Lucifer hesitated as he looked down on Adam. He was trekking the barren land on his way home, having tried to find food anywhere he could find it. It had only been a year since Lucifer and Lilith’s actions had gotten him and Eve thrown out of the garden, since they had lost the only home they’d ever known. Since he’d told Lucifer that the next time he saw him, he would stop at nothing to hurt him.

Had Adam known of the concept of death, he probably would have threatened his life, but that was still far in the future.

 

If he approached him now, would he stick to that promise?

He had hurt both Adam and Eve terribly with the same actions that led to him and Lilith being cast down to Hell. He didn’t know if he could be forgiven. If he ever could be. But he had done what was right, hadn’t he? He’d just wanted humanity to have free will, to choose their own lives, not just do what God expected of them. Was that so wrong?

Apparently, it was.

 

Biting his lip, Lucifer slowly lowered himself to the ground behind Adam. The sound of his heels meeting the ground made Adam whirl around, now on high alert.

His eyes widened.

“Who… Lucifer?”

Lucifer chuckled nervously. He knew he looked very different than he had before his Fall. He could still barely recognise his own reflection. “Hi, Adam.”

 

He yelped as he dodged Adam’s fist, Adam nearly falling as his blow missed. Humans hadn’t been intended to fight, Adam still learning how to move in that way. Still, he tried to come for Lucifer, his anger an explosion. This time when he reached out, Lucifer didn’t move, feeling himself get yanked roughly toward him as Adam grabbed him by his collar.

Lucifer stepped backwards, ankle bending in a way he still wasn’t used to, making them tumble to the ground, Adam on top of him.

“You ruined our lives!” Adam yelled, grip on his robe tightening, straddling him, pinning him to the ground.

“Why?! I thought-” Adam choked on the words, voice thick. “I thought you loved us!”

“I did! I do! Please, Adam, I never meant to hurt you!”

 

Lucifer raised his arms, covering his face as Adam’s fists rained down on him. From the gap between them he could see tears rolling down Adam’s face. It made his heart ache.

“You got us cast out! How’s that an accident?!”

Lucifer stayed quiet, biting his tongue until he could taste his own blood. He could hear footsteps on the ground, drawing near, and then, suddenly Adam was no longer on top of him. As he raised himself up on his elbows, he watched Eve wrap her arms around Adam. She had tackled him with a hug.

“Adam, are you alright?! I saw you wrestle with something!”

She raised her head, eyes snapping toward him, making him jump. “...Luci?”

 

Eve unwrapped herself from Adam, who climbed back onto his feet with a grumble about her unnatural strength. 

Her bare feet were covered in just as much dirt as Adam’s, skin just as burnt from the sun. Their bodies had grown more muscle, worn from their time outside Heaven. “I didn’t think we’d ever see you again.”

“...Neither did I.” His eyes darted toward Adam, who had followed Eve, towering menacingly above him. “I just… wanted to know you were okay.”

“Okay?!”

Lucifer flinched as Adam reached for him again, this time held back by Eve’s arms around his waist. “Eve, let me hit him!”

“No, the Lord said not to harm a living soul!”

“That snake doesn’t count, he’s neither of Heaven nor Earth anymore, you can’t call him living!”

Lucifer shrank in on himself. He didn’t like to think about that.

“I don’t care! He took everything from us! We had everything we could have wanted! Now we’re stuck in this place where there’s barely any food and every night is freezing! He doesn’t deserve you standing up for him!”

At that, Lucifer bristled, his wings fluffing up in agitation, raising himself up back onto his feet.

“You didn’t have free will! That apple gave you freedom to choose your own fate, to see your own potential! I didn’t know that it would lead to this, but if I had the choice, I would do it all over again!”

He raised himself off the ground, wings carrying him over to Adam and Eve. He grabbed Adam by the cheeks, feeling how warm he was. A warmth he didn’t realise he’d miss so much once he had lost it.

“I did it because I loved you!”

 

Adam’s fist made impact with his cheek despite Eve’s best efforts. Lucifer stumbled backwards, falling over once more. As he looked up at Adam, his eyes were red and swollen, cheeks stained with his tears, tracks drying in the wind. He looked furious. He looked heartbroken.

Lucifer felt like crying too.

“I don’t want your love! Your love turns everything it touches into rot!”

 

He felt sick. He’d already been trying not to let the thought fester like an infected wound, pushing it deep down into the depths of his fractured mind.

