer?"

"Do you somehow find it easier to ask me the questions that bother you?" You can’t keep the venom out of your voice. It spills out so freely, like drops of spittle when you spit out the sardonic 'you'. "Nice clothes, a comfy seat in Heaven as a leader of an exorcist army, and yet here you are, talking with a lowly sinner when you could go have your day of fun playing judge, jury, and executioner."

The angel seems to really enjoy physical contact, you notice. Instead of fidgeting like he did at the beginning of the conversation or trying to unravel your robe one thread at a time, he is now preoccupied with your hand, still hanging in the air between you two. He has now let go of your wrist, choosing to bend and unbend every finger at their joints one by one.

"Going to Heaven doesn’t magically fix your problems," he sighs, not taking his attention away from his fidgeting. "Heaven is a lonely place, and eternity is a long time. Things that brought you joy and fulfilment are worth shit when you have all the means at your fingertips—" He grabs your pointer, sandwiching it in between his two fingers, and applies some pressure to the very tip for a theatrical accentuation. "—and unlimited time. There is no challenge anymore, and finding a meaningful relationship is almost impossible. Everyone around me seems so content with themselves, while I’m left to dwell on the past. Heaven-born will never understand because you can’t crave something you never had, and winners… they forgot what it means to be human."

He looks up at you, as if searching for reassurance—understanding, maybe?

And the honest confession does take you aback, but the shock of it is not strong enough of an emotion to fully extinguish the piping hotness of your ire, gradually bubbling to the surface.

Of all the nerve... someone in Heaven whining to me about their ‘suffering’, you bite back a scowl. It’s like listening to the filthy rich complain about not knowing where to put their money. And may God forgive you if you dare to suggest charity.

Your breathing grows faster as anger burns from deep within your chest, although the whole body is frozen up with shock at such audacity. It feels like you are back in that stuffy penthouse, choking on Velvette’s love potion, smoke, and resentment towards Valentino as you console the overlord during his nights of venting.

But this is what you agreed on, and, albeit reluctantly, you try your best to gather the last tiny bit of empathy you have and extend it like a meagre morsel towards the ravenous angel. Even if it physically hurts to do so.

The fingers that grounded you against the table move up to trace the sharp edges of his inky face. He does not pull away, nor does he even twitch when your cold fingertips glide over the sleek surface, fogging it up in their wake. Only his gilded features glitched with barely visible sparks, which you would have missed if you weren't so close.

However, you can’t hide the tinge of bitterness from your voice or dignify the angel with eye contact.

"I don’t understand why you think I can help you with, well, this." You frown at the ground, amusing yourself with the mosaic tile flooring. "I can’t. You keep telling me how bad you have it, and for what? Looking for sympathy from a sinner is quite pathetic. Was that what you wanted? Sincerity? Here you go. You are pathetic."

He painfully cracks one knuckle, and you yelp. The pain is abrupt and piercing—a warning more than anything. You gaze up at him, but only for a split second, before closing your eyes this time instead of looking away.

What takes you by complete surprise is him suddenly getting up on his feet when only a moment ago he was so comfortable in his seat. 

At this angle, you almost catch a reflection of yourself in his face—you take a step back—and his fists are clenched at his sides—you take another step out of pure instinct.

Click. Thud.

You can’t help but flutter your gaze in the direction of the sound, only to come face to face with the likeness of a human. And suddenly it made sense why a divine being would be tormented by such an earthly affliction as loneliness.

In front of you stands a man with sun-warmed skin and perfectly hewn features, as if sculpted out of the finest slab of bronze by someone who had all the time in the world to pay close attention to every minuscule detail.

Every single part of him looks like it came from the earth, starting with the olive tone of his skin and ending with his eyes. Golden in colour, they swirl like a whirlpool of untamed emotions, almost as if there is a tumultuous storm behind them. They remind you so much of amber, washed away on the shore from the depths of the treacherous Baltic Sea after a raging tempest. But instead of lying on a sandy beach and basking in the sun from the skies above, those two pieces of amber are framed by long eyelashes and gleam in the light of the faux firmament ceiling of the embassy.

