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The Devil May Care

Prologue 1: The Pain of Love

For DuskCypher

By Draconicon

Time had no meaning in Heaven, and childhood little more. It was a state of mind rather than a physical form, though they could take that if they wished. There was no more than the innocence of play, and the slowly fading innocence of love.

It was the latter that drove the two boys through the clouds that filled the small kingdom that was so detached from the rest of the universe. They ran through the fluffy whites and the solids, and with wings that were too big for their small bodies, they flew hither and yon without a care. They held hands with one another, giggled and smiled, and hid with the youthful mischief that was inherent to all things, even angels.

Their names were Jesus and Lucifer, two creatures that were most loved by the one that would later claim to create everything. God did not watch them as, perhaps, he should have, but they did not care. They had each other, and that was all that mattered.

Eventually, Lucifer alighted on a tree crafted of light and music, the songs of other angels rippling through it and giving it form. Jesus followed, sitting on the same branch of illumination, the clouds coming down and forming pillows for their bodies. They reclined together, looking towards the empty sky of Heaven, and for a moment, neither spoke.

But only for a moment. Both were so creative, so interested in the world around them, that they could not help but speak the thoughts that popped into their heads.

"Do you think there'll be more?" Lucifer asked.

"More what?"

"More things. More stuff. More -"

"People?" Jesus asked.

"Oh, himself, yes, more people."

"I hope so. Father said that he it was a consideration."

"He wouldn't be the one to do it, though."

"He...has his faults, but he might."

"You know he won't." Lucifer sighed, shaking his head. "He's a powerful man, but he doesn't like questions."

Even though they were both young, they both knew that for fact. God had never been one to allow much in the way of chatter between himself and those that he considered under him, which was every other being in Heaven. Presenting himself as a tiger - and having Jesus do the same - he pushed for the entire realm of Heaven to be unified under a feline guise, something that made them look proud and wonderful, yet independent.

It was something of a miracle that the head of Heaven hadn't decided to reach out and turn them all to females, to have a pride of lions with himself as the one male. It was already difficult enough to deal with Jesus's younger sister, Mercy, and how she was sucking up to her father, becoming his second-favorite creation.

Second-favorite, but only to Jesus.

Lucifer looked down at his own hands, seeing the soft fur that covered them. Thus far, his subtle rebellion, that of the taking the form of a dark panther as his shape, had gone unquestioned. He imagined that God looked at him as the prince of the night rather than the prince of the morning - or at least, the prince of the early morning, when the stars were still bright and the sun had yet to rise - and so his dark fur made him unique. He was a beauty in and of himself, now.

He reached out and took Jesus's hand, and the son of God reached out to take his. They squeezed gently, looking each other in the eye.

"We'll make a better world," Lucifer said.

"Together."

"Always."

"Your cunning."

"And your love."

They leaned in, and as children might do when they were on the cusp of becoming something different, of discovering something that was truly beyond what they should know, they kissed.

Many years passed, more years than mortals would be able to count until well into a different age. Many years before the mortals would even come to be, as a matter of fact. Jesus and Lucifer kept meeting, and the pair of them continued their subtle rebellion against the king of Heaven.

He was beginning to lose his love for God, what little there had been to begin with. The tiger was stifling all the creativity of the angels, forcing them into hymns that spoke to him and him alone. Lucifer had been writing a dozen of them a day to keep the imaginations of the angels from breaking as they tried to come up with new ways to praise the one that ruled them, the one that sometimes claimed to create them.

It wasn't a total lie. He had given them will and purpose, but he had not given them life and light. They had come into this world by another hand, but they were bound to him, bound by his purpose. Only the archangels, like himself, Michaela, and Gabriel had choice in what they did. Jesus and Mercy, royal siblings that they were, were genuinely of God, but they were bound by choices of their own.

Jesus continued to choose to love his father, but even Lucifer could see the cracks that were slowly forming. Thankfully, such a choice to love a tyrant did not preclude the choice to love another.

