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She wasn't afraid of the dark, she really wasn't, but….
The way the shadows were changing any usually comforting detail of her home, she didn't like it. They were turning them into something unfamiliar, although it wasn't her first touch along this wall in the living room, near the staircase.
She wasn't afraid. She didn't like to imagine the dark wall grabbing her fingers, hand and then herself whole to never ever let go. But that would only happen if she would keep touching it. It was just… weird, unpleasant imagination.
The noises at her back, against the window - slight noises instead of louder ones, at daytime - she didn't like them either.
Trixie glanced at the ajar door of her bedroom while she nibbled her bottom lip. The only spot of light was coming from there, through the darkness she wasn't nor would ever be afraid of. She looked at the staircase, at the television soon after. She wouldn't be able to get back to sleep, not without taking her mind off her weird imagination first — one of the two tips her mum gave her when she was having a b-.... when she was no longer dreaming.
It was too loud to read something, alone in her bedroom.
She liked watching TV best, at its lowest volume. That and playing board games, when Lucifer wasn't trying to cheat. He called 'cheating' another way, though. Bending… the rules, was that it? And that he wouldn't let a plasticised game bend his free will. Trixie frowned.
Free will.
That word came back often in his mouth, even all the time that day when her mom had forced him to help her do her homework, explaining to him that giving her all the answers wasn't helping.
"Why wouldn't it? The spawn now is aware of how much valuable time she's wasting and not just hers!"
Oh, the glare her mom gave him that day! She would receive the same if she'd ever try to turn on the TV in the middle of the night, wouldn't she? No TV for a long, real long time after that too. And even if she would try to explain why she did it, her mom wouldn't buy it and reply that she could have told her it was that bad.
Second tip. Whine in mom's arms.
Trixie pinched her lips. Her feet drew small semi-circles on the carpet. She wasn't whining, she wouldn't. Still though, that girl from her school, that 'Stephanie', she had sounded so confident about the fact that only babies whined.
She wasn't a baby anymore. She was almost eleven!
It nearly sounded like a sob, the sound that just came out of her mouth after she heard another noise in her back. Stop 'think timing'. She climbed up the stairs, fast, moving her feet a bit to the left or right when bigger shadows started to climb along the right or left wall. She walked as fast to the door on which she had been asked to knock first before coming inside, not that she ever knew the reason for that. One time she had asked her mom about it and she had turned as red as her school bag. "Lucifer..... Well, honey… it's because it's been a long time for him since he lived with that… many people in the same place."
As Maze had snorted from the couch, Trixie hadn't understood why she had turned even more red. "Looooong time, indeed. Not for sleeping with 'that' many p—"
Trixie never heard the rest because of the cushion thrown towards Maze's head. That and because she had been gently pushed out of any audible area near 'adult talk'. It was an adult tip that she had figured out a long time ago. 'The' tip for them when the only choice left was lying to her. It was both treating her like a baby, anyway.
Stephanie's teasing words kept coming back in her mind and held back her fist from the door.
If her mom was really a cop, she should have been as brave as she was. So was her dad, a brave cop. And Maze, she was an even bravest warrior, almost cooler than her mom. She fought with knives. Cooler than that….
Also, Lucifer had no limits, even though he acted like a baby sometimes, more often than her. One day, they arrived too late to school and she saw him open the metal gate with one hand. One hand! And that, because 'the Detective forced me to observe unnecessary speed limits in your presence'. The metal gate was big, heavy— it took lots of strength to move it, it always took the concierge's breath away.
Lucifer could throw people in the air, too.
She saw him doing so a long time ago on her mom's laptop, long before he started sleeping here almost every night of the week. Like tonight, she wasn't sleeping and she had left her bedroom a few times after the babysitter's departure. Her mom had turned off every light in the living room except for one on her desk. Trixie had walked towards it, wanting some water, but she had stopped the moment she had looked at the screen. Following her mom's quick clicks around the mouse, she had watched the window shatter and rise, over and over again. Following Lucifer's arm.
He was really strong. And he whined, really often.
So there was no harm for her to whine a bit, right? She would still be brave and strong. Right? Also, Lucifer always told her that if she really wanted something, she should follow her desires.
She didn't want to stay alone, nor go back to her bedroom.
No answer followed her first shy knock, neither when she knocked twice after that, and stronger.
She knocked.
The door opened in on complete darkness.
Behind her, Trixie saw the shadow moving forward then backwards. It ran along the walls, covering the ceiling. She sneaked inside her mom's bedroom before it had the time to reach the spot above her head. Keeping her back against the shut door, she held her breath until a bright light went through the curtains on the other side of the room. She then heard the car and watched the light turning into a bright, vertical staircase— because of the curtains. One 'step' in two helped her see better inside.
