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You’re standing in front of Lucifer’s door.
You aren’t certain how long you’ve been there. No more than a minute or two, surely, although it feels like far longer. This whole day has felt impossibly long, as if Solomon warping space to bring you back to the Devildom warped time as well. Now, it is the middle of the night; the hallway is dark. Everyone else is sleeping, worn out after the day’s events. Lucifer is probably sleeping. That, more than anything else, is what gives you pause, makes you hesitate with your knuckles resting on his door. You should let him rest. He admitted earlier that he was exhausted, and you don’t want to bother him.
Except that you do.
You want to bother him. You want to wake him up if he is asleep. You want to see him, to kiss him, to feel the warmth of his body against yours. You have missed him for so very long. Your nights in the human world blur together in your memory, a film roll caught on fire, small snapshots folding up into blackened scenes: staring at the backs of your eyelids unable to sleep. Feeling cold. Feeling alone. Feeling the ghost of his hands on you and replaying the sound of his laugh, that small, honest chuckle he offers only to you.
That is why you are standing here, torn between letting him rest or waking him up. Because tonight, too, you were unable to sleep, back in that familiar bed with the ivy on the walls having grown a few more inches during your absence. You felt cold. You felt alone.
But you weren’t. You aren’t.
You knock on his door.
For several seconds, you hear nothing. No rustle of fabric. No creak of bedsprings. No patter of footsteps. He’s asleep after all, then. Maybe that’s for the best, you think, even as your heart sinks in disappointment. Maybe—
The door swings open. Before you stands Lucifer.
He looks exhausted. His crimson irises are rimmed with red, and beneath his eyes the skin is dark. It makes you worry, to see him so tired in a way that not even the excitement and stress of the day can fully explain. It makes you feel guilty. But as his gaze lands on you, some of that bone-deep exhaustion seems to leave him; the irritated furrow of his brow smooths out. He steps closer, and you think for a moment that he is going to hug you. But he doesn’t. The hand he lifts closes around the doorframe instead, and he braces himself against it.
“What did my brothers do now?” Lucifer asks wearily.
“Nothing,” you say quickly, although you can hardly blame him for jumping to that conclusion. He keeps a distance from you, shifting back as you move closer, and you try not to let it bother you. You wonder if he fears he crossed a line earlier, despite your order to kiss you, to hug you, if that is why he keeps space between you now. “I just couldn’t sleep.”
Lucifer tilts his head with a frown. “Was your room not to your liking? I apologize for it not being cleaner. It hasn’t been used since you left. If we’d known you were coming, we would have fixed it up better.”
“The room is fine. It’s just a bit… lonely.”
You let your words hang in the air, watch as the implications hit him slowly. He blinks, and his eyes are confused. Blinks, and they are suspicious. Blinks, and they widen almost imperceptibly, and maybe it is your imagination but you think he is leaning closer to you now. His spine has gone stiffer, the set of his jaw firmer, and you see in the sudden strain to his grip on the doorframe the same self-control he was exerting while under the influence of the aphrodisiac. It feels as if you are two magnets held an inch apart.
Still, he doesn’t move. Doesn’t speak. So you do instead. “I know you’re tired,” you say quietly, “but can I sleep in here with you?”
The inch turns to centimeters; the magnets snap together.
Lucifer’s arms wrap around you, no longer able to resist the pull, no longer having any reason to. One hand fits to the small of your back, the other between your shoulder blades, his fingers spread wide as if to press against as much of you as possible. He holds you close; you feel the firmness of his shoulder against your cheek as you rest against him, breathing in the woody scent of him.
“Yes,” he breathes, and that truly is all it is: a single breath, tinged with relief, with innocent want, air shaped sharp over the syllable. “Yes.”
Just like your last night in the Devildom, once Lucifer is given permission to touch, his hands do not leave you. Unlike your last night, there is never anything sexual to it. He takes your hand in his and tugs you toward his bed, and as you lay down together his touch lingers, fingers brushing over your forearm, your shoulder, your waist, whatever bit of skin he has access to as you get comfortable. For a moment, everything narrows to that point of contact, to the place where your skin touches; you feel his pulse thrum slow and steady through his fingertips. It is a grounding sort of connection for you both. A reminder that you are truly together again.
When you rest your head on his chest, something deep inside of him seems to unwind. It is a sort of relief that not even being freed from the effects of the aphrodisiac could accomplish. His arm rests over your hip, fingers curling lightly against your stomach. He is relaxed in a way that you have never seen him, a coiled spring finally released. It’s ironic, you think, considering his promise to “continue where we left off” the last time you were together. You tell him as much, teasing him, but he doesn’t take the bait.
“Mark my words,” Lucifer says, voice dark and pleased at the memory of your last night together, “we will. I swear it.” For a moment, his gentle touch changes, becomes something more. A threat. A promise. Both. But then he sighs, and the breath contains nothing but a tired contentedness. “But not tonight. I want to stay like this for now. That’s all.”
“That tired?” you ask softly.
He gives a hum of agreement; the sound rumbles through his chest. “It is… nice to have you back. To tell you the truth, I haven’t been sleeping well since you left.”
You understand. You haven’t been either. The transition back to the human world wasn’t an easy one, and it was made all the more difficult without him by your side. It is reassuring, in a way, to know that you were not alone in your sleepless nights. You may have been beneath different stars, but the feelings you had as they shone through your windows were the same.
