Chapter Text
“May I speak with you a moment about my son, Doctor?”
Linda blinks, startled, and pauses in her stacking of plates to glance up at the man standing across from her. Man? Is that the right term? He’s the Almighty… their celestial Overlord. She’s been mentally frazzled ever since Charlie’s grandfather introduced himself, greeting her with a warm grin and twinkling dark eyes. God. He’s God. Wow, she is never, ever going to be able to get over this.
“Uh… sure,” Linda replies nervously.
God himself wants answers from her. But she supposes nothing could be worse than the awful, tense family dinner she’s just managed to survive through despite sitting at the same table as three Archangels and the Creator of the Universe. The two of them are alone in her kitchen, having just cleared the table; Amenadiel is feeding Charlie, and Michael has flown off, seething and grumbling under his breath about his twin.
“No need to be nervous, my dear,” God assures her, apparently sensing her anxiety. Wait, of course he can do that. He’s omniscient. “I just thought your opinion might be valuable to me.”
“Thank you, that’s very flattering. But, er, given that you’re all-powerful, all-seeing and all… well, all-everything, I’m sure there’s not really much I could tell you about Amenadiel that you don’t already know.”
Leaning against the granite counter, God chuckles amusedly. “Ah, there are many nuances to omniscience. One of which being that my children on Earth occasionally slip from my gaze. In this case, however, I am not speaking about Amenadiel. Samael is more my concern.”
Linda’s stomach flips. Lucifer. God wants to ask her about Lucifer? This is really not going to go well. “You are aware I’m your son’s therapist, correct?” At God’s gentle incline of his head, she continues, “Then you’ll know that anything and everything we’ve discussed in sessions is covered by doctor-patient confidentiality, which means it’s likely I can’t provide you whatever information you seek.”
“I understand.” While God doesn’t exactly look delighted with that response, his lips quirk up into a small smile. “I admire your loyalty to my son, Linda. I’m glad Samael has friends like you to look out for him.”
Linda winces. “Okay, there’s - um - there’s one thing I can actually tell you.” Not wanting to be forced to look at God’s face when she drops this bomb on him, she begins anxiously collecting all of the wine glasses from the table so she can rinse them out and stop them from staining. “It’s - it’s more of a suggestion, actually. Lucifer doesn’t go by the name Samael anymore. To be frank with you, he… he hates it. If you truly want to have a calm and honest conversation with him, you’ll want to refrain from using that name for him. Calling him Samael will just agitate him.”
The frown marring God’s face and the faint drumming of heavy rain on the windows makes her want to cringe. “It is the name I chose for him. Lucifer is his title, his job description. Why would he wish to cast Samael aside?”
She holds her ground, forcing herself to ignore the faint traces of exasperation in God’s voice. Linda bites her to refrain from retorting by asking why he would decide to name his son the ‘Blindness’ and ‘Venom of God’, and expect Lucifer to like it. And then she really hopes that God isn’t reading her thoughts right now, because that would make things awkward.
“I don’t want to break medical confidentiality. Lucifer trusts me as his therapist to keep what we discuss private. But I can tell you are veritably concerned and confused, so instead, I will offer you information. In the medical world, we call it a ‘psychological trigger’,” she explains. “Being called a name which is connected to traumatic memories often leads to emotional distress, and can make patients highly uncomfortable and extremely upset. It’s essentially a form of deadnaming.” She halts and ensures a heavy pause occurs before continuing. The beat is long enough so that her next sentence sounds relatively separate from her previous statement. “Lucifer identifies with the name he chose much more than his old one, so that’s the one he prefers to go by.”
God now looks concerned. “What kind of traumatic memories?”
“It depends on the patient.”
That worry flickers into frustration for a fleeting moment. “In regards to Samael.”
“I can’t tell you that,” she replies apologetically. “If you are serious about avoiding antagonizing him, however, I would make a very strong recommendation to stop calling him Samael. Surely you’ve already noticed Amenadiel and the rest of us call him Lucifer. The only being who calls him his old name is Michael, and I think he does it to deliberately unsettle his twin.”
Once again, she has to wonder why God thought that literally calling his son ‘poison’ was a good idea. It seems unspeakably cruel to her. And if God really has to ask her about what kind of traumatic memories Lucifer has, then he clearly doesn’t know his son at all - or at the very least, is utterly clueless as to the lasting damage he imparted on Lucifer when he cast him out of Heaven and abandoned him in Hell for ten billion years. Which does not make him appear like a good parent.
“How badly have I hurt my son, Doctor?” God questions, his voice steady but a slight waver in his tone exposing his perturbation.
Linda finally meets his gaze head-on. What can she say? How should she respond to that? Deciding to speak candidly, while also respecting confidentiality, she informs him, “Very badly. Hell was... well. Hell, for him. Before you showed up, I would have said that Lucifer was completely lost to you. That nothing you could possibly say to him would reach him.”
“But?”
“But, he turned up for dinner,” she shrugs. “And quite honestly, I did not expect him to.”
“He stayed for less than ten minutes,” God points out, raising an eyebrow.
“That’s still ten minutes more than I thought he would stay in the same room as you,” she admits sheepishly. “Yes, he left early, but he didn’t ‘storm out’ as Michael was whining about earlier. Lucifer left because he reached his limit, and instead of staying to pick another fight with you or his twin, he decided that making an exit would be better for the situation. It was actually quite emotionally mature of him.” And to be honest, Linda was proud of him. When they first sat down to eat, she was worried about an apocalyptic argument breaking out, but Lucifer only had a couple of understandable outbursts, remaining relatively calm and collected the rest of the time.
God looks intrigued by her analysis of the situation. “You do not agree with Michael’s assessment of Lucifer showing up just to throw a tantrum?” he questions.
“No, and I think you don’t either. Lucifer’s words earlier, angry and petulant as they may have sounded, were born of hurt. But also hope. Lucifer wants to be loved by you, even though he thinks he never will be, and likely thinks he doesn’t deserve to be. If you truly wish to reconnect to him, it’s going to take effort. And I think it has to come from your end. Small steps at first, so you can inch closer to him but also give him the emotional space he needs to process.”
God nods slowly. “Small steps like calling him by his chosen name.”
Delighted to have gotten through to him, Linda bobs her head in agreement. “Yes, exactly.” After a couple of seconds of strained silence, she adds delicately, “I would also recommend patience and honesty. Lucifer can be… stubborn, and he despises being lied to.”
“Thank you, Doctor,” God says, his voice quiet and sounding as if he’s deep in thought. “I will… consider your advice.”
Linda nods with a pleasant, friendly smile, while internally screaming, Holy freaking shit, the Creator of the Universe is going to consider my advice. Take THAT, Amenadiel!