When the light had grown through the window, her mom had turned away from it, towards the door, snoring even louder than usual. Lucifer didn't move an inch as she left his arms, but he fell on his back when she hid her face in the cushion.
He didn't seem to care about it, nor about being either covered by blankets or not.
When they were in Europe, Trixie didn't want to sleep in the same bed as her mom because of that. She has the bad habit of taking all the blankets for herself, every time. She snored so loud when Trixie pulled on them because she was too cold, moreover.
She looked at her mom facing her, then at the starfish who was as brave than stupid, and half off of the bed after her mom's movements.
It took her five calls and a final pull on his arm hanging outside the bed to wake him up. His mouth shut on a groan, not weird words like before. Why did he smile while whispering "wrong orifice… Detective"? So weird.
He frowned eventually, his head lifted away from the cushion, which had plastered half of his hair on his skull, the other half looking almost like the hedgehog once seen in the neighbor's garden. "B'tric?" His head up higher, faster, he looked down and collapsed with a sigh as soon as his eyes met his short pants. "No wonder she overemphasized about this...."
"She?"
He rubbed his eyes with one hand. "Your mother."
"Overemphasized about what?"
Both eyes on her, his hand stopped beneath the left one. "You're really waking me up for… questions?"
"That's a question," Trixie replied.
"Your doing."
"Yours."
He lowered his hand. "I was sleeping."
"You said my name like it was a question, your doing."
"Because you woke me up!" His voice sounded clear, like in daytime while it was still night time, and she heard his annoyance as clearly. Whatever she was about to reply got lost in a clear, even louder snoring next to Lucifer who turned around. He craned his neck, his weight on his elbow as he carefully watched her mom. "And the Detective," he whispered.
Trixie shook her head. "Not a chance, even with an earthquake. I got better chances to wake you up, really."
Lucifer turned around. "Answers, finally! Not that it answered the most important question— why on earth are you keeping your neighbour awake?"
She frowned. "You're no neighbour. You're mom's partner."
"You're right about that." His hand hid the next yawn, swallowed and shaken from lips to disheveled head. "What can I do for you, spawn? I hope it's not about poker again because the Detective clearly forbid any other game than the boring ones in your closet, even though Dad knows how much you need to practice your bluff—"
"It's not poker." She pulled on her pyjama top.
"Chocolate cake?" He sighed. "Your mom forbids so many things that I'm losing count… anyway, you're not supposed to eat extra-sugar outside weekend, but…" He looked at the alarm clock on the nightstand, scratching his beard. "Weekend it is, since two hours. Lovely."
Again, Trixie shook her head, pulling the Devil's sigh in the slow movement.
His hand left his jaw. "Well, don't keep me in the dark, child."
She bit her lip. Her toes bent several times on the carpet and she never looked away from it, she never looked at him. He was angry, she could hear it. It was normal, but—
"Nightmare…."
"Say that again?"
"Nightmare," she repeated a bit louder. "I don't… I—"
"You don't wanna stay alone."
Trixie bit hard the sob about to come and lifted her head. The sob died in her throat as she looked at Lucifer who went still on the bed, still disheveled and lacking blankets. Anger lacked in his eyes, as did the disappointment she expected to see. She nodded and waited for his reaction, her pyjama top wrapped around her thumbs. Lucifer was Lucifer; the Devil— so brave and strong, no matter how many times he spent whining like a baby. He was still the strongest friend she had. Someone as strong as him didn't have nightmares.
He looked to his right again.
Was he gonna wake up her mom?
But he pulled away what was left of the blankets from him when she was about to beg him not to. He sat up, his back straight against the head of the bed and quietly tapped the mattress on his left.
Her hesitation only lasted a few seconds before she started to climb on it, slowly because she didn't want to make it crack too loudly with her weight. Her movements grew even slower once she passed Lucifer's legs until she sat next to him. She kept her back and legs as straight as his, an inch of air between them. She knew that Lucifer didn't like hugs, even more so the unexpected ones. He was like cats, or wild dogs in the streets, which were always startled by every little thing, even nice ones. Lucifer didn't move away from her this time, though. He just rubbed his eyes.
"You're not gonna send me back to my room?" She buried her hands between her thighs.
He pulled on his short pants with a funny expression, an awkward one maybe, and frowned. "You don't want to stay alone, do you?"
"But I woke you up."
"I've noticed."
"So you don't wanna sleep anymore?"
"On the contrary."
"So why let me stay?" she insisted. "I'm bothering you."
The back of his skull met the head of the bed with a sigh. "It doesn't matter. You have no desire to stay on your own and I'm not that… bothered to oblige."
"Why not?"
He smiled while lowering his chin to look at her. "I'd swear I'm talking with the Detective if I wouldn't hear her snorings right now. You know, asking questions is anything but good for sleep." His gaze moved to her mom. "What's the Detective's usual procedure with these nightmares of yours?"
