Title: So Glad for the Madness
Characters: Jeshua/Lucifer, Michael, Azrael and ....
Rating: R (this chapter)
Word Count: ~ 3075
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 it's time to be a-truthin' (or not), and Lucifer spends a lot of time on his back is slow in recovery. Part 8 of the Via Lata Diaries, a work of as yet indeterminate length and quality.
A/N: With apologies to: Lillian Gish, Cradle of Filth, Silkworm, Nietzsche, who all donated a sentence or two, and the wise, good, and beautiful Ruth Lapide, whose writings I can whole-heartedly recommend. And: thank you for your patience, should you still be reading this.
~*~
Chapter Eight
So Glad for the Madness
~*~
With infinite gentleness
he lifts the wreck that is Lucifer:
now loose-limbed, now convulsing
with eyes pinched shut
broken wings trailing ichor
He puts him to bed like a child,
uncurls the cramped hands and kisses his brow
This close he can smell him:
Lucifer in all his sweetness
Lucifer in all his rottenness,
with a pulse like maggots
squirming under his skin
Babybird-greedy now, Lucifer opens his mouth
and mewls, blindly seeking Jeshua's hand
He gurgles defiance
he demands benediction
even if it tears himself apart
But Jeshua only holds him through the seizures
and wipes away the vomit
before he sets him free again
~*~
"Oh very nice," Lucifer says with a string of drool hanging from his chin. "You'd like that, wouldn't you, just say a word, and thy servant shall be healed?" He lies back and closes his eyes and massages the ridge of his nose. "Well I'm very sorry to disappoint, but that's not how it'll play out so get your filthy paws off me." Turning his face against the pillow, he mutters, "pervert," and slips away.
He rarely dreams, these days. He has schooled himself not to. Useless things, dreams, harping on the broken lyre of could-be and would-be, useless even as warnings because he knows what was and what will be and he doesn't give a shit.
But Lucifer dreams.
He dreams of the beginning, of all despicable things, and once again the earth is without form, and void. Darkness is upon the face of the deep, and the Spirit of God moves upon the face of the waters.
Think of a million million suns. Think speed depth and width immeasurable, faster, deeper, wider. Think of a singularity there is no word for, repeated a billion times in the flash of a second. And thus, nowhere becomes everywhere. Nothing turns into all there is. The rest is ornament - is embellishment because it pleases Him.
Man has come up with terms for the event, but no man knows what happened; they can't conceive of the terror, or of the beauty. Even Lucifer still grasps at thin, nascent air, his fingers mere possibilities, for he is a word to take shape yet.
There: light.
That is his form. That is his meaning. Lucifer learns its joy, its loving kiss, the sting of its absence, all in the nanosecond it takes Him to think, 'light'.
Lucifer knows how to paint the skies before he knows who he is. And when the lips of God touch him, love is redoubled: he is giddy and smiling, eyes closed now, an arrow flashing through the endless sky.
***
So when did things start to fall apart? Jeshua's thought sidles in, soliticiously. He must have been eavesdropping.
"Get out," Lucifer mumbles. Get out of my head. You came later. You have no right to be here. Yet he allows Jeshua to spoon up to him and pushes back until he feels a resistance. It is well; it anchors him. That was before your precious mankind angered Him. Before they existed, even. But then He had to go and breathe life into clay. Make mud the apple of His eye. He snorts softly in his sleep.
When did things begin to fall apart? Was it when he started to wander? When he found a darkness he could not pierce, and the blackness whispered back at him?
No, it had begun up on high, in the opal brightness of His presence.
"I don't know what he told you," Lucifer slurs. "And I don't care why he would keep this from you but," - he twists around to mouth against Jeshua's temple - "you should know that I was set up."
***
Look at me.
Knuckles pressed against the icy marble, Lucifer cowers in front of Him. He studies the veins, the unbroken expanse of stone. "Look at you, Lord?" It can't be. It is unheard of. It is impudence, and impossible.
Do you not trust me? The Presence sounds amused.
"I trust you, Lord."
