Work Text:
He smells the cloying scent of an angel around the Hotel as he enters the premises. It has been thousands of years since he has faced the stench personally, but there is no denying it— there is a holy being prowling around. It wasn't easily discernible, however; it is as if they know they will be identified as an angel and thus have covered themselves with the pungent odor of Hell.
It had worked, only for a moment.
It becomes a lot clearer and distinguishable amongst the other scents around this side of the city, especially since the Hotel is quite a distance away from any meaningful civilization. The sinners seem to be avoiding the building, although Lucifer couldn’t begin to list the reasons why. They must’ve sensed the utter innocence and goodness the building emanates, or perhaps it was something else…? It does look to be in a much sharper, cleaner condition than any of the other buildings in this sector of the city.
Charlie opens the door when he knocks, and there it is once again— the smell of an angel. Though, it comes from his daughter; it is faint, yes, meaning it was not her emitting such a scent, so he should stop panicking about some angel having touched his precious sweetheart. Her scent was of a Hellborn, all bitter but simultaneously sweet at the same time. A lingering smell that puts him on edge.
What kind of angel would put a hand on his own daughter? A protective part of him asks, a beast waiting to be unleashed. Shall he investigate?
He is distracted by his train of thought when he instantly sees his daughter, finally face-to-face with her for what feels like ages.
His need to ask why he can smell an angel, a holy being in her establishment is promptly forgotten as he reunites with his daughter. Heaven, he has not seen his daughter in ages; perhaps that is partly his fault. When Lilith came to take away their daughter from him for reasons that had seemed benign to him and now look as though it is valid in his eyes, he thought — and feared — that it would be the end of it. Nothing will be left in his castle but the servants he had handpicked and himself. He and Charlie still call, yes, but there is a thick, underlying tension within it all.
But Charlie is never one to call him first. It was always Lucifer: the first one to reach out, and, for reasons unknown, decided that it was enough to hear her strained voice through the speakers of his phone that he didn’t fight back against Charlie finally hanging up on him.
Besides, she dreams big; like he had a long time ago. Her hotel is one of the reasons why it drove a wedge between them.
Then, he smells it once more, the scent of an angel that had once been bathed in holy light.
His skin grows cold, as he gets ready to fight, but Charlie brings him back to the present.
She looks nervous but delighted all the same, and she introduces her girlfriend, Vaggie, to him.
That is when the scent of the angel hits him. Sweet but cloying, almost playing with his sense of smell like it will make him bleed. The aroma is enticing, despite the fact that it has long since faded to the background of the very distinct smells of Hell. It makes his wings want to break free, to get out from there, because the only time Hell smells like angels have descended upon them is during the Exterminations.
The smell comes from Charlie’s well-acclaimed girlfriend, who looks more nervous over the fact that she is meeting with her girlfriend’s father rather than the fact that her dirty little secret may be found out.
It causes Lucifer to laugh, sputtering unintelligible crap about how Charlie likes girls (he’s definitely having a crisis with this one) and the fact that, out of all the girls that his beloved daughter could pick, it just had to be an angel in disguise.
He gives her a bone-crushing hug, and he finds himself surprised at the lack of wings. Could she have hidden them within her uniform?
He glances back at Charlie. Did she even know that her girlfriend has a secret she is currently keeping from her?
He opens his mouth, wanting to ask her to talk about this entire issue in private because no one should trust angels, but then Charlie introduces her to that accursed deer.
Whom he ended up having a huge duet with, forgetting entirely about his concern with Charlie and her girlfriend that is probably going to hurt her in the near future.
After finally making amends with her daughter by looking at one another’s perspectives, plus confirming that he still loves and cares about his daughter, he decided that he would get in contact with Heaven. While he still has his doubts over the entire situation — and he finds himself extremely protective of what will happen to her when she actually comes there — he keeps his lips tied.
He had just begun a closer, insightful relationship with her, he was not going to ruin it because of his cynicism.
