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People like us
are born with glittering white slates
with hands as clean as the first snow fall,
with smiles bright as sunlit mornings
just so we can stain them red
people like us: the sinners, the fallen, the ghosts, the heroes – j.p
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He doesn’t look upon the face he’s found himself in for…days, he supposes, after they have risen. At first he is too distracted by bitter cold tinge of this world, after the heat of hell. Of the ache in his wings, and Mazikeen’s screams, of the scent of her new flesh charring as the celestial burns of her true face mix with the soft fragile skin of her new human suit upon where he could not shelter her from the flames of ascending.
He thinks, perhaps, that falling had nothing on the agony of rising.
He has more important worries than vanity, in those first few minutes. There is Mazikeen to heal, as best as he can; shelter and sustenance to find. A whole world to learn, as he stares at glass and metal spires that shoot towards the heavens when last he had been here humanity had barely been crawling out of their caves.
There’s so much up here.
He doesn’t know how the human died, nor much does he care. The person this skin belonged to is dead, the soul languishing in either heaven or hell, and regardless he didn’t kill them, he’s just…making sure nothing goes to waste, is all.
There is blood staining his new hands, flaky and red and the slightest bit sticky, but it washes away easily enough, and then they are clean in a way they were never in hell.
He thinks he could become used to this human skin.
Mazikeen, behind him, is breathing strangely, sucking in air as a gasp, her new chest heaving, and he turns to her, uses those hands to turn her face up to his, takes in her eyes blown wide and asks, his new voice low and foreign, “Are you well?”
“The air is so clear here,” she says, a gasping wonder, for Mazikeen has never been out of hell, has never breathed air without burning sulphur or cloying ash.
He tucks her into the warmth of his body, steadies her trembling hands.
He thinks Amenadiel held him like this once. He banishes the thought away.
“We’re going to be happy here,” he promises her, and the Devil tells no lies.
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He’s not sure the exact time, but the sun has risen and set at least twice – eons in hell, seconds in heaven - before he happens up a moment to actually take himself as he is now in.
They hardly had the luxury of choice that his siblings upon high enjoy, the time to select a vessel with care. They had been too busy clawing through fire and brimstone, choking on sulphur and ash, pulling out of the burning talons of the demons and hell itself trying to stop them.
That pithy nonsense about beggars and choosers and all that.
Still, once he finally does have a moment to himself, housed safe in this building he traded for with little more than devilish charm and a signature on a scrap of fabric that still smells of orgasm and lust, he stares upon his new face and thinks; this one will suit him well.
The face that looks back at him is foreign and yet familiar enough; a sharp jaw, features aesthetically pleasing in the way that humans kill and bargain for. Full rich dark hair, and a fit, lean form.
This is a face humans will trust, will flock to; will make deals with.
The rest too, is quite workable.
The words that flow up from his throat have a melody to them different than the ones he hears from Mazikeen’s throat, but it’s quite pleasing to the ear. The garments leave something to be desired, ill-fitting and still stained with life blood, but they are easy enough to replace with something a little more…him.
He finds he likes outfitting his new body, a study in discovering himself again. He learns he prefers fine fabrics, form fitting suits; elegant lines and crisp white collars.
The gentleman devil, the salesperson purrs, and oh Lucifer laughs and laughs and laughs.
Mazikeen, he learns, delights in tight trousers, snug tops; items in dark shades that extenuate her new curves. The first time she tries on a pair of leather pants, her smile is bright enough to rival the light of an angel’s grace.
He finds he likes her smile, her joy. It suits her.
Then, there are the…other things he discovers he likes.
In those first days and weeks and months on earth, they throw themselves into as many vices as they can, like children in a candy store. He licks clits and sucks cocks, fucks and is fucked, downs drinks and pops pills, sniffs powders and never stops dancing, and when he finally sleeps it is cocooned it the sleek coolness of silk sheets and warmth of sweaty, sated skin.
Everything here is so bright and soft and fun.
Nothing hurts.
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Chloe Decker rests her forehead upon his and it’s real, real, real, and in her embrace Lucifer knows a joy surpassed by no divinity.
He thinks, perhaps, he is finally beginning to understand that oh so mysterious thing called love.
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If this is humanity, Lucifer cannot understand why anyone would want anything else.
