Chapter Text
It’s not so much that Lucifer’s insecure. Really!
In retrospect Lucifer could see how the pissing contest with Charlie’s new friend came across that way, and he’s definitely spent the past few weeks cringing about it and replaying it over and over in his head when left alone for any extended period of time (He’s not even good at the accordion! Why did he think that was a good idea!). He can also see how other actions, like panicking whenever Charlie calls him or the dozens (hundreds? thousands?) of abandoned inventions he can’t bring anyone to look at, could be interpreted that way. But those actions were done in the privacy of his own home, and insecurity is all about the way other people perceive you, and so those things don’t count. Yes. Definitely.
He’s pretty unbeatable in battle, and he somehow managed to raise, or at least not actively traumatize, a wonderful daughter, and his outfit always looks great, thank you very much. Insecurity is not his thing.
Except—well. Lilith’s been gone a long time, ok? Not long in the grand scheme of things, maybe—whew, they’ve been married way too long for seven measly years to count for much—but long enough that Lucifer’s fallen out of practice with some things.
Sex. Sex things.
When your wife leaves you and you don’t so much as look at anyone else in a sexual way (or at all, really, being locked up in the office) you don’t really notice your libido tanking. There had been some sexual activity here and there in the weeks and months following Lilith’s sudden departure. Sort of. Lots of fantasizing without ever actually managing to get his pants open. Lots of fruitless, weeping wanks in the shower he’ll never tell anyone about. One memorable occasion he tried to magic up some kind of Lilith clone and ended up crying so hard he threw up. It’s all very pathetic, he’s well aware. But no one was there to witness any of it, so nothing to be embarrassed about! And all those attempts petered out as the depression got worse anyway.
And then Lucifer moves into the hotel, and well—his body suddenly remembers what it’s like to have three meals a day, a healthy amount of exercise, and regular conversation with people who aren’t the photographs on his wall and the legions of half-made ducks. All that dopamine, all coming back, all at once, wow! The things it does to a man’s brain chemistry!
All of this to say his dick is working again.
This becomes apparent at the worst possible moment.
Lucifer isn’t sure what show-and-tell is actually meant to accomplish, especially considering that all the hotel’s residents are in each other’s business almost every hour of the day, and he’s positive that little creepy maid especially has been through everyone’s stuff, but hey! Whatever Charlie wants, Charlie gets, and he’s been making more of an effort to be as enthusiastic as possible about her activities to disguise the fact that he still thinks this whole idea is, er, maybe not going to work. It’s been a few weeks since he moved in, and he’s done the trust falls, the role-plays, and a variety of other activities (except for Vaggie’s group fighting activities, because apparently having an overpowered seraphim in the field would be “unfair” and “cheating”, which, booooo), but this is his first show-and-tell.
To be gamely, he’s brought a few photos of Charlie as a teenager. Vaggie’s going to think the braces were just as cute as he thinks they were, he’s sure. Lucifer’s determined to get his daughter-in-law to like him if it kills him. It just might, actually! She’s quite scary. They didn’t have exorcist angels back when he was still a heavenly resident, and whew, they sure make angels different these days!
He’s grateful that Angel Dust volunteers to go first; he’ll get a better idea of what exactly he’s supposed to be doing here if he has a model to go off of. There’s a simultaneous groan from Vaggie and Charlie when Angel pulls out a DVD to load into the television, and it’s so unlike his daughter to complain about active participation that he misses the first ten seconds of what’s playing to stare at her.
When Lucifer turns back to the screen, Angel’s shirt is off.
A brand new sound Lucifer’s never heard before comes out of his throat, even though his mouth stays closed. It’s somewhere between an ah! and a hrk!, and it draws the attention of absolutely no one, who are all in various stages of similar emotions. Vaggie is staring skyward; Charlie’s eyes are focused somewhere an inch above the TV screen, her face a rictus mask of support. Husk—well, he’s also looking away, but there’s something gentlemanly in the gesture, although his ears are pricked in reluctant interest. Lucifer has a moment of eye contact with Alastor, who is sitting directly across from him, and there is a level of hysterical commiseration that passes between Alastor’s steady gaze and his own that Lucifer never wants to experience again.
