Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

There was no announcement, no ceremony. From one day to another the fallen angel started sitting at their table. 

They’d been taught to keep their mouths shut when it came to father’s decisions, but even they couldn’t hide the absurdity that came with this . Her father had never brought someone outside their family to sit with them, not even the lesser evils, he’d made his distaste for everyone and everything painfully clear, so to see him so…placid, even subdued—it nudged Lilith the wrong way.

He afforded her a kind of attention he didn’t even reserve for her or her brother, that was the worst part of all of it.

“Do you think he… likes her?” Lilith blurted out, the words coming out of her mouth before she could rethink them. ‘Love’ was too ridiculous to say. Even ‘ like’ felt obscene when applied to her father.

Lucion tilted his head towards her, he looked at her with an expression that was either disgust or horror. He stopped picking at what little amount of fur clung in uneven patches to bone and fur. He’d once had radiant ebony pelt, now he just looked more like a mangy flea covered beast. He said it made him look more like his father.

“That’s not possible, no” he said, it was what she believed too, her father was Hate incarnate, to have him be ruled by anything else seemed heresy. Still there were people he tolerated, her uncles for instance and maybe he at least had some sort of paternal instinct for them, but this? Her? No.

“He trimmed the nails of his middle and ring finger from two of his hands” she said.

“What does that have to do with anything?” said her brother, completely oblivious.

Lilith stared at him, trying to decide if he was being dense or if he really didn’t know.She was old enough to understand the intricacies that came with intimacy, especially here in HELL of all places. Her father could posture all he wanted, talk about shielding her from corruption (as if it hadn’t birthed her), but she knew what that word really meant. He didn’t want her touched. He wanted control over her. Or maybe he just liked tormenting her suitors.

“Seems a little counterproductive,” she muttered “if you’re the Prime Evil and you’re out here, trimming your claws. He’s ripped spines out for less. But her ? Oh no, let’s be careful.”

She didn’t even try to hide the bitterness in her voice.

Lucion blinked at her, then went back to scratching the side of his neck like a dog. 

“Well she used to be an archangel—”

“Is” Lilith corrected him, the archangel was corrupted, but even if she sprouted horns and shed her angelic armor, she was not a demon.

“...is…” he echoed, a little quieter. He scratched behind his ear, then added,”He did corrupt her himself, right? That has to mean something. A trophy perhaps, or maybe he’s still working on her, dragging it out. Or maybe it’s about status? She was really high up. It makes sense to keep someone like that close.”

He paused, then shrugged, unsure. “Right?”

“He’s corrupted others, but they’re rotting in cages. He doesn’t invite them for breakfast.” she said flatly. 

Lucion scratched his chin, thinking. “But did you see her out in the battlefield? She cleaved through a mountain, cracked it like open fruit. She’s an asset, that’s all” he concluded shrugging his shoulders.

“Astaroth is an asset, yet he doesn’t sit at our table.”said Lilith.

“Maybe he doesn’t want to” 

Lilith scowled, leaning into his space now. “He covered all the mirrors at her request” said Lilith, tripling down.

He scoffed, “Everyone does that sometimes” 

“I saw her wearing his robes the other day”

“She must’ve been cold”

“She doesn’t even feel cold” 

“Dramatic flare then” 

“She used to walk behind him, now she walks beside him. Do you not see it? Do you seriously think this is just about strategy?”

“Lilith—”

But she kept going.

“She touches his arm. I’ve seen it. Like it’s normal.”

Lucion covered his ears. “ Please.”

But she kept going.

“She cleans things. The other day I saw her picking up a cracked goblet off the floor like she was tidying up a home. Like this isn’t Hell, like she lives here.”

Lucion’s claws dug into his scalp. “Stop it.”

“She’s nesting, Lucion.”

“I SAID STOP.”

His voice echoed through her chamber, to weak to be a growl and too young to be taken seriously.

The silence that followed was brutal.

Lilith stared at him, breathing heavily. Her mouth stayed open for half a second longer but then closed it, like she had one more accusation to throw, but it died on her tongue.

Lucion was hunched over, claws still in his scalp, shoulders curled like he was shielding himself from her words. 

He didn’t look at her when he spoke again.

