Chapter Text
Lucifer wandered through the gorges of Hell.
An endless labyrinth, composed of trillions of hexagonal basalt rods, under an invariably gray sky, constantly pouring ash flakes. The cries, groans and pleas of souls tortured by their own guilt were muffled here, merging into a rumble pressing on the consciousness.
Hatred of their possessions was intertwined in the Devil with some kind of painful love... Faithful demons, always ready to fulfill the order of their leader, to role of which he was granted not so much because of his father's command, but thanks to his own efforts. The most vile sinners, whom he preferred to personally torture (sometimes even dirty his hands, without resorting to the almost endless possibilities of the internal realities of the chambers), after feeling disgusted satisfaction from the work done.
And yet there was much more hatred in him. After all, the vast majority of the captives refused to believe that they had made themselves such, and blamed Satan for their plight. Fanatics of various religions were especially annoying, piously (what an irony!) They were sure that they did not belong here, and God was simply testing them for the last time...
The truth was that the Prince of Darkness was not a jailer here- it was every man for himself. And God did not forgive anyone- sinners had to do it themselves... but few succeeded. Even in order to understand what exactly they blame themselves for, the damned spent more than one millennium. What to say about forgiveness? Exactly three thousand one hundred and twenty-seven souls were able to ascend to Paradise from the Underworld. For billions of years out of billions of souls! And yet there was hope...
For everyone except Lucifer. He wasn't about to forgive himself, because he thought he was right to rebel; nor his Father, behaving in such a way that this very overthrow became inevitable, and after that, who expelled and crippled the supposedly beloved son; nor the rest of the family, from which there was neither a rumor nor a spirit from the overthrow, not counting his overseer Amenadiel...
Thoughts about his own bleak fate were interrupted when the Devil's gaze fell on one of the doors. He himself did not know what attracted his attention- the door was the most ordinary, unremarkable... he just suddenly realized that he would not pass by for anything.
Opening it, Satan found himself in some dark alley. About five paces away were two men, a man he felt was a demon, and a woman in police uniform holding him at gunpoint. The latter was with her back to Lucifer - and he could not see her face, only long blond hair, twisted in a low braid.
“Stay still and keep your hands in sight!” the cop ordered loudly in a strangely familiar voice.
The devil shook his head. No... She can't be here . This is even more absurd than a hippopotamus in Antarctica!
The man who was believed to be the suspect suddenly began to choke, then reached into the pocket of his denim jacket with a convulsive motion.
The policewoman, apparently, lost her nerve- and she pulled the trigger. The man collapsed on the pavement, his T-shirt under the unbuttoned jacket began to rapidly change color from gray to red, soaked in blood. The hand that he still managed to put in his pocket unclenched - and an asthma inhaler fell out of it.
“God!” The woman screamed after a moment of silence and rushed to the fallen man, automatically holstering the weapon. “No, no, no…” but it was too late - he was no longer breathing. And yet, with shaking hands, she tried to get the phone - probably to call an ambulance... but the dead man suddenly shook himself and began to rise to his feet.
“You killed me…” he twisted his bloody lips into a grin. “And now you will suffer from this for all eternity.”
“What the…” the cop whispered in amazement… then, dropping her phone, she pulled out a gun and fired again. The demon fell, but immediately began to rise again.
Her voice… though… are there many similar voices? She can't be here! No!
And yet Lucifer decided to make sure that he was right. He walked towards the couple, turned on his heels...
And froze. Every muscle in his body seemed to turn to stone. The surroundings, on the contrary, spun at a furious pace, as if he had drunk a canister of LSD. And only the face of the inhabitant of the Loop did not move, being in the center of this “hurricane”...
The horrified face of Chloe Jane Decker.
“Lucifer?” She breathed. “What's happening? I…” she raised her pistol for the third time and fired another bullet at the “victim”. “I did not want this! But I can't stop!”
Satan was finally able to shake off his stupor: “Now, Detective… I’ll help…” and gave the scenario in the Loop a mental “stop” command… but didn’t feel the usual response. He tried again, with the same result. Then the Devil turned his head towards his subordinate. “Well, stop it! And get out!”
