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Linda Martin walked into her office then did a double take. Lucifer sat primly in one corner of her couch; Maze, her arms crossed sulkily over her chest, was sprawled in the other corner.
“Doctor Linda, you’re here!” Lucifer exclaimed. “Mazikeen complains that I never put her first, so I thought how better to show that I am by sorting out our current quarrel before addressing anything else.”
“He’s just using me to avoid talking about his latest round of daddy issues,” Maze reinterpreted bitterly. “After he kept my mother from me.”
“While you conspired with my enemies and, worse, put the Detective in your crossfire- Yet again!” Lucifer snapped. “Doctor, tell her this behavior is unacceptable!”
“Linda, this asshole kept my MOTHER from me,” Maze reiterated.
“She allied with MICHAEL!” Lucifer countered. “After Michael kidnapped Chloe, she went crawling back to his side and stabbed me in the back- What is that? Four times now?”
Linda’s mouth tightened. “Maze, I understand how upset you are about Lilith but do you see how working with Michael might be… Disproportionate and dangerous?”
Maze crossed her arms and looked away.
“He did a lot of things you opposed,” Linda pointed out gently. “He was going to sleep with Chloe while pretending to be Lucifer. He manipulated Dan into shooting Lucifer-”
“Coward should have done it himself,” Maze grumbled.
“In addition to kidnapping Chloe, he tormented Charlie and made him sick with stress,” Linda said, keeping her voice carefully level.
“I didn’t know about Charlie,” Maze said defensively. “I would have yanked his lying tongue out if I’d known.”
Lucifer snorted, “You knew about the rest.”
“I was going to stop him from fucking Decker,” Maze argued.
“Points for effort; he knocked you out and locked you in a closet,” Lucifer pointed out. “If I hadn’t killed Cain you probably would have gone crawling back to him in a few months.”
“Cain threatened Linda,” Maze’s eyes blazed angrily. “I would never-”
“And Michael kidnapped Chloe!” Lucifer accused. “But you went back to him.”
“Because you let Lilith die without ever giving me a chance to tell her how much I fucking hate her!” Maze shouted back.
“Lucifer?” Linda prompted when it started to seem that the frozen silence in the room would never be broken.
Lucifer took a deep breath, “My apologies Mazikeen. I forget that as much as Lilith was my friend and fellow outcast, she was your piss-poor excuse for a parent.”
“Yeah, well, I guess Michael might have been… too much,” Maze admitted. “Like if you replaced me with Misran-” Her eyes narrowed suspiciously. “You didn’t replace me with Misran, did you?”
“The position of my Right Hand has remained empty with you up here,” Lucifer said.
“Good,” Maze replied immediately, then more quietly asked, “No one?”
Lucifer shrugged.
“You should have asked me to go back with you,” Maze complained.
“You’ve been clear, you’re not my demon anymore,” Lucifer replied. “I’m trying to respect that.”
Linda rubbed her temples and gave in to the unprofessional urge to just give the answer. “Not wanting to be told is not the same as not wanting to be asked.” Lucifer’s dropped jaw and look of dawning comprehension was its own reward.
Linda turned to Maze, “And I understand how you feel that Lucifer is not a good friend to you. You’d be completely within your rights to decide to cut him out of your life. It would be awkward for Chloe and I but neither of us would give you up as a friend, even if you and Lucifer stop being friends. However you are not entitled to physically assault Lucifer, to gaslight him, to attempt to frame him for murder or otherwise attempt to destroy his life because he doesn’t appreciate you. What’s more, Trixie and I, Chloe and now Charlie have all been endangered or even hurt because you were working a vendetta against Lucifer-”
“Yeah, I know,” Maze admitted. “Can we throw back in beating the shit out him if he’s an asshole- just as long as I do it myself?”
“Maze!” Linda protested.
“Deal!” Lucifer declared offering Maze his hand. “Keep it between us as it were.”
“Right," Maze nodded. "You hurt my feelings, I break your nose. Simple.”
“You can try,” Lucifer stressed. “Not you and whichever of my siblings happens to be dropping by.”
“I’m fucking sick of your family anyway,” Maze agreed easily.
Lucifer stood gracefully. “Thank you, Doctor. You’ve been immense help, as always.”
“Violence is not how we solve things,” Linda protested helplessly.
Maze snorted, “Since when?”