Title: Even The Devil Needs Someone To Hold

Author: Joanne Collins

Fandom: The Prophecy

Pairing: Lucifer (Viggo Mortensen)/Thomas Daggett (Elias Koteas)

Rating: [NC-17]

Summary: A continuation of *that* scene in the movie, in which Thomas discovers that there is goodness in even the ultimate evil. And a small epilogue.

Status: Finished

Archive: Yes to Rareslash, movie_slash, Lust In The Dust, CKOS, WWOMB,others please ask

Series/Sequel: Possible sequel...I think I'm going to be yelled at for one ::g::.

Disclaimer: These characters do not belong to me. This version of Lucifer (athough can he really be copyrighted? Well, that's why I said this version), this version of Gabriel, Thomas, Katherine, Mary and all characters and concepts related to the movie The Prophecy aren't mine, they belong to Gregory Widen and others.

Warnings: Possible religious offences. Some spoilers for the movie, some of the dialogue comes directly from the movie.

Thanks, hugs and virtual chocolate to Gail for beta reading.

Even The Devil Needs Someone To Hold

By Joanne Collins

Thomas could feel...something. He couldn't explain it...it was a *presence*. He just knew he wasn't alone.

He continued with what he was trying to do, securing the chain to the post.

Then he felt arms grasp him, an impression of inferno-like heat that was gone almost before it was felt, then a voice began to whisper in his ear, low, seductive, flowing over his senses like poison honey.

"Little Tommy Daggett. How I loved listening to your sweet prayers every night. Then you'd jump in your bed. So afraid I was under there. And I *was*."

Thomas knew...he'd known from the beginning, but this confirmed it...he knew who it was that held him...held him as if he would never be let go. Memories flooded over him, but somehow, he didn't feel the same fear he had felt as a child. It wasn't him that was in danger, he knew that instinctively.

"What the hell do you want from me?" Thomas thought, knowing, somehow, that although the...presence, his mind insisted on calling it...was talking, it wasn't necessary for them to communicate.

He spoke again, in that same poison honey tone.

"Do you know what hell really is, Thomas? It's not lakes of burning oil, or chains of lights. It's being removed from God. Having his word taken from you."

Thomas felt a shiver of fear snake its way through his body at the idea of losing faith in *something*...whatever that something was. Thomas's faith was shaky at times...now especially...but it was always *there* at the back of his mind, his thoughts. And only now that he was faced with the possibility of losing it did he realise how much he depended on it being there, no matter how buried. The grip on him tightened, still not hurting. Thomas knew, somehow, that it would not hurt him. Not now...and maybe not ever. He believed it like he believed in *something*, whatever it was.

The poisonously sweet whisper began again on that thought.

"It's hard to believe, so hard. I know that better than anyone. And there's your weapon."

"What weapon?" Thomas thought again, confused.

"Thomas, what is the one thing essential to an angel? The thing that holds his entire being together?" the insidious voice asked.

At last Thomas was able to vocalise his thoughts, briefly, and he answered: "Faith."

Thomas could feel the approving nod from the head that was pressed so close to his that nothing earthly could move between them. The weight felt...good, Thomas was surprised to think. But he couldn't think of that now...or ever, if he wanted to keep his sanity. The poisonously sweet whisper began again.

"And what would happen if that faith was tested. And an angel, just like you, didn't understand? Use that. Use it!"

"Use *what*?" Thomas asked, finding his voice again, at last.

"Use that knowledge. That an angel needs his faith to survive," that thick whisper came again, but it was...different. Thomas could feel it, but he wasn't sure why. Or maybe he didn't want to know why...he didn't know if his mind could accept why.

"Your mind is stronger than you think," came the whisper, relentless, driving, *there*.

Thomas finally turned to face...him. At last he was able to acknowledge the presence as male. As real.

"As real as you are."

"I've fought against your presence...your *reality* for so long. I knew you were always there, but..."

"But you didn't want to see me...to acknowledge me. I can understand that. Better than you can, probably. I've certainly had more...experience with it."

Thomas looked puzzled. Could that be a note of...vulnerability? Surely not...not in him. Not in pure evil.

"But I'm not pure evil," almost soundless, but Thomas heard it. "No one seems to understand that. To know that I'm...necessary. Or that I'm not the pure blackness everyone thinks I am. No more than God, or heaven, is pure whiteness."

Thomas thought of Gabriel, and even Simon, and he knew...there was no pure evil, just as surely as there was no pure goodness. There were only degrees of both, something that he was finally coming to realise after so many years of pain caused by faith and non-faith on his part.

