Notes: Since there is so much we haven't seen on the show yet and the fact that the writers appear to have glossed over their relationship—eras of loyalty and companionship—to make room for another, we couldn't help but step in and give our own interpretation. Enjoy and be so kind to review and share your thoughts with us.
A HELL OF EXODUS
It was never the biggest of pleasures descending to Earth. It's nothing like the human books and stories say – heavenly chanting, light and bliss. It certainly is what people see and what they pass on to generations to come. But there hardly has been a soul to tell this story from a different "angle".
It's pain. Pain that doesn't compare to human stubbed toe or cramps. It goes beyond what a mortal mind can muster. It spreads through all the layers of your being, translucent and radiant like light itself. It is a sacrifice, and it feels like one. Every particle of you craves to go back, and it takes all of your will to finish the journey you've started.
It takes a sacrifice to give an evolving world something to tell their kids about.
It takes a grander sacrifice when there is no higher order to help you "fall".
Their little earlier drop-bys to arrange for their final arrival had nothing on this last one. It was indeed a full-blown Fall From Grace in the best tradition of Devil's banishment legends people of the evolving worlds held on to. The ascendant mortals had been underestimating the power of intention for eons of time, but entities like them knew it made all the difference. With intention to return back to their Home Realms, it had never "hurt" as much as this time when he knew he wasn't going back. It indeed made all the difference. Aside from the excitement and thrill he had been waiting and yearning for, it came with a grand feeling of sacrifice that racked through his being and left him breathless and broken, gasping for air as his fingers clawed at the cold sand. The ocean sloshed loudly; the sudden drop of energy was disorienting. It was like trying out gravity after a year in outer space without it.
Lucifer lay still for a while, adjusting, fingers combing through sand, making quiet sounds. The growing moon hung overhead casting silver glitter on the ocean surface. Eventually, he pulled himself up with effort and sat back on his haunches, looking around like a drunk man. Maze was sitting a couple feet away, watching him, giving him time.
They'd been maneuvering this excursion for centuries—fall she had taken more than once in order to test the boundaries of security and make sure everything would be set for his arrival—but nothing prepared her for the agony of the final descent. Pain so intense it was as if the gate was rejecting the very idea that they wouldn't be making this a round trip—not for a few years at least, weeks if she was lucky—and was trying to destroy her.
She lost track of time, lost control of all her senses, and hit the sand with a crushing blow that left her breathless. Everything ached.
Unlike other realms they'd visited—and she was forced to be on high alert at all times—earth appeared to hold no such threat. And why would it, given the beings they trustingly shuffled back down in hordes and stuffed into a collection of obliging shells in need of life? Shells they overstepped in their passage and created themselves. Shaking off the residual pulse of suffering, she brushed the wet sand off her knees and climbed to her feet. She had planned everything: the time they would leave, the rotation of the sentinels that made sure things went swimmingly, and time of day they'd land. Which was at night.
She smiled and breathed in deep, reveling in her success. "Nice night for a visit," she noted, looking up at the stars. After sparing Lucifer some time to overcome his own hurts and amendments, she ambled to his side and extended a hand to help him up off the sand. Her naked silhouette outlined by moonlight; her perfect teeth glistened as she smiled. "It's all ready and waiting for us. Time to claim our spoils."
He looked at the white tower ahead; the moon glowing from glassy windows like magical jewels. Home, he reflected with a bit of wonder. Would it become it now? Would it be easier or harder than he envisioned? He had always been quite outstanding at envisioning and foreseeing. Would it work here?
He didn't look as eager as Maze'd imagined he'd be and for a second, the expression on his face made her think he'd made a mistake and wanted to return home.
He swallowed hard as doubts rolled over him like a cold wave of the ocean behind him. He could still feel the pull, the urge to turn back. He could swear there was a wide door behind him if he dared to look over his shoulder, open and inviting, with divine light streaming all over his new body's back. All the Grace left behind, burning and luring at the same time.
I can't do this. Not like that. I won't be able to go through with it like that.
He looked up at Maze still holding her hand out to him, her fingers flexing in impatient invitation.
"Before we do, I need you to do me the biggest favor I've ever asked of you," he said, making the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end and her fleeting sense of achievement scatter. How could she outdo helping him experience a life he'd only ever viewed from a prior distance? How would anything outdo what had already been done?