Adam had hit him where it hurt, in a way his fists never could, and he knew it.

 

Adam turned on his heel, footsteps heavy as he ran toward his and Eve’s new home. Eve called after him, but he didn’t stop.

 

She sighed, shaking her head. Her eyes turned down toward him, startling him with their kindness.

“He does still love you, you know. I do too. That’s why he’s so angry.”

She crouched beside him, taking his face between her hands. Leaning forward, she pressed a kiss to his lips. Lucifer’s eyes widened, but as he stuttered, trying to find the right words to say, she started to turn his head this way and that as she looked at him closer.

“I barely recognised you when I first saw you.”

Lucifer’s wings curled around him, shielding him from view.

“I know. I’m hideous.”

 

He hated how he looked now. The bright red horns sprouting out of his forehead, tearing the skin. Scarred limbs, blackened by the flames of Hell, a long tail like an animal, sharp claws, even sharper teeth, like a beast. Wings stained the colour of human blood, feet reshaped, taking him months to learn how to walk on. His tongue longer, forked. His halo, no longer glowing, taking the shape of the animal he had taken the form of to see Adam and Eve that last time, when he had given them the apple, a constant reminder of his actions.

Of his attempt at giving Adam and Eve the freedom he so desperately wanted them to have.

 

Eve laughed, brushing his hair back where it had been mussed by Adam’s assault.

“You’re not.” She ran her hands along his horns, along his tail, along every changed part of his body. “It’s just different.”

Her hands paused as she came to his legs, to his feet. “Did you break them?”

“Oh. Well. Sort of.”

She didn’t need to know just how broken his body had been from the impact with Hell’s burning floors. How long it had taken for him to put himself together again.

He yelped as she lifted his leg, tugging at his boot.

 

“Eve! What are you doing?!”

“I want to see the rest of the changes! I can tell you’re hiding something under… these.”

“Shoes,” he reminded her, trying to pull himself free, but finding her grip too strong. “I don’t- Eve, wait, I don’t want-”

But before he could stop her, she’d pulled the boot all the way off. He hid his face in his hands. He didn’t want to see.

He felt her raise his leg higher, inspecting it closely. “It’s shaped like a goat’s.”

His face burned with shame, the shrivelled remains of the wings that used to sprout from the sides of his face not doing anything to hide it.

“Please stop looking at it.”

 

Her fingers teased the fur, curling it around her finger. “But they’re so tiny and cute.”

“...I’d like to put my shoe back on now, please.”

 

Finally, she let his hoof go, and he quickly pulled his legs underneath his robe to hide them, fumbling to pull his boot back on without being able to see what he was doing.

Once he finally had it back on again, he felt himself start to relax a fraction. “Eve, I… I’m not sorry. That I gave you the apple. You didn’t deserve to live in ignorance.”

“I know you don’t.”

Eve stood, looking back at her and Adam’s hut.

“Will you tell Lily we miss her? That we still love her?”

“...Both of you or just you?”

She shook her head, eyes roaming the empty, dry land stretching far into the distance. “Him too. I can feel it. In my soul.”

 

Lucifer wasn’t sure what to believe. Eve had always had an innate ability to sense what Adam was feeling. He’d assumed that it was because she’d been made from his bones, from the rib torn out of his body.

But this, this was hard to believe.

“I… Lilith too… Both of us. We still love you too. I don’t think anything could ever change that.”

Eve smiled, offering him a hand, helping him back onto his hooves. As he wobbled, she didn’t point it out.

“Will we see you again?”

 

Lucifer hesitated.

“Probably not for a long time. But I’ll think of you always?”

She laughed.

“Do you promise?”

“I promise.”

 

She let go of his hand, starting to turn. She looked back at him, pushing her long hair out of her eyes as the wind blew it back into her face.

“Bye for now, Luci.”

“Good bye, Eve.”

 

As she headed back to where she had come from, Lucifer felt sorrow squeeze his heart.

He didn’t regret giving them the apple. He hadn’t been lying about that. But he also hadn’t been lying when he said he’d never wanted to hurt them.

He pressed his fingers to his chest, above his heart. He could feel the break even now.

 

As he rose into the air, he looked down upon the vast lands that were Adam and Eve’s new home. Their lives would be difficult now, here on Earth. But he was sure that they would be okay, in the end.

He’d put his faith in that, even if he had to force himself to believe it.

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