Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Luci didn’t know how long it took him to realize what was off about the man serving him coffee every morning. Too long. Especially given how often the two of them interacted.

The first time he walked into the little place off Elm and 42nd, with an awning out front so sunbaked its bright forest green had turned the color of army barf and cheap plastic chairs and tables still dripping from the morning dew, he hadn’t really stopped to notice anything other than how good it would feel to hold a warm cup of coffee in the cooling fall air.

It was a quaint place, quiet except for the clicking of keys on keyboards typing madly away as business professionals and college students tried to finish reports and papers with their large double-shot espressos. It had a feeling like a log cabin almost—like if there had been a fire burning away in one corner it wouldn’t have surprised anyone—except the safety inspectors. Luci was surprised it didn’t have more customers at this vivid time of morning, but he wasn’t going to complain about it. Less time standing in line.

So he muttered his order a few more times in his head to make sure he could get it without messing up, and marched up to the counter. “Medium caramel macchiato, two pumps of vanilla please.”

The cashier met his eyes. Luci gulped. They were brown eyes, but a brown like logs left a little too long on the fire that started to crackle down into glowing embers. It matched the flame of his wild hair—unkempt and longer in some places than others, like a mullet that just decided it wanted to be spiky all over the place. Luci thought it almost looked like animal ears. His face was slender and cunning, a deep tan that made his ruby hair and flame-strung eyes stick out all the more, but captivating. To top it off, he wore a black bowtie Luci didn’t think was part of his uniform beneath his brown server’s apron. Luci might’ve made fun of it, but he was wearing a three piece suit with a pinstripe vest to an office meeting. Overkill? Maybe. He liked dressing up.

The cashier flashed him a smile. His teeth were beautifully white, and this man wasted no time showing that off. The smile unnerved Luci and he couldn’t tell why. Maybe because it looked a little too friendly for your average barista. Maybe because it didn’t quite reach the glitter of flame in his eyes, like malice remained trapped between the window of glass shielding his gaze from the world.

And tall. He was really tall. Or maybe Luci was just that short.

“Is that all?” God almighty, his voice sounded like it belonged in a film. Strong, confident, and not quite matching his appearance but in a way that made Luci want to hear him say more, just so he could assure himself the words had actually come from this man’s mouth and not a radio somewhere behind him.

Was that all? Luci felt frozen, staring. He tried to smooth it over with a laugh. “You bet!”

The cashier flashed another smile. “Alright then. Five-twenty nine. Cash or card?”

He brought his hands up to punch the order into the machine and Luci found himself staring at the gracefulness of his long fingers. He would be really good at the piano, Luci reasoned. And maybe some other things.

“Sir?”

Luci blinked. “Huh? Oh. Um. Yeah, what was the question?”

“Are you paying with cash or card?” His smile punctuated the question like a period at the end of a text message. Luci tried not to overthink it but too late! He already was.

“Sorry,” he gulped. “I just got lost thinking about… um, work! Work stuff. Card. Card is fine.” He pulled it out of his wallet and passed it over.

“For here or to go?”

“To go.” Luci needed to get out of there. The heat of the place that had felt so comforting from the setting cool of fall outside now felt suffocating.

“And a name for the order?” His teeth were so perfectly straight. Dashing, but in a way that screamed subtly overbearing.

“Lucifer.”

“Splendid. What an interesting name.” He grinned. “Certainly a pleasure to serve you. Come back soon.” And he passed Luci back his card and receipt, and Luci took them quickly and backed away from the counter. The name on his nametag said Alastor.

Luci mulled the name over in his head as he made the three block walk to the office, still hung up on how poorly that interaction had gone, and just how starstruck that voice had left him. The eyes, the smile, the voice, and something was off about them all, and Luci didn’t know quite what it was.

It was only when he’d gotten in the elevator to ride up to the ninth floor when Luci realized he’d never picked up his coffee.

He went back the next day. He’d skipped breakfast and wanted a scone to go with his coffee, hoping for another stupid little anxious interaction between himself and the mysterious barista with the voice like gold. Some little part of Luci thought he might ask Alastor some questions, get to know him, stuff like that, but who was he kidding? Luci could barely handle three exchanges without breaking down into senseless babbling.

Maybe he could complement the barista. And say what—I like your voice? I like your radiant eyes and dashing smile? That would be creepy.

Luci pushed open the door and was greeted by a little bell. There was no line again, so Luci walked right up, and there he was again. Same fierce eyes, same mussed up red hair, same bowtie paired with his brown work apron, and same lasting smile. The grin widened as he approached. “Back again? I think I still have yesterday’s drink somewhere, but it might be a little cold.”

Luci managed a laugh, still tripping over that toothy grin. “I think I’ll just order a new one, thanks.”

“You sure? It’s no trouble, really.”

“No, that’s fine.” It slowly dawned on him Alastor was teasing him. Luci didn’t know how to respond to that. Had no practice with playful banter, or whatever this was. “Can I have… a medium—”

“Caramel macchiato, two pumps of vanilla?” Alastor grinned. “Or are you the kind of guy who likes switching it up everyday?”

He remembered my order, Luci realized. I must have messed up really bad yesterday to leave that kind of impression. “That would be great, thanks. To go, please.” He was wringing his hands below the counter. This kind of interaction killed him normally, and that was when he wasn’t absolutely fascinated by the barista.

Alastor’s long fingers tapped the order into the screen. “Do you want whipped cream on that? A little more sugar for your sweet tooth?”

Luci knew Allisor was teasing him this time, but what was he supposed to say? He mirrored Alastor’s smile with a little effort and said, “well, you know me, I love my sugar.”

That got him a strange look. Luci knew he’d be going over that in his brain all night. Alastor cleared his throat. “So… that’s a yes?”

“Um. Yes. And… and a blueberry scone. Please.” Mortified, Luci paid and actually had the decency to stay and wait in humiliation as they prepared his order. When Alastor handed him the coffee and the scone, it was all Luci could do to yelp a quick, “thanks!” and nearly ran the three blocks to his office building just to get away from the place.

He’d be back again tomorrow, he knew. Maybe Allisor liked screw-ups.

It was raining on Wednesday, a thick torrential downpour that made the whole world blurry. It caught in streets and splashed up puddles when cars drove past, and sunk into Luci’s skin so deep he thought he’d never feel warm again. And of course today was the day he’d chosen to dress down—slacks and a nice wool sweater—and even through his hooded raincoat the wool was wet and itchy, and Luci knew it was going to be a long day.

He pressed through the coffee shop doors and dropped ten pounds of water weight on the welcome mat. Thankfully Alastor was too busy helping someone to notice—that clean customer service smile ripe on his lips.

Luci waited patiently in line, running over what he was going to say in his head. If Alastor remembered his order from yesterday, would it make sense to order like a regular? ‘I’ll have the usual’ just sounded a little too pretentious for Luci’s taste. But what else could he say? Alastor would clearly remember him. Did he try to start small talk? Did he go for that compliment? One simple interaction a day, and Lucifer always seemed to mess it up.

Too late. It was his turn.

“Hello again,” Luci started. Good, he thought, if not a little too cheerful for the dreary tone of the day.

Alastor flashed his teeth. “Bit of a soggy one today, isn’t it? Don’t you have an umbrella? Or does the rain not reach you all the way down there?”

Luci blinked. Teasing, again. “Ha, ha,” he managed. “I forgot it. At least I remembered a coat.”

“Silver lining,” Alastor said. His eyes glimmered with a twinkle of dying embers. “What can I get for you?”

“Um. Same as yesterday?” Luci didn’t want to sound pretentious, so he eased back into what came natural to him—sheer awkwardness.

Alastor stared him in the eyes, unblinking, grin sending shivers down Luci’s spine. Or maybe that was the rain. “I have never seen you before in my life, sir. You’ll have to be more specific.”

Luci’s heart sank a little. Unimportant to a busy barista. Of course. “Oh,” he managed. “Right. You must be busy. I’ll have the um—”

“I’m only kidding, of course,” Alastor grinned. “Clearly a corporate man like yourself never learned a good joke.”

“Oh.” Luci forced a laugh. “Of course.” How could Alastor have such ease? Casual teases, sarcastic jokes that came off flawlessly but for Luci’s ignorance, a charm unmatched by the average barista.

“Medium caramel macchiato, two pumps of vanilla? Whipped cream?”

“Yep.” He paused, staring as Alastor typed in the order. “And… I’m not really a corporate guy, or whatever you said,” he stammered quickly. “I’m… just an intern, I guess.”

“Ah, rising the ranks. Well, I rescind my previous statement,” he mocked. “Let me know when you get a promotion so I can make the joke fresh again. Would you like a scone today?”

“No, that’s fine.” Luci couldn’t help but smile a little bit, but only to himself. Maybe today was going a little bit better than yesterday. He didn’t feel any less awkward, of course, but—what—he’d said like three coherent sentences? What a win. He paid and got his receipt from the barista, before realizing he should probably have some manners. At least every once and a while he remembered to be polite. “Thank you… Alastor,” he managed.

The barista’s smile wavered ever so slightly before he glanced down at his nametag and back up at Luci. “Ah. My pleasure… Lucifer.”

Luci’s coffee tasted better that morning.

Luci ran late most Thursdays, and this was no exception. He always set his alarm earlier than he needed to—all five alarms, to be exact—and ended up missing them all anyway. There was no special occasion on Thursdays, nothing out of the ordinary at all, and the mundanity of nearing the end of a work week pushed Luci’s exhaustion to the brink. As such, he’d snooze all his alarms, oversleep, and then inevitably rush to get ready and leave in the ten minutes he had. But he couldn’t skip dressing his best, or brushing his hair, or—God forbid—showering, so he’d leave ten minutes late and run through the streets in a frantic panic.

Every Thursday.

Luci almost considered skipping the coffee shop this morning, but he knew there wouldn’t be a long line. Besides, he couldn’t miss his little awkward interaction with the smiley barista this morning, or his whole day would be just a little bit worse for it. And he needed caffeine. Desperately.

He burst through the doors, huffing madly.

From the counter, Alastor's smile shifted just enough to accommodate the giant eyebrow raise Luci’s entrance received. With only a few people in the shop this morning, Luci was able to approach the counter without a wait.

“Sorry,” he managed. “Overslept.”

Alastor grinned at him. “Not to fear. I went through the trouble of saving you a couple minutes.” He produced a cup from behind the counter. “Medium caramel macchiato, two pumps of vanilla, whipped cream for the intern who’s not a corporate man just yet, and who’s below average length legs could use a little less strain on them from running late today. Pleasure’s all mine.”

Luci blinked. He took the cup, the kind gesture not yet registering in his brain. “Wow. Um. Thanks.” He went for his wallet.

“Don’t mention it. On the house.” Alastor’s grin at that moment seemed a little less customer-service-y and a little more genuine. “Though I expect your tips in the future to be frequent and generous.” He winked.

Luci caught the tease that time. “Really, I appreciate it.”

Alastor leaned over the counter a little bit, elbow propped up, chin resting in his palm. “You should go now. Wouldn’t want to be late for that big important job of yours. Hope they pay you well enough to keep you coming back.”

“I’ll be back,” Luci promised. Then he backed through the door and took off running again, his heart racing as fast from the cardio as the little interaction. He’d barely stammered at all through it. Besides that, he’d actually had someone he barely knew do something nice for him for no reason. When was the last time that had happened? Too long ago for Luci to remember, anyway.

His colleagues at the office wondered why he was in such a good mood. Luci kept his little spark of joy to himself, but knew he’d be back. Every day, if he could.

“To go?”

Luci paused, his laptop heavy in the satchel bag across his shoulder. He was dressed down today, khakis and a blue button-down, because Fridays were the day of the week he chose to do work virtually. It meant answering a lot of emails, writing a lot of proposals, and an occasional virtual meeting that Luci dreaded for its awkwardness and the resulting anxiety he got from it. On Fridays he usually stayed home, slept in, and made bland coffee from his Keurig, but he couldn’t skip his daily walk to the coffee shop. Now that he was here, he realized, this would be the perfect place to get some work done and spend some time in close proximity to his friendly stranger.

“No,” he said. “For here today.”

Alastor glanced at him, smiling, but confused. “Interesting. No big meetings this morning?”

“Not on Fridays.”

“Well,” Alastor said, changing the order he’d already typed into the screen. “Feel free to have a seat. I’ll bring it over when it’s ready.” He grinned. “It shouldn’t be more than a minute.”

Luci thanked him and took a window seat looking out onto the little road bustling with trinket shops and restaurants. This part of the city drove in tourists because of its cheap merchandise and good food. Luci was lucky to work so close to such a nice district with an even better coffee shop, but now that only made him wonder why the store was so empty all the time. With all these tourists on such a sunny fall day, wouldn’t they want hot beverages?

Luci shrugged the thought from his head and pulled out his laptop. He had work to do. He logged into his company’s website and began reading the emails that had piled into his inbox overnight. One corporate nightmare wanted him to fill out such and such reports. Another needed him to fix the broken copy machine, but he wasn’t in, so he would have to deal with that on Monday. Another wanted confirmation for a meeting next Thursday, which seemed ridiculously far in the future. All the stress of meeting with people and writing emails and having a real job made Luci’s head want to explode. Sometimes all he wanted was to stay in his dark room making little trinkets like ducks. He liked making ducks. He was good at it. Talking to people? Eh.

“Looks like corporate never quits dumping work on the new guy, huh?” Alastor peered over Luci’s shoulder at his screen as he set a steaming hot cup on the table.

