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my_own_advocateThe lower deck of the Fi$hizzle II had a sort of hotel room chique quality to it; Lucifer couldn't decide whether he liked it or absolutely loathed the impersonal glitz of it. It had been a while since he'd been on a boat of any stripe, as well, and the faint memory of another, much more grossly nautical vessel lurked in the back of his mind-- which didn't really help with his mixed feelings about the place.
At least the Fi$hizzle had its own bar below decks. Small favors. He lurked there, waiting patiently for the noise of the party upstairs to segue into the sound of feet on stairs.
Mr. Said Out Bitch stepped into his stateroom wearing nothing but a tiger print speedo.
"Hello," Lucifer said, lifting the olive out of his martini. "I heard you were here, so I thought I'd pay you a visit."
Mr. Said Out Bitch's eyes went wide, and he waved his arms at Lucifer. "No, no, no way, man! You got to go!"
Lucifer dropped the olive skewer neatly into his glass and weaved his fingers together. "Well, frankly, I was expecting a warmer reception, Mr. Said Out Bitch."
"Don't get me wrong. I am grateful for all the money and the gold you gave me last time, but I'm gonna have to catch you on the flipside, because for once things are going well for me, and every time I run into you, bad things happen," the man said, panicked.
Right, the poor thing didn't know. "Ah, right," Lucifer said, turning back to his martini. "This is going to be a bit awkward, then."
"...Why?" Mr. Said Out Bitch asked him slowly.
"Well, something bad is about to happen," Lucifer said. He held up his hand, "But I assure you, it has nothing to do with me."
"What are you talking about?"
Lucifer pointed over his shoulder, helpfully. "Someone is about to walk through that door and murder you," he said, grinning.
Apparently Mr. Said Out Bitch took his grin as rather differently than intended, because he burst out laughing. "You kill me! There's no way that's actually going to happen!"
"Oh, I assure you, it is actually going to happen," Lucifer said, the grin falling away from his face. "In fact, it's happened over two hundred times already." He slid off his stool. "And it will happen again in five... four... three... two..."
He walked past Mr. Said Out Bitch, and the door behind him opened, revealing a masked attacker with a gun in hand. He fired.
Mr. Said Out Bitch slid to the floor, bleeding. "What the hell...?"
"Precisely," Lucifer said, and watched the light go out in his eyes.
---
"So, I... didn't just die?"
"Well, as I was trying to tell you before we were so rudely interrupted, you are now in your very own Hell loop." Lucifer swept his drink off the bar and held it out. "So. Welcome to Hell."
He took a sip.
Oh, why did even Hell martinis have to be disappointing?
Mr. Said Out Bitch stared at him. "I'm in Hell?"
Lucifer took another sip as he sat down and shot the man a solid Look.
"I, I don't understand," the man said. Why did they do this every single time he chose to take an interest? It got so tedious. Evidence Crocker had given him a headache by the twenty-fifth time.
He sighed. "Eternal damnation? Infinite suffering? It's a pretty straightforward concept." He took a bite of one of the olives.
"No, I mean like... Hell hell?"
Oh, of course they were pitted. Lucifer spat the pit out into his palm and put it down on the bar. "The one and only."
"Then get me the hell out of here!"
Honestly, his kingdom for a proper drink. Any drink. He'd even take a Jack and coke, at this point. "It's not up to me, I'm afraid. In Hell, you are your own jailer, you brought yourself here."
He saw the realization - ah, that futile realization - pass over Mr. Said Out Bitch's face. "Then I'mma take myself up and out of here," he said, and walked through the door.
And right back out through the door on the other side of the cabin.
"How in the hell?"
"Same response, every time," Lucifer said tiredly. All of these reminders of life on Earth were starting to get to him, and they were bad enough without this insipid predictability. "It's not that simple."
Mr. Said Out Bitch walked gingerly through the room, staring at the window. Searching for something. "But why am I here?"
