Work Text:
Click.
Click.
Click.
A stupid remodeling show. He could already tell those peppy voices would give him a headache.
Something X-rated that should not be on a public channel.
Charlie.
A trivia show.
A—
“Wait, Charlie?” Lucifer said aloud. He gripped the remote harder, staring down at the buttons. “Shit, how do you— Uh. Uh. Here, right?”
He pushed down on a button, and there was his Charlie on the screen again.
“You’ve gotten so big,” Lucifer whispered. His clawed fingers shook as they grazed the screen, tracing the outline of his daughter’s hair.
She was saying something, with that cheer she had somehow never lost. He struggled to focus on the words, to pay attention to her like he should, but his mind was too foggy and overwhelmed and his daughter was in front of him, except it wasn’t really her, because he’d all but lost her.
“…hotel!” Charlie said, as sweet as always but so grown now. “And I…”
Who was that lady on the other side of the table? Was that a news anchor? Oh, it had words at the bottom. Those probably said who she was.
Lucifer squinted, quietly sounding out, “Katie Killjoy.”
Hmm. She didn’t seem all that nice. Her smile was getting progressively more fixed as Charlie spoke, like she was… annoyed with her? How could anybody be annoyed at his little girl, that living ray of sunshine?
He was scowling, real anger igniting in his chest for the first time in ages. How could—
Then his thoughts shifted to one topic and one topic only.
Charlie was dealing with the press by herself.
“No, that wasn’t the plan,” Lucifer whispered. “You were supposed to… You were gonna be a princess, but you were…”
She was supposed to be under their wings. His and Lilith’s. Why wasn’t Lilith there with her, supporting her?
Had Lilith…
No.
Sure, Lilith had been cold and emotionless a few times in the past, but that had just been her dealing with everything! Yes, she had divorced Lucifer, but that didn’t mean that she would ditch their daughter!
Lucifer put his head in his hands. He didn’t see the brawl that broke out between Charlie and Katie Killjoy.
How present had Lilith been during Charlie’s life?
The only way— the only way— that Lucifer had been able to cope with removing himself from Charlie was by imagining Lilith taking care of her. Lilith seeing Charlie’s adorable little fangs fall out and come in bigger, Lilith having mommy-daughter talks with her, Lilith picking her up when she got hurt and shushing her, Lilith singing her lullabies every single night, maybe multiple times in the night if she had a nightmare.
Lilith and Charlie, together. His two favorite people. If Lucifer thought about them hard enough, he could almost pretend that it didn’t matter to him that they weren’t there. If he put even more effort into picturing them, he could play make-believe and say he was there with them, just watching.
If Lilith hadn’t done right by Charlie— and Lucifer sure as heck hadn’t— who did Charlie have?
Did Charlie even know how loved she was?
The king could feel hot tears gathering in his eyes, and he let them fall. His sobs were forcibly quieted by his own hands gripping his face, palms pressed over his lips.
His head pounded in two spots, his back and tailbone starting to ache as well as the demonic parts formed. Transforming into his more monstrous shape wasn’t even a question. Of course he should look like this, because this reflected the nature of what he had done.
The roaring in his ears became— along with his racing thoughts— waves of emotion like a sea being parted to reveal his broken core.
Did Charlie sing herself to sleep at night?
Who whispered her name to her with so much tender love that the two syllables became a shield of protection?
When was the last time she had been hugged?
Had anyone kept her safe from the horrors of this place?
Had she been hurt, in any way, and suffered from it alone?
Why wasn’t Lilith there for the interview?
What else had Lilith been absent for?
Why hadn’t he asked any of these questions, any of the times he checked up on Charlie?
With a long, shuddering groan, Lucifer got up, stumbling away from the TV. He didn’t know what he was looking for, but he needed something. Something to distract, something to stitch up the guilt.
“No,” he hissed to himself. The tears were still falling. “No, get back over there. You can’t just keep leaving.”