"Not only your part, Tommy. Not only on your part. We all have a part to play in your...in every human's pain when it comes to that. Revealing our presence...or not, sometimes. All of us."

"Is that what it was? In the church? Did someone reveal too much?" Thomas asked, wanting to know, but somehow knowing that he wouldn't.

"If I knew, I would tell you. I know you have no reason to believe that..."

"But I do," Thomas whispered, his gaze as unwavering as it had been all along.

A flicker of what Thomas now knew to be vulnerability flickered across the Devil's face. Or the face he had assumed. Thomas knew it was not his real face.

"It is," the short reply again almost soundless.

"But I thought..."

"You expected leathery wings, scales and horns? Superstition. The need for evil to have a physical presence. *Human* representation. Not reality."

Thomas looked at the other...man once more.

"Yes. Look at me as a man. Not a human, though. Never a human. But yes, I am a man, if those boundaries mean anything more than physical presence."

Thomas knew that in a very real way, that the boundaries meant something to him. Something unacknowledged for many years, but they meant something.

"What is it that you don't want to acknowledge, Thomas?" The whisper was low, seductive, but different than it had been earlier. There wasn't that corrupt sweetness to it. There was sweetness, but the corruption was gone, somehow.

"Your acceptance of my presence has taken the corruption away, at least for now, Thomas," he whispered.

"I don't want to acknowledge the fact that I want you," Thomas blurted out, unable to keep the words from spilling from him if he had wanted to. And he didn't want to, he realised.

The Devil stepped back. He had clearly not expected Thomas to say it that way, if he had expected him to say it at all, Thomas thought.

"You...want me? How?"

"Surely, of all beings, you must know. It has been called the Devil's sin, more times than I can think of."

"Oh, I know. Do you know what you are asking for?"

"It...won't be the first time. After...the church...there were a lot of years that I sought oblivion in the touch of another. Not always a woman."

"I know...but are you sure you know what you are asking of me?"

Thomas looked at the Devil, and he saw something...it was not tender...not sweet, but he knew what it was.

"You...feel that way...about *me*?"

"I know I am thought to be incapable of feeling more than evil, but I think we have dealt with that. And I do have feelings. They may not be the sweet, tender feelings you humans have, but they are real, nevertheless. And they are for you, Tommy. I know one day you will be no more, at least not on this earth, but for the time you have been on this earth, for the time you will be on this earth, whatever feelings of this kind I have, for I do not know myself their true nature, are yours."

Thomas was a little shocked. The words that had just been spoken were about as close as he would ever get to a declaration of love from the Devil.

"Lucifer. Please...I prefer you to think of me as Lucifer."

"Lucifer," Thomas whispered, the name sounding oddly right on his lips.

Lucifer smiled, and moved forward, taking Thomas into his arms.

Thomas leaned into the embrace, needing the illusion of safety for a moment.

"Not an illusion. No matter what, Thomas, you are safe with me. If things go...badly, I will take you. I will not allow you to be hurt any more in this war."

Thomas looked into those flame-coloured eyes, and sent a silent invitation, which was accepted without a word. Lucifer's lips fitted themselves to Thomas's in a kiss that wiped out all coherent thought. Thomas's hand caressed the brown hair at the nape of Lucifer's neck.

"You really do want this." Lucifer's hips thrust against Thomas's, and they both moaned at the contact.

"Yes. Oh, yes," Thomas moaned again as Lucifer began to unbutton his shirt, placing hot kisses on the flesh that was revealed.

Thomas slipped out of Lucifer's embrace to slip completely out of his shirt, and coherent thought returned for a moment.

"Lucifer," Thomas's voice was husky with need, "How can we do this? Things will get a little...gritty, if you know what I mean."

Lucifer chuckled, "I *do* hope so, my dear Thomas, I *do* hope so. However, that's not what you meant, is it? Well, you won't have anything to worry about. You will just have to lie on top of me."

Thomas's body throbbed with need at the implications of Lucifer's words.

"I thought you'd want to..."

"If there is another time for us, I will want to. But under the circumstances, we must do that which is easiest. And I want this, too. I want everything with you, my Thomas."

"You're not calling me Tommy any more," Thomas noted.

"It's not how you think of yourself. You *are* Thomas, not Tommy. And it's Thomas I want...Thomas I need."

"Just as you are Lucifer, and not some of the names I have heard for you...and called you. Even cursed you..."

"I know. And it hurt...but it does not matter now. All that matters now is that we have these moments together."

"Only these moments?" Thomas was almost afraid to ask, but he had to know.

"I don't know if there will be others. I cannot know that. I wish I could know, with certainty, and if I did, I would tell you. But I do not. So we shall have now, and treasure it if it is the only time we have."