She lowered her hand slowly, her smile dimming in favor of wariness when he drew a deeper breath and spread his wings. A gust of breeze shuffled them lightly. She straightened up to get a better look at him, memorized by the expanse of his wings as he opened them to their full magnificence, dreading what she sensed was to come.
He saw a flare of rapture in Maze's eyes and it was all the confirmation of his being right he needed.
"I need you to cut them off."
The beseeching look in his eyes subduing her mounting renunciation, filling her with an indescribable feeling of powerlessness. She didn't want to do this.
Shock robbed Maze of voice for a long moment. He waited, holding his breath.
"Are you sure that's what you want?" she asked, barely regaining her composure. She was astonished she possessed the ability to speak given how demoralizing the words tasted. Like humoring the notion would hold far greater ramifications than their unsanctioned descend.
Another comber of doubts and inner torment, more insisting this time, ran through him, making him shiver and wince. Of course he wasn't sure – he wasn't sure of anything anymore – and that was the point. He was being torn apart from the inside while the very symbol of divinity clung to him. There was no place for him here with it attached.
"Yes," he breathed, not sounding as certain but trying his best to tune into that angelic gift of persuasion he had been famous and honored for in all eternity. He looked at Maze, trying to see past the shock and denial radiating off her face and posture, for it was all and much, much more what he was feeling himself.
She didn't move, didn't dare to breathe.
He spread his arms briefly, mocking the wings still spread behind his back, glowing in the dark of a dense three-dimensional world with all their divine magnificence.
"Look at me. How do you propose I blend in? How can I walk among mortals without being noticed and worshipped wherever I go?"
In all the time Maze spent formulating possible scenarios – where to go, where they'd sleep, what to do if they were spotted by any wandering humans and how they'd endure their first night on earth – defilement of everything he was had never crossed her mind. She wasn't prepared.
"How can I ever experience anything of what their journey is like when all I am is a walking beacon for human fanatics as well as heavenly forces to track me down and snatch us back? There is only one way I can get what I came here for. Only one."
To the logical part of her mind that said they were still on the run, it made sense. Another refused to accept it, rejecting the notion as if it was a sentence to death.
"Maze, we've gotten so far. Don't abandon me now. Please. Forgive me for asking this of you – I know how unspeakable this demand is – but I don't have much choice. I can't do this myself."
He hooked a finger through the ring on one of her hellish daggers lying in the sand not far from him and lifted it to her, a plea in his eyes.
In spite of his pleading, she made no immediate move to take the dagger, eyeing it as if it were a hissing serpent, repulsed by its existence and the wake of bereavement that shrouded its glistening blade. On autopilot, she adhered to his entreaty. Twirling the dagger around her index finger to test its weight as if for the first time, incapable of brushing off the overwhelming rush of disquiet and how heavy-handed she felt. How dreadfully immoral.
When he tore his eyes off Maze and lowered them to the dark sand beneath his knees, sharply aware of her walking around him, slow as if in deep and heavy sleep, he realized how tight his chest felt. He was shaking, and couldn't explain the turmoil of mixed up emotions attacking him.
Something hot burned behind her eyes as she reached out to timidly brush a hand against the feathery texture. In their world, his wings had never been this dense, this welcome or adoring to the touch – no more than an unadulterated exhibition of his powerful essence. Shuddering faintly she began to follow the curve of the wing to where it attached against his back, memorizing the feel of it beneath my palm as if I were a mourning lover. Raising the blade, she knew that if she didn't do it now, if she didn't do as he so desperately begged her to – she never would.
He almost groaned when he felt Maze's hand on them. The touch shot through like a jolt of lightning. No one ever touched them before. He had never been touched like this before. The bedazzlement of new sensations filled him with a sudden clash of a wave against a rock, disorienting and stunning. He wanted to close his eyes and savor it, savor them all, bottle them up and never forget. He wanted her touch to continue forever.
Inhaling deeply, she secured a hand around his wing—gentle at first—and pressed the blade to his skin, cutting through the soft flesh and around the dense bone like the skilled butcher she was. Unaware of the water—sprayed from what I thought to be the nearby ocean—splashing against my hands and arms as I peeled the wings from his back, the waves drowned out by his screams.