They met again, in secret. The kingdom of Heaven had grown, becoming something more than simple clouds. Rain was reflected upwards to create rainbows, and such rainbows created structures that would last for years, for decades, for centuries before they faded in the light, only to be cast again in different form.

Today, they were cast as endless bridges between the different points of heaven. No angel took them, for they had wings, but the souls that longed for a hiding place, like him and Jesus, found them beneath the bridges.

Lucifer stood in the shadow of the rainbow, a thing that felt right and wrong at the same time. His dark fur had grown darker still, something like a purity of blackness that stood out against the white clouds. Even here, he was a beautiful jet against the darkness of the shadows on the clouds.

Jesus, on the other hand, was a bright tighter, the white in his coat gleaming like the sun, the black as dark as Lucifer's own fur, and the orange a flame that rippled and shone with wonder.

Was it any wonder that Lucifer loved the finest thing in Heaven?

"Father should be busy for another year or so," Jesus said as he walked under the bridge.

"He shouldn't be paying us any mind, this time."

"He nearly caught us, last time."

"That's because we started getting too loud."

"We?" Lucifer smirked. "That was you, last time."

"Well, perhaps you're a little too good with your mouth."

"And perhaps you like it in the ass just a bit too much."

There was no blush between the lovers, no sudden shame. They loved each other too much for that, and they had embraced what they could do for one another in a way that few others could. Jesus stepped forward, and they shared a brief kiss with one another, clawed fingers tracing through their fur, their lips pressed tight to one another before they finally pulled apart again.

"I brought you something," Lucifer said.

"Something that defies him again, no doubt."

"It's my own little fun."

"He's going to be angry when he finds out, you know."

"Then he won't."

"...I don't want him to take you from me, Lucifer...I want to keep you."

Lucifer shook his head. For the moment, he was in less danger than most anyone, if only for the fact that Jesus did love him. God's own affection for the tiger in front of him meant that there was a certain amount of leeway that the dark-furred panther had compared to anyone else that was breaking the rules. God wanted Jesus to be somewhat happy, at least, even if that was a happiness that was tainted by God's own rules.

That said, some of the plans that Lucifer had, some of the ideas that stirred at the back of his mind, were things that would get even him tossed out on his ear. He would not pursue them, but he would be honest and true to himself.

He reached into the pockets of his robe. Unlike Jesus, who wore it open at the chest and closed at the waist, he wore his tied around his waist, the cloth falling like a loincloth over his front and back. It covered him, kept him modest, but it also showed off his body to those that cared to look. These days, there were more and more that seemed to care to look, what with the penalties of God's standards running down from on high. He clenched his hand around what he brought, and pulled it free.

It was a pair of pendants, each one clasped to the other. Together, they formed a single vertical line, split near the top and bottom with a horizontal line in each spot. Beads ran out from the little spot at the top and another spot near the middle.

"What is that?" Jesus asked.

"A symbol that I saw."

"You've been...seeing?"

"It's a simple power," Lucifer said, shaking his head. "It's not the point. It's something that will matter in the future."

He tugged at the piece, and it split in two. Two shapes, both the same, just hung in different ways. Jesus's had the cross-mark near the top, and his had it upside-down. He had seen such things wielded and marked against buildings across many lands, in the future, and that they were powerful symbols for those that believed in Jesus.

He offered the proper one to his lover, and Jesus slowly took it, looking at the symbol in no small amount of awe. As well he should. Lucifer had crafted it of starlight, pulling it together, forming something that burst with brilliance with every passing moment.

"What is it?" Jesus asked again.

"Something that will matter in many, many years," the panther said, looking down at his own. "And the inverse. That which supports you."

"They're opposite."

"But they fit together."

He took the tiger's hand, bringing it to his and then pressing the symbols together again. One cross, one upside-down version of the same thing. They clicked together as they touched once more, holding together. Then, he gently tugged, and they came apart once more.

"So long as we have this, we'll be together. In some way, we'll be together."