Angel prattles on in the background about “behind-the-scenes knowledge”: various commentary about positions, the drama between him and his costars, and his burgeoning but cautious friendship with the costume designer. Lucifer is sure that this might actually be kind of touching if he let himself listen to it for more than two seconds at a time, but he’s trying his best to shut out all noise whatsoever, because every time he tunes in to the conversation Angel Dust’s pornographic moaning also fills his ears. If he just shuts everything out, surely this will be over soon. He barely saw anything. And he’ll definitely be able to look Angel in the eyes once this is all over, yes he will.
But he, uh, did get that first peek.
It’s not like he’s never looked at Angel Dust before. Angel is, firstly, extremely tall. It’s very difficult not to look at the biggest person in the hotel, especially when he’s got six or eight limbs depending on how he’s feeling that day and is usually gesticulating wildly with them. And Lucifer’s been making an effort to go out and run errands for Charlie, and there are dozens of posters of Angel on every street in various states of undress and poses. But he’s always been, however scantily, clothed.
Angel Dust’s, uh—breasts?—have now seared themselves on the back of Lucifer’s eyelids. He stares somewhere over Alastor’s head as the video continues, trying not to make eye contact with anyone in the room, especially his daughter because this is all so heinously inappropriate, and his mind helpfully projects the split-second of video he caught in his head over and over and over again. Hell, he looked so—soft. All that fur. Think of sinking your hands into that, his brain gleefully says, think of putting your face into that.
It’s this moment the name of the feeling he’s experiencing comes back to him. Horny. You’re horny.
Lucifer stands up. “This is—this was, so nice of you, Angel Dust, really, I love, um, showing and telling. With friends of my daughter. Who is right here. In front of me, while you show us your porn. I think I’m going to go! Here is, um—Vaggie, childhood photos. I’m going to leave those with you to look at when I’m gone. That’s what parents do! We show embarrassing pictures of our children. Ok, my turn is over. Thanks, everyone! I love participating! Bye!” And then he turns to beat it the hell out of that room.
“You’re no fun, boss,” he hears Angel say from behind him. His voice is pitchy and flirty, and again Lucifer’s brain projects The Image.
At last glance, his monologue drew the attention of everyone there, although they all just look vaguely horrified in general, not horrified at him specifically, so he’ll take what he can get. Charlie seems like she’s telling him to leave with her eyes, and he loves agreeing with his daughter. She’s so smart. He will be getting the fuck out of there. His only mercy is that Alastor looks faintly confused at his reaction, so at least he’s escaping the stupid deer holding that over him.
He makes it into the hallway outside of the main room before letting out all the breath in his body. He doesn’t need to breathe, technically, but heaving the air in and out of his lungs helps a little with the sudden galloping his heart is doing, although it doesn’t remotely alleviate the heat flooding through his veins. Now? he thinks hysterically. My body had to remember how to do this now?
His brain, again, offers up the snapshot of Angel’s chest.
Another garbled noise escapes his throat of its own accord and he scrambles further down the hallway so no one hears him having the weirdest panic attack slash boner in history. At least his pants are tight. Everything’s quite… securely packed down there. He hopes. He doesn’t want to look to make sure.
He can still, faintly, hear Angel Dust calling someone daddy. O-K! Portal time!
The blessed silence of his own rooms as Lucifer stumbles through the portal and flops onto his bed is a godsend. Hellsend. Whatever. There’s not a lot of clear thoughts happening at the moment.
