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He wouldn’t admit it, but the season was getting to him, November, the weather getting colder, even in California, the sky always gray. Seasonal depression and shit apparently really were a thing.
And if some people have at least the euphoria of Christmas to keep them up, it isn’t the case for Lucifer, Christmas was just the worst part of the year for them. Everyone celebrating the birthday of his stepbrother even though he was born around what, spring? Like March or something like that, at least not during the winter solstice for sure.
It was the time for family reunions, that and bloody thanksgiving. Everyone resembling in one's home and eating and giving each other gifts like it could change the fact that they haven’t seen each other since the same time the year prior.
And seeing all these family together everywhere, on telly or in real life, with Chloe and Dan trying to see what would be best for Trixie to see both side of her family on Christmas with both of her parents, were just a constant reminder that Lucifer’s family threw him out of heaven and that he would never know the feeling of having a loving and relatively normally functioning family around, let alone all siting around a decorated three giving each other wrapped gift with smiles on their faces early in the morning or late at night.
***
Lucifer didn’t mean to fall, he was just a child, an angel , he just wanted to know why he felt the way he did, why he didn’t feel comfortable in his body. Why they couldn’t just decide what they wanted to do and to be. Why they didn’t have free will.
He had question, and he asked them, and apparently that was enough to send them to hell. Maybe it was a little more than just asking question, maybe it was because Lucifer wanted to be himself and God didn’t like being told he was wrong.
That day when he asked his father why, was the beginning of Samael’s end.
When they tried to explain how they felt, their father had yelled, telling them that they were delusional, and that God couldn’t make errors, especially for his very own children.
But if he really didn’t make errors, then why was he feeling that way?
Samael really tried to forget and bury that feeling in the deep end of his soul, but no matter how hard he tried, it still came back every time, each time worse than before. He ended up understanding why he always felt so wrong.
He felt like a boy .
The feeling got more painful every day, watching his brothers from afar, wishing he could be like them, but not just in the way younger kids look up to their older siblings.
No, he wanted to run around in the mud, and have short hair and fight with his brothers without them telling him that they couldn’t because he could get hurt.
Even his name felt uncomfortable on his tongue. The fact that it meant poison of God probably didn’t help...
They tried to tell their siblings about it but either they told them that their father was always right, or they just didn’t understand. At least the ones that didn’t understand weren't just straight up assholes.
The first one who actually listen to him was Azrael, she tried, and it was comforting to know that at least one person, even if she was the only one, didn’t think he was crazy.
He tried to tell his dad, again. He thought this time, when he could really put a word on his feelings, his father might understand.
He didn’t, in fact he was just angrier than last time.
His dad had eyed him with disgust and disappointment when he tried to explain it, and if Lucifer was being honest with himself, it was the latter that hurt the most. He had always tried to make his father proud until then.
After that, Samael changed, something inside him broke, he decided that he wouldn’t be God’s perfect angel anymore. If his dad couldn't accept him, then Lucifer didn’t have to accept what he was telling him either.
That night he asked Azrael to cut his hair, and she did, and strangely due to the situation, he felt better than he had in a long time, he finally felt free.
He felt like himself for the very first time in his life.
Lucifer had still managed to hide a full day perched in a tree without God noticing. He knew he would be fucked when they found him, but he couldn’t hide forever, even if he had eternity before him.
His mother had been the first one to find him.
“Why did you do that? You were so pretty with your long hair” She’d said, he must have made a face because she frowned and sighed when he climbed higher in the tree instead of answering her question.
He wasn’t looking for his mother’s approval as much as he did for his father’s, so he didn’t really mind all that much.
But, oh man , had his father been furious when he found out. Enough that it could have been where the “ Putting the fear of God into something. ” expression came from.
He remembers the exact moment when he knew someone told him, either his mum or one of his siblings that might have seen him. The exact moment when he heard the first break of thunder, the sky rumbling louder and louder every second.
