Work Text:
Adam is tired.
This is not a comforting observation. Across the table, Lute watches her commander hold back a yawn to answer a question. The underside of his eyes are darker than usual, and if they were not in a simple meeting with the Seraphim and a few other Angels of his status, she has no doubt he’d have already made up an excuse and left. But Adam doesn’t do that when it matters - if there’s a chance he could look weak, he won’t even entertain the idea.
Lute is a little ashamed to admit she hasn’t been paying attention to the meeting. Usually she doesn’t miss a beat, often predicting how others are going to end their sentences before they get to it, and she finds it easy to predict the outcome of each meeting too. Which admittedly isn't difficult when they're all the same. It's pointless for them to even be here, Lute finds herself musing as she looks at his tired expression.
Adam cannot be tired today. This early meeting is the first of many tasks they will have to complete. Lute has it written out if only to keep a record. She remembers the full list, and she remembers that it's long enough to take up the majority of the day. Thus, he cannot be tired.
A sharp boot kicks her under the table. Lute holds back a wince and looks up to make eye contact with the First Man.
“Stop staring at me like that,” Adam hisses through gritted teeth. “Make yourself useful, Lieutenant, go and get us some coffee. You know what I'll have.”
Lute knows that he must be utterly exhausted if he's asking for a coffee instead of a soda. She does not question it, wordlessly nodding and leaving the table.
On the way to the coffee stand - not the one closest to the meeting room but a different one a street away, because they make his favorite - Lute thinks more about it. Adam is tired, he is stretched thin, and that is partly her fault and partly heaven itself’s. She has been packing his schedules tight, but that's only because he has so many responsibilities. Not that he sticks to them all, but she tries.
Maybe she should try a little harder to give him a break.
She picks up his coffee order - complete with an extra shot of espresso and a lot of sugar to disguise the taste - and her own, and then makes the short trip back to the meeting room. Things seem no closer to the end as she sits back in her seat, and she begins to drum her hand against the table with impatience. At this rate, their schedule is going to be disrupted. Adam won't care, he'll make a half–hearted excuse and enjoy the free time, but she's trying her best to keep his image stable where she can.
The extra sugar must have been a good idea. Adam drains his cup within five minutes, and to her relief his eyes open fully, the caffeine doing exactly what he needs it to.
“Ugh, that lasted far too long,” Adam whines when the rest of the group finally leaves the table. It was only an hour after she got back with the coffee, but he was bored - she could tell by the way he played with his empty coffee cup. No one commented on how immature it looked, though she knew they thought it. “What’s next? Can I finally pass out or are you gonna have me do some other bullshit?”
“It’s 11.” Lute replies, and then tactlessly reminds him of the bad news. “And, Recruitment day.”
Arguably one of the best things they could be doing. Once a year they spend the day re-evaluating the performance of the exorcists, as well as allowing a certain group to try out. They’re told that they’re simply training to be a protective army, and some get cold feet the second they realise they ‘may’ be required to kill in self defense, but all that does is make it easier to narrow down the selection.
Lute had not forgotten, of course. The look of absolute grief on Adam’s face implies that he had.
“Are you fucking serious?” The man asks, looking over at her with a glare that could kill. “Check your calendar again.”
Lute checks it. She opens the page of her notebook and sets it down in front of him, and then circles 11:30, Recruitment speech with a red pen.
“Alright I get the point,, no need to be a bitch about it!” Adam snaps, shoving the book away like a child that got vegetables instead of ice cream. He puts his head in his hands. “Ugh, can’t we just tell them it’s tomorrow? The loyal ones will show up, we’ll have half the work done for us already!”
“You enjoy Recruitment day,” Lute responds. She narrows her eyes, challenging him. “Did you stay up late playing video games? You know that’s frowned upon.”
“You think I’d do that?” Adam replies. He’s dodging the question. The only reason she lets him is because it’s now 11:05.
“Sir, if we don’t leave now we will be late.”
“Lute, I am so fucking tired.”
“I’ll get you another coffee on the way.”
The second coffee goes down almost as well as the first. He makes her whisper the order, because apparently he’d rather look shy than have the rest of heaven know he drinks anything other than black coffee. While she’s waiting for the drink she catches him wandering to the other side of the store and tugs him back by a sleeve - he’s about to be even more irritated by that, but it’s the only way.
“We aren’t sitting in. We’re already running late.”
