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He doesn’t want to be here, exactly. It’s just… Pierce has been dead for nearly a week, and mostly things had gone back to normal. They had a new interim-chief, Ella was more or less back to her bubbly self, and Chloe has been burying herself in work.
There was, though, a notable absence of LA’s resident Devil. As in, the literal Devil. Security feed of the building everything had gone down in aside… evidence really had been piling up, leaving no room for argument.
He’d be ashamed in his lack of detecting skills considering the fact that he’s a freaking Detective, but well. He takes a ridiculous amount of satisfaction in the fact that Chloe hadn’t believed her partner either, and those two had been working as a team for quite a while.
But yeah. Back to normal, all around – aside from Lucifer who’s been hiding out in his penthouse. He didn’t care about the man’s excuses either. Paperwork, running a successful nightclub and some other business ventures… sure, because that sounded plausible.
The idiot had nearly vibrated out of his skin (or what passed for skin on this burned out proof of parental cruelty) in visible nervousness the last time he’d seen him.
Not that he could blame him, what with Chloe sitting on the floor, surrounded by dead and unconscious people and a lot of shredded, bloodied feathers.
The high-pitched stay the fuck away from me when Lucifer had tried to get closer to her probably hadn’t helped matters much, either.
So the consultant had decided on a strategic retreat and hadn’t been seen since.
To be fair, Dan would’ve probably done the same in his shoes. It had been a pretty cruel sight. In the end though, he really had no idea what the huge fuzz was all about. So okay, the guy really is the Devil. It’s not as if he hadn’t been telling that to anyone who would – and wouldn’t – listen. And what was it about people pinning every bad thing to one entity anyway?
Dan knew evil – evil where the men and women making fortunes by selling children on the black market. Evil where the cooks, lacing their already illegal substances with rat poison to make more money with less actual product.
The weird man-child who never could figure out how to act appropriate in any given situation and the instinctive knowledge that he would be kicked to the curb? Yeah, not the definition of evil, not in any sense of the word.
So he’s been trying to get Chloe to get Lucifer to come back (and even in his own mind that sentence made his head spin). But for the first time since he’d met her she couldn’t seem to get over herself and do what was the right thing.
And now, instead of his ex-wife, here he was, trying to get Satan Himself to come out of hiding.
Shaking his head, he makes his way through the empty club (sure, closed during usual business hours – the way to keep the place as popular as always…) and to the elevator. He enters the car, presses the button for the penthouse and is greeted with a cheery voice, asking him to tab in the right number combination. Well, that’s a first.
Still. He’s known the guy for a while now and makes an educated guess aaaaand…yup. He’s just going to assume if Lucifer really wanted to be alone, he’d have picked another combination because Chloe’s birthdate? Most obvious choice – aside from a tongue-in-cheek 666 – he could’ve come up with.
The doors finally close and the car starts to make its upwards journey. When it dings its arrival and spits him out directly into Old Scratch’s lair it’s… not exactly what he expected, really.
He’d thought the place might’ve been smashed to smithereens. Or maybe a massive orgy. So the reality really threw him.
The wall-of-whiskey looked untouched. No broken glasses or splintered furniture anywhere. When he walked past the piano he found – to his eternal shock – that there was a thing layer of dust settled on it. He promptly, and carefully, closed the lid over the keys. There where battered, bloodied and bent-out-of-shape feathers in a neat trail from the elevator to the bedroom. He could see them very well considering the fucking things glowed in the dark. And it was dark in here. Heavy black-out drapes covered any windows he could see from where he stood, and the only other light came from behind the bar.
He found Lucifer where he more or less expected to find him: in his bed. Only there weren’t any Brittany’s and/or their male counterparts writhing and moaning in there with him.
He seemed to be asleep, lying on his stomach, dressed only in his slacks. No shoes or socks on him either, and it seemed weirdly intimate to see him barefoot. More so than entire nakedness, for some reason.
Also, wings. He thinks they should send him to his knees in prayer, but instead they make him wince in sympathy.
They’re still crusted with long-dried blood, bedraggled and in serious need of something. He doesn’t know what, exactly. He’s never been interested in bird maintenance, and he has even less knowledge of how to care for Angel Wings, for obvious reasons.
Then there’s a rustle from the bed, and a scratchy, long-unused voice.
