Chapter Text
The alarm blared so loudly that Lucifer nearly fell out of his bed. The bedsheets tangled around his arms and legs effectively trapping him in his own self made soft burrito.
"Fuck," Lucifer groaned, slumping back into his pillows, when the initial shock left him.
His heart beat heavy in his ears.
"Shouldn't have picked that song as a wake-up song," he grumbled into the pillow.
For a second he just stayed like this. The sun shining through the open windows warm onto his bed. Everything was soft and cozy. Lucifer could have stayed like this forever.
Sadly the alarm was blaring loudly in his ears and he already had set it to the latest time possible after chatting with Bee and Ozzie until 3am about the new 'Heated Rivalry' episode.
It took all of his effort to untangle his arm from the blanket burrito he'd wrapped himself in and swipe the stop button on his phone. Then it took another minute until he actually managed to start to unwrap himself completely.
When his eyes fell back on the clock, Lucifer couldn't help but let out a silent: "Oh shit." and start racing through his room in a frantic search for a shirt that didn't stink like - Lucifer sniffed another shirt he'd found on the armrest - whatever that smell was.
Lucifer gagged in disgust.
"Oh my god."
By the time he made it downstairs to the kitchen, shirt half hanging out of his pants, papers fluttering behind him, Aunt Sera stood impatiently at the counter, scowling at him.
His older brother Michael was sitting smugly behind the table, reading newspaper like an obnoxious asshole and his little cousin Emily grinned brightly at him.
"Hi Luci!" she waved.
"You are late," Sera said in her soft, annoying - I am disappointed in you - voice.
Lucifer winced.
"Yeah, sorry, but I am here now," Lucifer grinned, hurrying over to the table and grabbing a dry bread roll from the basket.
"Sit."
Lucifer froze halfway to the door.
"Sera."
"Sit."
"I don't have time to sit."
"You have time to eat."
"I can eat while walking."
"You are not walking, Luci," Michael interfered. "I am driving your sorry little ass."
"You absolutely cannot," Sera said at the same time, then turned to Michael with a warning look.
Lucifer shot Michael an insulted look too.
Emily giggled.
"Michael said ass!"
Sera rolled her eyes.
Michael winced and said: "Sorry."
"I've done it before!" Lucifer argued, going back to their before-conversation.
"And you nearly walked into a fountain," Sera pointed out.
"That happened one time."
"It happened three times," Michael pointed out.
Lucifer opened his mouth.
Closed it again.
Because, unfortunately, he was right.
Across the table Michael lowered his newspaper just enough to reveal an infuriatingly smug grin.
"Oh, this is a good one."
Lucifer pointed accusingly.
"Don't."
Michael folded the newspaper with exaggerated care.
"By all means. Continue arguing with the woman who has fed you for sixteen years."
"I am not arguing."
"You literally are."
"I am discussing."
"Very loudly."
"That's called passion."
Emily giggled.
Lucifer shot her a betrayed look.
"You too?"
"I think Aunt Sera is winning."
"I wasn't aware this was a competition."
"You're losing anyway," Michael informed him.
Lucifer groaned dramatically and dropped into the chair.
"You're all terrible."
"Eat your eggs," Sera pointed at his plate.
"See? Terrible." Lucifer huffed.
Despite his complaining, he started shoveling food into his mouth.
Honestly, it was worth it.
Sera made amazing breakfasts.
That didn't mean he was going to admit it.
Across from him Michael watched with the satisfied expression of a man observing a wild animal in its natural habitat.
Lucifer narrowed his eyes.
"What?"
Michael reached over and ruffled his hair.
Hard.
Lucifer immediately jerked away.
"Stop doing that!"
"Doing what?"
"That!"
Michael did it again.
Lucifer swatted his hand away.
"You are ruining my hairstyle!" Lucifer wailed.
"What hairstyle?" Michael laughed.
"Oh my God, you're the worst."
"You love me."
"I tolerate you."
"You cried when I went to university."
"I was eight."
"You cried."
"I hated your replacement babysitter."
Michael laughed.
Emily gasped dramatically.
"You cried?"
"Emily."
"You cried."
"Emily."
"That's adorable."
Lucifer buried his face in his hands.
"This family is a curse."
Sera hid a smile behind her coffee mug.
Ten minutes later Lucifer was being practically shoved out the front door before he somehow found another excuse to be late.
"Have a good day," Sera called.
"Don't start any fights," Emily yelled.
"I never start fights."
Michael raised an eyebrow.
Lucifer pointed at him, then looked seriously at Emily.
"I finish them!" he yelled triumphantly.
"Yeah!" Emily screamed.
"Lucifer!" Sera warned.