And still, even with his human appearance, he fits right in with the temple that is Heaven's embassy, looking more like an angel donning a human disguise to blend in with the pious masses, yet at the same time being too otherworldly to fully commingle with them.

Your gaze is filled with a tumultuous mix between envy and admiration as you gorge yourself on his image, but instead of gloating in it, he squirms under your unabashedly focused stare. 

"Because I see this every time I take off the mask." He points to his face, the sharp tip of his finger far too close to the white of his eyeball. "No matter whether a sinner or a winner, they all shed their human faces, yet here I am stuck with mine. As if anything I do, I’m still not an angel. I’m human, trapped with these fucking stupid human emotions and trifles." He sounds beyond annoyed, or maybe tired would be a better way to describe it. Given his height, it does not surprise you when it takes him a single step to once again be all in your face. His next words—they do take you aback. "You should understand."

"...understand?"

"Bitch, are you serious? You are facing away from any reflective surface!" He huffs and gestures with his hand at his mask first, now lying abandoned by his chair, and then towards the oval table from which you are noticeably facing the other way, repeating the action over and over again.

Without even realising it, you take another step back to escape from his frantic flailing. You are not about to catch a stray backhand to the face—you are suicidal, not masochistic. But with every step you take back, he takes one forward.

You move backwards towards your previous seat but miss it and bump into the edge of the table. He doesn't slow down his rapid approach, so all you can do is hop on the table and scramble your mind for an answer.

"As much as you can’t stand looking at your human face, I would kill to be normal again! Instead, I’m a nasty amalgamation that is stuck with these feelings while everyone around me seems to have embraced the depravity."

But before you can slide backwards towards the middle of the table in hopes of putting some distance between you two, he grabs you by the ankle and tugs you back to the edge—back to him.

He cages you in with his arms, bringing his face closer and closer to yours as his towering presence looms over your smaller frame. Instinctively, you shrink back and prop yourself up on your elbows.

You can’t look him in the eyes. He is too human, and in his penumbra, you feel even more inferior. Why hasn’t he changed after death, and you did? It was so unfair. You lost everything, and his little pity party was like a smack in the face.

"Have you… never seen yourself?" He suddenly blurts out.

"Fuck do you care? Since when did the deal become about me?!" You spit back through gritted teeth.

Your chest is heaving as the angel takes a step back and looks you over. He is silent, only… looking, and that makes you extremely unsettled, more and more with every passing minute.

"Go on." He accompanies his words with a nudge of his chin to the side.

As if, you scoff, "And that’s relevant to our deal, how exactly?"

"Indulge me."

The corner of your lip twitches upwards as your face morphs into one of pure disbelief. You are so confused, you can’t think of anything else but to mock his words inside your head, "Indulge me."

Only you might have said that aloud because he grabs you by your throat, sharp fingers digging into your jawline to forcefully twist your head and make you face the table, which might as well be a mirror. He could have repeatedly thrown you on it until the reflective surface breaks into a million sharp pieces, and those shards still would not have cut you as deeply as seeing your own reflection in it does.

The picture in front of you starts blurry, like you are gazing into a muddy marsh, its surface disturbed by a water strider. Your reflection is distorted, like it always is. Hardly recognisable, nightmarish features are muzzy as if painted in watercolour, but with every blink they slowly take a more pronounced shape, and it fills you with crippling dread.

What you feel inside, you would equate to drowning—your lungs are heavy, as if filled with salty water, making you frantically gasp for air, and your actions are just as desperate as trying to cling to anything that could keep you afloat.

First, you blink your eyes shut to escape the terrifying implication and the accompanying guilt. But it is all etched in your mind, filling the darkness behind your closed eyelids with the unwanted imagery. Somehow, it is even worse than seeing everything—you feel claustrophobic. So you open your eyes, confronting every single feature as you see yourself reflected.

You look human, just as you were in life. You push yourself up and catch a glimpse of your hands, or more specifically, the natural tone of their flesh alongside all five human-looking fingers. They never looked like this, or did they?

"Why?" Your voice comes out groggy, just below a whisper, "Why me?"

