Chapter Text
Only a man like Lucifer Morningstar would manage to gain good news in the same phrase as bad news.
As a humble toy maker who made his whole living out of his creations that he sold from his home, gaining the attention of a big influencer to come highlight his business to her millions and millions of followers was inarguably a good thing. Who wouldn't want that kind of publicity literally knocking at their door?
The problem was that he had lied about one detail in the application form he submitted for her consideration. Not about what he did, how he did it or the modest numbers of followers that he had in his own social media. He was pretty transparent about all of that. But not exactly about who he did it with. While explaining the history of his business, he let inside that he run it alongside his partner of a few years after the devastating death of his wife.
That partner being the same man that used to be a tailor in town and now made the suits for some of his dolls, helping here and there with some embroidery work when it was needed. The same man that was now staring blankly at Lucifer in front of the cup of coffee from which he had only taken a sip ever since sitting down. No doubt aware that he was about to be faced with some bullshit, because Lucifer thought that pulling out the lady fingers (the only snacks he knew Alastor enjoyed) would somehow soften the blow.
Suffice to say, he was wrong.
"So let me get this straight," said Alastor, joining his hands over the table. He should be used by now to Lucifer doing stupid things without consulting anyone. This was the same man who accepted to make a dozen of different dolls for the nephews of some aunt, when all he had were two unfinished ones, forcing himself and Alastor to work insane hours in order to have it all done for the week in which Lucifer had already agreed to make the delivery. Alastor had chewed him up plenty for that one and it seemed he was going to have a new reason to do just that. "You lied in order to get exposure about you and I being on a relationship. Did I understood that correctly?"
Lucifer's face scrunched up.
"Yeah. Basically."
"Why," said Alastor, still deadpan. There were so many things about this tiny man that he could only express like that: why. Like why both their cups were painted with duckies, in his kitchen with a duckie clocking counting the hours in the corner in a calendar with nothing but duck pictures for each month. No matter how much he asked and how much Lucifer answered, he never felt closer to understanding the thought process that guided some of his choices.
"Well, I kinda was looking at the other people that she used to interview for her livestreams and there is always a story behind, you know? A hook. This woman lost her fingers thanks to this disease, but now with help of her community was able to knit again! This teacher lost his home in a fire, but this helped him discover his love for painting. And I noticed the number of viewers, because obviously that is what she is going to be looking at too, right? That is when I saw that the most popular ones were not only those with a happy ending, but those involved some love story somewhere. Both that fingerless lady and the teacher have met their spouses thanks to those things happening. So I figured..." he finalized with an awkward smile, lifting a hand as he shrugged deeply. "You know."
"And then you won," added Alastor.
"To be fair, I didn't really thought it would," admitted Lucifer with a little chuckle. "I mean, I only have, what, like 300 followers? I didn't realize she was going to even look at it."
"But she did."
"Y-yes."
Alastor stared him down for a second longer and the sighed, taking the cup with him as he reclined back.
"And what did she responded when you told him that we were just business partners?"
"Oh, come on, I think we are a little bit more than that, aren't we? I invited you to every party of Charlie and I did have you over when they had to fumigate your house last year."
"Lucifer," cut him out Alastor, narrowing his eyes. "What did she say when you told her the truth?"
Lucifer's frozen face only stared at him.
"Lucifer." Alastor added a warning to his voice.
Finally, Lucifer dissolved himself in one long sigh as he joined his hands in front of him, resting his head between his arms.
"Please. Just play along with me for a few days. A week tops. Then we never, ever, ever, ever have to even talk about this again. Please, Al, I need this."
Alastor rubbed the space between his eyes over the thin black frame of his glasses. He already knew that when Lucifer was that pathetic in front of him, there was little else for him to do. The man did gave him a side job that he actually enjoyed doing. He did made him feel welcome in his home. Out of everyone in the whole town, Lucifer was indeed more than his business partner. He was his best friend, even if he never used those words out loud, much less in front of the man himself.