"I'm kidding!"
"You are absolutely not kidding," Michael added.
"Okay maybe a little," Lucifer whispered.
Michael sighed, while Sera shoved Emily back indoors, that she would also hurry to get her stuff for kindergarten.
Then Michael opened the passenger door.
"Get in."
The drive to school wasn't long.
Lucifer spent most of it scrolling through messages.
Their group chat had exploded overnight.
Bee had sent forty-three messages.
Mammon had somehow sent seventy.
Half of them were memes.
A quarter were insults.
The remaining quarter were incomprehensible.
Lucifer was still trying to figure out whether one image was supposed to be a cat or a tax form when Michael glanced over.
"You sleep at all?"
"A little."
"You look like death."
"Thank you."
"That's not a compliment."
"It should be."
Michael snorted.
For a few moments they drove in comfortable silence.
"Do you think this is a cat or a tax form?" Lucifer asked, holding the picture up to Michael.
"What?!" He asked.
Lucifer shrugged taking his phone back into his lap and wrote: Cool tax form cat Mammon. I hope you choke on it.
Then the enormous wrought iron gates of Hazbin Academy came into view.
Students were already flooding through the front entrance.
Perfect uniforms.
Designer backpacks.
Expensive cars lining the road.
The usual.
Michael pulled over near the curb.
"Try not to fail anything."
"I got a ninety-four last week."
Michael looked horrified.
"A ninety-four?"
"Don't."
"A tragedy."
"Michael."
"A catastrophe."
"Michael."
"A stain upon the family name."
Lucifer laughed despite himself.
"You're ridiculous."
"Love you too."
The words were casual.
Easy.
The kind exchanged a thousand times.
Still, they made Lucifer smile.
He grabbed his bag.
Jumped out of the car.
And immediately spotted Bee standing on a bench in the courtyard screaming at someone across campus.
Again.
Yep.
School had officially started.
"IF HE WANTED TO BREAK UP HE COULD HAVE AT LEAST TEXTED ME BACK FIRST!"
Half the courtyard stared.
The other half had long since gotten used to it.
Lucifer sighed.
Michael winced.
"Have fun," he said mock cheerily and raced off, as quickly as he could, when Lucifer had gotten out.
Lucifer huffed, flipping him off… or rather the back of the car… before he started trudging towards Bee still yelling from the bench.
"Morning, Bee."
Bee pointed dramatically at a random sophomore.
"HE'S ON HIS SIDE."
"I don't even know who you're yelling at."
"Neither do I."
"Then why are you yelling?"
Bee blinked.
"Huh."
Lucifer grabbed her by the sleeve before she could start a second argument.
"Come on."
"You're ruining my villain arc."
"You say that every week."
"One day it'll be true."
The familiar sound of running footsteps echoed across the courtyard.
Mammon appeared around the corner.
Late.
As usual.
His tie was crooked.
His blazer wasn't buttoned.
And he was carrying three energy drinks.
"GOOD NEWS!" he announced.
Nobody asked.
"I only slept two hours."
"That's not good news," Lucifer said.
"It is for comedy."
"That's not how biology works."
Mammon shoved one of the energy drinks into Lucifer's hands.
Lucifer immediately handed it to Bee.
Bee drank half of it in one go.
"Excellent."
"You are both terrible influences."
Ozzie appeared beside them like he'd been there the entire time.
"Morning."
"Morning."
"Morning."
"Morning."
"Morning."
"Morning."
Ozzie looked at Bee.
"What happened this time?"
"He broke up with me."
"When?"
"Three days ago."
"And you're only upset now?"
"I was busy."
Ozzie nodded.
"Understandable."
Lucifer rolled his eyes.
"You encourage her."
"It's good for her emotional growth."
"That's not emotional growth."
"It's emotional something."
By the time they reached their usual table, the rest of the group had arrived as well, already sitting there.
Levi was scrolling through their phone at terrifying speed.
Bel was asleep.
Face down.
On top of three textbooks.
Satan was frantically finishing homework.
Lucifer stopped.
"Why are you doing homework now?"
Satan looked up.
"Huh?"
"Class starts in ten minutes."
"Yeah."
"You've had a week."
"Yeah."
Lucifer stared.
Satan stared back.
Neither spoke.
Finally Satan looked back down at his notebook.
"Don't judge me."
"You're literally top of the class."
"I contain multitudes."
Mammon snorted.
Bel lifted her head approximately two inches.
"Can you all shut up?"
"No."
Bel dropped face-first back onto the table.
"Rude."
The first bell rang.
And the chaos migrated indoors.
By third period Lucifer was beginning to regret only sleeping four hours.
Not because he was tired.
