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The first thing he lost was the sense of where his body ended and the machine began.
The wires weren’t just restraints, they burrowed and coiled. Rooted themselves through his clothing and skin and dug deeper, like living things eager to taste celestial marrow. Each time one pierced a new layer as his body attempted to heal around them, a wet, sickening pop echoed inside the chamber. His golden blood leaked down the cords in narrow, shimmering streams, dripping onto scorched metal. It must’ve looked beautiful.
It didn’t feel beautiful.
At first he tried to rip free. Instinct, pride, something inside him had flared, wings sprouting and battering uselessly against the angelic glass. He shouted. He demanded release, yet none of it mattered.
The next pulse of voltage pulled his limbs taught like an insect pinned to a board, choking every spark of resistance into ashes. His wings curled in on themselves like dying petals, pressing uselessly against the walls before he tucked them away again.
Lucifer didn’t know how long ago that was.
Time didn’t tend to move normally for him. It stretched thin, like pulled taffy. The haze of pain washing over him didn’t help. Sometimes the light inside the chamber flickered like a heartbeat, and he’d think it meant minutes were passing. Sometimes the light stayed solid and merciless, and he could swear it had been days. His own mind looped on itself. He’d jolt awake thinking he’d fallen asleep only to realize he hadn’t slept at all.
After Vaggie left, the loneliness changed shape.
It wasn’t that he blamed her. He couldn’t. Her exit had been necessary. He knew she loved Charlie. He knew she’d do anything to protect her, and that was most important.
A thought gnawed deeper than the wires did. She’s not coming back.
Not because she didn’t care, but because Lucifer Morningstar, king, traitor, disappointment, had long stopped being anyone’s priority. The world moved with or without him. Heaven loathed him. Hell tolerated him. And now, in this grotesque tangle of cables and ichor, now his own daughter-
He couldn’t think like that.
But Lucifer’s own mind has never been something he’s controlled.
The electricity pulsed with sharp, white agony that bit into his ribs and forced his back into a brutal arch as his muscles seized. He saw flashes of Charlie’s face distorted in the static.
He tried to shake the images away. The wires tightened around his arms, forcing them outward like he was being crucified inside a glass coffin. He felt another stab beneath his sternum and golden blood soaked through what remained intact of his waistcoat and jacket, slowly turning white fabric a muted yellow. It dripped down his torso, warm at first, then cooling and sticky against his skin.
He wasn’t sure when he started begging.
Maybe it was after the fifteenth shock. Maybe the fiftieth. Maybe his mind was sewing new memories into old ones. At one point, he jerked awake, he hadn’t realized he’d slipped into unconsciousness, and saw golden droplets start falling. The chamber rattled like a thunderstorm. His mouth tasted like metal.
Lucifer had long ago made peace with the idea of suffering. But Charlie, she was out there. Fighting and bleeding. Not knowing where he was, if she wondered. And he couldn’t help her. Couldn’t shield her. Couldn’t be the father she needed.
A weak laugh clawed its way up his throat. It hurt. Everything hurt. Even thinking hurt.
The machine answered with a long, slow tightening of the wires around his abdomen, squeezing until he choked on a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding. He felt another warm slide of blood drip down his leg. If he didn’t know better, he’d think this fucked up weapon was agreeing with him.
He hung there, barely standing anymore, suspended by the pieces encapsulating his arms and trembling uncontrollably. Three feathers lay on the floor from when he beat his wings against the glass. He wanted to gather them. He wanted to keep them safe.
That’s a silly thought.
His mind stuttered in and out of awareness. There were times he swore he heard footsteps approaching the chamber. He lifted his head, every muscle complaining, only to realize it was the echo of his own heartbeat.
He didn’t know he had started crying until hot tears met golden blood on his jaw. They tasted different, but they blended into the same metallic smear on his skin. The wires wouldn’t have let him move his hands to wipe them away even if he had the strength.
The next shock hit harder than any before. His vision burst into stars before the chamber whined. A different sound, much higher, like a predator inhaling sharply before the kill. Lucifer realized, with an oddly calm clarity, that the weapon was charging for something.
He closed his eyes, exhaling shakily. He knew nothing down in hell had enough power to outright kill him. Of course, not for a lack of trying, but he knew how close to death he could get without actually tipping over that edge. He only hoped Charlie would never see the aftermath.
Lucifer was never a violent creature. Contrary to popular belief, he didn’t get brutalized and thrown down into hell because he was evil. He made a mistake.
All he wanted was to give humankind free will and the ability to choose. All he wanted was to make amends with his daughter.
Now he was nothing more than his power to destroy the only two places he’s ever called home at the hands of someone who wouldn't be here, doing this at all, if he hadn't gone down to Eden.
“I’m so sorry,” he whispered to the empty chamber. His voice shook.
The weapon’s core flared white.
And for the first time since the wires pierced him, Lucifer felt nothing. No fear, no pride, just the certainty that no one was coming. Not for him. He felt drained like a towel wrung dry. The white light bloomed, and for a moment he thought he’d ceased to exist.
Then he realized the pain was back. Not a shock this time, uncontrolled, power ripping through the structure, through him, no longer containing itself. There was screaming. Lucifer wasn’t sure if it was him. Maybe it was the metal. Maybe it was the eyes of Hell itself.