“Huh?” Luci glanced up at Alastor’s big grin. Sitting down, the barista towered over him and made him feel tiny. “Oh. Yes. Thank you.” When Alastor didn’t move, he realized this was his chance to make conversation. Luci’s mind went blank. He couldn’t think of his own name, much less a single witty question to ask the barista.

Alastor saved him. “So you are the new guy, aren’t you? When did you start working there?”

An easy question. “Start of this week. Feels like longer already, though, doesn’t it? It eats up so much of my time.” Luci glanced out the window and realized they could see the giant tower of his office building from where they were positioned. He pointed. “It’s that big one over there. All paperwork and files. Something about manufacturing and marketing I really don’t understand, but a business major was the only way to get me into a job that made money so… here I am.” He glanced at Alastor, worried he’d shared too much. To his surprise, the barista’s smile didn’t look annoyed at all, but almost intrigued. “And you?” Luci asked. “Where do you work?”

Alastor stared at him. “Here.”
“Oh. Right.” Luci’s stomach did a little turn. He was ready to run away—retreat to his little office cubby with his coffee and mull over this bad interaction until he had a chance to redo it tomorrow, but he was glued to the seat, staring at the man with the intense smile towering over him.

“But I’m taking night classes at the university. Hoping to get my degree and get out of here, if you know what I mean. This place feels like a shackle.”

“What in?”

“Theater, believe it or not.” He grinned again. “I know, this face doesn’t seem like one you’d want to see on your screens, but I love the vocal part of it. I’m hoping an agent will recognize my talent and give me, I don’t know, a radio gig or something.” Luci’s face must have betrayed his thoughts, because despite his interest, Alastor’s grin seemed to sour. “I said too much. My apologies.”

“Not at all!” Luci tried to mash up his face into a better, more interesting expression. His face never really did what he wanted it to. Sometimes people told him he had this pained expression on his face when he was thinking too hard, or asked if he was okay when he was just sitting somewhere because he looked so glum. “I think that’s great. You could be a voice actor.”

“Certainly I could,” Alastor realized. “With enough luck, of course. I’m afraid between the two of us you’ve picked the career with the bigger payout.”

Luci shrugged. “I’ve sold my soul to a corporate enterprise. Not exactly thrilling.”

“Aw, so you’ve got to keep some hobbies, huh?” He pulled up a chair and sat beside Luci. Luci’s heart did a little tap routine in his chest.

“Hobbies?” He had hobbies, didn’t he? He liked… making rubber ducks. And wooden ducks. And sometimes other wooden waterfowl. He also liked painting ducks. Really just… ducks. He had books about ducks, and watched documentaries, and had duck pajama pants. He had duck posters in his room, a duck shaped lamp, and other assorted duck instruments, many of which were adorable and could be found in his kitchen. But that… that was embarrassing. Like really embarrassing. “I… like making things. With my hands.”

“Hey! There’s something. You know, I know a lot of people who couldn’t find the sharp end of a pencil if you asked them. Creativity is genius.” Alastor leaned back in the chair and crossed his legs. “Tell you what. You make me something, and I’ll get you another coffee, on the house. Maybe two.”

Before Luci’s brain could remind him that the only thing he was good at making were ducks, his mouth started speaking. “Sure! Sounds like a deal.”

“Alastor! Customer! You’re still on my time!”

Luci glanced. An angry looking older gentleman stood near the back of the shop, apron covered in flour. Some young woman tapped her foot impatiently in front of the counter. Alastor let out a sigh, but his smile didn’t waver. “Well, I bid you a happy work session. Let me know if you want anything to go with that coffee.” He smirked. “Maybe a shortbread?”

“Very funny.” Luci smiled. As Alastor went back to taking orders, Luci tried to bury his nose in his work to ignore the soft sound of that barista’s voice drifting through the cafe, accompanied by the occasional ringing of the bell or the sound of keys on a keyboard.

As Luci found, Alastor made it very, very difficult to focus.

“Where’s Alastor?”

“Who?”

Luci bit his cheek. “Tall, red hair, concerningly good smile?” He tried to make himself look taller over the counter. Anything to appear like he knew what he was doing. He didn’t, of course.

“Ah, the pretty boy.” It was the angry man Luci had glimpsed the day before, with gray hair covering a ring around his head and curly wisps making an unkempt beard on his chin and cheeks. His bushy black eyebrows did his angered stare a favor it really didn’t need, given its intensity. He wore a nameplate that read MANAGER instead of any sort of name, and something about him unnerved Luci far more than Alastor had his first day at the cafe. There was something really off about this man. Something Luci couldn’t place, just like Alastor. “He’s taking the day off. Medical appointment of some sort.”

“Oh.” Luci felt the little wooden duck in his pocket. He was really going to give it to Alastor. At least, that was going to be his plan until his anxiety interrupted the little crusade. “Well, thanks, I guess.”

“Are you going to order something?”

Luci glanced up at the menu, then at the new cashier, then down at his sweater vest. It just didn’t feel right to be there without his favorite barista. It didn’t make sense to get a drink if he knew it would taste worse just because it wasn’t made by the redhead with the dashing smile. “No,” he managed. “That’s alright.”

“Well, would you quit wasting my time then? I have other people to serve. You’re holding up the line.”

Luci glanced behind him to see a line five people long. His frown deepened. Why was the day Alastor didn’t show up the day this place’s popularity grew? Or was it because it was the weekend? Maybe that was it. That was probably it.

Luci left, feeling deflated, hoping nothing was wrong with Alastor. He’d come back tomorrow, of course. Just to make sure.

Luci almost wished he’d chosen to do his work at home instead of at the cafe on Sunday. If yesterday felt like a big crowd, today was Times Square on New Year’s Eve. A line ten or twelve people long stretched almost to the door, and the heat and noise of the place made Luci want to pass out. Before he spent an eternity waiting for no reason, he glanced up to the front of the line. To his surprise—and relief—Alastor stood there, smiling wider than ever, chatting away a storm with the customers. If Luci didn’t know better he’d say the malicious glint in his eyes was dimmer than usual. Not replaced with cheer, just dimmed.

So Luci waited as the line drew down and he got closer and closer to speaking with this man, and the whole time all Luci did was study how Alastor was acting. Smile so wide it seemed to pain him, eyes not full of their usual light, something had changed about him in the day he’d been gone. He made friendly banter the way a barista should, but nothing more. His tip jar got fuller and fuller. People were laughing, admiring his charm, playing into the dry jokes he gave them. But he wasn’t right.

This wasn’t the Alastor Luci had come to know.

And then it was his turn to order. Luci almost worried Alastor wouldn’t recognize him at all, but his smile seemed to warm just a hint. “Caramel macchiato for my corporate intern?”

Luci’s beating heart relaxed a bit. “Please.” He glanced at Alastor’s brown apron. No tie today. “I missed you yesterday. What happened?”

“What, can’t a guy miss a shift?”

“Well yeah, I know, but your boss said—”

Alastor glanced towards the back. He smiled. “Listen. I’d love to chat, but I’ve got a lot of customers to attend to and I don’t need you asking questions I can’t answer. If you want, come find me when my shift is up. We can talk then.”

“Oh. Um.” Luci swallowed. “Okay.” He studied Alastor. Something wasn't just off with the stranger—it was wrong. He paid for his drink and found a place to sit down and work, the wooden duck in his pocket long forgotten.

When his drink came, it wasn’t Alastor who brought it. That made Luci’s heart sink.

And so instead of working, Luci sat and watched the barista take order after order at the counter. It was only then did Lucifer realize what he should have noticed the first day he walked into the coffee shop, or maybe the second, or the third, had he not been so distracted by the charm of the red-haired barista.

Alastor never stopped smiling.

Not for a second. Not to catch his breath, or when he thought no one was looking, or when he burned himself on the steamer. Not at all.

Luci loved the man’s smile, but something about it scared him just a little too much. If it never dipped, never faded, never faltered, was it really real to begin with? And if it wasn’t real, why was he wearing it? Was it a choice? Was it a punishment? As the light started to dim in the coffee shop and they neared closing time, Luci closed his laptop, not a single item on his list done for the day. He watched with interest as Alastor’s eyes glowed a dim red in the evening light.

Not human, Luci realized. Not human at all.

And when Alastor’s shift ended, Luci went to meet him, terrified of what the smiling man might tell him about the truth.

Chapter Text

The dark scared Luci. A lot of things scared Luci, to be fair. Busy intersections, potholes, open flames, loud noises, those dome things they use to dry hair in fancy salons. As dark encroached on the cafe like an inescapable wall pressing against Luci’s chest, Luci found himself wishing he hadn’t chosen to stay and wait for answers. Whatever they were, he dreaded learning.

The sun lost its comforting glimmer as it escaped into the quiet folds of the purple sky outside the fading clarity that came through the cafe’s windows, and the warm lights of the shop clicked off one by one, indicating the end of a day’s work. Tables wiped down, every chair stacked except Luci’s, Alastor finished locking up the back and cleaning the coffee machines. Everyone else had gone home. The darkness that wrapped the two of them up into foreboding circumstances like a prickly blanket made Luci’s skin crawl, and a shiver drenched his spine when the final light clicked off in the shop and drowned him in darkness.

Through the shadows of sunset, Luci watched the tall figure approaching, his crimson red eyes and pearl smile glistening against the dark like they were floating through a pit of pitch black.

“Shall we walk?” Alastor’s voice cut through the fog.

It should have comforted Luci. It didn’t.

Luci gathered up his computer bag and thin coat, and looked up into those deep red eyes. “Let’s get out of here,” he managed, his voice caught in a thin tremor.

As he stood, his demonish companion stalked towards the front entrance, keys jangling in his hands. They pushed out into the parting light of the evening, only a degree less dark than the suffocating void of the shop. Luci’s hands trembled as he clutched his computer bag close to him.

Alastor had ditched his brown apron. His stark white button up contrasted the night, but the thick wool frock coat he wore open on top blended into the sky as its dark brown hues picked up the lightest blacks of the night. He carried a cane. Luci found that odd, especially given he didn’t so much use it to walk as lean on when they stopped.

He locked the shop tight behind them and breathed in the silence of the night.

Which was when Luci realized the emptiness of the street. An empty street on Sunday night in the tourist district in the early months of fall felt more horrifying than the dark to Luci’s fragile mind. He gripped his bag tighter.

Alastor tapped his cane lightly on the ground as they walked. “What do you say to dinner?”

Luci froze, heart trapped in a beating cycle that took him from hands shaking to palms sweating in the blink of an eye. “I…” What was he supposed to do? Turn down the man he’d been pining after all week? If somewhat poorly, to be fair. The dark scared Luci, and Alastor’s actions were scaring Luci, but he much rather dreaded walking home alone. With the streets oddly empty, Luci’s only hope of staying away from harm’s reach was to run into it head on with the strangest barista he’d ever had the pleasure of knowing.

“Sure,” he managed. “Lead the way.”

And so they took off down the darkening streets as twilight gave way to night. The streetlights never flickered on, Luci realized as they crossed an intersection and turned onto a smallest side street leading out of the tourist district. All the best restaurants were behind them. Luci’s heart beat faster.

“Beautiful night, isn’t it?” Alastor asked. His grin cut through Luci’s skin and prickled the hair on the back of his neck.

Luci didn’t respond.

“I find the best things always come about at night.” His long legs strode along at a pace that kept Luci just at an uncomfortably fast walk to keep up. “The world is full of the unfavorable, but night brings peace with its darkness, don’t you think? It’s difficult to find what can’t be seen.”

“Which makes it easier to fear,” Luci muttered.

“Ah, but fear is just temporary, isn’t it?” Alastor stopped, his face reflecting the red of a changed stop light. “They’re always watching me, Lucifer,” he said, smile wide, eyes beady. “But even they can’t see in the dark.”

Luci didn’t want to ask. Frankly, he wanted to run and hide under his covers. But the part of his not torrentially terrified instead worried for his friend. If he could call Alastor that. “Who… who’s they?”

His lips curled around his teeth to make the eternal smile dreadful and cold. A green light bathed over his skin, washing the brown into a sickly color like ash. He began walking. Luci had no choice but to follow, the question lingering in the air like a bomb that would come to fall as soon as it mattered. Maybe as soon as darkness faded and they—whoever they were—started watching again.

“Quite beautiful, tonight,” Alastor repeated. He craned his neck skyward and gazed at the stars with a sad longing making its quiet way into his deep-etched smile. “Look at the stars.”

Luci couldn’t remember how long he’d been living in the city for. Sure, he’d just started his job at the new big corporate office building and thus transferred coffee shops, but he’d had his apartment for as long as he could remember, and was a big officiate of using public transportation and his short little legs to get around the bustling city. That, and avoiding weirdos, rats, college kids, and businessmen taking things just a bit too seriously. Luci knew this city. He knew its street names and intersections. He knew its high-rise buildings and musty underground.

He’d never seen the stars before.

And yet there they were, like little pinpricks of light poked through the bottom of an empty plastic cup. They twinkled almost magically, and made Luci fear the dark just a little less. For a moment he just stared, marveling in their beauty, forgetting the chill of the night and the dark wrapping around him. He could hear Alastor’s soft breath next to him as the two of them just existed on the quiet streets.

Then, as if coming from a trance, Luci blinked and looked away from the sky. He frowned. “This is impossible.”

“Why, I haven’t seen starts in quite some time,” Alastor voiced. “I think you’re darn right it’s near impossible. A little miracle they’ve shown up for us tonight, don’t you think?”

“How…”

Alastor smiled and shook his head, ushering them to keep walking. They’d hardly made it a few blocks from the main tourist district despite Alastor’s fast stride. “I think the last time I saw stars must have been back when… well now, that was certainly a while ago, wasn’t it?”

