Chapter Text
You wanted the creation story?
Fine.
You're getting the actual version. My version. Which is better, obviously.
Well. For the most part. Not the beginning-beginning. I wasn't there for the whole void situation. That would've been creepy. Nobody wants to remember floating around in infinite nothing before they had a body. Bad ambiance.
So. In the beginning. Father.
Big glowy divine guy. Very mysterious. Very powerful. Likes dramatic pauses. There was nothin' else. No sky, no dirt, no stars, no animals, no angels, no me, which was the worst part. Real empty. No personality. Then Father decides the place needs fixing.
First thing He does? Light. Huge improvement over 'eternal darkness. After He separated it from the dark, we got day and night. Real organized.
Then He starts building everything else. Sky, water, land, stars, plants, all that stuff. Real showy. Real overachiever behavior. You ever look up and think, wow, that moon's kinda unnecessary but gorgeous? Yeah. That's Father. Could've made one light. Made a whole celestial display instead.
And before the world was even finished, Father made the angels.
Now, that was where things started getting crowded.
Michael came first—of course he did. Big serious sword guy. Walking rulebook. He was all justice, duty, order, blah blah blah, very tall, very serious, absolutely no sense of humor.
Then Lucifer—back when he was still all shine and pretty way too highly of himself. Real narcissist.
Then Gabriel, Raphael, Jophiel, Seraphiel, the rest of the heavenly bunch.
Honestly? Weird family. I still don't know what Father was thinking. Oh and Emily showed up sometime after.
So Heaven gets built too, right?
Big glowing place above everything. Gates, gold, clouds, choirs, architecture that really wants you to know you're being watched. Gorgeous. Beautiful. A little intense if you ask me. Not a lot of places to just put your feet up and be a person. Everything's all polished and dignified and 'please don't lean on that rail, Adam.'
Anyway, so then Father makes Earth. Seas, trees, animals, birds, all of that. Which, by the way, was a great choice. Excellent call. I support animals completely. Some of Father's best work.
Cows? Fantastic. Big fan. Cats? Tiny weirdos. Delightful. Birds? Mixed feelings. Depends which one.
Then—important part, Father makes Eden.
The garden. The best place. No debate. Anybody who says otherwise is either stupid or has never actually lived there. It was perfect. Not fake perfect. Not Heaven perfect, where everything's all spotless and proper. I mean alive perfect. Warm. Huge. Green. Wild in all the right ways. You could walk for hours and still find something were rivers, trees, flowers and animals that actually wanted to hang around you.
Then, Father made the best decision in His whole existence.
He created me.
He needed someone to actually take care of the garden, so that's why.
From dust, no less. Which I still think is lame. Everybody loves saying 'from dust you came' like it's poetic. I think it sounds cheap. Could've said 'from starlight' or 'from divine wonder' or some shit.
But no. Dirt.
Still worked out great, though. So I woke up. First man. Open my eyes. Boom, existence.
And the first thing I see is Sera. Which was lucky, because if I'd opened my eyes to Michael first, I might've gone right back to sleep.
Seraphiel took care of me. Taught me to talk, taught me what things were, taught me feelings and names and all that stuff before I accidentally reinvented being feral.
Father told me to tend Eden, keep it, know it, name the animals. Which I did. Very well, by the way. I had a system. It was a good system. Don't ask me to defend every single animal name choice because some of them were made under pressure.
So there I am. Me, Eden, animals, peace, perfection. Fantastic setup. Really, I was thriving.
But after a while, Father decides, hey, maybe the guy should have someone like him around. Which—if I had known what was gonna happen, I fucking wish He didn't.
But, you can only talk to deer for so long before you start wanting a conversation with someone on your level. And no, angels don't count. They made that fact clear plenty of times.
Ugh, alright. So Lilith.
And pay attention. Because everyone loves to mix this part up.
At first? It was good. Really good. She was hot, sharp, and I had someone who actually understood me. I was happy. Eden was still Eden. Everything should've stayed simple. But she had a fatal flaw.
She started having opinions.
