It had been months by my reckoning. Maybe a week by hers.
In all the eons I'd survived in Hell, no time had felt slower. Millenia of torture, of collection, the endless monotony of the heat and the screams and the fucking souls, and this is what got to me. This absence.
I hadn't felt such a loss when my mother had died. But back then, my father had thrown every bauble and shiny toy and voluptuous woman at me a guy could handle. He'd made it his duty to keep me distracted and entertained. Most of it was for his own amusement. I'd been a new audience for his latest performances. But a small part of me had believed it was because he didn't know how else to be fatherly.
I'd long since grown out of even pretending to mollify his exploits, but that didn't stop him falling back into old habits.
I walked into his throne room to find it darker than usual. I was so lost in my own world that I didn't see what was coming next. Even though it wasn't the first time in the last few months.
Opening bars rumbled out and a spotlight swung up to illuminate him standing on his throne. He wore a top hat, pushed low over his eyes. He wore one of his sparkliest suits, the sequins creating a blinding glare as the spotlight moved slowly over them.
"What are you–?" My voice cut out with a hand from him.
The song started out slow and low. It was mournful and capable of tugging a heart as cold as mine. There was true emotion in my father's voice as the vocals rose in volume. It wasn't a song that existed on earth. This was a Lucifer original, a song about loss and love and the inescapable marching of time. It was gut-wrenching. I felt my heart constrict in my chest, my throat got tight and hot.
Just as I was going to go over there and physically rip him a new one, it all changed.
The tempo switched. The lights went from the single spotlight to bright and garish and, as he rolled his top hat along his arms and shoulders from one hand to the other, his suit changed into something you saw in a kitsch Hawaiian hotel; white pants, a tropical shirt, a couple of leis, and even a ukulele. There were even violently bursting tiki torches and a tiny volcano that was dancing along with the tune as it shot spurts of lava into the air.
"So, you're all alone and now she's gone," was a line that sent me over the edge of mild annoyance and into heavy-duty anger.
My wings sprouted and I charged him, pinning him to the floor with my hand over his throat. The show stopped abruptly and he looked up at me mock-innocently.
"Was it something I said?" he squeaked, batting his eyes.
"You think?" I snapped, pushing myself to standing.
"If I could make a small observation...?"
I rolled my neck. "Can I stop you?"
"In the eons you've lived here, I've only ever seen your wings on Tussle Tuesdays. Easier to keep up with Cadriel that way, but..."
"What's your point?"
"Well, only that it seems, whenever Serenity is involved, your first instinct is wings."
I frowned at him. "I don't..." I shifted uncomfortably. "It is not."
"I just..." he cleared his throat loudly. "Well, the promise has been fulfilled. The bargain struck and kept. She went home. No one said how long she had to stay there." He shrugged suggestively.
"She's better off on Earth."
"Is she?"
My gaze narrowed. "What do you know?"
He settled into what he considered his teaching mode. He completed it with a cardigan and spectacles. "Son, I was the first to sin. So says Daddy, anyway. I've spent quite literally the whole of time witnessing love in all its forms. Or lack thereof. It's not in my nature for such things to affect me. But, as your father," He pushed the glasses up his nose, "I feel obliged to tell you that you're in love with her."
My eyebrow rose of its own accord. "Nah. You think?"
Dad opened and closed his mouth a couple of times. "You know?"
I threw up my arms in frustration. "Of course, I know!"
"Then why in Hell's name did you let me send her home? I thought you wanted her gone. I gave you ample opportunity to butt in. Why did you not fight tooth and nail to–?"
"Because she doesn't deserve to spend the rest of time here! She deserves a life. She deserves a good life and a good death and a chance to spend the rest of eternity in paradise."
"Oh, I see..." he said softly.
"You see what?" I asked.
He nodded knowingly. "No. Yes. I see. If you love her..."
"Enough riddles, old man."
"Set her free..." he finished. He looked up at me with a grin. "Clever boy."
I had no idea what he was talking about. "What?"
"Oh, you clever, sly, boy. If I'd ever had cause to doubt your parentage, this proves it. You can only be mine."
"What proves it?" I yelled. "Not the wings? Not the immortality? Not the ability to bend hellspawn to my will? Not the whole portent deal? Not even my propensity for torture?"