“She made me a poultice, when I cracked my jaw fighting that punisher” he said quietly.

Lilith blinked. “What?”

“She didn’t say anything. Just… touched my face and smeared it across my jaw. It stank. But it worked.” He turned away from her “Father never even noticed I was hurt” 

Lilith looked at him aghast, her eyes hatred, this was a special kind of betrayal. She scoffed as if something had broken. Her brother, her only confidant in this family.

“Hell’s not you as well”

She removed herself from his personal space, pacing around her room in tight circles, tail lashing erratically. Her brother tried to reach out to placate her, but to no avail.

“It must be some kind of spell” she murmured to herself “Some kind of lingering angelic witchcraft” Yes, that must be the case.

“Lilith?—”

“Don’t you understand? We are his blood! Yet it is her he waits for. What does she have that we don’t?” 

That seemed to strike a chord in her brother. Deep in thought, he opened his mouth but no words left his tongue. She knew he was troubled as well. Their father barely spared them a thought and when he did it was to punish them or use them.

“They must be hiding something. Father doesn’t let anyone near him unless they’re useful or chained. And she’s neither.” she said.

Lucion looked genuinely pained now. “You want to spy on Father’s consort?”

“She’s not. A. Consort” her voice cracked like a whip.

“She is not even a demon” Lilith said, her voice pitched, throwing her hands in the air as if the floor itself had offended her “if she’s anything, it’s contamination” The demoness could not fathom her father taking a mistress, what would the Lord of Hatred even want her for? For Hell’s sake the man didn’t even have a lower half! Unless he adopted a different form the way she did.

The image hit her before she could stop it: Father, corporeal, touching, fornicating—

NO

She slapped the side of her head once. No, no, ew—OUT. Out of my skull.

Lilith had had enough, She marched past her brother, fuming, muttering under her breath about robes and sanctimony and unholy bedding.

“Where are you going?” asked her brother.

“TO PURGE THE INFECTION!” She yelled, slamming the door behind her.

Chapter Text

Lilith had decided to take this task upon herself. She’ll be damned if no one else saw it but, this family had a hole shaped problem, a winged, no faced, Auriel shaped problem.

She opened the massive doors leading to her father’s main hall, ready to storm in and make her case. 

But there was… nothing

Kitchens? Empty. Not even the scavenger dogs that usually fought over bones were sniffing around.

Gardens? Quiet.

She stormed past a servant who flinched.

“What are you all so twitchy for?” she snapped. No answer. Typical.

Everyone was moving just a little too quickly, avoiding her gaze, jaws pressed tight like they were all in on something.

That only made her angrier.

Lilith eventually did find her, but not with her father.

Out in the volcanic wastes, sprawled across a slab of lava-heated rock like it was a luxury chaise—

Auriel.

They were talking, laughing.

The Maiden of Anguish, talking with the embodiment of Hope as if they were old friends at a spa retreat. It was worse knowing the angel had free reign and wasn’t held onto a leash like she’d thought most of her father’s toys would be. How dare she have a social life?

It seemed the contamination had spread further than her household, soon it would take all over hell!

Auriel was sipping something, wine? The angel didn’t even have a mouth. How the hell was the liquid supposed to go in?

She pried onto their conversation.

"...he truly believed we were going to pardon him,” Andariel was saying, voice silked with amusement. “Even after we walked him through the Hall of Screams.”

“It is in the essence. You have to let it take root, what good is their suffering, if you don’t let them hope first?” said Auriel

Andariel giggled and wrapped her arms around her knees like a blushing schoolgirl.“Huhu I might have to fire Rakanoth and give his seat to you” 

Auriel, somehow, impossibly; blushed, HOW?

Lilith almost screamed.

“I wouldn’t dream of it. That sad little thing spends too much time sulking, I’d be cruel to take away the one title he’s still clinging to.” the angel replied, voice dipped in pleasant modesty. 

Auriel sipped daintily from her glass—again, with no mouth, like they weren’t discussing psychological torture as if it were embroidery technique.

Andariel let out a wheezing laugh. “You’re terrible. I love it.” She sighed, a smile on her lips “Just thinking of his torment puts a smile on my face” she said leaning back onto her pillory.