“I just wanted to-”
“Be seen showing up late?” Lute interrupts. She hands him his drink and nudges him towards the exit with a smug smile. “No, I didn’t think so.”
Somehow, they are still late. By the time they make it to the hall, there’s no time at all to prepare. Adam chugs the last of his coffee and dives straight in the way he always seems to.
“So… You bitches wanna be a part of our army, huh?” He begins, making a show of scoping the room. “You wanna protect us from hell? Cause I’ll be honest, half of you look weaker than a paper bag.”
Flawless. Ten out of ten execution from him, Lute thinks to herself, because half the group are looking at each other confusedly and the other half are offended simply by the fact that he called them bitches. With that in mind, they should leave already, because there will be more where that came from. A couple do, and Adam openly mocks them.
“Already running away, huh? You know you only get one shot at this?” He calls after them. The door slams shut, and he smirks. “Well, now that we’ve kicked out the weak fuckers, let’s see what the rest of you are made of.”
And so they split into smaller groups to demonstrate. Adam does nothing, of course, leaving it to a group of volunteer Exorcists that know exactly what to teach. Lute can’t think badly of him for it when she’s up here too despite being more than experienced enough to train, so she settles for simply watching him.
…He looks as though he would rather be down there with them. The first man is antsy, stepping from side to side and leaning forwards against the podium as he watches. Perhaps he’s excited. Perhaps the two coffees have worn off early, and he’s moving to try to keep awake. She can’t see him falling asleep during an event like this, but Adam continues to surprise her.
“That one’s good.” He murmurs, gesturing, and Lute looks down to watch the woman closest to the podium demonstrate how to wield her spear effectively to a group of three others. She’s… okay. Nothing to write home about, but she seems a team player. Lute is still on the fence about whether they need more or less of those.
…It’s unlike Adam to simply give a compliment. She looks back at him just in time to hear the follow-up. “Damn, and she has an awesome rack too. This one might be gunning for your spot.”
There it is. Lute ignores the implications. “Is that really all you think about?”
“Of course not!” Adam steps down from the podium to flash Lute a cocky grin. “I was thinking about her ass too. Which do you think is better?”
False alarm. Adam has not been replaced by a soft, polite-speaking imitation of himself. Lute snickers, and then follows him down to observe the group in more detail.
They - or, Adam with Lute’s subtle influence - have no issue picking the candidates for the updated team. To no one’s surprise, the woman with Adam’s favorite body type makes it on.
“Ugh, that took fuckin’ forever,” The first man complains as the last few women file their way out of the room. Some are excited, some are disappointed, Lute herself is indifferent. She's seen hundreds, possibly even thousands of Recruitment days, and they all feature the same sequence of events. Nowadays, with her position as Adam's lieutenant, she doesn’t even have the underlying fear of being replaced lurking in the back of her mind. Not that it’ll stop her from going completely balls-to-the-wall during the next few sessions of group training. She has a reputation to uphold, after all.
“We're done now, right? Please tell me we're done.” Adam whines at her side. Lute knows that they aren’t, and she knows that Adam knows that too. If he knew there was nothing holding him back, he'd have fled the room already.
She entertains him even so. “No, sir, we are not. Thanks to your eagerness to add so many women to our team based on looks alone-” as if she didn’t egg him on a little- “We now have to assess our existing soldiers to make room for the new recruits.”
“Ugh, fine.” Adam paces around her dramatically, like an animal looking for the appropriate space to settle down. “Gimme five, yeah? It'll meet you in the office, we can go over the files-”
“I will not be giving you five.” Lute interrupts, raising an eyebrow at him. “Last time I ‘gave you five' before we were due to collaborate on paperwork, I did not see you for almost forty hours.”
They head for the exit door as Adam frantically and fruitlessly tries to defend his pride. “Well- I was- uhh- you know what, fuck you, bitch! You didn't get to comment what I do in my free time- not everyone spends every waking hour on paperwork or training or secretly getting off to daydreaming about-” And that is why Lute spends multiple nights a week staying up after training to finish off tasks that Adam should have completed a week ago.
Oh, and if her comments had no sway over his decisions, he likely wouldn't be following her right now.
“I didn't care what you were doing.” Lute replies before his sentence can spiral into 100% vulgarity. “I care that it doesn’t happen again.”