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Of all the delights he’s found exist on this plane of existence, he finds he perhaps enjoys music the most. It helps that the voice he’s found himself to have is pleasing in song, but even if this was not so, he thinks he’d still find peace from the act of coaxing these sounds from his piano, delight in getting lost in the experience of creation.
And then one day, perhaps six months after they arrive, he finds a woman standing in the door way when he takes his hands off the keys, staring at him like he’s her everything.
“Sam,” She says, wondrously, moving towards him, drawing him into her embrace before he can hardly think to pull away, “My sweet boy, I’ve been looking for you everywhere!”
Lucifer has seen many humans in his time here; this woman is not one of them.
Her hand is so soft and warm on his cheek.
He can hardly bear it.
“Who are you?” He asks, baffled and so off balance, because there is no one in all of heaven and earth to look at him so, like someone…precious.
“Sam it’s me, your mother,” she whispers, her voice broken, tears in her eyes, like he’s opened her ribcage and is squeezing her heart between his hands.
Her son’s hands.
“My name is not Sam,” Lucifer manages, tries to be gentle in his escape, because this human has lost her son and she does not even know it, is simply coming to the best conclusion with the information she has. This is not her fault.
Lucifer cannot remember if his mother ever touched him with such kindness.
“Samuel, what - ” she sobs out, baffled and hurt, eyes shining with pain and love and she’s too close, and it’s too close to…that name and Lucifer just…breaks.
“That is not my name,” he roars, wrenching out of the terrible hold of love not meant for him, turning to pace as her son’s heart beats in triple time, before rearing forward a step towards her.
“I am not your son,” he shouts, and he knows if he was too look into a mirror, it would not be the visage of a human who was once called Sam by a mother who loves him, nor even of Samael - killed not by the landing but rather by the fall - but instead of the devil he truly is, “Your son is dead.”
There’s a silence that is deafening as she stares at him, hands caught over her open mouth, frozen perhaps in a silent scream, a horrifying deadness in her eyes.
She is the first human who has seen his true form; seen the monster he has truly become.
She runs.
Maze finds him in the early hours before dawn, laying passed out on the floor, surrounded by the shattered glass of every mirror in the penthouse, bathed in moonlight, shards sparkling like stars in the night sky.
When he awakes at noon he has a pounding headache and a clean penthouse.
Mazikeen has always been so much more than he deserves.
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She kills herself.
The woman, the mother who had put her hands to his face and wept. He catches sight of it on the morning news out of the corner of his eyes, and then finds he cannot look away.
65, mother of one son, survived by a husband and family who loved her. Woke up yesterday morning and walked to the Vincent Thomas Bridge as was her habit; threw herself off, as was not. Her husband, a tearful mess, holds a note in hands that tremble, reads it out in a broken voice.
No ramblings about the devil, about glowing red eyes and hideous burnt flesh, only four words.
My son is dead.
The news switches focus; some starlet has left a party without panties. The banner has the nerve to report it as Breaking News.
He puts Samuel’s his fist through the television.
There’s an ache somewhere deep down in his chest, and for a moment Lucifer wonders if this heart he has stolen will shudder and die, the last revenge of a dead man he’s never met, but for every morning in the mirror.
The heart keeps beating.
The feeling remains.
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The knife sinks into his brother again. His hands are stained so red he thinks they will never again come clean.
The knife is in his hands again.
He’s sorry, he’s sorry, he’s so sorry.
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He would have preferred death.
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Chloe Decker, alive in her hospital bed puts her hand in his, and even though he knows that the light in her eyes for him is not real, not real, not real, he still cannot look away.
There’s an ache somewhere deep down in his chest, and for a moment, Lucifer wishes that this heart he has stolen will shudder and die, the last kindness from a dead man he’s never met, but for every morning in the mirror.
His heart keeps beating.
The feeling remains.
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If this is humanity, Lucifer cannot understand why anyone would want this.
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You’re the devil, Maze hisses at him, sharp and otherworldly and perfect in her rage and worry, stop caring.
The lights from the club cast shadows up her face, and for a second Lucifer sees a flash of a white, milky dead eye, smells burnt flesh, feels the gnawing phantom ache upon his shoulders, tastes ozone and the freedom of flying in his mouth.
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It’s terrible.
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“Lucifer,” he hears Detective Decker say, so oddly clear over the din of the club, and his heart, his oh so traitorous heart flutters.
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It’s wonderful.
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Lucifer swallows down his drink, and hopes it takes the truth with it.
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He can’t.
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FIN
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