Well—that was only part of the issue. No, what really started to piss me off was that Lilith always wanted more than what she had. They always try to reframe that portion. Make it sound noble.
It wasn't. It was exhausting. The bitch would whine and complain about everything. Eden wasn't enough. Neither was peace, apparently. I practically threw myself at her. But she wanted more. More than what she had, more than what she was given, more than what was right in front of her.
I didn't get it then. Still don't, really.
She started questioning everything. Pushing at every boundary like being told 'no' was some kind of personal insult. I kept telling her to stop. Told her to trust Father. Told her not everything outside the garden was worth wanting. But she wouldn't listen, because once she got that idea in her head, that maybe obedience was beneath her, maybe having a purpose was a cage, she just kept feeding it. I tried to tell her to let it go. Seriously. More than once. I was like, hey, maybe don't challenge the divine order in paradise? Maybe don't treat the perfectly beautiful life we've been given like it's a prison?
But noooo.
Lilith wanted outside. Wanted "freedom," her words, not mine. Wanted whatever shiny impossible thing rebellion always promises people.
So eventually? She left. That's what happened. She left. Chose to go.
Nobody picked the idiot up and tossed her out because she was too cool and independent for the garden. That's not what happened. Outside Eden's boundary wasn't done yet, that's where she went. And sure, I felt bad. I loved her. But loving somebody doesn't magically make them right. Doesn't make their choices holy. Doesn't make their selfishness noble just because they felt strongly about it. But she pushed and pushed and pushed until the consequences showed up.
Which, wow, happens when you do that.
And I guess that's where Lucifer found her. He was already in his own mess by then, he turned away from Father, convinced himself that being told what he was made for was some terrible injustice. I won't bore you with the details, from what the angels told me at the time, he rebelled, brainwashed other angels and waged a war. Then, surpise surpise, he fucking lost. Mike knows most of it.
Anyway, continuing. Obviously I don't know what exactly they talked about, but I imagine it went something like this—he tells her all the things rebellious people love hearing—that they're brave, that they're victims, that every rule they broke was actually someone else's fault.
Father's design is sooo unfair and they're definitely the enlightened ones. When in reality, they're just making it worse for everyone and everything.
Me?
I stayed in Eden. I tried to keep doing what I was supposed to do, trying to keep it together and not to lose my mind over the fact she just blew up our entire life because paradise wasn't stimulating enough for her.
I was devastated. Which affected my work. But eventually, I finally got a replacement.
And Eve—now there was a woman who knew how to appreciate a good thing.
Gentle, kind, warm, not constantly trying to pick a fight with me when I told her how things are supposed to work.
Things were peaceful. She followed my lead, so being with her was easy. We fit. Ended up loving her too, and this time I knew exactly how bad things could get if somebody came along and poisoned it.
And wouldn't you know it, Lilith saw that and took it personally. Again.
See, by then she didn't just want out anymore.
She wanted to drag me down too. Wanted proof she still had power over something holy. Over me and what she abandoned. Because apparently, leaving wasn't enough.
No, she sees me moving on, sees me happy, sees me with someone who actually wanted the life we had, and suddenly it's Heaven's fault.
And Lucifer? He's such a cuck, he sees his woman obsessed another man and what does he do?
He just lets her try and lure me out, and when that si didn't work, when I obviously chose Eve and Eden, chose Father over her.
She got bitter. Real bitter. Like, festering-in-her-own-stupid-decisions bitter.
And honestly, I don't think he even cared. The bastard just wanted a reason to get back at the people who rightfully cast him out. But he couldn't go directly against them again. Not with Michael on red alert. So instead, he goes for what Father made. What Father loves. What I loved.
They slither back into Eden and go after Eve.
With all the classic manipulative garbage, you deserve more, you're being kept small, don't you want knowledge?
Don't you want to be more than what you were made to be?
Freedom?
Same pitch every time. It's like they never considered she actually liked where she was. That I liked where I was. But of course, they never tell the consequences of those beliefs.
And Eve listened.
She ate the fruit. Innocence shattered. Humanity got all cursed with the ability to make terrible decisions while feeling self-righteous about them. Eden was lost. Exile happened. Suffering entered the world.
