Chapter Text
Anyone who said Los Angeles wasn't beautiful had never seen it from above. There was a beauty to the chaos running through the streets below. Just as there was beauty in the spread of lights all around that always seemed to be trying to rival the lights in the sky. The city was bright and beautiful and ugly, full of every sin a person could ever hope to find. A song that had entranced even the devil into singing along.
Lucifer Morningstar stood on his balcony and looked out over the view that had come to mean so much to him and wished he could find some of the joy he'd once found standing up here. Even just a hint of that top of the world sensation that he’d had when he first came to LA years ago.
That feeling had vanished, right alongside the woman he’d thought would help him truly feel it all the more. The one he'd hoped...
Well. Perhaps that’d been his first mistake – hope. Lucifer scoffed to himself and took a long drink from the scotch in his hand. When had hope ever worked out for him in the past? It’d certainly never led to anything good.
He’d just thought – he’d hoped – the detective might be different. That maybe these years had given her a chance to really get to know him. Enough that she might still stick around once his darker side showed through. Yet all Lucifer could see each time he closed his eyes was the horror on her face as he’d stood in front of her with his devil face showing. Or the instinctive way she’d drawn back from him when he’d taken a single step toward her.
After that, Lucifer had done what he did best.
He’d left.
Apparently, the detective decided to take a leaf out of his book and do exactly the same. She, at least, was kind enough to send him a message instead of just bailing, though. Even if it came in thorugh a text in the early drawn hours. Lucifer had still been struggling to heal himself at the time, dealing with the multitude of bullets trapped within his wings, trying desperately to get them out so his healing could kick in now that he was away.
It wasn’t until hours later that he finally dug out his phone and found the message waiting there.
I need some space. Please.
That was it. Just those five words. I need some space. Please. That was the only thing she said – and the last thing she sent him. He’d briefly seen her at the station the next day, and again the day after, as they all came in and gave their statements about everything concerning Pierce. But beyond that? Silence.
Weeks had gone by since then and Lucifer hadn’t heard a word from her. If it hadn’t been for the fact that her spawn liked to text him randomly, he likely wouldn’t have even known that they were on vacation at the moment.
And the worst part about that was, he understood why she needed space. He did. This was a lot to take in, especially when confronted with it so violently, and on the tail of so many other revelations that had no doubt hit as she processed. Especially the ones concerning Cain and just how close she'd come to marrying him. Lucifer got it, and he wanted to give her all the time she needed to process it. Something which Linda said was the right thing to do. It was just... hard sometimes, when he couldn't stop thinking about how he should've stayed with her, should've made sure she knew that he'd never hurt her. That he cared too much for her to ever do anything like that.
But he’d ran, and so had she. And so had everyone else, it seemed. Maze was hiding out, Amenadiel had fucked off somewhere or other. The only other people he talked to outside his own employees were the people at the station, and Ms. Lopez was busy with work while Daniel had made his feelings on Lucifer quite clear the last time they’d spoke. The only person he saw regularly was his therapist!
Lucifer made a low sound of disgust and threw back what was left of the scotch. Then he spun on his heel and headed back inside, toward the bar. Clearly, the last thing he needed was to be sober. Or alone.
A month ago he would’ve gone downstairs and lost himself for a few hours in Lux. Music, dancing, drinking, doing anything else – and anyone else – he could get his hands on. Now, he was stupidly, pathetically pining up here in his penthouse.
Alone.
His hand twitched and before Lucifer knew it, he'd snatched his phone off the counter. His first thought was to call someone, anyone, who could come over and help him forget this misery for a little while. He needed distraction, but there were few who he trusted enough to give it to him.
Before he could make a choice, the universe made it for him. Lucifer's phone buzzed in his hand. His surprise only grew when he looked down and saw a call from the last person he’d expected.
Detective Douche.
“Well now,” Lucifer murmured to himself. Why the hell would Daniel be messaging him? They’d barely begun to make friends before everything with Charlotte-that-wasn’t-Charlotte, and then the Charlotte-that-was-Charlotte. After her death… Well, suffice to say, the two of them weren’t exactly buddies.