"You think I would have given a deal like that to any scumbag in this shithole?" Fingers that not long ago cut into your flesh now have softened their hold on your neck, almost caressing the bruised skin. His thumb is right over your pulse point, feeling every jounce beneath it. "You are lucky you don’t look like them—"

You grab him by the wrist, but your fingers barely manage to wrap around it. "You think I will thank you for sparing me? Have I not been through enough? I want death. Am I asking too much?!"

"Can’t you see? We are the same, trapped in our own versions of Hell." He scoffs, as if you are the one who is not making sense.

And perhaps the tears blurring your vision do make it difficult to see things clearly, but even a blind man could make out the total and complete lunacy behind his logic.

"I’m a sinner, you’re an angel— ah! " You let out a silent gasp when, using the opportunity of you still holding tightly onto his wrist, the angel yanks you forward until you have no choice but to lean against his abdomen.

You dare to glance up, only to be met with a predatory curl of his lips as he looks down at you. You audibly gulp when he once again begins to lean in closer to your face.

"Adam," he whispers into your ear, his hot breath leaving the skin there uncomfortably dewy. "First human, by the way. Pretty big deal around everywhere." He can’t help but brag in your face.

"Please…" you say just above a whisper, offering a half-hearted protest, but Adam is far from listening to you. Instead, he dips his face into the crook of your neck.

"I almost forgot how nice a human touch feels against my own skin." You writhe in his clutch as he glides the tip of his nose across the fresh skin that has stretched over the bite from Valentino, creating a tingling sensation. "You couldn’t have been that bad to get yourself thrown in here. God knows I’ve done worse."

Adam pulls away just a tiny bit, eyes flicking down towards your lips and then back to your eyes. His amber irises are cut in half by his eyelids dropping halfway, very reminiscent of an upside-down setting sun being swallowed up by the sea.

He takes your other hand and brings it to his now maskless face, mirroring how you held him when you attempted to offer him reluctant reassurance.

Your fingers tremble with realisation as you cup his cheek. You know that look—one of a starving man. It was a mistake to touch him. You gave him an inch, and now he wants a mile. 

"Let me help us feel human again."

He’s delusional, you think. You part your lips, but have nothing to say. A simple no does not feel like it would be enough, and you have no more energy or fight left in you to refuse him. Especially not when his hand is suddenly at the back of your neck, encouraging you to inch closer to him.

Tentatively, you lean forward, your eyes darting around each other's faces. One moment, you can feel his warm breath fanning your moistened lips, and the next, he surges forward, swallowing them in a hungry kiss.

Hurrying to steady yourself, you plant one hand behind you while the other grabs Adam by the collar of his alb. Your eyelids slide shut as you reciprocate the kiss with the same insatiability, although a bit apprehensive at first to taste the forbidden fruit that is kissing one of God’s divine—something you know you are not worthy of as a sinner, but voracious for it just the same.

From its spot on the back of your neck, Adam’s hand slowly slides down your back, making you arch into him, until it drops and stops at the curve of your waist. His touch is not featherlike as he keeps you pressed against him. His hold on you is strong, grounding, like a nail in your proverbial coffin. It draws your full attention to him and only him.

You spread your legs widely apart to accommodate his large body between them, and Adam eagerly accepts the invitation by pressing hard against you. You moan into his mouth, feeling him grow harder beneath the layers of fabric—either from the sound alone or maybe from the realisation that the only barrier between your sexes is his robe and pants.

Similarly to how the appetite grows by eating, when Adam finally pulls away, you blindly chase his warm, plump lips for another taste.

When you can’t find them, you inquisitively peel one eyelid open, only to see that his face is still at the same level as your own and just far enough that the tips of your noses don’t touch. His exhales tickle your face, making you choke on him with every breath you take. 

Breathless, you loosen your hold on his collar, allowing your open palm to slide down his chest with no particular sense of destination. Adam lowers his head to follow the movement with his eyes, and your gazes meet when you look up at him, your palm now directly resting over his fluttering heart.

You don’t look away when you feel him brush over a few strands of your hair. Adam does not tug on it—he simply follows the length, sending a wave of pleasant shivers down your spine. However, the tension turns to shock when he roughly tugs on the flimsy fabric at your shoulder, exposing one of your breasts to the biting air of the room. You watch his pupils dilate at the sight of your nipple stiffening.