“Get off,” he grimaced, standing up again. “You left us, so you have no power here anymore and can’t interfere with punishments.”
“How dare you…” Lucifer growled, rushing towards him… and froze in place, no longer bound by his own emotions, but by the power of the Underworld.
His partner fired again, but she did not look at the target- her gaze full of despair was directed at the Devil. Tears rolled down from her light blue eyes.
Satan felt that his eyes were heavy with suffocating hopelessness...
***
Lucifer hardly came to his senses, waking up from another nightmare. The blanket lay in a shapeless lump on the floor. The sheet was crumpled, causing discomfort. The penthouse, immersed in darkness, was strangely uncomfortable.
The Devil felt overwhelmed. Since he found out about some heavy burden on the conscience of the Detective, normal sleep has become an impossible dream. For the fifth night now, he found his partner in the Hell Loops, where she, in one way or another, mistakenly killed some poor fellow - this option the Devil considered the most obvious and practically the only one, given how guilty she looked then.
The thought that she would fall into the world of the damned became obsessive, preventing him from breathing normally. Over time, this feeling only intensified- as if a huge python was slowly squeezing his ribs, with each exhalation of the victim leaving less and less space in his lungs. It was even more terrible to realize that after such a long absence, Hell might indeed be beyond the control of Satan- and he would not be able to rescue the Detective.
However, his partner still has not spoken about it. And he, remembering how vulnerable she looked then, did not dare to start the questions first. Lucifer tried to discuss the problem with the Doctor... she said that it was not worth pushing in such things. Since Chloe promised to tell, she'll tell when she's ready. But Linda did not understand the seriousness of the situation!
The man felt the approach of a nervous breakdown. They happened to him during the reign of the Underworld every few millennia, and just to prevent them, he gave himself "days off" on Earth. But now everything was different- after all, he was not worried about himself at all...
If someone had told him a few months ago that he was, in fact, capable of worrying so much about anyone, he would have laughed at the stormy fantasy... And yet he, Lucifer Morningstar, the Devil, Satan, the Prince of Darkness, and others, now lay on the bed and stared at the dark ceiling, barely controlling the panic splashing inside!
The only way to keep the Detective from falling into Hell is to prove that her guilt is false... but for this you need to at least know what she is connected with! And it's simply impossible to wait with this further!
***
Chloe was awakened by the urgent need to go to the toilet. The phone, taken from the bedside table, mockingly showed 2:37. She really didn’t want to get out of a warm bed... but what else could she do?
After urinating, she decided to replenish her water supplies - and headed to the kitchen... from which a muttering was suddenly heard that clearly did not belong to Trixie. Relaxation from being in her territory instantly disappeared. However, when she had already decided to head to the bedroom for a gun, "Detective" was clearly heard in a slurred speech with a very familiar intonation.
Turning on the light, Chloe found Lucifer half-sitting at the table and half-lying on it. The partner was sleeping - and, judging by the martyr grimaces, he clearly did not dream about the evening in the company of the Brittany couple.
“Sorry, Detective…” she could make out the low voice. “I… I can’t do anything… Why are you even here…? You shouldn’t… this is wrong!” The latter was said much louder, after which the man opened his eyes and fixed her with a completely wild look. Then he straightened up, furiously rubbed his face with his palms and looked more meaningful, although he was still far from his usual cheerful mood.
In fact, Satan had been behaving unusually for more than a day: he joked little and completely without a “light”, he was absent-minded and nodding almost every ten minutes, plus Chloe periodically saw some unspoken anxious question in his eyes... but from attempts to find out what was the matter, he simply brushed it off. And now here is another invasion, and even in the middle of the night! It would have been time for her to get angry at the latter... however, the woman found in herself only a growing concern for her partner.
"Lucifer, what's wrong with you?" she asked quietly and softly.
