Chapter Text
4004 B.C., In the Beginning
The Garden was too bright for a demon. Too quiet, too green, too alive. The air itself seemed to hum with God’s leftover laughter, all honeyed light and gentle wind, and Solace could feel it pressing against his skin like judgment. He wasn’t supposed to feel it—light was meant to burn—but instead it just sat there, soft and mocking, as if the place hadn’t yet decided whether to spit him out or forgive him. He crouched low in the bushes, waiting, pretending the sound of his heartbeat wasn’t loud enough to give him away.
“Oh, my God!” Solace hissed, jumping, wings rustling against the bushes. There were dark, round, doe-like eyes glaring at him. There were not supposed to be dark, round, doe-like eyes glaring at him.
“No,” Doe-eyes said. “Just an angel.” A smirk.
Ah. That made sense. Said creature had the brightest wings, a blinding ivory against the dark shadows in these bushes. When the light hit them just right through the leaves, they shined almost pearl-like. Incandescent.
Except that smirk.
That was— charged. There was something curled behind it, something cold and almost dark that Solace never would have seen on an angel.
Breathtaking.
“What, never seen an angel before?” Doe-eyes said. It was then that Solace realized he’d been staring. Quite shamelessly.
Because how could he not?
Solace scoffed. “Um, no,” he drawled defensively. “I’ve been… around.”
Doe-eyes’ gaze bore into him. He felt like he was being studied. Examined. Picked apart, like a carcass about to be skinned to bone.
Doe-eyes was… staring, too, Solace realized now. Not that he knew how to feel about that.
He looked scrutinizing—like Solace was a puzzle he couldn’t figure out. He began to squirm under the attention, heart hammering against his chest.
This was an angel, for God’s sake! Solace couldn’t afford getting distracted! Not when he had—
“Are you just going to creep around in these bushes? Because I’ve got a job I need to do.”
Doe-eyes rolled his eyes. “By all means, demon,” he said, and there it was again! That stupid smirk playing on his lips, casual and light as if the word demon didn’t almost make Solace flinch. “Although, it does seem to me you were creeping around these bushes first.”
“Whatever,” Solace huffed. “I’m going now.”
“Again,” Doe-eyes huffed to mimic him, “by all means.”
Solace began to lift himself up to his legs, turning his gaze to the Garden. He had a job, and a plan—a good one, at that. It would be a shame if someone thwarted it.
Huh.
Solace turned back to Doe-eyes, still just sitting there, brows furrowing in confusion. “Aren’t you meant to, like, thwart me?”
Doe-eyes raised an eyebrow. “Yes.” And? his face asked.
Solace dragged a hand down his face. This angel was impossible. He didn’t realize it was even… well, possible, for an angel to be difficult. “Why aren’t you thwarting me?”
Unimpressed, Doe-eyes’ mouth opened to answer, then closed again. Then, after a half-second of hesitation, a wide, sly grin sprawled across his cheeks.
“Much more entertaining watching you try to hype yourself up for whatever you’re about to do.”
“What does that mean?” Solace asked, when what he really thought was Heavens above, the Angel has dimples.
“That means you’ve been here for days, stalking the humans, all nervous and bumbling like an idiot who doesn’t actually want to do what he says he’s here to do,” Doe-eyes said, self-satisfied.
“Well! I! Want to, but the timing is just—”
“You haven’t actually given me anything to thwart, you know?” Doe-eyes said, pressing the back of his hand to his lips as if curtly muffling a laugh. Infuriating. Utterly so.
“What—!” Solace huffed. “I’ll! Show you!”
“I’m sure you will.”
Oh, this angel was very irritating. Solace would show him! He could be evil! He could be the demon he was supposed to be! He could do this—could do his job and not get his friends demoted in the process.
Solace shivered. He did not need his friends getting demoted. He knew what jobs were given to the lower-class demons. Paperwork.
He very pointedly ignored the voice in his mind screaming good luck pulling yourself together enough to focus, instead giving Doe-eyes a grunt and a death glare (which didn’t work, only serving to make Doe-eyes’ smirk more smug).
Solace decided, then, that he rather disliked angels—no, no, just this specific one.
