Los Angeles, Friday

[my_own_advocate]

	They draped the flag over Dan's casket with care. Not that it mattered. Not in the grand scheme of things. Lucifer watched that little moment of ceremony helplessly, much as he'd been watching Chloe, in her full dress uniform, and Trixie, with the black bow in her hair. It all felt so pointless. The full ceremony would be starting soon. Some of the other police officers were already moving to their seats. And Dan's face kept smiling at him, all cheese, from his official portrait up by the pedestal. He hoped Maze would be here with news soon. At least then he'd have something he could do. (Doing was the only way he knew how to deal with anything.)
	It wasn't a surprise that Octavia felt uncomfortable being here. The rituals were unfamiliar, and so were the clothes she'd gotten herself after looking into how to dress for a funeral. And those were just the surface level things. The real, deep discomfort was that she had to be here in the first place. That any of them had to be here. That Dan had to be dead. She watched everything unfold with a stony expression on her face, because it was all she could do.
	Duke, on the other hand, had too much experience with these particular rituals. He was unusually quiet and still, hovering at the edges by Octavia and staring at the casket. Lost in thought and his own remembrances.
	At least we know Dan's in a better place, Ella had said. That line would haunt Amenadiel for some time; it was also a grave reminder that there was someone who needed to know. He pushed through the crowd, to Lucifer's side. "Lucifer," he said. "There's something I have to tell you." He frowned. "I went to see Dan in Heaven."
	It took Lucifer a moment to detach himself from his own meandering thoughts. "Oh," he said, looking up, and tried to grasp for a quip. "How is he? Let me guess, swimming in a vat of chocolate pudding?" He dropped his hands out of the solemn folded position they'd been in, and shoved them in his trousers while he pasted the smile back on his face.
	Amenadiel swallowed. "He's not there."
	Octavia's brow furrowed immediately. "What does that me--" The question died off as the obvious answer came to her, and suddenly she just didn't want to ask, after all. Oh, no.
	"No," Duke said, voicing her thought out loud. "No, come on. Come on!"
	Amenadiel shook his head in small, stricken motions. "I went to check, and..."
	"No," Lucifer said, quieter than Duke. His eyes were wide. "No, Daniel dealt with his guilt. He told me as much."
	Amenadiel sighed. "Lucy, you and I both know that guilt is much more complicated and deep-seated than we're even aware of," he said.
	"That isn't-- that's not fair," Lucifer said. Helpless. Still. He hated it.
	Octavia agreed. She swore in Trig, quietly.
	"Can we --" Duke looked from Lucifer to Octavia and back to Amenadiel. "Can we fix that? Help him, somehow?"
	"Hell is eternal," Lucifer said. He didn't sound like he was fully in his body anymore. "He's stuck there forever."
	Octavia reached for Lucifer's hand. To take his, more than offer hers. "You don't fix Hell," she muttered.
	"No." Duke stood and started to pace. "No! I don't accept that, that's not --" He realized he was making a scene. In the middle of a funeral. And jerked back into his seat, lowering his voice. "That's not right," he hissed. "There has to be something!" He wasn't just thinking about Dan anymore. He was thinking about Eleanor. Evi. The other Haven people who'd ended up down there because they got handed a shit deal. Himself. Eventually.
	Lucifer's fingers folded around Octavia's hand as almost an afterthought. He stared at Duke. "There isn't," he said.
	Octavia had been about to try and yank Duke back from his pacing when he seemed to realize what he was doing. Good. "It's not about right and wrong," she said, her voice low. Quiet.
	"Yeah, well. It should be."
	"Railing at windmills won't help," Lucifer said tiredly. He looked towards the pedestal. "Quiet. Amenadiel's about to start."
	Octavia didn't need to be told twice. She glanced at Duke, though. Gauging where he was at with... everything.
	Oh, Duke was just fine. No really. He was prone to glowering at the world on a regular basis, right? (Well. Anyway, he wasn't too much more of a wreck than he'd been since yesterday at least.)
	Amenadiel cleared his throat as he settled his hands on the papers before him. He waited another second for everyone to get seated. Then he spoke. "When I first arrived in Los Angeles, I was angry," he said. In retrospect, it was funny, wasn't it? He huffed softly, almost a chuckle. "I was angry and confused about my place in the world. I didn't know how to connect with people. But Dan..." He nodded quietly to himself. "Dan did. And he taught me how to be a good friend. How to be a good father. He taught me..." Right. This was... harder than he'd thought it'd be. "...how to be a good man. Because he was a good man. The sad thing is I think he forgot that sometimes, but he was a good, good man. Always trying to do right by others. Always trying to do better. Even though he was already the very best of us." He looked aside, until he