Luci cocked an eyebrow. Despite the dark, Alastor keyed into his expression and kept talking.

“You know, you’re not the first friendly face I’ve had to keep me company while I work.”

Luci’s heart sank. He wasn’t special, just another regular on a list. Alastor probably had twenty orders memorized for the busy morning rush.

Alastor saw his look. “No, no. Don’t worry. This was a long time ago. Things couldn’t be more different now. Besides, he was tall and handsome and all, but he didn’t have your charm—not for a mile.”

“You… think I’m charming?”

“And anyway, he got run over by a bus.”

Luci stopped walking. He tried to get a good read on Alastor’s expression—see the teasing glint in his eyes—but this time it was vacant, just a sad smile and eyes set in a stony stare. Alastor looked at Luci. “Oh, don’t worry,” he smiled. “Awful things usually happen to the people I like.”

Before Luci could ask for more detail, or if Alastor happened to be joking about the whole thing, or if there was some way Alastor could kindly not get attached to Luci so he didn’t have to get run over by a bus, Alastor kept talking. Making it worse. And making Luci certain that Alastor wasn’t your average barista, and he’d just stumbled into something serious, dangerous, and maybe a little bit supernatural.

“Before that face there was this guy from Italy. He was nice, sure. Real shame what happened to him. And then there was this other guy… not to mention the girl before him… and a few more before that. Honestly I don’t really remember. After a while they all start to blend together. The tragedies melt into one.” He smiled. “The good news is it hurts less when the next one happens.”

Heart beating faster than Luci could register, he stared into Alastor’s hurting gaze. “How… long have you been working there?”

Alastor shrugged off the question. He turned a corner, forcing Luci to keep up and stay in stride beside him. “A while, I suppose. A few years. Five, maybe? Six?”

“That’s a long time to be paying for school. You have to be close now, don’t you?”

His grin chilled right as a breeze sliced through the evening, turning Luci’s little jacket like a weather vein and cooling his veins to ice.

“I would be,” Alastor said. “Except I keep having to take out my savings. It’s the only way to pay for… my….” The words seemed to hurt him physically to speak, as though he hated saying them or something else held him back. He touched a hand to his head, calmed, and the pained look retreated just a bit. “My surgeries,” he spoke.

“That’s where you were yesterday,” Luci realized, though he wasn’t sure how he knew. Alastor had no physical bandages, no impairments, and had taken little to no recovery time. Wouldn’t a surgery put him out from work for months?

Alastor gave a slight nod. His smile seemed more like a mask across his face than ever before. “There’s something wrong in my head,” he said. “That’s what they told me.”

They. That word again. Luci knew deep down it would hurt Alastor a lot more than the pain he’d put himself through tonight just telling Luci this much to get more information out of him. Luci desperately needed to know who they were, and if they were putting his friend at risk, but he couldn’t bring himself to ask. It didn’t feel fair, especially if they really were watching when it wasn’t dark out. Instead, Luci asked a different question. One with just as much weight.

“Alastor, why do you always smile?”

He stopped walking. His head turned without his body, like an owl or a puppet on strings, eyes glowing much more like the latter than the former. “I do?” He paused to consider, lips curled, teeth flashing, gaze sending spools of terror down Luci’s spine. “I suppose I do. One of the quirks of customer service, I suppose.”

“No, that’s not it.” Luci didn’t know how to say it. He didn’t know how to make Alastor understand. “Even employees are allowed to cry. That’s what the walk-in freezer is for. Don’t you ever feel sad?”

Alastor started walking abruptly, faster than before. Luci had to run to catch up. “My feelings don’t matter, Lucifer. Why would they? I’m only here to make the customers happy. The more people in the store, the happier the manager. Happy customers, happy manager… why wouldn’t I always smile?”

“Doesn’t it hurt you? To live like this?”

And then he stopped. With his back turned to Lucifer, a few strides ahead of him, Luci didn’t see that Alastor’s expression in that moment dared to waver. “Lucifer,” Alastor’s strong voice cut through the night. “His job may be to watch, but be forewarned his ears are just as sharp. He will hear, and then they will try to tear me further apart.”

“I… can protect you from them.” Luci didn’t know if he could, but he wanted to try. He’d never wanted anything more than to keep Alastor from harm. His smile may have been strong, but Luci had never heard more pain in a person’s voice.

“No. You can’t.”

Then he turned, smile wide, eyes blank, devoid of pain. Something shifted, clicked, washed away. The pain had vanished. “Sorry about that, I seem to have gotten lost. Where were we off to again?”

Luci took a step forward. His chest hurt. His heartbeat had slowed, but now felt like a low, heavy drum in his ribcage. Each breath that filled his lungs took effort, but that didn’t stop him from placing a hand lightly on Alastor’s arm. “I’m not going to let you go through this alone.”

Alastor’s hand lashed out and grabbed Luci’s wrist. Cold, spindly fingers wrapped their way around his arm like ice constricting until the blood cut off from his hand. “Help me,” he gasped. “You… you’re different from the others. You have to save me before it’s too late and you’re gone too. I don’t know how. You can’t defeat them… but you have to… to….” He blinked.

The blood returned to Luci’s arm as Alastor let go, but the icy touch lingered. Luci couldn’t move. He couldn’t speak.

“Sorry,” Alastor said, that same vacant customer service expression climbing back into his eyes and his smile. “We were going somewhere.”

“Dinner,” Luci managed.

Alastor snapped his fingers. “That’s right!” He glanced around. “Well.. I did a poor job of that, didn’t I? I’ve led us in a giant circle, haven’t I?”

Luci glanced around. He could have sworn it happened in an instant. Suddenly they were standing on a bustling street, bright orange bulbs pouring polluted light into the dim air, sky a murky purplish orange with no stars in sight. People filled restaurants, strutted around with new shopping purchases, and took pictures in front of the historical buildings. They were on the corner of Elm and 42nd, in front of a dim and dark coffee shop. Luci’s eyes went wide. He looked at Alastor.

Alastor rubbed his head. “I’ll have to apologize. I don’t feel very well, and I’m not hungry at all anymore. You’ll have to excuse me, I think I should go home.”

“That’s… fine,” Luci said. His mind swirled like the heavy duty setting on the laundromat dryer. “Get some rest.”

They parted ways. Luci hardly remembered his feet carrying him back the few blocks to his apartment complex. He hardly remembered collapsing onto his rocky mattress, still dressed, shoes still on his feet.

When he woke the next morning, it wasn’t until Luci remembered the chilling feeling of Alastor’s icy touch on his arm that he realized it hadn’t all just been a dream.

Monday came like a slap in the face, and with it, the responsibilities of a tedious career came flooding back into Luci’s unflattering reality. His mind boggled with the unfortunate horrors of the night before, Luci could barely make his sleep-ridden fingers work well enough to button his white collared shirt and tie his candy-red tie. Even with a shower and a healthy dose of hair gel, cowlick riddled Luci’s hair in a way only Mondays could provide.

After the night before, he dreaded returning to the coffee shop, but in his sleepless condition, he didn’t have much of a choice. So Luci prodded his way down the street, rubbing the sleep from his eyes, and nearly ran over several pedestrians in his bumbling wake.

To his surprise, a joyful number of people crowded the shop. Even with the weekend tourists gone, the business-folk and college students filled the cafe and gave its employees much to do. This included Alastor—his familiar smile brightening the cheery atmosphere despite the early hour on a Monday. After only a week, Luci couldn’t believe the changes in the barista. The first day they met, Luci found him odd, if not charming, if not a little creepy. Now, nearly all his malicious, spooky energy had been drained or turned into a simpler charm. His expression, voice, mussed-up hair, and quirky remarks were all untouched, but his eyes. His eyes lacked what had first drawn Luci to them.

One might even miss the sadness that glimmered in them, but Luci certainly never would. Never again.

When Luci’s turn came to order, he dreaded the conversation, and not for its awkwardness this time. He feared Alastor would try to play everything off as normal, and Luci knew he wouldn’t be able to do the same.

“Caramel macchiato?”

Of course. That fake smile grated on Luci’s patience. “Are you okay? You had me terrified last night.”

Alastor studied Luci’s worried expression. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

“I only mean…” Luci sucked his teeth. He didn’t want to sound offensive. “You missed work on Saturday for… reasons we talked about, and I only wonder if you’re not still experiencing some undesirable side effects that are impacting how you’re… behaving. Or maybe perceiving things.” At Alastor’s look of confusion, Luci tried to justify more. He worried he was only digging himself deeper into a hole. “You forgot where we were going. You seemed distracted. You wouldn’t answer my questions. I just want to know if you’re doing alright, Alastor.”

The red-haired barista tilted his head to the side. “Well this isn’t my first time working after a surgery, pal. I’ve been doing it for years.” He typed Luci’s order into the computer. “To go today, I’m assuming?”

“Right,” Luci muttered. “Listen, I’ve got a break today around lunch time. Can you take your break then too? I don’t think we’re done talking.”

That got him a laugh, which confused Luci. No longer could Luci catch on to when Alastor was teasing him, and he feared Alastor could no longer sense Luci’s sincerity. “Well I’m certainly charmed you’re asking me out, Lucifer, but I don’t believe now’s an appropriate time. There’s a line behind you.”

Luci glanced back. He hardly paid attention to the people. “Agree to meet me later, and I’ll leave.”

“I would,” he lamented, with a smile still plastered to his face that gave it an air of sarcasm Luci couldn’t read. “But for two things. I’m afraid the manager doesn’t give me much of a break. I’ll be working until closing again today. Pity, it does make eating things difficult. Good thing I don’t have a big appetite.”

“And the second?” A knot began to form in the pit of Luci’s stomach that writhed like a live snake.

“He can see us in the daytime.” Alastor grinned. “Shame, isn’t it?”

Luci couldn’t hide the horror that crept into his face. He took a step back from the counter. “To go is fine,” he managed. “And please take care of yourself. I… worry a little too much sometimes. Most of the time.” He reached into a pocket and pulled out his wallet. “You don’t deserve to suffer, Alastor.”

Alastor gave him a quaint little smile filled with his lovable charm, rang Luci up, and bid him farewell.

Small talk did the barista perfectly well, but what did Luci really know about him beyond that? He needed to find out more, he decided. About all of this. The walk to work filled his mind with questions he hoped he could find the answers to. And when he got home that night, Luci pulled out his computer once more, dug up some old social media accounts, and—inevitably—stuck his head in a dusty old book.

Lucifer walked into the coffee shop just after noon on Wednesday. He carried under his arm a tome of history dating back several centuries nearly dusty enough to trigger his allergies and nearly too heavy for him to carry at all. Dressed in a black hoodie, white sweatpants, and a ratty pair of sneakers, his hair stuck up so badly a bird might have been nesting in it, and bags hung beneath his eyes like bats clinging to the ceiling of a cave.

He hadn’t slept in days. He’d missed work yesterday—hadn’t even gone to the coffee shop. But now he held answers, and questions that needed to be asked.

The other customers—less, thankfully, due to the later hour—eyed him strangely as he marched up to the counter and slammed the book down in front of Alastor. “I know what’s wrong with you,” he declared.

Alastor gave him a friendly smile. “Ah, good to see you again. I missed you yesterday. The usual?”

“I don’t need coffee,” Luci managed. He knew how crazy he must look. He felt crazy. He just wanted confirmation that he’d found the right information. That he wasn’t crazy, but right, and maybe what he’d learned could help Alastor. “You need to answer me some questions.”

“I see. It’s a game, is it?” Alastor seemed to notice the book for the first time. “What’s your prop?” H e read the gold title. “Demonic Possessions and Other Satanic Oddities in Early America. Lucifer, why do you own a book like this? Or did you check it out at the library?” He grinned. “Are you alright?”

“This isn’t about me.” Luci’s fingers twitched. He had no sleep in his system. He couldn’t feel emotions anymore, only exhaustion and a strange jitteriness and the possibility of uncovering the truth. “I looked you up online last night. I checked Instagram, Facebook, Linkedin, Twitter… I even checked MySpace. You’re a ghost. You don’t exist anywhere.”

He laughed and held up his hands. “I’ll admit, I’m not a master with technology. Social media has me in a twist these days and I just can’t seem to figure it out.”

“But you’re a college student. You’ve been taking classes, and you work in a coffee shop. More than that, you’re an art student. I find it hard to believe a college theater major doesn’t have a few friends who could teach him how to make an Instagram to showcase his portfolio, don’t you think?”

“You’re saying things I don’t quite understand,” Alastor said. “And sorry to say, I don’t have many friends. Just you and the other regulars who say hi.”

“Exactly,” Luci said. He cracked open the book and started flipping through its aged, dusty pages as he talked. “You don’t have friends, you don’t understand how the modern world works. You don’t have a life outside this shop besides going to class. It’s almost as if you were born in the wrong decade. Life just wasn’t made for you, was it?”

“Lucifer, how does this help you order a coffee?”

Luci looked up into Alastor’s red eyes. “What year is it?”

“Excuse me?”

“Year,” Luci demanded. He flipped through a few more pages and suppressed the urge to sneeze from the buildup of dust. “Please.”

“I… I’m not sure I’ve quite kept track.” He glanced up, then tapped his chin. “If I’ve been working here for five or six years, and I started back in… now when did I start?” He gave Luci a look. “Oh, I’m just not sure. Nineteen… ten, perhaps?”