He felt Doe-eyes’ gaze searing into his back, burning into his ink-black feathers as his wings—massive and stretched and towering over the nearest tree—began to shrink, shrink, shrink. His body shrank with him, turning from flesh to thinned skin, pitch-dark feathers blooming from every part of him.
He looked back at Doe-eyes only once, meeting his gaze for a moment, something unreadable in his eyes. A caw escaped his beak—and then he flew.
He found Eve in the Garden, sitting by the shade under a tree. A rather good tree, because it was a Normal tree. A safe tree.
He perched onto a branch onto the Not Normal tree, wings fluttering even as his claws planted firmly into the wood. He hadn’t been in this form for a while—he needed to stretch out his little wings for a moment.
Eve looked up at him, face half-obscured by the shadows of the Tree.
Oh, right—the Tree!
The tree that bore the Fruit of Knowledge..
The tree that bore the weight of sin—the promise of pain, of a life lived not in bliss, not in ignorance, but in the sharp hurt that came with knowing.
Right, okay. This tree. So he’d found the right one—step one done. He was an amazing demon.
Solace was a few days late, not that that word—‘days’—meant much to anyone so far. He was sent up here, what, four days after God created light?
It was the seventh day now... Oh, Lord, what would Lucy say when Solace came back down?
Not Lucy, his brain supplied. Not anymore. He went by Satan nowadays. All demons have— well, they weren’t who they used to be.
And Solace… his name was— it didn’t matter, actually.
All that mattered was that he was bad. He was evil. He didn't belong with the angels, if his current body was any indication of judgement.
He especially didn’t belong with that angel. That oddly ethereal, sharp-angled yet soft, shadow-clung angel.
That… horribly cruel, utterly stupid angel! He’d called Solace an idiot!
Well, Solace would show him.
And he’d show Satan, and he’d show God, and he’d show all the demons and angels and humans: I can be who you want me to be.
And so he sang out to Eve.
“I thought I might find you here.”
Solace snapped up to where the smooth, velvety voice had come from—except no, this time it was a bit rough around the edges. Softer, with something less guarded. Quieter. He was sure his eyes were red-rimmed, and, fearing for his dignity, he looked back down at his hands, clutching his knees as he sat cross-legged.
The angel—Doe-eyes—said nothing. Kept quiet about his fragile state, for some reason—as if they were not an angel and a demon, as if it would not have been right to throw jabs at each other. Instead, he sat next to him, knees pressed to his chest.
They looked onward, watching as Eve dragged Adam around by the hand. They walked through the Garden, doing God knows what. Neither of them paid enough attention to take note.
Solace was rather preoccupied trying not to stare again, trying to keep his gaze anywhere but the angel.
He was beautiful—so much so that it reminded Solace of just how good he was, of just how much he didn’t belong by the angel’s side for fear of…
For fear of what?
Of tainting him?
“Why are you here?”
The question seemed to snap the angel out of whatever thoughts had been running through his own head. Still, his gaze did not waver, only staring down at the humans from their view up on the wall of the Gates.
“I was sent here,” he answered simply.
“No, I mean—” Solace suppressed the urge to roll his eyes. “Why here? With me?”
That took him a little longer to answer. Solace traced his gaze, following the humans as they ran around the Garden. Strange—he didn’t remember being told that Adam would be given a weapon. He could make one, sure, but he didn’t think humans would learn how to do that until a few more decades—perhaps he’d gotten the time wrong again. He wasn’t exactly good at keeping track of time.
The rather concerning part of this wasn’t the weapon itself—it was that it was in flames as Adam waved it around in the air. Before Solace could ask, the angel was already humming; not in thought, but as if he’d found an answer that made some semblance.
“You make…” the angel said quietly, carefully, “...interesting company.”
“We’ve only known each other an hour max,” Solace said, though the word ‘hour’ meant little to them. Perhaps none of what he said meant much yet.
“And yet,” the angel said.
“And yet,” Solace agreed.
Quiet, for a while. Not quite silence—there was the sound of leaves rustling and wind rolling over and animals in wake and humans doing whatever humans do.
Foolishly, stupidly, Solace allowed himself to spare a glance at the angel, only to find that he’d already been looking at him.
Doe eyes, obviously. They were what he expected, what he had hoped to see—but they startled him anyway.
