Chapter Text
Now.
Being back in Pride has been stressful. In a way that Rosie was not prepared to deal with because the ending of her vacation had been stressful too. That is not to say Rosie doesn’t like being busy, she does since it keeps her mind off … other things… but there is a certain amount of busy that becomes TOO busy.
Right now she’s too busy.
“Rosie.” Dany rubs at her temples and looks at the orders that are starting to flood in. “I thought we tamped down the press. What is this?”
Rosie looks at the pile of papers and sighs. “Ozzie said he was going to make a connection, but I didn’t think it would be this fast.”
“Who is Ozzie?” Dany mutters, but then she waves a hand and picks up the list of orders. “We need more fabric. Do you think Huron has the silver star fabric still?”
“Disgusting.” Rosie shudders. “Don’t mention that man’s name in this Emporium. We’ll ask Sunshine.”
“We’ll ask Lucifer.” Dany sets down the legal pad and smirks. “Or have you forgotten he has a name that ISN’T your pet name?”
“It’s not-- It’s a nickname.” Rosie hears the front door bell chime. “Didn’t we lock that?”
The two of them exchange a look. They nod and then Dany goes left and Rosie goes right. There are two ways out of the back, and each taking a door means any robbers can’t slip past. They’ve only had one attempted robbery before, but life has been quite busy and stressful as of late. Might as well add a robbery in the mix.
“Charlie?” Rosie puts her hands on her hips. Dany, emerging out the other door, spins on a foot and lets the door close without coming all the way into the room. That means Rosie is on her own here. Fair enough.
Charlie stands in the middle of the Emporium lobby, looking around while she fiddles with her fingers and shifts from foot to foot.
“Charlie.” Rosie says her name a little louder. Charlie jumps up in the air with a yelp, lands on a single foot, and then spins while flailing her arms until she can’t keep her balance and falls on her rear. Truly impressive. “What brings you to the Emporium, sweetheart?”
Rosie sweeps forward and helps Charlie to her feet while flicking a finger to send a tendril of power to double check that the door is locked. It is. How did-- That’s something to figure out later. It takes a few seconds for Charlie to get her bearings, and then she gives Rosie a sheepish smile. “Sorry, I wanted to ask for some advice.”
“Well, I’m always here for my clie--” Rosie pauses. Charlie isn’t a client anymore, is she? No, she’s a client in some ways (she is absolutely paying for the uniforms with how much of a headache they are being), but she’s also Lucifer’s daughter. Rosie can’t go after her soul or ask for a favor. She’s a darling girl, and Rosie would rather not hurt her Sunshine. Best to just treat Charlie like a friend. Rosie blinks. “For you. Come on to the back. I’m sure I have a batch of cinnamon-apple cookies.”
She’s been experimenting with the recipe to make it good enough to use as a bribe. Sunshine could easily be bribed with the right baked goods.
“You’re not offering-- Never mind. Thank you.” Smart girl. Rosie hums as she keeps a hand near the small of Charlie’s back to keep her going at an appropriate pace. It’s late in the afternoon, the Emporium is closed, and Lucifer will be expecting her back to cook dinner soon. Best to move quickly. “I’m sorry to be a bother, I just didn’t know who else to go to! Ugh.”
Rosie sits her down at the chef’s table in the kitchen with a laugh. “If you were being a bother, I’dda kicked you out. You tell Auntie Rosie what the problem is, and I’ll get you your cookies.”
As soon as Rosie has turned, Charlie says, “Well. It’s about Alastor.”
Of course it’s about Alastor. Her fool of a best friend drives her up a wall every week it seems. It takes every ounce of her restraint to not groan. Instead, she grabs the plate of cookies on the counter and turns with a beaming smile to Charlie. “What’s our charming friend done now? Seems he’s into all sorts of things.”
“Hah. Well.” Charlie is quick to take a cookie and start nibbling. “It’s sort of something he asked about, not something he did.”
This is a slow and drawn out conversation compared to the last time Charlie had come by to ask for advice (and an army). It seems Charlie has two settings: GO and slow. Almost like Lucifer. She’s a lot like her father, now that Rosie is thinking about it. Best to not get distracted though, she clears her head of other thoughts and focuses on Charlie.
When she slides into her seat, she offers a mild, “Oh?”
Charlie nods. “See. He asked me for love advice.”
If there was a way to make Rosie feel like she was in an air balloon careening towards the ground, Charlie managed to find it. Amazing. She can’t even put any emotion in her voice when she asks, “He what?”