Bless him, he's so amused, you think to yourself and then instantly get punched in the stomach with a wave of suffocating guilt. On its own, your arm takes hold and quickly yanks the robe back into its original place on your sticky skin. You avert your gaze from Adam.

The room reeks of the heavy aroma of mass—the paraffin-like scent of candle wax and the earthy, metallic tang of sacred decorations, all wrapped in an invisible cloud of incense. The smell association causes your cheeks to burn in shame and repentance for reciprocating something so sinful in the only holy place in the whole of Hell.

But Adam does not heed your moment of regret. He tries again, but from the bottom. He places his hands on your thighs and squeezes—hard—before slowly trailing them up your hips and waist, finally stopping at your ribs. The action opens the front of your robe for him, and before you can protest, he pushes the offensive garment off, leaving you completely bare and at the mercy of his gaze.

"You’re so warm, sweaty, human," Adam says under his breath—to you or himself, of that you are not sure.

His fingers linger on your skin, softly kneading the flesh like he is trying to mould you into what he already believes you to be, all while his eyes become familiar with every naked inch.

Naked.

You have always felt nude when lying in bed under the hungry gazes of men. As if you weren’t just bare, but something was forever missing from you, be it clothing, hair, or dignity. You were only flesh—a piece of tastefully served meat on top of tablecloth-like bed sheets. Being nude helped you to disassociate and pretend that sex was not something dehumanising—you were a model, an art piece.

You were performing.

But being naked is the opposite—vulnerability and acknowledgement. It means a choice—a consensual action being made by you to get into the state of undress. And that is something you have never experienced before.

Even though that unfamiliarity scares you, you also find yourself wanting to believe that right now, perched on top of a cold table, the angel in front of you doesn’t see you as a lifeless statue to take his desire onto, but the way he calls you—a human.

Adam’s gaze is grounding you, not letting you perform a role you always find yourself starring in. So, is there really any harm in you allowing yourself to live that fantasy one night?

It is hard to believe that all this time, you needed only a tiny amount of thinly veiled affection to see things differently. Just goes to show how starved of it you actually are.

You press an open palm against Adam’s chest until, with furrowed eyebrows, he is once again left to stand at a distance, no doubt confused.

Grabbing him by his alb, this time you pull the garment up and over his head to take it off completely. You do not stay to admire the view with your eyes as you press yourself against his warm chest, wrapping your arms around his neck and burying your nose in its side, to rather smell him and forget your surroundings.

His scent is strong—that of a man—to the point you can feel him on your tongue without needing to sample a taste. There is so much of him for you to hold. His build is strong and defined; tanned biceps are dotted with sun-kissed freckles, which you absentmindedly connect with your fingertips into an invisible line. Your hands tremble as you touch him, but he doesn’t comment on it. Instead, Adam grabs your waist with both hands and finds solace in the side of your neck as well.

Bare chest to chest—while you are petrified stiff, he, on the other hand, can’t seem to find even the smallest moment of stillness to enjoy. His lips graze your skin with wet, pleasurable kisses along the column of your neck, going lower to your shoulders, and, after a while, dipping down to the valley between your breasts, leaving no space unclaimed—a blatant display of greed at biblical proportions.

Your hold on him shifts as he keeps moving, fingers now intertwined in his hair. You tug harder on the wispy strands when he captures one nipple with his mouth, at the same time showing the other one an equal amount of attention by taking and rolling it between his fingers.

You watch him with half-lidded eyes as he goes lower and lower, and when he leaves a wet kiss just below your belly button—at the beginning of your happy trail—you finally close your eyes and throw your head back.

This time, your consciousness doesn’t leave your body like it always does. Perhaps she can’t help but stay out of curiosity, or maybe Adam’s firm grip is just that grounding that it doesn’t allow her to split. Either way, you don’t want her there.

Leave, is what you yell inside your head as you keep your eyes behind a dark blanket of your eyelids. But she doesn’t. She stays.

"Eyes on me." 

Adam’s voice is raspy and commanding, but not unkind. When you open your eyes, he is looking up at you with a teasing smirk before he completely drops onto his knees between your legs.

