Chapter Text
Deep in the depths of the ninth circle of Hell, where demons would torture souls for all eternity, resided the queen of the underworld, bringer of chaos and destruction, lord of temptation and sin: Lucifer, known to her underlings as Madam. Madam was a being consumed by evil and jealousy, who deeply envied the blissful lives of angels and good souls in Heaven. She desired to one day conquer the heavenly paradise and the human realm and rule the mortal and ephemeral planes until the end of time. But for now, she would settle for corrupting mortals into doing evil deeds, damning their souls to Hell for all eternity, and torturing and maiming any angels that her underlings managed to capture, so she could flaunt her wickedness to the higher powers.
Madam had one son—the Prince of Hell and heir to her throne—named Iris, who was quite an unusual demon and the opposite of his mother in almost every way. Whereas his mother’s deepest desire was to reign destruction upon all of existence, Iris would…rather draw, and paint, and invent. He had an inclination towards creating, a very undemonly thing to do, and he had a kind heart which was adverse to torturing and suffering. Honestly his mother wasn’t sure what to do with him other than yell at him and beat him. But no amount of verbal, mental, or physical abuse seemed to be enough to smother the gentle yet bold light inside him and the desire for freedom to live his life as he saw fit.
It was this one and only son who stumbled upon her latest prisoner one fateful day, which would change the course of his life forever. When the Prince of Hell entered the dungeons of Madam’s Tower in the ninth circle of Hell, where she was keeping an angel captive, his breath was taken away. He had never actually seen an angel before. The heavenly being was absolutely stunning. He glowed faintly, flickering like dying candlelight. Lightweight white fabric cascaded over his person in the form of a billowing robe. Each of his massive, white, feathered wings were at least twice the size of his body. They were folded around his crouched figure, feathers poking out between the bars, and looked terribly cramped in his chamber, like an innocent dove trapped in a too-small cage. And his face was ethereally handsome, with his piercing, pink eyes glowing brightest of all.
“The fuck are you staring at?” said the angel.
Oh. Were all angels this vulgar?
The angel stood, and his aura intensified, glowing brighter and larger, taking on the appearance of white fire that was slightly electric. The air crackled around him. His wings beat fiercely against the bars surrounding him like thunder claps, shaking the walls and floor.
“You’ll need more than one of you if you think you’re going to take me on, you disgusting demon,” he growled. “Get anywhere near me and I’ll tear you apart.”
“Oh, n-no, I’m not… I don’t want to hurt you,” Iris said, holding his hands up defensively. “I just, um…I was looking for…my art supplies… Uh…my mom puts them down here sometimes…”
The angel’s eyes narrowed in suspicion, but the glow around him dimmed and grew smaller.
“What even are you?” the angel asked, looking him over, judging him. “Are you even a demon?”
“Uh, y-yeah, um, I am.”
“Hmph. Pathetic.” The angel sat back down and returned to sulking.
Iris took a cautious step towards the angel’s enclosure, drawn in by curiosity. “Are you…really an angel?”
The angel glared at him as if he were the biggest idiot he’d ever met.
“I just, um… I’ve never seen one before, I’ve never…been outside Hell…”
The angel’s face remained impassive. “Why are you even talking to me? Get your shit and get out.”
Iris swallowed. “Well, I don’t…actually see my stuff in here, so…”
Against his better judgment, he crept closer to the angel, until he was right in front of his cage. The angel’s glare never faltered.
“If you come any closer,” the angel said, his aura crackling again like electricity, “I will still tear you limb from limb.”
Iris froze up. The angel was perhaps more terrifying than any demon he had ever met. Almost. Still not as terrifying as his mother though, and so, since he had faced worse, he was feeling just a little brave (and perhaps foolish). “W-what if…” he stammered. “What if I…help you?”
The angel looked even more suspicious, if that was possible. “Why the fuck would you help me?”
Because you’re beautiful, thought Iris, already completely enamored with the divine creature. You’re beautiful and captivating and I just met you but I feel like I would do almost anything for you and I want to paint you.
But instead he said, “Because I…want you to help me escape, too,” which was also true.
The angel stared at him skeptically. “Why?”
“Because I…I don’t actually like being a demon,” Iris admitted. “Or, at least, I don’t like the duties I have as a demon. Demons only have the power to destroy. But something is different about me; for some reason I can also create. I just feel like destroying isn’t in my nature… I wish I could live a peaceful life without hurting anyone.”