“You’re awfully honest tonight,” you murmur. You’re grateful for it, but you still can’t resist adding, “Don’t tell me the aphrodisiac is still affecting you.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.” Lucifer’s response is immediate, snapped in a hasty protest. Even without looking at him, you know his face is red. “The aphrodisiac wore off hours ago. Besides, it doesn’t change a demon’s feelings. It merely heightens them.”
“Oh?” You shake free from his embrace, propping yourself up on an elbow with your chin in your hand so you can grin at him. You watch as the light flush to his cheeks darkens as he realizes what he just said. Even with only the faintest slivers of moonlight on his face, you can see its brilliant color. “So you meant what you said, then?”
Lucifer makes a sound: half agreement, half denial. He looks away.
“Come on,” you urge, smiling down at him. “Tell me. Tell me how you feel like ‘there’s a fire raging inside’ you. Tell me how you feel like you can’t breathe when you look at me. Tell me how ‘not a day has gone by’ that you haven’t thought of me.”
This time, the noise Lucifer gives is one of pure embarrassment. “I may have gotten a bit carried away,” he mutters.
You laugh; he really is cute. “It’s okay. You don’t have to force yourself. I already know. You love me. You adore me. You’ve never felt this way about anyone before.”
And although you’re messing with him, you do know it. The evidence of Lucifer’s love for you was always written clearly in his actions, even when his words were lacking. You saw it in the gentleness with which he came to touch you. The way he has not one but two smiles that he reserves only for you, one bright and genuine, the other softer, warmer, so small and affectionate that you often doubt he knows he’s wearing it. You’ve known he’s loved you since the moment his walls began to crumble. For all the time that he has been holding those words inside, you have been waiting to hear them. You have been pushing, little by little, lifting the rubble as it fell until you formed enough space to spill daylight inside. His love is shown in the warmth of his gaze when he looks at you, the smile that touches his lips when he kisses you. It’s in the flush of his cheeks as you tease him now.
“Enough,” Lucifer says. It is quite possibly the least commanding he has ever sounded.
“I’m special to you,” you continue as if he hadn’t spoken. “I drive you crazy. I—”
“Enough.”
His hands meet your shoulders. One shoves. The other pulls. Your back hits the mattress so quickly it makes you dizzy, the room spinning around you, and then you’re lying flat beneath him and staring up at his darkened, narrowed eyes. He frowns, visibly irritated, and you feel an oppressive weight to the air that you haven’t in months, as if molecules are preparing to rearrange themselves to make room for a sudden appearance of horns and wings. He hasn’t changed forms yet, but you feel his demon form threaten.
“Many would say it is unwise to taunt a demon,” Lucifer murmurs, the bright color of his cheeks gone. Against your throat, you feel the sharp edge of a claw press into your skin. It sends a shiver down your spine—not fear, but apprehension. You take in the dangerous tint to his eyes; your gaze remains even.
“Even if I’m that demon’s ‘master’?”
Lucifer’s expression changes at once. His eyes lose their intimidating shade, and his face burns even more brightly than before, the weight to the air gone entirely. “That was the aphrodisiac talking,” he protests.
It wasn’t. But you don’t argue; you simply laugh, reaching up to brush a strand of hair from in front of his face and cupping his cheek in your palm. Your smile softens, and you press your fingertips behind his jaw to draw him down to kiss you.
This time, Lucifer doesn’t need an order to do it. He obeys your wordless command willingly, because this is what he wants too. You taste his smile against your lips; you feel his fingers thread through your hair. This kiss is light and gentle, far less desperate than the one from hours ago. At that time he could barely bring himself to break it long enough to get the words out, the aphrodisiac pulling free from him every kind of desire: to kiss you, and to tell you, finally, finally, how he truly feels.
You weren’t able to respond properly then. You were as overwhelmed by his sudden confession as he was by the aphrodisiac. You could only kiss back, until the effects of the drug dissipated and he was left exhausted, his head resting heavily on your shoulder.
But now, you can respond. Now, you owe him a reply.
When Lucifer pulls back, only the slightest bit, his lips still brushing yours, you smile. You offer, at last, your voice quiet yet impossibly loud in the stillness of the moment: “I love you too, you know.”
Something shifts in him. There is a pause—in his movement, his breathing, his very heart—as if time has slowed down. It extends. Further. Further. Further. And then it lurches forward, and everything is catching up at once, and he is breathlessly murmuring “say it again” but kissing you before you can. It is as if he is trying to taste the truth to your words.
“I love you,” you repeat softly in the space between breaths; he almost cuts off the last word as he presses his lips to yours. His fingertips tremble where they rest against you, so faintly that you can’t tell if they are truly shaking or if it is simply his pulse rushing through them.
“Again.”
Lucifer’s voice is strained; he rushes through the word, hurries to kiss you again. Your palm still cups his cheek, and so you press against it, just enough to suggest that he should pull away. He does after a few moments, lifting his head reluctantly. “Lucifer.” His expression shifts at his name, becomes something tenderer and almost fragile, and in the moonlight, his eyes seem too bright. “I love you.”
“Mm.” That small sound is all he is able to offer in response, but it holds in it the weight of so much time spent longing, wanting, hoping, to hear those words. You nearly apologize for not saying them sooner. But then he leans down and kisses you again, and in the shape of his lips you feel acceptance. In his touch, you feel love.
That night, as you lay together, simply sharing each other’s company, there is no longer a sense of worry. There is no concern of misplaced feelings, no clock ticking down the hours until you have to leave him. You can simply be together. You can simply be.