Velvet Inferno

Papa Emeritus III x Female Reader (OC - Red)

READ IT ON AO3

CHAPTER I. | CHAPTER II. | CHAPTER III. | CHAPTER IV. | CHAPTER V. | CHAPTER VI.

Chapter 7. PLANTIN’ THE OLD AND THE NEW

The late morning sun spilled lazily through the stained-glass windows of the Ministry dining hall, painting the stone floor in shards of red, gold, and blue. The scent of roasted coffee, buttered bread, and something faintly sweet filled the air, mingling with the easy laughter of three men who, for once, had nothing to worry about.

Steven was retelling the story of his night with a Sister of Sin, gesturing with his coffee cup midair. Rowan cackled at the punchline, a wicked glint in his eye, while Gabriel just smirked and quietly stirred sugar into his coffee. The table was half chaos, half confessional…crumbs, empty plates, sinful smirks.

Then the door opened, and Red stepped in.

They all glanced up but something in her silence instantly shifted the room’s energy. The heels of her boots echoed too loud against the stone. Her gaze was unfocused, lost in something much deeper than sleep deprivation. Her lips were pressed together like she was trying to hold something back. She sat without a word.

Gabriel's brows pulled together, his playful mood fading. He watched her for a moment before finally pushing his chair back with a scrape and walking over.

“Hey,” he said, quiet enough for just the two of them. “What happened?”

She looked at him. Really looked. And something fragile cracked behind her eyes.

“Tell me,” he pressed, voice softer now.

Her throat moved as she swallowed, and then the words left her lips like a quiet thunderstorm.

“Well, I told Terzo this morning that I lost Lucifer.”

Gabriel blinked, taken aback, but she didn’t give him time to speak. Her voice wavered, but her eyes burned.

“I know. It came sooner than I expected. He asked me what loss I mentioned last night,”

Silence. Pure. Stinging.

Around them, the laughter faded. The other two boys exchanged glances, sensing the shift.

Red lowered her gaze, suddenly feeling too raw, too exposed. The name Lucifer hung between them like a curse and a confession.

Gabriel leaned in slightly. “You told Papa Terzo that you dated the literal Devil?”

She winced. “I didn’t say he was the Devil—not exactly. I just said… his name. And that I lost him. Just a name.” Gabriel's expression twisted in disbelief, but not surprise. More like quiet panic.

“Fuck, Red… what did he do?”

She let out a sigh that nearly turned into a laugh. “He… hugged me. I think. I mean… he stared at me like I’d just gutted him open, and then he hugged me. And left. No word. No questions. Just… silence.”

Gabriel dragged a hand through his hair, jaw tense. “Was he scared?” Rowan asked, voice small. “Confused? Both? I—I don’t know how to read him. What the fuck am I supposed to do? I couldn’t lie or hide”. Red confesses.

“Gabriel… do you think he should know the truth? All of it?”

Gabriel exhaled, about to answer, but the sound of two more chairs scraping the floor made them both look up.

Rowan and Steven were staring, arms crossed, faces unreadable.

“Well,” Steven said, “I think in time I know you will end up to tell him everything.”

She bit her lip. “So… I scared him.”

“Maybe,” Gabriel said carefully. “Or maybe you made him realize you’re not just a fling, or a curiosity. You’re something deeper. And that scares the shit out of most men.”

Steven sipped his coffee, smirking. “Especially when the ex is the actual devil.”

Rowan added, “Yeah, hard to compete with eternal damnation. But we don’t know if Papa Terzo thought the name Lucifer to be the actual devil.” Red buried her face in her hands.

Gabriel softened. “Look. If you’re asking if he deserves to know the full truth… maybe not yet. Not until you’re ready. But he’s already knee-deep, Red. And I don’t think he’s going to stop digging.”

-

The hallway was still humming when he walked away, but Terzo heard none of it. Not the murmurs of Sisters passing by. Not the distant notes of an organ warming up for rehearsal. Just the echo of her voice in his head:

"I lost Lucifer."

Not a Lucifer. Not someone named Lucifer. Just... Lucifer.

He didn’t remember hugging her. His arms had moved on their own, like some instinct kicked in while his brain stood dumbfounded. And then he'd left. No words. No clue what expression he wore on his face.

He reached his private chamber, shut the door too gently, and stood in the silence like a man trying not to wake a ghost.

He didn’t sit. Couldn’t.

Instead, he walked to the mirror above the basin and stared at himself.

Eyes rimmed red, not from tears just tiredness. Right? His vestments were still perfect. Gold-trimmed and regal. Every inch the charming, blasphemous bastard the world expected.

