“Michael’s settled down, Gabriel’s courting, and Raphael is getting married,” God says. His holy light flares briefly in agitation and a subspecies of emu perishes. “When have you dated, Lucifer. When?”
“I date,” Lucifer says, eyes sliding to the right. “You just haven’t met them yet.”
God levels his oldest with an unimpressed glare. “I created the universe, Lucifer, I’ve met everyone.”
“Well, I, um,” Lucifer says. He looks at the leather bracelet wrapped around his wrist as if it were a watch. “Goodness, look at the time! I’m roasting Hitler and it’s just about that time of the century to turn him over. I’d love to stay and chat, but–”
“I know you’re gay,” God says, cutting to the chase.
Lucifer’s heart plummets. “You–I—no, I am not … that’s not–”
“It’s okay,” God says gently. He sighs and his light dims. “Lucifer, is that why you haven’t allowed yourself to find happiness? Are you still so afraid of my judgement?”
He makes it sound so … childish. It makes Lucifer furious.
“The last time I faced your judgement,” Lucifer says, “you cast me from heaven and watched as this planet tore at my wings and set me on fire. So forgive me if I’m not overly enthused to face your censure again.”
“That was a different matter entirely,” God says. “You know this. You know what you were trying to do and what I hoped you would learn.”
Lucifer looks away, jaw flexing. He does but the memory of his siblings’ hands on him, rejecting him, is still fresh, even after all these years. He’s not the vengeful being he once was but he is still separate, still apart, and he hasn’t felt the unity they were born into in millennia. He worries he never will if they find out and–well, God has found him out.
“I know what you’re thinking,” God says, not unkindly. His light drifts down to cradle Lucifer and then dims further when Lucifer, instinctively, flinches away.
“I–I don’t like to be touched,” Lucifer says. He can’t say what the real problem is. He’s held himself apart from comfort for so long that he doesn’t know what will happen when the seal is broken. He thinks comfort will burn him worse than the hellfires that he’s spent centuries tending.
God is silent for a long while. When he speaks again, his voice is enmeshed in the sound of water and tides. “Lucifer, there is no perfect being in this universe. Myself included.”
The calm of His tone is all that’s keeping Lucifer from reacting badly. He says, “Father?”
“I was lonely then,” God says. “I was about as old as you are now and I had no one. I learned to create in the absence and that … that was my salvation. I created you all, just children, and I could not bear to think of a time where you would not be with me. I made you to obey me, to do my will, and to never have the option to leave. I am … sorry for that. More than you may know.”
Lucifer swallows against the lump in his throat. This is the apology he’s spent lifetimes for but not like this. “What are you saying?”
“I created the world,” God says, “I made the sea and the land, I made animals and plants, I created beauty and majesty. I thought that if I gave you everything you could want, you wouldn’t notice my sins against you and your siblings. The world was dark and you–” God’s light burns brighter, more proudly “–you lit the skies for me. You brought light to the dark world.”
“You told me too,” Lucifer says. It was not his accomplishment. He’d been but a tool then, doing God’s will.
God nods, his pride winking out to be replaced by an inexplicable sorrow. “I did. I created a utopia. My utopia. None of my children disobeyed, none of them disagreed with me, none of them wanted for anything. A perfect existence is empty. It’s almost like being alone.”
Lucifer’s mouth is very dry. “So we weren’t enough even then.”
“I wasn’t enough,” God says. “I created man in my image, Lucifer, because I needed to understand. I needed to know how to be better. I gave him tests, I listened to his desires, I created companionship for him and companionship for her. Then, the first time he disobeyed me … “ God sighs again. “You know the rest.”
“I do,” Lucifer says, voice tight. The rest involves man’s arrogance and Lucifer’s pride and fall.
“Humans surprised me,” God says. “I gave them rules and over and over again they broke them. Every time, whether the rules were in their favor or not. I smote them and blessed them in equal measure. They would beg me for forgiveness, plead for mercy, and then, when they had it, they would do it again. But they didn’t perish. They didn’t fall into oblivion. They persisted and they became what I did. They became creators.”
Lucifer takes this in silently. Long ago, he’d reviled the humans for that very trait. For having the audacity to try and stand where his Father stood, for trying to escape the gaze of the Heavenly Host. He’d lashed out and tried to destroy that which was not divine and he had been destroyed in turn.
“The rules I gave them were not rules I would have followed,” God says. “And they were in my image entirely. It was unfair to ask them to behave as I wanted them too when I had given them my desires.”
“To not be alone. To create beautiful things. To be better.” God looks down to Earth and watches for a long moment. “The things written in my book … they are rules written for angels. Beings that didn’t receive my desires. Beings that I denied free will.”
“I don’t understand,” Lucifer says. He shakes his head. “The Bible was written for us?”
“No,” God says, “and yes. It was written for things, not people. This type of person must not be with this type of person. You must not do this, you must not do that. They are the rules of a collector who wants to preserve the order of the collection. They are not rules for people.” God’s light turns soft, warm. “It left no room for the humans to create. It left them no room to do as I had done and try to build their own utopia. I accounted for everything when I sent them from the Garden. I accounted for everything but their will.”
“And angels were created without free will,” Lucifer realizes. His mouth turns down into a bitter line. “We would have followed your rules. We have no desires beyond doing as you bid us too.”
“You would have,” God says. “I imagine I will regret that for the rest of time. But the point is, Lucifer, is that this world is no longer just my creation. I have learned and I have been made to understand. My creation has been taken and changed and made better. When I realized the direction humans were taking, one of hope and love and creation, I turned to look at you. My angels. And I realized I must try and right the wrongs I had done to you.”
“Was this before or after you sent me plummeting?” Lucifer asks. He doesn’t want God to know how confused and vulnerable he feels right now.
God knows anyway. “I want you to be like the humans, Lucifer. I want you to have free will and to live for yourselves. I am not angry, I am not wrathful. I want you to live, Lucifer, with no fear of me. I am a wiser god now than I was then. Trust this, if nothing else.”
Lucifer can feel his Father’s sincerity and it feels like salvation. He thinks that he will never be as close to Heaven as he once was. He has always been more impassioned, more fierce, more filled with light than they and he doubts that will change, especially with the river of history that lies between them. But now he has no need to fear their recrimination any longer. He can be who he is without looking over his wings for Michael’s blade. He can live.
“Thank you,” Lucifer tells God. He feels lighter than he has in a long time and he thinks he can feel a trace of his old Grace in the glow. “Thank you.”
This time when God’s light comes forward to cradle him, Lucifer does not flinch away. The light and warmth envelop him. He understands then that this is what God has been trying to give him these past few centuries. This sense of acceptance and love despite his role in the human world.
“Don’t thank me yet,” God says when he finally withdraws. The bond between Father and angel is blazing between them. “If you aren’t going to look for a good man to date, then I have the perfect one in mind–”
“No,” Lucifer says, horrified. “No, no, no I take it back, do not set me up–”
“Sssh,” God says, “it’s done. His name is Greg and he’s waiting in purgatory. Wear something nice.”
“I am not going to date sinners!” Lucifer cries. His face feels like it’s burning. “You want me to have free will? I am exercising mine and vetoing having the Holy Father set me up with men.”
“He’s gay,” God says. “Not a sinner. But he is cute so I sent him down anyway.” God stops for a moment. “Just got another one in, actually. Would you like Amir better?”
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