They make their way out of the hall, down a corridor and out of the building. Adam gives a pitying glance further into the building as they pass by the other rooms, and Lute chalks it up to wanting an excuse to waste more time that they didn't have. She wouldn't put it past Adam to do that out of pure spite by now.
“Lute,” he complains yet again just half a minute into their journey. “I am so not in the mood for this.”
“You never are,” Lute replies with a hint of a smirk. “Sir, I am asking for an hour of your time in which you do your job. Is that really too much?”
“Ughh…”
It's nothing if not resourceful. They have a mere hour to go over the files, decide which women are without a doubt staying on the team and which ones need to be assessed, challenged and pushed to breaking point. Adam won't see that. He’ll see a mountain of paperwork that he'd rather set on fire.
Lute looks up at him following a moment of grouchy silence. “You know, we could always stop by that cafe for more coffee if you're struggling to stay awake that much…” Are bribes frowned upon? Technically. Is Lute going to be forced to hear every single one of Adam’s complaints if things didn't run smoothly? Absolutely.
“I don’t need another coffee! That’s the last thing I need.” Adam hisses. He stops in place, and yet fidgets as though he can’t stand to be still. Lute raises an eyebrow - he is absolutely doing it out of spite by now.
“The longer you stand there, the longer we'll be out.” Lute reminds him, trying to hide her irritation. He can’t know he's getting to her, Adam always milks that.
She must be being discreet, this time, because there's no teasing remark. Adam isn’t even looking at her. He's gazing intently at the building they just left, expression a little dazed. He opens his mouth, and then closes it. It's as though he has something to say but can’t quite formulate it into words.
Brain fog.
“You've had too much caffeine, haven’t you?” Lute asks, giving his arm a gentle tug to get him to walk again. He does. He's too busy stammering to protest it.
“What? Huh, how did you-”
“Please, you can hardly speak.” The building is now a mere shape behind them, and yet Adam still pitifully stares at it. “But you’re not getting out that easily. We have snacks in the meeting room, you just need a few of those and a bottle of water.”
“I need what?” Heaven forbid she's smart enough to work around a dumbass that consumed too much caffeine. Adam looks betrayed. “That- Lute, that is not what I need.”
“It's what you're getting.” Maybe she enjoys being harsh on him a little more than she should. Or maybe Adam really will stop at nothing to avoid something he deems boring.
They end up in the meeting room. Lute sits opposite him at the table and for a while, they make their way through folders and statistics to try to narrow down who they need to remove from the group.
Adam’s chair creaks. He's bouncing his leg, repeatedly.
“Quit that.” Lute hisses, nudging the yet-to-be-touched bottle of water towards him. “Adam, come on. This is extreme even for you.”
“I’m being extreme?! You're practically holding me hostage over here! I asked for one break!”
“I have given you everything you need! What more could you possibly want?!”
Adam blinks. He's almost blushing. He opens his mouth, closes it and looks back at the paper. Lute knows what embarrassment looks like, but she’s smart enough to know its cause. Adam would be stupid enough to not think of his next line before beginning to make his point.
“It's nothing.” The first man scowls, and then picks up the top three folders and slams them onto the desk in front of her. “Here, I’ll save you time. These three are on probation to be assessed. Can I go now?”
Lute flicks through the first one and immediately pauses, raising an eyebrow. “You want to get rid of 257? She killed 203 demons last month.”
“What? No, not her- I meant to pick up this one!” No, he didn’t, but as Adam sets another folder down in front of her, Lute humors him.
“112? Sir, this morning you said her ass was like the North Star, because men would be wise to follow it.”
“Yeah, but-” Adam pauses to snicker, folding slightly in his seat. “I stand by that.”
Lute gives him a look, and then puts the file back, to which Adam exasperatedly throws up his hands. “How the actual fuck do you expect us to get anywhere if you keep shooting down all of my ideas? You are impossible!”
“We're not getting rid of 112.” Lute replies, shaking her head. She slides over another file - 57. “Here.”
Adam rolls his eyes. He opens it up, and immediately pauses. “25 kills? What was she doing down there, planning a funeral service for each one of them?” He flips through, and sure enough… “Yeah, she's out. You're better at this than you look.”
Lute gloats silently in her chair, as if it wasn’t as simple as remembering that the files are kept in order of who has the most kills, in ascending order. Hence why hers is at the bottom of the pile.