Auriel tilted her head. “You bring it out of me.”

They clinked glasses like co-conspirators.

Then, just when Lilith thought it couldn’t get any worse.

Andariel sighed dreamily. “No wonder Mephisto’s so taken with you.”

Auriel rolled to her stomach, putting her chin between her hands. “I am very charming”

Lilith recoiled like she'd been stabbed. Her tail twitched violently

Hope was about to corrupt the entirety of hell.

Lilith swept everything off her vanity with one violent sweep—bottles, brushes, bone jewelry, all crashing to the floor. She ripped open one of the drawers, pulling out one of her notebooks—pink and glittery and looked violently out of place in the middle of hell and slammed it into the vanity with a hard slap. 

“DEAR diary ,” she scrawled, maybe too hard onto the paper, almost breaking it.

“This girl is the nastiest, SKANK, bitch, I’ve ever met” Lilith voiced aloud.

DO NOT trust her. She is a fugly slut

She’s come to take father away from us and steal his throne ”

“She can rot in — ” Lilith blinked. Hell?

No, we're already here.

“…Double Hell,” she whispered. Then underlined it three times.

“She can rot in DOUBLE HELL. Her and her big pair of tits”

Lilith thought of that last part and scribbled it out, why did she write that?. It's not like the fallen angel was pretty, the woman didn’t even have a face for hell’s sake. Just light and mystery and that thing she called a presence.

Well, she did have a pleasing voice. Honey poured over glass that put others to sleep.

Or perfect skin…

And alright—sure she had wings. Nice wings. Massive, radiant things that glowed like they were dipped in molten gold. But Lilith had wings as well, and hers were way sharper, they could basically cut through bone. That was way better. Obviously.

“What are you writing?” he said, peeking over her shoulder.

Lilith's heart left her ribcage.

She spun around with a shriek, claws bared “What are you doing in my room!” cried the demonness, in her panic she hurled the glittery notebook over the window, hoping the thing landed in lava. 

Mephisto hovered behind her, smoke curled around him, in one of his arms he carried a silver platter.

She could probably count with one hand the amount of times her father had come to her chambers and not summoned her to his presence as if she were some of his minions

“Nothing, I just brought you something from one of my last interrogations” he said, setting the platter on the counter; on it the root of a pair of angelic wings, gold and dripping, recently ripped out. “You told me to bring you his head…but I thought this to be more fitting,” he said, tapping his fingers dubiously. 

“Well…yes. But you can’t just barge in here!”

“Whatch your tone” he scowled “And this is my house, I go where I please” 

Lilith lowered her gaze, but she was not one to cower, she’d lived through enough of Mephisto’s reprimands to elicit a reaction out of her. The demon lord brought his attention back to the wings in the platter.

“Auriel claims the wings carry memories. That they ache even after death. I thought I’d test the theory”

Lilith rolled her eyes, slumping into her chair with a loud groan.

“Can you not mention her while I’m having a moment? Maybe never actually” she said. Mephisto turned toward her with slow precision, like a serpent deciding whether to strike or cuddle. 

“Oh my little creature of hatred,” he said, cupping her face with his hands. “You blister so beautifully when you are wounded”

Lilith pouted “Don’t patronize me! And don’t quote her like she is gospel” she crossed her arms.

“Ah that's too bad” he said unapologetically, circling his finger around the dripping plate. “But nothing nourishes me like your loathing”

“Is this her doing as well? You never do as much as look at me and now you are here bringing me offerings” said Lilith

“What can I say, Auriel does put me in a good mood” 

Ugh how she hated hearing the angel’s name.

“I liked you better miserable” she mumbled. Honestly she wouldn't mind if her father didn’t know happiness in his entire life, but that was rare, considering how much he loved his work.

“And I like you seething and starved for attention” he tapped the plate with one of his claws.

“Enjoy your gift”

And with that he vanished with a puff of smoke and static.

Having a father that fed onto her hatred really didn't help. H was sure his winged concubine knew as well.

Lilithed wished she could avoid the fallen angel, but for some unfathomable reason Mephisto had made family dinners mandatory. As if they were a functional family and not carved from hate and unresolved childhood trauma.