Curiosity got the best of him and Lucifer swiped to answer. “Detective Douche! What a surprise! To what do I owe the pleasure?”
There was a brief moment of silence. Lucifer could easily picture the look Daniel no doubt wore. The same half-scowl, half-annoyed look he got anytime Lucifer called him that. “This isn’t a social call,” he finally said, sounding for all the world like this was the very last thing he wanted to be doing. “We need you to come down to the station.”
Surprise had Lucifer’s eyebrows going up. He set his glass down on the bar and let his finger run over the rim. “Well now, this is a surprise. Whatever’s going on must have you desperate if you’re calling me.”
A soft sigh followed by a rustle of papers came down the line. “This isn’t a joke, Lucifer. How soon can you get down here?”
Any other time and Lucifer might’ve continued poking at the other man simply for the joy of it. Half of their interactions with one another were poking at the other. But considering recent events, and the lack of contact from others… Lucifer held perfectly still and stared off into the distance, seeing nothing, all his senses turned toward the phone in his hand. “The detective…”
He didn’t even have to finish the question. Dan caught on quick enough. “It’s not about Chloe.” He paused for a moment, during which Lucifer swore he felt his heart start beating once more. Then he sighed. “We’re not sure what’s going on, but… you just need to get down here. As soon as you can.”
“I’m on my way.”
The words were out before he could think about them, and yet he found that he didn’t want to take them back. Even as he hung up his phone and grabbed his jacket from where he’d tossed it on the piano earlier, his mind already raced ahead toward whatever the hell this might be.
It didn’t involve the detective, and Dan hadn’t sounded like he was worried about anyone else. He’d sounded a little nicer than the last time they’d spoke, though that wouldn’t take much, and a little frustrated. But he hadn’t sounded upset. So, what could it be? Something to do with the Pierce case, maybe. Or some sort of murder only he could help them solve. A corpse, perhaps, with his business card stapled to their forehead.
Whatever this was, it’d no doubt be interesting, and right now Lucifer could do with something interesting.
In the time it took Lucifer to drive to the precinct he'd come up with countless different theories as to why they might want him there. Some of them were entertaining, while others had him pressing a little harder on the gas and wishing he risked using his wings to take him down there. They'd healed up after everything with Cain, but that didn't mean he wanted to risk flying down there and chancing someone seeing something they shouldn't. He already had one human dealing with something they shouldn't. No need to add another.
He kept those thoughts and worries locked away as he finally walked through the front doors of the station.
He also made damn sure not to turn his head and look toward the still-empty desk across from Dan's when he walked past it.
The detective himself was waiting for him by Ella's lab door. His arms were crossed over his chest and his jaw set in a tense line. He looked like he'd rather be anywhere else than watching Lucifer come toward him. Still, he nodded when Lucifer drew near. “Thanks for coming,” he said, and he almost managed to sound like he meant it.
Lucifer cocked an eyebrow at him. “You made it sound important.”
Dan’s mouth pinched down into a flat line. It only aged his face even further. Something he didn’t need help with right now as the grief and anger he felt still painted their lines and marks across his face. “Yeah. Come with me.”
Without saying anything else, Dan turned and headed over toward the interrogation rooms. Lucifer followed after him with only a single small hitch that showed his nerves. “Do I get to know what this is about?” The whole thing was beginning to feel even stranger, and for the first time he found himself wondering if this might be a bit more serious than he’d thought. Something to do with Cain, maybe, and the carnage they’d left behind at that crime scene. Or maybe the Detective, but not quite in the way he’d first thought. Had she… had she said something to someone?
Surprisingly, Dan actually answered him. “This evening we caught a murder case over at a luxury hotel. Some guy came back to his room and fond a dead body laying in his bed.”
“The worst sort of surprise guest,” Lucifer said dryly.
He caught a hint of the old Dan in the way the man snorted and rolled his eyes. Then it was lost once more underneath a badly fractured mask. “We cleared the guy pretty quickly, which is a good thing. He’s a star witness in the Rappson murder case. He was apparently downstairs in the bar having a drink most of the evening, with his bodyguard watching over him.”