"That's between you and your own guilt. That's what brought you here," Lucifer said, and got up, "And it's what will haunt you now and through the end of time."
He should stop making these visits. Stop staring himself blind on these images of a past life. He was stuck here for good, his choice, his Duty. Didn't know why he was still holding on to this nonsense, longing for something he'd never get back to. "And now we're crossing into the country of Boring, so time for me to self-deport. Please, enjoy your eternity of suffering."
"Wait, man. You can't go," Mr. Said Out Bitch pleaded. "You can't just leave me here alone."
Lucifer turned around and smiled pleasantly. (Wait, had that gilded turtle always been here?) "No, you won't be alone. My demons will always be on hand, torturing you and such, so chin up, mate." He gave a little wave with his hand, as if that covered it all.
Mr. Said Out Bitch's shoulders dropped. "At least tell me who killed me."
"Not my job anymore," Lucifer replied. "I'm sorry, but this really is about you and your eternal pain, okay?" He turned back to the door. It would open properly for him, back into the hallways of Hell.
Behind him, the sad sack limped back to his bed. "But I had everything," he said quietly. "I had this beautiful boat in Marina del Rey, women, money..."
Wait. "Marina del Rey?" Lucifer's hand hovered by the door.
He dropped it, and looked to the window. Took a few more steps so he could see through the window, and... there it was. Unmistakable.
"Los Angeles," he said quietly.
It had been-- so long.
"You know, there's a good chance I know who's on your case," he said, voice still soft. "We were quite a team, once upon a time. I... you know, to them it's been a couple of months, a blink of an eye, but here..."
He cut himself off abruptly.
"This is your lucky day," he said, looking over his shoulder.
Mr. Said Out Bitch eyed him warily. "It doesn't really seem like it," he said dryly.
"I'm gonna do something I haven't done in ages, for old times' sake," Lucifer said, grinning brightly as he ignored that. "I am going to solve your murder."
---
Step one was to freeze the Hell loop at the moment of the murder. Belios was kind enough to stop mid-firing his bullet-- though regrettably, Mr. Said Out Bitch continued his spree of baseless assumptions and had to find out the hard way that his murderer's face wasn't just going to manifest itself under that mask if he, himself, didn't know what it looked like.
Hell loops were wrought of your memories. It was strange how humans just couldn't seem to wrap their minds around it.
"Sorry, Belios," Lucifer said, sliding the mask down gently. "And you can take the rest of the day off, you've certainly earned it."
Mr. Said Out Bitch sighed. "So how are we going to find my killer, then?!"
"With good old-fashioned detective work, mon frere," Lucifer said, grinning. "And lucky for you, I learned from the best. So, step one: who wanted you dead?"
Mr. Said Out Bitch had the face of a man who really needed a bigger notepad for that.
---
It shouldn't have come as as much of a surprise as it did, Lucifer mused, nose wrinkled, to find out Mr. Said Out Bitch had horrendous taste in clothing. That blue suit with the blue shirt with that print-- it was horrifying.
He digressed.
"Hey, man, I love this suit!"
Okay, so he'd digressed out loud, as per usual, but who could blame him?
"I used to know a man who dressed like an extra from a Fisherman's Friend commercial, and even he had better taste in suits than you do," he said, and shoved that memory away as fast as he could, as well. "How much did you owe this host again?"
"Like, $700,000, give or take a few," Mr. Said Out Bitch said.
"For that much, I'd kill you myself," Lucifer noted, as the elevator doors opened in front of them. "After you."
Mr. Said Out Bitch got a bit more squirrelly after that. Not that Lucifer cared. The penthouse gambling hall they'd stepped into was truly something to behold, worthy of his old Los Angeles days. A perfect view of the skyline, movers and shakers seated at ornate poker tables...
A flash back to a better time.
"Exquisite Hell loop," Lucifer said.