“Go away. I am not in the mood to entertain.” And for the first time since he’s known Lucifer, he sounds like he might have been alive for millennia already.
“And I’m not looking for entertainment.” A moment’s pause, another rustle and there, a pair of hazy, old eyes, trained right on him.
“Daniel.” And that’s it. He’s not asking a question, nor is he volunteering any of his usual quips. It worries him more than he wants to admit.
“Dude. You’re a mess. What did you do – crash land in the back alley, drag yourself up here and fall into bed?”
It’s meant as a joke, but the expression on the other man’s face changes just enough to tell him yeah, that’s pretty much exactly what happened. He sighs in defeat, kicks off his own shoes – fair is fair – and gets close enough to touch a wing. When he doesn’t get yelled at, he grabs a bare upper arm and drags.
“Come on, man. Get up. You reek to high heaven – probably literally. Sweat and old blood are not a good choice of cologne.”
Lucifer blinks at him as if he’d grown a second head but lets himself be pulled into a sitting position. He stumbles to his feet when Dan pulls again and then just stands there, looking for all the world as if he’d forgotten how to move on his own. Maybe he had? Who ever knew with him, anyway. Resigned to his fate, he drags him along on his way to the bathroom. He’s never been in here before, but he is instantly glad to see that Lucifer seems to enjoy his creature comforts in every aspect of his life.
The sunken bathtub will easily be big enough to hold the Devil and his wings. He lets go of the hand and watches it fall back to hang straight down. There seems to be no motivation to do anything, be it protest, leave or help, so he turns and starts to run a bath; he finds the linen closet and gets out as many towels as he can find, searches – and actually finds, to his eternal wonder – some clean underwear, lounge pants and a comfortable looking t-shirt, and returns to the bathroom to find Lucifer still in the same spot he left him in.
“Alright. So either you undress yourself and get your ass in there, or I’m going to help. I know which I would prefer, but you’re going to wash up either way.”
He’s trying to imitate his Grandma’s or else voice, but from Lucifer’s reaction – zilch – he’s failing. He sighs again and has a feeling he’s going to be doing that a whole lot more before the day is over, and proceeds to open the button and zipper on another man’s trousers. First time for everything.
The material is stiff with… whatever. It doesn’t bear to think on it; either way, gravity thankfully does the job for him and just like that he’s seeing his ex-wife’s partner naked. Again.
It takes little work (too little, really) to get him into the tub and to sit down. He still hasn’t spoken another word, but at least he’s not picking a fight. What worries him is that there aren’t even any scathing remarks about Dan acting like a mother hen, or something along those lines.
In the end, he tells Lucifer to wash himself - and then he flees the bathroom when the Devil actually does what he tells him to.
He stands in the middle of the bedroom for a moment, unsure about what to do next. Then he notices the rumpled sheets on the bed, which gives him something to do at least.
He makes short work of the sheets and simply strips the bed bare, then goes back to the linen closet and gets a fresh set of everything.
He does not shriek like a frightened two-year-old when he turns around and ends up face-to-chest with the owner of the bed.
Correction. Face-to-wet -and-glistening-chest. Also, naked safe for a towel – he’d obviously decided to ignore the clothes that Dan had so helpfully laid out for him. He swallows. Well. At least the wings are hidden away again. Lucifer raises one eyebrow and tries to give one of his usual come-hither smirks. It falls flat.
“Hey. Uhm… okay. That’s better already, isn’t it? I mean, it couldn’t have been comfortable with all the dried blood and…stuff, right?”
Stop rambling, you idiot!
“What are you doing here, Daniel? Walking into the Devil’s Lair? I’d have thought you have more brains than that, at least.”
It takes everything he’s got not to snap at the man, but he manages it. He knows fake when he sees it – he’s been fake ever since Charlotte got killed. Fake-angry, fake-alright, when in reality all he’d wanted to do was curl up in his bed and… oh. So that’s what’s happening here? Lucifer is grieving? The question would just be… grieving what, exactly?
“Dude that’s not… look. I know Chloe said some things, and Ella freaked a bit, but just… come on. Give them some time, they’ll come around.”
Lucifer blinks at him, and then drops the towel that’s been keeping him from being completely naked, again. He steps over it, gets onto the bed and settles right back into the indentation his body had made during the last week.