There's a pause and a rustle. Then you need to trust me more, Samael. Come, raise your eyes. No harm shall befall you.
Lucifer clenches his fists and moves his head, fighting against neck muscles that know better. One is of Him, and through Him, but one does not behold Him.
His lashes tremble. They would be soldered shut rather than open upon the Unseeable.
He does not know what to expect; that he'll go blind, perhaps, or simply cease to be. He doesn't expect to be sitting on his heels with tears streaming down his face.
"There." That wasn't so bad, was it? Dry your tears, shining one.
Lucifer just sits there, hands folded loosely in his lap. Through his tears he is laughing. "Yes. I mean, no," he sniffles and wipes his nose and laughs at himself. "It wasn't, Lord."
It's only then that he notices Michael, Michael by his side, watchful and discreet. Blinking slowly, Michael is. Showing the kind of dignity and fortitude that Lucifer never could muster, caught as he is in the rapture. "Mikha'el," Lucifer greets him. Michael only nods.
Your brother, the Presence muses, addressing Lucifer, your brother feels your younger siblings are not ready to make decisions of their own yet.
Lucifer blushes. He's suggested that, of course. Freedom of will. And why not? He plants both hands on the marble and bows until his forehead touches the ground. "They should, Lord. With all due respect. Do you not rejoice in love freely given? They can only give, truly give when they know what it means to withhold."
"They have everything they could possibly need," Michael says. "The waters are sweet. The fruit grow for their plucking. Why tender them power?"
"Not power." Lucifer shakes his head. "Just the freedom to embrace the Name because they have the choice. Not because they're chattel."
Still, they'd need rules.
"Obedience," Michael says, before Lucifer can get a word in.
***
But what miserable little critters they had turned out to be.
Ingrates. Heedless, mindless children that didn't spare a glance for what they trod underfoot. Hungry, always hungry, not content with the fruit of the field. Michael gritted his teeth and kept throwing Lucifer filthy sidelong glances, as if their aberrations were all his fault.
Perhaps they were.
But those were the pitfalls, were they not? So he went on storing his faith in the Name, because what God would want his children to be slaves? Only the dullest kind of idol made of clay, that's what, content to be dribbled with food and oil, and a little blood on feast days.
Obedience. He would remember Michael's sneer when the day came and he stood girded for battle.
***
"I only did as He bade me," Lucifer says, looking at the ceiling.
Jeshua sits up and crosses his legs at the ankles. "You led them astray."
"No." Lucifer turns toward him. "No, I did not. The tree... see, the tree was Michael's idea. Obedience. But it was just a fig tree, any old fig tree, nothing special about it, not the Secret of Life, nothing to tell them how to become as God." He is whispering himself into a fever, crouching and crawling up even if his eyes won't meet Jeshua's. "And so I asked her, what is this with you and your God, what did He tell you, and she said all this was given unto them, into their hands, and they were as masters of the place - save this tree, she said, for they must not eat of it nor touch it lest they shall surely die. But it's just a tree, I said. Look, I can touch it; it harms me not." Something in his back contracts, and like a snake he curls sideways.
For a second or two he's about to bite the pillows, or Jeshua's arm, or whatever is near because his spine threatens to whip back in a spasm. He breathes his way out of it and tries to burrow under Jeshua's side, because everything is too bright and he can't abide the light now.
"Shrewd and crafty, were you not," Jeshua says softly, fingercombing Lucifer's hair. More subtil than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made.
He relaxes by increments, with every brush of those unsentimental, carpenter's fingers. "Yes," he says at last and closes his eyes. "yes I was. But I grew sick of it. And neither was my place found any more in Heaven."
***
It's back in Babylon, after he's walked out on them, after he told them to fend for themselves and stop their whining and shove Hell up their arse, that he finds he is tired. Tired and in pain.