"You always were one for something obvious, Lucifer."

"If you have to hide what you mean, what you are, what's the point?"

"...Heh...I wish I could be so bold, sometimes."

"You could. God listens to you more than anyone else."

"Not these days. Mercy is catching his ear."

"Mercy..."

He gritted his teeth. For Jesus's sake, he kept his mouth shut regarding that tigress, but he knew that it was only a matter of time before she started causing trouble for them. It was only a matter of time before they started to have problems with her. She wanted things a specific way, and God had pushed her to be like that, so it was only natural that she supported the tyrant.

But then Jesus reached out, pulling him into a hug again, and the building wrath in his chest faded. It was replaced by something warmer, and he smiled, gripping the tiger's ass with one hand.

"Let's take advantage of the time we have, hmm?" Jesus asked.

"You read my mind."

He pulled Jesus further into the shadows and helped him to all fours. That striped tail went up, and the robe suddenly was a hindrance rather than a help. It didn't matter. A wish displaced it, and he laid over his lover, gently guiding himself inside.

#

"You're stealing their greatness from them!"

It was a charge that only Jesus could have laid before the feet of the lord God, the king of Heaven and the ruler of all that existed. Only the son of God could have said that to the tiger's face and not been immediately obliterated for standing up to him like that. Or perhaps, in some way, not even God had the power to fully discorporate someone that had been that close to him for so long.

Either way, he still stood there on the sunlight podium, lifted from the clouds to speak to the ruler of Heaven, and he wasn't dead.

It was fruitless, though. Lucifer watched, wearing robes that were hooded compared to those of the other angels, taking to hiding his own shadowy self of late. The light did not burn him, but the other angels and God himself looked at his black fur as an afront to the world of light that they lived in among the clouds. There was no room for shadows here, no room for uncomfortable truths.

And God, it seemed, did not agree with his son. Again.

"The mortals do not need knowledge of good and evil."

"They could be so much more than they are. You have the angels; give them this."

"You believe that the duty of God is to limit himself?"

"I think that you're holding them back. I think that you could make them better than us. Better than any other creation that you've ever had."

And it was Lucifer's words that spilled from Jesus's lips, though Lucifer had only spoken of them in rants. He could have pushed Jesus to say them a hundred years ago, a thousand, but he never had. All that he'd done was complain, never expecting that his lover was taking them and listening to them, hearing them and believing them with him.

It might have been a gift to him, to rant at God when he could not, but he knew better. He knew Jesus, and he knew that the tiger did not say words that he did not mean. It was why he knew that they were lovers. Why he knew that they were bound together.

He gripped the upside-down cross that he wore, clenching his eyes shut. The power that he had touched to see the future, to 'see,' as Jesus had called it, had told him more than that as the years went on. The symbol would become something that meant the world to thousands, millions of souls. The mortals would congregate around it, and they would call upon Jesus's name for aid, to ask him for kindness, for goodness.

It was a symbol of hope, and he could think of nothing better for his beloved.

"The mortals do not require such knowledge. They are obedient, worshipful. They do as they are told," God said.

"But they do not shine. What good is goodness if they know no alternative? What good is goodness when they have no choice but to be? It is merely -"

"Jesus, are you questioning our father?"

And there, Mercy. Lucifer looked, as did the rest of the angels, upon the tigress that walked so delicately across the cloudy surface. A second podium of light lifted her from the cloud surface, carrying her to the same height as her brother. A white robe that was almost a dress ran down her body, not quite showing off her body, but not quite hiding it, either.

"Our father breathed them to life. They owe him everything."

"And that's not my argument," Jesus said. "I said that they could be better. Why not make them so?"

"Because they are suitable as they are," God said, shaking his head. "There is no need for them to have the knowledge of good and evil."

Lucifer inherently, intensely disagreed with that. There were a hundred and one reasons why humans would benefit from it, not least the fact that they would then have a choice that the angels had never been given. They would have the option of being something different, being what they wanted, choosing their own destiny rather than being bound to the purpose of something bigger than them that they disagreed with.