The chamber ruptured with a sound like the world breaking open, and suddenly the wires were ripping away. Snapping. Jagged ends tore out of his skin in sprays of golden blood. He crumpled forward, suspended only by a few stubborn cords buried deep in his shoulders and ribs, until those tore free too, taking strips of flesh with them.
He hit the floor. Hard.
He didn’t even try to catch himself. His body was limp and trembling, bones like wet paper, a mangled white and gold heap. The broken machinery around him groaned, sparks raining down like a cruel and celebratory confetti. The machine convulsed. It was dying.
He closed his eyes and let the darkness surge in, warm and heavy.
BOOM.
A shockwave ripped through the entire chamber as the weapon exploded into dust and twisted scrap. The floor beneath him buckled. He slid, instinctively grabbing for something, anything, but his fingers only brushed the metal, slick with blood, before he slipped through a broken section of the glass.
He looked up to see Hell’s blood red sky and crawled up, grasping a ledge and barely pulling himself up and out of the cavity of machinery. He fell flat onto the ground the minute he managed to pull himself up. It was maybe a foot or two, just hardly off the ground from where he managed to stand for a moment. But it jolted every wound, knocking the air from his lungs and leaving him sprawled on cracked stone, dizzy with pain and wrung of power.
The world was muffled. Like he was underwater. Like his ears were full of static and fire. Somewhere above, voices echoed, shouting, panicked, triumphant, disbelieving.
“weapon’s down–”
“–we did it! We actually–”
“–is that–”
And then–
“Dad?”
For a moment, he didn’t trust it to be real. Small footsteps skidded on debris as he forced his eyes open. Blurred shapes. Red light. Dust swirling like smoke. And Charlie, exhausted, but alive, all but flung herself down the slope toward him.
“Dad! Dad- oh my God–”
She dropped to her knees beside him, hands hovering uncertainly before she committed and grabbed his shoulders. Even that gentle pressure made him gasp. Her face crumpled.
“Don’t move, okay? Don’t- just stay still- oh, fuck, you’re- Vaggie!” Her voice cracked on the name. “Vaggie, he’s here! He’s-”
Vaggie was there in seconds, breathless and wide eyed. The moment she saw him, all the militant fury drained into horror. “Lucifer-” She knelt opposite Charlie, shaking her head like she couldn’t believe what she was seeing.
Her voice was thick with guilt. That wouldn’t do. The two of them were alive and well and nothing but that mattered. Through the fog that clouded his mind, Lucifer felt a wave of relief. His girls were alright.
Charlie’s hands were shaking violently now. Lucifer could feel it even through the tremor of his own battered body.
“Dad, I–I thought you were– I didn’t know where you were or what happened–”
He tried to answer right away. Really, he did. His throat felt flayed from the inside. But after a minute, he managed to pull himself together enough to let out a smile as he opened his mouth. “I’m alright, sweetheart, it’s all okay.”
Charlie’s expression shattered and Lucifer’s heart dropped into his stomach. What had he said wrong to her?
“Oh God,” she breathed. She wiped gently at the blood on his face, then froze when her fingers came away gold. “You’re bleeding,”
He wanted to tell her it didn’t hurt as much now. That it was okay. He healed quickly. Fallen angel perks, right? That she didn’t have to worry.
But the slightest twitch sent agony knifing up his spine, and a hoarse, involuntary whimper broke loose instead, pathetic and entirely humiliating.
Charlie’s entire body jerked like someone had stabbed her.
“Dad- hey, hey, no- don’t- please don’t cry- ”
It took him a moment to realize tears were streaming down his temples, blending with the blood smudging the floor.
“I-I’m sorry,” he finally rasped, voice barely audible. “My little star, I’m- so sorry-”
“No,” she said fiercely through her tears, cupping his cheek. “No, don’t you dare apologize. This isn’t your fault. None of this is your fault, Dad, I'm so- so sorry, it’s all Vox-”
Vaggie swallowed hard and glanced over him, assessing. “We need to get him out of here. There’s a lot of sinners moving this way.”
“Lift him with me?” Charlie whispered.
“Yeah.” Vaggie’s voice shook. “Yeah, of course.”
They positioned themselves on either side. Charlie slid one arm under his back and Vaggie took his legs. He tried to pull himself up to stand with them, but that movement sent pain tearing through his ribs, and a broken cry slipped out before he could stop it.
“Dad, I’m sorry- just a second- just hold on- ”
She touched her forehead to his, a grounding contact that he latched onto, a promise that they would be okay, and she forgave him for all he’d done wrong.
“You’re safe now. You’re safe. We’ve got you. I promise.”
Heat pressed at the corners of Lucifer’s eyes again. He wasn't sure if it was better or worse that she didn't know that the fresh wave of tears that his eyes let out were happy ones.
Lilith had always told him his emotions were connected to his tear ducts. It was something she said she loved about him. He wondered what she’d think if she saw him now.
His chest ached, not from injury, but from the horrible, impossible swell of emotion pressing against fractured ribs.
He had been so certain that no one was coming.
And yet here they were.
Carrying him out.
Charlie’s tears dripped onto his cheek as they rose, and he leaned into the touch, eyes fluttering shut, letting the warmth of her hands and the sound of her voice drown out the memory of the machine.
He breathed, ragged and painful-
But he breathed.