Title: Temptation
Characters: Lucifer, Jeshua
Rating: PG-13 (this chapter)
Word Count: ~ 1.880
Summary: At the end of time, there's a prize to be to won, a price to be paid, and one or three lessons to be learnt.
Chapter Summary: In which two gentlemen have a conversation piece and Lucifer loses his footing. Part 7 of the Via Lata Diaries, a work of as yet indeterminate length and quality.
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Chapter Seven
Temptation
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When you torture the Anointed
You torture yourself.
[:C93:]
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It's a sunny Saturday just before noon, and the ghetto does what it always does, come Shabbat: it turns into one big village square with nonnas lined up in the shade, their replaced and/or squelchy hips squeezed into camping chairs brought out by kippah-wearing grandchildren. People stop for a chat, and news is exchanged: who died, who married, who did something stupid, or funny, or both - scenes you'll witness all over the world, on the squares of Tel Aviv, in Buenos Aires, or on the parking lot of Canter's on Fairfax. But with its Fellini-esque habit of smothering you in the armpit of Mamma Roma, Piazza Giudia feels different. Warmer. Doughier.
Would it pass strange to find him here? Perhaps the boy is homesick? Lucifer scratches himself, then hastens to catch up with him between the synagogue and Portico di Ottavia. "Rabbi," he says and falls into step, "Shabbat Shalom."
Jeshua doesn't reply. He glares at Lucifer and looks beautiful and righteous and just a little angry, too, and Lucifer's toes already curl with pleasure. Jeshua's expression could mean anything, from how dare you and get thee behind me to look angel, I'm really tired of this, but then he nods tersely and leaves it at that.
For a few meters they walk in silence. The kid cleans up nicely, Lucifer has to admit. His hair shines, his beard is trimmed, and he is wearing dress pants and a pressed shirt as befits Shabbat. Of course, he could do without the smell of prayer that still clings to him like one of those cheap soaps they sell in the ghetto's erboristeria, and his tote bag is just as annoying, a hideous specimen of the burlap variety most commonly found in health food stores. Jeshua has tucked it under his elbow the instant Lucifer walked up, so it must be his tallit, folded in its pouch.
Oh, he has seen him pray before. He knows what it looks like when Jeshua speaks to Him: very tall, very straight, arms lifted in supplication. Like a man in a desert rain, he stands and sways a little, his calloused palms open to catch the drops.
Rapt. Joyous. Pure. Just thinking of it makes Lucifer ill. "Didn't know you still did that, bow and scrape with the garnish," he observes. "And here I thought you'd be in San Pietro."
Jeshua gives a small equanimous shrug.
Oops. Tense subject? Lucifer cocks his head and stops. The stones opposite of Marcello's Theatre are sun-warm, so he pats a toppled pillar in invitation to sit. "You could at least go and rub your man Shimeon's gilded foot, y'know."
Jeshua hesitates, then settles next to him. A yard away, a dun-coloured lizard is doing push-ups, and Jeshua bends forward to study it until the creature stills and flattens against the rock. "Shimeon bar Jona did his best," he mildly says. "He gave witness of what he had seen, which was what he wanted to see, and died a miserable death for it; I will not have you malign him. What happened thereafter wasn't his fault. Nor is it mine."
Lucifer bursts out laughing. He splutters and neighs and the nonnas crane their turkey necks to see who would make such a racket on Shabbat. "Oh come on! The gold and silver keys? Infallibility? Exclusive apostolic authority? Don't tell me you're washing your hands of that," he snickers, once he's got his breath back. "Because you can't. I mean, in theory I approve; it's good to consolidate. Have a strong central rule set over the faithful. I would have chosen him over that guy from Tarsus any day; what was his name again? Paulus. Man was practically a communist. And we know how much the See loves those."
"Paul, yes." Now that the lizard has fled, Jeshua entertains himself by writing in the sand with a stick. His thumbs look okay, Lucifer notes. His wrists are still bandaged, though. "I never met him then. A philosopher, wasn't he."
"Nonsense." Lucifer guffaws. "A fool, that's what he was, exempting your flock from halakha. You take away the Law, you let in the rabble."
A not-smile crinkles Jeshua's eyes as he squints up and down the ruin of Marcello's Theatre. "Ah, what a time of portents! Hearken to the Fallen as he defends the Jewish Way," he says, with the same soft laugh that made his disciples doubt his wits. Infuriating, they called it - too much contentment over things they could not see, things they found repulsive: a good set of teeth in a worm-eaten carcass, a leper's gift of olives they begged him to throw away.
"I don't. Defend." Lucifer clears his throat. "I'm just not impressed with the alternatives." Although perhaps I should be, seeing as they allow me a life of leisure. For as long as they kill each other over whose God is best, you have failed, rabbi. True fact.
As if he hadn't heard, Jeshua plants his elbows on his knees and pokes the sand. "So, if we are finished discussing the Roman Vicariate" - he tosses the stick and rights himself - "let's get back to the matter at hand, shall we? What did your friend say?"