Luci stopped his incessant flipping of pages. He slowly raised his gaze. “Wow,” he said. “I’d theorized this but… I didn’t really think I’d be right.” He let out an exhale. “You really think it’s the nineteen hundreds?”

Alastor gave a little nod. “Am I wrong?”

“Very.” Luci hadn’t been expecting this. Well, he had, but not like this. He’d suspected Alastor wouldn’t know the exact year—that he’d been working longer than he thought and couldn’t quite remember—but this? Alastor really didn’t know at all. And yet here he was, using a touch screen to take orders and getting payment from people’s phones. He was living in the 21st century and didn’t even realize what it was. “Alastor, that was over a hundred years ago.”

“Oh.”

Now Luci couldn’t read his expression at all. His smile was small, his eyes still dim and sad, as an inkling of confusion spread across his sharp face, but Luci could have been imagining the whole thing. Did Alastor seem surprised? He couldn’t tell.

“You’ve been a student for over a hundred years. You’ve been working here for a long time.”

“Well I expect because student loans aren’t cheap, wouldn’t you agree?”

“Because of the surgeries. Because of what’s wrong with you.” Luci felt the bite of the words as soon as he spoke them. He retreated. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—”

“Lucifer, tell me what you came here to say or order your drink.” He gave a smile, this time noticeably wry. “We’re encroaching on information I don’t enjoy talking about.”

Luci nodded. He flipped to a page in the book near the latter half. Making up half the page was an ink sketch of a group of young scholars dressed in late 19th century attire like frock coats, tailcoats, big pipe hats, canes, and fashionable ties. They were surrounding a circle on the ground—a classic satanic ritual circle complete with lit candles, a painted pentagram, and smoking incense. But what stood out about the image was the figure, a shadow of a man, floating over the summoning. Tall and lanky, with eyes that stared off the page, and hair spiky enough to resemble animal ears. Long antlers stretched up from the shadows of his head and wrapped around the scene almost like claws reaching out to snatch the nearest soul. But the token of his figure was the devilish smile etched through the very essence of his form.

“I don’t have a lot of books,” Luci admitted. “And less on history. When I realized you might not be from… well, this time, I figured I might find a clue in the one history book I own.” Luci flipped the giant book so Alastor could see. “And then I saw this.” Luci opened his mouth, then closed it. He shook his head. “I don’t really know what it means. I’ve been trying to find out. I thought maybe you might remember something.”

Alastor’s smile wavered. “I don’t think I ever forgot it.”

“This is you,” Luci said. He stared at the barista, who in turn stared intently at the image.

“I believe so, yes.”

“And?” Luci leaned forward. “You’re… whatever this thing is? You’re not human? What does it mean? Who are you, Alastor?”

Alastor blinked. His smile stretched wider but gained no emotion. “I think you’ve asked quite enough. Do you want coffee?”

“Alastor, this is too big for you to ignore! You can’t admit something like this and push it off a second later!”

“They are watching me, Lucifer. You keep forgetting that.” Alastor shook his head. “They are going to kill you for this.” He tapped in Luci’s order and stuck out a hand for his card. “I’ll see you in the next life.”

“The next life?” Luci didn’t move a hand toward his wallet. “I don’t understand. Who are they? And why would they kill me for trying to help you understand who you are? If you’re getting surgeries, wouldn’t they want you to get better?”

“Not if they’re trying to keep me here.” Alastor grabbed a cup and wrote Luci’s name on it. He turned to go start making Luci’s coffee. “I… I really will miss you, Luci. I promise I’ll remember you. You aren’t going to fade, like the other ones.” He exhaled. “It was nice to have a different Face for once.” And then he walked away from the counter, leaving Luci standing there in his ratty two-day-old sweatshirt with a dusty book and more unanswered questions than ever. For some reason, the fun little side plot of his life had taken over everything. Luci couldn’t even remember what he was supposed to be doing at work. He couldn’t remember anything but this quaint little coffee shop with a barista who’d been a demon in another century.

Luci set a wad of cash on the counter and picked up his coffee from the end of the line. He glanced back, hoping to see Alastor’s friendly face one last time before he left, but Alastor wasn’t there at all. He’d disappeared—probably into the back. Dread settled over Luci as he wondered if he’d ever see that red-haired demon again.

And the dread continued as clouds obscured the sun and Luci made his way back to his apartment with a giant book under one arm, sipping coffee far too bitter today. He couldn’t get over the feeling that someone was watching him as he walked. A pair of eyes trailed behind him, breathing in time with each step he took, peering over his shoulder just out of his own line of sight, listening to any word he might utter. Even with the deep gray hold of clouds hanging in the sky, enough light penetrated the afternoon sky to ensure that he could watch.

And watch he did.

Chapter Text

Luci slammed through the door to his apartment and dropped the heavy book on his floor with a boom. He locked his door, then did, undid, and redid the deadbolt just to be sure. With coffee stains coating much of the surface of his white pants thanks to his mostly-spilled drink, Luci tried to calm his trembling hands and rest his beating heart.

No one had followed him home, he told himself. No one wanted him dead. Alastor was just being paranoid.

Alastor, the hundred-year-old demon who’d been forced to work against his will by mysterious captors, was paranoid that those people might want to kill Luci for being too nosy.

No, Luci was right to be terrified. He checked the lock on the door one more time.

Luci took a shaky breath and tried to exhale slowly, calmly. Even if there were people out there watching him, following him, trying to kill him for interfering in their business, what were they to do now? They couldn’t exactly break into his house without serious allegations. Luci glanced at his phone. Should he call the cops? And tell them what, exactly? It didn’t even make sense to him.

Just as Luci’s rambling thoughts began to settle and his breathing began to return to a normal pace, a sound like thunder struck his eardrums with so much power it took him tumbling backwards and pulled his feet out from under him. He landed on his back, sprawled in the middle of his hardwood floor, groaning.

BANG. The sound came again, so powerful it would’ve knocked the breath out of Luci had he not already been struggling to breathe from getting the wind knocked out of him. Now, that familiar tickling feeling of fear began to creep back up his spine. He seized up just as another drum echoed through his skull. BANG.

The door rattled on its hinges, white plaster raining down from the ceiling. Luci stared, propped up on his elbows. He felt like his heart might explode in his chest. The sound, the resounding terror kept him frozen in place, firmly planted on the ground like a weed in a sidewalk crack. The door could burst open, tearing the deadbolt from the frame, and Luci wouldn’t so much as scream. He certainly wouldn’t have it in him to run.
They were here. They were really here to kill him, just like Alastor said. What once had been all flirting and small talk, all theories and late-night walks, had so suddenly turned into a living nightmare.

Luci’s phone buzzed next to him, a slow repeated drone with jolts every second. He yelped, then slapped a hand over his mouth. He checked who was calling him, worried it would be an unknown number, worried he’d somehow entered into one of those old slasher films.

It wasn’t. It was his boss.

Relaxing a bit, Luci glanced at the door. The banging had stopped.

He answered. “Lucifer speaking.” He couldn’t stop his voice from shaking. At least now whoever was trying to break into his apartment knew he wasn’t completely alone. At least now his boss could call the police when he inevitably got brutally murdered or something like that.

“Lucifer, open the door.”

Luci choked. “What?”

“It’s me, you dipshit. I’m standing outside your apartment. I’ve got some things I wanna say straight to your ratty little face.”

Luci glanced back at the door. A shadow shuffled outside, impatient, looming. He realized he was still sprawled out on the floor and quickly pushed himself to his feet. “Can you… verify that it’s really you? Like knocking two times fast, one time slow or something?”

“Lucifer, don’t be an idiot. Open the door.”

“Yes, sir.” Luci undid the deadbolt and swung open the door. There stood his boss in his perfectly ironed navy blue three piece suit contrasted by the blazing red of his tie. He’d combed his blond hair down against the boxy shape of his head, so that his ears were just covered and the square of his jaw cut a more noticeable line. He was tall, offset by the bulk of his form. Massive square shoulders, tapered waist, the works. When he flashed Luci his signature smile, his teeth were the victims of over-whitening, blindingly white but brittle, like old plaster. He gave ‘corporate’ a face, gave ‘privileged’ a poster child.

Vox gave Luci’s room a single lookover and wrinkled his nose. “What’s with the ducks?”

Luci blushed. He’d grown so used to the mess sometimes he didn’t even notice it, but it was true. He owned a lot of ducks. Every inch of the space on bookshelves not filled with books about waterfowl was covered in little wooden ducks, big wooden ducks, rubber ducks, pictures of ducks, artistic renditions of ducks, and everything else. Several hundred covered the various tables in the small apartment, leeching onto the floor. A few half-carved ducks sat in front of the small TV, where Luci had been watching a duck documentary before. He couldn’t do anything to cover the ducks. Maybe he could smother himself in ducks and Vox would leave him alone.

He gave a frightened laugh. “Yeah… I like… ducks.”

The CEO rolled his eyes. “Whatever. Listen, Lucifer. I’ve been in charge of this company for a very long time and it frustrates me greatly when interns like yourself think they can walk all over my operations and mess up my whole system.”

“Sir, if this is about the printer paper…”

“It’s about you brushing off your duties! You haven’t been returning my calls, you won’t respond to my emails… where have you been for the past two days? This is unacceptable!” He threw his hands, then immediately straightened out the wrinkles in his suit and gave a corporate smile. “Lucifer, your position in my company is valuable. I can just as easily take it away from you as I gave it to you. You wouldn’t want to be reassigned again, would you?”

“You mean fired.” Luci wrung his hands. He didn’t know what to tell his boss. Luci was pretty certain Vox wasn’t looking for ‘I got obsessed with a coffee shop barista and found out he’s a demon from another century’ would go over well with corporate. “I… I’m sorry about my behavior. It won’t happen again.”

Vox raised an eyebrow. “It won’t? Really?” He barked a laugh. “Well, that’s news to me, jackass. Last time I checked, you don’t have a great record. What was it? Oh yeah, you’re different. ‘Different’ isn’t really a good thing in this line of work, sweetheart.”

Luci tried not to follow Vox’s eyes on his piles and piles of ducks. He tried not to draw attention to his leg bouncing, or his hands fidgeting. He tried to straighten up and look taller, but in his sweatshirt and stained pants, he looked like a fake. Maybe he was. “I’m trying my best.”

“Yeah, well, try harder, moron.” Vox picked up a duck from the end table and spun it in his fingers. “And this isn’t just about you missing work, which is punishable enough. Frankly, I should fire your ass here and now. Your performance otherwise is… downright terrible, if I’m being honest.”

Luci bit his lip. “I understand.”

Vox chuckled. He set the duck down. “If I didn’t think you were clearly struggling with something, I wouldn’t be so nice to you. But Corporate says we need to keep our employees diverse, and you’re weird enough for that.” He flashed another branded smile. “Basically, you need to step it up, or I’m canning your ass. This is your first warning. Don’t make me give you a second.” He grabbed the door. “I expect to see you working tomorrow. No weirdness. No ducks. Just do what needs to be done and get on with it.”

“Yes sir.” Luci swallowed, trying hard to keep Vox from seeing how close to tears he was.

Vox opened the door. He paused, glancing at Luci’s coffee-stained pants. “How’s the new coffee place?”

Small talk? After all that? It made Luci sick. “Fine,” he managed. “Good, actually. The people are nice.”

Vox scoffed. “Until you’re ready to behave like an adult again, I better not see you back there again. Sugary coffee is for the weak, anyway. Am I clear?”

It was like a punch in the gut. Restricting Luci’s work life, telling him he needed to have better performance, sure. But the moment Vox punished his personal life, that was crossing a line. Luci only belonged to Vox and his corporate enterprise in that stupid office building. How he spent his time outside of that shouldn’t have been any of Vox’s concern. Still, Luci couldn’t stop himself from opening his mouth and saying, “yes, sir.”

And then Vox left, and Luci was alone again with his ducks and his giant history book and his thoughts. He didn’t like his thoughts.

Only after he’d eaten a small dinner and gotten ready for bed did Luci realize that the feeling that had been watching him had gone away. With a chilling fear, Luci crawled into bed and wondered if, perhaps, it was only because the sun had set.

“You’re not dead!” Alastor sounded genuinely surprised. He started tapping Luci’s order into the screen without a second thought. “You really had me scared, there.”

“No coffee today,” Luci breathed. He took in all of Alastor’s face that he could in the short time. He’d missed that smile. It hadn’t even been that long, had it? Had he really only been in there with the history book yesterday? It felt like weeks. “Alastor, I think he’s watching me too, now.”

Alastor’s smile turned into a little laugh. “Well, of course he is. You’re not doing what you’re supposed to.”

Luci frowned. “And what’s that?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Not causing trouble, I guess? You come in here spitting theories with a giant book and it’s bound to pull some eyes.”

Luci leaned into the counter. He glanced around to make sure no one was watching. Thankfully, today was a quieter day. “Are they… like you?” he whispered.

Alastor grinned. “If by that you mean charming, not by a large margin. As for… the other thing, I can only guess. They’re older than I am, I suppose.” He tested the sharpness of one of his canines and rubbed his fingers together nonchalantly. “There are some questions I don’t know the answer to even after however long it’s been, and that’s fine with me. I’m almost done paying for school anyway.”

Luci shook his head. “But… don’t you care what’s happening to you? And to me now?”

“Not really. You’re going to go away after a while anyway. Then it’ll all start over again.”