Because listening to Valentino talk while tired should probably qualify as psychological torture.
"Alright everyone," their teacher called. "I've finished grading your assignments."
Papers immediately started appearing on desks.
A collective wave of stress swept through the classroom.
Lucifer sat up slightly.
He'd done well.
Probably.
Hopefully.
Question seven had been awful.
Whoever invented advanced calculus deserved jail time.
"Valentino."
Lucifer's head turned automatically.
Valentino strutted toward the teacher's desk.
The man smiled.
"Excellent work."
Valentino smirked.
Lucifer immediately disliked that expression.
"Particularly question seven."
Lucifer blinked.
Question seven?
Question seven had been brutal.
Half the class had complained about it for days.
Valentino looked pleased with himself.
"Natural talent," he grinned, fanning at himself.
Lucifer nearly choked.
Across the room Mammon made a noise suspiciously similar to a dying whale.
"Natural talent my ass."
The entire class heard him.
Bee nodded immediately.
"I literally watched him ask what a fraction was yesterday."
Valentino turned around and flipped them off.
"Jealousy is ugly."
"Math is uglier," Mammon shot back.
The teacher pinched the bridge of his nose.
"Language."
"Sorry."
He absolutely wasn't.
Then another paper appeared.
"Vox."
Another perfect score.
Vox grinned.
Valentino grinned.
They high-fived.
Lucifer narrowed his eyes.
Something wasn't adding up.
Vox once spent twenty minutes trying to convince everyone the moon was a government conspiracy.
No way in Hell he solved question seven.
Then came Velvette.
"Excellent work."
Another hundred.
Velvette barely looked up from her phone.
"Obviously."
See, that one Lucifer believed.
Velvette was awful.
Manipulative.
Mean.
Possibly a sociopath.
But she was smart.
Very smart.
The boys?
Not so much.
Which only made the whole thing stranger.
Finally a paper landed on Lucifer's desk.
96%.
Not bad.
Actually pretty good.
Still.
His eyes immediately found the red marks.
Question seven.
Of course.
Valentino leaned back in his chair.
Smug.
Insufferably smug.
"Guess you're slipping, Morningstar."
Lucifer looked over.
Really looked over.
At Valentino.
At the grin.
At the perfect paper.
At the guy who once tried to divide by zero because he thought it'd give him extra numbers.
Then Lucifer looked back at the assignment.
Question seven.
Perfect.
Not a single mistake.
Valentino couldn't solve that question if somebody held a gun to his head.
So where the hell had that homework come from?
The question followed him through the rest of the day.
Through chemistry.
Through lunch.
Through Bee trying to convince Satan that setting off a smoke bomb in the girls' bathroom would be "a social experiment."
Through Mammon somehow getting his tie stuck in a vending machine, because he claimed to have found a trick on how to get drinks for free.
Through Levi live-posting every second of the resulting argument.
Lucifer tried not to care.
He really did.
Unfortunately, the more he thought about it, the less sense it made.
By the time the final bell rang, he was still thinking about it.
Students immediately flooded into the hallways.
Lockers slammed.
People shouted.
Someone nearly got run over by a skateboard.
The usual.
Lucifer slung his bag over one shoulder and pulled out his phone.
A new message from Michael waited for him.
Michael: Running late.
Michael: Coworker won't stop asking stupid questions in a meeting.
Lucifer snorted.
Lucifer: Thoughts and prayers.
After a moment he added a gif of a man slowly walking into the ocean.
A typing bubble immediately appeared.
Then disappeared.
Then appeared again.
Michael: You're paying for my retirement home.
Lucifer grinned and shoved his phone back into his pocket.
Great.
At least half an hour to kill.
He let out a sigh and started toward the front gates.
Then stopped.
Across the courtyard, the Vees were leaving together.
Weird.
Usually they left separately.
Or with whatever unfortunate followers they'd collected that week.
Today they were moving with suspicious purpose.
Valentino kept glancing around.
Vox looked irritated.
Velvette was staring at her phone.
As usual.
Lucifer narrowed his eyes.
They turned the corner around the science building.
Toward the back of campus.
Toward the dumpsters.
"What are you idiots doing?" he muttered.
Then immediately kept walking.
Because he didn't care.
At all.
Not even a little.
Seriously.
He made it almost twenty feet.
Then stopped.
Turned around.
And groaned.
"Oh, this is how people get murdered in documentaries."
Still.
Michael was late.
He was bored.
And if the Vees were secretly making out behind the dumpsters, Bee would absolutely pay money for that information.
Lucifer changed directions.
The back of the school was significantly less glamorous than the front.
The pristine gardens disappeared.
The expensive statues disappeared.