Lucifer pats himself for cigarettes. "Associate, please; I refuse to call that thing friend." He told me to say hello. He remembers you fondly. Can't wait to see you again. He lights up and nudges the package along the pillar. "Well. Azrael claims he hasn't seen Juda since the day. Technically, that may be correct; Death doesn't keep them for too long before he sends them on their merry way. But Juda, getting lost en route? Now that's a serious case of mismanagement. And I swear it wasn't my admin that bungled it." He enjoys talking like this. He flatters himself with the notion that it makes Jeshua twitch, even if it doesn't.
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It's less than an hour later and he has no idea how they got here, how they got to this little room in the ghetto with its well-thumbed mezuzah on the door frame and the curtains that sweat sorrow and dust, and somebody please explain to him why, in the name of all that is fucked and rotten, he is sitting on the floor with his head bowed against Jeshua's leg, Jeshua's bony knee poking his temple, and furthermore it bears asking how he, Lucifer, could lose it so badly just when he thought he was scoring a point, too.
His fingers travel up and down Jeshua's shin.
Moving the conversation here was a mistake. He should have resorted to ridicule. God, what cramped lodgings. That you'd leave the Hilton for this... this... hole in the wall, I mean, have you seen the mould in the shower, that stuff is so thick it ought to pay rent. The windows are almost blind. The floor is covered with a stained rug.
Lucifer closes his eyes. His face is slack. His lips move without sound.
He figured there'd be something wanton in it, and perhaps there is; otherwise he wouldn't have started it. He bloody well asked for it when he grabbed Jeshua's wrist and said, Really, rabbi, bringing uncleanness into the House of the Lord? And then he just had to, had to sit him down and bring water in the bowl that stood under the leaking sink and unwrap Jeshua's feet.
He smiled up at him and took a sponge and dabbed away the pus and the dirt: Jeshua's insteps looked better, if not exactly good, so he washed and dried them carefully, then set his feet on a towel to keep them off the ground.
What effort it must have cost him, hiding that limp.
Jeshua watched and Lucifer could hear his breath, so placid and regular, yet with the tiniest hitch when Lucifer didn't get up but moved closer. When Lucifer sat with his back to him and rested his head, spine drooping, like a tired court jester.
He still sits there, lost and quiet as he mulls things over.
Perhaps it's the room. Fucking dismal is what it is, a waiting room where you stand behind frayed curtains until they come and get you. Death's antechamber. He meant to be flippant, but that changed once he took Jeshua's feet in hand.
Tell me I'm wrong, he pushes softly, but I nailed it, didn't I? That's what is driving you insane. They've squandered your gift, and they continue to hate and kill each other as if you hadn't existed, and as long as they do, you will continue to suffer. You'll hang on your cross and watch your blood come over them, day after day after day.
His touch is fleeting. His fingertips ghost over Jeshua's skin. "Here's my theory," he says, addressing the ratty carpet. "One of You is running out of patience. And this planet is running out of time, which is a nice coincidence, I'll concede; very economic. So the culling is coming, but here's the Son of Man and he got a bit of a shit deal in the grand scheme of things, and he's sick unto death of the screams and he no longer wants any part of it. You've given what you had to give. Now all you ask for is Juda, who paid too high a price for his love, and you want to put some flesh on his bones and call his soul from wherever it has shattered and then you want out." He shakes his head. Although pompous as fuck, Michael's version had sounded a lot more diplomatic.
Suddenly Lucifer freezes because Jeshua has taken his braid and opens it strand by strand. "You present me with a dilemma, rabbi," Lucifer says, voice going flat. "Just when I thought I should applaud the Name for seeing the light. I would sit on Tel Meggido and cheer him on. Bring a camping stool and a bottle of Grand Cru and watch the damn thing burn." His head falls back. Jeshua bends forward and presses dry lips to the parting in his hair.
"But Morning Star," Jeshua whispers, "where's your pride? I thought you were the Adversary."
"Funny how I knew you'd say that." Lucifer rubs his eyes. "Go ahead and insult my intelligence."
Jeshua's hand crawls down to cradle Lucifer's cheek.
"Has it ever occurred to you that I might no longer have a vested interest in the fate of creation?" Lucifer snaps. "Or here's another option: perhaps I'll play along, if only to be the one who gets to destroy her fir-"
Before he can finish his rant, strong fingers pull his face toward Jeshua. The kiss leaves him weightless and dissolving and crying into Jeshua's hair.
We should go, he pleads. Please. Don't do this. But Jeshua looks at him with a compassion that makes Lucifer fall upwards, and as they topple together, Jeshua enfolds him and holds him close and Lucifer bites his neck in blind protest hunger exaltation, bathed in a million suns now. Their heat dries his tears and cracks his lips and chars his face. His wings ripple, then shred, and he can only close his eyes as he plummets
again.