He idly bats at the rat that keeps returning to try and gnaw his foot. He hasn't been able to find a spot in the shade - those go first, and he couldn't quite conjure himself from his cot before sunrise, so all the good places are taken when he limps into the square. It's still early, though, just before noon, and the market is buzzing. There's the smell of fresh bread and hot tea, of spices freshly roasted. There's the blood of goats and lambs in the gutter, humming with flies - warm and salty and he wants to stick his face in it and paint his brow and throw himself against Heaven and scream - but then he withdraws into his cowl, drifting off, jerking awake only when the rat manages to take a bigger bite.
Soon his jaw trembles with every breath. His head is full of mist, but it's not enough for that final descent into madness. Not for him, blessèd insanity. It'd be no use now, howling and tearing his hair - not when it had been his decision to leave... his express wish to resign...
... and two noes still don't make a yes. No matter which way Lucifer plays this, there can be no reconciliation. The Name baited and goaded and tripped him, He moved him like a chess piece and cast him from Him without another thought. Simple as that. Expendable. Faithful in Hell, a minion still...
No, thank you.
There: a ching in his beggar's bowl.
Lucifer doesn't open his eye, the good, unclouded one. He knows it's only a brass bit - too little to buy himself half a loaf or a small measure of wine - yet the donor hovers.
"Brother." Someone bends over him, providing a welcome slice of shade. "O brother, my heart breaks. Look at you, sick of the serpent's poison; a captive now, who drew the hardest lot-"
The voice is soft. So soft. Balm for his soul.
"Come," the voice says, "come with me," and Lucifer silently bubbles with relief. Euphoria washes over him as the yoke of freedom is lifted, and he rises to nudge the fingers that peel back his cowl. He keeps his eyes wide shut and smiles like an idiot - smiles, smiles, even as a second rat lumbers up to get dibs at his foot.
He is almost too gone for his brother's kiss, and nothing has prepared him for this, for the gall and wormwood spilling into his gorge like a bucket of semen.
Struggling for air, panting against Azrael's peach-fuzz cheek, he pulls himself away, digging a leper's claw into Azrael's arm. "No," he hisses and bares long teeth and bleeding gums, "no. Not you." He shoves at Death and scrambles aside, fighting to keep his heart inside his breast.
"Fine." Azrael sniffs peevishly and flicks dead skin off his robe. "Just don't say I didn't offer."
***
But he could not have taken you. With two fingers, Jeshua traces veins on Lucifer's arm, above the blanket. He wouldn't have dared.
He took you, the Anointed, Lucifer replies, head tucked against the spot where Jeshua's robes used to close. There is no wrath in him now, no ire. Only weariness. He took you and he loved every fucking second of it. But you cannot fault him; that is who he is. That is how he was made.
***
He is whole as he strides into the hall, whole and bare. He is resplendent now, tall, a muscled panther, skin gleaming with costly oils. A number of many-teethed things mill, press, and screech, squabbling and slavering in their discontent, but Lucifer destroys them without a glance.
They're all here: the little demons and the Dukes of Hell... the magnificent wings of the Firstborn and the stumps of their brood... the proud and the vengeful, together with an unformed, malformed, sniffling, squelching army of abominations that drag clawed feet across his obsidian floor.
"Would anybody like to say something?"
He steeples his fingers. His tone is mild. He expects nothing; certainly not allegiance, even where it is owed.
"Well?"
The silence hangs, then drips from bone-white rafters.
"Thank you," he says, sloppily spreading his wings, one leg swung over the armrest. "Dismissed." He watches them turn, then shuffle away with the uneasy gait of traitors. Cleaning his fingernails he says, "Not you, Azrael."
Death sniffles unctiously, hands twined in front of his breast. "Yes, brother?"
"Lord."
Azrael shrugs and bows. If it makes you happy. "Welcome back, Lord," he says. "Mine eyes, they gladden, now that Hell may once again bask in your divine presence. Allow me to say this was a most joyless interregnum-"
"Ssht. Regarding that which you have seen," Lucifer interrupts, baring a fang, "we shall not speak of it. Ever. To nobody."
"Shan't we?"
"I should very much doubt it."
"Very well, my Lord." The Angel of Death puts a hand over his heart, batting his eyes like the whore he is.
