Chapter Text
Angels did not sleep.
But when Samael startled to the present, he was—he had no idea where he was, really.
Shattered glass was spread across the room, a faint whirring disturbing the silence before it went flat. Artificial, twisting vines crept along the floor, up the wall, curling and weaving around him, a mockery of Eden.
Something hummed and buzzed next to his ear. Then that, too, died away.
“Manyak,” Samael hissed, surveying his surroundings. His head pounded as he glanced from each foreign structure to the next, concepts and understandings dawning on him too heavily for him to actually grasp. Wires. Screen. Static.
Samael’s focus fixed itself on his hands, blackened and digging into the floor beneath him. His gaze trailed up, up his arm, over to his chest, to the blood pooling over his strange attire.
My blood? he thought brokenly.
Thudding. Distant thudding from above bristled the room, broke through his thundering thoughts, demanded attention. If Samael’s heart were able, it would be beating erratically.
God, what had he done this time? Stolen another chicken? Snuck Adam into heaven?
“…No way,” he murmured to himself, snorting. As if Sera or Michael wouldn’t have caught him before he even tried.
Samael sat back on his heels, listened idly to the thudding, and thought about it a little more. He totally could have pulled it off, what was he saying? The evidence was all around him, after all, and while the others were boring and lame, they weren’t unfair. They wouldn’t send him to some hidden away—science laboratory—for no reason.
Or, maybe, this was a test? Were they wanting him to stay in here, while the commotion and excitement happened upstairs? Ironic, considering they never let him hide away in Eden.
The thudding continued, but his head felt a little lighter. They would know where he was, then. It was just a matter of why he was even here. Were they still nearby? Gabriel, Azrael, Raphael?
He screwed his eyes shut—tried to sense the ever-present gossamer of divinity, tried to pull on it. There was something faint; weak and unfamiliar, but there. Up, where the dull thudding was happening.
Samael’s worries abated slightly. Okay. He wasn’t alone. All that was left for him now was to get out. If the Order thought he would pliantly sit here and wait for nothing, then they were terribly wrong.
Slightly unsteady, he rose to his feet. Behind him his wings unfurled, presently the only familiar presence in the entire room. Otherwise, he felt off-kilter, unbalanced on his legs. They were heavier than usual, as though they were tethered to his soul. Strange, and would probably hinder him if he had to climb to get out, but he’d manage.
Samael frowned as his attention was snagged back to his clothes, which he now saw were really odd. A suit, his mind supplied. A vest, lapels. Shoes—boots.
Hat. He knew that one already, at least. Picking it up from where it’d been discarded a few paces away, he startled slightly at the serpent that was perched and slithering around on it.
A slender, slow little thing. It—or rather, she—rose at his attention, her affection and concern palpable.
He stared, baffled. “What are you doing here?! You’re supposed to be in Eden!”
She hissed again.
Samael sensed her emerging curiosity, but nothing more. “What? What does that mean?” Alarm suddenly suffused the serpent’s essence, the panic rushing to his own head. “Whoa, whoa, what? Calm down, I won’t tell! Or…did they bring you here, too? Is this part of the test?”
The alarm only worsened, pressing and urgent, and Samael was at a loss. He only pretended to cater to authority, he had a reputation for doing the opposite! Hadn’t she heard of him before?
“Alright, alright,” he ducked his head slightly, placating, as he grimaced. Her caution caved in on him, harsh enough to border on bruising. “No more questions! I get it! Really, I don’t mind you being here. You’re beautiful. I’m only confused, that’s all. Don’t be so afraid.”
He held up the hand not holding the hat—still dark and scarred, what was with that?—in offering, moments away from the serpent’s flitting eyes. Slowly, she nudged his knuckles, her trepidation giving way to worry.
Samael smiled. There we go. “You’ll be alright,” he assured, taking her skepticism for fear. Then he looked about the room, which had gone entirely silent save for him. “Do you see an exit anywhere?”
The worry increased, which Samael was about to question, but the serpent quickly slid beneath his sleeve and re-emerged at the collar he was now noticing was undone. She raised her head at an open hatch.
Oh. How had he missed that?
“Thank you,” Samael said, slightly embarrassed. He was about to clamber through when—
He stopped, eyed the snake prodding at his jaw. “What?”
More pressure. Interrogative, this time. Slightly wistful.
“I’m sorry, I don’t understand you. Do you not want to come with me?”
She hissed, annoyed and impatient, before escaping his shirt entirely and dropping to the floor.
“Oh!” he cried, crouching down with a furrowed brow. Honestly, this was taking far longer than it ought to. “Are you alright?”
It was only when she curled herself along the hat he’d thoughtlessly discarded that he understood, which only embarrassed him further. He cleared his throat. “Ah. Is it yours?” There was no good reason for him to be asking all these questions, she could not answer! The flush of his cheeks darkened. Keen to move on, he instead promised, "I will bring it with me.”
Again, Samael picked up the hat, observing the garish thing with scepticism. It did not have enough colour, the seraphim thought, although it was far more interesting than anything he’d ever seen any angel of any status wear before.
His concentration turned to the serpent, who was now watching him expectantly.
“Do you have a name?” wondered Samael.
She shook her head, but he knew that this was a lie. He grinned boyishly anyway. If she didn’t mind…
“Then I will call you—” he paused and thought hard. This was important. He’d done right by Adam, but he’d never had to name any other life: that was the duty (annoyingly) granted to the First Man. “Lilis?” The name came easy on his tongue.
Lilis cast him a doleful look, though otherwise accepted it. Just as before, she circled up his wrist, his arm, all along the vulnerable join between his shoulder and neck to contently settle there.