Considering all of that, one week of lying wasn't the worst someone had asked out of him. It would all be for the sake of improving the business, after all. They could both get more benefits from receiving more orders. With a final defeated sigh, he looked at the man again.
"Alright," he said, internally already lamenting his choice. Lucifer peaked one brown eye between his begging hands. "I guess I can appear for one or two pictures and you can make up the rest."
Without raising his head, Lucifer's shoulders came together, as if wanting to shrink himself even more than he was naturally.
"I told her that you were my fiancee living with me," added quickly the man, so quickly that all of that spilled almost like a single word.
Slowly, Alastor put down the cup of coffee in the table and raised both his eyebrow. In the resulting silence, Lucifer groaned, covering his head.
"I am sorry..."
---
The day after Alastor send his mother to her final rest was the one in which he met Lucifer, although he didn't expected it to. He had grown up in the town, but moved out in order to carry out his journalism studies. Before he could be done, however, his mother suffered a stroke and there was no way that he wouldn't take the first way of transportation that he could back to her side, to take her side. She dangled between life and death for just a couple of days, with doctor unable to tell which way she was going to go. Alastor went out to serve himself something to drink and when he came back, she was already gone.
It had only been she and him since the start. The man that was supposed to be his father was out of the picture before he was even out of the womb. It was tough, but they made it work the best they could. Even while he was on the other side of the country, Alastor kept having videocalls with his mom almost every weekend just to chat while having dinner. The last thing he ever said to her was recommending her a book to read. "I will look into that!" was the reply that he kept staring in his phone while the world kept rudely moving without her.
The service of just yesterday had been a blur. Alastor barely remembered a thing, if he talked with someone or what happened. But it had to have happened because he was standing in front of her grave, her name etched into the cold gray stone, with a bouquet of her favorite flowers in hand. It just occurred to him that he was never going to see her smile again at receiving them, right before breathing them deeply and humming with joy at the sweet scent. When he left the flowers in the ground, he turned around to get out of the cemetery.
That is when he stepped with something and lost his balance. He had really to be out of it for his face to end up in the floor, facing the fake grass.
"Oh, shit, shit, shit," he heard the voice of a man nearby. "I am so, so, so, so fucking sorry! My daughter must have left it there without realizing. I am so sorry. Are you okay?"
Alastor saw a blond man fretting around him, kneeling next to a carrier with a blonde toddler looking at him. If the man haven't already said that was his daughter, anyone could have tell already with how similar they were. Alastor looked back to see that a doll the size of his hand was laying where his feet had been. The face was plastic while the rest of the body was fabric. He picked it up in his hand and besides dirty, he noticed a tear on the dress.
"Are you okay?" asked again the father and Alastor looked up.
"This is going to frail if you don't close it," commented Alastor, giving him the doll into his hand and stood up on his own. He couldn't even feel embarrassed or angry or... anything at all. What did it matter at all when she was gone? "The fabric is too fragile, you will need double stitching."
"What?" The man tilted his head.
"Maybe some glue in the corners could help," said Alastor and he winked, shaking his head. Wait, what did he cared? "I am fine," he responded at last, patting his own clothing. "Be careful with it or your daughter will be throwing around a naked doll."
He tried to continue his way, but the man was just behind him.
"You know how to sew?"
"My mother knew," was the first reply of Alastor and that simple declaration, that little fact, was like a straight stab in the heart whose existence he never doubted about when around her. His mother taught him everything about sewing in order for him to be an independent man and being able to mend his own clothing when need arrived. He stood as he blinked rapidly, breathing harsh.