A bang sounded from the kitchen behind Alastor. Luci flinched. Alastor’s boss, the manager of the whole place, came tumbling through the doors, cursing and waving his arms as smoke curled up from his head in whisps. The ring of gray hair around the top of his head was stuck up in places, almost like a crown with singed black mixed in. His eyes were an angry, beady black emphasized by his giant bushy eyebrows that had lines of gray depleting their darkness. Despite his graying hair, his skin still looked young, with fewer wrinkles than Luci would’ve expected and a deep tan tone that was contrasted by the white in his bushy beard. He wore his collared shirt rolled up at the sleeves—also smoking—and a brown apron like Alastor’s.

“Alastor!” he snapped. “You left the oven on.”

Alastor rolled his eyes through his tight smile. “Excuse me one moment,” he told Luci, then to his manager, “and I’m sure that’s precisely why you’ve chosen to be upset with me today, isn’t it?”

The manager bared his teeth and waved an angry finger at Alastor’s gleaming grin. “Listen here, kid. You’ve been stepping through a lot of shit that shouldn’t be pushed over, understand? I can’t have the boss on me for not keeping you under wraps. So keep your head in it, and we’ll all be better off. Got it?”

Luci watched the exchange with dread. He’d been on the other side of that counter not twenty-four hours ago and knew exactly how Alastor felt. It sucked to get chewed out by your boss. But working at a coffee shop? Seriously?

Alastor lifted his chin. “You won’t fire me.”

The manager laughed. “Ah, right again, kid. But I can make your life a living nightmare, if you know what I mean. Don’t make me.” Then he turned on his heel and marched back into the kitchen, his shirt still sending wisps of smoke into the air and threatening to set off all the smoke detectors.

Alastor blew out a puff of air. “Quite a day. Sorry you had to see all of that. You should be getting to work anyway, though, if you don’t want your own boss barking up your tree.”

Luci checked his watch. Alastor was right—he’d be late in another five minutes. He glanced at his friend. “Is… your manager in on all this?”

“Husk?” Alastor shrugged. “He’s just a little too uptight sometimes. Wouldn’t hurt me if it came down to my life or his, but he’s one to do his job. Can’t stop a man from trying to make a living.”

Luci blinked. Alastor hadn’t really answered his question, had he? He frowned. “You would answer all my questions if they weren’t watching us, wouldn’t you?”

The look in Alastor’s eyes told him all he needed to know. Yes, he would. Without a doubt. But even at night—especially at night—they might not be able to see, but they could still hear. He could still hear. And Luci knew for certain now that he was watching and listening, waiting for a chance to destroy all he could.

“I won’t be in tomorrow,” was what Alastor said instead. “Surgery.”

Luci’s heart fell. His stomach sank. “You…” He swallowed. “Good luck.” Then Luci left, without coffee, to go face his boss’s wrath for being late and for going back to the coffee shop. A knot in his stomach formed and grew as the day went on, worrying what would happen to Alastor tomorrow, or if he’d be the same when he returned.

Or if he’d return at all.

The next 24 hours were the worst of Luci’s life. As if to no help, it rained—a sleek downpour that turned into a misty fog—over the course of the day, with just enough light breaking through the dismal curtain of gray clouds to assure Luci he was still being watched. Not that he needed it. Every corner he turned, Luci expected someone to jump out and grab him. He started glancing over his shoulder every few seconds, which put an annoying crick in his neck. He jumped at loud noises more often than usual, started muttering to himself, and never showed up anywhere on time just in case they’d memorized his schedule.

He barely left home, but that hardly helped. Luci had to take all the mirrors in his apartment down because any movement he saw out of the corner of his eye freaked him out too badly. He wouldn’t open his blinds. He tried to live in darkness, but his fear of the dark was just as bad as his fear of the people who were watching him, which left him in a limbo of gray shadows and several lamps.

He didn’t go back to the coffee shop, obviously. He didn’t want to get out of bed. The world was too big—too scary—too unknown. So much could go wrong. Luci couldn’t control any of it, and that terrified him more than the dark. He wanted answers, and he wanted to help Alastor, and he wanted the terrible feeling of being watched to go away.

Saturday’s sun and warm weather came as a welcome change, but one that brought its own terrors. Even his thick curtains couldn’t block out the bright morning rays, which meant without a doubt that Luci was being watched. With grumbling purchase Luci rose, dressed himself below his usual standards but better than sweatpants, skipped his usual shower, and wandered down the road bustling with cheery tourists to the coffee shop. He’d half-heartedly slung his computer bag over his shoulder on the off chance he felt like catching up on some missed work, but he doubted it.

Luci had never seen the coffee shop so busy. With people came noise. With noise came way too much stimulation for Luci’s comfort, especially after the better part of a day without so much as light for stimulation. So instead of attempting the line stretching nearly out the door, Luci found the only unoccupied corner in the shop and tucked himself into the cozy leather nook. For a moment he simply sat and breathed, worried something bad would happen if he tried to do anything more than that. After a while, the ruckus seemed to dim a bit, and the smell of warm coffee calmed Luci down. He breathed easier. He considered pulling out his laptop, but instead decided to wait and see if Alastor would come over to talk with him as he had the past few times. Even if Luci hadn’t ordered anything, he had no doubt Alastor had seen him come in, and would be over to chat as soon as he got a break from the busy commotion.

Luci waited a long time. Nearly all day, in fact, just watching people come in and chat, and then leave with their coffees as the sky dimmed and colors filled the air. He kept expecting Alastor to come over. Even when Luci was one of the few people left in the shop at that hour in the evening, Alastor didn’t move from the counter. He didn’t move from his place, in fact, until he went to get a rag and wipe down the counters, then empty the cash register, then lock the back, close up the front, and turn off the lights.

Luci had almost forgotten himself until the darkness hit. He blinked. Shadows closed in on him, no less welcoming than before.

Alastor approached him, but with the dim shadows of the street lamps he almost seemed to have two forms: his own, and the haunting figure of his shadow looming over him, magnified in the darkness. The shadow almost seemed to carry Alastor’s smile—almost seemed to carry the intense stare in his eyes.

Alastor himself grinned and stepped into Luci’s little pool of light. For the first time all day, he acknowledged Luci. “Hate to say it but we’re closing for the day. Can I walk you out?”

Luci studied Alastor’s vacant grin. After his last surgery, he’d been different. A little more charismatic, a little less devilish and maliciously charming, with more vacancy behind his gaze. Now, it was as though those scales had tipped. Alastor had little evil left in his eyes. His clevernish had all but disappeared. Parallel with the giant crowd in the coffee shop today, Alastor himself exuded overwhelming levels of customer-service kindness.

Luci returned Alastor’s smile with some difficulty. “Actually, can we talk here for a moment?” His insides felt like rubber.

Alastor cocked an eyebrow. “A bit strange, but sure.” He slid into the seat across from Luci’s. WIthout his brown apron or his wool frock coat he looked the most like a normal guy Luci had ever seen him, just a simple white button-down with the sleeves cuffed at his forearm.

“I want you to tell me what’s happening,” Luci said. “It’s dark out. They’re already coming for me, they’re going to keep you here regardless, so tell me. I can take it.”

Alastor knit his eyebrows together, which juxtaposed his grin in a way Luci really didn’t like. “You’re going to have to be more specific,” he started. “Which part is confusing you?”

Luci threw his arms. “Who’s watching us? Where do you go when you get surgery? What are they doing to you? Who’s been holding you here the last hundred-some years?” He swallowed. “Why do they want to kill me for getting close to you, and what exactly have they done to the others you were close with?”

It took Alastor a long minute to respond. For a while, he simply sat there, smile wide but empty, brow furrowed, eyes flitting around as though trying to solve a math problem in his head. His lips twitched, muttering words Luci never heard. Finally, he spoke. “I don’t know.”

Anger flashed hot in Luci’s stomach for a moment, before he took a deep breath and let it calm. “Okay,” he said. “Okay. Can we try something easier?”

Alastor nodded.

“Why are you in school?”

“Because I want to be an actor. Or do radio. Maybe both.”

Luci nodded slowly, chewing his lip. “Right. But why here? What were you doing before school?”

“I…” Alastor paused, his smile tilted downward. “I’m not sure. I know I came to this city from… somewhere else. I’ve just been here for so long it’s hard to remember anything before that. I was young and searching for something exciting, and it led me here.”

“Do you have family?”

Alastor stared at him. “If I did, they're dead now.”

Luci cursed himself for asking such a shallow question. “Right. Sorry.” He paused, trying to figure out what else to say. “Who besides the people in the coffee shop do you talk to? Do you know the person who watches us?”
Alastor gave a small nod. “I know him. I know them all.”

That was something. Luci leaned in. “Them all?”

“The Five.”

The words sent chills through the air. For a moment, Luci remembered that someone was listening to every word they were saying in that dark cafe, even if he couldn’t see them through the thick shadows. Luci had spent days hiding from this figure, and now he was learning everything that would most certainly make this man more than intent on killing him for it. Too late. Luci needed to know.

“Can you tell me more?”

Alastor rubbed his head. “My apologies. It’s all getting muddled in my head. Surgeries always do terrible things to my memories. All I know is that one of them watches, and one of them does things to my head.”

The dark felt suffocating. Luci knew he was listening. He knew the moment he left Alastor’s presence, he wouldn’t make it until morning. He had to do something. Luci summoned his courage. “How about we get out of here? We could try that dinner thing again.”

But Alastor shook his head. “Not tonight, pal. My head hurts more than I care to admit and you’ve already drained me of my ability to give solid answers. Not much else I can do for you, I’m afraid.” He stood and pushed in his chair. “But seeing you again was lovely, though I wish you’d stop coming in so often. Bad for your health, I’m afraid.”

Luci knew what he said was true, but the words still hurt. “Alright,” he said. “You go home and rest.” It was like talking through a mouthful of gauze. He stopped. “One more thing, Alastor.”

Alastor gave him a glance.

“Why didn’t you come over and talk to me today?”

Alastor’s expression turned to panic for a brief second before his charismatic smile stepped in to cover it. “Busy day,” he said. “Awfully sorry.”

“Not even after the crowd died?”

“I had things to do. Things to wash. Husk keeps me running around, you know.” But Luci wasn’t so sure. And as he slowly rose and gathered his things to walk out of the shop while Alastor closed up behind them, he knew for certain something had changed within Alastor—a switch that flipped, and made him suddenly care more about his job than his friends. That was a dangerous thing.

“Thanks for the company,” Luci told him as they stopped on the street corner to part ways. “Maybe I’ll see you again tomorrow.”

Alastor gave him a grin. “Pleasure’s all mine.” And without another word, he turned and walked away down the street, his shadow making the street lights flicker as he passed, tapping his cane on the ground in time with his footsteps. The streets were empty again, Luci realized with a shiver, and the stars were bright in the sky.

Alone again, Luci’s stomach sank as he dreaded what would happen to him on his walk home. He wouldn’t make it. He’d end up dead in an alley.

Lucifer watched Alastor recede down the street.

Dead in an alley would be fine, so long as he got his answers.

Heart thumping in his chest, Luci shouldered his computer bag and started down the street after Alastor.

Chapter Text

Luci wasn’t sure what he’d been expecting. Maybe he thought Alastor would live in an old Victorian manor like his outfit would suggest. Maybe he thought Alastor would live in an evil lair. Maybe he thought Alastor would catch Luci following him before Luci ever saw his home. Probably that one.

The stars felt like thousands of tiny eyes ripping through his skin as Luci’s breath became the only sound to pierce the thick night air, his footsteps slow and deliberate. He kept Alastor just close enough to see his red hair as he turned corners and slipped through alleyways. It wasn’t always easy for Luci’s short legs to keep up with Alastor’s long strides, and the dark of the night without that residual light pollutant haze or street light shine made it even harder to see as Alastor wrapped himself in shadows and strode boldly through the night.

Luci was wheezing by the time he watched Alastor stop before an old apartment building not unlike his own, in a different neighborhood of the city. Luci slipped into an alleyway and watched. The building wasn’t anything special, just concrete thrown together so forcefully sections were cracking and crumbling away, with rusty latches on broken windows and bent drain pipes leading up to a flat roof with a few measly cables crisscrossing. Even at night, where shadows should have made the place feel creepy and twisted, it just felt sad.

Alastor punched a pin in at the front door and slipped inside. The lights on the street flickered back to life. Luci almost yelped. He watched a couple pass in front of him on the street, chatting happily, which jarred him back to reality. What was he doing? Luci couldn’t follow Alastor inside, so what was the point of all this?

Luci rubbed his tired eyes. Maybe he should just go home.

Then he spotted the twisted, rusted edges of a fire escape loosely bolted to one side of the building. The gears in Luci’s head started turning. He bit his lip. No. This was a stupid idea, and Luci knew all about stupid ideas, and he wasn’t going to make that mistake again.

But before he could stop himself, Luci’s soft steps were slinking across the road, and his hand caught this corroded metal ladder of the fire escape. He pulled himself up with only the slightest creak, and began his way up.

Peering through dim windows, Luci could see the homes of different residents. Most were modern, with little televisions and big sofas and washing machines, some were smaller and had newspapers and clothes lines crisscrossing the floor, or beds that were just mattresses on the ground. In most, Luci could see at least one person, and when he saw it wasn’t Alastor, he kept climbing.

When he found Alastor’s room, he knew it right away. The lights were dim, a warm orange that made the whole place feel like the lit fireplace in the mantle. The furniture looked old, stained with thick carvings and dense polished wood. There was a piano tucked into one corner, ripe with dust. The walls were covered in art, old framed photos with films of dust that were mostly abstract, deep blacks and deeper reds that formed strange shapes. Piles of books sat on the ornate furniture, an old radio sat on the mantle above the lit fireplace, and a woman sat on the velvet sofa, leafing through a magazine.