The familiar intruder swallowed nervously: “Detective, I know you do not want to talk about this... and yet I beg you to tell me what you feel so guilty about.”
The woman tensed in an instinctive desire to fence herself off from what she really didn’t want to remember: “I promised to tell you… What is the urgency? Why are you so interested in this?”
“Because if the guilt is as deep as I thought, it can lead you to fucking Hell!” He hissed hotly. “And this appears to me every time I close my eyes: you are being tortured, and I can’t help it, because I refused the throne! Something needs to be done about this! Not to mention that even I can't go that long without getting enough sleep!”
Chloe's jaw dropped in amazement. Firstly, the Devil was so worried about her that he was haunted by nightmares? It probably shouldn't have been surprising considering how many times he'd proven he cares about her in so many different ways... but part of her was still confused by this- the detective was too used to having to take care of others, not the other way around. It had been like that… yes, almost since the day of her father's death— only next to him could she truly relax. Secondly, the ironic similarity of the content of the partner’s current nightmares with what tormented the woman herself after his illustrious performance with a shot in the chest from her pistol: as if the second were a continuation of the first... With one, but a huge problem- if she was then afraid of Satan, dragging her to Hell, then Satan himself was afraid to find her in Hell.
Well… it looks like she will have to “Lance the wound” here and now. Chloe promised to do it sooner or later anyway. She herself is to blame- she should not given vague hints... because of which Lucifer now has difficulties. Judging by everything, immortality did not mean endless moral stamina, and the last thing she wanted was to cause him unnecessary inconvenience.
“Good. Okay,” said the detective. She poured herself a glass of water and moistened her parched throat, gathering her thoughts at the same time. Then, pulling out a chair, she sat opposite the Devil, who had been watching her attentively all this time. It’s like in an interrogation room - flashed through her head- And the topic of conversation is appropriate . “About two years ago, the police received information about a certain Waldo Schlosser, a thirty-eight-year-old migrant from Germany. An anonymous source claimed that he was some kind of avenger who killed at least nine people and provided some circumstantial evidence. The names were listed, so we ran them into the search - and indeed found cases that remained unsolved. All the victims were somehow connected with the crime. I doubted for a long time that this was done by the same person - the methods of murder were painfully diverse, with the exception of extreme cruelty: some were beaten to death, others were cut almost into slices, others were shot so that they remained alive as long as possible…” Lucifer, again, atypically for him, listened intently, without interrupting and even almost without changing his facial expression, which made her even more uneasy. “In our database, Waldo Schlosser was not found - he was still quite clean before the law. However, an anonymous person recommended checking out his garage. We searched and found an impressive collection of knives, as well as several handguns. Waldo was arrested. I conducted the interrogation. He did not deny that the entire arsenal belongs to him, but he assured that it was just a collection and there were permits for everything. In the end, it turned out that the suspect told the truth: all the documents were in order, no DNA was found on the weapon itself aside from the owner’s, and, according to a ballistic examination, not a single pistol matched the bullets found at the crime scenes, where they were at all. Waldo was let go... but my gut was telling me something was wrong with this guy. Maybe it was the excessive calmness with which he took the detention and the photos of the dead that were shown to him. Be that as it may, instincts insistently whispered: Guilty! Dangerous! ” Chloe shook her head in annoyance, reliving that certainty. “And the next day it turned out that one of the knives was left unanalyzed due to the fault of a novice laboratory assistant, who was too busy with work. It was on it that almost completely washed away traces of the blood of one of the victims were found. I immediately rushed to arrest the suspect, grabbing a squad of special forces. By the time we arrived, Waldo had almost packed his things and left into the sunset - we rushed in literally at the last minute. He refused to give up and started firing at us with a pistol, shouting that it was all a set-up. During the assault, I had the opportunity to shoot him. I aimed at his arm, but Waldo noticed me, started moving, and the bullet entered his heart. They didn't get to help him. However, no one has judged me. On the