Chapter Text
Lucifer hates meetings. He hates meetings between the 7 Princes. He hates meetings disguised as galas and luncheons, and tea parties. Most of all, he hates meetings in Heaven because these are the only ones that he is mandated to attend. Threatened that his reign will have to be monitored by a Seraphim unless he shows up, Lucifer jumps the annual hurdle of defying his core belief and journeys to Heaven to hear Sera ramble for two hours while the other archangels, Seraphims, and Cherubims huddle around the round table and pretend to be interested.
When Lucifer arrives in Heaven, he detects that something is off. The other angels always behave peculiarly when he’s around, but this is a different kind of peculiar. Instead of looking afraid, they glare at him as though he’s brought about some plight to Heaven with his presence. He ignores the gawking at the front doors when he enters his former home, a land that is just as uppity and happy-go-lucky as when he left it. He imagines that the people there haven’t changed either, and he is right.
Gathered around the round table in one of the meeting rooms in Heaven’s palace, Lucifer is met with the familiar scowling faces of his old roommates, the brothers and sisters he’d grown up with, angels whom he used to call friends. No one has aged a bit. (They can’t). But their permanent scowls make them look much older than Lucifer.
“I called this meeting earlier in the year because there are some important issues we need to discuss,” Sera announces, taking a seat at the head of the table. To her left is her younger companion, Emily. To her right is Lute.
Lucifer narrows his eyes on the lieutenant of the Exorcists. He should’ve killed her when he had the chance.
“Recently, there has been an…incident we shall call it.”
Lute slams her pale fist on the table. She rises to her feet. “It wasn’t an incident! It was murder!”
“Lute, please sit down,” Sera retorts.
Lute obeys, folding her arm…arm.
“As I was saying, something happened in Hell, Lucifer. Something that we have hundreds of witnesses to.”
“You’re talking about the Extermination,” Lucifer says. He couldn't care less. He doesn’t understand why he’s here and would much rather be anywhere else than this awful place. Still, he’s more than willing to take the fall for all that went down that day instead of letting the angels blame Charlie.
“Five days ago, your daughter led an assault against the Exorcists, killing hundreds of our soldiers, who—in case you didn’t know—do more than just fix the overpopulation problem in your domain. And not only that, but she killed the leader of our Exorcist Army, Adam.”
“May I add something to that?” Lucifer asks, raising his hand.
Sera nods.
“First of all, your “Exorcists”—Lucifer exaggerates every syllable in the word. “—aren’t solving the overpopulation problem in Hell. What you’re doing is glorified genocide and—”
“ —Need I remind you who permitted us to give that order?” The leader of the Thrones questions.
“Lilith and I were pressured into making that decision. You —” He isn’t specifically referring to the leader of the Thrones but all of the angels in this room. “—didn’t give us much of a choice.”
“But at the end of the day, it was your choice. Don’t go around blaming us for something that you and your wife agreed on.”
Lucifer scowls and drags his nails through the table. This tangent has steered him off course long enough. He veers back on topic: removing Charlie from being the sole reason behind Adam’s death.
“You’re not fixing the problem and praising your soldiers for being murderers, damn well isn’t helping us either.” The leader of the Thrones opens his mouth to object, so Lucifer jumps onto his next point to keep the Thrones from leading him astray again. “Secondly, it wasn’t Charlie who killed Adam. It was this tiny, little bug thing.”
There are some confused murmurs among the crowd. A few heads turn to Lute, who blushes and buries her head in her hands.
“Are you telling the truth?” Sera asks.
Lucifer nods, slouching in his seat. Just because he’s up here doesn’t mean he needs to abide by their rules and etiquette.
“Lute told us that Charlie killed Adam.”
“Lute is a liar.”
Lute erupts at that statement, “Are we really going to take the word of a fucking demon over an Exorcist like me? Adam would never lose in battle to an ordinary Sinner!”
“But he lost,” Lucifer reiterates, smirking.
Lute’s face contorts with rage, and she plunges her nails deep into her palms.
“Both of you, please,” Sera says. She nods, instructing Lute to sit back down again. “This isn’t getting us anywhere, and this isn’t what we came here to discuss.”
“Then what did you want to discuss?” Lucifer asks. He watches the clock. The meeting lasted only three minutes. 117 minutes and a painfully long eternity of seconds to go.
“We’ve been making plans for a funeral. The only problem is we need Adam’s body to do it,” Emily reveals.
Lucifer doesn’t know where Adam’s body is, and it’s not his job as the King of Hell to know where the corpses in his realm go. For all he knows, one of the many Cannibals who fought by Charlie’s side during the battle might’ve dragged him back to their town and consumed him. Especially because this is Adam’s body, he really doesn’t care and wants to make that apparent to Sera and Emily before they send him on a wild goose chase to track down a carcass.
“And? I don’t know where it is.”
Sera’s crown burns brightly, and a set of eyes sprouts on her wings and hair. A few angels scoot backward in their chairs. She leaves her chair and begins walking towards Lucifer. The regret of talking back sets in immediately, making him feel like his trouble-making younger self again.
“Now that is not an option,” She asserts, “I am well aware of the fact that we’ve disagreed on managing our citizens for the past millennia, but this is absolutely no excuse to be arrogant!”
“Sera…” Emily says, flying over to Sera and touching her shoulder.
Sera relaxes, shuts her eyes, and takes a deep breath. The eyes disappear, as does a portion of her frustration.
“I need everyone to leave except for you—” She points at Lucifer. He expects this and tries to hide his disappointment. “And you.” She gestures to Lute, who refuses to move any closer to Lucifer despite the fact that the table is emptying.