“More specifically, he asked me how to fall out of love and I didn’t really think that was a good idea. So I told him to try falling out of love by falling more in love and really I shouldn’t have lied, but don’t you think it’s sill--”
Rosie can only process so much of what Charlie’s saying. There’s snippets her brain manages to snatch from the rant happening in front of her, but the back of her mind is going over her recent interactions with Alastor. He had seemed different, hadn’t he? He’d been a little more of a worrywart. A little more in tune with her and what she needed.
He was paying attention.
They were back for a week and every time she saw Alastor, he was a gentleman in the way he’d been at the beginning of their friendship. Charlie. Might be right. If Alastor is in love, he would certainly try to hide it, but he’s terrible at hiding things. He pulls away instead of covering up, and that’s very easy to see.
She knows him so very well.
And he’s been soft to her as of late. Kind. He could be soft and kind, sure, but that was not his default. Something was making him soft and kind. Oh dear.
“So really, I think I was in the right to do what I did, but I worry that he’ll find out and then I don’t even know if I’m right about who he’s in love with--”
“Charlie.” Rosie cuts Charlie off because the rant has gone on long enough. “It certainly sounds like you were doing something to help him, what might you need from me?”
“Oh.” Charlie blinks. “Do you know how I can push him towards love instead of away from it?”
There we go. A simple, one sentence question. Rosie can work with that.
“Well, dear, Alastor is a right pickle.” And she’s going to kill him as soon as she figures out who he’s in love with. How could he not tell her? She’s his best friend! She’s the only friend who’s stood by him through his stupid, stupid mistakes. “You know, he’s never consistent on what works. Some days you gotta be frank and some days if you say something to his face, he’ll bite your fingers off. How was he during this conversation of yours?”
Rosie needs details. She needs to get to the bottom of things.
“Alastor was--” Charlie taps at the table. “Worried? I guess? He had that thing where there were stress lines around his smile, I’m sure you know what I’m talking about, and he gave me his full attention. I don’t think I’ve ever gotten Alastor’s full attention. It was a very odd thing to experience.”
His full attention. Worried. It certainly sounds like something serious. He doesn’t just let those kind of emotions slip past that smile of his. Rosie can tell those things, but if someone like Charlie can see… He’s in deep.
“You know, how about I talk to him? He and I go a ways back, I’ll have you know. You keep doin’ what you’re doin’, and I’ll try on my end to get through to him.” Charlie will just push him away from love. If he’s in love, and he’s trying to get out of it, it’s best that Rosie steps in. She can stop him from killing the person who’s captured his attention.
“Would you?” Charlie beams. “That’s great! I’ll keep giving him advice” -- Did Charlie say she was giving Alastor advice? -- “and you can approach him as a friend. Together, it HAS to work.”
“I agree!” Rosie doesn’t know what she’s agreeing to, but she really does have to get home. The clock chimed seven and Lucifer comes to pick her up if she’s still here at 7:30. A week back and he’s already set up a schedule for them because he loves a routine. She does too, but it’s amusing how fast he got grumpy when she was late. “Let’s get you out of here, hmm?”
Charlie chats about the uniforms on her way out.
When the door shuts, Dany’s voice pierces the air. “Did I hear that Alastor is in love?”
“You did!” Rosie spins on a foot and huffs. “That man. I should have seen it. Have you noticed him being nice as of late?”
“Nice to you, maybe.” Dany is cleaning up behind the counter, probably wrapping up the closing checklist so they can both go home. “He’s been grumpy and rude to everyone else.”
Interesting. Rosie narrows her eyes as her brain tries to slot that information in amongst the array of other things she’s learned today. “I wonder who--”
“Don’t ask, Rosie. That’s a bad idea.” Dany waves a pencil in her direction. “The last time you started asking Alastor questions, what happened?”
Vox. Rosie shudders. “You’re right, you’re right.” But it doesn’t matter that Dany is right. She’s going to find out what’s going on in Alastor’s head. She has to. “Finish everything?”
“Get out of here before your Sunshine comes to get you. Let me know when I should start planning the wedding dress.” If the door wasn’t opening behind her, the familiar sound of Lucifer’s boots on linoleum echoing around them, Rosie would have pulled a pencil from her skirts and thrown it. As is, Dany is safe. For now.
Dany grins. She knows exactly what she did. Damn it.
“Moonlight?”
“I’m coming!” Rosie turns to see Lucifer. He’s glowing, dressed down in shirt sleeves and slacks, and she finds he’s quite handsome in the burgundy she found for him to wear. It’s a good color on him. “Just wrapped up some things. What are we having for dinner?”
///
Lucifer has paperwork so Rosie has time to make a cup of tea, settle on the couch, and grab a yellow pad of paper to jot her thoughts down.
The first thing to figure out when it comes to Alastor is who could be distracting him. He’s probably not actually in love, the man wouldn’t know love if it took his own microphone and smacked him over the head, but he is definitely distracted. Knowing him, he would equate the two.