contrary, they began to respect me more…” the woman fell silent for a moment, trying to overcome the bitterness that had rolled in, and looked down at her intertwined, almost painfully clenched fingers. “And later I was putting the case file in order for the archive— and my attention was drawn to a strange detail in the conclusion on that knife with traces of blood: there were no other prints or other marks on it. It didn't fit in at all with the pile of clean knives with Waldo's prints... like it had been planted. His cries about the set-up immediately surfaced in my head. Going through the materials again, I found a couple of almost imperceptible inconsistencies- and I was overwhelmed by the understanding that someone decided to blame a bunch of murders on an innocent person, having worked on it qualitatively. Well, I actually completed the composition, succumbing to intuition and not noticing anything before I put a bullet in the suspect!” She leaned her forehead against the tabletop. “But the worst thing is that I cowardly silenced what I discovered. The first impulse was to launch a re-investigation... but first I decided to consult with Dan- and he convinced me that such a mistake could well put an end to my career or even any job with the police. And then he finished it, noticing: since my “radar” signaled that the “client” was guilty, it means that he did something, even if part of it was attributed to him. An attempt to find out the truth unofficially, at least for myself, did not give anything- the only thread was an anonymous person who provided circumstantial evidence, but it was extremely well encrypted,” she buried her fingers in her hair and pulled it with force. “That's why I didn't back down with Palmetto - my conscience gnawed. And then I ignored the feeling that not everything was fine in Polucci's suicide - I decided to ignore my fucking instincts,” Chloe, sighing heavily, raised her head and smiled sadly. “That’s the kind of 'wonderful' detective and 'beautiful' person I am, Lucifer. What is the expert's opinion? How many degrees should be in my boiler?”
“What? What kind of boiler?” Her partner raised his eyebrows incomprehensibly. However, a second later, his face hardened. “No boilers, damn it! Everyone has the right to make mistakes!” He quickly covered her hand with his and squeezed gently. “As for your doubts about your own intuition… it seems that I know what to do,” the Devil, obviously overshadowed by another crazy idea, jumped up from his chair, in two long steps appeared at the front door and disappeared behind it.
The woman sat for some time with her mouth open, in which the unvoiced question froze: what was he going to do? What can be done here in principle? Then she shook her head wearily and, after drinking more water, went to bed, knowing that the hope of falling asleep after all that had happened was almost futile.
***
Satan sat on the couch, holding a glass of whiskey in his right hand, while with his left he twisted the coin-portal floating in the air, and stared tensely into the fire dancing in the fireplace.
What he planned to do wasn't even remotely pleasant...but necessary. The Devil was about to visit Hell. It was hard to say how "warm" the reception awaits him there after millions of years local time. The demons must have chosen their new leader through a nationwide brawl- and who he or she turned out to be depended on how difficult it would be to complete the task set for himself. The indigenous inhabitants of Hell respected the power of the fallen angel, but without periodic reminders, this respect slowly melted away, even when he stuck around there almost without getting out. And very, very few had sympathy for Lucifer, since he often had to restrain their cruelty and aggressiveness towards each other and towards damned souls, not to mention the categorical ban on visiting the Earth (fortunately, the demons got used to the latter so much that even after his "retirement" they did not try to pull off such a trick).
However, all this paled in comparison with what was required for, in fact, the beginning of the journey. Frankly, he had two options...
The first of these was to commit suicide with one of Maze's blades, and return back with the help of the notorious coin. But this seemed too reckless even for Satan - no one, except for his divine parents, knew what death would mean for the angel. Even a coin that would surely have resurrected him did not guarantee that such a feint would pass without a trace for the unfortunate experimenter...
The alternative caused a tornado of conflicting emotions in the former lord of the Underworld. Why, Dad take it, for the umpteenth time everything comes down to damned wings?! He grimaced and emptied his glass, then placed it on the coffee table. Returning the symbol of service to God to its rightful place seemed tantamount to admitting defeat... but deep in his soul he already knew that he would do this for the sake of his best friend.