As Mr. Said Out Bitch looked around, Lucifer strode to the balcony. He took a deep breath of air and gazed at the buildings, the blue skies, the warm sun and the endless horizon. Exactly as he'd left it, a little slice of home, the likes of which he hadn't seen in some time. "City of Angels, I have missed you," he said softly, soaking it all in.
"Hey, he's the guy I owe," Mr. Said Out Bitch interrupted him. "Dirty Doug."
Lucifer turned around and noticed him instantly. Bald, bearded, with a neck tattoo and a suit that didn't actually hurt his eyes.
"So what exactly can you tell me about old Doug-eat-Doug here?" Lucifer asked.
Mr. Said Out Bitch shrugged. "Nothing much, besides that he seems like a really scary, powerful guy," he said.
Lucifer stared at him. "Obviously," he said. "He's got a skinhead and neck tattoos!" He sighed, thinking. "What would she do...?" Background? Yes. Background. "Oh. Yes. Give me all the usual background info. What about his priors. Any speeding tickets, overdue library books...?"
He got a stare right back. "How am I supposed to know any of that?!"
With a wave, Lucifer halted all activity in the building. "Is there anything you can actually tell me?"
"Not really. I mean, I'm pretty sure he killed me? There's that. But we weren't exactly buddies. I don't know what else you want from me."
Useless.
Another wave, and the world began to move anew.
"All I can tell you is I sat down here, I played poker, started losing, then Doug offered me a marker, and like an idiot, I took it," Mr. Said Out Bitch said. He reached into his pocket and produced--
"That's it?" Lucifer said, ripping it out of his hands. "He just gives you a gold coin? No contingencies, no stipulations, threats?"
Mr. Said Out Bitch shook his head. "That's it."
"There's got to be more to indicate that this man is your murderer," Lucifer said, exasperated. "Some hidden clue! A sign!" Nothing. "Well, you've got to give me something! Anything, Detective--!"
Oh.
Oh, now he realized what was going on here.
He'd let himself go again. Gotten himself involved. Again. He'd promised himself he'd stop that, after Evi, and yet... here he was. In the fake soundstage version of Los Angeles, staring at a man he had barely known in real life, and-- and..
"You. Are. Useless," he ground out. "This whole investigation is a complete waste of time! I mean--"
He waved blindly behind him, digging into the fabric of the memory and ripping it away; the Gas Company Tower, the rest of the skyscrapers, they all just vanished. The blue sky boiled away into something darker, and ash rained down on the volcanic rock of--
"This isn't even Los Angeles!"
He turned to face his prison, sucking in deep breaths in a desperate attempt to rail inthe hurt his temper. "And you're not her," he said helplessly.
---
The demons brought a dead man to Lucifer not long after. He'd restored the skies again once the last dregs of feeling had faded. Left him numb and angry at the same time, in this useless, painful way, that-- that was useless, and painful.
So... he did what he'd been doing. Sent a demon up in the dead man's body, to give Chloe a message about poor dead Mr. Said Out Bitch's murder.
He cleared the rest of the demons from the penthouse after that.
"So, back to your torture," he said, striding past the man. He'd wasted enough time here. Chasing something that hurt him, like he didn't know any better. "And me to mine."
"Hey, man," Mr. Said Out Bitch called after him. "You keep mentioning something about a detective...? Who is she?"
He stilled. "Someone I left behind," Lucifer said. "A very long time ago."
"She must've been someone important," Mr. Said Out Bitch said, watching him with sympathy.
"More than you could ever know."
There it was again. The sting. He'd just gotten rid of it, too.
But Mr. Said Out Bitch kept prattling on. "I get it," he said. "I left people behind too, people I cared about. My sister Meg... she meant the world to me, and I let her go. Now it's too late."
That brought someone else to mind, unbidden. Lucifer stared at the floor, not seeing much.
"What's your detective's name?"
Lucifer looked at him. "Oh," he said, in a faintly amused breath. "I just used to call her Detective, but... her name..."
There he was, getting drawn back in, and--
...