It was the Death itself. Something that never existed for the likes of them. The Falling was nothing compared to the raging, scorching agony that followed the most pleasurable sensation of a first physical contact. Stinging tears burst from his eyes as Lucifer squeezed them, clawing at the sand, grasping at it as if it were to save him from all the pain of all worlds that had ever perished in flames and suffering. His own screams deafened me and sounded beastly, monstrous, inhuman. The wrenching, insatiable pain of biblical proportions seeped into every crack, fiber and cell of his being, filling it, exploding in new blinding colors and adding new, sharper teeth with every jerk of the blade in Maze's hand.
It went on forever.
And then, darkness he'd never known drowned the world out.
Lucifer gave in to oblivion as she started in on the last sliver of flesh, unconsciously ripping himself from his wings like a staggering drunkard, leaving her to hold on to the majestic extensions like a morbid trophy. For what felt like an eternity, she did nothing, humbly holding them, staring down at his bleeding and broken back. The dagger slipped from her bloodied grip, spurring her back into action as she moved to carefully set the wings down on the sand away from the lapping waves and any more abuse. Vowing to wash them clear of the blood that stained the pristinely colored feathers. Using the back of her hand, she wiped the water from her cheeks, blinking a few times to clear her surprisingly blurry vision and focus. Lucifer needed her – now more than ever. His screams would have alerted someone. Soldiers she'd learned were regarded as the authorities and acted like the very sentinels that guarded the gate. They didn't have much time.
Avoiding the wounds on his back, Maze took a hold of his shoulders and rolled him over to get a better look at his face, taking into account how pained he looked, blemishes she now knew extended beyond their exterior manifestation. He was pale, sickly looking, and war torn. This would take some time to recover from. For both of them.
Sliding her hands beneath his unconscious body, she lifted him off the sand and cradled him in her arms, carrying him toward the secluded parking lot and the car she expected was awaiting them.
Gratefully, when she got there, the man inadequately named Martin 'buzz saw' Jeffery, self-explained fixer-upper, was leaning against the hood, a twig pinched between his lips, smoke roiling from his nostrils like a smoldering demon. He referred to them as cigarettes and was never without them. Maze didn't see the appeal and hadn't cared to question him on the need while they brokered their deal.
"What is this?" he asked sharply, pushing away from the car, making her wince as he gestured to Lucifer's naked body. "You said nothing about making me an accessory to kidnapping. Or murder," he accused, moving to open the backdoor. She stepped aside to clear the door and eased Lucifer onto the backseat, moving around to the other side to carefully take a hold of his shoulders and drag him into place. It wouldn't be comfortable – not in the long run – but their temporary home was close, and Maze believed he'd be out for a while.
"And you won't be," she said, peering over the top of Lucifer's head, tenderly brushing his face clear of the sand that clung to it.
Buzzsaw attempted a better look at Lucifer, making her growl low and slam the door shut. Moving to the other side, she yanked the human from the back of the vehicle by his shirt. He stumbled, cursing as he did, but remained on his feet.
"He needs rest," she said as per-explanation, unapologetic for her actions, being more careful with the door the second time round. She closed it, securing Lucifer from further inspection. "I have one more thing to collect and then we're out of here."
Maze didn't quite know her way around the city and trusted their arranged payment would be enough to keep the man honest. She prepared to head back to the beach, confident their tour guide wouldn't be stupid enough to do anything to Lucifer in her absence.
Not unless he planned to meet his maker sooner rather than later.
"Wait," he started, cautious in his address. "Shouldn't you—" His eyes involuntarily scanned her body, lingering too long in certain areas, drawing her attention to her nakedness. "Pretty thing like you running around without a stitch on is only asking for trouble."
"Right," she agreed, making no move to return to his side. The wings were more important than some form of her ostensible modesty. "You have our wears?"
