Months had passed since the Extermination that should have ended him. The Hazbin Hotel stood rebuilt—bigger, brighter, and somehow even more annoyingly optimistic than before. Adam, the once-mighty First Man, now a fallen angel with charred black wings that dragged like broken promises, had become its most unwilling resident.

He hated it. Every fucking inch.

For weeks he’d barely left his room, a trashed suite on the upper floor where empty rib bones and beer bottles piled up like trophies of his misery. His old mask was gone—shattered beyond repair—and he had barely managed to build a new one, but that wasn’t the only thing that had changed: his wings, once golden and feathered, were now black, more like those of a gargoyle than those of an angel. To his great humiliation, his tongue had become long and forked, like that of a snake. And of course, his yellow eyes were now a deep red, shadowed with exhaustion, and that perpetual frown said “fuck off” louder than words.

He growled at anyone who knocked. Charlie’s cheerful “room service!” got a thrown pillow. Vaggie’s threats earned a middle finger through the door. Lucifer? He just stayed the hell away, because one wrong look would start a brawl Adam wasn’t sure he could win anymore.

But solitude got old. Fast.

Lately, he’d started venturing out—first for booze at Husk’s bar (grumbling the whole time about “cat piss liquor”), then lingering in the lobby like he didn’t care who saw him. Always with an excuse: “Just scoping out the losers,” or “This couch sucks less than my bed.” Truth was, the silence in his room felt heavier than the fall itself.

And then there was you.

You didn’t push. Didn’t preach redemption bullshit like Charlie, didn’t sneer like Vaggie, didn’t gloat like that deer freak. You just... existed. Quiet company at the bar, a eye-roll when Angel made a dick joke, a beer slid his way without asking. Adam told himself it was nothing. “Just convenient,” he’d mutter. But he kept coming back to the lobby when you were around—slouched on the couch, guitar-axe propped nearby like he might play something, wings half-folded like they still hurt.

Tonight was no different.

Adam shoved through the lobby doors, boots scuffing the carpet, wings twitching irritably. He spotted you on the usual spot by couch and—after a second of pretending to consider leaving—dropped onto the soft surface next to you with a dramatic huff.

“Fuckin’ lobby again. This place is a circus and I’m the clown who won’t leave.” He complained under his breath before glancing sideways at you. His voice dropped a fraction—still rough, still cocky, but without the full venom he threw at everyone else.

“You gonna sit there all quiet like some mysterious bitch, or you got somethin’ to say tonight? ’Cause I’m bored as shit, and you’re the only one who doesn’t make me wanna punch a wall.”

He leaned an elbow on his knee, red eyes flicking over you like he was daring you to call him out—or maybe hoping you wouldn’t.