All the tears he haven't managed to make at the hospital, during the service, when seeing her body inside of her coffin, finally spilled out of him. Her soft warm hand were never going to grab one of his shirt without a button and click her tongue while saying "Leave that to me, I can do it in a second." He lifted a shaking hand to cover his mouth to at least, at least, swallow the sob that wrecked through his entire being. But the tears just wouldn't stop. The dam haven't been broken, it had exploded everywhere and he was the only one left to pick up all the pieces. For the rest of his life, he was going to be the only one because his mom was dead and nothing was bringing her back.
He was an orphan and he didn't know what to do. Behind him, he could hear the man trying to get his attention but he was already done with humilliating himself. The most important thing was to move away, be alone, where he could deal with all of that.
It wasn't until a week later that he found the man again in the supermarket. It was an awkward few seconds in which Alastor debated himself between pretending he haven't seen the man at all or giving him just a head nod as a mere simple courtesy. Just when he decided to pretend he haven't seen him, the man, with a cart in which his daughter was sitting at, smiled big and stood in front of him with a smile.
"Hey, there you are! I never got any chance of presenting myself. The name is Lucifer, that is Charlie, and I have no clue of how to hold a needle!" he said, presenting him his hand. Alastor genuinely had no idea of what he was talking about at first, but soon realized it was about the doll still.
"You should," said Alastor, not giving his own. It took just a second, but Lucifer soon got the message and lowered his own.
"Oh, no, I agree," affirmed the man. still smiling bright. "In the meantime, what do you feel about doing a little patch up work for me? I can pay you."
From then on, Lucifer practically carried the whole conversation. Alastor found himself not minding about it as much as normally would. He couldn't help to relax when he realized that the man had no intention of bringing up the rest of their first meeting, the crying or even the reason either of them was there. It wasn't until later, during their first dinner at Lucifer's house, after putting Charlie to sleep, that Alastor even heard about Lilith and how Charlie wasn't even a year old when she was left without a mother. Slowly, but surely, Alastor opened up too about his mother and how she seemed capable of doing anything with her hands.
"She always did said, if I was a girl that liked dolls, she would have made so many as to fill an entire house," commented Alastor, a little bit tipsy in wine and Lucifer chuckled on the other side of the couch. "I did like dolls. Not having them, or playing with them, but... the skill to do one. That is art too, isn't it?"
"Oh, man, I so agreed with you," said Lucifer, serving him more.
Somehow, that night was when they closed their deal officially. Alastor had made a few repairs on Charlie's toys here and there, but only in that moment it became part of his business model. It turned out to be good practice while Alastor got into tailoring, setting up his own place and making his own business with the money coming from Lucifer being just a nice little help to treat himself with.
For years that arrangement had worked good enough for the two of them. There was almost no week in which they didn't visited each other, unless some kind of issue kept them apart. Even when it did, as soon as it was done, they would be back into the routine to get in contact.
All in all, Alastor truly never expected it would come the day in which he would be in that situation. The one in which he had to stare in a combination of confusion, horror and disgust as Lucifer presented him with two oversized sweaters with fluffy hearts.
"You are out of your mind if you think I am going to wear that," he finally declared when he could recuperate his voice. "And please tell me you bought that this morning."
"What is that supposed to mean?" reply Lucifer with a frown, before slowering his sweaters. "I may... had them from before."
"How much before?" asked Alastor with a horrible feeling in the pit of his stomach.
"Since... I was seeing Jessica."
"Oh my god," said Alastor, standing up. Jessica was only one of the many exes that Lucifer had accumulated through out the years, but the one he had lasted longest, breaching two years together before she quickly announced she was going to New York for her career. Despite Lucifer suggesting that they could try the long distance relationship, she had been pretty clear that is now what she wanted to pursue and it was best to end things as friends. Alastor had never heard a single word coming from that woman since then, three years ago. "Lucifer, even if I had any inclination to use that, that I don't, why did you think I would accept what you were using with one of your past flings?"
"Hey, I never said she wore it," said Lucifer with a pout. "I... kinda never had the chance to show it to her."
