Chapter Text
“Contemplating the ways of the world?” Lucifer asked as he poured himself a drink, but the boy sitting at the bar merely slumped forward to lean on the bar top, resting his head on his folded arms and staring straight ahead.
He cleaned up well enough, Lucifer supposed, though it was a travesty what he was doing to the clothes he’d borrowed. The wrinkles in the shirt could be dealt with, but the pants would never be the same. Where had he even gotten the safety pins he was using to keep them turned up? The tailor was only a phone call away. It would have been much less troublesome for both of them if he’d simply agreed to a fitting.
(The clothes the boy had been wearing weren’t fit to be called rags. Lucifer planned to have them burned once the boy had gone through the pockets; there was nothing left to salvage of the things. Even Dan wouldn’t have touched the likes of them with a ten-foot pole.)
“This would be much easier if you’d talk to me,” continued Lucifer as he walked around the bar to sit two stools away from the boy. “If nothing else, you could tell me your name.”
No answer.
Predictable, really, but he’d be lying if he claimed it wasn’t antagonizing, and he certainly wasn’t about to start that. Still, Lucifer kept an easy smile on his face. “It would only be polite. After all, you are a guest in my humble abode.”
The boy snorted and sat up, finally looking over at Lucifer. “Okay, first of all, by no one’s standards is this place humble. Second, you dragged me here, so I’m not sure if I’m more of a guest or a ‘guest’.” Even if it hadn't been accompanied by air quotes, the boy’s stress on the word had it dripping with enough sarcasm to make his meaning clear.
“The first one, though I would hardly call a stern suggestion dragged.”
That got him a raised eyebrow. “You’re coming home with me,” the boy said in a poor imitation of Lucifer’s accent. “I’m sure you’d rather that than my alerting the authorities?”
“I wasn’t going to leave you out on the streets.”
Bright blue eyes narrowed at him. “Why not? Other people are left on the streets. What’s so special about me?”
That was the million-dollar question, wasn’t it? Lucifer couldn’t even guess at the answer, and that irked him. Dear old Dad had done enough meddling in Lucifer’s life already—he wouldn’t have gotten his hands dirty again—which meant one of his siblings surely had a hand in this, but which one? To what end?
What was he missing?
The boy crossed his arms again, though he kept his elbows off the bar this time. “You shouldn’t even have been able to find me,” he muttered. “No one was supposed to find me.”
“A common enough sentiment among runaways,” Lucifer drawled after taking a sip of his drink, “but particularly among those who are running as much for their sake as someone else’s.” He leaned closer, meeting the boy’s eyes, and added, “Tell me, what is it you really desire?”
The boy shrugged. “I wouldn’t turn down a Nasty Special right now. With extra sauce.”
It hadn’t worked last time, either.
More proof that there was more to this boy than meets the eye. Not that he’d needed it. The boy wouldn’t be here in the first place if Lucifer had. Still, the fact that the boy had briefly shaken Maze after running away from Lux the first time was impressive. There were precious few who could disguise their trail that well.
Lucifer hadn’t asked, but he suspected Maze respected the boy for it. Every threat she’d made to him since had had a more obvious undercurrent of teasing on her tone, at least, and the boy tended to laugh them off anyway. He’d been more comfortable around her than he had been around Lucifer from the start, but the banter between them had grown to the point that Lucifer was inclined to call them friends before he’d call them acquaintances.
Mazikeen, for her part, wasn’t sharing an ounce of what she’d learned from their exchanges with Lucifer.
Lucifer took a long drink before setting the glass aside and asking, “Would you settle for dinner at my brother’s house?”
Amenadiel was worried about who the boy was and what his showing up might mean for all of them, which was no surprise because Amenadiel always worried about that sort of thing, but Linda had been the one insisting on getting a proper introduction to Lucifer’s ward sooner rather than later.
That was what she’d called the boy: his ward.
Lucifer didn’t really think the term could apply when it had only been a couple of days. He didn’t even have a name to put to the boy’s face.
(He’d checked the police records. Unofficially, of course. There wasn’t so much as a missing person’s report matching the boy’s description filed within the last year. The next time he found an unattended computer, he intended to expand that search.)
“Should I?” The boy’s eyes flicked to Lucifer’s empty glass. “Judging by how fast you downed that, he’s not a good cook.”
“How much I happen to drink has nothing to do with the quality of the food at our family dinners.” The company, on the other hand….
“Good enough,” the boy said, straightening up and spinning the stool so his back was to the bar. “When do we leave?”