“Bodyguard?”
“Yeah.” The two of them came to a stop near the interrogation rooms. Dan paused at the door to the observation room, one hand on the door handle, and he turned to look back at Lucifer. The look in his eyes this time was a lot different, yet familiar at the same time. There was something softer at the edges that Lucifer didn’t want to put a name to, but there were also some things he was much more familiar with - distrust, suspicion.
Whatever was on the other side of the door had obviously unsettled Daniel. Just as it was equally obvious he felt it had something to do with Lucifer. Though how that was possible considering Lucifer had been at home all evening was a mystery. “What does any of this have to do with me, Daniel?”
Instead of answering, Dan shook his head and opened the door to the observation room. He gestured with one hand for Lucifer to step inside. “Go take a look.”
Lucifer had been inside this room multiple times during his stint with the Detective. He’d watched as she questioned criminals or stood at her side while others did the questioning and the two of them would talk and bounce theories back and forth between one another.
This time there was no Detective standing there waiting for him, watching through the glass, nor already seated on the other side. Instead, there was Ms. Lopez standing in her place looking sorry and sad and yet still so happy to see him despite it all.
He had only a second to brace at her “Hey, Lucifer, it’s so good to see you!” and then she was on him, arms around his waist and body burrowing in for a hug she’d never hesitated in giving him.
As always there was a brief flash of familiarity, a memory of time and siblings gone by. He’d gotten good at ignoring that.
Lucifer lifted a hand and pat at her shoulder even as he tried not to squirm back. “Ms. Lopez. It’s, ah, good to see you, too.”
She lingered longer than normal, squeezing him just a little tighter than normal. When she drew back it was a with a sheepish grin and a quick swipe under one of her eyes, her head turned just slightly away as she did. “Sorry. I just… I’m happy you’re here, buddy. We’ve missed you. Even if, well… I’d rather it be under better circumstances.”
“And what circumstances are those?” Hopefully she’d be able to give him a better answer than Dan had. Much as Lucifer appreciated a distraction, being here of all places, in this building and in this room, weren’t exactly helping.
Ella’s expression tightened. “Um…”
She turned to look toward the glass, and Lucifer instinctively turned with her to see whatever it was that had thrown everybody off so much. One glance and it felt like the whole world froze. Every single inch of him went still – wings, power, breath – as he stared thorugh the glass at a face he knew as well as he knew his own. As he should, considering the two were identical.
There were subtle differences. Small things that, once upon a time, hadn’t been there. A faint scar on his left eyebrow, another across the bridge of his nose. But everything else was brutally, painstakingly familiar in a way that hit harder than any blow Lucifer had expected to get here.
“Michael?”
Of all the things Lucifer had expected to see, all the possible monsters his mind came up with on the way over here, he could honestly say that this was the last being he’d expected to find at the interrogation table. And why would he have? It’d been thousands upon thousands of years since he’d last seen his twin brother. Yet, it was his own face that he was staring at on the other side of the glass.
But how? How was he here? And why hadn’t Lucifer sensed him before coming in here?
“We checked him when we brought him in, ran his prints and everything,” Dan said into the quiet that had fallen over them. Lucifer still stood, frozen, even as the man came up to stand next to him. “It came up blank. No prints in the system. He pops up as Michael Cadwalader. Paperwork says he 42 years old, and was born and raised in Wales. No family on record. According to what we could find, he's popped up all around Europe as a bodyguard for a multitude of people. It all checks out, except for the fact...”
“He looks exactly like me,” Lucifer finished for him. The more he looked, the more he felt his anger grow.
Only one other being out there had any right to wear that face. And there was no way in hell Michael had actually come down from the Silver City to play pretend at being some human's bodyguard. Yet… whoever or whatever this being was, they’d managed to mimic him almost perfectly. The resemblance was uncanny. Except for the clothes: this doppelganger wore leather and jeans, giving him a look far more demonic than Lucifer’s usual bespoke suits. He looked more like what Lucifer figured people would expect of the Devil.