"Your clothes?" he repeated, trying to gauge whether or not they were on the same page, and nodded. "Borrowed them from my brother and his wife. She's about your size. Little wider round the hips, breasts a little more—"
Maze glared, feeling annoyed by his need to go into such heavy detail. He appeared to heed the warning, cutting short his description to place a fresh cigarette between his lips. Taking that as her cue, she continued on her way, quite in retracing her steps back to Lucifer's sullied wings. /
Buzzsaw's eyes perilously flicked between the road ahead and the wings perched in the back of the vehicle, his lips parted as if were trying to breathe them in, lost in their overpowering influence. Maze doubted she would ever get over what she'd done – what he'd asked her to do – but Lucifer had been right. With this majesty on his back, he wouldn't have been able to blend in and live the full experience of human life. The influential populace wouldn't have allowed it. Extending an index finger to the human male's cheek, she forced him to face forward, to focus on where he was taking them before he got lost. He shook her off, arching his brows in mute query, offended by her guidance.
"You want to get paid, don't you?"
"What are they?" he asked before he could control his need.
"What do they look like?" she countered, slipping the bright yellow fabric over her head, monstrosity he'd referred to as a summer dress and matched with black boots. Lucifer's clothes served better. Dark jeans, a button up shirt and a pair of lace up sneakers. Crossing one leg over the other, Maze smoothed the fabric around her legs, fingers brushing the top of the sticky blade tucked in her boot.
"Divinity."
She knew there was more, could see the expression of absolute bliss and the inability to describe it. She would have to fix this, too, silence his newborn religion before he alerted anyone else.
Approaching the familiar tower, she leaned forward, elbows resting on her knee to get a decent look of the many wideset windows that swathed the enormous building. She half expected it to be buried under ashes, to have more troubles rain down on her and add to the struggle of today's entry. But there it was, sparkling as lights bounced off the reflective glass, beckoning her, mocking her in its splendor.
"Park by the deliver station."
Everything had already been explained to her beforehand. The layout of the building to her mind like an intricate map of a battle field. Four bedrooms, open spacious living room, kitchen and a vast entertainment area flanked by two bathrooms. The vehicle dipped at her request, carrying them into the unground parking area, in sighting a blast of unexpected light, eviscerating the darkness that had briefly loomed ahead. It took her a second to realize they weren't under attack and no one else was waiting for them.
"Jumpy?" Buzzsaw asked, taking note of the bloodied knife in her hand.
"You could say that."
Gesturing to the small docking space—place she'd been told they'd offload our alcohol—she waited until he stopped and ordered him to get out and open the doors she'd asked them to leave unlocked. He hesitated, casting a final look at the wings, his pinched face speaking volumes of his need to stay with them. To be within their space. Leaning over while his back was to her, Maze removed the keys from the ignition and slipped them under the passenger seat.
She climbed out, following him onto the dock, and made a quick sweep inside to check that all was secure. By the time she returned, Buzzsaw ventured to the back of the vehicle and stood staring at the wings. This was the moment she needed. She delivered a hand blow to the back of head that made him bounce off the side of the car like an ill-thrown stone. She didn't catch him as he fell. She knew it would be simple enough to stab him in the back, to see the light dim from his eyes and be done with it – but where would she dispose of the body? Who else was he connected to?
There were things that needed tending to before she could do that. Satisfied he wouldn't be running—and there was no one to see her—Maze moved to collect Lucifer's wings first. Carefully carrying them upstairs to the penthouse and one of the less glamourous guest rooms. She returned fifteen minutes later to collect Lucifer; she set him down in one of the bedrooms with an ensuite, and ten minutes later collected their hostage. Her hostage. She locked him in one of the other guest rooms until such a time she could decide what to do with him or how to deal with him.
It was only then, as the pressure of everything she'd experienced in the last hour began to dissipate and she was able to catch her breath that Mazikeen allowed herself to slowly ease to the floor. Unable to keep herself upright or to make sense of the strange and continued stinging behind her wet eyes.
After a while, she pushed up off the floor and stood, thankful there was still strength in her legs as she made her way to Lucifer's designated room. He was still unmoving, bequeathing her the misleading appearance of a human death. Irony that wasn't lost on her. But for how long?
Taking a step back, she headed in search of a cloth and water. One item she found strewn on the edge of the kitchen sink and the other with a twist of one of the two silvery taps. She barely marveled at the magnificence of such an invention and found a bowl with which to capture of the liquid. She filled it halfway before returning to his wings. Maybe once she was done here, he'd be awake. Unlike the times she'd been forced to hold and carry it, Maze now worked on the sullied feathers as if they were breakable, gently wiping them clear of his blood, trying to return them to their former glory. Their intended glory. It pained and scared her how lifeless they now seemed. Still capable of dipping any human that lay their eyes on them in awe and holy rapture, they couldn't fool her keen gaze. The sad task took entirely too long and made her feel hollow inside, disconnected in a way she'd never ever taken into account when she agreed to come here.
