my_own_advocate | From Lucifer's Penthouse to Los Angeles, Monday Evening

Right. Lucifer considered himself again in the walk-in mirror. Was his bow-tie properly tied? The rest of the white tux was immaculate, but the tie...

Look, he'd managed to finally come out of hiding on the Rouge a few days ago. He'd spoken to miss Lopez, and discovered almost no time had passed. Which had come in handy for when Linda had come over to yell at him about how hard it was to find an elementary school for a child that was only a year old on paper. And then... time had gone on.

Amenadiel had yelled at him again, but he'd ignored that.

No, if they were going to be in Los Angeles, he was... going to try and take his mind off of the whole God mess. No one needed him self-actualizing anything else in a panic, right? So he'd arranged something special for tonight. A visit to the only magician's club in all the world...

"Now if only I could get this bloody bowtie right," he muttered, as he gave up, and finally stepped out of the walk-in, back into the apartment.

[[ for them, and based on Lucifer season 6 episode 1, 'Nothing Ever Changes Around Here'. ]]

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"The police will be here in a minute!" the woman who had greeted them earlier called from the wings. "Please remain seated!"

Lucifer gave it a helpless shrug. "If the detective is coming, we shouldn't hinder her investigation by leaving," he agreed. (Answered?)

Octavia said nothing to that.

Lucifer's detective was almost the furthest thing from her mind.

Duke sat back in his seat, resigned, and finished his cocktail in a long gulp.

Right. Well. It'd been a nice forced vacation while it lasted. . . .

"Suppose at least he'll go to the grave knowing his illusion was never revealed," Lucifer sighed. "Oh--"

There was a rattle.

And then a second one.

And then a pounding, and the impaled box on stage began to move. Lucifer started up out of his seat.

Octavia's hand landed on his arm, out of reflex.

(Still a better one than the one she'd managed to curb right before, which would've knocked the glass out of Duke's hand before he'd had a chance to finish it.)

"Oh shit," Duke said. His instinct, like Lucifer's, was to get up. A glance at Octavia with her hand on Lucifer's arm at least had him not leaving the table to immediately rush to the stage. "Someone's still in there!"

The assistant rushed forward, unlocking the box with trembling hands. She pulled on the little door. It fell forward, and revealed--

"Magnar?!"

--contorted between the swords, but still very much alive. "What the," he said, and then he looked down, and saw the body. "Oh."

Now that was enough to get even Octavia raising her eyebrows.

"... Who's the body?"

As if either of them would know.

"Good question," Duke said. "Related question: do we care? I mean. Other than 'fuck, that guy's dead'."

"It's a case," Lucifer said. "And Magnar is affected! Of course we care!"

LA did things to his brain.

... and that was, of course, when the loud noise of police sirens began to blare outside.

Octavia bristled at the noise.

"Here we go," she muttered.

Duke sat back down and tried not to look suspicious. Not because there was any reason to suspect him; this was just his natural response to the police showing up where he was.

He really hoped they weren't going into the lion's den, as it were. (And he kind of wished he had another cocktail to down.)

It didn't take long before the doors swung open, and revealed--

"OH MY GOD I CAN'T BELIEVE IT!"

-- Ella Lopez, a blinding smile on her face, bursting inside and making a beeline for the three of them without any hesitation. "For months I've been dragging myself to Lucifer-less crime scenes, and now, boom! You're a witness! Oh, this is so amazing!"

Beat.

"I mean, horrible for the dead guy, but not horrible for me!"

... Well. Guess some things around here really stayed the same.

The look on Octavia's face went extra dry.

Duke, on the other hand, grinned back and offered Ella a little wave. "It's my favorite cop! Admittedly not a high bar. . . ."

Lucifer's smile was a little... pained. "It's nice to see you too, Miss Lopez," he said.

"Hi Duke!" Ella exclaimed, giving him an excited little wave. "And..." She groped around for a little extra bubbly to counter that dryness. "...Octavia! Gosh, this must be weird for you guys, right?"

"Why would this be weird?" Octavia rasped.

She leaned so hard into her natural deadpan that it was impossible to tell whether she meant it or not.

"It's definitely weird," Duke said with a small chuckle. "We weren't planning to be in LA at all. Much less in LA at the scene of a murder."

"Yeahhhh, I'll bet," Ella said. "And you're just here to grab a show, and then someone gets whacked, and--"

While she spoke, Lucifer's eyes tracked up. And aside. And...

"Lucifer," said another, very familiar voice, coming from a very familiar blonde woman. Beside Chloe stood a tall, extremely nondescript police officer, whose eyes darted between the three seated parties. But Chloe's eyes were on one person, and one person only. "What are you-- what are you doing here? I thought..."

Oh.

Oh.

It took Lucifer exactly three seconds too long to answer. "Ah, a, uh, godhood-related incident carried us here," he managed. "My fault. I'm afraid."

"Not our first choice," Octavia agreed, mild rather than dry, now.

She didn't really think Chloe was paying her any attention.

Duke didn't say anything himself, because -- yeah, Chloe wasn't paying them any attention.

He watched her and Lucifer, eyes flicking between them. He knew how Lucifer felt (he did, dammit), but how Chloe did. . . . That was something else.

From Lucifer's Penthouse to Los Angeles, Monday Evening

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