This was on purpose, wasn't it?
His gaze shot back to Mr. Said Out Bitch. "Clever, manipulative bastard," he snapped, bringing his hands together for some applause. "Oh, well played! Petty distraction to gain the Devil's sympathy, hoping I'd let you off the hook from your endless torment?" He pushed past the man.
"Ah, it ain't like that," Mr. Said Out Bitch protested. "You just seem like a... really sad Devil guy."
Lucifer stared at the fake skyline again.
"I mean, okay, maybe a small part of me was hoping you'd help me out..."
And his attention was right back on Mr. Said Out Bitch. "How many times do I have to tell you before it penetrates that minuscule mind of yours?" he snarled. "This whole thing is your own fault!"
"You know what, man? Screw you!" Mr. Said Out Bitch yelled. "I mean, you would help me out if you wanted to. Thought you were supposed to be the man down here, ain't you the 'King of Hell'?"
A righteous, flat anger settled over Lucifer's face, and he stalked towards this manipulative little cretin. "You really want to know why you're here?" he shouted, towering over mouthy little Lee. "Do you? Well, let me show you!"
And dug deep into the man's Hell loop, all the way down to the heart of it all.
[[ nfb, nfi, ooc-love, and taken and adapted from Lucifer episode 5x01, 'Really Sad Devil Guy'. WE'RE GETTING THIS THING BACK ON THE ROAD. ]]
At least the Fi$hizzle had its own bar below decks. Small favors. He lurked there, waiting patiently for the noise of the party upstairs to segue into the sound of feet on stairs.
Mr. Said Out Bitch stepped into his stateroom wearing nothing but a tiger print speedo.
"Hello," Lucifer said, lifting the olive out of his martini. "I heard you were here, so I thought I'd pay you a visit."
Mr. Said Out Bitch's eyes went wide, and he waved his arms at Lucifer. "No, no, no way, man! You got to go!"
Lucifer dropped the olive skewer neatly into his glass and weaved his fingers together. "Well, frankly, I was expecting a warmer reception, Mr. Said Out Bitch."
"Don't get me wrong. I am grateful for all the money and the gold you gave me last time, but I'm gonna have to catch you on the flipside, because for once things are going well for me, and every time I run into you, bad things happen," the man said, panicked.
Right, the poor thing didn't know. "Ah, right," Lucifer said, turning back to his martini. "This is going to be a bit awkward, then."
"...Why?" Mr. Said Out Bitch asked him slowly.
"Well, something bad is about to happen," Lucifer said. He held up his hand, "But I assure you, it has nothing to do with me."
"What are you talking about?"
Lucifer pointed over his shoulder, helpfully. "Someone is about to walk through that door and murder you," he said, grinning.
Apparently Mr. Said Out Bitch took his grin as rather differently than intended, because he burst out laughing. "You kill me! There's no way that's actually going to happen!"
"Oh, I assure you, it is actually going to happen," Lucifer said, the grin falling away from his face. "In fact, it's happened over two hundred times already." He slid off his stool. "And it will happen again in five... four... three... two..."
He walked past Mr. Said Out Bitch, and the door behind him opened, revealing a masked attacker with a gun in hand. He fired.
Mr. Said Out Bitch slid to the floor, bleeding. "What the hell...?"
"Precisely," Lucifer said, and watched the light go out in his eyes.
---
"So, I... didn't just die?"
"Well, as I was trying to tell you before we were so rudely interrupted, you are now in your very own Hell loop." Lucifer swept his drink off the bar and held it out. "So. Welcome to Hell."
He took a sip.
Oh, why did even Hell martinis have to be disappointing?
Mr. Said Out Bitch stared at him. "I'm in Hell?"
Lucifer took another sip as he sat down and shot the man a solid Look.
"I, I don't understand," the man said. Why did they do this every single time he chose to take an interest? It got so tedious. Evidence Crocker had given him a headache by the twenty-fifth time.