And just like that, you stay in the moment as a whole—mind and body—surrendered to the man with a glowing halo above a tuft of brown hair.

Adam takes hold of your ankle and brings his lips towards the spot that isn’t speckled with blood. The heel that somehow stayed on your feet this entire time now barely hangs from your toes, so Adam assists gravity and takes it off completely.

His calloused fingers tend to your tense calves, while with a brush of his lips, he leaves ghostly marks along your inner thighs. Only fully surrendering yourself to fantasy turns out to be easier said than done.

His affectionate touch is nice, you guess, but you don’t know what nice really means, so you don’t have a way to compare. Does ‘nice’ make your skin crawl, but in a pleasant way? The way one would feel while riding a rollercoaster—there is fear and anticipation, sure, but ultimately, you are safe.

Except safe does not mean reassuring. It is merely an illusion that scares you and makes you think about why you might feel the way you do. And you don’t want to think as much as you don't want to feel. You want to forget.

"Adam," your voice is airy, but now, you jump every time his soft touch ghosts over the skin. You see him visibly scoff and, after a moment, pull his face just a tiny bit back, which gives you a fraction of a second to press your legs together and face the other way. 

You don’t think that you want this to end, but at the same time, you know you can’t give him the experience he wants—something messy and passionate. Honeyed words and experienced touch are not enough to fix the mangled mess that is you.

"Okay, what gives?!" His jaw tightens as his peevish voice goes an octave higher, causing your heart to make a drastic jump as well.

"I—" you cut yourself off, not really knowing how to deal with this—your emotions and Adam combined. "It’s nothing."

He scrutinises you with a cold stare. Sunrise-gold irises move all around your face before they stop at your eyes. His pupils shrink into pinpoints with what you can only describe as realisation coated in a thin, underlying layer of disgust. However, it does not seem that his revulsion is directed at you. "I should have guessed—"

"No! I mean… y-yes, but!” You splutter out your words, searching your mind for the best explanation that you can manage to come up with on the spot. You don’t want his pity—it would only make things more complicated—so you do what you always did and try to redirect the conversation. “It’s just that this doesn’t feel right. Can we just… switch?"

"Are you asking to suck me off?" Adam raises an eyebrow, and you blush in embarrassment at the crudeness but nod all the same.

He gets up to his full height, and before you can hop off the table, he cages you in with his arms and leans into your space. Too close for comfort.

"Were you not enjoying yourself?"

It is clear as day that he takes it as a personal attack against his manhood.

"I am! Just— please, this is not the time nor the place to get into my problems. I really don’t want to ruin this for you."

You look off to the side. 

The telltale sound of creaking wood alludes to you that Adam is probably leaning closer to you, and from what you can see in your peripheral vision, his face stops way too close to your cheek.

"You didn’t." His breath makes a few strands of your hair move, tickling you. He moves one of his hands to rest on top of your bare knees, still pressed together. "So, will you be a good girl and let me resume my dinner?"

He gives them a firm squeeze to make his point.

You don’t open your legs for him, but also don’t stop him from opening them on his own volition. Although you are not crying, everything in your vision becomes watered down and blurry. Your consciousness starts to split away, and your limbs become numb—she has seen enough, it seems. Good.  

"Nope, we are not doing this." Adam leans to the side to catch a glimpse of your face, though he still can’t get your eyes to look his way. "It’s for your own good. I’m too big for you."

"I can take it." You croak, defiant, but no longer avoidant of his gaze. It’s not like you want his mocking sympathy.

Your pupils quickly flit towards him like a little sparrow—an action that is easy to miss but noticed by Adam all the same. There is a barely visible smirk on his lips that stretches into a cocky grin after you look away again.

"I’m sure you can, babe, but this isn’t the endurance Olympics. You want to please me? Then let me make sure you don’t split in two—your body and your mind." His fingers find your chin and turn you to face him. "I see what you are doing. I want all of you here."

You bite your lip, he noticed.

The two of you share a silent look. When you don’t object, he goes back to his knees.

Adam maintains the painful eye contact with you as he purses his lips and leans forward to exhale a stream of air right at your core, making you whimper and pathetically attempt to move away from the tiny bit of stimulation that would drive anyone crazy—your affection-starved heart, the more so. But Adam grips you firmly by your thighs and brings you back towards his face.