But something inside him was unraveling.

He muttered, almost to himself. “Lucifer, huh?”

A weak laugh escaped. Then another, bitter and quiet.

Of course she would say something like that. Of course it would feel like a test, no, a warning. Or maybe a confession wrapped in a riddle.

His hands gripped the edge of the marble. Knuckles white.

Was she serious?

Does she mean the Lucifer?

Is that who she loved?

His stomach twisted. There weren’t enough cigarettes in the world to deal with this kind of news. He fumbled in his pocket for one anyway, lit it with shaking fingers, and stared at the smoke curling around his reflection.

This was different.

Because if she was telling the truth… then everything between them was already outmatched by something far bigger. Far darker. Far more dangerous.

And yet...

The strangest part? He didn’t feel angry. Or betrayed.

He felt… small.

Like the shadow of something ancient had brushed against his heart and dared it to beat louder.

He took a long drag, exhaled, and muttered to the empty room:

“If you did love him… why the fuck are you here with me?”

And for the first time in years, Papa Terzo didn’t have an answer.

Red wandered aimlessly after leaving the dining hall, her thoughts still heavy with everything she’d just said - Lucifer, Terzo, the hug that felt like both an ending and a beginning.

The air outside was cooler than expected, crisp and fragrant, with that earthy scent of dew and something faintly herbal. The Ministry’s garden sprawled behind the chapel, a hidden haven of green and bloom behind gothic walls.

And there among rose bushes and creeping ivy was Primo.

He wore no papal robe, just loose linen trousers and a soft, faded shirt rolled at the sleeves. His long white hair was tied loosely at his nape, and his hands were half-buried in the soil of a planter box.

He didn’t look up immediately. Only when she stepped on a crack of gravel did he glance her way, a faint, knowing smile pulling at his lips.

"Buongiorno, figliola," (Goodmorning young lady) he greeted gently, voice warm like sunlight through stained glass. “You look... burdened.”

She smiled softly, unsure if she had the strength to mask anything around Primo.

“I needed air,” she murmured.

“Air, yes… and silence, too, I think,” he nodded, returning to tending the lavender sprigs. “The Ministry may be loud in other ways, but the garden always listens.”

Red stepped closer, the scent of thyme and mint brushing her skin.

“You take care of all of this?”

“Every morning,” he said. “It is a small devotion. Life growing out of stone. Proof that even the coldest places can bloom with time.”

His words hit harder than they should’ve.

She looked at the tender green peeking from a patch of dead leaves. Even the coldest places…

He glanced at her again, studying her face with an elder’s patience. “You’ve met sorrow, yes?”

She hesitated, then nodded.

Primo didn’t pry. He never did. He simply handed her a small pot of basil and a trowel.

“Then help me plant something. Let’s give sorrow a place to rest.”

Red knelt beside Primo, her hands now dirt-streaked and smelling of basil. There was something oddly grounding in the act of digging her fingers into the earth. Like planting could somehow stitch something back together inside her.

Primo handed her a small black ceramic pot. “For your own,” he said softly. “A plant for the one you’ve lost.”

Her throat tightened.

She nodded, swallowing the ache. Together, they gently placed a young sprig of salvia into the soil, its leaves soft, silver-green, with a scent somewhere between sage and sorrow.

She whispered, more to the earth than to him, “He loved gardens too.”

Primo didn’t ask who. He didn’t need to.

“He said plants didn’t lie,” she added. “They just are.”

Primo’s hands paused in the soil, then gently resumed. “Wise man,” he murmured.

And then… footsteps.

Measured. Familiar.

Red felt it in her spine before she heard it. The shift in the air. The weight of a presence she wasn’t ready for but craved all the same.

Terzo.

He stood just at the edge of the garden path, bathed in sunlight and shadow. His robe was back on, loosely belted, but there was a hesitance in his posture like he wasn’t sure whether to approach or vanish.

“Primo,” he greeted, voice low and polite. His gaze flicked to her. “Red.”

She looked up slowly. “Papa.”

He flinched a little at the title, barely noticeable except to Primo, who missed nothing.

The older man rose to his feet with a soft grunt, brushing the dirt from his palms.

“I will fetch more water,” Primo said quietly, giving Terzo the perfectly timed excuse to be alone with her.

As he left, Terzo moved closer, kneeling beside the still-unfinished pot she'd been planting. His eyes dropped to the tiny salvia sprout.

“What’s this?” he asked, voice too soft for his usual swagger.

“A plant,” she said dryly, trying to match his usual tone but failing. “For someone I lost.”

He nodded slowly. “Lucifer.”

Her heart skipped. “You remembered.”

