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The past few weeks had been… a lot. Lucifer still felt mentally drained from his time playing angelic battery, and while he was doing fine physically… it was taking its toll.
He hadn’t been downstairs since that sinner bumped into him. He’d completely shut down his room. Not just with a sign, but with his powers. No one in, no one out.
Add to that the fact that he could feel the portals Emily was creating, entering and leaving Heaven and Hell as she pleased - Lucifer was on the verge of a mental breakdown. He could feel it in the way his skin crawled, how even fabric was too much for him. How building ducks wasn’t a big enough distraction anymore.
Hadn’t Charlie said something about therapy? Therapy would be good… but that meant leaving his room and seeing the souls that wanted to hurt him, to use him. That meant coming to terms with the fact that no one helped him. No one cared about him.
It meant coming to terms with truly being the most hated creature in existence.
The alternative, though…
Lucifer looked longingly at his bedside drawer. At his secret. He scratched at his arms.
Therapy. He’d do therapy, and maybe it wouldn’t feel so overwhelming.
Lucifer dressed in his usual suit, gently placing his hat on his head and looking himself over in the mirror. A few well-placed dabs of white concealer, and no one would notice the bags under his eyes. He forced a smile onto his face.
Fake it until you make it.
Heading downstairs had his anxiety swirling, so he gripped the end of his cane, clawing at the apple. He gave a toothy grin to anyone he passed, ignoring the shadow that followed him.
Relief flooded him when he spotted Charlie.
“Hah! Just the gal I was looking for-“ Lucifer flinched when Charlie turned sharply, not even looking at him as she scribbled something down on her clipboard.
“-I’m kinda busy right now, Dad. I’ll talk to you later, okay?”
“Ah, well-“ Lucifer fumbled when Charlie started walking away from him, chasing after her. “Um, honey? If I could just grab a minute for a quick question-“
“-Dad. I really don’t care what kind of duck you’re in the middle of making right now, I have all of these therapy sessions to organise-“
Her dismissal of him was another stab to the heart. But there was an opening. “-That’s actually what I wanted to talk to you about, sweetie.” Lucifer pushed on, bolder than he’d ever been before. “I’d really like to organise a session for myself and-“
Charlie moved her clipboard down, a frown on her face. Lucifer’s eyes fixated instead on her badge.
Counsellor.
“-Dad. It’s nice having you here. But I need to prioritise the sinners who want redemption. I can’t just book in sessions with you because you’re lonely.”
“You’re the therapist?”
Lucifer’s world felt like it was crashing down around him. The walls of the hotel faded into nothingness as he fell, fell and fell ever deeper into the black hole that was his eternal suffering.
“Yes. Now please, if you could move along…” Charlie turned him, pushing him away.
Lucifer laughed.
The sound was broken, like how a record player skipped over a scratched disc.
The air around them swirled, like wings were beating the air, or a tornado came by for a quick visit. Charlie was startled, as was everyone else who resided within a 10-mile radius.
“Whoa, Dad-“ her mouth was quickly sealed, golden tape slapped on it, and on everyone else’s mouths too. The sound of the wind picked up as Lucifer clutched the sides of his hat, still letting out his broken laugh.
“No, Charlie. I understand.” He said, eyes flicking to her. They were inverted, glowing red. “You’re far too busy for lil’ old me. I mean - it’s not like I gave up everything for you. For an ungrateful daughter.”
Charlie’s eyebrows pinched as she reached for him, but he knocked her hand away like it was poison. Because to him it was.
“Don’t touch me!” He hissed, hat flying off his head to swirl with the rest of the debris the wind had collected. It was roaring now, loud and painful, the faint echoes of screams within.
“I have done everything for you.” Tears were falling from Lucifer’s eyes, his arms falling heavy at his sides. “I gave up everything for you. I funded your hotel. I bankrolled your dream. I endorsed your every move. You have shouted at me. You have hurt me. You have struck me. You are so much like your mother; you make me sick with it. And after everything - after being an angelic battery, after being captured. Tortured. After hiding myself away from you. From Hell. From the very sinners I have no protection against, you still won’t grant me love. I have forgiven. I have given up my pride for you. I’ve begged on my hands and knees for you - and you can’t even grant me a therapy session? An hour of your precious time? When I have answered every call. Every message. Every stupid request!”
The horns on his head were sharp and bloody, his tail swishing behind him.
“I have laid myself bare at the mercy of God, fallen into an eternity of suffering, of pain. And you. My everything. Can’t even fathom that I might be hurting too. That maybe seeing sinners be redeemed after the years I put into it, the blood, sweat and tears I shed over it, the pure misery I put myself through to help them, wouldn’t hurt me, just a little?”
Lucifer clawed at his scalp, blood running down his face as he laughed again.
“That feeling the portals open up between Heaven and Hell doesn’t kill me? That seeing Angels swan around with gift baskets doesn’t feel like a knife to the heart? That watching you make friends with the very people who cast me aside, to rot and wither in the dark, to lose my light - that it wouldn’t make me want to kill myself?”
Charlie staggered backwards, falling on her ass as she looked up at Lucifer, horrified.
“Oh, don’t you worry your pretty little head, Charlie. I can’t die! God knows I’ve tried often enough. Slitting my wrists from hand to elbow to bleed out, just to wake up alive all over again. To throw myself into Hell’s fiery pits, to feel the flames strip skin from hollow bones, just to crawl out again? You make me long for a death I’ll never have! And every day I stay here, supporting you. Lifting you higher. And you just twist the knife deeper.”
Lucifer fell to his knees, his shoulders shaking. “Throw me to the dogs. Lock me away in the dark. Take away everything from me that I ever loved, and what am I? The Lightbringer? The Morning Star? I created galaxies the likes of which your tiny mind couldn’t begin to comprehend, and still, you treat me like nothing!”
Lucifer’s hunched, wings tearing from his back in an explosion of feathers and blood. His fists left craters in the floor.
“I am nothing. And I am everything. I am the suffering eternity of loneliness, and I am hope. I am the light swallowed by the dark, and I am the abyss that stares back. Hell should fear me. Heaven should beg me for my forgiveness. And you…” Lucifer looked up at Charlie, the tears having turned to blood. “… should just fucking kill me already!”
The sonic boom of Lucifer’s wings lifting him from the ground had souls slapping their hands over their ears, watching in horror as he soared up to the skies, further and further into the atmosphere until they couldn’t see him anymore.
He had to get away. He had to go.
Before he exploded.