Your skin visibly prickles, and your lips part just a tiny bit without your voice trying to escape. He proudly displays his cocky grin for your dilated pupils to scrutinise.

"You still have your voice with you?"

Instinctively, you nod at first but then vocalise the affirmation he wants, "I do."

"Good, keep using it. M’ not a mind reader."

He will hear, but will he listen?

He dips his head, and you think for a second that he will go straight for the kill. The mere thought makes your lower abdomen tighten and your core twitch, causing an involuntary shiver through your whole body. But Adam’s lips ghost over your inner thigh instead.

Kiss after kiss, he moves upwards closer to your sex, leaving a trail of moist imprints in his wake. He takes his time with you, steadily building the heaviness of need at the bottom of your abdomen. Every once in a while, he will stay in a spot for a millisecond longer, to suck onto the skin until its tone deepens with red.

"Why are you being so nice? I’m still a sinner, you know?"

"If it gets you wetter—" Adam stops mid-sentence, only for his tongue to run over the split of your inner lips, gliding the long appendage upwards towards your clit without much protest and with the help of wetness seeping out of you.

"Mh!" 

You sink your teeth into your quivering lip and curve your spine away from the flat surface of the desk when the tip of his tongue flicks over the sensitive nub. Why does it feel so good if it is he who’s supposed to get the pleasure out of it?

"—I actually enjoy what I’m doing. It turns me on. It’s not about you."

He takes another taste of you, and you gulp down one more moan bubbling up your throat.

You look upwards to the ceiling and place your hands on your cheeks in a poor attempt to cool them down. "How can that bring you pleasure?" 

When you realise that he stopped his ministrations, you look back down at him. You can see Adam’s eyebrows furrow as he exhales a defeated sigh and leans his warm cheek against your inner thigh. The startling intimacy makes your skin prickle, and you jump a little.

"Bitch, why are you shaming my choice of food right now? I’m not one of your vegetarian cucks." His voice is but a low murmur, the side of his lips brushing against your thigh when he talks. "Would it kill you to— never mind. Don’t answer that. Your suicidal ass would have already been on it if it did."

You don’t, and he just resumes his ministrations.

However, with him at a distance, the scent of guilt once again eats away at you, reducing you to nothing but an empty shell, and the added vulnerable tightening of your lower stomach leaves you to apologise over and over again under your breath.

I’m sorry…

..sorry..

...so, so sorry.

Your hands blindly seek anchorage in Adam’s hair, gripping the strands like they are the only ones able to hold you back from falling off the ledge of crippling pleasure.

Adam doesn’t even flinch. Instead, the only acknowledgement of your tight hold on his locks is a low grunt directly against your cunt, causing tingly vibrations that make your legs shake at the knees. And with the added unapologetic way he keeps sucking on your clit, in a way he knows will make you sing for him, leaves you with no choice but to do just that.

For a moment, he moves to push the tip of his tongue through your folds, licking along your slit from bottom to the very top, but using your fingers still intertwined in his hair, you guide him back to your clit.

He gives a teasing suck before he unlatches from your pussy with a wet squelch and lets out a breathless chuckle against the glistening lips, making you squirm.

"That’s right, babe, show me what you need from me."

You feel your high steadily drop in his absence, but before you can speak your mind, Adam latches back onto you like a hungry leech ready to suck your body dry of its essence.

Your hips rise off the sleek surface and roll against his face to chase his mouth, and you swear you see the gates of Heaven. But just as you are not allowed there, Adam’s left hand sinks its fingers into your thigh, keeping you grounded here in Hell.

It takes you longer than you'd like to admit to realise he is not in a hurry to get you to the finish line. He treats the task at hand like his favourite hobby. He doesn't care about the end but rather the journey there, opting for the longest route to see the best view and hear the song of the prettiest birds hiding deep within, unheard by those who hurry.

"Adam!"

Soon enough, you are slipping. You can’t feel the silky strands between your fingers anymore. Instead, you feel pleasantly numb, losing your sense of touch in every part of your body as well as the feeling of your surroundings.