It’s clear, after a few minutes of laying there on his back staring at the ceiling, that this isn’t going to go away. He can’t stop thinking about it. That singular image, rotating in his mind in a way that shouldn’t be sexy at all, has dumped enough dopamine into his body that he’s almost panting with it. It feels like seven years worth of hormones have been injected into his brain at once, and for once laying there motionlessly like a deer in headlights is not making it go away. Deer in headlights, ha, maybe he should think of Alastor and that stupid turnoff of a face of his—
But his mind just takes him back to sitting in the room with Alastor while Angel Dust explains pornography to them all, and he groans and rolls over onto his front. He’d try thinking of Charlie, except thinking of his darling daughter for too long of a time will send him into a different kind of spiral, one that will probably end with him crying into the couch cushions and talking to the portraits again, and that also does not quantify as help. It would be great if his brain was capable of doing things by halves instead of making every single emotion a rollercoaster of an experience! That would be super fucking great!
Lucifer, miserably, shoves a hand in his pants. It’s a horrible angle, sandwiched between his body and the bed, and the waistband of his trousers dig into his wrist, but what else is he going to do, pour himself a bubble bath? Light some candles? Stupid, stupid.
Think sexy thoughts. Think about the porn. That’s what it’s for, anyway, might as well use it as advertised. Except that he’s going to have to go downstairs tomorrow and look Angel Dust in the eyes, and then he might have a panic attack. Don’t think about panic attacks!
Finally he gives up on trying to conjure some kind of fantasy to get into and just wraps a hand around himself. The way his head empties all at once should be a relief but instead just makes him a little dizzy, and for a brief moment he thinks he might actually pass out. Wouldn’t that be humiliating, for the maid to find him in here unconscious with one hand down his pants? Thankfully, the spots clear after a moment, his hand still working, and he turns over to stare at the ceiling again. This is what people do. They watch porn and then rub one out. This is normal. You’re being so normal right now.
His hand keeps working, mechanically.
Somehow now that he’s actually in the middle of things, he can’t seem to bring that brief clip of Angel’s chest to the forefront of his mind. Instead, the faint echoing of Angel calling someone daddy springs forth instead, and whew, if there was ever a kink he did not have, it’s that. Keep all those issues out of the bedroom, thanks! He’s got enough issues in there for right now.
His hand keeps going.
Charlie had looked horrified at Angel’s show-and-tell choice, but not particularly surprised. Has Angel done this before? Is this something Lucifer’s going to have to deal with? Him bringing in Charlie’s baby photos while Angel plays porn? He can’t live like that. He could probably—there’s a lot of things he could do. He could pretend to forget the activity on days that show-and-tell happen; he’s so scatterbrained that Charlie would believe it, but it’d make her sad. There goes dad, forgetting important shit again! Let’s not do that. Lucifer could strategically show up after Angel has gone. He could conjure up some vision and sound blocker to prevent himself from interacting with the video, like a… sleep mask. A magic sleep mask. Yeah.
His wrist twists on the upstroke and pain lances through him. Lucifer hisses and yanks his hand out, curling over onto his side. The red of the sky outside looks considerably darker than when he first came up here. God, of all the times to dissociate and lose hours of time. He kicks his pants off, realizing abruptly how his wrist twinges and his whole pelvis is aching, and not in a fun way. Stupid, he thinks again as he trudges towards the bathroom. This is not supposed to be this hard. Hard, hah. Like he still is. Ouch.
The bubble bath of recent memory ends up being a frigid shower, which finally takes care of the problem in the most miserable way ever. At least he heals quickly; the ache in his hips should be gone by tomorrow. Is there already a bruise forming on his hip? How hard had he been going? He’s pretty sure his body isn’t supposed to shut down like that, but it’s fine. Not like he wanted to spend his afternoon jerking off anyway.
Lucifer tries the bubble bath anyway. It doesn’t really feel any better than the shower. He lets his head thunk back against the tile as his body soaks. It’s fine. It’s not like there’s anyone around to watch this horror show, and it’s not like it’ll ever become a real problem, since he doesn’t think Lilith is coming back and he’s pretty sure no one’s going to be jumping in to take her place.
It’s fine. He takes a deep breath and sinks below the water.
***
The next time it happens, Lucifer is alone, but it’s still all so much worse.
He’s learned not to interfere in the hotel business too much; Charlie has kindly told him that something about his manic disposition is not great for recruitment, which, ouch!, but not wrong, he’s a piss-poor chef and cleaner, and so besides the absolute shitshow that was his first time at the hotel, most days are pretty calm.