She was short, with flashy pink and black hair, dark skin, eyes that glimmered in the firelight dark with eyeliner, and a magenta coat the length and style of a lab coat. The magazine she flipped through was a fashion edition.

Luci would’ve kept climbing when he saw her, but Alastor opened the door the second after Luci took in the room. He slammed the door roughly behind him and slipped off his coat, hanging it on the coat rack. The sleeves of his button-up were still rolled up from his work. In the orange glow from the fire, his shadow extended behind him almost as though towering above him. Luci shivered.

“Ah, you’re here,” Alastor said through clenched teeth. “I thought I had more time.”

The woman on the sofa crossed her legs and batted her eyes at Alastor. “Oh, well, that’s not why I’m here, doll, not really. It can be if you’d like.” She pulled a pair of scissors from the pocket of her coat and began cutting an image out of the magazine.

Alastor gave a pained smile. “What do you want, Velvette?” He looked tired.

“Sit down, let’s talk,” she said, offering him his own armchair.

He didn’t take it, instead leaning against the side of it with his arms crossed and his grin a skillful challenge.

“You’ve been causing us quite a bit of trouble,” she said, holding up the figure she’d cut out—one of the models. “Safe to say things have gotten out of hand.”

“Why isn’t Lucifer dead yet?” Alastor asked.

Luci’s heart caught in his throat. Did Alastor want him dead? But no, the tone of his voice sounded more genuine. Alastor had seemed surprised when Luci had showed up alive at the cafe a few days ago. Maybe Luci really was supposed to be dead. The thought scared him. So why wasn’t he?

“Why indeed,” Velvette echoed. “Trust me, we’ve been trying to kill him since you started telling him things. So the real question is, what have you done to him that’s making him so loyal, and so damn unkillable?”

Alastor shrugged. “If only I knew. I would’ve done it ages ago.”

Alastor seemed much too content with having this conversation, Luci thought. This girl obviously had power over him. Was she the one who’d been watching this whole time? With a shiver, Luci realized she must be.

Velvette took her scissors and cut the head off the model she’d carved out of the magazine. “Maybe this just means you’re due for another appointment, doll.”

At this, Alastor made a low noise in his throat like a growl. “And the alternative?”

The girl shrugged. “We’re out of options, Al. We’ve been keeping you tame, keeping you friendly and happy and starved of any real hunger for power, and in exchange you’ve kept the better part of your mind. Maybe it’s time we take the rest of it away.” She gave him a grin of her own. “With Lucifer a wildcard, what else is there to do?”

“You can’t,” Luci whispered.

Alastor narrowed his eyes, his smile like a light flickering to hang on to hope, but fading fast. “I’ve been playing your game far too long. The Five’s hold on me is supposed to end once I make enough to finish school. So why can’t you let me leave?”

To this, Velvette let out a laugh. She cut strips from the rest of the figure, then went back to the magazine with her scissors. “Please, doll. Don’t you get it? We were never going to let you leave. You made a deal with us, but you’ll never have enough money to walk away from it. That’s the whole point! This was made to contain you, keep you happy, keep you from turning… dangerous on us.”

We? Luci’s heart was pounding in his chest. He could hear the thumping through his eardrums, making it harder and harder to think. The Five. Velvette wasn’t working alone.

“You let me have hope.” Alastor shook his head. “And now you tell me, because you’re going to take away my mind once and for all.”

“Bingo.” Velvette grinned. “It really is one of the best plans we’ve come up with. High maintenance, sure, but with such an excellent payout. We keep you trapped for all eternity, and you give us powers we’ve never imagined just by getting my little surgeries every once and a while. And bonus, I get to keep you smiling. Always.”

Luci's palms nearly slipped from the rail they were so wet with sweat. He felt warm and dizzy. His pulse quickened even more. He had to do something. He had to help Alastor before they took away his memories, but how could he?

Luci chewed his lip. The Five were trying to kill him, weren’t they? But they hadn’t succeeded, which meant they hadn’t figured out how yet. So… Luci couldn’t die—not to them, at least. They couldn’t kill him. He could save Alastor.

Luci rested his hand on the latch to the window… and someone rested their hand on Luci’s shoulder. Luci whipped around with a tiny yelp.

There stood the cafe manager, eyes black in the moonlight, wisps of white hair bright. He wore a black coat and a stern expression. “You shouldn’t be here,” he growled.

“Husk?” Luci asked. “You’re in on this?”

Husk rolled his eyes. “Don’t give me that, Lucifer.” And then he raised a police baton Luci hadn’t noticed before, and struck Luci over the head. Luci was out in a heartbeat.

The chill of the damp air stuck in Luci’s nose and made it water and burn. It smelled like mildew and old mold, and burning tires for some reason. Luci’s arms were lashed in a tingling numbness, like he’d lost all the feeling in them and now his pins and needles were taking a stinging revenge. Through the dull lack of feeling, he could make out the discomfort of tight bonds around his wrists and elbows. His feet were lashed together and dug firmly into hard concrete. He could feel the slippery dampness of the ground through his sneakers.

Only last his eyes adjusted to the darkness, and through the throbbing of his skull, he realized he was wearing a bag over his head. Luci opened his mouth, dry and parched. He made a noise like a groan and felt his head flop onto his chest. Then, all at once, his head was yanked up from an outside hand grasping his hair from inside the bag, and the bag was tugged off along with some chunks of his hair.

He yelped, as much from the bright light that hit him right in the eyes as from the sharp pain to his scalp. He gritted his teeth, blinking back stars.

“This is pathetic,” Husk’s voice growled. Shadows stalked through his vision, warping and shimmering as he tried to see through the stark light in his face. The shapes slowly came into focus, blurry and disfigured. Husk’s tan, furry face with those stern eyebrows. A dark concrete ceiling and pillars that matched the damp ground. Cars. Several cars in parking places. A light on a stand brightening the area around him. And last, Alastor.

Alastor, unconscious and strapped to an operating table. Alastor, smile still on his face in sleep. Alastor, like a psych patient with leather binding his legs and wrists to keep from thrashing, and bare and dirty feet, and hair mussed, and a blue medical gown.

Luci couldn’t breathe. His eyes zoned in on Alastor form, weak and unmoving. “Where…” he croaked. “What are you doing to him?”

Husk’s hand came down across Luci’s face. The burn made his eyes swell with tears. He gritted his teeth to keep from crying out.

“You’re damn lucky we haven’t figured out how to kill you yet.” Husk let out a sigh. “How did shit go so wrong?”

“Let him go,” Luci managed.

“You have no idea what’s going on, do you?”

Tears fell from Luci’s eyes. He couldn’t stop them. His cheek still stung. “I know you’re doing terrible things to him, and you’ve been keeping him stuck working for a century because you won’t let him leave, and I know you’re about to erase his mind completely.” He exhaled. His inhale came raggedly from his parched throat. “I know you’re called the Five. I know you’ve been watching me. But I don’t know why.”

“You don’t know why.” Husk let out a guttural laugh that echoed through the parking garage. He pointed to Alastor’s limp form. “Do you know what he is? Do you know what you’ve so casually been flirting with?” He spat on the ground. “You’re disgusting.”

A car door slammed across the lot. For a second in his fluttering heart, Luci thought he might be able to scream and help would come for him. That second passed quickly.

“I found my knife!” Velvette announced from across the corridor. She strutted across the ramp, pink hair splayed behind her in a flowing ponytail, carrying far more than a knife. Her stylish magenta coat was, in fact, a doctor’s coat. No. A surgeon’s coat. She had filled the loops in her coat with different instruments, all shiny, all sharp, but varying in size and features. Her arms were filled with more, like claws or talons. She nearly danced across the lot, skipping, and took a position by Alastor’s form, unloading her arms of tools on his table. “Oh lookie, Husk, you did such a lovely job tying him up.”

Husk grunted. He returned his glare to Luci. “Problem is, I dunno what to do about him.”

Velvette clicked her tongue. She started picking up different lengths of instruments and measuring them against Alastor’s head. “Maybe we should ask the boss.”

“No!” Husk snapped. “Not yet. Maybe we can get stuff out of him.”

“What? We already know it all. He’s been watching nonstop.” Velvette pulled back the neck of Alastor’s medical gown to reveal his shoulder, then plucked a tape measure from her pocket and started making ticks in his neck with a thin knife. But Luci’s apprehension towards hurting Alastor fell away when he saw what was on Alastor’s shoulder. Like a scar, but where burned flesh is pink it was black, like char. Where his flesh should have been brown around the patches of spiderwebbed black, it nearly glowed blue, like ice deep in a glacier. Everywhere Velvette pricked with her knife, the black burns and blue flesh sparked with streaks of red and orange beneath the skin, almost as though fire was traveling through his veins.

Luci’s mouth hung open. “What did you do to him?”

“Demons are creatures of Hell,” Husk rasped. “They hate ice. They behave, or it burns them.”

“You’re torturing him.”

Velvette let out a laugh. “Only when fixing his brain doesn’t work, doll.”

“Why are you fixing him?” Luci asked. His throat felt like sandpaper. He could barely focus. “What’s wrong with him?”

“He’s a demon!” Husk growled. “A wild one. Don’t you get it? We can’t have wild demons roaming around with their curiosity in humans and their needless attempts to interfere. That’s where you get all those satanic cult books. Demons love playing with humans. This one? This one wanted to be one. So we made him one.”

“I don’t understand.” Luci’s brain was wobbly at best, and it kept going back to that picture in his history book—the picture of Alastor with that shadow of a demon over his human form—what he must have been. They’d turned him into this. This isn’t what he wanted. But why? Why would they do it?

Velvette plucked a knife and fingered it slowly in her hands. “What I don’t understand is why a demon as wild and powerful as Alastor wanted to be human so bad he was willing to make a deal with the likes of us. Better still, we get to keep him from changing his mind. Ever.”

“Because he’s so powerful,” Luci realized. “If he was still a demon, he could destroy the Five.” Whoever the Five was.

“He is still a demon,” Husk said. “Because Velvette can’t turn him human. Lot of good having a surgeon does if she can’t do her job.”

“Hey,” she snapped, brandishing her knife. “Every surgery I perform, more of his essence becomes ours, and more of his true self is lost to his human form. He’ll be human soon enough, doll.” She grinned. “My best accomplishment was making him smile.”

Luci blanched. The truth was washing over him with such suddenness he couldn’t handle it. His hands shook in their binds. His cheek still burned. “You’re turning him into the perfect employee.”

“Perfect smile, conversation shallow enough that no one cares to know more, and once I finally fixed his little problem with keeping people out of the shop, we actually started turning a profit off his people skills.” Velvette dragged the knife in a line along the skin of his shoulder with a grin on her face almost bigger than Alastor’s.

“Stop it!” Luci yelped. “You’re hurting him!”

“The Five has been pulling this scam for over a century,” Husk gloated. “We get the coffee shop profits. We get the power of an unholy demon on our side. And we get the profits of Hell.”

That made Luci’s half-hearted cries of frustration stop. He licked his dry lips. “You’re demons too.”

“Well duh.” Velvette popped a hip and brandished her knife. “What did you think we were?”

It was all starting to make sense. It all made too much sense. The pieces were fitting into place in a way Luci didn’t think possible, leaving Luci with answers he didn’t want to questions he hadn’t asked.

He did have more questions though. Ones he’d asked before and they still hadn’t answered. “But who are the Five?” he asked, eyes still trained on Alastor’s limp form. “And why can’t you kill me?”

“Husk, I’m telling you,” Velvette complained. “We’ve been chatting to this guy like he’s one of us and we don’t have a way to kill him like the others this time. We’re rusty! If the boss finds out we told him all this and we really can’t kill him… shit, Husk, it’ll ruin everything.”

“So we don’t tell the boss,” Husk growled.

“Tell me what?”

The voice made Luci’s spine prickle. The hair stood up on his neck, his vision sharpened, and he was overcome with the overwhelming urge to run and hide. He strained against his bonds, attempting escape for the first time. He needed to get out, with Alastor or without. Preferably with.

Someone put a hand on Luci’s shoulder. “Now, dipshit, don’t struggle.” The grip grew tighter. Luci felt something in his shoulder pop. He put his lip to keep from crying out, tears welling in his eyes. “You’re exactly where you’re supposed to be.”

The sound of ear-splitting scraping filled his ears as the figure stalking behind him dragged a chair across the concrete floor and swung it around to face him. With blindingly brittle teeth, a square head and shoulders, and a face like corporate gold, Vox gave him a smile that told him everything he’d worked for was on the line. His job, and his life.

Luci’s heart stopped. “You’re in on this.”

Vox laughed as he plopped down in the chair. “In on this? Please, dumbass. I run this shitshow.”

They took him to Vox’s office, in the highest reaches of the giant skyscraper where Luci spent his weekdays, far above that desolate parking garage with the blinding lights. He sat without bonds and his computer bag at his feet in one of the cushy leather chairs in Vox’s office—an office he’d never set foot in before—across from Vox’s towering desk piled with computer monitors intermingled with stray papers and wires. Vox paced the room, stalking over Luci as he cowered in his chair, trying to hide. He could feel his lungs burning in his chest as he wheezed to keep himself from falling into a full-blown panic attack.

“You’re taking this surprisingly well,” Vox said as he paced.

Luci let out a whimper in response. It was all he could manage.

“And Husk and Velvette told you everything,” he mused. “Well, not everything. They’re not that stupid.”

“Where’s Alastor?” Luci managed. He barely recognized his own voice.