Your stomach tightens as Adam’s lips engulf your clit entirely and gently suck like it is something that could be broken, all while two of his fingers inconspicuously slide inside.

Almost immediately, you finish around his fingers and stubbly chin with a shuddering gasp. A loud moan soon follows, tearing itself out of your throat as you clench around his fingers, still nestled deep inside your warmth. 

You are too exhausted to argue with him when he slides his fingers out of you and replaces them with his mouth, lapping up everything he can. 

Overstimulated, you make a pathetic attempt to jerk away from his mouth, but it’s futile. Adam holds your tights in a grounding grip, rubbing his thumb over the sweat-covered flesh of your tights in a comforting motion. You grit your teeth as furious tears burn your eyes.

You wish that someone had led you away from the edge in life like this—that there was someone for you who cared back then. He might not actually feel that way—he doesn’t—but his actions are enough to let you believe the lie, if only for a fleeting moment.

Adam gives your clit one last flick with his tongue and stands to his full height. The table groans under both of you as Adam puts extra weight on it by leaning in, one of his hands still kneading your plump flesh while the other lies flat beside you.

He catches your lips in a kiss, one surprisingly sweet, tasting every bit of you. You feel his hardness behind the coarse layer of his pants as he presses himself ever closer to you, and enthusiastically reward him by rubbing yourself against him.

Blindly, you place your palm against his torso, which makes Adam disconnect the kiss and pull his head a tiny bit back to watch your next move.

You don’t push him away. Mouth to mouth—sharing the same air with one another—you slide your hand down his happy trail until you reach his belt. You hook your fingers over the accessory and hastily undo the buckle as your eyes go from looking at what you are doing and back to Adam’s eyes.

Adam lets out a chuckle and leans back into another kiss while you busy yourself with taking his dick out of his pants. Your hand is cold as you wrap your fingers around him, sending an involuntary shiver down the angel’s spine as he buckles into your hold.

Suddenly, your hand on his cock is covered by Adam’s much bigger one. He leans towards your ear and whispers, "I will take it from here, babe. Lay down for me, will you?"

You look up into his eyes again and nod as you lean back onto the cold surface that feels uncomfortably slick against your sweat-covered back.

Adam’s burly body looks intimidatingly huge from this angle, and his cock makes his large hands seem small in comparison. You attempt to swallow down the fluttering feeling of your heart, seemingly stuck inside your throat, but the sensation of it stays, and now you also have the man’s undivided attention on you.

"Getting cold feet?"

You scoff at him, but that’s it.

He grabs you by your hip and pulls you closer to the edge. He runs the fat head of his cock over your entrance, smearing his precum over it, before he pops the head of it right in. The intrusion feels invasive, but not unpleasant, with the added help of your previous orgasm. That is, until he begins pushing the rest of himself. 

You have never taken one so huge, and as he slowly slides himself inside of your cunt, you find yourself pulling back a tiny bit to prevent the painful stretch for a second longer. But Adam places his wide palm at the dip of your waist—the heel of his palm resting on your stomach, while his long fingers dig into your lower back, keeping you in place.

Finally bottoming out, he leans over your quivering body and exhales near your ear, on top of everything, sending a wave of pleasant shivers down your spine, which dot your arms in prickly goosebumps.

"Fuck, you’re tight."

You claw at his back, trying to stabilise yourself. Adam stays still for a moment, and the stretch turns to merely a bearable pressure. The way he fills you fully up makes your insides itch with pleasure and clench around him from the sheer desperation of trying to relieve it.

"Adam," you sigh into the man’s ear, revelling in the way he curses under his breath, his composure faltering as he buckles into you just enough to tear a moan out of your throat. "Move."

"Fuck, yeah, right, you don’t have to tell me twice."

Adam thrusts himself into you with fervour, far from being an angel in that moment, but merely a man. He wears no shame, only his pants, which are pooled around his ankles.

Every bruising hit to your cervix is rewarded by your gasping moans, and it happens to be a wonderful incentive. Words are unnecessary—the telling flush over the bridge of your nose, spilling into both apples of your cheeks, was louder than any noise you could have made at that moment.

"Look how good I fuck you. No dick in the whole of Hell can compare."