“You and me against the world, now, dear,” Samael cooed, laughing as Lilis nosed along his jaw. There were still the faint remains of mourning, and while some distant part of him thrummed with sympathy, he was not all too eager to let it dampen his own mood. “Or, really, just Michael, when he catches us. But isn’t he everything?”
Lilis jabbed a little more insistently.
Still grinning, Samael fit the strange and now squashed hat beneath his arm, tucked his wings away, and began to climb.
He’d thought the worst of his dizziness had long passed. How he loathed being wrong.
“Dad?”
Belatedly Samael raised his head, vision swimming as the world extended around him. His darkened vision gave way, eventually, to light, artificial and too dim to be Heaven. Or Eden. Or anywhere he was familiar with, really.
But it was hot.
Lilis poked him, certainly to call his attention to the—rather odd looking—pair of angels that were now approaching, but the effort succeeded only in distracting him entirely.
“Hey,” he mumbled, chiding.
“Dad!” someone repeated, and Samael realised with a start that the reason the voice was so damnedly loud was because it was addressing him.
Samael turned and somehow managed—without the balance of his wings—to avoid veering forward right into his new company. “Hello.” Oh, that came out so strangely.
“Dad,” the angel with blonde hair and rosy cheeks stepped toward him, hand wavering like she might reach out, and was she not capable of coherent speech? “Oh, I was so worried! Where have you been? What happened to you?! I thought—oh, you’re bleeding!”
Samael looked down at himself, although there was no good reason to. “So I am.”
“Sorry. That’s…kinda my fault,” the other angel—notably having only a single eye—muttered, brow taut and jaw set, the expression unfamiliar to him.
It was, his mind supplied him through the fog, guilt. Regret.
He blinked. “I don’t believe so?” Unless— “Unless you put me down there.”
The angel watched him for a second, then huffed a laugh, something like relief permeating the air. “Never, s—uh, Lou.”
“So, you’re feeling alright?” The first angel drew his attention again. “I know this isn’t even close to the worst thing to ever happen to you but—I’m sorry, I just—I don’t like seeing you like this, Dad.”
Dad. Was she intentionally referring to Samael that way, or was it some strange invented custom that meant something else? He was no stranger to creating his own languages, but they weren’t ever well-received.
“I am alright,” he confirmed for her peace of mind. Lilis remained an assuring presence by his shoulder. “Though, I do not know why I am bleeding.” He considered the bizarre situation a little further, and reluctantly admitted, “I did not realise that was possible.”
At this, she appeared heartbroken. “Oh—oh.”
He frowned. She did not look surprised, but understanding. “Did you know this?”
The blonde did not answer the question, instead glancing at her companion, who appeared more confused than she, and was nudging her elbow. “Do you,” the initial angel began hesitantly as big eyes flitted back to Samael, “do you know who I am?”
Oh, no, was this all part of the test?
Samael wavered between the two courses of pretending he did as to not offend, and being honest. Really, he found neither especially tempting, and wanted vaguely to return to the pitted, solitary room.
“No,” Samael settled for.
A hand extended forward. He stared at it, a little baffled.
“My name is Charlotte,” she said, smiling warmly. “And this,” she waved to her associate, “is Vaggi. Um, but, also, you just call me Charlie, normally. So. If you’d like?”
Was she trying to goad him into offending her on purpose or not? Why would he shorten her name, the blessed thing that it is?
—The test!
“Right,” said Samael slowly, not moving to touch her hand. After an awkward pause, it returned to her side.
Charlotte cleared her throat. Vaggi was elbowing her with increasing vigor. “Do you, um, remember? Anything? At all? Do you know where you are? Who you are?”
“Yes.”
“…Yes, to what, exactly?”
Samael crossed his arms defensively, doubt worming into his mind. “I know things.”
This prompted a nervous laugh, which he found rather insulting.
“Charlie,” Vaggi hissed, looking more concerned by the passing minute. “Uh, is he—“
“He gets like this sometimes,” Charlotte whispered, morose. “When he’s hurt. All loopy and stuff. He usually recognises me, though. I guess maybe it’s because Mom isn’t here—“
“So, what, he just—forgets a good few hundred years? Charlie, he doesn’t know his own daughter. Or that he can bleed. Isn’t that kinda worrying?”
Samael did not appreciate the conversation proceeding as though he weren’t even there, but he supposed it wasn’t the first time it had happened.
“He’ll go back to normal after a day,” Charlotte assured. Were they still talking about him? What was normal? “It’s not, like, threatening or anything. He’s fine. He’s fine!”
“I’m fine,” Samael agreed, just in case.
But even this failed to inspire reassurance in Vaggi, for whatever reason. “Charlie—“
“Hooooly shit, Sir Pentious, it’s you!” Charlotte cried over her, dashing away in a blur, and Samael watched her go with absent interest. It was only when Vaggi blurted out an awkward apology and went to pursue her companion that Samael realised his chance.
“Well, Lilis,” he said, glancing at the serpent, then to the aberration surrounding them, “time to get out of—wherever this is. I don’t like it at all.”
It occurred to him then that the most efficient means of escape would be to portal out, and while Sera would be probably alerted, what would she really do about it? There was no good in placing Samael in some realm he had no idea existed—and he was admittedly torn by the fact no one had told him—why had they done it in the first place?
Lilis tightened around him, a warning. Samael held what he considered very thoughtful and reassuring eye contact with her, all the while waving a hand beside him, feeling his soul writhe with power laying in wait.
The portal glowed next to him. He took one step and fell flat on his face.