53 Beef
Lily
The day after Bel woke up, Sharkie walked into the room with her hood pushed back, messy blond hair sticking up in all directions, and stopped at the edge of Bel’s bed, folding her arms.
Lucifer trailed her, weary but bemused. Greg glanced up from where he’d settled with his laptop by the window after returning from Asmodeus’s house. He hadn’t said anything, just shaken his head with exasperation. Bel had nodded knowingly.
Lily leaned beside the door, while Sharkie squinted at Bel as he sat up.
“Did you do what you said?” Sharkie asked.
“I did.” Bel’s voice sounded slightly less fractured than it had.
“Are you missing any parts?”
The beat before Bel responded made Lily’s heart ache.
“Nope.”
“Not anymore,” Greg muttered.
Bel’s head cranked around to stare at him. “The fuck do you mean not anymore ? Oops, sorry, Sharkie.”
Sharkie shrugged lightly. “It seems like a swearing situation to me.”
“They had to regrow half of your ear,” Greg said too neutrally, staring at his laptop.
Lily stiffened. She must have missed that part of the conversation with the healers. Bruised tail, she remembered. Missing chunk of his ear? Not so much.
“Oh.” Bel relaxed, then tensed again, hands flying up to the points of his ears. “Wait, which one? Not the right one!”
“It was the right one,” Greg said.
“Fuck.”
“Was that your favorite ear?” Sharkie asked, cocking her head.
“It was the one with a tattoo on it,” Bel groused, fingers tracing the newly formed ear. “And if they had to regrow it, that means the tattoo is gone.”
“Fuck.” Lily winced in sympathy. When she’d been alive, she’d had an irrational fear of losing one of her limbs. Not because of the loss of the limb, but because of the tattoos that would go with it. The limb was free. The tattoos? She’d paid for those. Bel hadn’t paid for his, but the principle of the thing was the same.
“Right?” Bel sighed, catching her gaze with his silver one.
It hit her again how much she loved him. Even when he was exasperated and verging on cranky, she’d never get tired of seeing those eyes.
He focused back on Sharkie, tone gentling and hand dropping down to rest on the sheets. “I’m okay, Sharkie. I did my best, I’m home now, and…” He glanced up at Lucifer before continuing. “It’s over. The war is over. We’re safe.”
He said it all with a smile, but Lily saw the effort it took.
“Are you gonna stop being a general?” Sharkie asked, arms dropping to her sides.
“Nah, kiddo, I like swinging swords around too much.”
“Then we’ll always be safe,” Sharkie said decisively, crawling onto the bed and wrapping her arms as far around him as she could.
Bel blinked rapidly with suspiciously shiny eyes. The arm he wrapped around her made her look tiny, but every movement was infinitely gentle.
“It’s a good thing you kept your promise,” Sharkie told him, “or else you would’ve gotten smitten by the pinkie promise gods. I’m not sure who they are, but I’m sure they take their job seriously.”
Lily smiled. “I think you mean ‘smote,’ Sharkie.”
Sharkie made a noncommittal noise and hugged Bel a little tighter. He pressed a kiss into her messy hair, combing through it delicately with his claws. Lily caught Greg staring at Bel and Sharkie with little smile before he shut it down and returned his stoic focus to his laptop.
Lucifer clasped Lily’s shoulder as he headed out the door, heat searing through the thin fabric of her shirt.
She covered it with her own, pausing him. “Thank you,” she whispered.
He inclined his head, the shadows under his eyes not as pronounced as they’d been in his office. The time he spent with Sharkie always did him good. He’d seemed less aloof and lonely since she had arrived to the Afterlife.
She released his hand, and he made it all of one step before Sharkie cried, “Wait!”
Every eye turned to her.
She sat up and turned to Bel. “I was gonna ask you, like I asked Mom,” Sharkie started, and both Bel and Lucifer’s eyebrows hit their hairlines at the title, “but then you almost died apparently, and I was worried about you, so now I’m just going to call you Dad without asking, because you are.” She turned to Lucifer and beamed. “And you’re Papa. Because calling you both Dad would be confusing.” Her gaze darted to Lily’s with a flash of concern. “That’s okay, right? That I didn’t ask first?”
Lily grinned, taking in Bel’s and Luci’s glistening eyes and matching awestruck expressions. She patted Luci’s shoulder. “I think they’re honored. Aren’t you, guys?”
They launched into hurried—and choked—profusions of pride and love, both rushing to reassure her how honored they were to be called Dad and Papa.
“You can call me anything you like, Sharkie, just as long as you don’t call me late to dinner,” Bel said with wet eyes and a brighter grin than Lily’d seen on him since he’d woken up.
Ah, the dad jokes were going to be next-level now.
Luci wiped at his eyes and strode over to the bed, reaching down to scoop Sharkie into a hug.
Worried that he was feeling left out, Lily checked on Greg just in time to watch Max jump onto the arm of his chair and saunter across his keyboard before lying down on top of his hands. Greg stared sternly at him then looked to Lily for guidance.