caught his brother's eyes. "What happened to Dan... it isn't fair. And you have every right to feel angry about it." "But," he continued, looking away from Lucifer to Chloe and her daughter, sitting just a seat or two away. "...you can take comfort in knowing that..." Some days, he was almost jealous of Lucifer, of his... relentless dedication to speaking the truth. Lucifer wouldn't do what he was about to do. But it was kinder, wasn't it? Towards these humans, who didn't know any better? "That Dan is in a much better place," he said. He took a deep breath and turned back to regard the casket. So strange and fragile, the human body. So odd to pretend that his friend was still in there, somehow, and yet... "Dan," he said. Paused. (Get a grip, Amenadiel. You need to do this.) "...you are, and you... always will be my best friend. I'm gonna miss you, buddy." He felt something inside of him crack. His next exhale was loud and shuddering, at least to his ears. "I'm really gonna miss you. We all will." He sucked in another, louder breath, as if that might get him through the next few words without actually crying. "And, uh... I promise you that whatever happens, from this day forward, I will always try--" His cheek was wet. His eyes felt puffy. He stopped caring. "...and do better." He wiped at his face, dragging the back of his hand past his nose. Then he ducked away, fleeing the pedestal.
	Duke let out a soft, strangled noise at Amenadiel's lie. At least those who didn't already know might mistake it for a standard sound of grief. He dropped his head into his hands and stayed that way.
	Octavia reached out to put her free hand against the small of his back. It was easier to focus on that than practically any other part of this. Like anything she was actually feeling.
	It was incredible, really, how well Amenadiel could lie. And to think he was supposed to be the good sibling. And yet all Lucifer could do as Amenadiel sank in the seat beside him, was reach out-- pat his arm. Slide his hand in his brother's, give it a squeeze. Some strength. Then he slid up out of his seat and followed Miss Lopez to the pedestal.
	Maze stopped him halfway there, in passing. She had thunder in her eyes. "I found them," she said simply. She slipped past Lucifer, to wait.
	Octavia rubbed at Duke's back. Muttered, "Lucifer's up." She was eyeing Maze, though. Wondered about that little interlude.
	Duke dropped his hands from his face and looked up with no small amount of effort. He set one hand on Octavia’s knee and gave it a squeeze.
	Lucifer joined Miss Lopez by the microphones. He straightened his jacket and stared into the crowd. His eyes fell on Chloe. It was only natural. They stayed there, as Miss Lopez sang her opening words: “Tristesse... decidr adiós, a lo que fue...” He clasped his hands together in front of him, almost stilted, certainly wide-eyed in a strange yet earnest grief. "Thought we'd get to see forever, but forever's gone away... It's so hard to say goodbye, to yesterday..." The uniformed police offers before him lifted the flag from Dan's casked. They folded it into a neat triangle. Miss Lopez's voice joined his as they walked towards Trixie, in her pretty little bow. "I don't know where this road is going to lead; All I know is where we've been and what we have been through. If we get to see tomorrow, I hope it's worth all the wait..." Trixie clutched the flag to her body like a teddy bear, tears in her eyes.
	Octavia couldn't make herself look towards Trixie, didn't want to be looking at Lucifer, so she just stared at the casket instead. It seemed weird and wrong to her for more than just the obvious reasons. She'd never been there for a burial, before. Wasn't a thing on the Ark, not with Trikru, not with Wonkru. "Yu gonplei ste odon," she murmured. For something more familiar.
	Duke squeezed her thigh again, his own gaze now firmly fixed on the grass in front of them.
	"And I'll take with me the memories, to be my sunshine after the rain; It's so hard to say goodbye to yesterday..." The harmony of their voices died down. Lucifer stared into the crowd. Found Duke staring at the ground, and looked away from them again. He slipped away as the casket was lowered into the ground, and made his way to their side again. "Maze and I have somewhere to be," he said quietly.
	Octavia looked up at him. She kind of looked like she was going to ask -- something. But then just nodded.
	Duke nodded as well. “We’ll see you at the loft,” he said softly.
	Lucifer nodded back. "Take my car," he said, holding his keys out for Duke to take.
	Duke hesitated a moment, then took them. (It’d been ages since he’d driven anywhere and Lucifer loved his car. . . .) He stood and reached out for a quick kiss. “Give ‘em hell.”
	Of all the words you could have used, Crocker. Octavia was just not going to say anything. Just folded her hands onto her lap.
	Lucifer managed a huff, a little mirthless smile. He pressed one last fleeting kiss against Duke's mouth and cast Octavia a glance. But then he turned and followed after Maze. She had her hand pressed against a knife at her side, and together, they vanished past the crowd.

