Chapter Text
Lute sat at her desk like a general preparing for war—except instead of battle plans, she had a pristine roll of red-and-gold parchment unfurled in front of her. At the top, in her razor-sharp handwriting: “CHRISTMAS MORALE OPERATION — INDIVIDUAL GIFT LOG.”
Under that… four hundred blank lines. She exhaled once, steeling herself. “Simple,” she muttered. “Four hundred tailored tokens of appreciation. A perfectly manageable task.” She dipped her quill and began writing names—every exorcist (and their nickname that Adam had...graciously bestowed upon them) under her command, catalogued with the same quiet precision she’d use for an armory inventory. But as she wrote, she also added tiny coded notations beside each entry:
-"Hora" Eliora: “Talks too much about earthly birds. Likes the blue ones.”
-"Roxy" Raphaela: “Collects sharp objects. Avoid giving more sharp objects.”
-"Gigi" Gabrielle: “Claims not to care for festivities. Caught staring at snowglobes.”
-"Anna " Hosanna: “Fond of subpar earth candy. Will accept any sugar in any form.”
-"Dixie" Asenath: “Frequently hums off-tune. Possible interest in music.”
-"Sheba" Jehosheba: “Keeps borrowing weapon polishing cloths. Maybe… a cloth?”
She paused on that one, frowned, and added: “A nice cloth.”
Of course, she had not gotten this information by asking outright. Lute asking direct questions about personal interests would’ve sent the entire barracks into a panic. Instead, she had… systems. Observation Protocols. For the last week, she’d been drifting silently through the hallways like a Christmas-themed wraith, materializing behind exorcists mid-conversation, collecting intel.She wasn’t following anyone, of course. She was simply… optimizing the intelligence-gathering process. By the end of the day, her list was full—names, notes, tiny arrows pointing to other names because “These two will pretend they don’t care about each other but absolutely want matching gifts” and “This one needs more rest, get something calming.” Lute rolled up the parchment with crisp satisfaction and stood. “Phase Two,” she declared to the empty room.
A beat.
“…Acquire trinkets.”
A soft tap at the door went ignored. Then: “Lute.” Her head snapped up. There stood Adam, arms crossed, eyebrow raised, looking exactly like someone who had just walked into a crime scene… or possibly a magic-fueled Christmas cult. Lute snapped up to attention.
“What the fuck are you doing?” he demanded. Lute straightened with a gasp that could have been mistaken for offense. “I am… executing a morale enrichment initiative.” Adam’s brow furrowed. He took the freshly rolled up parchment and let it unfurl to the ground. He squinted, eyes scanning across the page as he took a sip of his soda. “That’s… what? You’ve got four hundred names here, little arrows, notes, cryptic shit next to them… and you’re making lists of what gifts they like?”
“I am cataloguing all exorcists under my command in order to acquire—” she stabbed her quill at the parchment like a general pointing at a battle map, “—meticulously curated tokens of festive appreciation! It is highly important to morale!” Adam stared at her. One, two, three, four seconds passed. He tilted his head. “…You… are making Christmas presents. For everyone. By yourself. Four hundred people.”
“Yes!” Lute’s voice had edged into triumphant. “And I will complete it with—” she waved dramatically at the nearly-full parchment, “—precision and efficiency!” Adam rubbed his face. “…Why am I not surprised.” Lute’s wings twitched. “…You think it’s excessive?” Adam paused. “Do you ever just...Chill and enjoy things?” She narrowed her eyes. “Enjoyment is subjective, Sir.” He snorted. “Yeah, yeah, but seriously—do you want help… or are you going to give everyone in the army individually wrapped snowglobes while I just… stand here and watch like an asshole?” Lute considered this, then shook her head. “No. This must be my operation. It is delicate. It requires… finesse.” Adam groaned but leaned against the doorframe anyway, because he knew there was no talking her out of it. “…You’re gonna kill yourself over Christmas, aren’t you?”
“I prefer the term ‘dedicating myself to perfection.’” He just stared at her, muttering under his breath. “Dedication, obsession… same thing to you, Danger Tits.”
Later that evening, Lute glided down the marble corridors of Heaven’s central market, her wings tucked just enough to not knock over a display of golden fruit. In her hands, the parchment listing all four hundred exorcists shimmered faintly under the celestial light, quill poised like a weapon. Every step was deliberate, methodical, each name cross-checked against potential gifts. Adam followed behind, hands casually tucked in his robe's pockets, eyes scanning the bustling stalls. “You really are doing this,” he muttered, almost to himself. “I am ensuring morale,” Lute said, not looking up. “Every gift must be tailored to the recipient’s personality, habits, and… tendencies. There is no room for error.” Adam smirked. “…You say that like anyone else could possibly understand what you’re doing anyway.”
“And that,” Lute said sharply, “is why it is my responsibility.” The first stall they approached was overflowing with trinkets that sparkled with holy light—tiny charms, delicate figurines, tiny boxes of angelic confectionery. Lute’s eyes lit up as she scanned the options.
Eliora’s favorite, she noted, was a little silver bird charm. Raphaela, who had a dangerous obsession with sharp things, got a tiny dagger-shaped ornament, dull but intricately engraved. Gabrielle, who had once stared at a snowglobe for hours, was promised a miniature crystalline globe swirling with harmless starlight.
Adam watched, quietly impressed. “You actually remember all of this,” he said, leaning closer. “You’ve been keeping notes this whole time?”
“I have systems,” Lute corrected, then added in a lower, slightly shy voice, “…and observational diligence.” Adam chuckled softly, keeping his voice low so she wouldn’t hear him muttering about her absolute dedication. He followed her from stall to stall, half-entertained, half-intrigued by the meticulous way she weighed every choice: the tilt of a wing here, the pattern of a robe there. She stopped suddenly, staring at a display of soft, glowing cloths. “Hadria,” she murmured, jotting a note. “Fond of sugar, yes, but also tactile comfort. This will suffice.” Adam raised an eyebrow. "Tactile comfort? Why would that matter?” Lute didn’t even pause. “Everything matters. A gift given without thought is… ineffective.”
