Chapter Text
Jolly Old Saint Satan
Lucifer listened to the Detective’s spawn going on about some exchange of crafts with her BFF. He was sitting by Chloe’s desk and had been tasked with entertaining the child after her babysitter, Beth, had dropped her off at the precinct due to a family emergency. Lucifer neither understood why the child had to spend days at her so-called ‘school’ nor why she was not permitted to be there, seemingly randomly.
Her mother was in the conference room making calls. Their latest victim had no ID, but, judging from his clothes, he was working as a Santa. Chloe was pinging various malls and casting agencies in hopes of a lead.
Lucifer watched closely, through the glass, as Chloe ran her hand through her hair in frustration. He was so distracted, in fact, that he missed the spawn pulling the Santa hat they’d found at the crime scene out of an evidence box.
“Hey!” he said just before she put the hat on his head. She was definitely going to mess up his hair, not to mention what the Detective would say about contaminating evidence.
But he was too late, and she’d pulled the hat firmly onto his head.
Lucifer was quite surprised to feel the tingle of magic…something he’d encountered on Earth quite rarely this century. He snatched the hat off. Holding his breath, he waited, looking around to see if something was going to happen. Nothing did. It seemed he’d been in time.
“Grinch,” Trixie complained.
“It’s evidence.”
Trixie’s mouth formed an, ‘oh.’
“Let’s just not tell your mother, shall we?”
Lucifer hurried into the precinct the next day, having overslept, which was very unlike him. He’d dreamed of sticky small humans asking him for all manner of things. A real nightmare. As he came down the stairs, he was getting more looks than usual. He preened a bit.
“Nice suit,” Officer Martinez commented.
“Yeah, nice suit,” her partner, Officer Liu, agreed.
In Lucifer’s opinion, all of his suits were nice suits. He glanced down to see what he’d thrown on during his rush. And stopped dead.
He was wearing a suit he’d had made for a Lux theme night. It was the same cut he usually wore, but it was made of red velvet and trimmed in delicate white fur. How on Earth had he put that on? But it was Christmas Eve and the officers seemed to love it, so he shrugged.
It was a slow day. After they finished questioning a trio of mall managers—dead ends, all—it was just more paperwork and phone calls and still no solid ID on their be-santa’d victim. Lucifer was trying to be helpful, getting up to bring the Detective whatever she needed: files, coffee, or evidence from the evidence room. Each time, he grabbed a cookie from the tray someone had brought in. For some reason, he had quite a hankering for them.
Chloe looked up from her file to goggle at him. “Are you drinking…milk?”
“Goes with the cookies,” he said, dusting crumbs off his hands.
She shook her head with a smile. “Whatever. Grab me the Glendale Galleria employees list, will you?”
He passed Daniel’s desk on his way to the conference where most of the files were laid out.
“Hey, maybe you need to layoff those holiday cookies, man,” Daniel teased, smacking his belly with a file folder.
Lucifer narrowed his eyes and was about to retort when he looked down. There was, in fact, a small but distinct bit of belly bulging under his jacket. He gasped, grabbing the nearest file on Daniel’s desk and holding it in front of himself.
Never in his life! He fled the precinct before anyone else could see him like this.
Lucifer was examining his profile in the mirror in distress when he heard the elevator ding. Grabbing a pillow to hide behind, he rushed back into the other room.
“Child, what are you doing here? Where’s your mother?”
“Beth’s mom had to go to the hospital again and Mom and Dad are at Grandma’s Christmas party. It’s for adults.” Her tone said what she thought of that. “Anyway, I told Beth to bring me here. Heyyyyyyy…what’s the ‘evidence’ hat doing there?”
Lucifer looked up and, sure enough, the Santa hat was sitting on the bar.
He put his hands together in prayer-position and yelled, “Hanael!”
Soon enough, there was a rustling on the balcony, and his festive brother walked into the penthouse. Lucifer grabbed the hat and stalked toward him. Before he could utter a word, Hanael doubled over laughing.
“You,” his brother sputtered. “You of all people ended up with…”
“Yes, so I did,” Lucifer growled, tossing aside the pillow. “Millennia! And all you can do is laugh,” Lucifer added bitterly in the face of Hanael’s renewed guffaws. “Fix this!”
“I can’t until tomorrow,” Hanael said, wiping away tears. “You’re just going to have to do this, and I’ll make sure the hat finds a better home next year.”
“No. I won’t do it.”
“You know the magic won’t let you alone until you do.” Hanael took the hat and reached inside to pull out a very large sack that was spilling over with colorfully-wrapped packages by the time he dropped it to the floor.
Beatrice gasped behind them. Lucifer’d completely forgotten the child was there.
“For real?” she squealed. “Can I help?”
Lucifer frowned at her. She believed he was the Devil, so why not this, too?
Hanael crouched down, pinching her cheek. “I don’t see why not, sweetness.” To his brother, he said: “It’s not so bad. Only for kids whose family can’t, and this hat is only for North America. With your wings, you should be able to get it done in no time.”
“Wings! Now you have to let me help!”
“Look, you really don’t have a choice,” his brother said, setting the hat on Lucifer’s head.
Oh, bloody hell, he was right; Lucifer could feel it. He hated magic.
“Well, spawn, are you up for this?”
She nodded, practically bouncing in her enthusiasm.
“Alright, hold on tight,” he said, picking her up with one arm and the sack with the other before spreading his wings.
Hours later, when Chloe came to pick up Trixie, she found them both asleep on the couch. She shook her head at the plates of cookies scattered all around the penthouse. And was that a pile of snow melting by the balcony doors?