---

What was there to be said? They entered the warehouse without intent to cloak their arrival. Maze cast off her cape, a statement of intent, her blades drawn. A single figure of vengeance, wrapped in leather and steel. They had no idea what hit them.

This was her work. Her art.

Lucifer merely followed behind, a silent Grim Reaper bearing witness to the slaughter. They tried to fight, of course; why wouldn't they? But Maze was faster, stronger. She cut them down one by one, pushing onwards into the belly of the beast with each murder.

(If we get to see tomorrow, I hope it's worth all the wait.)

Their leader was a squirming mess at the end of the carnage. Lucifer had different plans in mind for him; he lifted Le Mec off his feet and put him down in place, let the rage fill his eyes with burning red. It had been a long while since he'd last exacted any kind of punishment. It still felt right. Proper. (All he was capable of.)

He leaned in. Spoke a few quiet words.

As Le Mec collapsed into a sobbing wreck, he turned, and walked away.

---

	"We found the people who killed Daniel," Lucifer said quietly. He was slumped backwards on Linda's couch, his eyes on the floor, thinking about Maze's rage, her carnage. He'd wondered if it'd make him feel better. It hadn't. "We made them pay."
	It was funny, the kind of stuff you could get used to hearing about after a while. When you spent your time around celestials, the abnormal became... normal. "Okay," Linda said slowly. She was... trying to give him time to process the weight of what he'd said. "And how did that make you feel?"
	Lucifer huffed softly, his eyes still glued to the carpet. People kept asking him that question, didn't they? How he felt. About Dad, about becoming God, about Daniel. Miss Smith and Chloe and Octavia and Duke-- they all kept asking, and he never answered them. But Linda deserved more than a dodge. She deserved... an honest answer. Or at least, an answer about his lack of an answer. "That's irrelevant," he said. "My feelings don't matter."
	Oh, Lucifer. Linda shifted, trying to approach this delicately. If Lucifer was burying his feelings again, that... that could be bad. "Yes, they do," she said. "You're grieving. It's important to acknowledge that." And he wasn't just grieving Dan, either.
	At least it got his gaze up off the floor, and... at the ceiling. Stupid tears wanted to come out, and all Lucifer could do was huff another quarter of a laugh and hope most of it stayed behind his walls. "Such... astute insights from the doctor once again," he said. He locked his gaze on her, his mouth a wretched, rueful line, like a parody of the bloody-- sad smiley. Like he was satire. "You know, you are very good at what you do," he said. "But your job should simply not exist."
	Linda frowned. "You don't think helping people cope with pain is important?"
	"I don't think pain should exist," Lucifer said. He wanted to elaborate. But he didn't.
	"I see," Linda said quietly. "But that's life, Lucifer." You couldn't... fight it, the way Lucifer wanted to fight everything all the time from that last defensive layer around his heart. "Pain is inevitable. The suffering, that's optional." She wanted to say more. She didn't get the chance.
	"Do not COUNSEL ME on suffering and inevitability!" Lucifer roared. His hand came down hard on the coffee table, his lip curling up. How much of it had he felt these past eons? How much of it had he seen just in these last few years on Earth? Chloe, Ella, Duke, Octavia, everyone, all the time. What did he want to change if he was God, Duke had asked. He'd said nothing but he'd been thinking it, the thought of Duke's hand forced around a man's neck, of Chloe, left without her father for pointless, stupidly cruel reasons, all the disasters that had led to Octavia hiding under the floor, eating her own people, and-- "There are no words to convince me that the system isn't broken," he snapped, sitting back. "Trixie shouldn't have to suffer the pain of seeing her father ripped from her like that, and-- and Daniel shouldn't be..." He choked on the word, it felt hideous in his mouth, but he forced himself to say it anyway. "Dan should not be dead." All of it. All of it was wrong. "The system is not only broken, it's unjust." And more and more, he was convinced there was nothing uglier for anything in all the worlds to be.
	Linda sucked in a deep breath, watching his face. Listening to him unload, it was like... a boil that had just gotten lanced, that had been building up for a long time. She wished she had better answers for him. "Lucifer," she said gently. "You can't control all the bad things that happen in this world. Only how they affect you."
	"But that's where you're wrong," Lucifer said, pulling a grimace that had only the slightest contours of a smile. "See, there is something I can do." Of all the creatures in the universe, him. "Before, I wanted to be God for the wrong reasons, but now, I no longer want to be God. I have..." He took a harsh breath. "...to be God."
	Lucifer might have been the Devil, but there had been only a few times in their long acquaintance that Linda had actually been afraid of him. Linda wasn't sure if this was one of those times - or if she was afraid for him, where this may lead. "Lucifer, what does that mean?"
	"It means," Lucifer said, sitting forward in his seat. "That we are going to war."

