Arphaxad Fallen
I saw a hc and kinda losely ran with it. I'll get back to Ineffable Husbands tomorrow, promise.
Hastur was once an angel, as were the other demons, but he and Crowley were not so different once. Hastur resented Crowley for falling and dragging him down as well.
Gabriel may have wiped Crowley's memories, but Hastur remembered everything. He remembered that Crowley was once Archangel Raphael, and as an angel, he served under Raphael.
Hastur never spoke his other name, it hurt him both emotionally and physically, but he never forgot it.
Arphaxad, a minor angel of healing, was taught by Raphael. However crude his methods were, he followed in Raphael's steps, always helping and doing what he could.
Whatever Raphael did, Arphaxad copied. He was an overachiever, the student who wanted to be exactly like the teacher, to be better.
The Archangel Raphael could completely heal creatures of all their ailments, whereas Arphaxad could only help when it came to physical wounds.
He wasn't sure why, but his fire stopped wounds from bleeding and the creatures he could control only ate what was no longer needed, what was already dead.
When Raphael started asking questions, Arphaxad went searching for the answers himself. When Raphael fell, Arphaxad followed soon after.
Arphaxad was a young angel when he fell, confused, alone, and easy to imprint. He couldn't find the only one he knew. He was scared of the fire, it wasn't his fire and it burned everything, his mind was singed and his wings were blackened and broken. Arphaxad was truly afraid for the first time, he couldn't call out to Raphael, it hurt to think his name, it was agony to try to speak it.
Wherever he was, it was dark, cold and hot at the same time. It felt like hatred, disdain, and pain, all things wrong to one who was once of love, acceptance, and healing. Arphaxad crawled to the only thing he could see, a gray wall covered in scratches and what appeared to be tally-marks in black blood.
The black blood was foreign to Arphaxad, as an angel he was only ever exposed to the golden blood of angels and red blood of mortal creatures. It smelled wrong, it smelled of charred hopes and shattered dreams.
Arphaxad could feel a weight on his back, he knew it was his wings, but he couldn't feel the extent of the damage the fire caused. The pain was everywhere, overloading his system, then the pain was nowhere. Arphaxad couldn't heal himself, nothing was bleeding, and even if it were he couldn't bring himself to use his own fire to stop it.
Two days went by and Arphaxad hadn't moved from his kneeling position next to the wall, one hand braced against it. On the third day, he considered starting his own tally but settled for sitting against the wall, wings spread out and already beginning to rot away.
On the fourth day, Arphaxad's sight started to dull, making the already dark area harder to see. He buried his face in his hands and began to cry, something he'd never done before, but he was scared and alone. He couldn't say his own name, or anyone else's without it causing him more pain. So there he sat, crying, broken, and nameless.
Several more days passed, but he didn't try to count them. He was lost in his mind and couldn't tell if it had been one minute or one month since he first cried.
An orange spire flared up, blinding Arphaxad as he tried to get further away from it. Screams from the fire deafened him, they reminded him of his own. The stench of burning feathers surrounded him.
There was quiet sobbing when the fire faded, but Arphaxad made no move to help like he used to, he blankly stared at the new figure.
The new figure tried to speak, to call out for help.
“I-I’m here too.” Arphaxad managed to say after what felt like an eternity. His voice was raspy, unused and dying already.
“Who-”
“I can’t, it hurts to say. I’m here, you’re not alone. I can’t tell you it will be okay because I don’t know, but you won’t be alone.”
“Where are we?”
“Lost. We are lost, afraid, nameless, and injured. But at least we are not alone.”
“Your wings… they’re…”
“Rotting away, yes. I can’t feel them, I can’t heal them. I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to heal anything again. My own creatures are eating me alive and I can’t feel it.” Arphaxad sighed. “But that doesn’t matter, I’m never going to fly again, I can’t see like I used to.”
“You were a healer, and that’s why your wings are rotting so quickly?”
Arphaxad nodded.
“I didn’t have much of a role, not one so important anyways…”
“Then you shouldn’t have much else to worry about.”
They sat there, Arphaxad and the unknown figure, for many days. The fire never came back and the room grew only darker and colder until the couldn’t see the tips of their noses anymore. Screams echoed in the distance and the floor shook. They weren’t traped, but they were afraid to leave the place they knew.
Three weeks came and went, the screams grew more and more distant. As they sat there, they were given names. They weren’t sure how or when, but they knew they had been renamed.
Arphaxad was renamed as Hastur and the previously unknown figure was now known as Ligur. Though they could not see the changes they were going through, they could feel some of it.
“Stand.” A voice buzzed, causing the two to jump. “Come with me.”
The two nodded and pushed themselves up off the wall, blinded when a light came on in a poor attempt to show them where they were.
“Waiting on others is not something we have the patience for. You each are one of us now.”
Everything in Hastur’s sight was tinted, darker than it really was, and anything beyond 15 feet was blurred, causing him to squint.
Beelzebub snapped and the weight on Hastur’s back disappeared, replaced by something slimy resting on his head.
“Wh-?” Ligur was cut off.
“You can summon them back, but there is no room for them to be out when you are here.” Beelzebub explained. “The animals on your heads are your wings. I have no more answers to your questions so do not ask them. Dagon will show you to your stations.”
Hastur and Ligur watched as Beelzebub walked off, leaving them with someone roughly the same height as Beelzebub.
“You are demons now, you need not be scared as you are free of Heaven’s restraints. Do not feel sorrow or longing for who you were. That version of you is dead, just as the angels who think they are better than you should be.” Dagon’s voice was much like Hastur’s, raspy and dying, but filled with hatred. “Your jobs are to catalog the other demon’s temptations. Perhaps you both will work your way to being the tempters.”
The maggots never stopped eating Hastur away but he never had more than a finger or toe missing at a time. With time he became used to the tinted vision and the frog on his head instead wings on his back. The only thing that continuously changed was his clothing, and even that was out of date.
Millennium went by and humanity advanced, more and more demons being put to fieldwork. Very few demons changed their ways of temptation with the times, Hastur was not one of them. He and Ligur preferred the old ways, such as tempting priests and corrupting politicians, to the new ones.
The most important job Hastur remembers being assigned was to take the antichrist from Hell to the main Earth based demon, Crowley, the one he wished never made it far. The one he once admired became his downfall, and he never forgave or forgot. The one who drug him through fire twice had won, and there was nothing he could do.