Not that he knew why. They were just…
Deep, shadowed, coffee-dark.
And suddenly they were gone again, looking back down into the Garden. Solace felt like he could breathe again. Not that he missed looking at them.
“At least one of us did our jobs right,” the angel said. There wasn’t an ounce of anything bitter behind it—if anything, he sounded almost… proud. Ironic, considering that pride was meant to be one of the big bad Seven.
“Sorry if kickstarting the concept of sin wasn’t enough for you,” Solace started defensively, because apparently he failed to ‘show him’ despite all the talk of ‘showing him.’ “Next time I’ll throw in some Sloth, and some Wrath, and some Lust—”
The angel choked. “Lust—?”
“You can even sign as my witness—throw in some Greed, is that evil enough for you?”
“Oh, my God,” the angel groaned, smoothly turning his brief coughing fit into something that began to resemble laughter. “I was talking about you, you idiot. You did your job right.”
Solace raised a hand, but before he could swat at the angel playfully, something heavy settled in his chest at the praise. “Really?”
“No, I was talking to every other demon involved in getting Eve to take a bite of the Fruit,” the angel deadpanned. “Yes, really. Seriously though, you’re insufferable.”
“And you’re just laying it on thick,” Solace said, his smile a practiced sort of cool that tried to say I am so normal. I am a demon and I am unaffected by praise. Fear me.
“Don’t mistake this for flattery, Sunshine,” the angel said, each word slipping out of him as if the word sunshine didn’t almost send Solace’s heart reeling.
For no reason in particular. It just sounded… odd! Coming from an angel! Like they were close. Like they were friends. And he was a demon, so if anything, the angel was the one he should be calling—
“You just did your job,” the angel added hurriedly, the corners of his lips twitching with something Solace couldn’t quite name. “You did the right thing. That’s all I’m saying.”
“Oh… when you put it like that—” Solace clamped his mouth shut, hesitating for a moment. The angel turned to look at him with a raised eyebrow, curious, calculating. “Well, a demon can get in a lot of trouble for doing the right thing.”
The angel smiled—not a smirk, this time, nor a smug grin. Small, shy. Crooked. “An angel can get in a lot of trouble for doing the wrong thing,” he offered. “But I’m still in one piece.”
Solace would know a lot about that—about angels finding the right company at the wrong time and doing things they didn’t realize was wrong, doing things Solace until now didn’t think was wrong, but surely must be, if they had landed him here, with ink-black wings and eyes that were cursed to never quite see the sky so well and a heart that burned.
“What?” Solace asked quietly, raspily. His throat was dry—when did his heart start thrumming this fast again? “What did you do?”
The angel grinned, pleased.
“Angel, what did you do?”
The corners of his lips twitched again—at what, Solace didn’t know—but he turned his gaze back to the Garden. Solace followed his eyeline once more, landing on the humans running around the trees. “I used to have a flaming sword.”
“You used to have a flaming sword…” Solace repeated.
“Yeah.”
“And now… you are no longer. In possession. Of said flaming sword.”
“Yup.”
“And Adam… is.”
“Mhm,” the angel said. When Solace said nothing else, the angel offered, “He looked like he needed it."
“Needed—?!”
“Come on, Sunshine, admit it,” the angel said, a smile playing on his lips. “Wouldn’t it be kinda funny if I did the bad thing and you did the good one?”
As Fate would have it, light laughter did bubble out of Solace’s lips. He didn’t even find it funny, no, but something in his lungs was fighting to laugh, and he didn’t realize until he was already laughing, and the angel was laughing along. Oh no.
Oh, no.
Solace’s face pinched suddenly, halting his unashamed giggling. “Hey— no! That’s! No! That wouldn’t be funny at all. I don’t…”
The angel’s head tilted curiously, nose scrunched. Solace wanted to punch it off of him. Or do something else he didn’t have a name for. Or, perhaps, he could throw himself off the Gate and die instead.
Human bodies were confusing.
Solace sighed. “I don’t want to see you get… in trouble,” he said, when what he really meant was I don’t want to see you Fall.
“I won’t,” the angel said with a roll of his eyes, though Solace didn’t miss the way he softened lightly.
“But— but— your sword!”