When he wakes up to the building shaking, he knows it’s not going to be one of those calm days. He groans, dragging one hand down his face as he swings his legs to dangle over the side of the bed, and slumps his way over to the window. Good thing about living in a giant, translucent apple: floor to ceiling windows!
He doesn’t know why a bunch of mobsters are firing on their windows and trying to knock down their front door with a battering ram, but it’s unsurprising and uninteresting enough that he considers going back to bed. This is not a Lucifer-level battle. They could probably sic the maid on them and be done with it all in two minutes. He lets one tendril of magic snake through the hotel, checking on everyone’s locations: Charlie is still in her room, which is the important part, and Husk and Vaggie have come down into the main foyer, probably to take a stand if it comes to that.
It almost certainly won’t come to that, Lucifer notes idly, as Alastor’s enormous form slithers out of the hotel doors and begins tearing off limbs. He might go down and assist with cleanup later. Charlie’s always going on about how too much blood and too many bodies in front of the hotel could deter potential patrons; he could probably win a few points for doing some sweeping. He’ll wait until Alastor leaves. That guy never helps with cleanup! Probably thinks he’s too good for it.
Lucifer crosses one ankle over the other as he leans one side of his body against the glass to fully face the slaughter. It’s overkill, really. Sometimes a man should be able to murder sinners with class and pizazz, without getting intestines all over the dirt and blood all over oneself. It’s probably a byproduct of the tentacles, which are too thick to be accurate and nimble. Why does Alastor insist on the tentacles? Tentacles aren’t a deer thing or a radio thing. It’s weird. That guy is weird. Lucifer’s picked up on the fact that Alastor doesn’t quite, hmm, go in for those kinds of activities, but surely he knows that the tentacles give off a certain vibe. Everyone knows that tentacles give off a certain vibe. Whatever hands-off thing Alastor has going, he has got to know that half of hell looks at him askew when he starts wrapping those things around people.
Lucifer uncrosses his legs and recrosses them.
There’s only three mobsters left that Lucifer can see and they’ve begun to hide behind Alastor’s own limbs where the tentacles can’t quite maneuver around. Clever enough, at least until Alastor picks up one leg and crushes two of them beneath his foot. The final one flees, running clean away from the hotel, until Alastor nabs him with one tendril and swings him up by throat to be eye-to-eye with him.
Lucifer swallows.
There’s a minute where Alastor clearly plays with his food, swinging the guy from tendril to tendril, batting him around like a cat to a mouse, before Lucifer can hear even from this distance Charlie shouting at him to put the man down. Of course, Alastor instead unhinges that bear trap of a mouth he has and lets his tongue loll out, hanging almost past his neck. The tentacles bend in and brush the sides of his mouth, almost gently placing the man inside, and curl lightly around tips of his teeth as they withdraw. The mouth closes.
Lucifer swallows again. Wow, he must be really dehydrated. There’s so much… saliva. In his mouth.
It hits him for the second time.
“No,” he says out loud in what he thinks is a very reasonable tone. “No, no, no no no.” Alastor is still massive and hulking by the doors, peering down to let Charlie berate him for his psychopathic behavior in a rare display of patience. The tentacles haven’t vanished yet, crawling up the sides of the hotel with lack of anything better to do, with no one to grab. Lucifer watches them go, paralyzed, as they slide higher and higher, closer to his tower.
It had been bad but maybe understandable when it happened with Angel’s porn video; at least Angel was undressed and showing off his chest and it was in an explicitly sexy context and meant to titillate and Angel Dust is an objectively very attractive guy.
It’s worse now. How is he supposed to look at himself in the mirror after this, knowing his latest boner was from Alastor eating people on his front lawn?
This stupid apple doesn’t even have curtains! Or blinds! Lucifer scrambles, stumbling over a nearby chair, in an effort to get away from the windows, before remembering he’s an almost all-powerful being and he can just blackout the fucking windows.