"So you are giving your already failed attempt at romance with other people. That is so much worse," groaned Alastor moving over to the kitchen. On the way there, he also pointed to the wall and some of the recently pictures hanged up. "You didn't need to put literally everything with me on the wall either! If I am supposed to live here, why would I want to see my own face all the time?"
"Well, maybe I want to see the face of my fiancee," declared Lucifer, throwing the ugly sweaters to the couch before putting his hands on his waist. "Maybe that is a nice face. Not when speaking but...."
"We are supposed to live together. You would have already seen it!" insisted Alastor, looking at one of the recent pictures. It was from him drunkingly singing karaoke at a bar. He was pretty sure that Lucifer wasn't there that night. "Do I even want to know how did you get that one?"
"That one?" Lucifer got closer to check it. "Mimzy gave it to me."
He said it so casually, like he haven't thrown a rock down to the pit of Alastor's stomach.
"Tell me that you didn't involved her on this." Alastor ran a hand over the side of his face, slowly.
"She is one of your best friends! It would be weird if she didn't know who you are going to marry."
"We are not going to marry, Lucifer."
"I know, Alastor," said Lucifer with a mocking tone in his name. "But the internet doesn't and you agreed to help me keep it that way."
Alastor took a deep breath and turned to him, grabbing the shoulders of the shorter man to look directly into his eyes. Clearly, he needed to be clear with him.
"Lu," he said with a smile, but his tone so sharp that Lucifer could only listen, "I love Mimzy, but she is literally the worst gossiper this world has ever seen. The second you tell a needle dropped to that woman, you are going to have the entire city knowing about it before you even realized it. Either everyone knows that we are going through this charade and we have to count on them being good actors if they speak with that influencer or everyone thinks is actually real. Which one did you tell her, Lucifer?"
Lucifer pursed his lips to a side.
"Well, if you put it like that..." he started, but didn't continue with the sentence any further.
Alastor sighed, lowering his head.
"You didn't tell her the part of not being real."
"I may have neglected to mention that detail, yep."
Alastor gave a long, suffering groan. "You. Idiot."
"Hey, come on, what is the issue?" argued Lucifer, grabbing his wrist over his shoulder and giving them a squeeze. "They are all going to keep the lie coming anyway. As soon that influencer is gone and we get some visibility, we announce that we weren't compatible after all and cancel the engagement. Easy peasy, lemon squeezy, like nothing happened."
For everything under the sun, Alastor had no idea from where Lucifer could speak so calmly about any of this.
"There is no engagement," said Alastor, rubbing his eyes under his glasses.
"I know, silly! But she doesn't know it!" insisted Lucifer, lifting himself on his tip toes to now reach Alastor's shoulders. "Stop stressing so much over nothing! This week will be over before you even know it!"
Just when Alastor was about to voice that maybe this was a mistake, the ring of Lucifer's door filled the house.
"That must be her!" affirmed Lucifer, patting his shoulder before he moved to attend. "Remember, just be nice with her and I will do most of the talking. You are the nice pretty trophy husband and don't need to be anything else."
"Excuse me?" replied Alastor, taking a hand to his chest. "For your information, I make as much money as you do! I am not the trophy here!"
"Well, you are pretty, so the title suits you," argued Lucifer easily.
"That is not how you define the trophy!" answered Alastor, chasing him. "And don't pretend like you don't know you are pretty too!"
Lucifer froze, his hand already extended to grab the door handle. The ring resounded again, but the owner of the house turned to Alastor with big eyes.
"You think I am pretty?"
Alastor opened up his mouth and closed it almost immediately, taken aback. Was this man for real? He couldn't be serious. Obviously he had looked himself in the mirror to know that already and Alastor was not about to indulge him in this blatant, ridiculous compliment fishing. This time a knock could be heard from the door.
"You better open that now, Lucifer," he said, straightening up. "Or else you are going to tell her the story of our break up."
Lucifer pouted, his disappointment as obvious as it was annoying, but he finally went to attend their guest.