The carefully maintained image of Hazbin Academy disappeared.
Instead there were brick walls.
Service entrances.
Dumpsters.
And enough graffiti to make the administration cry.
Lucifer slowed as voices drifted around the corner.
One belonged to Vox.
One to Valentino.
One to Velvette.
And one...
One he didn't recognize.
Curiosity won.
Lucifer slipped behind the nearest dumpster and carefully peeked around the edge.
Then blinked.
The boy standing there looked about his age.
Maybe sixteen.
Seventeen at most.
Dark hair.
Thin enough that it looked concerning.
A faded jacket that had clearly seen better years.
An old backpack hanging from one shoulder.
Everything about him screamed poor.
Everything about him screamed exhausted.
And yet he stood there facing the Vees like they were mildly annoying customers.
"...seems like you weren't talking out of your ass after all, street rat," Vox said.
The boy raised an eyebrow.
"Oh thank goodness."
Vox frowned.
"What?"
"I was terribly worried about your opinion of me."
Valentino barked out a laugh.
Velvette didn't even look up from her phone.
The boy sighed dramatically.
"Truly. It would've haunted me."
Lucifer felt an unwilling smile tug at his mouth.
The kid had nerve.
Unfortunately, Vox apparently didn't appreciate it.
His expression darkened.
Before Lucifer could react, Vox grabbed the front of the boy's jacket and slammed him backwards.
The dumpster rattled violently.
The sound echoed through the alley.
The boy gasped.
A sharp involuntary sound.
For a split second pain flashed across his face.
Then it vanished.
"Show some respect, you little piece of shit."
Lucifer's smile disappeared.
The boy immediately lifted both hands.
"Okay, okay."
His voice was light.
Almost cheerful.
But Lucifer could see the tension in his shoulders.
"Let's not get emotional."
Vox looked seconds away from hitting him again.
The boy flashed a strained grin.
"So."
He cleared his throat.
"Do we have a deal?"
Velvette finally looked up.
"God, you're annoying."
"Thank you."
"That wasn't a compliment."
"Well it should've been."
Lucifer almost laughed.
Again.
The kid apparently had no self-preservation instincts whatsoever.
Vox grumbled something under his breath.
Valentino stepped forward.
"We'll give you fifty."
The boy blinked.
"What?"
"Fifty."
"We agreed on one hundred and twenty."
His voice cracked slightly.
Not with anger.
With panic.
Lucifer felt something uncomfortable settle in his stomach.
Valentino shrugged.
"You've been disrespectful."
"That's not how negotiations work."
"It is now."
The boy stared at them.
Actually stared.
For the first time his confidence seemed to crack.
"We had an agreement."
"Well next time think twice before mouthing off, shithead."
Vox kicked him sharply in the shin.
The boy yelped and stumbled.
Catching himself against the dumpster.
Valentino laughed.
Then pulled a wad of bills from his pocket.
And threw them.
Not handed.
Threw.
The money scattered across the dirty pavement.
For a second nobody moved.
The boy looked at the bills.
Then at the Vees.
Lucifer watched something awful flash across his face.
Humiliation.
Then it was gone.
Hidden.
Buried.
Valentino tossed a backpack after the money.
It smacked the boy in the shoulder.
"We need another assignment done by Friday."
The boy clenched his jaw.
"If it's anything like the last one, that'll cost extra."
Valentino laughed again.
"Do good work and maybe we'll discuss a raise."
"How generous."
Vox rolled his eyes.
Velvette looked disgusted.
"Whatever. Let's go."
The three of them turned and walked away.
Still laughing.
Still talking.
As if they hadn't just treated another human being like garbage.
Lucifer flattened himself against the dumpster until they disappeared.
Silence settled over the alley.
Then -
"Assholes."
The muttered curse was followed by a wince.
The boy rubbed his shoulder.
Then his shin.
Then sighed heavily.
"One day I'm charging extra for attempted murder."
Lucifer bit the inside of his cheek.
The kid crouched down.
And started picking up the money.
One bill at a time.
Carefully.
Methodically.
Like every single dollar mattered.
Maybe it did.
When he finished, he stuffed the crumpled bills into his pocket.
Grabbed the backpack.
Then, with an agility Lucifer would've killed for, scaled the fence at the end of the alley.
In seconds he was on the other side.
Heading toward the distant skyline of the slums.
Gone.
Lucifer stared after him.
Then at the empty alley.
Then at the fence.
The kid was the one doing their homework.
The kid who looked like he hadn't slept in days.
The kid who couldn't have weighed much more than Bee's backpack.
The kid who had solved the hardest problem in the entire class.
And apparently one hundred and twenty dollars was important enough to argue over.
What the hell was his story?