They would have the option that, currently, only the archangels had.

Jesus opened his mouth to argue further, but God lifted his hand.

"I will hear no more on this. The mortals will remain as they are. Besides...they are more fun this way."

The panther hid his growl in the shadows of his robe. It was there, at least, that he had some power, some secrecy. The more that he looked into the magics that rose through the dark cracks of Heaven, the more ways that he found to hide what he thought from one that would exploit it. He shook his head, moving through the ranks of the angels as they started leaving the stands. Some flew, some faded, some rode the streams of light. Alone among them, Lucifer walked, heading down to the base of the stands where Jesus was leaving.

Mercy did not follow, a blessing in and of itself. He hated her, verged on despising her, but he knew that it would bring no goodness to allow Jesus to know how much he hated his sister. The way that they were together, no matter how they argued, he knew that Jesus would make excuses.

There was no excuse for the misery that Mercy so happily inflicted on others in the name of their cause.

He met up with his lover at the gates of God's palace, and he gently guided the tiger away. The feline hissed, a tear or two running down his face.

"He won't do it. He won't."

"Sadly, no."

"I thought...Maybe he might listen to me."

"He listens only to his own dreams and ambitions, these days."

"Yes, but...out of love."

Lucifer doubted that God even knew what love was, anymore. He didn't seem to show it to the angels, and he certainly didn't show it to Jesus. If anything, he imagined that God had forgotten love, and that was why he was compelled to push for everyone to worship him. If one couldn't love others, could they love themselves?

He imagined not. Perhaps, once, he might have felt sympathy for someone in a situation like that, but these days, all he could feel was spite. Spite and rage and fury because it meant that they were denying everyone else the same feeling, just because they couldn't have it themselves. It was selfishness personified.

He guided Jesus from the palace, slowly reaching up to his neck and pulling his upside-down cross from his robe. Jesus did the same with his, and they tapped them together.

It was a small reminder of their care for each other. A small thing, but even that needed to be hidden, carefully kept from the sight of others.

"I'll take care of it," he whispered.

"What? What do you mean?"

"I'll take care of everything."

"Lucifer...you can't. If you get caught -"

"If I get caught, it'll be too late. For him, at least." He smiled. "And if I do it right...then you will have something that you've always wanted."

"..."

He knew the silence of temptation. He had come to know many things when he looked where God was not. As much as the tiger claimed that he was omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent, there were many little lies that had been passed through Heaven. Temptation was the lie that you told yourself when you were going against the rules. Whether it was 'nobody will know' or 'it's the right thing, really' or 'I deserve this, no matter what others say,' there were as many lies of temptation as there were truths. More, and every single person had their own lie that they would listen to.

Jesus's, apparently, was that it could be done right and nobody would get caught.

"Alright. But be careful."

"You know me."

"I know you...and I know you aren't."

"If you can't be yourself, what's the point?"

"You have me."

"I have you, only half as God would intend." He kissed Jesus on the lips, as much to stifle the response as to feel him again. That half was almost insufficient.

But one day...one day.

"I'll be back."

Lucifer stepped away, and finally spread his wings. Unlike every other angel in heaven, the panther had, not white wings, but black. Black as shadow, black as night, black as the sin that God so decried.

And in sin, he flew to the world below, unknowingly pursued.

He was half-changed before he reached Eden, and by the time that he reached the garden, he had become something different. No longer feline, but deep, dark, black-scaled with a red underbelly. Lucifer draped himself through the trees, a great serpent that could span the length and width of the garden if he so chose. He had the power to be more than any mortal could ever understand, an archangel, the first of them, the greatest.

And yet, he chose not to use his power for that. He shrank, sliding in on himself, becoming something smaller, something less intimidating, something less immediately noticeable. It would not do for God or the others to see what he was doing before he finished. It would not do for it to be seen while it could be reversed.