Distractions are love and vice versa. It’s a very Alastor thought.
She taps her pencil on the paper. Distracting people. Alastor doesn’t know a lot of people anymore. He used to be in a lot of circles, but in the 90’s he pulled away. Tiff hasn’t heard from him in a few decades, Zestial hasn’t heard from him since before he disappeared, and the cannibals haven’t even spoken to him since somewhere around 2003. Sure, he’d popped in to buy meat from Bart, but overall he’s been withdrawn and quiet.
Now that she’s thinking of it, she really should have known he was going to disappear one day.
Not a productive thought. She shoves that aside and is at least glad that the list of people he knows is quite narrow now. Otherwise she’d have to start calling people and then the knowledge that Rosie was looking for SOMEONE would spread. Her network was quite well informed.
Mimzy: She couldn’t distract Alastor if she tried.
Charlie: A child. He went to her for advice instead of Rosie, his best friend, for some Sin-Damned reason that Rosie was going to drag him over the coals for. Having to hear about him being in love from anyone but him directly is an insult.
Angel Dust: No, too sexual. Niffty: Hah! No. Any of Rosie’s cannibals: No, the grapevine is strong and Rosie would have heard of something before now. Any mafia member: No, same reason it can’t be a cannibal. Husk: No, the poor man was probably taking the brunt of Alastor’s anger at being distracted.
Rosie taps her pencil faster and purses her lips as she stares at her growing list of people. None of which are good options.
New residents at the hotel? No, Lucifer says Alastor disli-- Rosie pauses and tilts her head. No. No. No. It has-- Who else does Alastor know?
Overlords? No, Alastor would rather eat his own ears than interact with the Vee’s.
Hotel Residents? No, Alastor disrespects them since they don’t just take control of their own situation (his words).
Their circle of friends? No, Alastor hasn’t talked to them in ages.
Rosie swallows.
No. No, no.
He’s been soft to Rosie, Dany said. Nice to Rosie. Alastor and her are friends and they go far back and he KNOWS how she reacts to having her heart broken and he knows how she feels about--
“Moonlight?” Lucifer steps into the living room and Rosie jerks her head up to blink at him. The top few buttons of his shirt are undone, his cuffs are rolled up past his elbows, and his smile is lovely and warm. He’s so lovely. She feels warm just looking at him. “What might you be up to?”
It would be best to not lie to her Sunshine. “Thinking about people Alastor could reconnect with. I think him being cooped up in the hotel is bad for him.”
“Ah.” He nods and moves to sit by her, pressing in until he’s practically laying on her curled up legs. “Let’s see.”
Rosie tilts the pad where he can see it and tries, very hard, to not think about the person not on the paper. The only person not on the paper.
“These are people he talks to currently?” Lucifer hums. “You could have him talk to Zestial again. Zestial is always willing to have tea and gossip. Al likes gossip.”
“You’re very right.” Rosie whispers as Lucifer leans in to bump her forehead with his. “He would. I should have a cup of tea with him too.”
“Well, right now you should come to bed. You work tomorrow.” He pulls away and offers her a hand to help her off the couch.
She snorts, but takes his hand anyway. The pad is tossed onto the table. “Since when do you set my bedtime?”
“Since you told me you go to bed near midnight on days you get up at 6.” Lucifer waggles his eyebrows and she groans as he pulls her towards the bedroom. “You have to admit, you like getting more sleep.”
She does not admit she likes getting more sleep. That would be letting him win. “I don't know what you’re talking about.”
“Oh, really now?” He tuts, and she narrows her eyes. “Then you don’t know about the new episode of that baking show? That I only let you watch if you’re in bed before 10?”
Rosie gasps. “You wouldn’t.”
“I would and you know it.” His grin is far too wide and toothy for his words to be untrue. He would deny her a new episode of her baking show, and she knows it.
The bedroom is already set up with a TV and a pile of blankets for them to curl up on. Damn him.
“Fine, but I want your wings out tonight.” Rosie puts her hands on her hips and glares at him. He shrugs, completely unphased.
“You’re wasting baking time.”
When he turns on a heel to grab his night clothes, she tackles him onto the bed because she can snap her clothes into pajamas and she will NOT let him cut into her baking show. He giggles as she grabs the remote to turn on the TV.
“Is that a ‘I will go to bed at 9 pm every night from now on’ I hear?” He continues to giggle as she shoves him onto his side and does a couple claps in a chop chop motion. His wings pop out, his clothes melt into his usual tank top and shorts, and he pulls a pillow under his head.
“If you’re going to threaten me, I suppose.” She slides under his warm wing and turns on her baking show.