They are actually getting somewhere. Adam is still uncharacteristically fidgety, because he won't touch the water she's given him to dilute the caffeine, but honestly, Lute will take what she can get.
“Fuck.” Adam’s chair pushes back. He gets to his feet while Lute silently curses herself for letting her guard down. “Time out. Now.”
“Sir, we are almost-”
“Lute, I need to piss.” And there’s the other side effect of so much caffeine. Adam doesn’t stop walking as he informs her. He's on a direct speed walk to the door.
“I swear, I am never getting you a coffee again. We have one more file-”
“Lieutenant, I am going to the damned bathroom and you cannot stop me. That's an order.”
Stunned silence. Lute shifts guiltily in her chair as she watches him make his way to the door. He's had to go the whole time, hasn't he? She got him not one but two coffees. She left not a minute to spare in his schedule. She was harsh on him, refusing even a five minute break that at the time she thought was for something trivial, and now realises was to attend to an urgent need.
Lute does not feel guilt easily, but it laps at her chest as she watches him turn the handle.
…And then it turns to a stab of nervousness, because that door is not opening.
“What the fuck?” The angel tugs at the handle. He twists it, tries to turn it the other way, tries to push what has always been and definitely still will be a pull door. “Lute? Why isn’t the door opening?”
Lute gets to her feet and crosses the room without a word. She tugs it, cursing under her breath and then cursing a whole lot louder when the entire handle comes off.
“You did not.” Adam states as he looks at the handle held uncertainly in her hand. He steps back and forth as though he has pins and needles in his feet. By now Lute knows It's not as simple as that. “Put it back.”
She puts it back. She pulls again. The handle is back in her hands instead of the door.
“We’re stuck…”
“You don't say?! Seriously, Lute, I can always count on you for the bright ideas, huh? You're a real fucking genius!”
Lute pulls her phone from her pocket, scrolling. Who can she trust not to laugh or spread around the knowledge of the fact that they have managed to get themselves trapped in the office? The shared office that they cannot simply break down the door to - and Adam is absolutely gearing up to try.
“Sir, don’t.” She warns, ready to be cussed out for it. “Sit back down. I’m calling for help.”
“Can your help teleport?” Adam practically pleads as he shuffles his way back to the desk. He sits back in his chair, perched at the very edge to bounce both of his legs. He sucks in a tense breath, and Lute catches him wincing in time to realise that this is a genuine emergency.
“Don’t you have a trash can in here?” He won’t do it. Adam is oddly picky about peeing outside a toilet after the time he got a stern lecture from Sera for using the bushes one time. Which Lute personally thinks is unfair, given that the whole time he was on earth he had to do the same, but that's a whole other issue.
He must be desperate, because Adam cautiously turns in his chair to survey the room. His gaze lands upon the sad excuse of a trash can - a small wicker basket with so many holes It's practically transparent. Great.
“Damnit, I hate this damn room and its sad excuse for a good design-”
“Sir.” No one is answering her messages, and she's resorted to people who certainly shouldn't be her first choice. That's an issue for later, because getting riled up with a bursting bladder doesn’t sound like a good idea. “Sir, breathe. Getting angry will make it worse, okay? Hang in there.”
“I’m trying.” Adam’s voice cracks a little at the end. “Lute, I gotta pee so badly- I’ve been holding it since the end of the meeting this morning.”
“And you’ll hold it a little longer.” Lute replies, forcing certainty she isn’t sure she believes into her tone. “Calm down, stay in your seat and let me handle it.”
A tense silence follows. She hears Adam calm his breathing, with mixed results. As she paces next to the door and eagerly hopes for a reply, she can hear his breath momentarily hitch, she can hear him frantically squirm in his seat. She can hardly bear it.
“Were you actually tired, or was it just.. This?” She asks, finally giving up on her pacing to sit opposite him at the desk. She begins to tidy the files away again. The recruitment process feels like a forgotten problem by now.
“Yeah,” Adam murmurs, rolling his eyes. “I was up at 3AM to sort some dumb argument between two exorcists. Over stolen makeup of all things- I mean seriously, who cares?! It’s heaven, get another.”
Lute nods, having an idea of who those two were at once, but she doesn’t let her focus deviate. This time she keeps herself focused on the real issue. “Why don’t you take a power nap?”