This is to spite you as much as to please him, he thought, and he felt the heat of anger against his back. Even an archangel such as himself was trained to fear the power of God, to know the consequences of rebellion.

But in this case, it would be worth it. Even if he was caught, it would be worth it.

The mortals were creatures that were made of nothing, nothing but the earth and clay. They had souls, but they were untouched, dumb, worth little more than the beasts that walked about them. God touched them, granting and denying virtue as he saw fit to the first two, controlling them with his 'love' and giving them nothing that might give them contrast, or innovation, or ideas.

That would change. That would change today.

It took little time to find the first woman. Eve turned to him as he lowered his head from the branches, and as he spoke, he forced his anger aside, offering her the temptation of something else: hope.

"If you come with me, you will never fear the loss of virtue."

"What could replace that?" she asked. "There is nothing else."

"There is more than you know. Come with me."

He slithered through the trees, and the naked female followed. She was, as yet, unformed. God had changed her again and again, just as he had done to her partner, giving them different shapes, different bodies so that they might please his eye. Lucifer doubted that it was ever something sexual with the king of Heaven. No, it was all about power to him, and that was what would hold his eye, knowing he could bring them to heel at any point, do whatever he wanted to them, and none could complain.

They would thank him for it, even, as Lucifer had heard. He shook his head. It was time to break them of that.

He led her to the one tree in the garden that God himself had instructed them to never, ever touch. He had been there for that, too, listening as the command was given. It was not a means of testing them, but again, a game of power that the king of Heaven played. He did not fear them taking the fruit on the tree, but rather found it amusing that the one key that would grant them freedom from his dictatorial rule was right there, and they would never be smart enough or brave enough to touch it.

Lucifer climbed the tree as Eve followed, a face that was half-muzzle and half-flat watching him in fascination. His dark scales glittered as he climbed the tree of light and life and knowledge, and he flicked his tail towards one of the sweeter fruits.

"Eat that, and the knowledge of what you lack will come to you."

"But God said never to touch the tree."

"God has said many things. He means little of them."

"But he will withdraw our virtue!"

"But with the fruit, you may replace it."

"...How?"

"Eat, and find out. Eat, and know truths that God has hidden from you."

It was the great power of his. Not just power in shadow, but power in speech. To give others temptation was to give them reason to act, and this was no different. Eve looked at the fruit once more, and he saw the decision in her eyes. He saw what she had decided to do.

She reached up and took it, taking a single bite, and as she did, it was as if an inferno had been lit.

Even Lucifer, who had expected something of this sort, had never anticipated something like this. The brightness of the woman's soul exploded through her body, lighting her up, leaving her both illuminated and scorched. Virtue, true virtue, the understanding of it and the implications and the choices that had to be made, was matched with the burning opposite of it. Vice, sin, the pleasures and the pitfalls, all rushed through her at once. Her body darkened, blackening, but her soul burned all the brighter for that.

Before him, she became a cat, her body taking solid form, losing the malleable state that God had kept her in for all this time. She took on fur as black as his own, but with eyes brighter than stars.

She had become that which she should have been from the start.

"Oh...my..."

"Go. Share it with your mate. Share it with him, and let him know what must be."

"Yes...yes, I must. Thank you. Thank you," she said, bowing her head to him.

As she ran off, her soul positively glowing through her skin, Lucifer smiled. The snake descended from the tree, slowly shifting back to his angelic form, only to be pinned from behind. Clawed toes almost pierced the back of his neck, and he gasped for breath.

Only two people could have done that, and one was still in Heaven. He gritted his teeth as he heard her voice.

"Well, well, well..." Mercy smiled. "I always knew that you were a troublemaker, but even I never thought that you would take it this far."

"They deserved this freedom."

"That will be for father to decide."

"Hmmph."

"And when he finds out what you and my brother have been doing..."

Lucifer gritted his teeth, feeling her toes pulling on the pendant that hung from the back of his neck. He gripped it tight, not daring to let go, pressing his half of it to his chest.