She shrugged, mouthing, “ Cats ” as an explanation.
The front door closed with a thud, and voices echoed up the stairs, along with footsteps. Luci ruffled Sharkie’s hair and walked out without another word, just a nod of acknowledgment as he passed Lily, a new light gleaming in his eyes.
A few moments later, Lilith arrived with a baby in her arms and a pair of healers in tow. Anyaet squirmed, twisting around in an effort to see everything and fussing with frustration when she couldn’t. Lilith shifted her with the effortless ease of a well-seasoned mother, turning her to face the front. The second Anyaet’s eyes landed on Bel, she squealed happily.
“BEEF!”
“Beef?” everyone except Lilith and the healers asked in unison.
Anyaet reached for Bel, a big gummy grin, complete with two new teeth, lighting up her chubby little face. “Beef, Beef, Beef!”
“It’s as close as I could get her to ‘Beleth.’ If it makes you feel any better, she calls Melchom ‘Mum-Mum.’” Lilith handed Anyaet to him and kissed his forehead, ignoring Bel’s confusion. “How are you feeling, sweetheart?”
“She’s talking already? And I’m fine. Why did you go with Beleth? Bel is so much easier for the little ones to say.”
“I wanted her to know her siblings’ proper names. I had a picture of you laminated so she could carry it around and not forget you, so you’ve been Beef for a while now.”
“Beef!” Anyaet agreed, reaching for the little spikes on Bel’s chin. He caught her little hands before they could make contact and wiggled her fists, making her laugh.
“Bel,” he told her. “Bel.”
“Beef,” Anyaet said happily.
Greg snickered.
“I’m not the one being held captive by a cat,” Bel shot over his shoulder. “Anya, say ‘Bel,’ it’s easier.”
“Beeeeeeefff,” Anyaet cooed.
Bel resigned himself to his beefiness, exchanging a conspiratorial glance with Sharkie. “Anya, how about Sharkie? Say ‘shar-kee.’”
“Sha-we!” Anyaet said, eyes bright.
Bel exchanged a look with Sharkie, who nodded. “I’ll accept it.”
“Beef,” Bel muttered darkly, then looked between his mother and the healers. “Please tell me I can get up sooner than you originally estimated.”
“Not a chance,” Lilith informed him, leveling him with a look that had even Lily feeling chastised.
“Given the severity of your injuries when you were brought in, sir, we feel that even with an additional healing session, you should remain in bed for at least another four to five days,” the male healer said.
“Four to five—” Bel burst out.
“Beleth,” Lilith said sternly.
“Beef,” Anyaet mimicked her mother’s tone.
Lily coughed and found a spot on the floor that was tremendously interesting all of the sudden. Do not laugh. Do not laugh.
Lilith shook her head. “You sound like Asmodeus, who is also arguing with perfectly reasonable advice . It’s like you’re racing each other to see who can get out of bed the fastest.”
“Dad,” Sharkie said confidently. Then seemed to consider it. “I mean, probably.”
The healer cleared his throat. “You need time to recover, not only from your injuries, but from the toll that being healed has had on your body. As long as you cooperate, after bed rest for another four days, you can start easing back in to your usual activities. We’ll trust you to know the limits of your own body at that point.”
Lily looked up from the floor, knowing how hard that would be for Bel to take. Asking him to lay low, especially at a time like this, was like asking a bear to relax in a cat carrier. During berry and salmon season.
Lounging in bed for hours was not his thing.
Shit, they barely even had sex in beds. When the mood struck, they were seldom patient enough to find a mattress. Any horizontal surface would do. Or vertical, really. She rubbed at her cheek, hoping it wasn’t too red.
“When can I get my ear re-inked?”
“As soon as you are off bed rest,” the female healer said.
“What am I allowed to do on bed rest?” Bel asked, catching Lily’s eye with a gleam she knew all too well.
She ignored the swoop of heat and arched an eyebrow at him, shooting a pointed glance at Sharkie and his mother .
“You can move under your own power to the bathroom, you can shower, you can spend time on the couch, do things that you normally do when you’re relaxing. Nothing physically strenuous, of course.”
“Uh huh.”
“Not that,” Lilith said smoothly. Knowingly. She fixed Lily with a look.
Lily shrugged, aiming a smug grin at a glowering Bel. “I already told him I have standards he’s not medically cleared to meet.”
This is payback for edging me for two days that one time.
Out of the corner of her eye, Greg twitched and whipped his head to the window, but not fast enough to hide the entirety of his shit-eating grin.
“But medically able to,” Bel put in.
“No.”
“Yes.”
“I think not.”
“I think—”
“BEEF!”
“Thank you for your contribution, Anyaet. Clever girl,” Lily said cheerfully. Anyaet cooed at her in delight. Bel scowled.
“So…are you not allowed to play Invaders because it stresses you out, or what?” Sharkie asked.
A wheezing sound came from Greg’s direction.
“Something like that,” Bel said mutinously.
