#uhhhh.

I read @theshatteredarchivist's What Lies Beyond The Broken Abyss and asked "is anyone gonna illustrate that?" and didn't wait for an answer

( x-men '92 #5 )

Edwin didn’t start trying to escape until the mid 1920s. He didn’t get anywhere with it until the late 60s. And it was around 1980 when Lucifer got the third report in less than two months of a soul nearly escaping Hell, being caught just at the gates, and was finally curious enough to have the wayward soul brought in front of him.

He was, frankly, rather fascinated. An innocent soul, a rebel, clearly barely holding back his sass against the King of Hell, the Prince of Darkness, someone clearly queer and cast down to Hell for being different.

Lucifer decides about ten minutes into their conversation to make Edwin his personal attendant. Mazikeen’s more of a general slash right hand demon slash bodyguard slash errand being, at this point, and having someone around who’s more like a valet, or a manservant, can’t hurt.

Lucifer rapidly finds that Edwin is a delightful conversationalist, when he’s not being tortured or thinking he’s about to be, sharp and clever and witty. Edwin is very surprised to realize the same thing about Lucifer. They start just… talking, more and more, and Lucifer gets more and more fond of his pet human.

It’s 1989 when Lucifer decides he’s getting restless and hatches a plan to leave Hell. But in this universe, the plan isn’t just for himself (and Maze). It’s for Edwin, too. He sends Edwin up to Earth as a sort of advance scout, with instructions to send regular reports back to Lucifer. (Lucifer, at this point, doesn’t really fully expect to ever be able to leave, himself; but Edwin is innocent, and kind, and clever, and fun, and doesn’t deserve Hell, and Lucifer refuses to be his jailer any longer.)

Edwin appears on Earth by his remains, in an attic, in 1989. He tells the boy he meets there that he is a ghost who escaped Hell - which is true, as far as it goes. And the boy decides to stay with him.

Edwin sends his reports back to Lucifer, every three months. He does not tell Charles. How do you tell someone - a good person, the best person you’ve ever met, someone whom you rapidly realize your existence depends on - that you’re the personal servant of Satan?

In 2016, Lucifer finally has had enough. He has Mazikeen cut off his wings and he goes to LA… and he summons his favored, loyal valet to his side.

And Edwin has a very, very difficult conversation with Charles.

And, long emotional screaming match short, Charles ends up coming with Edwin to LA.

It takes Lucifer about a week to get himself involved in detective nonsense, because he’s been getting thrilling reports of how delightful it is four times a year for decades.

There’s something very different about Lucifer “flipping so many men they call me the Skillet” Morningstar on Earth, as opposed to Hell, and Edwin starts, er. Noticing.

Meanwhile, Lucifer’s just sort of assumed Charles and Edwin were fucking this entire time, based on Edwin’s obviously besotted reports, and is quite surprised to realize his valet seems to be having his gay awakening induced by him, instead.

Oh you most certainly can