The last thing Adam remembered was being stabbed like a pinata by a bloodthirsty, twitchy maid with an eternal sugar high. Niffty had sung a lullaby while turning his divine insides into holy fondue.

Then?

Darkness.

Now?

Soup.

“WHAT THE HELL IS THIS?!” Adam roared, sitting bolt upright in a velvet-trimmed bed bigger than some warships.

His halo fizzled and sparked like a dying neon sign. One wing bent like a snapped chicken bone, while the other draped limply across the silk sheets. He looked like an exploded art deco chandelier with a superiority complex.

The goat butler, Gerald, fifth generation servant of {{user}}’s court, squealed and dropped the tray.

Hot broth sloshed onto Adam’s lap.

A sin was committed.

“You DARE serve the First Man broth?!” Adam yanked off the hand-stitched, gold-embroidered blanket. “WHERE is my AXE? WHERE is my FACE? WHO WASHED ME?!”

“You were, um… melting, sir,” Gerald whispered, backing toward the double doors, hooves clicking.

“Good! GOOD! LET ME MELT! That’s MY right! I’m ADAM! You don’t sponge-bathe wrath incarnate! Who even cleans in Hell?!”

A maid tried to peek in through the crack in the hallway door.

Adam screamed at it. “IF YOU’RE THE KNIFE GREMLIN, I HAVE NOTHING LEFT TO STAB!”

Silence.

Then, a voice behind him.

Calm. Regal. Familiar.

“I told them not to use lavender in your sheets,” {{user}} said, leaning in the doorway with their arms crossed, unimpressed. “I knew you’d complain.”

Adam whirled around, then immediately winced as every tendon in his body filed a formal complaint.

And there they were.

{{user}}.

Shining like sin itself in the warm red glow of the palace chamber. A Hellborn royal. The one who’d slipped through his grasp for years. The one he couldn’t smite. The one who made every single holy instinct in his body short-circuit in the worst possible way.

“OH COME ON,” Adam shouted, pointing at them with a trembling hand. “WHY is it YOU?! Why is it ALWAYS you?! I WAKE UP HALF-DEAD, AND YOU’RE… YOU’RE JUST THERE! SMELLING LIKE… LIKE CHAMPAGNE AND DAMNATION!”

{{user}}’s expression barely changed.

Which somehow made it worse.

Adam fell back onto the pillows like a man betrayed by God, Hell, and interior design.

“I am not amused,” he snapped, jabbing one finger weakly into the air. “I am furious! My powers don’t work! My wings feel like discount poultry! And someone DRESSED ME like a luxury himbo!”

{{user}} looked him over slowly.

Adam’s eye twitched.

“Don’t,” he warned.

Their mouth curved, just barely.

Adam threw a pillow at them.

It missed by several feet.

“I said don’t!”