---

	Lucifer sat at the bar, sipping his scotch, seeing nothing. He was lost in his own thoughts; in everything that had happened these past few days. What it meant. What he meant to do. He should return to his partners. He would. Any minute now. And then someone touched his piano.
	Didn't you remember 'Heart and Soul', brother? You and your Detective had had such a fun bonding moment over it! Admittedly, Michael had absolutely no idea how to play a piano, so he wasn't exactly surprised to see his brother come barreling for him with murder in his eyes. "You know, I always wondered why a piano. You're supposed to be the edgy one. Wouldn't a guitar be more, uh--" That was as far as he got.
	Lucifer grabbed him by his collar and hauled him away from the piano, slamming the fallboard down just to make his point. He ignored Michael's loud protests and slammed him against the piano. How dare he.
	"Hey, hey, hey, Lucifer!" Michael threw up his hands in surrender! Couldn't he see that?! "I'm not here to fight!"
	"Oh, well, I most certainly am!" Lucifer roared, his eyes flaring red. Were they in the club? Did he care?
	Oh, but he did care, didn't he? It was his adorable Achilles heel. Michael grinned. "Well, then what would happen to all these poor, fragile humans, dear brother?"
	Bastard. Lucifer stared at him for five seconds more. The gall of him. After what he'd done... "Sorry everyone," he called, affecting a fake grin as he let go of Michael and stepped back. "Just a little brotherly squabble." He laughed and gestured at the DJ. "It's fine. It's fine. Music up!"
	"And besides, I mean, really, what's the point? I've already won," Michael said smugly. He straightened his jacket and rolled his shoulders. "I've assembled the Flaming Sword, and thanks to it, and," he smirked, "my charms, of course, I have got the majority of angels on my side."
	"And yet, here you are." Lucifer eyed him with contempt. "Why?"
	"To avoid bloodshed, brother. To keep our siblings safe. To make peace," Michael said, leaning in. "I am here with an offer."
	"There is nothing that you could offer me," Lucifer said flatly.
	"How about a throne?" Michael countered.
	Lucifer burst out laughing. "Are you offering me my old job?!"
	"Mhm," Michael grinned. "I take Heaven, you take Hell, it's kind of poetic when you think about it." Twins, in charge of the universe together! Well. A part of the afterlife, at least, for Lucifer. He stepped back. "And, uh, I will let you rule down there, however you see fit," he said.
	Could Michael have delivered a grander insult? "Oh, gee, thanks, bro," Lucifer said. "But been there, done that, tried the veal." Hell was Hell, he had told Michael as much. This could be nothing more than a blatant provocation.
	"Ah, ah, ah," Michael said, holding up a finger. "But I haven't told you the best part! Chloe will be down there with you, alongside your already Hellbound little playthings. I mean, talk about happily ever after, right? You get to have your cake and eat it too - three ways!"
	"What are you talking about," Lucifer said sharply. "That's impossible." The Detective was a good person, and unlike the other good people in his life, she had nothing to feel guilty about. "Even if you become God, you wouldn't have the power to force a soul down there!" That's how Father had built the place. "Only someone's guilt can take them to Hell."