Michael was the one who had snitched on him, he came moments later with their father by his side. He looked so proud of himself, a bit frightened by God’s anger, but that they all were.
He remembers his dad barking him to get down of the three before he took the matter in his own hands and got up there and get him down himself. He almost fell trying to get down because of how much he was shaking, by that time he knew surrounding would be safer than to continue fighting.
When he was close enough, his father yanked him down the rest of the way by his leg causing him to fall painfully on the ground.
He couldn’t breathe but that wasn't because of the fall, he was terrified, and his body was reacting the only way it had learned how, by freezing.
The slap he got from his dad had almost been enough to make him see his stars.
He doesn't remember what happened after, his brain must have locked that memory away just like it did for many others.
He remembers Linda’s reaction when he told her the number of time things like this had happened during his childhood. She was horrified, even if he could tell she was trying to hide it.
But he still felt free because what was done was done and they couldn’t do anything about his hair other than wait for them to grow back. He had short hair, and he had a sister who understood him and when she called him her brother for the first time, the way she said it sounded so natural , just like it had always been that way, so natural that he cried, and it was one of his happiest and most cherished memories from Heaven.
The days he asked Maze to cut his wings, he felt free too, not in the same way of course, but it reminded him of the feeling he had all those billion years ago. And both were acts of rebellion against his father.
But now he was a man . He always had been.
It always felt weird though, his skin tugging around the scar in his back when he moved or when he was just slightly banding over or when he stretched, he couldn’t hold the little shiver when cold wind touched his back, sensing it on his scars.
People who said you got used to scars and stopped feeling them were lying, maybe he didn’t feel them all the time but some days he was way too aware of them for his own taste. He could sense the fabric of his expensive clothes rubbing against them. Yes, he had gotten used to his other scars but only after they faded, and that happened at least a good century after. There was no way he was going to get used to those ones.
But maybe the scar wasn’t really the problem, maybe it was something more complex than those crescent moon shaped marks permanently drawn to his back but more the reason why they were there. The feeling of missing something that was supposed to be here. The problem wasn’t the scars, the problem was the lack of what made him an Angel.
The problem was that he didn’t have his wings anymore and no matter how much he tried to convince himself that it was the good thing to do to get away from his father, it still felt like something was wrong, something was missing.
Strangely, it was worse than the feeling of the half-broken half-burned wings he had when he fell.
That was probably also the reason he heated Christmas, The Fall happened close to that bloody date, almost like his father did it on purpose to have his human son born on the day he cast out his supposedly favorite daughter.
At least, in Hell they had accepted him as their king when he found enough strength to get on the throne. And he would forever be grateful to Lilith for sending her army of demons. Hell was lonely enough with millions of them, he couldn’t imagine what it would have been like without any, especially without Maze by his side.
That was also a thing about Earth that they loved. Angels and demons, Heaven and Hell, knew he had been Samael, most angels still considered him as Samael, but on earth he was just Lucifer. Sure, the Devil but Lucifer , not Samael, just Lucifer.
Chloe, Dan, Ella, and everyone else he met on earth, they don’t know, he’s just himself to their eyes, a man, a bit crazy or delusional but charismatic British man , and quite a son of a bitch when he wants to be.
To them he is what he wants and always wanted to be.
Anyway, he knows that on Christmas day, his club will be one of the only things open, and it will probably be like any other day, just calmer than usual. People mostly coming to drink away their problem and feel less alone, Lucifer probably will be too.
He’ll drink, play some things on his piano to entertain his customers and then go up in his loft to spend the rest of Christmas night alone watching Bones, as things should be. Not that he needed the comfort of his favorite show on that particular night, just because it’s what he wants to do, and he always does what he wants.
And on New Year he’ll have one hell of a party with Maze, and then all of that will be behind them until the next year, people will take down their decorations and everything will be back to normal.
And then his mind will finally be put to rest for a while.