On shaky legs, with his tail, wings, and arms out for balance, he turned and went back to his spot on the floor. Maybe he could look for any answers to his questions in Charlie’s expressions—
But Charlie was gone.
“Wait,” Lucifer blurted, as if she was walking out of a room instead of having just vanished from a TV screen. “Wait, where did… Where’d you…”
He pushed the “back” button again (his hands were trembling so badly, wow), but she wasn’t anywhere to be found. He flashed through cheesy movies, more news stations, and stupid reality shows with increasing desperation.
Nowhere.
She was nowhere.
What had happened?
His heart was racing.
Should he call her?
Yes. Yes, he should call her and ask if she was okay and ask about Lilith and show that he cared, because he cared so damn much.
“Okay,” he breathed. “Yes, just… Phone, where…”
Lucifer patted himself down, couldn’t find his phone, and snapped his fingers to magically summon it into his other hand. He dialed Charlie’s number and extended his finger toward the call button.
Then he hesitated.
He was still sniffling disgustingly and letting his breath out in repetitive little jumps. He was pretty sure flames were crackling on his shoulders, and hadn’t Charlie video-called him last time they’d spoken? No, she hadn’t. Had she? For the immortal life of him, he couldn’t remember, but he felt like there was something about her and video calls, or maybe it had just been him being anxious that she’d see how bad his dark circles had gotten—
The point was that he was a mess, and he didn’t want her to see that. And if he called her regularly, she’d hear how hard he had been crying. What if the interview had gone terribly, and the last thing she wanted was to talk to him? That would be fair, since he was so— And what if he was overreacting? What if Lilith had just been standing off to the side, the way Lucifer had imagined himself doing?
Come to think of it, why hadn’t Charlie told him she was doing this interview in the first place?
Maybe she didn’t want him involved, whether or not Lilith was, and him calling her would be violating what she wanted.
Lucifer let his hand drop.
After a moment, he sent a generic “Hey! How’s it going?” text, then chucked his phone onto the couch.
“You,” he snarled at himself, “are such a messy, awful, cowardly, wrecked piece of shit.”
Four lines of agony slashed down his wrist, and he gasped.
Lucifer slowly looked down to see the golden blood dripping from the claw marks, and his own fingers still curved above them.
Even as he watched, the sides of the wounds began fusing themselves back together, and he felt an odd pang of disappointment.
That had been horrible, obviously, but it had also felt oddly good. Like he was… Well, he wouldn’t go so far as to say he was making up for his legion of stupid choices, but he was at least… punishing himself.
Yes. He was punishing himself for them.
“And, in any case, it was only a one-time thing,” Lucifer assured the quiet voices on the TV.
Although.
Why should it be a one-time thing?
Yes, it was concerning, but there wasn’t anybody here to see.
Besides, it really was infuriating that those marks were vanishing so fast. What if he wanted to keep them?
Lucifer thought for a few minutes, gazing down at the newly-scarred skin until his vision blurred.
Then, with a disturbingly flat expression, he did nothing short of attacking his own arm. He started clawing until he could see bone, then continuing to scratch so it wouldn’t be covered. Tendons and muscle and arteries that shouldn’t be seen were revealed again and again by his nails.
He exhausted himself eventually, depleting both energy and pain tolerance, and staggered toward the couch with his injured arm held to his chest.
Once he was sitting down, just out of curiosity, Lucifer breathed fire on the gaping wounds. That— after the initial choking-back-screams and biting-his-lower-lip-until-it-bled,-too— made them heal much more slowly, and after a moment, the area went numb.
The king settled back against the cushions, grabbing the remote. “You’ll see Charlie eventually,” he told himself in a mumble.
Throwing comfort into a whirlwind, as always, in the hopes that it would reach him again someday.
Lucifer’s bleary eyes found the screen again. The peppy voices didn’t bother him, this time, but he continued to flip through channels, searching, searching.
Click.
Click.
Click.