But he fears that he may put another hurdle in his relationship with Charlie when it comes to her type of woman.
More specifically, the fact that she decided to have a relationship with an angel.
Did she know? Did she not care?
Lucifer draws in a breath.
She cannot trust angels.
During one of his next visits to the Hotel — it always being a surprise only to fuck with Alastor — he decides to have a proper talk with the angel that always accompanies Charlie with a protective aura around her.
Lucifer finds it… endearing, that someone defends Charlie’s lifelong dream, even when the rest of Hell’s populace has turned their backs on her due to the ludicrous concept and the naive idea.
Until he remembers that she is an angel.
She smells like one.
Acts like one— all militaristic and strict, always on the offensive.
Even wields an angelic spear; how does no one even notice this?!
And the X over her damn eye?! She’s not even trying to keep it subtle!
He needs to confront her alone. He doesn’t want to start spouting out baseless accusations toward one of the people Charlie loves right in front of her. He doesn’t want to sour their relationship again, especially not in front of Alastor, who knows when the prey is ripe for the picking.
Lucifer finds the right time when Charlie is called to another wing of the hotel and she leaves Vaggie with her father alone.
Once the chattering dies down and it is only him and Vaggie in proximity, he opens his mouth, before promptly closing it.
He realizes he has no idea how to approach this subject.
He looks over to the angel, who seems oblivious that her girlfriend's father is staring at her, as they continue their walk on the east wing. He'd already seen everything the hotel had to offer, and outside of the lack of bustling hotel staff and the fact this looked more like a morgue and less like a hotel, it was decent enough. Lucifer had wanted to give Charlie most of his servants to do housework here, but she declined. Oh, Heaven, she is going to be the death of him.
She looks like any other demon in Hell— her hair is a replica of a moth’s wings, and her skin is a pale shade of gray, but she looked too… perfect to be down here. A porcelain statue intermixing with the rough gravel and stones. Her walk and stance are militaristic as well, so prim and proper that he almost mistakes her for one of the Goetia or the Sins. Except there is a slight wariness and gait as she walks. She was beautiful, don't get him wrong; too beautiful for Hell. She was created in God's image, and the fact she has buried herself in the stench of Hell is disregarded. It is blindingly obvious.
Lucifer tries to think of words to say to levy the situation, but he needs to know what she's doing here, now.
“Vaggie,” he says, ceasing his walking. Vaggie, who was behind him — he supposes as a jerk impulse, walking behind those whose status is higher than him — stops instinctively, hands behind her back. After a moment's hesitation, though, she lets her arms fall to the sides.
“... Yes?” She asks hesitantly.
Lucifer looks at her directly, “How did you and Charlie meet?”
He notices the way she tenses up, fists clenched to the sides. Interesting.
She looks around, “It was after an extermination… three years ago, sir.”
He hums, filing that information away in his head. “She rescued you?”
There is a light in Vaggie's eyes as she nods. She wears a lovestruck, nostalgic expression on her face, and it looks so crisp and fond enough to be fake. “I was… unconscious, and when I came to, Charlie was giving me bandages for my eye.”
“You got your injury from an Exterminator, correct?” He asks, insensitively pointing towards the X on her face.
Flushing, she turns away. “... Yes.”
“Strange,” Lucifer muses.
“Why?”
“Because no Sinner has ever run and survived from the rage of an Angel.” He sees the way Vaggie tenses, her hair frizzing slightly like a cat. He looks at her, and Vaggie cannot look away. “How did you run away from the Exterminators? They’re never one to hit and miss their target before.”
She begins to sputter, trying to utter well-thought-out lies, before falling short and staying silent. Her fists are clenched, but her eyes hide panic and fear. A certain kind of fear comes from what will come after the truth has been exposed and set free.
Lucifer sighs, becoming more gentle. Being hard and cold doesn’t do wonders for someone who, clearly, hasn’t told her girlfriend the truth. “Look, uh… Maggie.”