He sighed. "Eternal damnation? Infinite suffering? It's a pretty straightforward concept." He took a bite of one of the olives.
"No, I mean like... Hell hell?"
Oh, of course they were pitted. Lucifer spat the pit out into his palm and put it down on the bar. "The one and only."
"Then get me the hell out of here!"
Honestly, his kingdom for a proper drink. Any drink. He'd even take a Jack and coke, at this point. "It's not up to me, I'm afraid. In Hell, you are your own jailer, you brought yourself here."
He saw the realization - ah, that futile realization - pass over Mr. Said Out Bitch's face. "Then I'mma take myself up and out of here," he said, and walked through the door.
And right back out through the door on the other side of the cabin.
"How in the hell?"
"Same response, every time," Lucifer said tiredly. All of these reminders of life on Earth were starting to get to him, and they were bad enough without this insipid predictability. "It's not that simple."
Mr. Said Out Bitch walked gingerly through the room, staring at the window. Searching for something. "But why am I here?"
"That's between you and your own guilt. That's what brought you here," Lucifer said, and got up, "And it's what will haunt you now and through the end of time."
He should stop making these visits. Stop staring himself blind on these images of a past life. He was stuck here for good, his choice, his Duty. Didn't know why he was still holding on to this nonsense, longing for something he'd never get back to. "And now we're crossing into the country of Boring, so time for me to self-deport. Please, enjoy your eternity of suffering."
"Wait, man. You can't go," Mr. Said Out Bitch pleaded. "You can't just leave me here alone."
Lucifer turned around and smiled pleasantly. (Wait, had that gilded turtle always been here?) "No, you won't be alone. My demons will always be on hand, torturing you and such, so chin up, mate." He gave a little wave with his hand, as if that covered it all.
Mr. Said Out Bitch's shoulders dropped. "At least tell me who killed me."
"Not my job anymore," Lucifer replied. "I'm sorry, but this really is about you and your eternal pain, okay?" He turned back to the door. It would open properly for him, back into the hallways of Hell.
Behind him, the sad sack limped back to his bed. "But I had everything," he said quietly. "I had this beautiful boat in Marina del Rey, women, money..."
Wait. "Marina del Rey?" Lucifer's hand hovered by the door.
He dropped it, and looked to the window. Took a few more steps so he could see through the window, and... there it was. Unmistakable.
"Los Angeles," he said quietly.
It had been-- so long.
"You know, there's a good chance I know who's on your case," he said, voice still soft. "We were quite a team, once upon a time. I... you know, to them it's been a couple of months, a blink of an eye, but here..."
He cut himself off abruptly.
"This is your lucky day," he said, looking over his shoulder.
Mr. Said Out Bitch eyed him warily. "It doesn't really seem like it," he said dryly.
"I'm gonna do something I haven't done in ages, for old times' sake," Lucifer said, grinning brightly as he ignored that. "I am going to solve your murder."
---
Step one was to freeze the Hell loop at the moment of the murder. Belios was kind enough to stop mid-firing his bullet-- though regrettably, Mr. Said Out Bitch continued his spree of baseless assumptions and had to find out the hard way that his murderer's face wasn't just going to manifest itself under that mask if he, himself, didn't know what it looked like.
Hell loops were wrought of your memories. It was strange how humans just couldn't seem to wrap their minds around it.
"Sorry, Belios," Lucifer said, sliding the mask down gently. "And you can take the rest of the day off, you've certainly earned it."
Mr. Said Out Bitch sighed. "So how are we going to find my killer, then?!"
"With good old-fashioned detective work, mon frere," Lucifer said, grinning. "And lucky for you, I learned from the best. So, step one: who wanted you dead?"
Mr. Said Out Bitch had the face of a man who really needed a bigger notepad for that.
---
It shouldn't have come as as much of a surprise as it did, Lucifer mused, nose wrinkled, to find out Mr. Said Out Bitch had horrendous taste in clothing. That blue suit with the blue shirt with that print-- it was horrifying.
