Chapter Text
It wasn’t often that Lucifer was surprised by anything, but being called to his darling daughter’s hotel in the middle of the night by her ex-exterminator girlfriend was certainly new for him. If he needed to sleep, perhaps he’d be a haphazard mess, but as it was, he’d been reading over some of the reports from the other Rings. Mammon was throwing a fit about Asmodeus stealing something from him and Lucifer had a gut feeling he’d have to intervene.
He didn’t bother taking the long way to the hotel, simply teleported himself into Charlie’s room, still on the phone with Vaggie.
“What’s wrong?” he demanded, not seeing Charlie. Vaggie jumped and fumbled for her phone.
“Sir! I- uh… the bathroom! She’s, uh-”
Lucifer stopped listening, moving to the open door of the bathroom and taking in the sight of his daughter curled up in pain, and-
Oh Charlie.
He put on a gentle smile and crouched down next to his daughter, tilting his head as she squinted open her eyes and caught sight of him.
“Dad!” she cried, easily reaching up to hug him for comfort. Lucifer easily shifted his hold on her to begin to card his fingers through her hair.
“Duckie, you should have called me before it got this bad.”
Charlie sniffed and shook her head. On her back were six pure, glowing white wings, now a bit lackluster as they molted. Charlie very rarely brought her wings out, to the extreme of forgetting she had them. The pure white of divinity, the proof of her angelic blood, had painted a target on her back the first time the wings had appeared in all their fluffy, downy glory as a baby. Lilith had been particularly against her having them out, claiming some demented sinner would try to take them as trophies.
Still, just because Charlie didn’t bring them out didn’t mean they remained dormant, and molting season would ensure she wasn’t able to hide them away until after all the feathers had grown back. Lucifer could just imagine how uncomfortable she must be if she’d been resisting it until she had no choice in the matter.
“How about I help you get this sorted, huh? It’ll be like old times! I’ll groom your wings, you groom mine?”
Charlie had always enjoyed preening his wings, especially the red, downy feathers on the inside. With another sniffle, Charlie sat up and swiped at her eyes. Lucifer moved his hand from her hair to her top set of wings, quickly and efficiently pulling bad feathers and gently pinching pin-feathers to break them from their keratin sheaths. He let his own wings out, though Charlie didn’t start preening him immediately.
“Uh… sir?”
Lucifer looked up at the ex-exterminator in the doorway, her eye wide as she took in Charlie’s wings. “Yes, Vaggie, dear?”
“I… you knew that she has wings?” she finally asked.
“Knew? Of course I knew! I made Charlie myself, of course I gave her the most beautiful wings in all of creation!”
“Daaad!” Charlie whined, humor returning to her voice. “Dad knows, Vaggie. It’s not a secret. I just don’t really take them out, ever. I know I’ve mentioned flying with Dad before!”
Vaggie scoffed, slowly sinking to the ground next to them- the bathroom was starting to get cramped- and pulling one large white wing into her lap. “Babe, I thought you meant your dad flew, and you were with him. Not that you had wings. Not Seraphim wings.”
“They’re not Seraphim wings!” Lucifer and Charlie protested at the same time.
Vaggie flinched, but her hands didn’t stop their careful, skilled preening. “But there are six of them?”
Lucifer smiled at the girl. “Vaggie, darling, I am an Archangel, not a Seraphim. Seraphim wings have eyes. Mine don’t! Neither do Charlie’s.”
He snapped his fingers and a bottle of wing oil appeared beside him, which he worked into the feathers, careful to zip the barbs together. “You know, apple pie, you should keep these out more often! It’s a shame to keep such pretty wings from the rest of the world.”
Charlie sighed, leaning against Vaggie. Last time Lucifer had suggested Charlie keep her wings out more often, she’d told him that she didn’t want the Sinners thinking she thought herself above them.
Now, though, she was dating an ex-exterminator (not fallen, not really, Heaven hadn’t rejected her, hadn’t prevented her from visiting again) who had beautiful wings she liked to show off, her bartender had wings. Her father visited frequently and would swoop and fly through the hotel on the smallest whim.
And perhaps she finally understood that her status as Princess carried more weight and responsibility than she expected, and displaying her wings would keep demons from messing with her. Perhaps they’d even take her seriously.
“Okay. I’ll keep them out a bit more. Maybe then it won’t be such a pain to groom them!” Charlie finally decided, smiling brightly at both her girlfriend and her father. “This is great, though! My two favorite people, helping me out!”
Lucifer’s heart- or whatever passed for it- soared at her words, and he pressed a kiss on the crown of her head. “Any time, duckie. Why don’t we plan a time that all three of us can go flying together, not in the Pride Ring. I know I need to visit Lust soon, why not make a vacation of it?”
Charlie lit up. “Can we? It’s been forever since I’ve seen Uncle Ozzie!”
“Course!”
Vaggie cleared her throat. “I thought Sinners couldn’t leave the Pride Ring?” she asked.
Lucifer’s face twitched with confusion. “They can’t! No offense, Charlie, but we do not want those guys invading anywhere else!”
Charlie waved him off. “The hellborne aren’t here for punishment, it’d get complicated if everyone lived together. Imp City already causes an alarming amount of problems.”
“Ha, you said it, kid.”
“So I can’t leave the Pride Ring?” Vaggie asked, bringing the two royals back to the conversation. Lucifer tilted his head.
“Vaggie! You’re not a Sinner, you’re a heavenborn, an angel! You were never mortal, the magic that prevents Sinners from leaving Pride wouldn’t affect you.”
“Besides, even if they did, I can just give you a pass. I’m the Princess of Hell, I can take you wherever in Hell you want to go,” Charlie added, cupping Vaggie’s face. Vaggie softened, leaning into the touch, and Lucifer cooed at the two adorable fledglings.
“Here we go, Char-char! That’s as much as we can do, now, it’ll probably be a week or so for the rest of your molting to peter out,” Lucifer hummed, waving a hand to vanish the feathers that remained. Charlie grinned and stood, flaring her wings out to look at them in the mirror.
They were so bright it was almost painful to look at them, and Lucifer couldn’t be prouder.
Let Heaven say she was unworthy, when her purity and goodness was so clearly displayed, a part of him thought. He snapped a picture on his phone as Vaggie let out her own wings and wrapped Charlie into a hug. Aw, they were so cute!
“Angel Dust is going to flip when he sees these!”
Charlie’s eyes widened as she realized that she’d have to go about her daily duties and her staff and guests would see her wings. She let out a loud groan, pinching the bridge of her nose at the idea of how much she was about to be harassed while Lucifer and Vaggie laughed.