As if they sensed they were being talked about, the entity in front of them lifted their head and looked toward the glass. Everything about them read calm, and yet those eyes… they were dark, yet they lacked the hint of darkness behind them that had always shone through in Michael’s eyes. The dark to his light. Power to his Will.
“Lucifer?”
The press of a small hand against his arm snapped the staring contest Lucifer had found himself locked in. “I need to speak with him.”
“We need some questions answered, first,” Dan interjected, already shaking his head.
Lucifer twisted to face him, though he didn’t let the being on the other side of the glass out of his sight. “And I will answer what I can after I speak to whatever monstrosity in there is daring to wear my brother’s face.”
“So, you really have a twin? And you never told us?” Ella asked, her voice a little higher than normal. She looked like she was torn between hugging him again or smacking him.
Lucifer gave an irritated huff and rolled his eyes skyward. “Yes, I do. But I assure you, Ms. Lopez, that thing in there is not my brother.” He was going to take pleasure in making them tell him what exactly they were, though, and what they hoped to gain by wearing his brother’s face.
Without giving Ella or Dan a chance to say anything, Lucifer spun on his heel and marched out of the room.
The door to the interrogation room snapped open with enough force it hit the wall and bounced back toward him. It would’ve hit him if Lucifer hadn’t already strolled straight it. As it was, the door smoothly swung shut once more.
Not that the man at the table seemed to be paying it any attention. All his focus seemed to be right on Lucifer.
“Wow,” Michael said, staring up at Lucifer with a hint of surprise others might not have been able to see, but that was plain as day to Lucifer. “They weren’t kidding, were they?”
As familiar as that face was, any hint of an Enochian accent was gone from his twin’s voice. Instead, there was a heavy Welsh sound to it. It only further proved this wasn’t his brother. As did the fact that, even this close to one another, Lucifer couldn’t sense a hint of divinity anywhere on him. It only served to further fuel his rage.
Lucifer wanted nothing more than grab this being and make them tell him who they were. The only thing that stopped him were the eyes that were no doubt watching.
He had to settle instead for different methods. At least for now.
Pulling out the chair - pointedly ignoring the one that should’ve belonged to the Detective – he sank down into his seat and pinned the imposter with a sharp glare. “Let’s cut right to the chase, why don’t we. Who are you, and what are you doing here?”
“Someone left a dead body in my client’s room while we were out.” Lifting his cuffed hands, Michael gave a low hum that might’ve been a laugh on someone else. “It would seem I’m a suspect.”
“That doesn’t answer who you are.”
Lucifer watched as the imposter tilted his head ever so slightly to the side. For a brief moment, it was like being transported back millions of years. He swore he could hear Michael’s snort, the low rumbling sound of his voice teasing him for being an idiot.
Then the fake-Michael opened his mouth, and jolted Lucifer back to the present. “Michael Cadwalader. And you’re Lucifer.”
“You recognize me.”
Michael snorted at him and lifted one single, imperious eyebrow. “That’s what everyone kept calling me till I pulled out an ID.” His tone carried a heavy note that made it clear just how stupid he thought Lucifer was. That, combined with the way his expression twisted into something so very distant, with masks in place Michael had never worn around him, had Lucifer tensing all over again.
He knew that look. Knew those tones. But none of them should be coming from this stranger.
Forget any of the people watching on. They already thought he was crazy anyway. Lucifer wanted answers and he was damn well going to get them!
Laying his palms on the table, he leaned forward and let a little bit of his power leak into his eyes. He knew they'd be flashing red to anyone who could see them. From this angle, that would only be the imposter. “Enough games. How did you get that face? There's only one other being out there who has it and you're not him. So tell me, how did you do it and why?”
There was no change in Michael's demeanor. Nothing to indicate that he saw anything at all. Just that same dry expression. A slight tightening of his lips was the only sign that he'd even heard what Lucifer said. Then he gave a shrug. “I've always looked like this. And, as far as I knew, I’ve been the only person to ever have it.”
Lucifer stared at the imposter, lip curling. The fact that this creature didn’t even flinch at seeing his Devil-eyes only made him even more convinced that they were something. Something wrong. “So, you’re suggesting that I’ve got a mystery triplet out there my brother and I never knew existed, is that it?”