"Sometimes she stays with me until I get back to sleep, she either reads or tells me a story in the meantime."
"Well, you're here to stay. As for the 'story' part… I'm pretty certain that whichever story of mine wouldn't suit your ears, nor your mom's. Anything else?"
Trixie nodded after a short time. "She'd ask me about the nightmare."
He groaned, "It's a bloody storytelling trap…. Fine, then. My ears are all yours, spawn."
"I-I…." She pinched her lips and bent her knees against her chest. Her palms moved back and forth on them.
"What's wrong?" Lucifer whispered.
"I don't… I can't remember. Not really."
It happened sometimes. It was worse in a way, to only keep in mind the feelings, its contents lost forever. It felt like there was no end to it, even after waking up from it. The shadow remained, it didn't care about Lucifer sitting beside her. It was lying in wait for her.
Lucifer slightly moved away from her, making the mattress squeak. Her mom's next snoring was louder, too. Trixie shrugged to his lost gaze, feeling even more uncomfortable and ashamed. She shouldn't have come here and woken him up. Stephanie was right. But she thought that talking to someone would have stopped the fear in its tracks, that she would have stopped dreaming at all.
She sniffed and cleaned her nose in her sleeve. "Sorry…."
Snorings and sniffles filled the room for a long time. And during such a long time, Trixie could have proposed the final tip for bad dreams. She could have, but she wouldn't.
He was like a cat. The most wild, wariest of cats, as the strongest one.
The loudest sounds popped like a soap bubble around his whispers. "How about I tell you about mine?" Still stroking her nose with her sleeve, she stared at him. He was looking at the wall facing them, not blinking once until he turned his attention back to her, smiling. "This should do the trick, shouldn't it?"
Trixie nodded, her knees, her whole body leaning towards the free space that didn't have space enough for the final tip.
Like any cat would do, Lucifer tried to plaster some curls with one hand. Then, he waved it towards her. "I'd better not risk waking up the Detective, that would be a waste of my skills. Chop chop."
He had that weird expression again, so she asked, "What skills?"
Trixie heard him clear his throat as weirdly, but she kept coming closer, wrapping her arms around her legs once her shoulder settled on his side. He lifted his arm, allowing even more space for this hug he feared so much. "Nothing suitable for childs' ears. We'd better stay on the nightmare topic, mh?"
"I'd like it to leave, not stay."
"But talking will make it leave, right? Now… which one should I pick?" he wondered, lowering his arm in a way that allowed Trixie to snuggle up against him.
She felt good, comfortable. He wasn't, though. She felt him tense. "You had a lot of them? Really?"
"Less of them, actually. Less and less." He had turned to her mom once more. He did that so often, looking for her when something dark was clouding his gaze and the air around him. She was sure that the same just happened, but it was hard to see in the dark.
"You remember them? All of them?"
"Most of them."
She squeezed his left hand. "That's sad."
He tensed even more, his speechless face turned towards their joined hands on the mattress. He gave her a half shrug. "That's sadly repetitive, yes."
"Repetitive? So… it's always the same nightmare? Since you're a child?"
"Not for that long, but for… quite a while," he whispered.
"While what happened?"
"You know, there won't be much 'telling' if you keep 'asking' me questions!"
Well, telling about nightmares wasn't really better, but she would keep that thought for herself. She kept her mouth shut as long as Lucifer kept his annoyed gaze on her. After a minute had passed, he took a deep breath, his torso pushing Trixie away then bringing her back against him. He breathed three times this way, the time to make his shiver pass beneath her hand.
"Nightmares have always been quite… unnatural to me, actually. But you don't know that, do you?"
Trixie shook her head.
"Of course, no one knows. Well, that's because I wasn't meant to have them at all. That was not how I was… how my home… I mean, my former home... was supposed to work." He saw her frown. "My home was called the Silver City. City… that it was. I bet it's far more huge since the last time I've been there, since Adam and Eve's arrival. Anyway…."
He rubbed his short pants with his only free hand. Three times.
"It was the same for my family— always getting bigger, never the possibility of one single moment of peace, alone. There was always something to do, someone to talk to, to follow, to sleep or wake up with…." He shook his head. "No peace for me, not once. No time for dreams either. And…and then, I… I fell."
"Like… falling down the stairs?" Trixie couldn't help but ask.
Lucifer chuckled, not in the least annoyed by the interruption. Still, it sounded wrong, too low to only avoid waking up her mom. "Farther down, spawn." He pulled on the blanket, not strongly enough to cover his legs.
"Are you falling in your nightmares?"
"No, I… I'm not. There's nothing." His face faded in darkness. "There's no one," he whispered as he moved his hand from hers, soon on her shoulder. "No siblings to follow, to talk to, no one that would disturb my sleep and that's… that's because Hell is the ultimate no angel land. There was no one there, at first."