“Yes, yes, they should consider it a gift passed down from God,” the angel said, waving a hand around haphazardly. “Twice-blest and everything. And they need it now that Eve’s expecting.”
Solace, in his time as an angel, liked to consider himself a busybody.
He made himself busy with healing injured angels—because, yes, apparently even angels got hurt during war training. As it happens, he also made himself busy with designwork—which happened to be a thinly-veiled excuse to spend all his time in the… the Space. Where their creations would soon bloom. Celestial bodies and nebulae and galaxies.
As it did not happen, Solace did not spend as much time designing earth itself, or the creatures inhabiting it.
So when the angel nodded at him as if to say, you know what I mean, Solace’s eyebrows furrowed as if to say, no the fuck I do not.
“Expecting? Expecting— what?”
The angel froze. Then, if Solace looked closely enough, a tinge of color painted the tips of his ears.
“Um— a baby, of course,” the angel said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world and let’s move on to another topic.
“Oh,” Solace said. And because he is just a little bit evil, and very much curious about the human condition, he continued, “Why doesn’t she just… like… do it now? I was stalking Eve’s birth—very efficient stuff, I gotta say.”
“It’s different! This is the real thing now. It’ll be nine months before she gives birth.”
“You’re not making sense,” Solace said. “If God put the baby there I’m sure She could, like, expedite the process, y’know?”
“No, that’s not— God didn’t— there’s a— it’s a process—” the angel sputtered, which left Solace quite a bit more confused. If he knew this was going to be such a sensitive subject he wouldn’t have pushed. “—there are steps— but those are only between— and only between humans anyway, so. No point in giving you a whole crash course on human reproduction. When I’m an angel. And you’re a demon. So.”
Solace blinked. “Okay?”
“Okay!” the angel insisted.
“Okay,” Solace reassured him.
After a moment, the angel huffed, the color leaving the tips of his ears, the back of his neck not quite blushing anymore, returning to that soft olive tone Solace had taken note of the first time he’d seen him earlier in the day. “Okay.”
“So… your sword.”
“My sword,” the angel repeated, looking anywhere but Solace’s direction.
“She gave it to you,” Solace said.
“Yes,” the angel muttered, “She did. But God is— look, I did what I had to. It’s not like anyone takes inventory anyway. Not of our stock, not of the angels.”
“Not of… the angels?”
“I’m saying,” the angel said quietly, carefully. Not quite smooth, but not quite nervous either. Raw, but not rough around the edges. Just real. “If I spent a little more time up here before bringing in my report for the day, then no one would know but us.”
The realization settled over Solace’s bones like something warm—like sunshine seeping into his ribcage, or stardust crackling across his skin. He’d never see the sun again, or the stars, but he’d take this, too.
“No one but us,” Solace said, wing twitching as the first sounds of thunder rolled over the sky. Before any drops of rain could reach the angel, his wing was already reaching up to shelter him.
He was… beautiful. Solace knew this, of course. But in the rain, he looked like he belonged. It was strange; maybe it was because Solace couldn't see the sun, maybe it was because he had a strained relationship with sunlight, maybe because he’d spent his life staring out at celestial bodies, breathing among them, but here, with the angel under his wing—
He looked utterly divine. Like the shadows clung to him like home. Like they hid in the corners of his lips and the crinkles of his eyes and the space under his cheeks and in the crease of his dimples.
And his eyes—dark, heavy. Burning, but not piercing. Not quite like he was studying Solace—more like he’d already figured something out. Solace didn’t know what that meant, shivering under his gaze.
And his hair—his curls matched each of Solace’s feathers, black as spilled ink against the whitest piece of parchment. His own ivory feathers were dampened by the rain now, not quite as white, but just as bright anyway. Solace wondered what they would feel like if he ran his fingers through them.
Would his feathers be as rough as his own? Or would they be smooth? Would the angel be sensitive, or would he not feel the touch at all?
No, Solace thought. I will not know. I will not find out.
He’d found something that reminded him of what he was not: beautiful. Good. Holy. An angel.
But he’d like to have it around for a while longer. Just a little while longer. Just until the rainstorm ended—and if they never crossed paths again, then Solace would take it as an omen, and smile knowing he was lucky to have met the angel at all.