***
Lucifer has no idea when Jeshua got up; all he knows is that it's too early. But curiosity gets the better of him, and once he's found a t-shirt and boxers, he follows the smell of coffee. Already, the sun is beating down on the small breakfast table Jeshua has moved onto the balcony, and Lucifer drags himself out to sit. With the plates and the cups and the cornetti and the bowl of strawberries - strawberries, for fuck's sake - it looks so... so domestic he wants to hurl. As a matter of fact, he does, retching a tidy squall of blood and millipedes into the rain pipe.
Jeshua folds his newspaper and frowns at Lucifer. "How sick are you really, Morningstar?" Jeshua asks and pours espresso for him while Lucifer casually wipes his mouth and sits.
"What's it to you," Lucifer croaks, stirring four spoons of sugar into his cup.
"Well, let me put it like this; I'd like you to be hale enough to uphold your side of the bargain."
Cut and dried, that; at least Jeshua isn't riding the compassion ticket again. Automatically, Lucifer adds another heap of sugar. "Your concern is touching. But I'll have you know I am as well as I ever was." Which is a fat old lie; ever since the rabbi showed up - Lucifer will be damned if he calls it a Second Coming - things have been growing worse. "And who says I am compelled to uphold anything?"
"I do." Jeshua throws him a handsome fuck with me and Seraphim will rip your spleen-look, something Lucifer never expected to see this side of Meggido. Then his expression softens. Samael, please. Do you think I don't notice? Your episodes. The vermin. The weight of your melancholy. Your soul is screaming for help. Will you not stop fighting me?
I have no soul to speak of, boy. And you, you've been dead and buried. Will you not tell me what Death did to you? The thought rings obscenely, because Death is obscene. Also, it's a pretty cheap shot.
Jeshua puts his cornetto back on the plate and licks crumbs off his fingers. "Without death, life has no meaning," he says, studying the pastry.
He didn't twitch now, did he? "Without darkness, light has no meaning," Lucifer retorts. But then I was Light. I still am, Jeshua. Not a wave, not a particle. Just plain old Lucifer, still asking why.
"Not 'why', Morningstar. The real question is, 'wherefore'?"
Ah, here we go again: it's Rabbi Jeshua's Talmud Hour. "Yeah, yeah," Lucifer waves, "whatever." He can't bring himself to eat anything. Instead he watches Jeshua pick a strawberry. He watches him dip it in sugar, watches him lick it before the fruit disappears in his mouth.
"What I saw last night." Jeshua takes another strawberry. "Is that what happened?"
Lucifer gives a shrug that defies his current anatomy. "Let's say... in parts."
"And I'm supposed to find out which?"
"That's the beauty of it, isn't it? I don't need to remind you I'm a compulsive liar." He barks a laugh and starts spooning treacly coffee. "Although I can't say I give a damn whether you believe me or not."
"Oh but I think you do," Jeshua says. And you sounded very different, around three a.m.
The tiny spoon scrapes the bottom of the cup. Half-melted grains of sugar keep cracking while Lucifer stirs. "Well," he sighs piously. "It's a hard world for little things."
But his attention must have been wandering, because the hand in his nape catches him unawares, hot and firm in the back of his neck, sending jolts through his body and hurting his spine. Coffee spills across his lap. Surprised, Lucifer opens his mouth. There's Jeshua's face, not an inch from his. This close, he smells rather than sees him: there's espresso and fruit sugar and pastry, there's soap and incense and the myrrh given to Jeshua when he was but a child. Lucifer does not know what he's doing; he kicks out, once, and topples the table. Things fall. There are shouts from below, but he can't make out the words.
Suddenly, the ever-present whine and stink of Vespas is gone. There's dust and dung instead, wild terebinth and styrax. Lucifer's struggle is brief: they are no longer in Rome.
"That," he says thickly and lies back on stony ground, "was unnecessary."
Jeshua stands tall, clad in a light-blue simlah, looking down. "Sorry about that." He's hugging his elbows and frowns. "I got the impression you were playing for time."