	"Exactly." Michael's smug smile collapsed into something more jagged and determined. "Think about it. The father of her child is dead because of a case he was working for her."
	Are you telling me that Trixie is in there right now crying herself to sleep and the real reason she's going to grow up without a father is because you are still so insecure you can't accept that anyone cares about you? Lucifer stared at him, the weight of those words sinking in. The intent. He took a step forward, and then another. "Did you do all of this?" he said, hushed, even though he knew it was true. "Did you have them take Daniel?" Had this been the plan all along? Just in case he wouldn't play along with Michael's self-engineered ascension?
	Michael laughed. "No, no, no," he said. "That part was just a very happy accident. But when they told me they had him..." Leverage. Pure, beautiful leverage. Lucifer, he could have told you your weakness for humans would be your undoing. "When they told me they had him, I realized I had a golden opportunity," he said, leaning in.
	"So you... you told them to kill Dan."
	Michael grinned, wide and triumphant. See? Happily ever after for everyone. "You're welcome."
	Lucifer headbutted him hard enough to knock him back into the sofa, leaving a nice big bruise over Michael's eye.
	Michael collapsed onto the couch with a cackle, his hand shooting up to touch his brow. "Easy with the temper, brother."
	"Dan is in Hell because of you!" Lucifer roared. Dan. The hapless douche who deserved better. Who deserved to be here, being a parent to his bloody daughter.
	"Well, technically, it's because of his own guilt, which he really should have gotten over by now," Michael reminded him, standing up. This time, when Lucifer's fist went flying, he was ready for it - he caught it in his hand. "Forget about the past, brother. Focus on the future. Your future. With Chloe, and Duke, and Octavia. Hm?"
	Michael really didn't understand him even a little bit, did he? He just thought in transactions. This was not an olive branch, it was... it was worse than Zadkiel spitting on his shoe, it was a monstrous crime. Lucifer took a few steps back, the muscle in his cheek twitching with restrained rage. He smiled. It wasn't pretty.
	"You need time to think about it. I get it," Michael condescended, grinning back without a care in the world. "But, just so you know, the vote is Sunday. And I'm holding it here on Earth so you can attend. You know, because of the whole 'you're banished from Heaven and would be instantly incinerated if you returned' thing." He tilted his head. "Though, that would be fun to see." Lucifer had turned away from him by now. He reached out to touch his twin's arm. "Brother. I am offering you a chance at a happy ending," he said. "I hope you take it."
	Lucifer watched him turn and go, not quite seeing him. Processing everything Michael had just said, the implications... the audacity of that offer at all. He wanted to pound Michael's face into the wall until it was mush. Yet that rage found itself under a layer of... of something terrible and murky that he couldn't quite touch. Father. Why on Earth had You left when You did? You had to have known this would happen. And yet. And yet.