You are completely absorbed in your own pleasure. You don’t even acknowledge his voice and the words, the more so. But then you do look up at him, and he loses his voice. His cock can’t help but twitch inside of you.

Adam puts his palm flat against the small bump in your stomach, making you arch into him with his name sliding off your tongue, which he is too eager to catch by swallowing up your lips. His hand moves lower, and it only takes his fingertips a few brushes against your clit to bring you over the edge again.

It almost feels like you are falling again, but instead of the cold biting air, it is his warm breath against your face, and instead of the hard ground of Hell, it is his arms wrapping around you in a plushy embrace.

You flutter around him in spasmodic clenches as he holds you through it, all the while he slowly rocks his hips into you until he cums himself. 

The two of you stay silent for a long while, but never break eye contact. Somehow, it tells more than any words could. You are not even completely sure there is a language in the world that could help the two of you communicate the feelings simmering deep in your chests, not the vocal one for sure, hence the intense eye contact.

The sky outside begins to get brighter, as bright as it can be in this place, and the night bleeds into the new dawn. The redness of Hell’s blood moon spills into the room through the stained glass windows, but it doesn’t look as demonic as usual—beautiful, even. 

It never was like that, almost like it’s taunting you.

Look what you would have missed. 

But would you?

You had already said your goodbyes to the morning light, so welcoming a brand new day overall feels bittersweet. You wanted to leave your worries in the night.

By now, he’s gone completely soft inside of you, but before he gets off you, he leans in, and you close your eyes, ready for a kiss. Instead, you feel him nudge the tip of your nose with his, and when you reopen your eyes, he is already pulling away and stepping back.

You pick yourself up on wobbly feet and then stagger. Your leg muscles silently scream for mercy, and only you feel their rage at being spread for so long.

"Woah, catch your breath." Adam grabs you by your upper forearm with one hand while the other is holding up his pants with the belt still unbuckled.

"Did I fulfil my end of the bargain?" You say somberly but still with a smile. You pull your clothing onto your body to cover yourself before your death, so your corpse would have at least a tiny bit of dignity.

"Do you still want to go through it?"

"If I say no, will that make killing me more enjoyable for you?" You smile, and Adam hates it. You can tell simply by glancing up at him. 

His face is so expressive, and his eyes do not wander away from yours even for a second. It is you who has to glance to the side. You are unable to hold his gaze for much longer, growing self-conscious of how he stays silent.

"What.. do you want?"

You look up at him wide-eyed. You guess he is in Heaven for a reason, showing a lowly sinner the last bit of compassion.

"Rest. I’m—" You stop for a bit, trying to swallow down that persistent lump in your throat. When you speak again, your voice is shaky. "Very tired."

In the end, you finish your words with a soft murmur, maybe speaking more to yourself than to him. You have never been so sure of your decision in your entire existence.

It happens so fast, you didn’t even realise when he picked up his angelic weapon.

Your mind can’t even comprehend another thought before your blood spills on the holy floor of Heaven’s embassy, tainting the place with filth. Red and sinful—it matches the shade of red sky peeking through the cross windows absurdly perfectly. There is no way to tell where the blood ends and the light starts.

At first, you are stiff. Your chest rises and falls, but the movement is accompanied by an angry hiss. Your instinct is to reach for your throat, but you can’t even do that. Your hands feel like they have fallen asleep.

Your knees buckle underneath you, and Adam quickly grabs you by your bicep so you won’t hit the ground as the blood gurgles out of your mouth, eyes half-lidded as your unfocused gaze stays on something in front of you.

Let me go, you whisper in your mind, but Adam only intensifies his hold on you. All you want to do is lie down, but for some unfathomable reason, the angel is refusing to let you go even after delivering the final blow. And like a sick joke, once again, you can’t die. Please.

So you give him one last smile, and that is when he finally lets you fall.

You sink into the puddle of your blood and curl up into the warm embrace of a wet blanket. You make eye contact with your reflection in the fluid, only to see it clearly and no longer obstructed. You can finally accept your humanity as a profound sense of peace takes over you, and you at last close your eyes.

Adam stands over his second kill of the year, conflicted.

His chest feels heavy again.