He digressed.
"Hey, man, I love this suit!"
Okay, so he'd digressed out loud, as per usual, but who could blame him?
"I used to know a man who dressed like an extra from a Fisherman's Friend commercial, and even he had better taste in suits than you do," he said, and shoved that memory away as fast as he could, as well. "How much did you owe this host again?"
"Like, $700,000, give or take a few," Mr. Said Out Bitch said.
"For that much, I'd kill you myself," Lucifer noted, as the elevator doors opened in front of them. "After you."
Mr. Said Out Bitch got a bit more squirrelly after that. Not that Lucifer cared. The penthouse gambling hall they'd stepped into was truly something to behold, worthy of his old Los Angeles days. A perfect view of the skyline, movers and shakers seated at ornate poker tables...
A flash back to a better time.
"Exquisite Hell loop," Lucifer said.
As Mr. Said Out Bitch looked around, Lucifer strode to the balcony. He took a deep breath of air and gazed at the buildings, the blue skies, the warm sun and the endless horizon. Exactly as he'd left it, a little slice of home, the likes of which he hadn't seen in some time. "City of Angels, I have missed you," he said softly, soaking it all in.
"Hey, he's the guy I owe," Mr. Said Out Bitch interrupted him. "Dirty Doug."
Lucifer turned around and noticed him instantly. Bald, bearded, with a neck tattoo and a suit that didn't actually hurt his eyes.
"So what exactly can you tell me about old Doug-eat-Doug here?" Lucifer asked.
Mr. Said Out Bitch shrugged. "Nothing much, besides that he seems like a really scary, powerful guy," he said.
Lucifer stared at him. "Obviously," he said. "He's got a skinhead and neck tattoos!" He sighed, thinking. "What would she do...?" Background? Yes. Background. "Oh. Yes. Give me all the usual background info. What about his priors. Any speeding tickets, overdue library books...?"
He got a stare right back. "How am I supposed to know any of that?!"
With a wave, Lucifer halted all activity in the building. "Is there anything you can actually tell me?"
"Not really. I mean, I'm pretty sure he killed me? There's that. But we weren't exactly buddies. I don't know what else you want from me."
Useless.
Another wave, and the world began to move anew.
"All I can tell you is I sat down here, I played poker, started losing, then Doug offered me a marker, and like an idiot, I took it," Mr. Said Out Bitch said. He reached into his pocket and produced--
"That's it?" Lucifer said, ripping it out of his hands. "He just gives you a gold coin? No contingencies, no stipulations, threats?"
Mr. Said Out Bitch shook his head. "That's it."
"There's got to be more to indicate that this man is your murderer," Lucifer said, exasperated. "Some hidden clue! A sign!" Nothing. "Well, you've got to give me something! Anything, Detective--!"
Oh.
Oh, now he realized what was going on here.
He'd let himself go again. Gotten himself involved. Again. He'd promised himself he'd stop that, after Evi, and yet... here he was. In the fake soundstage version of Los Angeles, staring at a man he had barely known in real life, and-- and..
"You. Are. Useless," he ground out. "This whole investigation is a complete waste of time! I mean--"
He waved blindly behind him, digging into the fabric of the memory and ripping it away; the Gas Company Tower, the rest of the skyscrapers, they all just vanished. The blue sky boiled away into something darker, and ash rained down on the volcanic rock of--
"This isn't even Los Angeles!"
He turned to face his prison, sucking in deep breaths in a desperate attempt to rail in
---
The demons brought a dead man to Lucifer not long after. He'd restored the skies again once the last dregs of feeling had faded. Left him numb and angry at the same time, in this useless, painful way, that-- that was useless, and painful.
So... he did what he'd been doing. Sent a demon up in the dead man's body, to give Chloe a message about poor dead Mr. Said Out Bitch's murder.
He cleared the rest of the demons from the penthouse after that.