Dad shook his head as he came over to me. He put his hands on my shoulders with a wide smile. "If you love her, set her free. If she's yours, she'll return to thee."
I shrugged him off. "She's not coming back. And I'm not going to get her."
"Why? What did you tell her?"
I sighed. "I didn't tell her anything."
He smacked up upside the head. "Stupid boy!"
"What?"
"She went home believing you felt nothing for her?"
"What was I supposed to do?"
"Spend eternity in a love-filled marriage!" he cried like it was obvious.
"Excuse me if I don't take marital advice from a man with multiple failed marriages, will you?"
"I thought we'd covered this? Children don't get to meddle in the affairs of their parents."
"Well, 'affairs' is certainly the perfect word for it."
He sighed deeply. "You do not know how I regret the traits you inherited from your mother."
"Can you, just once, keep your scathing comments about her to yourself?"
"That was not meant as a slight, son," he said quietly. "Your life would be easier if you only took after me. But you are half-human, and destined to feel with the heart of a human no matter how much you try to harden yourself. Its's just the way it is. I would give anything to change that, to make your existence easier, but even your grandfather cannot."
I took a second to get my head around that, around the moment we seemed to be having. It was the most intimate conversation we'd ever had. It was the only time in my entire existence I could remember him openly showing me even a hint of affection or attachment. Hot on the heels of Wren's loss, I wasn't sure I could take it. It was too much emotion for a heart that had felt nothing for too long.
"Don't," I choked out.
"Don't what?" Dad asked.
"Don't start with that now."
"I'm not starting anything. I..." He cleared his throat. "I'm merely taking a minute to...try to help my son."
"Can you not?"
"Well, I'd much prefer not. All this emotion is...unseemly."
"And don't start with that."
He raised his hands innocently. "Not starting anything."
I nodded once. "Good."
"So... What's on the cards? Some more personal torture? Put some more work into the Millennial Meme Field? Or are you just going to go and mope in your room?"
I was going to go and mope in my room. Not that I was going to admit it out loud. But I didn't need to, because I'd got my mind-reading powers from somewhere. Or someone. That someone knew the answer, and knew what I thought about him knowing the answer.
"Uh huh," he huffed. "And that room you did up just for her is going to go untouched until the end days, is it?"
"Maybe," I sulked.
When I'd first brought Wren back, I'd had no idea how things would go. I'd had no idea that we'd have to actually be together before the marriage was official. So, I'd made up a room for us to share, leaving my room available if I'd needed – or wanted – a space of my own for...my own stuff. Okay, it was sex stuff. Sex with not her.
If I'd known what Wren was like, if I'd known how she'd make me feel, if I'd known we'd have to sleep together, I would have just had her in my room. But I hadn't and, despite the fact our room felt more like mine that my previous room, I hadn't been able to bring myself to going back in it since she left.
Neville stood watch outside it day and night, making sure no one went in there and disturbed it. I wanted it left the way she had. Especially after our last night and morning together. Aside from the glitter and the immediately following events, it had been perfect.
"What do you care anyway?" I snapped. "Your torture rate is up like six hundred percent. More blood. More pain. More wretched despair. Hell has never been such a well-oiled machine. I'd have thought you'd be pleased!"
"Pleased?" he scoffed. "Really. What am I? A monster?" He looked at me pointedly and he turned into a literal monster. "Don't answer that."
I shook my head. "I'm not in the mood for your shit right now."
He deflated, literally like an inflatable Frankenstein, but didn't say anything as I turned and left the room.
"Afternoon, Master Drake," Neville said as I inadvertently passed him.
I paused and looked at the door above his head.
"Want me to open it up for you, sir?"
I almost took a step towards it. I almost nodded. The smell of her was becoming a distant memory I was clinging to like a man drowning. But I wasn't going to become one of those men who hung onto pieces of her in desperation. I didn't need to wallow in my agony, I needed to use it to strengthen myself.
Cadriel was on Earth on an errand for Samyeza.
So, if experiencing blinding pain wasn't available to take my mind off her, inflicting it was going to have to do.
"Thanks, Neville. I've got to see a bloke about some torture."
"Anytime, sir. Have an infernal day."
"Yeah, you too."