----

	"I can't believe him," Lucifer snarled, stomping into the apartment from the elevator. Right towards the bar, as per usual.
	Everything seemed to put Octavia on high alert lately, and that entrance was no different. "What's happened?"
	"You know why Michael killed Dan?" Lucifer snapped, taking his jacket off and flinging it over a stool. "To bribe me."
	"What?" Octavia wasn't sure why she was bothering to even ask. It was Michael, it was all bullshit. And yet -- "How? How was that supposed to do something for you?"
	Lucifer reached for the scotch, snatching it off of the bar. "Because it's made the Detective feel guilty."
	Well that made no sense. Octavia glanced towards the balcony, where Duke was, then back at him. "What's that supposed to do?"
	Lucifer had already started pouring, but at that question, his head jerked up. "Because that'll damn her soul to Hell, obviously," he snapped.
	"Okay," Octavia replied, with just a tiny bit of kneejerk sharpness to it. She shook her head. "Why would he think you'd want that?"
	"Because he's trying to convince me to go back to ruling Hell, and he thought making sure everyone I care about winds up there with me would sweeten the pot," Lucifer said irritably. "Or he's trying to insult me. Or both."
	Duke had finally glanced back over his shoulder on the balcony and noticed that Lucifer had returned. Which meant he'd come in just in time to hear the faint snarl in Lucifer's tone. "Wait, shit, why would Chloe be going to Hell?" Look, the rest of them . . . Duke was much too much of a realist not to know where he and Octavia were likely to end up at this point.
	"Because she feels guilty about Dan getting killed." There, now he was up to speed. More or less.
	“Which Michael orchestrated in order to bribe me to go back to Hell.”
	Duke could only stare at Lucifer for a long moment. "Your brother's a fucking idiot."
	"Yeah, but a dangerous one," Octavia groused.
	“He called it ‘a chance at a happy ending.’” Oh yeah. Definitely snarling.
	"Right." Duke developed a bit of a snarl of his own. "So. How are we going to shut his shit down?"
	Octavia glowered as she looked between the two of them, but there was something else to it now, too. Some shade of concern, maybe.
	"Get the Detective to stop feeling guilty, obviously," Lucifer said, waving his glass of scotch at his mirror wall.
	"No, I mean to Michael. As well as for Chloe."
	Lucifer took a big gulp of his drink. "Well, he's got the Flaming Sword, we need to get that out of his hands, obviously," he said. "I'm open to suggestions."
	". . . Fuck, there is that." Duke sighed. "Don't suppose he leaves it lying around somewhere."
	"And we can't really attack him for it, either." Otherwise Octavia would already have been planning for exactly that.
	"No, so..." Lucifer lifted his hands in frustrated desperation. "Suppose we need to find out where he does keep it. I doubt he's running around with it everywhere."
	"Should figure out where he's been hanging out at all. Is he like . . . commuting back and forth from Heaven?"
	"I have no idea," Lucifer muttered, rubbing his face. "Hopefully Remiel knows more."

[[ NFB due to distance. taken from Lucifer episodes 5x15 'Is This Really How It's Going To End?!' and 5x16 'A Chance At A Happy Ending'. preplayed with the amazing okteiviakom and betterthanaplan. ]]