“Vaggie,” she still has the strength to correct him, even if she looks as if she is about to collapse.
“I know an angel when I see one,” he keeps the gentle tone, but he is firm with a smidge of suspicion and distrust for her. It’s unfortunate the suspicion still remains ever-present in his tone, but he must know if she is going to harm his daughter or not. “You can’t fool a Fallen Angel as myself.”
She doesn’t respond. Instead, she leans back on her wall, hugging herself.
Lucifer waits for her to respond.
The angel looks up at him with a desperate look. He knows that look all too well— the expression he had in Heaven as they slowly shatter his dreams one by one. “Please, sir. Don’t tell Charlie about this. I’ll do anything.”
Lucifer sighs sadly. “So you weren’t hiding your identity as an angel to infiltrate Hell and manipulate my daughter?”
Vaggie looks up at him, shocked that he’d even suggest something like that. “I’d never do that!” She retorts. “I made a promise to protect her! I love her! I’d never—” She shakes her head, “I’d never hurt her!”
“Do you plan on telling her about… you?”
“I—” Vaggie starts, then her answer fades. She turns away, rubbing her arm. “I want to forget about my time in there. I don’t want her to know that I’m an angel. I don’t want to remember what I had done here. To Charlie’s own people.”
Oh, so she’s a former Exterminator. That’s… oh.
Vaggie murdered countless sinners before ending up as a denizen of Hell.
Lucifer should care, really, that she has a torrid body count, but also, that would warrant actually caring about the sinners she eliminated. Which he didn’t. “Okay,” he exhales because he also doesn’t want to disappoint Charlie after years of having isolated himself from her. Both intentionally and due to the fear in each other’s hearts. “I won’t tell her that you’re an angel.”
She looks up at him like a sun rising from the horizon. Truly remarkable that an angel has survived the ugliness of hell. “Really?”
Lucifer nods, “Yeah. I guess we don’t want to end up disappointing Charlie now, don’t we?”
She exhales, nodding. “Yeah, I– I’ve always been so supportive of her dream, even if Heaven can be…” Vaggie trails off.
“Can be pompous and self-interested?” Lucifer finishes the sentence for her, and instead of looking scandalized, she laughs.
“Yeah, like that.”
“I can’t help but notice, Maggie,” she bristles at the continued butchering of her name, but Lucifer is oblivious. “That you don’t have your wings. What happened to them?”
She stiffens, glancing once more. “Lute and Adam took them away from me.”
Lucifer’s grip on his scepter hardens. “They did, huh?”
He was lucky enough to be able to still keep his wings, even if it does remind him that he once had a different family, a family who had disappointed and cast him down from the heavens all for one single mistake. He feels the urge to bring Vaggie into a more tolerable embrace, but he stops.
“Do you miss them?”
“Yeah, but… I have new wings to help me fly.”
She means his daughter.
He wipes a tear that manages to escape from his cheek. “Wow, you do love her.”
“I do, sir. I’m sorry for trying to deceive you.”
“Forgiven,” he pats her shoulder comfortingly, smiling. “I should thank you for taking care of her when I wasn’t able to. I should’ve been here… but you were with her.”
“I admire your daughter’s ambition. I believe in her.”
Lucifer smiles, “I’m starting to believe in her cause too; even if I don’t want her going to Heaven.”
“Me too.”
“I’m so glad I have a lot of things in common with my daughter’s girlfriend,” Lucifer says with a laugh. “Makes this a lot less awkward.”
Vaggie looks slightly bashful.
“But Vaggie,” he turns serious once more, looking at her with worry. “The past and the truth will catch up to you one day. Either you tell her, or… someone will force it out of you.”
Vaggie purses her lips. “I’ll tell her when I’m ready.”
Lucifer nods. “That’s fine. Take all the time you need to tell her.”
“I won’t break her heart, sir.”
Lucifer chuckles, waving a dismissive hand away. “Please, enough with the formalities. Just call me Lucifer.”