The whole thing went to shit, basically.
But before your mom left, she had you. So, not all bad. You were good from the start, Abel. A wuss, but gentle. Soft-hearted. You looked at the world and didn't immediately start trying to take bites out of it. Your brother was there too, I guess.
How was I supposed to know she was gonna have twins?
Anyway, humans multiplied. Time passed. Earth got worse. Sin piled up. People died. Hell got crowded. And Lucifer and Lilith, being the two most irritating overachievers, built themselves a whole kingdom out of spite and bad decisions. With seven rings, totally unnecessary.
And honestly? Heaven didn't really give a shit. We were perfectly fine with leaving the souls of the damned to rot in Hell.
But, yet again, Lilith was causing trouble.
At this point, I haven't seen her for centuries. But she was rallying souls, y'know, monsters, abusers and anyone else that belongs in that god forsaken circle jerk. Lying and telling them they didn't deserve their fate, that paradise was taken away from
They were gaining power.
So Heaven made the logical decision. The High Council crowned me Heaven's Champion.
Gave me command over the exorcist host.
I'm the guy who does what needs doing when everybody else wants to stand around having philosophical debates about whether the damned might secretly feel misunderstood.
And I was devastatingly good at it. Still am.
Now, do people say war changed me?
Yeah, sure. I got tougher. Sharper. Maybe less patient. Maybe a little meaner around the edges. But that's what happens when you spend centuries cleaning up after mankind's worst impulses. You don't stay soft doing that. Soft gets you dead.
That's not some tragedy, kid—that's survival. Heaven needed a weapon, and I was willing to become one. There's honor in that, no matter what people mutter when they think I can't hear them. The complaints magically disappear when I take care of their problems and their hands stay clean.
Michael started getting all nervous about that. He was worried I was getting 'excessive' or 'unstable' or whatever the fuck that bastard said. Something about being too arrogant or too bloodthirsty or too difficult to manage. So Father let him have Lute made.
Now there was a good idea.
Lute's disciplined, lethal, loyal, sexy—doesn't waste time whining, doesn't flinch, doesn't get all dreamy-eyed about impossible second chances for people who already chose damnation. She's solid. Reliable, smart, keeps the exorcists sharp and formations clean. A proper second.
Basically perfect.
Mike did a great job. Now, he wanted her to be an anchor, y'know? Steady me and make sure I don't go off the deep end. He was real strict about that. Joke's on him, though. Because she ended up being useful and ended up falling for me too.
Down in Hell, Lucifer and Lilith end up having their own kid. Which was weird, after Lilith got that curse, I didn't think that was possible. But it doesn't matter how their brat got here.
All I know is, she apparently existed, I got that dumb letter, we had that ridiculous meeting—you know what happened.
She wants to redeem sinners, thinks they can improve or whatever. Starts looking around Hell like 'wow, maybe these violent, selfish, manipulative, endlessly destructive dead people deserve a second chance.' If they work real hard and say sorry, they can just stroll up to Heaven like nothing happened.
She looks at the damned and sees potential. I look at the damned and see the reason I have a job. Big difference.
But, I'll admit, she's not like her father. Not exactly. And she's definitely not her mother. Which makes things complicated in that annoying way only idealistic people can manage.
She's got this whole idea that souls can change after death. That if they work hard enough and feel bad enough and become good enough, maybe they can get into Heaven.
But ultimately, Heaven runs on order. Hell runs on consequences. And every time somebody starts trying to blur that line, guess who ends up having to deal with the mess?
This guy.
So there you go. Creation story.
Father made everything. Heaven was perfect. Eden was better. I was the first man, and frankly I handled it pretty well.
Lilith was bitter, ungrateful and a bitch. Lucifer got what he deserved, Eve got manipulated, humanity got cursed with free will and the absolute worst follow-through imaginable. Hell was made by pride, selfishness, and people who'd rather blame the system than admit they screwed up. And I got promoted to the deeply thankless job of fixing what everybody else broke.
So really, if anybody in this story deserves sympathy, it's obviously me.