Dan hesitates for a moment, but then he softly puts a hand on the place that used to hold a set of impressive, horrible scars. Lucifer’s whole body tenses like a bowstring under his hand and for a moment he’s afraid he’s going to lose his hand.
But Lucifer just turns his head and squints at him.
“Either do something interesting with that hand or get out so I can go back to bloody sleep.”
He’s about to do as he’s told, but his hand seems to have decided to circumvent his permission. Instead of pulling away, he finds himself stroking up that unblemished back. Lucifer’s hand shoots out and grabs his wrist, and suddenly he’s sprawled across a very naked, very male chest. He hasn’t even seen Lucifer move, but he must’ve, at least to turn onto his back.
That’s pretty much when he decides to throw caution to the wind. He already came into Satan’s home, uninvited and proceeded to order him around. And he’s been craving something. Some human contact that goes beyond the quick hugs and my-condolences he’s been getting from everyone.
Just… to be, in the moment, no thinking or feeling required. And the way Lucifer is looking at him right now, hunger hiding the emptiness he’s seen there only a few minutes before… he thinks this is what they both need.
Lucifer to forget the way Chloe had looked at him, and Dan to forget that Charlotte won’t ever look at him again.
So he surges up and kisses the man, and it’s right. Not because he’s suddenly in love, but because Lucifer kisses back just as desperately, seeking as much contact as he can, just the way Dan wants him to.
He breathes a sigh of relief when deft fingers attack his button up. Skin on skin. It takes just about between two seconds and two lifetimes to get rid of the rest of his clothes, and he hasn’t ever been so turned on and so frightened at the same time. This is exhilarating and new, and in theory he knows what he’s doing but… well. He’s never been with another man, hasn’t ever even dared to ask any of his girlfriends (or his ex-wife) if he could put his dick there.
But Lucifer is Lucifer is Lucifer, and sex is just another language he is fluent in.
He pushes Dan on his back and rummages for lube and a condom, putting both items on the bed within an arm’s reach. He fully expects to be turned onto his stomach now, but Lucifer surprises him. He slows down, cups the side of his face with one hand. There’s still lust in the Devil’s eyes and, nearly hidden by it, the fear of someone who has lost his way. But there’s also tenderness and relief.
“I won’t do anything you don’t want me to. I’m a lot of things – most of them not good – but I have never been with anyone who hasn’t given me explicit permission. And that is something that won’t ever change.”
Dan nods in understanding, leans up, and kisses him again.
“I know. Now stop talking.” A chuckle, and Lucifer reaches for the condom. Then the world makes even less sense than a moment before, because he doesn’t roll the skin onto his own dick.
Before Dan even knows what’s happening Lucifer put a generous amount of lube on him, straddles his lap and sinks down.
“Fuck!” He pumps his hips up once, twice, and then tries to grab hold of some coherent thought. Lucifer breathes out sharply, his eyes a closed, lips pressed into a tight line. Thinking he might have hurt him brings some semblance of lucidness back into his head.
“Hey. Fuck, are you alright? I didn’t… did I hurt you? Fuck.”
Lucifer just chuckles again, and only now does he realize that his face isn’t so much pinched in pain as in pleasure.
“Daniel…Dan. I can honestly tell you that you will not be able to physically hurt me right now.”
The fact that he very much could hurt him otherwise lies unspoken between them. But he knows that - with Lucifer? Sometimes you just take what you can get and run with it, so he takes the words at face value and lies back again.
There’s no more words after that, at least not beyond the occasional oath, moan or grunt, and it’s glorious.
*** *** ***
He wakes up to a cool breeze coming in from the terrace and an empty bed. He searches for regret or embarrassment and is glad he can’t find any. He had been afraid to feel as though he betrayed Charlotte – and the empty, hurting place that belongs to her is still there, but he doesn’t think she would blame him for seeking some sort of comfort.
He gets up, finds his boxer-briefs and puts them on. He finds Lucifer outside on the terrace, wings rustling in the wind. They’re clean and pure white. Ethereal. He turns around as he hears him approaching, and there’s a tiny but genuine smile on his face.
Dan goes to join him, leaning against the railing and looks out over the blinking, shrill abstractness that is nighttime LA.
It’s not perfect. They aren’t lovers or in love. Not when Lucifer pines for Chloe and Dan dreams of waffles and gorgeous, stiletto-clad legs.
It’s not perfect, no. But then, there’s no need for perfection. Right now, this is enough.