“Hm.” The angel rested his chin in his hand and studied him. From the look in his eyes, it seemed like Iris’s threat level had lowered from warning to caution. “You’re a strange one.”
“Yeah, I’ve heard that before…”
“Well…” The angel glanced at the bars surrounding him. “If you’re trying to lure me into some sort of other trap… You wouldn’t stand a chance, kid. I could snap your neck before you could even blink.”
Iris flinched. “Yeah, um… Honestly, you probably could.”
The angel smirked, the first remotely positive expression Iris had seen him make so far, and his heart skipped a beat. Maybe Iris was the one walking into a trap, actually. Like a sailor enticed by a siren to drown at sea.
“Also, if this is a trick,” the angel continued, “I don’t see the point of an elaborate charade like this. Surely it would be simpler to just send in more demons to overpower me with sheer numbers. Like they did when they put me here in the first place,” he said, rolling his eyes.
Iris shifted from one foot to the other, fidgeting quietly, allowing the angel to continue thinking through the idea.
“Even if the two of us only have a slim chance of escaping, I have zero chance while I’m stuck in here, so…” The angel sighed. “Fine. Alright. I have literally nothing to lose at this point.”
Iris smiled hesitantly. “O-okay. Cool. Good enough for me.” He touched the cage. “Um, my name is Iris. What’s your name?”
The angel seemed to ponder him for a moment, then slowly answered, “Lillium.”
Lillium. The name alone was beautiful, angelic, echoing in his mind like a lullaby. It suited him so perfectly.
Iris blinked out of his reverie, hoping his zone-out wasn’t too noticeable, and inspected the enclosure more carefully. “Oh, this is an interesting one,” he remarked. “The security is quite high. Only demons of the royal bloodline can open this. Not to mention Madam doesn’t normally keep captives down here to begin with, unless they are quite, um…important? Or powerful.”
“I am literally a Power,” Lillium told him.
“Er, a what?”
“It’s a, uh…high-ranking kind of warrior angel,” he explained, waving his hand dismissively. “So what does that mean for me that only the royal bloodline can open this cage?”
“Well, it means that the only ones who can release you are Madam and…me,” Iris said.
Lillium stared at him. “Wait, so, you’re… Are you Lucifer’s son?”
“Heh, uh, yep, that’s me,” he said sheepishly.
“God in Heaven…” Lillium rubbed his temple. “First of all, how does Lucifer have such a pitifully weak son? Secondly, there is no way I can help you out here. Are you insane? If you were just any old regular demon that no one would miss, maybe, but the Prince of Hell? She’s going to send literal armies after you. She will find you. You know that, right?”
Letting the “pitifully weak” comment slide for now, Iris said, “Yes, I know… That’s why I need help. I thought…I dunno, maybe you could help me figure out where I can hide in the human realm, or some sort of safe haven for me, I don’t know…”
“Kid… It would be a literal act of war between Heaven and Hell. I don’t think you really grasp what you’re getting into here.”
Iris’s eyes became downcast. The angel wasn’t wrong.
“Okay. That’s fair,” Iris conceded with a sigh. “I won’t put you through that. But can you do something else for me instead?”
“Like what?”
“Let me paint you!” he said excitedly.
“Uh, what?”
“Don’t worry, I can speed paint, just a sec!” Iris dashed down the hallway.
Half a minute later, he returned with a toolbox of art supplies and a poster-sized sketchbook full of watercolor paper.
“Mom thinks she can hide my art stuff from me, but I always find them,” he said proudly. “She really doesn’t like me creating…”
“I thought you said your stuff wasn’t here.”
“Oh, I, uh…might have…lied a little,” Iris admitted, rubbing the back of his neck, “because I…wanted to talk to you more…”
He hoped this one small lie wouldn’t damage the already precarious trust he had built with the angel. Instead, Lillium simply smiled, and his eyes flickered.
“Tricky demon,” he chided him lightly, and Iris felt his face heat up.
“O-o-okay, s-so…” Iris stuttered. “Uh, let’s get you out of there first.” He placed his hands on the cage door and then paused. “Er…you’re not still going to tear me limb from limb, right?”
“I suppose I’ll spare your life this time,” Lillium said with a smirk.