He smiled, letting her move ahead. He could have left, could have shrugged it off—but he didn’t. He wanted to watch her in her element: hyper-focused, impossibly serious, quietly joyful in a way that only he could see. After all, he created her. By the time they left the first market, Adam carried a small handful of “test” gifts Lute had insisted he help check for quality, and he felt… well, he wasn’t going to admit it aloud, but watching her like this? Somehow, it was… kind of endearing.
And he wasn’t planning on letting her do this alone—not if he could sneak along and see the way her eyes flickered at every little detail, like the universe itself depended on her getting this perfectly right. He didn't quite understand how she could go from backhanding his bitches the other 364 days of the year to suddenly caring this much.
The sun had begun to set just as Lute returned to the barracks, hundreds of enchanted shopping bags drifting behind her, with Adam in tow. As the rest of the exterminators went to eat dinner, the pair made their way to Adam's office in secrecy. It was quieter than usual. The low hum of celestial energy in the room did nothing to compete with the precise rhythm of Lute’s movements. One by one, she set down the tiny trinkets she had collected across Heaven’s markets, lining them up with surgical precision on the spotless floor in front of his polished desk. Each gift had a small tag with a name—carefully, obsessively written in her messy handwriting—and a tiny notation for placement: left corner, angled slightly; right corner, centered; one nestled against the crystal desk leg.
Adam watched from behind his desk, elbows resting on the polished surface, chin cupped in one hand. He didn’t doodle, didn’t poke at papers, didn’t interrupt—he just observed. The way her brow furrowed when she realized a bauble was off-center, the faint twitch of her wings when she exhaled in concentration… he couldn’t help but smirk.
“Four hundred,” he commented. “You actually did it, you crazy bitch.”
She didn’t look up. “Accuracy and organization are imperative. Even a single misplacement could—” she paused, quill hovering briefly over a tag, “…lead to interpersonal discord among the ranks. That is… unacceptable.” He leaned back, crossing his arms. “…Or maybe everyone will just be happy you remembered them at all.” She paused, eyes flicking briefly to him, then returned to her task. “Happiness must be engineered with precision. Sentiment alone is insufficient.”
Adam chuckled, "It's all shiny, you bitches love shiny things." She arranged another set of tiny charms, straightening them with a practiced flick of her fingers. “…Shiny is helpful, makes things easy to locate.” He watched her settle the last of the trinkets in neat rows, the entirety of the floor in front of his desk now a miniature battlefield of perfectly curated gifts. Every placement, perfectly orchestrated.
The tiny trinkets sat in immaculate rows across Adam’s desk, each one tagged and categorized…but to Lute, they weren’t done. Not yet. “Phase Three,” she murmured to herself, wings twitching with purpose. “Uniform packaging.” Of course, every gift needed to be in the exact same little box—identical dimensions, identical ribbon, identical shine. Anything else would throw off the equilibrium of the entire operation. Unfortunately, Lute’s idea of “identical” required precision that even Heaven’s standard-issue wrapping boxes didn’t meet. After snapping the lid on a prototype box and frowning at the half- millimeter variance, she decided reinforcements were necessary.
She stared down at her list, sighed deeply, and said with the weariness of a commander calling upon her last reserve of sanity,
“…I require...Assistance." She paused, as if reconsidering her options.
“Emily,” Lute called, voice crisp. Like a spark igniting in midair, Emily shimmered into existence beside her, floating slightly off the ground with that ever-present bubbly energy. “Ooooh! Project? What are we making? Something dangerous? Something sparkly? Both?”
“Uniform gift containment,” Lute said, holding up a box like it was evidence. “I require magical replication of structural folds, exact to a tenth of a millimeter.” Emily gasped excitedly. “Oh! Folding party!”
Adam pinched the bridge of his nose. Emily summoned a delicate halo-ring of light above her fingers, the magic spinning like a miniature galaxy. “Okay! Show me the fold pattern!” Lute placed her blueprint in front of her. “This must be replicated exactly. No variations. No improvisation.” Emily blinked. “…Not even a tiny flourish?”
Lute stared at her. “…No.”
Emily sighed, but her magic circle shifted, glowing brighter. “Alright! Perfect folds only. Let’s go!”
She raised her hands, and the white boxes lifted into the air in a slow, swirling orbit. Wrapping paper—pure white with a faint iridescence—spooled itself around them like ribbon around a maypole. With each rotation, Emily’s magic guided the folds: crisp, sharp, flawless. Every crease matched Lute’s diagram down to the microscopic details. Ribbons tied themselves in identical bows, each knot centered with impossible precision. Lute examined the first finished box. Her eyes widened just slightly.
“This is… acceptable.”
Emily beamed. “Perfect!”
“Within tolerances.”
Adam snorted. Emily snapped her fingers, and the entire room filled with spiraling boxes, hundreds of them, each settling into neat stacks that aligned with celestial-level symmetry. Lute let out a tiny exhale of pure satisfaction—barely audible, but Adam heard it. Of course he did. Emily clapped her hands. “All done! Anything else? Do you want them scented? Sparkly? Do you want—”
“No thank you,” Lute interrupted immediately. “Uniformity only.” Emily gave her a little salute. “You got it!” Lute stepped back to survey the field of identical, gleaming gift boxes.
Phase Three: Complete. Adam leaned back in his chair, watching her with that quiet, fond smirk again. “You’re terrifying,” he said. Lute didn’t look at him, but her wings flicked once—very pleased.