As his magic slams over the apple and barricades him from the outside world, his last view is Alastor, back to normal size, still standing there and letting Charlie snip at him. Lucifer thinks the bastard might be looking at him. And then the world is blissful darkness.
It’s not a cannibalism thing, he tells himself, it’s a tentacle thing. Everyone’s got a tentacle thing! Right? Right! There’s like, genres of tentacle stuff out there, and from what he hears from the new sinners that crash here every day, the humans just keep getting freakier with it. Someone should really tell Alastor that he should keep those things inside himself. Er, not in that exact wording. Nothing should be inside Alastor—
Lucifer goes to take a shower. This is all too weird and it’s not even breakfast time. He’s gotta start drinking in the morning or something to keep his brain out of the gutter.
He kicks his clothes off and opens the shower door to start and then stare at the running water as the bathroom steams up, clouding over the mirror. Small mercies. He’s sure he looks like shit. With the apple walled off like this, the lights dim, and the tiny room warm, the atmosphere feels easy enough that he risks glancing down at his own body. He’s still hard. The room is small and secure, he left the shower door open and the steam is pleasant, Alastor is probably getting yelled at downstairs. The situation is downright cozy.
Do not dissociate. Stay in the moment. Leaning back against the bathroom counter, still letting the shower run, he magics up some lube in the palm of his hand. Very sexy, he thinks, staring at it, and then finally gets to work. No chafing this time, at least!
This is not staying in the moment. Lucifer’s eyes had fallen shut almost immediately; he forces them back open. Think about the tentacles, do not think about who they are attached to, think about—something else! Anything else! Nothing else! He stares at his bathrobe, hanging on the back of the door, and carefully clears his mind of all thoughts.
It’s easier to do it this way. Trying to think of something specific has his brain on the fritz on a good day, but emptying out all the garbage at once is much better. What it says about him that becoming smooth-brained is an easy and fun activity, he has no idea and doesn’t want to know, but at least it makes this whole thing good.
A little too good, actually. A harder squeeze on the downstroke has his breath stuttering out of him, and, what the fuck, coming into his hand. Lucifer yanks his hand away as his orgasm stutters out of him in weak pulses, unsatisfying and far, far too quick. He was at it for, what, fifteen seconds?
He’s lightheaded again, actually, all that dopamine flooding to his head and then shuttling out of him just as quickly. And he’s hot. Why the hell is there so much steam in here? Lucifer stumbles forward to push open the door and promptly slips on the puddle of water the still-going shower has flooded the bathroom with.
Lucifer would be worried that all these pathetic results while trying to get himself off would cross some wires in his brain, but those wires have long since been crossed. And, he realizes, laying facedown on the bathroom tile, it probably can’t get any worse than this.
***
The last time: Lucifer supposes you can take the dead-libido-sexual-dysfunction out of the pathetic divorcee, but you can’t take the pathetic out of the, uh—well, he hadn’t really taken out the sexual dysfunction either, more just replaced one type of it with another, but—forget it. That metaphor can fall apart on him.
It’s all very pathetic, still, is really the conclusion he comes to.
His body’s awake. He wakes up awake in more ways than one now, and the one time he tries to do something about it his hands are fumbling and clumsy. The dark of his bedroom should feel private and comforting, still tucked away under the coverlet as he is, but instead it lends a sense of claustrophobia; the pitch night bends in on him and tilts his breathing from heavy-aroused to heavy-panicked for absolutely no reason at all, except for the fact that he’s alone in bed. Lilith isn’t here.
Lilith isn’t here. When he finally gets a hand around himself it doesn’t even feel good, but like a bright shock of sensation, overstimulated even though he’s barely started, and he yanks his hand away. Yanks too quick. The claw on his pinky finger slashes the top of his thigh, and the other three fingers gouge shallow cuts across his stomach as he wrestles his hand out of his pants. The stripes of pain don’t do much for him in either direction.