“I don’t know where Adam’s body is, Sera,” Lucifer says in as collected and polite a voice as he can manage, taking the opportunity to speak to her now while she’s calmed down a bit. “And if I did, I would give it back to you, but I really have no idea.”
“You don’t need to say that to me. Say that to him.”
After the other higher powers leave the room, a new blonde angel flies in to replace them, wielding an acoustic guitar-axe. His golden eyes and friendly mannerisms possess so much ingenuous optimism that Lucifer worries that the mention of a corpse will traumatize the poor creature.
“Hi, it’s really nice to meet you! You must be Lucifer. I’ve heard all about you—the good and the bad.” The golden-eyed angel extends his hand to Lucifer, who is hesitant to initiate a handshake but goes along with the gesture. “I’m Abel.”
“Holy shit,” Lucifer blurts.
It feels immoral to be shaking hands with, talking to, or looking at the direct spawn of Adam, an angel whom he easily could’ve killed (and almost did). The absence of guilt to weigh on his conscience makes the interaction feel even more awkward. Lucifer is glad to slip his hand out of Abel’s grip.
Lucifer looks over his shoulder at Sera. “Is this to guilt-trip me into looking for Adam?”
“Depends. Will you be looking for Adam?”
Lucifer decides there’s no point in lying. They’ll find out if he tries to evade a promise, and angelic deals are nothing to trifle with.
“No,” He answers curtly.
“Look, Mr. Morningstar, I know how you and your family felt about my dad. I’m not invalidating your feelings. However, we really need to get his body back up here in time for the funeral before, you know, all the rot and the worms and the icky stuff starts to set in,” Abel says.
“Why does that matter? Are you planning on having an open casket funeral?”
“I think it’s a matter of convenience,” Emily interrupts Lute, who’s jumped out of her seat for the third time to shout at Lucifer.
“Why me ? Why do I need to look for it?”
“Because the entire army of Exorcists isn’t stupid enough to go back to Hell,” Lute says, retrieving her helmet from the table and hooking it under her arm. She walks around the table to meet up with the angels gathered in front of Lucifer. “We know that you know where Adam’s body is, so you can stop lying about it.”
“I want nothing to do with him. Why would I hide the body? That makes no sense!”
“Hey, hey, hey…” Abel steps in between Lucifer and Lute. “We’re not gonna fight. Remember, Lute, this is a diplomatic meeting.”
The only thing worse than a regular meeting is a diplomatic one.
“Oh, fuck off, Abel!” Lute pushes him aside. “This isn’t about you!”
“Actually, yes,” Sera says, glowering down at Lute. “This is about him. Adam is his father. He’s in charge of the funeral preparations, and he’s in charge of this, too.”
“You weren’t even fucking there!” Lute retorts, livid golden eyes up in Abel’s face. “You didn’t see him die! It was only me! It was always me! I was the only one who ever gave a shit!”
“LUTE!” Sera bellows. “That’s enough!”
Panting, Lute backs away from Abel. She drops into a chair and stays there without saying a word. Her leg shakes underneath the table.
“As I was saying,” Sera says after clearing her throat. “Abel has articulated that he would prefer that Adam’s body return as soon as possible.”
“I can’t give you that,” Lucifer says, rubbing his temples. He doesn’t know why he has to articulate to these angels that he doesn’t know where Adam is, doesn’t want to know where Adam is, and doesn’t give a shit about their funeral.
“You could try,” Emily adds with an adorable smile.
Lucifer sighs. He sees nothing but Charlie’s hopefulness behind her deep blue eyes. It’s the one thing that gets him to crack, a reminder of the goodness that awaits him at home.
“Fine,” Lucifer mumbles. “I’ll have some people on it, but if I don’t find it—” This next message is strictly for Sera. “—that’s it. I’m not putting up with any more requests.”
“Don’t slack off,” she says.
“Yeah, I won’t.” He gets out of his chair and leaves the room, the castle, and the pearly white gates of Heaven.
One thing that contrasts starkly between Heaven and Hell is that Heaven is actually hotter. Heaven experiences weather, real weather. It gets rainy days, cloudy afternoons, and sunny mornings. It gets sunlight , which is more heat and light than Hell will ever experience.
Lucifer shudders as he travels through the portal back into Hell. The chill in the air is unmistakable, as is the smell of dumpster fires and the rat-a-tat of machine guns going off in the distance. It’s so far different from Heaven, overcrowded, contaminated, and too lost in an apocalyptic state to be reshaped by any rehabilitation programs, but it’s home.
Lucifer flies back to the hotel but keeps an eye on the streets for any sign of Adam’s body. He doubts that he’ll find Adam’s corpse at all. It’s either decomposing in the damp darkness of a sewer or being digested in the belly of a Sinner. Regardless of where it ends up, he just wants to have some souvenir to give back to Heaven to say, “Well, I tried; sorry, not sorry for your loss”.
“Hey, Charlie, do you remember what happened to Adam’s guitar?” Lucifer asks, shutting and locking the door behind him.
He looks up to find a trail of blood leading down the hall. His mind jumps to the worst conclusion, and he sprints after the blood trail and barges into the sitting room, fully expecting to slaughter whoever dared to put a hand on his daughter. Instead, he finds Charlie sitting in an armchair, sobbing. Alastor stands beside her, patting her shoulder while Vaggie tries to offer her water.
“What happened?” Lucifer demands. He sees that the blood trail connects to Charlie’s hands and dress, but she doesn’t appear injured—not physically anyway.
“Dad?” Charlie gasps, looking at him. She jumps out of the chair and rushes into his arms. “I did something really bad!” She weeps into his chest.