* * *
The next day, Bel lay on his stomach while Lily read Pride and Prejudice aloud, his wing stretched over her legs like a leathery heated blanket, tail curled firmly around her calf. He traced lazy patterns over her bare thigh with his fingertips, listening with his eyes closed. Greg had gone back to work, and Sharkie had declined their offer to stay home from school; there was a guest speaker that she was incredibly excited about.
Lily treasured all her moments with Bel, but she found herself oddly fond of the quiet ones, in particular. Moments where they both got to just be .
So far, he was the picture of cooperation. The combination of his desire to get the fuck out of bed and his desire to beat Asmodeus to the finish line of health had quashed most of his rebellion.
Most.
Lily poked him in the shoulder and called him “Beef” every time his fingers crept under the hem of her shorts and grazed the edge of her underwear. His hand would scoot right back down to the relatively safer skin of her middle thigh.
Her phone buzzed on the nightstand, and she leaned over to retrieve it, tapping the screen.
“Hey, Sariah, Bel’s here. You’re on speakerphone. How’s it going over there?”
“He’s feeling well enough to be ornery, so I’m oddly thankful for that. How are you doing, Bel?”
“I can’t believe I’m saying this when I have Lily in it with me, but I want out of this fucking bed.”
“Does it run in the family, do you think? Or is this just a warrior thing— Get back in bed! ” Sariah snapped.
Asmodeus’s voice rose from the background. “What are you doing on the phone? You should be focused on labor right now!”
“Are you in labor?” Lily and Bel blurted in unison, exchanging wide-eyed glances. Bel rolled to the side and sat up, hunching over Lily and the phone as if he could peer through it. Lily shivered at the loss of her “blanket” and leaned against his chest.
“No, I’m not in labor— ASMODEUS! Get. The Fuck. Back. In. Bed. Or you will never see me naked again.”
Asmodeus grumbled something incoherent and there was a muffled whump of a body landing on a mattress.
“Thank you. Anyway, no, I’m not in labor. I’m one day past my due date, which happens during pregnancies all the time, and somebody is using it as an excuse to ignore the advice of medical professionals.”
“To be fair, Sariah, of the excuses he’s come up with in the past, it’s not bad,” Bel rumbled.
“This is true.”
“Sariah,” Asmodeus said earnestly in the background, “Bel’s fine. You know who isn’t fine? Our child. All squished up in there. I heard that certain things can kickstart labor, and listen, baby, I’m already in bed—”
“Asmodeus.”
“For the good of our child—”
“Asmodeus!”
“Can you at least take off your bathrobe?” His tone was cajoling. “You’re so beautiful…”
Bel buried his face in Lily’s shoulder to muffle his laughter, his whole body shaking.
“Stop, I’m gonna lose it,” Lily breathed, covering the beginnings of her giggles with a hand.
“When our child is born, do you know what the first thing I’m going to tell them is?” Sariah said sweetly. “That we love them. The second thing is going to be an explanation of why their father is chained to the bed .”
“Aw, baby, they won’t need to know the details of their conception—”
Lily dropped the phone in her lap and muffled her laughter with both hands. Bel wiped at his eyes—
Then he snorted.
Lily doubled over, half flopped across Bel’s legs, laughing so hard her stomach ached. Bel’s deep laugh rolled through the room like thunder, a glorious counterpart to her higher tone, right up until Lily choked on her own spit trying to breathe and set them off again.
Dimly, Asmodeus and Sariah continued their bickering, Sariah laughing at them. Bel lay against the headboard and pulled Lily back against his chest, trying to stem the hysterics. She leaned her head against his shoulder, trying to take deep, shuddering breaths, feeling lighter than she had in days.
“Where’s the…” Bel tried, and his deep giggle nearly set her off again. “Where’s the phone?”
Lily patted around the blankets until she came up with it, leaning back against him and holding the phone up for both of them to hear.
“…how much do they really know anyway?” Asmodeus said.
“You don’t trust them to give you medical advice, but you trust them to birth our child?”
“Okay, yeah, I see your point, but that’s different—”
“Azzy,” Bel said, only laughing a little.
“Hey, Bel, good to hear you, man. Hey, have you apologized to Lily for the fact your voice goes deeper than your—”
“I will chain you to the bed and birth this child on the street.”
“Never mind!” Asmodeus said with too much enthusiasm. “Totally kidding, Lily, he’s the deepest guy around. Go, Beef.”
“We’re hanging up,” Bel grumbled, reaching for the phone.
“Wait!” Lily said, holding it out of reach. “Asmodeus?”
“Yes, O Lady of the Hellp Desk?”
“Did they give him medication but not me?” Bel muttered.
“Just so you know,” Lily said with a smirk, “Bel’s going to get cleared to go back to normal before you. Because he’s been behaving.”
There was silence on the other end of the line.
Then an indignant: “I think the absolute fuck not.”
Bel leaned over, taking the phone from her. “It’s true. I’ve entered my era of cooperation, and I’m going to kick your ass. I’ll visit you.”