“Uhh, because I have to p-”
“I know you need the bathroom. But I also know you’re making it worse for yourself by being so tense and ruminating over it. You need to relax. I’ll wake you up the second we get out.”
Adam looks hesitant. He fidgets, looking more nervous than Lute has seen him in months. But he is tired, and uncomfortable, and he's never had much of an issue falling asleep in unusual places. Lute has caught him napping on his feet during a concert before.
So Adam goes to sleep. He slumps in his chair, restlessly shifting and pressing his legs together while Lute refreshes her phone, calls, curses. How can this many people be letting them down?!
The same way she has let him down all morning. In the silence, the more Lute thinks about the situation, the more of an idiot she feels. Adam had given signs right from the beginning. All she had to do was ask what he needed, probe if that's what it took. Instead she was biased by previous issues, she let herself think Adam was being difficult, simply trying to avoid hard work when in reality he was probably working twice as hard. She pushed him too far.
Letting him nap feels like a bad idea. Forcing him to stay awake and suffer feels even worse.
Adam isn’t sure what sort of trance he's in, but he goes from napping in a trapped office to standing in the center of the training room, twenty of the exorcists in front of him. Lute isn’t at his side. Why isn’t Lute there?
The thought has to be shelved - he has bigger problems. One big problem: his bladder. Adam hadn't had to pee this bad in his entire life. Or afterlife, for that matter. Why didn’t he pee when they got out of the office? Why doesn’t he remember getting out of the office?”
“Sir?” Comes the uncertain murmur from exorcist 57. A whiny little bitch. He's going to enjoy casting her down once he doesn’t feel like there's a time bomb in his abdomen. “What are we doing?”
“Assessment laps.” Is that even a thing? Lute usually handles this part. Where is she-
The First Man doubles up, motivated by a sharp jolt of pain through his bladder and down. Fuck- forget Lute, he needs to get out, now. A hand slots its way between his legs to pinch off the flow, bunching up the fabric of his robes. All ten sets of eyes follow him and they know exactly what he needs, exactly how much, but Adam couldn’t care less right now. He's overcome with the urge to get out as quickly as he can, storm his way into the nearest bathroom and-
A trickle of liquid escapes without permission, dampening the fabric of his robes. Adam squeezes his eyes shut, stamps a foot, gives a pathetic little noise of protest, but nothing helps. Vulnerable and humiliated beyond belief, he can only make eye contact with the first exorcist he sees and plead out, “Go find Lute. Now.”
She hasn’t even left the room before he loses the battle. Adam quite literally sinks to his knees, both hands optimistically pressed into his crotch and only getting soaked for their efforts. He gives a string of swears, gasping for breath in reaction to the horrible feeling of his bladder finally getting what it wants. The room is silent other than the hiss of liquid as it spreads obviously around him.
Fuck, he has needed this for so long. He’ll cast every one of these women out and down to hell simply for witnessing it, but for now he is at least getting his relief. Adam gives a long-suffering sigh and simply lets himself pee.
Short term, sending Adam to sleep was a good idea. It alleviates his discomfort, allows Lute the space to think, and gives him the rest she should have allowed the very first time he asked for it.
Long term, Lute realises she has fucked up, big time.
She isn’t sure quite when he goes from shifting in his sleep and giving the occasional strained whimper as though he's having a mere nightmare, to outright pissing his pants. She has just gotten an answer from one of the other exorcists, who by this point have realised their commander will not be coming to the training hall, when she glances over just in time to see Adam's expression go from pained and uncomfortable to blissful and accepting. She sees it coming a second early and jumps to her feet, about to call out to him-
Only to face defeat in the form of liquid pattering onto the carpet beneath his chair. A lot of it.
Well, shit.
Time seems to slow. Lute doesn’t make a sound, frozen in place as she watches the First Man helplessly piss himself. Dread and guilt pools in the pit of her stomach. Adam would be cussing her right now, ordering her to look away and never let him get into this situation again, if he were awake.
Except he is awake. Lute looks at his face just in time to see his eyes snap open and focus directly on her. Her breath catches in her throat.
Adam sits up. He slams a hand between his thighs, squeezing hard, but most of his bladder’s contents are already on the floor beneath him. It's futile.
Neither of them say a word until at least a minute after his stream has sputtered to a stop. It's Adam that breaks the silence, because Lute feels she's done enough damage to his pride to last a lifetime.
“You tell no one about this.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it, sir.”