Lilith wouldn’t have minded… if there wasn’t an impostor among them.

Even Lucion looked like he wanted to crawl into a pit and die.

“I like your wings folded like that, it's very modest” said Mephisto, as if she didn’t have her whole cleavage out and most of her back exposed like a sunlit cathedral window.

“Truly?” Her voice was all smooth and silk “I thought you preferred them nice and spread” said Auriel. Lucion side eyed them while Lilith pretended the meat she was chewing required an intense concentration, anything to get her mind off the two dorks at the head.

The chamber was massive, only occupied by the long table draped in red and a banquet of different kinds of cooked and raw delicacies “Well yes, I can also think of other things I like nice and spread”

Lucion spat his drink out, almost choking, Lilith wanted to vomit. 

“Like the meat on this plate” Mephisto finished dryly, lifting a chunk of dripping roast with a smile on his face that didn’t match the innocence of the line 

Auriel giggled, now with one hand openly tracing circles on the crook of his elbow “Of course, the meat. Though I do have a… preference for the bone”

That's it.

“May I excuse myself?” Asked Lilith, delicately wiping her mouth with a napkin before they could start railing on the dinner table.

“You may not” said her father. 

Lilith sat down, with a frown so deep she was about to develop a wrinkle.

“What is it dear, is the food not to your liking?” asked Auriel. Lilith wished the angel just treated her like a ghost in the hallway, but wherever she went she was all; “how was your morning dear?”, “Your horns look lovely today, did you file them yourself?” “I’ve folded your linens, I noticed the servants left them wrinkled”

Ugh, so infuriating.

Lilith narrowed her eyes “The food is to my liking, but I wouldn’t expect a being without a mouth to know any of that”

“No…” she said disappointingly, twirling her cords absentmindedly. “But I can swallow,” she said, sipping from her wine goblet. Her father gave out a low laugh.

“Ah not even all the wine in hell could quench your thirst” said Mephisto, stroking her thigh, they were practically all over each other at this point.

“When you offer me such vintage…how could I refuse” the fallen angel’s fingers crept up his chest.

Lucion pushed his plate away “I think I’m not hungry anymore” 

“For you I’d give all the wine in the world and all the jewels in hell” Mephisto murmured, eyes half lidded as he leaned into her touch

“Oh my, you have such a way with words, such a skilled tongue…all four of them, rough and filled with…poetry” said the angel, crawling on top of the table.

“You bring the worst out of me” he murmured, catching the angel in his lap with all four of his hands. 

Their foreheads nearly touched, breathless with amusement or hunger. Her father’s claws stroked the curve of her back like some relic he’d stolen and planned to never return.

Lucion audibly gagged.

“Uh, hello! We’re right here by the way” Lilith cried out. Waving her arms to catch his attention over the angel that nudged his neck.

Mephisto didn’t even turn to look at her “Leave”

“But my dinner—” said Lilith indignantly. Lucion wasted no time sprinting towards the door.

“I said leave, dinner’s over” he repeated, his voice dark and threatened with finality “Your appetites have clearly left you. Mine hasn’t”

Lilith smashed the plate onto the ground and strutted towards the exit with long steps.

Lilith sat curled atop a cliff overlooking her father’s city, all towering spires of obsidian and hellbrick. She came here when she needed to think.

She rested her head on her knees and folded her wings around herself like a cocoon. Everything was so different now, she missed when her father ignored her and when she didn’t have an angel making things so…sweet and corny. She didn’t need her telling her her horns were nice, or bring her tea, or fold her clothes.

Lilith would rather be motherless, as she’d always been.

…

Why did she think that? Auriel wasn’t her mother, she’ll never be, she was just her father’s new toy. Shiny, beautiful and hollow. He’d tire of her eventually, like he did with all things.

“All the way up here little shriekbat?” 

Lilith twisted around at the sound, catching sight of her uncle ambling toward her—four-legged, moving sideways like some ancient, sulfurous crustacean. It was a nickname he’d come up with, Lilith didn’t remember when, but she liked it.

“I hate it in there” said Lilith, gesturing towards the cathedral she'd been born in.