“O-okay then…”
A series of metallic sounds rang through the air as bolts shifted and mechanisms clicked. The iron door groaned as Iris pulled it open, and the angel stepped out. He was even more glorious outside bars, with his wings and his radiance no longer contained. And Iris was aware he was rather short, but up close, the angel absolutely towered over him. Iris was awestruck once again by his grandeur and unconsciously began to reach out towards him. However, Lillium flapped his wings menacingly, the air crackling around them, and Iris flinched and drew back.
“Don’t touch me,” Lillium said sternly. “Angels don’t dirty themselves with demonic entities, if we can help it.”
“S-sorry!” Iris said quickly. “I don’t… I don’t know what I was thinking anyway…”
Lillium was already over it though. “Ugh, I’m so sore, it was so fucking cramped in there,” he grumbled, stretching his arms up and his wings out.
“Woah! Hold that pose,” Iris said, scrambling through his art utensils.
“Uh?”
“You can put your arms down,” he added.
He plopped himself on the cold, stone floor and opened his sketchbook, leaning it against his curled up legs. He proved himself to be quite fast, and in about two minutes had the sketch done and told Lillium he could rest his wings, and in another five minutes of rapid brushwork he had all the basic colors blocked out. After that, he had most of the details in his mind, and Lillium was free to move around.
“Wow,” the angel said, looking over his shoulder. “You really are super fast. That’s so detailed already.”
“It’s a shame I don’t have some black canvas and my acrylics here,” Iris said, not taking his eyes off his work. “I wish I could capture how you glow.”
“Hm,” was all Lillium said. He sat on the floor in front of him and watched him create, fascinated.
“Don’t worry,” Iris said. “I know no one is going to be down here for several more hours. Madam is in the second circle of Hell, taking inventory of the latest arrival of doomed souls. She’s going to be too busy to bother with you for a bit.” He nibbled on the end of his paint brush. “Still, I don’t want to waste…um…a whole lot of your time…”
Iris made the mistake of looking up. Lillium’s eyes were locked onto his, still glowing pink but softer now, gentler, seemingly fascinated with him in turn. Were all angels this heartstoppingly gorgeous? His chest became tight, and he found he was unable to look away.
“Um…hold on…” Without breaking eye contact, Iris slowly tore the page with his current work out of his sketchbook and set it aside.
He whipped out a pencil and began to sketch again, eyes darting between the angel’s face and the paper. Iris had captured the splendor of the angel’s magnificent wings in a painting but realized he must have a more detailed portrait, too. It was only a pencil sketch, so it was quick—quicker than the watercolor. After a few minutes he felt as if something was still missing, then—with a soft “aha!”—he pulled out a bright pink acrylic marker. He drew a couple quick strands through the hair, just to give an impression of pinkness, and then delicately added pink to his irises, somehow without looking at the paper, his eyes transfixed by the angel’s. He wasn’t quite sure how he did that without looking but they came out perfect.
“Er,” Iris mumbled, blinking as if awakening from hypnosis. “Um. Okay. What do you think?”
He turned his sketchbook around. Lillium looked at it, his face expressionless.
“Hm,” was all he murmured again. Then he glanced up and added, “I think you’re talented.”
“Heheh.” Iris grinned. “Thanks. I think you are…a great subject,” he said, stopping himself at the last second from saying something embarrassing. “Anyway! I’m sure you’re eager to get out of here, let’s get going.”
Iris stood and offered his hand to Lillium, and then drew it back just as quickly. “Oops, um, sorry, I already forgot, no touching. Sorry.”
Lillium looked at him blankly as he stood on his own. Iris gathered up his art supplies and put them in a messenger bag which was…smaller on the outside than the volume of the items he put in it.
“How are you doing that?” Lillium asked incredulously.
“Oh, the bag?” Iris held it up. “It compacts things, they get absorbed into the lining. I made it.”
“Huh.”
“Well,” Iris said, slinging the bag over his shoulder and turning to smile at the angel, “shall we head out?”
Lillium gazed at him a little longer. “Are you sure that’s all you want?”
“H-huh?”
“Are you sure that’s all you want from me? A couple drawings?”
“U-um…” Iris looked away and scratched his cheek. He honestly couldn’t think of anything else he wanted besides freedom from this place, and…things that were wildly inappropriate, oh god, he really was a demon, his mind was full of sin and filth—BEGONE, BAD THOUGHTS. “Yep, I’m sure!”