Returning to the kitchen, Mazikeen rinsed the bowl, washed the remaining blood from her upper arms, and went back to Lucifer. His eyes were still closed, body chilled to the touch as she sat down on the mattress beside him. For a long time all she did was silently watch him, hopeful for a sign of consciousness and too afraid to check on the status of his open wounds. Were they healing? Would they ever heal? Or would it be easier to drag him back to the gate and thrust him into it? Considering his sacrifice, she doubted he'd appreciated the latter option.
Reaching into the bowl, she squeezed the excess water off the cloth. Lifting it to his forehead to wipe away the remnants of sand she'd missed, grains she noticed also clung to blood, she slowly worked her way down his body, determinedly cleansing him of their joint sin.
A flash of electricity shot through his nerves, setting them alight. Lucifer gasped, feeling his body jerk. And then, twin spears of blazing pain thrust into his shoulder-blades, spreading across his back and inserting itself into his spinal chord. He realized he was holding his breath and sucked one in, followed by a groan.
Maze expelled a weak gasp of her own and winced, surprised as he came alive beneath her scrubbing hand. Bewilderment that melded into relief. Dropping the cloth onto the mattress, she took a gentle hold of his shoulders, attempting to help him onto his side in order to remove of the pressure on his raw back.
The light was too bright when he tried to focus his vision. Maze's worried face saturated in front of him. He blinked, trying to breathe no matter the pain, and it was a challenge all by itself. Just continue breathing. For the first time he became aware of something heavy bursting through his ribcage from inside, like a panicking animal. The heart. It was painful, too. He groaned, tried to move, groaned louder, stilling to wait out a bout of throes in his back.
"G— Maze… wha— … what is happening to me… How can there be… so much pain? How… Why…"
Easing her legs beneath her body, Mazikeen rose herself up on her knees and hovered over him. The sheet stuck to his wounds, suctioned to the grotesque cuts like an ill-fitting dressing. Speedily she pressed a finger to the covered laceration, further shocked to find her finger-pad wet.
"You're not healing," she uttered, eyes fixed on the blood that stained her finger before they drifted to his anguish-filled face. He looked as if he might pass out again.
What do I do?
She'd never had to play battle medic to Lucifer before. This had never happened.
She was touching him, shifting him, even, and Lucifer was foggily aware of it, but this touch was never like that first one he vaguely remembered as something out-of-this-world. Or rather out of the world he was used to.
These touches were painful as literal hell – one the human legends' sinners must be feeling. Letting out another groan, blinking as his head swam, he came to believe – not without bafflement – that he, one of the most radiant angels, couldn't handle a human world.
"Dying…" Lucifer muttered, feeling the reality slipping away from him, more rapidly every other second, "This must be it… Maze… that legendary… human… death…"
Blackness swallowed him once again.
In another situation, Maze might have accused him of being dramatic. Death for even fallen angels wasn't possible. Then again, they weren't on home turf. There was a reason their kind wasn't welcome here – not in full-fledged form. Humans couldn't handle it. Or was it that they couldn't handle it?
When he quietened and blacked out again, Maze kept him in place, stretching to make a grab for the two pillows on her side of the bed. Thrusting them against his chest, she propped him upon them and exposing his back to the elements. Collecting the cloth she'd dropped into the bowl, she climbed off the mattress and walked over to the other side, crouching beside him while his back was turned to her, wiping the drying blood from around his wounds, purposely avoiding the need to touch them.
"You're above a menial death," she said when he didn't stir again, eyes trained on the wounds and her hand that gently wiped away any evidence of his blood. "You're more important than that."
If only he'd believe it.
Maze remained that way all night, eventually joining him on the edge of the mattress, one hand soothingly buried in his hair, the other refusing to relent in keeping him cleansed.
It would only be a matter of time before he woke up again—for good this time.
And then I convince him to go. To see the error of his ways and let me take him back home. Back to what we know and have a medium of control over.