Lucifer rolls out of bed, actually rolls onto the floor, kicking off the covers and clambering to his feet. His pajama pants are slick with blood now, and he’s sure he’s leaving a trail of gold from the bed as he mutely drags his body into the bathroom. He doesn’t bother turning on the lights. He knows what he’ll look like: frazzled, turned on, miserable, bloody. He washes his hands in the sink and changes his pants and underwear in the dark, by hand and not by magic because it feels a little more real.
When he’s done, he grips the sides of the sink and lets his claws slide through the marble like butter. The lights are still off, but his eyes reflect discs of light back to him in the mirror.
He’s got to get a grip. Truly and honestly, it’s not even the slightest bit funny anymore, if it ever was if he’s being honest with himself. If he’s being honest with himself, this is one more insecurity in a very, very long line of them, and there’s something extra humiliating about this one. Your wife leaves you, and you’ve never really been into the whole open relationship thing so she’s the only person you’ve ever had sex with aside from the occasional threesome, and now she’s gone and your body has become a writhing, foreign mass that can’t seem to do anything.
Depression, ha! That was child’s play! He can’t even make silly little jokes about throwing himself over the hotel balconies about this!
He needs to fix this. This isn’t the past seven years; he doesn’t live alone anymore and he can’t flee because he told Charlie he’d be making an effort and he can’t spend the rest of his life having the most miserable solo sexual experiences in the history of existence. Well, he could, probably, but he gives himself about two months before this situation starts making that hotel balcony looking real good again. And he can’t do that to Charlie. He really, really can’t.
The idea of leaving the hotel unattended for any length of time brings knots to his stomach; he knows Alastor had defended the hotel for months before he managed to drag his sorry ass out of his depression den and back into his daughter’s life, but the thought still makes him queasy. Going to the Lust ring is right out of the question then. And taking all those potions and things they sell down there doesn’t seem like the best solution. Probably not long-term help and all the concoctions that come out of Hell tend to affect him a little differently, technically being an angel and all.
What he needs, Lucifer realizes with a faint sense of horror, is a professional.
***
No, actually! He doesn’t! He doesn’t need a professional!
It’s frankly rude to assume that sex workers are here to fix his problems instead of simply doing their jobs and getting on with their day, and if Lucifer’s being real with himself the idea of getting down and dirty with some random sinner makes him want to dissolve into the floor. Getting down and dirty with anyone who isn’t his wife makes him want to dissolve into the floor. Most things make him want to dissolve into the floor these days.
There’s always drugs, Lucifer muses, staring at Husk as he drinks his way through a bottle behind the bar. Maybe he could choke down a bunch of Xanax and float his way through jacking off. He and Lilith would sometimes do stuff like that, pop something fun and let the current take them, usually to bed—he can’t go around thinking about Lilith. That’s the opposite of help. Knowing him, he’d take the Xanax and float himself right into another crying jag. Very sexy.
“Mind scootin’ up for me, your majesty?”
Lucifer jumps. Sauntered up into his peripheral vision is Angel, one of four hands loosely holding the corner of a jacket he’d apparently left tossed over the back of the couch. A jacket Lucifer is leaning against. “Oh, um, yep, let me just—” he says, which is altogether too many words for the inch of movement he makes to free the fabric.
Angel drapes it over his shoulders, a cropped, glitzy pink thing that he tugs together to give his chest a little fluffing—which Lucifer does not notice, not at all, because his eyes are totally fixed on Angel’s face. Angel reconfigures the little crossbody bag he has, tugging on it this way and that before letting his eyes slide to Lucifer’s. “Whatcha think? Over the shoulder or like a clutch?” It seems to be a rhetorical question, which is good because he does another chest fluff as he says it and all Lucifer can manage to get out in response is a squeak. “You sure make a lot of little noises, y’know that? Is it like a bird thing?”
Lucifer makes another one before he manages to get his voice under control. “Uh, maybe!” He’s pretty sure the noises he’s making are far too undignified to come out of literally any other seraphim on the planet, but he’ll take the out if Angel’s obliviously offering him one. And then his stupid mouth just keeps going: “They just, uh, come out—” and makes a little fluttering motion with his hands as his brain screams at him to just stop.