"And after that?" Trixie whispered despite her tight throat. "You felt better?"
He cocked his head. "Not… better. Demons couldn't act the same as my siblings. They were drawing out whichever bad you could find in nightmares, in Hell or within its endless darkness. I'd come to see reality as such, a nightmare. I mean…." Lucifer swallowed, pulling on the blanket, hard, before letting go. "Hell means such things. Living nightmares."
"But you did make the difference between the two, didn't you?"
He flinched, staring at her like earlier, when he had just woken up.
"I did, yes. I…." He cleared his throat. "It helped… coming here, on Earth. Here, I can feel a bit of the same I had before, to… to the Silver City. The same kind of disturbance. I'm hardly alone in the dark here."
His hand had started slow back and forth movements along her shoulder for a few minutes now. Anyway, Trixie was the first to really move. Because she got it, she got that Lucifer was neither a cat, nor a wild, abandoned dog. He wasn't wary, nor did he feel uncomfortable or in a hurry to flee the moment.
He was simply afraid to ask to make it last.
Trixie ignored his quiet yelp of surprise, she ignored how his breathing stopped pushing her away as strongly as before the moment she wrapped her arm around his torso, her face snuggled against his fast beating heart. She didn't care because that was the reason why she came here in the first place, for not staying alone in the dark.
She closed her eyes, hugging the Devil plenty and smiling shamelessly as she felt him hugging her back. Sighing with each of his strokes along her shoulder, then her back, she hugged him harder. "Thank you, Lucifer."
He remained silent, but that was okay. As was his faked annoyance the next second. "Will you ever get back to sleep, Beatrice?"
Snuggled up against him as she listened to his breathing above her and her mom's next to them, she would sleep forever. She would forget the shadow for as much time.
-xXx-
"…-ike pancakes."
"…-kay, but try not waking him up, mh?"
A push on his stomach.
"...oopsy…." A clucking. "His snoring beats yours, Mom!"
"Grnfmm…." The sound died through the folds of the cushion, yet almost resurrected as Lucifer's chin was tickled with hair.
His forehead dove fully into feathery folds in response. How strange.
How soft.
The pull on his stomach wasn't long to die through his foggy sensations as well. He barely flinched for the next disturbance, a slight breath from his chest to his neck. He sighed, comfortable with the new weight against his muscles. He inhaled its scents, touched the feathers with his temple.
Divine hairy scent.
And a door slammed shut.
Sniffling the last remains of his bubble of torpor, Lucifer flinched once more and opened his eyes from just an inch. He stared blankly at his wing, unfurled and too big for the bed.
Wonderful.
When did they—
"I guess that your sniffling time is over, then. Seems like I smell divine, though."
He looked down and met Chloe's cracked up face, divinely hairy and overly dressed in his arms. His tousled feathers twitched beneath them.
He smiled, lifting his left wing to get a better look. "Way too divine," he slurred in her hair, his wing pulling her closer. "w'y too early…."
In place of her usual groans and complaints, her hands left his chest and looked for the elastic band of his short pants. He shivered, his back muscles twitching beneath her fingers, which had already passed clothed boundaries.
Her smile brushed his neck as she gave a short squeeze to his butt. "It's past eleven."
He let out a sound, approval and complaint, a long sigh that soon got covered with far louder sounds downstairs. What was wrong with the bloody spawn to wake up as early as her mother? Why do they both hate sleep?
"Pr'cis'ly my point… 'ay too early starting point f'r weeken'...."
Chloe's hands rose from his lower back to the joints of his wings, her fingers starting slow motions through the widest feathers.
Lucifer breathed out slowly.
He would hardly leave this bed nor let her leave his arms now.
"Wanna sleep a bit longer?" she proposed to him.
His eyes had closed even before he heard her speak again, not sure why or what had pushed him deeper into the fog. Far more awake than he had ever been since then, he looked for her gaze. Soft blue, not the same he got for their usually wasted time together as soon as the spawn was up.
His sigh brushed her palm on his cheek. "You heard, didn't you?"
"Just tiny bits."
Lost in the blue, he breathed her presence, which was lasting longer and was willing to last so. The last time they had stayed this long in bed after even longer night sins… this went back to their first time, actually. Well… rather the fourth time. It would even have been the sixth if she wouldn't have been that eager to eat breakfast burritos. Together for willingly long extra times in bed.
He knew what she was about to say, what she tried to show him by staying in his arms. He wished he could say, show the same as clearly, as perfectly and easily as her. Show and tell, he played that a lot. But never like this.
He also knew that she would understand him, no matter his show.
He exhaled against her palm. "I know."
Exhaled out of nightmares, he let their lips tell, show whichever words they both needed beneath divine, dishevelled feathers and hair.
He wasn't alone.
It was real.