Vox clicked his tongue. “Seriously? You still care about that idiot? Lucifer, do you understand what you’re dealing with? Alastor is not just some handsome cafe barista to get yourself enamored with. He’s not just some demon from Hell who thought it would be fun to be human. He’s the crux of demons. He’s the evilest. The most powerful. He ruled Hell and wanted to take his reign to the surface, and did just that. Cults. Mobs. Sacrifices. Spells. He had it all.” Vox circled Luci’s chair and drummed his fingers along the back. “Where he walked, people disappeared. Lights vanished. Silence thickened.”

“The streetlights,” Luci realized. “The empty cafe.”

“Alastor became obsessed with people in the late nineteenth century and never loosened his grasp. He loved them. He wanted them to worship him as much as he worshiped them. But he couldn’t get to them until he understood how to act just like them. And he couldn’t do that without becoming one. So he came to us for help.”

“And you destroyed him.”

“We saved him!” Vox shouted, swinging his fist and knocking a computer monitor onto the floor. “He was going to destroy himself, and Hell, and the world with his greed. We trapped him and turned him human bit by bit to keep him here. We removed him from the world and the world is better for it.”

Luci’s stomach felt hollow. His mouth felt dry. “But you’re using him.”

“Well that’s just a perk,” Vox said. “Everything done in life should be done for some net gain. That’s just statistics.”

“And the Five? Who are they?” He needed to know. Everything else could go to shit, but hell, Luci’s curiosity couldn’t handle it.

Vox just shook his head. “It’s sad, really. I thought you were smarter.”

“You, and Velvette, and Husk,” Luci said. He studied Vox, those stark blue eyes and radiant white teeth, almost so bright they would glow in the dark. With the dim glow of computer screens in his room, Luci would guess Vox hadn’t seen a pitch black room since his demonic birth. “But you’re not the one who watches,” Luci realized. “And neither is Husk or Velvette, from how they were talking.”

Vox gave him a smirk. “So there is a little brain in that head of yours. The Watcher, the Manager, the Surgeon, the Face, and the CEO. That’s the Five.”

Luci waited for Vox to say more, scared making any noise would force Vox to stop. But Vox was done. He turned to face the door, face stoic.

Luci was still confused. Vox hadn’t really explained anything, had he? All Luci wanted was to go home, and go back to his normal life. Home, coffee, work, ducks. But he was at work now, wasn’t he? This was where he worked… wasn’t it?

“The only question is, how am I supposed to get rid of you?” Vox tapped his foot.

Luci opened his mouth. He closed it. He opened it again. “Where is Alastor?”

“Resting,” Vox said. “He’ll wake up tomorrow and finally be the perfect employee. It’s over, Lucifer.” Vox circled back around Luci’s chair and took his spot behind his wall of computers. “Maybe… if I leave you in here with him long enough, he’ll figure out a way to break you once and for all.”

“No.” Luci’s heart sank. He clung to the arms of his chair and wished it would all just go away. All of it. It couldn’t be over. He couldn’t have failed already. “You’re lying.”

“Why would I be? I don’t care about you. You were the diversity hire, Lucifer, and a poorly paid intern at that. What would I gain from lying to you?”

“I’ve worked for you for years!”

Vox tsked. “Ah but only at this location for a week or two, and I can’t say I knew you before that. Don’t you get it? My company is a scam. My life’s work isn’t corporate enterprises and numbers and stocks and keeping the fax machine from exploding, it’s this!” Vox spread his arms. “I’m a demon, and the human world is my pawn. We’re capitalizing on Alastor’s power to feed these ants exactly what we want.” His laugh stabbed knives through Luci’s skull. “The Five already rule the underworld. Now we’re ruling the surface, and no one can stop us.”

“So what,” Luci started, miserable. He felt himself sink in the chair. He wished it would swallow him up. “I’m just some nobody diversity hire at your fake company, and I got too involved in your schemes and now you need to get rid of me so I won’t ruin it all?”

“Yeah,” Vox said, “something like that.” He flipped a switch on the wall, and all of a sudden the room was flooded with blinding light from a row of LEDs on the ceiling Luci hadn’t noticed in the darkness. He squinted. Vox was lost through the bright rays. “Husk and Velvette were going to do something similar in the garage, I believe,” said Vox. “But they lacked the necessary flair. I’ll see you soon, Lucifer. One way or another.” He made for the door.

Luci jumped from the chair. Long shadows struck the room at odd angles from the lights, and Vox’s in particular felt like a gaping gash through the center of the room. “Wait,” he said. “What are you doing to me?”

Vox glanced back at him. His skin was deathly pale in the bright light. “You said you wanted to know who the Five are. I think it’s about time you met the Watcher.” And then Vox slammed the door to his office shut and left Luci alone in the light with millions of tiny shadows like slivers of knives aching to cut. His own shadow stood among the rest, looming, ugly, tall.

As Luci’s footsteps inched him backward towards the door, he watched his shadow intently on the wall. It didn’t really look like him at all. It was too tall. Too broad. When he stared at it too long it almost looked red.

Then the shadow grew, peeling itself from the wall. Glowing red eyes hummed to life inside its lifeless black form, and a gaping smile like a tear through the fabric of shadows itself clawed to life with pointed teeth.

Luci stopped, frozen. He’d seen this shadow before. Many times.

“Alastor?” he asked, his voice a squeak.

“No,” the shadow replied, voice that signature caramel sweetness of the coffee shop barista, with an undertone like ice cleaving rotting flesh. “I am so, so much more. And you are mine.”

Chapter Text

The shadow’s laugh felt like a wet tongue in Luci’s ear. In the stark brightness of the office building, there was no escaping those glowing eyes that towered over Luci and made him want to shrink into himself. He backed away from the walls, each of which projected a skinny, stalking shadow with hands like claws that reached off the walls and tore towards Luci’s arms.

He whimpered, heart racing. His mind was still caught up on all the things Vox had told him—who the Five were, what they had done to Alastor… why they were doing it all. Luci couldn’t stop thinking about how badly he’d failed. He’d told Alastor he could protect the demon barista, but Luci had stood no chance against the Five. In that sense, Alastor had been right. Luci was always destined to fail—and he had. Now Alastor was gone, replaced with some human copy that would never have the malicious charm that made Alastor himself.

Luci shivered. He stared at the shadows, all four of them, as they converged into one and stepped away from the wall altogether. A collection of shadows eating the light where it hit him, Alastor’s shadow puppet looked nothing like the real thing. He was much taller, much thinner, and much less charming. The shadow wore a cloak of deep black. Its smile sucked the life from Luci. His eyes magnified the brightness of the room until it was all Luci could do to keep from screaming—the amount it overwhelmed him.

But he stood his ground. The Five couldn’t kill him. Maybe neither could Shadow Alastor.

“Hi,” Luci gulped at the figure.

The shadow cocked his head. “Are you trying to be brave, little one?”

“You’re the Watcher,” Luci managed, ignoring the question. Actually, the question—and the shadow’s deep, cool voice—was eating him alive, but he pushed that aside. “You’ve been keeping an eye on Alastor since all this began.”

“Easy job, acting as the poor fool’s shadow,” the shadow drawled. “Easier catching his mistakes.”

Luci studied the shadow’s head—his eyes, his smile, his sharp jawline through the smoke of his pooling darkness. “You’re the demon part of Alastor,” he realized. “You’re what the Five took everytime Alastor had a surgery—you’re all his power and all his evil.”

“I am the most powerful underlord in Hell.”

Luci shook his head. “You’re nothing without Alastor.” His heart was going to beat out of his chest—he could feel it. It was already verging on breaking his ribcage with how strong it was thumping. Sweat trickled down his forehead. “Alastor has free will. You’re just a pawn in Vox’s grip.”

The shadow cackled. “Like you?”

Luci bit his lip. “At least I could choose to leave if I wanted to. Which I will be, after this. But you never can—you’re stuck, and you’re powerless.”

“I could rip you to pieces!” the shadow howled. “I could destroy every atom of your being!”

Luci’s voice caught in his throat. He wanted to scream and run out the door, but he couldn’t move. He could feel his computer bag at his feet—how easy it could be to grab it and run away if only he could move. “No,” he managed. “You can’t, can you? The Five can’t kill me, and neither can you.”

“You’re wrong!” the demon screamed. He lunged towards Luci on powerful, spindly legs, lashing out with his clawed hands, teeth bared to catch Luci in his mouth and tear him apart.

Luci didn’t move. His whole body wanted him to dodge the attack, or cower, or flinch, but he stayed rooted firmly where he was. The Five only had power if they thought they could hurt him, right? But they couldn’t, so long as Luci believed they couldn’t, the Five would be powerless against him. He would find Alastor, get out of this building, and leave the city behind forever. Alastor might be lost, but Luci could stop him from being held hostage any longer. That former demon deserved a happy ending.

That’s not what happened.

Freezing cold talons ripped the breath from Luci’s lungs as they lifted him off his feet and suspended him, legs dangling, off the ground. A squeak escaped Luci’s lips. His hands clambered against the icy touch of the shadow hand cutting off his breath. He clawed against the hold, lungs straining, feet kicking, eyes watering.

Pointy teeth gnashed at his face in a tasteless laugh. Glowing eyes peered into his, face to face, and Luci’s hatred expanded in his chest like a poison balloon. “A lie,” the demon cooed. “I watch and I listen, Lucifer, but my talent will always be in my more delicate senses.” A sharp tongue flicked between his teeth, black as the rest of his shadowed body. Luci’s skin prickled as the shadow brushed the rough, dry thing along his cheek. “My next meal,” beckoned the shadow.

Luci gasped for breath. His mouth was dry, his hands growing weak fighting Shadow Alastor’s firm grip. He kicked his heavy legs again, trying to gain momentum to break free. His ankle ached. He rolled it back and forth, testing the weight. There was something hanging off his ankle like an ornament on a Christmas tree of death. His computer bag. Luci wheezed. Maybe he could do something after all.

“Why won’t you scream?” the shadow snarled. “Beg me to let you live.”

“You’re… I… can’t… breathe,” Luci gasped.

The shadow lurched. The duality of cold claws receding from his neck to let in fresh air watch matched perfectly with a timed strike to Luci’s gut that drove all the new air from his lungs and sent him sprawling into the wall. Then the demon was on him again, with cold fingers cutting their way through the layers of Luci’s shirt and driving through his flesh. Pain surged into Luci’s chest like a burn that would never end–-penetrating his nervous system with thousands of swelling, pulsing needles. Luci let out a whimper.

“Scream,” the demon whispered. He hovered his curled lips next to Luci’s trembling jaw and took a long breath of Luci’s scent. Luci’s neck prickled. Back against the wall, knives driving into his chest, Luci couldn’t even speak. His chest wheezed for breath that tasted like blood and hurt like lava as it pooled in his destroyed lungs.

His bag had fallen to the ground. He had nothing. He was nothing.

The shadow struck Luci across the face with a cool palm. The new surge of pain felt like a shock of cold water. Luci almost welcomed it—it distracted from how much he was hurting. “Scream, damn it!” he growled. “You’re mine!”

Luci’s breath labored. He lifted a trembling lip to the shadow demon, eyes squinting in the bright room. His words were silenced by the grip of pain, but his eyes, watery and damaged, remained defiant. His silence ripped through the shadow’s confidence.

The shadow grunted in frustration and pulled his clawed fingers from the firm flesh of Luci’s chest. Luci gasped, lungs filling with blood, and tumbled into a heap on the ground. Through a throat raw and damaged, he coughed hard and heavy. Blood dislodged from his core and spurted up. It tasted sour.

He couldn’t move. Luci had never felt so helpless in his life.

“The Watcher can kill,” Alastor’s shadow cooed. “Who do you think killed you before?”

“What?” Luci spluttered.

“Oh, don’t act so naive. Vox is the CEO of this. He planned the whole thing and saw it through. Husk is the Manager. He deals with all the details Vox doesn't care about. Velvette is the Surgeon. She keeps Alastor cooperative and friendly. I am the Watcher. I make sure Vox knows when Alastor does anything out of line so he can be corrected. But there’s a fifth one. There’s a fifth part of this system.”

“The Face,” Luci croaked.

“You really can’t see it?” The shadow let his grin creep up to touch both ears. “We needed someone to keep Alastor in line. We needed a distraction, something so he never got bored with his job. Someone he could obsess over, memorize his order, banter with, grin at.”

Luci’s stomach dropped. His insides felt like lead. “No.”

“You’re the Face, Lucifer. You’ve been working for us for centuries.”

The world split open. The pain in Luci’s chest compared nothing with the heartbreak tearing him to pieces. He was just another pawn in their game. Vox had been his boss for as long as he could remember—a boss forcing him to do a fake job when his real one, the one he really cared about, was all a lie to keep Alastor cooperative. He’d never been some office intern. He’d been a grifter. He’d fed their schemes over and over and over again, hundreds of times Luci didn’t even remember. Had he ever even worked at a different location? Luci doubted it.

Come to think of it, Luci couldn’t remember what his job looked like. He couldn’t picture the building in his head. Or his desk. Or a colleague. The only part of Lucifer’s life that ever mattered was the one he’d ruined.

“Yes,” the shadow spat. “You’re a villain, Lucifer. You’re a demon, just like the rest of us, and you’re one of the worst of us. The number of times I’ve killed you… reset your memory… well, any time Alastor decided to make a move, you had to be killed. Every few months or so. For a century.”

“You’re wrong,” Luci croaked. “I would never hurt him. I would never…” He shook his head. “You’re wrong.”

Alastor’s shadow grabbed Luci roughly by the chin and yanked his head off the ground. The cuts in Luci’s chest tore. He grimaced.