"So, back to your torture," he said, striding past the man. He'd wasted enough time here. Chasing something that hurt him, like he didn't know any better. "And me to mine."
"Hey, man," Mr. Said Out Bitch called after him. "You keep mentioning something about a detective...? Who is she?"
He stilled. "Someone I left behind," Lucifer said. "A very long time ago."
"She must've been someone important," Mr. Said Out Bitch said, watching him with sympathy.
"More than you could ever know."
There it was again. The sting. He'd just gotten rid of it, too.
But Mr. Said Out Bitch kept prattling on. "I get it," he said. "I left people behind too, people I cared about. My sister Meg... she meant the world to me, and I let her go. Now it's too late."
That brought someone else to mind, unbidden. Lucifer stared at the floor, not seeing much.
"What's your detective's name?"
Lucifer looked at him. "Oh," he said, in a faintly amused breath. "I just used to call her Detective, but... her name..."
There he was, getting drawn back in, and--
...
This was on purpose, wasn't it?
His gaze shot back to Mr. Said Out Bitch. "Clever, manipulative bastard," he snapped, bringing his hands together for some applause. "Oh, well played! Petty distraction to gain the Devil's sympathy, hoping I'd let you off the hook from your endless torment?" He pushed past the man.
"Ah, it ain't like that," Mr. Said Out Bitch protested. "You just seem like a... really sad Devil guy."
Lucifer stared at the fake skyline again.
"I mean, okay, maybe a small part of me was hoping you'd help me out..."
And his attention was right back on Mr. Said Out Bitch. "How many times do I have to tell you before it penetrates that minuscule mind of yours?" he snarled. "This whole thing is your own fault!"
"You know what, man? Screw you!" Mr. Said Out Bitch yelled. "I mean, you would help me out if you wanted to. Thought you were supposed to be the man down here, ain't you the 'King of Hell'?"
A righteous, flat anger settled over Lucifer's face, and he stalked towards this manipulative little cretin. "You really want to know why you're here?" he shouted, towering over mouthy little Lee. "Do you? Well, let me show you!"
And dug deep into the man's Hell loop, all the way down to the heart of it all.
Mazikeen of the Lilim | The whole day had been a shitshow. No, no, the whole past two months had been an epic pile of bullshit, and Maze was done with it. Just. Done. With everybody around here. She'd called Octavia that morning and left her a terse message. She was still expecting the woman to show up. So she sat at the bar at Lux, aggressively sipping on a cocktail, glaring into the crowd. Waiting. |
Octavia Blake | Maze's message couldn't have come at a better time. Yes, even taking into account the fact that every time there was any kind of activity on her phone, a part of her kept expecting -- no, hoping it would be Duke, and it never was. Maze's message was still a good excuse to skip town. Not that it didn't feel odd to be back here. But she felt odd and off everywhere, right now. At least pushing through the crowd to get to Maze at the bar was easy. "Hey." |
Maze | "Hey," Maze said. Her answering greeting was a chin-lift, and okay, after being turned down by Chloe Decker, a glance down Octavia's body. Just to be spiteful. (And because it was a banging body.) "Glad you could make it." |
Octavia | Octavia didn't really know what to feel about that look. So good thing many of her emotional dials were currently set towards 'nothing' to begin with. She shrugged one shoulder. "Glad you called." |
Maze | "You wanna head upstairs?" Maze said, with a boredom she didn't feel. "'Cause I've been paying for my drinks so far and I'm thinking Lucifer actually owes us better than that. His bar's still untouched." |
Octavia | And just like that, the dials weren't quite at 'nothing' anymore. Octavia couldn't help the look towards where she knew the elevator was. The pause was a little too long. "Sure." |
Maze | Maze hadn't actually been there in two months. She needed the alcohol and the backup to go there. She was never admitting that. "C'mon," she said, sliding past the bar and the crowds to the elevator. |
Octavia | Octavia followed her without another word. Sometimes words were particularly unnecessary. |