A friend… yes, Lucifer considered the Detective a friend, although he stopped pushing her to admit it after a few careful attempts. It was already obvious that their relationship went beyond colleagues or pals... which never ceased to amaze him every time he thought about it. Of course, it’s not that there weren’t people in history who, having learned about his true nature, didn’t run away screaming - take Shakespeare, for example... but no one has ever shown him even a hundredth of the trust that he received from Chloe Decker. It was, for lack of a better definition... inspiring , yeah.
He immediately remembered how his partner dissuaded him from burning the wings, with her usual practicality, declaring them just a means of transportation. And, as in many other cases, she was absolutely right- in fact, this is exactly what his inhuman pair of limbs were. Perhaps they should be treated as a useful tool without attaching too much importance? After all, this is how he perceived his power over desires, which (surprise surprise!) was also received straight from the Father. Yes, it is unique for him, while all the brothers-sisters also had wings... but this circumstance did not change the source. Only forces developed independently could be considered by the Devil as truly his own- such as 'hellfire' or 'glamour' to hide the scars received during the overthrow (due to the Detective's curiosity, it turned out to be... you can call it metamorphism). However, he literally could not imagine that he would give up the opportunity to reveal other people's passions, coupled with their very frequent subsequent incarnation! In this case, why shouldn't the wings become a 'car' that he manages as he wants- including for its intended purpose?
Afraid to change his mind, he grabbed the coin from the air and put it in his pocket, resolutely got to his feet and almost ran towards the bedroom, grabbing a knife from the bar along the way. Once in place, the man lifted the bed up against the wall, then rolled up the carpet and prying off one of the wooden panels, pushed part of the floor aside. In the half-meter recess that opened, wings lay one on top of the other, shimmering with mother-of-pearl light in the dim light of the penthouse. After the theft, Satan decided to keep them close so that he could feel their presence. Previously, for the same reason, they were locked in a warehouse near the middle of nowhere- the wings beckoned the owner, as if longing to become one with him again, causing a slight but incessant itch in the scars on his back... but now their safety outweighed the inconvenience. Well, here's another small argument in favor of returning- he will get rid of the nasty feeling of inferiority that he could not exorcise, despite his best efforts...
Lucifer pulled the wings out of the stash, replaced the lid, carpet, and bed, then took a couple of pillows and stacked them on top of each other in the middle of the empty space of the bedroom. Then he positioned his severed appendages so that the places where they used to be attached to his body were on the pillows, thereby directing them with the cuts up. After examining the resulting installation, the man undressed to the waist, threw his clothes on the bed, sat on the floor, leaned back and transferred his weight to his elbows, touching the scars with the flesh on the wings, which greatly increased the itching in the first.
The fallen angel closed his eyes, inhaled deeply, exhaled — and mentally reached out to the wings with something that looked like a prayer. The result was not long in coming- a sharp pain that pierced his back, intensifying with every second, made him hiss through his teeth. The process of augmentation turned out to be almost as painful as amputation! And yet, compared to the fall, it was tolerable...
Some time later, the pain became dull and throbbing, suggesting that the healing had ended. The devil carefully got up from the floor and, supporting his newly found limbs with his hands, sank face down on the bed, relaxing almost every muscle in his body and letting himself get used to the alien, but at the same time so familiar heaviness against his shoulder blades.
After half an hour, the discomfort completely disappeared- and Satan decided on further actions. Getting up from the bed, he spread his wings for a test and shook them slightly. Feeling nothing bad, except for some incorrectness of the very possibility of working with muscles, which he had not had for five years, Lucifer flapped harder, raising a local hurricane in the bedroom, which made the curtains flutter on the windows. The next step was to test the extra-dimensional flight- the transition from the bedroom to the living room was successful, except for the fact that he stumbled on the sofa and almost crashed.
Trying to ignore the delight he felt at his newfound freedom of movement, the Devil turned off his 'car', returned to the bedroom, put on a shirt, vest and jacket, then walked to the bar. Having finally enjoyed a full glass of his favorite whiskey, he again spread his wings.
A moment later, the penthouse was empty, and only the fire in the fireplace swayed from the breeze.