“You are the one who hurt him the most.”

“No.” Luci couldn’t stop the tears from cascading down his cheeks. They hurt—like acid peeling back the skin of his face. “You’re wrong!”

“Yes….” The shadow traced a sharp talon along a smooth line and scooped a tear from Luci’s face, leaving it red and bloody behind his motion. He licked the tear from his finger and smacked his lips. “Now you’re going to be good and scream for me.”

“YOU’RE WRONG!” Luci roared, tears like waterfalls now. He yanked himself from the shadow’s grip and fell backward on top of his computer bag. Emotions a blur in his head, he scrambled for something in the bag—anything. Maybe his phone. He would call someone. But who? The police wouldn’t understand. Luci didn't have anyone else.

When he pulled his hand from his bag to face Alastor, it wasn’t his phone he held. It was a duck. The duck he’d carved for Alastor so long ago. He’d never actually given it to him.

The shadow stopped. He cocked his head. Then he let out a laugh like broken glass, frozen and sharp. “Pathetic.” He grinned. “Well, let’s see it, Lucifer. Save yourself with a duck.” He spread his arms. “Well, come on then? Defeat me!” His laugh gave name to the nightmares Luci battled. His grin gave them face.
“Face it, you’re nothing. You can’t do anything.” The demon chuckled to himself. “Pathetic.”

Luci glanced at the duck. He glanced at the malicious shadow-demon creature. Rage boiled in his stomach. “You know what?” Luci hefted the duck. He had done far too much just to die to a shadow in a stupid office building, with no one to remember what he’d done. “Fuck you.” Luci chucked the duck.

It smacked the shadow in the face.

Alastor stumbled backward. “What the—” His shadowy foot caught on one of hundreds of cables crisscrossing the floor, and he tripped. “You can’t—” His words were silenced by his clumsy attempt to grab at anything and slow his fall. His arms flailed wildly, matching with the wails that escaped his lungs as legs far too spindly fell out from under him, and fingers much too sharp cut through every computer screen or cord he tried to latch on to. “NO!” With one final yelp, the shadow careened, tumbling across the monitor’s of Vox’s desk and disappearing in a heap behind it, monitors, cords, duck, and all.

Then there was silence. No whimpering. No commanding voice. Just the spew of smoke and the sparking of wires.

Luci stood. He wiped the tears from his eyes, but it didn’t take. Through all of that, the ridiculousness of the situation didn’t quite pass through his prison of shock and exhaustion. He was a mess, bloody shirt and hospital-worthy injuries aside. Those could wait. He needed to find Alastor, and fast.

Shouldering his bag, Luci started for the door. He didn’t know if Shadow Alastor was dead, or knocked out, or just a little embarrassed, and he didn’t really want to find out. Better to get out of there before that thing could get up and destroy his life for a second time.

A faint little ‘quack’ made Luci stop in his tracks. He turned and stared at the destroyed desk. Monitors were scattered everywhere—many cracked, many more split in half. Smoke pooled up from several. He didn’t want to do it. He wanted to leave. Everything in him was telling him to get out of there, but Luci couldn’t do it. Luci couldn't leave a stone unturned. Quacking felt like a stone unturned. He exhaled—with some effort—and crept towards the desk.

“Quack!”

Sitting atop a pile of cords like a little nest was a live duckling. It had black and red feathers, glowing red eyes, and a little tuft of red hair that stuck up at weird angles. The wooden duck was gone. So was Alastor.

Luci blinked. The duck quacked.

“You seem harmless enough,” Luci decided. Hands still shaky, he scooped up the duck and tucked it into his bag. Quacks punctuating his steps, Luci limped out of the office.

He half-expected to see Vox or Velvette or Husk waiting for him, but the halls were deserted. So were the rooms. So was every floor, and the parking garage—cars and all. Not a single person in the entire building. No one anywhere.

Luci went into a frantic panic, racing through rooms and up and down staircases, trying to find Alastor. He called his name until his voice went away. He called his name until he couldn’t walk in a straight line. He called his name until dark fell, and long after that.

Defeated and alone, Luci fell to his knees in the front lobby. Alastor was gone.

All of that, and Luci lost anyway.

Wounds throbbing and heart heavy, Luci collapsed into a heap and cried himself to sleep.

“You’re a new face—can’t say I’ve seen you around here before. What can I get for you?”

Luci took a shaky breath. The bandages around his chest felt like they were constricting his lungs, and the butterfly bandages over his cheeks made his expressions even harder to get right. More than that, his heart felt heavy and his head felt hollow. He was just there to get coffee and closure, that’s all.

He let his gaze rise to meet the face of the smiling barista he’d known so well in another lifetime. He had red hair combed down so nicely, without a single strand out of place, and a pair of round glasses shielding eyes a little too red to be brown from the world. He wore a simple white shirt with a brown apron over it. His smile was just the right amount of cheerful and friendly, like someone who actually enjoyed customer service.

“Medium black coffee, please,” Luci said. He couldn’t meet his eyes.

Long fingers tapped in the order. “And is that for here or to go?”

For here, Luci wanted to say. I want to stay here, with you, even though you hurt me and I’ve been hurting you for longer than I can remember. I want to sit at a table and listen to you banter with customers, and have you bring me my drink and flirt with me like I have no clue. I want to be here, with you, always.

“To go.”

“Cash or card?”

“Cash.” Luci pulled out a twenty and watched the barista finger through the register for change. He passed it back to Luci.

“Any plans for the day?”

Luci glanced down at his hoodie and jeans. “Job hunting, I guess,” he said. He wasn’t in the mood for small talk. He dropped the change in the tip jar, along with a little something else. To set things right.

“Well, best of luck,” the barista grinned.

Luci thanked him. A few minutes later, he took his black, bitter coffee and turned to leave. Job hunting. What was a demon supposed to do for work if not steal souls and ruin lives?

“Sir?”

Luci turned.

Alastor pointed down at the tip jar. “Sir I appreciate the gesture, but you really can’t tip people live ducks.”

Luci took a cautious sip of his coffee. He hated it. He glanced Alastor up and down one last time, and seeing little of the demon he’d grown to adore, Luci turned on his heel and walked out onto the street. Let that poor little barista live with his new pet duck and a heap of confusion, because Luci would never be back to answer any of his pestering little questions. Let Luci be the mysterious demon this time. Besides, now the duck was home.

“Wait!”

It was raining out, but one of those rains that makes you kind of appreciate how weird nature can be. The water was warm on Luci’s scalp, and sun peeked through deep gray clouds in the sky above, sending beams down like some angelic power. Which was wrong, Luci knew. The clouds were just clouds.

It felt almost like spring, with weather much too warm to be nearing mid October, like the birds were going to start chirping any second and flowers were going to spring up suddenly even though they’d just tucked away. The rain soaked into Luci’s sweatshirt, but he didn’t mind. He tossed his coffee in the nearest trash can and breathed in the wet air, letting raindrops fall on his cheeks. It stung a little.

It all stung a little, but only a little, and that was okay, Luci thought. Maybe a little sting was better than a lot. Maybe that meant eventually the cuts on Luci’s face would fade away, and the scars would be there to remind him, but they wouldn’t hurt him anymore.

“Wait.”

Luci turned. Alastor stood there, hair plastered against his forehead, out of breath and clutching a drenched duck. He had this look in his eyes, like a little ember of flame was being coaxed to life despite the torrential downpour.

Alastor held out the duck. “Please don’t leave me with this.”

“You left.” Luci stood there, dumbly. His tongue felt heavy in his mouth, like any wrong move and he would start tripping over his words all over again. Like they hadn’t been through Hell together yet.

The barista gave a backwards shrug towards the coffee shop. “This seemed a little more important than taking orders and making drinks, don’t you think?”

“I didn’t know you could leave before your shift ended.”

“I can do whatever the hell I want.” He offered the duck to Luci.

Luci shook his head. “It’s working,” he realized. “That duck is everything you’re missing. It’s the part of you that’s not human.”

Alastor glanced down at the duck. “Am I about to turn into a waterfowl?”

Luci laughed then, real laughter, without fear in it for the first time in a while. He couldn’t get over how innocent Alastor looked.

“What’s so funny?” The look in Alastor’s eyes met Luci’s with a smile that had just a hint of cunning at its edges. “Luci, what’s going on?”

Luci’s heart fluttered. “You’re remembering.” Butterflies built in his chest. He was watching something he’d never hoped would come true happen right before his eyes, and with it, Luci realized, Alastor would remember all the horrible things Luci had done to him in every lifetime Luci had lived. How many times Luci had broken Alastor’s heart, over and over again until that poor barista was nothing but a shell. “Oh god, you’re remembering.” Luci wanted someone to rip out his heart to make it hurt less. That dull sting couldn’t have turned into more of a venomous punch. “Alastor… I’m so sorry. I hurt you. I hurt you so many times.”

Alastor, glasses covered in little raindrops, put a hand on Luci’s shoulder. They were both drenched, and neither one cared. Alastor’s eyebrows creased into deep worry lines, his mouth cutting into a frown. “You were never one of them,” he said. “This… this was never you.”

He was beautiful when he cried. His lips twisted. “But I hurt you. I nearly killed you.”

“That wasn’t you,” Luci said. “That was them, and that was a part of you that was never really all of you. I think we’re both a little bit human too.”

“I think that’s why you were always so easy to talk to, no matter who you were.”

Luci let out a little exhale shaking his head. “That’s it,” he said. “That’s why they couldn’t kill me this time—why Vox and Velvette and Husk couldn’t hurt me.” He looked up into Alastor’s big red eyes. “In all the lifetimes, in all the time I was the Face, I made you fall in love with me over and over again. Vox called me different, and I thought he just meant weird. But he was right—this time I am different. This time I loved you back.”

And then, careful not to squish the duck, Alastor wrapped his waterlogged arms around Luci and squeezed tight. They were just two heartbroken demons on a street in the rain, trying to ignore that love was disguising itself as pain.

Sun had become a welcome normality. Cold weather and winter were a thing of the past—the brilliant light of hot summer baked the cobblestones and smelled of fresh fruit and baking bread. The world spun very slowly on mornings such as these, when the weather was warm and there were no cares in the world beyond what they were going to order for breakfast and what their afternoons would look like.

This particular morning had them sitting outside a cafe on the corner of a bustling street, beneath bright blue awnings that matched the spread of flowers growing from window boxes, where black metal chairs soaked up the sunlight and were warm to the touch.

A hot latte wafted steam into the air in front of Luci. He nibbled on a croissant that tasted buttery and soft, better than anything he’d had before. Across from him, Alastor enjoyed a chai and cherry scone, but really, they just enjoyed each other.

It had been months since they’d left the city, months of running, months getting to know each other better than the way a barista knows a customer he’s fond of. Travel became their norm, going from city to city, first in America, then across the world. They always stayed hidden in places with many people, for fear Vox would find them. At least they knew they weren’t being watched anymore—Alastor was himself once more, both human and demon. The Five, or rather, the Three could not reach them unless they went out and searched for them in person. Still, Luci wouldn’t let them stay in one place too long. They jumped from city to city, blowing through Alastor’s savings to finish school and Luci’s savings from his dismal pay at his fake job.

Eventually, Luci promised, they would settle down. But the world was vast, and these two demons had seen little of it. There were so many people to live amongst, so many human things to experience. And while Alastor might never finish school, he assured Luci he had no more desire to. It was freeing to have a goal beyond that which he’d strived for for so long with no resolution.

Luci sipped his latte. Months since the incident, and they hadn’t seen Vox a single time. Were they safe? He didn’t know.

“You have that look again,” Alastor told him. His expression was firm and calculating—even after all this time Luci still admired how much he liked it when Alastor wasn’t smiling. He loved his smile too, but he knew how much it meant that Alastor didn’t have to smile, and could choose when he did.

Luci set down his cup. “What if we went back?”

This caught Alastor by surprise. He raised his eyebrow and cleared his throat. “Interesting. I didn’t think you ever wanted to set foot in that city again.”

“I’m terrified,” Luci admitted. “But we’re always going to live in fear if we don’t face Vox and take him down.”

“You think two amateur demons can destroy Vox?”

“No,” Luci said. “I don’t know. I just don’t want to feel like we’re running anymore.”

Alastor leaned back in his chair, calm, and inhaled the warm air. “Then let’s stop running.” He grinned. “Why are we so afraid? Vox can’t hurt you, and Vox is terrified of what I’ll do to him now that I once again have my demon powers. Perhaps there’s a reason we haven’t seen him yet.”

Luci chewed his lip. “And if he decided to pull this scheme on some other poor demon?”

“Luci, you’re overthinking this. Let’s stop running. Let’s pick a city, settle down, get jobs, and live like humans do.” Alastor gave a close lipped smile. “I want to pay taxes, and have bad days, and be reminded why life matters every time the flowers bloom. And raise ducks. Definitely ducks.” He smirked. “I wouldn’t mind doing it all with you, too.”

“Okay,” Luci agreed. “No more running.”

“And if Vox ever comes back, he’ll have to fight two powerful demons to get what he wants.”

Luci smiled down at his coffee. The steam was rolling away, and the little drawing in milk was turning into a mess of brown and white. It was no caramel macchiato made in a cheap plastic cup by an underpaid barista, that was for sure. Luci liked the idea of getting used to liking a new type of coffee. “We’re never going back there,” he decided.

He and Alastor took their time, enjoyed the sun, basking in the warmth, relishing each other, and then they went off down the warm streets of Paris to visit a museum, the way two humans might. It was light out, the sun was bright, and neither demon walked with a shadow beneath them.