Maze | It was a very quiet, very stoic, very seething-with-repressed-rage-on-one-side-of-the-elevator kind of elevator ride. "Right, what's your poison?" Maze said, stalking out of the elevator and heading towards the bar as fast as she possibly could. |
Octavia | Octavia was much slower to leave the elevator. She was still about as intent about looking only at the bar, though. For right this moment. She didn't know what it would feel like to look anywhere else. This wasn't the place she associated most with Lucifer, but this was still one, and far more personal than the club downstairs. "Brandy." |
Maze | Maze swept a bottle of brandy from Lucifer's pretentious liquor shelves. Might as well go for it herself, right? She poured two full glasses and pushed one down the bar in Octavia's general direction. Sipped her own drink. And looked, finally, at the apartment itself, a heavy frown marring her brow. "I haven't been here in two months," she said. "Trust him to keep the lights on." |
Octavia | Octavia took her glass. And then paused. "Wait, two months?" |
Maze | "Yeah," Maze said, and threw her a funny look. (At least that was a distraction from the helpless anger she felt about everything else in the apartment.) "Why?" |
Octavia | "It hasn't been that long in Fandom, yet," Octavia explained. Sort of. Not really. But she wasn't too surprised. |
Maze | Maze considered that. Then she shrugged, and said, "Time works differently in Hell too." |
Octavia | "Yeah," Octavia replied, with a little nod that managed to be a little shaky even with how slight it was. "We --" No. "I heard." |
Maze | Maze glared at the window. She took another sip, and her eyes fell to the piano. "It's got to have been more than two thousand years down there by now," she said. "And I'm still here. With stupid doe-eyed Decker." |
Octavia | More than two thousand years. Octavia stared at the glass in her hand for a moment. Then she downed more than half of it in one go. |
Maze | Maze snorted. It broke a little, midway through, into a strangled, bitter laugh. She slid past the bar and walked to the piano, her fingertips lightly brushing the keys. "I don't know why I even bother," she said quietly. "I was on his side for-- so long, and he still just-- up and ditched me." Like everybody else. |
Octavia | "Sometimes people change their minds," Octavia said, before she could stop herself, instinctively grabbing on to another hurt to distract herself from this one. It sounded faintly bitter. |
Maze | It wasn't Lucifer Maze was really thinking about. She'd beaten the shit out of him once - and he'd returned the favor - over his bullshit before. Hadn't been the same thing. But it was a lot easier working her fingers under the keys of the piano and jamming them upward, sending them scattering across the floor, a lot simpler ripping the rest of the keys out of the piano and flinging the whole board across the room, a lot less painful to scream at the top of her voice as she broke and bashed her fists into the piano-- --than thinking about Eve's lips brushing her cheek right before she walked away. |
Octavia | Octavia watched her quietly, downing the rest of her drink a little more slowly, but with no less of a sense of purpose. She tried not to think back to how she'd tried to tear her drum set to pieces. (Tried not to think about the first time she'd told Duke his Tavi was dead.) (Naturally, she failed.) |
Maze | Maze didn't stop until the whole piano was just a broken mess of parts on the floor, and she was a panting, trembling thing, her fists clenched. She stood there for a while. "Give me more alcohol," she growled, when she recovered her voice. |
Octavia | Octavia thought she was beautiful like that. She wished she'd had the energy to do something similar. She wished she'd even had the energy to tell Maze as much. Instead, she reached behind the bar for two bottles, then came over to hold one out for her. |
Maze | Maze took it. "I know where his drugs are," she said. "Unless you want to screw instead." |
Octavia | Octavia's pause was a little too long and her eyes wondered just a little too much not to give away she actually seemed to consider that. But, her gaze fell back down to her bottle. "Just gonna drink." |
[[ nfb, nfi, ooc-love, and taken and adapted from Lucifer episode 5x01, 'Really Sad Devil Guy'. WE'RE GETTING THIS THING BACK ON THE ROAD. ]]