“Don’t tell me your father’s got you grounded again” said Baal. He was the favourite of her uncles, her fun uncle. Diablo was all menacing and always cast in shadow, he unsettled her even more than her father did.

“It’s not that. It’s the angel. Even the servants are all over her” she mumbled.

“Angel?” asked Baal earnestly.

“Ugh, fallen angel” she corrected herself, as much as it pained her “she’s got father wrapped around her finger. It’s all ‘Auriel this!’ ‘Auriel that!’ Disgusting.”

Baal blinked “Auriel? As in the Archangel of Hope Auriel?” He sat besides her “I should’ve thought your father had something to do with her disappearance, but taking her as a consort… that is news to me”

“You didn’t know? I thought she’d be halfway taking all over hell with her charms and fancy ribbons”

He stroked his chin “Strange… I do have a hard time believing you, he has never taken an interest in someone, not in the way you are describing”

“It’s nonsense I know. He brought me angel wings to mount on my wall as if he were bringing me a snack. It’s her influence rubbing off on him, I just know it.” Said Lilith.

“Mephisto is getting soft…” he thought quietly aloud. “I might have to see this for myself”

“By my guest, I’m sure she’ll have you in her claws as well” Lilith bit on to the edge of her finger.

Baal did come to visit their household and lo and behold..

Auriel wasn’t there.

Actually there wasn’t a single trace of her. Not in the halls, not in the tower, not even in the gardens where she and her father usually mingled.

Her uncle greeted her father as he always did and Mephisto responded with his usual cynical smile and frigid demeanor. None of the angel’s song lingered or her order in all this chaos.

When she asked the servants where she’d gone, they looked at her as if she’d grown two heads. It’s as if the fallen angel had never barged into their lives at all. 

“Angel?” one of them echoed.

“She means one of the chained ones in the catacombs,” another offered, trying to be helpful. “We haven’t opened those since last tuesday”

But that was too good to be true.

And when Baal, casual and skeptical, asked Mephisto himself about his alleged “consort,” the Lord of Hatred merely lifted a brow, amused.

“Consort?” he repeated coolly. “You overestimate my tolerance for company, dear brother.”

No mention of wings. No wine at dinner. No hands on thighs, no quiet giggles, no innuendos tossed like bones to dogs. It was like someone had wiped her clean from her plate entirely.

When her uncle left he poked her cheek. “Oh little shriekbat, so young and already plotting your father’s demise, clever thing. I’m sure it will work out for you one of these days” he said fondly.

Great now she was being treated as a maniac.

But the peace was short lived, as soon as Baal left those doors the small chimes and quiet songs returned, Auriel once again mingled by her father’s side. But it was quieter this time, her heels didn’t click as soundly on the obsidian floors, no thigh stroking under the table, no whispers filth dressed in silk, they spoke in quiet whispers and kept their matters more private.

Then it hit her.

It was shame.

Her father; Mephisto, Lord of Hatred, tormentor of souls, architect of cruelty—was ashamed.

Ashamed of the angel he let nest beside his throne. Ashamed of the softness she dragged out of him. Of the gentleness that had wormed its way into his house like rot.

Of the exception he’d made.

Of the weakness he’d let take root in his ribs and bloom into something dangerous.

She’d soon come to know the servants had been forbidden of speaking of her, for if even the faintest whisper escaped their lips—they would soon go missing and Lilith would find them strung up inside her father’s torture chambers.

He didn’t want the others to see it. To know he wasn’t untouchable. That even the Prime Evil had a wound he called beloved.

And for once; Lilith wasn’t angry. She felt vindicated. For being right all along.

But there was a tight wound she’d thought she’d mended long ago, start to come undone. For all the attention her father gave to Auriel, he spared none for his children.

She had spent centuries telling herself he was incapable of love, of care, of closeness. That it simply wasn’t in him. That there was no room in that cracked and smoking ribcage for something like affection. She had accepted that. Built herself out of it. The reality was far crueler.

He’d simply chosen not to love them and that…stinged, to put it mildly. 

But Lilith was no one to wallow, she was his father’s daughter and he’d at the least raised her in his image.

She straightened her shoulders and wiped her face with the back of her hand. 

I’m going to blackmail you so hard you’ll wish you’d never birthed me.