Terzo didn’t look at her right away. He reached out, gently pressing a fingertip into the soil beside the stem. “It stayed with me.”

She watched him closely. He wasn’t angry. He wasn’t pulling away. But there was a distance in his gaze, as if he was sifting through thoughts he hadn’t quite dared to speak.

“You didn’t run,” she said quietly.

He huffed a small, bitter laugh. “No. But I almost did.”

That hit harder than she expected.

“I’ve seen many things,” he went on. “Done worse. But that name... that name carries weight, Red.”

She nodded. “I know.”

He turned to her then, really looking at her for the first time since the morning. “Was he good to you?”

Her lips parted, but the words got stuck.

“Yes,” she said finally. “Until the end. He saved me.”

Terzo’s jaw flexed. He looked back down at the plant.

“You don’t have to explain more,” he said. “Not yet. But I think I want to understand.”

Red swallowed hard, surprised by the lump in her throat.

Then, softer still, he added, “I’d like to help you plant something else one day. Something... new.”

Before she could respond, Primo returned, setting the watering can down between them with a subtle smile observing without intruding.

And in that quiet moment between three very different souls, life sprouted gently from the earth.

As Terzo’s footsteps faded behind the hedges, Red remained crouched near the soil, her fingers buried in the earth, unsure whether she was trying to hold on or let go. Primo watched the space where his younger brother had just stood, then turned his weathered gaze to her, eyes gleaming beneath his glasses.

“He cares for you,” he said simply, his voice like wind through old leaves.

Red blinked, caught off guard. “He barely looked me in the eye.”

Primo gently tapped the base of the plant they'd just potted. “That one’s roots are shallow now, but in time… it will grow deep. You just gave it life, cara. But for something to grow well, it must know where it’s planted and why.”

She exhaled, her voice barely above a whisper. “He said he wanted to help me plant something new. What did he mean by that?”

Primo smiled softly, brushing soil from his hands. “Perhaps he meant exactly what he said. Or perhaps… he meant you. That you deserve something that grows, not haunts. Something not built on ashes.”

Red looked down at the new plant, a small, resilient thing, stubborn and green.

“And what if I’m still haunted?” she murmured.

Primo stood, brushing the dirt from his robes. “Then let the hauntings become seeds, not chains. Let them teach you how to bloom differently.”

He touched her shoulder briefly, warm and steady.

“You are not the only one carrying ghosts, ragazza. But not all ghosts are meant to stay.”

Then he turned, walking slowly down the path with his hands behind his back, leaving her alone in the quiet ministry garden, with a plant, a memory, and the beginning of something she couldn’t yet name.

He had taken the long way around the Ministry on purpose.

Avoiding the chapel. Avoiding the West wing. Avoiding her.

But fate, as always, had a twisted sense of humor, and there she was - kneeling in the garden with Primo, hands in the soil like she was burying something that still clung to her skin. He almost turned back. Almost.

Instead, he said too little, smiled too gently, and left too quickly.

Now, in the solitude of his chambers, Terzo stood before the long mirror, robe open, eyes tired. The skull paint he’d applied earlier was faintly smeared, the result of restless pacing and rubbing at his own face like he could scrub away the way her voice had trembled.

Lucifer.

He said it out loud to the mirror once, and it sounded like a curse and a challenge all in one.

She’d said it like a memory. Like grief. Like devotion. And it lodged somewhere in his chest.

He wasn’t naive. The Ministry tossed the name around with every mass, but she had said it like it was personal.

And that rattled him more than he cared to admit.

Who are you really, Red?

He'd felt it from the first time he saw her - something not entirely earthly about her presence. Not dark. Not dangerous. Just… older. Like she'd seen too many lifetimes and kept them behind her eyes.

And now this. Lucifer.

The Devil, or a man who bore the name? Either way, it wasn't something he could brush off like a flirtation. It explained things. The weight in her gaze. The melancholy beneath the fire.

It also made him feel utterly… mortal.

He scoffed at himself and reached for the shirt laid out for rehearsal, but paused. His fingers curled into the fabric, thoughtful. What was he supposed to do now…pretend nothing was said? Pretend that when she looked at him, he didn’t feel like he was standing at the edge of something ancient and electric?

A knock at the door interrupted the spiral.

“Papa,” said a Ghoul’s voice through the wood. “The band’s waiting.”

Terzo cleared his throat. Straightened. Composed himself.

“Coming,” he called, slipping into his shirt and smoothing his hair, the skull paint still imperfect.

As he left the room, he passed a mirror once more and paused just long enough to whisper:

“Let’s see if I can be stronger than a ghost.”