Something about the mania catches Angel’s attention, and Lucifer does not like the way one of those brows quirks up at him. “So what makes them happen? You gonna do more of ‘em if I give you a scratch behind the ears, like Husk?” Lucifer can see in his peripheral vision Husk giving Angel the finger, but he’s too busy panicking about the way Angel leans down and down, bending at the waist to get at eye-level with him. Lucifer watches in mute—horror? Is it horror?—as Angel lifts one hand to Lucifer’s face and—
“You better be leaving the king of hell alone, Angel, you can’t go around bothering him like you do the rest of the staff,” Husk calls out from behind the bar and all of Lucifer’s breath leaves him in a whoosh as Angel pulls himself back to full height.
“Aw, I’m just teasin’. You can’t blame me, when you’ve seen as much as I have any bit of novelty will get you going. And I’ve gotta get in some kinda fun before work!” Angel calls back, huffing and fixing his bag once again. “See ya, your majesty,” he says, and winks.
Lucifer swallows, audibly, and there’s a split second of surprise on Angel’s face before it turns sly. Then he’s turning on one heel and walking out the front door. He’s doomed. Angel knows exactly what’s going on in his disgusting, perverted brain, and he’s going to hide in the apple for the next two weeks and it doesn’t even matter that he barely has food in his mini-fridge, just sliced ham and leftover rice, because he can never show his face again. Lucifer mutely gets up and makes his way over to the bar.
“Give me something strong,” Lucifer says, doing his best to smile like every moment of his existence is not an embarrassment, and Husk, a god among demons, slides a whole bottle in his direction.
A few moments of silence pass as Lucifer takes two gulps, chokes, swallows, coughs, and keeps drinking. Wow, Charlie’s got the good stuff here. Nothing but the best for his baby girl, he supposes, and has only one more swallow before the world begins to swim. Has he eaten today?
“Your majesty. Can I, uh, speak freely?” Husk says, pulling him out of whatever hole his already-tipsy mind is sliding into.
“Of course!” he bursts out. “Yes. Go for it! Charlie’s friends are always welcome to speak freely.” He says the last words in what he thought was a funny voice, but Husk’s expression doesn’t even twitch. Tough crowd.
“You and Angel,” Husk starts, slowly like he still isn’t sure if Lucifer is serious, and nods in the direction of the door Angel vanished through minute ago. “Seems like there’s some tension there.”
“Woah-ho-ho!” Lucifer laughs automatically, even as all his organs leap into his throat in a panic. “No tension here! Me and Angel are, uh, on good terms. Or neutral terms, at least! That little thing back there—he’s just messing around. I wasn’t about to snap on him. I wouldn’t snap on him.”
Husk levels him with a look and Lucifer shrinks into the chair, mouth aiming for the rim of the bottle and missing by several inches. “That’s, uh, not what I was talking about. I mean—” Wow, Lucifer thinks dizzily as Husk struggles for words, he didn’t think cats could blush like that. Or birds. Whatever Husk is; it’s kind of unclear. “I mean,” Husk finally says, clearing his throat and raising those long eyebrows in a very pointed way that makes Lucifer squirm. “He’ll eat you alive. If you want him to.”
Lucifer lets his head thunk down on the bar. Heaven can just come down and smite him where he sits, thanks. He’s ready to go. “Is is that obvious?” he whispers, and the sheer mortification he can hear in his own voice makes him cringe.
Husk gives him a pat on the shoulder. There is very little sympathy in the gesture. “We all get like that with Angel. I’m not surprised.” Lucifer, actually, is fairly sure not everyone gets like that with Angel and that might say more about Husk and him than it does about anything else, and magnanimously keeps his mouth shut for once in his life. “Either you do something about it, or it’ll go away. Probably. ’S no big deal.”
No big deal, Lucifer thinks as Husk busies himself with other work to politely let him rot facedown on the counter, and thinks of other things too: the scores of claws on his stomach, still patchy and healing, and the blackout curtains in his room, and the sway of Angel’s hips as he walked out the door. Not a big deal at all.