Lucifer made a gesture, and his clothes were gone. Thomas had been removing his trousers and underclothes as they had been talking, so now they stood, naked for each other.

"You are more beautiful than I thought," Lucifer murmured, as he cupped Thomas's cheek with a large hand.

Thomas blushed, and he realised that Lucifer's hand was following the path of the rising blood. He smiled, and turned his face to press a kiss into the warm palm. Lucifer threw his head back and moaned at the simple touch. Thomas smiled at his lover's responsiveness.

Thomas's hands began moving over Lucifer's body, finding sensitive places and playing with them. His fingers pinched the nipples into hard little points, then he caressed them with his tongue. His lips left the aching peaks to trace the ribs and stomach muscles. Thomas nuzzled the patch of dark blonde curls (he would have expected black, but this encounter was proving to be unexpected in a lot of ways) before running his cheek along the throbbing flesh below it. As Lucifer pleaded with him, Thomas placed gentle kisses along the shaft, then he licked at the fluid coming from the head. He licked along the underside, down to the full, heavy balls, taking one, then the other into his mouth, then moving lower, to the pucker between the cheeks. Lucifer groaned as Thomas's tongue probed the tight heat, moistening him, making him ready. Thomas kissed his way down the back of Lucifer's leg, planting a wet, open-mouthed kiss on the sole of his foot, then moving to the other, repeating the process in reverse. As Thomas kissed his way past the back of Lucifer's knee, he reached a hand up to the moistened opening that he wanted to bury himself inside, and entered Lucifer slowly with a finger.

"Easy," Thomas murmured, as Lucifer bucked under his touch, adding a second as he began to calm, searching...wondering if Lucifer's anatomy was *exactly* like a human's, and finding his answer when his fingers brushed a swelling that caused a loud moan from the other man. Thomas added another finger, touching Lucifer the way he liked to be touched, and he judged Lucifer to be stretched enough to enter, after giving him one last twist of his fingers.

Lucifer lay on his back, and Thomas moved between his legs. Thomas had placed his shirt under his knees, and Lucifer was pleading for him to get inside him. Thomas rubbed a little more saliva onto himself, and he hoped it would be enough. He pressed himself against Lucifer, and entered him slowly, until he was fully sheathed inside that heat. Thomas rested against Lucifer for a moment, pressing a kiss to his chest, then the burning became too intense, and Thomas had to move. He began to thrust slowly at first, then, when Lucifer began to push against him, he moved faster, finding Lucifer's hardness and stroking it as he moved inside him. Lucifer cried out when Thomas hit his prostate, and Thomas angled his strokes to hit it, as he knew he wouldn't last much longer. After a few more thrusts, Thomas could feel the hot liquid coming from Lucifer, and he drove inside that tight heat once more, finding his release deep inside his lover.

Thomas collapsed on top of Lucifer, slipping out of him as he did so. He felt strong arms wind around him, and he took a moment to relax in them. His eyes flickered shut for a moment, feeling Lucifer's breathing under his ear, as he recovered his strength.

"I wish I didn't have to go," Thomas murmured.

"Your destiny demands it, my Thomas. And remember, I will be here, even if you can't see me."

Thomas reluctantly pulled himself out of Lucifer's arms, and he dressed himself again. Lucifer, of course, simply had to do whatever he had done before, and when Thomas turned around, he was dressed again too.

"Remember, my Thomas, faith. That is what you must destroy."

"I will," and Thomas kissed Lucifer once more, before re-checking the chain. That was when he realised that it was dark.

Thomas looked back to where he and Lucifer had lain. It was somehow unsurprising to him that his lover had disappeared. He didn't feel disappointment...he had other things to think about now.

Thomas shuddered at the thought of what might lie ahead for them.

The resulting fight was brutal. Thomas didn't have a moment to think, to regret...or not, what had happened.

Thomas was shocked that the gentle lover he had laid with earlier was capable of the brutality that Lucifer showed toward Gabriel. But he couldn't help but notice Lucifer's kindness to Mary as well, and he knew that that part of his lover was the part that cared for him.

Still, in front of the others, he could not reveal the truth. So at the end, he put on a mask of anger, and confronted Lucifer.

"I have my soul. I have my faith. And what do you have, angel?" he asked, wondering if Lucifer were arrogant enough to speak the truth. Who was he kidding? Of course he was. But he wouldn't say it, Thomas hoped.

"Leave a light on, Thomas," was the last thing Lucifer said, a look that only Thomas could see in those flame-coloured eyes.

And Thomas knew he would. Knew he would hope and pray to the devil himself to know that feeling again.

END