“I’m not suggesting anything,” fake-Michael said. He lifted his hands and spread them as much as the cuffs allowed, palms out and up. “I’m saying I don’t know who the fuck you are, and I don’t know this other person you’re talking about.” The creature lowered their hands and then leaned forward a little, and the fuck you look that settled over their face, directed toward him, stole Lucifer’s breath away. “What I do know is that I’m not guilty of anything, and neither is my client. Which means none of you have any legal right to hold me. So, you can either let me go, or I can contact my lawyer. What’s it gonna be?”
Part of Lucifer wanted to lean forward and grab this imposter by the throat, slam them up against the wall, and force the answers out of them. No matter the history between him and his twin, no one – no one – got away with impersonating him. The fury he felt at the idea of it had him wanting to drag this being down to hell and teach him what happened when you messed with the devil.
All of those things rolled around in Lucifer all at the same time, only, he let none of them free. All the anger, all the rage, the furious need to punish that had boiled up in him before, all of those fell away under the face of one thing.
Fear.
Not his own – the very last thing Lucifer felt was afraid of this bastard.
No, it was the slowly growing fear that had come as this being in front of him leaned forward. When they’d glared at him, and some of their control slipped for the first time since Lucifer had come in there. That sense of fear had grown then, slipping subtly toward him through shadows that felt just the slightest bit darker, whispering promises of darkness and horror at the edge of his senses.
Only one being out there had that ability. The dark to his light – the fear to his desires.
Lucifer stared at the being in front of him who… who looked like his brother, who carried that edge of threat that only Michael had ever been able to employ, yet carried only the faintest feel of divinity to them. And who truly, honestly, seemed to have absolutely no idea who he was.
“You mean it,” Lucifer said slowly. “You really don’t recognize me.”
“Sorry, but no.”
Michael stared at him, that one eyebrow still up in the only show of emotion that he let slip through his mask. Not a flicker of recognition showed anywhere. No hint that he knew Lucifer at all. None of the anger that Lucifer would expect to see, the hurt. None of the love that had once been there. Just that blankness that was far more horrifying than any fear that lurked in the shadows.
The door opened suddenly and Lucifer and Michael both looked away from one another for the first time since Lucifer had walked in.
Dan stood in the doorway, and while he didn’t look happy, he didn’t look as angry as he’d been lately. Under different circumstances, Lucifer might’ve appreciated that. But at the moment his brain was too caught up in a nauseating loop of it can’t be him, it feels like him, how the hell is he here, what’s going on.
“Lawyer’s here,” Dan said simply, eyes darting over to Michael and then back to Lucifer.
He’d worked with the Detective long enough to know what that meant. Their time talking to Michael was over.
Maybe it was good timing. Lucifer gave Michael one last, lingering look before pushing himself up from his seat. Let the police handle this side of things without him. It'd give Lucifer a chance to reach out to his own people and try to find out what the hell was going on here, and who exactly this person was. There was no way Michael would actually be down here playing at being some human bodyguard, and yet... he had that faint hint of divinity to him, using powers that only one being in creation had.
But if Lucifer's twin brother were actually down here, surely someone in heaven would've sent him word by now? Amenadiel hadn't come down, nor had anyone else. If something had happened to Michael, they would've told him. So... what was going on here? What was happening?
The whole situation was bizarre, and even worse was the fact that the imposter was still staring at him, eyes watching as Lucifer marched out of the room.
Lucifer didn't stop to hear whatever the others were trying to say to him. He heard Dan call out his name, and it sounded like Ms. Lopez shouting something as well, but he ignored them both. The only thing he wanted right now was answers. Answers that he wasn't going to get here.
As he stepped out the front doors of the police station, he pulled out his phone and dialed the one number he knew would always get him an answer, no matter what. Not even the recent fighting would get in the way of that.
“Maze, I need you to meet me at Lux. No, I don't care what you're doing, this is far more important.” Lucifer paused beside his car, glancing back at the station behind him, that sense of unease growing. “I have a very dangerous someone I need information on.”