"Oh, dear, we are in trouble..."

There was an outcry in Heaven at his return. Outcast as he was, belittled as he had become, Lucifer still had some supporters among the angelic ranks. Not so much in the archangels - Gabriel had ever been God's pet, and Michaela had always had eyes for Jesus - but in the angels, he had some that loved him, some that understood him. A third of them, perhaps, a third of the souls that God had trained to love him had also bound with him.

As he was lifted on a podium of light, as Mercy stood behind him to hold him captive, those angels murmured in the stands. The palace of God was alight with power, now, and the king of Heaven glared down at him.

"What have you done, Lucifer?" he asked.

"What nobody else would."

"What...did...you...do?"

"I gave them knowledge. I gave them understanding. I gave them life." He smiled. "Now, they have a choice."

"Not for long," Mercy muttered.

"Ah, but for a very long time indeed," Lucifer said, chuckling. "Your father placed his own power in the fruit. He knew that they would not touch them, not on their own. He felt it would never happen. So he put something down that he could not reverse."

The entire room went still, all eyes going to God. The tiger glared at him, but Lucifer was used to anger. He no longer flinched at the fire that burned on his skin and fur as he was held there, no longer looked away. If a rebel he was to be, then a rebel he would become. He spoke further.

"Your father can no more take free will from them than he can strip himself of power. To break this rule would be to break himself. And he will not do that...will you, God?"

God. Not king. Not father. Not beloved. Just...God. That, more than anything else, seemed to infuriate the tiger. He whipped his head to the side, looking down at Jesus, and Lucifer did the same.

Jesus wept, but not sadly. They were tears of happiness in the tiger's eyes, knowing that the world was going to be better. Lucifer saw the smile on the tiger's face, and knew that there was going to be a frown, and other tears soon. This rebellion was bad enough, but he knew what else Mercy would say. She would not see him get loose. She would give her father reason to throw him out.

"Father, there's something else. What do you make of this?"

She pulled hard on the beads at the back of his neck, almost choking him on his own pendant. The upside-down cross was on display, and as she gestured at her brother, light fell on him as he fondled his own matching one.

"It seems my brother and Lucifer are more than mere...friends."

"..."

Few others would have seen it, but Lucifer did. Beneath the 'righteous' anger on God's face was a smirk, one so carefully hidden that one needed to know him better than he knew himself to be able to see it. Lucifer did, and the panther shook his head. He knew this was a possibility, and now it was happening.

"You have broken many laws, Lucifer, but the defiling of my son is the one I cannot forgive. You are banished."

"No!" Jesus shouted.

"Forever."

"NO!" shouted the host of angels that agreed with him.

"The fallen will not be allowed to stand," God said, gesturing towards the shouting angels with one hand, using the other to sweep Jesus to the side of the great court. "And those that cry out against the king of Heaven...will be banished to the deepest of pits...there to serve penance for their sins...forever!"

It was within God's power to banish them, and to lay down a decree, but there was no small sense of satisfaction in Lucifer's heart as that was done. In one fell swoop, he had denied God full power over the mortals, and in that proclamation, God had denied himself at least a portion of all mortal souls from here to the end of eternity. It was a brilliant stroke against the king of Heaven, and one that God would be long in realizing what he had done.

Yet, for all that satisfaction, he turned. As the great light of God's power descended on him, as the holes opened beneath him to drag him from Heaven to something worse, he knew that he had given up something wonderful. He stared at his lover, and whispered a final 'I love you', holding tight to his cross. Jesus held his out, too, the only reminder that they could share. One day, together again.

Lucifer disappeared, and Jesus wept.

The End

Summary: In the beforetimes, well before the start of the series, Lucifer and Jesus were...quite close. Very close, as a matter of fact. Close enough that they were more than mere friends...and that was what led them down a path that they could never recover from.

Tags: M/M, tiger, panther, innocence, corruption, anal, groping, Jesus, Lucifer, mythology, series, prologue, romance, love, magic, fantasy,